I think I'm done with Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes.
Finished all the main and side stories after about 8 hours.
I looked up some videos of people playing on Extreme mode and basically nothing changes about the characters.
The AI behaves essentially the same. They don't become more aggressive as they often do when you go up in difficulties in a Warriors game, nor do their numbers seem to get any denser.
The named officers just do more damage to you and can kill you in about 3 hits even if you have max HP.
Your characters also don't fundamentally play any differently.
Oichi for example is still incredibly slow, clunky and basic in her moveset. The only difference is that now she has access to equipment and items that make her damage output absolutely busted.
I also looked up the full list of equippable items on an old GameFAQs guide, and unlike some of the amazing items in Warriors Orochi 3 Ultimate (like the one that allows you to sidestep cancel charge attacks or the one that gives you omnidirectional blocking), I couldn't find a single item in SB2H that does anything even remotely close to being as transformational as the items in WO3U.
At best, the items are gimmicky, like Maeda Keiji having a special item that causes regular enemies to dance if you do a taunt on them.
But I want to be able to do freestyling combos, and this game does not have that. So I'm moving on to Sengoku Basara 3 Utage. Hopefully I can get what I want with that game.