Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom begins with the fall of a kingdom: young King Evan loses his throne to a coup, and instead of revenge decides to build a new land where all nations could live in peace. This unusually gentle premise sets the tone for the whole game. Joining him is a man from another world, a colorful group of allies, and a story unafraid to be plainly optimistic without giving up on dramatic moments.

The gameplay rests on three pillars. The first is real-time action combat, where the player switches between melee and ranged weapons, dodges, and gets help from small spirit companions who attack and boost abilities. The second is building your own kingdom, meaning constructing buildings, taking in citizens with various specialties, and allocating research, which amounts to an entire separate strategic layer with its own economy. The third is army battles on the world map, a simplified tactical game with units arranged in a circle around the ruler. The combination sounds scattered, but in practice the individual parts feed off each other, since developing the kingdom unlocks better equipment and new quests.

Visually it's one of the most beautiful games of its kind on PlayStation 4. The colorful, softly lit landscape and animated sequences draw on the tradition of hand-drawn Japanese animation, and Joe Hisaishi's music gives them cinematic grandeur. Critics received the game favorably, praising the visual side and inventive blend of mechanics, with complaints aimed mainly at the lower combat difficulty and the fact that the story doesn't reach the emotional depth of the first game. The title's influence lies in how confidently it merged a JRPG with a builder game. Today it's an ideal choice for players who want a sprawling adventure without dark tones and with a pleasantly kind mood. It's also one of the few big JRPGs that can safely be handed to younger players without boring an adult in the process.