I was a huge fan of the first Nioh game, a souls-like game with a much deeper combat system and a combination of Diablo-style loot thrown into the mix. The game was surprisingly good, and it came from out of nowhere. It seemed like a niche title and I was actually really surprised when they announced a sequel at E3 2018. Having Platinumed the first game, I was down for another go around.
Which is why is pains me to say that Nioh 2 is not a good experience. Which is interesting to say, because it IS NOT a bad game, but instead it is a bad experience.
You see Nioh 2 takes the "hard game" forumla of it's predecessor and cranks it up to 11. Nioh 2 is so difficult it borders on insanity. Even people who love hard games, would probably find this game frustrating.
In Nioh 2 the deep combat system from Nioh 1 is still in place, but they've added some more additions to the combat to make your options incredibly diverse. Now you have to not only juggle three combat stances (high, med, low), but you also have to remember to be ready to use burst counter. Burst counter is the first new feature in Nioh 2 that the game forces the player to over rely on. Every enemy in the game has a dangerous attack that you know is coming because the enemy will flash red before they use it, these attacks are your que to Burst Counter the enemy to ruin their stamina. Burst Counter is done by pressing R2+circle, a tricky input to have to execute suddenly in a fraction of a second. If you miss this counter, you die. Alternatively you could dodge these deadly attacks, but the vast majority of them go on forever and chase you down so you are more likely be backed into a wall or corner than you are to successfully evade these attacks. Nioh 2 forces you to master this move.
Nioh 2 in general seems to assume you have already mastered combat from a game you might not have played for nearly three years since the first game released January of 2017. While there is a small tutjuorial that teaches you basic button inputs, there is no tutorial level. Nioh 2 does not ease you into the game, the second enemy you fight is a giant bull demon with a club that has a mile long reach and impossible tracking. And the game just wants you to go for it. This demon most likely kills all but the most stubborn of players before they give up and run past it to possibly try later. But the rest of the level is no joke either.
Nioh's combat runs into further problems when you realize that the hit stun and tracking of enemy attacks is just unfair. If you get hit by an enemy, you better hope they have no follow up queued because if they do....you die. If you block an enemy combo, you will run out of stamina and be stunned for 5 seconds. If you are stunned for 5 seconds you die. Many of the demons in the game, have very little recovery time on moves as well. You might evade or block their attacks and move it to get your counter attacks in thinking that they'll have at least a second or two of downtime before their next attack.....this is wrong. Many of the Demons (the human enemies in the game are push overs even the beefier ones are really simple) will hit you with little or even no wind up the moment you dart in to take advantage of their last whiff. Sadly demons are the most common enemy in the game, at least in the first ten stages or so.
Then there are the bosses, bosses in this game are epic, but they are very much not fun to fight. Their damage, and really the damage of everything in the game, is tuned way too high, to the point where you are either perfect, or you are dead. And as you learn the bosses patterns and know how to handle their bullshit, they gain new attacks when under 15% life throwing curveballs at you that are only designed to frustrate and demoralize you as you are hit with something you never saw before right before you claim victory.
Look the moto for Dark Souls games has always been "Tough but Fair". 99% of Dark Souls enemies, obey the same game rules you have to follow. This yields that rush of satisfaction when you finally defeat a boss. Nioh 2 doesn't follow that rule, enemies can attack you even if they don't have stamina (you can see their stamina bar at all times), they have several attacks that track to an insane degree, or attacks with no wind up or warning and often times they have grapples that will teleport you into their grip even if you dive out of the way.
I spend three hours on one of the early bosses in the game (second or third boss), and when I finally beat him I didn't get that joyous rush of victory that I've gotten from every Souls game I've ever played. Instead I felt dread because not only did I know that this was a very early boss, but I knew that the next level would have even more bullshit for me to deal with.
The level design in Nioh 1 was not very good, but at least there were very few sections where they expected you to fight a dangerous enemy without room. Nioh 2 likes to throw some of the most assinine bullshit at you while on a two foot wide path surrounded by death drops. Every aspect of Nioh 2 feels like the developers had only one goal, two make the game damn near impossible. Brutally difficult for the sake of being brutally difficult.
So after 12 hours of playtime and only defeating three main missions and five sub missions (which don't have bosses), I can't take stress of Nioh 2 anymore. In my mind it has crossed the line between challenging and frustrating. While it has moments of enjoyment as you figure enemies out, it never lasts because even a slight screw up can ruin 15-20 minutes of progress. Levels are so difficult it's hard to find joy from the victories you might achieve because you just more brutal difficult crap on the next stage.
If you are interested in Nioh 2, go get Nioh 1 instead and make sure you are a master at that game first, because Nioh 2 will ruin any thoughts you might have had of being good at games.
Which is why is pains me to say that Nioh 2 is not a good experience. Which is interesting to say, because it IS NOT a bad game, but instead it is a bad experience.
You see Nioh 2 takes the "hard game" forumla of it's predecessor and cranks it up to 11. Nioh 2 is so difficult it borders on insanity. Even people who love hard games, would probably find this game frustrating.
In Nioh 2 the deep combat system from Nioh 1 is still in place, but they've added some more additions to the combat to make your options incredibly diverse. Now you have to not only juggle three combat stances (high, med, low), but you also have to remember to be ready to use burst counter. Burst counter is the first new feature in Nioh 2 that the game forces the player to over rely on. Every enemy in the game has a dangerous attack that you know is coming because the enemy will flash red before they use it, these attacks are your que to Burst Counter the enemy to ruin their stamina. Burst Counter is done by pressing R2+circle, a tricky input to have to execute suddenly in a fraction of a second. If you miss this counter, you die. Alternatively you could dodge these deadly attacks, but the vast majority of them go on forever and chase you down so you are more likely be backed into a wall or corner than you are to successfully evade these attacks. Nioh 2 forces you to master this move.
Nioh 2 in general seems to assume you have already mastered combat from a game you might not have played for nearly three years since the first game released January of 2017. While there is a small tutjuorial that teaches you basic button inputs, there is no tutorial level. Nioh 2 does not ease you into the game, the second enemy you fight is a giant bull demon with a club that has a mile long reach and impossible tracking. And the game just wants you to go for it. This demon most likely kills all but the most stubborn of players before they give up and run past it to possibly try later. But the rest of the level is no joke either.
Nioh's combat runs into further problems when you realize that the hit stun and tracking of enemy attacks is just unfair. If you get hit by an enemy, you better hope they have no follow up queued because if they do....you die. If you block an enemy combo, you will run out of stamina and be stunned for 5 seconds. If you are stunned for 5 seconds you die. Many of the demons in the game, have very little recovery time on moves as well. You might evade or block their attacks and move it to get your counter attacks in thinking that they'll have at least a second or two of downtime before their next attack.....this is wrong. Many of the Demons (the human enemies in the game are push overs even the beefier ones are really simple) will hit you with little or even no wind up the moment you dart in to take advantage of their last whiff. Sadly demons are the most common enemy in the game, at least in the first ten stages or so.
Then there are the bosses, bosses in this game are epic, but they are very much not fun to fight. Their damage, and really the damage of everything in the game, is tuned way too high, to the point where you are either perfect, or you are dead. And as you learn the bosses patterns and know how to handle their bullshit, they gain new attacks when under 15% life throwing curveballs at you that are only designed to frustrate and demoralize you as you are hit with something you never saw before right before you claim victory.
Look the moto for Dark Souls games has always been "Tough but Fair". 99% of Dark Souls enemies, obey the same game rules you have to follow. This yields that rush of satisfaction when you finally defeat a boss. Nioh 2 doesn't follow that rule, enemies can attack you even if they don't have stamina (you can see their stamina bar at all times), they have several attacks that track to an insane degree, or attacks with no wind up or warning and often times they have grapples that will teleport you into their grip even if you dive out of the way.
I spend three hours on one of the early bosses in the game (second or third boss), and when I finally beat him I didn't get that joyous rush of victory that I've gotten from every Souls game I've ever played. Instead I felt dread because not only did I know that this was a very early boss, but I knew that the next level would have even more bullshit for me to deal with.
The level design in Nioh 1 was not very good, but at least there were very few sections where they expected you to fight a dangerous enemy without room. Nioh 2 likes to throw some of the most assinine bullshit at you while on a two foot wide path surrounded by death drops. Every aspect of Nioh 2 feels like the developers had only one goal, two make the game damn near impossible. Brutally difficult for the sake of being brutally difficult.
So after 12 hours of playtime and only defeating three main missions and five sub missions (which don't have bosses), I can't take stress of Nioh 2 anymore. In my mind it has crossed the line between challenging and frustrating. While it has moments of enjoyment as you figure enemies out, it never lasts because even a slight screw up can ruin 15-20 minutes of progress. Levels are so difficult it's hard to find joy from the victories you might achieve because you just more brutal difficult crap on the next stage.
If you are interested in Nioh 2, go get Nioh 1 instead and make sure you are a master at that game first, because Nioh 2 will ruin any thoughts you might have had of being good at games.
