With Nioh 3, Team Ninja has made a ‘masocore’ game entirely its own.
I can understand why Nioh 3 producer Fumihiko Yasuda and the team refer to Nioh and their other tough-as-nails titles as ‘masocore’, after all, they might be heavily inspired by FromSoftware’s slate of monolithic action games, but they strive to give each game a unique atmosphere and feel, along with mechanics that set them apart from the pack. So far, the results have been mixed.
While I can’t complain about the core gameplay mechanics in Rise of the Ronin or Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty, the former took too much inspiration from vast open worlds that didn’t suit its gameplay, and the latter have level design that took a nosedive past a certain point. Those games now feel like ambitious experiments, and Nioh 3 has taken those lessons to make something that feels entirely unique.
In a post-Elden Ring world, having a large environment to explore seems like the next natural step, but again, lessons have been learned from Rise of the Ronin’s overwhelming size. In Nioh 3 you’ll contend with three overworlds – with some short linear sections sprinkled between – but each of these three worlds feels smartly designed. You won’t be riding on horseback through open fields toward an enemy encampment, but you just might find a base riddled with yokai nestled between buildings.
Instead of being an open world where you can go anywhere and do anything, this one is connected by tight alleys and corridors. There are a few spots where you might be able to sneakily jump onto a roof and avoid an enemy encounter, but for the most part, there are set routes – and alternate routes for eagle-eyed players – to funnel you through areas, through combat encounters, enemy ambushes, and copious amounts of loot.
Making your way through any given area often feels closer to moving through the tightly designed levels of the original Dark Souls, or one of Elden Ring’s legacy dungeons, as opposed to modern open world games. That’s no bad thing, and means that instead of darting around a map to tick off objectives, you have a distinct sense of moving forward toward some sort of goal at all times.
It’s world design that’s inspired by its open world contemporaries, but put through the lens of Nioh’s gameplay, with anything superfluous stripped away. Team Ninja’s experiments have allowed it to refine exactly what makes Nioh great, but that’s not all it’s learned while looking back.
Ninja Gaiden is enjoying a bit of a renaissance at the moment, with Ninja Gaiden 2 Black, Ninja Gaiden 4, and Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound all releasing in a short space of time to great reception, and it was clearly on the minds of the team. The Nioh series has always featured references to Ninja Gaiden – including the Hayabusa family and the iconic Izuna Drop technique – but Nioh 3 takes things a step further and gives your player character a full ninja moveset.
That’s Nioh 3’s big innovation — it’s not the world, it’s the player. You can now swap between a Ninja and a Samurai style by pressing R2 at any time. Some of Nioh 2’s massive weapon selection can only be wielded while using Ninja style in Nioh 3, and the two styles essentially act as a completely new character build, with unique skills, weapons, armor, and more. You’re free to stick to one style for the entire game if you really want to, but style switching can be used to Burst Break enemies, and some foes are far easier to take down as one style or the other.
Both styles can access the same ranged weapons, but the Ninja style can’t Ki Pulse, deflect attacks, or change stances, instead gaining access to Ninjutsu techniques, including different types of Shuriken stars and even short-term transformations. Ninjutsu techniques don’t cost Ki to use, so they can be spammed while making distance to keep your opponent busy as you take a breather.
“Even some of the armor designs clearly evoke Ninja Gaiden’s legacy, and if you play it that way, it can feel more like a Ninja Gaiden RPG.”
The Ninja style’s swift attacks make short work of most basic enemies, and the Samurai’s deflect and Ki Pulse mechanics can make a player with swift fingers feel immortal against any boss, but I eventually found myself using the Ninja style more and more across the course of the game.
The cutthroat combos combined with skills like Mist make you feel incredibly nimble – if a bit squishy – and the Ninjutsu skills almost always make short work of human-like opponents like Masters and Mimics that can’t handle having low Ki. Even some of the armor designs clearly evoke Ninja Gaiden’s legacy, and if you play it that way, it can feel more like a Ninja Gaiden RPG.
If it sounds like the story has given way to the mechanics in this review, that’s because the game plays out the same way. You are Lord Takechiyo, rightful Shogun, but as is the way with these things, you are betrayed at the last minute and find yourself thrown through time, tasked with destroying the evil crystals that harbor the evil energy that makes people do evil things.
You’ll encounter various warriors throughout history, many with a Guardian Spirit by their side, and you must cleanse the evil crystals from their spirits and return the timeline to normal. There’s also a magic mirror involved. Sad to say that it’s hardly the most engaging part of the game, but there are some very nice cutscenes to enjoy along the way.
While Nioh 3 does often look pretty great, it’s a bit disappointing to say that even on PS5 Pro, it can look a bit low-res in places, with some frame drops and stutters occurring later on in the game — and these are noticeable even if you’re equipped with a VRR-capable display. It’s certainly not game-breaking or experience-ruining, but worth mentioning. The game also caused my console to hard crash once, forcing a reset via holding down the power button, and I hope that issue can get patched ASAP so it doesn’t risk bricking a console.
When everything is working as intended, Nioh 3 is a success. It never feels like it wastes your time, with new, unique enemy encounters and items hidden around seemingly every corner. It’s a game that’ll have you up til late at night checking just one more corner and fighting one more enemy — and if it’s really testing your patience, up to three players can jump into a game together in co-op to beat down bosses and clear through areas, and I imagine that’ll be the preferred way to play for some.
It felt like there were other games like Nioh and Rise of the Ronin, but there aren’t any other games quite like Nioh 3. It has great breadth and variety while still maintaining a core focus that never dilutes. It’s one of the best ‘masocore’ games of the generation, and even if it doesn’t hit the same highs as FromSoftware’s flagship games, it has finally managed to set its own course for the future.
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