Moving messes up the draw, same with parry.
Well stop moving!
Yup, they still work really well. On humans the pull to leg sleep is still effective (though it doesn’t knock everyone over anymore). For yokai Reaper still destroys horns really well and savages health. Bladespin still is great for crowd control. Being able to hit from a bit of range is really nice since pretty much everyone can kill you in 1-2 strikes.
As for SotC, yeah it’s very much an opportune move. I normally use it after dodging backwards to punish a missed attack. Same with parry, basically stand guarding, wait for attack. Dual swords are actually a very defensive weapon (I think they have the best block stats in the game).
Way of the Nioh (final difficulty) is so easy. I’m still using my optimized Way of the Wise gear and unlocked the final mission.
I made a build with 100% firearms damage reduction so I take no damage from any projectile in the game. Maybe that’s why!
The only thing left is the Abyss. 999 floors of Progress Quest.
I stared into it, and uninstalled.
If I enjoy the Dark Souls series, would this game be for me? Usually I play a sword and board tank in Darksouls. Love the positioning and rolling mechanic…
Probably. Combat is similar but different. More dodge/parry based, no shields but you can block. Levels are discrete but still Souls like, they aren’t all interconnected, bit more like Demon’s and it’s hub system but even smaller levels.
Just beware the first few missions will seem extremely difficult until you get used to it. And you’ll never get a super tanky build in this game.
Just picked this up in the sale. Was already looking forward to diving into it, but this did a particularly good job selling it.
Very excited to get this on Xbox One in a few days. $50 for that version, but it’s the only system I can play it on.
I look forward to hearing your early impressions! I may have mentioned this, but Souls veterans seem to have trouble adapting, so try to go in with a fresh perspective.
I believe you’re looking for the NieR: Automata thread!
I’ll keep that in mind. It’ll probably be a couple of weeks before I get to it though, as I’m in the middle of Dark Souls 2 at the moment, and definitely don’t want to confuse my muscle memory by swapping back and forth between them.
Yeah that was a disaster when I tried it. I kept drinking healing potions when I wanted to do a heavy attack, and the dodge and interact buttons are swapped.
Man, I get them mixed up every damn time I google them too.
Well, I went from “I’ll just fire it up to make sure it works and decide if I want to play it now or do something from a different genre as a palate cleanser after finishing DS2” to completing the intro segment, the first real mission, and the sub-mission and twilight mission that remix that mission, so it must be doing something right!
Not sure why this would be – I’m not having any trouble adapting so far, though maybe it helps that I’ve also played and liked DMC/Bayonetta/etc., so I was expecting and wanting a fusion of that style with Souls. I’ve had a few control flubs of hitting the wrong buttons in the heat of battle, but those are already fading as I adjust.
Good
- So far the combat is pretty much what I was hoping for, a speedier and more responsive version of the Souls-style stamina system.
- The ki flash is a great addition that feels really satisfying to pull off correctly.
- I like that the weapons have standardized movesets and their special attributes are clearly spelled out.
- The weapons themselves seem really fun and varied. I started with the spear and tonfa, but wound up using the kusarigama a lot in the first mission thanks to its range. Now I’ve kind of switched over to using the sword and odachi just because those are what I’ve found high level versions of, and those are fun too, if more familiar.
- The stances feel like a great addition, really varying how the weapon types feel, and I can see it being a lot of fun to adapt to using the right one for different situations, and changing on the fly, though I haven’t been able to do much of that yet.
- It looks great (after finding a fan-made ultrawide patch), and the story and environments are interesting so far.
- There seems to be more emphasis on actual physical positioning rather than just timing your dodge so the i-frames match up with the enemy’s attack (are there even any i-frames here?). I died a whole lot on the first mission’s boss when trying to do the Souls thing of dodging through his ball and chain circle sweep, but was able to beat him once I realized to just run backwards out of range.
Bad
- Two crashes so far, both in cutscenes. One was at the end of the intro area, and I had to replay that boss. The other was at the start of a mission, so not too big of a deal. Really hope this doesn’t become a pattern, though.
- The control rebinding is really shoddy. I swapped the start and select buttons, as well as the triggers and bumpers. It works great in gameplay, but some menus adjust the button icon but not the functionality, and others adjust the functionality but not the button icon, so I never know which one is going to do what I’m trying to do.
Unsure
- It’s exciting to find a cool weapon upgrade, but I’m probably going to get tired of doing a bunch of fiddly inventory triage after every mission, so not sure if that’s going be good or bad.
- It feels like the revenants kind of subvert the expected gear progression, at least so far. I’m level 13, but have a bunch of purple gear at level 25-30 from fighting them that seems to be way better than the stuff I’m finding from missions.
- Ranged weapons so far seem to be usually an instant-kill headshot as long as I have the drop on most enemies. This may change later, and is somewhat mitigated by ammo, though.
I’m glad you seem to be enjoying it!
Yeah, you’re way ahead of the Internet. Most of them get stuck on the boss in the first real mission, or a couple other roadblock bosses early on. I should’ve realized your beat 'em up experience would help, duh. (By the way, if you never played Ninja Gaiden, then that might need to be your next destination!)
I think you’ll find the weapon movesets and how they interact with the admittedly repetitive enemies and levels is the real meat of the game, so be sure to savor each one of them. (Don’t worry, you can re-spec easily a little later in the game.) If you want a gentle suggestion, I’d start with the “standard” sword since all the other weapons kind of play off that one. But you can’t go wrong, and the parry-heavy mechanics of the sword work better later too.
To me there’s a style aspect to it I’m sure you’re familiar with from DMC and Bayo. You could use the basic stance the entire game, but true satisfaction comes from switching to high stance for a high damage move, then a quick switch to low stance to dodge out of there. At that point you’re toying with the enemies. That’s the fun part for me.
There are i-frames. Here’s a video of the first boss for the lulz, though it’s a later NG so very minor spoilers. Lock-on running is definitely OP though.
Looking through my old posts, I got crashes until I set the game to Windows 7 compatibility mode. (I’m on Windows 7.) Maybe try that?
Kind of related topics. Yeah I’d skip revenants unless you’re running a super underpowered weapon and you just need a decent upgrade. For NG mode, definitely skip all the min-maxing options they unlock later like reforging. It’s completely unnecessary to beat NG, and you’ll be doing a ton of it in NG+3 and beyond, if you’re interested. I say this just to save you time.
Looking through all your loot is always a bit annoying. It helps once you get armor sets because the set bonuses allow you to ignore upgrading for longer than normal. Your eyes will get used to looking for the important things.
It’s a nice way to get rid of archers so you don’t have to deal with them. Otherwise I pretty much ignored those weapons.
Anyway, enjoy!
One more thing. I recommend you backup your save every now and then. It never happened to me, but occasionally someone posts to reddit about how they accidentally unlocked all their gear and sold everything, or used the respec item and forgot to re-apply experience before dying and losing it all.
Yeah, the first real mission boss did give me a fair amount of trouble, probably 10-15 deaths or so. But as soon as I started running backward before his spin attacks, I barely even took a hit. I’ll see if that pattern holds true for the upcoming bosses.
Hmm, I played a bit of the Vita one, but stopped because it felt compromised and not a great fit for the platform – cramped on the small screen, iffy performance, and gave me hand cramps. Just looked, and it seems like that whole series is trapped on old consoles (barring PSNow, which sounds like a disaster for anything with precise timing).
I’d like to give it another chance, but amazingly, the industry actually seems super well stocked with melee action games for me at the moment and in the near future, so it’s probably not going to be a priority.
Huh, that looks exactly like what I was trying to do, but the chain kept hitting me when trying to dodge through it. The timing must be really precise.
Thanks. Yeah, I messed around with the Soul Match and Reforging systems a bit, but it seems like you keep getting so much loot that it isn’t worth the time. I’ve since started just using my best stuff and disassembling everything else.
I went ahead and did the second main mission, and its associated submission and twilight mission. Does it make sense to keep doing those as they pop up, or is it going to wind up making me overleveled? One of them gave me a new spirit, so they don’t seem to be completely superfluous.
Also, not really sure what I’m doing in terms of stats. I’ve been getting everything up to 10 first, since someone (maybe you?) said upthread that that’s where the first softcaps are. I guess at some point It’ll make sense to pick a weapon or two and specialize.
And I’ve unlocked ninjutsu, but haven’t done much with it yet.
Yes i-frames are more precise than most games.
The twilight missions rotate each day. It’s an odd mechanic. You can skip them as well to save time. Try a few to have fun with them and then if I were you I’d just plow on with the game. If you’re really hooked you’ll eventually want to come back for the NG+ playthroughs – maybe after a break! – so you’ll see these maps plenty. I don’t believe there’s any unique unlocks in them so I’m not sure what you mean about the spirit.
You won’t be super overleveled if you do all the main and side missions. Gear makes most of the difference and that scales by mission level. You’ll get better gear in twilight missions but it doesn’t break anything because that gear will be obsolete soon too.
You can ignore stat min-maxing for NG. Do the usual HP, stamina and weapon damage. Ninjutsu and magic is a whole other aspect I hardly touched because I had so much fun with the melee weapons. I know @Bateau did a kunai build for a while. You’ll be drowning in skill points and you can respec as needed.
There’s really no way to go wrong. Have fun!
Oh yeah, that was the sub-mission, not the twilight mission. I guess I’ll just keep doing the sub-missions for now then. Those seem to change things up with the environment and such, while the two twilight missions I’ve played have just been doing the whole mission over again but with more/harder enemies, so if that’s generally the case, I’m happy to wait on them.