Decided to try Final Fantasy XV. Never played any games of the series previously.
I'm definitely interested to see what you think of the game once you finish it. Because it's one of those games where my opinion actually changed after I had completed the game, as opposed to when I was still at about the middle point.
So I've been playing Ni No Kuni II lately, and I have not finished it yet, and probably won't for some time since there's a ton of optional content in the game. But I am finally far enough into it to give my initial thoughts on it.
Combat is action-packed and really fast. As in, most battles only take a few seconds to complete. The exception being some of the major boss fights where you have to do specific things in battle to properly advance the fight, or enemies that far outlevel you, which can take a little longer to kill (funny enough, most enemies that outlevel you are still completely surmountable when you see them, due to the fact that you have Higgledies supporting you in battle). Dungeons contain enemy encounters that have no cutaways for combat, meaning that you can plow through an entire area in short order without the game stopping to load in a separate battle screen. The overworld does use separate screens, but fortunately the load time for it is pretty short, only a couple seconds in and out and combat is still as fast as it is in dungeons. This is one of the few RPGs I've played where combat does not feel like a chore, which coming from experience is something that is kind of a milestone achievement when developing a role-playing game.
When I initially responded to the first trailer I ever saw of the game, I compared it to Suikoden, and was really excited about playing it because of that. That excitement has not dwindled one bit, despite having put in nearly thirty hours and only having used the ship one time so far for a sidequest (like I said, ton of optional content). However I will say that it's probably more accurate to compare it to games like Little King's Story, Birthright and even Pikmin to some degree.
See, here's the thing. Yes, like Suikoden there are army battles. However, the battles play out differently from Suikoden. In Ni No Kuni II, you walk around the field with your troops surrounding you and you use the shoulder buttons to rotate each of your four units to get the unit that's going to be strong against the enemy unit. In addition, you have a few numbers and gauges in battle, such as Military Might, which acts as a currency that can be used to replenish your troops that you lose, or to rebuild enemy structures to use for your own purposes (with the most useful ones being the outposts, that gradually give your army more Military Might, much like the Oil Derricks giving you more money in the Command and Conquer Red Alert games). You can also use Military Might to access special abilities that your units have, such as increasing your attack and defense, or launching an aerial assault against the enemy.
Kingdom building, while overall simple, is still a ton of fun to play around with. During the course of the game, you get a city that you can purchase buildings for. Each building does something different, from periodically giving you different materials when you assign someone there, to allowing you to craft weapons and spells. It uses a separate currency from the one you use to buy weapons and items with, so there's no need to worry about whether to get the newest suit of armor or build the mine you need for resources. The best part of it though is since it all happens in real time, you can go off adventuring and let your coffers and stores accumulate money and items and let your research progress without having to sit around and wait for things to happen. This is really good, because in all honesty you probably don't want to sit around inside the Kingdom for such a long time (it's an option, but it's not recommended). As they say, a watched kettle never boils.
The story itself is very simple and not something I'll go into here, since it would probably take less than two minutes to explain what's going on in the game, and it takes that long in-game to figure it out. Sometimes simplicity in things is best, especially since there are so many mechanics and systems going on at the same time.
Overall, I'm enjoying the game so far. Is it different from the first one? Yes, it is. But it's different in a good way. It'll be awhile before I know if my opinion is going to change or not, but so far so good.