Ni-Oh

Awesome, character customization means I can make an off-brand Tomoe Gozen or Yasuke! Although the latter might actually show up if it's still set in the Sengoku era.

I think Yasuke died after you're fight with him. Its why there's a mission where you fight his spirit with Nobunaga.

Also, I'm glad I started playing again, especially with the announcement of Ni-oh 2. I never completed the DLC.

And while William himself isn't that interesting or complex, he does have a bit more of a fleshing out in the DLC, of course. I think this is the first time Koei Tecmo actually used Yasuke in a game, too. And in a rather respectful way, at that, His guardian spirit story is one of my favorites in the main game alongside Nobunaga and Matsunaga.

He shows up on and off in the Nobunagas Ambition series but he's never been in Samurai Warriors and that's a shame.

I hope we haven't seen the last of him, at the very least I want to use his Mitama in Toukiden !

God I play a lot of obscure Koei-Tecmo games.

I plan to make a female character that's basically Tsunade. The yokai powers giving a character super strength would fit that.

So as someone who's never played this game or many action rpgs, what can I expect in terms of gameplay and story?

I still can't beat Muneshige. Holy shit.

Forget the fact that he kills you in three hits, forget That One Attack (Either the Iai slice or the delayed dog paralyze, they're both horrible) forget his truckloads of HP and resistances and forget his overall speed and aggressiveness. I can deal with those.

It's his super armor that kills me. You'd think smashing someone in the skull with a two-ton overhead axe swing would cause them to flinch no matter what but he just freakin' ignores it. When I think I see an opening, I don't.

Wonder if there will be a dedicated knuckle weapon this time. A Naginata would be cool too.

Razor-sharp polish and brutal difficulty. If you've ever played historical fiction before it's got a pretty accurate representation of the figures it uses, liberties with the demons and such taken of course.

edited 18th Jun '18 10:08:02 AM by ShirowShirow

Thanks.

ahhhhhhhhhh, good old munshige. I have a hard time remembering and differtiating many characters in this game, but not this one. I love how they introduce it in a boss fight that is probably one of the easiest you've had so far because it's kelley imitating him, and then when he challenges you you can tell the difference between the fake and the real.

And then they made me did the same mission again, with honda takadasu thrown in the mix, with both adjusted to endgame level. and since then I said thanks but no thanks to the postgame content.

Yeah that fake-out is just mean. Kelly-Muneshige is nothing special... Especially after the boss fight with the ridiculous Nue. But Muneshige himself is indomitable.

How the hell did Kelley subdue him in the first place? Guess the game'd be a lot short of the Tachibanas killed all the villains within the story's first hours.

edited 18th Jun '18 12:32:15 PM by ShirowShirow

Muneshige is definitely Early Game Hell. I'd recommend leveling up to round 60 or 70 before fighting him.

As far as new weapon types, alongside all the ones from the first game and the DLC, a punching type weapon, Nunchaku, and Whatever the Japanese equivalent of the Zwiehander is.

I spotted this on sale on Steam for 40% off, but a lot of the negative reviews are complaining about how the game plays without a controller. How is the mouse and keyboard setup?

bad.

Ni-Oh definitely was meant for a controller. Playing a brawler with mouse and keyboard is like playing an RTS with a controller; technically possible but slower and more awkward.

The slow and awkward get weeded out reaaaal fast in Ni-Oh.

It used to be you just bought a wired Xbox 360 controller but those are getting harder to find. Even the PS 4 controller's best way to be used on a PC involves just using a third party program to trick your PC into thinking it's a Xbox 360 controller.

I got so sick of seeing other players wearing the Warrior of the West outfit (Which is really saying something given it's still largely a game played alone) that I started farming for the Crossed Scythes gear. It looks goddamn badass when paired with Benkei's head wrap If I do say so myself.

Seriously thought everyone is wearing Muneshige's gear (Who I finally beat) and it bugs me. It looks terrible on William. It's an absolutely beautiful armorset but it doesn't suit our grizzled hero at all.

I've noticed that too.

Guess muneshige had a big impression on the playerbase.

I think it's just a combination of easy availability, medium weight being versatile and the viral infection revenants are a catalyst for. One guy gets a good piece of gear, drops it when he dies, someone else picks it up off him, drops it when he dies...

It makes more sense to pick up the Warrior of the West gear because everyone else is using it and you never have to give up your Full Set Bonus.

Did the entire game without using a full set ever and I barely noticed I was missing something tbh.

then again I also did the entire game only using kato.

edited 24th Jun '18 9:37:23 AM by Yumil

I used Seiryu most of the time because of the increased Amrita earnings.

Yasuke's Atlas Bear is pretty great, too, especially for physical strength.

edited 24th Jun '18 10:19:22 AM by Demongodofchaos2

At the end of the day Skill in this game trumps gear for sure. Not even 90% of the time, always.

I'm glad Odachis and Tonfas are dropping for me but I can't let go of my trusty Axe and I always need an offhand sword to complete whatever set I'm wearing so that's a shame.

They modeled the weapons really well, those are some fancy-ass sheaths.

Musings...

I almost want to say the game has Early Game Hell because I've been dying a lot less later on and been seeing less gravesites but I think that the overall difficulty is pretty even, once you master the game's mechanics it becomes much more manageable. Plus the weak probably just got weeded out.

Salt can purify yokai realms. Wish I knew that awhile ago, like during the fight with the Nue.

Lot more people asking for help than offering it. Which is funny, arriving as a visitor is a great way to earn some Amrita safely.

I lost enough Amrita to level up twice at Sekigahara because I had no idea what the summoner's candle item did.

Speaking of Sekigahara, it's mean that they have a bit where a bunch of "allies" show up and you get psyched for The War Sequence only for all of them to instantly die. Note that they all drop dead even if all the enemies are already gone when you trigger their charge.

I wonder how all these historical figures would react to the game turning them into literal demons.

I expected to use an Axe and dual-swords throughout the game but because all of these daimyo just sort of casually gift you their legendarily important family heirloom katanas throughout the game and because a lot of the armor sets require you to use one I've mostly been using an Axe and a single sword. And armor set bonuses are no joke, Kingo's gives you a almost 20% melee damage bonus. That's significant.

Edited by ShirowShirow on Jul 4th 2018 at 11:10:12 AM

The bosses in Dragon of the North are freakin' impossible.

Shigezane could kill me in two hits. And he's very fast with those two hits. I cheesed him by sloth talismaning him so I could place myself in a specific spot to use the Suzaku guardian talisman; Suzaku spins around in a whirlwind around you so because where I was placed he hit Shigezane about 5 times more than he was supposed to. Wasn't enough to finish him off, but opened him up for confusion which opened him up for comboing.

Date Masamune I tried a dozen times and varied my strategy a lot. Tried a stamina-depletion build to open him up for grapples. No dice, his breath outlasted mine. Tried an elemental and ailment build. No dice, only application I ever got was shock. Tried just outfighting him. No dice, his blows where fast enough trading hits brought me down. Eventually I got help from someone who just stood their throwing shuriken which was actually enough because it caught him off balance.

And now Maria. Fuckin' Maria. I can't stand it anymore. Most fights against her last all of six seconds. This is not hyperbole, she can literally start the fight with her rushing grapple which kills me instantly if I'm not in my heaviest armor set. Even after learning her tells I can't beat her because I make one mistake and I die, meanwhile she has enough HP to sustain about twenty freight trains to the face. AAAAAAAAGH.

THERE ARE TWO EXPANSIONS AFTER THIS I BOUGHT WHY DO I HATE MYSELF.

Oh. Looks like the DLC are just as bonkers as the post-game missions. Now I regret even less to have dropped the game before doing those.

Got this game during the black friday sale, the complete edition. Also picked up horizon...kinda wished gravity rush was on sale too but meh.

This was one of the games I was going to initially get for my pS4 but I forgot about it lol. While the idea of playing yet another grizzled white guy in foreign setting to save the day doesn't seem all that appealing at first learning he was based off a real life dude somewhat kind of made that a non issue. His design is still pretty boring but hopefully I can get over it.

He actually averts Mighty Whitey.

He doesn't save anyone from the real life historical events, just the made up Demon based threat.

And if you want to blame his design, blame the oringnal Akira Kurosawa script that the game was originally based on that also had a blond western samurai.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Nov 17th 2018 at 7:58:51 AM

You can also thankfully at least change his hair style and remove the beard, and there are some full-helmet options as well as unlockable character skins.