The news that the Souls franchise is done, hit me hard. Where would I get my fix of virtual punishment now that my favorite series ever had come to an end? There's DLC, but after that? I thought it was over.
Then, out of seemingly nowhere, comes the Nioh Alpha Demo, it's basically Dark Souls with Samurai.
Some might call it a rip off: Items can be found on corpses with a similar visual cue to that of a Souls game, levels are vast but feature unlockable shortcuts with the same exact mechanics as a Souls game, Shrines act as Bonfires and reset enemies when rested at, you lose your Amrita (Souls) when you die and must make your way back to your Grave (Bloodstain) to recover them, and you can see where other players online have been cut down in their own worlds. It even has a “You Died” type of screen.
There's a lot here that has been taken directly from the Souls games.
However, Nioh has enough of its own style that it stands on its own. The biggest, most obvious difference between the two is the combat. Dark Souls 3 is somewhat shallow and downright forgiving in comparison to Nioh. While Koei Tecmo's new game is limited to three different weapons (Katana, Spear, and Axe), two types of “magic” (Ninjutsu and Onmyou) , and onlly allows a quick change between two weapons and three equipped items, it has far more depth for each weapon.
Every weapon has High, Middle and Low stances that you can change to on the fly, even mid combo, each with a light and heavy combo string, as well as upgradable skills. For example, with a spear in Middle stance, players can use a sweeping barrage of light attacks, use a long range thrust attack, pull enemies off guard and step behind them, or wait for an attack to parry and cast the enemy to the ground for a visceral ground stab. There's also the option to break off from your light Middle stance combos with a Ki (Stamina) annihilating kick to the enemy's gut. That all from just one of the three stances.
All three stances have unique moves and special attributes. High stance has the most powerful attacks, and even allows players to Ki Pulse (more on this later) by ending combos with strong attacks, but it's the slowest mode and has the weakest evasive moves. Middle stance specializes in blocking, offering several options out of the guard for each weapon, and brings wide area attacks, making it great for crowd control. Finally, Low stance is about speed and evasiveness, giving players the ability to close in quickly for speed slashes, and disappear back out of range in the blink of an eye, and making your evasive maneuver do a Ki Pulse.
Ki is Nioh's equivalent to Dark Souls' Stamina, being used for attacks, defending, and evasive rolls, and it makes up the single most important difference in combat between the two. In Dark Souls, low stamina means a player can't perform a stamina based action, and if stamina is completely depleted by a blocked attack, their character goes into an open state that may leave the player open for a special attack. In Nioh, even attempting an action without enough Stamina will cause the player to become winded, unable to even move, and open for a special attack.
You may not think that's a big change just reading about it, but in practice it's a gamechanger that will leave newbies and Souls veterans alike huffing and puffing during the early parts of the game. Add that to the fact even unblocked attacks can lower your Ki, and it makes battle a lot more intense pressure-wise. In dark Souls, you only needed a tiny bit of the Stamina needed to roll in order to escape and catch your breath, while Nioh will put you in an even worse position for having tried to do something your weren't capable of doing. With the importance of Ki, and the more aggressive, stronger, and much faster enemies of Nioh, a new mechanic for recovering Ki has been implemented: The aforementioned Ki Pulse.
After Ki has been used, a corresponding chunk of the Ki bar turns red. From here, there's a cooldown period before your stamina will even begin to regenerate, represented by the red portion gradually filling with a white bar. Once the white bar completely overlaps the red, that segment of the Ki bar will disappear, and it will finally begin refilling. However, if the R1 button is used, or certain actions in High or Low stance are performed, while the white bar is present, it will instantly be turned into Ki, and immediately starts the regenerative process. Essentially, a well timed Ki Pulse can restore almost all of your expended Ki, and cuts recovery time significantly.
Watching someone with a strong sense of timing and good reaction speed makes Nioh's gameplay a thing of beauty. Aggroing a group of enemy Samurai and having a running battle is a tense experience, and something the game seems to be built around with the weird lock on mechanics. In Souls games, characters will face enemies while backing away when locked on, and the lock on is easily broken. In Nioh, players will move freely, even turning their backs to their enemies if not holding their guard while moving. This may seem awkward at first, but it facilitates faster movement without spending Ki, and let's players run around freely when dealing with groups. When the shit hits the fan, movement and positioning is extremely important.
Just look at the crazy way battles can play out:
In the first level, there was an area where an ambush lead to three enemies coming for me at once. I immediately fled to a more narrow path, then turned to greet the fastest bandit. I parried his attack and sent him running past me, switched to Spear in Low stance and fired a lightning speed combo into the guy that was behind him, ending the string in a front flip to target his back. Switched back to Katana in High stance, killed him with a heavy swing followed by Ki sword attack that staggered the third enemy and granted me a hefty Ki Pulse, which returned enough stamina to swap back to my Spear in Middle Stance and finish him off. It was then that the first guy came for me again, at which point I twirled my spear around his attack, slinging him into the ground, where I followed up with a visceral stab into his back as he tried to get up.
It was fast, it was brutal, and it was freakin' beautiful. Once a player has a firm grasp on the overwhelming number of tools at his or her disposal, Nioh raises the bar for how a Souls-like game's combat should play out.
That doesn't mean it's perfect though. The Nioh Alpha Demo had plenty of rough edges, as should be expected with an alpha demo. The durability of weapons and armor declined far too fast for my taste. It would have been nice if one of those locked off options at the shrine was a shop that allowed for the purchase of durability restoring items, adding some much needed use for gold, instead of playing the lottery with drops and sacrifices. I get that the drop rates for new armor and weapons is high, and that you can switch up your equipment to experiment, but since the drop pools are large, the augments on loot are random, and your inventory can fill quickly, it's just a big pain in the ass to deal with. Especially if you're a crappy player with poor luck, which is pretty much everyone at the start of the game.
Personally, the equipment system is the actual worst aspect of the game. I'm really holding out hope that they implement a smith and allow us to forge/upgrade our own weapons and armors because I've had enough random augment garbage in my life between Diablo 2 and the later years of FFXI, and I can't see how anyone thought it was a good idea. A game all about smart planning and controlling situations shouldn't revolve around the random number generator. Let's not implement extra, needless grind in a game that's shaping up to be the greatest thing Koei Tecmo has ever published.
This is the first time I've ever been super excited for a Koei Tecmo release. Hell, the Nioh Alpha Demo is the best thing Koei Tecmo has been involved with since Ninja Gaiden Black. I had doubts that Team Ninja could make a good Souls game when I heard Nioh referred to as a Dark Souls clone, but the combat, atmosphere, and level design have all met or exceeded my expectations. I still harbor doubts as to how the lore and storytelling will pan out, but Nioh is shaping up to be the Dark Souls successor we need now that From has moved on to new properties.
At the time of this writing, there are still 3 days left in the meaty Nioh Alpha Demo. If you enjoy Dark Souls styled games, or just love a good challenge, check it out: This game is something special. There's also a bonus “Mark of the Conqueror” DLC, that will unlock an exclusive bonus in the real game for any players that beat at least one of the two available levels.
Did you play the Nioh Alpha Demo? What did you think of it? Feel free to leave some comments below.
