It has fascinated me that there are actually very few successful video game recreations of popular anime. Demon Slayer 2 (I’m not going to type the ridiculously long official game title over and over again!) absolutely nails it, though. Not only that, it adds to the anime experience with even more demon slaying goodness I wasn’t expecting (the editor will write the full title here instead: Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba -The Hinokami Chronicles 2).
It starts with the game having five modes. None of them is worth the price of the game itself, but as a collective whole, they deliver such a great overall package.
Story Mode – You play through three story arcs from the anime. They are the Entertainment District Arc, the Swordsmith Village Arc, and the Hashira Training Arc. The game faithfully follows the anime, albeit in a shorter format.
Vs Mode – Players can battle as who they like from the small army of playable characters against other such characters. You can use this mode with a friend in couch co-op or against the CPU.
Online Match – Pretty self-explanatory matches with who you want to play as against other wannabe demon slayers online.
The Path of a Demon Slayer – Here you can review the story of the first season/game via six key playable fight scenarios, as well as a recap of the story up to where this game picks it up.
Training Paths – Not going to lie, this was actually my favourite mode! You undergo training with a Hashira, via a rogue-lite path that you, as the player, can choose. At the end of this path is a boss fight against your chosen Hashira opponent.
As mentioned, none of these modes is enough on its own, but all of the above have great depth and give you, as the player, a lot of choice and variety. If there is something that ticks a lot of my boxes that I want in a game, this is it.
The story mode suffers from what I struggle with in the Demon Slayer franchise as a whole, too. I’ve also read from sources that a lot of other people aren’t a fan of an aspect I’m about to mention, which is that quite a lot of the characters, even in what you would think of as a quiet moment outside of battle, literally shout their lines as hard and as loud as they can. It’s obviously a design quirk from the developers to try to inject energy into the series. I actually feel sorry for the voice actors as they must be spent after a day in the recording studio!
The problem is, with slight spoilers approaching, after two chapters in the Entertainment District Arc, literally having the on-screen protagonists scream and postulate at each other for nearly the entire length of two whole in-game chapters, I was honestly exhausted. If it weren’t for the fact that I was reviewing the game, I would have turned it off and gone to sit somewhere quiet for a while.
That aside, the other issue I feel the story mode has happens to be an issue I find with a lot of popular anime. Season one is great and sets up a beautiful “what is going to happen next?” vibe. That is then followed in Season 2, which turns into a not-so-interesting, “let’s spin this franchise out longer than it needs to be” event. It’s not the game’s fault that it follows the story lines so closely; however, if you enjoyed the different arcs of the anime after season 1, then you will be overjoyed with the story content here. I, however, wasn’t so fond. I really enjoyed season one, I just feel season 2 onwards is losing its direction and identity too much.
I’ve personally never really been any good at fighting games, especially online ones, and quite honestly, I got my backside handed to me trying to play this one online. Despite that, there is a lot I can really appreciate about the online mode. For starters, it worked superbly. It also didn’t take long to find a match, and I never felt like I was being robbed of hits by the net code. It was a tight online experience, which is exactly what you need to play with confidence. I also appreciated little touches like the ability to immediately request a rematch. My BIGGEST gripe about online mode, though, was how demoralizing it is if you aren’t very good (like me). You only get ranking points if you win, so even though I’ve tried many times, my rank is still 0. The ONLY way that will ever go upwards is by winning a fight. You can play as a group or even join to watch a group, but unfortunately, for testing, I couldn’t find any group matches to participate in or watch online. I believe most of the online community is taken up with solo players wanting to play other singular opponents.
The Path of a Demon Slayer mode, I think, is actually a genius mode. I wanted to play the first game but never got around to buying it. Not only does this mode recap the entire first season well, but being able to participate and play the key boss fight moments makes it so much more interesting and engaging than just reading text. It’s the shortest mode here but one I really appreciated.
Training Paths is the mode that surprised me the most and the one I enjoyed the most, too. Here, once you have chosen the Hashira (tough demon slayer teacher) you want to challenge, you can then play as one of around 40 characters to challenge them. Some of these characters, though, are the same ones, just with different skins and occasionally different skills. You are then faced with a lattice network of choices of who to fight or buffs to collect on the way to the boss fight at the end. You have three directions to start, but you can plan ahead to the following five, and so on and so on. This means that, quite literally, you have hundreds of different route options to your final boss and almost unlimited replay value for even just one of the Hashira. Furthermore, there are also three difficulty levels, each with better rewards.
So, as you can see, there is far more to the game than just the short story mode and an online mode. All of the modes, however, have stunning visuals and gameplay.
Visually, the game is fluid, exciting, and as near to playing the anime as I think you could actually get. The artwork is phenomenal and vibrant. The effects, not only during combat but in cutscenes and slower moments, are also superb. Character movement and dialogue was a little stiff, but it’s not during combat. Lastly, the visual effects during combat are amazing. It’s easy to see what’s going on in the battlefield, and when you launch a skill attack with a huge effect or a special attack with your partner, you can just sit back and enjoy the show.
The main aspect of the game is combat. As mentioned, I’m not the best at these types of games; however, I still really enjoyed this one, for the most part. Learning the movesets of your chosen character and the distances each attack needs to be from a foe is key. There is no auto lock-on, which I really think is a great design choice (this game, in my opinion, has MANY great design choices, and I’m a hard nut to please with games). That means you have to use your positioning skill to get attacks to land, and this makes it all the more rewarding when you do; even more so if you land a combo thereafter. My only gripes with the combat are during the campaign, some enemy types literally only have one opening to exploit, which means you, as the player, have to find it and just spam that one moveset you have at your disposal to defeat them.
For example, and no spoilers here, one enemy I faced in the story part of the game deliberately kept their distance from you, so it was impossible to start a combo with a sword strike. They, however, could land strikes on you from afar. It was only when I discovered that after one of their area attacks finished, they had a slight opening, and if you launched your leap attack, you could just about cover the distance to get a hit in and start a combo. I don’t mind the fact that this was the only opening and I had to discover it, I just find these “one path to victory fights” a bit dull and repetitive once you know what you’re looking for.
The proof in the pudding of my statement above comes from the fact that you get ranked each fight. The first time I did this particular fight, I was ranked D. When I tried it again, knowing what I did, it easily rose on my second attempt to an S. Personally, I like more variety in fights than this.
Finally, there is the game’s audio. Aside from the aforementioned shouting of characters’ lines in the story mode, I found everything else to be superb. The highlights would be the effects of skills and swords clashing during combat. Even so, the soundtrack and voice acting from those characters that didn’t annoy me were also great. The audio, especially during combat, added such a fantastic layer of energy to an already energetic experience to elevate the gameplay.
Summary
I hope it comes across, but I really have enjoyed Demon Slayer -Kimetsu no Yaiba -The Hinokami Chronicles 2 immensely, even though fighting games aren’t my normal type of genre. The game was accessible, even for someone like me, to have a superb time with it. If you are skilled at the game, there is a huge amount of depth to keep you playing with the online modes and challenge the game provides. There are so many excellent design choices that just put the cherry on top of an already great game.
My only real criticisms of the game are that the annoying shouting delivered by each line from a couple of the characters is exhausting, as well as the demoralizing aspect of online play if you aren’t that good. Can they really be points to put the game down for, though?
Overall, however, the game is a fantastic way to experience the Demon Slayer universe. There is a surprising amount of diverse yet fairly deep content. It’s a tight gameplay experience both online and offline, coupled with exciting visuals and audio that felt ripped directly from the anime. It really is one of the best anime-to-game adaptations I’ve ever played.
Developer: Aniplex, Cyber Connect 2
Publisher: SEGA
Platform: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, PC
Release Date: 5th August 2025
