Oh boy, Level 5 are bringing us a corker. As a sequel to PS3’s Ni No Kuni, Level 5 have today revealed that a sequel called Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. This sequel has you playing as the boy king Evan, who must fight to save his kingdom of Ding Dong Dell from a sudden coup which deposes him as king. Evan teams up with Roland, a human who arrives in Evan’s kingdom presumably like Ollie did in the first Ni No Kuni back on PS3, as he is introduced as a ‘traveller from another world’.
By the looks of it, Evan experiences the same heartbreak as Ollie, with a figure which looks an awful lot like his mother or old sister dying after the coup succeeds and throws him out of Ding Dong Dell. After Roland decides to stay with Evan and presumably act as his bodyguard, Evan must search for sympathisers to his cause, in order to overthrow the new regime run by a suspicious looking rat. As seen in the trailer, he joins up with what looks like a group of sky pirates, piloting bird-like biplanes who decides to champion the cause of the true king and try to install him back on the throne.We didn’t get a look at the battle system unfortunately, which was something I had quite a large complaint with when playing the first game, as it took the worst parts of both active and menu based battle systems and simply threw them together to make this odd, very janky mess of a combat interface. Hopefully, Level 5 have taken on the criticisms of the battle system with Ni No Kuni II and will provide a much more engaging experience.
The wonderful storybook art style has carried over from the first game, which hopefully signifies that Studio Ghilbli are fully on board with the project. Joe Hisashi is back to produce the soundtrack, which is one of the reasons Ni No Kuni was just a joy to play. It remains to be seen if this sequel takes place after Ollie and Drippy’s adventure from the first game, or whether this is a prequel to explain more about the fairytale world of Ni No Kuni but we’ll hopefully learn more in the new year.
Stay tuned to the rest of PSX 2015 over the weekend for more details on Ni No Kuni II and a whole host of other games.
