When
Nioh 3 was first revealed, Koei Tecmo released an Alpha demo like their previous games to receive feedback from fans to improve or make adjustments to the final product. I played the demo, which was a massive 6-8 hour experience checking out a fairly large area that you were able to roam through, and really liked what was on offer. With the full version finally released, I bought it but had been pre-occupied by
Code Vein II which was in the same genre so I didn't want to play it right away, at least until a short amount of time had passed.
I finally started playing right before April began and it has been a welcoming but different experience for the franchise so far. Like
Code Vein II,
Nioh 3 replaced the traditional linear mission model with a couple of massive open-world areas that you can explore at your free will, though the game does recommend which path you should walk into next due to the difficulty of the enemies.
There's also a major change to your character build. In the first instalment, you were playing a character based on a famous English figure (the same person who later inspired the famous
Shogun novel), and in the second instalment they went with an original character who could to transform into a Yokai monster. Here, in this latest instalment, you play as the grandson of the famous Tokugawa Ieyasu who has two major classes that you can swap at any time - a Samurai role and a Ninja role.
The Samurai role has your traditional roster of weapons and equipment. You have different stances (low, mid, high) and you can wield a one-handed sword, dual weapons, spear and more. This was my main focus for a good bunch of my playthrough as it was the easiest to get into, plus it's more balanced with your stats. Eventually the game later unlocked a second weapon that you can also wield so I added a spear weapon with my one-handed sword weapon to go back and forth depending on the surroundings. During the end-game I also played around with the Odachi which is a heavier but solid weapon to use against a group of enemies upfront.
The Ninja role is an interesting pick because it's not one that I had played a whole bunch of in the previous games but it's a great way for newcomers to give the class more of a chance this time around. Ninja is lighter but more aggressive so you can go all-in if you want but it's more of a high-risk high-reward scenario which does work if you're able to time your dodges perfectly. With this class I focused my weapons on the dual ninja swords and later also split staves.
During combat, you can switch between the two at any time, and you also have to keep an eye on your Ki bar because if it runs out you'll be in an exhausted state that can expose you to attacks from enemy encounters. As a Samurai, you can refill the bar if you time your Ki perfectly or if you're a Ninja, dodge attacks perfectly. Alongside your regular move set, elixirs are available for healing your health which can be upgraded at Shrines to increase the amount that drop from enemies and the amount that stores your health, as well as other items that you can add to your shortcut menu. The Ninja role also includes a couple throwing weapons that replaces the stance model that are handy to stop enemies in the air. Both classes can also wield guns and bows that are super handy to snipe Yokai from a far distance.
Guardian Spirits make their return and you can have two with you on your journey, one per class, and they do a great job dealing damage against enemies especially during boss fights. As you explore the game more, the spirits will also learn new moves that you can use with the Amrita gauge that are activated using the R1 trigger with either Square or Triangle. The Square move is a quick special attack that can help knock out a group of small enemies but also add elemental damage to bigger foes and the Triangle move is a longer attack but adds further elemental damage. Like in the previous instalments, you can also activate the Guardian Spirit's super move set similar to
Nioh 2's Yokai mode, where you're pretty much immune to taking character damage but it will drain the bar so you want to dodge but also use the mode as much as possible.
Other combat abilities available include Weapon Skills that give you new ways to fight enemies during combat, whether it be a specific stance or during a defence move. The game will call your attack moves as 'Martial Arts' which confused me at first as I generally considered that to be weapon-less attacks but apparently it does refer to how you attack enemies in any shape of form. After a certain amount of successful attack moves you'll be able to use Arts Proficiency which is done by holding down Triangle which can deal a lot of damage as long as you have enough Ki and aren't interrupted by enemies in the fight.
Because
Nioh is inspired by FROM SOFTWARE's
Souls games, the level up and Amrita system are very similar. Exploring the area and killing enemies will earn you Amrita, which you redeem to level your character build based on Heart, Strength, Stamina, Magic, Skill and more. I focused on Magic right away so that I am able to use talismans which are your best friend in this franchise because there's an infinite amount of uses you can use with them (which are refilled upon locating a Shrine). The challenge with levelling up is that they require more Amrita each level so you get to Level 100 and you're needing like 350,000 Amrita to level again.
It is easy to assume that the character level is key to surviving the difficulty of the enemies around you, and that's not exactly true. While your character level does support your stats and unlock special abilities tied to your gear, it is the level of the weapons and clothing that make the difference. The higher the level of a weapon, the better the balance in combat. You loot various clothes and weapons defeating each enemy encounter so there's plenty to choose from but it's also a balance on making sure you're not too heavy especially if you're a Ninja. What I do is focus on high defence stats but also ensuring the weight isn't taking up too much. After playing through the whole story, I believe the level cap is about 150.
Talismans are important because they give you the ability to increase your attack, defence, apply an elemental magic to your weapons and also tone down your opponents (including bosses) speed, defence, attack and more. All of this are achieved by two things; levelling up the Magic stat and locating Soul Cores that are dropped by enemies.
Soul Cores can then be attached in "Yin" and "Yang" options. "Yin" enables you to spawn a Yokai in battle which doesn't last long but the right Yokai can massively make a difference in the right moment. My roster consisted of Ibaraki Doji and one of the Demon secret bosses in the game. "Yang" enables you to add talismans to your shortcut roster. My "Yang" build focused on increased attack, a fire elemental component for your weapons, and decreasing enemy defence, speed and attack. You can also convert Soul Cores to material that will allow you to increase the Soul Cores level and make their stats (as well as the Guardian Spirit stats) even better.
As mentioned earlier, Nioh 3 is now open-world but this is split into three to four different areas, but each area is massive with a ton of exploration that you can do. In each area, there's sub-areas that tell you its recommended level for difficulty as well as the various types of items that you can collect, whether it be Kodama that are lost in the wilderness or Crucibles that are special zones where you defeat a series of enemies. You can also encounter stronger Yokai to improve their Soul Core abilities or surprise boss fights.
The exploration was a bit overwhelming at first but as you pay more attention to the game's design and improve your character build, it becomes a lot of fun and not as tedious as you would expect. I think that's because the first area is too massive and makes you assume the other areas are of the same length which isn't exactly true. I would say that once you complete the first area you're about 35% through the game's story.
The story for
Nioh 3 takes place after the events of the previous instalments but very early on they utilised time travel so you end up in one era and then another, though there's not many of them. Each era does have a specific setting to them; one's filled with nature, another is winter themed and the other is full of fire. They all add variety to the gameplay progression to avoid repetitiveness which was needed to make the game more enjoyable. In terms of the story itself, I liked it but I don't think it was as strong as the first game. The characters were nice and they brought back Nekomata for the Guardian Spirit once again who's amusing as always.
While a lot of the Yokai from the previous instalments do make their appearances here, including a few that were initially boss fights, there are a good amount of new enemies here like Bakegani, Grudge Spirit, Mermaids, and Sunakake-Baba. In the Alpha demo I was annoyed by the amount of Nozuchi enemies, another new one for this game, but in the final build they toned it down a lot which was grateful.
Overall I had a lot of fun playing
Nioh 3. It's another solid souls-like game for Koei Tecmo and I enjoyed the journey from start to finish. I don't think the story is strong but the ending was still nice. The combat was very addictive though you could argue playing as a Ninja does break the difficulty because of how easy it can be to knock a lot of the enemy's health. To be fair, the game still slaps you hard if you make a simple mistake anyway so I reckon it balances itself out.
The previous games were known for being pretty heavy on the grind, so it was a surprise for me to learn that they toned down the trophy list in
Nioh 3. Similar to
Code Vein II (again), all you need to do is collect all of the collectibles, complete all of the side quests (not to be confused with the Battle Scrolls that are a separate set of missions) and defeat a few big bosses as well as finish the story. That's it, so I was able to get the Platinum trophy by the end of my playthrough which was great. I finished the game with all of that completion done in a total of 58 hours 10 minutes. My character reached Level 141 and I had Level 147-150 weapons, followed by 333 deaths.
With the Nioh games now done (outside of the DLCs due to their high entry level requirements), the only one left that's in the same genre for Koei Tecmo is their Chinese-themed
Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty (which I have also played the demo for) and their other Japanese historical-themed game
Rise of the Ronin.
Also, it's kind of nuts that this game just casually has Michael Jackson voicing one of the characters in it.
