Nioh aka Japanese dark souls

Nioh is an interesting game because it is extremely simple to describe it as Japanese dark souls and yes its really similar to dark souls and blood borne but the aesthetic and the general look of the game is heavily Japanese. I mean every armor, sword, spear, axe, bow, weighted chain sickle, magic, enemies, and some pickle shaped helms, everything is Japanese except for like three characters and a Celtic mermaid spirit. In Nioh you play as William English pirate turned fugitive due to the fact that he and his men found and collected a magical stone called Amrita. In the intro you are in the tower of London and you are visited by Williams guardian spirit and shortly you punch a wall and escape the Tower of London in 17th century London that is currently at war with Spain. During your escape of The tower of London your introduced to the gear system, three weapon types, and the fact that enemies hit hard, blocking is ultra effective, and the game is still downloading in the background. Also Williams guardian spirit was stolen by main antagonist Edward Kelley or pale, bald, red eyed man with red serpent guardian spirit that from my 80 plus hours of play tells me you cant have it.

After William escapes two years later he reaches 17th century japan during the warring states period as just about every person you meet wants to kill you along with Japanese demons. The Japanese demons called Yokai have been running rampant since japan is divided in two with both sides in open conflict and Yokai which are born from extreme negative emotions and conflict are running around being a massive pain to everyone. Whether it is fortunate, or unfortunate William can not only see Yokia and kill them, he can also talk to and be chosen by every guardian spirit in the game.

Guardian spirits are what make this game pretty interesting because in Dark souls/ Blood borne, You don't have what you could consider a super mode. In Nioh you have a selection of 30 different guardian spirits (including DLC) that each have little benefits, like Daiba Washi has additional 40 luck that increases item drop rate and when you exit living weapon you gain 400 heath. While the DLC spirit Bisha's centipede gives you all the money and a boost to close combat damage. you also have a lore tab for every item you find in the game, from swords, armor, spirits and items.

OK onto the biggest thing Combat. Nioh has the combat system more like a character action game than dark souls, and in my honest opinion it is just better than dark souls in combat. ( your outrage pleases me) But here me out In Nioh you have multiple different weapons and each weapon has three different base move sets changed between Low, Mid, and High stance that each do different things. And to break it down further there is a skill system where you collect Samurai points that allow you to unlock new moves that change how you play and can be independent to weapons and stances. For example in High stance Kusurigama can do a sweep the leg move that you can then finishing blow, while the sword doesn't have any sweep the legs but it has more parry's than any other weapon.

Ok time to try and wrap this up and give you my personal opinion of Nioh or this will last for a lot longer. Nioh is one of my top ten games of all time for me, I love this game, I can't stop talking about this game, and its even influencing things like adding guardian spirits to my writing, to add a layer of spiritual and generally different beliefs than there being simply one god and adding a layer of interesting creatures to it. I cant even stop playing this game and I have beaten the base game, and all the DLC. I haven't done new game plus on my first character and I'm doing another character using Ninjitsu, spear and kusurigama since there is no training tonfas, and using heavy gear while trying not to be in yellow agility because yellow agility is crap. And my first character was a mage not using pure range and no sloth talisman but a magic build is actually viable in the game and incredibly useful.

So in conclusion Nioh is a game I would recommend to everyone with a PS4 and PC but only if you have a controller because I can play dark souls 2 on keyboard but Nioh you should only use a controller due to the combat system. So Nioh Complete edition gets a extremely high recommendation to the point where I want to rate it ten out of ten. The game has flaws I'm not denying that but I cant help but just look at the positives. The Base game I would rate 8 out of ten because the DLC only adds more like weapons, armor, new areas, bosses, SANADA YUKIMURA, A JAPANESE UNICORN, AND A NINJA WITH EXPLODING TONFA'S. and yeah don't buy the base game buy the complete edition if your going to buy there is no reason not to and it is cheaper with all the DLC combined.

On a minor note you can connect to the internet and enable online features for the PS4 version of the game without needing playstation live. you cant do coop or PVP but the graves from other players will appear and you can fight there revenants.

This is also the reason why I haven't been writing that much.