Just got past Edo and having a blast. Currently using a build centered around the Red Demon set. Only big complaint so far is the cost of soul matching is insane. I got amazing stats on one of the red demon spears but to bring it from level 72 to 94 costs like 2.5 million gold.

I found out about the Sloth talismans on my own and they've been making all the bosses trivial so not much to talk about on that front. Frog boss was cool.

Yeah, I had to ditch my perfect dual swords because it required 10x more gold to upgrade it than I had.

Also, I am severely underleveled. I haven't done a second of grinding, but I still find it odd that I am 15-20 levels under the Mission Level right now. I haven't died twice and lost Amrita ever and I am fighting all the things and doing all the missions. I was only underleveled by around 3-5 levels for most of the game, but it has been extrapolating pretty hard lately.

@zevvion: I'm noticing the same thing. I was over leveled up until the Edo area of the game. Now all the missions are like 5-15 levels over me and I've done all of the side missions. And that's after I got 7 levels farming Ii the Red Demon for the smithing texts of his armor+weapon.

@strangestories: Yeah, they probably expect you to farm/grind a lot. But to be honest, I don't see much point in that this 'early' into the game. Usually farming/grinding doesn't start until you reach the endgame.

@zevvion: If you're winning via Sloth/Guardian Spirit that's akin to criticizing Dark Souls 1 while abusing original Iron Flesh. That's on you not on the game.

As far as levels I wouldn't worry about it, try a mission if you feel underpowered then do some side missions; but you can definitely beat the game doing almost none of them and only doing each mission once.

I don't even have that skill. And I have never used Iron Flesh. I am saying I don't need to mix anything up. I can use 1 combo and beat every boss I've faced since Ice Lady with it. The game is becoming progressively easier. Let me put it this way: I am currently 25 levels under the mission level and the last few bosses I didn't even have to actively engage with something as basic as Ki Pulses while beating them in 1-3 tries. I am also going to stop with the side missions because they are just not that fun.

Seeing my damage go down sure is a bummer though. Not that I need it apparently as you said, but I don't like the game nonchalantly telling me I'm supposed to be grinding.

I still like the game, don't get me wrong. But it's not as close to perfect as I thought it was.

@zevvion: @strangestories: I found out that the price of soul matching is relative to the starting level of the item your are upgrading, so leveling up a level 9 to level 50 costs way more than say a level 30 or 40 to 50. And this is regardless of the weapons current level, so if a level 9 is a level 20 the cost is the same as if it's still a level 9. So keeping one weapon or armor set doesn't seem too viable unless you want to grind for that gold. I do have a question, does armor have inheritable skills or is it just weapons? Doesn't seem like they do which kinda sucks.

@oursin_360: Armor can have inheritable traits as well.

@zevvion: Shrug, there are builds that will win the game easier and builds that won't; that's how it always is, also you might just be better at souls games in general than you were before; evaluating the game based solely on how often you die is a poor approach.

@fredchuckdave: Indeed, but that wasn't what I was trying to do. I die more in this game than I did in DSII, but I still think this game is easier than DSII. The boss design has not been very interesting these past few missions. I haven't really seen something unique in a while, nor something that wasn't simple to dodge. It took me a couple tries to properly adapt to some of Ice Lady's moves so I could dodge inside her AoE for instance. Whereas everything past her, 'dodge to the left' has seemed to always work.

I'm not talking about a specific build, I'm saying I can apply the same strategy for boss A to boss B. Ninja Frog, Corrupted Cat, Nail Lady and even Cut Scene Girl and Wing Dude; dodge to the left > square, square, square, square, triangle, pause, triangle > dash out > repeat. I couldn't do that on Ice Lady and a couple other earlier bosses.

I'm not saying this game is too easy, I'm saying this second half seems to be dropping the ball a bit to be honest. The only thing that still stands high is the level design for the most part. I really liked that Ninja Fortress and there have been some good area's after that as well (though also some bad ones). But the bosses get stale. I'm also realizing this game doesn't have a lot of enemy variety. I'm still fighting the exact same Yokai in this final 20% of the game as I did in the very first mission.

To be clear again, just because I point out some flaws here doesn't mean I think the game is shit. This will 100% be on my GOTY list, probably decently high too. But I think it is lacking some things that other Souls games do not. And I'm realizing I find those things important.

Judging these games on your death count means you place some dumb importance on a measure that these games explicitly care not for. As for the levels, if it's like every other game of this type, at some point the level scaling is small potatoes. I was expecting a tough time of this ice mission but, 7 levels under it, I'm doing enough to beat the things that drop level 57 weapons. In contrast, that dickhead bird in the Water Blob hoard room is ruining my mojo.

I've also figured out why I have so many blanked out sub missions: I haven't cleared the main missions they're tied too.

This is definitely the thing that's bumming me out the most about the game at the moment. It feels like past the first two regions the game stops progressing and you're just looping through the same cycle over and over with slightly bigger numbers every time. The game could've really used a more significant style change every time you got to a new region.

Agreed, but that wasn't what I was trying to get at. I just don't think the game inspires combat creativity in the second half as it does in the first half. I don't feel like I have to learn bosses anymore. They don't have nuance like some of the earlier bosses do. Call Water Flan Boss (or whatever he is called) cheap or shit all you want, at least it demanded some type of approach that was different. The past few have just been uninspired. My death count is just a side effect of that.

I'll agree with that. Seems like I'm getting less to consider and with the enemies being reused so much, you just need to look at them and think, "Oh, one of those. I know how this fights." You get some unique enemies but they don't carry from level to level. Maybe this is the price they pay for basing it around existing folklore.

The more i play the less it feels like a souls game to me, it feels a lot more run based with a focus on loot, crafting and upgrades. I play it more like i play an arpg, if there is side content i end up doing that first and trying to find stuff that gives me components i need etc. Probably why i'm not far in the game still lol.

@oursin_360: It's a pretty long ass game. Granted, some of the side missions take up a decent amount of time, but if you scratched all those there is still 30 hours of game in here.

So I beat the Centipede boss last night during my (very) slow crawl through the game. No deaths and a couple of really easy to execute cheese strategies made it kind of a bore to fight.

I think I have come to the conclusion that the game isn't really Dark Souls. The bosses are too easy and uninspired to be from Dark Souls and there isn't enough enemy or environment variety. I've pretty much seen every major enemy type at this point and have solid strategies for dealing with all of them (which now consists almost entirely of my new favorite toy - the Overhead Spear Spin). The environments can look OK, but I haven't gotten the same sense of awe or place that I get from a Dark Souls game. About the only things carried over from Dark Souls are Amrita functioning like souls and item descriptions.

That's isn't to say I'm not having a ton of fun with it, though. I just think that instead of Dark Souls it's actually the Diablo III game I always wanted Diablo III to be. It's good action oriented combat plus a ton of color coded loot. And unlike Diablo III, there's actually some build variety going on, since I get to assign my own stats and get to pick what abilities I want to spec into. And the plot manages to be entertainingly ridiculous, instead of "Cain killed by a swarm of butterflies" ridiculous.

@lawgamer: If your only at the centipede you haven't seen all the enemy types yet, and that's definitely the easiest boss i've fought so far.

The bad-boss-streak is broken. Fought another good one that was actually a decent challenge. It doesn't look like much, but it was something.

@lawgamer: You may be surprised how deep Diablo III's builds can get. It's not coincidence that the average player is unable to complete Torment IV and it scales up to Torment X exponentially.

Also, Dark Souls has a good amount of easy and uninspired bosses. Nioh has them just in greater amount. The encounters are still very Dark Souls-esque.

I've reached the water blob boss and after two tries realized I'm too tired to beat it tonight, although it seems like it's going to be a pushover once my reflexes are refreshed.

This destroyed water shrine ara has been my least favorite of the game so far though. Too many cheap deaths from falling into the water, especially when fighting Yoaki.

I have to ask though, have you guys figured out what the point of lighting the torches in this level is? Ivery lit them because I found them and may as well, but as far as I can tell, it isn't necessary for beating the level, right?

@omgrich: Take a look around when you're fighting the boss.

@omgrich: it's not for the level itself. It's part easter egg as you're "linking the fires" and part puzzle mechanic that's meant to help you out. Without spelling it out completely let me just say that they're meant to give you a helping hand.

I died to that boss over a dozen times mostly because I'd fall into the water while attacking him. Overall I think it's pretty poorly designed. The level I think looks cool but agree in that it's a real pain in certain spots.

This fight's fun like every time out but especially on NG+:

White Tiger was pretty cool. First boss I've struggled with for a few. Another boss that baits my stupidity with punishable attacks. Especially that opening roar.

So from what I've seen I'm in the last area of the story. I'm in area six. Was a bit shocked because I'm maybe 40-ish hours and all those articles said "Nioh is 70 hours long!!!"

With just a yes or no, do you go to any of the northern areas of Japan in post-main story stuff? Seems like there's a lot of places you could go up there.

The last three boss have come down to me being one shot from death and either flinging firebombs or swinging and shutting my eyes.

The Onmyo Mystic art is a game changer, being able to instantly cast buffs is so good!

If anyone was disappointed by these bosses in NG just try them on The Way of the Strong, apart from the obvious stat differences they have much better AI as well. Except the axe dude of course.

@theassyriangamer: Just started playing Nioh tonight, and boy did Blinding Shell save my ass. Pretty much trivialized the fight after Phase 1. Thanks so much for the tip!