And so i finally reached a point where i can call Nioh beaten. Wow, that was a long one. Why do JRPGs have a tendency to turn into a single-player live service game near the end? (maybe i'm generalising a bit). Nioh is a(nother) game following the souls-like model, coming from the folks who made the Ninja Gaiden series. In addition to the fundamental souls structure (bonfire-like save points, loss of upgrade currency on death, higher than normal difficulty), there's.. well… a lot.

We've got a combo system, specific to each weapon class and unlocked through skill trees, which feels slightly out of place in combat that's more focused on animations and stamina.
There's three weapon stances, which let you adjust your combat style between fast dodges and hits but low damage, to slower but heavy hits - a neat system that allows a skilled player to switch more effectively between defensive and aggressive play, but i imagine most people just stick to one stance for most of the game, like i did.
You can optionally spec into ninjutsu and onmyo magic skill trees, which are functionally equivalent to the spell systems from the Souls games. It's nice that you can dip into these for the ones you want, but a lot of it does feel a bit extraneous.
Weapons and gear follow a Diablo-style loot system, which feels so out of place to me. I've complained about this feature inclusion in other games so it might be a personal thing, but i think the randomness just leads to overall chaos, which is not exactly what you want in a souls-like

Story-wise you follow William, who travels to Japan in the Sengoku-era, intent to reclaim the guardian spirit stolen from him (guardian spirits are another important game-play mechanic). While there, he gets entangled in the battles of the warring states, and a cast of side characters. Some of these characters and events seem drawn from real-world history, with the yokai, spirits, and magic providing some supernatural flavour

The game is mission-based, rather than being set in a single connected world, which i was initially apprehensive of, but it turned out to have some of the best level design i've seen in a while. It will be contained to that level, but you've got the twisty interconnected-ness, with shortcuts and level gimmicks that i've actually been missing from souls-likes, as well as pretty good thematic design, which keeps each mission mostly distinct. At the end of every level is a boss to beat, and the combat design is slick enough that this is mostly a good time, but can sometimes veer into frustration

There's so many other mechanics and systems that i've left out, or didn't dive too deep into the details of. Nioh is definitely a well put-together game, but has a lot of these extra bits and pieces that make it feel messy. I still enjoyed myself though, and i'm looking forward to if/how Team Ninja have improved this formula in their later games