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Game Spotlight #13: Nioh 2: Complete Edition (2020)

Acquired Stardust's first game spotlight of the new year is here! Come along with Ash on a long look into one of the greatest games of the past generation and a little bit of a look into where its influences, and even its overall genre, lie.

As previously discussed, I think Nioh is a title that lives and dies by its comparisons to Dark Souls. Director Fumihiko Yasuda has been transparent in his admission that Nioh was inspired by Dark Souls, and the influence is clear. As a matter of fact I don't think it's a stretch to say that after a decade in development hell it's likely due to the success of Dark Souls that Nioh was able to see the light of day in the first place. Team Ninja cleverly designed the opening hours of Nioh 1 to appeal to fans of the smash hit Souls series with eerie, tense enemy introductions and a slow combat system that eventually gives way to a deep and fast action game by the time the opening hours of the game are up, at which point players coming to Nioh simply for more Dark Souls are lead to one of two conclusions: either 'this isn't Dark Souls and that sucks' or 'this isn't Dark Souls and that's awesome'.

The slow burn of Nioh revealing its identity to the player as not just a mere Soulslike, instead an unmistakable fusion of Blizzard's Diablo and Team Ninja's own previous success Ninja Gaiden, is a satisfying one. Seeing a game go from standing in the shadow of another massive success to one with its own impressive vision and execution all in a single game, within the space of just a few hours, was one of the coolest experiences I've had with a game. It's my pleasure to report that Nioh 2 doubles down on everything that made the first game special, and represents an official divergence from the label of Soulslike into a little-discussed larger genre known as 'masocore'.

"Masocore" is a large umbrella, a broad style of game and design philosophy, with titles that span a variety of genres from precision platformers to action games and everything in between. And while you may not have heard the term before it's not a new phenomenon per se as you're likely more familiar with the saying 'Nintendo hard' that hearkens back to the era of the Nintendo Entertainment System when games were often cryptic and overly punishing in their designs. It is the goal of masocore games to deliver those sorts of punishing and oppressive experiences to players so that the eventual triumph feels all the sweeter. Not every developer has the vision and expertise to deliver on the promise of the genre - not so with Nioh which saw an incredible utilization of the nature of masocore titles to effectively communicate not just its brutal setting but provide a deep sense of immersion to its gameplay. While many developers simply wear the masocore aesthetic as a gimmick, Team Ninja utilized it expertly in the original Nioh title and continues to do so in its sequel.

It's also important to note that while you may not have heard of the masocore term, Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda most certainly has and while he has freely admitted the influence Dark Souls had on his project he's never actually called the games Soulslikes - he instead refers to them himself as masocore titles. The label of 'Soulslikes' was inevitably but perhaps unfairly attached to Nioh from the start, but is certainly unwarranted for Nioh 2 which represents a bold step forward in both vision and execution for a series that already shined bright in these areas and a complete divergence from any attempt to bridge the gap between fans of Dark Souls and Nioh, proudly wearing its vision on its sleeve from the start.

Featuring every single mechanic from Nioh 1, an already staggering number of ways to interact with a game of surprising and impressive length, Nioh 2 does indeed double down on all of them. On top of every weapon type from the previous title returning with new and reworked abilities as well as three stances (each with their own movesets attached to them), Nioh 2 adds a whopping four additional melee weapon types along with new ninjutsu and onmyo magic techniques as well as making both of those categories much more viable for use. The Living Weapon and Guardian Spirit mechanics make a return and has seen a significant expansion, replacing its upgraded moveset per weapon with three unique forms with movesets tied to them based on the classification of the currently equipped spirit (that's Brute, Feral and Phantom classes) each with their own Burst Counter unique to each class of guardian spirit. Burst Counters are a new mechanic that allows the player to interrupt big telegraphed enemy attacks (always associated with a red glow) and create an opening for offense, with the counter using a small portion of the new Anima gauge.

The Anima gauge is also used for the game's most impressive and obvious addition to the gameplay formula with Yokai Abilities, which sees enemies have a chance to drop a Soul Core which can be equipped to your Guardian Spirit (for a total of up to three different cores) and allow you to perform an attack based on the particular enemy you obtained the Soul Core from. There is an impressive number of these Soul Cores in the game, with the majority of enemies being able to drop them, and each comes with an array of passive effects (some of which baked in and inherent to the particular enemy type, some of which are randomized) tied to the Soul Core which adds an astounding number of additional opportunities for customization. Just as well there are the new Demon Scrolls, items obtained starting only on the game's first run of New Game Plus (of which there are 5 total difficulties, each with their own escalating recommended levels as well as featuring remixed and new encounters).

Demon Scrolls drop randomly from enemies, similar to Soul Cores, and give the player a repeatable arena-style fight with predetermined enemies that ultimately turns the Scroll into an equippable item with an increasing number of passive bonuses depending on the tier of rarity of the Scroll. These encounters, repeatable, can be utilized to farm Soul Cores and items from specific enemies but also allow the player to reroll one effect from the Scroll upon subsequent completions of the battle.

It isn't only the gameplay systems that have seen an impressive expansion and upgrade that doubles down on the original's vision. Opening in the middle of the Sengoku as opposed to the tail end of it like in Nioh 1, we are treated to a surprising and impressive character creation suite with lots of room to create your own character or even attempt to recreate one from various media before being launched into its significantly more complex story.

Opening with our protagonist having a chance meeting with a young Kinoshita Tokichiro, one of history's least likely success stories and most fascinating people, the base game storyline of Nioh 2 chronicles his meteoric rise through the rigid social strata of the turbulent Sengoku era Japan in a roughly 60 year period before his eventual fall. The story features a higher number of active characters and even deeper ties to real-world history, as well as many instances of toying with history and verging into alt-history in fun ways and culminates in a surprisingly touching way before picking back up in an awesome epilogue and its three DLC episodes.

It is unafraid to throw gamers headfirst into the complex web of events and does not hold the player's hand through the twists and turns of territorial gains and political allegiance swaps, in part because it offers a surprisingly robust encyclopedia that features entries on each and every character in the game that unlocks subsequent lore entries as you advance through the game for those who would like to really study the events of the game which largely mirror actual history. As an aside the game sees my favorite integration of face scanned actors in all of gaming, which often feels like hollow and distracting celebrity cameos to me. The casting of Naoto Takenaka as Tokichiro is a particular stroke of genius in this regard, as the actor has played the historical figure several times previously in live action and his unique voice, sounding less like an overly polished voice actor and more like a person you could actually talk to in the real world, lends a remarkably genuine human element to an otherwise larger than life character.

Nioh 2's encyclopedia also extends to the game's large variety of enemies, again split between human and the demonic Yokai, with the majority of Yokai based on actual Japanese mythology. These Yokai have their own language that is heard and seen through undecipherable subtitles upon picking up a Soul Core, with enough Soul Cores having the benefit of translating the aforementioned subtitles and providing a little more insight into the particular Yokai.

Speaking of the different enemy types and changes to the game, Nioh 2 features a drastically higher ratio of Yokai enemies than the original game and marks another real divergence point in how it feels to play. Yokai, who's ki must be depleted before there are real guaranteed openings to attack them (with said ki only being able to be reduced through risky attacks you shouldn't fully commit to lest you tempt a swift death), are prone to otherwise unpredictable amounts of hyper armor that ignore the hitstun of your attacks. They most certainly require a different mindset and skillset to battle, and the huge increase in Yokai enemies may deter some players but it does offer a lot more opportunity for various elements of the game to shine. Tonfa in particular, which eventually allow for the player to animation cancel significantly more often than other weapons, provide a really engaging sense of interaction against these lethal enemies.

With the increase in Yokai enemies comes an unavoidable fact: Nioh 2 is considerably harder than the first entry on a base level. Enemies are harder to interact with in favorable manners and are faster, often with wider ranging attacks radiuses and trickier animations. Burst Counters and Yokai Abilities added into the mix also highlight the issue of input bloat from the first title that has only gotten worse with the increase in difficulty and overall game speed. While certainly absolutely more challenging and even challenging in meta ways like input bloat I do not consider this a flaw per se - it is merely a mild growing pain in the long journey towards mastery of the game mechanics that is, of course, part and parcel with the masocore genre. You are meant to be challenged and feel like survival, nevermind comfortability, are impossibilities and that feeling of danger helps sell the story, world and their stakes incredibly well. Mastery over the game's overwhelming number of mechanics and potential interactions is a long road but more satisfying than almost any other game I've had the pleasure of experiencing.

Of course, this being The Complete Edition, Nioh 2 does feature three DLC episodes bringing more story content and side missions that explore other fondly regarded periods of Japanese history and further utilize the characteristics of the masocore genre to make a very salient point about history: there is no utopian past from which we have strayed. Frantic soldiers in the Genpei War lament their helplessness, villages burn and their inhabitants are massacred, and discrimination sets people down the path of bloody revenge. While there may indeed be heroes and heroism, life has and always will be a brutal struggle against the harsh realities of nature as well as against our own worst instincts. These expansions to the base game are each as fascinating and satisfying as the base game, and can feel just as meaty with the content included, which is a real testament to the overall vision and its execution.

While much has been made of Nioh's connections to and divergence from the Soulslike label, its connections to Diablo and Team Ninja's previous outing in the 3D Ninja Gaiden games run far deeper. In fact while many of the references made in the first Nioh have been retained (such as cameos from series regular Muramasa with the same design as in those games as well as Nioh's small treasure chests' designs being directly lifted from the Ninja Gaiden games) there are even more that have been included in Nioh 2. The Tsuchigumo ninja, rival clan to Ninja Gaiden's protagonist clan, see a glorious return to gaming complete with their eponymous Yokai making an appearance. Ninja Gaiden 2 (2008) opens with an enemy throwing hatchets at protagonist Ryu Hayabusa and Nioh 2 manages to include the same hatchets as a new usable weapontype complete with a weapon throwing mechanic for them. The masocore genre existed long before Dark Souls became synonymous with it and there was a time Team Ninja was thought of as being the kings of it in the days of a waning scene for Japanese games, perceived as being well into a decline in the aughts.

The rise of the blockbuster shooter in the mid to late 2000s completely changed the discourse around video games for one simple reason: it introduced so many people to gaming that many of the people talking about games now simply weren't around then, and many who were around then were likely too young to be playing much beyond what completely gripped the entire mainstream gaming scene at the time. A million games came and went while the likes of Gears of War, Halo and Call of Duty monopolized our collective playtime and this time in gaming is poorly remembered because of it. One such example of this is the way in which Dark Souls has become quite so synonymous with 'hard games', to the point that even Crash Bandicoot, returning to prominence thanks to a wonderful remaster of the original trilogy, has often been called "the Dark Souls of platformers" despite its entire existence playing out well before Dark Souls was born.

Nioh's bucking of the monopoly From Software's Dark Souls (along with Sekiro and Elden Ring - perhaps spotlights for another time) have on our perception of and conversation around hard games is significant, and its place among the upper echelon of masocore titles is simply undeniable. Bigger and better in almost every conceivable way than its already fantastic and extremely dense predecessor, Nioh 2 is easily able to keep you busy for several hundred hours provided you're willing to give it that much time. It's also developed with multiplayer in mind in a significantly deeper way from enemy attack animations to the push and pull of the Assist Gauge as well as a reliable scaling down of player stats if there are large discrepancies to keep things relatively on the rails, making for a wonderful experience with up to two other players across the vast majority of its missions.

Nioh 2 is unquestionably worth every minute you're willing to put into it, and likely even more no matter how much you've spent on it. The sheer breadth of the experience is almost too much to describe and encapsulate in this spotlight - it needs to be experienced first hand to be truly understood.

A gem hidden among the stones, Nioh 2 is undoubtedly stardust.

--Ash

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