Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 Review – Gorgeous Fights, Hollow Filler

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 Review

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is the sequel to Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles. It’s a 3D arena fighting game that borrows the gameplay and structure of the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games. This sequel doesn’t change much from the original game, but it continues the well-told narrative, and has a much larger roster of fighters to choose from.

The story of Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is about a boy whose family is murdered by demons. The only survivor is his sister, who has been transformed into a demon. He trains to become a Demon Slayer, and adventures to find a cure for his sister. It’s a very by-the-numbers battle shonen that’s immensely popular, mainly because of its gorgeous animation quality. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 begins after the Mugen Train arc and covers up to the Hashira Training arc. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is a direct continuation of the story from the first game. If you’re curious, and wanting to discover the narrative, then definitely start with the original.

Right Into the Story

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 begins with an unskippable prologue. Playing through it might make players think that it’s a third person adventure game. There are paths to traverse, with collectibles to find. The player receives bits of story. There’s a trail to follow, and it ends with a fight against a demon. But continually playing through Story Mode reveals that Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is actually a fighting game, and that most of these other elements are just window dressing.

Story Mode has a fantastic cinematic presentation, with lots of well-directed cutscenes. These come between fights. The rest of the game is essentially liminal space. The “levels” are just hallways guiding the player from fight to fight. But they’re cleverly masked. There are some light RPG elements too. The player can equip gear, which are RPG-like accessories that grant different buffs and passive abilities. Playing as different characters gains them experience points. These lead to level gains that grant collectables, including different outfits. Most of these are character-specific collectables that are the same as the ones found in Story Mode. A lot of the content outside of fights is very shallow, but I appreciate the attempt to provide a Story Mode presentation that isn’t just cutscenes and fights.

3D Arena Fighter

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2’s combat is very similar to the Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm games. The player runs around a 3D arena. Square is attack, and triangle is special stronger attack. Chaining melee and special attacks together create combos. Special attacks drain part of a gauge that refills over time. Circle dashes towards your opponent, but holding a direction does a shorter dodge dash. X is jump and R1 is guard. Pressing X while holding R1 is parry. Attacking while holding R1 offers different attacks. Holding L2 fills a boost meter. Pressing L2 again puts the character in a powered-up state. Pressing R2 with a full meter performs a cinematic super attack. Holding L1 switches characters, while pressing it summons a support character to temporarily aid the player. It’s a simple, and familiar combat system. There’s nothing innovative about it, but it’s definitely fun if you’re looking for more arena fighting games.

One of my biggest complaints about the original game is that it had a small roster, half of which was different versions of the same characters. Thankfully Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 has a much larger roster of 47 fighters. There are many repeats, but that’s much more forgivable with 3x the fighters to choose from. Many of these fighters are locked when the game begins, and playing through Story Mode unlocks almost all of them.

Different Modes

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 has several different play modes in addition to the cinematic Story Mode. There’s an offline Versus Mode, as expected. Under Versus Mode, there are also Practice and Endurance Mode options. Endurance Mode contains Time Attack, and Survival Modes, with adjustable settings. There’s a full Online Versus Mode. Path of a Demon Slayer is the Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 equivalent of an Arcade Mode. And, finally, there’s a mode called Training Paths. Training Paths is like a choose your own adventure Arcade Mode, with different routes the player can see, where each battle has subgoals, and rewards for meeting them.

There are tons of collectables scattered throughout the game. The best of these are outfits for characters, and playable music tracks. There are also scenes of events that aren’t a part of the main adventure narrative. Some collectables are cosmetics for player profiles for online fighting, such as Frames, Profile Photos, Decorations, and Titles. The rest of the collectables include Quotes, Voice snippets, and Stamps, which are collectables for the sake of collectables.

QuickTime Will Never Die

There are occasional QuickTime events. These are used in Story Mode, usually during cinematic fights. They aren’t very difficult. I’ve never minded QuickTime events, and these ones just keep the player active when they might be passively watching. I found they worked quite well, and never ruined game flow, or wrecked my progress.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is a gorgeous game. The visuals perfectly capture the aesthetics of its anime source material. The cell-shaded look disguises the AA budget really well. The music is good. It didn’t blow me away, but there was an interesting mix of anime adventure tone, eeriness, and traditional Japanese instruments. The English voice acting is done by the cast of the anime, but I thought it was awful. Everyone really sounded like they were acting, and the voices destroyed all immersion I might have had in the narrative. Thankfully, the voice acting can be changed to Japanese from the main menu.

Great Continuation

While Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 doesn’t change much about the original, it fixes the massive problem of the small roster. Fans of the anime have a retelling of a large chunk of the anime’s narrative to look forward to. The game’s story mode adds light adventure and RPG elements to give the illusion that there’s more to the game than just combat and cutscenes. Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is very much a sequel, so anyone curious about the story should play the original game first. If you’re just in it for the combat, then the sequel is a no-brainer best choice.

***PS5 code provided by the publisher***