|
I liked Nioh a lot, but in accordance with my ancient curse I was compelled to find fault in it everywhere I looked. Mostly Nioh has taught me that I do not like Dark Souls, at all, which seems to me to be a shame because Nioh is a game that I think I would like a lot were it a lot less like Dark Souls and more like its own thing. My favourite thing about Nioh is that IRL William Adams was English but in Nioh he was rewritten to be Irish solely because they wanted a story about guardian spirits and Irish mythology is more accommodating to guardian spirits than English mythology.
|
#
¿
Sep 5, 2019 21:10
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 9, 2024 14:41 |
|
|
Nioh 2 will begin with a daring escape from Yarl's Wood.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 6, 2019 06:12
|
|
|
This is about the point in the game the Full Ninjutsu build started hella paying off for me. The size of it was, Big Bozu's first phase was pretty manageable after a few tries, and the second seemed like complete bullshit, but not so much bullshit that he could shrug off a full bag of kunai to the face. My favourite thing about the first phase is that the game very obviously wants you right up in the big idiot's face comboing away in his big dumb eyes, but every now and then a combo might take you through the invisible wall that he puts up at the edges of the platform and you'll just die. I'll say I don't like Nioh's bosses very much, on the whole, especially the big ones but there were a whole lot generally that I found just really irritating. They almost certainly weren't helped by being in a Souls game, of course. (I feel that I would absolutely love Nioh if it could just... not do the Souls bloodstain thing, or the Diablo loot thing, and just be content to be a difficult action game like Ninja Gaiden. It's so well conceived on those terms, and then it just has all this other stuff heaped on top of it and I feel like it'd be so much better if it ejected the cruft and played to its signature strength.) Fedule fucked around with this message at 04:20 on Nov 25, 2019 |
|
#
¿
Nov 25, 2019 04:16
|
|
|
TheLastRoboKy posted:I like what Nioh has going, personally. The loot, the souls-like stuff and the cool combat. It's a giant toy box and poo poo just goes everywhere but I think that's why I like it so much. But yeah most of the time with Nioh I see people saying the same thing, and I'm just... the target audience. I contend that Nioh would be equally deep - quite possibly deeper - a toy box without quite so much of a constant flow of loot and a few less RPG mechanics. (I meant for this to be a short post, but, uh, I got a bit carried away for which I apologise) Consider the amount of possibility in just the weapons. Your light and heavy attack flows, a handful of Combos, your charge attacks, the occasional weird skill technique, your block, dodge, and ki pulse, all times three because of how differently these things all behave in different stances, and all times seven across the different weapon types. Pile on top of this your assorted Ninjutsu and Omnyo skills and all the different ways you can build those, and your guardian spirit. So far, this rules unbelievably. Nioh has like twenty different ways one sword can marginally differ from the next, three different stats your sword scales off on at different rates (which is going to change how you level up), and a variety of little passive things you might care about. The end result of this is that when you decide it's time to upgrade your sword, you have about fifty billion options to choose from, and, let's be honest, you're going to sort all your swords by level, and choose something from the top with one familiar passive, and mulch everything else into money or amrita or materials. And oh, what materials they'll be. Blacksmithing in Nioh is labyrinthine for absolutely no god drat reason, with like five different interlocking systems that between them all boil down to rerolling one sword you like the look of until some of the passives on it seem vaguely synergistic or you run out of material. It's All Entirely Too Much. This constant barrage of new swords and possible swords just completely washes over you. Sometimes it's fun to nerd out over optimising a build but ultimately there's only so many hours in the day and maybe it'd be nice to actually do a level at some point. This would be fine if it were possible to pick a set of equipment you like and stick with it, but it's not, because the nature of this kind of loot system is that it forces you to be constantly churning through stuff, so you are heavily disincentivised from trying to keep a constant set of favourite equipment. Possibly the most single spiteful system in all of Nioh is the Soul Match, which nominally will let you keep your pet equips up to date stat-wise with the constant influx of replacements, but scales dramatically in cost every time you use it until you give up in despair. It never stops; there is no endgame, there is only, uh, stop me if I'm remembering this wrong, five escalating new game plusses with two entire loot levels gated behind them. Remember when we were gifted with the unique and characteristic sword Raikiri, the Lightning Cutter? Wow! That was cool! Too bad that sword is immediately poo poo, so if we liked its style we'll have to find or forge a big pile of replacement Raikiris. What's it all for? You tinker a little bit and you can maybe kill guy X in one less hit or take one You'll note that nobody complains (this vehemently) about any of this stuff in, oh, say, Borderlands, even though the systems function basically identically there. Well, okay, there are some ways it could possibly be more harmonious, and it definitely shares the Too Many Bazillions Of Guns problem, but, here's the thing; in Borderlands, that's what you're there for. That's the entire game. Nobody is under any delusion about any of this, least of all the game. But Nioh. Nioh is a fantastic action game, full of technical possibility, set against great level design, fantastic setpieces (mines aside) and an interesting historical plot. Everything that could possibly be compelling about a Diablo-style loot system runs directly contrary to everything that's actually great about Nioh, which, lest we forget amid all my complaining, is a lot. I've gone on longer than I meant to already and I meant to talk about things other than just weapons, like armour and stats and all that, in this slight rantpost, so let me just plainly state that it is entirely possible to have an action game that combines deep technical systems, consistently balanced (and adjustable) difficulty, constant honing of player skill, meaningful character build possibilities, variously harmonious and dissonant gear combinations, tactical depth, and cosmetic customisation, all of which gradually increase throughout the game - but which are still above all straightforward to manage and not constantly withheld from players but just given, generously, to them without having to spend hours faffing around at the blacksmith, like a good toybox should.
|
|
#
¿
Nov 26, 2019 02:56
|
|