Ni No Kuni II (PS4)

[drahkon]

Spent a considerable amount of my free time with this over the last two days...Now at 40 hours Well, 3 of those I've been idle to collect Kingsguilders Speaking of which: I love upgrading Evermore. Managed to build quite a lot. My Kingdom is at level 3

I've also reached chapter 8. Not sure how long the main story is going to last. But I still have lots of sidequests to complete and areas to explore.

[somme]

Really loving this so far - am around chapter 5 or 6. I was initially disappointed with the overworld being like a retro RPG. I kinda expected the whole game to be the gorgeous cartoon graphics, but I'm over it now. I think I'm taking things pretty slowly, exploring every nook and cranny. The battle system is great fun too, as are the Pikmin!

[drahkon]

I've started the final chapter and could finish the game. There is a point of no return, however, if I understand things correctly. As always with JRPGs: I'll do as much as I can before finishing the story.

Edit: @somme In case you want to go for the Platinum: Don't spend any money. Seriously. It's not necessary anyway unless you intend to fight monster much stronger than you (meaning you need lots of healing items).
You need 500k guilders at the same time. As mentioned above I'm at the final chapter and still only have 370k. I spent a little (maybe 30k) and haven't sold anything (yes...I'm a hoarder in RPGs ). No idea what my items are worth but I could maybe be at 450k by now.
Edit²: Saved my game and sold all the materials in my possession...they were worth 403k Got the trophy and reloaded. Time to spend the moneeeeyyys

Edited April 1, 2018 by drahkon

[somme]

@drahkon Cheers for the tip, though I wasn't planning on going for the Platinum this time around, just enjoying the game and seeing which trophies 'pop' as I go. 

[drahkon]

2 hours ago, somme said:

@drahkon Cheers for the tip, though I wasn't planning on going for the Platinum this time around, just enjoying the game and seeing which trophies 'pop' as I go. 

I see.  @Hero-of-Time might appreciate the advice, too

I can't stop playing...managed to fully level up my Kingdom except some facilities. Just a matter of time, now. Don't need too many researches, either. But for those I need some citizens to level up their skills which takes quite some time.

I've neglected a lot of battles and exploration for higgledies because of Kingdom Building

Oh, and I've beaten the story because of post-game stuff.

Edited April 1, 2018 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

Stealth section and sewer section right at the start of the game? Yup, it's a JRPG.  

[Hero-of-Time]

I'm on chapter 3 and I'm loving the game so far. 

The world map is gonna be the end of me. My gaming OCD has me constantly running around picking up everything I see, even though they keep respawning. The same goes for fighting enemies.

I came across an enemy that was way above me level but I couldn't let him just sit there. I grinded for an hour and went back and kicked it's butt. Consequently, I'm now stupidly strong against the normal enemies, which is just how I like to play my JRPGs. 

I keep going off course. If the arrow tells me to go one way then I ignore it and go the other way. This has led to some great rewards and battles that I probably shouldn't be ready for but, due to the grinding, I am.   

[drahkon]

11 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

The world map is gonna be the end of me. My gaming OCD has me constantly running around picking up everything I see, even though they keep respawning. The same goes for fighting enemies.

I came across an enemy that was way above me level but I couldn't let him just sit there. I grinded for an hour and went back and kicked it's butt. Consequently, I'm now stupidly strong against the normal enemies, which is just how I like to play my JRPGs.

I knew you'd write something like that about your play-through after I spent 10 hours with the game.

Closing in on 65 hours played. Average level of my party is 70. There aren't many things left to do. Still haven't looked up a guide so I have no idea what the two remaining hidden trophies require me to do (I might look up the trophy description soon).

Need to find some more skirmishes...this might be a pain.

[somme]

21 hours 39 minutes and 40 seconds in and I'm around level 35, Chapter 6. The Kingdom part is great, enjoying going back. The battles are still great fun. I don't want it to end!

[Hero-of-Time]

I've had a good session on this today. I'm 15 hours in, level 38, got my kingdom upgraded to level 2 and have just reached chapter 6.

Is there some game development rule where it states that if water is to be used in a stage then it needs to be a right headache? I wasn't a fan of that water area at all. Luckily the boss battle more than made up for it. Really enjoyed that fight.

 

[Hero-of-Time]

After 27 hours I'm now at the gate of the final boss. I'm currently level 60 but I'm gonna go back and do a bunch of side quests which will level me up some more.

I wasn't happy about my progress being halted by the kingdom building stuff. I had to sit around and wait for a bunch of stuff to be ready before I could move on with the story. 

[Hero-of-Time]

Hey, for once reviewers were right about how long it takes to beat the game. Just shy of 30 hours and the credits have rolled. I kicked the last boss all over the place, despite being 10 levels below it.  

There's still plenty of trophies to unlock but I think I'll take a break from it for now. Playing it non-stop for two days has burnt me out.  

The game is very good but I much prefer the original game. The characters and story was far better. I also wasn't a fan of the on and off voice over work. Clearly they had their budget massively cut for this sequel. A lot of scenes lack impact and weight due to the lack of voice work. It felt like I was playing a Zelda game in that regard.

I loved the Little Kings Story type battles that happen in the game and I'll certainly be jumping into those again. I honestly wouldn't mind a more fleshed out full game of those battles.

The music and graphics are top notch throughout the whole game. The music does get a bit weird in certain scenes though. Sometimes  there is no music in the background, despite there being no audio dialogue. It's another thing that tends to ruin the mood of the scenes. 

Great game and another cracking JRPG in the PS4s library.

[drahkon]

11 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

There's still plenty of trophies to unlock but I think I'll take a break from it for now. Playing it non-stop for two days has burnt me out.

I'm in the same boat. I'm taking a break from gaming in general this week due to some responsibilities (i.e. fun and games with students ) but even when I'm back to gaming next week I might just take a longer break and go for the remaining trophies at a later date. I may just wait for the DLC to drop.

Edited April 4, 2018 by drahkon

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, drahkon said:

I'm in the same boat. I'm taking a break from gaming in general this week due to some responsibilities (i.e. fun and games with students ) but even when I'm back to gaming next week I might just take a longer break and go for the remaining trophies at a later date. I may just wait for the DLC to drop.

I done some side quests last night and man are they tedious. They seem to be just a bunch of fetch quests with very little story to them. What's annoying are the ones where you have to get an item, you then take it back to the person and then they ask you to get a different item. This has happened a few times. Another annoying one was were I had to chase a guy all over the world. It just involved warping from place to place until I finally caught up with him. How is that fun? It's just padding the game out at this point.

I often find that modern JRPGs just don't know how to do side quests well. Xenoblade 1 and 2 suffered from this kind of thing, as well. While I do prefer Japanese RPGs over Western ones, I do think that the Western ones do a far better job of making good side content and fleshing out their worlds.

[somme]

Yeah the side quests are a real drag. Normally I enjoy doing them all but these are dull and repetitive.

[drahkon]

Agreed, most of the sidequests are pretty crappy. There are some with kinda sweet stories involved, those I liked. but the "mechanics" to complete them are stupidly tedious.

[Hero-of-Time]

Man, the platinum for this is turning into a real slog. I finished the game in 30 hours and im now sitting on a 55 hour play time with many trophies still needing to be unlocked. Luckily i've gotten a lot of the tedious ones out of the way. It's annoying that certain things are locked behind one another. There's a Tainted Beast I need to kill but to get it I need to unlock a side quest....but in order to get that side quest I need to finish 2 other side quests.....but in order to finish those I had to get a weapon....to get that I had to upgrade my weapon shop.  There's a bunch of stuff like this. Hopefully I will be done and dusted with it over the weekend.

[drahkon]

That's why I stopped going after the Platinum.

I basically "only" need to grind levels but it'll take 5-6 hours killing the final boss over and over again. If I don't trade the game in until the DLC arrives I may give the trophy hunt another go. But if there's an opportunity for a trade in..lough luck

[Hero-of-Time]

9 minutes ago, drahkon said:

That's why I stopped going after the Platinum.

I basically "only" need to grind levels but it'll take 5-6 hours killing the final boss over and over again. If I don't trade the game in until the DLC arrives I may give the trophy hunt another go. But if there's an opportunity for a trade in..lough luck

What level are you? once you reach level 70 or so you are good to take on any challenge if you use the poison setup. 

[drahkon]

5 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

What level are you? once you reach level 70 or so you are good to take on any challenge if you use the poison setup. 

If I remember correctly around 60.

Yeah, I read about that but I still can't be arsed As enjoyable as my time with the game was, playing this for 4 days straight burnt me out.

[Hero-of-Time]

1 minute ago, drahkon said:

As enjoyable as my time with the game was, playing this for 4 days straight burnt me out.

That's why I took a break and then have just kept picking away at it in between other games. While doing all the tainted monsters ( got 2 left ) and side quests I leveled up to 72 so luckily I haven't needed to do any post game grinding. Also, apparently their is a setup for your little Pikmin guys that can wipe out most of the post game stuff very quickly but I have yet to test it out.

Quote

This setup:

• Boss-Woss the Bruiser 
• Popple the Pure 
• Frabjous the Fusiler
• Charnel the Churlish

All Higgledy to level 10. Have some revive/heal/mana and juice/food with you. 

 

Hit the boss once to start the battle -> trigger the Higgledy -> summons the knights and watch the boss die. 

 

 

[drahkon]

Thanks

May have to look into that I took a two week long break so I may just go for it if I'm feeling bored and have some freetime for video gaming.

[Hero-of-Time]

I cracked on with the game as soon as I got in from work and ended up getting the platinum. It went faster than I thought it would as I expected to be on it most of the weekend.

@drahkon that method I posted earlier works great. You just turn your Higgledies into knights and they tank the tainted beasts and the boss in the final dream door. I took a poison weapon and it went even quicker.

[drahkon]

12 hours ago, Hero-of-Time said:

I cracked on with the game as soon as I got in from work and ended up getting the platinum. It went faster than I thought it would as I expected to be on it most of the weekend.

@drahkon that method I posted earlier works great. You just turn your Higgledies into knights and they tank the tainted beasts and the boss in the final dream door. I took a poison weapon and it went even quicker.

I might go for it today, then. Still need to do 10 more skirmishes, though. Gonna be a drag finding them all...

[Hero-of-Time]

2 minutes ago, drahkon said:

I might go for it today, then. Still need to do 10 more skirmishes, though. Gonna be a drag finding them all...

Yeah, that was my last trophy. Just remember that 7 battles ( Battle for Evermore parts I-VII ) spawn right outside of Evermore.