In the documentary Inside Nioh 2, director Fumihiko Yasuda said his primary hope for this duology was that it “will be remembered in the (...) action genre.” I hope so too, because Nioh 2 isn’t just an almost ideal sequel that doubles down on everything that made the first game great, it’s a straight up achievement when it comes to fluidity in combat systems.

Nioh 1 was already good in terms of feeling fluid - the flux system intuitively ties together maintenance of your ki (i.e. stamina), switching weapons and weapons' stances in a way that makes your moveset feel wholistic instead of compartmentalised, and is in general one of those things that makes me think "video games are cool." But Nioh 2's addition of soul cores really takes this to another level. Collecting enemies' soul cores lets you use an attack of theirs yourself, and you can instantly cancel any animation into one of these attacks at any time at the cost of a resource called anima. It's hard to stress just how many possibilities this opens up: you can cancel out of otherwise laggy attacks to be on the assault at all times, dodge or jump in a pinch even when you've run out of ki and string together attacks that you otherwise wouldn't have been able to. Because of all this, weapons which felt relatively limited in the first game (namely axes) also finally feel up to snuff with their peers in terms of options. If all that weren't enough, there are dozens of soul cores to find and endless ways to modify their properties - needless to say build variety is once again off the charts, but to an even greater degree than in the first game. It's absolutely unreal how well everything in Nioh 2 flows together with the addition of this system; it makes so many mechanics constantly feed into each other while trusting you to play a constant balancing act between two separate resources, almost like a game within a game. There's tons to consider in the moment-to-moment and to experiment with.

This is accentuated by the new Dark Realm zones, another addition I'm a big fan of. These spoopy areas not only provide a unique buff to each enemy and boss, which helps the already strong variety between them all, but the buffs they get apply to your versions of their attacks too. Enemies playing by the same rules you do was always one of Nioh's strong points, mainly thanks to the fact that they suffer the same penalties for running out of ki as the player, and this takes that even further - now instead of just sharing a common weakness, you get to enjoy a taste of their power too.

On that note, the Devil Trigger equivalent this time around (Yokai Shift) also feels far less disconnected from the rest of your attacks than that of first game. You can seamlessly switch in and out of it if used in range of an enemy who's run out of ki or if you counter one of their most dangerous attacks (signalled with a red flash), which never stops feeling satisfying to pull off.

What I'm basically saying is that Nioh 2 is mad smooth, but there are other things to like about it too. Every boss has at least one mechanic that's unique to them, which changes the way you approach each of them in a natural way and only very rarely evokes the dreaded g-word (g*mmicky). Returning characters' personalities are more fleshed out. Presentation has seen a serious step up with a lot more fantastical vistas to enjoy (seriously, there's no comparison between Nioh 2's final boss vs. the first game's). Levels tend to have more alternate paths to progress through. The music's now dynamic and changes according to how many enemies you're fighting or with boss phases, which makes it stand out a lot more. And the new character creator's also a strong candidate for the best ever.

I'd also be remiss not to mention how well this game handles its different difficulties; this particular area is where you can really feel Team Ninja's action game chops shine through. Difficulties give enemies & bosses new attacks, switch around which attacks of theirs can or can't be countered, change the completion rewards of every mission in the game, add unique status effects to bosses and mini-bosses, add more build options, new tiers of loot and probably other things I'm forgetting. I'm on my fifth playthrough and it still feels fresh thanks to all this stuff.

If you're into Japanese history, Nioh 2 also uses tidbits of historical trivia in ways that are bananas. My favourite is that the real life Magara Naotaka is said to have continued fighting after losing one of his arms in battle, and his unique boss mechanic in this game is that he regrows a demonic arm which you can temporarily break. Off the top of my head, Toyotomi Hideyoshi's also shown to construct an entire castle in one night, which is how Sunomata Castle was allegedly built according to contemporary reports; what some people mistake for poor pacing is actually attention to detail on Team Ninja's part. A sizeable amount of the weapons & armour sets you can equip are actually real as well - I kind of wish every country had an equivalent of Nioh for this reason, because these are all such cool ways to show off your country's history.

Overall, Nioh 2 isn't quite a perfect sequel (I personally wish it hadn't gotten rid of weapons rebounding off walls, for example), but all things considered? It's close enough. Yasuda is a director to keep an eye on for sure.