Ni No Kuni II

[BiH115]

Well. The game got hard all of a sudden. I'm nearly getting my ass kicked quite a bit in battles now. Even after doing a ton of side-quests and stuff. I ended up under leveled for an area and the creatures require some work to beat. This is a nice change of pace. Though some advice: No not make a beeline through the game without some leveling because the game will kick your ass, hard. if yo go to a new story areas and see the outside monsters have bright red names on them, turn around and level up. I bypassed some level 47s on my way to this part of the game and holy crap. The dungeon monsters are pretty on par with the outside ones. And I'm 10 levels below some of them and yikes.

Yep, I've read almost everywhere that the game definitely discourages zipping from one main story hub to the next, without seeing the rest of the world. The best explanation is that they want you to see all the side stories that they put effort into.

 

[MavericK]

I played this a bit more over the weekend. Got my kingdom going, need way more citizens but I'm guessing that comes with time. Fought a 5+ level higher purple monster, was still pretty easy. Got a really nice set of armor.

I don't necessarily dislike the army battle things, but I feel like it's kind of janky and I don't fully understand the strategy (if any) behind it. Kinda seems like you just mash the units together and hope they attack properly.

Another thing I haven't looked at at all is the Tactics Tweaker. I read some stuff online saying the bottom two panels are really the only useful ones, but I haven't unlocked anything yet. Just haven't spent the time to dig into it.

 

[Derangel]

I played this a bit more over the weekend. Got my kingdom going, need way more citizens but I'm guessing that comes with time. Fought a 5+ level higher purple monster, was still pretty easy. Got a really nice set of armor.

I don't necessarily dislike the army battle things, but I feel like it's kind of janky and I don't fully understand the strategy (if any) behind it. Kinda seems like you just mash the units together and hope they attack properly.

Another thing I haven't looked at at all is the Tactics Tweaker. I read some stuff online saying the bottom two panels are really the only useful ones, but I haven't unlocked anything yet. Just haven't spent the time to dig into it.

The rock-paper-scissors aspect of the Skirmishes come into play more at higher levels, especially when you're fighting Skirmishes that are higher level than you. The early ones that are doable with the two armies the game gives you are super easy.

Edit: As far as the tactics tweaker goes: The bottom two are the most important. I'd suggest focusing on them first, especially bottom left. Bottom left is amazing if you need to grind out some money for getting achievements or doing certain quests, otherwise it can be set to focus on exp so you can level faster. The exp option is really nice late game if you decide to fully complete the Dreamer's Door sidequest.

 

[MavericK]

The rock-paper-scissors aspect of the Skirmishes come into play more at higher levels, especially when you're fighting Skirmishes that are higher level than you. The early ones that are doable with the two armies the game gives you are super easy.

Is there any strategy for beating the non-"rock-paper-scissors" enemies? Like the ranged and the shielded ones? It seems like you basically just mash the units together and hope for the best.

I've also noticed that it seems like the units don't fight if they are moving, so do you want to position yourself and then just stand still while they fight? I thought being more mobile would work better, but it seems like most of the time if I'm moving they just don't attack.

 

[Derangel]

Is there any strategy for beating the non-"rock-paper-scissors" enemies? Like the ranged and the shielded ones? It seems like you basically just mash the units together and hope for the best.

I've also noticed that it seems like the units don't fight if they are moving, so do you want to position yourself and then just stand still while they fight? I thought being more mobile would work better, but it seems like most of the time if I'm moving they just don't attack.

For ranged just plow your strongest units into them. Shield guys is just a matter of wearing them down. They're really annoying when teamed with strong melee fighters or monster-type enemies. Its better to remain stationary or rotate around units for the best position. I tend to have a group of two melee (hammer and spear currently) and two ranged (archers and mages for now) in my group. The ranged folks are good for pecking away at towers and cannons while you're dealing with the mobs around them. Canons are the big exception to being stationary. When canons are in play you want to be moving more often, stopping to do some quick damage and then bailing out when the canons have the area you are at targeted.

 

[KamelRed]

Pretty sure shield guys are weak to hammer (green icon) units. My four unit setup was sword, spear, hammer, bow and for the most part it worked out great. The only time things got hairy was when the game spawned strong-against type enemy units right next to my weak-against units (usually after a chat cutscene). But a tactical retreat and regrouping fixes those situations with light losses.

 

[MavericK]

I guess I am just too early in the game, I still only have the first two units (sword and bow). Probably just need to get more units.

 

[Nytegard]

I guess I am just too early in the game, I still only have the first two units (sword and bow). Probably just need to get more units.

You'll get more later on. There are 6 different ones I think?

Anyway, once you've completed a skirmish, you can run it on hard mode, which is always going to be 10 levels higher than you. There are 2 easy ones, one outside Evermore, one outside Martha's Cottage, that takes about 2-3 minutes to complete, and very useful for leveling up. What I did for skirmishes was level up to about 10 levels higher than other skirmishes I wanted to run, to make those then easier to play.

 

[KamelRed]

No real need to use hard mode when you gain/retain experience points regardless if you win or lose the skirmish. Once you get 4 units you can do the majority of the skirmishes that are 20+ levels higher than your units without too much difficulty, and if you fail, no real loss besides your time retrying it until your units are strong enough.

 

[PiERiT]

Yep, I've read almost everywhere that the game definitely discourages zipping from one main story hub to the next, without seeing the rest of the world. The best explanation is that they want you to see all the side stories that they put effort into.

Just ran into this problem. For side quests I only have low level fetch quests that net maybe a couple thousand XP each. They'd get me maybe one level, but that would only put me at level 30 and the main story enemies are 40-43.

I find it hard to believe I missed 10 levels of side quests. Are you supposed to grind somewhere?

 

[Derangel]

Just ran into this problem. For side quests I only have low level fetch quests that net maybe a couple thousand XP each. They'd get me maybe one level, but that would only put me at level 30 and the main story enemies are 40-43.

I find it hard to believe I missed 10 levels of side quests. Are you supposed to grind somewhere?

Have you done the Dreamer's Door stuff?

 

[PiERiT]

Have you done the Dreamer's Door stuff?

Just the first one, I assumed I'd come across the rest doing the story. Are you supposed to seek them out?

 

[Derangel]

Just the first one, I assumed I'd come across the rest doing the story. Are you supposed to seek them out?

If you make the quest active it will lead you to each door one by one.

 

[PiERiT]

If you make the quest active it will lead you to each door one by one.

Oh. I'll try that, thanks. I also just did some of the tainted monsters and got about half a level each, still a ways to go though.

Edit: Not getting much XP at all from the dream door things. Maybe a sixth of a level. Tainted monsters give a good chunk, hopefully there's enough of them throughout the game. But considering the main quest line just jumped from 32 to 35 to 38 whilst simultaneously giving 0xp, I have my doubts.

 

[MavericK]

So I'm like 15-ish hours into this and honestly, while I've been enjoying it for the most part, the side quests seem super tedious, yet necessary. Like, I want ALL of the citizens, but every quest is either "give me X of this rare thing" or "fight X monsters". I guess that is ultimately the whole game, but I guess I wish there was a bit more to it.

It would be nice if the quests told you where to find certain materials, as well. I know you can see that info if you already have them/found them before, but telling me to get a super-special tangerine or something isn't super useful when there are like, hundreds of items in this game.

Yep, I've read almost everywhere that the game definitely discourages zipping from one main story hub to the next, without seeing the rest of the world. The best explanation is that they want you to see all the side stories that they put effort into.

The above kinda makes this super ironic, because the side quests so far feel like the majority of them have no effort put in whatsoever. There are a few that are multi-part and have a decent story element, but like 95% of them are just fetch/kill quests.

 

[Derangel]

69 hours and 22 minutes. Game is beat. Did a crap load of side content and wandering around. Now on to the 100%! Hopefully before Friday, if not the game will get set aside for God of War.

So I'm like 15-ish hours into this and honestly, while I've been enjoying it for the most part, the side quests seem super tedious, yet necessary. Like, I want ALL of the citizens, but every quest is either "give me X of this rare thing" or "fight X monsters". I guess that is ultimately the whole game, but I guess I wish there was a bit more to it.

It would be nice if the quests told you where to find certain materials, as well. I know you can see that info if you already have them/found them before, but telling me to get a super-special tangerine or something isn't super useful when there are like, hundreds of items in this game.



The above kinda makes this super ironic, because the side quests so far feel like the majority of them have no effort put in whatsoever. There are a few that are multi-part and have a decent story element, but like 95% of them are just fetch/kill quests.

Most of the materials for the side quests come from your town. If you don't need the people for research always make sure there is at least one person manning each resource building. And level them all up to level 2 so you can get better materials. Some items can be purchased from shops around the world or the shop in your kingdom. The inventory of the shop is increased through upgrading it, other research, and some side-quests. Swift Solutions has a bunch of items. Speaking of, make sure to check Swift Solutions every now and then. The tasks update every hour and the more tasks you complete the more citizens will be available to grab from there. Quite a few citizens come from Swift Solutions. A couple you can't get until you beat the game though.

The side-quests are not great. The best ones are the handful that have you go do a skirmish or go fight a tainted monster. The others are rather bad. Side quests have always been a problem for Level-5 RPGs. From Dark Cloud until now they've never really made a game with a lot of great side-quests. I quickly got to a point where I skipped the text for side-quests quickly and just did what it told me to do. Some side-quests have fun writing attached to them, but the quests are so dull that it just isn't worth it.

 

[Nytegard]

So I'm like 15-ish hours into this and honestly, while I've been enjoying it for the most part, the side quests seem super tedious, yet necessary. Like, I want ALL of the citizens, but every quest is either "give me X of this rare thing" or "fight X monsters". I guess that is ultimately the whole game, but I guess I wish there was a bit more to it.

It would be nice if the quests told you where to find certain materials, as well. I know you can see that info if you already have them/found them before, but telling me to get a super-special tangerine or something isn't super useful when there are like, hundreds of items in this game.



The above kinda makes this super ironic, because the side quests so far feel like the majority of them have no effort put in whatsoever. There are a few that are multi-part and have a decent story element, but like 95% of them are just fetch/kill quests.

As Derangel said. Plus, you can press R3 on the material, and it will tell you where to find it. There are only a handful of items in the game you don't get in town.

I would say, use Swift Solutions liberally. First, just collect everything you get in town. It gives you the option to sell all of that, but there's no reason, except at the very beginning, and even then, you can tough it out. There are only a handful of people you find in Swift Solutions per chapter, and it typically comes to something like 300-400 tokens at worst, and you'll easily have more than that. Every time I pass the guy, I see if there are any new errands where I already have the amount of items he's asking for. So if you need some items, don't feel bad if you buy them from him.

And like many other JRPGs, it's a case of gold is hard at the beginning, but you'll be overflowing with it at the end. Once your castle is fully built, you'll be getting roughly 1.2 million per hour, but you can't actually use it on anything other than skirmishes, which, even if using every single battle skill, costs like 2000. For me, I believe when I hit the chapter you could build your castle to level 3, I left the game running for about 10 hours to get the necessary gold to build up the castle as high as I could. (It was about that time I was getting burnt out with the game, so it worked out well).

 

[MavericK]

Thanks guys. I forgot to mention but I did get everyone I could from Swift Solutions.

 

[BiH115]

I think the issues of finding things stems from the fact that while the game does a fantastic job explaining combat and running the kingdom, it falls short in mentioning things like "Press R3 on the material to learn where it can be found". Things like that are pretty par for the course for JRPG's though. Most of the stuff I never knew how to do I learn on forums or from other players, just something I've gotten used to.

That being said, I haven't gotten very far, been juggling a few games the last few weeks. I built the kingdom yesterday and am a few quests past that. Still having a blast.

Just ran into this problem. For side quests I only have low level fetch quests that net maybe a couple thousand XP each. They'd get me maybe one level, but that would only put me at level 30 and the main story enemies are 40-43.

I find it hard to believe I missed 10 levels of side quests. Are you supposed to grind somewhere?

How far are you? Are you a bit past the kingdom creation, or?

 

[Nytegard]

Well, the lack of explanation I’d say is more of a fault of companies not printing manuals anymore. And no, in game tutorials are not an appropriate substitution.

 

[BiH115]

Well, the lack of explanation I’d say is more of a fault of companies not printing manuals anymore. And no, in game tutorials are not an appropriate substitution.

The game "manuals" that shipped with games were always shit to begin with (from what I remember), are you referencing the little booklets inside the cases? Most games do a great job at explaining everything that's useful, but there are always things that seem to be missing, like my R3 example up above (could argue that some of those just aren't that useful, but still). My thought is that if it exists in the game, it should be explained at some level, does not have to be ridiculously in-depth.

 

[MavericK]

I thought about getting the physical guide, but I generally end up just using Google anyway.

Likewise, apparently the guide isn't even available until April 30th.

 

[BiH115]

I thought about getting the physical guide, but I generally end up just using Google anyway.

Likewise, apparently the guide isn't even available until April 30th.

You referencing the Future Press Collector's Edition guide? Those guys never hit the Amazon target date.

 

[MavericK]

You referencing the Future Press Collector's Edition guide? Those guys never hit the Amazon target date.

Yeah, that's the only "official" one I saw on there.

 

[Nytegard]

The game "manuals" that shipped with games were always shit to begin with (from what I remember), are you referencing the little booklets inside the cases? Most games do a great job at explaining everything that's useful, but there are always things that seem to be missing, like my R3 example up above (could argue that some of those just aren't that useful, but still). My thought is that if it exists in the game, it should be explained at some level, does not have to be ridiculously in-depth.

Manuals only started to become useless in the 90s when companies realized that no one read them. During the 80s, they actually were fairly complete. As for R3, Ni No Kuni 2 does mention it, but you have to find it. Personally, I despise in game tutorials and explanations. It breaks from the immersion, and I often don't like the several hours of being on rails.

 

[MavericK]

Manuals only started to become useless in the 90s when companies realized that no one read them. During the 80s, they actually were fairly complete. As for R3, Ni No Kuni 2 does mention it, but you have to find it. Personally, I despise in game tutorials and explanations. It breaks from the immersion, and I often don't like the several hours of being on rails.

Well in this game, it seems to be more of the case where if you don't progress far enough in the main storyline, you are sort of cut off from certain areas/items/spells, but the game doesn't necessarily explain to you that you need to do the main story to get past those parts.

I am all for a little bit of tutorial/explanation in those cases.

 

[BiH115]

Manuals only started to become useless in the 90s when companies realized that no one read them. During the 80s, they actually were fairly complete. As for R3, Ni No Kuni 2 does mention it, but you have to find it. Personally, I despise in game tutorials and explanations. It breaks from the immersion, and I often don't like the several hours of being on rails.

Ahh I must have missed the R3 materials explanation. Honestly, between not having any sort of explanations in a game (whether it pop up right on the screen or in a compendium of sorts in the menus) and having nothing at all, I'd always choose the former. I like to know that there's at least some sort of information there, whether I choose to view it or not. It hasn't been too bad in NNK, and I appreciated being told what this/that does with the pop-ups. In the end, there has to be some sort of mechanism to explain features, and if it's not a physical manual, it's an in-game variant.

I didn't really start gaming until the late 90's, so my experience as I noted, doesn't go back quite that far. I remember looking through Game Boy and Playstation 1 game manuals, but I only did that because I wanted to keep the constant IV drip at school. What sort of information would you find in 80's game manuals? How was it different from the 90's? Just curious.

Well in this game, it seems to be more of the case where if you don't progress far enough in the main storyline, you are sort of cut off from certain areas/items/spells, but the game doesn't necessarily explain to you that you need to do the main story to get past those parts.

I am all for a little bit of tutorial/explanation in those cases.

Exactly. Little hints or notes would have been helpful. In my case, I like to go through various forums/postings and some of the things mentioned here were answered by just perusing. If I didn't know most of that stuff going in, it'd have been a bit frustrating.

 

[Nytegard]

Ahh I must have missed the R3 materials explanation. Honestly, between not having any sort of explanations in a game (whether it pop up right on the screen or in a compendium of sorts in the menus) and having nothing at all, I'd always choose the former. I like to know that there's at least some sort of information there, whether I choose to view it or not. It hasn't been too bad in NNK, and I appreciated being told what this/that does with the pop-ups. In the end, there has to be some sort of mechanism to explain features, and if it's not a physical manual, it's an in-game variant.

I didn't really start gaming until the late 90's, so my experience as I noted, doesn't go back quite that far. I remember looking through Game Boy and Playstation 1 game manuals, but I only did that because I wanted to keep the constant IV drip at school. What sort of information would you find in 80's game manuals? How was it different from the 90's? Just curious.



Exactly. Little hints or notes would have been helpful. In my case, I like to go through various forums/postings and some of the things mentioned here were answered by just perusing. If I didn't know most of that stuff going in, it'd have been a bit frustrating.

Old game manuals are thorough. They include game maps, list of enemies, list of items, tips, etc. Computer games would come with keyboard overlays. Basically, every little detail sans walkthrough, was spelled out for you in the manual.

Here's Dragon Warriors for example: http://www.woodus.com/den/games/dw1nes/dw1nes_manual.pdf

Most people thought it made sense to keep it in the manual, as games were small in size and you couldn't fit all that information on the cart/disk. Unfortunately, as time went by, manuals started shrinking, but all that information never got transferred to the game. It's only been recently games have been including in game help to describe the game, but games are also vastly more complex than they use to be, often forcing a person to remember what was said once in an in game tutorial. Regardless, even in game help takes you away from the game itself, as you now exit the screen and need to remember what you're looking for rather than having the screen up and browsing the manual for what you're looking for.