And doing a piss-poor job of it, as it turns out. After creating your hero with a cosmetically robust character creator and picking your starting weapon, you’ll find yourself on the frontline, defending humanity against an all out Oni (demon) invasion. It also plonks you straight into the action with a sequence that acts as both story introduction and combat tutorial. I’m not one to focus on a game’s superficial aspects in most cases but despite not being the bleeding-edge pixel quality of something like Horizon Zero Dawn, this game manages to be exceedingly pretty. This is by far the best looking game developer Omega Force have made to date and great character models, weapon designs, and impressive scenery and lighting are abundant. Toukiden 2 impressed me right from the start with something I didn’t expect, its looks. Perhaps you’ll indulge me while I explain just why. I’m left with a lasting positive impression from Toukiden 2 and wouldn’t mind seeing more from this fledgling franchise.

The open-world setting doesn’t bog you down with endless side-quests and this lengthy action game even manages not to overstay its welcome, while providing plenty of optional additional content for those with the need to slay just one more Oni. Toukiden 2 looks great and plays great, the enemies are varied and challenging, and the combat is a blast. I’d seen enough gameplay here and there to know roughly what I was getting into but I was interested to see how well the Dynasty Warriors developer would handle an open world game and how well the idea of a focus on large single boss fights would work in that environment. Having not played the first Toukiden, I went into Toukiden 2 with few prior expectations. Read on with us to find out if the demon hunt was a happy one. The sequel takes a bold step away from its predecessor by attempting to translate its boss rush formula into an open-world setting. This time up, the second installment in the Monster-Hunter-esque RPG series from Koei Tecmo and Omega Force, Toukiden 2. Welcome one and all to another Pure PlayStation review.

Toukiden 2 weapon tree