Ni no Kuni 2: Revenant Kingdom review - majestic if not magical

So much of the magic in any magical world lies with how you get there, how the secret realm reveals itself: the spectral figures who vanish at second glance, the glisten of bells on the wind at dusk, that first, breathless step across the glowing threshold. These journeys between realities are often a question of cathartic redefinition: something about the everyday world is out of joint, and the other universe is an enchanted mirror in which the problem takes on a kinder guise, with familiar objects transported and transformed - cats into kings, sticks into wands, dolls into fairies.

As you might expect from a game co-developed with Studio Ghibli, bastion of modern Japanese folklore, the original Ni no Kuni understands all this intimately. Its first 45 minutes are a masterclass in twinkly suspense and heartbreak, from a night-time escapade through a tragic loss to the arrival of the cantankerous Mr Drippy. In Ni no Kuni 2, meanwhile, somebody nukes a city and an elderly president, Roland, wakes up seconds later in a world of talking animals. Specifically, he wakes up in the bedroom of young king Evan Pettiwhisker Tildrum, who is in the middle of being overthrown by his father's vizier. Any number of questions present themselves - what was I drinking last night, why am I suddenly 30 years younger, oh god, what will the tabloids think - but Roland just shrugs, grabs a sword and starts hacking his way out of the palace, princeling in tow.

That deflating casualness applies to much of Ni no Kuni 2's 40 hour tale, which was thrown together without Studio Ghibli's input. It's an exercise in gathering allies and plundering themed dungeons while chasing down an ancient evil that is jolly in small doses but seldom enchanting. Both the old and the new game are essentially grab-bags of motifs from Ghibli flicks and other JRPGs, but where the first sought to weave a spell from these materials, the second just dumps them at your feet like unwanted gear items: casino cities, airships, steampunk towers, loud but soft-hearted sky pirates, legendary weapons, stuck-up wizards and magic forests. Funky concepts such as the parallel reality shebang are toyed with but never seriously developed, key revelations are often handed to you in passing, and there's rarely any ambiguity or depth to characters once you've dealt with whatever urgent issue they have when first you meet them. It's a yarn for incorrigible fans of save-the-world fantasies that assumes you're on board from the off, and doesn't really bother to motivate you.

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