Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom Review (I am the cream of the crop!)
I was honestly kind of hyped for this after playing the first game. Really wanted to see how they improved on those Pokemon designs and gameplay. Bummer, they removed that completely and replaced it with higgledies which pretty much just give some bonus spells during combat. They also removed the great Studio Ghibli animations and art style throughout the level design. The character still look like Ghibli characters, but they didn't put in the effort to make the world look like an animation. I mean the overall graphics improved, but the game lost the unique style. The only good thing left is the Joe Hisaishi soundtrack.
The story begins with the american president being nuked and isekaing his way into a fantasy world. He then turns into a side character of the real character Evan and never really mentions any of it. The first game didn't really have a great story, but this one is really only something kids could enjoy. It also doesn't have those strong moment like the first one with Oliver's story.
Coming back to the combat, it seems okay and very polished at first, but it's actually not that good. You get blocks and dodges that only work on weaker enemies, but with bosses you can't block or dodge fast enough most of the time and if you do the hits still connect even if they shouldn't.
Then you also have this little strategie mode, which really feels like a mobile phone game. It's very basic and not fun at all. It's also the reason I didn't complete all the side quests, since I avoided this mode as much as I could.
Speaking of mobile games, the city builder feels like those old facebook games and it sucks just as much. You also have to do a lot of side quests to get more people for research. And the worst thing is that the best stuff gets unlocked after finishing the story anyway. Why the fuck would I keep going after I'm done?
Then there's the grind. After around chapter 5 I started to always be around 10 levels behind the enemies and the game really wanted me to grind. I just moved on and wasted my cash on healing equipment instead, but around chapter 9 I was almost 20 levels behind and had to do some quests and level up. Without the shitty grind, the game could be at least 20 hours shorter without the time padding.
TL;DR they took everything unique from the first game and made this as generic as most Bandai Namco published games. I would not recommend this to anyone, not even people that played the first game and want more, since this doesn't give you more.
Time to finish: 53,4 hours