Ni No Kuni 2: The Bad

Just to get anyone up to speed about this epic game. Ni No Kuni 2 is a JRPG that is a nice little hybrid of turn based and real-time action. That probably isn't the correct terminology but that is what I consider it to be. This is the best game that I have played in quite some time and while I started out trying to fit it all into just one article, it quickly became 1500 words and I didn't want to shorten it. Therefore, this is a 3 part series and this final entry details the "bad" aspects of thegame. If you want to see part 1, you can find it here, or part 2 of the "good" can be found here

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Now this section is going to be considerably shorter because this game is damn near perfect in my opinion so I am really splitting hairs by trying to find anything that is wrong with this game. These flaws in the game are still much better than other games that are similar to this one, but even with them it is so much better than 95% of all games out there. So let's get on with it.

The game is extremely easy

There are tons of tweaks that you can make to your team including what you would expect like updated equipment and addition of new spells etc. There is also a battle tweak system where you can make your party stronger towards certain elements while also making them weaker to others at the same time.

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There is just one major problem with all of this "tweaking"... you don't actually need any of it. Without really upgrading my spells at all or even bothering to check most of my team's equipment I was able to quite easily defeat the entire main quest. I defeated the final boss the very first time I faced him. Getting to him wasn't much of a chore either. It wasn't until I had finished the game and went back to try to clear everything on the map that I even bothered upgrading my spells / actions or even messing with the weapon and armor upgrades that are possible back in your city that you built. You don't need any of that stuff.

The good news is that during the initial released this was brought forward by fans of the game and the developers released a patch where you can increase the difficulty at any time in the game. This does make the game considerably harder but only really in the sense that enemies have more hit points, they don't really change their rather predictable attack patterns. It is nice when a game company actually cares enough to try to fix this though.

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Magic points drain very quickly

When you go into battle, your computer controlled sidekicks are going to use their spells immediately almost every time. The bad side-effect of this is that you can cast or do an action something like only 2 times (some of the stronger spells you can do only once) before your MP is totally drained. You earn it back by dishing out melee damage or taking damage and you can also use the item menu during frozen time any time you want, but mostly this is a pain in the butt and you don't really need it in order to win anyway.

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The spells are actually the best looking part of the entire game so it is a little annoying that you can only use them one or two times in any battle but I suppose this already too easy game would be a walk in the park if you were capable of casting just any ol' time you felt like it.

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Skirmish battles get old pretty fast

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I enjoy the fact that they mix up gameplay by having multiple game modes that are totally different from one another. This keeps the game fresh and you always have something new and interesting to do. The skirmish system involves you choosing 4 groups to go into battle and you proceed as one unit rotating to accommodate the oncoming hordes of enemies.

This is fun the first dozen or so times that you do it but then I found that it was something I would avoid doing if i could possibly skip it. This is, for the most part, a totally optional part of the game but I don't recommend that you skip all of them because right before the final castle, you have to go on a quite long skirmish battle and if you haven't bothered to level up your battalions, you aren't going to be able to do it.

Once you do level up your groups a bit, all of these skirmishes are actually pretty easy and merely time-consuming rather than challenging. Of course, once again, you can up the difficulty but this merely gives your enemies more hit points rather than change the tactics of them in much of a noticeable way.

Once I completed the main story, I didn't do any skirmishes after that, because it just seemed a bit dull and repetitive.

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And that's it! These cons are very light ones and in most other games they would actually be pros but Ni No Kuni II is such a fantastic game that I felt I had to point out the very slight shortcomings and again, I am being nitpicky by mentioning any of this at all.

This is one of my favorite RPG's of all time and I will definitely be looking forward to any future installments. I may actually even get a hold of the older versions of this game that were released many years ago on the PS3.

Sadly, it seems as though it has disappeared from the ranks as far as discounted games are concerned, and it doesn't look like it is coming back. Even though I love this game, I don't know if I would spend $50 on it, which is what it costs to get a hold of it now. I think the reduced price was intended to create some newfound buzz for it online.

This situation is one of those where if the game hadn't been on sale in the Playstation Online store, there is a very good chance I never would have even known about it, let alone be raving about it. It is one of the best RPG's I have ever played and is one of the games I recommend the most to any fan of RPG's.