Nioh 2: The Complete Edition

The character customisation is highly intricate with plenty of detailed choices and you can immediately return to the creation studio if you don’t like the way your character looks in the rather different lighting of the game. This ensures that you have a character whose looks and clothing you are completely happy with, and you can even share a code that lets other players use your customisation as their characters.

Being a Yokai brings you powers you would not have as a human, and you can play as both, being Hide, a Shiftling, or half Yokai, half human hybrid. However, playing as a Yokai drains your Anima, so keep an eye on the health bars, and make sure you grab the soul core of any hostile Yokai you defeat. If you get it to a shrine quickly, you will harvest that Yokai’s powers and gain the ability to transform into them for a time.

Elemental Guardian Spirits give you strength against certain element enemies with Burst Counters which are excellently offensive defensive moves, Places called Benevolent Graves bring you AI companions who can help you in battle, or you can summon three real life friends for three-players cooperative multiplayer mode, adding some real life quirkiness to your gameplay.

Unusually for a second game in a series, Nioh2 is actually both the sequel and the prequel to the original, with the first part of gameplay occurring before the events in the original, and the latter portion dealing with subsequent events.

The story begins in the late 1500s, and the player’s character, Hide, befriends a merchant, Tokichiro who is aiming to make his mark on history by selling Amrita (which is mysterious god/ spirit/ demon energy used as an informal currency) and Mumyo, the leader of one of the tribe’s, who has been alerted to strange goings-on and come to sort out the Yokai she holds responsible for everything that has gone wrong...

The antagonist of the game, Kashin Koji, is a mysterious entity who harasses the party at every turn. He is from Hide’s past, and Hide must find out exactly who and what in order to restore harmony to the land. There are plenty of skills to learn, so beginners won’t be tackling the harder levels too soon, but they will enjoy a satisfying growth arc as they master the levels.

One skill to master as quickly as you can is Ki Pulse. At the end of an attack or combo, your stamina gauge turns white and refills quickly. By pressing at exactly the right moment, you can be back to full stamina in a trice, but you must press at the right time – too soon and you’re only half filled, too late and you miss it completely. Should the latter happen, the stamina resets and you must wait for the bar to fill at the regular pace. Practice nabbing it at exactly the moment!

Dark puddles – they are spawned by supernatural enemies – are something of a mixed blessing. They can interfere with your stamina generation but are great for your Anima, so you can Yokai up more easily. Once you have soaked up Yokai benefits, dispel the dark puddle with a Ki Pulse, returning your stamina to normal.

The blacksmithing system allows you to gather enemies fallen gear and transform it into something new and shiny, but this is geared more towards players in higher, harder levels, and can be ignored on your first playthrough, if you want to make rapid progress.

A Word about Weaponry

As expected from a game with a heavy Japanese influence, the weapons are beautifully crafted, diverse and completely, delightfully lethal. You can choose to equip yourself with traditional Japanese weaponry such as kusarigama (sort of ice pick-looking axes, with lengthy chains with which one can get inventively gory) and odachi, (which are basically the Japanese version of a longsword, and traditionally carried by Samurai) right from the character customisation screen.

As you progress, the game offers a rich melee combat experience, with most of the weapons made to be used up close and very personal. There are some distance weapons, such as bows and arrows, shuriken (stealth weapons, like throwing stars) and rifles, but much of the fun of the game lies in getting close enough to use the close combat weapons which include: axes, tonfas, dual blades, spears, split staffs, hand cannons, switchglaives and katana!

But we are not yet done with combat: each weapon behaves differently, so you can experiment a bit, and find out which style and which weapons suit you the most. All of the above-named weapons have light and heavy attacks, with light attacks being the ‘regular’ attack you will use most often, only unleashing the heavy attack when faced with the right circumstances.

As well as these more human weapons, you will also have access to special Yokai weapons that are just as lethal as those mentioned above, but with additional mystic powers alongside their sharpness!

Complete Means Complete!

This edition of Nioh 2 is sold as the ‘Complete Edition’ and it lives up to this name, offering the three major issues of DLC (downloadable content) that have been released since the game’s initial offering. And, of course, you get the main game too!

• The Tengu’s Disciple

• Darkness in the Capital

• The First Samurai