4.5/5 ★ – merklepox's review of Nioh 2 – The Complete Edition.

Beat the main game, starting the DLCs. 66 hrs playtime. Nioh 2 takes an impressive but flawed game and solves nearly every issue I had with the original while introducing even more engaging systems that gel incredibly well with Nioh's intricate layer cake of a combat system. The amount of content in Nioh 2 is staggering, and it's a game where even after 66 hours of playtime (not counting the nearly 50 hours I had in Nioh 1, mind you) I still feel like I've only scratched the surface of what the game allows for. What was introduced to me as "Samurai Dark Souls before Sekiro" has truly broken away and established itself as something fresh, complex, and addictive. Calling Nioh a Souls-clone at all is a tad disingenuous, it's more like if Devil May Cry and Dark Souls had a baby and gave it Diablo's loot system. Fans of From Software games will feel at home with the basic Stat system, where you collect Souls/Amrita to level up and put points into things like dexterity or magic. Also similar is the system where if you die, you drop all of your souls and will lose them if you die again before picking them back up. Similarities honestly stop there though. For starters, Nioh and Nioh 2 are level based as opposed to one large interconnected map. From an overworld, you select missions which drop you at a start point. Once you beat the level's boss, you're done. These levels may be smaller than the huge interconnected maps of other action RPGs like the FromSoft pantheon, but they still have branching paths, verticality, shortcuts, and secrets galore. They can be pretty atmospheric too, with many levels featuring gorgeous scenery and menacing labyrinths. You are generally rewarded for going off the main path with a healthy share of loot, which brings up another one of Nioh's defining qualities. You are constantly getting new equipment and consumables, and it is all sorted into different rarities that determine its base stats (to a degree) and, more importantly, how many special bonus attributes it will give you. In Nioh 1, you frequently became fatigued with finding new items, since even rare drops would frequently have useless bonuses that would make them less optimal than just equipping a common item of higher level. Here, though, Nioh 2 allows the player to reroll bonus effects at the shop in the overworld from the beginning of the game (a mechanic that wasn't unlocked until much later in the original), making securing rare goods much more tantalizing. To be honest, I'm not particularly one for a Diablo-style lootathon, but it works well enough here, if not for the fact that 99% of what I find will eventually be thrown away. Another thing that is improved from Nioh 1 is enemy variety, which was a gripe of mine with that game. Nioh 2 takes all the enemies from Nioh 1 and overhauls them with higher fidelity designs and expanded movesets, and adds in a huge number of new baddies. They still show up throughout the whole game, but it does a good job of pacing out their introductions so it always feels like you're dealing with a fresh threat. Improved too, imo, are the bosses. Almost every boss (though definitely not all...) has an intricate moveset and setting, and feel grandiose with the accompaniment of some very dramatic music. There are a few fights in particular that are simply cinematic, and many forced me to the limits of my a ilities leaving me gasping for options as I just barely eked out a win. If there's anything I could nitpick, it's that the yokai boss fights (and enemies, although that's less surprising) are overall just more interesting and memorable than the human boss fights, and typically more challenging as well. As you go through the game, though, you build up a huge arsenal of options that leave you more well equiped for the hurdles Nioh throws at you. I mentioned Devil May Cry earlier, and while that may be a bit facetious, it's true that compared to other action RPGs of the same vein Nioh has a vastness to the movesets of your weapons that allows for vary finely crafted playstyles (and you have a gun). Each weapon has three stances, a high stance that's slow but damaging, a low stance that isn't particularly strong but is fast and good for whittling at an overly aggressive or overly defensive opponent's stamina, and a mid stance that's balanced and typically defense oriented. Each stance has its own basic moveset, and a number of special moves that can be unlocked and equipped for even more options. When you factor in Nioh's ki pulse mechanic, where a well timed button press after executing a sequence of attacks can restore a portion of lost stamina, and the early skill where switching stances in a ki pulse grants even more stamina, by the end of the game the player will be executing long offensive combos that can simply bully enemies if they are caught low on stamina or guarding too long. Another combat mechanic, new to Nioh 2, are yokai abilities. Occasionally upon defeating a yokai, they will drop an orb that can be brought to the nearest shrine (Nioh's equivalent to bonfires or sculptor statues) to unlock a yokai ability that can be equipped to use in combat. The player can have two or three equipped at a time, and they use a resource called anima to perform that is gained upon dealing damage and performing finishers on enemies with low stamina. There's a huge number of possibilities here as yokai abilities can range from long range projectiles to massive punches to large AoE bursts. Unlike weapons, where you really have to focus on just a couple and can't really branch out, it's easy to experiment with many different yokai abilities and see which you like to use, and they're all pretty fun. To go along with the new anima system, there are even cats hidden in the levels that can be pet to grant a buff that charges anima over time! Overall, Nioh 2 has the best combat of any action RPG I've played to date, hands down. It takes the strong base Nioh 1 built and builds further upon it, creating a massive amount of potential and customization that culminates in an experience that exhilarating and expressive. The main improvement to Nioh 2 over its predecessor, though, is the story. Like Nioh 1, Nioh 2 is historical fiction, taking place in the warring states period of Japan. This game is actually a prequel to Nioh 1, though the two stories aren't really connected too much. I had issues with Nioh's characters, and as someone who was unfamiliar with Japanese history, I frequently felt confused as to which characters were associated with which factions and who was friend or foe. Here, though, things are much clearer to understand. It's a simpler conflict, and it's very clearly laid out who's aligned with whom. At its core, though, Nioh 2 is a simple yet effective story of a misfit and their finding of friends and family. It's easier to relate to the custom character of Nioh 2, nicknamed Hide, compared to the gruff and comically out of place William from Nioh 1. It's not exactly Pulitzer prize level stuff, but it's good enough and honestly pulled on my heartstrings at various points. It's bolstered by a very strong visual style, with the fantasy elements of the world popping out like they were literally painted into the world. As I mentioned before the soundtrack is also quite good. It didn't blow my mind, but it gets the job done and is very well orchestrated. All in all, the presentation and narrative of Nioh 2 are a vast step up, and give the game great legs to drive the player forward. After playing through both games, it really does feel like an insult to what Team Ninja has accomplished to just call it "Samurai Dark Souls." Nioh 1 was an exciting breath of fresh air, but had its issues that kept me from loving it. Nioh 2, though, gives me everything I wanted. It's a spectacular action RPG that has set a new standard for me as to what combat in a videogame can feel like, and I easily recommend it to anyone who likes melee combat and a good challenge.