[ENG] Ni no Kuni™ II: Revenant Kingdom - Review
(Polska Wersja Dostępna Tu! - [PL] Ni no Kuni™ II: Revenant Kingdom - Recenzja)
(Minor spoilers ahead. You have been warned.)
I was a bit skeptical when I started this game, honestly – I was skeptical for first 2 or 3 hours, not because of graphics, not because of sound design, not because of gameplay, not because of story, there was no real reason of my skepticism... So why was I? Well, I think the huge part of that was due to my recent experience with Persona 4 Golden, which I loved and after finishing it... I felt empty and maybe I had waaaay too high expectations of another game, thankfully after few hours I calmed down and began enjoying everything in Ni no Kuni II much more.
The game was critically acclaimed by both critics and the players, but the question is - is the game worth playing? Let's find out!
(Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum)
Story is a bit typical and – okay, let's get one thing out of the way – this game in terms of story, difficulty and graphics is clearly aimed at younger audience. Not that it's a wrong thing or anything like it, I'm just saying that story is kinda what you would expect – there is a mysterious big evil force that can't be vanquished unless every other kingdom in the land works together in unity.
Our main protagonist is Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum. A soon-to-be king of his father's kingdom – Ding Dong Dell. Due to the coup, Evan is forced out of castle as well as Ding Dong Dell region and instead of giving up – he strives to build an entirely new kingdom, where everyone can life in peace and harmony.
Aaaand that basically sums up the first two hours of the game, but don't be alarmed – the game is designed to be at least 40-50 hours long so... There is still a lot of things after this. The game is divided into chapters and is told like a fairy tale – at the end of each chapter a narrator summarizes what has happened in certain chapter and the game slowly moves on.
Not-so-far in the game the new kingdom ruled by Evan is created and is gloriously called – Evermore.
Which... Other kingdoms aren't trying to destroy or sabotage Evan's efforts of building a new kingdom and everyone agrees to join or admit their errors after either few words or a relatively simple task... As I said, it's naive and aimed at younger audience, but it's enjoyable nonetheless!
But, despite the game being aimed at younger audience, it shows problems of racism, tyranny, xenophobia, discrimination and so on – of course in a 'gentle' manner, appropriate for younger audience (as well as few moments aren't really suitable for younger audience but... I'd say that it's a huge minority, like – 30 minutes at most in these over 40 hours).
(Tainted Monsters are the closest thing this game has to a real challenge. They are just really buffed up versions of regular monsters - in all terms - health, damage, size. Duh, some of them even have special moves!)
Remember when I said Evan is the 'main' protagonist, right? But that means he's not the only one. As the game progresses, we gain more and more people both to fight alongside us and both to live in Evermore. We can have a lot of teammates, but we can only have 3 at any given time when it comes to fighting, walking around and exploring. We can change between chosen 3 characters at any given time, in other words – we control one out of three characters, whereas other two are controlled by AI.
Each monster and boss has their level clearly shown to us and highlighted (Blue, White, Orange and Red, whereas Blue means we are waaay above said monster level). Combat is pretty simple, we have light and heavy attack, ranged weapon and spells/skills, from which the latter two require mana, WHICH we generate with light and heavy attacks. There are also Higgledies – what they are is much better explained in the game, but let's just say they provide a solid backup – they can fire cannons, distract the enemy, create a healing zone; a zone protecting us from a certain element and so on.
Oh, and... Although I said that the game is aimed at younger audience and difficulty is pretty low, don't make my mistake. Don't skip or run from fights (unless you can't win them) because... At certain point when I wanted to move further in the story, I realized I am waaay below level I need. And that's even after doing majority of available side quests. That's when few hours of grind began... Few hours that could have been easily skipped if I didn't run from so many fights.
Oh, and... Although I said that the game is aimed at younger audience and difficulty is pretty low, don't make my mistake. Don't skip or run from fights (unless you can't win them) because... At certain point when I wanted to move further in the story, I realized I am waaay below level I need. And that's even after doing majority of available side quests. That's when few hours of grind began... Few hours that could have been easily skipped if I didn't run from so many fights.
(Story Bosses have really good and powerful entrances)
So, we have exploring and combat. The world is pretty huge and as the story progresses we get more and more tools to traverse it faster. There is also a small part of inventory management when monsters drop a lot of new weapons and armor and we have to divide these equipment parts between our party members. But there are also two other, quite large parts of the game – skirmishes and 'castle building simulator'. Let's tackle the skirmishes first.
Skirmishes are mostly optional fights, but not in a traditional way. You know, every kingdom needs an army, and wouldn't you know it – Evermore has it's fair share of soldiers too. Using teams of these soldiers we fight against enemy forces in a rock-paper-scissor manner (ergo – swords are better against hammers / hammers against spears / spears against swords) and by moving our soldiers appropriately we can conquer even much stronger foes. We can call for reinforcements and use various skills to make our skirmishes a bit easier.
As I said, they are mostly optional, but they are quite fun. At least I enjoyed them.
(The very first skirmish in the game)
Okay, time for the bigger part. Castle development. Evermore needs development and we decide what and when to build, upgrade as well as placing citizens in facilities they will perform the best. Blacksmith, armorer, general store, spell and higgledy research and much, much more.
Researching new things is done – just like the combat - in real time. Basically, if it says that research will take a 67 minutes. It will take a bit more than an hour of playtime. But since you will be visiting Evermore Castle once every few hours to collect items, money, start new research and build new facilities, you won't even notice that something actually took over an hour.
For me for example, each and every visit to Evermore Castle ended in at least half an hour of building new things, rearranging citizens, choosing the most necessary research and so on, and so on.
You can also expand coffers and upgrade your main castle. Coffers naturally allow you to store more money at any given time and upgrading your castle allows you to build much more things. Of course, both of these things need appropriate influence, citizens in Evermore and facilities build (Influence is a thing you gain literally for any research, facility build and so on... I... Maybe I was blind or ignorant but I couldn't notice if bigger influence actually changed anything in any element of the game).
(The entire map - suffice it to say, a lot of things are hidden from the initial sight)
Graphics are cartoon-like, quite eye-soothing even on lowest settings and many enemies, characters and bosses have quite an interesting design choices. The 'time' in many places is kinda set-in-stone. For example one part of the map is enclosed in an eternal night, another in eternal sunlight and so on. I am not saying that this game need a dynamic weather, I just find it kinda immersion breaking when the weather around you is constantly changing when you are for example rushing from one end of the map to another in the endgame (No spoilers here, just a random example when all enemies on the way can be skipped because they are painfully underleveled. It's just... I dunno, nothing but a small nitpick).
Audio design – I have a mixed feelings about it. Because as much as I enjoyed the soundtrack, combat sounds and some dialogues, the voice acting feels... Weird (Mind you, I was playing with English dubbing, MAYBE Japanese would be better). I can't tell you exactly why it feels weird, but... I dunno, maybe I feel like voice acting is aimed at younger audience much more than the entire game. Oooor I am still having a painful gaming hangover after Persona 4. Can be both, can be neither. I'm not saying that VA is necessarily bad, but... It certainly is quite off in my opinion.
(As it's shown - completing the game took me 47,5 hours)
I haven't told about many aspects of Ni no Kuni II partially due to spoilers and partially because I really encourage you to discover them on your own and get positively surprised. The story is pretty engaging, despite the cliche, gameplay is relatively simple and if you get really into the game, you will discover that next to basic 40-50 hours of gameplay, there can be another 30-40 hours of bonus content and challenges! (And I'm not talking about DLCs here! And yes, the game itself doesn't provide any sort of challenge when it comes to combat, but some optional bosses can still be irritating).
Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom has a bit long title, but still shorter than it's predecessor. The game is pretty enjoyable, there are many aspects to keep you either really engaged or at least interested. You know, when I think about it now and realize that I almost skipped this game due to my early skepticism, I would have missed out on a pretty good story, characters and game overall. I highly recommend this game and – as with every game with cartoon/anime-like graphics – if you're worried about the graphics, just... Try to ignore it and focus on the actual story and gameplay, there is a chance that you'll realize graphics just help enhance the overall experience!
Rise from the ashes and unite the kingdoms under the banner of Evermore as King Evan, a young but formidable and kind ruler!
Kind Regards,
Wing.
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