almost 5 years later, still waiting for that Nioh 2 critique

It seems like calling it a straight Souls clone could only be done by someone who didn't dive into it. Great video Chris!

The easiest thing to cut from the video would have been the apologies for its length. Long form analysis is great, that's what I come to your channel for and you do it well.

I love the smell of long-form game analysis in the morning.

You don't understand - you have to play in a way reflects the way I played, validating my own choices. Anything I do to give me an advantage is great and only an IDIOT wouldn't do it. Anything I didn't do (or didn't discover) that gives an advantage is BREAKING THE GAME and you should feel BAD about using it. Being insecure as I am, I require constant validation of my choices and playstyle, and I demand you do this, despite giving you no money. I am a well adjusted human being.

Late correction - Actually the way to tell what color gesture to use on the walls with eyes (Nurikabe) is to look at the revenant graves nearby. They'll say killed by Nurikabe due to Friendly, Neutral, Or Hostile behavior. Just use one of the two color gestures that's not shown on the grave

Such a great game and an underrated one as well, getting unfairly written off as a souls clone. This game is obviously inspired by those games but stands on its own.

The fire wheel monks, I think, are designed to teach you the importance of baiting out specific attacks. They can be absolutely trivialized by just standing directly on front of their faces, with their attacks getting more and more punishing the further away you get. But by just standing on front of them, they will ALWAYS do their slow flame breath attack which has plenty of time to circle behind them and attack their weak spot, knocking them down and making them trivial to kill.

It's hard to tell the difference between the words nier and nioh when they're spoken in a British accent.

I recently found your videos through the history of iso rpg's. I have got to say these critique videos are amazing.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the expansions.

Kinda sad you hadn't done the video about the DLC or Nioh 2, would've been a lovely watch. Great Video!

Just beat Nioh and all sub missions! Great vid! I like to imagine they started with a full plate of cut scenes with proper introductions and everything. Then some employee reminded them "But DarkSouls & Bloodborne have minimal dialogue/cinematics!" so the director slashed the cut scenes in half with no thought lol

My dude, it's almost been 3 years and nioh 2 is about to come out. I really hope you've played this games DLC.

Just a thing to point out. You mentioned meeting Fukyu in the maze like (chalice) dungeon. Its actually Ginchiyo, Tachibana's wife if im remembering it right.

Dude, Mr. Davis, I love your stuff. Been watching for years but have been binge-watching as of late. You have a passion for gaming and the way you articulate that passion is why I watch. Big Ups!

Watching this after hearing Nioh Remastered on the PS5 with 4k graphics at 60fps. Still holds true today! Love the souls series, loved playing HZD + Frozen Wilds on the PS5 with almost no load times, and also grew to love Nioh. The living weapon Pokemon mechanic, and the weapon styles to further enhance Demon's Souls combat, made it so worthwhile. I'm currently having a blast going through Nioh 2 Remastered.

I love the long videos I listen while at work

This channel is way too underrated. This is quality content. I watched your other videos never realising the low sub count. More people need to watch this.

I know I'm about 2 years too late but I really enjoy your content and hope you keep up the long form analysis. It's quite nice to listen to while I'm at work and actually kinda helps keep me on track for breaks and stuff. (I've no sense of time)

Holy crap that's a lengthy review lmao and a late one at that. But your reviews are great! Glad I found you! I was actually looking for a review on the full game with all the dlcs expansions and tweaks implemented (there was ALOT of new stuff implemented)

Weee, a 2-hour video! And congratz, man. You're almost at 3k subs! Keep it up!

i came a little late for this video, but i love it, i saw it all to the end. I looked for Nioh 2 video in your channel but i can´t find it, so i hope you can make it in the future. Greetings and good work.

1:36:32 - Pretty sure that's his general/mentor, not william - so yeah, we do see him again and he actually got saved by Kelley. It's the same straw-hat he wore when he first met hanzo & william on those stairs

"Low stance is quick like being tickled to death by an agressive feather" :))))))))))))))))

I love these long video review keep up the good work You get my subscribe

Hi Chris your videos are excellent! Did you ever get around to playing the dlc? wonder what you though of it. Also a small correction, you could playthough a mission in co op mode where you share a health bar with your partner, when both players die or you run out of shared health the whole mission/level restarts, I did a playthough like this with a friend and it was awesome, made the way to the bosses extra excting and the bosses themself really nerve racking(maybe this was a pc edition). It is something I hope they expand on for Nioh 2.

And now a new video one day after I discovered you YOU'RE TRYING TO KILL ME

New to your channel, excellent long form analysis. Subbed. Will definitely be working my way through this playlist.

This is my favorite kind of thing to watch while i eat

Seeing such a deep dive on this version of the game, while only having played the Complete edition was really fascinating, because those DLCs transformed this game so damn much. Like I didn't know why you thought the twilight missions were useless until I remembered they didn't add tempering until later, at which point twilight missions became VERY useful.

Do you still plan on doing a DLC video for Nioh? I really enjoyed this video and would love to hear your opinion/critique on the DLC

Are you going to do a video about DLCs? Watched and enjoyed this one in parallel with my playthrough and underwhelmed to see you didnt continue ): I only found 1 other video like this about Nioh

Plz never stop making these

I love how the experience can vary so much from player to player. I had a hellish time with bosses like Nue, Yuki-onna and White Tiger (admittedly, the argument that I was "playing them wrong" might hold some water in these cases), but then killed Giant Toad in my first attempt, and BARELY taking any hits. I've stuck mostly to a melee build focusing on dual katanas, occasionally switching to spear when needing higher damage output, and still, I never felt like the bosses were "unfair" with that build, just that I wasn't good enough at what I needed to do with my build in order to beat them with it. The fact that the game also allows such a plethora of options in order to beat the game, and that there's room for optimization, only makes me want to replay this already humongous game just to try out new stuff. However, I feel that I've somehow "broken" or "cheesed" the game a bit after mastering the dual katana's Wind God II technique, which does massive health and ki damage to humans and yokai alike, and it's helped me farm revenant tombs to no end. . If there ever is going to be a sequel, I really hope that it lives up to the original. More people need to play this, IMHO.

finally a new good critique!! keep the content coming brother huge fan!!

My favorite thing in this game is the loot mechanic, and the fashion, since you can make your style by refashioning armor in a year way you please.

Thank you so much! I love your content and have been praying for this, keep up the good work mate

I like your content! Thanks for the crazy amount of work!

Cool video. I found this game pretty hard.. never finished this one though I got pretty far. I enjoy these in depth review/analysis you do. Good job

I really, really hope you'll make a Nioh 2 in-depth analysis someday.

the part about feeling like you 'brute forced' your way through the game is too true so many bosses make me feel like i didnt really learn how to beat them, i just eventually got lucky

3 very important mistakes in the video regarding coop and the whole leveling system. While many of these things regard the endgame and were introduced with the DLC patches, they nonetheless address some of your issues: (1) 1:59:39 But you can do exactly that. After completing the game for the first time you can just play any level in new game+(+++) via the Torii Gate from the beginning with a friend in coop. In fact I clocked in over 200 hours playing the game in coop going through all the different new game + versions. (2) Also, the mission level is NOT the recommended character level. It just informs you about the general difficulty of the mission. It will later go way past 1000, far beyond the maximum level. The difficulty in relation to your level and gear is portrayed by the bloody sword symbols beneath it. So you were probably not underleveled. (3) The game has an equivalent of paragon levels once you reach the max level of 750. It is called "Focus Level". Additionally, there are green skills in the skill tree which you can level endlessly to improve your stats with unused skill points after obtaining all skills you wanted. It's also important to mention that later New Game plus modes don't simply increase the numbers but change enemy placements, place new enemies in the levels, and introduce red coloured buffed version of regular enemies.

I love how you're like "I give this game 4/5, really close to a 5", then 20 seconds later you're like "the combat system has optional complexity that's unnecessary to use, the story sucks, the levels suck and the leveling is broken".

Overall great video. I appreciate seeing people's opinions and deeply enjoy listening to points of appreciation and possible improvements on big projects like Nioh. It's fun to listen to an alternative experience for the game and how others react to various challenges (I focused on Spirit and Onmyou magic, so I primarily went through levels by abusing ALL spells, ESPECIALLY sloth, and spamming the Bat Living Weapon). I admit there were multiple points that I readily don't agree with or could argue against, but you do a good job of acknowledging other opinions mostly and make good arguments for your own. 1:08:22 I will go ahead and argue this one particular point though. Nioh may not be as clear-cut or smooth about its story-telling as Bloodborne, but the levels DO try to tell stories, to varying degrees of success. One such story bore the distinct moment in the game where I suddenly felt an emotional revelation about William that I hadn't been expecting, and it was told entirely through his traversal through a level. The Battle of Sekigahara was probably the single most emotional moment for me in the entire game- not because of beating Sakon or fighting in a war, but really because... William almost DOESN'T fight in the war. He does fight, there's no real denying that. He beats important generals and helps push the frontlines by taking out Mitsunari's cannons. But it's treated like an afterthought, an obstacle to be pushed through toward a goal waiting past the bloodshed. When you first start the stage, almost nothing is present except the bleak charred atmosphere. Sounds of clashes in the background, gunfire, but no people present. No enemies, just William starting his traversal towards Kelley on the enemy side. Soon you face sporadic enemy soldiers, small groups of stragglers. Everyone seems exhausted before picking up their weapons to take you on. Moving farther still, William eventually finds himself in... the ravine. Hundreds, thousands of bodies strewn where Ieyasu's men pushed and struggled and died against fortifications to take the very point that William is now almost casually trudging through, picking off winded stragglers. And it dawned on me. William arrived LATE to a WAR. A war where his very allies, his currently most trusted companions, are betting their lives and ambitions on winning. No one comments on it. The game never indicates that William had to debate this decision. But for whatever reason, William was NOT on the frontlines of that push, and has no intentions of participating in this war for idealism's sake. No. William has only one goal. He's only HAD one goal in the entire game, and will only have one from that point on. Reaching Kelley through any means necessary and getting Saoirse back. Even if that means ignoring a war. The only reason William is even present at that moment is because Kelley is present. The reason the enemies "seem to ignore William" until he's directly interfering with them? He's not following Ieyasu's commands, so he's not where the enemy army would expect a threat to be. The first big introduction to the battlefield is seeing Ieyasu's men being gunned down in a field just beyond a small bridge. You can take the bridge and join up with Ieyasu's soldiers, which is something William would probably have to do if he were an actual soldier. But you don't have to. You're a literal foreign element, and one that cares neither for orders nor protocol. So it makes perfect sense that most players probably instead follow the river to go directly behind enemy lines, where no one soldier should be. The second half of my revelation that William "isn't supposed to be a part of the war" is the fact that, barring Otani Yoshitsugu (if he can even be counted), there are no Youkai present in the entire level (it's possible I missed some or just aren't remembering). Nearly every level has a supernatural element or challenge for William to overcome. But Sekigahara is just a war between men. And after fighting youkai and youkai, forces far stronger and overwhelming than the average man, this level is practically a refreshing break as far as difficulty goes. William can absolutely decimate average soldiers, only really being threatened by groups that can be annihilated if you spend even small resources or effort. It re-enforces that William didn't become this strong to slay men- he exclusively specializes in fighting youkai and beings with mystical powers. His skills are, ironically, almost wasted on a warzone. His strength is necessary to push through obstacles for victory, but the intermittent moments barely provide a challenge for the player at that point in the game. The only reason William even cares to do any warmongering is because behind those walls of enemy soldiers is the one opponent that actually matters to him. The war doesn't really matter. The political strife doesn't really matter. Barring his closest friends, who he allies with doesn't really matter. ONLY getting Saoirse back matters, and not even a war William doesn't want to be a part of will stop him from achieving that. Sorry for the length.

"A high 4" I very much look forward to your video on the real endgame and dlcs :)

Planning on a video for the second one?!

Do you have any plan to do Nioh 2 I was so glad to see you did Deus Ex mankind divided. It’s actually my favorite game ever! Sekiro and Nioh are close favorites though

the recommended level is weird because if you go in at the level or over it the mission is relatively easy but if you are over 30 levels below and depending skill the missions can be ridiculously hard. the dlc is a prime example where bosses have 2 summon spirits and abuse them when you cant do much of anything to them

Great video. A lot of tough love from you for Nioh. Which is a good thing. It could definately be better in certain area's. Bloodborne is my favourite game of all time, but Nioh and Nioh 2 are probably in my top 5. I hope you're going to do more video's on Nioh's DLC and Nioh 2 at some point.

Is there any chance for a video on the dlc coming in the future??

Really great critique man! Had picked up this game a while back played until I got to the 3rd boss then gave up, flash forward to 2018/2019 picked it back up during my break, started over, new build, and played the game correctly with a decent build and it makes a huge difference. Now I think I'm at the last level of the game. It has been great. Watching the crit after the fact and I think you're spot on! My ONLY crit of your crit is SLOW down your commentary kind of rambles, like one long sentence. Just pause a bit here and there. Other than that GREAT stuff man! I'm a subscriber now :)

Been watching your videos for a bit now. I laughed just now because your speech and organization skills always screamed "lawyer" to me, as I'm a lawyer (by day) too. Cheers.

hopefully you still do all dlc and the extension of this vid , and cover nioh 2 when it drops

Will you do the same to the dlc or new game pluses ?

what is the music when the part of the video changes?

I can appreciate these take some time to produce but come on boyo, want to see more great content!! :)

Great stuff. Nioh 2 critique?

Will you be making a video on Nioh 2?

Great review man :) Keep it going like that and you have a fan here I haven't played the game but it seemed to have interesting mechanics. Now that i've watched your video I know that if I buy PS4 I'll buy this game for sure!

Its interesting how different the Experience can be in regards to Bosses. I had huge problems with Hino Enma and ended up needing about 2 Hours of trying to fight her over and over again ro properly learn her moveset and beat her. On the opposite i had almost no problems with Omu Bozu, i didnt kill him in my first try but i ended up feeling so confident that i redid the bossfight in a nightmare mission right after beating him the first time.

We do see shima sakon again. In the final cutscene before credits. Thats him watching mitsubari's execution, not William.

I wonder how many of the issues are a consequence of it changing gameplay styles twice. either way, great take on Nioh and I enjoy your longform takes. ~The Monk.

"This is where the better players will shine and where I did not." Lol. Amen to that, man.

Fantastic video, first of all. Subscribed right away. A few things I would discuss: First, about the Death penalty, i.e. losing your bank when you die without collecting it. I would actually argue that in souls-esque games, this is actually very important. It prevents you from suiciding your way to victory, so to speak. As you could run trough most of the levels repeatedtly without any penalty whatsoever. It also encourages players who are struggling to bank more Amrita/Souls/Moolah to get stronger, particularly in a Level they might be struggling at. I breezed trough the early parts of the game fairly easily, and suddenly started struggling with some of the optional Boss Fights and even the basic enemies in some cases (Those Bird Monks still drive me crazy, even after playing the game for a solid 100 hours), because I was fairly low level for the places I was at. The Death penalty there made sure I actually caught back up, instead of just trying to skip parts of the level over and over. Also, I think its very important to point out how nicely they implemented blocking into the game. In Dark Souls, wether you would block or dodge most attacks depended on your build a lot. Unless I'm completely out of the loop the "Beefy Shieldman" is generally the recommended approach for most newcomers to the series, until they get the roll timing down. In Nioh, many fights can actually be made way, WAY easier by combining Block & Dodge in a smart way. And it doesnt really depend on your build. Yuki-Onna and Weird-Tongue-Lady (The one in the cave) are very nice examples of this. Many of their attack chains can be rather hard to nail if you want to dodge all of them. So Dodge into Block, or the other way around usually works better. Blocking the last attack of a Chain also has the added benefit of leaving you in range to counterattack right away. I liked that a lot, since it was the first time where blocking without a shield can actually be very much worth it, as opposed to most Souls games where not only it drains most of your stamina, it will also barely negate any of the damage done. A Hybrid-Playstyle there is barely worth it, if at all. Finally, the story. I didnt even realize how...nothing it really is, until watching this. It's sad, because I remember being intrigued up until the first new Map. But then they started throwing so many names and factions around that I stopped paying attention. It isnt helped by the fact that I spent large swaths of playtime doing sidecontent and farming Gearsets. Because it meant 3-5 hours of no story at all, and by then I had completely forgotten what was actually happening on the Main-Quest.

I hope one day you dive into the Onimusha series. I feel it's like this but less refined Nioh. I loved Onimusha and it needs far more in depth lore. I hope you have the patience to get this series. As it's one of the few games where you'll have to get a few more resources to get access to from the OG console and record it for modern day editings.

Didnt they already put out an update that adds pvp? Im not sure, but Ive heard they were putting it out some time ago.

One small correction that I don't know if you correct yourself on later or not, but there are I-frames for your dodges in this game, you just have to be really precise with how you dodge an attack (like near frame perfect). Its a lot like ninja gaidens dodge only a bit easier since enemies don't attack as fast as that game.

CORRECTION: the 60fps mode for Nioh is NOT 720p on PS4 and 1080p on PS4 Pro. It’s a dynamic 720p to 1080p on both. The Pro just spends more time hanging in the upper bounds, though it is not fixed at 1080p. It can still drop as low as 720p on rare occasions, with the most common resolutions being in between 720p and 1080p.

I mean, you're fighting the fire wheel with low stance, I would get frustrated too. Also, water talismans wreak these guys.

Is this like a radio version of a playthrough?

Great introduction 😂😂🎉❤ I loved the honourary mentions

soulsborne doesnt use an external appendix though... you get item descriptions as you pick up the items, bloodborne in particular weaves a great story that gets built on by the items early on. that trend continues through the whole game and the DLC, id agree with darksouls though... 1st one still holds my favor over the latter 2.

Does the combat more closely resemble Ninja Gaiden or DS? I love fast paced combat like that in NG,DMC,GOW,Darksiders 2 but i really dislike the combat in Dark Souls. Just been clearing though my games catalogue and am looking to pick up some fighting games. Almost forgot about Nioh until i stumbled across your video.

That was in depth. Now I need to check if you've done a similar video for Bloodborne, Nioh DLC, and maybe even Nioh 2.

35:11 i will say this, because its something people miss alot about dark souls 1 and demon souls. the reason the "real story" is told in the description of items, and the position of items in the world is because, the "told" story you get from the npcs is FAKE. you play as someone being manipulated into sacrificing yourself for a certain faction. so, if you take everything you are told at face value, you will only get the story they want you to hear. its only by searching, and looking for the real story that you grasp what is really going on, and if the quest you are forced into is worth it. dark souls is one of the very few games that does a "you are being manipulated" right, to the point most players dont even know that. also, the story you are told is pretty easy to digest, do this to get there, ge that to enter that place, go into that place kill guy and take his place so everything can go back the way it was...

Good video, runs a bit longer in some places than I would've liked (and I am a fan of long form content) due to some repetition but overall I'm glad to see it. Makes me wish I had a non-PC console to play it.

So...1-2 videos per month? Because i really like these kind of critique. Enjoyable to watch/listening to.

I would've liked to see something about your thoughts on the DLC, but at this point I assume you'd rather do a video about Nioh 2. Either way, I'm always happy when people actually talk about this series, since aside from the initial hyperbolic press of "Nioh makes Dark Souls veterans cry!" or whatever, it was more or less ignored and I haven't seen much at all about the sequel on news/review sites.

I think you may have suffered a little from sticking to Low Stance so hard. Its not really supposed to be the main damage, more a good way to shred stamina on enemies but you seem to have made it work. Im guilty of many, many High Stance deaths because......well it makes the numbers bigger xD

does the area at 1:14:16 give Hirata Estate vibes

Well, if someone is having a hard time with the blood starved beast I recommend them the flamesprayer +3, that things destroy that boss

From 21:38-21:46 the gameplay footage is hilarious. The struggle is real and I literally laughed out loud. The fire bomb got me so good. 😂

No part 2?

Graves featuring red names are indeed placed by devs ! Those fights usually have the most agressive ghost AI and can reward you with unique gear (even though rarity level can be shabby)

Great video!!

Fuku is Mage Girl, Ginchyo is the other girl!

31:40 Fuku ? Are you sure about that :/ ?

45:04 I basically did the same with Nioh and am doing the same with N2. A lot of the additional moves you acquire are great for extending a combo, and can really keep some enemies defensive leading to Ki-breaks... But typically, any enemy on the higher side of “mid-tier” and above (which you come across more frequently as the game goes on) can either tank the little added jazz attacks and delivery an insta-death blow if you’re not at full HP. Most of the extra moves aren’t “safe”, making them kind of worthless, because enemies can just eat hits and not replaying or be interrupted more often as you progress. It’s better to enter on the punish-frames, get 2 hits in and dodge out. What they should have done was apply some kind of increased “constitution break” skill/stat to all of the moves you have to unlock (especially the ones father down the skill progression line). Maybe they could have an increased ability to interrupt combos or prevent counterattacks if you get caught with that specific move, therein adding a few “safe-frames”, which actually would give value to unlockable moves, making them worth the unlock. Because nothing feels worse (in a game) that putting in dozens of hours of effort to unlock moves/skills/abilities that aren’t as universally viable as some of the basic functionality that you start with. And even in N2, with an actual skill tree, so many of the skills are so situational or insignificant that most are just stepping stones, and you’ll find yourself spending 4 or 5 points on skills that have little to no value just to get to a specific one that caught your eye. But yeah, I know where you’re coming from.

40:08 as someone who wrote some of the wiki, I can a test to their name

Is the bad mage guy voiced by Hawke from DA2?

This game does what most should do when seeing a successful series. Take its core concept, but make it feel different without deriving too much. The combat for Nioh 1 and 2 are phenomenal and I really do applaud the devs. I hope they make a 3rd.

I'm nearing the end of a Nioh playthrough myself and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to enjoy my time with it. Your comment about exhaustion was spot on. I won't hate on it but I'll just say I agree with most if not all of the points you make here, right down to falling into the water in that same area. :P

Ya i love ypur indepth videos too. Dont say sorry its why i subbed. Ypu do awesome videos. I was debating on whether i was gonna get it. U def sold me on it. Thanks so much :) really dont get how utubers who do 3min videos have million plus subs an u are under 100k.

I found switching stances and ki management to be a huge part of the game's appeal. I would often dodge around in low attack, as it definitely does give you i-frames, and then quickly switch to mid or high attack to land hits and punish bosses. Nioh was the first Souls-like game that clicked for me, and I love it dearly.

One of the biggest things to get you out of long combo chains that would otherwise kill you os the fact that you can instantly shift to a guard after any hitstun from an enemy attack. On top of that it's important to shift to mid-stance too at the same time because guards take the least ki in that stance. For blocking, Mid is best and Low can work, while High is the worst. For dodging Low is superior and mid is okay, while high is again the worst. High is exclusively for openings where you get a chance for big damage, and should be switched out of immediately when that opening closes because its guard crumples fast and its dodge is the shoddiest.

Now that all the dlcs are out when can we expect the follow-up? :)

Played Nioh 1 and 2 plus DLC’s and have mostly no clue what’s going on story wise.

The one witnessing Mitsunari's execution is Sakon, not William.

reach the ladders with a aggressive yoga post :'D lost it thank you mate