Five years since the original impressed us on the PS3, Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom (NNK2) arrives to the masses this month. We received a review code recently, and every bit of the charm you may remember from the first game is evident in the sequel. LEVEL-5 knows RPG, JRPG specifically, and that they reunited with Joe Hisaishi (for the music) and Yoshiyuki Momose (animation artist, formerly with Studio Ghibli) brings a welcomed sense of familiarity to Ni no Kuni 2. However, you need not have played the original game to fully enjoy NNK2. That said, a few hours in while the protagonist Evan is undergoing a trial to unlock his Kingmaker, there is a nice tribute to the original game by the way of a story and puzzle you must solve. Anyway, NNK2 stands completely self-sufficient in its own right, so don’t feel any pressure to have played the original.
As you might guess from the boxart, NNK2 is about a building a kingdom, and the long journey to get there and to make it prosper. The story begins in modern times with Roland surviving a massive explosion and waking up in a strange world. Here if finds a young human-like character that is also partially a cat. His name is Evan, and with his father having just passed a month before, he is the king of a peaceful place known as Ding Dong Dell. Unfortunately, his father’s former advisor, Otto Mausinger, leader of a kingdom of rat-people has decided to throw a coup and the game begins with Roland using a sword and a sidearm to fight off invaders while he leads Evan to an escape. I can’t say I’m a big fan of the cat and mouse character designs, but it’s easy enough to look past and see the characters for who they are, and who they might eventually be. Evan is young and doesn’t know how to run a kingdom; he needs a Kingmaker, a mythical creature that is awarded to only those that pass the appropriate trials. Roland was a president in his world, and he’s an adept fighter, too. He’s willing to help Evan, as are some other characters you meet along the way, including the higgledy’s. The higgledy’s are small creatures that you can discover who will help you during battle by offering extra attacks and changes to your special moves if you execute a special move while inside of one of their areas of effects.
If you have played the original NNK, or really any JRPG, you know what to expect as one of the core gameplay designs in NNK2. In what I’ll call exploration mode, character animations are smaller, and the player walks around the open world, encountering random battles and lots of miscellaneous loot strewn about. Treasure boxes can be gotten with a bit of extra effort, typically just requiring you to search a bit harder or find a way up to a hilltop. Some of these are protected by creatures with a much higher level, but for at least the first six hours, battles are swift and easy. I liked that battles weren’t entirely random, you can see the enemy AI on the map. Battles also load-in and load-out quickly. By that I mean when a battle starts, there is maybe a one or two second delay before you’re in, and the “To Arms!” cue appears on screen. Similarly at the end of the battle, there is a brief Victory animation and cue on screen, and then it’s back to exploration mode. Any loot dropped during the battle can be immediately picked up in exploration, so it’s not like you have to run around picking up the loot in battle as it falls.
Similar to the first game, I really liked how NNK2 introduces gameplay mechanics at a regular pace and it’s never overwhelming nor boring. The game design is such that new elements are introduced and the player can press L3 to get more detail on the specifics if they’d like. Whether reading the default tutorial prompts or the more detailed ones, it doesn’t take much to get the idea and be able to execute it. Fortunately, the flow of the game is also smoothly paced, as is the difficulty ramp. For several hours I thought the combat was borderline too easy, but eventually there will be ‘tainted’ enemies that are super tough, mid-tier bosses, and multi-floor dungeons (optional). I loved the combat system though, which is played in realtime. It’s not turn-based, and, players can jump, too. Melee and ranged combat are blended really well. Each character can carry three melee weapons and one ranged weapon. Each melee weapon has a percentage counter than dials up as you use the weapon, getting it charged up for a special attack. Managing three melee weapons and one ranged weapon might seem like a lot, but it’s intuitive, especially if you’re used to third person action games. It’s satisfying as heck to bring a monster down in melee, and then immediately charge up a range shot to take out another across the battlefield.
Skirmish battles are an interesting change of pace, and while it took me a couple of these to like them, I soon did. Later in the game, when you start building your kingdom and tending to it, I found things to get bit more tedious, but I also discovered that it didn’t matter a whole lot if I decided to just take a barebones approach to one game element or another. Pleasantly, NNK2 let me explore, battle, grind, whatever I wanted to do basically, without the burden of having to do all that it has to offer (even though these elements are well-designed, described, and executed). I found myself leaving my kingdom more often then not in favor of exploration, and it was great to be able to do that and still advance the game forward. This was yet another reason why NNK2 never felt like a grind, but instead a charming adventure in which there was always something enjoyable to do, and it could be done so in a time-efficient manner thanks to factors like brief load times, fast travel, and real-time combat that doesn’t waste any time in presentation bumpers or summary screens.
Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom is a triumph that successfully blends JRPG with components of kingdom building, third person action, and real-time strategy. It tells an interesting story with intriguing characters and the presentation quality from the in-game visuals, cutscenes, soundtrack, even the menus, are masterfully done. Whether you played the original NNK or not, Revenant Kingdom is highly recommended.
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