12 Beginner's Tips for Surviving Nioh

Team Ninja's latest game, Nioh, tasks players with exploring Japan in the 17th century, blending some of the best things from Ninja Gaiden with a few ideas inspired by Dark Souls, in the process creating an experience that stands alone (and it's one that we rather enjoyed). The start of William's adventure is both tricky and challenging, and so we've put together a collection of helpful tips that will hopefully help you take your first steps as a samurai.

Master Ki-impulse: The key to mastering the combat system is the Ki impulse. Every attack by William uses his endurance bar and releases his inner strength, so after an attack, leave a little time to collect the used Ki with R1. This action triggers an impulse that also cleans Yokai portals - a second major advantage. Pay attention to the timing of regeneration as well, because certain talents give you short-term bonus effects like damage boosters or regeneration.

Explore combat and armaments: Get to know the three combat stances, their advantages and disadvantages, and learn when to use which technique. High attacks are well suited for a single heavy blow before retreating. In the low stance the fast attacks interrupt smaller opponents, but the range is considerably shortened. The middle stance is basically suitable for everything, and therefore it's also the easiest to learn.

Learn combos: Nioh uses a complex combat system, as it's not just light and heavy attacks, and the talent points in the skills menu should be chosen carefully each time for maximum effect. There are also a lot of ninja skills, which bring decisive advantages and provide strong combos too. These are the key to victory, so check out exactly which manoeuvres are available and how you can perform them. Check out the inventory too, as the locks (of hair - it's a type of in-game currency) that belonged to samurai and magicians can be used to unlock additional skill points from William's talent trees.

Use your guardian spirit: Don't be too sparing with your guardian spirit, and anyone who's caught in an dangerous situation should use the Amrita mode. While this is active, William is immortal and targets take large amounts of additional damage. In addition, your Guardian can be summoned to the battlefield in order to unleash destructive attacks on your foes. Not only does this look cool, but it feels great when you pull it off. Making use of this feature eases the challenge offered by Nioh. It usually doesn't take long to accumulate the required energy either, so try it out.

Search the world: Scan the environment at all times, because if you discover traps and take out enemies at an early stage to avoid dangers, you may well find hidden treasures and stay alive longer. You can also look around corners, which is particularly useful. Kodoma is something you should be looking out for too, because the number of elixirs that William carries with him depends on the number of collected Kodama in the current section on the world map. However, a few additional elixirs in your pocket give a safe margin for error. At the shrine, you should also regularly use the blessing of the Kodoma, as this also brings small advantages.

Don't stress over lost experience: The Item Summoner's Candle retrieves your guardian spirit and collects Amrita from the grave. What this means is that if you've died in a really difficult place to reach, and accidentally had a lot of experience when you fell, you don't have to stress. Also, the summoner's candles are available at blacksmith's shops at a later stage of the game, given you even less reason to stress about lost experience and guardian spirits.

Lucrative PvE graves: You can largely ignore the graves of other players, but defeated samurai usually drop good items. Those looking for a quick challenge will therefore be regularly rewarded. Sometimes graves appear to be triggered automatically, and whoever approaches one will also see a dark swirl around the sword. In such cases there's a guitar playing monk nearby, a Biwa-Bokudoku. If you kill him, the graves will no longer be triggered this way. Also, bloody tombs always tell you how the respective player died, so use this information to your advantage.

Pay attention to the call: Successful challenges contribute to your reputation. In the "Awards" menu you can see which titles William has already acquired. If you develop a reputation, you'll get a point for passive skills. The whole system works a bit like the Badass points in Borderlands 2, except with the difference being that they are split into two columns. It won't take long for you to have done a lot, so you should also regularly look there.

Dodge to the side: A lot of the time you're going to need to be close to the enemy to hit them (the joys of melee combat) and this means that dodging backwards might not always be the best solution. Yes, if the enemy is powerful and doing sweeping attacks, backwards may be the best way, but if you can you should always try to dodge to the side and keep yourself close to your enemy, then you can strike when their guard is down.

Always switch your stuff: There are so many items in Nioh that you won't get a sword that you stick with for the whole game. With every item you pick up you should always check to see if it's better than the one you're currently using, and the same goes for armour, because chances are you're going to be finding better equipment regularly, so there's really no use in holding onto anything for sentimentality, as you need the biggest, baddest arsenal you can get.

Replay and grind: It might not be ideal, but considering how challenging Nioh is, sometimes you may need to replay levels you've already completed in order to get the precious experience to level up and progress further in the story. If you find this idea utterly repugnant, you can always summon friends to help you with this and make it a little less boring, and they can even help make it less difficult too, so it's a win win.

Understand the elements: Elements can be used to great effect in Nioh, and so understanding what each does is incredibly important. Fire deals damage to enemies over time, water increases the damage enemies take over time, wind makes it hard for enemies to block or parry, lightning makes enemies slower in terms of movement and attack, earth double's enemy Ki consumption, poison deals more damage than fire over time, and paralyses freezes enemies for a short period of time. Here's the catch, though, these can all be used against you as well, so learn how to use and avoid these.

Nioh is a challenging game, but if you take advantage of these tips we're sure you'll have a much time with it, especially during the first few hours. Good luck, and have fun.