Nioh 2 (2020)

Nioh 1 and 2 for me are the "Soulslike" games that have more personality than the other "clones" I've played. The other games inspired by the Souls games are mostly disappointing to me, either because they are unfinished and poorly polished (Mortal Shells) or because they focus too much on being just a clone of Dark Souls, not having much inspiration to do something more or different.

The games have their own way of telling their story, with a more direct narrative than Dark Souls, it's basically the story of Japan with the supernatural thrown in there. It's an Ok narrative that could be better, narrative is not usually the main focus of these games anyway. What draws me the most attention in this game however is the combat system. It's a fast paced game with 3 different fighting styles with each weapon which gives you a wide variety to play, in addition to the extra combat skills you unlock over time for the 3 styles. There are several spirits to select (It's basically your Ultimate Skill), each with its weakness and strengths, in Nioh 2 you still manage to put 3 different skills for your Guardian spirit, skills that you capture from the monsters you kill. My playstyle is melee with heavy weapons and one thing I don't like about Dark Souls and Elden Ring (I played about 4 hours of Elden) is how my playability doesn't improve after a certain point, from the moment I take the Greatsword, I proceed to do the same thing over and over again without changing my way of playing until the end, which gets repetitive since all that's left is for me is just keep learning and memorizing the attacks of monsters, so I enjoy games like Nioh which gives me new skills in my own style to unlock over time, it keeps the game "Fresh" during the adventure, Code Vein does something similar too (Another Soulslike game I enjoy). Nioh 2's soundtrack is excellent too, he has bang epic musics.

Despite the good combat, I think it's a shame that the games have a very limited number of enemies, you basically face the same enemies in your entire adventure, even some Bosses are repeated in Side Quests and DLCs. The maps are labyrinthine and uninspiring, they don't compare to the artistic grandeur that Drak Souls have in their art direction.

Bearing in mind that I tend to dislike the other games that have decided to go down the same path as From Software's games, I found Niohs to be a pretty .... decent game.

Nioh 2 expands upon nearly every single aspect of the first Nioh and adds a dizzying amount of content and mechanics that not only matches its Souls predecessors but exceeds them.

Set in Japan sometime before the first Nioh, the player creates a character called Hide, a half-yokai playing a role in the rise and fall of the warlord Toyotomi Hideyoshi. Linked to a sinister powerful yokai and a slew of historical characters, the player slices and dices their way throughout the warring states era.

Much of the original gameplay is intact (down to the unique Ki pulse stamina system and stances), with Souls-like deliberate combat and using Amrita as experience (which can be dropped along with an equipped guardian spirit at your death). The biggest changes, however, is Anima and the the Yokai Shift, which allows the player to use demon abilities like special moves inherited from enemies you kill or a powerful (but vulnerable) super mode reminiscent of DMC's Devil Trigger. There's also a Burst Counter which, similar to Bloodborne's gun parrying allows you to exploit enemy attacks and drain their Ki Adding a bunch of new weapons, customizability, and a dizzying array of skills and builds, Nioh 2 is incredibly replayable across five difficulties.

And incredibly difficult. Even with the dizzying array of builds, it's very possible to end up with a weapon/armor combo that will still require intimate knowledge of an array of difficult enemies that will kill you, and a slew of bosses that start out remarkably challenging at the beginning and don't hold up. There's some differences between human/yokai difficult but aside from one or two frustratingly designed bosses most of them are excellent challenges, whether it's the fiery Enera and proliferating Yatsu-no-Kami all the way up to a final boss fight that simply cannot be missed. (and the DLC too!)

Visually the game is gorgeous. Making use of HDR and lush colors across a war-torn yet serene country, players will either get enraptured in the scenery or go toe to toe with enemies whose visuals are all sorts of ghastly but are supremely designed to match a variety of gameplay challenges with a variety of gorgeous animations. Plenty of the best tracks from Nioh 1 have been preserved here with an array of great music to follow alongside, something far more blood-pumping and less melancholy than the Souls we're used to.

Nioh 2 is long. REALLY LONG. Given a massive game across five difficulties and another special DLC mode waiting at the end of that journey, it's possible to lose months if not years on this game. It's still an amazing game on the first difficulty though, and gives players plenty to chew on that rivals Souls games' tight difficulty and obtuse design with a taste of something truly special.

I Really enjoyed Nioh 1 When it came out in 2017, The story was great and The boss battles were pretty decent, So how did its sequel Hold up in comparison to this game? Honestly I believe it Improves on just about Everything from the first one, After going back to the first one from the second one, the game just Sapped me from really enjoying the first ones gameplay again lol.

Nioh 2 added this new ability where you can press R2 + o and you will use your Shiftling ability, depending on which shiftling type you have equipped the command will do a different move, there's 3 types, and i tended to use the type that had me dashing to or out of the way from attacks, it was very convenient for me, but it is also used to counter a enemy when they're about to attack you with a grapple move, originally i was complaining about that new trait but it ended up being pretty nicely added after i realized how to actually use it in battles. We also could equip Yokai Souls which each one had its own unique ability and every enemy, boss and special monster (sudama and scumpuss) dropped a soul core but to be honest i didn't really find any uses for these soul cores throughout my game, i didn't need to use them. we could also turn into the shiftling when our gauge filled up completely which helped me out on some of my fights after i learned how to use that ability.

The enemies, i learned that they didn't really add a impressive amount of enemies to this new game, we had the gaki's, yamanba's, Enki's snake girls, the harpy girl that screeches at you, the waira, the creepy looking thing with three heads, and the farting Rat monster. then the dlc added some Man-faced Crab, Some fleshy goopy enemy, and some enemy that resembles the Enki but with magic. plus almost all the enemies from the first Nioh except the stone sentinels, and fox enemy was added in after the games release. two different slimes mudman and some newly added monster after release. i think that was about it.

Nioh 2 also reuses some bosses for a few fights, Onryoki, Nue in the dlc, the dlc boss in the first stage was practically the giant Umibozu boss in Nioh 1. and lady Osaka boss was pretty similar to Yamatsu no Orochi in Nioh 1, I can't recall if there were any other bosses that were or felt like the first games bosses.

There's only a few added weapons, the Switchglaive, Spearstaff, and twin hatchets I believe were the only added weapons so far plus all the weapons from the first game. So all in all these are only slight improvements for the gameplay.

The story, it starts us around the beginning of the warring era in japan, and goes all the way passed the unification of japan by Hideyoshi, and beyond to the end of the war in japan after the events of Nioh which was the whole reason I even wanted to go back to Nioh 1 in the first place. The story might not feel as linear as Nioh 1 does, but that's because we are pretty much playing through 50-100 years worth of story where as Nioh one only took 3 years through the storyline. The Characters, I Personally found them to be more enjoyable than the first games characters, we didn't have Okatsu and Fuku but we did get Mumyo and Okuni which i really liked. The characters seemed to team up with you a lot more than in the first game.

I still haven't gotten around to the last two dlcs of this game, but i heard the final dlc was a let down or something, not as good as the first Nioh's dlc I guess. I know we just go back to the past in all three dlcs which definitely sucks. But overall i loved this game a lot and I'd give it a 8/10