This open world features a small village that serves as a hub for a large map filled with varying terrain and locations. This new feature adds tremendously to the game’s narrative and world building, since many of these hunting games usually show so very little of the world you live in or are trying to save. Previous hunting games only offered small hubs that were more utilitarian wherein players selected missions from a menu. Toukiden 2 features a new open world map for the single-player story mode, which is a first for the genre, for players to explore and hunt. However, Omega Force returns again to give the genre a sorely needed improvement to the formula.

At its core, Toukiden 2 is still a hunting game where you go through the motions: fight monsters, gather items, use items to make better gear, and repeat. Those who missed out on the first Toukiden can easily just jump into this title without prior knowledge of the story. The few humans left have only survived thanks to the Slayers, warriors who fight the Oni horde using Samurai weapons and magic. In the world of Toukiden 2, it has been two years since the first game and a decade since the “Awakening” when evil Oni (demon) monsters appeared to destroy mankind. When the first Toukiden came out a few years ago, it provided a hunting game with a satisfying action combat experience from the creators of Dynasty Warriors series and featured a very Japanese flavor. Well, it’s 2017 and we need something more modern. One of the main reasons why it has not attained the same level of success in the west is that most hunting games have stubbornly clung onto dated conventions set by Monster Hunter back in 2004 and still carry on today. Games of the hunting genre, often referred to as “ Monster Hunter clones,” are still among those foreign video game curiosities that just can’t seem to grab western audiences the way it has in Japan.

Toukiden 2 weapon tree