Nioh (the series)

You're tearing through them now, good stuff!

Tokichiro's fight is one of my favourites in terms of presentation. The preceding cutscene oozes determination, the soundtrack is appropriately somber rather than triumphant, and the banter he offers is also surprisingly cutting (such as him still calling you Hiddy even while you're at each other's throats, or how hurt he sounds if you use Yokai Shift while fighting him).

Eh, I feel like the protagonist just saying nothing, walking towards Tokichiro while not even looking at the skeletons they're killing is better served by their utter silence tbh. And given that the cutscenes were crafted with them not saying anything in mind, I can't really recall any other moments when them talking would really be necessary...

Besides, while I don't think that's what Team Ninja were actually going for, Hide being completely silent and more or less only fighting sort of feeds into them and Tokichiro being the two halves of the historical Hideyoshi, by essentially playing the role of the Kagemusha (lit. shadow warrior, a body double used by important figures for protection and to confuse opponents), contrasting the more boisterous Tokichiro. Ieyasu did the same thing but more literally back in Nioh 1.

And you can always headcanon that Hide got stabbed in the neck in the opening cutscene (the stab is almost directly under the camera's POV) and their vocal cords got damaged or something

Maybe, but would it actually have changed anything? If anything, from what little I know about Dishonored I feel like Corvo wouldn't have said anything at that point even if he weren't a silent protagonist

I don't want every game to have an MC that just goes "Hm" at everything mind, I just think that silent protagonists can be done just as well as talkative protagonists on the occasion, even if they're not used as self-inserts.

Hey, JuniorFE - remember when I was grousing about boss rushes in the 'Game mechanics you hate...' thread, and you mentioned that Nioh 2 has one late on? Is that in 'The High-Spirited Demon', perchance?

Come to think of it, I'm not sure either Nioh has what I'd classify as a boss "rush", technically, at least not in its main missions. Boss gauntlets, certainly, but you usually get a chance to rest at a shrine in between fights.

It's why I was confused at, I think it was Bichii off-handedly mentioning Nioh 1's final level at some point (but didn't say anything at the time), because you can rest at the shrine between the four boss rematches, either get a shrine or can backtrack to one after Nobunaga and don't have to refight Kelley if you lose to Orochi, so technically every one of its bosses gives you a chance to regroup after

Since this thread has seen a bit of a resurgence lately thanks to Ulythium and myself, this is rather timely:

The Nioh Collection (physical edition only, unfortunately), including both Nioh Remastered games and all DLCs, is currently on sale for 20 bucks: direct.playstation.com/en-us/buy-games/the-nioh-collection-ps5

If you'd like to enjoy these two great games for a frankly insultingly low price for the amount of content therein, you've got until the 28th of this month to grab them!

Eh, it's "unfortunately" more in the sense that it might take a bit to arrive, not much else wrong with it

I was really enjoying the next mission, too...

... Until I reached Lady Osakabe.

Sounds about right for Osakabe

Unfortunately I don't have many hints here, I basically just bashed my head against her until things worked out. I was good on survivability, so she didn't actually kill me too many times, but she was annoying for sure.

What I did use was Daion-Jin Sake (much like with Orochi) to defang her elemental attacks, then just bashed whatever head I could. Burst Counters give good opportunities to pile on the damage on the smaller heads, and don't forget to do as much damage as possible to the big head when it drops. I'd imagine good ranged weapons (especially cannons), Ninjutsu and/or spells would do wonders for hitting the heads (main head included I think) without having to wait for them to close in, too.

rajin I died all of once to her last night, before deciding to pack it in and go to bed. I'm sure I'll die far more than seven times overall before I get the job done!

JuniorFE Many thanks for the tips, as always. (Even Cowboy struggled against her in his first playthrough!)

I didn't mind the Daidara Bocchi fight a couple of missions ago, which also did the whole, "Massive boss and off-screen attacks" thing, but Osakabe is just obnoxious. Sort of like a rerun of the similar boss from the end of OG Nioh, whose name I can't for the life of me remember.

Shout-outs to Nick (for turning me onto Water Sword, which decimated Osakabe's health bar when she was stunned), and Junior (for the tip regarding Daion-Jin Sake, which helped nullify all the debuffs that made my first three attempts abject failures).

Ulythium that's the only thing I'd say is a slight dick move on the part of the storywriters: the lady you're attempting to stop now is Lady Maria (no, not the Bloodborne one, the other one)... who only appeared in Nioh 1's DLC. William knows her better than Hide does, he's had to fight her machinations for a while while Hide was trying to contain the Man With The Staff™ sealed within themself.

Ironically, since you haven't played the DLC, she's to you exactly what she is to Hide: a complete unknown who you have to chase down because... William told you to (I forget if you've been told what she's actually after at this point in 2)

Well, Otakemaru was a total pain in the dick, but I eventually prevailed (albeit by the skin of my teeth).

Then the credits rolled.

JuniorFE Is that actually it? No epilogue mission, a la Nioh 1?