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? 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.
Boss #37: Date Masamune
Well, looks like the previous boss, Katakura Shigenaga, was meant to place me in a false sense of security so that I would be doomed to get my ass kicked by the very next boss, Date Masamune. This guy is another human warrior, but he’s on a whole new level in many ways. His regular weapon attacks are swift and damaging (especially that cheap-ass “dashing stab attack”), and he can block more of my attacks than the average human boss to the point where I can normally only get two or maybe three successive hits on him. As you will see in my first attempt against Date Masamune, he kicked my ass using just his regular weapon attacks, and I hadn’t even reached the stage where he begins using the full extent of his abilities.
My following attempts consisted of me getting used to this guy’s many different attacks, several of which could almost completely empty out my health in one shot. While it didn’t take me too long to familiarize myself with Date Masamune’s regular attacks, they later get supremely buffed up when he starts using the Living Weapon abilities of his two Guardian Spirits. Yeah, that’s right, this guy has two Guardian Spirits at his disposal (at least this DLC also gives the player the option to equip two Guardian Spirits at once), and once the juice runs out on one Living Weapon, it’s not long before he activates the Living Weapon for his second Guardian Spirit. And while using his Living Weapon, this guy can just power through my attacks and continue to throw all kinds of supremely pumped up sword and elemental attacks at me, he doesn’t even bother blocking my strikes. This battle required extreme patience on my part since I had to basically stay away from Date Masamune and avoid his super powerful attacks while he was using his Living Weapon, then once it runs out, I go in and damage him as much as possible before he activates his Living Weapon again. I had to be at the top of my game for this fight and not let my guard down for even a split second; there was very little room for error. This combined with how drawn out the battle was made it a very exhausting experience for me, especially since it took me a good ten or so attempts to finally put him down. You can see my last attempt in the video below.
Boss #38: Maria
I was not prepared for this battle. After defeating Date Masamune in the previous mission, I saw that I had one more main mission left in the Dragon of the North DLC, so I figured I could fight the enemies in the earlier portion of the mission a few times so I could level myself up a bit before facing the boss at the end, Maria. To my unfortunate surprise, the mission was made up solely of this battle with Maria, and by the time I realized that, it was too late. I started the boss battle, and as I somewhat expected, I was not quite ready to face her. My attacks weren’t doing quite as much damage as I would have wanted, and as you will see towards the end of the video below of my first attempt against Maria, I tried making use of the new (at the time) pause feature added into Nioh so I could try to leave the mission, but I f@#ked it up and…well, just watch happens.
Afterwards, I did some grinding by playing a few missions online with other players, then I came back to take my revenge on the surprisingly fast and deadly Maria. While she wasn’t as tough as Date Masamune, Maria was still a challenge with the way she moves around at blinding speed and then uses some sort of Amrita magic that increases her attack damage and also prevents her from being staggered when my attacks connect. Took me about five attempts to get the better of this little minx, though it could have been just three or four if I had remembered to use my Onmyo magic abilities more often (I hate it when I overlook such basic things). Furthermore, it wasn’t until I fought a later enemy with similar abilities as Maria in the final DLC that I realized I could have blocked that damn slicing energy wave attack that she keeps spamming instead of putting so much effort into dodging it. Anyway, watch me get the better of her in the video below.
Boss #39: Date Shigezane
“You have GOT to be F@#KING kidding me!” I’m quite sure that was my reaction when I saw that I had to fight this cheap motherf@#ker again. If you saw the video I posted above where I defeat Date Masamune, then you’ll know that Date Shigezane, that half human/half demon centipede boss I fought not too long ago, appeared in the closing cutscene and had been turned back into a human by William’s ninja buddy, Hanzo. So, why am I fighting Date Shigezane in his demon form again, I hear you ask? It’s the classic lame-ass side-mission plot device: Date Shigezane (the human version) is aware that something strange is going on in the town in which he resided when he was a demon, so he asks William to check things out for him (because, as we all know by now, William has to do EVERYTHING himself). As it turns out, the “demonic essence” that Date Shigezane had left behind in the town had taken on a life of its own and, naturally, took on the same demon centipede form he had taken before being healed. Basically, I’m fighting Date Shigezane’s “demon echo” come to life. I hate these lame-ass plot devices that offer shitty excuses for why you have to fight a boss more than once, especially when the boss is such an enormous pain in the ass like this guy. Seriously, with all the other bosses available in this game, why in the hell did Team Ninja have to choose to make us fight this one more than once? Whatever, check out my first attempt in my rematch against Date Shigezane.
Yeah, this guy’s still an asshole. Fortunately, I was rather used to most of this guy’s moves from before, so it only took me about five or so attempts for me to beat him in this rematch battle, though as you will see in the video below, he almost got me at the end, so I came very close to having to fight this bastard a sixth time. While I’m glad fighting this guy didn’t last so damn long like before, I DID NOT want to ever see his ugly-ass insect face again!
Things don’t seem to be getting any easier with Nioh here. And this is only the first DLC. What were the other two going to be like? Would I have to fight and die repeatedly against more outrageously cheap disphit bosses like Date Shigezane, or even slightly less cheap but still frustrating bosses like Date Masamune? Or would fighting these guys push me to a whole new level of combat skill that I never thought possible for me? As always, join us next Friday to see how I fare in my next batch of boss battles.