00:00Nioh 3 wants you dead and it will get its way many, many times. Prepare to be kicked,
00:07stabbed, flattened, burnt, shot, bitten and much more by a wide variety of enemies both
00:14natural and supernatural. You'll primarily be facing yokai, weird, wonderful and occasionally
00:19darkly comic demons, many of which fans will recognise from the first two games.
00:24One of Nioh 3's additions to the series though is a legendary creature that until now had only
00:30been known by myth, a jump button.
00:38Does this mean a new way to die? Yes, of course it does. Don't worry, there are only a handful
00:43of
00:43mid-air platforms in the entire game so there's no shift to a Super Mario fever dream. There are,
00:48however, plenty of opportunities to fall to your death if you're not careful while exploring or
00:54fighting on cliff edges and narrow walkways. So be careful. Even more so than usual.
01:00This newfound ability to let your feet leave the ground whenever you like ties into Nioh 3's shift
01:05from a traditionally linear adventure to what Team Ninja is describing as open field gameplay.
01:11This sounds more sustainable than open world because while there's fast travel, huge maps and
01:17side quests, it generally feels like a large number of linear set pieces stitched together in the best
01:23possible way. This isn't Team Ninja going full Elden Ring for this entry, even if the wider design
01:28does echo recent Souls-like developments. Nioh 3 is a tight experience with no filler and no boring
01:35empty areas. This new approach to level design and your shiny new jump button means there's more
01:41verticality to the environment. It also means more opportunities to launch and get caught in ambushes.
01:47It's never been a good idea to rush in when there's loot lying suspiciously unguarded in the middle of
01:52an open space, but now you have to carefully look around all corners and heights before going for it.
01:58If you're lucky, you can get onto a nearby roof for a better look.
02:08The open field shift is significant, but pales in comparison in terms of gameplay impact when put next to
02:15the new samurai and ninja systems. Your character is split into two play styles that you can instantly
02:21switch between at any time, and if you're thinking of Yasuke and Nae in Assassin's Creed Shadows,
02:27that comparison's a good starting point for understanding the differences.
02:31Samurai style is essentially how the protagonist played in Nioh and Nioh 2. The precise qualities
02:37of the character depends on the attributes you assign as you level up, but guarding and countering
02:42our key to survival, as is mastering the timing of the ki pulse after an attack in order to speed
02:47up
02:48your ki recovery. The ninja style, meanwhile, opens up opportunities never before possible in this
02:55series. Again, the attributes you upgrade determine the specifics of your strengths and weaknesses,
03:00but broadly speaking, the ninja is more fragile yet faster, leaning more heavily on evading rather than
03:06guarding, and generally depleting ki at a slower rate. There's no ki pulse for the ninja, but the
03:12equivalent ability is missed, which grants a brief moment of invulnerability if timed correctly.
03:18In addition, while the samurai can unlock and adopt different stances that affect the damage and ki
03:24use of the equipped weapon, the ninja can unlock and equip ninjitsu abilities that are recharged by
03:30landing hits on enemies. Many allow you to attack from a distance, and that's what I ended up leaning on
03:34the feature 4. The two styles are significantly different, with unique loot pools and differing
03:40stats. The ability to switch between the two with a button press, combined with the many different
03:45weapons on offer, presents a whole new range of combat opportunities. I found the versatility of
03:51switchglaives or the power of axes worked best for my samurai, while claws or tonfers and their rapid
03:57attacks suited my ninja hit and run playstyle. Likewise, easily interrupted human enemies were usually
04:03best dispatched as a ninja, and the samurai would sometimes give me the best chance against
04:08tougher yokai. I'd mix it up in some fights, charging ninjitsu as a samurai before switching
04:13to ninja so I could throw in a few shrapnel bombs or pinwheel shuriken.
04:31Some Neo fans get grumpy when you call the games souls-likes, but if it looks like a souls-like
04:36and
04:37walks like a souls-like, it's probably a duck. Even minor enemies can wipe you out quickly if you're
04:42careless, no matter how high your character level gets. That just makes landing on a combination of
04:47weapons, tactics and unlocked abilities that work for you all the more satisfying. And therein lies
04:54the thrill of combat. You know you're always potentially just a few seconds or less from
04:59death, each mistake very painfully felt. Sneaking behind an enemy to instantly kill them or take off a
05:06chunk of health, then storming in with a combo that could see you lose half your HP if mistimed, is
05:11a
05:11real rush when it works. As for the one and only time I managed to kill a boss on the
05:16first try,
05:17I felt like a god.
05:26Neo3 is crammed full of boss fights, to the extent that it feels like the code would fall apart if
05:32you tried removing any. I soon resigned myself to the fact that, aside from the aforementioned time,
05:37I'd have to die to each at least a few times before victory, in order to learn attack patterns and
05:43weaknesses. Although there are a few commonalities across most or all of them, such as an unblockable
05:48attack you can counter with burst break to reduce their maximum key, and an unblockable attack that
05:53will see them grab you and deal huge damage if not dodged. Each is unique and needs to be learned
05:59on
05:59their own terms. Unsurprisingly, boss fights are tough, more than once it took me hours to finally
06:04emerge victorious, and therefore they are oh so very, very satisfying to overcome. A few of these
06:11bosses, it must be said, feel over tuned compared to the difficulty of the area they're found in.
06:16It's slightly annoying to car through an area relatively easily, only to suddenly feel like an
06:21optimistically aggressive banana fighting a gorilla. I would often get frustrated and say naughty words,
06:27but I never felt inclined to give up on the game.
06:36The issue is that bosses appear to be primarily designed with co-op in mind, and scaling,
06:42if there is any, seems a bit iffy. So long as you have a sufficient number of items,
06:47you can summon up to two human players to your game. You also have the option of summoning a player
06:51ghost to help you make up the numbers, again, depending on whether you have enough relevant currency,
06:56by interacting with a benevolent grave intentionally left by another player.
07:00You can only ever have one ghost, oddly, and their efficacy is okay, but not great. Due to the
07:07small number of pre-release players, I was never able to summon help, but I did dive into two games
07:13myself to help out with bosses. As those players were over a dozen hours behind me, I pretty much
07:18steamrolled the big bad. Examples like this are likely to become more and more common after release.
07:24You'll be spending a lot of time in menus leveling up, sorting through the endless parade of new loot,
07:30equipping and upgrading items and abilities, and, initially, quite possibly learning what all the
07:36corners of the menus are actually for. Despite this, Nioh 3 doesn't feel like a badly paced game,
07:42as everything you do in the menu has an important effect. You can even reset and remix your own
07:47stats as often as you like, which is great, but there's no option to save setups. Best get your
07:53notepad out if you think you might want to go back to the precise character build you were using.
07:58Personally, I ended up playing almost exclusively in ninja style once I was three quarters or so of the
08:04way through the game, with samurai for a few bosses. But that says more about the versatility of Nioh 3's
08:10systems than anything else. I got my ki and ninja damage to a point where that was viable, and it
08:15suited my personal preference. But you might end up mostly ignoring ninja by then, and it's equally
08:21likely you could pull a build together that sees you switching between the two regularly mid-fight,
08:26exploiting the strengths and minimizing the weaknesses of both. Nioh 3 is tough, brutally tough, but it has a
08:33unique sense of accessibility in terms of very powerful options to customize your build and playstyle.
08:39The all-important sense of progression is there too, despite the fact that carelessness will always
08:45be your downfall. I remember the first time I encountered an enemy at least four times my height,
08:50and the uphill struggle of defeating it. Then I realized that wasn't even a boss, and a single tear
08:56fell from my poor little eye. A dozen or two hours later, when I'd faced several such towering beasts,
09:03I'd grown to see them as enjoyable challenges rather than encounters to be dreaded. A few bosses feel like
09:08they've been placed a little too early in the game, not all of the mechanics are brilliantly explained,
09:14especially for new players, and the acting ranges from okay to Garth Marenghi's dark place.
09:20There's also something of a cheap shot from the developers at the end, which I won't go into as
09:26it's slightly spoilery. This can all be overlooked however, as none of it changes the fact that Nioh 3 has
09:33instantly earned its place as one of the best games of the year. We give Nioh 3 4.5 stars
09:41out of 5.
09:43So, will you be picking up this Samurai Souls-like sequel? Have you played the other Nioh titles?
09:49Or will this be your first foray into this demon-riddled depiction of ancient Japan?
09:53Let us know, and stick with GamesRadar for the latest on the greatest games.
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