Thoughts on Ni no Kuni 2

Ni no Kuni 2 (NNK2) has had me glued to my PS4 every waking moment I have at home. Having blown through most of the game by now, here are a collection of some of my thoughts on the game:

• Story is okay, but passes on some great potential. The story in the game is simple and keeps things moving at a nice pace. I’m nearing the end of the game and am a bit disappointed that the world Roland came from does not play a more significant role in this game. The original Ni no Kuni had players moving between two different worlds. I was hoping this game would do something similar and allow us to uncover how what’s going on in Evan’s world influenced the missile attack in Roland’s world.

• Voice acting is lacking in quantity, not quality. Disclaimer: I’m not a voice acting snob. With that said, the voice acting in this game (sans Lofty most of the time) is pretty good. What’s disappointing is the amount of lines in this game that aren’t voiced. I’d estimate less than 10% of the dialog in this game is voiced which for a AAA JRPG game is really low.

• Skirmish mode is fun but it just scratches the surface. The rock-paper-scissors skirmish mode in this game is a nice touch to prevent the monotony that can result in a single battle system. But the system is not very nuanced as eventually every battle just becomes you running through areas and easily smothering your opponents. It’d be cool to see more added to this mode in the future. The text during these battles also comes and goes way too fast making it sometimes impossible to read!

• Kingdom Builder is awesome! Level 5 might never grace us with a Dark Cloud 3 but the Kingdom Builder satisfies the Dark Cloud world-building itch nicely. Gathering citizens, building facilities, researching upgrades sounds boring but it’s really addicting. The benefits of building up your kingdom (e.g. crafting and upgrading weapons and armors, upgrading spells, automatic gathering of materials, access to better items, upgrades related to battles and skirmishes) are absolutely worthwhile so it makes investments in this feature not seem at all like a chore.

• The soundtrack is amazing! Joe Hisaishi does it again with a superb soundtrack. They kept the original, iconic main theme and sprinkled the OST with several variations on this epic song.

All in all, I’m really impressed and happy with Ni no Kuni 2. It’s got me hooked and has been an all-around fun game to play. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for a solid, classical JRPG.