It’s been over a decade since Konami has released Suikoden V and since then, many fans are really getting antsy to know if there will be a sequel to the much beloved series. With Konami being quiet for over a decade, many assumed that the series was dead while many hoped that there will be a developer going to pick up that series. While fans of the Suikoden series are waiting patiently, there’s this game upcoming game called Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, the sequel to the critically acclaimed Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch from Level-5 that pretty much resembles the gameplay of the Suikoden series.
After spending this past week playing Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, I have concluded that this game is the closest Suikoden fans will ever get to a spiritual successor. From its storyline to the kingdom building, everything that fans love about Konami’s series are all in the game, but then Ni No Kuni II has a lot of things that sets the series apart with Suikoden, which is a good thing.
Without spoiling anything, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is about the coming of age of Evan, a young king who is obliged to create his own kingdom after getting booted out from his own in Ding Dong Dell. Evan will get his own kingdom to build about six hours into the game. Once Evan has his own kingdom, players will be able to access the game’s town management system where you will be establishing various shops, assign citizens that you recruit in a shop, do research to get items that you can buy in the shop and other things that might be useful for the kingdom.
Aside from going through the fun-filled story the game has to offer, players will be spending most of their time making sure that their Kingdom is flourishing as players will be obliged to keep checking them for new things to research, gather items, and so much more. At some point, players will be upgrading the Kingdom to a much bigger one using the kingsguilding currency that you rack up for simply having citizens working for you in your kingdom. Pretty much, players will have to think carefully where to assign citizens as the kingdom’s success will depend on them, especially if you want to upgrade various things in the kingdom.
To get the citizens that should work for your kingdom, you will find a lot of recruitable ones. Similar to Suikoden, each citizen that you get to recruit will have a special part in your kingdom and some will require you to do certain sidequests. Some are hard but others will simply just join you by talking to them. There are characters that you meet along the story will be part of your kingdom while others will really task you in searching the world to get the citizen you need, which is fun as each character has its own story to tell.
In addition to the kingdom building and recruiting citizens that players will be doing in the game, there’s also that skirmish mode segment that puts two factions in an birds-eye view fight. Fans of Suikoden who played the first two games should be familiar to the skirmish mode that Ni No Kuni II has to offer. It’s not that in-depth but the similarity is quite close where you put units in your faction and you fight others in a strategy-like game.
In the end, fans who are looking for a quick fix on Suikoden should definitely consider Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom. It’s no way exact clone of Suikoden but it’s really the closest Suikoden game you will ever get. Check back with us on March 19, 2018 for our review of the game.