Has anyone else played the Nioh games? I got them on PS4 and I got the remastered versions on PS5...and I'm not enjoying the first one at all. First time I played them on Ps4, I got to only the fourth or fifth boss before moving on and finding it grossly too difficult for me. Since then, I've gone back, I've gotten platinum on Demon's Souls, Bloodborne, All three Dark Souls games (including the second one, which I didn't enjoy either), and Sekiro. So I know I don't suck at these games. So I'm trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong or what I'm not understanding about Nioh.
The reviews for the game have been pretty consistently great, the gamers and reviewers and youtube personalities I tend to trust all say it's the best of the non-souls Soulslikes, that everything about it is awesome...so why am I not enjoying myself?
With Souls (Which will be a filler term for all the abovementioned fromsoft Soulslikes, including Bloodborne and Sekiro), I always got the impression that the games were designed with balance in mind. Yeah,t he games were always tough as hell and you could die with a single mistake, but they were always fair. The world was balanced. The enemies could stun lock you, but you could stun lock them. You had stamina, and they had stamina. IF you did get hit, there was usually a brisk moment where you could block or dodge or something. It was and always has been a matter of 'this game will demand the most of you, but for every mistake there is a chance to learn and correct yourself' (Except Dark souls II, but we'll get there.)
But with Nioh so far, I don't feel that way. No matter how hard I hit the enemies, they rarely stagger. Despite pumping loads into my ki (Stamina bar) I run out of energy for attacks remarkably quickly and sometimes it takes forever to get it back. enemies can attack through your attack 90% of the time, most of their attacks have shoddy hitboxes and hit you even if you're well out of range, there are no tells or wind-ups, and way too many enemies have horizontal attacks that sweep all around them so getting in behind them does nothing. I can't block and pick my hits because blocking reduces my stamina so quickly I get staggered and stunned almost every time. I can't be speedy and dodge around because dodging in this game doesn't seem to work. I can't block or parry or simply position myself because enemies have ridiculous range and hitboxes.
No strategy seems to be working in general. I try using different stances, different weapons, different gameplay styles, and all manner of different approaches. I try almost all different attacks on every enemy, and it seems no matter what I do it's mostly luck that I seem to progress. My first thought, with how quickly my stamina depletes, is that my carry load is too high. But nope! I'm only at like 70% stamina load. And when I equip the nioh armor set, which gives you a bonus, I'm still only at 90% stamina load. Even with this equip, enemies are 2-3 shotting me, bosses can kill me in a single combo, and like I said before there's little to no tells to warn you of what 's coming or feedback to let you realize you're getting hit.
Oh, and dodging just does not work in this game. If you're being attacked and want to dodge or dash out of there...it just doesn't work. Nothing happens. Even if I have nearly full stamina, I can never seem to dodge away from attacks. I try dodging through attacks to maximize my i-frames, I still get it. I try to dodge backwards, same deal. I try to dodge around to behind them, and I still get hit because almost all of their attacks are sweeping horizontal attacks. I try to utilize the ki-pulse mechnic (press R1 at the end of a combo to instantly regain all the stamina you used), but it doesn't seem to work with any consistency. sometimes it works flawlessly and I can decimate an enemy with ease. Other times, it doesn't give me any stamina back and I end up getting stun-staggered. I have been stuck in the same cave for three hours now, doing the same run, with the same timing every time, and there seems to be no consistency to the performance of the game's mechanics.
No i-frames, I don't seem to understand the 124026457474354 different stats in the game, there's no consistency with the loot grind (I just keep collecting shit that is useless), I can't even go into my menus and understand what an accessory does (it doesn't have a description and no button gives me a description.) and no matter what I do I'm just not doing much damage and am getting absolutely destroyed. Hell, just regular enemies take like, 5 full combos to kill. Not a 5-hit combo, but a full 5 or 6 hit combo 5 or 6 times in a row, and SOMETIMEs that'll kill them, other times that only takes half their health. all in all, I just find this game tedius and unfair. you know, the same bullshit arguments people say about Dark Souls that are absolutely not true.
So what am I missing here? I thought maybe I just wasn't playing it right, in much the same way I Tried playing Sekiro like a souls game when that had its own rhythm and style...but no matter what I do or how I try to approach a situation I'm not getting any better. I don't feel I've overcome anything or learned anything, I feel like I just got lucky. This game has so far not been fun, it's just been frustrating. IT feels to me like how I imagine most people feel when they first play Dark Souls before they understand the game. you know, unfair bullshit that nobody could possibly like. So what am I missing here? Is there some philosophy or gameplay mechanic I've not yet figured out? I know the games are considered great, but for the life of me I'm just not seeing it.
My Console Library:
PS5, Switch, XSX
PS4, PS3, PS2, PS1, WiiU, Wii, GCN, N64 SNES, XBO, 360
3DS, DS, GBA, Vita, PSP, Android
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