Ni No Kuni II

Ni No Kuni II is an ambitious JRPG to say the least. Blending element of the RTS and city building genres seamlessly in to a new modern take on the timeless JRPG formula. All the while keeping things simple enough for anyone to easily grasp and enjoy.

The birth of a kingdom

Ni No kKuni II starts with Roland the president of a USA-esque country, being transported to a fantasy style world after watching said country get blown to pieces by a nuke. Roland finds himself in the bedroom of Evan, the young king of a city named Ding Dong Dell. Soon thereafter, the two discover a plot to assassinate young King Evan and so proceed to escape from the city which he once ruled. Evan and Roland then commence a long journey of reflection and what it really means to be a ruler. Eventually Evan decided to unite the world and to create a place where everyone can be happy. To achieve this he establishes a new kingdom named Evermore, as well planning an alliance of all the world’s nations known as the Declaration of Interdependence. The story is filled with your classic JRPG characters, most of which were not all that interesting, and the plot while at time has some twists was nothing extremely fresh or exciting.

A great deal of the game revolves around your kingdom of Evermore.  The game tasks you with everything from managing the citizens to deciding what to build and upgrade in your kingdom. Evermore acts as a hub for you to do many things like customize your weapons and armor, as well as build new ones, you can buy general items, or even augment how much experience your party gets, the list of things only grows as your kingdom expands. The satisfaction of watching your kingdom grow from a small village in to a thriving city is one of the many things that kept me coming back for more.

Many of the games side quest involve recruiting new citizens to Evermore. There was nothing extraordinary about them, most of which consist of the usual, collect item A or kill bad guy B. However the idea of gaining another follower to help grow my Evermore’s armory or stores, had the collector in me fanatically devouring all the quests the game could offer me.

One of the other major facets of managing Evermore is it’s defenses. This is done with a neat RTS system. You control Evan and up to four bands of soldiers each with their own weapon type. The combat follows a simple rock, paper scissors format that doesn’t really offer much depth. It servers mostly as a nice occasional break from the normal combat in the game, but in the end feel kind of tacked on and half baked.

Out with the old and in with the new

In many way Ni No Kuni II fixes the major issues, that plagued the first game (a great game in it’s own right). Gone are the tedious and slow Pokemon style battles from the first game, but instead there is a focus on fluid fast paced combat, more akin to that of the tales of series. You have your normal myriad of moves like slow and fast attacks, ranged attacks, magic attacks, and the ability to block and dodge. However the introduction of the zing gauge adds a new twist to combat. Characters can equip 3 different melee weapons that you can swap between mid combat. As they land melee attacks, that weapons zing gauge fills until it reaches 100%, which empowers all of their attacks. You can then choose to expend all of your zing gauge to unleash a beefed of version of your magic attacks, that when used properly can devastate enemies. It ends up blending really well creating a very fun experience that rewards you for playing smart using your abilities properly.

The combat from the first Ni No Kuni while mostly gone, still lives on to an extent in the the form of Higgeldies. Higgeldies are quirky little elemental creatures that help Evan and his crew in combat. They can provide a large array of practical , and silly skills, ranging from a healing field to firing cannons at your foes. While handy in a pinch, at no point would I have called them necessary for any of the fights. In fact, I didn’t really bother to change or manage my higgeldies until 3/4 of the way through the game. Even then it was solely out of curiosity and not necessity.

 

Summery

Ni No Kuni II offers a little bit of everything for it’s audience, and somehow manages to pull it off without taking away from the gameplay. Everything that I did feels like it has a purpose, and at no point was I dreading doing anything the game had to offer. The story while I thought was perhaps a bit uninspired was still fairly solid. Overall Ni No Kuni II is an excellent game that offers a breath of fresh air in to the JRPG genre without alienating it’s fans or over complicating thing.

Good

• Fun and fresh combat
• Loads of things to keep you busy
• Very nice art style and sound track

Bad

• Run of the mill JRPG story
• Some aspects felt a little under developed

8/10