Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Team Ninja

A Quick Look at the demo of Nioh 3 (Team NINJA), part four

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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.


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A Quick Look at the demo of Nioh 3 (Team NINJA), part three

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Let’s talk more about the Nioh 3 (Team NINJA) demo. Why the hell not? I’ve explored more, and I have to say a few things. Here is my post from yesterday in which I talked a lot about the demo. Good and bad things, but mostly, what annoyed the fuck out of me. I’m going to continue with that today because it’s still annoying me.

I can’t get over that the default for the item pickup is not automatic. Why are you like this, Team NINJA?! Why the fuck would someone want to have to manually pick up each item from the ground,, especially when there are so many of them, arther than just walk over them to pick them up?

Also, you can’t put two important functions on the same button. You just canot. I mean, if you’re using them in different situations like one in combat and one out of it, then it’s ok. But if they are both used in combat, then you simply cannot put them both on the same button! I don’t know how that isn’t dev design 101.

In this case, it’s RT. It’s the button you hit to switch from samuari style to ninja style (sword fighting to stealth). However, it’s also the button you press to hdo a burst-counter/counter-burst.  The burst is when an enemy/boss does a bright red flash, and if you counter the attack, you do massive damage.

Except, it’s way tooo easy to switch fighting styles as you’re trying to do the counter-burst. I did it so many times, and it was aggravating. The internet informed me that there was an option that allowed you to make it so that you only had to tap the RT to do the counter-Thburst. Which, fine, great. That differentiates between the two, but it means that you have to press the RT for longer in order to switch styles. Itas so fucking exasperating. Just put it on a different button, damn it. They use so many of the buttons that maybe they don’t have one to spare, but still. It’s really annoying.

Today, I was in a new area. I was wandering around and really loving my bow. But, I was running out of ammo, which I hate. Usually you can pick up plenty as you go, but you have to have guys who are using bows in order to get arrow drops.

I neared what I thought was probably a boss arena, and I said, “Nope.” I just was not up for doing it. I have only faced the tutorial boss, and he whipped my ass over and over again. And over again. I knew he wasn’t supposed to be that hard. I knew he was supposed to be teaching me how to play the game, but I certainly wasn’t getting it. Even though I could see what I was supposed to be doing, I could not do it in time.


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A Quick Look at the demo of Nioh 3 (Team NINJA), part two

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Let’s talk more about the Nioh 3 (Team NINJA) demo, which I hear is very generous. Before we get into it, here was my first post about the demo. Now, let’s go with part two, and I want to start out with a shoutout to Team NINJA. One thing I  have always appreciated in their games is that they have fantastic ranged weapons. Bows, Rifles, and hand canons. They are powerful, accurate, and not *too* hard to aim. Sometimes the arrows are sparse, but you can usually pick them up around the battlegrounds. Today, I had to clear a camp, and I headshot several of the enemies in it. It felt good; it felt powerful; and it felt…not like cheating because I firmly believe if it’s in the game, it’s not cheating. It felt like easy mode, though. It definitely felt like that. I didn’t feel bad about it, however, as the game is rough enough for me as it is.

I have to say, this is one area in which FromSoft is stubbornly bad. I am not a game dev, obviously, but how the fuck can their bows still be this horrible a decade and a half after they first released Demon’s Souls?! If anything, it’s gotten worse given that the bows in the first game (or at least the holy arrows) were supposedly decent. The only thing that I use the bows for in the From games is to draw one enemy awayf from the others. I do not know why they are so terrible and remain so terrible. I can only conclude that it’s because they simply don’t care about bows. I mean, they’ve had plenty of time to improve them and just haven’t.

I feel like a badass when I’m using a bow, rifle, or canon in a Nioh game. It’s a viable option in those games rather than a hindrance or a joke.

Also, now that I was reminded how the burst-counter actually worked, I managed to pull it off once. The timing is a bit more generous than in the last game, but it’s still fiddly for me. I tended to slide around the enemy more often than actually counter it. that’s because I have the habit of dodging around in a circle as I’m fighting. The best way to beat a Dark Souls boss is to circle around it and hit dat ass. So now, when I play one of these kinds of games, I tend to circle around the enemy.

Avoiding being hit is fine, but I wish I could get more burst-counters in. The trouble is that it’s two buttons–RT + B. You have to hit the RT first and then B. And, in my mind, B is only the dodge/roll button. I think there was another game that put a certain kind of block on B–it was FromSoft! In Armored Core VI Fires of Rubicon, if I remember correctly. THey had two block buttons, and B was one of them.


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A Quick Look at the demo of Nioh 3 (Team NINJA)

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Let’s talk about the Nioh 3 (Team NINJA) demo. I installed it and gave it a try. I didn’t actually spend that much time in the custom creator because it wasn’t as vast as the ones in the past. And, to be honest, I went  into it thinking that I would never buy it, so why bother? I chose Body B with long hair and a big chest, and that was good enough for me. But before I get into it, here was the post I wrote yesterday about the Niohs and my complicated feelings about them.

The tutorial was much like the other games. Choose a weapon and practice with it. Then, go through a light tutorial that covers about one-hundredth of what you’ll need to know by the end of the game. I chose my old favorite, the odachi, and kept it moving.

Still in the tutorial area, I came across a scene in which I met Hattori Hanzo–by the way, why the fuck is he so insanely hot in this game? Anyway, he tells you of another way–the way of the ninja. So now I had to choose a second weapon that was more tricksy than strength. I tried them out and finally chose the double hatchets. They’re new to this game (I think?), and I’m an axe person since I first started as a pyromancer in the original Dark Souls.

There was ninja stuff in the other games, but this is the first time they had it in a completely separate style (if I’m not mistaken). You have to hit RT while you’re in combat to switch to that style.

In the samurai style (first style), they still have the ki pulse which I just cannot get the hang of. After you attack (light hit X, heavy hit Y), you press RB to get a huge chunk of your ki (stamina) back. This has been in all of their Niohs, and I still cannot do it consistently.

Another important part of combat is the burst that the enemiy/boss does. It’s a big burst of red and very visible. Except, I just don’t have the ability to react to it in time. Well, what I seemed to have forgotten about in this demo is that you have to do RT and then B in order to counter it. After doing it properly the first time (and getting the counter), I promptly forgot that you had to hit B with the RT. Which, as you can probably guess, makes a ton of difference.

I did not realize this until I was talking to Ian (he’s playing Nioh 2 right now), and he mentioned it was RT+B, and I was like, “Wait, what? B? Huh?” Well, that would make a huge difference. Since this was after I finished playing the game for the day, I don’t know if it’ll make a big difference or not. Meaning, if I can get the timing or not. I did hit the first one with ease, and it seemed like it had a more generous timing. Will I play more of the  demo to find out if it’s true?

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Steam demos: do I dare?

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I’m back to talk about the Steam Next Fest, but not really. It’s the last day, and while I just took a quick look, the pictures aren’t loading. This happens once in a long while, and I’ve taken it as a sign just to give up on this Steam Next Fest. Instead.

Let’s talk about Nioh (Team NINJA) instead. Why? For a few reasons. One, Ian is playing the second game and having a blast. He’s way into it and saying it’s so much better than the first game. I only played the first area and a bit of the second game before life and my medical crisis got in the way.

Let me dial it back a bit.

I have had Nioh envy for so long ever since the first game. It has been touted as the best (for its time) soulslike. We can debate whether it’s a soulslike or not, and I see both sides to that argument. Personally, I think they are soulslikes because of things like difficulty; combat that is heavy, deliberate, and elaborate; hard bosses; level design that is trying to be like Souls; and just the general atmosphere. On the not-soulslike side is: shit-ton of loot drop. In fact, I would say that this is one of the biggest strikes against every Team Ninja game is the ridiculous amonunt of loot that drops in the game. I’ve played several of them, and at some point, I just resign myself to not picking up anything that isn’t….I want to say purple is their highest color. Then there are so many different drops that have micro changes, such as ‘this polearm gives you +1% increase on freeze, but -2% on heat. Shit like that.

When I say they drop a ridiculous amount of loot, I mean a truly ridiculous amount. We’re talking dozens of items every three steps (or so it felt like). I honestly stopped even looking at loot some of the time because it was overwhelming. And then, annoying. And then, it made me actively angry. I’m sure they’ve heard the complaints a million times, and they are apparently never going to change that.

I have played several of Team Ninja’s games, but none to completion. I played about a third of the first Nioh; the first area (plus sub-missions) of the sequel; almost half? (or so I’m told) of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, and about an hour of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

The reason I stopped playing each of this game was because I just could not with the bullshit any longer. I could give a longer, more eloquent answer (and I will), but it boiled down to me just being tired of the bullshit.

First of all, I have said this several times. I don’t like From games because of the difficulty. I suffer through that in order to experience the worlds that Miyazaki creates. I would love to play a game of his that has no combat, but is just exploring the world around you. Seriously. WhenI played Shadow of the Erdtree, the DLC for Elden Ring, I pretty much ignored the main story (which I often did with From games) and just wandered around the world.

Side note: Never trust Miyazaki when he estimates how long a From game will take. Or rather, when he gives a number for how long a game will take. Him or his representative. For the base game, they said it would take roughly thirty hours to get through the story. Sure, if you ignored everything else AND knew what you were doing, you MIGHT be able to get through the main story in thirty hours. In fact, when I was platting the game, I did my third run in twelve hours, and someone in the Discord I’m in did it in roughly two. But, again, both of us knew what we were doing. There’s no way I could have done that on e my first or second run.


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Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, my final review, part three

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I have more to say about Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA), soulslikes in general, and my thoughts about From games in general. We’ll see how much of that I actually get to. I’m guessing probably the first. Then me winding down several other paths before abruptly ending the post. because that’s how I roll! Here is my prior post on this subject and on my review of the game.

Part of my problem is that I keep thinking I should like Team NINJA games. It’s well-known that the Niohs are considered two of the best soulslikes–at least until Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ), and I have tried and tried and tried to like them. As I have mentioned, I’ve played several Team NINJA games and have not been able to finish a single one. The Niohs are too hard for me, and I just lost all interence in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty after a particularly shitty level.

When I’m playing a From game, there are times when I’m frustrated. I have many bad moments against bosses. I curse constantly, and sometimes, I put the controller down and walk away. I’m really bad at the games and sometimes, I wish I did not like them. It’s not fun to be into games that are not into me (which is pretty much the story of my life, really), and I’m not always happy that I played Dark Souls all those many years ago.

Ian and I have argued about this back and forth for many years. He thinks From games are aimed at people like me. The mere peonz who struggle with every boss, but eventually overcome. I argue that it’s for the superfans who can parry every enemy to death without breaking a sweat.

It’s similar to the argument we have over what is Miyazaki’s aim with the games. Or rather, the argument people in community have over Miyazaki’s intent with the games (Ian and I agree on this). Some fans believe that Miyazaki loves the players and want to break them in order to make them better. Others believe that Miyazaki hates the players and just want to thoroughly crush their spirits. I don’t think either of these are right. I believe that Miyazaki does not care about the players. He’s interested in creating these horrific and heartbreaking worlds, as intricate and elaborate as possible. Whether the players fit into those worlds are not off any interest to him. We are incidental, which is an interesting feeling in these kinds of games. Usually, action adventure games are very heavy on you being the protag and eventually ruling the  world/being the hero/saving the world.


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Stranger in Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin my (maybe) final review, part two

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I have to say that I am still struggling with this game. This game being Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA). I had said in my previous post  that I had unlocked Red Mage and wanted to try it out–along with going to the smithy to dismantle the items I didn’t want. I did the former first and got rid of several of my weapons. An important thing to know is that if you want to do a certain job, you need to have a weapon that can be used for that job. This makes sense, obviously.

I mention this because while I had unlocked Red Mage, I could not click on it as my job. I was very confused and took a closer look at the description. I did not realize that for hybrid jobs, you have to work your way down TWO job trees–not just one.

*SPOILERS*

In this case, it was the swordfighter. I think? There’s a swordfighter and a swordsman. I just Googled it. Yep, there are the two. I didn’t bother to level up swordfighter beacuse that’s what Neon is. She’s the first main boss who becomes a member of your party. The swordsfighter is sword and board wherceas the swordsman two-hands a greatsword.

I decided to do side missions and level up swordfighter as quickly as possible. Except, see, I had sold off all the broadswords except the one Neon uses. Therefore, I could not do the job. I quickly looked at the old missions and found out that one of the side missions gives you a broadsword as a reward. So I ran that side mission and got the broadsword in order to level up that job class until I reached Red Mage. That took a few hours of doing one side mission over and over again, and I was finally able to unlock Red Mage. Much to my dismay, the spells for Red Mage were Fire, Blizzard, and Thunder from Black Mage and Regen, Shell, Protect, and Haste from White Mage. The three from BLack Mage were ifne, though I would have preferred Flare to Fire., but the ones for White Mage…I would much prefer Cure to Regen and Raise to Haste. Or even Dia instead of either Shell or Protect. Though, come to think of it, both Shell and Protect (increase defense for magic and physical, respectively) are fine.

I was pretty disappointed to find out those were the spells. And I have yet to be able to actually cast them because I don’t have enough mana. No idea why. I have unlocked Monk, which means I can unlock Dragoon. Wait. No. Is that the right path? Not sure, but I can unlock Dragoon if I want.


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Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin–my (maybe) final review

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I’ve reached the third real area of Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin (Team NINJA). I am suddenly fed up with it after doing the first chunk of it, and I think I’m done. I have talked in previous posts as to my frustrations with Team NINJA games, and this has the same issues writ large. Here’s my last post about my issues with soulslikes in general, of which this game is one.

A few positives. The bosses and NPCs are campy as fuck. I love that nothing is taken seriously (or taken too seriously), which makes the story ludicrous. It’s a juicy telenovella, which is right up my alley. I mean, it’s one of the reasons I like musicals. Lavish extravaganzas with flashy showtunes. The latter is not found in this game, but the former most definitely is.

I also like that there are plenty of jobs (basically classes) that you can switch fairly easily at the bonfires. Look . That’s what they are. No, they aren’t called them in this game, but that’s what they are. Orb something or the other? No. They are called cubes, apparently.

By the way, the demo video I have included below from GameSpot informs me that the Jobs thing has been in past Final Fantasy games, too, so it’s not something that Team NINJA came up with. Oh, and something that irritated me…let me put it this way. There is a White Mage, a Black Mage, and a Red Mage (three different mage jobs). I have unlocked White Mage and Black Mage, but not the Red Mage yet. White Mage is a healing mage and Black Mage is a damage mage. I like being a healer, but it’s not necessary when I’m playing by myself. So I’ve been mostly playing Black Mage, but I’ve been wishing that I could have some of the White Mage healing abilities.

Can I reiterate how frustrating it is that they don’t explain what spells each mage can cast. Plus, some of the spells are made up words/in a different language. I could discern what some of them were by their proximity to English words, but not all of them. I found out from the video below that Red Mage combines different spells from the White Mage and the Red Mage, so I have to try to unlock that–which means doing regular mage I think until I get the points needed to unlock Red Mage.

Or maybe not.

As I said, I’m pretty done with the game.


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Stranger of Paradise; Final Fantasy Origin–A Quick Look, part four

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Alright. It’s a bit disingenuous to keep calling this a quick look since I’m on post four, but I’m going to stubbornly sticking to that because I can. It’s also amusing because I have played an hour or so of the game (maybe two), which is not very much playing time in comparison to how much I’ve written about it. The reason why, though, is because it’s more about the developer and my feelings about them rather than this game itself. Here’s post three in which I outlaid some of my frustrations with this dev. I’ll be continuing down that path and maybe get back to this game in particular.

The combat is just too much for me. Not only are their hordes rushing me at all times, but there are several different systems that you have to interact with at any given time. In addition, my reflexes are shit, and there are three deflects in this game. Different deflects, I mean. LB for the basic deflect. B for the soul deflect (I think?) and RT for another kind of deflect that blocks the next hit. Or something? I’m not sure at all. Oh, and the buttons do different things in different situations so the RT thing is only with…a certain kind of weapon? A certain job? I don’t remember. Way too much shit thrown at me.

That’s my gripe with their games in general. There is just way too much of everything. In Wo Long, I liked the system of being able to up your level (basically) in each area by finding certain, ah, things. Look, I don’t remember what they are, ok??? That made enemies easier by raising your level. For the area, not your overall level. That was cool, but finding the flags/statutes/I think they’re flags became tedious because they were put in weird places. I mean, most of them were on the natural path, but there were a few each area that you really need to search for. And  I really needed them for the bosses, I’ll tell you what. The bosses were a fucking pain. Which is common in their games.

For me, they were harder in an artificial way than From bosses. I mean, there are times when From buys their own shit and makes a boss harder than it needs to be, but nothing like the bosses in Team Ninja games. I know it’s me. I know it’s because I can’t fully absorb their systems. I have tried since the first Nioh and have never gotten there. I did the best with Wo Long, which is easier than the Niohs, but  I got so frustrated with the shitty level design.


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Stranger of Paradise; Final Fantasy Origin–A Quick Look, part three

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We’re up to post three of my ‘quick look’ at Stranger of Paradise; Final Fantasy Origin (Team Ninja). Which, by the way, I always want to write as Strangers of Paradise because it’s about a team of people, not one person, but maybe that’s not the meaning of the name.

In the last post, I touched on the combat and how I didn’t like that you had to finish a mission or you had to restart it when you went back to it. This is not just this game, by the way–and, come to think of it, I’m not sure it is in this one. I mean, it was in the tutorial, but I have not quit out of a mission yet. I assume it’ll be that way in this game because everything else is pretty much mappable one-on-one to the past games. This is not shade because other devs do something similar. I mean, From has iterated on Demon’s Souls for six games, adding new things to each. Some of those additives were significant; some were trivial. You could argue that Sekiro was not in the same family, but it was at least a cousin.

If you were playing a From game, you knew to expect brutal combat, hordes of enemies, jumpscares that are totally not fair, shitty platforming, and exquisite level design. You would also expect hard and elaborate bosses–

By the way. I have a bone to pick with FromSoft that is applicable to this game as well. Or rather, it’s FromSoft’s fault that one of my biggest irritations in the genre has exploded. No, it’s not the deflect (though that is an issue. I do not need three ways to deflect, thankyewverymuch); it’s the fucking multi-phase boss fights. I swear I wrote about this in one of the past two posts, but I can’t find it. Anyway, it’s the fact that every boss has at least two phases now, if not more. It used to be a two-phase boss (actual two phases, not just changing form mid-bar) was fairly rare. Not any longer.

I remember playing Lies of P (Round8 Studio/NEOWIZ) demo in which there were three bosses. All of them were one-bar bosses; each had two different phases. The third boss was ridiculous for it, by the way. The second phase, I mean. I swear they nerfed it for the actual game because it took me maybe twenty tries in the demo and only two in the real game. The second boss was more a mini-boss, really. Anyway, in the game proper, it became obvious that after the demo, all the bosses were going to have two discrete boss bars. Somehow, I sailed through the third (real) boss which gave lots of people trouble, and then it was pure hell from then on.


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