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 #49: Ishida Mitsunari
I guess it makes sense that almost immediately after fighting Otani Yoshitsugu yet again that I’d have to fight his “boyfriend”, Ishida Mitsunari. The one good thing about fighting the pumped up Otani first was that now I knew I had to be extra careful with Ishida Mitsunari, who no doubt would also be pumped up. And that was not good news since he was already a pretty tough enemy under normal circumstances. Well, let’s see how I do in this rematch.
Okay, so I managed to kill this guy in one go, but he still damaged me a lot; so much so that I only had one health item left by the end of the battle. I gotta say, looking back I’m rather disappointed with my performance in this fight. I concentrated too much on avoiding his attacks when he used his Living Weapon rather than getting in close and hitting him a couple of times before he attacks again. I guess I got too used to fighting against guys like Date Masamune and Sanada Yukimura where I concentrate on avoiding their Living Weapon attacks and striking only when they’re about to run out of power. That strategy clearly wasn’t the one I should have used in this battle, especially seeing how many times Ishida hit me with that damn slicing energy wave attack of his, which I swear was able to track my movements far better than usual this time. I was playing it too safe, and I ended up looking like a bit of a chump. At least I still kicked this guy’s ass. Better still, I wouldn’t be seeing this bastard again either.
Boss #50: Toyotomi Hideyori
By this point, I knew the final battle was approaching. I also knew that Toyotomi Hideyori wouldn’t be THE final main boss, but seeing as how I was at a very late stage in the final mission, I figured this guy was going to be a challenge. I mean, look at the two pumped up assholes I had to defeat just to reach this guy. Nevertheless, I was determined to learn from my mistakes and give this guy a fight to remember before he very likely killed me in our first encounter. Let’s see how that first encounter went.
Shit. Not even Date Masamune killed me that quickly when I first faced him. As far as human enemies go, Toyotomi Hideyori was certainly no slouch. My second attempt went better, though really, it doesn’t get much worse than that first abysmal attempt, so I had nowhere to go but up. I actually got pretty far in my second attempt, but Hideyori pulled out some more ridiculous attacks and abilities, namely a very deadly counterattack technique, and sent me to the game over screen again. At this point, I feared I had another crusade on my hands, like with Date Masamune and Sarutobi Sasuke, where I would require somewhere around ten or more attempts before I was finally able to best this guy. But as it turns out, the skills I had acquired throughout my journey in Nioh had not completely left me, as I was beginning to fear. Check out my third attempt in the vid below.
In the end, Toyotomi Hideyori was a tough guy…..but so am I. And there can be ONLY ONE! Sorry about that, got carried away. This guy is easily within the same class as the other exceptionally strong human warriors in this game, namely Date Masamune, Sarutobi Sasuke, Sanada Yukimura, Maria, and Tachibana Muneshige, and he is overall just one of the toughest bosses in the game. And yet he still wasn’t the final boss. Needless to say, I was rather apprehensive at seeing what kind of crap the final boss would throw at me.
Boss #51: Nine-Tailed Fox
Okay then. I must admit, THIS is the type of final boss battle I expected from Nioh. Yamata-no-Orochi and Hundred Eyes were rather anti-climactic as far as final bosses go. But the Nine-Tailed Fox is quite the opposite. I mean, so tough is this boss that the game has Sanada Yukimura help you out in this fight as an actually useful NPC ally. I never expected Team Ninja to throw me a bone like that. Including this final main mission, there are only nine missions in all of Nioh that have you team up with NPCs to fight against enemies, and five of them were in this very DLC, Bloodshed’s End. So for William to actually have help against a boss, let alone the game’s final boss, was unheard of. But hey, you weren’t going to hear me complaining. Now let’s see how tough this Nine-Tailed Fox is!
Okay, so she’s quite tough. While I did get my ass kicked, I still managed to get her down to around 50% health on my first attempt, so I think that’s pretty good. As you saw in the video above, the Nine-Tailed Fox is not only quite quick for such a large creature, but her many different attacks are EXTREMELY damaging and difficult to predict. Even with Yukimura helping me out, this was not an easy fight at all. I don’t remember exactly, but it took me at least seven attempts, likely closer to nine or so, to reach my final attempt, which you can view below.
Whew! That was a hell of a battle, wasn’t it? I came very close to dying again at the very end right when I had the Nine-Tailed Fox at just 5% health. Dying at that point would have been a very demoralizing and frustrating moment for me, that’s for sure, but I managed to narrowly avoid death. That brings an end to the main story of Bloodshed’s End and of Nioh in general. However, just like with the main game and the two previous DLCs, there are still more challenges to face before I fully finish the game. But would I be ready for these challenges? Find out by joining us next week for the final part of Nioh Respawn: Blade of the Noob.