Review – Nioh 3 (Playstation 5)

The third instalment of Nioh is here (again) but is it Ni-oh yeah or Ni-oh no?

Nioh 3 is unsurprisingly enough the third entry in the Nioh franchise, developed by the artisans at Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo. Despite being a big fan of Team Ninja I’d never gotten around to playing either of the first two Nioh games. I’ll be honest, I just thought ‘Oh a souls like’ and continued on with my gaming life. So when Nioh 3 was offered for review there was zero chance of me turning it down.

Let us deal with the “From Software” I’m the room, while officially an Action Role Playing Game, comparison to the Souls franchise are bound to happen and as previously stated it had kept me away from the franchise. I like the souls games but I don’t need 30 of them a year. I’ll go more into this later but if trust me if that’s keeping you away from Nioh 3, it’s a mistake. 

The game beings and here you’ll make a choice, you are Tokugawa, but are you a man (historically accurate, although if realism is what your after you’re in the wrong place) or a woman. This has zero impact on the game aside from the visual look of you player character. I decided to play as a female Tokugawa as well, anytime Ninja are an option I have nostalgic flashback to playing Tenchu as a youth, Ayame for the win. 

Unlike other Action Role Playing Games, Nioh 3 doesn’t have you choose a class and be limited to it for the entire game. You have two combat forms, Ninja and Samurai. Samuari is the more traditional ARPG build, blocks, parry, bulkier armour, you the idea. Ninja is also fairly self explanatory, lighter armour, movement is crucial, perfectly timed dodges a bonus to back stab damage. The unique aspect to Nioh 3 is that you use both these forms and can switch between the at the press of a button. There’s even an combat mechanic called “Burst break”, as an enemy glows red and charges a powerful attack rather than dodging, if you time a style switch perfectly, you’ll parry the blow and can go to town on the foe. 

Once you’ve designed you fully customisable character your home is under attack, and as so often with these things a sudden yet inevitable betrayal. Your younger sibling consumed by jealously has fallen to darkness and leads an army of Yokai against your home, Edo Castle. Keeping spoilers to a minimum during your escape from Edo, you and your guardian spirit would face a battle, during this fight, a sudden blinding light appears you are transported back in time. 

This is where the game and the franchise really opens up, literally. Nioh 3 has a semi open world, a world overrun with bandits, traitors and more worryingly Yokai are everywhere. The open world looks fantastic and has such a strong visual style that I loved every moment of exploring it. There are enemy bases to conquer, shrines to liberate, Kodama to guide home. All of this exploring will reward you with items, ranging from better weapons to consumables like elixirs to restore health, scared waters to restore Ki (stamina) and many more varieties. 

Naturally combat is the core of Nioh 3 and this is where I’ll elaborate on comparing Nioh to a Souls game being an mistake. In the majority of ARPGs combat is a slow, clunky, repetitive affair and while this isn’t always a bad thing, it’s certainly not the case in Nioh 3. I would describe combat in other ARPGs as cautiously waiting for an opening before rushing in to chip away at the bosses health bar before retreating again. In Nioh 3, I’m fighting the boss, the fluidity and sheer range of options are phenomenal. The combat actually feels engaging, as I ‘Mist’ (in ninja form pressing R1 after you land an attack will cause to blink in a desired direction) around a foe and unleash rapid blows with my Kusarigama, before switching to Samurai, parrying a blow and carving chunks from the foes health. As you’d expect attacking consumes Ki (stamina), but while in Samuari form, the same input as the ninjas mist will execute a ‘Ki burst’ and slightly refill your stamina bar allowing your assault to continue. Even just the very basic combination of these mechanics feels incredible, and as you get better and better at using them you will relish every encounter in the game.

All that being said, don’t let the thrilling combat lull you into a false sense of security, Nioh 3 is still a difficult game, stop paying attention and even the basic Yokai can do some damage. Each open area features some challenging enemies dotted around that are essentially mini boss battles whose health bars stretch the width iff the screen. Naturally, we can’t allow this Yokai invasion to continue and must push them back, to do this Nioh 3 adds an extra challenge, The Crucibles. These are areas of the world gated behind large crystal formations, when you enter a crucible there are two main things to take note of. Firstly, the enemies here are a step up, they’re much more powerful than those outside. Secondly, your health bar, as you take damage you’ll suffer ‘Health Corrosion’. The corroded section of your health bar won’t recover when you use an elixir, there are items you can use, and blessings you can unlock to help but for the most part you’ll recover this health by slaughtering Yokai, again Nioh 3 wants you to get back in the fight. 

Speaking of back in the fight, you’ll die, and you’ll die a lot. When you do, you know what to expect, your current unspent experience lies in your grave and you can reclaim it by going back to that spot. If you die again on the way, the missing experience is forever lost. However, you’ll also drop your demon soul cores. As you vanquish Yokai, occasionally as well as loot, you can capture their soul. These aren’t as easy to recover as your lost experience points though, provided you have an active spirit guardian they will remain by your grave and guard any cores you haven’t yet purified at a shrine. However, if you’re without a spirit guardian when you die, the cores are lost. 

You’ll find and befriend more spirit guardians as the game progresses, as well as grave Guardians they are also a part of combat. They’ll morph into a weapon when you assassinate foes, they enable the use of special abilities and in some instances allow access to to parts of the open world you otherwise wouldn’t be able to access without them.

Given that you’ll die allow all that death produces revenants, you’ll find red spikes of light all over the world, these are the angry souls of defeated players, you can challenge them to duels and are a fun little challenge. Defatting them gives some loot but also Ochoko cups. These are used to summon the assistance of other players, you can leave a benevolent grave behind, this enables you or other players to summon an AI controlled version of their character to aide you in battle and trust me, some of the boss fights may cause you to swallow your pride and call for aid.