Can anybody tell me what exactly is different here?

I played about half of Nioh 1 before putting the game down out of boredom. The lack of enemy variety, repetitive missions, trash loot system and laughably pathetic sound track just did not click with me.

Combat was good, challenge level was fine the way it was. Wasn’t easy but it wasn’t like “oMg sO mUcH hArDeR tHaN DoRk sOuLs” as some people were making it seem. I just couldn’t bring myself to trudge through the same enemies over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. Annoying reading that right? Exactly. Oh boy, big tongue guy again, oh wow wait he’s gotta blue tongue this time! Fuck me.

I watched fightincowboy play the Nioh 2 beta and I just don’t understand what’s different here. The mechanical, graphical, aesthetic, and combat aspects look pretty identical to Nioh 1. It still has that trash diablo style loot system, and the graphics/color palette are indistinguishable from Nioh 1.

It’s also been a long time since I’ve played Nioh 1 so maybe I’m misremembering some things, so to hardcore Nioh fans: what are some major improvements here (besides character creation) that make Nioh 2 a step up to Nioh 1 that will convince people like me to pick up Nioh 2?