Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom Review

Two worlds experience an event that will change the course of their histories. The leader of one, Roland, is magically whisked away into another world where he meets the young and future king Evan. Their relationship starts off rocky, and so does Evan’s start as the new king, but this is just the beginning in Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. You will have to battle together with other like minded individuals to save the world from an ancient evil that is working in the shadows.

I’m going to tell you this right off the bat, this is not going to be a quick game. There are several layers to it. You will of course be exploring the lands and following the story. You will be interacting with a very wide cast of characters, some of whom will join your party and/or lend their skills to help further your goals in the game. You will be tasked with building a kingdom, building special buildings, selecting what to research, assigning members of your kingdom to those different buildings, and of course you’ll have to protect it as well. Outside of your normal party battles, you will have skirmishes that will test your army, and your kingdom. 

I’m going to be completely honest, I focused on almost all aspects of the kingdom except for the skirmishes. I did a couple of them, but there were so many that required a much higher level to even attempt that I just left them alone. Sure, it was nice that they gave a suggested level to be at (that’s army level, not your characters’ levels), but most of the time I had trouble putting together an army that had a level anywhere close to the recommended level. I would recommend that you try to increase the amount of money and storage that you can hold. First, it will just make things easier in the long run when you need astronomical amounts of money or a combination of ingredients that aren’t readily available by adventuring.

I love the look and feel of this game. I felt like I was playing in a Studio Ghibli world, a world full of different unique looking races, locales, and filled with unique individuals that were memorable throughout your playthrough. You tie that look with the soundtrack of the game, and I was sold. I was happy to get to play this game, but if this story was just a movie I would have been all over it as well.

I put over 60 hours into this game, and the only thing that really didn’t sit well with me was the fact that there were certain quests and townsfolk you couldn’t get/complete until after you completed the game. After putting in that much time into the game I just didn’t see any reason to go back and play more. Sure, you get a special save file that saves the game right before the last part of the game, so you won’t have to start from scratch, but it breaks the continuity of the story and that just didn’t work for me. Overall, though, I loved the game and threw myself at it from start to finish.