-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Nioh 2 Closed Alpha - May 24 (or 22?)-June 2 (gameplay trailer inside)
- Thread starter SolidSnakex
- Start date
Oh that's cool that your character is on the main screen now.
Always loved Nioh's menu.
You are overselling the difference by a ridiculous margin. 99% of your Dark Souls 1 skill will transfer over to Dark Souls 3. I didn't even notice much of a change when I played the third. Only after I went back to Dark Souls 1 Remastered I realized how it was slower. The three Dark Souls games are great (the GOAT trilogy even), but I have rarely seen three so similar sequels.
Well yeah, but the difference that pace change brings is nowhere near as dramatic a shift from previous Dark Souls games as you're trying to make it out to be.
A dramatic change that is still Dark Souls at its core is Bloodborne compared to the DS games.
New story, bosses, enemies, gear etc, which encompass new assets, yes. Implying Nioh 2 has none?
All 3 games are very similar, but there's enough differences under the hood to also look at them and see they can play quite differently, nothing substantial enough, but changes on animation on 2, the magic system in each entries, enemies, locations, visuals... to distinguish each other quite clearly.
I feel Nioh 2 really looks like Nioh 1 down to every aspect of the game unlike Dark Souls 2 compared to Dark Souls. That's not a negative for Nioh 2, just comparing both series.
Yeah, they're using capture card or remote play. I tried yesterday to stream my playthrough, but it blocked by the developer.
Yeah, sloth is still around, guardian spirit talisman from onmyo skill tree absent though.
Now you can decide how much kunai/shuriken/talisman you want to carry, it used to be stacking shuriken 1+2+3 to get the maximum amount of shuriken.
Alright, let's actually do a current in-depth comparison for the aspects you mentioned:
Animation changes:
The hatchets very likely replace the dual swords and have a new moveset. There are new gestures and old enemies gain new moves.
Magic system:
Works very different in Nioh 2, you gain magic skill points by using magic or finding locks, not by leveling up anymore. The way you ready spells is entirely different, as you ready single charges, which allows a lot of flexibility in what you choose, e.g. you can take 1 water shot, 1 rejuvenation talisman and 3 water talismans instead of being locked into readying them in batch. There are no direct upgrades for individual spells anymore so you can't ready them more easily. So far it also feels like it's harder to inflict elemental damage with projectile based spells than in 1, so a complete rebalance of the magic system.
Enemies:
Obviously new enemies and old enemies with new tricks.
Locations:
The game stays in feudal Japan, so we are bound to have the same kind of locations with different layouts, but the new levels have very different layouts than what I would call their counterpart in the first game.
Visuals:
These did not change much, but then again, this is an early alpha. The HUD got a makeover to a more transparent and modern looking design and the world map now looks much better.
Other changes this brought:
Yokai transformations, which I would say replace living weapons, but the phantom form is incredibly unique compared to anything else so it will be interesting to see what else they do in the full game. Yokai cores, after you kill yokai enemies they have a chance to drop a core, which you can equip, these give passive bonuses as well as special attacks you can activate when holding down R2, these are some times summons, other times projectile or strong AoE attacks.
Full character creator with the created character appearing in cutscenes as well as having a portrait after you finish a mission.
Yokai and blessed weapons for a new kind of elemental weapon, yokai weapons get stronger as you attack enemies for example.
A new skill tree with weapon specific skill points, it's obvious that the skills here will not be all of them in the final version, in the first game we also had to unlock higher skill trees first.
They have put a ton of changes in here, while the game definitely still feels like Nioh, it adds a lot more things to the formula and rebalances old aspects quite a bit.
I feel we are talking about different things here. You talk about movesets, while I'm talking purely about animation. The animation system in DS2 is totally different from DS even if lot of weapons has a similar moveset. Dark Souls 2 used motion capture for the animations, resulting on a very different look and feel compared to the DS ones.
In terms of enemies I meant the visual aspect of those, several enemies in Dark Souls 2 are, either look totally different or are completely new. Even if they behave similarly. That said vast majority of DS2 enemies were new.
Same in terms of locations and visuals. DS2 used a new engine and had a very different visual feedback due to that, lightning and shaders were very different from DS1 making some weapons and armors that were also on DS1 feel very different visually.
In the end I'm not talking about the "mechanics side" of the equation, in which all games mentioned here brought several differences to the table. DS2 was made mostly by a different team and it shows making DS2 a game similar but very different at the same time. Not in terms of mechanics or gameplay style, but in almost every other aspect.
Nioh 2 is a way more straighforward sequel.
Wait, in the post I originally quoted you said
You literally say "there's enough differences under the hood to also look at them and see they can play quite differently", that exactly means "mechanics side" or gameplay style.
But if it's solely about visuals, as I said before, there are some touches here and there, but in the end this is still an early closed alpha. This game is also meant to run at a stable 60 fps so you will not see them push for better and better graphics. Also I would personally say that a character creator alone is already a major change as they have to make sure that all armor and animations look right no matter the size or style of the player character.
Nioh's combat is good, but it's pretty sub-par in every other department I think. Unless this is a huge improvement over the first, Sekiro has much better encounter and boss design, more fun traversal and movement options, far superior level design, better storytelling and NPCs and much more pleasing art direction. I also really dislike Nioh's loot system.
Dark Souls 2s changes to stuff were like mostly systematically worse.
-adapt stat was dumb
-there was no hit stop on swings
-they brought gems back with estus
-they dropped the metroidvania shit
-Soul Memory wasn't actively any better
-the hit boxes were a joke
Never mind that From Software has a bad habit of unlearning things or straight not improving on basic combat shit. Niohs mechanics n animations were killer from the jump, it should bring those back. The addition of yokai skills is dope, and way more enemies is the biggest thing they need.
Beyond that they are in dire need of cutting the loot rpg shit out entirely or making it less cumbersome n tedious to deal with in the menus.
But even if that stays the same, it's a minor gripe at best. Pick the shit with the biggest number, sell everything else. Wreck face.
-adapt stat was dumb
-there was no hit stop on swings
-they brought gems back with estus
-they dropped the metroidvania shit
-Soul Memory wasn't actively any better
-the hit boxes were a joke
Never mind that From Software has a bad habit of unlearning things or straight not improving on basic combat shit. Niohs mechanics n animations were killer from the jump, it should bring those back. The addition of yokai skills is dope, and way more enemies is the biggest thing they need.
Beyond that they are in dire need of cutting the loot rpg shit out entirely or making it less cumbersome n tedious to deal with in the menus.
But even if that stays the same, it's a minor gripe at best. Pick the shit with the biggest number, sell everything else. Wreck face.
I'm not sure they would actively remove weapons in the 2nd game. We are missing dual blades, tonfa, hamners, and the kusarigamas. I'm gonna go with it's an alpha excuse.
So cute!
It's a really nice touch too that while in the twilight missions the shrines are populated by the demon kodama.
Considering how they bring over all the weapons and their moveset wholesale into Nioh 2, I can't think of any reason why they would cut Dual Swords, Hammer, Tonfas and Kusarigamas rather than just copy pasta.
Although they did upgrade Living Weapon with a Devil Trigger, so things might be dicey for fans of the Dual Swords since Dual Hatchets look like a replacement :v
I prefer the aesthetics of dual wielding swords than dual wielding axes.
Although they did upgrade Living Weapon with a Devil Trigger, so things might be dicey for fans of the Dual Swords since Dual Hatchets look like a replacement :v
I prefer the aesthetics of dual wielding swords than dual wielding axes.
Yeah, there's no way they will be cut from the final game. I'm expecting them to be back in another beta/alpha also.
The issue with that is, they don't play the same way. I'm im the it's just an alpha camp, and the missing weapons are in the full game.
Don't the hatchets have a lot of the movesets from dual swords with the additional throwing techniques?
For sure. It would be crazy to get rid of any weapons. I'm sure it's just for the purposes of this demo.
I mean, it really does. Sekiro's core gameplay is satisfying but there's not a lot of depth or variety to what you do.
Parrying is cool the first 20 hours but by the end you start to notice that's all there is to it.
This is hardly an uncommon opinion.
