YMMV / Nioh

• Aluminum Christmas Trees:
  • Believe it or not, the giant toad demon wielding a sickle-spear isn't something the creators actually invented, but based on an actual picture◊ from the collection of Youkai drawings known as Ehon Hyaku Monogatari.
  • There actually was a white samurai named William Adams, who was in fact the first European to ever be made a samurai by the Shogun. In fact, he was a pure blooded Englishman, and him being made Irish for the game is the fictional part. The same happens with Yasuke — who was in fact a real person, the first recorded non-Japanese samurai, from Africa.
  • During the first time meeting Hattori Hanzo, Hanzo pulls out a cat to check its eyes, remarking on the time. And yes, this is actually a thing, though it relates more to how much light is available than the actual time.
• And You Thought It Would Fail: Considering the game's Development Hell history since 2004 and a general lack of original IPs made during The New '10s by Koei Tecmo and the divisiveness of the game's mechanics via the demos that made it stand so far out of the Souls-like RPG genre, one would be forgiven for not giving Nioh and Team Ninja the chance after their previous Action Game failures in Ninja Gaiden 3 and Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z. Instead, Nioh would become the best-selling game for North America in Koei Tecmo history, which neither established Long-Runners Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden could reach. By the game's third anniversary in 2020, the total number of Nioh copies sold (including Nioh: Complete Edition on all platforms) reached 3 million.
• Anti-Climax Boss: Honda Tadakatsu is the "Warrior of the East", famed as the greatest warrior of the entire Warring States Period and the only person canonically who can give Tachibana Muneshige a run for his money. Despite this, Tadakatsu is widely regarded as an absolute pushover of a boss in the side-mission duel against himself, in part because he never blocks and is fairly slow, to the point that even a heavily armored player can run in circles around him without worrying about getting hit. However, Tadakatsu IS harder when fought together with Muneshige, but only because players have to fight both of them at once. Justified slightly by his old age and brainwashing.
  • The Ogress is somewhat tough, but also has a number of weaknesses that an enterprising player can take advantage of. These include a massive blind spot that you can use to respond to many of her commonly used attacks in kind (ie. her basic claw slashes), and her leaps into the air are easy to dodge and put you in an excellent position to flank her for two or three solid hits: sometimes she uses these moves over and over again a few times, allowing the player to deal a lot of damage to her in relative safety. Her firebreathing is a little trickier: you can get unlucky and it'll be almost impossible to evade, but it's quite easy to close the distance when she winds up for it and smack her around while she's standing still.
  • The Gashadokuro is certainly visually impressive, but the battle against it is very simple and straightforward. It doesn't attack often, and even when it does its attacks are very easy to dodge, leaving the player plenty of time to attack its glowing weak points and bring its head down. The battle can be over pretty quickly and a half-competent player can easily complete it with no damage taken. Not to mention the fact that the fight has so many oni-bi floating around that you can constantly activate Living Weapon from killing them.
  • For its reputation and all its spectacle, Yamata-No-Orochi isn't all that troublesome, particularly for (apparent) final boss material. Its melee attacks are slow to come out and easy to evade, making the first phase particularly easy, though its breath attacks could be a bit of an issue with the limited space to maneuver. Once the other heads show up it gets a little more chaotic, with the heads launching globs of elemental energy at you (this can add up to Discord if you're not careful), but by that point the beast has destroyed the top floor of the tower, giving the player much more room to run around. The heads aren't even all that bulky, making it easy to burst them down and take them out of the picture quickly before you're overwhelmed. The last phase is a hard-hitting final head with All Your Powers Combined, but it's just as slow as it's ever been and is much less of a hassle to evade now that it's only one threat.
• Artificial Brilliance: 90% of the time, Revenants will use the Low Stance. It's the hardest to parry, making it difficult to cheese them to death with counterattacks. They also fight remarkably like an actual human player would, averting the Attack! Attack! Attack! mentality of many other enemies: fights against them often involve a lot of staredowns as the Revenant waits for the player to make a move and present them with an opening.
• Awesome Music: The Ogress Theme makes masterful use of violins for the battle against probably the most tragic Yokai in the game.
  • The track for the battles against The White Tiger and Ishida Mitsunari, emphasising the tragic nature of their battles, "heroes" fallen.
  • Okatsu's boss arrangement of her theme. Very elegant and determined.
  • The theme that plays for all foreigners, such as Derrick the Executioner, Kelley, Hundred Eyes and Maria. Very dramatic and tense.
• Breather Boss:
  • Nestled between the Umi-Bozu in That One Level and the Yuki-Onna as That One Boss is the Joro-Gumo at Shichisen Castle, a boss with very little unique gimmicks (aside from inhibiting the player's mobility via web-spraying) and an easily exploited flank.
  • Otani Yoshitsugu comes between Saika Magoichi and Shima Sakon, both candidates for That One Boss, but has little to brag about himself, having a small health pool and very few truly dangerous attacks apart from a dash that is easily sidestepped and a flurry of Sword Beams that can be negated simply by staying close to him.
• Broken Base
  • Judging by comments since the alpha demo all the way to its finalized release, Nioh provides either one of the best Dark Souls-like and/or Bloodborne-like experiences outside of FromSoftware or it takes to those games too much by being too similar or not having the same game mechanics veteran "Soulsborne" players have gotten used to (such as "Ki"/stamina; see Scrappy Mechanic).
  • How Co-Op Multiplayer works in the final release: whereas the demos allowed two players to tackle any new mission together, the release locks out co-op for a new mission, provided a summoned player beats it first; by developer Team Ninja's own admission, they changed this so the game would not be too easy from start to finish. Unfortunately, some players are miffed about this aspect of co-op, particularly when Dark Souls had a more flexible system, while others defend Team Ninja's rhetoric of ensuring the difficulty of Nioh should stay as it is, but fair.
  • "Sloth Talismans" are an Onmyōdō magic that slows down an enemy's movement by 50%, including their attack animations, making them one of the most useful spells in the game. They are either a powerful, but fair way to get around some of the more speedier foes' nastier attack strings or an outright Game-Breaker that reduces boss fights into an "Apply Sloth; mash the Square button to win" mentality.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Very prominent and plain to see with the revenants system. Fight some revenants and see for yourself:
  • Armor-wise, in Way of the Samurai almost everyone has either the first set Warrior of the West or the easy to craft Red Demon set. In Way of the Strong onward, expects lost of Tatenashi (best defense), Hayabusha (best attacks) or Swallowtail (farming) in between drops of WotW and Red Demon.
  • Weapon-wise, if they use Odachi, expect it to be a Taro Tachi (guaranteed Changed to Attack AA: Strength, allowing Odachi users to double dip into their highest damage stat).
  • Completely averted with the choice of weapons, as all weapons are viable and fun to use so everyone use everythings and there is no complacent here.
• Complete Monster:
  • Sir John Dee is the mastermind of the Amrita project, aiming to raise England to dominate the world with himself as its true puppet-ruler from the shadows. He creates Edward Kelley as a sapient, disposable weapon, and sends the necromancer to Japan with the intent of annihilating everything he can and killing countless people to harvest Amrita with the knowledge he can just create a new Kelley if the need arises. Dee has those involved in the first stage of the Amrita project tortured to death en masse, and also has others abducted and brutally experimented on in order to create new demons in order to harvest more Amrita.
  • Edward Kelley, a ruthless sorcerer seeking to gather the mystical energy Amrita for his master, kidnaps William Adams's guardian spirit Saoirse and uses her to locate Japan, where he makes an already bloody civil war even worse. Lending his aid to the Toyotomi forces, Kelley also increases the presence of monstrous Oni and other Youkai, and attempts to undo a seal to allow monsters to ravage all of Kyoto. After being foiled, Kelley uses his magic at the Battle of Sekigahara to painfully fuse 300 soldiers into a new monstrosity and backstabs the Toyotomi army leader Ishida Mitsunari to use him to buy time while Kelley attempts to raise Oda Nobunaga, Japan's most fearsome warlord, from the dead and have him plunge the nation into a new era of war. While a servant of Sir John Dee, Kelley is ruthless, cruel and utterly delights in the slaughter he initiates.
• Demonic Spiders
  • Of all non-boss enemies in the game, the Raven Tengu is the one whom most players hate facing against: their attacks have a wide swath, particularly when they use their staff weapon in conjunction after a 360-degree roundhouse kick. Meanwhile, they are one of the few enemies with a natural projectile move dealing wind damage (without the need for a bow, handcannon or rifle like human/skeleton Mooks do) and their Grapple Move is Unblockable, forcing players to keep a distance when the Tengu already have exceptionally long-arc melee strikes.
  • The monk-like Onyudo are dangerous at pretty much any distance between their long-range tongue attacks and short-range arm thrusts, both of which can ravage your health and destroy Ki should the player try blocking. Despite their size, they are well-capable of firing these moves off in rapid combo attacks, leaving very few if any openings to counter.
  • In a more literal case: the giant spiders which start to appear past the halfway point of the game. They have tons of health and Ki, attacks which are fast and deadly, love to ambush you by dropping down from the ceiling, and have a grab attack which is hard to avoid and hits like a truck. To make matters even worse, they are often encountered near their nest, which means there will be dozens of eggs laying about that will spawn smaller spiders if you accidentally break one, making it very easy for the giant spiders to decimate you while you're distracted dealing with the offspring.
  • Almost as bad as the Raven Tengu are the Flying Bolts. A type of floating female ghost, these enemies wouldn't be very hard at all if not for the fact that all of their attacks slow you down if they hit. Add to this an extremely damaging dash attack that is almost impossible to avoid if you've been slowed by this effect, as well as their high mobility which lets them escape combos at will, and you have a very painful and annoying enemy type. It doesn't help that they're almost always fought near other monsters. One mission ends with a battle against a Flying Bolt and a Raven Tengu that is considered to be harder than many bosses in the game.
  • One example that crosses over with Boss in Mook's Clothing are the Edward Kelley homunculi fought only in the room before the True Final Boss: while these enemies lack the Amrita-draining properties from the Grapple Move used by the original Kelley, they retain the same damaging health drain from the attack. They also hurl alchemic spikes exceptionally fast with little time for players to react in order to dodge, with these projectiles inflicting the harsh "Discord" status effect^note Take more damage and more ki is used when attacking. What makes them truly hard is players have to fight them as a group of three at once; the fact the room doesn't have a lot of space to maneuver around, and it's entirely possible to be blindsided by the other two while focusing on one has made these one-time enemies the biggest hurdle. God help players if they don't take out two earlier Amrita Fiends in a corridor before heading into the room.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Samurai Souls", for its obvious combat and visual aesthetics to the popular Action RPG series by FromSoftware.
  • Onimusha Soul, as Nioh is also set in the Warring States period of Japan like the former while containing Oni enemies.
  • "(Samurai) Geralt" for the character design of William being similar to the titular protagonist of The Witcher.
  • "Gamabunta", due to the appearance of the Giant Toad boss standing on its hind legs while smoking a pipe, just like the character from the anime/manga.
• Game-Breaker:
  • Shreding Yokai: Step 1: Get a Kusari-Gama. Step 2: Unlock the Reaper ability for said weapon. Step 3: Build up enough Amrita for a Living Weapon use. Step 4: Locate big ugly Yokai. Step 5: Activate Living Weapon and get right in big ugly Yokai's face. Step 6: Hold guard and mash the triangle button as fast as you can, secure in the knowledge that Living Weapon will keep you safe while you shred big ugly Yokai into little bloody pieces.
  • Cheesing human: Step 1: Get a Sword. Step 2:Knock'em down with Daiba-washi Guardian Spirit Talisman^note Other spirit such as Tanuki, Mizuchi, Enko, Atlas Bear and Fuse-Ushi also cause knockdown, however Daiba-washi bypasses both guard (by lifting them up) and evade (due to AOE). Step 3: Iai strike their back. Step 4: Final Blow for massive damage. Step 5: Optionally run around for 10 seconds^note In higher difficulty, human boss has a 10 seconds countdown timer before they can be knockdown again then rinses and repeats. Combine with the below for maximum fun time.
  • The Sloth Talisman can slow down enemies/bosses movement, which can make them a Zero-Effort Boss as you'll be seeing their attacks from a mile away and be able to dodge before it's even close to hitting you. Acquiring this will officially turn Nioh into easy mode.
  • The Odachi's Groundquake is one of the strongest skills in the game, period. Let's count the ways: it's a radial AOE attack with a deceptively-large hitbox, so it can't be dodged by anything other than straight-backwards movement; it has Super Armor AND reduces incoming damage during the animation to around 20% of what you'd otherwise take, letting you easily tank attacks that would be near-fatal otherwise (and without getting interrupted); it uses a surprisingly-low amount of Ki despite being a power move for the Mighty Glacier weapon, so you can still typically dodge away afterwards; and although its damage is decent, it deals MASSIVE damage to Ki, meaning anyone foolish enough to try to block it will almost certainly be Ki broken. It's merely good against Yokai, but against humanoid enemies (including Tachibana Muneshige, it can easily win fights entirely on its own (provided you have the heavy armor to survive the hits, and a way of healing back the Scratch Damage you'll take.)
  • The Axe's Spin Attack is one of the better moves in the game and shares many properties with the Odachi's Groundquake. With the proper build not only does this attack do massive amounts of damage, enough to shred any boss in seconds, the player can also be more or less completely invulnerable while executing it. The fact that it can't be interrupted once you get spinning and allows controllable movement during the attack itself just makes it worse.
• Goddamned Bats
  • A literal example with bats who hide in crevasses and ceilings in caves, then spring and fly out suddenly at players if they walk by, knocking them down from a ledge, possibly into a Bottomless Pit for an easy death. Fortunately, the chirping sounds of bats can be heard when players are in proximity to them, thus their locations become predictable after a while.
  • The Oni-Bi can be a real pain in the ass. On their own, they aren't a huge deal, but when paired with bigger aggressive enemies, they can be horrible to deal with. The biggest issue with them is that they are the only enemy in the game that damages you just from touching you. So if you bump into them while evading something else, you'll take damage and get staggered for a moment. And they alternate between spitting magic at you and ramming you, taking full advatage of their collision damage. And if you have a situation where 4 of them decide to start ramming you, you can easily get stunlocked to death.
  • Wheel monks: like bats, these yokai might come out from nowhere (especially during Twilight Missions). They deal fire damage by leaving a trail of flames behind in their rolling path or via breathing fire. What makes them really annoying is their default rolling attack garners some of the highest priority in dealing damage, so much that players often neglect blocking first before striking. However, wheel monks' ki is particularly weak, thus stunning them into a ki-less state is relatively easy.
  • Since Biwa-Boku-Boku primarily raise Revenants without players activating them on their own, finding one in an area turns into a hassle if players can't locate their positions. However, like bats, these yokai also come with an audio cue of where they are, as well as a visual cue of a Revenant being automatically summoned before fully manifesting to fight, thus allowing players to be prepared. On the other hand, not killing a Biwa-Boku-Boku quick enough when they spot players turns bothersome since they start summoning an endless number of Oni-Bi.
  • The Red Kappas which are introduced in the DLCs. Unlike the regular Kappas, who would usually just run away at the sight of William, the red variants are far more aggressive, have attacks which will either paralyze the player or deal a ton of damage to health/Ki, and will leap in the air to avoid your blows. On their own not too much of a trouble, but they're often found in areas with other Demonic Spiders, making the fight very dangerous to approach if you don't take them out first.
• Good Bad Bugs: Prior to an update that patched it out, armor and weapons have a Level Cap of 150 at the end of the first play-through into New Game Plus, but players discovered a glitch wherein forging a new weapon or via "Soul Match" might allow the cap to reach upwards to 320.
• It's Hard, So It Sucks!: The primary complaint behind the alpha demo - it was called harder than Dark Souls III and Bloodborne combined. What didn't help was that players were unquestionably weak at the start of the demo, such that the weakest Mooks can kill William in roughly two well-placed hits. Detractors stated this caused severe balancing issues preventing the game from being a challenging, but fair experience likes its inspiration. These complaints would later be taken into consideration for the beta.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This is a Souls-like RPG where you can skip a certain boss fight by offering Dung Balls to a man and, provided you talk to him after giving him 30 Dung Balls, there's the implication he was eating them. Years later, another Souls-like game features a NPC explicitly known as The Loathsome Dung Eater.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Tokugawa Ieyasu, in spite of being the Big Good, is a ruthless man out to unify Japan to put an end to the eras of war and bloodshed. Recruiting William Adams so William will handle the dirty work for him, Ieyasu manipulates the fraught political situation while gaining more power as he crushes the Toyotomi forces, even sacrificing his own allies to secure an advantage. Ending by defeating the Toyotomi at Sekigahara, Ieyasu orders William's death to bury the truth of the Amrita crisis, only to reveal he knows William is actually alive before having a good laugh over it.
  • Lady Maria is a charming spy from Spain who arrives in Japan, whereupon she ingratiates herself to Date Masamune and helps him kick off a rebellion, creating a new war so she may harvest Amrita for the betterment of Spain. Later repeating the same action with Sanada Yukimura at his castle, Maria manipulates Lady Yodo at Osaka Castle to continue the conflicts, allowing her to slip off completely free and clear of any punishment no less than three times, all for the betterment of Spain and revenge against England for stealing her kingdom's golden age.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Saoirse speaking Irish at the end.
• Narm:
  • Regardless of whether or not certain players knew about the ninja method of telling time by looking at a cat's pupils, many felt the scene where Hattori Hanzō pulls out a cat from his tunic was downright hilarious.
  • William's attempt at a Shut Up, Hannibal! to Kelley after the Final Boss fight.
    Kelley: All your efforts... worthless.
    William: (in complete monotone) They were not worthless!
• Play the Game, Skip the Story: Although an engaging story is there on account of the numerous historical figures, the overall pacing and the way the narrative unfolds is complicated at best and incoherent at its worst. Players must dig into the character entries from the in-game encyclopedia to discover the story in a clearer way; unfortunately, this is marred by segments of character entries being blocked off, unless players clear certain levels and beat bosses numerous times.
• Polished Port: The PC version allows you to combine the best of Film Mode (maximized visuals) and Action Mode (60 FPS) so you can have your cake and eat it too, on top of having the various accouterments you'd expect from a decent port. Definitely a far cry from other Koei PC ports in the best way possible.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Zigzagged with the Ki gauge: depleting it entirely not only leaves players open to attack, but they cannot perform any action while the gauge is recuperating. Certain players state Nioh is too punishing to them for not watching out for the gauge, but others claim the "Ki Pulse" mechanic is what offsets the difference. At the same time, enemies have their own Ki gauge and suffer the same effects as players do if their gauge is depleted. Meanwhile, Yokai can leave a "Yokai Realm" zone^note The circular black and white areas they generate where Ki recovery is negated or slowed down, leaving something else for players to complain about regarding Ki, but a dedicated stat called "Vs. Yokai Realm" offsets these "dead zones" by ensuring Ki recovery is normalized if players step into them (and Yokai can only recover their own Ki if they remain in these zones). Finally, the aforementioned Ki Pulse mechanic can dispel Yokai Realms if performed correctly, though of course, anything less won't do anything towards the zone.
  • Armor and weapon durability in the alpha: while there's a visible meter next to the selected weapon like Dark Souls, the problem is durability depletes much faster in Nioh, not helped that unlike its counterpart, equipment does not regain their durability at shrines like Dark Souls does at bonfires. Players were forced to scrounge for "Nikawa Glue" and whetstones to restore armor and weapon durability, respectively, and even then, both consumable items only restore 50% durability. Averted upon the release of the E3 2016 demo, where Team Ninja had the durability mechanic entirely scrapped.
  • In a case that's strictly-relative, inventory management. Most Soulsborne games give you single, unique pieces of equipment that can be individually upgraded, but Nioh opts for a Randomly Drops system. This means that the players' inventory will frequently be bogged down with large numbers of nearly-identical gear, necessitating sifting through varied (and oftentimes obtuse) stats and abilities and comparing numbers to figure out what's better. Compared to the game's inspiration, it can turn off a LOT of people who might not enjoy spending so much time in menus.
• Spiritual Licensee: While it's incredibly easy to find the similarities between Nioh and Dark Souls, certain viewers liken the atmosphere, combat and appearance of Oni to the Onimusha games. Additionally, there's also the usage of Historical Villain Upgrade within the series when compared to Onimusha, which mostly plays it straight for a simple Black-and-White Morality, whereas Nioh uses a more subdued approach, at least for the Sengoku Period figures.
• That One Achievement: "Holy Trinity" is likely the most frustrating achievement in the entire game. On paper, it's very simple, just equip the Kusanagi Tsurugi, Yasakani Magatama, and Yata Mirror at the same time. The problem? Unlike the Kusanagi, which has at least one guaranteed drop on the second to last story mission in the base game, the Magatama and the Mirror are both ridiculously rare random drops. Meaning that if the Random Number God isn't on your side, it's entirely possible that you may never see this achievement.
• That One Attack
  • Muneshige (in the Daizaifu catacombs and in the optional side-mission) has a move involving the iai maneuver: normally, players at this point can use iai provided they stand still, but Muneshige can execute the late-game technique "Tiger Sprint", which allows him to perform it while running. Players fighting him for the first time will likely be caught off-guard by this attack. Furthermore, if players do decide to dodge the strike, the timing is incredibly strict, while blocking the attack requires a lot of ki, else players risk exhausting themselves and leaving them open for a deadly grapple attack.
    • Later on in the game, players can unlock Tiger Sprint. If they so desire, they can return to Muneshige for some Catharsis Factor revenge.
  • The prior-mentioned Hino-Enma has a sonic scream move. Not only will it take a chunk of your health, it will also freeze you in place, and if you don't have an acupuncture needle to cure it posthaste you'll end up on the business end of one of Hino-Enma's other nasty moves, like her health-draining grab attack. While she telegraphs it with a distinctive cry, getting hit by it is a death sentence, and it has a very strict dodge window to boot. Unless you use an Anti-Paralysis pill or Resistance talisman, in which case all it does is inflict a relatively-small amount of damage.
  • Umi-Bozu likely wouldn't be nearly as terrifying without his near-zero-windup Wave-Motion Gun. Many a promising attempt has ended because he decided to bust this out with no warning and one-shot William. (Most of the others were ended due to falling into the ocean.)
  • Yuki-Onna has an Unblockable Dash Attack that's easily her most dangerous move (as the others are more telegraphed): it comes out extremely quick, is difficult for players to see the tell if they're standing away from a distance (the range she always performs the move from), can cover a lot of ground and take off half the player's Hit Points in a single hit.
• That One Boss
  • Despite being a humanoid boss, Hino-enma doesn't seem too hard - the problem is its unique form of the paralysis status effect^note Decrease attack and movement speed: if players are hit with its long-ranged wind-like attack, all movement is instantly negated. Players are left wide open for a long margin of time while the Hino-enma can zone in and initiate either a melee combo or use an Unblockable Grapple Move that not only takes away a considerable chunk of Hit Points, but restore a portion of its own health, causing the fight to drag on longer than it should.
    • However, it should be noted that both the Ninja and Onmyodo trees have a cheap, low-level, free consumable that not only negates paralysis, but also protects against it entirely for around thirty seconds. While not perfect, it can take a lot of edge out of the boss, and since it's so cheap, even builds not buying into either tree can afford to grab one, and existing Ninja and Onmyodo have no excuse not to grab it.
  • Umi-Bozu possesses a One-Hit Kill Wave-Motion Gun attack with hardly any start-up, while the boss arena is small, making it incredibly easy to fall into the ocean for a quick death. It doesn't help that it's possible for players to slip between the cracks to the sides of the arena platform when the Umi-Bozu appears on both ends for players to engage. Meanwhile, the second phase of the fight places the Umi-Bozu onto the arena, with several of its lesser spawn accompanying it, even bypassing any of the three fire signal torches that were lit prior to fight^note Up to three Lesser Umi-Bozu will spawn at the start of the boss fight, provided the torches aren't lit throughout the level; if the torches are lit, these Mooks do spawn, but will automatically die because they come into contact with the torches. Even though the fight turns up-close-and-personal, over-aggressive players will be severely punished as they have to contend with the Mooks, too. It's quite telling the stage gimmick (the torches) that helps turn this into a Trick Boss only helps with damage output^note Umi-Bozu is weak to fire; players who don't know how to pace themselves for the duration of the fight will die.
  • Muneshige is an easy boss when fought in the main mission, being little more than a re-skinned Revenant enemy with a unique model and some exclusive moves. In the optional sub-mission, "The Warrior from the West", he's fought once more. Here, he's a Lightning Bruiser to the literal extreme: fast, agile movement, deals Lightning damage which can inflict a variant of Paralysis that slows your movement (but not the exclusive Hino-enma kind of paralysis, fortunately); the effect is so high that even with Lightning resist, getting hit by his attacks (or his Raiken summon) is all-but-guaranteed to inflict it, making dodging and attacking that much harder. His attacks deal a TON of damage (three solid hits and you're dead, no questions asked), and can shatter your guard in only a couple (and he WILL use Grapple, which is almost guaranteed to kill you instantly). On top of that, he has access to the Tiger Sprint (a late-game dashing version of the Iai Strike technique, see That One Attack below); it comes out quickly, is practically a One-Hit Kill, has an awkward hitbox and animation that makes it hard to dodge, will Ki break you instantly if you block it (see Grapple above) and he can spam it as much as three times back to back. He's such a difficulty spike compared to what else is faced at that point in the game that threads abound of newbie players struggling to beat him and asking if he is legitimately impossible.
    • Oh, and once you hit the 50% mark, he Turns Red, adds even more Lightning damage to his attacks, becomes MUCH more spammy and aggressive, and his Raiken summon now attacks again after a delay, adding yet another hazard to watch out for in addition to his constant flurries of attacks.
    • Also, for extra pain for Ninja and Onmyodo builds, he's got astronomically-high poison, paralysis, and elemental resistances, turning the Status Effects those builds typically rely on into Useless Useful Spells. No cheap tricks or cheese tactics for you!
    • For added rage, the setup makes it clear this is an honorable duel between friends, and when you finally beat him you're prevented from dealing lethal damage...but that won't stop HIM from killing YOU over, and over, and over...
  • Shima Sakon might be the prime candidate for the worst mandatory boss in the main game, to the point of being extremely unfair. His movements are identical to every spear-wielding revenant you meet in the game, but with Entangle, a very fast grab attack, high stance combos and a hurricane move that deals massive amounts of damage, not to mention that his regular attacks all have blatantly larger hitboxes than the player's own spear moveset. Once he gets below 70% health, he starts using his Living Weapon, and this is where the fun begins: all of his attacks are now lightning-based, meaning he can kill you very easily if you don’t have armor with enough lightning resistance, Anti-Lightning and Daioh-Jin’s Sake. He also gains hyper-armor and a new move where he jumps and slams the ground, which can instantly kill you if you’re caught in the jump. And finally, he can call his Guardian Spirit by doing a thrust attack followed by a one-hit kill lightning blast. The only way to deal any damage to Sakon in this phase is to deplete his Ki, which means not only do you have to be very close to him, but you also have to constantly try to dodge his attacks while keeping a very close eye for when he uses his jumping attack. Even with buffs, debuffs and Sloth Talismans, he can still kill you with no effort.
  • Date Shigezane from the DLC comes very close to 'just plain unfair' territory: not only does he move like hellish greased lightning on wheels with somewhere to be, his attack power is absolutely ludicrous: a player heading right to the DLC from the main story will get one or two shot in mere seconds. He has punishing combos that suck up Ki like mad should the player try to block or dodge, tons and tons of health, and a wicked-fast Moment Talisman summon in the form of a centipede that will close the distance and either break through your guard and leave you open or just kill you outright.
  • Date Masamune from the DLC is notorious for being excruciatingly difficult thanks to spending majority of the fight in Living Weapon form, (yes, he can use Living Weapon just like the protagonist) and can use a water and wind form with their own unique abilities, in his wind form he will unleash a sudden AoE which can most likely insta-kill you, and also has an unblockable long-range super-fast dash attack akin to Yuki-Onna's That One Attack that can erase your health bar instantly. As for his water form, he will blast a ton of sword-beams at you and limit your distance by creating pools of water that damage you if you touch them. The only viable strategy for dealing with his LW form is poking and running, as he can poise-through all your attacks and decimate your health bar.
  • Maria, the Final Boss of the first DLC is one of the hardest, if not the hardest bosses in the entire game, she has the speed of Okatsu and the damage-output of Date Shigezane, a plethora of That One Attack and can also use Living Weapon just like Masamune. She is practically Masamune but faster, deals more damage, and you fight her in a little storeroom. She has a one-hit grab attack that comes out as fast as a simple dash, will almost never have her stamina depleted as it regains constantly when in LW form, and to top it all off she has a gargantuan health pool much like the other bosses.
  • Sanada Yukimura from the second DLC is basically Masamune on turbo. He has a range of unique spear moves which are swift and deadly, several AOE attacks which are hard to dodge, and can literally fly when under his Living Weapon form, which he'll be in all the time, meaning that Yukimura can escape any corner you force him into by simply leaping into the air, and is then free to perform a drop attack on you from any angle. To make things even worse, when you have to fight him again in the next DLC, Sasuke will join the fray when Yukimura is at low health, making the fight almost impossible to win if you can't kill off Yukimura quickly before they double-team you.
• That One Level:
  • The Ocean Roars Again, where the Umi-Bozu is fought, is considered to be the worst level in the game. A majority of the environment is situated on top of the ocean's surface, with really narrow platforms and rooftops that, if players so much as dodge the wrong way when fighting any enemies throughout the level, will send them to a watery grave.
  • The Samurai from Sawayama takes place in the eponymous location, which is a sprawling underground castle that's filled with traps, unintuitively placed shortcuts, a plethora of ambushes, and objectives which are spread far apart from each other and are on different levels of the castle. The game's long standing issue with the lack of visual clarity also reaches its peak here, between the samey looking architecture, confusing level layout and poorly-lit environment, making this stage an absolute nightmare to navigate without a guide.
  • Siege of Osaka from the Defiant Honor DLC. Most of the mission takes place under the walls of Sanada Maru, where you constantly get pelted by arrows that kill you almost instantly if you can't find cover, plus all the enemies are now much harder than before, meaning you are going to die a lot. But blowing up the archers with cannons will bring you catharsis after having to endure their hails of arrows.
  • Kuroda's Determination, is infuriating to play solo. While the first two waves are not that bad, the third wave is 2 Raven Tengu, which any player knows is a nightmare. If they player doesn't manage to kill the first before the second spawns and reaches them, it's damn near impossible. After that, you still need to contend with an Onryoki, and the player is likely to be low on elixirs by that point.
  • Return of the Gourd, is most likely the hardest mission in the base-game, at first it's just 2 skeletons and 1 revenant but then more revenants spawn, and then after you kill them, two more take their place... and then when you kill 1 of them, one more will take their place. It's hard enough as they have a ton of health and block every attack which makes them incredibly tanky and you're only allowed to use the poke-and-run strategy to deal with them efficiently. But wait, you thought it was over? Now you have to fight Oda Nobunaga AND Obsidian Samurai in a Dual Boss fight. If you die, you have to replay the entire mission all over again.
  • Everlasting Duty from the Bloodshed's End DLC pits you against the Nine Tailed Fox and Toyotomi Hideyori - main story bosses which are already tough enough on their own, and this time you have to fight both of them at the same time. Unsurprisingly, this fight is horrendously unbalanced, with the Nine Tailed Fox pouncing on you while obstructing your vision with its huge body, giving Hideyori free reign to hide behind her and fire projectiles at you from a safe distance, making this fight a Luck-Based Mission at best without Co-Op help or resorting to cheese tactics.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Sir John Dee. A famous historical British alchemist as the main villain, secretly manipulating events and engaging in political intrigue, and also wanting to make England the dominant power over the entire world? It would seem like an interesting concept for an interesting villain, especially considering that he is an adviser to Elizabeth I, he could become a very formidable opponent both in strength and influence. Plus, being British, he could become a very personal enemy for William. But Dee only appears 3 times in the entire game (at the beginning, where he is not even visible and you can just hear his speech, the second time after killing Kelly for a few seconds, and at the very end where he has a total of 4 lines), which results in him having virtually no screen time and barely any personality. Because of how little attention he receives, it ultimately makes he extremely boring and easily forgotten, despite all its significance.
  • As cool as using the Teahouse's Transform option is to play as characters other than William for Co-Op Multiplayer, it's restricted to only male character skins. Those wanting to play as characters like Okatsu or Yuki-Onna are out of luck, but averted with the release of the 1.07 patch, allowing female character skins for use (though at a whopping 90000 in-game currency each to unlock).
  • Lady Maria, the Big Bad of the DLC, is introduced as the final boss of Dragon of the North, the first DLC as an agent of Spain gathering amrita for her country, and intending to sow the seeds of conflict like Kelly did to achieve that goal. In spite of her playing a prominent role in both Defiant Honor and Bloodshed's End, she is not fought again by either William or anyone else, even when William and Yukimura confront her and Todo-Giri at the very end of the story. Instead she just pulls a So Long, Suckers! and walks away no worse off than how she started. Gratifyingly, this thread finally gets resolved in the sequel, where Maria receives her comeuppance and gets deported back to Spain at William's hands.
• Unconventional Learning Experience: Putting the supernatural elements asides, there are many players who are shocked that foreign samurai do exist in the Sengoku Period. So, it's no surprise players would mention that they learned about William Adams/Miura Anjin and Yasuke from Nioh.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: Even on the "trade-in visuals for 60 frames-per-second" Action Mode, the game looks stunning.
• Win Back the Crowd: This game restored Team Ninja its respect from the community and industry: after the heavily divisive Metroid: Other M (whose problems were eventually laid at the feet of Metroid co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto but still tainted Team Ninja to some extent), the debacle of Ninja Gaiden 3, the poor reception to Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z and the downward spiral of Dead or Alive 5 due to the shift in focus to overpriced Downloadable Content packages, people believed the studio didn't have much creative prowess after Tomonobu Itagaki left the company nine years prior, especially following the launch of Dead Or Alive Xtreme 3, which made Team Ninja Best Known for the Fanservice and its infamous Jiggle Physics more infamous than ever before. Nioh was the studio proving they could still be relevant in the genre on their own merits like they were in the mid-to-late 2000s. By 2023, Team Ninja released a 2020 sequel, used the same formula for Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin, created a Romance of the Three Kingdoms-inspired Soulslike RPG called Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty and tackled the Wide-Open Sandbox with Rise of the Rōnin.