#Nioh 2 difficulty levels full#

You’ll often have to go into the Yōkai realm, where almost all color fades away. However, that’s not the only way Nioh 2 wants to blind you. I died so many times simply from not being able to see what I was doing. It also does that annoying thing where it points downward as you get closer to your enemy while locked on. It hates to be near walls, and will gladly make it borderline impossible to see what you’re doing, choosing to instead zoom into objects at weird angles. The way the camera works often reminded me of the initial release of Demon’s Souls. The game wants you to block more than dodge, but that doesn’t do a lot of good when the camera is so close that you can’t see a thing.

They’re often huge, grotesque demons, and Nioh 2 loves to place them in tight areas. Then, I’d immediately switch to high stance and hit them with a powerful combo that often severed their heads from their necks. When dealing with human enemies, I liked to approach in medium stance and parry them with my ōdachi to toss them on their back. You can set different types of moves to each stance, and they’re all good for various situations. Every weapon has three stances - high, medium, and low - that function as different basic move sets. The controls are wonderfully responsive, and there’s a shocking amount of nuance to how you can set your techniques. On the other hand, Nioh 2 has some of the best mechanics you’ll find in any action game. After this game, I don’t want to look at one more title that continues to use the “drop all your experience points when you die” system. And all because I didn’t realize that an enemy will spam grabs repeatedly. It’s hard to overstate the immense frustration of losing tens of thousands of amrita - the currency for killing enemies. Just barely doable, but excruciating all the same. But I found Nioh 2 to often be excruciating to play. Dedicated fans have beaten similar games repeatedly, and likely desire something tougher to sink their teeth into. Granted, this may be intriguing to a lot of Souls-like players. One mission was going well until I died from getting hit by two flaming arrows simultaneously. There are also ranged enemies that can kill you in a few hits, and they’re scattered all over. There’s a sound accompanied by a visual effect that indicates that an enemy is about to gank the ever-loving crap out of you, but the fact remains: anything can and will wreck your shit at a moment’s notice.

#Nioh 2 difficulty levels full#

Some of them will kill you even if you do have full health. Many of these grabs will kill you if you’re not at full health. Almost all of them, down to the weakest creatures, can murder you in just a couple of hits.Īnd the thing that gets my blood boiling more than anything else is the grabs. The enemies here are faster and more aggressive than I can recall seeing in any other game. This game is more like a guy who randomly shoves you over while walking down the street. Souls-likes are largely known for having enemies that do massive amounts of damage, requiring players to navigate battles carefully. Nioh 2 delights itself in finding ways to flatten your corpse into the dirt like roadkill. I don’t mean that in an “I’m whining because I suck” kind of way. There are also trees for magic, ninja items, samurai techniques, and one governing special abilities.

Then there are multiple other skill trees, which you fill as you master various skills. Individual weapons gain familiarity with time as well. Each one grants skill points as they are used, with which you fill the weapon’s unique skill tree. You can pick between a lot of different weapons. To put it simply, Nioh 2 is a remarkable game with a massive amount of depth and deeply rewarding mechanics.

It’s worth mentioning that I didn’t play the first game, so maybe I would have been less flabbergasted had I done so. The game already has 91 reviews on Metacritic, so I’m not going to do that. If I tried to write a normal review of the game, it’d be 2,500 words and I’d break down all of the gameplay mechanics and describe my feelings about all of them. But Nioh 2 wants to take things to new places and throws fair out the fucking window. As a whole, I’d use “exceptionally difficult, but fair” to describe what the subgenre aims for. I found it to be exceptionally difficult, albeit typically fair - save for the last boss battle. The toughest one I have played was Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.