18 RPGs we can’t wait to play in 2018

#5. Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom (PS4, PC)

Ni No Kuni was a pretty solid RPG bolstered by some absolutely gorgeous animation and story-telling thanks to some major help from legendary Japanese animation studio Studio Ghibli.

While developer Level-5 probably could’ve released a sequel that was basically the same gameplay with a different story and that would’ve been fine, Ni No Kuni II is a far more ambitious title than its predecessor. In addition to traveling the land of Ding Dong Dell and trying to stop a coming darkness, you’ve also got a kingdom to manage. This means managing resources, building structures, etc. You’ll have skirmish battles against other armies featuring squads with varying abilities. There’s even a promise of a “more mature storyline.”

The most drastic change in Ni No Kuni II, however, is probably the combat. In the last game, it was turn-based and while your heroes participated in combat, the heavy-lifting was done by “familiars”, which are monsters you could bring into battle with you. These are gone in this sequel. Instead what you get is the heroes taking a more aggressive role along with the battles being a lot more action-based. Instead of familiars, there are “Higgledies”, which are tiny creatures with different elemental properties that provide support in and out of battle.

It’s hard to say whether all these changes in Ni No Kuni II will be for the better, but Level-5 usually knows what they are doing when it comes to making amazing RPGs, so I trust this will lead to this being one of the better RPGs of 2018 when it hits March 23rd.