When the original Nioh burst onto the scene in 2017, it emerged as the best Soulslike outside of FromSoftware itself, with exemplary combat, thrilling bosses, and ridiculously deep mechanics. Three years later, Nioh 2 has improved in almost every aspect, but overall hasn’t changed much, making it essentially a “better than Nioh 1” game. Nioh 3, on the other hand, is more than just a repetitive sequel. This is a complete transformation of the formula, replacing the static world map with a huge open field covering multiple different eras of Japanese history. This change, along with the addition of a brand new ninja stance that changes Nioh’s combat rules, and a series of small quality of life adjustments all make it the biggest shake-up in the series to date, and one of the best Soulslikes to date.
First off, the bad: One area where we haven’t seen much change is storytelling. This is a shame, as this has always been one of the weakest elements of the series. As with previous Nioh games, the story primarily serves as a means to guide you through fictionalized retellings of important battles and wars in Japanese history. Giant apparitions, magical stones with corrupting influence, and guardian spirits are common there. You play as Takechiyo, Tokugawa Ieyasu’s grandson and successor to the shogunate. Takechiyo must travel back in time to obtain the means to defeat an ancient evil that has corrupted the present.
The biggest problem with Nioh’s story is that it’s very dry and frankly a little boring. Those who are familiar with Japanese history may be able to understand more by knowing the background and significance of these historical figures and events, but for a layman like me, there just isn’t enough work done to make me care about what’s going on in each era that Nioh 3 takes me to. Fortunately, the cutscenes are short, the choreography is great, and these lack of story don’t get in the way of the action elements that make Nioh 3 one of the best Soulslikes out there.
Let me start by saying this: Nioh 3 has some of the best Souls-like combat at the end of the story, past or present. The feel and look of the weapons, the variety of weapons, the depth of the mechanics, the challenging and aggressive enemy AI, the different approaches you can take in every battle, the list goes on and on. Best in class quality on every level.
Almost all of that is true for Nioh 2, but what pushes Nioh 3 even further into the stratosphere is that it’s split into two distinct combat modes: Samurai and Ninja. Samurai mode is a traditional Nioh combat experience, featuring careful resource management through the use of ki pulses to restore stamina, the need to switch between low, medium, and high stances depending on a given encounter, and a careful balance between defensive techniques and offensive rushdowns.
Ninja mode, on the other hand, is a completely new style of Nioh’s combat that does away with the aforementioned Ki pulses and stance switching, replacing them with much faster attacks that don’t require stamina, allowing you to basically suffocate your enemies with attacks without even giving them a chance to counterattack. Additionally, Ninja mode also gives you access to three ninjutsu attacks, including shuriken, traps, and magic spells, which refill as you land attacks, perfect for targeting enemy weak points or attacking those annoying flying enemies.
The two modes can be freely switched on the fly, and they also have their own equipment sets, essentially allowing you to build two different characters with different combat focuses and styles. Team Ninja wisely avoids falling into the trap of forcing you to use one stance over another to defeat certain types of bosses or enemies. This trap often prevents creative combat expressions in other games. Instead, both stances are always viable, and the choice of whether one is better than the other for a particular type of encounter is always up to your discretion and playstyle.
It always felt great to go back to a boss you previously fought and died and adjust your strategy using more or less of one of the modes. For example, in a fight against a boss with powerful but predictable attacks, you can maintain a samurai stance to parry the attack and leave more stamina to counterattack. But in fights with faster, more volatile bosses, you might focus on a ninja stance and use the Quickstep Mist ability to get around to the more vulnerable backside and avoid having to block all at once.
I obviously prefer the flexibility and speed of the Ninja Stance, but developer Team Ninja has done a great job of balancing the two stances to make both of them worth replacing on a regular basis. Samurai mode feels a bit weak at a base level, but it’s balanced out by much better defense. There’s also an additional mechanic called Art Mastery that rewards you with a powered-up special attack or heavy attack if you manage to fill the meter by hitting and blocking without getting hit. Ninja Mode, on the other hand, feels like Team Ninja has finally removed all of the limiters that previous games have placed on combat in order to balance stamina management, throwing up their hands and saying, “Just go wild.”
Perhaps the biggest difference from previous Nioh games is the shift from a mission structure to a series of open worlds. Nioh 3’s 40+ hour campaign takes you back in time to the Edo period, Heian period, the end of the Edo period, and even ancient times. Each era you travel to has its own huge battlefield to explore, with numerous points of interest throughout the map, featuring optional bosses, challenging combat encounters, and valuable rewards.
That last part is important. Because one of the few complaints I’ve ever had with the Nioh series is that the random nature of the loot drops doesn’t provide satisfying rewards. While most of the loot in Nioh 3 is still random, there are other important rewards available. Completing the Lesser Crucible will power up your Guardian Spirit and give you access to new Spirit skills. Defeating a master unlocks new nodes in certain weapon skill trees. Once you find the Jizo Statue, you will be able to choose from a variety of bonuses that will help you while in the Crucible. When you snipe a weasel-like earthling demon from the sky, elemental variations of the technique appear in the skill tree. Many treasure chests scattered around the world contain equippable skills. All of this is in addition to the existing Kodama and Scanpus collectibles that were present in past Nioh games.
Doing these open-world activities also earns you credit for area exploration, giving you rewards ranging from stat bonuses to skill points to identifying more areas of interest on the map. There were very few surprises while exploring Nioh 3’s open zones, but at least the time was well worth it. This is very important in games where you need every advantage you can get.
But while exploration is well encouraged, and the environmental design of these vast open landscapes is impressive, Nioh 3’s open world feels like it lacks an identity of its own. Part of the problem stems from the fact that you’ll be fighting the same enemies in almost every zone. This was a similar problem in previous Nioh games, and it feels even more so when you’re wandering around a visually distinct open world where everything feels the same. There are almost no enemies that feel unique to the era. The cyclops that appear in the Sengoku period are the same as those that appeared in the icy Heian period, but they throw snowballs instead of rocks.
Overall you’re at least faced with a fairly wide range of enemies, many of which are new to the series, but it’s a bit of a shame that the returning enemies don’t have any new tricks or attacks up their sleeves.
You don’t need anything special to stay alert. Nioh 3, like the previous two games, is extremely difficult even by Souls-like standards. Enemies and bosses are relentlessly aggressive, and if you’re not careful with your stamina management, you’ll periodically stun and become susceptible to high-damage attacks, killing you in just one hit. But that difficulty is the key to why Nioh 3’s combat is so thrilling. What’s more, despite the high difficulty level, the checkpoints are well placed, there are plenty of shortcuts, and the loading times are very fast, so even though I died 290 times during the campaign, I rarely felt frustrated.
Loot remains the most frustrating aspect of Nioh 3. In fact, this is a loot system that exists to benefit New Game+ at the expense of the first playthrough. Great for New Game+ and beyond. You can dig deep into your gear collection, select useful sets, plan your builds around powerful set bonuses, and get into the nitty-gritty of gear customization. But until you get to that point, bothering with it feels like a waste of time and resources because your gear will quickly become obsolete. I’ve played enough of these games to know that you shouldn’t sweat the loot on your first playthrough, but instead equip your highest numbered gear and move on. But my prayers go out to anyone tackling Nioh 3 for the first time. Because we’re scrutinizing literally thousands of pieces of equipment. on top When you include all the equippable skills, skill trees, fame points, guardian spirits, and soul cores that can be placed in Yin or Yang positions, it’s just…a lot.
Thankfully, we’ve added an auto-equip feature that makes it easy to equip the most powerful gear you own with the push of a button. What’s especially cool is that you can set it to automatically equip based on weight. So, for example, if you don’t mind bad evasion for a few invincibility frames, you can also set it to equip all the heaviest gear you have. It can also be configured to balance good gear with good evasion. Or you can go to the opposite extreme and set it to auto-equip you with the best gear to get you running around the battlefield, even if one or two gear slots are completely empty.
Auto-equipping obviously has its limitations, as it doesn’t take into account the weapon’s special effects or set bonuses that define your build. However, Nioh 3’s menus offer options to significantly shorten the playtime of the game without impacting those who enjoy the process of meticulously tweaking their builds at every point in the campaign.