With Nioh, Team Ninja tried to synthesize From Software's Souls-like genre with Diablo-like action-RPGs.
My first playthrough a while back was frustratingly hard. I was able to finish the main campaign, clutching the Souls-like formula. This playthrough, I actually tried to engage with every system, and I found it too easy and exploitable. I also experienced three bugs that made the world disappear or obscured the camera.
The game had potential as an expansion on Souls-like combat. There is a stance system that multiplies your offensive and defensive moveset three times over something like Demon's Souls. Because the developers are Team Ninja, there is also a huge, weapon-specific skill tree full of parries, sweeps, rushes, and combo-finishers.
Some of that potential is spoiled by RPG stats and a loot system that encourage you to find one busted combination of stats, buffs, and moves and spam that. You could invest skill points in combat options and learn the weak points and parry-timings for each opponent. Or you could level up magic a few times and cast a spell that slows down the animations of any opponent, trivializing bosses.
The imbalance is a product of the addicting, action-RPG elements. Like Diablo, if you're underleveled, almost no amount of skill will win you some fights; if you're overleveled, you can tank hordes and wipe bosses in a few hits. Opponents burst with colored damage numbers and loot. My brother saw me playing Nioh and said it looked like a mobile game. Team Ninja wants you to grind reused bosses and missions in side missions and the endless mode for a chance at marginally better weapons and armor. The loot system also puts hundreds of common items in your inventory that you need to sell to upgrade your preferred gear. I probably spent two hours in the inventory and shop alone.
Even if the game feels balanced, the content is diluted. The long campaign and DLC missions reuse a lot of opponents, and for every relevant mission, there is at least one optional mission that reuses the same environment. Too many of the bosses are just humans similar to the player's character.
It's a shame because there are so many impressive friendly and hostile character designs that draw on Shinto religion and Japanese history. Lovingly-modeled samurai share space with cool demons, colorful animal spirits, and goofy ninjas. The story is a nonsensical take on William Adams, the Western samurai, in the unification wars following the Warring States period. It expects you to know the first Anglo-Spanish War as well as the Japanese shoguns and generals of the era. That is to say, it has actual plot and a foot in reality over most of From Software's games.
However, Nioh never reaches the epic, mythological heights of From Software's world and battles.