Overcoming obstacles presented in game design through familiarity and eventual mastery of game mechanics is common and arguably essential to the experience that video games provide. And yet, perhaps one of the most prevalent conversations about video games in the last twenty years has been over their difficulty - specifically how challenging the experience of overcoming an obstacle should be. With the new millennium, game developers have aimed to make games reach bigger audiences through wider accessibility and with it, a decreased level of challenge. Life sims, visual novels, narrative-focused games - these genres and more have become increasingly prolific alongside developers and publishers such as Nintendo highly prioritizing and considering the perspective of first-time players. Terms like “railroading” and “hand-holding” have been coined for describing the experience of games directly informing users how, where, and sometimes exactly when to use certain mechanics. Veteran players often prescribe games that excessively guide first-time users with the game’s mechanics as being a far cry from the genuine challenges that arcade and early console titles provided.

While there’s some merit to such an argument, there’s nevertheless a large amount to unpack with this sentiment. Firstly, let’s not confuse “teaching mechanics” with “implementing challenge”, as the two concepts, while definitely connected with each other, are not synonymous. There certainly are games that flatly teach their mechanics through presenting verbal descriptions to the user, perhaps giving them an instance where they’re forced to use the mechanic in order to familiarize them with it before introducing a challenge. Taking The Legend of Zelda: Skyward iSword as a perhaps infamous example, the beginning of the title directly informs users how to use basic mechanics such as targeting and word-swinging in an environment where the user is in no immediate danger. The teaching of mechanics is rather immediate in Skyward Sword, but the actual implementation of challenge doesn’t occur until the user arrives at Skyview Temple, the game’s first dungeon. By this point, the user has had well over an hour to be taught and familiarized with the game’s basic mechanics in environments that pose little to no pressing threat to them.

In this example, Skyward Sword has chosen to teach mechanics to the player over implementing challenge for the sake of making a more accessible experience, which translates to most as a rather easy, “hand-holding” experience. Moreover, the lack of an implemented challenge while mechanics are initially introduced makes learning the title’s mechanics not feel like a pressing matter to the player. While this approach of teaching mechanics is too relaxed for some, it’s nevertheless effective at engaging lesser-experienced users. That said, it’s far from the only approach of teaching game mechanics and implementing challenge. Another way is to force the user to master the game’s mechanics or be punished through crushing challenges that don’t relent throughout the whole game. This very method ended up being one that resonated with me on a deeper level than I ever thought it could.

Enter Nioh, an Action RPG with a strong focus on combat and navigating through 17th century Japan while battling yokai in a mission-based structure akin to FromSoftware’s Demon’s Souls. While Nioh certainly wears its Souls inspiration on its sleeve, it manages to carve its own identity in the quickly growing genre through the implementation of two huge mechanics: stances and Ki Pulses.

Both of these mechanics are rudimentary to the game’s design - they’re available immediately to the player and are essential to conquering the game’s levels and crushing boss fights. Indeed, Nioh is a game that isn’t afraid to make the player see the Game Over screen (or “Freed from this Mortal Coil” screen in this game’s case) various times, turning two-minute long boss fights into hour-long endeavors of perseverance and adaptation.

Those two terms are central to what Nioh constantly reinforces. Each death serves as a punishment for failing to fully grasp and optimally utilize the game’s mechanics, making those inevitable hour-long stretches to fighting the same boss feel frustrating, yet always possible to overcome thanks to the game telegraphing enemy attack patterns alongside offering mechanics that allow for various possible strategies and approaches. The game’s first level in the London Tower teaches the player the basics of combat and movement, whereas the game’s first boss, Derrick the Executioner, forces the player to learn the necessity of dodging, blocking, and retreating when necessary. Though, it’s the game’s second boss, Onryoki, that effectively taught me to learn the game’s mechanics in a way no other game has. Let’s talk about it.

The stage that precedes the game’s first Onryoki fight is one that does a good job at introducing opportunities in which the player can experiment with stances, and the benefits of pulling off Ki Pulses. However, the boss fight itself is what truly forces the player to become masterful at understanding what skills need to be used throughout all of Nioh. Like with Derrick the Executioner, Onryoki telegraphs his attacks, making his actions predictable upon attentive observation. However, what makes this fight different from the fight with Derrick is the incredibly cramped arena.

Being inside a burning ship and with Onryoki himself being a very large yokai, the player actually has very little breathing room. What adds to this is the sheer size and coverage of Onryoki’s attacks. The fight itself is divided into two phases: Phase 1 having the yokai have cannon balls chained to him and Phase 2 having the chains broken, causing Onryoki to fight with his fists, becoming more agile in the process.

With the claustrophobic environment and limited room for dodging Onryoki’s large and painful attacks that can kill the user in 1-2 hits, this fight reinforces the need for the player to master the basics of dodging and blocking. Both of these actions require the use of Ki, essentially this game’s version of endurance. What differentiates Nioh from the likes of FromSoftware’s outings is how the player must manage Ki. While Souls titles simply have endurance refill when not attacking, dodging, or sprinting, Nioh offers the unique mechanic of Ki Pulses, a timing minigame in which the player must time a button press after attacking, as a blue section of the user’s depleted Ki begins filling up the Ki bar. If the button is pressed when the blue section is rising, the player will immediately regain depleted Ki, with the amount depending on when the button is pressed. When timed optimally and regaining as much Ki as possible, the player performs a Ki Pulse.

What exactly is the significance of Ki Pulsing throughout Nioh? Aside from immediately giving the player more Ki to use for more dodging and attacking, Ki Pulses also dispel Yokai Realm sections. When enemies and bosses perform powerful attacks, they leave behind black-and-white Yokai Realms that significantly slow down the pace at which the player naturally regains Ki. If left alone, Yokai Realm sections threaten the player through possibly making them run out of Ki, which leaves the player wide open and, when in boss fights, almost always means certain death. On top of that, successfully executed Ki Pulses can strengthen the player’s next attack when upgraded, making the skill a viable offensive option.

Returning to the fight at hand, Onryoki leaves behind Yokai Realms on an arena that’s already incredibly limited in space. Unless the player successfully performs Ki Pulses to dispel the Yokai Realms that Onryoki leaves behind, managing Ki will be incredibly difficult in a fight where Ki management is absolutely essential for victory. While the player has had one boss fight and two stages to become accustomed to the Ki Pulse mechanic, the Onryoki fight is the point in Nioh in which the game no longer tolerates the player not being skilled at the mechanic. If the player wishes to proceed beyond this point, they must take this opportunity to learn the Ki Pulse mechanic the game has presented. Nioh’s severe challenge in the form of the first Onryoki fight is implemented in such a way to communicate to the player that they need to fully understand the nuances of the game’s mechanics.

This fight-or-flight mentality of teaching game mechanics is one that’s remarkably stubborn at encouraging the player to improve. Nioh implements challenge in a way to necessitate that the user becomes accustomed to properly managing their Ki. From knowing when to attack, learning attack patterns so as to learn when to dodge oncoming attacks in addition to knowing how to Ki Pulse and change stances as needed, Nioh uses challenging, unforgiving boss fights as a means of testing and demanding the player’s attentiveness to the game’s mechanics.

As someone that’s not particularly well-versed in this subgenre of RPGs, Onryoki was the first instance in Nioh where I felt powerless. Dying dozens of times, sometimes within seconds of the fight beginning, was soul-crushing. But as the death count piled up, I slowly and consistently began dealing more overall damage to him and began successfully dodging his attacks more. I began to learn the value in merely standing back and watching how Onryoki’s attacks played out, so as to know how to circumvent them and use an opening to my advantage. Each time I got greedy and tried to damage him as much as possible with a long string of attacks, Onryoki punished me with an attack in which he sweeps the area around him. I was taught patience, observation, and Ki management.

Most importantly, I learned how to persevere through a crushing and unforgiving fight through not getting frustrated at the game, but rather taking each of my many, many deaths as a lesson for me to learn how to improve at using the tools that the game offers. Each attempt at the fight was an opportunity for me to push the limits of my understanding of the game’s mechanics. The many deaths inflicted from this one fight fueled me to want to see it through - to overcome the given challenge through proving to the game that I had learned its mechanics.

And so, I adapted - I learned how to pay close attention to Onryoki’s attacks, knowing when and how long to attack when he left himself open, and when to step back to recover health and Ki. The dozens of failures forced me to learn and understand the game’s nuances and mechanics better than any tutorial could. From attempt #1 to attempt #30, I had realized that I had learned so many of game’s primary mechanics and core strategies through all the attempts more potently than if I was given a chance to play with the mechanic in a safe environment. Through challenge, I learned, and through learning, I managed to eventually overcome that very challenge.

Seeing the “Mission Complete” screen after so many attempts provided a release that words can hardly capture. A deep breath, a weight off the shoulders, a mountain conquered - I walked into an obstacle that initially seemed herculean and came out more knowledgeable, skilled, and prepared for what else the game had to offer. The high of overcoming such a fight made me instantly understand what attracts people to this increasingly popular subgenre of RPGs. Despite only having conquered one fight over the course of two hours and not making any significant progress in terms of game completion, my time spent on the Onryoki boss fight taught me in a manner that made me feel more prepared and confident in my skills for the rest of the journey in front of me. If I could overcome that battle, I can overcome any fight this game throws at me.

The fact that this fight occurs so early in the game at a point where the player is still getting comfortable with the controls and mechanics is proof that implementing severe challenge is a valid and highly effective method of teaching the player to prepare them for an entire game. While a player may initially feel discouraged by the fight’s difficulty, when they conquer it, they’ll doubtlessly feel empowered and ready to learn even more in future fights and tests that the game presents.

And indeed, the rest of the boss fights in Nioh continue to provide consistent challenge. Thanks to my first encounter with Onryoki, I developed a better method of recognizing enemy patterns and learned how and when to strike at a much faster rate compared to the Onryoki fight. Far later on, Onryoki reappears for additional fights both as a boss and even as a regular enemy. Though, through my hours of learning how to fight against him at the beginning of my journey in Nioh, overcoming Onryoki later on served as a reminder as to how much I had improved and understood Nioh’s mechanics as a whole. While the first battle against Onryoki took me over 50 attempts, my second, third, and fourth attempts had exponentially less deaths, illustrating how far I’d come in a way that no in-game statistics or numbers could replicate.

This isn’t to say that Onryoki is the only instance of Nioh implementing crushing challenge to further learn and understand its mechanics. Onryoki prepared me for fights, causing overall less deaths with the Hino-Enma, Nue, and Oda Nobunaga fights, despite all three of these fights being more complicated, mechanically speaking. The fight with Maria, the boss of the Dragon of the North DLC’s final mission, is who I would argue to be the toughest fight in the game. Doubtlessly inflicting the most deaths onto me in my playthrough, I nevertheless learned her attack patterns. I persevered, adapted, and eventually overcame the Maria fight (and after over three hours of attempting that fight, it felt immeasurably satisfying to walk away from that fight victoriously).

The ultimate mission of game design is to present problems and offer the player solutions to those problems. There’s a limitless capacity in which designers can approach presenting problems and offering solutions. Nioh is but one example in a sea of other games that boldly demand the player to potently understand what it brings to the table through rigorous challenge. This method, while not incredibly popular due to it not necessarily being friendly for lesser-experienced players, proved to be a shockingly effective way for me to learn mechanics in a video game.

Nioh is a reminder that games do indeed still offer challenge to players, and through that challenge, it crafts players into becoming more attentive, more empowered through overcoming hardship, and more confident that they can learn any skill and conquer any challenge if given perseverance, adaptation, and the will to continue learning and mastering what’s available to them.

Thanks for reading! What do you think of Nioh and how it teaches mechanics and implements challenges? What are good or bad examples of implementation of challenge and/or teaching mechanics to the player? As always, join the conversation and let me know!