If you played Nioh, you'll be immediately familiar with how Nioh 2 works. Not meant as a negative, it just means that the game can focus on improving itself instead of trying to reinvent itself to prevent getting stale. The game thankfully knows what it's doing: it doesn't waste much time explaining things it doesn't need to explain, from the get go it gives pretty vital moves that the first game made you unlock, and in general it all feels a bit harder, and much tighter.

That's what Nioh 2 is, a game that knows where it's getting at and what it wants to do. It learns from the first Nioh, which was a game where it felt like the team was throwing a lot of stuff at the wall to see what stuck, and made it more focused on the good stuff (the combat) and makes it less reliant on the RPG/Diablo mechanics. Add actually decent level design, a new parry system that despite first impressions actually changes and adds a lot to the combat, and there isn't much more you could ask out of the game. Maybe more enemy types and better average boss quality? Well, this game has those too.

There's only so many ways I can say "Nioh 2 is great", so I'll just say it one last time: Nioh 2 is great. And probably the best action game of its generation, make of that what you will.