It'd be easy to look at Nioh and think it's borrowed Dark Souls' favourite hat and coat, but is wearing them all wrong. I never found myself struck with the sense of awe and mystery that Dark Souls so often inspires, when I became an amateur archaeologist down in its undying ruins. The actual design of the individual areas in Nioh, in terms of both visuals and layout, is far simpler as well. I also expected it to be a mark against the game, given how important the looping labyrinths of From Software's trilogy are to the sense of exploration and dread. Immediately, the lack of interconnectivity distances Nioh from its Soulsful inspiration. There's no attempt to connect them into a cohesive whole, as you may have realised given that most of the game is set in Japan while the Tower of London is indeed in London. None have the weird architectural and layout quirks I associate with the best of the Souls games, and they're all discrete areas accessed via that map screen. The areas range from the Tower of London to burning villages and demon-swarmed battlefields. The mission selection map shows that a new threat has taken hold in a village I've already cleared, or that those mines are infested again and I dig into my wardrobe, pick out my fanciest outfit, and head back into the fray. In Dark Souls, I find myself replaying areas over and over again because I need to, whereas in Nioh I make the return journey deliberately. Fortunately, where Nioh differs from Dark Souls is far more interesting than where the two games overlap.

I promise I'm not being lazy when I say that Nioh is Dark Souls meets Sengoku period Japan though, and to prove it I'm going to use that short-hand as a starting point rather than an end-point. It's lazy critical short-hand, people will say, and they're often correct. Describing a game as X meets Dark Souls is a sure way to invite mockery and contempt.

Nioh complete edition review