Nioh: Defiant Honor is bad DLC. It is DLC that not only is good enough on its own, but also fails to improve from Dragon of The North's content. In my previous review I gave Dragon of The North a mediocre score and from that I expected a much better chapter for this DLC. Instead we get even LESS missions and virtually nothing new. This is just bad on so many levels.
Let's talk about theNioh: Defiant Honor is bad DLC. It is DLC that not only is good enough on its own, but also fails to improve from Dragon of The North's content. In my previous review I gave Dragon of The North a mediocre score and from that I expected a much better chapter for this DLC. Instead we get even LESS missions and virtually nothing new. This is just bad on so many levels.
Let's talk about the pros of this **** show. First, performance and graphics are rock solid as they have been, with no glitches or bugs in sight. Second, the combat, while waning now in its fun and enjoyment due to the unnecessary challenge spike, is still as good as should be. The first level of the "story" is actually a neat gimmick; you must hide behind cover or you are shot by a barrage of fire arrows and cannons. You can even use it to hurt enemies nearby that are exposed or not behind cover. It's a neat little trick that made me happy initially that Team Ninja were thinking more of how to make their level designs somewhat more interesting and here they make it a decent one. Initially is the key word though. The inclusion of the Tonfas (which I omitted saying about the inclusion of the Odachi weapons in Dragon of The North) allow some cool gauntlets that you can punch at enemies with some style. The final boss of the level is good, if a little cheap. Aside from that let's talk about the **** and why this is bad overall.
There are only 2 story missions in this DLC and five side quests. 2....just....how. How can you live with yourselves to make this and sell it to your playerbase for $10? The 2 missions you can complete in not even an hour and the side content once again pissed me off that I didn't even bother to finish it all as a couple were so hard for me I can't even finish them and just want me to grind my soul away to even have a chance. No. THAT IS NOT HOW YOU DO CHALLENGE Team Ninja. The first mission is surprisingly decent, but the other mission ends up being aggravating for me. The inclusion of human bosses and sub bosses is the near bane of this game's existence; instead of having interesting demon bosses or anything of that caliber, we are treated to what is little more than a glorified NPC fight instead. It was lazy in the base game, annoying and tiring in Dragon of The North, and I give this **** a middle finger.
The only new enemy in this (aside from bosses) is dogs. Ninja dogs to be precise. Dogs you can easily kill and have little challenge to deal with unless you get mobbed. Then they can stun lock you to death because of course they can. Old enemies are reused including new color palette swapped blobs (because of course it can), the previous DLC and base game. It's appalling. This mindset of Team Ninja to do this has gotten out of hand and there is virtually no balance at all in this game. It goes from one extreme to another and it is slowly breaking my temper to the point I might be regretting of putting Nioh in my top list of 2017. If I have to grind in a game like this to even have a halfway decent hope in hell of succeeding, then it might be time for this game to fall on its sword and commit seppuku. The five side missions are mostly bad, with two just being boss fights, two being level-like ones and one just being a trial basically. The two boss fights are broken and you die super fast and in the most broken of ways, the two level-likes are halfway decent but don't have anything worth hitting home about and the trial is basically torture for the mind, your vocal chords and how strong you squeeze the life out of your controller like it was some person who made this ****.
I honestly have never been so offended by DLC this bad since Destiny and I didn't think laziness of this kind could stoop so low. Had this been free and a part of some update, it STILL would be mediocre at best and at worst bad. At the asking price of $10, this is just asinine greed on display. If this was $10 between this and Dragon of The North together, maybe it could be that price but at its current state it's just not worth it unless you buy the complete edition of Nioh. The additions the game bothers to add is minimal at best and practically ancillary meaningless waste at worst. There is no way I am letting this **** slide.
Nioh: Defiant Honor is terrible DLC. It is a prime example of what NOT to do to affect the base game and mess with the core mechanics in a way that feels cheaply made to cash in on die hard difficulty fanatics. It felt as if Team Ninja didn't even bother to test this and threw it out as scraps to players and it overall hurts the world of Nioh significantly. Sure the base game is still rock solid and enjoyable mostly, but this end game content is just bad. With one DLC left now, I fear Team Ninja will have done far more damage to Nioh than it would have liked and as a result make it a disappointment and mistake for me to have on my list.… Expand
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