Nioh

[Hendo]

Streaming my first look at it now if anyone's interested.

 

 

[retroed]

I started this last night, played to the main open area on the beach and reached level 4. I have gone with the axe as my main, and sword as secondary. You can chose between 60fps with reduced visuals, or 30fps with slightly nicer graphics. I chose the framerate, obviously. It plays very good with snappy combat and a faster stamina recharge than I was expecting (didn't play the demos or see much of the game at all before release). 

 

Once you're done with the introduction piece and you choose your starter gear, make sure to press Triangle to do another tutorial that gives you some handy info not explained in the opening section. 

[Hendo]

That was good fun, apart from getting stuck for a bit. The game is very dark!

Yeah I chose framerate too, the camera is super slippy when you move it.

[Whiskey_chaser]

Looks good but the alleged difficulty put's me off.

 

I somehow managed to beat Bloodborne, but any attempt at Dark Souls has ended in me giving up about three quarters of the way through. 

[Hendo]

Early days but it's not too tough right now.

 

Past the prologue and it's the same area that was in the beta demos so I know what to expect. They have changed a couple of small things like enemy placements though.

 

I've gone with dual swords and the thing you swing around. That's been my go-to weapon of choice at the moment because you can do a Scorpion style attack from

a distance to either get someone's attention or drag their stamina bar down.

 

The items the digital version gave me are pretty good, much more powerful than anything i'm picking up right now.

 

Because of my love of powerful armour, I'm gonna be putting a load of points into getting my weight load better, along with health and stamina.

[HandsomeDead]

It obviously has a lot of inspiration taken from the Souls games so I won't be getting it now but it looks like it might be different enough to try out later.  I'll take a punt at a better price.

[DisturbedSwan]

Gagging to play this since I've got it, I usually choose frame rate over resolution when given the choice but the option to play this in 4K on my Pro may be too much for me to turn down 

 

Going to try a light armour, Dex build I think, I usually go with lots of armour, sword and shield in Souls so would like to try something different, the nunchuks have already caught my eye as a weapon and the Scorpion thing.

[retroed]

Amazon just emailed me a code for some Crimson Master armour (and a theme), so I'll give that a try next time I play.

[ThreeFour]

Looking forward to this after Yakuza (if I can get a physical copy ).

 

Not sure about the co-op decision doing the rounds in the news. Seems odd.

[DisturbedSwan]

For me as I didn't even know it had co-op (apart from summoning) until a month ago I couldn't give a shit, I just think its cool co op is in there at all.

 

The problem has arisen by co-op being unlocked from the start in the beta apparently which gave people the impression they could play through each level for the first time with a friend.

 

Whereas as it is now proper co-op (non summoning) with a friend is still in there it's just one of you has to finish that mission first.

 

Some of the reactions I've read really have been laughable though, some people on Team Ninja's Facebook page saying 'the game is a digital $80 paperweight' etc. because it doesn't have this small feature, just boggles my mind.  

[ThreeFour]

Yeah ignore the comments sections that's where brats hang out  

But it still seems odd. I get the frustration. I mean the SoulsBourne games have it. Doesn't affect it for those that want to do the solo. What's wrong with choice? I think the series popularity is born from that choice. Expands the audience. Why would you snuff that out for the sake of 'difficulty'. It hasn't negatively affected the SoulsBourne games.

I'm all for artistic right. Developers vision. But Co-op does exist. Take it out. Unless I read it wrong, people can summon someone who's beaten the boss to help. So....why can't that be a friend who hasn't? It's still help in both cases. Two green noobs taking a boss on has less chance than a noob and a vet surely? 

Dunno. I get the argument. Just isn't solved by the existing set up.

 

Spoiler

@Blakey me and you dual posting  

 

[DisturbedSwan]

yeah 

[Hendo]

Having said that it wasn't that tough, I'm doing terribly on the second boss (first if you don't count the prologue).

 

Even tried bringing people in to help and failed each time.

 

Edit: finally did it. Unlocked the main map and some of the different things you can do in it.

[Hendo]

Boss in the caves is an absolute bitch.

 

Edit: but I did it.

[Hendo]

Streaming my adventures on Twitch if anyone fancies watching me die a lot.

[DisturbedSwan]

 

 

My stream from earlier, played 4 hours, got up to the first boss but then got my arse handed to me so grinded for quite a while, also managed to find an Orchoko cup (no idea why they're so hard to find) so may get a summon in to help if needs be.

[Hendo]

I've had ups and downs so far.

 

I struggled for a bit, then made a fair bit of progress and moved onto the next area and now I'm fucked again.

 

Until now I've done all the optional quests they've thrown at me (bar the twilight stupidly high level ones) but got stuck on a cunt of a boss fight. Luckily it's optional and self contained so I used an item to get back to the map screen and moved on. 

 

However now I'm in (and this really shouldn't be a spoiler considering how much of a Souls game this is) a poison filled area, and just getting my arse handed to me. So I'm taking a small break while I'm working for a few days and then I might grind for a bit.

 

The downside to that is I might over-level myself to get help from others.

[DisturbedSwan]

35 minutes ago, mr lakitu said:

I watched the final 15 mins of your second vid live @Blakey and kept screaming "the bow and arrow guy!!!"

 

was that the time when I had a tiny bit of health and the arrow guy on the bridge got me?

[DisturbedSwan]

23 minutes ago, mr lakitu said:

That's the one @Blakey 

 

Game looks cool. Smallish areas instead of branching paths? Think I'd prefer that. Shall borrow one day. 

 

yeah that was unfortunate, thought I'd gotten away with that it but stopped for a second and came a cropper.

 

As far as I know it's smallish areas, the layout is more Demon's Souls in it's all individual missions (1-1, 1-2 etc.) rather than a sprawling inter-connected open world like Dark Souls, but apparently quite a few of the levels are HUGE later on, I've watched live-streams of the first 4/5 missions and not seen anything too large really though.

[DisturbedSwan]

Another 4 hours earlier, 8 total.

 

Started off back at the Shrine near the boss in the village, I wanted to pick up all the Kodama, so backtracked a bit and found the 2 I was missing, made my way back to thee shrine and it was time to batter Okroymi.

 

Watched a few vids last night to try to get a technique down to defeat him and had a full load of elixirs so headed in....managed it on my first try I was just in the zone, hardly got hit at all and only had to use 2 elixirs, just dodged into him as he threw his balls then around then managed to dodge around him in his 2nd phase to easily defeat him. Taking off a load of my heavy armour to get my encumberence percentage down really helped, felt so bloody agile.

 

Did one of the dojo missions to learn about Omkyro magic or something then helped out a random in co-op, went around the village killing revenants and everything that moved, which got me tons of amrita, Ochoko cups and elixirs.

 

After that I went to the village once again to do the side mission that was available, I like how they changed all the shrines and enemy placements about a bit, level basically played back to front too and some areas were locked off, cool idea and definitely keeps it feeling fresh.

 

Then moved on to the next story mission, this time taking place in a Cavern type area. Made decent progress here with my trusty axe until eventually meeting the boss where I got my arse handed to me again, could've grinded here for a while or use an Ochoko cup. I chose the latter, first time we still got ruined and I ran out of Elixirs, second time I got a really good guy/girl in who had dual electric swords, I caught her attention then he'd sneak behind and batter her with a flurry of attacks, she didn't last long.

 

Helped a couple more folks in co-op with the Village boss then called it day.

 

So far, I like it but there are aspects I'm not keen on, the level design has been mostly excellent but the environs themselves somewhat barren and uninspired, I'm a little bored already of the myriad human/humanoid enemies, the Yokoi feel like a real challenge every time and i enjoy besting them but these humanoids are just cannon fodder now and not too fun having to mow down hundreds of them, I'm sure this changes as the game goes on though.

 

I wish it told you more about the weapon skills and prestige points too, I'm too scared to commit to one of these to find out I picked the wrong one of something, think I've decided to to for a Ninja build, definitely feels a real asset to stay agile in this game, I hardly block at all too.