[Review] Nioh 2

[Mark-x]

 

If you like trashing demons with katanas, we have some good news: Nioh 2 is on its way, after Team Ninja's success with the original Nioh in 2017. The bad news is that like Nioh, this new prequel will also be released on PlayStation before making its way to PC. Despite a slightly wonky PC port, I found Nioh to be a fun and fast-paced innovation on the genre we begrudgingly call the "Souls-like." 

Nioh 2 plans to diverge further from that inspiration, with Team Ninja referring to the prequel as an "evolution" of Nioh. From what we know so far there are more weapons, more skills, and lots more yokai. You won't be playing as the blue-eyed Irish samurai William this time around, as the prequel takes place long before his birth. Instead you'll create your own character: a yokai spirit. Here's everything else we know about Nioh 2 ahead of its (eventual, assumed) PC launch.

 

Nioh 2 is coming to Playstation 4 in March of 2020. We don't know the release date for Nioh 2 on PC yet but we can hope that it will be released sometime in 2020 as well. The first Nioh game was released on Playstation 4 in February of 2017 and on PC in November of the same year. It isn't too much of a stretch to imagine that Nioh 2 will follow a similar pattern.

 

Nioh 2, like Nioh, is using an open beta period on PS4 to collect feedback from players. The first open beta for Nioh 2 ran from November 1, 2019 until November 10.

The original Nioh was pushed back from its planned 2016 release to 2017 after feedback from its beta. If the same thing happens with Nioh 2 we'll be waiting even longer for a PC port, but Nioh 2 did already have an alpha playtest. In the blog announcement of Nioh 2's beta, producer Fumihiko Yasuda says, "although there weren’t enough significant changes in the Alpha, we now feel that we have come much closer to reaching our goals." referencing how Team Ninja wanted Nioh 2 to be an "evolution" from Nioh. It sounds like Nioh 2 is already on the right track as of the open beta and won't need the same delays as the original to adapt to feedback.

 

Nioh 2's combat will be similar to Nioh's, but with some key new features. The most obvious changes come from playing as a yokai character. You'll be able to transform into your yoki form and use special skills not available in your human form. You'll also be able to obtain Soul Cores from killed yokai that give you access to their powers if you manage to bring the Core back to a shrine with you before dying. Like Nioh, the prequel will also have high, medium, and low stances for each weapon which slightly change your attacks. 

 

Like Nioh, the prequel will have co-op for players to join one another for an area of the game. This time around, you'll be able to invite two friends to help you along instead of just one. 

Nioh 2 has a much bigger skill array than Nioh. The picture above is just the skills for one weapon: the Kusarigama. Nioh 2 has skill trees for each of its weapons along with skills to unlock for Ninja, Shiftling, Samurai, and Onmyo Magic. 

The weapon skill trees of course focus on unlocking new active and passive skills for that particular weapon. The Ninja skill tree is all about stealth, throwable bombs, and poisons applied to weapons. The Samurai tree gives bonuses to Fortitude and unlocks various Ki pulses. The Shiftling tree is for increasing your yokai form powers. Lastly, the Onmyo Magic tree unlocks the ability to use casting magic through Talismans. 

 

 

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Nice ❤️