You can think of sequels as existing on a sliding scale between refinement and evolution. On one side you have Yakuza, where you’re doing essentially the same things in the same locations with an increasing amount of polish, and on the other end you have Final Fantasy, where every game plays very differently from its predecessors. Nioh 2 has enthusiastically thrown itself onto the refinement side of the scale, with pretty much every system from the first game being polished to a mirror sheen. The amount of quality-of-life features is truly staggering, from tiny things like being able to change the colors for different tiers of equipment rarity, to more immediately useful things like being able to save equipment and skill loadouts to swap between builds instantly. If you just wanted a smoother Nioh experience, this game will probably be ten out of ten for you, but the focus paid to refinement naturally came at the cost any significant evolutions. Personally, I enjoyed how the first game was so different from its contemporary action RPG’s, but Nioh 2’s locations and enemies are essentially copy-pasted from the first game. Although the combat has been refined with new abilities and finer balance, it still has the exact same feel overall. That puts me in a hard spot when it comes to a review, considering that in an “objective” sense, it’s just the first game all over again with additional upgrades and features, but when it comes to the experience of actually playing it, the comparative lack of imagination leads to a markedly lesser experience overall. It gets even more complicated when the question naturally arises of whether it could be recommended to people who haven’t played the first game. And honestly, I couldn’t tell you. The stories are mostly unconnected, but connect at the end, but the fragmented and confusing presentation of the story made it so confusing even for someone who had played the first game that it was nonsensical anyway. I think you could enjoy it without the explanations from the first game, but the difficulty is so high that maybe going in without the experience would be utterly miserable. So, as much as I think this game is extremely well made, I can only recommend it to the narrow subset of players who had played the first game, loved it, and just wanted more without significant changes, and also didn’t care about the story at all. If you’re one of those people and haven’t played it already, go nuts, but for everyone else you should probably wait for a sale.