Hino: "We wanted to value and retain Japanese charm"

At Gamescom we had the opportunity to sit down with Akihiro Hino, CEO at Level-5, to talk about the long awaited sequel to Ni No Kuni, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom.

"Ni No Kuni is, of course, a very visually heavy game," says Akihiro Hino. "And even in part one a huge concept or idea was to take the Ghibli world and drop it into a game and have the player be immersed in that world and the second Ni No Kuni, of course, inherited that same philosophy and what we were trying to do was take a Japanese anime feel and apply that to every aspect of the visuals of the game, including the polygons, the background. We wanted the players to feel immersed in this world."

"Ni No Kuni II we developed and designed it in such a way that it could be very palatable to all demographics around the world, regardless of origin country," says Hino. "But because it is inevitably an RPG designed in Japan I think we really wanted to value and retain the very specific Japanese kind of charm. And in doing so, I mean, losing sight of it would trying to pursue realism or another form of expression too much. But we definitely wanted to keep that charm and warmth that you by viewing that style of anime."

Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom is set to launch on PC and PS4 in January next year.