Nioh's Narrative Nonplus

I love a good video game story. Especially when it uses methods unique to the medium of video games such as telling a story, or building character and world through environmental design or level design, through mechanics or leveling systems. And when supplemented with more “traditional” methods such as cutscenes or diaries left, sprinkling in bits and pieces of techniques more common in film or literature. 

In particular, and this is irregardless of artistic medium, I love narrative complexity. The stories that have a higher level of entry that respect the viewer, player, etc’s ability to comprehend such a cerebrally and philosophically dynamic piece. Ultimately leaving you with so much to dig through it certainly demands your attention as well as putting aside more time in the future to analyze it further, understand it even more than you already thought you did.

On paper it sounds like Nioh, developed by Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo, would satisfy all of those aforementioned points. The story is based on an unfinished Akira Kurosawa script, Kurosawa being one of the most internationally recognizable Japanese filmmakers of all time. Features many fictionalized versions of real life historical figures. And is set during the final battles of the Sengoku period during Tokugawa Ieyasu’s efforts to unify Japan.

In a world filled with lesser imitations of Hidetaka Miyazaki and FromSoftware’s flagship and revolutionary Dark Souls series of games, Nioh is one of the few that stands out as a worthy understudy. The speed and fluidity of its battles keep one on their toes even more than they would have expected with the usual expectation of combat arenas in a wide circle with demanding and challenging enemies. But diverging from its inspirations, Nioh allows for far more variability in how to deal with its challenges while being less rigid in allowing for player expression. A much more wieldy bow and arrow/rifle as well as a whole host of special moves one can pull off with their respective melee weapons of choice, each with a set of 3 distinct stances in which to wield them, done by demanding button combinations create a rhythm to battle that has a smoother and slicker feel to the games it emulates. It allows the player to stretch their legs, even flex some muscle, previously unavailable to them in FromSoftware’s previously mentioned series.

Contrary to modern sensibilities, art has, and will always be, more than it’s form and functionality. There are thematic, tonal, narrative and in-world explanations for why Dark Souls games are the way they are. They are woven completely around their systems. The feelings of isolation, relief, punishment are inspired by them. 

One of the things that drew me to Nioh was, in contrast, that it had a much more present and foregrounded story. And while the subtle, minimalist manner in which Dark Souls stories are told brilliantly, especially for it’s medium of being a video game, I will admit the style of storytelling that Nioh seemed to have going for it was much closer to my sensibilities being more clearly defined and less abstract.

Set during the year 1600, William Adams, an Irish sailor named after and inspired by the real life man of the same name, an Englishman who became a Samurai, pursues Edward Kelley, a sorcerer and again real life inspired English Renaissance occultist who has stolen Amrita, a mystical golden stone found in abundance in Japan that is sought by the government of Queen Elizabeth I to secure victory over Spain in the Anglo-Spanish war. William was one of those contracted by the queen to obtain Amrita, but afterward was imprisoned to keep the Amrita a secret. 

What sounds simple enough to follow begins to disintegrate quickly. The story never eases its speed to allow us to understand the differing elements brought into play. A smarter story would understand it’s scope and realize it needs to be blatant in particular moments to keep confusion to a minimum. It is absolutely CHOKING with historical figures from the Sengoku Era that serve as little more than set dressing and often genuine background noise distracting from actually keeping a grip on what is happening, why, and what we should do about it. The antagonist, Edward Kelley, is so absent throughout the main story sequences and most of the game entirely, you’d be forgiven if you had completely forgotten why William was even there beneath all of the mounting focus on the war effort from people we don’t know and aren’t given any meaningful reason to care about beyond the most surface level and basic. It clearly demands more knowledge of Japanese history from the player, but I would argue, in what is clearly alternate history, it asks far too much of that knowledge in order to understand why these conflicts were important and how they were being given variation through the story Nioh wants to tell. 

Any explanations that the game tries to make are of such an inelegant and clunky manner, it almost serves to perplex even further. There are very few occasions in which the main mission descriptions and the area in which they take place feel like they have any bearing on what is happening beyond the fact that there are supernatural Yokai invading these spaces. It all feels so circumstantial, like there is no reason for me to make my way forward beyond the extrinsic drive to feel good during combat and to level William up to continue feeling good in combat. This is highly subjective, but story in video games is one of the best intrinsic motivators available. The reason to work through its systems, decipher its intentions, to gain a greater understanding of world, characterizations, and the motivations of each. All in service to the fiction and artifice brought to life. And its combat is so beautifully ferocious and dazzling in its reward of learning even just enough of it, it doesn’t demand mastery.

Even a story of such convolution it still warrants an interpretation as this is the very idea (niche, gimmick, whatever you want to call it) of this writing adventure to begin with. It feels as if this work is trying to show the affects of foreign intervention into Japanese matters and it’s place overtime being far more obtrusive and usual than we would have thought during a time where the west and east had even further distance between each other and need to interact with one another. However just because one intends to say something meaningful doesn’t mean that it is said convincingly. 

Which is a shame as Nioh has gameplay that is focused, free-wheeling, satisfying and truthfully in a mechanical vacuum, more light and flowing of a gameplay system than that which Hidetaka Miyazaki pioneered with Demon’s Souls all the way back in 2009 on the PlayStation 3. However it is the lack of focus on its writing and narrative direction that has little synergy with its wealth of fantastic systems that feels like it squandered its full potential. What could have been a great game was made merely good.