Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom First Impression
Nothing like finally having that game you've been waiting for and your patience is rewarded by the game not being a disappointment. The further I delve into Ni No Kuni II I'm getting more excited by this other form of Ghibli's work. Well, Studio Ghibli wasn't involved much in this sequel, but come on, don't you believe what your eyes told you?! But this game is not perfect too and that's what I'm going to talk about in this post.
Warning. This post contains spoilers, wall of texts, and... a slightly uncomfortable thing to read.
The opening scene is a real blast (sorry, sorry). We take the role of Roland, a president of an untold nation who got mysteriously blasted away to another dimension--a fable fantasy world--after a missile hit the city. But instead of falling off the sky, or thrown out of a portal or something, he gently, magically appeared inside of a young king’s bedroom for some reason. Not only that, he becomes younger. This is where the characters start to be introduced one by one, starts from Roland and Evan, the young would-be-king. From this moment on your curiosity is also sparked.
The Beginning
While I like tutorial on the go, Ni No Kuni II’s tutorial is too hand holding for me. The story begins with the king's most trusted advisor—a rat—who killed his king and seize the throne. Pretty much what you'll see in fantasy/kingdom stories, right? Except this one is an actual rat.
Roland, Evan, and his trusted caretaker Aranella must fight and sneak their way out of the kingdom. So far, I liked the characters. Roland showing his capability in a sword fight and protecting someone instead of being protected (you know, Mr. President), and Aranella looks like a swift rogue type in combat but has gentle personality. Evan, well, he's an innocent child. But he can use a sword.
I heard we will build a new kingdom in this game, and I'd love to have these people to be in it as playable characters. Unfortunately, just before the three reach the end of the secret passage, a menacing Black Knight stands in their way. The three fight him but eventually lose, with Aranella die saving Evan's noble ass.
I'm so pissed with this rat Mausinger, he poisoned Evan's father, take over the kingdom, and now Aranella is dead. Mark my words when we meet again, rat, I will not kill you, no. I will make you wish you were dead. I will chop your rodent body bit by bit, feed them to you until you die slowly, in front of your loved ones. The last thing you'll ever hear before you lose your ears is my laughter. And the last thing you'll ever see before you lose your eyes is the burnt corpse of your family...
But not before I'm having fun with this cute spinning little plant! Weeee!
The Game May Not Appeal to Everyone
The open world exploration in Ni No Kuni II is played with the over-world mode, where you go chibi and bump into monster encounters that will switch you to the third person perspective battle. The party based real-time combat is fun, really fun. But sometimes it gets too flashy I don't know what the hell is going on.
I like the monster design, so imaginative and cutely dangerous. Even a monster as generic as slime blob is not so boring to fight in this game. But I can't say they are great, though. Because you can easily kill almost everything without worrying about their specific elemental weaknesses much. Playing by that rule only make things way easier. Plus you have these little wiggly monsters called Higgledy to help you in combat. They can heal, buff, nerf the enemy, even summon a cannon. But I can't say the game is bad either, because Ni No Kuni II is not supposed to be a hard game.
Early in the game, the party consist of only Evan and Roland. As I follow the main storyline, I got more people joining my party. Currently my party consist of Evan, Roland, a big muscle called Batu, and a brave little girl named Tani. So basically we take the role of everyone in the party.
While there will be more than 4 people join in, there can be only 3 active people at a time. There are two types of weapons, melee and ranged in which are specified for each character. For example, Evan can only use swords and magic wands. Should I find a pistol, I can't have Evan equip it so I'll have to give it to someone who can, which is Roland. Batu's speciality is in great weapons such as great axes and hammers, and Tani uses spears and bows.
To build a kingdom where there is no war and everyone can be happy, that's Evan's dream. From that sentence I'm sure you know what kind of trope you're gonna get. I wish I could turn Evan into a hard, merciless king who take no apology from any wrongdoer but still kind-hearted to those who are not. The story is presented in the most cinematic way possible. The game does what it does and it's good at it.
I Hear Some Problems
While I'm pretty much like what I play, Ni No Kuni II is not without its problem. A not-so-Ghibli problem. The accompanying soundtrack is nice, and the matter of fact, I like the catchy soundtracks. But, almost every time it is out of place.
An intense music can be heard while I'm not in combat, even if there's zero hostile around. And it's the kind of music that when you hear it you know there's danger approaching. This also happens when I'm having a pleasant conversation with someone. It really breaks the immersion.
The second problem is in the dialogue. I know that in (some) JRPGs the dialogue is delivered through a text with a single word spoken instead of fully voiced. For example:
(Voice) "What?!"
(Followed by a surprised dialogue in text).
The characters will only speak their voice out during cutscene. But that's not a problem. The problem is, sometimes they speak up the full dialogue outside of cutscene, while the text form is also present. And then they stop doing that, only to do that again the next second.
If all of this is really a problem, I hope fix is coming soon. But if it's not, I hate to say that it's a bad design decision.
Beyond the Opening Sequences
After a long journey, Evan has his first "army" to lead, a group of Sky Pirates where Batu and Tani came from. So basically I'm playing as a little kid who leads a bunch of scumbags. Except these guys are not really scumbags. These Sky Pirates are also the first people to contribute to establish Evan's new kingdom. Getting to the Kingdom-building part of the game was quite a long journey, and it seems it's not even half of the game yet.
There are side quests too but only a few, and some that I encountered so far are intriguing. The world is big alright, and it looks quite beautiful too. But it's... "static"? I think that's the right word. It's so different than the city that feels a bit more alive.
I'm currently running a side quest given by a mysterious person that set me to find some mysterious doors to other realm and acquire the Dream Fragments, which seems to be rare materials. I'm guessing this mysterious person will make me some sick weapon out of those materials and then join my kingdom once I complete the task.
I haven't far into it yet but so far Ni No Kuni II is really enjoyable despite its problems, with the most enjoyable aspect is its combat gameplay and the graphic style that makes you think it's a playable Studio Ghibli's anime. For JRPG fans I think this is a good one for you, but for the more authentic RPG players, I'm not sure if this for you.
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So you're saying that Ni no Kuni II Focuses more on giving a cinematic experience? I mean I understand why it would be inclined to be more like that and less challenging as a game but to be honest I think that if I had the game, I would probably drop it. I'm the kind of guy that believes that when the combat is not so engaging or the game isn't challenging me in every chance that it takes, i'm being misled or i'm just wasting a bit of my time... I know the artstyle is inspired by ghibli but this is still a Videogame o: Maybe it applies more to the casual side by having a good enganging story!
It kind of brings me back to when I was playing Tales of Vesperia on my 360! Same cell shaded art (Not ArtStyle, Obviously) and combat if i'm not wrong! The game is entertaining and engaging on combat but it's not really that deep when you really start analizing it and when you rank up the difficulty, you notice enemies just become Sponges and they deal a LOT of damage without actually ranking up the challenge.
Really great post my dude, I love reading about new games and unique pieces of art like this one! Looking forward to read more of your content!
First of all, great review haven't played this series yet, but maybe I will try it.
Now to your comment:
That's a very sad opinion, which could miss a lot. Games don't always have to be about outstanding gameplay. Of course, a game that combines both in an excellent way, is also a game that gets top ratings.
But why can't a game be like an interactive movie? In a good movie, you don't say you wasted your time because the gameplay wasn't good.
To name a few examples:
Journey:
Almost no gameplay, but a wonderful experience. Despite the almost non-existent gameplay, a similar experience within a film would not have been so impressive by far.
Especially a lot of indie games work this way, although they have hardly any game mechanics worth mentioning.(The Stanley parable, Her Story, also really good examples)
Fahrenheit, Beyond to Souls, Heavy Rain:
What can these games do? Except Quicktime events not much. However, they are absolutely ready for film and tell an emotionally gripping story, which, however, is transported much better by the greater immersion.
Please don't feel offended, I just might have wanted to give you a different view on things.
I guess you could say that. I even fight red monsters (op monsters) to make it more difficult to me but I still got so little problem beating them. But there are some op monsters that really hard when you're under-leveled, some kind of mini-bosses. I like games with challenging combat too, but I still enjoy this game.
For me, the combat easy alright, but it's still appealing. Good timing is still needed, and "not to swing your sword mindlessly" is still applied too. Because the monsters mostly deal damage as much as you do and it's just a matter of who fight better. This game is... take you to walk in the park while holding your hand romantically lol.
So I suppose I like it because having some "easy" games is good to me after you got so intense in other more challenging games. Even monsters that deal enough damage to make you use healing have clumsy and amusing animations. Like, it's not supposed to scare you or make you feel tense. (e.g. Get dizzy after spinning attack, or a giant ape-like that scratch his butt a lot after he smash you). If you want something more challenging I think you'll pass on this one.
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