Nioh 3 was supplied by Koei Tecmo for evaluation. Thanks!
I’ve an advanced feeling in the case of Motion RPGs/soulslikes. I get pleasure from them quite a bit, however I have a tendency not be so good at them, and I take fairly some time to finish. Nonetheless, I’ve lots of enjoyable, and of all of the soulslikes on the market, Nioh is one in every of my favorites. The quick tempo of the fight and tons of loot we are able to discover in a beautiful Japan-inspired world have all the time been ones I loved. So, with Nioh 3, I used to be so excited to get again into the collection. Nonetheless, what I discovered was in all probability probably the greatest soulslikes I’ve ever performed, and the golden commonplace I will probably be evaluating future ones to.
Nioh 3’s story begins off comparatively fascinating, and there’s some uniqueness all through that saved me curious, however it is not what I might think about a robust level. We play as Takechiyo, one of many grandsons of Ieyasu Tokugawa, who is ready to inherit his grandfather’s shogun place. He has a rivalry along with his brother, Kunimatsu, who additionally needs the place, and finally, we’re despatched again in time to defeat invading Yokai. I preferred that we had been going again by way of completely different intervals of historical past to vary future, however it by no means took me in as a lot as I hoped.
Nonetheless, the remainder of the sport utterly makes up for it. I do not often play the Nioh video games for his or her tales, although I’ll give Nioh 3 the advantage of the doubt and say it was probably the most fascinating to find out about.
Fight is excellent and refined to a tee, to the purpose the place each single struggle, regardless of how huge or small, was thrilling. The fixed motion of getting to repeatedly assault, dodge, and block incoming assaults all feels completely in sync with one another, with nearly no room for any spots the place it might really feel stale. Nioh’s gameplay has all the time been a excessive level for me, and I really like soulslikes that go all in with fast-paced motion (like Sekiro), however Nioh 3 seems like a step above the remainder.
The overall fight mechanics have not modified a lot from earlier iterations of the sport, and it may really feel very acquainted at first. The Samurai kind is what now we have come to know and love with Nioh, the place holding our stamina as much as frequently assault with slower-ish swings which have chunk of energy. We nonetheless have the Ki Pulse to regain our stamina, Omoyo magic, and guardian spirits to assist us in our fights, and so they really feel pretty much as good as ever.
However that does not imply now we have nothing new right here. The Ninja Kind seems like the precise reverse of the Samurai Kind. As a substitute of the extra conventional soulslike gameplay based mostly on slower, highly effective strikes and blocking, the Ninja Kind is all about quicker, weaker assaults and utilizing a large number of instruments at your disposal. The particular weapons the Ninja has, blended with the entire instruments, finally add a totally new strategy to sort out foes.
Workforce Ninja did an incredible job at making every kind really feel so completely different from the opposite, however nonetheless work collectively completely. We’ve the sluggish and regular standard fashion of gameplay within the Samurai kind, and the fast-paced Ninja kind, the place we transfer round continuously to get ourselves in place to deal as a lot injury as we are able to with out being struck.
Switching between the 2 seems like second nature, making using each kinds throughout one struggle quite common. To enhance and encourage this, some foes can have these glowing purple assaults that may be parried by swapping kinds on the proper time. These Burst Counters will help quite a bit by bringing down the enemy stamina bar to grapple and deal some bigger injury extra rapidly. And finally, these additions, together with the refined fight, elevate Nioh 3’s fight above some other soulslike I’ve performed but.
As a soulslike, getting stronger goes to be pretty much like the standard. We struggle enemies, get foreign money, and use that foreign money to stage up and enhance our stats. Nonetheless, the explanation the Nioh collection has captivated me as a lot because it has is because of its loot and tools system. There is a ton of weapons and tools that drops from enemies, all of which have randomized stats, substats, and even set bonuses. I’m a sucker for this type of gameplay; continuously grinding for brand new tools and stronger weapons is an effective time for me.
Nioh 3 takes a little bit of a distinct strategy in the case of its world as nicely. As a substitute of the linear ranges from earlier entries, we get an open world to discover. It is not as huge and expansive as, say, Elden Ring, however it’s very sizable and crammed with lots of actions. We’ve mini bosses, discovering collectibles like Kodama, Crucibles, enemy bases, and every map has a bunch of mini areas with an exploration stage that may go as much as give us further stat buffs.
Regardless of the time interval, every map has comparable actions to do, however I had such time with every of them that it by no means felt prefer it overstayed its welcome. With how nice fight is, I liked discovering excuses to maintain going round and combating enemies, discovering extra tools, and slowly finishing all of the actions to stage up my exploration.
Nioh 3 – Steam Deck Efficiency
Whereas the demo basically confirmed this, Nioh 3 is not going to be expertise on the Steam Deck. Even on the lowest doable settings with heavy upscaling, the sport will recurrently fall below 30 FPS, feeling unstable and stuttery simply making an attempt to get by way of it. For a soulslike, it is a demise sentence. Making an attempt to struggle bosses with no steady framerate can result in incorrect timing for dodges, blocks, and, in Nioh’s case, fashion switches. It harms the expertise an excessive amount of, and due to it, I might keep away from taking part in on the Deck natively.
That is more than likely because of the very apparent excessive CPU utilization. It makes it very arduous to optimize for the Deck additional, and it kills efficiency.
On high of that, there are some movies that simply will not play, so even simply making an attempt to energy by way of the sport goes to harm the general expertise and make it almost not possible to get pleasure from.
Accessibility
There’s a devoted accessibility settings tab for the sport. In it, we are able to configure controls, change whether or not the Fashion Shift and Burst Break are separated, and the way they activate, toggle Grapple and Martial Arts, change guard management and stick settings, swap horizontal controls, change vibration depth, and toggle whether or not dismemberment and blood are displaying. It’s also possible to change language and voice, modify subtitles, and alter some audio settings.
The sport does not help 16:10 resolutions, however it does have cloud saves and controller help. The sport does have HDR settings, and it acknowledges the Steam Deck OLED display.
Conclusion
Nioh 3 is my favourite sport to date this yr, fingers down. The fight is beautiful with new mechanics that complement the refinements from the earlier two video games, whereas the open-world ranges match proper in with the collection. The story is probably not probably the most memorable, however the motion makes up for it utterly. That is now my all-time favourite soulslike, and you probably have a pc highly effective sufficient to run it, I can fortunately suggest it with ease.
Nonetheless, you have to a decently highly effective PC. Taking part in on the Steam Deck is a no-go, and except it is streaming, I would not get any hopes up about taking part in this on the Deck.
Our evaluation is predicated on the PC model of this sport.
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