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Nioh 3 is a Soulslike, but that doesn't entirely do justice to Team Ninja's twitchy mix of samurai and ninja combat against some truly monstrous yokai. The Nioh series (and I include the underrated Wo-Long among those), feels as much of an evolutionary branch of Ninja Gaiden as it is inspired by FromSoftware's legendary Demon's Souls and Dark Souls.
The genre is dubbed "masocore" by Team Ninja, and trades the super fast power fantasy we loved in our Ninja Gaiden 4 review for action that's a bit more slower paced and considered. Though, barely slower. In Nioh 3 especially, the developer has refined its fighting systems – allowing you to not only hotswap weapons mid-combo, but also switch between being a samurai or a ninja the touch of a button. Hard-won fights boil down to quick exchanges of blows and parries as you turn enemy demons into mulch.
But, behind it all, considered and tactical use of the ki stamina system are what enable you to execute on those promises. Do so poorly, and your custom hero will be left gasping for breath and on the backfoot trying to find a window to recover or strike back in a way Ryu Hayabusa would never. Nioh 3, with its open world style hub areas, and a greater variety in play style with its two-in-one protagonist, offers you just as many ways to master combat against its brutal enemies as it does ways to trip yourself over. Like a shinobi, it's all about balancing on the knife's edge.
Ninja power
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In fact, when we spoke to head of Team Ninja and Nioh 3's general producer Fumihiko Yasuda last year, he wryly acknowledged that "yes, we're all big fans of Dark Souls at Team Ninja." It's a genre that everyone always wants to talk about, and we can't help it ourselves. It still feels like the industry is refining and iterating on an approach to combat systems that really resonated with a large playerbase, despite how relatively hardcore it can be.
But, even the development studio agrees that its own action background allows for some extra spice that makes Nioh feel very much like its own thing, producer Kohei Shibata adds. "We're known for our sense of action and the speediness of action – you see it in the Ninja Gaiden series and the Dead or Alive series." The result, Shibata says, "hopefully pushes the genre forward."
Spending several hours with an early build of Nioh 3 myself, across a large and open region which is a new element to the series, and a dungeon-like area which feels more like the stages found in the first two games, I agree that Nioh 3 feels like little else. Yet, at the same time, I can't help but feel like Nioh 3, more than ever, feels like a response of sorts to Elden Ring – and it's really one that adds to the genre conversation.
Initially, I was a bit skeptical about the open world-style approach of Nioh 3, especially as a Koei Tecmo fan that was present for the simultaneous open-world-ification of Atelier Firis, Dynasty Warriors 9, and Toukiden 2 between 2016-18 (two of which were not very successful at all – Toukiden slapped, though).
Team Ninja, however, seem to have cracked it across what I've played. Promising multiple open regions, Nioh 3's structure is freeform enough to reward poking and prodding into dangerous areas while still feeling dense, a nice, natural flow taking me through important areas at my own pace. Here, the ability to strike out in new directions or fast travel means this is a mode of play that, while still tricky, feels like Nioh at its least punishing. It's in these areas that Nioh 3 feels like a playful sandbox, encouraging experimentation you can bring with you into its tougher challenges.
Those challenges come in the form of dungeon-like areas that play like the stages across the last couple of entries, and is where Nioh 3 gets a bit (complimentary) nastier. But, with greater variety in playstyles, it feels like there's even more ways to get the upperhand. Being able to swap between samurai and ninja modes, each with their own distinct loadout, with just a button press feels like a stroke of genius.
While Elden Ring leaned slightly towards ease of customization with re-spec resources, it was still a cumbersome process to do, and items used for it were still limited. There's something refreshing about Nioh 3 not only making it a full feature in and of itself, but allowing you to swap mid-combo as a core pillar of combo. If you can't handle me at my samurai, you don't deserve me at my ninja – and these yokai bosses are about to find out why.
