Nioh 2 is a very good soulslike in the same vein as the first, but it lacks innovation.

From a gameplay point of view, this game is very similar to the first, in terms of the weapons available, spells and skill trees. The enemies are different, however, and like the first, they're pretty well designed, despite some bosses making questionable design choices. The level design is really very good for a soulslike game, with elements to find that encourage exploration as well as shortcuts. The side missions are unfortunately lacking in interest, involving either exploration in previously visited areas or boss fights, which can be interesting.

Visually, the game is also similar to the first, for a soulslike game. It's very legible in terms of attacks and enemy paterns, though it does suffer from occasional camera problems that can be frustrating. The character designs are very good and easy to read.

From a story point of view, it's rather messy and lacks interest, even though this isn't supposed to be the main attraction of this type of game.

In conclusion, the game is interesting for the genre it covers, the mechanics and bosses are solid and complex, and it has a fairly long lifespan.

Hard West 2 is a pretty good Xcom with its own gimmicks that change the formula a little while remaining familiar.

To begin with, one of the least interesting aspects of this game is the story, which is fairly anecdotal. The characters are pretty cool, each with their own story, which is developed a little with the help of side quests. The main story is very classic, with the protagonists being deprived of their souls by a demon and having to get them back, nothing incredible but still ok.

The most interesting part of this game is by far the gameplay. As I said earlier, it's a turn-based game in the vein of Xcom, with a system of wooing and action points to act with the characters. The subtlety is that if you kill an enemy, you switch to bravado mode and get all your AP back, which means that, if you get it right, you can string together a series of eliminations to win battles methodically and satisfactorily. The different characters each have their own way of playing, with one character using cac and others focusing more on ranged attacks or shotguns. Another interesting point is the fact that the characters don't level up. Progression is achieved by buying new weapons or by using cards that you can equip to your characters, which allows you to obtain passives that greatly improve your characters. These cards can be obtained in various ways, by completing quests or secondary objectives. Apart from combat, there's a bit of map exploration to discover side quests and other objectives, but it's still pretty meagre and uninteresting. I finished the game on the difficult setting, but it's still doable without too much difficulty, so it's not necessarily an extremely hard game.

From an audio point of view, the game is pretty solid, whether in terms of the music or the sound design, and the voice acting is also very good for the various characters.

Finally, the game is visually very good for a game of this kind, despite the occasional difficulty of vision due to the different levels of play. The characters are recognisable and the particles are also well realised.

Overall, this is a very good Xcom like that suffers a little from a rather weak story and a lack of ancillary content, but which is really very good in the main gameplay and which I think could easily please fans of the genre.