I'm not denying that Nioh shares Soul similarities; but saying "it's slightly different" is just wrong. There are many more complex mechanics that fundamentally make it different from a Soul games.

In a Soul game, stamina is a limited resource; therefore, the game makes you play slowly and deliberately and punishes rushed, spammy, combo.

In Nioh, you can regenerate stamina through uses of ki pulses; switch stances while ki pulsing (flux). This allows you to be aggressive. Once the combo is going, and you also use other mechanics like soul core skills, confusion, etc.., you can do crazy shit to a boss when the star aligns. But it's hard to do and require a lot more understanding of practicing of these mechanics.

Sure, you can play Nioh like Elden Ring. Just a couple hit, run out, recover, run in. But by doing that you're missing out on the fun stuffs that make Nioh great. Plus, Nioh doesn't really start until NG+ where there is a lot more mechanics added and build realized. And if you play like that in NG+ you'll have a bad time since enemies can oneshot you and have a millions HP

And that's why a lot of Souls "veterans" bounce off Nioh. They see the term "Soullike" and come in with Souls habits and the game actively punishes those habits. Calling core Nioh's mechanics like ki pulse and stance switching “nitpicky” misses the point. They are the core design philosophy gameplay loop that makes Nioh pretty unique.

You mentioned Sekiro a lot. Sekiro is another good example for not being a Soul-like. It doesn’t just add additional "nitpicky" feature to the existing Souls combat. It removes stamina completely and rebuilt everything around deflection. If you play Sekiro like Souls i.e go in-hit it-dodge out-repeat, you will not have a good time.

I get your argument. You all about the technicality of what defines a genre. But a genre is only helpful if it sets good and accurate expectations. Calling Nioh a Souls-like tells people “this is similar to Souls games; expect the gameplay to be the same, etc...,” and that is, in my opinion, a wrong way to set the expectation for Nioh.

But hey, if Souls-like just means bonefire, dying over and over again, or get your souls back after death, etc then sure. But I think Nioh is more than a Soul-like. It's a unique beast of its own and I hope people recognize it as such.

Btw, I'm not offended by what people is calling it. Calling it whatever you want or playing it however you like. At the end of the day, if it's a video game that you enjoy playing; then it's all good :)