Awesome game. I see lots of people complaining about the open world bike section but I honestly thought it was pretty fun. I do like racing games though so that might affect my viewpoint on it. The inclusion of the bike in general was sweet. I do wish you had more time to spend with the final upgrade and that it persisted into the Hardcore mode, but I can understand that it might break some things. Still, it would have been a fun inclusion.

The story is pretty good, characters are decent, gameplay is awesome as ever. It is unfortunate that it stutters so much due to what I can only assume is lingering shader compilation and traversal stutters, even though the game compiles them whenever you launch it. There were a few times it did get me killed. Luckily the game is fast enough that it doesn't matter a whole lot. Just reset after death to a few seconds ago and no more stuttering for that part.

If you liked the first game, you'll definitely enjoy this one. I thought it was about on-par with the original and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I can imagine that some people may like it more or less, but that's typically how sequels go anyway.

There is one issue with the keybinding... I really wish I could scroll through the Shuriken, Ghost, and Tempest abilities with the mouse wheel instead of clicking 1/2/3. It would certainly make things easier in combat and in platforming.

Well-paced game, took about 10 hours for me to beat it. Lots of fast combat and platforming where, even if you die (and you will a lot), you are always able to get right back into the action.