How difficult is this compared to Elden Ring or Nioh?

[Chrisern]

I'm considered buying this, as I've bought a new GPU, and the game has had some time in the oven since release. Thing is, I'm 45 and my reflexes are not the same as 25 years ago. How difficult is this game. Harder than Elden Ring or Nioh? Or more forgiving? Are there difficulty settings?

[Ishikoyomi]

There is one difficulty with higher ones unlocking after the main story, just like in Nioh. I would say its definitely easier than the afore mentioned. It also feels more like Sekiro, than Dark Souls, so deflecting is a vital part of the gameplay, but the deflecting frames are pretty generous and its only vital for the enemies red attacks (similar to red attacks in Nioh 2). Healing is generous too, so you can sometimes brute force bosses first try, simply by outhealing them.

If you want to cheese the levels, you can go water and pick the invisibility spell, which makes you invisible to enemies so you can fatal strike them, which kills most of the normal fellas and takes a huge chunk of health from the big ones on the first playthrough.

Though to be fair, there is one boss in the middle of the game, that I thought was a big difficulty spike, as you play him like a rythm game, compared to the other bosses that you nuke down more aggressively. He was the only encounter that took me a bit to kill, as I actually had to learn his move patterns and barely had windows to counter. After that its back to bashing in the bosses heads. Overall I prefer Elden Ring and Nioh over this one, but it was an acceptable soulslike-snack with some questionable design choices like the players power being tied to (apart from weapon upgrades) how many flags one collects in each level.

[Chrisern]

Thank you for your informative and nice reply!

[AILAD]

TLDR: it's way easier.

[Amene]

Thing is, I'm 45 and my reflexes are not the same as 25 years ago.

I'm so tired of this BS excuse (and I'm a bit older than you). Call it what it is: laziness.

Anyway the basic ng is well, the usual "souls" stuff (perhaps except some of DLCs' bosses, people still crying about Taishi Ci to this day). So was ng in Nioh1 or Nioh2. At the same time underworld depths in Nioh2 is something galactically different in context of difficulty. Similarly TMJ+3 with a heavy ID will make you scratch your head in Wo Long as well.

If you are just after basic playthrough, you shouldn't have much issues most of the time. That to say the primary mechanic of the game is parry/deflect. If you don't like spending the time to learn the timings, you might want to look for some other game.

[Chrisern]

Originally posted by Amene:

Thing is, I'm 45 and my reflexes are not the same as 25 years ago.

I'm so tired of this BS excuse (and I'm a bit older than you). Call it what it is: laziness.

Fine. Call it laziness, then. I don't have the time nor inclination to spend hundreds of hours to "get good". I want a fair challenge in a fun game when I get home from work.

[楊玄。杨玄。LangrisserWWE]

Originally posted by Amene:

Thing is, I'm 45 and my reflexes are not the same as 25 years ago.

I'm so tired of this BS excuse (and I'm a bit older than you). Call it what it is: laziness.

Anyway the basic ng is well, the usual "souls" stuff (perhaps except some of DLCs' bosses, people still crying about Taishi Ci to this day). So was ng in Nioh1 or Nioh2. At the same time underworld depths in Nioh2 is something galactically different in context of difficulty. Similarly TMJ+3 with a heavy ID will make you scratch your head in Wo Long as well.

If you are just after basic playthrough, you shouldn't have much issues most of the time. That to say the primary mechanic of the game is parry/deflect. If you don't like spending the time to learn the timings, you might want to look for some other game.

I have to admit, I am not as qick in reflex at my current age compared to when I was a teen and a 20 year old adult. What makes up for this deterioration is my experience and anticipation. Because many years of doing different things, in life or game. Helps you predict some things better. So, even at my age, in PVP I was able to go toe to toe with some of the better young gamers in many games.

[CrazyLamer]

Originally posted by chrisern:

Originally posted by Amene:

I'm so tired of this BS excuse (and I'm a bit older than you). Call it what it is: laziness.

Fine. Call it laziness, then. I don't have the time nor inclination to spend hundreds of hours to "get good". I want a fair challenge in a fun game when I get home from work.

I'm not much younger than you are, and i can tell you that the game is just awesome.
It's super fun and it's a decent challenge for some of the levels but not really hard, you just gotta get used to the controls and learn when to time the enemies attacks.
You can block most attacks except the red ones obviously but it's really not hard to learn that but the game is way more fun playing cooperative with someone and the game offers up to 3 players at the same time.

You also got a lot of spells that can help out a lot depending on how you are used to play but you have to make a build for it to prove really effective.
But if you ever need an extra pair of hands, let me know.