Nioh 3

"Thus, our fears have unfortunately come true to some extent. Instead of tightening up what had come before, the developer has stacked even more gameplay systems on top of an already sizeable mountain of dirty dishes and feature creep has become a concern. We think that a more focused adventure would have made for a stronger overall experience because it is still a lot of fun to battle with Yokai, to best a smart samurai in a duel, to admire the insane number of complex animations seen mid-battle, or to simply stand in awe of the sight of the shining Guardian Spirits. Many of the game's systems should, in theory, make for a fine samurai adventure, however, it's burdened by its own complexity, making it more difficult than ever to grasp and honour Nioh 2 for what it is."

That's how Stefan ended his review of Nioh 2 six years ago, and I said very similar things in my review in Norway. It seemed like the developers agreed, because Team Ninja ended that year by stating they wanted to at least take a break from Nioh. Does them returning to the franchise mean the developers found something new and exciting that justify a third game? Unfortunately not.

I want to start by being positive, though. Nioh 3 is still, as Alex stated in his preview back in December, quite fun to play. Those of us who enjoy the combat in the first two games will still have fun this time around, as it feels very similar with a couple of improvements and changes.

The most noteworthy difference is being able to seamlessly swap between the samurai and ninja style. Samurai is basically exactly the same as before, while ninja is faster and uses less stamina in exchange for not being able to recover by using the traditional Ki pulse. Think of it as a faster way to swap out equipment and skills, which also makes it easier and more seamless to adapt to different scenarios in fights. A nice option, even if it doesn't change as much as the marketing wants you to believe when the samurai style's three stances continue to offer similar ideas.

And this is where I have to highlight what bothers me the most about Nioh 3: It just seems like the developers decided to add more instead of improving the stuff that was already there. You'll get a sense of this yourself very quick, because the large majority of enemies are the exact same. Designs, animations, attacks and sounds are extremely similar, if not straight up copies from Nioh and Nioh 2. This could easily have been mistaken for an expansion considering how many times I've had déjà vu. Referencing previous experiences can be really fun once in a while, but outright relying on them ruins the fun. Those of you who finished Nioh and/or Nioh 2 will be able to defeat most enemies without even looking thanks to doing it hundreds of times before. Instead of being in awe and nervous when seeing a new mysterious enemy, I found myself sitting there in auto-pilot. Been there, done that.

Sure, being able to counter unblockable attacks by timing your style-shifts correctly is cool since it also makes you stronger or faster, but it lacks the impact - both in terms of gameplay and presentation - of the best parry systems in the industry (including the fairly satisfying one in Nioh 2 for some weird reason). Makes me think it was a change for change's sake.

Having bigger, more open areas could also have alleviated some of these issues, so it's disappointing that Alex's fears from the preview were justified. These areas are pretty much just the game putting the classic maps together instead of separating them with loading screens and such. Fans of the series will usually know exactly where collectibles are hidden, how to sneak up on enemies and when a jerk is waiting to "surprise" you from the ceiling.

Team Ninja tries to spice things up by including Metroidvania-like elements such as areas being closed behind Spirit Guardian abilities you'll acquire further into the story and side-missions that require you to do something else before becoming available. The problem is that it's like adding a piece of pepperoni to a pizza you've eaten several times before. Is it tweaked? Yes. Does it make a difference? Nope. To quote Stefan's aforementioned review of Nioh 2: "Instead of tightening up what had come before, the developer has stacked even more gameplay systems on top of an already sizeable mountain of dirty dishes."

Then we have the fact that third time isn't the charm for the loot system. Seems like Stefan and yours truly are a part of the minority thinking Nioh 2 gave us too many swords, helmets, amulets, and whatever it might be, because it says something when you can carry 2,000 pieces of equipment and I probably would have surpassed that after a couple of hours if I hadn't suspected what was coming and sold/disassembled/offered 90 percent of what I got. Maybe I would have kept some of it if more of the rewards for killing enemies and finding chests were better or at least closer to what I already had equipped, but getting items of regular white quality after 60+ hours when everything you own is purple makes me think of a simple thing that reflects most of Nioh 3: quantity over quality.

I could continue wasting your time by rattling off the different ways Nioh 3 wants to give people who think a game's value is based on hours played what they want, but let's make the TikTok generation happy by making it short and simple. Nioh 3 is simply a good game because it's more of Nioh and Nioh 2 with a few extra dashes of different playstyles, a few new enemies, bigger environments, and some tiny gameplay tweaks. Those of you just looking for more Nioh/Rise of the Ronin/Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty are getting exactly that. Everyone else will forget this even came out by the time Game of the Year awards start in December, because I'll exaggerate a bit by saying this is what AI would have made if you asked it to develop Nioh 3. What we thought was great nine years ago gets reused with a few more mainstream-focused tweaks in a bigger world. It's not bad, because this makes Nioh 3 a good game. It's just boring and repetitive when the genre has improved and become so much better since 2017.