Bought Nioh and have kept on backlog for about two Years now

Probably Sekiro. Nioh has more varied combat, but Sekiro overall is better.

Pretty much this, the loot system in Nioh can be quite tiresome

fpbp also nioh bosses fuckin stink

it's pulled directly from the game

Nioh deserves points for the weapons which are all pretty fun and a fleshed out skill tree with functional and useful moves, but the sheer amount of recycled content in the game is just awful. There's little to no incentive to do these missions over and over again on each difficulty, and the levels themselves are recycled multiple times within each region not to mention Twilight missions. I won't even bring up dual boss/cage gank fights because everyone already knows the problem with those
this is also a huge problem I had with the game. The ONLY fight I actually enjoyed was Sanada Yukimura and that was in spite of most of his Living Weapon bs, not because of it. Sarutobi was also pretty decent but fuck the fight where he jumps in to protect Yukimura once he gets low

There are so many extremely simple and blatant ways to sort and handle loot that if you have any problem with it it is entirely your own fault for ignoring everything onscreen.
The only recycled levels are optional sidemissions though, and those still come with different layouts as well as many decent rewards like gear, skill points, kodama and spirits on top of being shorter. Also I don't know how you could hate on so many of the excellent bosses like Muneshige, Hino Enma, Yuki Onna, Giant Toad, and many more.
>everyone already knows the problem with those
There isn't one?

Nioh's stance and Ki system is pretty great but it would have been better to thoroughly flesh out one or two weapons with all three styles instead of having a bunch that don't really have a defined purpose.

The katana is by far the most interesting weapon because of the versatile moveset as well as the fact that you can do things like parry attacks and use sheath draws to burst enemies compared to the axe that has literally one combo, and only in heavy stance.

The way the game distributes skill points is also bizarre in how financially the game expects you to put all your money into a few key soul matches or a million perk re-rolls for a specific weapon, but then also expects you to experiment with weapons that you haven't spent all your money soul matching with so you can actually get skill points to get new abilities for the original weapon you wanted to use.

In my playthrough I got really bored at the endgame because I was sick of the style that I had spent all my skill points in, but if I wanted to unlock more abilities I would have to spend an exponential about of time grinding out points with other weapons that I hated like the tonfa that I had no intention of actually using.

Sekiro is smart in how it says 'fuck you, you get one sword that you'll use 90% of the time and a niche sideweapon' and guess what, the sword is INCREDIBLY fleshed out. By the end of the game it felt like a second skin that I was used to but hadn't fully mastered, instead of the katana from Nioh that was a single boring tool in a shed of other boring tools

>The only recycled levels are optional sidemissions
>decent rewards like gear, skill points, kodama and spirits
Then why would you skip them? I'm tired of the excuse being "it's optional, so you don't have to do it". Recycled levels are recycled, repeated boss fights are repeated. Additionally, twilight missions are the best way to get (necessary) Umbracite outside of the Abyss, and both are structured around the same recycled content.
Muneshige is genuinely good but I did not care at all for the rest. Giant Toad especially since their approach was to make him a complete non-threat when approached from the side or behind, and then bandaid that weakness on higher difficulties with an absolutely ridiculous AOE attack with practically no startup, forcing you to play extremely conservatively and sneak in hits only in the most obvious of openings. That is coincidentally the same issue with dual bossfights and cage gank fights; unless your build is 100% optimized to destroy anything within 2 or 3 hits all of the actually fun parts of the gameplay are stripped away and it becomes either a hit and run or parry fest. Nioh's camera system does not work especially well with two equally high priority targets because your right hand is almost always occupied either with dodging or attacking and is unable to control the camera manually.

I don't think you used axe nearly enough, let alone any of the other weapons. Axe might be the most focused of the weapons but it still has far more important and usable options across all three stances, even including defensive moves and both burst and sustained damage. Proficiency initially builds very quickly and doesn't take very long to cap especially on later enemies, but you have an infinite source of respecs available in both shops and your main source of skill points gives you enough for two weapons on a standard playthrough.

I'm not saying you have to skip them, but that there's a clear shift in focus for their design and that's reflected in the format of the level itself, with them being shorter and some being straight up arenas or duels. You call it recycled yet again the only recycled part is the area, usually set up and traversed differently, or the boss which is intentional to let you go straight to fighting that particular boss again if you wish.
I wouldn't call him a non-threat as he does have other wide AoE options, but the 360 spin while dangerous has a pretty significant windup before it actually gets range and damage so you don't have to play very passively, especially as there's a stance dedicated to fast movement and low commitment, as well as dash and dodge attacks allowing you to stay in combat and transition into further offense if you have an opening. This also rings true for duo fights which is why I disagree entirely with what you're saying about them. It's not really hit and run if you're doing it right as it's much too fast and aggressive for that, and still relies on all the main mechanics and skills of the game which can and need to be relevant in such fights as well. They just take on different meanings that change based on the enemies, like what you use Ki breaks for between each target. If anything they're some of the few fights you're really pushed to use everything at your disposal. Can't say I have those issues with the lock on camera in bosses, it's generally simple to flick between them or dash to reposition.

I think my main problem with the optional missions is that the game actively encourages you to go for 100% completion with the one-time mission rewards (umbracite, skill points etc.) but also encourages you to do so all the way through WotN and by that time you'll be extremely sick of doing them over and over again.
>It's not really hit and run if you're doing it right
I have heard this so many times but I've never seen any gameplay that reflects this unless the player is using gear that is clearly from higher difficulties.
And as for Giant Toad I stand by the fact that his regular form has absolutely no options to engage you if you continually stay to his side or back. My main problem with his spear spin is that it hits in a small circle around him instantly before the multihits at a longer range. The initial hit is the main problem as you have to constantly be at that distance from him in neutral or risk being caught by it. I would have no problem with the attack if that near instant close range hit wasn't a thing but as it is it makes the fight incredibly tedious (and still difficult) even when dodging with low stance.
You might just be a better player than me in terms of camera lock on but I legitimately always hated trying to manipulate the camera in Nioh and kept getting destroyed because of it. I vastly prefer a slower paced game like MH where the expectation is that you will always have time to manually reposition the camera yourself.

>The combat is fun but there's an insane lack of enemy and area variety.
dude, sekiro suffers from the same issues.

Well I mean, they have to give some incentive for doing them, but not all of them have similarly valuable rewards in later difficulties and at that point you know what they are and can choose what to do to unlock the later regions, which is a bit more valid in extra difficulties. But personally I got through everything and while I'd say WotStrong was a bit unnecessary I still enjoyed it every step of the way due to how many options available across everything and the skill ceiling, plus the changes do get pretty interesting.
A lot of people just prefer to forgo learning the systems and just abuse the obscenely broken damage scaling but there are a few really great players out there and it doesn't require overlevelling.
Close range is meant to be his weakness but he still has a sweeping combo, the leap and his Ninjutsu. The initial part of the spin has extremely short range and low damage so mid or low lets you react and bait it out and even if it clips you you can back out. It's just a matter of not overcommitting after he recovers from previous attacks but you don't need to sacrifice offense to do so. It is hard, but hell it better be by then.
I wouldn't say the camera is perfect, I still greatly miss the Alpha camera, but as long as the enemy is in your 180 degree view in front you can swap, and you have such fast movement you can circle them easily to adjust. I would much prefer it be the full 360 radius (Alpha was at least a bit wider), but you can also unlock, turn and relock. It definitely is a much faster pace than MH, but it's just how it is and adapting to it is fun in it's own way.

>Nioh has an insane lack of variety
Half the bosses in Sekiro are the same as other half.