Nioh 2 + All 3 DLCs
Before I say anything even remotely positive, let me preface this by saying that the first 60% of this game is irredeemably bad with contrived artificial difficulty that mostly stems from the fact that you're deprived off rudimentary abilities of your overall kit while simultaneously put up against incompetently designed boss encounters that don't take all the handicaps into account and can often lead to a one/two shot. But once you're past the pit of garbage that is the early to mid game you'll find one of the best souls-likes ever made with a quite solid boss roster (except for the deluge of NPC fights) that rivals even DS3
- Combat -
Compared to other Team Ninja titles (FF Origins and Wo Long) I've played combat here is far more polished and balanced out which is tied to the fact that the enemies were designed with the stamina/ki depleting system in mind unlike in the other games where they just slapped Nioh enemies in a deflection based combat
Also for the longest time I held quite the negative preconceived notion about this game's combat system because of the stance mechanic but after finally playing through the entirety of the game the stance switching aspect of it sold the combat to me since the weapon of choice for me was the Switch Glaive. I've messed around with the other weapons a bit at the start but stance switching feels gimmicky at best unless you're using the weapon the mechanic was intended for. Switching between stances here is quite seamless and there's a practicality to the whole thing instead of just being meant for meaningless style points like in DMC
But there's a massive caveat to ALL of this. That is, by the point you get to the actual meaty part of the game's combat system you'll quite literally be done with the game. By the time the combat clicked with me (I unlocked the mystic arts for my main weapon) I was well into the DLCs. And that is all because of the gazillion different skill trees that take FOREVER to progress
- Skill Trees -
The skill trees are one of the major contributors as to why early to mid game feels like absolute torture to sit through. So you get 4 different main skill trees and each for the 11 different weapon types which houses significant gameplay and QoL improvements. So, without those you're handicapped to the point most of the early content becomes exasperated to sit through. To make things even worse the more useful upgrades are intentionally hidden behind dozens of utterly useless ones. So basically without prior knowledge about the skill trees it can take a huge chunk of your playtime to the point you'd unlock the ones that are actually useful.
- Levels -
The areas are all extremely one note to the point all of them look and play out exactly the same. It's always either a forest or a city ruins that loops back to the checkpoints through ladders or doors. Visually and Mechanically the level designs are as repetitive as they come. Definitely one of the worst aspects of the game
- Bosses -
If there's ever an incentive to come back to this game or play through the NG+ cycles it's because of the boss fights. Even though a huge chunk of the bosses are human-type punching bags that you can stunlock into oblivion the boss roster houses some extremely fun fights such as Otakemaru, Shibata Katsuie, Ushiwakamaru, Raikou and Tate Eboshi. And Tate Eboshi single handedly being one of the best bosses ever made, genuinely had the time of my life mastering the fight
- Music -
The music in this game is surprisingly strong. It's consistently good and keeps getting progressively better and better. Some tracks like Raikou/Ushiwakamaru, Otakemaru, Azai Nagamasa and Tate Eboshi's themes are consistently on loop for me these days. The metric I use to judge video game music is that if I listen to the tracks outside of the game they're good if I don't they're garbage and Nioh 2 definitely falls into the former category
Closing thoughts:
If you're into soulslikes Nioh 2 is a game that will give you the highest of highs while simultaneously giving you lowest of lows leaving you conflicted on whether you even like the game or not
2/5
Before I say anything even remotely positive, let me preface this by saying that the first 60% of this game is irredeemably bad with contrived artificial difficulty that mostly stems from the fact that you're deprived off rudimentary abilities of your overall kit while simultaneously put up against incompetently designed boss encounters that don't take all the handicaps into account and can often lead to a one/two shot. But once you're past the pit of garbage that is the early to mid game you'll find one of the best souls-likes ever made with a quite solid boss roster (except for the deluge of NPC fights) that rivals even DS3
- Combat -
Compared to other Team Ninja titles (FF Origins and Wo Long) I've played combat here is far more polished and balanced out which is tied to the fact that the enemies were designed with the stamina/ki depleting system in mind unlike in the other games where they just slapped Nioh enemies in a deflection based combat
Also for the longest time I held quite the negative preconceived notion about this game's combat system because of the stance mechanic but after finally playing through the entirety of the game the stance switching aspect of it sold the combat to me since the weapon of choice for me was the Switch Glaive. I've messed around with the other weapons a bit at the start but stance switching feels gimmicky at best unless you're using the weapon the mechanic was intended for. Switching between stances here is quite seamless and there's a practicality to the whole thing instead of just being meant for meaningless style points like in DMC
But there's a massive caveat to ALL of this. That is, by the point you get to the actual meaty part of the game's combat system you'll quite literally be done with the game. By the time the combat clicked with me (I unlocked the mystic arts for my main weapon) I was well into the DLCs. And that is all because of the gazillion different skill trees that take FOREVER to progress
- Skill Trees -
The skill trees are one of the major contributors as to why early to mid game feels like absolute torture to sit through. So you get 4 different main skill trees and each for the 11 different weapon types which houses significant gameplay and QoL improvements. So, without those you're handicapped to the point most of the early content becomes exasperated to sit through. To make things even worse the more useful upgrades are intentionally hidden behind dozens of utterly useless ones. So basically without prior knowledge about the skill trees it can take a huge chunk of your playtime to the point you'd unlock the ones that are actually useful.
- Levels -
The areas are all extremely one note to the point all of them look and play out exactly the same. It's always either a forest or a city ruins that loops back to the checkpoints through ladders or doors. Visually and Mechanically the level designs are as repetitive as they come. Definitely one of the worst aspects of the game
- Bosses -
If there's ever an incentive to come back to this game or play through the NG+ cycles it's because of the boss fights. Even though a huge chunk of the bosses are human-type punching bags that you can stunlock into oblivion the boss roster houses some extremely fun fights such as Otakemaru, Shibata Katsuie, Ushiwakamaru, Raikou and Tate Eboshi. And Tate Eboshi single handedly being one of the best bosses ever made, genuinely had the time of my life mastering the fight
- Music -
The music in this game is surprisingly strong. It's consistently good and keeps getting progressively better and better. Some tracks like Raikou/Ushiwakamaru, Otakemaru, Azai Nagamasa and Tate Eboshi's themes are consistently on loop for me these days. The metric I use to judge video game music is that if I listen to the tracks outside of the game they're good if I don't they're garbage and Nioh 2 definitely falls into the former category
Closing thoughts:
If you're into soulslikes Nioh 2 is a game that will give you the highest of highs while simultaneously giving you lowest of lows leaving you conflicted on whether you even like the game or not
2/5