Are you a gamer who has an interest in playing a Souls-Type game but have avoided trying one for fear of getting your virtual ass handed to you over and over, leading to you rage quitting and questioning why you play games to begin with? I’ve been there. But what if I told you that playing and beating a Souls-Type game is not the impossible task that you may have been led to believe it is? Having recently beaten my first Souls-Type game, which would be Team Ninja’s Nioh, I’m living proof that beating one of these games is quite doable for a newbie. This was my first time playing a Souls-Type title, and as challenging as it was, it turned out to not be as impossibly difficult as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong though, Nioh is not meant for the faint of heart. But if a newbie to this genre of gaming like myself can (somehow) conquer a game like Nioh…maybe you can too.
Join me as I share my experiences and gameplay footage of the many boss battles I fought my way through in Nioh; you might even learn a thing or two, like how to properly beat some of these bosses after seeing them smack me around a bit. Welcome to Nioh Respawn: Blade of the Noob, and enjoy yourselves. (Disclaimer: This feature only covers the boss battles I was able to unlock, which is almost all of them, and the training battles in the dojo will not be included either).
Boss #1: Derrick the Executioner
The very first boss battle in Nioh, Derrick the Executioner, is a tutorial boss, and unsurprisingly, he is outrageously easy to deal with, despite the fact he has two stages. Even gamers who have only dabbled in hack and slash games now and then should have little difficulty with this guy. Given the early stage of the game, I imagine this guy’s axe attacks do a hefty bit of damage, but fortunately his attacks are very easy to avoid, as you will see in the video below where I manage to complete this battle without suffering a single hit (I’m not normally this much of a showoff, but in this case, I’m going to take any chance I get to gloat when I manage not to suck at this game).
Boss #2: Onryoki
This is the boss that will provide most first time Nioh players with a hefty challenge. Back when I played the Nioh beta in 2016, Onryoki killed me about 3 or 4 times before I finally managed to defeat him. It was only because of this previous experience that I was able to defeat Onryoki on my first attempt when I played the full game. Onryoki is a large and initially slow enemy whose attacks are not that difficult to avoid, but as is common with most other monster bosses in Nioh, he doesn’t leave himself open for too long after attacking. While he’s initially rather slow and ponderous, he speeds up after you bring him down to half health, making his attacks even more difficult to avoid. What a bastard. Basically, just try to get behind him as much as possible, avoid his attacks, and try not to throw too many successive attacks at him since he’ll just power through them and hit you while you’re going hog wild; that’s a lesson that will prove useful in pretty much most of the following battles in Nioh, by the way.
Boss #3: Hino-enma
Man, this Japanese vampire bitch was quite the pain in the ass, let me tell you. It should be noted though that, much like with Onryoki, I fought Hino-enma in the beta before Nioh’s full release, and while she destroyed me at least 10 times (possibly more) in the beta, that experience proved to be very useful and allowed me to kill her on my first attempt in the full game. In many ways, Hino-enma is Onyroki’s polar opposite: She doesn’t do quite as much damage, but she is WAY faster and has attacks that are far more difficult to avoid. Plus, she can fly around and throw paralyzing blasts at you that will leave you completely open to a follow-up attack. This is the type of boss that requires you to stay on the move and keep your finger over the dodge and block buttons at all times, or else you’ll be seeing the game over screen within seconds…as I did many, many times during the beta.
Well, so that’s three bosses in a row I managed to defeat in just one attempt each. I never expected I’d be kicking this much ass in Nioh, especially not in the beginning. Would my fortunate luck hold out for the next few boss battles? Or was I due to have a very humbling experience in my very next battle? Find out by joining us next Friday.