Nioh: The New King of the Genre

As you can probably tell by the title, I think HIGHLY of Team Ninja’s Nioh. I’ve been looking forward to the game, since I learned about it a few years back. I mean as a giant weeabu, and a fan of From Software’s Souls series, how could I not be looking forward to Nioh? So the question now is, despite what the title of this article already implies: Did Nioh live up to my expectations?

Before delving into the nitty-gritty of the game, I’d like to give a very brief discussion on the development cycle of the game. Between Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, and Nioh; what do these three games have in common? During the same E3 in 2005, all three of these games were revealed. All three games were announced 10 years ago for the PS3, and all three came out 10 years later for the next generation. Between FFXV and Nioh (I’ve yet to play The Last Guardian) I’d give it to Nioh, as far as meeting my expectations are concerned. Between those 2, I would say that Nioh was more worth the wait.

Now those 10 years were a very transformative development cycle for Nioh. Koei went from just Koei to Koei-Tecmo; and the game itself went from being, what seemed to be a “Warriors-esque” game to a “Souls-like” game.  With that out of the way, let’s move on to discussing the actual game.