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Nioh
After 40 hours (or so, maybe more) of gameplay, I decided to put-on-hold this title indefinitely. I haven't dropped it, but I have no desire to continue for now. Why is that?.. There are several reasons, but let's take them in order. My experience can be divided into three points — first impression, early and late stages.
First Impression
I really didn't like it. The first location (the London prison) seemed very bleak to me, and along with boring knights/guards as enemies, the game didn't make a positive impression. Gameplay at this stage was sparse, and the game itself made it clear from the start that it wouldn't provide any interesting plot. Besides, Nioh is the first Dark Souls-style game I've dealt with (I still haven't tried the Souls games themselves), so the gameplay peculiarities (mob respawns, leveling at the fountain, etc., etc.) caused me a certain amount of frustration and, in general, I didn't like them. At this point, I thought about dropping it entirely, but...
Early Game
I decided not to do that and didn't regret the decision.
The hero sails away from dirty Britain and heads to Japan... Here everything becomes much more interesting. The style, folklore, setting. Exactly my thing. Sengoku, samurai, yokai, oni, and so on. They even remembered about cute girls. I also highly appreciated that it was a remarkably good port. To be honest, I didn't expect this from Koei, but perhaps Ninja is not the clumsy Omega Force after all. Almost everything works as it should and the mouse feels native, as if the game were made for PC. Subjectively and without basis, I assume it's many times more convenient than on consoles with gamepads. In general — we need more ports like this. Besides, by this point, I had not only gotten used to the gameplay peculiarities but even grew to love them for the challenge and the pleasure of overcoming them. Moreover, I've always preferred the concept of a player character fighting a small number of opponents; I've always disliked the one-versus-a-thousand system.
After ~twenty hours
At this point, two main problems began to surface: namely, repetitive gameplay and recurring content. Fine, reuse of locations is not great, but not super negative; however, the mobs repeating for dozens of hours became very tedious over time. The funny thing is that I started handling them worse than in the earlier stages of the game, all because I tried to breeze through the familiar content and therefore made many small mistakes due to carelessness. Then I got stuck on one boss, and when I decided to farm some gear/exp, I suddenly realized there are no proper ways to do it. In short, I need to rest for a couple of weeks or months, and then maybe try again.
Separately, regarding the port — although I wrote (and believe) that it is well-made, it wasn't without problems. For some reason, the game regularly freezes for about 5-10 seconds, and while this doesn't strongly affect the ability to progress, it's still annoying. Also, inventory management wasn't very pleasing.
And finally, about the bosses I managed to conquer.
Derrick the Executioner
Literally who? The only thing I remember about him is that he can rush in a straight line. Let's chalk that up to him being a London guy, which means by default he's not very interesting.
Onryoki
This freak made me sweat quite a bit, and since I've gotten used to having everything handed to me on a silver platter in games over recent years, defeating him after numerous losses became a pleasant event. Although overall, I wouldn't say he's particularly interesting.
Hino-Enma
I want her to suck out my insides... Actually no, I don't; that would probably be unpleasant and she was unlucky with her face. My favorite boss — I liked everything from the graceful movement animations to the interesting attack patterns.
Nue
I can't highlight any interesting points about him, so I'll just say he's okay.
Tachibana Muneshige
The story fight with "him" was very boring and there's nothing to say about it, but I liked the side-quest duel. How many times did he defeat me when he had a pixel of HP left... Ugh. He forced me to use my brain and (abuse) bows and arquebuses in an honest sword fight... Now, how exactly did our honest duel begin? Did I already say this duel was honest? Well, basically, even before the greeting began, when opponents are supposed to bow to each other, I would pull an arquebus (or bow) from behind my back and shoot him in the head. He would lose consciousness and fall to the ground, then I'd run up on dashes and plunge a sword into his back, after which I'd retreat to a safe distance. But even so, I still couldn't defeat him in this honest duel... So I decided to add more honesty and started using the arquebus not only before the fight but during it: every time he prepared to use a strong attack, I pulled my gun from behind my back and repeated the procedure: shot him in the head, ran up, hit his back, and hid behind a stone wall. And so, finally, the honest foreign warrior won! It's just a pity ammo isn't infinite; it would have been easier that way. My #2.
Great Centipede
Bugged abomination, defeated without any problems. Well... Okay... I admit, once or twice I fell through the ground because I wasn't looking where I was stepping.
Umi-bozu
Speaking of falling through the ground/falling from heights etc. — I hate this in games; it's just maximum frustration for me since long ago. And this location, of course, was simply filled with such things, which is why completing it was accompanied by regular rage-quits on my part.
As for the boss himself — it took a long time. Not ten or even twenty attempts were spent before I finally realized that bonfires could be used to buff weapons — after that, I passed on the first or second attempt. Yeah. But overall, a good boss.
Joro-Gumo
Didn't feel it — turned out too simple. Although I won't hide that her appearance and movements looked quite disturbing, but maybe that's just because I'm an arachnophobe.
Yuki-Onna
Beautiful and interesting, but not too difficult. First place for looks (except for Ginchiyo, of course, but she's not a boss), but in terms of animation beauty, she still loses to number three.
White Tiger
At this level, I already started losing interest and perhaps for that reason Byakko gave me certain difficulties, although I didn't like him myself.
Giant Toad
In terms of the fight feel — just a mob, only faster and with more damage than usual.
Ogress
Meh. Seemed quite difficult and stressful to me. But still meh.
Okatsu
Couldn't overcome her :(. Probably my payback for preferring agile characters over strong ones in expansions (and everywhere else)...
For now 7/10. It would have been much better if it weren't so repetitive or if I were about four years younger.
After 40 hours (or so, maybe more) of gameplay, I decided to put-on-hold this title indefinitely. I haven't dropped it, but I have no desire to continue for now. Why is that?.. There are several reasons, but let's take them in order. My experience can be divided into three points — first impression, early and late stages.
First Impression
I really didn't like it. The first location (the London prison) seemed very bleak to me, and along with boring knights/guards as enemies, the game didn't make a positive impression. Gameplay at this stage was sparse, and the game itself made it clear from the start that it wouldn't provide any interesting plot. Besides, Nioh is the first Dark Souls-style game I've dealt with (I still haven't tried the Souls games themselves), so the gameplay peculiarities (mob respawns, leveling at the fountain, etc., etc.) caused me a certain amount of frustration and, in general, I didn't like them. At this point, I thought about dropping it entirely, but...
Early Game
I decided not to do that and didn't regret the decision.
The hero sails away from dirty Britain and heads to Japan... Here everything becomes much more interesting. The style, folklore, setting. Exactly my thing. Sengoku, samurai, yokai, oni, and so on. They even remembered about cute girls. I also highly appreciated that it was a remarkably good port. To be honest, I didn't expect this from Koei, but perhaps Ninja is not the clumsy Omega Force after all. Almost everything works as it should and the mouse feels native, as if the game were made for PC. Subjectively and without basis, I assume it's many times more convenient than on consoles with gamepads. In general — we need more ports like this. Besides, by this point, I had not only gotten used to the gameplay peculiarities but even grew to love them for the challenge and the pleasure of overcoming them. Moreover, I've always preferred the concept of a player character fighting a small number of opponents; I've always disliked the one-versus-a-thousand system.
After ~twenty hours
At this point, two main problems began to surface: namely, repetitive gameplay and recurring content. Fine, reuse of locations is not great, but not super negative; however, the mobs repeating for dozens of hours became very tedious over time. The funny thing is that I started handling them worse than in the earlier stages of the game, all because I tried to breeze through the familiar content and therefore made many small mistakes due to carelessness. Then I got stuck on one boss, and when I decided to farm some gear/exp, I suddenly realized there are no proper ways to do it. In short, I need to rest for a couple of weeks or months, and then maybe try again.
Separately, regarding the port — although I wrote (and believe) that it is well-made, it wasn't without problems. For some reason, the game regularly freezes for about 5-10 seconds, and while this doesn't strongly affect the ability to progress, it's still annoying. Also, inventory management wasn't very pleasing.
And finally, about the bosses I managed to conquer.
Derrick the Executioner
Literally who? The only thing I remember about him is that he can rush in a straight line. Let's chalk that up to him being a London guy, which means by default he's not very interesting.
Onryoki
This freak made me sweat quite a bit, and since I've gotten used to having everything handed to me on a silver platter in games over recent years, defeating him after numerous losses became a pleasant event. Although overall, I wouldn't say he's particularly interesting.
Hino-Enma
I want her to suck out my insides... Actually no, I don't; that would probably be unpleasant and she was unlucky with her face. My favorite boss — I liked everything from the graceful movement animations to the interesting attack patterns.
Nue
I can't highlight any interesting points about him, so I'll just say he's okay.
Tachibana Muneshige
The story fight with "him" was very boring and there's nothing to say about it, but I liked the side-quest duel. How many times did he defeat me when he had a pixel of HP left... Ugh. He forced me to use my brain and (abuse) bows and arquebuses in an honest sword fight... Now, how exactly did our honest duel begin? Did I already say this duel was honest? Well, basically, even before the greeting began, when opponents are supposed to bow to each other, I would pull an arquebus (or bow) from behind my back and shoot him in the head. He would lose consciousness and fall to the ground, then I'd run up on dashes and plunge a sword into his back, after which I'd retreat to a safe distance. But even so, I still couldn't defeat him in this honest duel... So I decided to add more honesty and started using the arquebus not only before the fight but during it: every time he prepared to use a strong attack, I pulled my gun from behind my back and repeated the procedure: shot him in the head, ran up, hit his back, and hid behind a stone wall. And so, finally, the honest foreign warrior won! It's just a pity ammo isn't infinite; it would have been easier that way. My #2.
Great Centipede
Bugged abomination, defeated without any problems. Well... Okay... I admit, once or twice I fell through the ground because I wasn't looking where I was stepping.
Umi-bozu
Speaking of falling through the ground/falling from heights etc. — I hate this in games; it's just maximum frustration for me since long ago. And this location, of course, was simply filled with such things, which is why completing it was accompanied by regular rage-quits on my part.
As for the boss himself — it took a long time. Not ten or even twenty attempts were spent before I finally realized that bonfires could be used to buff weapons — after that, I passed on the first or second attempt. Yeah. But overall, a good boss.
Joro-Gumo
Didn't feel it — turned out too simple. Although I won't hide that her appearance and movements looked quite disturbing, but maybe that's just because I'm an arachnophobe.
Yuki-Onna
Beautiful and interesting, but not too difficult. First place for looks (except for Ginchiyo, of course, but she's not a boss), but in terms of animation beauty, she still loses to number three.
White Tiger
At this level, I already started losing interest and perhaps for that reason Byakko gave me certain difficulties, although I didn't like him myself.
Giant Toad
In terms of the fight feel — just a mob, only faster and with more damage than usual.
Ogress
Meh. Seemed quite difficult and stressful to me. But still meh.
Okatsu
Couldn't overcome her :(. Probably my payback for preferring agile characters over strong ones in expansions (and everywhere else)...
For now 7/10. It would have been much better if it weren't so repetitive or if I were about four years younger.