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 #52: Sanada Clan
Sometimes I really hate being right all the time. The moment I had dreaded since fighting the Date clan was here: I now had to fight the f@#king Sanada clan (since they were all dead by this point, I had to fight them in the underworld because….well, apparently everyone just wants a piece of William, and William is only so glad to pass himself around). I’m just going to come right out and say that this made the Date clan battle look like child’s play by comparison. Now, to my immense relief, I didn’t have to fight all of the Ten Braves; however, I did have to fight four of the stronger warriors of the group, followed immediately by Sarutobi Sasuke and Sanada Yukimura.
I expected this battle to be tough, but dammit, it was EXCRUCIATING! Sasuke was just as tough as he had ever been, and Yukimura had actually learned a couple of new tricks since I last fought him. And that’s not even the worst part. Actually, I think I’ve typed enough here, I should just let my footage speak for itself. Again, due to the overwhelming nature of this battle, I completely forgot to record my first attempt (you’re not missing much), so you’ll only be seeing my final attempt (which was easily somewhere in the range of ten). And finally, so drawn out was this battle that I had to split it into two parts. If you guys have the stamina, check out the vids below and become amazed at the fact that I was able to beat this mission at all.
Boss #53: Jin Hayabusa
Uh-oh. I have to fight Jin Hayabusa. Ancestor of Ryu Hayabusa of Ninja Gaiden fame. I have fought many bosses to reach this point, several of which were easier than I thought they’d be, while others were more challenging than I thought they’d be. But with Jin Hayabusa, I had no illusions: I KNEW I was in for a hell of a battle that would, at the very least, require more than five attempts, likely ten or more. I’ve seen what Ryu Hayabusa can do first-hand, so if Jin Hayabusa had even a fraction of his descendant’s abilities, then I was in for a real challenge. Despite how much I had improved since I first started this game (since my battle with Tachibana Muneshige, I’ve been able to defeat most of the game’s bosses in less than ten attempts each), I would consider it an honor to be killed less than fifteen times by Jin Hayabusa. Let’s see how my first attempt went.
Believe it or not, that actually went very much how I expected it would. Though even I was surprised at just how much damage some of Jin Hayabusa’s attacks were doing. Forget Date Masamune, Sarutobi Sasuke, Toyotomi Hideyori, Sanada Yukimura….they are all scrubs compared to Jin Hayabusa. But he is a Dragon Ninja after all, so it only makes sense he’d be tough as hell. Surprisingly, it only took me another six or so attempts to get to this point.
Yeah, even in this last attempt, Jin Hayabusa smacked me around quite a bit. But hey, I defeated him in seven attempts, so that’s a victory as far as I’m concerned! I was feeling pretty damn good at this point. He was a badass opponent, that’s for sure, and I liked how they included the same boss battle theme from Ninja Gaiden 2 where you fight Genshin, that was a nice touch.
Boss #54: Nine-Tailed Fox and Toyotomi Hideyori
The final battle and mission in Bloodshed’s End. No intro necessary here. Just watch the video below.
I still cannot f@#king believe this. I seriously never thought even the sadistic bastards at Team Ninja would pull such ridiculous, over the top, completely cheap-ass bullshit like this. Fighting either one of these two bosses on-on-one, especially the Nine-Tailed Fox, is bad enough, but BOTH of them at the same time?! WHAT THE F@#K?! I simply could not beat this mission. It was impossible. Even stocking up on Amrita stones so I can reactivate my Living Weapon ability repeatedly, something I almost never did against any of the other bosses, was not enough to get me through this battle. It’s simply too much. The ONLY way I could have even a small chance of winning this battle is if I grind like hell for another several weeks or even months, just replaying missions over and over and over again……and I already did enough grinding in the game’s later stages just to reach this point. In the end, it just wasn’t worth it, so I gave up.
I could count on one hand the number of times I’ve given up on games because of the ridiculous odds set against me, so it was quite infuriating having to give up on this game SO. DAMN. CLOSE to the end. The only thing that kept me from breaking my disc in half out of pure frustration is the fact that this is just another one of those damn side-missions that has no real bearing on Nioh’s story or anything. I even looked up this mission on YouTube to see what happens if you beat it, and one of the NPCs simply congratulates you for winning the battle through a textbox conversation, so I didn’t miss anything. The person who uploaded the video was clearly one of those pro gamers who can spend countless hours doing the same shit over and over and become so damn powerful that even enemies like the Nine-Tailed Fox fall before them without too much effort. I’m dedicated, but I simply lack such obsessive levels of dedication that other gamers possess.
Despite not being able to beat this last side-mission, I still technically beat this game, and I’m sticking to that statement. This was still a good game with excellent combat, and I commend Team Ninja for creating such a game. But with regards to Team Ninja adding ridiculously cheap and practically unbeatable missions such as this one and, in my opinion, tainting an otherwise awesome game, I must say: “Your sadistic tendencies SUCK!”
But…don’t let my experience with this last side-mission dissuade you guys, I still recommend trying this game out if you’re still interested in playing a “Souls-Type” game, or whatever the official term is. Even if you don’t want to play Nioh specifically, perhaps now you’ve been inspired to try one of the other Souls-Types games that are out there now and that are still to come. If someone like me could (almost) complete Nioh, then you guys can complete it and other games like it too. Thanks for reading and watching.