lol

Agree with tappokone about the lack of variety in trash mobs & yokai but so far (around 10 bosses in), each boss has been unique and difficult, but totally fair once you learn how to avoid their attacks (even Umi-bozu).

After my first time through the game I plan on just running past all the trash mobs. The replayability in these games for me is in the bosses.

I am leaving the loot question open for now. It's cumbersome but maybe the developers or the community will come up with a better way of managing the massive piles of loot.

Git gud.

If you didn't know, touchpad press allows you to "select all uncommon or worse" and similar options for quick inventory management.

Oh yeah, and at the blacksmith you can sort them by rarity, by ability, by newest, etc. It's just that there is so much of it, especially if you forget to manage it between each mission. My best idea so far is to just lock everything I want to keep.

This game is so good and disko is so bad.

In games where you slowly unlock more and more moves, there's often a trap you fall into where you never utilize the new moves. You get used to playing a certain way, with a certain moveset, and you sorta just get by with that even as you unlock stuff.

Today I made a concerted effort to play around with different stances and different moves on different weapons and stuff, there is a lot of neat and very useful moves, you just got to remember to use them or recognize situations where they would come in handy.

Managing the loot drops can take a lot of time if you want to, but you can also just pick up everything without thinking about it and dump it all at the BS or Shrine in a big batch.

After I beat a mission I quickly scan for upgrades then dump the rest. There really isn't much point to meticulously fiddling with gear too much until end game (or unless you hit a brick wall and can't progress unless you upgrade).

Here's a complaint: those damn Kodamu or whatever they are playing the f'ing kazoos and **** by the shrines. You fiddle inside the menu alot by the shrines and it's maddening. I have to run far enough away from the shrine to not hear it and then open the menu to do my house keeping.

Bloodborne and the DLC is apparently on sale for $17.50 on PSN. I couldn't get into it when I tried to play before but might give it another go.

Hit the first boss that gave me actual trouble, we'll just call her Elsa.

16 deaths before success on #17.

Probably never even got her below 40% before the victory run, sorta surprised I got her without another dozen runs.

My quick noob review of all the weapons and stances, I spent some time playing with them all.

(I originally was doing Sword/Axe as my primaries but switched early on to Spear/Axe)

Sword

Pros: The major pro is that it has no drawbacks. It's versatile and can be used in every situation.
Cons: The major con is that it doesn't excel at any one particular thing. There are faster weapons, more damaging weapons, weapons with longer range, etc.

This is a great weapon for beginners or if you really don't care to learn the full scope of combat. You can probably just park a sword on mid-stance and clear the whole game if that's what you wanna do.

Dual Sword

Pros: Fastest weapon, great at combos
Cons: Range is bad, each individual hit weak

If they ever put in PvP I get the feeling you'll see this a lot there, given the combo/stunlock sort of potential. Given the pros of this weapon, it excels in low stance, if you're going to use the speed weapon, use it in speed mode IMO.

Spear

Pros: Range, AOE
Cons: Slightly slower than most other weapons, bad in tight spaces

Spears are probably the best weapon if your goal is staying alive. They are great at crowd control and allow you to poke at an enemy max distance. I prefer it in mid-stance.

Axe

Pros: Damage, breaking guards
Cons: Slowest weapon

Axes (and hammers) are the heaviest weapons and you get the most damage per hit out of them. Given its goal is to hit hard, I prefer it on high stance.

Kusarigama

Pros: Perhaps the best weapon if you learn to master it
Cons: Most complicated weapon to use

If you master it you can get super speed and range and AOE, basically all the advantages of a spear only faster and without the tight space drawbacks.

The moveset of Kusarigama varies significantly by stance and as such, if you pick this weapon you will likely be juggling stances a lot more than other weapons. If you use this weapon you have to know your stance and your attacks and choose the right one for the enemy, the terrain, etc.. This weapon is sort of the exact opposite of the Sword.

I've been using the kusarigama as my main weapon.

The high stance is for plunking enemies from a distance (heavy attack) and draining their ki (light attack). There's also a skill that lets you knock down human enemies with a sweeping attack, which is really useful for revenants and the like.

The mid stance is for mid-range pokes and crowd control. Light attacks break yokai horns in a couple of hits. The low stance is for dodging around single enemies and applying status effects.

Kusarigama's attack animations tend to be lengthy, but in mid and low stance you can dodge out of light attacks at any time. In high stance you need to connect, though, or you're left vulnerable.

Re the loot system, the inventory management part is a bit of a hassle, but I wouldn't mind if it made the rest of the experience better in some way. Sadly, it just makes special gear feel less than special. Everything goes obsolete too fast to grow attached to anything. You can soul match once or twice, but the price goes up to the point where leveling up equipment as you progress through the game is unfeasible. And if you're not soul matching, you won't be using anything for very long at all. This effectively minimizes the enjoyment of picking up a cool new weapon (edit: or thinking about what set of bonuses is the best), for example.

Yes I would not spend a lot of money or resources on gear until end game, you're showered with so many drops that every mission it's pretty easy to upgrade every piece of gear you own. Crafting and perfecting gear is clearly meant to be an end game activity. It's a waste of money and time putting resources into gear that's easily replaced.

Also, word of warning, be careful with the sell all option at the blacksmith, I accidentally sold all of my smiting materials and my consumables last night...

The shrine offering and the blacksmith dissamble options are limited just to wearable gear, however you can sell smithing items and consumables at the BS... which I didn't know until it was too late when I dumped everything under the "all items" tab.

Thankfully 90% of what was lost was easily replaced stuff I farmed up again in a couple of hours, but I did lose my cache of demon horns and shikuk medicines, basically the crafting and consumable purples.

Distortion2 is already speedrunning the game in an hour and a half.

Are you guys using magic? Seems that is the way to go with bosses. Got the game 3 days ago and it makes it so much easier. Reducing the bosses attack, defense, and eventually speed when I unlock that ability makes a tough fight super easy.

Also, I tried searching for how weapons differ in terms of length and couldn't find any information. For example, I think I noticed the range on my high stance strong kusarigama attack was much longer when I switched equipment. Anyone have any links?

I'm at like level 50 and just realized I couldn't add skills in the Ninja or Magic skill trees til you do certain tutorials at like level 45.

Lol me.

New patch dropped today, mostly just fixing bugs and exploits but a few nice quality of life features.

One is that all excess materials pickups now go to the storehouse (previously just elixirs did that).

The second is an option to top off your ammo for your ranged weapons from your storehouse any time you begin a new mission (option that must be enabled).

Those are great additions!

Hell yeah they are. I've still been playing this a lot just been busy posting elsewhere and with life as well. Just made it to the fourth region and still absolutely loving it.

Yep, fantastic update, still playing every day. I'm using more and more ninjutsu and magic all the time. Investing in those stats really pays off. Been enjoying the spear as a backup weapon to dual katanas. Have just defeated a large pipe smoking entity.

I made it to the end. I did all the main and sub missions and about three twilight missions. Nioh is a good, enjoyable game that has some obvious flaws. I'd say it's quite competitive with From's lesser works. The added complexity to combat was fun to play around with and the combat system carried the whole.

The guardian spirit sharing cutscenes were the most effective storytelling moments for me, probably because they left out William, Edward and the game's plot, and drew from a mythologized version of Japanese history instead. The enemy variety never improved, which hurt the exploration aspect of the game, but there were some levels that felt unique scattered among the many temples and castles overrun by yokai.

The game felt most difficult early on. Once I got the hang of the combat and unlocked some of the key weapon and ninjutsu skills, things got easier. There's an axe-wielding regular yokai on a roof on the Isle of Demons that killed me more times than the last four main mission bosses combined. Still, there were difficulty spikes in sub missions and overall the game remained reasonably challenging for me throughout.

Yep I'm at the very end of the last act now. The game difficulty definitely goes down the last half, if you're properly geared and stated.

A big part of the decline in difficulty is simply fighting the same core enemy types so much, you get used to them and know their attacks so taking them down is easy. Game def. could have used more trash mob variety in the later half, by time you get to about the half way point you've seen them all and the boss fights are the only real new fights.

It's still way more difficult than your average game of course, which is good.

I'm also guessing the Way of the Strong mode (unlocked after beating the game) will def. up the ante on difficulty again as well.

There's just something about this game that doesn't do it for me. The combat is awesome and fluid, but there's just something about it that doesn't grab me.

Complaints so far:


-The Ninja abilities don't seem particularly useful.
-None of the Loot feels special just because there is so damn much of it
-None of the levels are deep enough to really provide intrigue or let you get lost in them

I just finished the ice level so I'm not all the way through the game yet. The boss fights are awesome, but the rest of the game grabbed me in at the start, but hasn't seemed to have the depth I was hoping for.

When you get to NG+ the loot system gets better and the game gets really hard, like getting 1-2 shot by everyone and archers shoot faster and hit way harder too