If you’ve played one CyberConnect2-developed arena fighters, you’ve played them all. At least the ones I’ve played from recent memory, but I’ve no qualms with that. There’s a distinct, warm feeling I get playing their games—maybe it’s how well the developer brings intense scenes from the works they adapt to their signature 3D style, or how you can toss anyone a controller and get a 1v1 session going right away with your favourite characters. Either way, not much has changed with their latest release ‘Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2’ as CyberConnect2, producer Aniplex, and publisher SEGA continue the story of Kamado Tanjiro and the Demon Slayer Corp.
In Hinokami Chronicles 2, players will journey through the Red Light District arc all the way to the end of the Hashira Training arc in the latest instalment of this very popular shounen series. And as a casual observer of Demon Slayer myself, by the end of the story mode I even tossed Demon Slayer’s anime onto the top of my watchlist. When I get to that will be anyone’s guess—I’d rather just game or read, really.
When you first start Hinokami Chronicles 2, you’ll be tossed right into the story mode, but the game offers a VS, Online, Training, and Story Abridged modes once you complete some of the earlier chapters. Progression made in the story mode comes in Kimetsu Points and unlockables found throughout the game’s chapters, which allows you to purchase character outfits, name card equippables, and the like. And as you work through the story mode, you’ll unlock the rest of the playable cast for use in VS mode so you can take on a buddy or the AI as one of the boss characters or your favourite Demon Corps member. As the story does follow the rising action of the Demon Slayer series, this might be the only way to play characters like Shinobu outside of the story mode.
Now, if you’ve never played one of CyberConnect2’s arena fighters, they’re fairly simple games. You can have up to two combatants on each side across a variety of stages. There’s your basic attack that can be chained into skill attacks that can be modified by adjusting the left analog stick. You can guard and block, though the former is far more important than you’ll realise, being a fighter and all—don’t be me like me who had to unlearn a rather terrible trend of “dodge attack, trigger witch time” that games in recent memory have begun using in lieu of a proper defence. If either of those fails and you find yourself being comboed, you can have your back up characters come in to save your skin. If you’re the one juggling your opponent, you can have your support come in to continue the combo or even reset the meter to keep your foes hanging in the air for quite a while.
Speaking of that meter, there are a couple of bars you need to watch for. The aforementioned combo meter is a short window where you are giving near-free reign to deal as much damage to your opponent as possible while they’re effectively stunned. Here, your Skill and Surge meters matter as the former dictates if you can pull off some of your more powerful moves and the latter can either enhance your overall movement and attack properties or you can choose to fire off your Ultimate Arts attack, which evokes some of CyberConnect2’s best qualities as your playable character smashes the other with a gorgeous cinematic finisher move. Ultimately, I found Kanroji’s playstyle to be the most enjoyable, but everyone else has enough variations to keep them unique enough.
Besides the typical arena fighter stuff, sometimes you’ll take on minigames or take part in brief musou-style combat sequences to clear out hordes of enemies. I’m not too keen on the minigames, but they alongside the free battle sections help keep the story mode fresh over its six or eight-ish hour-long runtime.
As for the story mode, the game kicks off and drops the players right into the Red Light Entertaiment part of the story and runs all the way to the Hashira Training. Our hero, Kamado Tanjiro and his unyielding sidekicks Agatsuma Zenitsu and Hashibira Inosuke, are here to sniff out a demon who has been eating up courtesans without raising much suspicion. Players will even take on the roles of courtesans themselves briefly to complete objectives and move onto the next cutscene or boss. After fighting off the demon(s) here, Daki and Gyutaro, Tanjiro moves on after a brief respite to the Swordsmith Village arc, where he meets up with some of the people responsible for making the Slayer Corps swords, briefly encounters a woman’s touch, and fights off a demon attack alongside other Hashira—AKA top swordsmen within the Demon Slayer corp. After a bit more interluding, we finally get our last chapter in the Hashira Training arc.
This being a game adaptation, much of the story has been truncated as to shuffle the player between major plot points as quickly as possible. I don’t mind this per se as the pacing of Hinokami Chronicles 2 is excellent, but you do lose out on a lot of the little interactions that build character (some show brief hints, like Tsuyuri’s ‘feelings’ for Tanjiro) and as such make the game a poor way to properly experience Demon Slayer. While skits and memory fragments attempt to give rundowns in a similar vein to the other mediums, voiceovers on still cells don’t really do a number of backstories and scenes justice. You should play Hinokami Chronicles 2 because you want to play your favourite character and see those intense fight scenes in stunning visual quality. That and the game is fully dubbed in both English and Japanese and I went with the former this time, finding myself thinking that the performances were quite enjoyable. I ended up preferring Tanjiro and Inosuke’s English voice acting quite a bit more than the Japanese performances which I don’t often think to myself.
Speaking of which, this being a sequel and all, you’re going to be dumped right into the middle parts of the franchise. An Abdridged Story mode will walk you through the earlier parts of the game’s story, but ideally, you’re going to want some background details on Demon Slayer before you walk into this game. Otherwise, you can admire the cool fights and intense bits of “light versus dark” action as a casual observer. I myself am not too familiar with Demon Slayer, but I can see why so many people like that Tanjiro kid. He’s an aspiration to us all; so, kind he would unironically commend a cashier for their work at the till. Said cashier would be so confused they’d take the pure-hearted compliment as a motivational push to complete their degree and fail to a land a job anyway, but at least they tried.
The downside to the story mode is that ultimately, this is a bridge to the finale. The final story fight is rather lame in the context of a climax in most “bridge” titles, and you’re left on a cliffhanger. I’ve not felt this gut punched in a while; that’s for sure.
Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2 is about as much of a continuation as one should expect from an arena fighter sequel. You’re here for the spectacle, for Demon Slayer, and a game you can pull out to play with friends on a whim and not much more. The fights are extravagant as they are beautiful and for me, that’s more than enough. And I’m sure anyone eyeing this game feels the exact same way. ∎
Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba- The Hinokami Chronicles 2
Played on
Xbox Series X
PROS
- Stunning battle visuals and great fights.
- Fun combat system that can be picked up and played by anyone.
- Decent selection of playable characters and arenas. Albeit a few too many Tanjiros for my taste.
CONS
- The climax for this chapter ends on a fairly lame note.
