Ni No Kuni II
- Thread starter TJT
- Start date
Looked at a few reviews.
The consensus seems to be
- The game is around 30 hours for the main story + some side stuff.
- There is lots more side stuff
- Side content is actually good and includes the regular rpg things like optional dungeons
- The town building part is most tied to side content. Only a few times in the game will progress stop if you haven't gotten the build part to certain milestones
- There is no need for grinding to complete the main story or encounters tied to it (this is part of the "a bit too easy complaint")
- Combat is fast, which is also what lowers the amount of time the game takes. Since you can beeline between main quest objectives and the experience from the regular encounters is enough to also do the bosses, the main game is never really difficult. There are no difficulty spikes like the first game had (and most jrpgs have).
So basically the reviews seem to either deduct or add points to the score for the last points mentioned there. Some praise it for having a steady pace with hardly any drops in the 30ish hours it takes to do the main stuff, while others think that makes it too easy as you never really struggle.
After reading/looking at some reviews, I did pre-order it and have it ready to play, but I do worry about the difficulty. Because I love side content. I do everything I can before I progress the main quest in games. That could easily lead to the main story becoming trivial in difficulty because you end up doing lots of optional fights doing side missions/exploring.
Tl;dr - Game is built up to be able to complete the main story without any grinding or side missions. That makes it easy/very easy/trivial if you do end up doing side content.
The consensus seems to be
- The game is around 30 hours for the main story + some side stuff.
- There is lots more side stuff
- Side content is actually good and includes the regular rpg things like optional dungeons
- The town building part is most tied to side content. Only a few times in the game will progress stop if you haven't gotten the build part to certain milestones
- There is no need for grinding to complete the main story or encounters tied to it (this is part of the "a bit too easy complaint")
- Combat is fast, which is also what lowers the amount of time the game takes. Since you can beeline between main quest objectives and the experience from the regular encounters is enough to also do the bosses, the main game is never really difficult. There are no difficulty spikes like the first game had (and most jrpgs have).
So basically the reviews seem to either deduct or add points to the score for the last points mentioned there. Some praise it for having a steady pace with hardly any drops in the 30ish hours it takes to do the main stuff, while others think that makes it too easy as you never really struggle.
After reading/looking at some reviews, I did pre-order it and have it ready to play, but I do worry about the difficulty. Because I love side content. I do everything I can before I progress the main quest in games. That could easily lead to the main story becoming trivial in difficulty because you end up doing lots of optional fights doing side missions/exploring.
Tl;dr - Game is built up to be able to complete the main story without any grinding or side missions. That makes it easy/very easy/trivial if you do end up doing side content.
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30hours seems like a fine amount to me for a rpg. The old school jrpgs are mostly 30-40hours, it's just at some point they started becoming longer and now it's the norm somehow? But if you go back and play Chrono Trigger or FF6, they're around 30-40hours(although in my memory they were a lot longer). There's a bunch of side content and Chrono Trigger has all the different endings and shit but they weren't long games.
Then you have like Persona 5 with its 80+hours or whatever, but honestly so much of that is useless padding I felt. It fits in the whole "realism" of going to school every day but so many days in P5 are just literally 80% useless bullshit, like you go to school, see people talking in the subway about the same fucking shit as the day before, see students talking in the street about the same stupid shit, maybe get a stupid class question, then you go hangout with one of the chars and maybe advance their story very slowly, then go work part time or whatever because you need to raise arbitrary stats to reach certain goals, and the day is over and literally the only thing you did that actually felt interesting was hanging out, yet the day took like 30mins with loadings and stupid pointless text. I liked P5 but there was so much fucking time wasting, like all persona games really.
On the flipside, the fact the game looks too easy is a big negative for me. Not like how long it takes, but the fact it's apparently just plowing through the story. I don't know if I want to pick it up now or wait later hoping they'll add a hard mode patch or whatever. But maybe they won't add one.
Then you have like Persona 5 with its 80+hours or whatever, but honestly so much of that is useless padding I felt. It fits in the whole "realism" of going to school every day but so many days in P5 are just literally 80% useless bullshit, like you go to school, see people talking in the subway about the same fucking shit as the day before, see students talking in the street about the same stupid shit, maybe get a stupid class question, then you go hangout with one of the chars and maybe advance their story very slowly, then go work part time or whatever because you need to raise arbitrary stats to reach certain goals, and the day is over and literally the only thing you did that actually felt interesting was hanging out, yet the day took like 30mins with loadings and stupid pointless text. I liked P5 but there was so much fucking time wasting, like all persona games really.
On the flipside, the fact the game looks too easy is a big negative for me. Not like how long it takes, but the fact it's apparently just plowing through the story. I don't know if I want to pick it up now or wait later hoping they'll add a hard mode patch or whatever. But maybe they won't add one.
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I was looking forward to it, but the game being too easy is a deal breaker for me as well. Struggling has to be part of the gaming experience, especially since JRPG stories are typically a joke. Don't feel like watching a bad anime for 30hours.
Also completely agree on P5, it was my first persona game and the last. I played it on fast forward after the 2nd dungeon. I couldn't stand the redundant dialogues and everyday bullshit at school. The gameplay/persona building was cool at first and felt promising but ultimately was shallow considering the length of the game.
Also completely agree on P5, it was my first persona game and the last. I played it on fast forward after the 2nd dungeon. I couldn't stand the redundant dialogues and everyday bullshit at school. The gameplay/persona building was cool at first and felt promising but ultimately was shallow considering the length of the game.
Played it for 10 hours. Thoughts so far
Difficulty:
It is easy so far. Only times I've died (not game over, but had to use a res potion) was when I tried level 21 mobs when I was level 11. Killed the mobs, but then I actually had to dodge and every time I was hit I nearly died. Used a lot of healing and nearly all res potions. In combat you get a set number of items you can use even if you have more in your inventory. 10 heal, 4 party heals, 5 res and so on. That number restocks between fights as long as you have enough in your inventory.
Regular fights (your level) you usually kill before you even get to use the higgle pokemon things. Don't really need to use abilities either. By using abilities you just go from killing things fast to extra fast. When you see a "red" mob on the world map, it doesn't mean all the enemies tied to that encounter are that level. Just one of them. 10-12 levels above you is doable. 5-10 above is easy. 5 and below are trivial (so far).
Loot drops regularly and is regular, blue and epic (so far). Not sure about the level drops of items. A random fight I did at level 8 dropped a rare wand that is still better than anything I have gotten since at level 24. Think that was very rare though, as every other item has been fairly equal or below my level. You will get a lot of duplicates.
Currently I am at chapter 4 and not had a game over screen yet except the very first part of the game when I got spotted in a hiding sequence.
Building the base:
You have empty lots, but the lots are set for specific buildings. So no designing your own base layout.
There are quite a few buildings and more unlock as you grow / level up kingdom.
You can run around your town and use the various shops you build.
You can level up buildings. They then get more efficient and you can put more people in them.
You need to recruit followers to put into the buildings. They are usually tied to side quests that they want you to do before they join you. Things like killing certain enemies or gathering specific items.
Followers have traits that make them better suited to be put in certain buildings.
Research is tied to the IQ of the followers, which is higher if they are marked as suitable for that job. A research that requires 120 IQ combined can take 3 to do with people not suited for it, or just one if they like it.
Research can be done for spells, your battle skills (the total war type thing), armor, weapons, faster move speed on world map and so on.
Not much else to it so far. Fairly straight forward.
The "total war" battles
Note: Still only have the intial setup here, so don't know how much more complicated it gets as you get more units to play with.
You control units. Start with two. One ranged one melee. You are in the middle and they move around you with R1 or L1.
You basically just turn them around to hit the enemies coming at you with melee in front and ranged in back.
Can use R2 to bring up a skill menu that uses your war resources, which is basically like war mana. When a guy dies, you can resurrect it, but it costs mana. Once it is depleted, you can't do that.
A fun little mechanic, but hopefully gets a bit more tactical than the three I've done.
Overall:
Fun game so far. Enjoy it. However, it is too easy. You don't need to use skills, dodge or block at all really. Basically the game just need a difficulty increase of increasing the damage/hp of mobs by +5-7 levels. It's not that enemies don't have abilities, it's just that they don't matter. You don't need to dodge them. They die to fast to kill you or do too little damage. Just patch the game so that when you see a level 10 mob, it is the equivalent of a level 15 mob now. Then add a hard mode where a level 5 is level 15 in power. Be way more fun, items would matter, and you'd actually get to use your abilities.
Difficulty:
It is easy so far. Only times I've died (not game over, but had to use a res potion) was when I tried level 21 mobs when I was level 11. Killed the mobs, but then I actually had to dodge and every time I was hit I nearly died. Used a lot of healing and nearly all res potions. In combat you get a set number of items you can use even if you have more in your inventory. 10 heal, 4 party heals, 5 res and so on. That number restocks between fights as long as you have enough in your inventory.
Regular fights (your level) you usually kill before you even get to use the higgle pokemon things. Don't really need to use abilities either. By using abilities you just go from killing things fast to extra fast. When you see a "red" mob on the world map, it doesn't mean all the enemies tied to that encounter are that level. Just one of them. 10-12 levels above you is doable. 5-10 above is easy. 5 and below are trivial (so far).
Loot drops regularly and is regular, blue and epic (so far). Not sure about the level drops of items. A random fight I did at level 8 dropped a rare wand that is still better than anything I have gotten since at level 24. Think that was very rare though, as every other item has been fairly equal or below my level. You will get a lot of duplicates.
Currently I am at chapter 4 and not had a game over screen yet except the very first part of the game when I got spotted in a hiding sequence.
Building the base:
You have empty lots, but the lots are set for specific buildings. So no designing your own base layout.
There are quite a few buildings and more unlock as you grow / level up kingdom.
You can run around your town and use the various shops you build.
You can level up buildings. They then get more efficient and you can put more people in them.
You need to recruit followers to put into the buildings. They are usually tied to side quests that they want you to do before they join you. Things like killing certain enemies or gathering specific items.
Followers have traits that make them better suited to be put in certain buildings.
Research is tied to the IQ of the followers, which is higher if they are marked as suitable for that job. A research that requires 120 IQ combined can take 3 to do with people not suited for it, or just one if they like it.
Research can be done for spells, your battle skills (the total war type thing), armor, weapons, faster move speed on world map and so on.
Not much else to it so far. Fairly straight forward.
The "total war" battles
Note: Still only have the intial setup here, so don't know how much more complicated it gets as you get more units to play with.
You control units. Start with two. One ranged one melee. You are in the middle and they move around you with R1 or L1.
You basically just turn them around to hit the enemies coming at you with melee in front and ranged in back.
Can use R2 to bring up a skill menu that uses your war resources, which is basically like war mana. When a guy dies, you can resurrect it, but it costs mana. Once it is depleted, you can't do that.
A fun little mechanic, but hopefully gets a bit more tactical than the three I've done.
Overall:
Fun game so far. Enjoy it. However, it is too easy. You don't need to use skills, dodge or block at all really. Basically the game just need a difficulty increase of increasing the damage/hp of mobs by +5-7 levels. It's not that enemies don't have abilities, it's just that they don't matter. You don't need to dodge them. They die to fast to kill you or do too little damage. Just patch the game so that when you see a level 10 mob, it is the equivalent of a level 15 mob now. Then add a hard mode where a level 5 is level 15 in power. Be way more fun, items would matter, and you'd actually get to use your abilities.
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skribble
Golden Knight of the Realm
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- 136
Im only a few hours in but loving it so far. Its a long time since Ive played a game like this, reminds me of what I used to play growing up, really just a lot of fun and good feelings
Can see it maybe getting a bit repetitive especially if its too easy as others have said.
Controls feel really weird after playing Nioh and Dark Souls
Can see it maybe getting a bit repetitive especially if its too easy as others have said.
Controls feel really weird after playing Nioh and Dark Souls
Rezz
Mr. Poopybutthole
- 4,486
- 3,531
I'm in chapter 3 right now; liking the game a lot so far, though I do wish combat was a little more tactical at this point.
I'm trying to remember any difficulty spikes in the first Ni No Kuni, and about the only one that stands out is the battle in the port/vacation town where you finally kind of -need- to use the All Out Defense command. It never really gets hard, just tedious due to your familiars always being a cluster. But I will say that even just jogging over to different gathering points/looking for chests has made most of the encounters pretty easy. I watched a preview video where a guy fights the Trials boss and he was doing a few points of damage at a time, while I was whacking the shit out of it. No intentional grinding, just killing stuff in the way to chests/shiny points. Killed it in three casts of the gust stab deal with only a couple of whacks in between; the overleveling can be very real.
I'm trying to remember any difficulty spikes in the first Ni No Kuni, and about the only one that stands out is the battle in the port/vacation town where you finally kind of -need- to use the All Out Defense command. It never really gets hard, just tedious due to your familiars always being a cluster. But I will say that even just jogging over to different gathering points/looking for chests has made most of the encounters pretty easy. I watched a preview video where a guy fights the Trials boss and he was doing a few points of damage at a time, while I was whacking the shit out of it. No intentional grinding, just killing stuff in the way to chests/shiny points. Killed it in three casts of the gust stab deal with only a couple of whacks in between; the overleveling can be very real.
Noodleface
A Mod Real Quick
- 37,961
- 14,508
Meant to pick this up at Target BOGO sale, but forgot. I guess I'll just wait until it's heavily discounted.
I really loved the first game, even if it was the worst AI I've ever played with. The 3d/overworld look in this is garbage looking
I really loved the first game, even if it was the worst AI I've ever played with. The 3d/overworld look in this is garbage looking
spronk
FPS noob
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Put in about 2 hours so far, yeah its ludicrously easy but I'm enjoying myself. It feels like an old school final fantasy type of JRPG. The overworld is definitely weird and a bit too cutesy but it is kinda fun wandering around. I hope the game is 25-30 hours, I don't really wanna play another 70 hour repetitive JRPG, just gimme some of dat furry weeaboo shit for 30 hours and i'm happy
this little ding dong fucker though is useless as fuck so far, hope he sacks up soon
this little ding dong fucker though is useless as fuck so far, hope he sacks up soon
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This is on indiegala.com right now for 15% off, knocks it down to $50.99 for any of you who can't wait on it.
https://www.indiegala.com/store/product/ni-no-kuni-ii-revenant-kingdom/589360
https://www.indiegala.com/store/product/ni-no-kuni-ii-revenant-kingdom/589360
Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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Love the game so far. Really good character building and diverse character set. A lot of funny moments so far through chapter 3-4 or so. Running on PS4 4K HDR. It’s a little wonky there. Sometimes the draw distance is really blurred, othertimes it’s really good. (Assuming dynamic here) and some stutter on the overhead map and some drops of frame rate every once in a while which will hopefully be patched, but that is few and far between.
Combat and options are awesome, I just hope the game gets harder to leverage those options and scale. Otherwise like others have said, I basically just go in and can mash buttons. Not a fan of some of the control schemes. Rolling with left bumper doesn’t make a lot of sense but I haven’t checked yet to see if I can reassign it. With that said, nothing is really challenging enough to have to use it anyway. Even one boss where I thought I would need to wait for some water spells to produce from research in evermore, I didn’t need them and steamrolled that boss anyway.
I like the RTS segment and the varying game mechanics. Those doors in caves, and all the other stuff to do.
Only thing that gets me is Evan looks like a girl. It keeps throwing me off when they say King. And also sounds like one. Should have just made the protagonist a female at this point.
All in all about 10 hours in though and having a blast.
Combat and options are awesome, I just hope the game gets harder to leverage those options and scale. Otherwise like others have said, I basically just go in and can mash buttons. Not a fan of some of the control schemes. Rolling with left bumper doesn’t make a lot of sense but I haven’t checked yet to see if I can reassign it. With that said, nothing is really challenging enough to have to use it anyway. Even one boss where I thought I would need to wait for some water spells to produce from research in evermore, I didn’t need them and steamrolled that boss anyway.
I like the RTS segment and the varying game mechanics. Those doors in caves, and all the other stuff to do.
Only thing that gets me is Evan looks like a girl. It keeps throwing me off when they say King. And also sounds like one. Should have just made the protagonist a female at this point.
All in all about 10 hours in though and having a blast.
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Nester
Vyemm Raider
- 4,930
- 3,128
I forgot to cancel my preorder. Very glad I did.
I will finish this game tonight. It’s fucking awesome. Combat, story, world, characters. Airship. It’s an old school FF game.
Only gripe, it’s easy. I only die when I push my limits on a tainted mob 10 levels over me.
The first few minutes set the tone when Obamasan figures out the situation pulled out his gat and blasted a hole in a mouse guard.
I could have finished last night but I do not want this to end. With a 150 side quest trophy it might not end ;p
This is the game to get your children hooked on JRPGs like FF2(4) did for me.
I will finish this game tonight. It’s fucking awesome. Combat, story, world, characters. Airship. It’s an old school FF game.
Only gripe, it’s easy. I only die when I push my limits on a tainted mob 10 levels over me.
The first few minutes set the tone when Obamasan figures out the situation pulled out his gat and blasted a hole in a mouse guard.
I could have finished last night but I do not want this to end. With a 150 side quest trophy it might not end ;p
This is the game to get your children hooked on JRPGs like FF2(4) did for me.
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I seriously hope they re-make the first one with the combat in this one and do away with the animal/pokemon mechanic. Up to chapter 7 or 8 now (flying) and I've spent most of my time fiddling around in my kingdom. I do wish you could arrange the buildings so I could group shit together the way my brain wants it but otherwise it's a pretty solid game. Don't regret the $64 at all (fuck virtual taxes)
yimmien
Molten Core Raider
- 877
- 667
This game is great. I love the amount of exploration and building my kingdom is pretty fun. I just got the boat about 20 hours in because i spent so much time on side quests and kingdom. It could have been a 10 with a little more polish and changes.
A hard difficulty mode, obviously.
World exploration graphics are good, but seem a little weird. I liked how they did it in the first one better.
(Opinion) rng gear sucks. I like loot to feel unique. It just rains shit at you and it all feels like garbage. I have a few purples but it just doesnt feel special like getting a badass named weapon from an old FF game does.
A hard difficulty mode, obviously.
World exploration graphics are good, but seem a little weird. I liked how they did it in the first one better.
(Opinion) rng gear sucks. I like loot to feel unique. It just rains shit at you and it all feels like garbage. I have a few purples but it just doesnt feel special like getting a badass named weapon from an old FF game does.