What did you guys think of Nioh?
Is Nioh 2 an improvement?
And is there any souls games from another company you'd recommend or is it really a case of nobody does it better?
I think it's a complete masterpiece, 10/10. Nioh 2 is basically just a refinement and improvement on everything in the game, and is more of a Nioh 1.5 in a sense. Most of the assets are reused and just added on, but instead they just focused on improving and streamlining every aspect of the game and expanding the monster variety. Nioh 2 is my GOTY.
The star of Nioh is not the level design, or story - but the combat itself. Most of the bosses are unbelievably polished and well made. When Nioh 1 had their first two betas, I just replayed levels 1 and 2 for 10 hours over a weekend and kept improving on my stance changing, my timing, my dodges, and on reading all the boss' moves. Everyone that seems to struggle with these games, I recommend doing the same thing I did, and just replaying the first couple levels. Unlock the counter and just work on your timing. Unlock the move that improves ki recovery when stance changing, and suddenly you realize you can sit in low stance for precision dodges, and then ki pulse off the dodge itself while changing to medium or heavy stance when there's an opening to do heavy damage hits, and then ki pulse and change back to low after the hit and retreat. Or sit in medium stance and focus more on defense and counter hits. TYou can play an entirely ranged build or a magic heavy build, or an item ninjitsu heavy build with poisons and explosives. Or you can make a magic build focused on healing and defensive buffs. There's also a ton of options for weapons, and they all are unique enough that you could play large chunks of the game with just one weapon and have a totally different experience. One of the best things about the combat is that the same rules apply for the enemies that apply to you as well, and you can really exploit their missed or blocked attacks to tear down their fatigue in ways that rewards careful tactical decisions. It makes all the enemies feel alive and like real, intelligent combatants.
And especially in part 2, multiplayer adds another huge additional incentive to keep playing, and it's easy and fun to get into games constantly. You can help new people get through levels and bosses while you repeat them and just perfect your strategies, enjoying the fun of playing through tough sections almost flawlessly in front of other players. You can equip buffs and healing items to help other players, which always is appreciated and is fun to do.
And then the main things about part 2 that make it better is just tons of QOL improvements that make it easy to compare and sort equipment, to save multiple builds, to make custom characters and change your appearance easily, and on and on. Just one playthrough can take you 80 hours easily if you want, and then the game has multiple new game + modes. In addition to that, both games have high quality DLC expansions that add multiple new weapons, and bosses.
If you have more of an action game background, it should be one of the best games ever. If you play souls more for lore or pure exploration, then maybe it could feel a little lacking, but that's it really. It doesn't even have bad level design, and I kind of like that it's a little more linear and it keeps the pace up a bit more for me without lots of backtracking or aimless wandering.
Combat in most souls games consists of a few basic strikes, and only in part 3 you have 1 weapon art. In Nioh you have dozens and dozens of complex special moves that can be equipped to button commands and altered with stance changes. You can even equip status effects and elemental bonuses to specific moves. And you can equip two weapons and switch between them during combos. The combat in a souls game is just infinitely more simplistic in comparison. The two games excel at different things.