You don't understand - you have to play in a way reflects the way I played, validating my own choices. Anything I do to give me an advantage is great and only an IDIOT wouldn't do it. Anything I didn't do (or didn't discover) that gives an advantage is BREAKING THE GAME and you should feel BAD about using it. Being insecure as I am, I require constant validation of my choices and playstyle, and I demand you do this, despite giving you no money. I am a well adjusted human being.
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE Edit: It's really quite astonishing how often people decide to take extreme points of view. The human mind is capable of so much more in terms of nuance and yet so many are willing and happy to clump most everything into two or three extreme points of view. It's obviously something our brain does to make things simpler for us, which would be fine, but we also decide to make these two extremes so emotionally fueled that it becomes an unhealthy obsession. Games are all about choice. The whole point of a game is to figure out how to play it and develop your own strategies. Certain strategies will eventually become a part of the meta-game but that doesn't mean you aren't permitted to experiment and try to further this meta-game. However, if you watch a streamer play literally any game, you'll find that if they aren't very well versed in the game itself that the chat will be riddled with angry viewers telling them what to do. While I understand their frustration (watching someone play a game poorly is much less interesting than watching them play well) screaming at them and calling them names won't help them at all. It's especially egregious when the streamer is doing fine but they "aren't playing correctly," as you mentioned above. Implying that there's one correct way to play a game and all other tactics are inferior destroys the whole point of a game. If everyone played a game the same way then why have it be interactive at all? Or at the very least, why not have it just be a string of QTEs? That way, everyone would play the exact same way, and the only way you could say someone's bad at it would be when they miss a QTE. Problem solved! In all seriousness, my experiences with Breath of the Wild showed me just how varied gameplay can be, and why that's a good thing. While there is a "losing" state in most games, that doesn't mean you're playing wrong, it just means you made a mistake. And while it's easy to conflate these two concepts, they are very different. All that matters is winning the game (and even that's debatable. So long as the player's having fun they're really not doing anything wrong). The way that you go about this is up to you, and the fact that certain people legitimately think there's only one correct way to play shows just how much people hold their individuality in high regard (which is ironic, because mass adaptation of their playstyle would then make them one in a million).
Honestly game breaking builds/items are moreso the dev's fault than players. Obviously if there's overpowered stuff people are going to use it, getting mad at someone for playing a game in the most efficient way (especially games like this that dont include difficulty settings) is just silly.
The easiest thing to cut from the video would have been the apologies for its length. Long form analysis is great, that's what I come to your channel for and you do it well.
Thanks! I can never tell whether a video is long for a good reason or whether I'm just wasting people's time. There's another commenter who thinks the first 90 minutes is completely unnecessary, so you can't please everyone.
Chris Davis For what it's worth, I agree with the above commenter; a lot of people, if not most, come here for long-form analysis. There are few channels on UA-cam who fill this niche, so I say you should embrace it.
Well, I am quite sure I can stop watching the video If I feel like it or keep watching it, regardless of the length. One thing I cannot do however, is continue watching a video that has ended. So... yeah, I like long videos.
Such a great game and an underrated one as well, getting unfairly written off as a souls clone. This game is obviously inspired by those games but stands on its own.
Stances, weapon swaps, animation canceling. This game is far beyond anything most people play. The skill cap in this game is insane. They messed up on the level design and repetition(of maps) but the combat is brilliant.
Late correction - Actually the way to tell what color gesture to use on the walls with eyes (Nurikabe) is to look at the revenant graves nearby. They'll say killed by Nurikabe due to Friendly, Neutral, Or Hostile behavior. Just use one of the two color gestures that's not shown on the grave
The fire wheel monks, I think, are designed to teach you the importance of baiting out specific attacks. They can be absolutely trivialized by just standing directly on front of their faces, with their attacks getting more and more punishing the further away you get. But by just standing on front of them, they will ALWAYS do their slow flame breath attack which has plenty of time to circle behind them and attack their weak spot, knocking them down and making them trivial to kill.
Just beat Nioh and all sub missions! Great vid! I like to imagine they started with a full plate of cut scenes with proper introductions and everything. Then some employee reminded them "But DarkSouls & Bloodborne have minimal dialogue/cinematics!" so the director slashed the cut scenes in half with no thought lol
3 very important mistakes in the video regarding coop and the whole leveling system. While many of these things regard the endgame and were introduced with the DLC patches, they nonetheless address some of your issues: (1) 1:59:39 But you can do exactly that. After completing the game for the first time you can just play any level in new game+(+++) via the Torii Gate from the beginning with a friend in coop. In fact I clocked in over 200 hours playing the game in coop going through all the different new game + versions. (2) Also, the mission level is NOT the recommended character level. It just informs you about the general difficulty of the mission. It will later go way past 1000, far beyond the maximum level. The difficulty in relation to your level and gear is portrayed by the bloody sword symbols beneath it. So you were probably not underleveled. (3) The game has an equivalent of paragon levels once you reach the max level of 750. It is called "Focus Level". Additionally, there are green skills in the skill tree which you can level endlessly to improve your stats with unused skill points after obtaining all skills you wanted. It's also important to mention that later New Game plus modes don't simply increase the numbers but change enemy placements, place new enemies in the levels, and introduce red coloured buffed version of regular enemies.
Ah. Well I'd still say it's more so the game's fault for not explaining many of these things. Also, why only keep the new enemy placements in later new game plus cycles, and not the first one? The first one is well.. the first one many are gonna play, and may not feel much motivation to continue on when seeing the first new game plus is just the same game over again.
@@Avghistorian77 so...."why dont the enemy placements change....the first time you play a level" might be the dumbest idea ive ever heard, can you give us any more?
@@ChoirofVVolves I meant simply, why not change enemy placement/add new enemies into a level during New Game plus, to show that it would be different and give players some more incentive to keep playing.
Watching this after hearing Nioh Remastered on the PS5 with 4k graphics at 60fps. Still holds true today! Love the souls series, loved playing HZD + Frozen Wilds on the PS5 with almost no load times, and also grew to love Nioh. The living weapon Pokemon mechanic, and the weapon styles to further enhance Demon's Souls combat, made it so worthwhile. I'm currently having a blast going through Nioh 2 Remastered.
the part about feeling like you 'brute forced' your way through the game is too true so many bosses make me feel like i didnt really learn how to beat them, i just eventually got lucky
This channel is way too underrated. This is quality content. I watched your other videos never realising the low sub count. More people need to watch this.
Seeing such a deep dive on this version of the game, while only having played the Complete edition was really fascinating, because those DLCs transformed this game so damn much. Like I didn't know why you thought the twilight missions were useless until I remembered they didn't add tempering until later, at which point twilight missions became VERY useful.
@@stolensentience Tempering is where you change your gears bonuses by chosing from a list instead of randomly re-rolling them. The resource needed for that comes from Twilight missions, but tempering wasn't in the game at launch so Twilight missions would've been pretty useless then.
@@Ronin11111111 the other important part people miss is that tempering has 4 different ones you can use making you have 12 different choices, and they all have differing levels of strength. And tempering at higher levels will ALWAYS give the best variant. The game is much more in-depth than people would realize. Honestly if nioh 2 didnt change anything in terms of UI and stuff except for the NEW skills it would be amazing imo, I dont like some of the balance changes since they feel backwards. Like why do fists take so much stamina to use?
Just a thing to point out. You mentioned meeting Fukyu in the maze like (chalice) dungeon. Its actually Ginchiyo, Tachibana's wife if im remembering it right.
+A-Knighted-Duck You're right. Worst of all, I actually knew that. I've no idea how it slipped into the video. Too much writing in the early hours of the morning I guess.
I love how the experience can vary so much from player to player. I had a hellish time with bosses like Nue, Yuki-onna and White Tiger (admittedly, the argument that I was "playing them wrong" might hold some water in these cases), but then killed Giant Toad in my first attempt, and BARELY taking any hits. I've stuck mostly to a melee build focusing on dual katanas, occasionally switching to spear when needing higher damage output, and still, I never felt like the bosses were "unfair" with that build, just that I wasn't good enough at what I needed to do with my build in order to beat them with it. The fact that the game also allows such a plethora of options in order to beat the game, and that there's room for optimization, only makes me want to replay this already humongous game just to try out new stuff. However, I feel that I've somehow "broken" or "cheesed" the game a bit after mastering the dual katana's Wind God II technique, which does massive health and ki damage to humans and yokai alike, and it's helped me farm revenant tombs to no end. . If there ever is going to be a sequel, I really hope that it lives up to the original. More people need to play this, IMHO.
i REALLY hated how people bitch and whine about powerful abilities in games and cry for nerfs and say those that use them arent playing the game. it was the same in DS2 with lightning spears, apparently 3 shotting a boss with your limited but super powerful magic in which you spent a considerable amount of levels into a stat is "not playing the game how it should be played" but 5 shotting a boss with a sword as huge as a skyscraper with armour capable of making you nigh invincible is playing the game how it is meant to be played..... sloth went from "15 second slow down that makes setting up debuff combo's, buff combo's or dealing a lot of damage for a investement in magic worth it" to "5 seconds of barely being able to accomplish anything due to such short duration, rather than use points for 5 seconds of slow down and wasting a inventory slot, far better to use a different spell or item" literally worthless now honestly, i really dont understand why people feel the need to bitch on someone else's playstyle cause it isnt 'hard' enough.
Sloth did actually break the game though. Im not saying he shouldnt use it but you seem to be complaining that they had to balance something. It wasnt as simple as ''just'' 15 seconds of slow. First 15 seconds is an insane timeframe, normally it decides a fight unless its a boss. Secondly it was such a powerful slow that you could easily walk around attacks for the entire time. It was broken beyond belief. Once they balanced it out, it was quite fun. I even did a full (well as full as i could) mage playthrough so i am speaking from experience using the spell.
I found switching stances and ki management to be a huge part of the game's appeal. I would often dodge around in low attack, as it definitely does give you i-frames, and then quickly switch to mid or high attack to land hits and punish bosses. Nioh was the first Souls-like game that clicked for me, and I love it dearly.
Nioh was also the first souls like that clicked for me, and it's forgivingly sweet as a first time souls like. I.e. the stances and speed that even the high stance attacks at is way faster than most weapons in souls games, the dodge is more forgiving and speedy (dodge spam is an easy early game trap to fall into, that's why muneshige (? The sword guy with lightning rabbit) is such a hard fight) and there's way too damn many checkpoints lol Even with elden ring's quite generous placement of rest sites it still doesn't even come close to how forgiving the checkpoints of Nioh are. There's always a cp before the boss, the levels are smaller and easier to memorize usually as well. I still can't beat the cleric beast in Bloodborne bc every attempt got more annoying than the last trying to speedrun there safely before I gave up after 20 mins lol, if it was like Nioh I'd have kicked that eldritch horror's ass
1:36:32 - Pretty sure that's his general/mentor, not william - so yeah, we do see him again and he actually got saved by Kelley. It's the same straw-hat he wore when he first met hanzo & william on those stairs
Dude, Mr. Davis, I love your stuff. Been watching for years but have been binge-watching as of late. You have a passion for gaming and the way you articulate that passion is why I watch. Big Ups!
Been watching your videos for a bit now. I laughed just now because your speech and organization skills always screamed "lawyer" to me, as I'm a lawyer (by day) too. Cheers.
Overall great video. I appreciate seeing people's opinions and deeply enjoy listening to points of appreciation and possible improvements on big projects like Nioh. It's fun to listen to an alternative experience for the game and how others react to various challenges (I focused on Spirit and Onmyou magic, so I primarily went through levels by abusing ALL spells, ESPECIALLY sloth, and spamming the Bat Living Weapon). I admit there were multiple points that I readily don't agree with or could argue against, but you do a good job of acknowledging other opinions mostly and make good arguments for your own. 1:08:22 I will go ahead and argue this one particular point though. Nioh may not be as clear-cut or smooth about its story-telling as Bloodborne, but the levels DO try to tell stories, to varying degrees of success. One such story bore the distinct moment in the game where I suddenly felt an emotional revelation about William that I hadn't been expecting, and it was told entirely through his traversal through a level. The Battle of Sekigahara was probably the single most emotional moment for me in the entire game- not because of beating Sakon or fighting in a war, but really because... William almost DOESN'T fight in the war. He does fight, there's no real denying that. He beats important generals and helps push the frontlines by taking out Mitsunari's cannons. But it's treated like an afterthought, an obstacle to be pushed through toward a goal waiting past the bloodshed. When you first start the stage, almost nothing is present except the bleak charred atmosphere. Sounds of clashes in the background, gunfire, but no people present. No enemies, just William starting his traversal towards Kelley on the enemy side. Soon you face sporadic enemy soldiers, small groups of stragglers. Everyone seems exhausted before picking up their weapons to take you on. Moving farther still, William eventually finds himself in... the ravine. Hundreds, thousands of bodies strewn where Ieyasu's men pushed and struggled and died against fortifications to take the very point that William is now almost casually trudging through, picking off winded stragglers. And it dawned on me. William arrived LATE to a WAR. A war where his very allies, his currently most trusted companions, are betting their lives and ambitions on winning. No one comments on it. The game never indicates that William had to debate this decision. But for whatever reason, William was NOT on the frontlines of that push, and has no intentions of participating in this war for idealism's sake. No. William has only one goal. He's only HAD one goal in the entire game, and will only have one from that point on. Reaching Kelley through any means necessary and getting Saoirse back. Even if that means ignoring a war. The only reason William is even present at that moment is because Kelley is present. The reason the enemies "seem to ignore William" until he's directly interfering with them? He's not following Ieyasu's commands, so he's not where the enemy army would expect a threat to be. The first big introduction to the battlefield is seeing Ieyasu's men being gunned down in a field just beyond a small bridge. You can take the bridge and join up with Ieyasu's soldiers, which is something William would probably have to do if he were an actual soldier. But you don't have to. You're a literal foreign element, and one that cares neither for orders nor protocol. So it makes perfect sense that most players probably instead follow the river to go directly behind enemy lines, where no one soldier should be. The second half of my revelation that William "isn't supposed to be a part of the war" is the fact that, barring Otani Yoshitsugu (if he can even be counted), there are no Youkai present in the entire level (it's possible I missed some or just aren't remembering). Nearly every level has a supernatural element or challenge for William to overcome. But Sekigahara is just a war between men. And after fighting youkai and youkai, forces far stronger and overwhelming than the average man, this level is practically a refreshing break as far as difficulty goes. William can absolutely decimate average soldiers, only really being threatened by groups that can be annihilated if you spend even small resources or effort. It re-enforces that William didn't become this strong to slay men- he exclusively specializes in fighting youkai and beings with mystical powers. His skills are, ironically, almost wasted on a warzone. His strength is necessary to push through obstacles for victory, but the intermittent moments barely provide a challenge for the player at that point in the game. The only reason William even cares to do any warmongering is because behind those walls of enemy soldiers is the one opponent that actually matters to him. The war doesn't really matter. The political strife doesn't really matter. Barring his closest friends, who he allies with doesn't really matter. ONLY getting Saoirse back matters, and not even a war William doesn't want to be a part of will stop him from achieving that. Sorry for the length.
This game does what most should do when seeing a successful series. Take its core concept, but make it feel different without deriving too much. The combat for Nioh 1 and 2 are phenomenal and I really do applaud the devs. I hope they make a 3rd.
the recommended level is weird because if you go in at the level or over it the mission is relatively easy but if you are over 30 levels below and depending skill the missions can be ridiculously hard. the dlc is a prime example where bosses have 2 summon spirits and abuse them when you cant do much of anything to them
31:35 That's not Fuku, that's Tachibana Ginchiyo, wife of the guy we are saving here. Also, she's the one who sent us on this mission to begin with. Know your waifus!
Fantastic video, first of all. Subscribed right away. A few things I would discuss: First, about the Death penalty, i.e. losing your bank when you die without collecting it. I would actually argue that in souls-esque games, this is actually very important. It prevents you from suiciding your way to victory, so to speak. As you could run trough most of the levels repeatedtly without any penalty whatsoever. It also encourages players who are struggling to bank more Amrita/Souls/Moolah to get stronger, particularly in a Level they might be struggling at. I breezed trough the early parts of the game fairly easily, and suddenly started struggling with some of the optional Boss Fights and even the basic enemies in some cases (Those Bird Monks still drive me crazy, even after playing the game for a solid 100 hours), because I was fairly low level for the places I was at. The Death penalty there made sure I actually caught back up, instead of just trying to skip parts of the level over and over. Also, I think its very important to point out how nicely they implemented blocking into the game. In Dark Souls, wether you would block or dodge most attacks depended on your build a lot. Unless I'm completely out of the loop the "Beefy Shieldman" is generally the recommended approach for most newcomers to the series, until they get the roll timing down. In Nioh, many fights can actually be made way, WAY easier by combining Block & Dodge in a smart way. And it doesnt really depend on your build. Yuki-Onna and Weird-Tongue-Lady (The one in the cave) are very nice examples of this. Many of their attack chains can be rather hard to nail if you want to dodge all of them. So Dodge into Block, or the other way around usually works better. Blocking the last attack of a Chain also has the added benefit of leaving you in range to counterattack right away. I liked that a lot, since it was the first time where blocking without a shield can actually be very much worth it, as opposed to most Souls games where not only it drains most of your stamina, it will also barely negate any of the damage done. A Hybrid-Playstyle there is barely worth it, if at all. Finally, the story. I didnt even realize how...nothing it really is, until watching this. It's sad, because I remember being intrigued up until the first new Map. But then they started throwing so many names and factions around that I stopped paying attention. It isnt helped by the fact that I spent large swaths of playtime doing sidecontent and farming Gearsets. Because it meant 3-5 hours of no story at all, and by then I had completely forgotten what was actually happening on the Main-Quest.
+Aaron Stübi Great point on the blocking. It really is excellent in this game. With the death penalty thing, I'm a bit mixed. I agree that it's important, it just didn't feel well implemented in Nioh. There are so many shortcuts and dumb enemies to run past that it rarely felt like a true penalty. Of course, everyone's experience will vary. Glad to hear someone else is having trouble with those flying things!
soulsborne doesnt use an external appendix though... you get item descriptions as you pick up the items, bloodborne in particular weaves a great story that gets built on by the items early on. that trend continues through the whole game and the DLC, id agree with darksouls though... 1st one still holds my favor over the latter 2.
@@haydeng3316 i said this in a diferent post, but the reason the real story is hidden on item descriptions in dark souls 1, 3 and demon souls is because the story you are told by the npcs is false, as they want to manipulate you into doing what they want. its only by searching and reading that you understand the reality of that world.
Maybe i'm alone here but I absolutely loved the story and especially the delivery of it. I thought the fallen soldiers thoughts was a great touch. The cut scenes were excellent and the lore tabs are the best executed ive personally seen in a game. But I tend to like just enough story to keep me from skipping through it with the option to further explore it on my own tetms. So I found the perfect blend within Nioh.
I know I'm about 2 years too late but I really enjoy your content and hope you keep up the long form analysis. It's quite nice to listen to while I'm at work and actually kinda helps keep me on track for breaks and stuff. (I've no sense of time)
I appreciate the effort you put into this video I'm only 36 minutes in so far & you hit the " lore " take on the head for Nioh but not for Souls because Souls doesn't give you a directory or even a clue that you learn so much lore & how you learn the lore. With Souls to really get the items that hint to lore they are hidden in the world & not only do the items not tell you outright they hint at the lore & where you found that item, how the item got there or who held the item all of that is crucial in souls to learn the lore. Souls doesn't have a bad story then ask you to read. The reading is optional & an item description can be 6 or 7 subtle words that can reveal so much when combined with the location & surroundings playing a huge part. Thats because spelling will be butchered but Miyazaki loved reading western fantasy growing up but his English wasn't great so he had to use his imagination to finish or piece together the literature so in souls he makes the lore some what open ended for the players to speculate on the lore etc etc. Nioh is no where near that creative from that stand point but I agree the joy of Nioh isn't the story its the combat & unbelievably deep inventory management that can be frustrating although super rewarding. Many players never realize what the blacksmith can do for your character
Great video. A lot of tough love from you for Nioh. Which is a good thing. It could definately be better in certain area's. Bloodborne is my favourite game of all time, but Nioh and Nioh 2 are probably in my top 5. I hope you're going to do more video's on Nioh's DLC and Nioh 2 at some point.
Holy crap that's a lengthy review lmao and a late one at that. But your reviews are great! Glad I found you! I was actually looking for a review on the full game with all the dlcs expansions and tweaks implemented (there was ALOT of new stuff implemented)
Yeah, I have all the DLC and hope to go back to it soon. I've heard there have been a lot of changes, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out. Have you already played the DLC?
Chris Davis Yep I've played through all the main dlc missions already. While the main missions may be short, the dlc gives the entire game a pretty long grindfest as new difficulty levels, weapon types, skills, and a new tier of items and sets called ethereal are revealed. They also added a sort of super difficult survival tower type mode for the elite players. If you're a fan of Ninja Gaiden, you're in for a surprise once you beat the final dlc! I hope you enjoy it as much as I am!
Really great critique man! Had picked up this game a while back played until I got to the 3rd boss then gave up, flash forward to 2018/2019 picked it back up during my break, started over, new build, and played the game correctly with a decent build and it makes a huge difference. Now I think I'm at the last level of the game. It has been great. Watching the crit after the fact and I think you're spot on! My ONLY crit of your crit is SLOW down your commentary kind of rambles, like one long sentence. Just pause a bit here and there. Other than that GREAT stuff man! I'm a subscriber now :)
35:11 i will say this, because its something people miss alot about dark souls 1 and demon souls. the reason the "real story" is told in the description of items, and the position of items in the world is because, the "told" story you get from the npcs is FAKE. you play as someone being manipulated into sacrificing yourself for a certain faction. so, if you take everything you are told at face value, you will only get the story they want you to hear. its only by searching, and looking for the real story that you grasp what is really going on, and if the quest you are forced into is worth it. dark souls is one of the very few games that does a "you are being manipulated" right, to the point most players dont even know that. also, the story you are told is pretty easy to digest, do this to get there, ge that to enter that place, go into that place kill guy and take his place so everything can go back the way it was...
i came a little late for this video, but i love it, i saw it all to the end. I looked for Nioh 2 video in your channel but i can´t find it, so i hope you can make it in the future. Greetings and good work.
I love how you're like "I give this game 4/5, really close to a 5", then 20 seconds later you're like "the combat system has optional complexity that's unnecessary to use, the story sucks, the levels suck and the leveling is broken".
I wonder how many of the issues are a consequence of it changing gameplay styles twice. either way, great take on Nioh and I enjoy your longform takes. ~The Monk.
+Mildra There's probably an interesting story behind this game's development, but knowing how secretive Japanese companies can be, I'm not sure we'll ever hear it. Thanks for watching!
Chris Davis you should do more games, like older ones as well. No need to stick to new titles. I love critiques of games and not that many people make them is a shame :,(
I'll definitely dip into older games (especially RPGs) as the channel gets a bit more established. I need to buy a decent PC because my laptop can't play games (even old ones) and record footage at the same time.
45:04 I basically did the same with Nioh and am doing the same with N2. A lot of the additional moves you acquire are great for extending a combo, and can really keep some enemies defensive leading to Ki-breaks... But typically, any enemy on the higher side of “mid-tier” and above (which you come across more frequently as the game goes on) can either tank the little added jazz attacks and delivery an insta-death blow if you’re not at full HP. Most of the extra moves aren’t “safe”, making them kind of worthless, because enemies can just eat hits and not replaying or be interrupted more often as you progress. It’s better to enter on the punish-frames, get 2 hits in and dodge out. What they should have done was apply some kind of increased “constitution break” skill/stat to all of the moves you have to unlock (especially the ones father down the skill progression line). Maybe they could have an increased ability to interrupt combos or prevent counterattacks if you get caught with that specific move, therein adding a few “safe-frames”, which actually would give value to unlockable moves, making them worth the unlock. Because nothing feels worse (in a game) that putting in dozens of hours of effort to unlock moves/skills/abilities that aren’t as universally viable as some of the basic functionality that you start with. And even in N2, with an actual skill tree, so many of the skills are so situational or insignificant that most are just stepping stones, and you’ll find yourself spending 4 or 5 points on skills that have little to no value just to get to a specific one that caught your eye. But yeah, I know where you’re coming from.
One of the biggest things to get you out of long combo chains that would otherwise kill you os the fact that you can instantly shift to a guard after any hitstun from an enemy attack. On top of that it's important to shift to mid-stance too at the same time because guards take the least ki in that stance. For blocking, Mid is best and Low can work, while High is the worst. For dodging Low is superior and mid is okay, while high is again the worst. High is exclusively for openings where you get a chance for big damage, and should be switched out of immediately when that opening closes because its guard crumples fast and its dodge is the shoddiest.
It was just two things, really: - In Daizafu Temple (Kyushu) around 29:30 or so, you said it was Fuku who accompanied you in the maze. It was actually Ginchiyo Tachibana, Muneshige's wife who follows you. It really ust ties into what you were saying about the game not really being clear about who is who sometimes. - You can actually get up to 6 Sloth Talismans per life. I just felt you should know that for thoroughness. So technically it was a couple of errors, not a few. My bad.
Holy crap, I had no idea you could equip more talismans! I upgraded a fair few of the spells, inc. sloth, but I thought that just made them cheaper to equip. Thanks for pointing that out.
i loved this game, probably because I loved the yokai in this game and how they look like cooler versions of how they're portrayed in paintings and such.
I'm nearing the end of a Nioh playthrough myself and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to enjoy my time with it. Your comment about exhaustion was spot on. I won't hate on it but I'll just say I agree with most if not all of the points you make here, right down to falling into the water in that same area. :P
There's a couple of things I'd change if I could make this video again. Some are embarrassing errors on my part, others are just parts of the learning process with editing videos and audio. Here's the embarrassing mistakes you should be aware of. (1) I stupidly say that there is no PVP in Nioh. What I meant to say are that there are no PVP "invasions." A separate PVP mode got added as DLC and I might cover it briefly as part of a video on all Nioh's DLC that I hope to do later this year. These PVP fights take place in separate battle arenas. They're also pretty shit and the very definition of tacked on. I should have been much clearer about what I meant when I said there's no PVP. (2) I get some character names mixed up which I'm going to at least partly blame on the point I make in the video about the game's dreadful storytelling and the way it fails to tell you who the characters are. I accidentally refer to Muneshige's wife as Fuku at the end of the first act. Also, it's not William watching the execution at the end, it's Sakon. This last one is most annoying. We're told that William is pretending to be dead and in the next scene we see someone heavily disguised so that we can only see the bottom half of his face. We see him for a second, if that. I assumed this was William in disguise, but it's actually Sakon. We're supposed to know that it's Sakon because he's wearing the same hat he wore when we saw him for a few seconds at the beginning of the game. This is pretty terrible. Sakon is an important character, but at least ten other characters get more screen time. If you want to reintroduce Sakon randomly like this you need more than a second of him where you can't see most of his face. Also, what happened to him? Why is he just watching the execution when he pledged to die for his master? I'm simultaneously pissed off at myself and the storytelling here. We are both to blame. Oh, and I refer to the Holy Mountain as Mount Hiei around the one hour fifty mark. Not really important, but wanted to mention it. (3) You can equip more than 2 sloth talismans. This is an odd one. In the skill tree, you can reduce the amount of "magic points" that each talisman takes up. The fewer points each spell takes up, the more other spells you can carry. What I didn't realize is that after you've upgraded a spell to take up fewer points, you can still equip the old version of the spell to get more of them. Technically you can get 6 sloth talismans in one life, although you're probably not going to want to do this because you won't be able to carry many other spells. 4 is probably realistic. I would still opt to carry 2 because I like using a mixture of spells, but it's important to note that you can carry more. I apologize for these mistakes and any confusion they may have caused. I'm trying to cut mistakes out of my work, however only being able to work an hour or so a night means that projects drag on a long time and I lose the ability to see the wood for the trees. For example, I knew that Fuku and Munishege's wife were different people, but the mistake ended up in the script and I never spotted it. I still don't know how. The obvious answer is to take more time on each project, but I don't feel like that would help. It's more due to the scattered nature of when I'm able to work on the scripts and videos which isn't something I'll be able to correct in the near future. Editing mistakes. (1) Some of the editing around cutscenes isn't as smooth as I'd have liked. Near the end of this project I decided to let more cutscenes play out without me talking over them to give people a chance to hear the voice acting. This wasn't properly accounted for in the script and as such it is a little clunky. (2) You might notice changes in the sound quality for the voice over. I've always struggled with audio quality and I don't have the best mic set up. As I recorded new audio for this video, I changed my presets a bit and have now found some better settings. The good news is that the audio will hopefully be a touch cleaner in the next video. The bad news is that it isn't great in this one. (3) There's 7 seconds of looped audio. I've edited this within the UA-cam editor, so it should get cut out, but UA-cam is taking forever to process this change. I'm not even sure if it will happen now. It's been 3 days and it still hasn't gone through!
Chris Davis Don't blame on the storytelling if you get their names wrong. Nioh's story is based on real Japanese events (except using Yokai to do war and that kind of stuff), the rest is almost all accurate (not all of it). Shima Sakon hasn't enough screen time because he fights alongside Ishida Mitsunari and his army, the story is more focused on the Tokugawa allied forces, so there's the reason why Shima Sakon is not on the screen that often.
+RogueSeraph Ah yes, I should have studied Japanese history before playing the game. That would have help me recognize Sakon. How silly of me. Thanks for this comment. It directly supports the rant I went on in this video about people who think it's okay for there to be bad storytelling when the information is available outside the game. The fact that these are real people does not in any way excuse the way the characters are sloppily introduced for those of us not versed in Japanese history. Like I said, even if this was an historical period I knew about, I'd still want the characters to be introduced. And I know why Sakon isn't on screen that often. Like I said, he's not that big a character. My point is that you can't expect everyone to remember the hat a minor character was wearing 40 hours previously and expect us to recognize them. But seriously, thanks for providing evidence that my rant in the video is justified. Much appreciated.
Chris Davis You don't need to study Japanese history to review or criticize this game of course, so there's no need for sarcasm. But a little research is advised in order to do a good review or critique. Not to mention that some of that information is already in-game through the story and the character information tab. In my opinion all the characters were properly introduced in the game and the story/cutscenes allowed us to keep up with them. Screwing around with their names simply happens, specially if you're not Japanese or are not familiar with that time period in Japan. I just don't think it's correct to blame it on the storytelling because of that.
+RogueSeraph I dispute that people should be expected to do historical research before reviewing a video game, but that's besides the point. My point is that the storytelling is bad for people playing the game. Or do you want everyone who plays the game to do historical research too? Now if in your opinion, the storytelling is perfectly clear, then that's fine. That's your opinion. Mine opinion is that it's shit. Finally, I don't think people should have to trudge through appendices to understand the story. There's a section of the video where I talk about this exact point.
just wanted to share bit of trivia. the name "White Tiger" isn't lazy or lacking creativity in any way. the White Tiger is supposedly one of the 4 sacred beasts in Japan, the protector of the West. the other 3 of the beasts appear in the game as guardian spirits. Suzaku as the vermillion bird of the South, Genbu as the black turtle of the North and Date Masamune's spirit, Blue Dragon or "Seiryu", is the protector of the East. all of this can be easily discovered if one goes on to read the corresponding guardian spirit information. this is in no way tied to the actual story of the game directly and can be regarded as lore or simply japanese mythology. I suspect the problem with bosses like the White Tiger is that they actually have their names translated from Japanese. if the boss was called "Byakko" this wouldnt be an issue
I think you may have suffered a little from sticking to Low Stance so hard. Its not really supposed to be the main damage, more a good way to shred stamina on enemies but you seem to have made it work. Im guilty of many, many High Stance deaths because......well it makes the numbers bigger xD
Agreed. But if you look at his stance indicator, you can see that it didn’t take very long for him to switch around quite a bit. But I did notice how low-stance is his neutral stance. I hardly EVER go into low-stance, lol. High-stance is my neutral, and mid-stance is my low-stance. The only time I go into low stance is during transition combos.
The people who claim that it's cheating to use in-game mechanics to beat the game are ridiculus. The beauty of arpg's like Nioh or Soulsbornekiro (at this point) is that the player can craft their difficulty. You play in the style that fits your instincts (which is an advantage btw.) and use whatever means to have the challenge that you find enjoyable. It's like saying that someone didn't really complete Doom because they didn't play on hardest difficulty. But then, did they really complete these games, not playing the pauper no bonfire donkey kong congos controller playthrough?
Good video, runs a bit longer in some places than I would've liked (and I am a fan of long form content) due to some repetition but overall I'm glad to see it. Makes me wish I had a non-PC console to play it.
I hated this game because I went into it thinking it was a Souls style game. Other than the fact that you dodge & look for openings in your enemies attack patterns, this is it's own thing completely. I love the game now but I had to look past the "souls clone" label it has
I hope one day you dive into the Onimusha series. I feel it's like this but less refined Nioh. I loved Onimusha and it needs far more in depth lore. I hope you have the patience to get this series. As it's one of the few games where you'll have to get a few more resources to get access to from the OG console and record it for modern day editings.
I've played 172h in 9days, finished all difficulties and loved every bit of it. Now i reckon i have a few more hours left in the dlc and god knows how many hours in the abyss to definitively minmax my dual swords, no magic, no ninjutsu, no lw build. I love this game.
I know this is a late response, but you really don't need to grind in this game: it's pretty old-school in how the bosses work, so they telegraph their moves quite clearly (e.g. Nue will lift his head and roar before the lightning strike attack), and the fixed loot in the level leading up to the boss will usually include stuff that specifically helps with that boss (e.g. before Nue there's a full set of lightning resist armour in two chests).
Do you have any plan to do Nioh 2 I was so glad to see you did Deus Ex mankind divided. It’s actually my favorite game ever! Sekiro and Nioh are close favorites though
Graves featuring red names are indeed placed by devs ! Those fights usually have the most agressive ghost AI and can reward you with unique gear (even though rarity level can be shabby)
Just concerning your dislike about having to read up the lore in the memory section: I think Souls and Nioh do a good job at telling their story. It is one thing to go into a menu and read an item descreption or a short text, something else entirely to buy a complimentory comic or novel. Its like you said with the Game of Thrones books: It is heavily recomended to read the Appendix at the end of the book when something comes up in the story you don't fully understand, but nobody in their right mind would suggest buying the "World of Ice and Fire" companion book to understand the main story. It is all part of the package you bought, so the criss-cross referencing is actually a way to tell the story with more player interaction than just watching a 5 hour movie with some interactive stuff in between cutscenes, what most modern games seem to strive to be.
@@thiagobravo Why is it laughable to ask the player to do some thinking of their own? I think in 99% of modern (!) games everything is fed to the player and so it just seems so out there. It's like reading certain books or watching for example a Kubric movie. If you don't do some filling of gaps, your completely lost. But if you fill in the gaps, it's a great experience. And that is what ultimatley matters, right? To have a great experience, and you can have that by thinking about the lore a little more than usual.
I really appreciate you talking about the story delivery as it's my chief complaint about this game (for the record, I, too, think it's a great game and enjoy it). While not listed I think Doom (2016)'s logs and environment cues were also excellent at filling in the lore without requiring you to care. If you pay attention there's an awful lot of lore delivered in the new Doom (my favorite is the list of sacrifices for the Revenant program posted around the base, showing that the UAC employees knew full well what was going on) but absolutely none of it is required to know who you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it, why we want you to succeed, and so on and so forth. Like on your other videos thank you very much for doing this, it's a great video about a great game.
I’m years late watching this. But William and Okatsu have a son by Nioh 2. When you meet him I wasn’t sure if he was okatsu’s son. Until you hear her music. Nice little bit of closure for their story
Hmm, the game sounds good and I appreciate your honesty towards the strengths and weaknesses of the game, but one of the most important things to me that you don’t feel is extremely important or well done for Nioh that worries me greatly is the storyline. The story for Bloodborne is why I decided to pick the game up again and never look back. I am playing Bloodborne as I write this despite having every achievement and having done everything other than maximize my character’s potential. If Nioh’s story is passable, that will make me less likely to get the game. I’m sure it’s great in gameplay, but I need a full package.
The actual story in Bloodborne is bare bones, what you’re referring to is the lore which is great. Nioh’s story is historic fiction in that the Sengoku Era was a real thing that happened but heavily romanticized
Not that it matters much and it doesn't detract from the critique (which is excellent). But during Mitsunari's execution it is Sakon watchin, which explains why Mitsunari is ready to accept death since Kelley was able to "save" him.
Im listening to this while playing games i just wanna mention, summoning help actually gives massive buffs to the enemies you face. But at the same time yes you can split aggro. So it makes it easier but more difficult at the same time. High stance has more I-frames from the roll you do, low stance lets you almost go right through things if its timed properly. But has less i-frames.
CORRECTION: the 60fps mode for Nioh is NOT 720p on PS4 and 1080p on PS4 Pro. It’s a dynamic 720p to 1080p on both. The Pro just spends more time hanging in the upper bounds, though it is not fixed at 1080p. It can still drop as low as 720p on rare occasions, with the most common resolutions being in between 720p and 1080p.
almost 5 years later, still waiting for that Nioh 2 critique
yeah me too
Me three
Me four
Me five
Me six
It seems like calling it a straight Souls clone could only be done by someone who didn't dive into it. Great video Chris!
+MandaloreGaming Thanks!
I love you both
Very different mechanics than souls and one of the better action RPG's I've played
Chris Davis one thing I would said is Nioh is like Onimusha and I love it when it combines them together
Yes, if you are looking for more Souls like experience, Nioh ain't it..
You don't understand - you have to play in a way reflects the way I played, validating my own choices. Anything I do to give me an advantage is great and only an IDIOT wouldn't do it. Anything I didn't do (or didn't discover) that gives an advantage is BREAKING THE GAME and you should feel BAD about using it. Being insecure as I am, I require constant validation of my choices and playstyle, and I demand you do this, despite giving you no money. I am a well adjusted human being.
+John Smith You've clearly been reading the same comment sections I have!
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Edit: It's really quite astonishing how often people decide to take extreme points of view. The human mind is capable of so much more in terms of nuance and yet so many are willing and happy to clump most everything into two or three extreme points of view. It's obviously something our brain does to make things simpler for us, which would be fine, but we also decide to make these two extremes so emotionally fueled that it becomes an unhealthy obsession.
Games are all about choice. The whole point of a game is to figure out how to play it and develop your own strategies. Certain strategies will eventually become a part of the meta-game but that doesn't mean you aren't permitted to experiment and try to further this meta-game.
However, if you watch a streamer play literally any game, you'll find that if they aren't very well versed in the game itself that the chat will be riddled with angry viewers telling them what to do. While I understand their frustration (watching someone play a game poorly is much less interesting than watching them play well) screaming at them and calling them names won't help them at all. It's especially egregious when the streamer is doing fine but they "aren't playing correctly," as you mentioned above.
Implying that there's one correct way to play a game and all other tactics are inferior destroys the whole point of a game. If everyone played a game the same way then why have it be interactive at all? Or at the very least, why not have it just be a string of QTEs? That way, everyone would play the exact same way, and the only way you could say someone's bad at it would be when they miss a QTE. Problem solved!
In all seriousness, my experiences with Breath of the Wild showed me just how varied gameplay can be, and why that's a good thing. While there is a "losing" state in most games, that doesn't mean you're playing wrong, it just means you made a mistake. And while it's easy to conflate these two concepts, they are very different.
All that matters is winning the game (and even that's debatable. So long as the player's having fun they're really not doing anything wrong). The way that you go about this is up to you, and the fact that certain people legitimately think there's only one correct way to play shows just how much people hold their individuality in high regard (which is ironic, because mass adaptation of their playstyle would then make them one in a million).
You nailed down the general concensus perfectly!
From now on, this should be quoted to address any player bitching for the rest of mankind
Honestly game breaking builds/items are moreso the dev's fault than players. Obviously if there's overpowered stuff people are going to use it, getting mad at someone for playing a game in the most efficient way (especially games like this that dont include difficulty settings) is just silly.
John Smith lol
The easiest thing to cut from the video would have been the apologies for its length. Long form analysis is great, that's what I come to your channel for and you do it well.
Thanks! I can never tell whether a video is long for a good reason or whether I'm just wasting people's time. There's another commenter who thinks the first 90 minutes is completely unnecessary, so you can't please everyone.
Chris Davis For what it's worth, I agree with the above commenter; a lot of people, if not most, come here for long-form analysis. There are few channels on UA-cam who fill this niche, so I say you should embrace it.
Thanks!
Make them 10 hrs long, I don't care. I'll still watch. But chubby dudes walking on treadmills is a very small demographic, I suppose.
Well, I am quite sure I can stop watching the video If I feel like it or keep watching it, regardless of the length.
One thing I cannot do however, is continue watching a video that has ended.
So... yeah, I like long videos.
I love the smell of long-form game analysis in the morning.
I see what u did there :)
Such a great game and an underrated one as well, getting unfairly written off as a souls clone. This game is obviously inspired by those games but stands on its own.
Stances, weapon swaps, animation canceling. This game is far beyond anything most people play. The skill cap in this game is insane. They messed up on the level design and repetition(of maps) but the combat is brilliant.
And it was probably inspired by Onimusha as well
well is not a souls-borne, its more like devilmaycry with souls flavor
@@happysappy7851 eh idk in terms of maps being the same. Everyone of them is entirely unique imo.
Dark souls suck
Late correction - Actually the way to tell what color gesture to use on the walls with eyes (Nurikabe) is to look at the revenant graves nearby. They'll say killed by Nurikabe due to Friendly, Neutral, Or Hostile behavior. Just use one of the two color gestures that's not shown on the grave
The fire wheel monks, I think, are designed to teach you the importance of baiting out specific attacks. They can be absolutely trivialized by just standing directly on front of their faces, with their attacks getting more and more punishing the further away you get. But by just standing on front of them, they will ALWAYS do their slow flame breath attack which has plenty of time to circle behind them and attack their weak spot, knocking them down and making them trivial to kill.
Kinda sad you hadn't done the video about the DLC or Nioh 2, would've been a lovely watch. Great Video!
Just beat Nioh and all sub missions! Great vid! I like to imagine they started with a full plate of cut scenes with proper introductions and everything. Then some employee reminded them "But DarkSouls & Bloodborne have minimal dialogue/cinematics!" so the director slashed the cut scenes in half with no thought lol
3 very important mistakes in the video regarding coop and the whole leveling system. While many of these things regard the endgame and were introduced with the DLC patches, they nonetheless address some of your issues:
(1) 1:59:39 But you can do exactly that. After completing the game for the first time you can just play any level in new game+(+++) via the Torii Gate from the beginning with a friend in coop. In fact I clocked in over 200 hours playing the game in coop going through all the different new game + versions.
(2) Also, the mission level is NOT the recommended character level. It just informs you about the general difficulty of the mission. It will later go way past 1000, far beyond the maximum level. The difficulty in relation to your level and gear is portrayed by the bloody sword symbols beneath it. So you were probably not underleveled.
(3) The game has an equivalent of paragon levels once you reach the max level of 750. It is called "Focus Level". Additionally, there are green skills in the skill tree which you can level endlessly to improve your stats with unused skill points after obtaining all skills you wanted.
It's also important to mention that later New Game plus modes don't simply increase the numbers but change enemy placements, place new enemies in the levels, and introduce red coloured buffed version of regular enemies.
wow i had no idea about any of this. time to go play another 200 hours i guess lol. thanks for the info!
Ah. Well I'd still say it's more so the game's fault for not explaining many of these things. Also, why only keep the new enemy placements in later new game plus cycles, and not the first one? The first one is well.. the first one many are gonna play, and may not feel much motivation to continue on when seeing the first new game plus is just the same game over again.
@@Avghistorian77 Some of the is explained or understood in-game, if one pays attention
@@Avghistorian77 so...."why dont the enemy placements change....the first time you play a level" might be the dumbest idea ive ever heard, can you give us any more?
@@ChoirofVVolves I meant simply, why not change enemy placement/add new enemies into a level during New Game plus, to show that it would be different and give players some more incentive to keep playing.
My dude, it's almost been 3 years and nioh 2 is about to come out. I really hope you've played this games DLC.
It's hard to tell the difference between the words nier and nioh when they're spoken in a British accent.
+DPH 1314 My American wife can't tell the difference when I say "walls" and "wars."
Chris Davis Hah! Does she ever have a glass of 'Wo-Ah' just to see your reaction? :D
DPH 1314 both the 2 best games of last year for sure
DPH 1314 lmao
I was wondering why this review had no robots!
Watching this after hearing Nioh Remastered on the PS5 with 4k graphics at 60fps.
Still holds true today! Love the souls series, loved playing HZD + Frozen Wilds on the PS5 with almost no load times, and also grew to love Nioh. The living weapon Pokemon mechanic, and the weapon styles to further enhance Demon's Souls combat, made it so worthwhile.
I'm currently having a blast going through Nioh 2 Remastered.
I recently found your videos through the history of iso rpg's. I have got to say these critique videos are amazing.
And now a new video one day after I discovered you YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME
Death by video is the worst way to go.
the part about feeling like you 'brute forced' your way through the game is too true
so many bosses make me feel like i didnt really learn how to beat them, i just eventually got lucky
"Low stance is quick like being tickled to death by an agressive feather" :))))))))))))))))
This channel is way too underrated. This is quality content. I watched your other videos never realising the low sub count. More people need to watch this.
"This is where the better players will shine and where I did not." Lol. Amen to that, man.
Seeing such a deep dive on this version of the game, while only having played the Complete edition was really fascinating, because those DLCs transformed this game so damn much. Like I didn't know why you thought the twilight missions were useless until I remembered they didn't add tempering until later, at which point twilight missions became VERY useful.
Tempering? I only played the complete edition as well. What changed?
@@stolensentience Tempering is where you change your gears bonuses by chosing from a list instead of randomly re-rolling them. The resource needed for that comes from Twilight missions, but tempering wasn't in the game at launch so Twilight missions would've been pretty useless then.
@@Ronin11111111 I see, thank you
@@Ronin11111111 the other important part people miss is that tempering has 4 different ones you can use making you have 12 different choices, and they all have differing levels of strength. And tempering at higher levels will ALWAYS give the best variant. The game is much more in-depth than people would realize. Honestly if nioh 2 didnt change anything in terms of UI and stuff except for the NEW skills it would be amazing imo, I dont like some of the balance changes since they feel backwards. Like why do fists take so much stamina to use?
Just a thing to point out. You mentioned meeting Fukyu in the maze like (chalice) dungeon. Its actually Ginchiyo, Tachibana's wife if im remembering it right.
+A-Knighted-Duck You're right. Worst of all, I actually knew that. I've no idea how it slipped into the video. Too much writing in the early hours of the morning I guess.
I love how the experience can vary so much from player to player. I had a hellish time with bosses like Nue, Yuki-onna and White Tiger (admittedly, the argument that I was "playing them wrong" might hold some water in these cases), but then killed Giant Toad in my first attempt, and BARELY taking any hits.
I've stuck mostly to a melee build focusing on dual katanas, occasionally switching to spear when needing higher damage output, and still, I never felt like the bosses were "unfair" with that build, just that I wasn't good enough at what I needed to do with my build in order to beat them with it. The fact that the game also allows such a plethora of options in order to beat the game, and that there's room for optimization, only makes me want to replay this already humongous game just to try out new stuff. However, I feel that I've somehow "broken" or "cheesed" the game a bit after mastering the dual katana's Wind God II technique, which does massive health and ki damage to humans and yokai alike, and it's helped me farm revenant tombs to no end.
. If there ever is going to be a sequel, I really hope that it lives up to the original. More people need to play this, IMHO.
My favorite thing in this game is the loot mechanic, and the fashion, since you can make your style by refashioning armor in a year way you please.
i REALLY hated how people bitch and whine about powerful abilities in games and cry for nerfs and say those that use them arent playing the game.
it was the same in DS2 with lightning spears, apparently 3 shotting a boss with your limited but super powerful magic in which you spent a considerable amount of levels into a stat is "not playing the game how it should be played" but 5 shotting a boss with a sword as huge as a skyscraper with armour capable of making you nigh invincible is playing the game how it is meant to be played.....
sloth went from "15 second slow down that makes setting up debuff combo's, buff combo's or dealing a lot of damage for a investement in magic worth it" to "5 seconds of barely being able to accomplish anything due to such short duration, rather than use points for 5 seconds of slow down and wasting a inventory slot, far better to use a different spell or item" literally worthless now honestly, i really dont understand why people feel the need to bitch on someone else's playstyle cause it isnt 'hard' enough.
Sloth did actually break the game though. Im not saying he shouldnt use it but you seem to be complaining that they had to balance something. It wasnt as simple as ''just'' 15 seconds of slow. First 15 seconds is an insane timeframe, normally it decides a fight unless its a boss. Secondly it was such a powerful slow that you could easily walk around attacks for the entire time. It was broken beyond belief. Once they balanced it out, it was quite fun. I even did a full (well as full as i could) mage playthrough so i am speaking from experience using the spell.
I found switching stances and ki management to be a huge part of the game's appeal. I would often dodge around in low attack, as it definitely does give you i-frames, and then quickly switch to mid or high attack to land hits and punish bosses. Nioh was the first Souls-like game that clicked for me, and I love it dearly.
Nioh was also the first souls like that clicked for me, and it's forgivingly sweet as a first time souls like.
I.e. the stances and speed that even the high stance attacks at is way faster than most weapons in souls games, the dodge is more forgiving and speedy (dodge spam is an easy early game trap to fall into, that's why muneshige (? The sword guy with lightning rabbit) is such a hard fight) and there's way too damn many checkpoints lol
Even with elden ring's quite generous placement of rest sites it still doesn't even come close to how forgiving the checkpoints of Nioh are. There's always a cp before the boss, the levels are smaller and easier to memorize usually as well. I still can't beat the cleric beast in Bloodborne bc every attempt got more annoying than the last trying to speedrun there safely before I gave up after 20 mins lol, if it was like Nioh I'd have kicked that eldritch horror's ass
1:36:32 - Pretty sure that's his general/mentor, not william - so yeah, we do see him again and he actually got saved by Kelley. It's the same straw-hat he wore when he first met hanzo & william on those stairs
This is my favorite kind of thing to watch while i eat
this is my favourite kind of video that I like to watch while playing nioh
I poop when u eat, PICTURE IT!
Pictuuure iiiiiit..
I POOP IN UR FOOOOD AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA!!!
A shitbased diet is good for u..
or smoke lol
Dude, Mr. Davis, I love your stuff. Been watching for years but have been binge-watching as of late. You have a passion for gaming and the way you articulate that passion is why I watch. Big Ups!
I mean, you're fighting the fire wheel with low stance, I would get frustrated too. Also, water talismans wreak these guys.
Been watching your videos for a bit now. I laughed just now because your speech and organization skills always screamed "lawyer" to me, as I'm a lawyer (by day) too. Cheers.
"A high 4" I very much look forward to your video on the real endgame and dlcs :)
Overall great video. I appreciate seeing people's opinions and deeply enjoy listening to points of appreciation and possible improvements on big projects like Nioh. It's fun to listen to an alternative experience for the game and how others react to various challenges (I focused on Spirit and Onmyou magic, so I primarily went through levels by abusing ALL spells, ESPECIALLY sloth, and spamming the Bat Living Weapon). I admit there were multiple points that I readily don't agree with or could argue against, but you do a good job of acknowledging other opinions mostly and make good arguments for your own.
1:08:22 I will go ahead and argue this one particular point though. Nioh may not be as clear-cut or smooth about its story-telling as Bloodborne, but the levels DO try to tell stories, to varying degrees of success. One such story bore the distinct moment in the game where I suddenly felt an emotional revelation about William that I hadn't been expecting, and it was told entirely through his traversal through a level.
The Battle of Sekigahara was probably the single most emotional moment for me in the entire game- not because of beating Sakon or fighting in a war, but really because... William almost DOESN'T fight in the war. He does fight, there's no real denying that. He beats important generals and helps push the frontlines by taking out Mitsunari's cannons. But it's treated like an afterthought, an obstacle to be pushed through toward a goal waiting past the bloodshed.
When you first start the stage, almost nothing is present except the bleak charred atmosphere. Sounds of clashes in the background, gunfire, but no people present. No enemies, just William starting his traversal towards Kelley on the enemy side. Soon you face sporadic enemy soldiers, small groups of stragglers. Everyone seems exhausted before picking up their weapons to take you on. Moving farther still, William eventually finds himself in... the ravine. Hundreds, thousands of bodies strewn where Ieyasu's men pushed and struggled and died against fortifications to take the very point that William is now almost casually trudging through, picking off winded stragglers. And it dawned on me. William arrived LATE to a WAR. A war where his very allies, his currently most trusted companions, are betting their lives and ambitions on winning. No one comments on it. The game never indicates that William had to debate this decision. But for whatever reason, William was NOT on the frontlines of that push, and has no intentions of participating in this war for idealism's sake.
No. William has only one goal. He's only HAD one goal in the entire game, and will only have one from that point on. Reaching Kelley through any means necessary and getting Saoirse back. Even if that means ignoring a war. The only reason William is even present at that moment is because Kelley is present. The reason the enemies "seem to ignore William" until he's directly interfering with them? He's not following Ieyasu's commands, so he's not where the enemy army would expect a threat to be. The first big introduction to the battlefield is seeing Ieyasu's men being gunned down in a field just beyond a small bridge. You can take the bridge and join up with Ieyasu's soldiers, which is something William would probably have to do if he were an actual soldier. But you don't have to. You're a literal foreign element, and one that cares neither for orders nor protocol. So it makes perfect sense that most players probably instead follow the river to go directly behind enemy lines, where no one soldier should be.
The second half of my revelation that William "isn't supposed to be a part of the war" is the fact that, barring Otani Yoshitsugu (if he can even be counted), there are no Youkai present in the entire level (it's possible I missed some or just aren't remembering). Nearly every level has a supernatural element or challenge for William to overcome. But Sekigahara is just a war between men. And after fighting youkai and youkai, forces far stronger and overwhelming than the average man, this level is practically a refreshing break as far as difficulty goes. William can absolutely decimate average soldiers, only really being threatened by groups that can be annihilated if you spend even small resources or effort. It re-enforces that William didn't become this strong to slay men- he exclusively specializes in fighting youkai and beings with mystical powers. His skills are, ironically, almost wasted on a warzone. His strength is necessary to push through obstacles for victory, but the intermittent moments barely provide a challenge for the player at that point in the game. The only reason William even cares to do any warmongering is because behind those walls of enemy soldiers is the one opponent that actually matters to him. The war doesn't really matter. The political strife doesn't really matter. Barring his closest friends, who he allies with doesn't really matter.
ONLY getting Saoirse back matters, and not even a war William doesn't want to be a part of will stop him from achieving that.
Sorry for the length.
This game does what most should do when seeing a successful series. Take its core concept, but make it feel different without deriving too much.
The combat for Nioh 1 and 2 are phenomenal and I really do applaud the devs. I hope they make a 3rd.
31:40 Fuku ? Are you sure about that :/ ?
Yeah that's what I thought
the recommended level is weird because if you go in at the level or over it the mission is relatively easy but if you are over 30 levels below and depending skill the missions can be ridiculously hard. the dlc is a prime example where bosses have 2 summon spirits and abuse them when you cant do much of anything to them
31:35 That's not Fuku, that's Tachibana Ginchiyo, wife of the guy we are saving here. Also, she's the one who sent us on this mission to begin with.
Know your waifus!
1:53:10 buddy, let me help you. In Bloodborne you can hold circle to climb and descend ladders faster.
Draven Flores-Rios also applies in nioh as well....
where is circle on the keyboard oO?
Between the I and P keys.
@@shrshred2323 Where is bloodborne in PC oO?
@@raven75257 steam. It's been on steam for at least a year
Fantastic video, first of all. Subscribed right away.
A few things I would discuss:
First, about the Death penalty, i.e. losing your bank when you die without collecting it. I would actually argue that in souls-esque games, this is actually very important. It prevents you from suiciding your way to victory, so to speak. As you could run trough most of the levels repeatedtly without any penalty whatsoever. It also encourages players who are struggling to bank more Amrita/Souls/Moolah to get stronger, particularly in a Level they might be struggling at. I breezed trough the early parts of the game fairly easily, and suddenly started struggling with some of the optional Boss Fights and even the basic enemies in some cases (Those Bird Monks still drive me crazy, even after playing the game for a solid 100 hours), because I was fairly low level for the places I was at. The Death penalty there made sure I actually caught back up, instead of just trying to skip parts of the level over and over.
Also, I think its very important to point out how nicely they implemented blocking into the game. In Dark Souls, wether you would block or dodge most attacks depended on your build a lot. Unless I'm completely out of the loop the "Beefy Shieldman" is generally the recommended approach for most newcomers to the series, until they get the roll timing down. In Nioh, many fights can actually be made way, WAY easier by combining Block & Dodge in a smart way. And it doesnt really depend on your build. Yuki-Onna and Weird-Tongue-Lady (The one in the cave) are very nice examples of this. Many of their attack chains can be rather hard to nail if you want to dodge all of them. So Dodge into Block, or the other way around usually works better. Blocking the last attack of a Chain also has the added benefit of leaving you in range to counterattack right away.
I liked that a lot, since it was the first time where blocking without a shield can actually be very much worth it, as opposed to most Souls games where not only it drains most of your stamina, it will also barely negate any of the damage done. A Hybrid-Playstyle there is barely worth it, if at all.
Finally, the story. I didnt even realize how...nothing it really is, until watching this. It's sad, because I remember being intrigued up until the first new Map. But then they started throwing so many names and factions around that I stopped paying attention. It isnt helped by the fact that I spent large swaths of playtime doing sidecontent and farming Gearsets. Because it meant 3-5 hours of no story at all, and by then I had completely forgotten what was actually happening on the Main-Quest.
+Aaron Stübi Great point on the blocking. It really is excellent in this game. With the death penalty thing, I'm a bit mixed. I agree that it's important, it just didn't feel well implemented in Nioh. There are so many shortcuts and dumb enemies to run past that it rarely felt like a true penalty. Of course, everyone's experience will vary. Glad to hear someone else is having trouble with those flying things!
Weee, a 2-hour video! And congratz, man. You're almost at 3k subs! Keep it up!
Back when I hit 1k subs, I targetted 2k by the end of July. Looks like I might hit 3k instead!
soulsborne doesnt use an external appendix though... you get item descriptions as you pick up the items, bloodborne in particular weaves a great story that gets built on by the items early on. that trend continues through the whole game and the DLC, id agree with darksouls though... 1st one still holds my favor over the latter 2.
Dark Souls and Bloodborne don't tell their stories in a different way. Neither use an external appendix and both tell great stories
@@haydeng3316 i said this in a diferent post, but the reason the real story is hidden on item descriptions in dark souls 1, 3 and demon souls is because the story you are told by the npcs is false, as they want to manipulate you into doing what they want.
its only by searching and reading that you understand the reality of that world.
finally a new good critique!! keep the content coming brother huge fan!!
+Eric Madadian Thanks Eric! Appreciate the support.
Maybe i'm alone here but I absolutely loved the story and especially the delivery of it. I thought the fallen soldiers thoughts was a great touch. The cut scenes were excellent and the lore tabs are the best executed ive personally seen in a game. But I tend to like just enough story to keep me from skipping through it with the option to further explore it on my own tetms. So I found the perfect blend within Nioh.
I know I'm about 2 years too late but I really enjoy your content and hope you keep up the long form analysis. It's quite nice to listen to while I'm at work and actually kinda helps keep me on track for breaks and stuff. (I've no sense of time)
I love the long videos I listen while at work
From 21:38-21:46 the gameplay footage is hilarious. The struggle is real and I literally laughed out loud. The fire bomb got me so good. 😂
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the expansions.
I really, really hope you'll make a Nioh 2 in-depth analysis someday.
Well, if someone is having a hard time with the blood starved beast I recommend them the flamesprayer +3, that things destroy that boss
I appreciate the effort you put into this video I'm only 36 minutes in so far & you hit the " lore " take on the head for Nioh but not for Souls because Souls doesn't give you a directory or even a clue that you learn so much lore & how you learn the lore. With Souls to really get the items that hint to lore they are hidden in the world & not only do the items not tell you outright they hint at the lore & where you found that item, how the item got there or who held the item all of that is crucial in souls to learn the lore. Souls doesn't have a bad story then ask you to read. The reading is optional & an item description can be 6 or 7 subtle words that can reveal so much when combined with the location & surroundings playing a huge part. Thats because spelling will be butchered but Miyazaki loved reading western fantasy growing up but his English wasn't great so he had to use his imagination to finish or piece together the literature so in souls he makes the lore some what open ended for the players to speculate on the lore etc etc. Nioh is no where near that creative from that stand point but I agree the joy of Nioh isn't the story its the combat & unbelievably deep inventory management that can be frustrating although super rewarding. Many players never realize what the blacksmith can do for your character
Thanks for being humble about the bosses. Most reviewers act like nothing was shit to them and are full of it.
Plz never stop making these
Great video. A lot of tough love from you for Nioh. Which is a good thing. It could definately be better in certain area's.
Bloodborne is my favourite game of all time, but Nioh and Nioh 2 are probably in my top 5.
I hope you're going to do more video's on Nioh's DLC and Nioh 2 at some point.
Holy crap that's a lengthy review lmao and a late one at that. But your reviews are great! Glad I found you! I was actually looking for a review on the full game with all the dlcs expansions and tweaks implemented (there was ALOT of new stuff implemented)
Yeah, I have all the DLC and hope to go back to it soon. I've heard there have been a lot of changes, so I'm looking forward to seeing how it all plays out. Have you already played the DLC?
Chris Davis Yep I've played through all the main dlc missions already. While the main missions may be short, the dlc gives the entire game a pretty long grindfest as new difficulty levels, weapon types, skills, and a new tier of items and sets called ethereal are revealed. They also added a sort of super difficult survival tower type mode for the elite players. If you're a fan of Ninja Gaiden, you're in for a surprise once you beat the final dlc! I hope you enjoy it as much as I am!
Really great critique man! Had picked up this game a while back played until I got to the 3rd boss then gave up, flash forward to 2018/2019 picked it back up during my break, started over, new build, and played the game correctly with a decent build and it makes a huge difference. Now I think I'm at the last level of the game. It has been great. Watching the crit after the fact and I think you're spot on! My ONLY crit of your crit is SLOW down your commentary kind of rambles, like one long sentence. Just pause a bit here and there. Other than that GREAT stuff man! I'm a subscriber now :)
35:11 i will say this, because its something people miss alot about dark souls 1 and demon souls. the reason the "real story" is told in the description of items, and the position of items in the world is because, the "told" story you get from the npcs is FAKE. you play as someone being manipulated into sacrificing yourself for a certain faction. so, if you take everything you are told at face value, you will only get the story they want you to hear.
its only by searching, and looking for the real story that you grasp what is really going on, and if the quest you are forced into is worth it.
dark souls is one of the very few games that does a "you are being manipulated" right, to the point most players dont even know that. also, the story you are told is pretty easy to digest, do this to get there, ge that to enter that place, go into that place kill guy and take his place so everything can go back the way it was...
So...1-2 videos per month? Because i really like these kind of critique. Enjoyable to watch/listening to.
+Just A Fan Should be at least 1 a month. I might manage 2 some months but they probably won't both be long critiques in that case.
i came a little late for this video, but i love it, i saw it all to the end. I looked for Nioh 2 video in your channel but i can´t find it, so i hope you can make it in the future. Greetings and good work.
I love how you're like "I give this game 4/5, really close to a 5", then 20 seconds later you're like "the combat system has optional complexity that's unnecessary to use, the story sucks, the levels suck and the leveling is broken".
the core combat is just that good
I'm only halfway done with the game, but I have no self control so I watched the whole thing anyways. Great job as always!
Thanks!
I wonder how many of the issues are a consequence of it changing gameplay styles twice. either way, great take on Nioh and I enjoy your longform takes.
~The Monk.
+Mildra There's probably an interesting story behind this game's development, but knowing how secretive Japanese companies can be, I'm not sure we'll ever hear it. Thanks for watching!
Thank you so much! I love your content and have been praying for this, keep up the good work mate
+Donovan Howell Thanks very much!
Chris Davis yeah dude, p good content :)
Chris Davis you should do more games, like older ones as well. No need to stick to new titles. I love critiques of games and not that many people make them is a shame :,(
I'll definitely dip into older games (especially RPGs) as the channel gets a bit more established. I need to buy a decent PC because my laptop can't play games (even old ones) and record footage at the same time.
45:04 I basically did the same with Nioh and am doing the same with N2.
A lot of the additional moves you acquire are great for extending a combo, and can really keep some enemies defensive leading to Ki-breaks...
But typically, any enemy on the higher side of “mid-tier” and above (which you come across more frequently as the game goes on) can either tank the little added jazz attacks and delivery an insta-death blow if you’re not at full HP.
Most of the extra moves aren’t “safe”, making them kind of worthless, because enemies can just eat hits and not replaying or be interrupted more often as you progress.
It’s better to enter on the punish-frames, get 2 hits in and dodge out.
What they should have done was apply some kind of increased “constitution break” skill/stat to all of the moves you have to unlock (especially the ones father down the skill progression line).
Maybe they could have an increased ability to interrupt combos or prevent counterattacks if you get caught with that specific move, therein adding a few “safe-frames”, which actually would give value to unlockable moves, making them worth the unlock.
Because nothing feels worse (in a game) that putting in dozens of hours of effort to unlock moves/skills/abilities that aren’t as universally viable as some of the basic functionality that you start with.
And even in N2, with an actual skill tree, so many of the skills are so situational or insignificant that most are just stepping stones, and you’ll find yourself spending 4 or 5 points on skills that have little to no value just to get to a specific one that caught your eye.
But yeah, I know where you’re coming from.
I use a sword, and I use at least 3 or 4 of the unlockable moves a *lot* and rely on them as well. Take them away and I’d feel naked.
One of the biggest things to get you out of long combo chains that would otherwise kill you os the fact that you can instantly shift to a guard after any hitstun from an enemy attack. On top of that it's important to shift to mid-stance too at the same time because guards take the least ki in that stance.
For blocking, Mid is best and Low can work, while High is the worst.
For dodging Low is superior and mid is okay, while high is again the worst.
High is exclusively for openings where you get a chance for big damage, and should be switched out of immediately when that opening closes because its guard crumples fast and its dodge is the shoddiest.
Nice critique. A few errors here and there, but I liked it.
+skyrax Thanks. Sorry about the mistakes. Working on improving that for future videos.
It was just two things, really:
- In Daizafu Temple (Kyushu) around 29:30 or so, you said it was Fuku who accompanied you in the maze. It was actually Ginchiyo Tachibana, Muneshige's wife who follows you. It really ust ties into what you were saying about the game not really being clear about who is who sometimes.
- You can actually get up to 6 Sloth Talismans per life. I just felt you should know that for thoroughness.
So technically it was a couple of errors, not a few. My bad.
Holy crap, I had no idea you could equip more talismans! I upgraded a fair few of the spells, inc. sloth, but I thought that just made them cheaper to equip. Thanks for pointing that out.
Cool video. I found this game pretty hard.. never finished this one though I got pretty far. I enjoy these in depth review/analysis you do. Good job
Great introduction 😂😂🎉❤
I loved the honourary mentions
sloth attack pill kusarigama shock paper for even more movement reduction every boss was gone in seconds
reach the ladders with a aggressive yoga post :'D lost it
thank you mate
i loved this game, probably because I loved the yokai in this game and how they look like cooler versions of how they're portrayed in paintings and such.
I'm nearing the end of a Nioh playthrough myself and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to enjoy my time with it. Your comment about exhaustion was spot on. I won't hate on it but I'll just say I agree with most if not all of the points you make here, right down to falling into the water in that same area. :P
This was exactly my feeling with it. I enjoyed it most of the way through but towards the end it was a struggle.
There's a couple of things I'd change if I could make this video again. Some are embarrassing errors on my part, others are just parts of the learning process with editing videos and audio. Here's the embarrassing mistakes you should be aware of. (1) I stupidly say that there is no PVP in Nioh. What I meant to say are that there are no PVP "invasions." A separate PVP mode got added as DLC and I might cover it briefly as part of a video on all Nioh's DLC that I hope to do later this year. These PVP fights take place in separate battle arenas. They're also pretty shit and the very definition of tacked on. I should have been much clearer about what I meant when I said there's no PVP.
(2) I get some character names mixed up which I'm going to at least partly blame on the point I make in the video about the game's dreadful storytelling and the way it fails to tell you who the characters are. I accidentally refer to Muneshige's wife as Fuku at the end of the first act. Also, it's not William watching the execution at the end, it's Sakon. This last one is most annoying. We're told that William is pretending to be dead and in the next scene we see someone heavily disguised so that we can only see the bottom half of his face. We see him for a second, if that. I assumed this was William in disguise, but it's actually Sakon. We're supposed to know that it's Sakon because he's wearing the same hat he wore when we saw him for a few seconds at the beginning of the game. This is pretty terrible. Sakon is an important character, but at least ten other characters get more screen time. If you want to reintroduce Sakon randomly like this you need more than a second of him where you can't see most of his face. Also, what happened to him? Why is he just watching the execution when he pledged to die for his master? I'm simultaneously pissed off at myself and the storytelling here. We are both to blame. Oh, and I refer to the Holy Mountain as Mount Hiei around the one hour fifty mark. Not really important, but wanted to mention it.
(3) You can equip more than 2 sloth talismans. This is an odd one. In the skill tree, you can reduce the amount of "magic points" that each talisman takes up. The fewer points each spell takes up, the more other spells you can carry. What I didn't realize is that after you've upgraded a spell to take up fewer points, you can still equip the old version of the spell to get more of them. Technically you can get 6 sloth talismans in one life, although you're probably not going to want to do this because you won't be able to carry many other spells. 4 is probably realistic. I would still opt to carry 2 because I like using a mixture of spells, but it's important to note that you can carry more.
I apologize for these mistakes and any confusion they may have caused. I'm trying to cut mistakes out of my work, however only being able to work an hour or so a night means that projects drag on a long time and I lose the ability to see the wood for the trees. For example, I knew that Fuku and Munishege's wife were different people, but the mistake ended up in the script and I never spotted it. I still don't know how. The obvious answer is to take more time on each project, but I don't feel like that would help. It's more due to the scattered nature of when I'm able to work on the scripts and videos which isn't something I'll be able to correct in the near future.
Editing mistakes. (1) Some of the editing around cutscenes isn't as smooth as I'd have liked. Near the end of this project I decided to let more cutscenes play out without me talking over them to give people a chance to hear the voice acting. This wasn't properly accounted for in the script and as such it is a little clunky.
(2) You might notice changes in the sound quality for the voice over. I've always struggled with audio quality and I don't have the best mic set up. As I recorded new audio for this video, I changed my presets a bit and have now found some better settings. The good news is that the audio will hopefully be a touch cleaner in the next video. The bad news is that it isn't great in this one.
(3) There's 7 seconds of looped audio. I've edited this within the UA-cam editor, so it should get cut out, but UA-cam is taking forever to process this change. I'm not even sure if it will happen now. It's been 3 days and it still hasn't gone through!
Chris Davis Don't blame on the storytelling if you get their names wrong. Nioh's story is based on real Japanese events (except using Yokai to do war and that kind of stuff), the rest is almost all accurate (not all of it).
Shima Sakon hasn't enough screen time because he fights alongside Ishida Mitsunari and his army, the story is more focused on the Tokugawa allied forces, so there's the reason why Shima Sakon is not on the screen that often.
+RogueSeraph Ah yes, I should have studied Japanese history before playing the game. That would have help me recognize Sakon. How silly of me. Thanks for this comment. It directly supports the rant I went on in this video about people who think it's okay for there to be bad storytelling when the information is available outside the game. The fact that these are real people does not in any way excuse the way the characters are sloppily introduced for those of us not versed in Japanese history. Like I said, even if this was an historical period I knew about, I'd still want the characters to be introduced.
And I know why Sakon isn't on screen that often. Like I said, he's not that big a character. My point is that you can't expect everyone to remember the hat a minor character was wearing 40 hours previously and expect us to recognize them.
But seriously, thanks for providing evidence that my rant in the video is justified. Much appreciated.
Chris Davis You don't need to study Japanese history to review or criticize this game of course, so there's no need for sarcasm. But a little research is advised in order to do a good review or critique.
Not to mention that some of that information is already in-game through the story and the character information tab.
In my opinion all the characters were properly introduced in the game and the story/cutscenes allowed us to keep up with them.
Screwing around with their names simply happens, specially if you're not Japanese or are not familiar with that time period in Japan. I just don't think it's correct to blame it on the storytelling because of that.
+RogueSeraph I dispute that people should be expected to do historical research before reviewing a video game, but that's besides the point. My point is that the storytelling is bad for people playing the game. Or do you want everyone who plays the game to do historical research too? Now if in your opinion, the storytelling is perfectly clear, then that's fine. That's your opinion. Mine opinion is that it's shit.
Finally, I don't think people should have to trudge through appendices to understand the story. There's a section of the video where I talk about this exact point.
just wanted to share bit of trivia.
the name "White Tiger" isn't lazy or lacking creativity in any way. the White Tiger is supposedly one of the 4 sacred beasts in Japan, the protector of the West. the other 3 of the beasts appear in the game as guardian spirits. Suzaku as the vermillion bird of the South, Genbu as the black turtle of the North and Date Masamune's spirit, Blue Dragon or "Seiryu", is the protector of the East. all of this can be easily discovered if one goes on to read the corresponding guardian spirit information. this is in no way tied to the actual story of the game directly and can be regarded as lore or simply japanese mythology. I suspect the problem with bosses like the White Tiger is that they actually have their names translated from Japanese. if the boss was called "Byakko" this wouldnt be an issue
I think you may have suffered a little from sticking to Low Stance so hard. Its not really supposed to be the main damage, more a good way to shred stamina on enemies but you seem to have made it work. Im guilty of many, many High Stance deaths because......well it makes the numbers bigger xD
Agreed. But if you look at his stance indicator, you can see that it didn’t take very long for him to switch around quite a bit.
But I did notice how low-stance is his neutral stance. I hardly EVER go into low-stance, lol.
High-stance is my neutral, and mid-stance is my low-stance. The only time I go into low stance is during transition combos.
I love these long video review keep up the good work
You get my subscribe
Persevering through is just as awe inspiring as skill. And that's what makes these games special
The people who claim that it's cheating to use in-game mechanics to beat the game are ridiculus. The beauty of arpg's like Nioh or Soulsbornekiro (at this point) is that the player can craft their difficulty. You play in the style that fits your instincts (which is an advantage btw.) and use whatever means to have the challenge that you find enjoyable. It's like saying that someone didn't really complete Doom because they didn't play on hardest difficulty. But then, did they really complete these games, not playing the pauper no bonfire donkey kong congos controller playthrough?
Good video, runs a bit longer in some places than I would've liked (and I am a fan of long form content) due to some repetition but overall I'm glad to see it. Makes me wish I had a non-PC console to play it.
+ParadiseMantis Thanks for the feedback. I'll bear it in mind for future videos.
I hated this game because I went into it thinking it was a Souls style game. Other than the fact that you dodge & look for openings in your enemies attack patterns, this is it's own thing completely. I love the game now but I had to look past the "souls clone" label it has
I hope one day you dive into the Onimusha series. I feel it's like this but less refined Nioh. I loved Onimusha and it needs far more in depth lore. I hope you have the patience to get this series. As it's one of the few games where you'll have to get a few more resources to get access to from the OG console and record it for modern day editings.
I've played 172h in 9days, finished all difficulties and loved every bit of it. Now i reckon i have a few more hours left in the dlc and god knows how many hours in the abyss to definitively minmax my dual swords, no magic, no ninjutsu, no lw build.
I love this game.
I can appreciate these take some time to produce but come on boyo, want to see more great content!! :)
+TheAcademicChilly Working on it :-)
That was in depth. Now I need to check if you've done a similar video for Bloodborne, Nioh DLC, and maybe even Nioh 2.
You can take 3 hits of lightning from Nuc before dying. I die of one, well time to grind. That sucks.
I know this is a late response, but you really don't need to grind in this game: it's pretty old-school in how the bosses work, so they telegraph their moves quite clearly (e.g. Nue will lift his head and roar before the lightning strike attack), and the fixed loot in the level leading up to the boss will usually include stuff that specifically helps with that boss (e.g. before Nue there's a full set of lightning resist armour in two chests).
Great stuff. Nioh 2 critique?
Do you have any plan to do Nioh 2 I was so glad to see you did Deus Ex mankind divided. It’s actually my favorite game ever! Sekiro and Nioh are close favorites though
New to your channel, excellent long form analysis. Subbed. Will definitely be working my way through this playlist.
Graves featuring red names are indeed placed by devs ! Those fights usually have the most agressive ghost AI and can reward you with unique gear (even though rarity level can be shabby)
Will you be making a video on Nioh 2?
2 hours YEEEAAHHH BOOIII
It could have been longer. This is the trimmed down version!
Chris Davis the longer the better bro
long form game critique on youtube is the comfiest of genres
Well the game itself isn't a cake walk either , took me a 100 hrs to complete the main chapters alone
Just concerning your dislike about having to read up the lore in the memory section:
I think Souls and Nioh do a good job at telling their story. It is one thing to go into a menu and read an item descreption or a short text, something else entirely to buy a complimentory comic or novel. Its like you said with the Game of Thrones books: It is heavily recomended to read the Appendix at the end of the book when something comes up in the story you don't fully understand, but nobody in their right mind would suggest buying the "World of Ice and Fire" companion book to understand the main story. It is all part of the package you bought, so the criss-cross referencing is actually a way to tell the story with more player interaction than just watching a 5 hour movie with some interactive stuff in between cutscenes, what most modern games seem to strive to be.
Imo it's just a way to hide the fact that the writer doesn't know how to write. Myiazaki is no writer and the excuse to fill the gaps is laughable.
@@thiagobravo Why is it laughable to ask the player to do some thinking of their own? I think in 99% of modern (!) games everything is fed to the player and so it just seems so out there. It's like reading certain books or watching for example a Kubric movie. If you don't do some filling of gaps, your completely lost. But if you fill in the gaps, it's a great experience. And that is what ultimatley matters, right? To have a great experience, and you can have that by thinking about the lore a little more than usual.
We do see shima sakon again.
In the final cutscene before credits.
Thats him watching mitsubari's execution, not William.
I really appreciate you talking about the story delivery as it's my chief complaint about this game (for the record, I, too, think it's a great game and enjoy it). While not listed I think Doom (2016)'s logs and environment cues were also excellent at filling in the lore without requiring you to care. If you pay attention there's an awful lot of lore delivered in the new Doom (my favorite is the list of sacrifices for the Revenant program posted around the base, showing that the UAC employees knew full well what was going on) but absolutely none of it is required to know who you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it, why we want you to succeed, and so on and so forth.
Like on your other videos thank you very much for doing this, it's a great video about a great game.
+Foxx Block Thanks! And yes, Doom does a really good job with subtle storytelling.
Watched this in one sitting for some reason lol. Good video!
I like your content! Thanks for the crazy amount of work!
I’m years late watching this. But William and Okatsu have a son by Nioh 2. When you meet him I wasn’t sure if he was okatsu’s son. Until you hear her music. Nice little bit of closure for their story
Hmm, the game sounds good and I appreciate your honesty towards the strengths and weaknesses of the game, but one of the most important things to me that you don’t feel is extremely important or well done for Nioh that worries me greatly is the storyline. The story for Bloodborne is why I decided to pick the game up again and never look back. I am playing Bloodborne as I write this despite having every achievement and having done everything other than maximize my character’s potential. If Nioh’s story is passable, that will make me less likely to get the game. I’m sure it’s great in gameplay, but I need a full package.
The actual story in Bloodborne is bare bones, what you’re referring to is the lore which is great. Nioh’s story is historic fiction in that the Sengoku Era was a real thing that happened but heavily romanticized
Not that it matters much and it doesn't detract from the critique (which is excellent). But during Mitsunari's execution it is Sakon watchin, which explains why Mitsunari is ready to accept death since Kelley was able to "save" him.
Im listening to this while playing games i just wanna mention, summoning help actually gives massive buffs to the enemies you face. But at the same time yes you can split aggro. So it makes it easier but more difficult at the same time. High stance has more I-frames from the roll you do, low stance lets you almost go right through things if its timed properly. But has less i-frames.
That was Sakon Shima watching Mitsunary being executed. That's why Mitsunari reacts upon seeing him in the crowd.
CORRECTION: the 60fps mode for Nioh is NOT 720p on PS4 and 1080p on PS4 Pro. It’s a dynamic 720p to 1080p on both. The Pro just spends more time hanging in the upper bounds, though it is not fixed at 1080p. It can still drop as low as 720p on rare occasions, with the most common resolutions being in between 720p and 1080p.