[Official Playstation Magazine] "Nioh 2 is the Sekiro killer" and "How Team Ninja has its sights set on the FromSoftware crown"

[KINGOFSHIBUYA Ltd.]

Never finished the first game, despite loving the combat, because I found the equipment and skill upgrade systems to be convoluted, and most importantly a lot of the level design was messy/incoherent.
So basically it was missing what I love about the Souls games, though the ki pulse and stance systems were cooler than what the souls games had.

If only I could combine them.

The level design in Sekiro is so much better than in Nioh it's absurd. Mediocre level design held together by a good combat system. Exploration straight up sucked in that game.

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Yeah pretty much thi-

The other problem is that the loot vomit makes exploring the levels for secret treasures less meaningful. When you just get a shit ton of loot from killing enemies.

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-yeah this too.


I hope 2 is better.

 

[Dphex]

why does it have to be a killer of anything? it is an advanced Nioh with new mechanics that can stand on its own feet.

this "game a is the game b killer" stuff is nonsense...

 

[GiantEnemyCrab]

Not by a long shot.

 

[PeskyToaster]

I felt the combat system was a bit of nonsense. Souls has a simplicity to it that is really nice. A lot of developers over complicate their dumb systems.

 

[Naga]

I don't really get all the "Nioh is trash/mediocre" comments here. Nioh is a fantastic game, I can get being disappointed if you expect a different kind of game, but come on...

 

[Hybris]

That article title makes me want to puke

 

[TitlePending]

After the deliberate combat pace of the Soul series, I much prefer the more action-oriented combat in Nioh was a breath of fresh air - Ki Pulse, different stances, etc. I do wish they would tone down all the loot management though.

Honestly, I only play Souls games now so I can watch VaatiVidya plot and character videos on Youtube to actually appreciate the lore.

 

[Nerokis]

Nioh did some cool things with combat, but people always seem to take for granted that adding complexity = better combat. Ki pulse is sort of emblematic of that: it added another thing to manage, was implemented well enough to feel rewarding once you got good at it, etc., but I have zero desire for a From game to ever replicate it as a mechanic. Same with stance dancing.

They're fundamentally different approaches, honestly. From's games tend to scale complexity just enough to maintain a sense of game balance, so that the focus can be on adapting to different bosses and enemies, and so that your sense of "I could have approached this better" comes down more often to fundamentals than mastering intricate combos and whatnot.

 

[Nestunt]

There are a lot of things that Nioh does better than Soulsborne,

but the parry system of Sekiro? Nah.

 

[Napalm_Frank]

Nioh 2 vs Elden Ring

Whoever wins, we win.

Spoiler

Nioh>Sekiro doe

 

[Green Mario]

Guess what? I enjoyed both games.

 

[DNgamers]

You could just as well compare Onimusha to Sekiro. I don't think they are even the same type of game, tbh. Sekiro to me is in a different league when in comes to quality but in the end it's all a matter of taste. Personally I don't see another game beat Sekiro in its own league.

Nioh can exist and be awesome in its own way. I don't see the rivalry here.

 

[Franco_Tech]

Sekiro had a better budget that's why you see better graphics big areas of exploration whit beautiful detail, Ni-oh eve if what low budget the dam game play is what make this game what it is.And people said is a Souls clone but this plays more like Ninja gaiden with souls aspects.

 

[Thrill_house]

They already did as far as I'm concerned.

 

[ffvorax]

Well its an hopinion... in my hopinion Nioh is too grindy and frustrating, while Sekiro is super fun and challenging but fair. And Nioh 2 beta to me looked just as Nioh (but a little better) so no chance probably it will be much better for my taste.

 

[Bjones]

Nioh was horrible compared to any souls / Sekiro so I greatly doubt it.

 

[Blade Wolf]

First Nioh is already better than Sekiro

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Fuck no

 

[Deleted member 17403]

Nioh in my opinion is superior to Sekiro, which is far more limited in terms of combat options. With this in mind, it doesn't come as a surprise that Nioh 2 is better than Sekiro, but personally that's not that great of an achievement. When Nioh 2 is regarded as being better than Bloodborne or Dark Souls 1, then I'll be impressed.

 

[crespo]

I enjoyed Nioh quite a lot when I first started playing but the issues I had with it (boring level design, most bosses I either one-shot easily or had some cheap one-shot death mechanic, little variation with enemies, loot vomit) prevented me from finishing it. Sekiro I nearly Platinum'd (real-life distractions as I chased the final ending and never picked it back up).

I much prefer Sekiro's combat, world depth, enemy and boss variety and difficulty, and overall style. Just felt more satisying for me. Hopefully Nioh 2 addresses some of those issues, as at it's core it can be fun, just needs less hallway-ish worlds and more enemy variety (which I've seen the demo had a bit more of).

Also very surprised at how many here fell for the clickbait title. We should be above this, y'all.

What is this, the fucking 90's? What a silly clickbait headline. How are these games even in competition with each other?

Based on my time with the Beta, Nioh 2 doesn't improve any of Nioh's widely criticized core flaws so I don't see how Nioh 2 would suddenly be the From killer. It doesn't even seem like a better game than the first one, it simply attempts to take a step forward by piling on a ton of additional sub-systems yet takes two steps back by not addressing any of the first game's actual flaws and seemingly exacerbating them slightly at every turn.

Don't get me wrong, I think Nioh is a great game but to me it's more of a straight Character Action game where From's games are Action Adventures and Action RPGs through and through, they're not trying to do the same thing as Nioh and Nioh isn't trying to do the same thing as From so these divisions are nonsense to me.

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Ah, thanks for that. Agreed re: the last paragraph.

 

[Eros]

Articles like these are lame. But Sekiro never looked interesting to me once they unveiled it. Played it for a little while and didn't have an ounce of fun. While Nioh can improve, it's definitely my samurai souls like for now.

 

[logash]

I like Nioh but it became far too repetitive later in the game. I feel like there are new interesting things introduced in every area in Sekiro.

 

[MegaSackman]

I don't know man, Nioh is good but it has some key flaws for me that I don't think will be addressed in the sequel. They have improved the music which was uninteresting in the first one, that's a plus.

They need to make the game less repetitive or shorter because Nioh was way too long for sure and by the last two acts I just wanted it to end at all cost. The story should be less dumb as well, I mean Sekiro's not actually the best From has done in that regard but the atmosphere alone and the characterization and presentation sells the story better.

I don't expect From's level design quality I didn't have much criticism in that aspect for Nioh, it was good imo, it's not Devil May Cry.

 

[residentgrigo]

Nioh 1 (9/10) is already better than Sekiro (8/10) so I agree on principle. Next March, nice.

 

[Dysun]

The first Nioh was pretty good, but I disliked the side missions retreading the same areas in a different fashion and the overabundance of loot. Even though the combat has some similarities, they don't really evoke 'Sekiro/Souls killer' vibes from me, just another good game with challenging combat and encounters. I'm looking forward to Nioh 2

 

[Zera Bloodwinter]

I really like both games but From is king.

 

[DealWithIt]

The only reasonable choice is Sekiro over Nioh. Sekiro has: Better writing, worldbuilding, character design, enemy variety, pacing (Nioh drags insanely, Sekiro is instantly replayable and very low on filler, if there is any at all) level design, music and art direction. Nioh has good combat, but better than Sekiro? Not in my book, at best it's a close call. What does that leave Nioh to have on Sekiro?

I prefer Sekiro deflections to ki pulse, I prefer shinobi tools to Nioh magic stuff. Nioh's writing is somehow both generic and ridiculous at the same time, incredibly.

I like both games and I have a lot of respect for what Nioh accomplishes, it's an excellent game Sekiro is 5x the game though.

 

[Thac]

If it's anything like the first one it will not do this at all.

 

[Bruceleeroy]

What's funny is neither of them are that good.

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Ha exactly my thoughts

 

[Arttemis]

I like the variety of combat styles and animations in Nioh, but the mechanics of its gameplay were wholly unenjoyable to me. It felt so cobbled together and detached, with AI that never felt like it was directly responding to me.

I'm glad people who liked Nioh are getting a sequel, but the two games were so incomparable due to the laser focus in Sekiro's mechanics that sang to me beautifully that paired with the incredible sense of mobility that was absent from Team Ninja's work. I'd rather just have another Ninja Gaiden.

 

[FakePlasticTree]

It having customization alone makes it a more fun game than Sekiro.

 

[Baalzebup]

The other problem is that the loot vomit makes exploring the levels for secret treasures less meaningful. When you just get a shit ton of loot from killing enemies.

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You know, saw you make a similar comment in the beta thread and forgot to address it, so I'll do it here instead. While it is true you get major portions of your loot by simply killing everything that looks at you funny, Nioh has always had aspects that very much support exploration. The skillpoint granting hairlocks are mostly hidden beyond the beaten path and some levels will have strongly weighted loot nodes that, while not guaranteeing you anything specific, are very much keyed to give you something more specific and often of greater rarity than you'd normally find.

For example, there were a few select locations in Nioh 1 that were favored spots for farming the Yasakani Magatama due to those spots having a guarantee that it would generate high rarity accessories. A certain mission in the Bathhouse was one, and the Watcher in the Darkness side-mission, which ended in a duel with Saika Magoichi, was another. Nioh 2 beta demonstrated a similar weighted node in the snake mission, with one particular loot node in one of the tunnels at the bottom basically guaranteeing you a drop that was a) at least at blue rarity and b) had the purity element to it.

So while it is fair to say that the loot vomit dilutes certain aspects of exploration, I nevertheless still think that exploration has great value in Nioh.

 

[Skyejack]

If they haven't toned down the endless inventory management, they're not gonna be in the same league as Sekiro.

 

[Kat Bailey]

We put our Soulsborne person on the beta. They had concerns about the new systems/difficulty balance

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/nioh-2-open-beta-impressions-preview

 

[collige]

I thought we left the "game-killer" rhetorics back in the Halo 2 days.

I pretty bored of the repetition/poor level design/poor lot design of the first Nioh. I'm finally getting around to playing Sekiro and feel it's a much better overall package even if the combat has less options.

 

[crimilde]

To me the first game already was cause I enjoyed Nioh far more than Sekiro.

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My sentiments exactly. I absolutely loved Nioh.

We put our Soulsborne person on the beta. They had concerns about the new systems/difficulty balance

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/nioh-2-open-beta-impressions-preview

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This reads to me like they tried playing this game as if it was Soulsborne combat.
No wonder they had a bad time with it. There are a lot of systems and abilities in the game that help you manage ki, stun enemies, deal more damage etc.

I think way more people would have fun with Nioh if they stopped brute forcing it.

 

[Caspar]

Combat is only a small part of a From Software game, I'm more interested in all the other stuff they do so well, like level design and art direction, music, storytelling etc. Nioh wasn't a bad game by any means but I dropped it after 20 hours or so when I realised it was pretty much just about the sword fighting.

There's definitely room for both though, I don't really get the desire to have them fight "for the crown" or whatever. Nioh was obviously inspired by Souls but they're very different games. It kind of reminds me of when Saints Row was always marketed as a GTA killer and was always throwing shade at Rockstar in trailers.

 

[scottbeowulf]

I played both, I'm not good at these kinda games so I hit a wall in both and didn't finish. But I'd say I had more fun with Nioh. I'm a sucker for loot. And the mostly 60fps was icing on the cake.

 

[Morrigan]

It's a weird comparison. Nioh is an action RPG with an extremely prominent loot system.

Sekiro is an action game with some light RPG mechanics

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But they both have dudes with katanas in it! /s

We put our Soulsborne person on the beta. They had concerns about the new systems/difficulty balance

https://www.usgamer.net/articles/nioh-2-open-beta-impressions-preview

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Disagree with a lot of that article.

First: did the author even play the alpha and beta tests of Nioh 1 (they did play Nioh 1 itself at least)? The final game ended up being much easier. So the Nioh 2 beta was indeed hard, but like Nioh 1, have no doubt that the same thing will be true here too.

Second, many parts of this article are... silly, sorry. Like this:

Bosses will frequently one-hit kill you, often in unavoidable situations.

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It's just not factually true (unless mayyybe they wore like, no armour, and never levelled up their HP). The strongest boss attack I saw was the ferret/cat boss's grab attack and it hit pretty hard but it wasn't OHKO at full health even on my lightly armoured character, and it was definitely telegraphed and not "unavoidable".
Then they say:

it can be difficult to play catch up.

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But they said they played Nioh 1 twice. A lot of complaints about the beta were about how Nioh 2 didn't innovate enough and this person says there's too many new things/system? Bit weird. Then:

Yokai Abilities are worthless in high stakes fights.

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Ooooof. So wrong. The Ippon-Datara ability, for example, is a gamechanger. It deals massive ki damage, staggers enemies, and sets them on fire automatically. How is this worthless?

 

[MrS]

Nioh plays more like Bloodborne than Sekiro, and we all know this series ain't a Bloodborne killer, good though it is.

 

[jett]

Based on my time with the beta I'm gonna have to go with no.

 

[Haze]

But they both have dudes with katanas in it! /s


Disagree with a lot of that article.

First: did the author even play the alpha and beta tests of Nioh 1 (they did play Nioh 1 itself at least)? The final game ended up being much easier. So the Nioh 2 beta was indeed hard, but like Nioh 1, have no doubt that the same thing will be true here too.

Second, many parts of this article are... silly, sorry. Like this:

It's just not factually true (unless mayyybe they wore like, no armour, and never levelled up their HP). The strongest boss attack I saw was the ferret/cat boss's grab attack and it hit pretty hard but it wasn't OHKO at full health even on my lightly armoured character, and it was definitely telegraphed and not "unavoidable".
Then they say:

But they said they played Nioh 1 twice. A lot of complaints about the beta were about how Nioh 2 didn't innovate enough and this person says there's too many new things/system? Bit weird. Then:

Ooooof. So wrong. The Ippon-Datara ability, for example, is a gamechanger. It deals massive ki damage, staggers enemies, and sets them on fire automatically. How is this worthless?

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I haven't played the Nioh 2 alpha, but as someone who enjoyed the Nioh alpha but disliked the full game, will Nioh 2 be worth checking out?

 

[Detective Pidgey]

I find this very odd because from what I've seen of Nioh 2 it's very different from Sekiro. In the former you can hack and slash away at enemies, as long as you dodge and block whereas in the latter you can barely do this and have to deflect and block all the time.

 

[Morrigan]

I haven't played the Nioh 2 alpha, but as someone who enjoyed the Nioh alpha but disliked the full game, will Nioh 2 be worth checking out?

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I... don't know. I hated the Nioh 1 alpha, but Nioh ended up being my GOTY. >_>

What did you miss from the alpha from the full game? The bad hitboxes, poor tracking, horrible camera, the painful durability system? :P

 

[Haze]

I... don't know. I hated the Nioh 1 alpha, but Nioh ended up being my GOTY. >_>

What did you miss from the alpha from the full game? The bad hitboxes, poor tracking, horrible camera, the painful durability system? :P

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I liked that it was short and self-contained. Nioh 1 felt like a decent game that was stretched out for dozens more hours than it should have been.

 

[Asbsand]

I just don't like the story or its tone. That's really where I get stuck on these. Gameplay seems fine and it has an awesome character creator.

 

[Van Bur3n]

I liked that it was short and self-contained. Nioh 1 felt like a decent game that was stretched out for dozens more hours than it should have been.

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I found the first Nioh to be about three missions longer than it should have been. By the time you fought mega skeleton man of doom, that should have been the end. Cut some of the earlier missions prior to that point, and you'd be good. Like did we really need that ninja toad boss in ninja land, I don't think so, I don't really care about Hanzo's former master. Why do I even remember this being a part of the story, please don't ask me. Besides that, the main questline was of decent length. It would only feel bloated if you really went out of your way to do all of the side shit, and there is a lot of side shit.

I personally like the game being chock-full of side shit. It's there for those who wanna do it.

 

[Baalzebup]

I found the first Nioh to be about three missions longer than it should have been. By the time you fought mega skeleton man of doom, that should have been the end. Cut some of the earlier missions prior to that point, and you'd be good. Like did we really need that ninja toad boss in ninja land, I don't think so, I don't really care about Hanzo's former master. Why do I even remember this being a part of the story, please don't ask me. Besides that, the main questline was of decent length. It would only feel bloated if you really went out of your way to do all of the side shit, and there is a lot of side shit.

I personally like the game being chock-full of side shit. It's there for those who wanna do it.

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Big toad was Hanzo's dad. And the ninja mansion was one of the more unique levels in the game. Why would you cut out that one of all the levels? Even just going by the place, theme and such, not having a ninja-level would be straight out weird.

 

[Gush]

Like did we really need that ninja toad boss in ninja land, I don't think so

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Considering it's one of the best levels with one of the most fun bosses, I'd say it was a great inclusion. There's a bunch of fat to trim in Nioh but that's not the best example, start with all the missions that reuse previous levels and pare back from there imo.

Thankfully at least the NG+ system seemed to understand that the game was bloated and let you pick and choose the missions you wanted to do rather than having to go through them all over again each time. It wasn't the ideal solution, but it at least showed that the developers may've been aware that the game's pacing wasn't its best asset.

 

[Haze]

I found the first Nioh to be about three missions longer than it should have been. By the time you fought mega skeleton man of doom, that should have been the end. Cut some of the earlier missions prior to that point, and you'd be good. Like did we really need that ninja toad boss in ninja land, I don't think so, I don't really care about Hanzo's former master. Why do I even remember this being a part of the story, please don't ask me. Besides that, the main questline was of decent length. It would only feel bloated if you really went out of your way to do all of the side shit, and there is a lot of side shit.

I personally like the game being chock-full of side shit. It's there for those who wanna do it.

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I felt like even when I stopped doing side shit and mainlining the hell out of the game it was taking entirely too long. Should have been a 10ish hour experience instead of 50ish

 

[Van Bur3n]

Big toad was Hanzo's dad. And the ninja mansion was one of the more unique levels in the game. Why would you cut out that one of all the levels? Even just going by the place, theme and such, not having a ninja-level would be straight out weird.

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You're straight out weird. Stop liking things I don't like.

I felt like even when I stopped doing side shit and mainlining the hell out of the game it was taking entirely too long. Should have been a 10ish hour experience instead of 50ish

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Now you're just asking for something too short. Ten hours, what is the meaning of this request.