@jg4xchamp:

The moveset is different, when transformed. I don't see how that's debatable. A cane becomes a whip, a longsword becomes a greathammer, a twinblade a dagger and a rapier, a curved sword a scythe, etc. It is much more than two-handing a weapon. Bloodborne has 26 unique melee weapons, Nioh will have 8. With weapons transformed, and with the 3 different stances, that is comparing 52 and 24.

Stances chain into each other, but as you said, so do weapon transformations. Except transforming a weapon is more fluid and continues the combo whereas changing stances gives you stamina but doesn't continue the combo.

Parrying in Bloodborne is much more vital than the skills in Nioh, so it's not a valid comparison. You can beat the game with fists, if you want.

They're not complementing each other because they're too similar in attacks. To give you an example, this would be like if Bloodborne made you fight Cleric Beast and Laurence at the same time. The Shadows of Yharnam are a perfect fit because one is slow, one medium speed, and one quick.
This is a non-spoiler one since it doesn't have bosses. Take a look at this clusterfuck https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CHirwqSxYAk .

Here is an example of the hitboxes from a video I watched yesterday: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEFjoZCAHgY&feature=youtu.be&t=18m53s

@jg4xchamp:

I could have easily made the argument that the only difference between stances in Nioh is speed and damage, but I didn't, because that's not true, and the same holds for transforming weapons in Bloodborne, which clearly gives you a whole different moveset for the same weapon, and changes whether you can parry or not. Transforming weapons in Bloodborne is fluid and can be chained, while in Nioh changing stances is quite fussy due to the controls. There is nothing in Nioh as quick as transformed Blades of Mercy.

The rally system incentivizes you to go in for additional attacks to regain your health, thus leading to a faster pace to combat without the Dark Souls/Nioh style of backing away and waiting for the enemy to attack so you can react. Bloodborne's combat is more active and less reactive. The additional stamina you regain in Nioh is of course useless if you have no health.

I could experiment more, for sure, but the game should also give me reason to use it's many tools other than it's already here so might as well try it.

Those bosses aren't designed to be fought together because they don't compliment each other like Ornestein and Smough, or the Shadows, or the Demon Princes, or Ariandel and Friede do. Fighting multiple bosses in Nioh leads to a mess because there are barely any openings. If you played those missions in Nioh then surely you know what I'm talking about.

Nioh does have invincibility frames, but fewer than Souls games. Fewer i-frames is not bad design, but then hitboxes should be more accurate. Bloodborne has a fix for hitbox issues, and that is you not taking damage due to longer i-frames. The game screws up but usually doesn't punish you. In Nioh, when hitboxes misbehave, you get punished.

For non-mainstream, story-focused games with little to no challenge, try SOMA, Oxenfree, What Remains of Edith Finch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, Virginia, To the Moon, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture.

Of those, I would particularly recommend SOMA, What Remains of Edith Finch, and To the Moon.

@jg4xchamp:

I never said anything about stances or ki pulses, those are essential. Speaking of those, transforming weapons I found better than changing stances, and ki pulses are just the rally system from Bloodborne, but for stamina instead of HP. They are both small but important changes, but the rally system encourages aggressive combat completely different from previous Souls games, whereas ki pulses, while adding to the rhythm, just add another button to press while in combat. I was talking mostly about combo finishers you get from skill points, which to me felt largely as cosmetic upgrades for attacks rather than meaningful changes.

There is a difference between depth and complexity. Bloodborne is not complex, but it has depth, because with the tools you have you can do many things. Nioh also has depth, but not much more depth, only more complexity, because much of the complexity is clutter, ie. the twelve different ways you build your character which ultimately lead to the same result Bloodborne accomplishes with less complexity. Nioh does have more build variety.

Nioh doesn't play faster than Bloodborne. Faster than the other 4 Souls games, definitely, but not faster than Bloodborne. I had no response problems with Bloodborne. Nioh has, due to lack of invincibility frames, much more obvious hitbox detection problems, which lead to a poorer feel to combat, especially with grab attacks, jump attacks, and tracking attacks. Bloodborne has a worse healing system than Dark Souls, which is basically what Nioh's healing system is. Though since you can stock up on blood vials for cheap in Bloodborne, it really isn't an issue. Bloodborne has more aggressive enemies, I'm not sure how you can argue otherwise. I don't remember any enemy in Nioh being as relentless and quick as Ludwig or those big sharks. As for multiple enemies? You mean like in those few sub-missions where you can fight 2 random bosses from the main game at the same time, even though they were clearly not designed to be fought together. Stuff like that and other cheap padding really holds Nioh down. Nioh doesn't have a single actual boss fight with multiple bosses (if it does in the DLCs, which I haven't played yet and don't wanna spoil for myself, then I take this back), but if it did then I'm sure Shadows of Yharnam, or the Demon Princes would put them to shame.

Demon's Souls on the PS4 at 1080p-60fps. I also wouldn't mind some design changes, like overhauling the upgrade system, making a better UI, removing inventory load, etc. Would be cool if also the 6th Archstone got added, that would really make it a must buy.

If you want a funny puzzle game that's also one of the best games ever, go with Portal, if you haven't already.

@jg4xchamp:

Not really, considering that most fights are over before you can really do anything fancy. Again, the options are there and I don't deny it, but does it really matter if you hold L1 and then press triangle to parry an enemy's attack only to grapple them, or hold L1 and then press triangle to sweep them down so you can grapple them? In the end, gun parrying is better :P

@poe13:

Well, you see, I beat that centipede on my first try, but against, for example, Yuki-onna, I struggled for like an hour, and I've heard that some beat her on their first try. Difficulty is always subjective in these games, but I felt it was most subjective in Nioh.

Nioh is still a great game, and for what's it worth, it gets better as it goes on, because the story starts making more sense, and the levels actually have a reason for you to be in them, unlike early in the game where every second level is some random asshole's son or whatever has gone missing and you have to go and find them. The bosses, too, get better as the game goes on. Maybe you would have ended up enjoying it if you stuck with it.

@X_CAPCOM_X:

The combat is more complex, definitely, but not better, in my opinion. It's just additional frosting on the cake. It always comes down to feel, and Bloodborne's combat just feels better to me. When I'm bored I can just run Bloodborne and do a random chalice dungeon because the combat just has such a great feel to it. In Nioh, yes, you can do a 100 different things that will give you an infinitesimal edge, but it still boils down to the basics of combat, and Bloodborne's basics are better.

As for everything else, I simply can't see how Nioh does anything better. Art direction, level design, soundtrack, voice acting, sound design, characters, plot, lore, pacing, structure, atmosphere, variety, exploration, boss design, enemy design, UI, etc. are all somewhat or very much so better in Bloodborne. Not to mention the unique problems to Nioh such as the poor submissions and inventory managment.

The three integral parts of Souls games are to me: combat, exploration, storytelling. Everything else is in function of these. Even if you argue Nioh has better combat, it certainly doesn't do exploration and storytelling better.

Bloodborne is, in my opinion, the best game I've ever played. Dark Souls is a close second.

Nioh is very, very good, maybe even great, but aside from some neat twists on the formula, I don't think it does anything better than any of the other Souls games (okay, it's better than DS2).

If you have to pick between the two, I'd pick Bloodborne, but I'd also make sure to eventually get Nioh.

In terms of difficulty, I wouldn't say that Nioh is more difficult, but I would say that it has more, shall we say, bullshit moments than all of the 5 Souls games combined, mostly when it comes to the bosses. The difficulty is also all over the place. About half the bosses I killed on my first try, and of the remaining ones, half I got down after 3-4 tries, and then there were the bosses which took me ages to beat. Obviously there are bosses like that in the Souls games, but in those I never found it annoying to repeatedly die, except with... Elana from DS2 on NG+ and The Watchdog in Bloodborne in the Defiled Chalice Dungeon. If you've fought those, then you know how obnoxious they are, and quite a few bosses in Nioh made me feel like those did.

The difficulty from regular enemies and traps in levels is more even, and I rarely found myself dying there, except with... Wheel Monks. If you think the Bonewheels in DS are annoying, wait till you see these. To be fair, once you figure them out they are much more manageable but figuring them out is very hard. Bloodborne's normal enemies are more interesting and diverse. Nioh's enemies are either humans, which are more-or-less all the same, or the Yokai, which are different sorts of demons, and the game reuses and reskins the most common one quite a lot.

Bloodborne is also a much better looking game, and the soundtrack is better. If you care for the story in Souls games you won't really get anything similar in Nioh. The game is filled with cutscenes that aren't really interesting, and if you don't know some things about Sengoku Jidai you'll likely be confused because the game throws in a bunch of characters and expects you to basically memorize their glossary entries. It gets more engaging by the end, but then it's over. Bloodborne has a great horror aesthetic and is incredibly atmospheric and interesting.

Coming of from DS you'll find that both Nioh and Bloodborne are a lot faster-paced in combat, but Bloodborne is the fastest. There's no shields in either game, so you have to dodge constantly, but the dodging in Nioh never felt natural to me, unlike in Bloodborne where some of the fights look like gorgeously choreographed quick dances. I'm not even sure if there are invincibility frames in Nioh's dodges, and combine that with wonky hitboxes and you'll get most of the bullshit moments from that.

Nioh's combat and upgrades are a dozen times more complex than DS's, and especially Bloodborne's. There's like twenty different ways you upgrade your character in Nioh, whereas in Bloodborne you pick your weapon and the stats that go with it and that's it. I prefer Bloodborne's more streamlined approach, where there aren't many weapons but each is unique and has twice the moves of DS weapons. Nioh has 5 weapon types and each weapon in that type has the exact same moveset.

Nioh's level design is quite bland, too. Visually it's just a bunch of villages and forests without much personality to them. Yharnam and it's surroundings in Bloodborne are unforgettable. Nioh is mission-based, so don't expect the world design you'll find in Bloodborne which is like Dark Soul's but a bit less interconnected.

Also, expect a ton of inventory management in Nioh. It's basically Diablo in that regard. I found myself spending fifteen minutes after every mission just cleaning my inventory. Enemies constantly drop trash items.

Anyways. Nioh is a good game but Bloodborne is amazing. Nioh isn't any more difficult but it is more frustrating.

Resident Evil 7 is what came to mind first. The series is notorious for its poor writing, but the characters and plot reveals in RE7 were not just good by RE standards, they were simply great. Definitely the best AAA horror game since... I dunno, RE4. The game is genuinely scary. I am mostly unfazed by jumpscares, because they tend to be so predictable and poorly paced, but the ones in RE7 all got to me. The art direction and sound design are also fantastic. I don't want to spoil anything in terms of gameplay, but the game has some of the best gameplay escalation I've seen in a long time. In so many games, the things you do in the first hour is basically what you do in the last, but maybe your reload time is 0.5 second shorter or you can do a double jump, or something. Here, it's quite effective in how the mechanics gradually ramp-up, and the way it's tied with the protagonist's development.

So, it's well-designed, well written, actually scary, well paced, looks and sounds amazing. And all that after RE6? A very pleasant surprise.