You all know how much I love the Dark Souls series. You all know that Bloodborne is one of my favorite games of all time and that no other game has come close to knocking down it’s position besides Hollow Knight and Hades. You all have probably read and know by now that Bloodborne is my personal example of how to make a video game and a lot of developers can learn From Software’s design philosophy. They are truly an amazing team and their games will age on to remain timeless. You should also know that I love soulslike games. Not because it's my favorite, but how developers try to put a unique twist and what already exists. Sure, they don’t perfect the formula as well as From Software however it’s fun to see them try. We have games like The Surge 2, Mortal Shell, Ahsen, and Code Vein that mostly try to replicate what Dark Souls is while giving it a different coat of paint. Then we have the developers who decide to blend Dark Souls with other major genres. We have Remnant: From The Ashes which converts Dark Souls over to a confident third person shooter with a good amount of action RPG elements and loot system. There is Dead Cells which combines Dark Souls with both the roguelike and metroidvania genre. Hyper Light Drifter which took the vague storytelling of Dark Souls and aimed to be a classic styled adventure game. Then we have Salt & Sanctuary, Blasphemous, Death’s Gambit, and Hollow Knight which is a unique mix of Souls ingredients and what I like to call, “metroidvania herbs”.
I love these games. Yet, there is one soulslike that stands above the rest and is considered by many to be the best example of how to replicate the From Software formula. That soulslike being Nioh developed by Team Ninja, the same guys who worked on the modern adaptation of Ninja Gaiden. When Nioh originally came out it was surrounded with glowing review scores. A small number of eight of ten scores, a bunch of nines of tens, and even a couple of ten of tens. The game was nominated for a few rewards and was considered one of the best games to come out in 2017. Nioh is referenced a lot when talking about the soulslike subgenre and still gets garnished for what it achieved, but how does the game hold up today? Well, I tried playing Nioh last year to see what all the praise was about. I played through a good chunk of the game during the summer and rage quit during the halfway point, but came back almost three months later and finished it around the fall. Nioh is a pretty good soulslike and there are quite a few things it does right, but I wouldn’t go far to say it’s the perfect soulslike.
There are design choices that didn’t add up for me, the game was made harder in the most mundane ways, and the story didn’t really intrigue me. However, my overall time with Nioh was really good and I would go far to say that I recommend it. The combat was really fluid and addictive, when I overcame a challenge I felt excited and kept pressing onward to see what lied next, and even though the story was forgettable I enjoyed how it was told. Nioh was pretty good and seeing how the sequel came out earlier that year I decided to see what changes it made to improve upon the first game. Nioh 2 started development straight after the first Nioh and the developers wanted to fix some of the problems the first game had. They decided to add some quality of life improvements, add a little more build variety, improve the lighting, add more level and environment variety, and make a story that felt more heartening than the first game.
Nioh 2 came out three years after the first game and its main goal was to offer more. More of Nioh 1, but more fleshed out and fair…...mostly. The sales numbers for Nioh 2 didn’t quite meet up with Nioh 1 and to be honest with you I think this was the most forgotten Triple A game of last year. However compared to a majority of the Triple A games that came out, Nioh 2 had the most love put into it and the developers really cared about making this a quality sequel. Nioh 2 received as much praise as the first game and some hardcore Nioh fans stated it was a vast improvement. Nioh 2 was nominated for Action GOTY by the Game Awards, some of the reviewers I watch choose it as one of their favorite games of 2020, and I remember Fextralife giving the game a near perfect review score. That is quite a lot for what basically feels like Nioh 1.5.
So after beating the first game I decided to buy the sequel weeks afterwards. The game was on sale for ten dollars during a Black Friday sale and it was the perfect time to hop into one of the more well acclaimed games of 2020. I bought the game immediately, picked it up from the local Best Buy, loaded the game’s files on my Playstation 4, and hopped into what would hopefully be a leap forward from Nioh 1. There were a few rage quits along the way and the game took as much time to beat as the first, but once I beat Nioh 2 it felt like an achievement. Nioh 2 is an improvement from the first Nioh and even though some problems are carried over, my experience with Nioh 2 was more amazing. It’s definitely a great example of how to do a video game sequel. Today we’ll be talking about why I quite enjoyed Nioh 2 and why it deserves your attention. Let’s say one last prayer and venture through the magical country of Japan once more.
Story
We head several miles across the raging seas to a country smaller than Australia, but a government as big as our own. Japan, a place of honor and prosperity. For years it’s people thrived on their own, but one day a mysterious crystal substance known as Amrita appears and it possesses capabilities from out of our world. When crushed or broken into dust, Amrita turns into an energy-like form and is absorbed by the one who tampered with it. Amrita can be used to strengthen one’s physical strengths and endurance, but at the cost of losing their sanity and whatever makes them human. The Japanese government has spent months harvesting Amrita, forming strong economic ties with surrounding regions, and exchanging it with foreigners.
However with the mass use of Amrita throughout the country Yokai, otherwise monstrous demons, have begun to pop up and terrorize the people. Some normal human beings who used Amrita have begun to transform into demons on their own. The Japanese government tried to contain the demons storming the land and tracking down the source of the demon forces, but division began to grow. The government began to argue what to do with the supply of Amrita sprouting in the ground. One side of officials want to ban the use of Amrita while others want to keep harvesting Amrita for it is good for the economy. A war broke out in Japan over who would control the most land and what they would do with the Amrita and demons lurking about.
We follow a mysterious individual known as Hide and unlike most of the ordinary people in Japan he is a Shiftling. What makes a Shiftling special is that they are half human and half yokai. They can use their demonic powers at will without losing control of themselves and they know how to balance the Amrita coursing through their veins. Hide’s mother is telling them the story of how the Yokai appeared and how there is always a hero destined to vanquish them, but while she is telling the ancient tale they are both slain by a mysterious man possessing demonic magic. Hide’s mother bleeds to death and Hide himself is knocked out during the attack. However, Hide survives the confrontation and has been gifted a dagger that glows with Amrita. It’s a special weapon once wielded by warriors before and it can banish Yokai back to the realm they once came from. Hide spends a majority of his days helping the villagehe lives in and having nightmares back to the day they were attacked. The day they came back to life.
A villager is banging on Hide’s front door telling them that the village is being attacked by both bandits and Yokai. As all heroes start out, Hide gears up and journeys towards the village to slay the attackers. He is also given a message to meet up with a special individual. Hide slays the many demons storming the village and learns how to transform in a demon form that can allow him to gain the upperhand. He defeats a powerful while in his raging form, but slowly begins to lose control of his sanity. Just then a merchant carrying Amrita appears to help clear up Hide’s mind and as long as there is Amrita, Hide will maintain the balance between his sympathy towards humanity and demonic anger. The merchant’s name is Tokichiro and he is the man who sent the message to Hide. He wasn’t the writer of course, but he worked for the man who wrote the letter. Both him and Hide travel towards where the special writer is and he calls himself Saito Dosan. He claims his successor, Saito Yoshiatsu, is rebelling against the Japanese government and the two travelers will soon be sent off to assist in the ongoing conflict swarming the country. Dosan does send Hide off to slay some demons nearby, but during the battle it is revealed that Dosan is Hide’s father. Hide has so many questions for Dosan, like why did he leave their mother or why was his mother so important to be attacked that fateful night. More demons show up and Dosan sacrifices himself so that Hide can live. I don’t why he would sacrifice himself even though Hide is technically immortal and I don’t know why Hide didn’t say anything during all of this, but I guess going with the flow brings up nothing bad.
Hide and Tokichiro are then employed by Lord Nobunaga, a warlord who plans to take over Japan and bring peace back to the country. He has hired several fierce warriors to assist him in his takeover, and luckily he has spotted out how much of a fierce warrior Hide is. He chooses Hide knowing he has control of both his humanity and the demon realm that slowly takes over the earth. Through enough work, both Hide and Tokichiro gain the trust of Nobunaga and end up with plenty of royal roles in store for them. Together, Hide and his new companions will slay demons, and bring peace back to Japan. Even if it means losing a couple of souls along the way.
Gameplay
How many times have I explained the rules and mechanics of a soulslike game? One, two, four, eight, ten, I’d say almost ten times by now at least. I’m getting a little tired of having to explain the rules every time I do a new soulslike review, but seeing how some people read reviews without having played games of a similar formula I may as well give the basic run down. In a soulslike game you have both a health bar and a stamina bar. The stamina bar dictates how many actions you can perform at once before having to wait for it to recharge. It doesn’t take that much time for the stamina bar to recharge, but you do have to be careful how many actions you spam at once because you may not have enough to escape a dangerous attack or counter when the window of opportunity is wide open. The stamina bar is used whenever you attack, dodge, run, perform a plunge attack, and block. Stamina recharges slower when you hold the block button, so sometimes it’s best to dodge enemy attacks and block as a last solution.
One button press will make your character perform a sidestep which is quick, but two button presses will perform a dodge roll which is longer but has more I-frames. Invincibility frames, otherwise I-frames which I was just referring to, is how long your character is invincible during a dodge animation. If you time your dodge just right, especially during a powerful attack that is capable of killing you in one hit, you will negate all damage. Once you press the button to perform an action you cannot cancel out. You have to wait for the action to perform before performing the next action. This makes the player think about how they approach a fight, because making the wrong move will more likely get them killed. They have to think about what they’ll do next while staying on their toes. I’ve always loved this in soulslike games, because it makes the player go through the game both aggressively and methodically.
The health bar which I haven’t mentioned up until now is what determines how long the player survives in the world. In a majority of games like The Legend of Zelda you don’t take that much damage when getting hit. Here in a soulslike game a single hit is capable of knocking off more than a quarter of your health. You have to be careful with how much damage you’ll take and how much health you have currently, because the next monster you may encounter may just be the thing that turns you stone dead.
When you die you get sent back to a checkpoint. Not like an autosave checkpoint like in a first person shooter or open world, but as in checkpoints dotted about the area. You may lose a huge chunk of progression if you decide to just run through a level without any care, so it forces the player to always be aware. Not only that, but one of many things that a player loses upon death are their experience points. The things they can spend at a checkpoint or NPC to upgrade their stats. They have the chance to get them all back by navigating back to the area they died in, but if they die again the experience points are gone for good. It’s a way to punish the player for not learning from their mistakes. It may be annoying especially when you are carrying the amount of experience points needed to level up, but it’s fair and it’s genius.
The several stats you level up will influence several categories and by leveling up certain stats you can form the build you want. Some weapons and equipment will scale in damage or efficiency when leveling up their designated stat. There are also items for the player to use during their journey. Consumables to heal specific debuffs or ailments. Buffs to cover their weapon with an element that an enemy may be weak to. Finally a healing item which can be replenished at checkpoints, bought from a merchant, or picked off of enemies. These are the simple rules of a soulslike and that took as much time as I expected. Now how does Nioh 2 change up how Bloodborne or Dark Souls work? Well the combat is an aspect for starters. Nioh possesses some of the aggressive combat I’ve seen from a soulslike. Not in a sense where Bloodborne’s aggressive combat forced the player to adapt and learn an enemies patterns, but in a sense close to Devil May Cry where you have to wail on the enemy with whatever long chain combos you know and dodge whenever they unleash a flurry of attacks. A simple mistake during a fight is more punishing than making a mistake in Bloodborne, so instead of finding windows of opportunity you have to take any advantages you have.
Stamina is eaten up much faster in Nioh, but unlike Dark Souls where you have to wait for the stamina bar to refill here in Nioh you can gain it all back within an instance. By Ki Pulsing you can regain your stamina instantaneously and by performing it at the right time you can gain even more. You can even upgrade your Ki Pulse so that it is performed when you dodge. There are a multitude of weapons to use, each packing a punch. Swords, greatswords, axes, hammers, spears, dual swords, swinging sickles, and a few new ones to Nioh 2. The dual hatchets which function similar to the dual swords, but are heavier and stagger more often. Then there’s the switchglaive which was my go to weapon for Nioh 2. It functions similarly to a trick weapon in Bloodborne where it has three different forms. In Nioh you have stances which change how you wield a weapon. A low stance is much quicker, attacks in rapid succession, and uses up a small amount of Ki with each attack although it does minimal damage for each hit. A mid stance will do a moderate amount of damage, attack in moderate succession, and is generally the stance most players will use. The high stance is much slower and can leave the player exposed more often, but it makes up for it with high damage per hit.
Weapons have a familiarity rate which increases with the more enemies you kill. The more familiarity you gain the more damage your weapon will deal, so the game rewards you for spending time mastering a weapon. Nioh uses a loot system similar to one seen in a game like Diablo or Borderlands, where every time you kill an enemy they are bound to drop some new gear. Weapons, armor, and even charms. You can carry up to six hundred items at once and they can be outfitted in any combination you want. Higher leveled loot is more powerful and stronger enemies tend to possess rarer loot. Sometimes you may want to clear out your inventory or exchange your loot for other things. There are a variety of ways to clear out your inventory. Exchanging gear at Kodama Shrines, which are the checkpoints in each level, will give you Amrita to level up. Maybe you don’t want to get rid of the weapon you are wielding, but instead you want to increase its level and max out familiarity rate. So you can give it to a blacksmith who can use another weapon to strengthen it. You can also exchange weapons to unlock materials to forge other weapons you may want.
Enemies come in a variety of flavors from small to big. No matter what enemies will have huge health pools, so do whatever you can to knock it down quickly. Sometimes you hit an enemy enough you will break their guard and open them up for a critical blow. Other times you may hit a weak which changes how they fight. Either way, killing them works. Enemies will create fog zones which slow down how fast your stamina recharges, but you can get rid of them using your Ki Pulse. What’s new this time around are entire chunks of levels being covered in the gray fog. There are tons of demons patrolling these areas and the only way to get rid of the fog is to kill a demon with flowers. Do this and the fog will disappear and remaining demons will be weakened.
Enemies will flash red and this is the perfect time to use the newly added Burst Counter. That’s right, Nioh added in a proper way to counter heavy blows. It’s a risk/reward system, but it allows the player to get the edge and drastically weaken a foe. They also pack a punch and are very satisfying to pull off. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention there are Guardian Spirits which tie into the world of Nioh. Every single character possesses a Guardian Spirit, but our main character has the ability to carry numerous spirits. They can swap in and out of whatever spirits they want and outfit them with Demon Cores. That is also a new addition to Nioh 2. Demons will sometimes drop cores which can be outfitted to spirits to perform an attack that demons may have. A spirit can only take so much demon energy at once, so you plan out what demon core to fit them with. Demon abilities cost Anima, which is a bar that is also used for Burst Counters, but it refills the more you attack enemies so you are heavily encouraged to use these abilities. I died a lot during the first half of the game and it was because I didn’t know how to make use of demon attacks. Once I did the tides turned as I started to cut through enemies easily with a fiery tornado attack I earned from an earlier boss. Demon Cores can be strengthened and exchanged for stronger demon attacks. There is just so much variety this time around with Nioh 2!
Missions and levels are selected from an overworld and they come in several flavors. From simple progression to killing a specific target. You decide whether you are ready for them. Bosses stand at the end of every level and they test the player’s reflexes, skills, and whether or not they level up or not. They will take numerous attempts due to high damage attacks and how they now have the ability to cover the area with fog that doesn’t disappear for a short period of time, but once you get it down they should be able to be slain. That's it. I literally just explained to you how all of the gameplay works. There is nothing else I can say. Hopefully you can bring an end to this eternal war.
Thoughts
Nioh 2 is a really good follow up to what made the first Nioh so awesome. It’s not exactly a huge step forward because both games are identical. Actually, I’m going to say straight to you that the people who are most likely to buy Nioh 2 are those who heavily liked the first game and want more Nioh. Yet, Nioh 2 is an improvement from Nioh 1 and at times is a much better entry. The combat is still satisfying as ever with numerous combos for the player to pull off. The skill trees which the player levels up by spending time with weapons are more streamlined and are easier to understand. A majority of skill tree upgrades are no longer locked behind obscure missions and the game rewards the player for devoting themselves to a specific weapon. At first I was going to go for dual swords which were my main weapons in the first game, but this time around I went for the switchglaive which had deadly attack combos. The build variety is more diverse this time around and the game does make the player switch up their playstyle. I went from a strength build with basic weapons, then to a skill build, and finally a magic build because that was the stat my switchglaive scaled with.
The lighting has been improved and the environments are more varied than the first game. I complained in my first Nioh review that a majority of the environments can be nailed down to caves, forests, a ruined village, or a combination of two of them. They are still around in Nioh 2, but the locations you’ll be going to are more beautiful to look at. You’ll be hiking up mountains, find yourself underneath red blossom trees, and there are more missions that take place during the day rather than the night. I think that’s why I wasn’t quite fond of the environment in the first Nioh, because most of the time it was really dark or felt crowded due to how dark everything was.
The story was my main criticism with the first Nioh and has changed this time around. The story of Nioh 1 was good, but I personally couldn’t really care about it because it was one of those stories that expected the player to have knowledge of Japanese history and folklore rather than tell a tale with characters they can care about. The world was there and the way it was presented is better than a majority of soulslikes, but the overall plot was barebones. Nioh 2 has a story I can care even more about. It still does have the tendency to expect the player to know Japanese history and folklore, but it does less of it. I think my understandment this time around is much higher since I saw figures and references to the first game. This time it’s more focused on the main character and the friends that surround him. The journey Hide embarks on and how political positions affect the people he thought were close friends. The story of Nioh 2 is more engaging and I can honestly say it’s quite a good story.
The bosses are a little bit better than the first game, but some of them are made harder using very cheap methods. Two mid game bosses are hard not because they're challenging to fight, but because they are given more health than they needed. There’s a gimmick boss near the end which I found a little frustrating, because she’s attacking you from four to five different angles. It’s one of those bosses where you need a friend or summonable companion, because it’s hard to focus on the other parts when you are taking down one at a time. Luckily, this time around a majority of bosses felt a bit more fair and some of them are really satisfying once you take them down. The final boss, which I won’t spoil, is the ultimate test for the player and it may be my favorite fight in the game just for the spectacle and everything leading up to this brilliant scene. The game ties up the story really nicely rather than leaving unanswered questions.
Whelp, that’s as far as we can go with praising Nioh 2 because it’s time to move onto the bad stuff. The overworld and mission select screen. Dark Souls, Bloodborne, The Surge 2, and even Remnant felt natural for how you transitioned to areas. Every location was connected in some way and it’s mind boggling to see how you even ended up there. Sometimes these games were linear, but it still felt natural for how you transition to new zones. Here in Nioh you progress through a level Super Mario esque style which cuts the whimsical of exploring a big old world. The inventory system is still a nightmare to manage as the game dumps infinite piles of loot onto your face. I still don’t like how many elixirs they give you, but it’s more forgiving this time around because they have a shop known as the Kodama Bazaar which can be used to stock up on items. You exchange rice, tokens, I forgot what they were called but you exchange them for what you want. Tokens are gained by selling loot, so it’s a good economy.
The game offers the ability to summon in-game companions if the player doesn’t have a Playstation Plus subscription or has a bad internet connection which is nice because the developers didn’t want the player to miss out on the multiplayer aspect of Nioh 2. Sadly, much like Dark Souls all your companions do is offer a good distraction during a fight. You’ll have to hold them by the hand because they can’t heal like you and they only have so much health. One complaint I have is one that readers might find bad, but I find to be really good. The game reuses a lot of aspects from the first game. Enemies, structures, objects, weapon models, and attack animations. Now is this bad, or is this actually pretty good. Is it good that you can reuse assets and still make it feel new by using these objects in a new and special manner? I think the way Nioh 2 reuses assets from the first is pretty good and they don’t do it in such a lazy way.
Finally the combat is more well rounded with the Burst Counter, ability to use demon powers, and a demon mode which isn’t just an elemental buff to your weapon. I forgot to mention earlier that by killing more enemies you build up a meter that allows you to become more powerful and invincible for a short period of time. This doesn’t make Nioh 2 an easier game than Nioh 1, because both games are equally as challenging and there times when Nioh 2 pushed my buttons more. It’s a good amount of challenge though. The amount of challenge that leaves a good payoff in the end. Nioh 2 is a recommendation in my book and I can safely say it’s one of the best soulslike to come out in recent years. May not be for everyone, but if you give this game a whirl you are in for a bloody good time. In the end I am giving Nioh 2 a 9/10 for excellence at best.
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