Koei Tecmo’s Nioh is gearing up for launch on February 7th in North America on the PS4. The action-RPG starring a Japanese rip-off of the Polish folk hero Geralt has officially gone gold.
Getmasu picked up the news from a tweet sent out by Koei Tecmo, where they acknowledged that the game has gone gold and development is now complete on the Edo- fantasy game.
「仁王」無事マスターアップしました。長年待ってくださった皆さんありがとうございます。ついに2月9日(木)発売です!もう留年はありません!https://t.co/ea9YDa80yB #仁王 #Nioh
— 『仁王』公式アカウント (@nioh_game) January 16, 2017
Nioh is similar to Capcom’s Onimusha but designed to appeal to the Dark Souls crowd.
Players take on the role of William, a mysterious sailor contracted to kill demons ravaging the land. There’s political intrigue, civil wars and supernatural entities.
There’s a repeating theme amongst gamers who played the game who say that the game is very, very hard. According to PlayStation Access they compared it to Dark Souls meets Ninja Gaiden. You can see what the gameplay is like from the most recent demo.
They explain that William is a lot more combat-ready than Dark Souls characters. They explain that there are multiple stances for each weapon and a wide variety of weapons, including a rifle, a bow and arrow, swords, bombs, and even a dragon’s tail whip.
Players will need to utilize different weapons for different enemies since some weapons have a higher affinity for damaging enemies than others.
Fake Geralt actually moves and fights fantastic, especially when fighting against other enemies who are equal in size to him. Great, grounded combat is a make it or break it element for many action-RPGs, and it looks like Team Ninja has managed to find a nice balance between fantasy warfare and traditional samurai sword handling techniques, which is pretty cool. Also, they avoid the musou-style speeds so that you can really soak in William’s techniques and get a good look at his weapon-handling skills.
I think Team Ninja has a solid looking title in Nioh and it looks like a return to form for them based on their Ninja Gaiden days. You can look for Nioh to launch on PS4 starting February 7th in North America.