When comparing Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom vs Middle-earth: Shadow of War, the Slant community recommends Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom for most people. In the question“What are the best Action RPG games on Steam?” Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is ranked 29th while Middle-earth: Shadow of War is ranked 32nd. The most important reason people chose Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is:
One of the cool features is the ability to plan and build your own living, breathing kingdom. You can build and upgrade a variety of different buildings. These buildings provide bonuses such as being able to craft better weapons and armor, providing special rare items, and generating income. By traversing the world and completing quests for characters, you can recruit them to your cause. They'll join your kingdom as a citizen, and you can assign them to work on any building that suits their skillset. You can also return to your kingdom anytime you want, making it a nice little home base type area to relax between battles. All in all, it's a fun little sidegame. It's strangely addicting to watch your kingdom grow over time as your newly recruited citizens generate you money and special items.
Specs
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Pros
Pro The kingdom building is satifsying and strangely addicting
One of the cool features is the ability to plan and build your own living, breathing kingdom. You can build and upgrade a variety of different buildings. These buildings provide bonuses such as being able to craft better weapons and armor, providing special rare items, and generating income. By traversing the world and completing quests for characters, you can recruit them to your cause. They'll join your kingdom as a citizen, and you can assign them to work on any building that suits their skillset.
You can also return to your kingdom anytime you want, making it a nice little home base type area to relax between battles. All in all, it's a fun little sidegame. It's strangely addicting to watch your kingdom grow over time as your newly recruited citizens generate you money and special items.
Pro The combat is simple but entertaining
The combat is as simple as swinging your weapon and dodging attacks. It's quick to jump in without a steep learning curve. You may feel a bit overpowered at times, but that just adds to the action as you're dispatching enemies with ease. You won't be fighting alone though. Your pets add a little bit of depth to the combat. They can heal you, and zap your foes with various elemental attacks. You also have the ability to swap them out at will, so it will keep things fresh for quite a while. Some of the bosses have puzzle type encounters where you'll have to use specific pets, but for the most part the choice is up to you.
Pro Great starter RPG experience for younger players
With it's cartoonish graphics, anime-based characters, and simple to understand combat, this is a great game for the younger generation of gamer to get into RPGs. Nothing feels overly challenging throughout the duration of the game. The story moves along at a nice pace to prevent boredom and hold your attention. Just when you think you don't know what to do or where to go next, a helpful dialogue box will appear that teaches you a new game mechanic or guides you on the next step. All in all, it's a great game to get your kids or more casual gaming friends into the RPG genre.
Pro There's a fun pet collecting and leveling system
There's cute little creatures you can collect during your travels called Higgledies. Not only are they adorable, but they are quite fierce little fighters. They will heal and fight alongside you, adding to the fun of combat. If you have a particular one you enjoy, you can level it up to help it gain stronger powers. You can swap them in and out during combat, and some bosses even have weaknesses to specific ones.
Pro Character connections make for a compelling experience
Shadow of War uses the Nemesis system to create a more immersive and alive-feeling world. Thanks to it, orc leaders have names, ranks, titles, tribes they belong to, and most importantly, connections to other orc leaders.
For example, an orc leader might be at war with another orc leader. This conflict won't end until one of them dies. There are also orcs that are considered blood brothers, having unwavering loyalty to each other. Because of this, don't be too surprised if you ever get betrayed by one of your followers that's trying to do right by his blood brother.
Additionally, the leaders you fight will also develop connections with you. Orcs that you've killed or spared, may come back with scars, recalling your previous encounter and vowing to exact vengeance. Orcs that you've escaped from will mock you for being a chicken, and so forth. The gradual creation of this web of connections is very enjoyable and sometimes even more compelling than the game's main story.
Pro Addictive gear collection fuels your thirst for orc blood
As you kill orc leaders, they'll drop random quality gear items, ranging from common rarity every-orc weapons/armor to legendary rarity artifacts with unique names. Each item serves to improve your character, providing various stat increases and damage bonuses. You can also upgrade gear with gems or via challenges that usually involve killing orcs, bolstering your strength even further. On top of that, there are set bonuses for legendary items, giving you special abilities such as your hits applying explosive poison on regular enemies. It's very exciting seeing what gear piece an orc leader will drop once you lob his head off, causing you to constantly seek out new victims.
Pro Satisfying combat
Shadow of War gives one of the better feeling combat systems in recent times, allowing you to be either stealthy or go for direct confrontations.
If you choose to be stealthy, you can skewer unsuspecting orcs from behind with your dagger, drop onto them from a building while impaling them with your sword, or just pierce them from afar with your bow.
If you choose a direct confrontation, it's a really quick-paced and brutal showdown against your enemies with your chosen melee weapon. You weave combos against enemies, dodging, parrying, and countering enemy attacks, which ends in a devastating finishing move, resulting in a mutilated or decapitated orc.
Whichever method you choose, the combat flows really well and you always feel like a force to be reckoned with.
Pro You can lead an orc army and expand your own dominion
As part of the Nemesis system, you can recruit orc leaders after you've bested them in combat. Each one has his own unique strengths and weaknesses, so making the best possible army for conquering enemy territories might take a while.
For example, an orc leader can be completely immune to ranged attacks, but can take increased damage from explosions. You should take such an orc leader on assaults against fortresses filled with archers but be wary of the slightest hints of any bombs.
Once you've finished building a sizeable force, you can assault a fortresses. If you succeed in the assault, you'll take over a territory, allowing you to install your own orc leader as the ruler. With enough effort you'll gradually take over Mordor and its surrounding lands.
Shadow of War makes you feel like a recruiter, general, and a ruler, which is very empowering and a lot of fun.
Cons
Con Skirmish mode feels like something you have to trudge through, rather than enjoy
The Skirmish mode allows you take your armies out in a watered down RTS style mode in which you move your units around and watch them fight in a rock paper scissors type battle system. However, some quests require this mode far too often to the point of it becoming grindy and repetitive. It's novelty wears off quickly due it's simplistic nature. Essentially, it ends up feeling like you're doing the same battle over and over.
Con Main character walks way too slow
Until you unlock fast travel waypoints and pick up some speed boosts to your walking later in the game, the extremely slow pace at which you move can be downright annoying. Walking through the sprawling dungeons or between towns just doesn't feel like it matches the brisk pace of the story itself, and tends to make certain parts of the game drag on where they shouldn't.
Con Some weird inconsistencies in the voice acting presentation
From time to time the voice acting will suddenly stop mid conversation and only display the written dialogue. It's almost as if they forgot to record some lines. It tends to happen randomly and can be a bit distracting and immersion breaking when it occurs, such as listening to half a conversation and then having to read the rest.
Con Can get repetitive
The overall gameplay formula doesn't change much over the course of the game. You fight orcs, take over strongholds, upgrade your character, and collect blips on the world map. After a while it can start feeling like a grind, especially during long play sessions. This is made worse in the final stretch of the game where you have to fight through 20 consecutive stronghold battles without any story segments or exposition.
Con Unskippable cutscenes disrupt the flow of the gameplay
Every time an orc leader enters the screen, there is an unskippable cutscene where he rambles a bit, focusing the camera on him and halting combat until the cutscene ends. This usually happens as you're fighting another enemy, potentially disrupting your rhythm, which can be really frustrating, especially if mess up your combo or take an unnecessary hit after the cutscene.