Video Game / Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

The sequel to Ni no Kuni, developed by Level-5 and published by Bandai Namco. Set hundreds of years after the first game, Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, newly crowned king as his father had just recently died, was usurped from his castle by the mouse tribe. Meanwhile, in the other world, Roland Crane, President of a United States-like country, was on the way to an emergency summit when nuclear bombs hit. Roland, caught in ground zero of the blast, almost dies, but is suddenly transported into Evan's room at the height of said mouse tribe's coup. Escaping the castle together, they set off on a journey to build a kingdom where everyone can live happily ever after.

The sequel retains the Studio Ghibli style artwork from the first game, as a good deal of former Ghibli artists are now part of Level-5. However, the combat changed from a Mon-like action/menu-based system to more traditional Action RPG, with familiars replaced by Higgledies who run around the battlefield and provide support.

The game was released for Windows and PS4 on March 23, 2018. It received a free DLC, titled The Adventure Pack, on October 24th, 2018, which introduced a new sidequest chain and two new trophies/achievements. A paid DLC, The Lair of the Lost Lord followed suit on 13 December 2018, dropping four new sidequests (two initially available, two more unlocks as you delve deeper into the new dungeon) and several new spells and skills as well as expanding the existing research tree. It also increases the maximum level cap to 120, and drops five new trophies/achievements. A second DLC, The Tale of A Timeless Tome was released on March 19th, 2019, which bring with it another 5 new trophies/achievements, more new skills, a new string of sidequests, a new building for Evermore, and increases your level cap to 150. However, this is speculated to be the last of the DLCs for the game, as the DLCs did not really sell well and received mixed reviews.

An Updated Re-release, titled Prince's Edition, of the game for Nintendo Switch was announced in May 2021 for release on September 17 of that year. It bundles all previously released DLC.

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This game provides examples of:

• Absurdly Spacious Sewer:
  • The castle sewers which Evan and Roland make their escape in.
  • The Old Well from the first game returns, although in a slightly different layout.
• A Child Shall Lead Them: Evan, both in Ding Dong Dell and in his own kingdom. Subverted as Evan may be the king of Evermore, but he isn't even old enough to drink, gamble … or make his own laws. He's well aware of the fact, which is why he appoints trained politicians Roland (who is implied in the Goldpaw trial to have been a lawyer before going into politics) and Leander (chief enforcer of another kingdom for 300 years) as Chief and Junior Consul to run his new nation for him.
  • It's never addressed directly in the game, but Roland being appointed Chief Consul makes him effectively crown regent to Evermore; as he is aware of this, he is initially hesitant to take any official position in Evan's court, only relenting after Evan insists.
• Actually Four Mooks: On the overworld map, one enemy represents a group of enemies, usually of several types. In dungeons, all enemies are shown individually.
• Actually Pretty Funny: In the skirmish battles with Tyran, Lofty is annoyed with the excuses Tyran keeps making for why he keeps running off. After a particularly cheeky one, however, he admits he's starting to become entertained by them.
• A Dog Named "Dog": A mild example as two antagonists from the mouse tribe are named Mausinger and Vermine. The citizens that can be enlisted to the kingdom include a dog person called Fai Do and a cat person named Kitty.
• Aerith and Bob: The Kingmakers. Oakenhart, Longfang, Brineskimmer, Bastion, Alisandra… and Lofty.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Whamsters, Porcs, and Wyverns don't count in Evan's world without war and the large "Skirmish" Mini-Game has him fighting them constantly. Though he does extend olive branches to some, none of them pan out except for the occasional small scale truce (one mission chain suggests that the aggression, at least in the Whamsters' case, is because the species is literally incapable of understanding "human" speech without Nature's Tongue). Porcs, especially, are particularly hostile and have several Jerk with a Heart of Jerk moments.
• Antagonist Title: The name "Revenant Kingdom" is a reference to Doloran's wish to bring back his kingdom that has fallen ages ago.
• Animal Jingoism: Between the Grimalkin (Cat Folk) and Mousekind in Ding Dong Dell.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The game lets you use the trip doors to fast travel to locations you've been to before right at the beginning of Chapter 2.
  • Unlike the previous game, jumping actually has a practical purpose and helps with getting around towns quicker. Fortunately, you can't jump off most ledges to your death.
  • You have a party of three, but you hit the Arbitrary Headcount Limit very early and have to swap someone out practically the moment you get your third party member. Fortunately this game has Leaked Experience, and your inactive party members tend to stay close to the same level as your active characters.
  • Skirmishes can be difficult, and you can play many that are at a much higher level than you. Fortunately, if you lose a skirmish, you simply return to the overworld next to the banner with all of the experience you earned, allowing you to level up your units and try again.
• Artificial Brilliance:
  • Allies actually back up and start using ranged attacks when bosses or Elite Mooks are winding up for an attack, most of the time. When they can't use ranged attacks, they'll either wait until they're done and then hop in while they're knocked down, or start trying to flank them.
  • They are also pretty smart with their AoE attacks. Sometimes you'll see someone like a CPU-Evan run in at the start of a fight and then throw out an Area of Effect attack so that it will hit a lot of enemies at once.
• Artificial Limbs: Bracken has a cybernetic leg, made by Zip.
• Artificial Stupidity: In spite of the above Artificial Brilliance, the AI's tendency to attack other enemies can work against it. They will sometimes go out and attack enemies that're too strong for them alone and end up wasting their MP faster than they can regenerate it. They also aren't very good with knowing when to spread out.
• Ascended Extra: The non-human species from the previous game get a lot more focus in this game. Compared to the first game where, despite being ruled by a Grimalkin, Ding Dong Dell mostly consisted of human residents with a rare few grimalkins sprinkled throughout, while in this game the opposite is true. This is especially apparent with mouse-kind; the first game only had two, with one looking like a giant mouse and the other one being a normal mouse except with hair and glasses, while this game upgrades them to Beast Men like the Grimalkin.
• The Atoner: Every major villain ends up being this, including the Big Bad.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Roland starts the game fighting in his presidential suit. It's quickly decided that this is too noticeable in the other world, so Aranella switches it out for a Custom Uniform blue overcoat. He puts it back on for symbolic reasons during Pugnacious's trial, and it can be unlocked as a wearable costume again if you beat Blackhart the Winnower in the Adventure Pack DLC.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Evan gives an awkward, labored proposal to Tani as part of Lofty's plan to get into Hydropolis's palace. Tani finds his embarrassing display amusing.
• Bait-and-Switch: Since all matters in Goldpaw are decided by dice, Lady Luck is asked to roll to judge Evan's proposed treaty. She says no, suggesting that there will need to be another quest to earn the right to a re-roll. Then Lord Pugnacious says that despite what the dice say, he thinks the treaty is a good idea, and signs it anyway.
• Beast Man: Grimalkins are cats, Goldpaw citizens are dogs and the mice are, well, mice.
• Big Bad: The Horned One, a demon sealed away in the fallen kingdom of Allegoria who wants to destroy the world, and is being summoned by The Heavy Doloran.
• Bittersweet Ending: Evan successfully manages to unite the five nations in harmony, with his future son eventually bringing his dream of the world uniting together as one nation to reality. However, his victory comes at the cost of Doloran being unable to reunite with his love or restore his kingdom - though he's inspired by Evan's actions to forge forward and create a new kingdom for himself, this time in a markedly less destructive way. While the world is finally at peace, Roland doesn't get to savour the moment as he's abruptly forced back to his own world; although saddened by their parting, Evan sees him off with a smile. However the stinger implies that Roland was returned to a time period which allowed him to prevent the chain of events which lead to the nuke being dropped. In the present day, he's well on his way to following in Evan's footsteps and uniting the people of his own world under one banner.
• Black Knight: The first boss in the game is literally named as such and is an Elite Mook of Mausinger.
• Bonus Dungeon: The 9 Dreamer's Mazes. And the 10th one after you beat them all.
• Bookcase Passage: The secret passage in Ding Dong Dell castle that leads to the sewers is hidden behind a bookcase. Roland lampshades this, quipping "This is like something out of a movie..." when Aranella opens it.
• Bookends: The game starts with an older President Roland in a motorcade heading to an emergency world summit in New York and seeing a bright light, which turns out to be a nuke. It ends with him in motorcade heading to a world summit about unification in New York seeing a bright light - this time, fireworks.
• Bottomless Magazines: Justified Trope: Aranella gives Roland an "Arm's Band" that will not only contain his weapons and unlock their potential but also refill ammunition, even his Earth pistol.
• Bully Hunter: One of the few times we see Roland get angry is hearing about a monster that only attacks women and children and hides from soldiers. He explains to Evan that he was bullied as a child, and he grew strong to fight them.
• But Now I Must Go: Roland gets pulled back to his world at the end of the game.
• But Thou Must!: Gambling with the guard outside of Pugnacious's palace is Unwinnable by Design and all choices to continue betting are variants of "Yes".
• Call-Back: Several to the first game:
  • In the Trial of Knowledge trial, there are puzzles involving statues of the characters from the first game.
  • Speaking of statues, there's one of King Tom from the first game in the brazier puzzle leading to the slums. Evan "thinks it's an ancestor of his."
  • One of the protagonists comes from Earth and has another world counterpart in a major villain.
  • The subtitle of the game is connected to a major villain as Doloran turns out to be the ruler of a revenant kingdom.
  • The Final Boss of this game is the incontinent power of Physical God given monstrous form, just like the first game.
  • There are some implications that the twig Evan ultimately uses as a symbol of his King's bond is also the twig Oliver used on his adventure. Later on, it gets forged into an Infinity -1 Sword with another sword named after Oliver's iconic wand and spell: Mornstar.
    • Two of the high-end spells Evan can learn are the Mornstar and Astra spells, and two of the higher-end wands you can craft are their namesake wands, the former called "True Mornstar". Leander, meanwhile, can learn Astra's dark counterpart spell Evenstar.
  • The Wizard’s Companion and The Conductor reappear in the Tale of A Timeless Tome DLC.
• Came Back Strong: Roland was ripped out of a moving car after being almost ground-zero to a nuclear bomb. Then he vanishes and appears in the other world at full physical capacity if not more. He even appears to be about twenty to thirty years younger.
• Can't Kill You, Still Need You: Why the Horned One saved Roland to begin with by pulling him into Ni No Kuni. As Doloran's Soul Mate, if Roland had died as a result of the nuke then so would Doloran. While this is inconvenient when Roland challenges them, Doloran counters that they can just send him to a world where he'll be safe but can't fight them.
• Casino Park: Goldpaw is this mixed in with East Asian flair.
• Catchphrase: Roland is fond of commenting he has a little bit of experience in running a country. He seems to find the understatement funny.
• Cooking Mechanics: Once you recruit Floyd to Evermore, you can then run the restaurant there and let him cook food by giving him ingredients found all over the world. There are over 50 different recipes to cook up, ranging from breads to pastas and desserts, some of which can be found by gaining cookbooks through quests. The foods themselves serve a practical purpose as much like in Breath of the Wild or the Tales Series, they can provide temporary stat boosts to whoever eats it.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Many people in Goldpaw (including Evan early-on) are stuck with gambling debts they can't pay off. What is the punishment for this? A bird follows you around and shouts "YOU OWE ME!" at odd intervals. While this appears to be borderline innocuous at first, they won't be sleeping anytime soon…
• Corrupt Corporate Executive: Subverted by Zip Vector, the President of Broadleaf; he at first appears to be an example, but only due to Doloran using magic to manipulate him. His true self is benevolent and out to make the world a better place for everyone.
• Cow Tools: The giant rock spire tops and floating islands surrounding Ding Dong Dell basin. You cannot visit them – they just exist to hammer in for Roland that he's in a completely different world than before.
• Custom Uniform: To fit in better, Aranella gives Roland a guard uniform that's distinctly different from anything we saw the Grimalkin wearing. She comments they're lucky they found one in his size. Perhaps that's just what human guards in Ding Dong Dell wore, of whom we saw none.
• Darker and Edgier: Than the first game by a wide margin. In the first ten minutes we have a nuclear initiation, attempted murder of a child, the soldier doing the attempted murder being shot in the head with a modern handgun, a woman being scorched by a dark spell and then dying right in front of an already-traumatized little kid... Take note that the first one was rated E, and this one T.
• Different States of America: The Spanish version of the game actually names the country Roland is President of as "Estados Unidos de Arémica". Translated into English, that would be "United States of Aremica". No doubt it's bordered by Nacada and Xemico.
• Disappears into Light: Roland, his reason for being pulled into the world finally being fulfilled, ends up being forced to return to his own world at the end of the game. Evan, although sad to see him go, is able to hold it together and see him off with a smile.
• Disc-One Nuke:
  • Due to the switch to an Action RPG system, combat is more skill based rather than on raw numbers alone. As such, although incredibly difficult, it is possible to take down enemies several levels higher than yourself which, not only rewards you with hefty amounts of EXP, it also runs the possibility of dropping a weapon you by no means should have any right to wield yet.
  • On top of this, there's tainted monsters, Boss in Mook Clothing monsters that have bounties on their heads and rewards to be gain if you can beat them. This can range from simple accessories to armor with 30+ defense over standard armors at the time to weapons with 180+ attack power, where most powerful 'standard' weapons at the time would be in the 90+ attack power range.
  • It's possible to get Tove the Tenebrous, a Higgledy that has access to a gravity spell, right in the second chapter. Gravity is an Infinity Minus One Element that can deal ludicrous damage for that point in the game, ranging anywhere between 500 to 1000 depending on the enemy. And that’s just before you start leveling gravity higgledies up; when fully leveled, they deal well within the range of 2000-5000 damage on current enemies.
  • Roland's first long-range attack is the same contained in a "bullet" that brings down any flying foes … so he may slash them to pieces.
• Disney Villain Death: The Black Knight, who gets shot in the face, then falls into a gorge while staggering backwards.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Evan's gambling portion in Goldpaw is disturbing. He hasn't played with gambling before, but even though he amasses a big debt, the only counterargument he can tell the others telling him to stop is that he is getting the hang of things.
• The Dreaded: The Black Knight.
• Early-Bird Cameo: When you first arrive to Cloudcoil Canyon, you can buy a "Proper Tidy Ring" and a "Proper Tidy Necklace" from the merchant at the entrance. They bear the face of Lofty, even though at this point you have still yet to meet him.
• Elemental Embodiment: Higgledies. According to Aunt Martha, they're "phenomena" like wind or fire that decides to grow legs and run around being all adorable.
• Enclosed Space: Fighting an enemy Kingmaker will send the party to, in Lofty's words, an interdimensonal dimension thingy. If left alone, it will swallow the Kingdom, but it does allow for scenery destroying attacks without collateral damage if Evan's party wins.
• Evil Chancellor:
  • Played with in the case of Mausinger, who secretly poisoned the previous king Evan's father and took the throne from Evan by coup d'etat. It's ultimately revealed that Mausinger's own Evil Chancellor, Vermine, was preying on his fears of only being made chancellor by King Leonhard to appease the mice. He becomes The Good King after joining the Declaration of Interdependence.
  • Mandarin, the aide-de-camp for Pugnacious, was really Doloran waiting for a chance to steal Pugnacious's Kingship.
  • Ultimately Subverted with Leander. While he initially appears to be using Queen Nerea as a puppet and is passing strangely despotic laws, It was ultimately revealed at the end of the chapter that the laws were necessary to keep Nerea's "Groundhog Day" Loop spell effective, as the addition or removal of just one life-form in the spell's coverage area would immediately cause the spell to break.
• Evil Sorceror: Doloran.
• Exact Words: Leander mentions at the beginning of the Hydropolis arc that Hydropolis would be nothing without its queen. The reason why is because she's been maintaining a spell to keep the city in a "Groundhog Day" Loop, as it was destroyed by a volcanic eruption three centuries ago.
• Facepalm:
  • Roland gives one after Evan keeps betting against a guard in a dice game who is using dice that seems fairly obviously rigged and ends up ten million guilders in debt. Later, he performs another on Goldpaw's custom of having affairs of state decided by the roll of the dice as the party invites Goldpaw to sign up on the Declaration of Interdependence.
  • Later, it's Batu's turn when Evan agrees to help out a Grimalkin (cat-guy) named Tabbias in one of the game's many sidequests.
  Batu: Ye're far too soft, lad! Tryin' to help everyone ye meet'll be the death of ye, mark me words! Still, ye've promised now.
• Fake Defector: How Roland manages to infiltrate Ding Dong Dell. With the help of Leander, he uses Feed the Mole to make him look like a prime candidate for betrayal, then seals the deal by using a Staged Shooting to pretend to kill a "former" ally; Khunbish.
• Fake Longevity: The main story isn't bad about this, but if you want 100% Completion, get ready for some grinding.
  • Trophies emphasise repetition over skill: recruit 50 subjects, do 100 errands, complete 150 side quests, and so on.
  • If you want to make the very best equipment, then you will need a lot of items that are only found as rare drops in the tenth Dreamer's Maze.
  • Speaking of the tenth Dreamer's Maze, the boss is on the 30th floor. If you spend one minute per floor, that's half an hour just to reach the boss.
  • Some of the subjects for your kingdom are only recruitable after beating the bandit Tyran in three separate skirmishes. These are high level encounters, so you'll need to grind skirmishes for this.
  • One potential subject will only join up if you craft 25 different armours and accessories, another requires 30 different bladed weapons.
• Fallen Princess: Evan becomes the male version at the beginning of the game due to coup d'etat by Mausinger.
• Fantastic Firearms: Guns have varying designs implying how they would be used in real life, but are explicitly stated to make and fire ammo magically, with the arms band even making a real life pistol magical
• Fantastic Racism: When Evan worries the coup might have been because he was seen as weak, Roland comments on this, saying racial conflict like the ones the Mice had on the Grimalkin doesn't come out of nowhere. Aranella confirms it, though says that Evan's father tried to make it better. Even after Lord Mausinger agrees to Evan's Declaration of Interdependence, the conflict between mice and grimalkin was not immediately healed. Also, while Evan and the spirit of King Leonhard forgives Mausinger for his actions, it's clear that not all of the grimalkin are soon to forgive him.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Bandits are basically Australians.
• Fictional Social Network: Shortly after embarking on his adventure, Evan is given access to Leafbook, an image-sharing network created by Broadleaf's technicians.
• Fighting a Shadow: Defeating a berserk Kingmaker in battle will put it to sleep for a little while; to give one time to fix the situation that caused it to attack.
• Final Boss, New Dimension: The Horned one tears the sky and creates a dimensional rift where the party fights it for the final battle.
• Final-Exam Boss: The Horned One utilizes movesets from previous Kingmaker fights.
• Fisher King: All rulers have the blessing of a Kingmaker called a Kingsbond, which seems to be part of the Anatomy of the Soul. If their connection to the people wavers, the Kingmaker comes to judge them. If the Kingsbond is stolen and corrupted, the Kingmaker will destroy the Kingdom.
• Fixing the Game: The government of Goldpaw owns a secret factory where it builds trick dice, where the die's owner can decide what number it rolls via remote control.
• Foreshadowing:
  • When Evan forms a Kingsbond with Lofty, the magical circle depicting a giant eastern dragon is created. Later in the game, Lofty gains an ability to transform into said dragon.
  • Doloran's name can be anagrammed to Roland (with an extra o), foreshadowing that the two are actually soul mates.
• The Four Gods: The kingmakers present in the game (minus the Horned One/Alisandra) share this theme between them, with Longfang representing Byakko, Brineskimmer representing Seiryu, Bastion representing Genbu, Oakenhart representing Suzaku, and Lofty representing Kohryu.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: When the true form of the Horned One is freed it's first act is to tear open a rift between dimensions. The way it does this, by grabbing at the air and causing purple cracks to start forming, is done while he's looking directly at the player, making it seem like he's attempting to literally break out of the screen.
• Funetik Aksent: Lofty speaks in a Welsh version of this like Drippy from the first game. Similarly, the Greenkins have a Scottish variant, despite rarely being voice acted.
• Fungus Humongous: a situation similar to Ni no Kuni is featured in this game as well. In the forest of Niall you cast spells on the mushrooms growing on trees making them much larger and opening paths deeper into the forest.
• Game-Breaking Bug: The Dreamer's Mazes are randomized, sometimes using alternate room layouts that don't take certain other maze elements into account. This can result in something as harmless as NPCs half-stuck in a cave wall, to two different rooms overlapping, soft-locking your progress (spoilers for post-game outfits).
• Gang Up on the Human: The enemy AI has a tendency to go after the player and often fixate on them. This means that chances are, you'll have to heal the character you're controlling most often.
• Ghibli Hills: Just like the first game.
• Going Through the Motions: All of your playable characters have this when you're at the menu. However, easily the most amusing would have to be the pirate captain Batu, who rubs his belly, yawns, and flexes his muscles.
• Gotta Catch Them All:
  • Higgledy heroes take the role of familiars from the first game for this trope.
  • Finding all 100 citizens for Evermore in a Suikoden-like manner.
• Great Offscreen War: According to a ghost in a shrine; there was a very large war in Jack Frost's Playground between Ni No Kuni's world and a different world centuries ago. It was that other world's crashed plane that makes up the mountain in the center. Nothing else even references this major geographical detail.
• Green Aesop: One sidequest has Evan and Bracken hired to put down some berserk animals seen prowling on the edge of Broadleaf's territory. After they're killed, Bracken tells Evan that Zip ordered the terrain around the city strip-mined in order to acquire the magical ores needed for his fission reactor, and she doesn't blame the animals for being upset when their ecosystem has been replaced with wasteland.
• Ground Hog Day Loop: What Nerea was doing to Hydropolis. 300 years ago it was destroyed by a volcanic eruption. So she cast a spell to turn back time to restore it; only this ended up restoring the volcano as well. Thus she was forced to constantly rewind time back to a point before the volcano erupted. However, the outside world kept moving on and nobody noticed the loop due to the lack of interaction between countries.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Aranella joins you as such at the beginning of the game.
• Guide Dang It!: Getting all the citizens for the Evermore Kingdom can easily verge into Last Lousy Point territory, as several of them require a rather specific amount of steps to unlock, either by reaching a specific amount of research in one of your buildings to completing another sidequest which may or may not require a sidequest in itself to unlock to going to an extremely out of the way place you likely wouldn't check otherwise to find the NPC there... Getting the max kingdom level is most certainly a challenge.
• Guile Hero: Roland embodies this, the crowning example being when he pretends to betray Evermore to Mausinger in an elaborate plan to get Evan's Mark of Kings. Evan comments that if he was really going to betray them, his misdirection would have been so great that the rest of them wouldn't have known his plan until it was far too late.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Evan is only half-Grimalkin (catperson) so he's a Little Bit Beastly.
• Hammerspace: The Arms Band mechanic. Apart from determining which four weapons (three melee, one ranged) you equip, it serves as a storage for your entire inventory (including up to 600! individual weapons) that is Bigger on the Inside. Justified though – the magic of the bangle dissolves anything stored into it into shiny energy particles if it's not in use.
  • Gold Makes Everything Shiny: Standard Arms Bands are wrought from enchanted gold, studded with jewels.
• Happily Ever After: Evan's ultimate goal is to unite all the kingdoms into one so everyone can experience this. While he manages to unite the five kingdom's together in peace he is unable to unify them all into a single one during his lifetime. Thankfully, his future son ends up finishing what he started.
• Hard Light: Zip's reactor has the power to create a reaction that transforms light into a solid surface - which comes in handy when Evan and his friends need some extra platforms to navigate his city.
• Harder Than Hard: The game being too easy was a chief complaint. Version 1.03, released on June 22, 2018, added a Hard difficulty level, as well as an Expert one, both which greatly amped up the difficulty.
• Hard Mode Perks: The higher difficulty levels provide better treasures from both monster drops and certain chests as a reward, as well as rare accessories with two skill slots.
• Here There Be Dragons: The world map is illustrated in this style, with a picture of a sea-monster and a mermaid at different points in the ocean.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Aranella does this at the beginning of the game to protect Evan.
• Hurricane of Puns: A lot of characters and monsters have punny names. Notably, the adults on the team are also quite fond of them.
  • Added Alliterative Appeal: Many descriptions of items and item names have it.
  • Punny Name: In Goldpaw, a "Duebill" is a bird that follows around someone who has a debt they aren't able to pay at the moment, squawking "U O ME! U O ME!"
  • Many citizens have names that are puns as well.
  • Boss Subtitles: Often come with puns or Added Alliterative Appeal.
• I Choose to Stay: Although Roland initially wonders if there's a way back, he assures Evan that he will stay in the other world with Evan after seeing how truly alone Evan is in the world once they escape the castle.
• If You're So Evil, Eat This Kitten!: After Roland supposedly betrays Evermore and Evan for King Mausinger (Evan's deposer) in Ding Dong Dell, Mausinger orders him to the dungeons where he wants him to kill Batu's colleague, Khunbish, who was caught trying to sneak in after Roland. He fakes it by shooting Khunbish with a trick bullet that only knocks Khunbish out and makes it seem like he's dead. Mausinger is seemingly satisfied, though it later transpired that he wasn't entirely convinced.
• Infinity -1 Sword: Mornstar is this for Evan. A sword forged using the remnants of the original Mornstar – the Cup of Unity – and the twig Evan used as a symbol of his King's bond. Although it doesn't have the highest attack power in the game, it has a special perk that allows it to deal extra damage against anything infected by the taint of the Horned One, as well as the Horned One itself.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • When Aranella "joins" you, you can't check her status. Obviously she's either going to join later and leave soon, or be removed from the party for some reason. Wonder which one - this is Ni No Kuni after all....
  • You can tell you'll get a new party member based upon the shop selling spears and hammers. This becomes a double whammy when you get Tani and realise she can't use hammers, indicating that you will receive another new party member very soon.
  • At one point Roland seemingly kills one of Evermore's citizens. If you've been building and upgrading the right buildings, you'll notice this person's (unique) ability is still needed for some research topics, cluing you in that they can't have died.
• Interspecies Romance: All over the place. Evan is the son of a grimalkin and a human, and is highly implied to have one of his own in the future with the fully human Tani. There are many other couples of different races shown throughout the game, such as mousekind man and a grimalkin woman who have been tragically separated from each other due to Mausinger segregating the two races. Though the most tragic example of all is that of Doloran and his kingmaker Alisandra, the consequences of said relationship directly causing the events of the game.
• Kid Hero: Evan and Tani.
• Kingmaker Scenario: There's the Kingmakers themselves, of course. This is also how Roland helps set Evan up from the very beginning.
• Last Words: From Aranella to Evan, "You have to build a kingdom where everyone can live Happily Ever After." Evan takes this literally and to its fullest extent.
• Lions and Tigers and Humans... Oh, My!: Makes sense as it is the same world from the first game, just hundreds of years later.
• Loads and Loads of Sidequests: The game contains a whopping 175 side quests to complete, many of which are 2 or 3 part fetch quests.
• Love Makes You Evil: The motivation of the Big Bad turns out to be this, as everything he does is to restore his beloved and kingdom.
• Luke, You Are My Father: The curious boy in Evan's dreams turns out to be his future son.
• Magitek: The specialty of Broadleaf.
• Metal Slime: The elemental Incarnates. They prance around to avoid your attacks, have a lot of HP, do not flinch from anything, always knock you down when they attack, and run away if you take too long to kill them. And they usually appear in the middle of a group of more aggressive enemies. They're also the only enemies in the entire game that drop prisms. There are also literal goo monsters that has the ability turn into literal metal slimes - and not only gain higher attack power, but your attacks also do no damage to them while they’re in that state.
• More than Mind Control: Doloran's MO. He manipulates and exploits a ruler's faults to weaken their connection to their kingdom. When this happens, he can steal their Kingsbond.
• Mon: Downplayed compared to the previous game. Because of the switch to an Action RPG, players can't use overworld monsters in battle. However, there's still something akin to this in the form of Higgledies, tiny sprite-like creatures that are the Anthropomorphic Personification of elements. Although they don't do much damage by themselves, they have a wide variety of effects that can help out in battle, from creating temporary areas that have positive passive effects like regenerating health, buffing the player, debuffing monsters, healing the player, or carrying out special attacks when commanded to.
• Never Was This Universe: Although the scenes set in Roland's world make it clear that he's the US President in New York, it's clearly a different US and a different New York. For one, the presidential seal seen on his car is different, more resembling the US Marines. More glaringly, the city still has a pair of Twin Towers, but they're round and somewhat futuristic buildings.
• Nominal Importance: If a townsperson has a name, chances are they'll be a recruitable citizen for Evermore. There are even some NPCs that get named by the characters in dialogue, but because the name in their text box stays generic, you know they're not actually important.
• Non-Standard Game Over: If you lose a skirmish battle, you get a Game Over message. However, you just get tossed back to the world map outside the skirmish flag, you don't lose anything (other than any kingsguilders you might have spent to try to make things easier and you'll have earned them during the battle anyway) and more importantly you keep all experience / level ups gained during the skirmish, making future ones easier.
• No Place for a Warrior: One late-game sidequest has a soldier unsure how to deal with lasting peace between the world's nations, and considers becoming a Death Seeker, throwing himself at the world's strongest monsters until one of them kills him. Evan saves him from one such monster and talks him into joining Evermore instead.
• Nostalgia Level: The Old Well in Ding Dong Dell, the first dungeon of the first game, returns in Chapter 8 and is designed very similarly to its original appearance, including King Tom's statue and braziers. Downplayed with Ding Dong Dell itself, which has a remix of its original theme and shop stands for Hootenanny, Cawtermaster and Cat's Cradle, but otherwise has a completely different map layout.
• Obviously Evil: Between his deep voice and snake-like outfit, Doloran makes no attempt at hiding his villainy.
• Olympus Mons: Higgledies that can be made from the final tier research most certainly count, having some of the best stats in the game and some rather unique effects. Some notable examples...
  • Claptrap the Kingly: gotten through the second to final tier of research and has a rather notable effect of boosting the effectiveness of the other Higgledies in the party, as well as being able to create a 'Higgledy Knight' that temporarily acts as a fourth party member in battle.
  • Mome the Munificent: got through a chain of sidequest and even referred to as a 'legendary Higgledy'. Acts as a really good support member, frequently curing status elements and can create an area that lets characters regen health while in it.
• Older Than They Look: Roland is 48, though he gets several decades taken off him when he's transported into the Ni no Kuni world. His age does show in his experience with politics and other issues. The others in the party even comment that his manners don't match his physical age.
• One Nation Under Copyright: Broadleaf is technically a corporation that has grown large and powerful enough to be recognised as its own nation.
• Ontological Paradox:
  • What finally cements Evan's idea to unite all Kingdoms is when Boddly tells him that it was already done once, in a different time, by Ferdinand. The ending of the game reveals that Ferdinand is actually Evan's future son, who is finishing what his father started. Boddly is a seer who tells the future, not the past.
  • Sin-Gul is a Post-End Game Content citizen for Evermore who can help with all projects and facilities. How? He looks into the future to see how something is made, and then tells them.
• Our Dragons Are Different: There's the multiple elemental wyrm Beef Gates, Goldpaw's Kingmaker who is a Western Dragon, and Lofty who can turn into an Eastern Dragon.
• Overly Long Name: Sin-Gul is recruited by correctly guessing his full name. Ready? Sin-Donwaribihapi-Tstaykenmayt-Haoozbiznis-Sbinawile-Watsamata-Gul.
  • Punny Name: Each of his middle names is one – Don't worry be happy, taken mate, how is business, it's been a while, and What's the matter?.
• Parental Substitute:
  • Aranella is this to Evan; she even starts to say it, but he interrupts her saying that he knows.
  • Roland then takes over this position to Evan.
• Planet of Hats: Broadleaf is a nation of technology-crazed, workaholic engineers.
• The Password Is Always "Swordfish": The Lair of the Lost Lord DLC adds Roland's Journal to the game, 30 Leafbook entries of Roland's thoughts of the game's events that were all apparently password-protected. Find all 30, and you learn that Evan and Bracken found out that the password was "Mister President."
• Power Incontinence:
  • Berserk Kingmakers don't have full control of their power, and that power can be used against them, both in glowing weakspots that can be exploited and special temporary Higglies born from them that will help Evan's party in the battle.
  • This is what happened to Alisandra, Doloran's kingmaker, when she tried to give up her power so she can be with him, creating the Horned One in the process that destroyed the kingdom
• Physical God: Kingmakers.
• President Action: Before ending up in the other world, Roland was an older president of a United States analogue, who has a pistol and knows swordsmanship.
• Rainbow Speak: During the stories in the Trial of Knowledge with the Kingmaker, the key terms that are part of the puzzle you have to navigate are presented in rainbow speak. Within the puzzle itself, the respective statues are color-coded based on these keywords.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Doloran wears a snake-like mask, just so one knows he is a bad guy. Wyverns are also reptilian and have Sssnake Talk.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Doloran rewards Vermine's treachery this way, sapping him of his soul.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Evan. Roland is the modern example of this.
• Schizo Tech: Most of the world seems to be a typical fairy tale style medieval fantasy world...with a social media platform in it. Then you get to Broadleaf, which combines Steampunk architecture, technology out of a mid twentieth century Sci Fi franchise, and a culture out of modern-day Silicon Valley.
• Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can: All Kingmakers (except Lofty) are a fusion of people and Great Beasts to use their power for good. Upsetting that balance causes them to rampage.
• Sealed Evil in a Can: The Horned One; yes, even over the Sealed Inside a Person-Shaped Can. Double-sealed.
• Sinister Surveillance: The big giant eye over Hydropolis watching everyone. Also the smaller ones that Mausinger is using to spy on Evermore.
• Start My Own: After being dethroned by coup d'etat, Evan decides to build his own kingdom.
• Sword and Gun: While Roland is primarily a swordsman, he can use a gun as part of his arsenal.
• Sword of Plot Advancement: Mornstar, the Sword of Unity. Getting it is the entire point of the first half of Chapter 9.
• Suicidal Overconfidence: Averted. Enemies that are above your level or not far below it will always attack. Enemies that are far enough below your level will ignore you unless you start combat. In dungeons, you can walk into them and push them out of the way, and they still do nothing.
• Superboss:
  • In addition to tainted monsters, there are bosses in Dreamer's Door Mazes.
  • After a certain amount of upgrading and recruiting citizens for your kingdom, you can learn a spell that lets you refight the Kingmakers you've fought throughout the story, with their levels increasing by five each time you beat them, all the way up to the level cap.
• Supporting Protagonist: Evan is the protagonist on his quest to complete the Declaration of Interdependence, but the world and plot are an allegory for Roland's concerns in the real world. The main antagonist also has more of a relationship to Roland.
• Synchronization: Roland turns out to be the counterpart for Doloran, which is the reason why he was summoned to this world.
• Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors: In the skirmishes, sword beats hammer, hammer beats spear and spear beats sword. There is an on-screen reminder of this during the battles, but not in the planning phase.
• Take Over the World: A good version of this trope; Evan's intentions are to unite all kingdoms under his own where everyone can live happily ever after. That Evan can say this, that the game can have him say this, with blinding sincerity is only possible with Level-5 and former Ghibli artists. Doloran's plan to steal souls of people in the world to make his kingdom greater acts as more standard villainous example of this trope.
• Take Your Time:
  • The various optional skirmish battles are a great example, particularly the ones involving Tyran. He's a bully and a would-be tyrant who is trying to invade Evermore and take it over and more than once challenges King Evan to battles via the game's skirmish mechanic. However, so long as you just ignore the optional sidequests, he's apparently happy to be left waiting. What's more, even if you do engage in it, you can lose with no real penalty. Even the skirmish itself has elements of this, as you have to beat him back several times and at one point he even claims to have nipped inside your kingdom's borders for lunch. And at the end of each one, he promises to come back and try again later.
  • There are a couple of fast travel points in the Final Dungeon. Having established them, you can pop out to the main map and carry on with side quests and kingdom management with no penalty.
• Time Travel: Ferdinand is the Curious Boy sending his mind back in time to talk to his father, Evan. Boddly wasn't telling a story about the past, she was talking about the future; Ferdinand would finish what his father started.
• Took a Level in Badass: During the game, Evan goes from timid prince to confident king who does everything in his power to build the kingdom where everyone can live happily after.
• Tribal Face Paint: Sky pirates have this.
• Uneven Hybrid: In human/Grimalkin hybrids, their animalistic traits become less pronounced as more human blood enters the family line. Evan is a Half-Human Hybrid, having a Grimalkin father and a human mother, and only has cat ears and a tail. His son Ferdinand, who is only a quarter Grimalkin due to his mother being the fully human Tani, has no visible animal traits at all.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change: Early on in the game, Roland and Evan will need to use stealth to evade Mausinger's soldiers while sneaking out of the castle. This is the only stealth section the game has, with the rest of the game being purely action based.
• Unexplained Recovery: Something caused the nuclear bomb over New York to never happen in the end. Possibly Time Travel and the Layered World nature of the two worlds had something to do with it.
• Unique Enemy: In the opening escape from the castle, a nameless Mouse Sorceress shows up with her mooks and summons some monsters. Despite having a line and Voice Grunting for when she gets hit, she's completely invincible and dies almost immediately in a cutscene. Her model is never used elsewhere. (She does however resemble the Court Mage you can recruit later, which may indicate she's the same person in a Heel–Face Revolving Door and survives the stabbing.)
• Unwilling Suspension: Tani finds herself tied to the roof of a cave when she is captured by wyverns.
• Voice Grunting: When not during cutscenes.
• We Can Rule Together: Doloran offers Roland this due to their being soul-mates with similar pasts but Roland refuses.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The overarching motif among every one of the corrupted kings, including Doloran: each one of them is driven by fanatical nationalism, crossing one moral line after another for the sake of their kingdom's well-being and blind to the fact that they are harming the citizenry they are responsible for.
• A Wizard Did It: Roland's circumstances in showing up in another world are beyond extraordinary. After some musing out loud to himself, he decides that whether its a dream or if he's a living ghost doesn't matter; he'll just accept the rules of this new world and not question it.
• Wham Shot: The series opens with an older President Roland of Eagleland (the flag is an eagle with stripes and a star) in a motorcade of government cars crossing a bridge to a modern city. ...Then a missile is seen overhead. And then a nuclear explosion levels the city.
• What Have I Done: Most villains when the "purple fog" wears off.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: How this game treats monsters is... weird, to say the least. Although portrayed as mindless beings early on and Evan isn't allowed to (directly) recruit any of them to his kingdom, several late-game quest show that they're not nearly as mindless or Always Chaotic Evil as portrayed, with more than a few having bonded with one of the major races in the game and several showing near humanlike intelligence. Despite this, again, it's impossible to invite any of them to live in the Evermore Kingdom. Nor will they be in the Flash Forward with Ferdinand's declaration of global unity. Evan will even forgive the human bandits that he had extended skirmishes with, a couple bands eventually joining Evermore. The last Whammer Skirmish, "Whammer Base Obliteration" has Lofty having to explain what Whammers are, "those weird rat-like creatures we've been fighting," and then the Skirmish ends with them apparently being killed off.
• Wingdinglish: The written script used in Evan's world is made out of characters that is otherwise incomprehensible to the players of the game. Roland has no problem understanding it though, probably part and parcel of the spell Doloran or Alisa used to bring Roland to his world.