Nioh 2: The Tengu’s Disciple: A short story with a lot of content to uncover

Nioh 2: The Tengu’s Disciple is a welcome and solid expansion.

Nioh 2 had a rather ambiguous ending, leaving much to speculate where you will go to next in the upcoming expansions. Here we are roughly 400 years in the past at the heart of conflict in Yashima. Your only familiar allies who come along with you is Hakutaku, Takenaka Hanbei’s guardian spirit.

Much like the expansions that came out in the first Nioh game, The Tengu’s Disciple is an entirely new region with new and old enemies lurking about in each level. At first glance, it seems that it’s just some new missions and then some, but it actually isn’t. You get some quality cutscenes, a hefty chunk of lore to accompany it, and new challenges that go beyond the new locales.

We get more than just a new region; there are new kodama to find in the new locales, there’s a whole new weapon class, new drops, a new difficulty, a raised level cap, a plethora of bug fixes, balance changes, and quality of life changes. Since the Tengu’s Disciple is a whole new region, its levels are higher than the final region, so it’s easy to jump right into it after beating the last mission in the base game. Whether you’re on your first playthrough or are at the end of the Dream of the Strong difficulty, you won’t have to wait or feel too far behind.

The Tengu’s Disciple introduced the splitstaff, a long-ranged polearm that feels like the lovechild of a staff and nunchaku. It’s on par of uniqueness with the switchglaive, being a very versatile weapon that can work with odachis or tonfas. The splitstaff has a mechanic where holding your attack buttons extends the weapon’s attacks with multi-striking hits. Be careful because this also extends the duration in which you’re mid-attack, leaving you vulnerable to enemies who dodge your attacks or if there are some who weren’t caught in your attacks. It’s also a high-ki weapon, so after a few attacks for lightweight users, it can drain all of your ki.

Of course with a very loot-heavy game comes all sorts of new loot ranging from additional weapon types from preexisting classes, new armor sets, and new accessories, including a new type of equip. These new equips— called Picture Scrolls— are fairly rare drops that aren’t necessarily exclusive to the new region but require some grinding to get.

I’m not entirely sure what the drop rates are, but they drop slightly less frequently than tea utensils but also are of the same rarity color when dropped. Upon acquisition, there will be a new option on the overview map above the Twilight Missions where you can access these scrolls. Selecting that option will bring up your inventory of scrolls which you can pick, sending you into a relatively small mission. These scroll missions basically pit you in an arena against certain enemies which you can see depending on their stats. Bosses can appear on these scrolls too! Upon the first completion of a scroll, their stats will be revealed, and the item itself can be equipped to your character.

Here’s the kicker, each scroll has a certain number of times you can play that specific mission for them. Every completion after the first gives you the chance to reroll one stat of the displayed ones on that equipment. However, the stats are random and once you replay all the charges on that said scroll, you can no longer use it to change stats. So if you didn’t get favorable stat rolls on that item, you can either discard it or merge it onto another depleted scroll to make a new one, using the base as a primer for its first ability on the menu. It’s a neat idea in concept but just adds to more RNG to grind out for.

The grind won’t be all for naught as this first DLC adds a new difficulty as well— Dream of the Demon. It’s basically a New Game++ with tougher enemies, better loot, and certain kingpin enemies that have stat buffs or resistances to debuffs. Of course, this also means that the level cap increased from 300 to 400. This new difficulty also drops divine gear that grants new set bonuses.

These set bonuses are specific to weapons and armor that did not belong to a specific gear set (i.e. Flying Kato, Warrior of the West, Red Demon, etc) in the form of “Grace” sets. This gives players the access to mixing and matching gear better, but this also means the gear without a specific name set can actually be viable, given that they have a grace set they’re a part of.

Overall, this was a very welcomed and solid expansion. It came with a lot of new changes and additions. The Tengu’s Disciple brought more than new content, more challenges, and additional replay value.