Nioh 3 is the Elden Ring of the series
Hands-on with the Nioh 3 demo
There’s always a big AAA game in February — last year we had Civilization VII and Kingdom Come: Deliverance II. This time, we got Nioh 3, the latest in the action RPG series from Japanese developer Team Ninja. A meaty demo with around 8 hours of gameplay dropped last week. And I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it, even if I now sport new calluses on my thumbs.
For one, Nioh 3 offers open-world regions that allow players more freedom to explore compared with the linear structure of the previous games. It’s not quite to the scale of Elden Ring, and not as open-ended. But it should be familiar to anyone who has played an open-world game.
Anyway, the other big change in Nioh 3, one could potentially turn off Nioh fans, is that you now switch between two styles: Ninja and Samurai. The former is a highly mobile character that relies on quick attacks, evasion and a variety of ninja tools, while the latter, which resembles the gameplay of previous Nioh games, is more heavy-hitting, and has more defensive options. I feel you should switch between the two styles depending on the situation. But if you choose to stick to one style, it will work, too.
Both styles come with their own set of gear, which means even more equipment to sort out. Now, the Nioh games are notorious for having a crazy amount of loot and gear, kinda like the Diablo RPG games, and it’s now amplified in Nioh 3. Sorting the gear and donating the ones I didn’t like — you get experience points for that — is almost like a mini-game, though you can automate things in the settings.
I’ll admit that I didn’t complete Nioh 1 and Nioh 2. I found those games to be really tough and overwhelming. The information overload at the start is reason enough to quit. Unfortunately, there are still far too many systems in Nioh 3. For example, the Onmyo Magic system, the Ki stamina management, and the three stances for Samurai, are brought over from previous games, and adapted for Nioh 3. You’ll still have to do quite a bit of reading in-game to learn about these systems.
The game runs great on PlayStation 5. I didn’t notice any lag, and the animation was very smooth. However, I’m not a fan of the level design, which is “too busy”, with multiple visual elements competing for your attention. I’m also hoping the story turns out to be more interesting than other Team Ninja games. In the demo, the player character is warped to an earlier time period to deal with the demons (or yokai) there. Apparently, there will be different eras to travel to, along with encounters with well-known historical figures, in the game.
Anyway, you can decide for yourself if Nioh 3 is for you. The demo is available on PC and PlayStation 5, and the full game (S$81 on PC and S$116.20 on PS5) comes out this week on Feb 5.
This week, we checked out a portable fan that’s just ideal for the humid weather in Singapore, Asus’ first Tandem OLED monitor, and Huawei’s latest foldable, which has some very good cameras.
The JisuLife Neck Fan Life5 is a portable fan that’s designed to hang off your neck, or clipped on a strap. You can easily adjust the fan speed via a wheel at the side, but it can be noisy at higher speeds. An LED display shows the fan speed, which goes up to 100, and battery level. With its 4,500mAh battery, this fan can last from three to 16 hours, depending on how fast it’s running.
The Asus ROG Strix OLED XG27AQWMG is more affordable than you’d expect for an OLED monitor sporting LG Display’s latest and brightest Tandem OLED panel technology. It also has a neat proximity sensor that can help to prevent burn-in of the OLED screen. With its ability to pivot to portrait orientation, swivel and height adjustment, this monitor is equally adept at work and play.
The Huawei Mate X7 has one of the best cameras for a foldable. And it’s also very sleek with good battery life. However, it lacks 5G connectivity, and its processor is only mid-tier. There’s also no Google Play Store or Google services, so you have to get comfortable with the workarounds that Huawei has implemented.