Nioh

Team Ninja regains its honour with a winning samurai ode to Souls

Forget the obvious links to the likes of near impossible and Team Ninja’s own Ninja Gaiden Sigma; not since Call Of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 has a game been so defined by a small notice tucked away at its beginning. For Infinity Ward’s infamous 2009 shooter, that pop-up was a warning about disturbing content and the option to bypass the playable, headline-making No Russian terrorism level. In new samurai slasher Nioh, the message in question is the choice to auto-skip something else entirely: previously viewed cutscenes.

It takes a couple of hours for the reasoning behind this to emerge. A prologue chapter set in the Tower Of London belies Nioh’s promise of Dark Souls meets Onimusha. Humdrum environments and weak enemies combine to deliver an underwhelming introduction to the story of fabled Western samurai William Adams. Yet as the third-person action shifts eastwards and the game begins proper, Nioh sharpens its kunai-like teeth, bites down hard, and delivers every inch on that tasty blend of PlayStation classics – and then some. Battered, bloodied and borderline broken after a frenzied attritional war through a burning village, I stagger towards the first boss fight, watch the cutscene and… die.

Over the next two-dozen failed attempts, Nioh’s proper opening boss and his two giant balls (easy, Grandma!) push me to the edges of patience as I’m forced to learn new skills and master complex combat systems, fingers flashing over face and shoulder buttons alike during my compassionless training. It’s only when I emerge on the other side, victorious and armed with new appreciations for the convoluted duelling, that I realise I could easily have given up were it not for the merciful decision to completely do away with the encounter’s boss introduction cutscene.

A CUT ABOVE