Developer: Level 5
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Platform: PS4, PC

Level 5 took a break from milking their cash cow Yo Kai Watch on the baby DS to do what, In the past, they’ve always done best: put square Enix to shame with another huge JRPG that outright rips off mechanics from a Nintendo game. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is a sequel to the sublime Studio Ghibli collaboration...but Studio Ghibli have unfortunately not contributed this time. 

The most important thing to note about Ni No Kuni II is that it is to JRPGs what Far Cry 4 was to open world FPS games...it’s another one. While the original Ni No Kuni made a bold move in giving gamers what they’ve been asking for for years (it was pretty much a 3D Pokemon set in a huge fantasy world) the sequel plays it safe & sticks to the guidebook when it comes to the many tropes we have come to expect from a modern JRPG. 

In terms of story & setting, a lot has changed in the world of Ni No Kuni as this game seems to take place long after the story of Oliver & Drippy. Evan is the new protagonist & after a military coup which strips him of the right to take his place as king of Ding Dong Dell he sets out to forge a new kingdom whose citizens can live happily ever after. While the opening sequence is utterly gripping & leaves a lot of potential for the games cast of colourfully designed characters to develop strong, believable relationships, what follows is a series of forgettable scenes that are either mind numbingly inconsequential or so focussed on plot progression that we have to take it as a given that these characters are the best of friends. It feels like any of the games huge cast of minor characters could have joined the main party and it would not have had any bearing on the plot.

Again, like many JRPGs, Ni No Kuni II’s writing is needlessly drawn out with no substance or character building...until it actually warrants a deeper explanation that is. No better example can be given than the most awkward attempt at a plot twist the world has ever seen. At one point you take control Roland, another main character, taking on a lone infiltration mission. Suddenly this character has all these weird magical gadgets & it plays out in a way that suggests the audience should have known where these suddenly appeared from. Anyway, you're meant to believe this character has betrayed everyone and the entire explanation is dumped on the audience after the fact in a string of clichés. Batu, the pirate who initially accused the would be turncoat says “arr ye scurvy dog.” Leander, the intelligent nerdy one says “I calculated that this was your plan” only then is it revealed that the gadgets had been given by said nerdy guy. There are so many ways this could have been executed better & all of them involve laying out the plan before it happens. Did they really believe that any player was going to think one of the main characters was going to become a bad guy? It's so obvious that it wouldn't matter if it was revealed first in order to include some much needed character development instead. For example, Batu is the one that discovers that Roland is seemingly betraying the good guys & outright calls for his banishment. This could have driven a wedge between the two characters, with Batu feeling ashamed that he didn’t figure out the plan & apologising in a later scene. You know, characters actually talking & bonding a little. Instead the characters spend even more time regurgitating the plot as if it wasn’t an overtly simplistic snooze-fest.  

Ni No Kuni II almost entirely scraps the gameplay systems put in place in the original game & includes many new systems of its own, starting with the combat which is no longer turn based. Any of the 6 characters can be controlled & each one has a different combat style, though the basics remain the same regardless of who you play as. Each character has a nice array of special skills which consume MP gained from landing hits & MP can also be used for each characters long range weapon at any time. Helping out in combat are higgledies, the game’s incredibly cute minions that can be created and levelled up alongside the main characters. Each higgledy has its own special abilities & are also able to defend themselves a little in battle with miniature spears.

Going back to the story for a second, these higgledies are the mascots of the game & at first, seem like they are going to play a huge role in the events of the story. In the end though, they play no role whatsoever. Though they are adorable and add a lot of charm to the game, simply having them as a near useless addition to the combat seems like a poor replacement for the familiars of the first game, which were never built up to be crucial to the story but nevertheless were the entire basis of the gameplay and combat system.

You may think that these higgledies were where Nintendo’s Pikmin has influenced Ni No Kuni II but that actually comes from a separate battle system where the main character Evan takes control of a small army in a more tactical view. Up to 4 units can join which fall into several categories with a rock, paper, scissors style set-up, the idea is to press the shoulder buttons to rotate the units around you so as to attack the opposing army with the best units. Again, units have different special abilities like an airstrike or the ability to create a siege tower & they can all level up to become more powerful by defeating enemies.

Now, that’s a lot of different gameplay systems to get to grips with, so naturally there’s one overarching system that ties them all together: kingdom building. This is introduced early in the game and eventually plays a role in pretty much every gameplay element in Ni No Kuni II. Specialised buildings can be built using ‘kingsguilders’ a currency which is gradually earned for your kingdom while you are off doing other things and these buildings then employ citizens you've recruited through completing side quests. Further kingsguilders are spent researching anything from improved experience for your army to new crafting recipes for weapons & armour.

A lot of your kingdom’s buildings are used solely for gathering resources of which there are an insane amount of different types and uses for. Almost every loot item in the game can be acquired either this way, by exploring or fighting and this is possibly the biggest double edged sword of Ni No Kuni II. On one hand it's nice to feel like any item you need can be found with ease if you know where to look, in fact the original Ni No Kuni suffered from some incredibly rare loot drops that slowed the game to a crawl on occasion. On the other hand, loot in Ni No Kuni II is thrown at the player in such abundance that none of it feels special and exploration is utterly unrewarding.

There are plenty of sidequests to be done which as said will usually reward you with new citizens who will work at your kingdom. These are another missed opportunity to create some character development as every single one of these will have you trekking somewhere either for a simple fetch quest or a single battle. None of these quests contain intriguing stories or memorable characters & when you end up in one of Ni No Kuni II’s many side-dungeons scattered about the world you can really start to see the minimal effort put in to some of these aspects of the game. The level design in all but the few main dungeons is completely devoid of imagination, these dungeons are made up of copy-pasted stretches of long corridors with one or two branching paths. There are about 3 styles of dungeon: cave, forest & temple but beyond that a distinction between any of them cannot be made...& where is the music? It’s dead silence in these dungeons, making them feel like place-holders for something Level 5 was going to add in later.  

Despite the loot & Kingdom building aspects feeling like they should form a solid core for all the games systems, Level 5 did not fully commit to that vision. The game trips over itself at every turn due almost entirely to one factor: levelling. There may be a few times in the game where you feel your characters are equally matched with the enemy. These make for some thrilling fights where everything at the players disposal is being used to just about pull through...but it didn't happen because you researched that crucial upgrade back at the Kingdom. It didn't happen because you crafted some badass weapon using some of the rarest loot you could get your hands on or because you carefully studied the enemies weaknesses and tailored your magic and equipment to hit them where it hurts. No, this happened because your characters were a certain level, if they were a few levels lower, no amount of planning would stop the enemy completely wiping out your party with one hit kills, if the party were a few levels higher? Well then you could breeze through this fight blindfolded pressing only one button. This applies to levelling up your armies too, they can steam-roll any opposing force simply by being a higher level. Now how does this affect the entire structure of a game whereby all of its systems are supposed to be tied to this one thing, Kingdom building? Well it's all a giant waste of time, in the end the Kingdom upgrades are so arbitrary, so devoid of player agency in that you can effortlessly wait a set amount of time to receive such an inconsequential bonus, that the simple act of levelling up imbalances this game to the point of being boring.

Having said all that & pretty much tore apart a game from Level 5 who have made some of my favourite games, can I really say Ni No Kuni II is bad? All of the games elements on their own are certainly competent & the game as a whole is by no means bad but that just makes it all the more disappointing because of the sheer potential of Ni No Kuni II. In other areas like visuals & music the game is utterly gorgeous but these are not enough to hold together a shitstorm of game design ideas that are all fighting each other for relevance. Its shallow gameplay & characters make Ni No Kuni II a completely passive experience akin to a mobile game, it might hold your attention for a while, it might even have some fun moments but none of them are truly affecting.  

Pros:

• Gorgeous visuals with a unique diorama aesthetic.

• Gorgeous music that sticks in your head.

• Higgledies are insanely cute!

Cons:

• Too many ideas thrown in the pot that destroy the game's balance.

• 1 dimensional, cliché characters.

• Level design doesn't hold up to the quality of Level 5's previous games.