This game looks super interesting to me but I played the first one for a while (just passed the island where you go inside the big mom) and fell off even though I loved the art and world.

I really want to play a JRPG in this kinda style though and I am thinking about getting this, FF12 or Tales of Berseria.

So I wanna ask some duders who have put some hours into it what they think.

Does the combat keep you engaged, how is the side stuff and is the story any good?

Extremely charming, lots of things to do and see, very beautiful except for the overworld sections where they have little chibi versions of characters. Combat has some aspects that can make it seem deep but since the game is so easy you never really need to utilize them. I'm about 5 hours in and the story is moving at a nice quick pace.

It's really up to you if you want to spend $60 on a brand new game or get those other 2 for real cheap at this point.

It feels very much like a tales game with more child like wonder than anime. And like @cheetoman said the combat has a lot but is pretty easy. I'm about 12 hours in and haven't failed a battle. I've had one character die twice because I got one shotted just due to level differences.

All in all, I'm enjoying it though. It's very cute and I find the characters charming. But also those other two games are going to be a lot cheaper so maybe that?

Well I'll probably only play one JRPG in the near future in case I end up in a JRPG hole like Rorie.

Ni No Kuni seems the most appealing to me but maybe I could give FF12 another shot. I've been wondering how that's aged.

I'm about 16 hours in on chapter 6, which is over halfway, and I'm not really feeling it. It's kind of low-budget. Nothing happens in it, voice acting is almost non-existent, combat is as simple as it gets, and the game is heavily padded with sidequests and potentially grinding (the game's easy enough that it doesn't matter, but it feels like I'm constantly playing catch-up with story quests 10 levels higher than my party).

Story wise it tries to do the Dragon Quest thing of having you solve each town's dilemma, only it's not nearly as effective at it (not to mention there's only like what, 4 cities in the game?)

Again, there just isn't much substance to it, and it feels like a little side project for Level-5 that Bandai Namco co-funded, while their main focus is on raking in the big bucks with Yo-kai Watch and the like. It's nowhere near the level of Xenoblade 2 and Dragon Quest XI.

I'd say, skip this and get FF12 or Ys VIII instead.

It's good, but definitely under developed. If Ni no Kuni is a feature film, Ni no Kuni II is the direct to video sequel. The gameplay is much better IMO and the town building is quite addictive, so it's more about being a production issue than a core design one. Still, it does have a difficulty problem where most people might find it too easy.

It doesn't take too much analysing to see where corners got unfortunately cut. Some "arcs" are definitely more involved than others and some stories seem legitimately interesting, but they are told quickly and without a lot spectacle, for the most part.

Some things are so blatantly missing than they scream "DLC". Like a gigantic space ship that takes a big chunk of a whole continent that nobody even bothers to explain or react to, or the town in the Drylands that is simply gone, with some inhabitants showing up later after finishing the game...who apparently can time travel. Also a character that reveals that can mind travel through time as a quick explanation for anunimpressive mystery reveal.

Just finished the game the other day and it's alright. The main story is probably the weakest part of the game, so if you're the type of person to just mainline the story missions to the end I don't think I would recommend it.

The side stuff is pretty fun though. Building your base up is basically a clicker. You upgrade stuff like the blacksmith, which you can buy better weapons with but also everything you buy gives you more influence, which gets you more money per hour to upgrade other stuff. You can also get people to join your town through sidequests which can help build your town up ect....the numbers keep going up. More fun than it sounds I'm sure but if this is not appealing probably stay away. There are also battles you can fight with your army which is a neat little side thing, although not really that hard or rewarding.

The actual combat does get harder later on. When you get your airship the game starts outleveling you so you're always behind on levels which makes the combat feel more like it should rather than a walk in the park. There are also tainted monsters which are basically elite mobs that drop some good equipment and are pretty tough. When I stopped playing almost all the level 75+ tainted monsters were one shotting me at level 90. The combat system is not very deep and a lot of the monsters throw out attacks without any tells but at least it starts making you work for your wins if that's something you're looking for.

I never played the first one, I always wanted to give it a shot but never really bothered because frankly I don't really like the PS3 controller at all so I skipped over a decent amount of games to play their remasters or re-releases on PS4. But I did pick it up in a recent sale for $5 so I'll give it a shot at some point. Anyway, I was actually pretty interested in this one and after hearing people talk positively about it grabbed the PC version. It seems relatively simplistic with some depth that could be uncovered but seems anything but necessary to progress. Granted I'm only a couple hours in, it could ramp up significantly. But word on the street is it doesn't.

But having become a father recently (jk we just got a puppy) I have a lot less time to play games for a few months, and every time I get a chance I'm kinda too burnt out from the day to play anything else. So right now I am really appreciating the colorful, lighthearted nature of this game. And the combat is just complex enough for me to be okay kinda mashing buttons and throwing in some dodges and specials without being overbearing and having me turn it off.

So I just beat the game at 29 hours, and that was definitely pushing it with over 70 out of the 155 quests available to me done (there's 20 more in post). And these aren't good sidequests. They're MMO-style filler. "Bring me these 3 items," "Talk to these 3 people," "Explore this dungeon with the exact same layout as all the other dungeons in the game, and fight the monster/get the item at the end."

At 29 hours, more than half the game was spent doing sidequests and kingdom management (I know, because I went on several multi-hour quest hunts), and it's all been completely unnecessary as the story bosses were complete pushovers. Not to mention that even with this much side content completed, I was still considered underleveled by the game, and I never equipped any of my quest rewards.

I stand by what I said earlier. It's not a great game. Extremely thin on story, and the extracurricular stuff is too bland to compensate for it. Not a game I'd recommend to the casual JRPG fan looking to get their fix. On the other hand, it's so short that it might just be what they're looking for.

From what I've played of all three, I say play Tales. Ni No is really easy, like, to a degree where you don't really have to think. The Kingdom management stuff seems rad, but I've heard such conflicting things from it being a grind akin to a mobile game (Ben on recent Bombcast) to it's like playing Studio Ghibli Sim City and is the most charming thing ever. For me though, the difficulty was the real killer. All three bosses I fought before I bounced off, I beat in sub 2 minutes without needing to actively heal at all.

FF12 is more personal, I just don't like that game's style (or Vaan for that matter).

Now, Berseria has a really cool, unusual protagonist and great combat. Seems to have a pretty genuinely hate-able villain, too. Don't know about you, but "great villain" pulls me in more than most other aspects in fiction.

@poobumbutt: Thanks i think I will pick up tales when it drops in price a little.

To fill my JRPG needs in the meantime I'm trying to finally finish FFX after putting it down 2 years ago (it's aged really poorly). I also got Dragon Quest 1 on my phone because I've never played a DQ game before and I'm really enjoying it.

Have to agree with all this, although I'm surprised and wondering how you did it in 29 hours. I cleared Broadleaf at 30 and have since just been grinding away. Super boring. Is this near the end? I figured I'm maybe 75% through the story? They gave me that warning about not being able to go back or take a break or whatever on next quest so I just worked on the Kingdom and doing quests. Not sure what people find so good about that aspect. It is very mobile game-esque. As Ben did, I've just started leaving the game running to get the stupid coins to research a thing I don't need, then wait, then upgrade a building, all so I can just do it again and again dozens more times? It feels silly.

Another mixed bag is the difficulty. I think the game is simple and easy at times, but I also just keep hitting what feels like HP barriers; meaning the fights come in two flavors: I stomp all over the thing as if I'm way over leveled or I get killed in two or three hits by attacks you can't really dodge. The simple combat is really just who has the most HP. Your attacks don't really stun them and they don't really stun you.. So you just stand there beating the shit out of each other until someone dies. Blocking is useless, dodging is futile. At this point I only enjoy/can tolerate the game when I'm wrecking dudes otherwise I'm pissed off and want to stop wasting my time. Feels like no skill is involved whatsoever. Spam attacks and items and try to outlast them. None of the special gear stats matter. I just put on whatever has the highest damage and defense. None of the skills matter. The RTS thing is just a rock, paper, scissors thing to bash your head against.

My opinion of Ni No Kuni 2 was middle of the road when it began, went up a bit as I tried to focus on the story, and is dropping back down now that I'm doing all the menial tasks. I think I already posted in here or maybe it was one of the other threads lol

10 hours in and I still think it's awesome. I agree with people who say it's a rather easy game, ... but I don't care, it does not detract from my enjoyment.

What "makes" this game for me, what I bought it for, was the beatiful visuals and the Ghibli-esque storytelling. This is enough to keep me engaged with it.

The combat is rather complex in its design; there's plenty of things to do during it, to keep you active. Much of it is up to you however, the player. The game gives you that option.

@seikenfreak:

It all comes down to how much time you spend on side activities. If you've done a lot of grinding on regular mobs, it'd make sense your hour count's higher than mine as I never really did. What I did do is a few runs of world map exploration, picking up all the chests I missed earlier, and steamrolling all the tainted monsters that are now super easy but still give crazy amounts of EXP. My tip for the game is to just leave them alone until you get the airship so you can knock them off real fast. Any other means of grinding just isn't worth it.

Also, don't worry about those warnings and just keep playing. Even before fighting the final boss you can just warp out and do whatever you want.

If you've cleared Broadleaf at 30, I'd give you another 5 hours or so.

It's a 2/5. Gameplay is super boring, difficulty is weird, you spend about half the game grinding, be it kingdom upgrading, citizen recruiting, or tainted monster grinding, it's a real bummer.

The game looks and sounds stunning, which is what it has going for it. But the story and gameplay is super whatever.

Your mileage may vary

In all honesty, and I may be in the minority on this, I think this game is inferior to the first in every single way.The game has cut corners to levels i can't believe. There is very little voice acting, you'll go from one scene of 5 minutes of static text which will transfer to a cut scene with one or (if you're lucky) two lines of dialogue and back to 5 minutes of static text (makes the game feel lazy and cheap). Songs are also looping every minute or so, making for monotonous exploring, not to mention story changes don't effect the music at all. So when you first arrive to a town and the situation is dire there, the music sounds very ominous, which is perfect, but after you solve the issue in town the music doesn't change which makes it sound odd and out of place.

The characters are unmemorable and have literally no character development, I am about 25-30 hours in and know the same about characters introduced 5 minutes in the game that I did 24 hours ago.

The combat is pretty uninspired as well, I for one liked familars and the differences that each presented, this game everything feels the same. You get more party members, but they each act very similarly, even equipping the same weapons as other characters and higgeldies while they make them seem like familars 2 are all copies of each other, there are only 5-6 diffrent skins from what I can see all of which do the same type of stuff (produce a cannon, heal, big aoe). Battles amount to mashing attack, pressing x on higgeldy areas if you want (or if it is a boss) and then proceed to mash attack again.

My opinion, if you didn't like the first you probably won't like the second. It seems like this game mostly appeals to people that were curious about the first and didn't play it and/or haven't played rpgs in a while. No offense to those that like it, but if you haven't played the first I highly recommend digging out a PS3 and if you bounced of the first maybe look elsewhere completely

@sinreaver: Sadly I completely agree so far (I'm going to try and remain as spoiler free as possible in case anyone reading this hasn't played either game). I think I'm about 20 hours in and I started feeling this way pretty early on. I'm not normally a JRPG type of gamer, but Ni No Kuni was something special to me, and it made me love this type of game, so I was extremely excited for this. I feel like the lack of Studio Ghibli here is extremely apparent. The story in NNK2 just lacks a certain... substance, one that NNK had in spades. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that I honestly don't give one crap about Evan, his motivations are honestly just stupid and childish, and the real world tie in of Roland this time is beyond awful. On the other hand, Oliver's story in NNK was one that really gripped me, and I understood exactly why he wanted to escape to this wondrous place on a journey with Drippy. And speaking of Drippy, while annoying at times, his comedy relief was 100x better than the typecast character for NNK2 that plays that role. NNK overall just had a better developed, more interesting plot, with better villian/villians, that pushed you through the game more fluidly than NNK2 has (at least so far, I'm in Broadleaf). And similarly, I'm also finding a drastic disconnect with the presentation. In NNK, the vast majority of cut scenes were just that, fully voice acted Cutscenes where you could put the controller down. In NNK2, most scenes are hit X to progress, and hear characters make noises to text like "Oh Golly" for "You are right Rolland, that's an excellent idea." It's such a detraction from what Ni No Kuni was, as those type of scenes were only in towns talking to vendors in NNK (at least from my recollection, which may not be perfectly accurate years later) and it was generally a beautiful, almost animated movie.

For the things that NNK2 does well, I do think the combat is better by a bit, but that may be just because I'm kind of pushing through the story pretty fast and finding myself way under-leveled frequently, thus not finding the game overly simply like it probably is. Having Squad characters that level up with gear is an interesting choice, especially with how core Familiars were to NNK. In that sense I found this system rather jarring at first, and it confuses me why we are still fighting Familiars all over the place when they aren't collectible as fighting creatures in some aspect like in NNK. In that respect I'd rather be fighting more enemies like the intro to the game, more humanoid enemies. I do agree that the leveling up system of Familiars in NNK was one of the best parts, and finding and knowing what treats to give certain Familiars at certain points so they would develop certain ways was something I loved. I kind of wish that was still here rather than the Higgledy stuff, and you could activate their abilities in a similar fashion. But I like the focus on Squad Characters more than Familiars in this for Combat itself regardless. Like many here, I also enjoy the Kingdom Building aspect. I like having a side thing to do and keep track of outside the main quest. My only complaint is I wish recruiting new members to the Kingdom felt more of a Main Quest objective rather than a Side Quest that's annoying to fulfill and prevents progression (last night I had to spend around 4 hours grinding Recruitment to progress the story, which isn't fun, and feels a bit mindless). But I do really like the idea that certain recruits belong to certain building and you have to figure out who belongs where in order to get the most out of skills. Though one giant missed opportunity, at least as far as I can tell now, is that these Kingdom Skills seem rather useless and unnecessary, and I wish they were more needed. And a lot of that comes from a feeling that most of NNK2 is padded Sidequest content, rather than the great and extensive story content NNK had.

The big takeaway though is that Ni No Kuni, at least to me, was it's story. And for Ni No Kuni 2, that has taken a massive hit. One so bad that it makes Ni No Kuni 2 a hard game for me to even recommend to anyone, and I would recommend Ni No Kuni to even non JRPG players, because it was just a plain fantastic game.

Edit: I found this video to be a great idea of how the difficulty in the game should ramp up a bit, and while it's never going to be an extremely difficult game, it's challenging enough in places to be enjoyable.

I finished my first playthrough of Wrath of the White Witch the day Ni no Kuni 2 came out, and that playthrough was accompanied with frustrated hrumphs and bored sighs. Which is typical whenever I play a game that can't decide whether it wants to be a turn based JRPG or a real time one, and opts for the hybrid version concocted by Satan himself. It seemed Level-5 took "depth" to mean a mess of systems bolted on one another and by the time all the tutorializing is done, you've forgotten which button was block. SYKE, there is no button for block, you do that by navigating a menu on the bottom left of the scREEEEEE...
Atrocious combat aside, the bulk of the gameplay was a collection of only the most rudimentary of errand quests, which in my experience seems to be par for the course for open world JRPGs.
I did appreciate the straightforward story, but it would've left a much bigger impact if it wasn't stretched so thin across the 50 hours of suck... and if it had more anime.

With that out of the way, Ni no Kuni 2 has a passable combat system in that there are two buttons for attack and one for dodge and you can have at least some fun with that. Unfortunately they still couldn't quite get away from all ze unengaging systems, what with the Zing and all.
The story is rather short and when the characters started talking ominously about the tribulations ahead, I googled how many chapters the game had, to discover that the one I was currently on was indeed the finale. To which I raised an eyebrow and felt like nothing of significant importance had been accomplished up to that point, namely the motivation of the big bad, so exposition dumps ahoy. And it felt much like a redux of WWW.
The errand quests are still here, but at least the dopamine gets pumping a bit more because sometimes you get to pilfer the best talent from neighbouring countries and put them to work for your superpower... instead of filling out fucking stamp cards.
So I liked the kingdom building a whole lot and skirmishes weren't as god awful as I thought they would be, but the highlight was definitely the fun rhymes and puns and the quality of the localization in general.
All in all, Ni no Kuni 2 is a decent game because the combat is fun on occasion, the world is attractive in a twee kind of way (like its predecessor), it has a fun clicker strapped on to it and the story is good enough to the point that I was left wanting for more when it abruptly ended (that last bit was written with a tinge of sarcasm). I even kept playing after the story and got the platinum, look at me!

Meanwhile, Wrath of the White Witch can fuck off.

@npcdi: I love FFX mostly for its combat and Tidus feels to me like JRPG protagonist Homer Simpson. I kind of love him because he's such an idiot. But man, Yuna really should have been the PC. Despite Tidus' insistence, FFX is HER story. Still, I feel I like FFX a good deal more than most, I even like pretty much all the characters...

Wakka, on the other hand... "Hey Wakka, why does your character status screen say you're a 'Grand Wizard'?"

It strikes me that I'm like 30 hours in and I don't think I've ever gotten an explanation for the orange orbs that suddenly get my PC super powered. I get that I have infinite mana during that time, but I don't think the game ever really explained it at all, unless I missed something when I skipped a cutscene.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure they were ever properly explained either, I think I might've read a tutorial message somewhere in the depths of the menus. The super powered mode is called Awakening and the previous game had a very similar system, the orbs pop out randomly when the game thinks you've been a particularily good boy and deserve to go nuts for a little bit.

@rorie: It's your kingmaker's power. The little dude makes the golden orbs. They don't explain it on a cutscene, but you can upgrade him to drop more orbs ( green and blue ones as well)

By the way, while I was playing Revenant Kingdom I had the nagging feeling that rolling is faster than running (which in my book is a big no-no for any game) but didn't want to test it or google it since if my suspicions were confirmed true, I would've spent the entire game in a rolling animation listening to grunting noises.
But now that I'm done: Yes, it is faster, and thus Roland's light attack thrust + roll must be even faster. So if anyone still playing is as obsessed with time efficiency as I am in these kinds of games, then enjoyyyy >:D

Finished it tonight. Had to really push myself to get through that last chapter or two. I almost gladly bailed right at the end during some dumb sequences. FF13 (a god awful game) is the only other game I've done that with I think lol Happy it's over so I don't feel like I have this unfinished business lingering over me.

It's amazing hearing Ben talk about it on the Bombcast yesterday. He's probably the only person I've seen really positive on this game. It was weird because everything he talked about was well said.. but at the same time I feel like if you said the same stuff with a depressed, tired tone.. that also wouldn't be wrong. Not sure what I'm trying to say. I think if Brad played it his feelings would fall more in line with the negative stuff I'm seeing in here. So when I hear Brad and Jeff "Ohh? Hmm.. You've got me interested in this.. Maybe I should check it out" I can't help but think oh my god this is hilarious, they will be so bored by the gameplay/story. Brad will compliment the look and sound, like everyone else is, but dead on the rest of it. I predict that is what will happen when they force themselves to play it at GOTY crunch time.

And I would love to have some who leans the other way sit down and talk about it alongside Ben. I wish so badly there was someone there to balance it out. Would be such a great conversation. "I think the Kingdom stuff is really interesting and fun. Gathering the citizens, upgrading stuff, collecting items" vs. "I think the Kingdom stuff is such a drag. You have to go on dozens of basic fetch quests. None of it feels like it matters in the end. It also introduced hurdles where you're forced to grind for hours."

It's a 3/5 game for me, but I was hoping for at least a 4/5 if not 5/5 out of such a beautiful looking title and a sequel to the original Ni No Kuni. Right now, it's got the slot of "Most Disappointing Game of 2018" on my GB User's Choice list.

I’m surprised by how much hate the game is getting on here. I really, really like it. I acknowledge some of its flaws but still...

Maybe that’s because I’m not the biggest fan of JRPGs normally? I don’t have time write my thoughts but I think it’s been a pretty strong game so far (at chapter 7 now).

It really is mediocre. One of the most dissapointing games I've played in years.

Enjoying it a lot, though I would say you have to be someone that likes Level 5's light, fluffy JRPGs like Rogue Galaxy.

I've been playing it a bunch since release and have had a decent time. The minimal amount of spoken dialog has definitely been one of the worst aspects of the game, it's crazy how little of it there is. Another thing is how easy the game is, as others have said. Yesterday I had little to no trouble taking down a lvl 40 boss, while my character was maybe lvl 28 or 29. On the other hand, easy difficulty means that there's a good chance that I actually finish the game. The story has been alright so far, but I can't say that I share Ben's thoughts on the latest Bombcast about character development. I'm maybe most bothered by Roland(?) getting used to this magical world super quickly not really commenting in any way to the beginning of the game besides the very start, but I assume that the game gets back to it by the end.

At the moment the most frustrating thing was to notice that I need to upgrade my main building in order to progress in the story and can't do it without recruiting a bunch of more citizens. Not a hard thing to do, just kinda frustrating when I want to stick to the main story at this point and skip the mostly uninteresting side missions.

I'd say the opposite, honestly. Rogue Galaxy was a hardcore dungeon-crawler. Sure, it wasn't the most difficult game in the world, but after you landed on a new planet and got through the story bits, it'd be dungeon-crawlin' time for the next few hours of your life.

Ni no Kuni has more in common with Level-5's contemporary work. Everything one might consider old-school Level-5 has been heavily simplified. The kingdom building, for example, could've been ripped straight from Dark Cloud and no one would've complained, yet they went with a mobile clicker.

I do miss the old days of Level-5... They were one of my favorite devs during the PS2 era, but I really don't pay attention to them anymore. Not that they care. They're perfectly content being one of Japan's top game development companies doing what they do now.

The easiest way to get citizens is through the Taskmaster. There's one in every town. I don't believe he gets a proper introduction but he has an icon on the minimap.

As for Roland... Ehhh... Sure... Not really. It can't be stressed enough how little story and character development is in this game.

I just got to chapter 6 and I'm really liking this. Always wanted to play the first one, but I never owned a PS3.

Like many other people have said the one big flaw is the very low difficulty in the combat. Some fights you don't even have to do anything and the AI will win for you, without the character you're controlling actually hitting anything.

I bought the season pass and I'm hoping that the DLC (is there any ETA on it?) ends up being good/interesting. :)

It's pretty good visually but it's extremely easy

I'm not super far in (I just opened up the kingdom building proper a little while ago) but I'm finding it hard to keep going with it at the moment. Besides most of the combat being piss easy, I honestly think the first game outclassed this one in virtually every respect. Still not bad per se, but yeah I'm edging toward the disappointment camp.

I think if you're into JRPGs you'll like it a lot. I'm enjoying it quite a bit. The combat is not the best, but you do get a variety of abilities and party members to suit your play style.

Finished the game a few weeks ago and decided to check in on this thread again, seems like the discussion around this game has gotten a bit more negative (which I think it fully deserves). I figured I would give my final impressions on stuff I wasn't sure about during the game :

1. The story never pans out, the characters end up losing most of the very little personality they display at the start of the game, they all become background noise to Evan and a lesser extent Roland. Not to say those two have any development during the story, Evan's only goal is for everyone to "live happily ever after" and Roland's is to make sure Evan gets what Evan wants. Not to metion the overarching story is generic trash...

2. Post game comes down to a few things, grind kingdom guilders and grind levels. The goal? Fight more of those dumb tainted monsters and complete randomly generated dungeons with a palette swapped version of a monster you have seen before. Your reward? You get to a higher level....No thanks. If you want to see this stuff find the higgeldy that summons knights for you. I was able to beat the toughest boss in the game around level 70 when the boss is 95(which keep in mind isn't even unique, its a palette swap of the yeti monster you fight 10 hours into the game)

This game is cheap, from start to end, while the first ni no kuni was one of my favorite games ever, this game is not even a shadow of its former self, its the shadow of the shit that ni kuni made when it was running a fever.

Anyway play ni no kuni 1, or persona 5, or god of war, play anything else

Blah 1/5

Yes it is not as good as the original. But I am still enjoying it.