The Nioh franchise has always been my favorite non-Soulsborne titles. Having a distinct feel and built from Team Ninja's experience from fighting games to RPGs, the first two Nioh games absolutely shone as one of the best companions to the Dark Souls behemoth. That's why I've been eagerly anticipating Nioh 3 ; it looked like the most ambitious and exciting title in the franchise yet. Even better, it lived up to the hype, giving us what might very well be the most engaging and fun combat in a Soulsborne-style game yet.

Nioh 3 puts you in the shoes of Tokugawa Takechiyo, the person destined to be the next shogun of Japan. A peaceful artist by trade, they seem destined to preside over a time of peace and stability. Unfortunately, their sibling, Kunimatsu, isn't happy about losing out on the role of shogun to their more artistically minded sibling. Making a pact with the dark forces of the Yokai, Kunimatsu launches a sneak attack on their home castle and slaughters everyone inside. Takechiyo is saved only by the last-minute intervention of their Spirit Guardian, whose mysterious power sends the unlucky would-be shogun decades into the past. Now Takechiyo must gather their forces, investigate what caused Kunimatsu to slide into darkness, and prove that they are the true successor to the throne.

Nioh 3's biggest weakness is the narrative. After a rollicking start, it kind of meanders until the final hours of the game. It's a who's who of historical Japanese figures popping up to say some vague things and then vanish again. It's not terrible, but it's also not very engaging. It isn't helped by the fact that your protagonist is forced to be a cipher for a plot that really shouldn't have one. I'm happy to be able to craft my own protagonist, but it's funny that I could've styled the next shogun to be a six-foot-tall, blond-haired American football player. Ultimately, the story feels like an excuse to fight all kinds of demons and monsters, and that is arguably the best Nioh has ever been.

Nioh 3's biggest change is going from being linear and mission-based to being a light open world, following in the footsteps of something like Elden Ring. Beyond the tutorial and a handful of missions, you're free to explore a much larger open area that you can visit in multiple different time periods, which have entirely new gimmicks and items to find. The different time zones are different areas, and there are specific level scaling zones for each area. You' free to go into an area above your level, but be prepared for a tougher time.

These areas are huge and absolutely packed to the brim with stuff: hidden equipment, optional bosses, adorable collectible roly-poly Scampusses, and yokai that fly around tempting you to shoot them down for rare items or new skills. Like Elden Ring, this adds a very welcome sense of freedom to the game. Fighting a tough boss? You can head off somewhere else for a while, take on some new challenges, collect a useful skill or an armor upgrade, and return refreshed. Your freedom to explore the land and get items reduces the potential frustration a player might have in facing a rough area.

That said, the inevitable comparisons to Elden Ring come up short in a few places. The world is open but feels simplistic in places, and there's more repetition in enemies than I'd like. The same enemies will often appear in each time zone, so they feel less distinct, even if there are specialized enemies in each zone to add some flair. It feels a lot more like levels than a single big, interconnected map the way Elden Ring did. I only mention this because it's important to set your expectations. It's the Elden Ring of Nioh, but it still shows the somewhat different design ethos of Team Ninja.

A big part of that is combat. Nioh has always had extremely fun and well-designed combat, but Nioh 3 feels like it goes above and beyond. Most of the same core mechanics that were in previous Nioh games are still present, including stance switching and Ki Pulse. You have several martial arts you can equip, which are special moves with special attributes, like a spinning sword slash or lunging spear attack. New to Nioh 3 is the arts proficiency gauge; upon parrying and attacking enemies, you gradually fill a bar. Once the gauge is full, your next heavy attack or martial art will use reduced ki and do more damage, so you're rewarded for playing well with more effective combos and attacks.

The biggest twist to Nioh 3's combat is the introduction of the new Ninja stance. At any time, you can press a button to swap from samurai (the now-traditional Nioh style) to ninja and back again, and each has its own set of equipment and abilities. Ninja is markedly different from samurai. It sacrifices the Ki Pulse mechanic for a new Mist mechanic, where you can dodge at the exact right time to leave behind an afterimage of yourself and get behind the enemy for massive damage. There's the addition of a massive bag of ninja "tricks," such as smoke bombs, shurikens, explosives and other tools that recharge as you attack. In exchange, it's far more of a glass cannon, having fewer defensive options, more difficult stamina management, and by default, the inability to purify the way samurai can. The weapons it can use, like the Kusari-gama and tonfa, also tend to prioritize range and speed over the samurai's closer-range heavy hitting weapons.

I fell in love with the ninja stance basically the moment I got to use it, and that feeling never changed. Ninja feels a lot more Ninja Gaiden, appropriately enough, with extremely fast, aggressive and varied attacks rewarded far more over the slower and more methodical fighting moves of the samurai. Ki conservation requires more effort, but the freedom to use the various Ninjitsu abilities at will means you can balance attacking with spamming skills to be a relentless source of nonstop damage. I always enjoyed Nioh's combat, but the ninja stance took it from great to phenomenal.

It helps that you're not locked into one style. The samurai and ninja stances each have their purposes, and it can be worthwhile to swap between them. Samurai excels at the big slow enemies, with easier parry windows and more room to properly ki pulse for lengthy combos. Ninja shone with fast enemies, who require you to be constantly moving so you can dodge attacks. That said, I never felt obligated to use one. I liked ninja more than samurai, so I primarily stuck with using samurai only when absolutely necessary, and I never felt like I was missing any skills.

A minor complaint is that the overabundance of loot feels unsatisfying, and the open world underlines that by having so many collectibles and rewards. The majority of loot is unlikely to matter to your build, so it's good that you can automatically destroy items below a certain rarity and filter by specific skills and abilities. Optimizing your build isn't time-consuming, but it's a little tedious.

The character animations and models in Nioh 3 are gorgeous. The environments are striking and interesting, and (in performance mode), the game runs buttery smooth in all but the most complicated of moments. There are times when I noticed some drops, and there's some fairly obvious asset reuse that can be a little distracting, but otherwise, nothing drags down the experience. The music is also excellent, with a lot of pulse-pounding songs that are made for kicking butt. The game offers both Japanese and English dubs, but the English dub is of a relatively low quality. It's cheesy and awkward and not necessarily in a good way. Thankfully, the Japanese voice work is top-notch and fits the setting better.

It may not replace Elden Ring in my heart, but Nioh 3 is a new high bar for the series and one of the most engaging and exciting Soulslikes I've had the fortune of playing. Top-of-the-line combat and a brand-new and surprisingly engaging open world make it a fantastic place to start for newcomers or longtime franchise fans alike. Aside from a somewhat weak plot, there's nothing holding back Nioh 3; it's absolutely worth picking up.

Score: 9.0/10