Underneath my yellow skin

Tag Archives: Nioh 2

Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty–a quick look

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I’ve been hyped for Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, a China-based Nioh by Team Ninja ever since I saw the first trailer/article for it. Ian has been playing it ahead of time and giving me his general impressions of it. I saw videos of the demo and was cautiously hyped. It looks very Team Ninja, both good and bad. If I never see another burning village again, it would be too soon, but the tutorial of the  game is, of course, set in a burning village.

I love the character customization, but I always end up doing the same thing. I spend tons of time in the hair, a bit less time in the eyes, and then I do the minimum with the rest of the face. I did like that your gender choices were male, female, and other. Apparently, if you choose other, you get they/them and ‘the protagonist’ in the dialogues.

I always want to make the character look like me. It’s usually not possible because I can’t make them as fat as I want or the hair as long as I want. }I have to chuckle that hair physics still suck, but I’ve accepted that I cannot make the hair past mid-back. The exception was Code Vein (Bandai Namco Bandai) which was problematic for other reasons.

I lose interest in the content creation when I could not tell the difference between the different settings for, say, chin width. But my character looks dope and sounds dope, too. That’s all I really care about.

I will say that if you’re playing K/M, apparently, it’s hot trash. I don’t know why you would want to play these kinds of games with K/M, but fair warning. It’s one reason it’s been bomb-reviewed on Steam. Apparently, some people are having performance issues, too, but I am not. Then again, I have a really beefy desktop PC so take that with a grain of salt.

ANYWAY.

Once I jumped into the tutorial, it felt very familiar. It’s basic Ninja Theory as far as movements. I have to say, though, that the buttons are messed up. Here’s the thing. I’m so used to FromSoft buttons. RB and RT for attacks. A for interact. Y for two-handing. This is pre-Elden Ring. A is jump in Elden Ring. Wo Long, on the other hand, follows the Nioh buttons. Which, by the way, default to PlayStation buttons, even on Game Pass. You can switch so they show up in XBox, but come on.

In Team Ninja land, light attack is X. Heavy attack is Y. Dodge is B (like Souls. well, double-tap on B), but LS+B is deflect. Which, in Nioh, it’s RT-B for deflect. Or whatever it’s called in this game. It’s like the Sekiro deflect, but apparently more generous. I can’t speak to that because the tutorial was so shitty, I was confused as to how to do the deflect. And I knew how to do it because Ian had told me ahead of time! But the tutorial was so awful, I just forgot everything I knew.


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Nioh 2 is growing on me?

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I realized yesterday that leaving a mission in Nioh 2 (Team Ninja) is not as dire as I’ve always thought it was. I mean, the penalty is steep, yes, but not as bad as I had outlined in the last post. Yes, you have to go back to the beginning of the mission and yes you have to do the whole thing again. And, sure, you lose whatever souls you have (what is it called in this game? Amitra, I think), and, yes, it’s frustrating as heck. But! you don’t lose the stuff you collect, and you can do waht I did on the last sub-mission I was re-exploring. I reached enoughm to level up, did that, and then left the sub-mission.

Side note: It’s funny to watch people play these kinds of games. Everyone calls the things you accumulate souls, even though that is obviously not what it’s called in the Niohs. I will say that I don’t call the shrines bonfires because they are visually different. In Elden Ring, though, I sometimes call the sites of graces bonfires and the runes are absolutely souls more often than I care to admit.

I will say that in all the games I’ve played, I have not been a sword aficionado, which is sad to me since I love them so much in real life. I lean towards axes, probably in part because the Pyro starts with a Hand Axe in Dark Souls. I found a Battle Axe early on (after killing an enemy who had one, if I remember correctly) and mained it for the rest of the game.

Later, I did learn to enjoy the Zwei, but that is not like any sword I use in real life. That myght be part of it–none of the swords in the games I play are like the swords I use in real life. In general, though, I didn’t care for swords–which made me sad.

Then, I got a pair of dual corrupted swords in Nioh 2. Corrupted weapons/demon weapons are sentient with demon souls. I still don’t know if they are better for human or for yokai, but they’re loads of fun to use. The more you use them, the more sentient they become. By the way, I love that you get more skill points in the weapon you’re using the more experience you have with it.

The dual swords are fast and quick. They are called Weathered Fang & Bleached Twig, and mine are blue, which is second from the top in terms of rarest. It’s purple, blue, green, yellow, and white. I can do four or five fast hits without running out of ki. I am in love with them, and I’m happy that I have finally found swords that I like in a game. It might be because they are dual, which is my jam. Double sabers, i mean. My favorite form of all.

I’ve been doing past sub-missions just to get a hang of my new weapons. I tend to stick to one weapon (original game) or two (this game), and I know there is such a wide array of weapons in this game. It’s funny because I’m doing a sub-mission that is level 20, so not that far behind where I am now. It was a recent sub-mission I have done, and I’m moving through it much more easily this time. i want to try my new guardian spirit, which is the snake. It’s considered a feral guardian spirit, which is interesting.


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Swallowing my pride and moving on in Nioh 2

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So, as a FromSoft fan, I played all the Dark Souls and Bloodborne with the mentaliy that I had to solo the bosses, otherwise, I’m not hard–and I’m not a real gamer. I did summon a few times, but only as a last straw. Then, I went back and beat all the bosses solo. Except for three bosses in the BB DLC and the gank runs in the DS II DLCs.

When I started Nioh the original, I had the same mentality. No summoning. It’s a crutch that only fake gamers needed. Except. Here’s the thing. I quit the game a third of the way through because I hit a boss that I found too grueling. I fought her for hours and then switched my weapons. I proceeded to beat her in thirty seconds, quit the game, and did not go back except for a brief moment.

I know you’re saying, “Minna, you beat the boss. You’re not making the point you think you’re making. But it’s part of the point. If I hadn’t spent hours against the boss, I would not have felt as infuriated that merely switching weapons did the job. I will say that my one big dislike of both games is that once you start a mission, you can’t quit out of it without losing all your XP, amitra, money, and any progress you made in the mission. So, you can’t dip out and go to an earlier mission to grind, which bugs me.

Anyway, Nioh 2 by Team Ninja was the game I was playing when I ended up in the hospital. The last message I sent to Ian was about the forge boss we had both just beaten. The second main story boss. It had been really difficult for me because I poured all my points into Omnyo Magicks, but you can’t actually use them until late into the second main mission. So, yes, I had some magicks available by the time I reached the boss, but not much. And I had no health or stamina.

I had heard that Omnyo Magicks were very powerful in this game, but then later found out that meant midway through the game. Of course. Which meant that I was highly under-tuned for the first two story mission and three or four sub-missions. Actually, I’m still underleveled now. My general marker for what level I should be is the suggested level +5 or +10, but that’s not easy to do in this game. I’m level 30, and the next batch of missions are suggested 35 or so.

I beat the forge boss the day before I ended up in the hospital. Or at least, that was when I messaged Ian about it. I died to that boss 100 times. Nioh 2 keeps track of your deaths. Ugh. I do not need that on my permanent record, thank you very much.


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A new gaming me (or not)

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Before the hospital, I was into three different kinds of games: soulslikes, roguelike-lites, and cozy games. I was playing Cozy Grove by Spry Fox (cozy game, of course. It’s right there in the name), Dorfromantik by Toukana Interactive, which loosely fits into the cozy games category as well, and (sigh) Nioh 2 by Team Ninja, which can be crammed into the soulslike category if you use a shoehorn, elbow grease, and squint real hard. I had just watched the trailer for Elden Ring (FromSoft) before going into the hospital and was stoked about that. The release date has been pushed back a month, but I’m fine with that. I would rather they release it fully playable at a later date than release it on time and it’s riddled with bugs.  I had just beaten the first boss in Nioh 2 and was messaging with Ian about the second main mission the day before I collapsed. Apparently, I had done the sub-mission and didn’t remember it. That is neither here nor there, though.

After I left the hospital, my thinking about video games changed drastically–along with many other things. Before the hospital (BH), I had this grand plan for Elden Ring. It’s their first open world game and one you can play completely with other people. I was going to have two characters–one with whom I would play the game solo as I played all FromSoft games. Soloing all the bosses and exploring the environments. With my second character, I was going to play with other people (mostly Ian) to see what that was all about.


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Her name is Nioh(2) and she dances in Japan

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side view of protag with monkey friend.
This is my monkey fren who is also a guardian spirit….Look, it’s complicated!

Yes, I have used this title before, but I changed His to Her and added a 2, so it’s completely different, right????? Besides, if I’m plagiarizing, I’m plagiarizing myself, so whatever. And the reason it’s her instead of him is because there’s character creation/customization in the sequel! That was the first hour and a half in the game, which was actually short for me. I was delighted to be able to make my character older and as thick as possible, which wasn’t that thick, but I did make her cut. I put her hair up in a ponytail that is as long as possible. The hair is straight and thin like mine, and I put white/blue streaks in it. I actually didn’t spend that much time on her face because all I really care about is that they look Asian–which is not a problem here. Oh, and making her not look like she’s ten years old. I put scars on her face and tatted her up–and I was so fucking happy with her. My trademark dark red lipstick as well (what I used to wear in real life. Diva by MAC). William who? Samurai Geralt was boring as fuck and while you can play as him, why the fuck would you want to do that when you can be like the picture above?????

One incredible–oh, I should say I’ve been playing the game Nioh 2 by Team Ninja. Before I dive into it, I have to mention that September 1st was the roll over to autumn in Cozy Grove by Spry Fox and I love the warm autumn color palate. I noticed it immediately as I spawned onto my island with all the browns and reds. More importantly, I got a badge for playing in three seasons and even more importantly, new stuff! New flowers, trees, bushes, insects, and fishies. I spent a good few hours just wandering around and finishing off certain badges for the first time in weeks. I had my character dressed in fleece and a cozy cap, and it was just really lovely.

The second game I’m playing is Spiritfarer by Thunder Lotus Games. It was one of my GOTY last year (along with Hades by Supergiant Games, of course) and they added their second update. It’s the Beverly update with Beverly being your old neighbor and an owl. The last update was the Lily update with Lily being your sister. That was interesting because it added backstory that was alluded to in the game, but never explicitly stated. It was small and not much to do other than go from place to place and do the bad platforming to talk to her. The worst part about this game is the gameplay itself. This update is meatier and actually has things to do, but…I feel curmudgeonly for saying this, but the thrill isn’t quite there. I think it would have been better integrated into the game instead of zipping through it at the end. I have all the materials needed to do what she wants, but I did have to craft some of it. It’s been so long since I’ve done that. I have to say that it’s still a nice update and I’m impressed with the quality as always, but it’s hard to recapture the magic from this far out. I will say that I was stoked that they added save slots, which the community had been begging for ever since the game came out. So I could play it again if I want. I’m happy that they’re still adding new content, though. It’s really great of them.

The third game I’m playing outside of Nioh 2 is Dorfromantik by Toukana Interactive. It’s deceptively addictive and I’ve dabbled in creative mode. I prefer classic, though, because I like having boundaries, otherwise I’ll be playing forever. I will say that since I started playing Nioh 2, I only play one or two runs of Dorfromantik rather than the hours I played in the past.

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