If you’ve not played Nioh or Nioh 2 before, the Ki pulse system is like active reload in a shooter and it plays a huge part in combat here, as managing your Ki properly can be the deciding factor in you taking down that difficult enemy or being sent back to the last shrine to retry. In Nioh 2, the action feels like a rhythmic experience thanks to the Ki pulse system, requiring that you master the timing in general. In Nioh 2, you play as a “shiftling” who is half-yokai and half-human, and this allows for a lot of strategising during the combat. While the story in Nioh 2 isn’t anything amazing, it gets the job done and has good production values. While the tools offered aren’t as great as in Code Vein, Nioh 2 does a great job overall, and offers a welcome change from the original. The amount of freedom and customisation you get in Nioh 2 begins right from the character creation. Instead of playing as Irish sailor William Adams, you can create your own character. Nioh 2 is a prequel to the original game and it is set in the 1500s. Over the last month, I’ve been playing Nioh 2 on PC through Nioh 2 Complete Edition and it has been awesome to revisit the game and play the DLC in a PC conversion that is a lot better than the original Nioh port on PC. We featured it as one of the best games of 2020.

When Nioh 2 finally released on PS4 last year, it was one of the biggest surprises of the year for me with its excellent combat, enhancements over the original, player freedom, loot system, and more.

Fast forward to the initial reveal of Nioh 2 for PS4, and I was optimistic for said flaws to be addressed.

After being in development for a while, Nioh delivered in spades on PS4 as a great action RPG that had a few flaws. While not obvious initially, the original Nioh is basically an evolution of Team Ninja’s excellent Ninja Gaiden II.

Nioh complete edition review