Gorgeous Anime Art Style
The first Ni No Kuni was a delicious treat for the eyes, sporting the gorgeous hand-drawn anime style of Studio Ghibli. While Ghibli may not be working on the second game, Level-5 has kept a similar art style, and it sure looks impressive.
The entire game sports a 2D-style anime look, something that Level-5 has intentionally done. Plenty of the locations we’ve seen so far look stunning, like the watery city of Hyrdopolis, or the glitzy casino-inspired Goldpaw. A recent behind-the-scenes video released by Bandai Namco details a bit more about the graphical style, and its use of light and shadow. Nobuyuki Yanai, art director of Ni No Kuni II states, “For me, the most appealing thing about Ni no Kuni is the way it brings the charm of 2D animation into a 3D world.”
According to Yanai, the team took time to draw a shadow on every object in the game and automatically generated the lighting, instead of hand-drawing lighting like in the first game. This gives Ni No Kuni II a fascinating look that looks just like an anime in motion. It’s certainly one of the prettiest JRPGs out there right now.
