Nightreign (FromSoft) dropped at 5:00 p.m. my time on PC. It dropped six hours later for consoles. No idea why, but I’ll take the early release. I went in and did the tutorial. I’m glad I played a bit of Elden Ring the last few days to get me back on track before Nightreign. It stays in my body, though, and it doesn’t take long to get back in the groove.
The tutorial was pretty basic, and I knew most of it from the people I’ve watched play. And because much of it was based on Elden Ring, it felt familiar. There were a few things that were added as quality of life (QOL) additions. One was a super-sprint (press in the left stick, I think) that makes you run as fast as Torrent. I immediately forgot that after I was told and did not employ it for the first three or four games I played. Once I remembered, it really made a huge difference.
Another is that the Sites of Grace only level you up. That’s it. There are merchants who sell you shit, and you can upgrade your weapons at a smithing anvil. The latter two are in churches, and it’s imperative that you find them.
There are also field bosses who give you a choice of three rewards if you beat them. You get to choose one of the three. That’s great in theory, but I really wish they would make it so that the rewards were more class-specific. Yes, you can drop things for your teammates, but it’s pretty disappointing to beat a field boss and then get three crap options.
Another thing is that the dropped loot is shared. I’m used to automatically grabbing everything on the ground, but I have to be more prudent when it comes to loot. Also, there are only a certain amount of spaces in your inventory, and they fill up quickly. So you might as well use all the consumables you got along the way. That’s what I learned after three or four runs.
By the way, Nightreign has mixed reviews on Steam. I t hought it was going to be performance-based as FormSoft PC ports are often shitty at launch, but at least on the first page, it was because people were mad there was no duo play. I read more pages, and it was still mostly that. And no voice chat. And look. I agree that both these things should be in the game, but it’s not as if it wasn’t known from the start. FromSoft made it very clear that it wsa going to be solo and three-person co-op. I don’t know why so many people are surprised you can’t play with two people. Let me be clear. I don’t understand why you can’t, either, but I knew it was not an option.
The lack of voice chat is the bigger issue. It’s hard without it because if you’re not playing with friends, everyone runs off and does their own thing. I try to mitigate that by following someone because I knew almost nothing before going into the tutorial. I mean, I had watch a bit of others playing, but not that much. And it was obvious the people I played with, for the most part, had a very clear agenda of what to do.
This was both good and bad. Mostly good, but bad in that if the other two players weren’t unified in their agendas, then it split the attention too much. I could tell fairly early on that you had to know what you were doing and hit all the major beats in the two days leading up to the last day. In one match, one person was trying to do the field bosses, which was an admirable goal, but not easy to do on one’s own. I tried to help them, but the field boss one-shot us both. That meant we each lost a level and our souls upon awakening the next day. Oh, you can go run and get your souls, but there really is not time to do that.
This is one of my biggest issues with the game. There isn’t a moment to breathe as you have to be running all the time. Always. Be. Running. In my f irst few matches, I tried to kill all the enemies I ran across (as you do in FromSoft games), but I quickly learned that it was folly and a waste of resources. Yes, you got runes from doing it, but that wasn’t worth it. I helped out if the others wanted to fight, btu I was not about to take on enemies on my own.
Hitboxes are weird, too. I like the idea of hitting your teammate to revive them–in theory. In reality, it’s not always easy to hit them. I will say that it’s easier with magicks, but even then, it’s weird. Same with hitting enemies. There were times when I was locked on the enemy and my magic missed them completely. And there were times when I was missed completely. I wasn’t complaining about that, but it did make me figuratively scratch my head.
I also feel like I wasn’t geared up properly as I went along because I did not have time to check out my equipment. I had to keep up with the others, and that was not very easy especially given the verticality of the game. You can wall-jump now, but it doesn’t work great. Sometimes, you effortlessly sclae the wall, and sometimes, you continuously hop in the same place.
A big issue is with the ring of fire. First of all, it’s the same color as the spirit springs (where you can jump super high). I avoided the latter because I thought it was the former–until I saw my teammates jumping into the latter and shooting straight up. That’s so strange, and I really don’t understand why they don’t make them a different color.
Oh, and I knew that at the end of each night, a night boss would spring up, but I could not tell how to know when it was the end of the day. They sprung up in the ring of fire, which closes way too fast and does way too much damage. If you get touched by it at all, you’re dead. And it seems like it starts closing in really fucking quickly.
People have suggested different ways of doing it–such as the first thirty seconds you’re touched by it, it does minimal damage. Then, increase the amount of damage every thirty seconds. That makes sense to me.
If you’re a newb and are playing with other random newbs, you are probably not going to have a good time. You need someone who can take the lead and map out where you’re going to go. As I said, you want to hit the Sites of Grace, the churches, and maybe the castle or a catacomb to get loot. Then, the end of the night boss, and rinse, lather, repeat.
On the third day/night, you go to the gate to meet the Night Lord. The first one is the same for everyone. It’s the one that was in the demo. You have to kill this Night Lord to unlock the other Night Lords. Well, to unlock six otther Night Lords, and I think you can do them in any order. Since there are eight Night Lords in total, I assume you have to kill the other six in order to unlock the last.
And once you beat the first Night Lord, you unlock the seventh character. I won’t spoil how that happens or who it is, but I thought that was an interesting way to do it. There is one other character (the one I’m most interested in), and I don’t know how to unlock said character. I’m pretty grumpy you have to do it at all, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
I will say that the last run I did, probably my fifth or sixth, I had two absolute beasts of teammates. They were superstars! They stuck together for the most part, and I tried to keep up with them. They were so nice that they would set a ping for me if I got lost. And they would wait for me as well. They made sure I got some loot, and I really appreciate that. I think it might have been one of them more than the other, but they stuck together most of the time so if I followed one, I was following both.
This was when it was good that they had a clear agenda, and they were united in said agenda. I was able to level up several times, which I hadn’t been able to do in prior runs. I had a few good consumables, but nothing to boost my magicks, unfortunately. I did pick up other wands with different spells.
We went into the third night, and my goal was to not be a liabliity. That was it. I had seen the Night Lord in the demo, but obviously, I had never seen it up close before. It was so intimidating, and I did my best to contribute. One of my teammates went down, and I was able to magic them back up. We were doing steady damage on the boss, but it seemed like it had oodles of health. I went down once and since I had died once before, I had two bars that had to be cleared before I could get up. I was far away from my teammates, but one raced over to get me up. It was the one who had been helping me all along, and I was so grateful for them.
We kept chipping away, and I watched incredulously as we seemed to actually be doing it. And I was able to contribute, which made me happy. We got it down to a sliver, and the other two were so close to dying. I was as well, and I had to make a decision because the boss was a hit or two away from dying–and I was the only ranged player. i hit the boss with two more spells, and they died! I had killed the first boss the first time I saw it! I was elated, and I was so appreciative of my two teammates. They carried me throughout the whole run, and they showed me what was needed to win.
It was truly a special run, and I felt great at the end. But also exhausted. That was my last run of the night. There is a lot to appreciate about this game, but for me, I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with it to the credits. I have yet to play with non-randos, which should be a better experience.