Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom
Help a usurped king fight a coup and reclaim his throne
Whether or not I’ll like Ni no KuniII really rests on the quality of the story
The first Ni no Kuni was a collaboration between developer Level-5 and Studio Ghibli, the legendary animation house behind the likes of Spirited Away and Howl’s Moving Castle. It was a grand, sweeping fantasy RPG with the lavish feel of one of the studio’s animated epics. Unfortunately, it never made it to PC. The sequel, RevenantKingdom, is once again developed by Level-5, and although Ghibli is not involved this time, the groundwork it laid in the original—as well as the return of composer Joe Hisaishi—means the new game still has traces of that familiar spark. And because it’s set hundreds of years after the events of the first game, new players won’t need to be familiar with the story to enjoy it.
You play as the preposterously named Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, a boy king who is usurped and teams up with a gang of sky pirates to reclaim his throne. In this world, rival clans of cats and mice are at war, and Evan finds himself being swept up in the conflict as he fights to reclaim the city of Ding Dong Dell.
I played an early demo version split into chunks, each showcasing a different aspect of the game. The first, an example of a mode called Kingdom Battle, sees Evan running across a battlefield with soldiers swirling around him, charging into enemy troops to win back territory. It’s a minigame, and not a hard one—although this seemed to be a tutorial, and I wonder if later examples will be more challenging.
The next slice was more traditional. I find myself in the hideout of a gang of friendly sky pirates nestled in a rocky valley. An ally has disappeared in a nearby wyvern den, and Evan and his party agree to rescue her. As I make my way through a desert I battle wyverns protecting their lair, eventually finding the entrance and starting one of the game’s dungeons. If you’ve played any JRPG, you’ll be familiar with this kind of structure and pacing.
It’s here where I encounter a boss, the wyvern warlord, who is described as a “broad-winged bringer of bother from above”. Combat is real-time, and Evan and his party are accompanied by hordes of screeching sprites called Higgledies that can be used to trigger buffs. You can hurl projectiles with a magic wand or strike enemies with a sword, and you have a selection of spells to choose from, too.
LIZARD KING
Then it’s on to another bit of the demo: a boss battle with an immense dragon called Longfang. Stuck on a sliver of volcanic rock floating in a sea of magma, Evan and party attack the beast’s limbs until it flops down and leaves its head exposed. It’s quite a spectacle, but a fairly by-the-numbers boss battle. And the dragon’s deep well of HP makes killing him a real slog.
Finally, Evan faces another boss: An ogre called Thogg described as a “monstrously muscled mettle-tester”. This battle takes place in an arena floating in the sky, and Thogg is accompanied by swarms of underlings. Again, it’s a rote boss battle. But I wonder if something is lost in that I’m playing these disparate, random chunks of the game rather than following and getting invested in the story.
Whether or not I’ll like NinoKuniII really rests on the quality of the story. On their own these disconnected nuggets of game are fine, if a little unambitious. But when everything’s linked together by a narrative, and I know more about the characters and their personalities, I might be more willing to overlook its simplistic design. Hopefully Level-5 can tell a compelling story without Ghibli’s help.