History YMMV / Nioh2

* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: *Nioh 2* greatly expands the collection of boss themes, delivering a grand cinematic score.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yFLfVA7Stk Imagawa Yoshimoto]], a 3-piece theme that's fast and frantic, giving a taste of human bosses.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhhs-n1qKsw Azai Nagamasa]], a theme utilizing a OneWomanWail with heavy strings to accompany a tragic, inevitable duel.
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MeHaP7pTtg Daigo Temple]] marks the end to a decades-long journey, reprising elements of "Soaring" as Hide finds pieces of Tokichiro's buried conscience reflecting on their distant friendship

** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L80LAlDSwMU Otakemaru]], the final boss, builds plenty of tension before bursting out in the final phases of the fight for a truly epic experience

** [[spoiler: Nightmare Bringer]] the Final form of [[spoiler: Otakemaru]], is a fittingly monstrous true Final Boss for Nioh 2's DLC, and the Final boss of the series, a hulking monstrosity of a Centaur esque demon that has all the powers of his original form and even more difficult tactics to fight against.

* EvilIsSexy: The boss Kasha is a CuteMonsterGirl with...*ahem* large wheels that are nearly exposed.

* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic: Any good traits that Tokichiro is eventually erased as his tenure as Hideyoshi, yet the game tries to paint him as [[spoiler: a victim of possession.]] Problem is, he started showing signs of cruelty long before [[spoiler: Otakemaru comes in and possesses him]].

* GameBreaker: Despite almost eliminating all the broken techniques from the previous game, Nioh 2 comes with ones that make the last game's SoLastSeason :
** The [[spoiler: Otakemaru]] Soul Core ability allows you rain down [[spoiler:his FireIceAndLightning blades from the sky like its the freaking [[VisualNovel/FateStayNight Unlimited Blade Works]] on your enemies.]] The catch is that it's supposed to be avoidable if you know how to do so like in his boss fight. But on Giant Bosses and groups of enemies, its like summoning the damn wrath of god, shredding through HP like its nothing, even on Otakemaru himself. In fact, it was so overpowered, the developers nerfed it considerably in Version 1.08, making it overwhelming, but not as much, though its still a BraggingRightsReward in spite of this on larger bosses.
** Similarity, while they have since been nerfed, bare-handed builds were once among the strongest in the game, capable of using a talisman of the fist to do thousands of points of damage with each strike.
** Ninjutsu builds. Despite being a class half dedicated to consumables, no other build has such sheer damage output to the point where you can forgoe elemental weaknesses and strategies to just pelt higher-level yokai and ''bosses'' to death in roughly 5-10 seconds with nothing but Kunai and Shuriken, all while staying an incredibly safe distance away. While the damage has been nerfed since the game first came out, it's really only lengthened that speed to about 10-20 seconds instead.
** Ninjutsu feathers in particular can just nuke any enemy in the right circumstances, all it requires is breaking their Ki first. While their long cast time would normally be a problem, one can simply use a Yokai ability or Burst Counter to cancel the recovery. It should be noted that speedrunners have a separate category for banning the use of these jutsus, compared to any of the other game breakers listed here.
** On the Onmyo side of things, Lightning-type builds focused on enchanting weapons, lightning shots, and slow talismans. This is because most enemies you encounter Don't have any resistance to lightning, and even if they do, electric damage in general afflicts enemies with the slow status effect. Add in the aforementioned slow talismans which stack with the lightning debuff, and not only are you doing absurd amounts of damage up-close, but Bosses and Yokai you're wailing on will be moving so slowly that it's almost impossible for them to even touch you before you've shaved down their health to nothing.
*** The high-level "Familiar" spells create floating orbs around the caster that guarantee inflicting their respective status effects in a single touch as long as they aren't outright immune to it, only requiring them to move next to an enemy to hit them with it. It is an extremely fast and safe way to work with Confusion.
** And of course, Sloth Talismans are still present in this game. While heavily nerfed from the first game, they can still completely trivialize Yokai and Boss encounters as long as you've become accustomed to the game mechanics due to the sheer breathing room they give you.
*** Rare endgame accessory effects can allow players to apply Sloth with ''any ninjutsu or onmyo magic'' depending on which bonus they have, negating any resistance build-up throughout the fight the regular talismans would eventually run into.
** In terms of weapons, expect to see most players Wielding either the "Seething Dragon" Switchglaive or the "Blood Spider Blade" Odachi. Both of these are sentient weapons that drop fairly early, have tons of perks attached to them, and often drop frequently after being first obtained. Because of the variety of perks and how you can transfer them to duplicates with higher sentience, along with their spike in damage output after a few kills thanks to said sentience, these two weapons can easily allow you to just continuously reforge them well until the final boss since most of the time these two weapons will outdamage everything else you pick up regardless of rarity.
** Shuten Doji's Club is a Yokai Weapon with the ability to generate Amrita with each Strong Attack. By itself this is fairly minor, but it reaches gamebreaker level when combined with gear that provides buffs upon gaining Amrita. For an example, if you have Shuten Doji's Mask, the Guardian Spirit Tengen Kujaku, and the Soul Cores for Shuten Doji and Kasha, it is possible to activate ''four buffs at once'' with a single Strong Attack in Low Stance! The mask grants an attack buff, Tengen Kujaku grants a Ki recovery buff in Low Stance, Shuten Doji's Soul Core grants a defense buff, and Kasha's Soul Core grants a movement speed buff.
** The Odachi's "Bolting Boar" skill is unique in that it is a parry that works on a variety of Yokai's attacks as well as humans'. While its damage is low, it will stop Yokai three times Hide's size dead in their tracks onto the ground, and because it's a Timely Guard parry, there's little risk in the player throwing their guard up early. Once the player masters the timing for it, they can completely dismantle the threat of certain Yokai and cut them down to size at their own leisure. Strangely, using Bolting Boar on an Ippon-Datara allows the player to follow up with a Final Blow unlike any other enemy, which sweeps them up that much faster.
** Fists are ''hilariously'' overtuned, to begin with, its passive allows it to cancel skills and basic attacks into each other seamlessly, providing smoother stance switching than both the Odachi and Switchglaive and uncontested offensive pressure. Most human enemies are simply unable to escape the combos players can do with them before having their Ki broken, let alone fight back. Their unique passive also bizarrely ends up giving Fists the best range, as they can close and distance their opponents make within the same breath that other weapons would have to stop and sprint toward them for. The amount of hits per second also make Fists the best to apply status ailments. Defensively, the "Opportunist" skill uniquely allows them to NoSell just about any attack, rather than being limited to humans' attacks like most other defensive skills while allowing players to choose to follow-up with a counter, in the case of enemy combos. The end result will likely make a player feel like they're playing Balrog with Royal Guard from ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry5'' in a Souls game. On top of all of this, Fists build power by utilizing its passive to gain a unique stacking damage buff. While they are undoubtedly MasterOfAll, they are mostly held back by guzzling the player's Ki, and having [[SomeDexterityRequired a larger learning curve than most weapons]], making them DifficultButAwesome.
*** Of course, if that weren't enough, Version 1.20, which added one-or-two new skills for each weapon even for those who did not buy DLC, added "Beyond Infinity" for Fists, a [[VideoGame/FatalFury Deadly Rave]]-like skill that requires precise inputs to unleash an extremely long and damaging combo, with mistimed inputs only slowing it down. It takes some practice to perfect the timing, and its long animation doesn't let players spam it with impunity (most of the time), but it's without a doubt ''the single highest DPS skill in the game'', emphasizing the aforementioned difficulty and reward even more.
** Before players realized how Yokai Shift's mechanics worked, it was often regarded as a PowerUpLetdown compared to Living Weapon, but Phantom Yokai Shift can create a nasty CycleOfHurting on even bosses when paired with the right soul core like Gozuki or Ippon-Datara. Attack to create just enough Anima to use either soul core, which will stagger the boss and generate Amrita. The Amrita will drastically speed up the ChargedAttack, which is also a guaranteed stagger, and due to Phantom-type Guardian Spirits gaining extra Anima on ranged attacks (which their chakrams count as), they can just as easily earn enough Anima back in a single charge attack to use Ippon-Datara again. The Amrita earned will extend the player's Yokai Shift for a decent amount of time, and not letting the boss even get a chance to attack means not taking stray hits that would deplete the timer. Repeat until their Ki is gone.
** The humble [[LethalJokeCharacter Scampuss]], summoned by Clay Bells of Beckoning. While active, they slowly recharge your Anima and headbutt nearby enemies for a meager amount of Ki damage. The catch is that this stacks up to 3 times. Suddenly you recharge your Anima so fast you can spam your strongest Yokai Abilities with impunity while they chip away at Yokai bosses' Ki at an alarming speed, while human bosses get no chance to recover their own Ki. Very rarely will players naturally find 3 Scampuss in quick succession, so it will likely be first seen in the "Stray Cats" Sub Mission, where the game allows the player to witness the power of having 3 Scampuss ''with infinite duration''. Do not underestimate this RidiculouslyCuteCritter, and remember to keep those bells handy.

** The above-mentioned makeshift juggle combos. Despite its clear trappings in the SoulsLikeRPG, the ''Nioh'' series has, since the original game's beta, been stated by WordOfGod to have drawn inspiration from the ''{{VideoGame/Onimusha}}'' series , from which the first game had a developmental bug involving juggling enemies that was part of the inspiration for ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry''... which in turn was followed by [[VideoGame/NinjaGaiden2004 the revival of Ninja Gaiden]], whose DNA is also a major part of ''Nioh''. Talk about a grand tour of coming full circle.

** Suzuka was hyped up by materials for "The First Samurai" as a key figure in its story, like Yoshitsune and Yorimitsu were for their DLC chapters. While she gets a BigDamnHeroes moment saving Hide halfway into the first mission of the chapter, she almost immediately gets punted into FauxActionGirl territory as she gets knocked out by Tate Eboshi with a single attack. Then she is forced to give up her memories to forge to Sohayamaru for Hide, for the sake of maintaining the StableTimeLoop. Overall, she has very little time to spend with [[spoiler:her future child]], and didn't get the chance to show off her prowess like the previous DLC allies did, as more of its story focuses on Otakemaru's StartOfDarkness, and Hide's embodiment of the ideals they once shared.

* EvilIsSexy: The boss Kasha is a CuteMonsterGirl with...*ahem* [[GagBoobs large wheels]] that are nearly exposed.

** The Battle of Tedorigawa is the one encounter the Oda clan have with the Uesugi clan, and the final battle waged by UsefulNotes/UesugiKenshin, known as the "Dragon of Echigo," before his sudden death. One can only wonder what kind of battle with a man whose followers believed him to be Bishamonten, the God of War. Unlike Nagashino, the Oda suffered a decisive loss. Unfortunately, like Nagashino, the location of this battle is very far away from much of the action most of the story of ''Nioh 2'' takes place in, so it's cut is likely a pragmatic concern. It's a bit jarring since Hideyoshi is listed as a participant in both Nagashino and Tedorigawa.

** To say that the Battle of Nagashino was a turning point in Japanese warfare would be an understatement. While the story is viewed from Hide's perspective with Tokichiro rather than Nobunaga, it is completely glossed over without any mention, largely due to Team Ninja's assumption that players will at least have an outline of key points in the Sengoku-era to fill in the blanks. That being said, its cut can possibly be attributed to the fact that it was a [[CurbStompBattle rather ''famously'' one-sided]] battle in the Oda's favor.

** The humble [[LethalJokeCharacter Scampuss]], summoned by Clay Bells of Beckoning. While active, they slowly recharge your Anima and headbutt nearby enemies for a meager amount of Ki damage. The catch is that this stacks up to 3 times. Suddenly you recharge your Anima so fast you can spam your strongest Yokai Abilities with impunity while they chip away at Yokai bosses' Ki at an alarming speed, while human bosses get no chance to recover their own Ki. Very rarely will players naturally find 3 Scampuss in quick succession, so it will likely be first seen in the "Stray Cats" Sub Mission, where the game allows the player to witness the power of having 3 Scampuss 'with infinite duration'. Do not underestimate this RidiculouslyCuteCritter, and remember to keep those bells handy.

* FridgeBrilliance: Minamoto no Yorimitsu's Bloodsucker from her personal Dual Swords, Bloodsucker and Spider-cutter is indeed the same katana as the Doji-kiri Yasutsuna, but blood red rather than jade green. However, at the time Hide encounters her, she has yet to defeat Shuten Doji and mythlogize the katana into the name it would be more widely known as. The Doji-kiri can also be briefly seen with Yorimitsu's body in Shuten's introduction cutscene.

*** Forget Sloth Talismans, rare endgame accessory effects can allow players to apply Sloth with ''any ninjutsu or onmyo magic'' depending on which bonus they have.

** One of Shibata Katsuie's most hated attacks is his crawling-charge. It is not only difficult to dodge due to its speed but he seems to do this move ''constantly'' without end, it also spawns lines of fire that can really heighten the pressure as this will prohibit your movement which you absolutely need unless you want to be trampled by him.

* EvenBetterSequel: And how! [[AndYouThoughtItWouldFail While the original game had its fair share of skepticism and eventually overcame it]], the result came with high expectations and many rough edges fans wanted addressed.

** Expanding the gameplay started from expanding the weapon types, with two more from the start, and then another two with the DLC, to creating set bonuses that incentivize many different fighting styles. One such bonus empowers mages and ninjas to be able to recycle their jutsus that would normally be TooAwesomeToUse before a boss by fighting, another, rewarding players who can string together different skills in the heat of battle, just to name a few.

** Expanding the gameplay started from expanding the weapon types, with two more from the start, and then another two with the [=DLCs=], to creating set bonuses that incentivize many different fighting styles. One such bonus empowers mages and ninjas to be able to recycle their jutsus that would normally be TooAwesomeToUse before a boss by fighting, another, rewarding players who can string together different skills in the heat of battle, just to name a few.

*** Of course, if that weren't enough, Patch 1.20, which added one-or-two new skills for each weapon even for those who did not buy DLC added "Beyond Infinity" for Fists, a [[VideoGame/FatalFury Deadly Rave]]-like skill that requires precise inputs to unleash an extremely long and damaging combo, with mistimed inputs only slowing it down. It takes some practice to perfect the timing, and its long animation doesn't let players spam it with impunity (most of the time), but it's without a doubt ''the single highest DPS skill in the game'', emphasizing the aforementioned difficulty and reward even more.