The most memorable enemy I’ve encountered in a video game this year isn’t the rot valkyrie Malenia from Elden Ring, nor any other fearsome denizen of the Lands Between. Nor is it any of the bats, zombies, and ghastly ghouls that assault you after a few minutes of the bullet hell lunchbreak game Vampire Survivors. No, the enemy that most sticks in my mind is a humble foe from the first 30 minutes of Team Ninja’s 2020 samurai Soulslike Nioh 2–a foe that you will kill many hundreds of times throughout any playthrough of the game, but remains vitally important just the same.
