Nioh 3 Review

Nioh 2 was somewhat of a revelation in an era where plenty of so-called Soulsbourne mimics were promising us they were different but still wearing their inspiration well and truly on their sleeves. But Nioh 2 really was different, managing to shrug off some of the dreariness of its (still great) predecessor, breaking out the purple and red paint and leaning heavily into its loot-‘em-up take on the hardcore hack and slash genre. What resulted was a brutal action-RPG which also dared to offer up a largely linear mission-based structure that kept the experience tight and on track. So I was slightly surprised when I learned that Nioh 3 was transplanting its unique flavour into a brave new open world.  So is Nioh 3 the series’ Elden Ring-style homerun, or is something lost in translation?

Aladdin, I’m coming for you

Nioh 3 puts you in the sandals of shogun aspirate Tokugawa Takechiyo on the day of their ascension to the role. In a plot fuelled by jealousy, brother Tokugawa Kunimatsu (shoutouts to Tekken) has decided he wants to be shogun, leading a Yokai force against Edo castle with serious intent to commit fratricide/sororicide (depending on what gender you choose for Takechiyo). Before he can fully enact his demonic coup, a guardian spirit transports Takechiyo back in time to a point centuries before the calamity, where they must cleanse the timeline of powerful Yokai domains called Crucibles that corrupt the hearts of men, which are effectively the source of the current-day woes with Kunimatsu. What follows is a time-travelling adventure through several eras, as Takechiyo cleanses the tainted timeline and gains the necessary mettle to assume the mantle of shogun.

As is tradition with my time with all the Nioh titles, it took approximately three or so hours before the story had me a little lost in the details. There are some friends and distant relatives of friends that were somewhat familiar, but despite my best efforts (and possibly in dereliction of my duty as a card-carrying game journalist), I understood the cliff notes but very little of the detail. This is not a slight on the game, and there are metric tonnes of text explanations for the dizzying multitude of characters, events and locations you encounter for the curious, but I’ve never truly grasped a Nioh tale, and Nioh 3 is no different. The choice to keep the protagonist mute save for a few weird lines is still at odds with their apparent momentous role in history, and I will always question this design choice for as long as I live. But not to worry, yokai hunting season is well and truly open, and Takechiyo has a sharp and shiny arsenal to let them know all about it.

This is how the world ends. Not with a bang but a meow

While open worlds in and of themselves are no real draw card for me after Ubisoft kind of ruined them, Nioh 3 gives you the correct level of carrot on a katana to make your scramblings about the countryside feel generally well rewarded

Combat in Nioh 3 has a very familiar vibe to Nioh 2, and returning players will feel instantly at home. There are a dozen or so weapon classes to dabble in, each with unique light and heavy attacks as well as combos to execute and unlock. What is quite different this time around is the splitting of the action between two distinct styles, Samurai and Ninja. Samurai is probably best described as the Nioh you’re mostly familiar with. You’ll get access to high, mid and low stances which have their own combos, as well as a Ki pulse you can activate at the opportune moment to partially restore your stamina and dispel pockets of the Yokai realm. There is the addition of Martial Arts you can unleash after charging a meter, but otherwise this is very much the Nioh you know and love. On the flipside of the coin is the Ninja style, with removes the ability to Ki pulse but gives you a whole lot more nimbleness, preferring quick dodges and attack flurries over brute strength. You also don’t get access to the powerful Martial Arts, but in a largely superior way you do gain access to powerful Ninjutsu attacks (such as bombs, fireballs and shurikens) with finite uses that recharge when you attack or perfectly dodge attacks. Both styles feature their own armour and weapon sets and can be switched up on the fly, and perhaps this is what the developer’s envisaged, but the Ninja style’s speed and rechargeable Ninjutsu really is hard to go past. While I started the game preferring Samurai due to its familiarity, once I realised what Ninja had to offer I rarely looked back.

But what of the move to the open world? Does this fundamentally change the experience compared to its predecessors? The answer is an emphatic no, and the overwhelming sensation as I was playing was that this was in a lot of ways a carbon copy of Nioh 2, in an open world. Comparisons to Elden Ring are inevitable, but whereas that title was greater than the sum of its parts, Nioh 3’s equation is far simpler. It’s not even a terrible use of the format, but it doesn’t add anything truly vital that you feel like you weren’t already getting. This is exacerbated by the fact that so many of the enemies, weapons, armour, sounds and art (right down to that love of angry purplish red) are recycled wholesale from Nioh 2 (the Kodama nonsense burblings at Shrines for instance live rent-free in my head from these games). If you ever played Nioh 2 and wished that that identical experience was in an open world, then Nioh 3 has you covered.

Guardian spirit shred lord? You best believe

This isn’t to say there aren’t worthwhile things to do in Nioh 3’s open world, and uncovering the map as you progress through areas of increasing difficulty has a nice rhythm. You can technically speedrun the story missions and ignore the side content, but your progress is somewhat soft-gated behind your level and quality of weaponry and armour. Fully exploring areas is encouraged as you will gain boosts to attack, defense and luck stats in the process, and eventually you can reveal all collectibles in an area, such as the adorable Kodamas who will in turn allow you to carry more elixirs if you send them back to shrines. While open worlds in and of themselves are no real draw card for me after Ubisoft kind of ruined them, Nioh 3 gives you the correct level of carrot on a katana to make your scramblings about the countryside feel generally well rewarded.

Nioh is not a series for the faint of heart, and this this third entry is perhaps one of the toughest yet, at least where bosses are concerned. The first third of the game may lull you into a false sense of security, but there’s a distinct difficulty spike that’s waiting to humble you at a certain boss. While I relish the challenge and it’s all surmountable with enough patience and skill, there are some design elements that make it a little less palatable. One of my gripes with the experience is that the garden variety enemies are generally complete pushovers, easily staggered or spammed with Ninjutsu and summarily executed. They largely feel like speed humps, serving little purpose other than to spew forth oodles of colour-coded loot for you to endlessly sift through (oodles is no exaggeration here, thank God for the auto-equip option which does the min-maxing for you). You then inevitably come to a boss fight, and suddenly the spice level (which previously was at the level of the taco sauce in an Old El Paso kit) suddenly enters ghost chili territory. Many of the later stage bosses feature colossal health bars, hit like trucks and have multiple phases, making them a tough slog. Masochists rejoice, but the constant difficulty whiplash can nevertheless be frustrating. The sheer volume of bosses is also something to behold – for those that long for the next arse kicking this is a great opportunity, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say a little fatigue didn’t creep in.

In case you were wondering who the bad guy was it’s this bloke

Final Thoughts

The insistence on making every game open world is something that developers seemed to have (thankfully) shied away from, potentially as a result of one too many empty-checklisters stinking up the joint. Nioh 3 does not fall into the trap of having a bland open world not worth your time exploring, but I’m not sure it heightens the experience above the excellent Nioh 2. I feel that more effort ought to have been spent on making Nioh 3 feel a little more distinct from the games that went before, with far too many recycled assets and gameplay ideas reminding you that you’ve kind of played this game before. Still, that game you played before was also kind of amazing, and if you’re looking for more of the same with a sprinkling of open-world shenanigans, Nioh 3 is an easy sell.