4 Things I Wish I’d Known About Ni No Kuni 2 Before I Started Playing

Pick up Absolutely Everything

4 Things You Need to Know About Ni No Kuni 2

Ni No Kuni 2 wastes no time throwing you headfirst into the story, but it’s not all that long until things open up and you’re traversing the world map. As you do so, you’re bound to notice sparkling icons dotted around virtually every area of the game, from its linear sections, various dungeons, towns, and the world map itself. Very quickly you’ll discover that these represent items and resources – feathers, strings, pebbles, Soreaways: none of these will make a great deal of sense to you in the early stages of the game. The pickup points also respawn, and though you’ll likely find yourself diligently picking them up initially, you’ll likely tire of doing so when they seem so plentiful. But you should absolutely be making the effort to do so.

There’s a good reason for this. First, resources are used for several different crafting functions in Ni No Kuni 2, such as building and improving your weapons, armor, and spells. You might very well not require many of the items you pick up at the time, but later down the track, it pays to have your inventory well stocked. Your Higgledies, too, are “cooked” and nurtured with these various resources. And while you can use Evermore’s farming facilities to produce many of these, you won’t have that luxury during the earlier stages of kingdom building.

The second and perhaps more important reason why you should pick up everything pertains to the citizen recruitment process. Many of the game’s side-quests and errands that reward you with new citizens to join your cause ultimately boil down to fetching different resources. If you’ve been diligent in picking everything up that you find, many of these can be ticked off quickly without having to spend time in the back and forth searching.

Allocate Citizens According to Needs Not Wants

4 Things You Need to Know About Ni No Kuni 2

Evan’s new kingdom of Evermore is a metropolis that you’ll build from scratch. As you construct new buildings and recruit more citizens, you’re able to level-up the kingdom and expand its territories. This will, in turn, pave the way for even more advanced structures to be built. Many of these offer cool perks, such as the Spellworks’ magical upgrades, the opportunity to bolster your attack at the weapon workshop, and the ability to “cook” Higgledies at the Higglery. These are sure to pique your interest more than mundane facilities like farms, ranches, and fish markets. Don’t overlook these, though, because allocating citizens to these quarries – even if they aren’t necessarily suitable for the job – will net you dozens of resources that you can collect from your Stores tab.

As you work toward expanding the kingdom by completing side quests and errands, and if you are wanting to craft exciting new weapons and spells, for that matter, you’ll need as many resources as you can get. It is, therefore, prudent to build these resource gathering facilities and assign at least one citizen to their productivity. When the kingdom’s population expands, you can then go back and assign each character to their specialty as you see fit.

Use Errands, Not Side Quests for Recruiting Citizens

4 Things You Need to Know About Ni No Kuni 2

There will be times when you find yourself well short of the required amount of citizens to level-up your kingdom and progress the game’s main narrative, and that means grinding side quests for new citizens. In the process, it’s tempting to fast-forward each story for the inevitable reward. The thing is, Ni No Kuni 2 is full of charming stories and characters, and skipping them to reap the reward is a real shame.

Instead, there’s a much easier and faster way to recruit new citizens, and if you’ve followed the advice we issued in the previous two segments, it should be a breeze. At each town, there will be a man holding a sign (it’s in the shape of a strange animal face on the minimap). This is the taskmaster, and he’s a representative of Swift Solutions. These guys have almost endless errands for you to complete, and each rewards you with Tokens of Gratitude. These can then be exchanged for citizens that the taskmaster will scout. The costs vary depending on their skills, but importantly, there’s no story to fast-forward – you’ll simply go to the location and recruit the citizens. What’s more, you’ll likely find that you’ll already have much of what the taskmaster is after in your stock already, assuming you’re making sure to pick up and farm resources diligently.

Don’t Sleep on the Dreamer’s Maze’s

4 Things You Need to Know About Ni No Kuni 2

As part of an early portion of Ni No Kuni 2’s main questline, you’ll be tasked with locating an item for Auntie Martha. Here, you’ll bump into a mysterious figure called Mileniyah. She’s discovered strange doors that she suspects lead into another realm, but she’s too chicken to go and look herself. These are the Dreamer’s Maze’s, and they’re essentially dungeon challenges in which you battle monsters that drop purple orbs. These purple orbs are exchanged for various items, weapons, and resources along the way. As you progress through each dungeon, there are new doors to harder levels, but the longer you spend in each level, the harder the difficulty gets according to the “Danger Level” – a percentage that increases over time. You can’t save in these dungeons. Die and that’s it, game over. But pushing on rewards you with even more orbs and even more loot. It’s a neat risk/reward loop. Locating all Nine Dreamer’s Maze fragments across the world map will complete the quest and see Mileniyah join Evermore.

Since you’re given this quest early on, and it’s entirely optional, you might find yourself putting it to one side. However, we strongly advise you make an effort to seek these doors. Some of the game’s best weapons and items are found here, along with rare resources that don’t typically drop elsewhere. Not to mention, they’re hugely fun, and if you’ve been finding the game fairly easy, this is where the challenge is. It’s the perfect location to grind for experience and loot, as well as score yourself a Master level citizen for locating all 9 of its doors. We’ve created a handy guide that details the location of all the Dreamer’s Mazes here.