u/Complex_Secure

I originally played nioh 2 and was in love with it about a year ago and got to around act 3~4 before getting side tracked with another game after feeling burnt out. I got back into nioh 2 and made a new playthrough after realizing I never gave it a full on shot and thinking about getting nioh 3. Im now getting up to the point where I was a year ago and yet again I feel burnt out of going through missions with the same landscape and facing the same enemies, I enjoy using different weapons(switchglaive/fists being some of the most fun ive had with weapons) and trying to master the diversity of the katana, but its the strangest thing to me that one moment I love the game and it feels nearly perfect and the next I dont wanna play it at all and looking at it makes me feel a certain ick. I havent had this feeling ever with Rise of the Ronin or Ninja gaiden but with game in particular its either one or the other. Just wondering if this is normal for Nioh fans, or if when I take off time i should just keep sticking to the same save.

Lets go over what a Gary stu is and see if he qualifies as such

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Gary Stu: An Idealized perfect FLAWLESS character who effortlessly masters every technique and is universally loved and admired by the universe of the in world story.

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Lets go over ideals, while Itachi strives for an ideal world in absolutely no way was he the most "ideal" character (that would be closer to naruto or hashirama, literally any of the hokages beforehand), just because he is stated to carry the will of fire in the greatest fashion by suffering the biggest burden for the sake of the ninja world does NOT make him 100% ideal, the fact of the matter is that he failed his clan and family even stating such and leaving his brother alive as a potential threat to the world he swore to protect out of emotional weakness and selfishness (yet another flaw as he was a pacifist introvert who loved deeply), a perfect flawless IDEAL character would have been able to find a third option that resulted in zero deaths and a perfect outcome (think more closely to batman with prep time or naruto reversing 1000 years of trauma via talk-no-justu) Itachi himself would not regard himself as a great man nor would he want to be congratulated for having murdered women and children he called his family. Idk about you but its hard to say genocide is IDEAL, so outside of the will of fire and being admirable for self sacrifice, he is not the only character to do this, neither does he do it perfectly. He also completely fucks up in trying to protect Sasuke, inadvertently turning him even further to evil, Sasuke was saved by Naruto, itachi played a huge role sure. But it was Naruto who saves him not Itachi, which was ultimately Itachis most important goal, and if not for Naruto would be another failure. Gary Stus do not fail nor do they commit genocide, this alone is enough to dismantle that narrative but we'll continue onto the other parts of the definition.

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Secondly we'll go over Martial prowess, techniques, and generally how he performs in combat. Lets first go over the fact that itachi is completely powercrept by the start of the war arc, you could even argue that Sakura would be able to one tap him as she does noticeable damage to Kaguya. Secondly itachi is not at all without weaknesses he has very low Chakra and below average stamina reserves which mean that he NEEDS to rely on technical abilities and Genjutsu to be effective. Itachis highest level of competition on screen was kabuto who he jumped along sasuke, his biggest feat wasnt even something he accomplished on his own, this suggests that him "low efforting" opponents is much more likely due to better matchups on his end and choosing his opponents very wisely, he even admits in early Naruto that Jiraya would work both him and Kisame, which I do believe there is an argument to be made that Jiraya could beat Itachi. Just because a character is intelligent or relies more on tactics does not make them a Gary stu, otherwise Shikamaru would be untouchable. The MF that tsunade dated literally had an instant I win jutsu at zero cost, so to act like Itachi having broken abilities is a bit unreasonable when you go over what ninjas are using in shippuden. Also Itachi was never ever the strongest ninja in any of the groups he was with, earlier on Shisui was stronger and when he was in the akatski Pain and Tobi were stronger. All in all prodigy =/= flawless, hes a Uchiha which comes with the territory in terms of OP abilities, they also get stronger with suffering and Itachi was by no means a stranger to that, he also had ninja aids which impeded him even further, to say that he was a perfect combatant is very disingenuous he had a multitude of flaws which were stated quite a bit, nothing in his arsenal compares to Kamui or what Madara or Hashirama were getting up to.

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Lastly to say he was loved and admired by the ninja world is laughable, a huge part of his character is the fact that he has been disgraced and will go down in the history books as such. He never once has a love life after he is ostracized, he has no friends or family left besides the one actively set on killing him whom he failed and inadvertently traumatized, he was a pacifist who was forced into a position where all he would know is violence he is forever marked by the fact that he could not save his family, only those with knowledge behind the scenes will understand, thats like saying the boss in mgs was highly regarded and loved by everyone in mgs, a character having tragedy and having to go onwards despite it does not make them a Gary stu or Mary Sue, it makes them representative of what its like to be human. So no I dont believe at all that he is a perfect character nor was he written to be one, hes simply a tragedy and supposed to be one of the numerous statistics caught in the crossfire of the will of fire.

I dont believe itachi would be such a highly regarded and popular character were he a textbook definition of a "Gary Stu/ Mary Su" think characters like Kirito, Rey, Captain Marvel and ofc Dora the explorer all of which are very much disliked and disgusted by fans. What I do believe however is that Itachi was meant to represent sacrifice and what its like to be human, that despite whatever may happen or however you may fail you remain true to yourself and your ideals, hes understandable and relatable in the aspect that we live in a cruel world and not everything is fair, we wont always be able to make perfect decisions and neither will we always have someone in our corner. But we carry on despite that, Itachi dies having failed both his family and his brother despite being an individual who was described as pure and who's intentions were solely good and had the potential to do so much more, he was reduced to being used as a tool in the grand scheme of things and never truly got to live for himself, a Gary stu would be able to remove his constraints not be bent to them, he is a more than flawed character but should not be reduced to a "Gary Stu", i personally think he is very well written, not anywhere near my favorite character of all time nor do I think hes the most tragic but I dont think ive really covered a lot more of it as a lot of this is off of rewatching some stuff and remembering the story from a few years back.

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Tdlr Itachi does not fit the description of a Gary Stu in almost any of the metrics

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im sure many points can be elaborated further but its late and im tired. Lemme know what yall think

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Atm just been experimenting with super quality and have 20+ across the board on all attacking stats so wondering what swords yall find to be the most fun in terms of unique movesets or special abilities. Alongside what magic is fun to incorporate into faster pace melee combat.

Wondering how quick this can get done.