The Nioh Collection (PS5) Reviewed.

The original Nioh was one of the best Souls-like games of the genre. When Nioh 2 came along, it took everything that made the original great and then ramped it up. At the time, it was probably one of the best games in the genre. Now, with The Nioh Collection, you get both great games and enhanced for the PS5!

It doesn’t get much better than that right?

Read on and find out!

What is The Nioh Collection?

The Nioh Collection is a compilation of the Nioh games with all their DLC and extras in one set.

A remaster, the games have been enhanced to take advantage of the beefier PS5 hardware to deliver greater framerates, visuals and other PS5-exclusive upgrades. Developed by Team Ninja (of Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive fame), the Nioh Collection is published by SIE, who’ve also awesomely provided our review code as well!

I’m not going into the nitty gritty of the games (here’s my Nioh 2 review if you missed it) but here’s the barebones lowdown. Both games are hardcore Souls-like. If you’ve no idea what that means, it’s basically a way to describe the genre the Dark Souls games (hence Souls-like) made popular.

That means the games are incredibly unforgiving, with high difficulty and a high skill requirement. Memorization is key as well, as is luck. If you’ve ever played Dark Souls, Sekiro, The Surge (or its sequel) or even Salt and Sanctuary, you have an inkling of what the Nioh games are like.

Both are great games on their own, but I prefer the second one. Not only do you get to create and customize your own avatar, there’s a bit more depth to the game. Oh…and the Scampuss yokai is damn lovable. It’s a cat, that rolls around and helps you out. What’s not to love?!

What’s new?

For the remasters, both Nioh games are now capable of 60FPS, though with caveats. There are 3 graphical modes; Standard, 4K and 120FPS. Standard adopts a dynamic resolution with increased details and 60FPS. 4K mode delivers a 4K output, with 60FPS (targeted) but with lower level of detail. Finally, 120FPS mode delivers that BUT at the cost of resolution and detail.

Personally, I stuck with the Standard mode. I don’t have a TV with a 120hz refresh rate (but it does have VRR), so the 120FPS mode won’t really make a difference. As for choosing the Standard over the 4K mode, it’s a matter of preference. I’d prefer a stable framerate and the extra detail afforded by the mode over the sharper image but at a lower detail of 4K.

What a difference 60FPS makes too!

Coming from the game’s regular 30FPS, the doubling of the framerate makes everything better. You can react faster, the controls are more responsive and moving the camera around is as smooth as silk. It’s something you won’t notice when you’re playing on 30FPS, but the leap is immense when you’ve made it and I really can’t imagine playing any of the game back at the original framerate on the PS4.

Undoubtedly, it’s the SSD support that’s my favourite improvement. Dying is pretty much a given in the games, and being able to get right back into the action without waiting for a looooooooooooong time is something I really, really, REALLY love. I can’t state how much I love this.

The SSD makes dying almost negligible…almost.

It’s not instantaneous, but it’s pretty near that. You don’t need to spend a long time looking at the loading screen as you’re being warped back and resurrected at the closest checkpoint.

On top of the improved visuals and graphics, The Nioh Collection also makes use of the haptic triggers in the Playstation 5’s DualSense controllers. Like other games that make use of them, the triggers offer degrees of resistance depending on weapon is being used. It certain adds to the immersiveness of the whole thing and I really like it when I’m using a bow or matchlock.

The final new addition that makes use of the PS5’s capabilities is the Activity Cards, which tracks a ton of details (including hints on what you should be doing). Nothing major, but hey, every bit helps, right?

It’s not a PS5 exclusive, but I absolutely love how The Nioh Collection bundles every piece of DLC into the games. You get everything at a value price plus all the PS5 features! That’s a great value if you ask me. Save files are also compatible, so if you’d rather continue where you left off from the PS4, there’s nothing stopping you here.

Just a tad short of greatness.

Still, with all the great things I have to say about the game, I do feel that Team Ninja could’ve gone the extra mile and offered more stuff. I’d have loved extra media like behind the scenes videos, concept art or even developer interviews and insights. You know, stuff that goes on in the background of the game that you don’t really know about. It’d certainly make those who have both games (and their DLC) more inclined to double dip.

I really think Team Ninja can take a page out of Capcom’s books. Their Resident Evil games (from the remade 2 and 3, to Village) all offer a ton of unlockables as free extras. Model viewers, concept art, even extra modes. It’s actually something I wished The Nioh Collection did.

Also, despite it being called a collection, I’m a bit disappointed that there’s no unifying launcher for the games. They are separate icons on the PS5 dashboard, which makes them feel like they’re offered separately. I would’ve liked it more if there was a frontend to the whole collection, like EA’s Mass Effect: Legendary Edition.

In that game, there’s a launcher that allows you to pick which of the three games you want to play. It certainly does the job of making everything feel that much more cohesive and more like a collection, unlike The Nioh Collection. As it stands, a bundle would’ve been a better fit (and title).

The Bottom Line.

The Nioh Collection is a great showcase of what last generation games can achieve with more powerful hardware. The new PS5 features add value to already great games and the addition of all the DLC also helps matters a ton for those who have the main games but not the expansions.

However, more could’ve been done to really make the collection something of a must have. No extras in the form of concept art, developer interviews and other behind the scenes material severely detracts from the collection’s value, especially from the viewpoint of somebody who owns all the games and DLC. Unless you really need the PS5 exclusive features, there’s not much reason to double dip.

TLDR:

Great collection for those who don’t have the games but it’s a bit hard to recommend to those who do, due to the lack of extra features.