Nioh - Review After 100% 

Oh wow, even the review is 50 minutes. Deep respect for actually sticking to the 100% format on such a LONG~ game!

When I played this I set the language to Japanese and turned off subtitles. The story was gloriously confusing and I think it made me enjoy it more that way. I had no idea what anyone was saying and judging by Williams reactions neither did he so I felt more immersed.

I LOVED the ki pulse system. Once you really master it (I used the dodge too) you can essentially dance around enemies without ever letting up on the pressure. The reward of mastering the combat system was up there with Sekiro for me.

what an absolute unit. 50 minutes. Nioh 2 is a game youll love. i go back every so often just to see if i can still keep up with the combat. definitely the best combat system to date.

Can’t believe you 100%ed Nioh! You are truly blessed by the Machine God! Both Nioh games are great. I mean they have talking cat spirits! What more do you need?!

Great video. One thing I loved that you didn't mention is that you can also ki pulse by changing stances or weapons which means you can chain combos together, so you can play the combat much more aggressively

I have no intention of going back to this game but I watched this entire review. And I rarely watch videos this long. Kudos to you, man. Love your approach.

The Nioh games are seriously underrated. The loot system is great, and even as a long time Souls player nothing comes remotely close to Niohs ki-pulsing, stance switching, build crafting, min-maxing greatness. Also the NG+ runs are actual challenges. Great games. Everyone that is into soulslikes and hasn't at least tried them is seriously missing out.

found your channel through the nioh 2 review and I gotta say your videos are really fun to watch. Besides being just well made in general the "gimmick" of 100%ing games really lends more credence to the review itself imo. Defintively earned a subscriber

I love comparing you to Journalists that play like the first 20 Minutes and think they can accuratly review it... you are the real deal and thank you for all your work

The 2nd Nioh lets you have skill and gear presets which makes playing around with different weapon categories and switching from magic to ninja focus helps balance the repetitiveness of late game

Yeah i loved 100% nioh 1 and 2

Hino-enma. . .I had no idea you could stun her like that. This boss was such a pain too. But at the same time, it's also quite memorable and beating it felt good.

Love these reviews. I can't even imagine 100%ing this game.

Nioh2 hast the best combat system ever created that is not pure fighting game like Street Fighter or Mortal combat. And you miss on a lot if you don't swich stances when Ki pulsing to get back more stamina and also use dodge to ki pulse and recover positioning and stamina. Also always switch to low stance to dodge.

been a while since I've watch your channel again and I'm so happy to see your channel has grown 200k+ !!!! so well deserved keep it up my dude

glad to see you've reached these! this first entry is certainly rough around the edges, but its best aspects shine through brilliantly. always thought its particular combo of features would appeal to your taste. another game I suspect that about is Grim Dawn.

Wow !!!you actually 100% Nioh. From here on everything is possible.

When you learn to hold block instantly after dodge you will enjoy the combat more. Their is iffy, but that block is super responsive with their dodge. Great review

gratz mortismal!! saw you login to the game in steam everyday and i kept wondering how long before you 100% :D you're awesome

Can't wait for the Nioh 2 review! Since Dark souls and the Diablo series is my favourites, Nioh 2 is one of my GOATs.

This video is great, honestly impressed how thorough you are

Good job Mortem..I really enjoyed your commentary on this one

Can't wait to hear your review on Nioh 2! Having played both I agree that the second is more of the same but improved and smoothed in many aspects. A bit bigger, and a bit better!

Your perseverance sir, is astonishing!

Great review and in such a short amount of time! You pretty much highlighted most of the qualms I have about Nioh as well, from the awful scenery/enemy variety to certain cheese being possible. Though, from what I can see in the footage, it's unfortunate you weren't able to experience the depths of the Nioh combat. That is: - Stance switching; using Flux 1 or better yet Flux 2 you get back more ki than you started with, allowing you to really keep up the pressure. Using the dodge ki pulse only leaves you with less ki. - Skills; I haven't seen you use many skills. They can do many things, inflict great damage, stunlock, a bull charge, or even give the axe a ranged attack. Moreover, skills don't bounce off enemy guard (with the Axe/Odachi this is less of a problem, but with other weapons you will feel this). - Purification; purifying the dark yokai pools can give great temporary buffs and stop them hurting your stamina regen Though it's great on Nioh's part that it can be finished using basic combat, it will feel much less of a grind and fights will take maybe half the time if all basics are learned. I'm saying this because, at least in my opinion, I feel Nioh 2 requires more of the player in terms of knowing and using the basics; adding even more skills and then adds Yokai Soul Cores on top of that, while removing living weapon (luckily also for most human enemies, as that was such a horrible mechanic).

Love your reviews and love Nioh! Hope you have fun with Nioh 2. My fav action combat game of all time

Great review! Nioh 2 is my favorite game I've ever played but Nioh still holds a special place in my heart. I had a ton of issues with Nioh 1 when I first picked it up and if it wasn't for a friend pushing me to keep playing I would've dropped it after the first region. The game just felt unfair to me, like ridiculously unfair, and I blamed the game design persistently. Hino Enma was the boss that almost broke me... until my friend booted up the game and proceeded to no hit her using his bare fists. Once I realized that the game expects you to play perfectly, and that I had to put my all into mastering the combat and strategy, I fell in love. Mechanics like ki pulsing, stance switching, choosing to block or dodge, skill selection, etc. all began to fall into place. I ran Odachi with medium armor for the base game and it had so much depth with the stance switch combo enders. Loved the game despite it's flaws, but man we aren't lying when we say Nioh 2 fixes pretty much every complaint I had with Nioh and added even more depth to it's mechanics. Most of the enemies and a select few bosses from Nioh appear in Nioh 2, but there are plenty of new enemies and the bosses in Nioh 2 (besides 1 or 2 of them) are significantly more fun to fight. Ran all the way through Dream of the Nioh and the underworld in Nioh 2 and I still have more weapons to master and builds to make, it's truly and endless playground. Can't wait to see the Nioh 2 review!

Bro, take your time, going for 100% for this game is insane. I think, at this point, if you don't go for 100% people would be totally fine and still watch your stuff. Just try not to get burned out!

It’s pretty funny that, even in this deep review, there still wasn’t any mention of how the Purification Ritual works and how it relates to Yokai Realms. But whatever. This review is worthy of your very high standards. Great job! (With regard to the artillery scene in the DLC, have you tried becoming invisible?)

Great review, man!

Great review! A fair and accurate cover of Nioh and all its worts. The fact you got through WoTN with KBM makes you literally a legend. The game wasn't made for it and I can't imagine how much harder that made an already brutal game. But I also feel KBM creates a roadblock into delving into the depth of the stance-switching portion of Nioh's combat system. What made TN so visionary, imo, at least from the Dark Souls side of the equation, was the addition of the ki pulse, and correspondingly, flux 1/flux 2. In the DS combat system, you're forced to pause or run around as your stamina refreshes, which is part of the difficulty. In Nioh, you can almost fully eliminate stamina as a constraint by switching stances and ki pulsing, and as a reward, you truncate attack animations and move faster. It's another difficulty layered under the basic timing and stamina management difficulties. Which is revolutionary, because it creates an avenue to circumvent a major penalty in the DS combat system, but hides it behind a skill wall. Adding a 3rd genre, i.e., fighting game, to the Diablo/Dark souls backbone. That stance-switching-to-manage-stamina portion of the combat system, unfortunately, has never been picked up by another developer, which is sad because it added so much depth and was an evolution on the DS combat equation. Looking forward to your Nioh 2 review!

A note: someone put out a video some time ago about building a 100% projectile resistance build. That is done through a specific armor and affixes. It makes you completely immune to the DLC cannon/arrows - and also to all boss ranged attacks. Fun to mess around with for laughs.

Hi Mortismal. I have yet to play this game myself so thanks for the amazing review. Now, I know what to expect. Btw, if you're hunting for more crpgs to review later, there is a chinese turn based crpg called Tales of Hongyuan.

Nioh 2 is in my eyes, an improvement over the first one for a number of reasons. Level design is much better in Nioh 2, the Yokai Shift mechanic is in my view, better than Living Weapon since it heavily encourages use of Soul Core abilities and not simple R1 spam. It's even got a character creator and boy are some of the creations just amazing. It has an actual tutorial, brief as it is, and you can access the dojo for practice right away instead of being forced through the Tower of London where you don't even have access to ki pulsing yet, which is a key mechanic to winning fights. The Fists and Splitstaff are all around great weapons. I will say this though, the DLC side mission, Against All Comers is an absolute ballbuster of a mission.

When you inevitably play nioh2 I wanna recommend the fist+odachi combo for NG just because I'm also a stubborn souls nerd and that combo really taught me to appreciate the stance/weapon swapping and is such an amazing ki wrecker. You'll be using all of your stances and get comfortable with swapping really quickly. Never could get my brain to block instead of dodge though lol Set different elements to each stance and you're a versatile powerhouse that can handle ANY situation with style. Personally I used a poison/water centered build for the huge damage buffs and i LOVED it It's also great because those weapons don't really require any of the rare boss drops for their moveset, although those are sweet if you get them.

Very good video i havent played the first Nioh more than 10 hours but did get to around lvl680 in Nioh 2 and really enjoy it, whenever you do the 2nd one, i hope you will enjoy it although it will be similar, im on ps4, wont cross you, but hopefully you do engage a bit in the coop expeditions it is always nice to go through the maps with people it really makes it less repetitive to me and helping each other i think keeps and brings more people to Nioh 2,

Ki pulsing and switching stances at the same time (Flux) is the true mechanic. At least in 2, Fluxing to a stance provides a unique buff for each. Ki pulse low stance for a free no stamina dodge for example

you should let some time between 1 & 2 since both are very samey with just a few more moves

I'm also a dodge person. I tried the Lies of P demo and block is essential and I didn't even get past the first boss despite dodging a lot.

Nioh was a game I truly liked but only finished the main campaign, not even the done the DLC due to how tough it was. Nicely done!

this review has induced my purchase of nioh 2. I had no idea what type of game this was, but I hear souls/diablo,poe hybrid, I'm absolutely in. Really fun so far.

Quite useful review!

seeing you not ki-pulse was so frustrating but on that note, excellent review and I hope you enjoy nioh 2.

Great review and props for sticking with it despite your issues with the level and boss design. Two things I don't believe you mentioned which are hugely important to the combat system though: The stance you're in affects your dodge length, speed, and s. As well as this, you can ki pulse by stance or weapon-switching, allowing you to near-infinitely combo (and incentivizes you to change your combat style on the fly depending on the enemies' attack patterns). Nioh 2 is an improvement over 1 in every single way; my only complaint is that the burst counter system makes high-level combat a bit too easy (minus situations where you're outnumbered). Can't wait to see what you think about 2. Cheers!

The thing with the story presentation, I think, is that it's done in a Dynasty Warriors style. It assumes you're already a fan of these characters from all the other stories you've seen them in and thus just uses the cutscenes to make them seem cool and keep their fans happy, only to then never show them again. It's definitely a mess

Good lord man mad respect! Love me some Nioh, can’t wait for you to do Nioh 2 ;) When Wo Long came out it sadly didn’t do it for me, so I did another 100+ hours in Nioh 2 😂

I am interested to play nioh 2 but I am waiting for your review. Great video by the way

Man watching a nice long review with a hot cup of tea is quite relaxing

Right on time as I'm planning on starting my first actual Nioh playthrough. I tried it once after a Dark Souls marathon in 2020, I expected it to be similar since people like to call it "souls-like" but the combat was too different and I struggled a lot. Since I have it for free on Epic I want to try it again with a different mindset. I've also heard Nioh 2 is much better.

Video Essay? More like a video-novel. Bad jokes aside, thanks for the in depth review. I just wanted to add to my BG3 commentary while it was still somewhat fresh. I hope it's a critical and commercial success. Your Diablo IV works have shown that there is a strong appetite for that kind of secondary media (I believe that's what you called it before) so success for any similar title should translate to success for your channel. Onward to 200k. All glory to the algorithm.

Hey great review! I hope you play Nioh 2, the combat if def better. I also think the story presentation is better in 2, but I don't think it will change the opinion of "the presentation kind of sucks, but passable" The difficulty scaling is actually really really good in Nioh 2. It is well balanced from the first mission all the way until the end of the abyss Floor 108. Like I said I hope you try it out, I think you'll like it, and I look forward to seeing you review Nioh 2.

Sorry I didn't finish the vid, but that just means I learned enough to know I wasn't interested in the game, so mission accomplished. Still got my upvote! Mortismal Gaming is one of those channels that has SO much content you just can't watch it all, but that's a good thing.

Wow you mad man!!! You did it!!! 🎉🎉🎉

Would love to hear your take on Nioh 2, so many improvements!

looking forward to the nioh 2 review! it felt like a more rounded experience that was also better in almost every way.

Nice review! You will probably like Nioh 2 more, alot of new stuff and QoL changes and better level design and bosses are more fun and better designed.

You nailed the experience my buddy and I had with this. We loved it right up until ng+++ and bosses became frustrating. And we also both hated Nioh 2 very early on. We both felt it was way cheaper and even more frustrating. Very curious how you’ll feel about that because I don’t agree with anyone who says they just improved on 1. I believe 1 is hands down the better of the two. Nothing against anyone who likes 2 more though. Just wasn’t for me. Great video!!!

I just checked your steam profile and saw 160+ hours for 2 weeks. It was asked too many times probably but still, do you even sleep, my friend? :D Thank you for your work again and again!

After playing nioh 1 and 2 it was really hard for me to go back to dark souls slug combat and that’s coming from someone who has obsessed with the souls series since demon souls.

Amazing review. Great that you love NiOH and WoTR. Now time to 100% NiOH2 before BG3 launches. Its true, NiOH 2 is better in every aspect compared to 1, apart from story presentation, which i feel is done the same way. But by god...the combat system! Its the BEST combat system invented for any RPG by far. Its THAT good!

Damn. I got stuck like 1 step away from 100% years ago, my hat's off to you dude.

Amazing review, what I loved about this game was the way it represents japanese history, culture, religion and folklore. I was fascinated when I found out that all those characters actually existed and had their real life history, some of them are really importan in Japan history. This idea of spirits inside everyone is a shintoism belief and is beautifully represented in the game. Many of the yokai enemies are mithical creatures of japanese folklore. In conclusion, I loved the game but I also learned a lot about Japan.

Nice review. I loved Nioh. I think it does a lot of the soulslike mechanics better than DS. Nioh 2 is even better. :)

I don't remember if you mentioned it, but the blacksmith also has a progression system. You earn patronage points by using him with which you can then upgrade him.

Wow, this is ambitious!

I played this game a few years ago, it was very good. I have the definitive edition of Nioh 2 waiting for me, but probably you will get to review it before I start to playing the game.

Comment for the algorithm buddy! Love ya Mortym 👍👍

Man I spent so many hours in Nioh 1 and 2, amazing games with addictive progress system but sometimes also hilarious difficulty spikes

Thanks my dude 😊

The thing with Nioh game is that it won't have to be a grind if the player use their time to actually learning new moves and trying out new things. If they approach it like dark souls and only spamming simple moves over and over then of course it'll feel like a grind.

damn, you are a MACHINE to have done this for Nioh! look forward to your thoughts on Nioh 2. . . but take your time, think of your health! lol

I seem to recall that is also impossible to change what the B button does, which can get a bit annoying. All the other buttons can be remapped on the controller

Respect for using the axe/hammer weapon, I feel like thats the hardest to use

giiiirl. I can't believe how quickly you slammed this out.

Can't wait to see the Nioh 2 review in three years!

An absolute madman for this, GG you got my sub for sure. Definitely should do Nioh 2 as well, it's one of those sequels thats so much better it makes the original pretty much irrelevant.

Before I say anything, I want to mention that I really liked this review and I think most of the criticisms are 100% valid. That being said in regards to bosses and the defensive mechanics and being 1 shot in WotN, this game is really all about mastery of the mechanics, and mastery of the enemies. The bosses have a lot of moves that feel cheap, but often are telegraphed by sequences or some other tell that makes them a lot more manageable, and thus nullifies a lot of frustration with the game. That paired with general mastery makes it so you don't really need to rely on gimmicks to defeat them (except admittedly stupid bosses like centipede or Umi Bozu) As for dodge vs block, they are both supposed to be used in tandem with one another in order to play defensively. Ki damage is higher or lower on different attacks, and dodging is very strong if you use it well. Dodging into attacks works well, and the 3 types of dodges are very important when you understand what theyre for. Dash is high mobility but low s, roll is high i frames but bad recovery and limited mobility, and double dodge basically goes all in for s and distance at the expense of recovery. As for parrying and other active skills, they are all important and I could make an even bigger text wall talking about them. All of this comes with mastery of the game and its system, though, and I acknowledge that not everyone is going to sit around to learn the nuances of it all like I did. Useless textwall that will probably go unread over lol.

What a brutal game! Nioh 2 is even better in every way. Really great series.

First. - never done this but randomly had the chance so had to take it. Love you mortismal!

I loved Nioh, but not enough to finish the abyss. Nioh 2 I loved so much I finished the depths of the underworld.

Got the plats for 1 & 2. Patiently waiting for 3 to come out.

Amazing review, however I am slightly sad you had to suffer with KB+M even though you said you prefer it - being able to engage with the stance/ki system properly is a must to get the most of the game and appreciate its depth. Something to consider for Nioh 2...

Wow, you pulled it off and it only looked like it took you around 10 days. Just insane. I'll never doubt you again

Climbing the levels of end game abyss is just nothing but frustration. It is a constant grind and I let it go before reaching depth 100 a believe. Doing scenario maps with even hardest difficulty was just a cake walk at that stage.

Nioh 2 got more content, its basically a more polished up Nioh 1, albeit have more stuff, it still can be quite boring due to inherited characteristics of looter games, which more than (too) often requires you running the same set of levels several more times (just with better loot drops and harder enemies) after the first run through. But all and all... I definitely have a good time playing it.

In fairness, having convoluted stories, bizarre cutscenes, and requiring a bunch of extra reading to make sense of the story are all beloved staples of the Souls games. I'm not saying Nioh does it as good as Souls games, but that it's par for the course for this genre.

My biggest issue with the game was always enemy variety. I am also happy to say that Nioh 2 fixes that problem in spades.

I'm curious why in your Axe footage you mostly just stuck to Mid stance instead of attacking in High and dodging in Low?

Nioh's combat is something else!

Completing twilight missions gives you an item that you use to enter the abyss but only once per day x2 so you can enter the abyss twice per day and they can stack.Probably pointless for the average player that doesn't bother with the abyss but for grinding 999 floors you need twilight missions

Love this game. I was SO excited when I finally unlocked the Maria transformation. Fist pumping & shouting in silence because everyone in my house was sleeping lol. All I did was co-op to show off my new skin and guide noobies through this game's wonderful level design. All the shortcuts, alternate routes, kodama, breakable walls, ridiculous builds & strats...man I miss this game. My favorite weapon is tonfa w/ tonfa gun skill, explosions everywhere it is glorious gameplay. Very proud of this platinum trophy. ^^ Nioh 2 is even better, but the OG will always have a special place in my heart.

Excellent.

One thing i like about how Nioh's story is told is that it feels like a sly criticism of the storytelling of Soulsborne. You said it yourself 7:07 "I think the story gets a pass because the information is all in the game. It does require you to read codex entries of things not explained." Just a goofier version of reading item descriptions, on purpose, to me

Great video, I really tried with Nioh, after completing Bloodborne with relative ease I thought I had gotten the nack of these games. Nioh however was another story, even fighting trash monsters felt like such a wall. I gave up shortly after getting past the toad boss when on particular level had me fighting only 3-4 yoki of note but 2/4 could just kill me with ease just could not figure out how to kill them regularly. I did love the style etc of the game though just too tough for me could not imagine several new game plus modes my god.

Respect!!

Cant wait for Nioh 2 (and hopefully the 100% will include switch+odachi, hatchets+guns or fist+any heavy, ah who am i kidding ofc it will have both it and ippon spam).

I put this down years ago after getting stuck on that incubus woman boss. Went back to it waiting for Stellar Blade and took down that bat woman and been on a roll ever since. Is Nioh 2 or Wo Long as good as this game?

Happy to see you got a big shout out from Asmongold

I gotta ask how you have the patience to do new game plus? I understand interesting gameplay but new game plus has you redo the game again, does that not feel tiresome?