Overdose

Ho ho flu, boys and girls! I picked up a bug last Friday while watching the latest Star Wars film (advice: don't do either of these things), and although I feel better than I had over the weekend, it still feels like my sinuses are filled with sand. I'm talking about the hardcore sand you'd use to blast rust off metal, not the sand you'd find on your feet during a long, romantic walk on the beach. But if a crappy little spaceship like Zanoni can do it, I'll surely revive as well...

(See, I can make obscure video game references too! I'll be eagerly awaiting that contract, book publishers.)

While not burning through cough drops and hankies, I've been... enjoying?... Nioh. I'm still not sure, really. Like Demon's Souls, there's a lot of give and take in this game. Specifically, it takes your pride and dignity, then gives you doubts about the existence of a fair and just god. I've spent hours with Nioh, getting my hero up to level fifty one, but progress has nevertheless been constipated, with ludicrously overpowered bosses and the developers' vexatious habit of hanging the better abilities just out of reach halting my advance. You need the Sloth Talisman that makes boss fights less of a chore? It's over there on the next island! Not so fast... now you've got to finish this mission as well, and a training mission, too! Jump, boy! Jump! Good doggie! Now get in the cage and we'll take you to the vet for your "special" visit.

Eh, close enough.

Nioh's so difficult that some players have tapped out on Onryoki, the second boss. Personally, I may have reached my capacity for the game's bullshit with Umi-Bozu, the boat-chucking blob at the end of The Ocean Roars Again. It's not just that Umi-Bastard can vaporize you with one shot of his screen-engulfing laser beam, or that he may elect to do this two seconds after the fight starts. It's that as he leaps from one end of the playfield to the other, doing the world's most disgusting Free Willy imitation, he breaks off pieces of the pier where you're standing. After he leaps onto the pier for round two, you won't have much room to move around, and it's entirely too easy to roll out of the way of one of his attacks... and off the pier, into the waiting embrace of Davy Jones' Locker.

This is where boss fights start.
Right here, not three blocks away.
That "it's supposed to be hard" crap
doesn't feed the Irish setter... so
was Mega Man, but it still practiced
good game design.

After twelve fruitless attempts to take down the Blob Who Ate Nioh York, I whipped out a Himorogi Branch and made a hasty exit, all while wishing that I could take the branch, strip off the leaves, and spank executive producer Kou Shimasawa raw with it. You can "git gud" me until you're blue in the face, but the fact remains that this is not good boss design. I've got two choices in a 3D game like this... either I can see the boss I'm fighting, or the surrounding stage. I can't do both at once, because human eyes don't work that way! And what the hell is the deal with putting save points a hop, skip, and a five mile hike away from each boss? That other sadistic villain Dr. Wily would be happy to sell you some slightly used metal chamber doors. After ten games I'm sure he's got plenty to spare.

I had my fill of this game for the day, but it wasn't done with me. After turning off my Playstation 4 and crawling into bed, I switched on my alarm clock's white noise generator. You know, calm blue ocean, gentle afternoon rains, the kind of thing that makes slumber come more easily. I swear that hidden in the simulated whirring of box fan blades, I heard the twinkling and the squeaky, abrasive horns of the Kodama at a Nioh shrine. I really, really need to take a break from this one, don't I?