I’m back to talk more about the Nioh 3 (Team NINJA) demo because I can. And because I went into the area I mentioned in yesterday’s post–the one I was sure was a boss arena. I’ll get to that in a bit.
I was hesitant to jump back into the demo. I talked about it a bit in the last post, but I’m already overwhelmed by everything combat-wise. Let me briefly mention those things. On the samurai style side, it’s the fucking ki pulse. This has been a staple of the Niohs since the first game, and I have fucked it up every time. After you attack (X for light and Y for heavy), you hit RB to regain your ki (energy/stamina/blue bar). I can’t do it; I just cannot. I get it right maybe one out of every five tries–which is my usual rate when it comes to parrying as well. Anything rhythm/reflex based is just not good for me.
One thing that I like about the series is that you level up a weapon by using it through familiarity. Right now, I’m trying out different samurai weapons to see which class I like. I don’t like the hammer class because it’s waaaaaay too slow and heavy, but I do like spinning around in circles. I have not found an axe yet, which is usually my main. I like the odachi class quite a bit.
However. I much prefer the ninja style. Like vastly prefer. Like, I have to force myself to use the samurai style because I just don’t like it. It feels clumsy and artificially difficult to me.
I like the ninja style, especially because it comes with an array of ninjutsu. Those are the magicks in the game, which is my jam. I could never really make the magicks work for me, though. I mean, it was useful to have healing tickets, purifying tickets, defensive tickets, and more, but the offensive magicks just never felt that good. I’m fully aware that it might be a me problem, but I played a third of the first game; I should have had gotten some powerful maigcks.
Although, it’s quite possible I could have unlocked something powerful and just missed it. See, that’s another thing about the Niohs; the trees are just too massive. And there are so many of them. Each weapon class has its own skills, for example. Plus the basic skills you can get. I have exclamation points for all the weapon classes because I get tired at the thought of clicking through each one.
Side note: One of my evergreen complaints about the Niohs is just how much junk there is in the games. The loot drop is ridiculous and honestly, quite demotivating. At least I figured out you could flip on the option of automatically picking up the loot.
*Fights back a rant and loses*
Why the FUCK is this not the default? I’m pretty sure I said that verbatim in a past post, but in the year of our sorrow, 2026, there is no fucking reason to make you pick up loot. I feel like it’s a nostalgic tip of the hat to their earlier games, but just move on.
In Demon’s Souls (FromSoft), their level up system for their weapons was so byzantine and obtuse. I never played the game, but watching others play it, it was clear that you practically had to have a PhD to understand it.
The thing is that they changed it for the next game, and then changed it again for the next. And then the next. And keep on going. In the current game, Elden Ring, it’s much cleaner and clearer, but still unnecessarily obtuse. For whatever reason, they love to name the material with a number in parenthesis that doesn’t really help. In this game, the material for upgrading your weapons are called smithing stones. I’ll try to do it from memory for both the common weapons and the boss/unique weapons.
For the former (smithing stones), Smithing Stone (1) upgrades a regular weapon to +3, but it takes different amounts. I want to say 2, 4, 6, but do not quote me on that. You can go up to +24 with the regular stones and then you need the Ancient….Dragon Stone? I’m pretty sure that’s not the name, but it’s a special upgrade material that takes the weapon to its ultimate–+25.
On the special weapon side, it’s simpler. It’s one stone per upgrade. So, it’s just 1 – 10 (with 10 being the special different one). You can find the upgrades in the game, but in the beginning you have to be careful about what you upgrade.
Along the way, you can get bell bearings so you can have infinite upgrades. In my first game, I got all the bell bearings possible, so I could fully upgrade any weapon I wanted at any time.
The stone to upgrade a regular weapon to full is called the Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone, so I wasn’t far from wrong. The stones for the special weapons are Somber Smithing Stones, and the final upgrade is NOT as I originally thought (in accordance to the regular upgrade) the Ancient Dragon Somber Smithing Stone. It’s the Somber Ancient Dragon Smithing Stone. Why you like this, FromSoft?!
Back to this game. I am so exhausted already with the loot drop. Usually, loot makes you feel good. “What did I get?” And you can’t wait to find out. In From games (yes, that is my touchpoint), the drops are…not rare, but they aren’t plentiful, either.
In Team NINJA games, it’s just so much loot. So. Much. Loot. You can get five or six itmes for one kill. Even before going into the game, I was tired. I knew there would so much loot that it would kill my soul. I know that’s not a good sign–when I’m tired before I even go into the game. And, I realize that it’s on me. What I mean is that I went in with a bad attitude, which is my issue. I really tried to put it behind me, but I could not. I went in with a chip on my shoulder, and I felt myself resenting the game.
Side note: I don’t know if I would have felt differently if this was the first Nioh I had played. As I said, it’s supposed to be the mainstream-friendly version of the game (plus many call it the best of the Niohs. In fact, one reviewer said it surpassed Elden Ring as his favorite game).
I don’t feel that. The issues I’ve had with the previous games are still there for me. I will say that I found a Scampuss today, and I love them. They are probably my favorite part of the game. But, they don’t really do anything. Or rather, they give you items, but as I have already noted, I don’t want more and more loot.
Oh, about that part I thought would be a boss arena–it wasn’t. It was a yokai-filled area that I had to clean and clear to…get some kind of perk. Oh, and there’s an added status effect that drains your health little by little. My dudes. You do not need to follow everything that FromSoft does. They added that to Elden Ring as well. It’s not a status, but it will take chunks of your health away permanently until–something or the other. I’m not sure because I did not care to learn. Elden Ring used it very sparingly. In this game, it seems to be something that will be an actual thing.
I don’t need something that will take away my health permanently. It feels as if Team NINJA have yet again thrown everything and the kitchen sink into the mix. I did not even really got to the ‘boss arena’ because there were so many other things tearing my attention away. I’ll give it one last post tomorrow.
Nioh is only a souls like in terms of it being punishing. The game plays better if you play it like Ninja Gaiden with a stamina bar (More so Nioh 2 and 3, i couldn’t stick with the first game due to the level of jank that was the abysmal PC port), anyway combat really didn’t click for me until someone told me that. Then I started punishing the game back. Also you can separate the burst counter and style switch buttons or you can bind one of them to a different button/key of your choice or the default option for separating then which I think makes it RT + Y for switching and RT + B for counter.
I think the games want to be like Souls games in several ways (level design, difficult bosses, respawning enemies when sitting at bonfires/shrines, etc.), but I see many ways in which they are different as well.
I’ve never played a Ninja Gaiden, and there’s still the issue of I simply cannot land the counter-burst consistently. I think the demo of the third game is better than the first two games, but I still have the same issues with the game that I did with the first two games (which is mostly about me not being a good fit for the game).
Also auto loot has options for only picking up specific tiers, and believe has options to automatically give offerings at shrines making the loot management a breeze. If upgrading weapons works the same as Nioh 1 and 2, its not even worth upgrading them until end game. (I have only played about 2 hours of the Nioh 3 demo, decided I liked it enough and started playing 2, because the first game is trash on pc)