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acquired-stardust · 2 months

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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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wisteriafield · 1 year

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Finished my revisit through Nioh 1 before going back to the sequel

First of all, jesus tumblr has changed a lot since I last used it.

Streams can be found here but its roughly 17 and a half hours worth, and thats leaving out many of the side missions

preliminary thoughts will be written below about missions, bosses, and some misc thoughts

There are 20 missions in the base game, including the Prologue and Epilogue, and while one mission is just a cutscene, I’m reminded of my girlfriend saying to me that she’s gonna laugh if Nioh 2 had 20 missions because it really just dresses the game up in 3 different PS2 action games in a dark souls rpg trenchcoat (which is correct).

Any Sub-Missions mentioned are because they have a unique map that isn’t reused in Nioh 2 that is worth mentioning.

Prologue: The Man With the Guardian Spirit

The framing device of the narrative means the actual game starts in London before we head out to Japan. Because William has not technically studied kenjutsu via convenient booklet yet, this means that we’re locked in Mid Stance the entire mission, can’t ki pulse, and gain no amrita, meaning that much of the encounters and mission pace are worthless, as we’re missing 80% of the meat of the game. Just run past everything. The only thing interesting about it is that it contrasts in environment with the whole of the upcoming game’s areas. You get to hear Timothy Watson (Urianger FFXIV: Heavensward-onward) as a disembodied voice (later revealed to be John Dee). You get to hear some hamfisted final thoughts of corpses that barely tie into tutorials for them (prisoners getting tortured saying they’re getting kicked while they’re down being a tutorial for Final Blows is my favorite of them).

A little note is that is because these aren’t Japanese shrines, William uses a different emote when praying at them rather than clasping his hands, a neat little detail. Dying in the Tower of London has a different death message, font ("This Life Has Ended" vs "You Died"), and different loading screens and music.

William is made an Irishman compared to his historical counterpart so Team Ninja could give him a spirit from Celtic Mythology as his partner and justification for immortality (a Merrow named Saorise). She’s cute and speaks entirely in Gaelic.

Boss: Derrick the Executioner

He’s mostly just an axe revenant but bigger. Even when he transforms its like a cross between an Amrita Fiend (that being just a slightly upgraded Yoki). And then you beat him with a cutscene.

But now our Merrow wife was stolen!

KYUSHU REGION

Mission 1: Isle of Demons

One of the biggest criticism of the game amongst its peers is the overuse of villages, forests, and caves. While caves are definitely overused, I personally like villages and forests, and you get a couple of different types of the latter in particular even in this game.

Now the game gives a proper tutorial, although the UI for selecting your loadout is a bit dry, it does give a bit of a description of what to expect from the weapon, which the sequel doesn’t really do.

Right away, the proper opening mission gives us an insight into one of the main ways this game’s level design differs from Dark Souls, in that there are multiple routes that converge to a point that can cater to different levels of strength at a time when you play them and discretion, the shorter path of most resistance and the more sensible route for the first time player, but with the way the NG+ system works in this game, your next rodeo you’ll be prepared to handle it.

In that regard, this is a well designed mission to start with. There are few avenues where you will be ambushed with any level of actual threat. There are a few yokai, but mostly dwellers and any yokai realm enemies are Yoki. You’ll mostly contend with humans who have no super armor on their attacks, so its just a matter of picking your fights and watching your ki using ki pulses. You’ll occasionally run into a ranged enemy from a high perch, but not the kind that lure you into a fight before they engage you (which the game loves to try and goad you into later on).

The village fringes are easy to navigate, and upon seeing the slope leading to the larger building atop a hill guarded by multiple enemies, a player will likely be spurned toward the forest to go around and sneak along the edge of the cliff, before getting to the main village and then to the coast on the other side where the boss awaits.

Boss: Onryoki

Starter boss that is emblematic of a lot of the lackluster concept of many Nioh 1 bosses. Slow, but easy to circle around so it’ll constantly be using its back attacks (which are always meaty spin attacks), the active frames being annoying to work around because enemy damage is absurd that it’ll probably kill you. The boss becomes much more bearable once the chains break at a certain HP%.

They overuse this boss way too much.

We now have access to Novice Ninjutsu, which finaly allows us to backstab unaware enemies, among other things.

Mission 2: Deep in the Shadows

Here we get the much-loathed caves. They introduce a few new enemies (Ninja Yoki, One-eyed Oni, Large Skeletons). Enemies do a lot of ki damage and there’s a dearth of footing, so players will probably fall to their death a lot of they’re not getting ki broken and killed after unless you’re a spacing god like me with Yoki lol.

Boss: Hino Enma

When people talk about preferring Nioh 1, they usually mention this boss as this super hard wall that speaks of the game’s difficulty (and for that type of gamer, means they think the game is better). In reality she largely just has basic attacks that do a lot of ki damage that have a lot of active frames that make her annoying, on top of her paralysis shouts. The most interesting thing is that she hits you with an umbrella sometimes, but her gimmick is the paralysis.

I just activated Living Weapon and beat her up, LW is so silly. She’s not hard, just annoyingly simple.

Afterwards we meet Okatsu, who will be conspicuously absent in the DLCs and sequel likely due to not being able to use Emi Takei’s likeness. She seems like a surrogate for the modern viewer’s values commenting on the insanity of honor-based warrior culture and the amount of death it brings.

Both of the Sub-Missions that take place here involve the Heshikiri Hasebe being lost, come on, man.

Mission 3: The Spirit Stone Slumbers

I’m actually pretty fond of the surface level of Dazaifu Temple. Thankfully the water is only knee high so its not lethal. It’s relatively level but gets players more familiar with ambushes.

Boss: Nue

Thunderbolts do an annoyingly high amount of damage, some come out a bit unfairly quick (particularly when recovering from ki break). As always, any boss that specializes in lightning damage will be annoying because shock status is the worst and slows you down. Trying to hit the the stomach when glowing to ki break it instantly is rather inconsistent.

After beating the Nue we go to the underground section, which i hated a lot more because it was so repetitive I got lost and ran in circles a bit, and the stone sentinels are tedious to fight in the early game due to their high damage and slow vulnerability. There’s a good reason they didn’t bring this enemy back for the sequel. They’re like lesser umi-bozu if they actually had the potential to kill you on their own.

Ginchiyo Tachibana joins us for the last hallway of the mission. She has unique animations posing with her hand by her sword and while moving too, but I don’t believe she has any unique attacks like her husband. You can run back to a previous section to bathe in a hot spring and she’ll be appaled at your lack of manners.

Boss: Muneshige Tachibana (sus)

Kelley’s attempt at pretending to be Japanese, but lacks the capacity for lightning the real deal does (thank god). Still, you can parry most of his attacks except the Tiger Sprint (running Iai), and Quadrisect (Sword’s LW skill but he can do it without LW). This is mostly a fight about watching out for not getting ki broken.

We then get access to Novice Onmyo and Novice Martial Arts, and, if one really wanted to tear their hair out, a proper duel with the real deal, as Muneshige is brutal for a duel mission this early in the game (no wonder Nioh 2 waited till the 3rd region to give duel missions).

CHUGOKU REGION

This is largely a filler region, as William is stalled by the appearance of an Umi-bozu damaging the Liefde preventing him from traveling inland.

Mission 4: The Silver Mine Writhes

This is the closest equivalent to a swamp level, but its also a boring cave level. There are fans that vacuum miasma clouds so you can destroy the rocks generating them.

Boss: Great Centipede

A big Nothing Boss, activate LW and cut it into chunks. I feel like this boss might give trypophobics a bad time.

Mission 5: The Ocean Roars Again

I don’t know how to describe it, but this stage has a lot of Otogi vibes to it, which is funny considering Otogi was a pre-Souls From Software game. The stage is likely to invite a lot of watery deaths in the way of its broken wooden floors blending under the water surface. This is when players need to start considering one way drops in order to reach more parts of the area, as well as having to keep watch for Nurikabe to access blocked areas, rather than their existence just getting a way around an area or encounter.

Here’s a stage where they introduce benefits for full exploration in easing the boss fight. Lighting the 3 main bonfires will automatically kill the adds when they enter boss fight, and can be used after to buff your weapon with fire so you don’t need to use your own buff on it.

The place is likely to wear out its welcome very quickly.

Boss: Umi-bozu

I don’t think you’ll find a single person who likes this boss, and for good reason. Aside from the other valid reasons people hate fighting its lesser ilk, not having fire damage makes this fight unbearably slow. Thankfully, Nioh glues you to floor edges when attacking unlike Dark Souls, but moving closer when the boss is at the edge of the arena will result is slipping between the ground and it, falling into the water. And many of its attacks are large, and painfully slowly telegraphed attacks that do tons of damage, which is a source of frustration on its own. Thankfully, due to the nature of the fight and its arena, it is never seen outside of this mission.

We now have access to Adept Martial Arts, Ninjutsu, and Onmyo.

Sub-Mission: Bridge of Bone

A series of enemy gauntlets taking place on a pretty banged up set of bridges. It’s a rather generic environment, but scenic nonetheless given this is a game about samurai, so bridge fights are good. Maybe it was simply too generic after all and that’s why it didn’t reappear in the sequel. A later sub mission has William fight the revenant of Benkei, recreating his famous fight with Yoshitsune. In higher difficulties, Yoshitsune himself is represented by a Raven Tengu accompanying Benkei. The bridge missions were popular for dropping your revenants for other players to get copies of your gear from you, so it made a nice backdrop to fight them in.

KINKI REGION

Mission 6: Spider Nest Castle

If you didn’t hate spiders for dropping on you over loot, you will now, and you will learn to look up at this point. The place is pretty disgusting to look at overall, and unlike usual yokai realm spawned monsters, the giant spiders that jump out of the glowing amrita nests count as an attack when they land, its pretty sudden to, so try not to get spooked by it. I got pretty tired of having to check all the eggs for tiny spiders since their web attack slows you down so much and also does way too much ki damage.

It’s another mission that rewards exploration, as every Hiragumo Teapot Fragment found will remove a plate of leg armor from the boss. The lower caves being just a spider nest was annoying for all the spiders hiding on the ceilings and the parts of the map worth seeing aren’t really used when they bring the location back in Nioh 2 for side missions and the Underworld.

I never actually found Fragment V... as evidenced by my lack of trophy for collecting all the pieces

Boss: Joro-gumo

The boss itself is pretty standard in having a one-two swipe combo, and then an aoe attack when she curls her legs into herself and tries to spin her thorax into you. It just gets even easier when you can hit any of her legs instead of just her front or back.

Mission 7: Falling Snow

Between this mission and the historical Honnoji mission featured in Nioh 2, it was interesting how much of the architecture remained intact, and how removing the ice blockage makes it a different level that is familiar nonetheless, as certain buildings and features are recognizable landmarks in the two missions. The main gimmick is how the lingering regrets of the boss power ice formations in your way that you have to destroy in order to be able to damage the former. Likewise, in the Honnoji mission in Nioh 2, rather than swinging your weapon at the ice butterflies, you merely touch your hand to them, which speaks to the difference in relationship between the boss in question and the player character in 2 vs William who is an outsider to it all.

Ranmaru Mori is encountered as a NPC Revenant with unique dialogue, although he uses Dual Swords instead of Sword in 2, nor is encountering him an obtuse affair involving a specifically looted Devotional Helm.

Overall, I’m a fan of this stage, it helps that nothing in this game happens in the winter until the DLCs due to the much shorter timeframe of the main story, so its the only time you encounter snow.

Boss: Yuki-onna

This is the first boss I felt had any sort of style, especially with her introduction (I’ve said the way characters are introduced in the impression they leave is a specialty Team Ninja really refines in the sequel). Though her attacks are only marginally more interesting, and more likely will give you a hard time with water damage going through your guard. I’ve found her AoE attack is much harder to dodge and is much larger than most, which will also nearly kill you too, it feels a bit too much even for this game. Oh and she starts the first game’s trend of having half-screen dashing grabs, and it only gets worse from there. She's tough but for all the wrong reasons that would make a satisfying challenge.

Mission 8: The Demon of Mount Hiei

It’s a gloomy, rainy stage, again, like “The Spirit Stone Slumbers.” However, I must confess once again I do have a weakspot for the atmosphere it provides. The paths are largely linear, but the main gimmick is that there are a few strong enemies that regenerate health around giant amrita formations that need to be destroyed to kill them. Damage in bursts like an Iai Quickdraw are ideal here. There are some caves but you’ll be weaving between caves and mountain slopes so it doesn’t get as repetitive.

There’s also another Nue here, as a reference to the mythical feat of Minamoto no Yorimasa slaying a Nue on Mt. Hiei.

Boss: White Tiger (Byakko)

Our funny cat gets owned! I hate this boss largely for how jumpy he is and how many hits his AoE spin is, given how much ki damage it does, trying to block it will result in getting ki broken and then killed.

Sub-Mission: The Disappearing Ranjatai

This map is used for quick missions due to it being a tightly packed square, there are a couple of different ways they arrange objectives here. You can count on them not taking too long which is good. Nioh 2 Sub-Missions are a bit more varied in setup (meanwhile the bathhouse map in this game has them use the same “get 3 keys to spell I-RO-HA” twice. In the same region.) I would’ve liked to see them use this map in 2 over the freaking “dilapidated shrine with underground cave” they use more like in “A Request From Ginchiyo” even in 2.

Mission 9: The Iga Escape

TOKAI REGION

Because this area is so far removed from the rest of the locations in both games, locations simply cannot be reused as a result. You dont really travel as far over the course of nioh 2s story (not having a ship will do that).

If you have a terrible sense of direction this place will probably throw you for a loop. If you end up running around in a circle, Hanzo is scripted to appear to give you a hint, which is probably expected since this is the first time encountering ninja trick doors based on the circular floor marks. Not only that, but there are many trick doors and some are one-way trips. The place feels more like a playground but it’ll definitely be more lethal than one. The brief outdoor segment is probably the part I like most.

Aside from there, there’s a section where you enter a dead end and slash a wall scroll and suddenly the entire room is upside when you step out, which is still pretty impressive to me now. This is another mission that I like save for the fact that there’s just a gratuitous room full of spiders, the same one tha flips upside down.

Boss: Giant Toad

Mostly whatever, but rather obnoxious with the jump slam being awkward to dodge through due to combination of camera obscuring and long active frames (are you getting the pattern here). It is funny seeing Masanari’s father alive in Nioh 2 and he indeed has the same spear after all though. Don’t stand behind him either because his turning attack is also multihit, same shit as White Tiger.

We now have access to Veteran Martial Arts, Ninjutsu, and Onmyo (though you’ll need a decent amount of proficiency in a single weapon, 300k).

Mission 10: Memories of Death Lilies

Really beautiful environment that is sadly obscured by fog, which is part of the problem in-universe. It really shines when you get to the shrine parts, combined with the waterfalls and lycoris flowers surrounding the place. Layout is rather linear, but given how confusing the previous mission was, I daresay it’s welcome.

Boss: Ogress

Kinda like Mergo’s Wet Nurse but even easier because she tends to just have a blind spot right under her face lol. She cries tears that grow lycoris that turn into yokai realm, but its not really a big deal. Really pretty arena though.

Mission 11: The Weight of the World

This one is just a one-time cutscene so William gets a little more motivation and trying to fit some kind of character development (not that its really necessary). This does however mark the point that William starts getting involved in the actual war by consequence of his search, as up to this point we’ve been working around the actual battles fought. It’s greatly contrasted with Nioh 2.

Mission 12: The Defiled Castle

We start this mission crawling through shit, so you better have regen talismans or you’ll have a terrible time trying to use your elixirs. This mission has crystal formations that are mind controlling Tokugawa soldiers, which will incapacitate everyone connected to it (as shown on your compass). While you can kill the soldiers in self defense, and there’s no reward for sparing them, it feels nice to, they’ll thank you as the disappear (which is just them retreating).

Boss: Tadakatsu Honda

This guy tends to be a major asshole about using a high speed thrust that will probably oneshot you or something close to it every time he dodges. Just destroy the 3 crystal formations in the arena and try not to get owned.

You can also skip him entirely by giving the necessary amount of shit balls to a random guy before. It’s... odd.

The following region has some branching paths but it’s also the first time you’re climbing up a castle, it can get a bit disorienting where to go, and more of the same mind control crystals, with getting outnumbered being an easy occurance with the cramped rooms. Having Suppa and Catwalking helps a lot.

Boss: Okatsu

She has an annoying habit of constantly dodging, and her dodges go way farther than anyone else. She can do lunging thrusts off walls and technically gets a kind of air dash to do that when she uses her variation of Living Weapon. Ki breaking her is likely not going to happen due to Nioh 1 AI prioritizing dodging at low ki and her special dodges being that way.

I feel like parts of her attacks were reused for Fist weapons in Nioh 2.

SEKIGAHARA REGION

Mission 13: Immortal Flame

One of my favorite missions in terms of layout. There are multiple approaches throughout the stage and they converge and split again there aren’t really any redundant shortcuts either (which is something the game can be guilty of sometimes, even in 2). All of the fire is kind of an eyesore but the castle itself is beautiful, at least, if you think about it before it was attacked. The stage is just the one i think of the most among nioh 1 maps when it comes to the difference in nioh’s level design vs dark souls.

This stage introduces Amrita Fiends that have spikes to throw, but if you know how to strike the horn they’re not any harder than sword Yoki.

Boss: Magoichi Saika

I actually entered this fight unprepared, due to the room where his objective looks like it might be is just another room, the actual boss room is right above that, so I don’t remember if there’s a shrine nearby there. I guess in a way that’s how he “ambushes” you.

As far as human bosses go, he’s definitely one of the most unique due to how he fights with Yatagarasu instead of just having a Living Weapon mode, even then, his fighting with a musket and swinging his sword more like a cane necessitates a much different moveset. He does have an annoying habit of shooting point blank without even rolling in 1 though.

He also has an easy weakness to shuriken when he’s flying, and human bosses in 1 don’t recover quickly from attacks that ground them like in 2 so you get a free Final Blow.

Mystic Art unlock missions are now available for Weapons, you’ll need 500k proficiency for each type.

Mission 14: Sekigahara

The first section is pretty standard, but brief. While it is foggy, this is actually historically true as well and what contributed to a large amount of tension in the decisive battle between the Western and Eastern armies.

Boss: Otani Yoshitsugu

Rather unique in that he has traits of a youkai boss and human boss both. You can clearly see how his attacks are inspired by Dual Sword skills but not exactly the same, which is more fun that just being exactly the same.

However, he’s a lot easier than I remember.

With Tokugawa soldiers’ morale increased, they rush into the field, going with them will remind you that this game is not Samurai Warriors and you will be shot to death with little glory while trying to clash swords with that other guy.

The two main routes, then, are running upstream or hiding in the abandoned village buildings on the lower end of the map.

Boss: Sakon Shima

RIP Keiji Fujiwara, but this guy is a real dick to fight, as expected of an enemy with a lightning Guardian Spirit. His special attack involves launching you off the ground which makes it impossible to avoid the followup. It’s pretty sudden too, and it’ll oneshot.

Unfortunately, they patched all of the Guardian Spirit skills that can launch enemies like Mizuchi or Daiba-washi to do the same to him.

He comes back in a Sub-Mission in the 3rd DLC with his straw hat as “Mysterious Samurai” but with Mitsunari’s Izuna Guardian Spirit.

Mission 15: The Source of Evil

Sekigahara but Fucked Up(TM), now instead of predominantly human enemies its all yokai. You need to talk to Tenkai to get the purifying stakes for the red amrita crystals, which create permanent yokai realm zones (possibly even more intense in their effects) and act as Biwa Boku-boku that will automatically summon any revenants inside the red zones when approached. When purified, there are now zones that give a lot of buffs relating to the Amrita Gauge, allowing frequent use of Living Weapon.

Oh, and the boss will occasionally try to blast you. This gets pretty annoying. The layout isn’t really anything special overall.

Boss: Gasha-Dokuro

My first attempt, something happened and the boss became misaligned when knocked down and I couldn’t hit its face, that was weird and bothersome because I wasn’t sure what to do.

Not terribly difficult, but not fun either despite having more uses of LW from the purified auras (if you did do that). Break the feet one each and have a go at its face, if you have to break the hands things get even more tedious. Sometimes its hands will come from offscreen and oneshot you while youre focused on the feet, yaaaayyy.

OMI REGION

Mission 16: A Defiled Holy Mountain

Also a contender for one of the best maps in the game, in terms of design and atmosphere. It has a very Jade Cocoon-esque quality to it. The mountains can get tiresome to look at but the forest parths and general greenery really do contribute to the concept of Mt. Ibuki being a source of purity. There’s many different winding paths, and you find many officers on the run being cutdown by bandits. This is the first time (and one of the few times in general) that you see NPC graves appearing in real time immediately after someone is killed. You even do that to another person yourself, with the message “Cut down by William” as the cause of death.

Boss: Mitsunari Ishida

He has some stylish attacks but he’s wrapped up in such an annoying package. Also the first boss that has a tendency to activate LW as soon as you knock him out of it, which is a continuing trend. Of note are his two grabs which are pretty fast, one using his Guardian Spirit Izuna (which does an Izuna Drop), the other being a leaping rush that is bound to get someone.

He also has an attack that charges up and then slashes all around him with wind waves, but it’s not really apparently what direction to expect which slashes which make it an utter annoyance considering guarding it will get you blustered by wind damage, and then rocks will fall from the roof after too.

Mystic Art unlock missions are now available for Ninjutsu and Onmyo. You can finally remove cast animations from buffs. You should be leveling both Dexterity and Magic so the 20 stat requirement to do these shouldn’t matter.

Mission 17: The Samurai from Sawayama

What an utterly confusing stage, it’s far too easy to get lost in here, especially if you fall through the trapdoors and end up in the spider filled corpse pits. Easily my most loathed stage. The stage is entirely indoors and its not particularly interesting to look at either.

Boss: Obsidian Samurai (Yasuke)

The good thing is that this boss is very enjoyable, moreso being able to spar with him more easily in Nioh 2. An oddly high amount of his attacks are susceptible to being parried though. He relies less on form and will often just punch or kick you raw in between strikes and overall has a great “give and take” pace, despite not having a fantastical concept to design attacks around, just that he’s got a big axe and tachi, and a mean haymaker.

Mission 18: The Demon King Revealed

Right off the bat we’re assisted by Hanzo and Okatsu, so you can tell the game isn’t going to pull any punches. Painfully so, Nioh 1 didn’t really quite figure out how to balance encounters with NPC allies very well, especially in the rare occasions you get two. You’ll often fight 3 powerful yokai at once who will steamroll your allies and turning into a well greased deathball makes it hard for you to get into as well. There’s at least 3 instances of this, and there are multiple waves of it in each too.

Upon approaching the castle proper after being separated from your allies, on my very first playthrough I was taking in the sight that I didn’t notice the path crumbling and fell to my death, but thankfully, they just put me and my grave at the head end of the approach that I was supposed to run to.

Once we get to Azuchi Castle proper, it turns into a mega man-esque boss rush of 4 earlier yokai bosses, Onryoki, Hino Enma, Nue, and Joro-gumo. Given you have a chance to refresh resources between each fight, it’s not particularly difficult, and there’s no real justification for it either, so it was really just put in to pad the stage, the elevator just automatically activates once that’s cleared.

Boss: Nobunaga Oda

The entire game was building up to this moment, but Nobunaga himself doesn’t really want to be here, so he fights in a somewhat familiar way, taking bits from Mitsunari and Muneshige, while using Tengen Kujaku’s 3 different elemental forms by cycling through a LW with each, giving him different capabilities in each.

He likes to float around a lot at high speed too, which is a bit annoying as he has two different post game fights in which he features as one of the bosses fought alongside another. Despite being feared and being rather powerful in-universe, you can parry him in some ways all the same.

You won’t get a proper boss fight with him alone though, as his fight will end before depleting his HP.

Boss: Kelley

Immediately after, we fight Kelley. Who, surprise, has a dashing grab attack! He’s also one of the only bosses that really has a counter attack, and an annoying one that he likes to spam a lot. He also likes to teleport around to make you chase him. He’s not supposed to have a lot of HP as the tradeoff I guess?

Boss: Yamata-no-Orochi

And then after Kelley he immediately invokes the Yamata-no-Orochi. Thankfully, dying here does not make you repeat Kelley. The one saving grace of this fight is that it’s impossible to fall off the castle during it, so you mostly just need to focusing on reading the snakehead’s attacks. Their breath attacks don’t have a great telegraph, so they’ll probably damage through guard.

Fight one head, then two, and then the last of them show up and open the arena up. By goading them into breaking the amrita structures, they overload and collapse, getting an easy kill on one of them. Once there’s only one head left, the last one will power up, but it’s not that much different. It’s a pretty tedious fight overall, and would probably have made for a more epic boss in a regular RPG rather than an action game. This is something that is greatly rectified with the sequel’s choice of final boss.

Divine rarity gear is now unlocked. Saorise is finally returned to us! She specializes in boosting Amrita Gauge gain, but only physically summoning her with Moment Talismans (retranslated to Fleeting Talismans in 2) or Guardian Spirit Talismans.

Roll credits. But there’s stll something we have to do...

Epilogue: The Queen’s Eyes

Back to the Tower of London, we essentially run the reverse path that we did to escape, which was oddly confusing due to the placement of the two staircases looking similar. Instead of running back to the cells, we find the underground alchemy lab, seeing yokai being cultivated in amrita tanks, and up ahead...

Boss: Kelley Clones

In-game prestige points label this encounter as a boss fight despite lack of boss health bars, but everyone is inclined to agree, as you are essentially fighting 3 (naked) Kelleys at once, and things will get hairy very quickly if you’re not on top of it. You can eliminate the first one crashing out of the tank, but two at once is still an endeavor so it’s best to just leave it to LW, like many things in this game.

Boss: Hundred Eyes

John Dee turns his lab into an arena with dinosaur bones hanging around or something. There’s a lot of Amrita. The boss is rather unconventional in that he doesn’t have as many physical attacks (and bosses don’t have that many different attacks in this game in general). It instead turns into something like bullet hell lite, with many eye drones shooting lasers at you that inflict confusion directly rather than relying on inflicting two elemental debuffs at once. The drones fill a lot of amrita gauge when destroyed so the fight leans into using a lot of LW. He can kill you easily, but the fight isn’t difficult either

POST-GAME MISSIONS

Sub Mission: A Meeting on the Other Shore, The Return of the Gourd

Nioh 1s idea of endgame challenges is throwing 2-3 bosses that were clearly not designed to be fought together and make you figure it out (the answer is always LW). Sometimes preceded by an enemy gauntlet you have to clear each attempt too. Its bad. Really bad.

Key examples are fighting Yuki-onna and Nobunaga together, a gauntlet followed by Obsidian Samurai and Nobunaga, fighting Tadakatsu Honda and Muneshige Tachibana, Hanzo amd Okatsu, a gauntlet of ninjas before fighting Hanzo and Giant Toad, the spear and sword dojo masters. Even the mission that lets you duel Yoshitsugu and Mitsunari will have the latter spawn in if you take too long (and on higher difficulties he comes with an asshole shooting cannons at you).

If that sounds overkill, you would be right. Not only that, but the vital "Yasakani Magatama" accessory that reduces set requirements by 1 is the only guaranteed way to get it by doing Return of the Gourd on NG+

DRAGON OF THE NORTH (DLC1)

This being Team Ninjas first go at releasing DLC there was a rather infamous difficulty spike due to disconnect between them expecting players to have been continually powering themselves up while waiting for dlc to drop which leaves a late player lacking that intermittent time.

As a result, I took a bit of time offstream to find pieces to finish the Dragon Ninja set (which technically wasnt available until dlc3, but nevertheless was necessary, and i was sick of using warrior of the west armor). When completing 7 pieces, True Dragon Sword is activated, reflecting in the swords model having the magatama inserted in thr hilt with a light glow, just like in the xbox ninja gaiden games.

Mission 19: Yokai Country

Its a beautiful snowy forest that gives way to gentle streams, leading to a deep valley and a small village hidden within. It is awfully reminiscent of the good parts of DS3s Road of Sacrifices. Its a much needed change of scenery.

DLC introduces new enemy types the game really needs but uses them often as a result. Red Kappa are combat versions of their green normal types that have paralysis instead of water on their claws. Makes it easier for them to fist your anus. Namahage are a snowier and less predictable foe but equivalent to Yoki. Rokurokubi are slow but powerful foes that rarely can be pulled away from a spot, making you come to them. They are noticably more healthy in nioh 2. You often have to weave in and out because they will often do their aoe grab. Nioh 2 rokurokubi emit yokai mist even before they are revealed compared to the original game.

Boss: Date Shigezane

His deformation makes for more interesting attacks, as a centipede for an arm makes him toss blades lodged inside it or swing in different ways whether he holds his odachi in his human hand or yokai hand. However, this dlc has a nasty pattern of making bosses that swing incredibly fast with high ki damage that will often just kill you before you realize what happened. So once again a cool boss concept is ruined by the execution.

Mission 20: The One-Eyed Dragon’s Castle

As noted in the stages loading screen, Aoba Castle is notable for lacking a castle keep, so the confusing floorplans of Edo, Hifumi, and Sawayama Castle are removed. There are many murder holes for Date musketeers to fire at you from, which is the main stage gimmick. Thankfully they are large enough for you to shoot back at them. Progressing inward the level opens up and encourages you to explore at the urging of Nekomata foreshadowing how there are 3 towers that seem to cover each other...

Boss: Shigenaga Katakura

The boss himself is largely just an axe revenant that uses ninjutsu traps. The main gimmick is that his introduction is not a cutscene, and can be interrupted with him calling you out for it, but you get a trophy for letting him introduce himself. He will then order any men you werent thorough in cleaning out to open fire on you from all directions. If you kill a cannon Yoki in each tower they will permanently despawn.

Afterwards is a brief but beautiful garden trip before we get to a real doozy.

Boss: Masamune Date

A scenic moonlight drop in an arena noted to be similar to Kyoto's Kiyomizudera. You wont have time to enjoy it because Masamune will rip you a new one instantly, with a fast and subtle full screen grab, a large elemental aoe or tons of area denial depending on which guardian spirit hes using. He alternates between using LW between both, so youll have little time to rest, and often shoots flurries of sword beams at you. Rather than giving him many different attacks, they're reflective of the players moves but much faster and shooting sword beams everywhere, its quite disappointing for a man whose clan name would later be defined by his excessive flair.

Mission 21: Spirit Stone Huntress

Picking up immediately from the previous boss arena, this mission is literally only a boss fight, but the balcony is a popular place for people to leave revenants.

Boss: Maria

She has some of the standard combos you would expect from her rapier style, but her being from Spain with a rapier means that you get different kinds of attacks to deal with, so at least she has that over the other bosses in this dlc. She also uses alchemy for spell effects and a mimicry of living weapon, and loves to dash around to create a sense of a frantic pace, though it can vary whether the effect succeeded or not, i personally enjoy the fight but the damage scaling with higher difficulties kills the intended pace which makes it more frustrating, which is a recurring issue with the original game.

Sub-Mission: A Gilded Deception

A exploration mission about fighting revenants of fujitive Minamoto warriors. A brief section of this map is cleverly reused in Nioh 2s The Tengu's Disciple DLC.

DEFIANT HONOR (DLC2)

Due to the emphasis of Yukimura Sanada's refusal to use amrita, the only new enemy type are Ninken, ninja dogs, which are every bit as troublesome as it sounds.

Mission 22: The Siege of Osaka (Winter)

The Winter siege is never covered in Samurai Warriors, so the impenetrability of the Sanadamaru is never really covered. Most of the stage is running from cover to trenches from horrendous waves of flaming arrows and later on cannons that force you to stay on the move as they destroy your cover. Somehow you find a village that hasnt been leveled by the war. This is one of the weaker stages of the dlcs.

Boss: Sasuke Sarutobi

This was the only boss I had attempted to fight on Way of the Strong (NG+) rather than the default difficulty because i had worried I was doing too much damage, so this fight was particularly frustrating and caused me to revert difficulty after.

Sasuke has guns in his tonfas that you can get yourself. Once again, he has a very fast full screen grab with very little telegraph in terms of both startup and lack of exaggerated motion. One is like the lion combo from Naruto and the other just has him dempsey roll you lmao. He has frustratingly good tracking for his combos lengths and high speed and is a rather large pain in the ass rather than enjoyable because of how his speed is expressed in the fight.

Mission 23: Scion of Virtue

Starts in some rather bland caves underneath the Sanadamaru, you encounter 9 of the 10 Sanada Braves (due to Sasuke being the only proper boss fight). Each of them are slightly more skilled than the average revenant but vulnerable in all the same ways as them, if they arent setting up a trap or ambush involving snipers or something. The area itself is a rather tightly packed circle with a raised outer rampart that often has gunners and dense enemy layouts requiring careful engagement.

Boss: Yukimura Sanada

Yukimura reveals that not only does he fight with his own Qilin guardian spirit, he also inherited his father in law's, Janomecho. Qilin gives him familiar LW spear attacks and allows him to use his pistol (literally the only character in the duology that has one, I wish they made it a new ranged weapon type in 2) letting him charge it for explosive shots like devil may cry.

When he uses Janomecho, he floats off the ground like Yoshitsugu and gains a new moveset. Both of these are really cool but he has an annoying tendency to use his large diving aoe thats hard to dodge in Janomecho instead of his interesting attacks, but he's otherwise one of the better bosses in the original game overall.

Sub-Mission: Ganryu

If you finished the Dual Sword mystic art challenge, Yoshiteru Ashikaga gives you a mission to rescue a younger Takezo Shinmen, better known as Musashi Miyamoto back in Sekigahara, its something of a historical myth that he was present there, though highly unlikely. Clearing that will allow a special duel mission here, complete with a unique beach thats unused elsewhere.

Boss: Kojiro Sasaki

Although he is susceptible to reversals and parries like many human enemies, he mixes up a lot of the odachi moveset to create something unique thats still quite enjoyable to fight, and for being a hidden optional boss that is largely a remixed odachi warrior being one of my favorite bosses in this game that says a lot. Unfortunately Shinichiro Miki only voices Yukimura and doesnt voice a Kojiro for a 3rd time.

Many of his moves became available for odachi in the sequel, barring ones based on the LW moves.

BLOODSHED’S END (DLC3)

Mission 24: The Sanada’s Resolve

Half a year has passed, and the ceasefire required Osaka Castle fill its moats and decommission the Sanadamaru, when war breaks out again, the new fortifications are set on a mountain slope, with cannons taking shots. Its a very cramped and dense level, and certain cannons can be baited into destroying their own towers and revealing some extra places. You can also activate some cannons on your own.

The 9 Sanada Braves return but this time they are killed for good here, each with their own parting words and a grave immediately spawning at their feet by Williams hands where you can summom them and kill them again lol. These are the last human enemies youll fight in the main story. Its a pretty straightforward stage but nothing damning about it so its enjoyable.

Boss: Yukimura Sanada, Sasuke Sarutobi

That's right, its a rematch with Yukimura! But this time theres less room and when he gets down to 30%, Sasuke jumps in to assist, turning this fight into a sheer dps race (if you didnt get the memo, that means use LW) to prevent the situation from becoming unwinnable.

Mission 25: Resentment Unleashed

Introducing the last new enemy type, the Magatsu Warrior, a glass cannon elite enemy type that has 4 arms that is best fought by trying to break its extra amrita arms between its flurry of strikes. Its main weakness is lack of tracking, so it is mostly checking to see if players can keep their cool and not panic backwards dodging.

This stage is mostly a series of gauntlets fighting almost exclusively elite type yokai like cannon and ninja yoki with the magatsu warriors, fighting alongside Masamune and Shigezane Date (who has been purified of the centipede deformations). With the boss of the stage blasting you from out of reach.

In that regard, its a bit of a pain.

Boss: Onmoraki

The biggest whatever boss ever. Itll most likely just be spinning around from you being behind it all the time and hardly has any unique traits.

Mission 26: The Last Samurai

This stage is a bit more linear than i remember. But the large chunk of it is fighting elite yokai. There are amrita formations that continually spawn elite enemies while also recovering damage dealt to it quickly, so in order to avoid getting overwhelmed any encounter with these is best dealt with LW, as usual. The amrita roots that encircle the castle feel a bit like hair, or perhaps tails...

There are ghost encounters of Yoshitsugu Otani and Mitsunari Ishida on two separate floors.

Boss: Hideyori Toyotomi

On my very first playthrough, i mostly wrote him off as a joke because i killed him quickly without much trouble, but hes actually quite an impressive fighter for being a coddled child (and also an amrita homunculus). On higher difficulties he no doubt becomes the same issues as many other bosses, since he also loves to shoot sword beams. He switches between a single and dual sword style and at low hp, changes classification to yokai, which also makes him immune to counters (you can still parry him with backwave though, odd). Hes got a surprising amount of flair and is at least a little impressive to watch, though more of an annoyance to fight if you dont push momentum on him.

Afterwards, Yukimura joins you with all of his boss capabilities as you fight one last gauntlet of yokai and revenants while Yukimura expresses his regrets, passing Janomecho to you.

Boss: Nine-Tails

Because youre aided by Yukimura, this fight is not particularly challenging. Using the whole fox shape also doesnt make many of her attacks very interesting. Unfortunately I just dont have much to say about her despite being the final boss of the dlc storyline.

Sub-Mission: A Warrior of Keen Judgment

While not a unique map, I enjoy this sub mission in particular due to it being a remix of the first regions "A Request From Ginchiyo" but with her husband Muneshige now. He is just as strong as he was, and after the battle of Sekigahara, he is now allied with the Tokugawa rather than at odds. Like the earlier mission, the objective is found in one of 3 random marked chests. With each one thats empty, he speaks more about his relationships, and sweetly reminisces about his late wife and fighting alongside her.

Sub-Mission: The Master Ninja

After completing The Last Samurai, we get a mysterious message from the Hayabusa clan. This was a huge surprise, as Ninja Gaiden was the last thing expected in this game at the time.

The arena of choice is evocative of the grass plain seen in the intro of the very first Ninja Gaiden on NES.

Boss: Jin Hayabusa

Jin is a completely different beast from any human fought before. His skills are taken straight out of Ninja Gaiden while having nothing in common in anything else in the game. His Dragon Sword is blindingly fast, high damage and ki damage, including the infamous Flying Swallow that was notoriously overpowered in the original xbox release. He has actual Ninpo which is better than Onmyo despite being a different school, and throws shuriken much faster and damaging than yours ever will. If he switches to Kusarigama though then his moveset is closer to the player's. Presumably because the only weapon similar is the Vigoorian Flails but theres no gama on those.

Despite this, the nostalgia factor makes this one of the most enjoyable fights for me, as it is expressly a matter of overcoming someone who is undoubtedly more overpowered than you.

His boss theme reuses Genshins Theme from Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, and has a unique mission clear tune.

MISC THOUGHTS

Found 146/225 Kodama without Kodama Sensor.

Due to the lack of enemy variety in this game, when they introduce a new enemy type they tend to really wear it out fast by making every yokai realm enemy that new one.

Some regular soldiers and ninja have Odachi and Tonfa in the base game missions on the normal difficulty, I don’t know if this is affected by me having the DLC or not because I don’t remember if there were still Odachi and Tonfa enemies even before I bought the DLCs.

Most shrines nearest to bosses still require a bit of running to get to the boss unlike 2 where most of them are free of enemies on the way.

There’s at least 3 different maps that are some flavor of “underground onmyoji shrine.”

Grabs are inconsistent in whether they get the grey smoke to indicate its a grab, and there’s no specific SFX to indicate one like in 2.

Ki consumption differences in A rank Agility vs B rank is a lot more noticable in this game, and mastering ki pulse flux is much more important in this game when yokai skills in nioh 2 allow for ki recovery while attacking. When you have Agility A suddenly you can attack much more.

Much of the game has to be balanced around the sheer power of Living Weapon, to its detriment.

Boss HP bars do not display ki, which really threw me for a loop even though ki damage isn’t as important in Nioh 1, especially with human enemies prioritizing avoiding getting ki broken and backpedaling a lot more when they’re at risk.

While a chunky LW bar is harder to get, it is surprisingly easy to charge up the amrita gauge between uses.

Casting spells and buffs is unbearably slow but being able to cast buffs with no animation was a bit much. The duration of spells is also annoyingly much shorter than I remember. Cycling through the item shortcuts in one direction is also more annoying than I remember.

Weapon movesets feel barebones now even with LW compared to the skills added in the sequel.

I feel the first dlc had the best level design, but more of the worst bosses. The 2nd dlc was kind of a slump out of all of them but Yukimura is the best boss among the dlcs. The 3rd was pretty average in a lot of respects but had a nice surprise with Jin Hayabusa.

While some levels really suck, a good number of them still feel good to play, and the overall gameplay is fine, just that the bosses by large were lacking and numbers really lacked proper balancing.

Looking forward to revisiting Nioh 2 from a fresh save before the release of Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty!

#nioh

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