Ni no Kuni™ II: REVENANT KINGDOM - The Lair of the Lost Lord DLC

Badly placed in the story, too over levelled for its start time. Side tracks the main story and breaks the immersion, doesn't feel properly integrated into the game narrative.

It's a Dreamer's Maze copy (roguelite, randomized stuff, dungeon crawler) DLC that offers snippets of stories behind the gameplay upgrades. It's nice when you play it right along/after the story endgame, if you still can't scratch that Ni no Kuni itch. But it doesn't shine by itself. At best, buy it along with the bundled sale.

2 hours into the Labyrinth, taking my sweet time to grind some xp and items. Feeling pretty good about this DLC and boom. Gone in a flash, simple crash made me lose all my progress and all my desire to play this bloody palace royal DLC. I hate the thought that I could lose all my progress in a flash because of bad game designing. At least have a fail-safe 'save' state in case this happens. Much better to give something to the player instead of punishing him/her brutally for having the game break.

Don't know why this has quite so many bad reviews, I would give it a neutral if I could. This DLC is like the dreamers mazes but you get tons more XP (you level up way fast) and awesome gear. Knowing that it was going to be like the dreamers mazes and kind of grindy set my expectations with what it is. You do get new skills which help with more challenging enemies which adds a new dynamic. Not a fan of how it can take 1-2 hours to go through 20 levels which means you can't stop until you get through that chunk. Does make for a great walking simulator.

I love the base game but my least favourite part was the boring mazes you were forced to trek through in order to get the final citizen and farm for end game items and gear. And guess what the devs decided to do? Make the dlc based almost entirely around this mechanic. At least this time you can exit every 20 floors without losing your progress. Ugh. And the worst part is that they couldn't be bothered to patch out an old bug that gets you stuck and forces you to lose your progress. tl;dr Base game is awesome, dlc sucks a lot.

This "Labyrinth" is pretty much like the 30 floors randomly generated dungeon for post-game but on 100 floors with barely any modifications. There is 2 new fighting styles that offer new ways to tackle the combat but that's about the most interesting part of the entire DLC. The story is almost non-existent it's just there to justify the existence of this random evil place to appear in your kingdom backyard. It's basically there to give you monotonous grind to go through and nothing else, you'd best avoid it unless that's what you're looking for.

TL;DR Only buy if you like grinding or you want to 100% your achievements. What's included in the DLC: 1. The Labyrinth; 2. Two new fighting styles (Martial Methods); 3. One or two side stories with some actual character building. 4. A few quests related to the Labyrinth or needed to unlock the Martial Methods. The Labyrinth is basically a 100 floor version of the Faraway Forest (end game Dreamer's Door dungeon) from the base game. Each floor is randomly generated from a limited number of room templates that are randomly connected to each other (and on one occasion, the floor generator messed up and made me get stuck in a dead end). Every ten floors you get a mid-boss fight that nets you a random piece of top-grade loot (if you've collected enough orbs along the way). Unlike the base game Dreamer's Doors, there's no Danger Levels, so there's no time pressure to beat the dungeon quickly; instead you get optional objectives for each floor that give extra orbs. Like the base game dungeons, you can't save while inside the Labyrinth, so you lose all your progress if you die inside, but in this particular dungeon, every twenty floors you can unlock a shortcut to start your next run deeper. The dungeon is nice for some quick levelling and some powerful loot (both in terms of stats, and in terms of having far more than two effects per equipement piece) that you'll need for the other DLC... and that's about it. The "story" of the DLC is paper-thin just to give an excuse for the Labyrinth's existance; there's no character development, nor a real engaging plot to be found here. Martial Methods is the more interesting part of the DLC, as it adds some new spice to the combat system. This DLC has two Martial Methods: Ding Dong Discipline and Gizmo Supremo. Ding Dong Discipline temporarily nulifies damage and creates a slow-motion effect whenever you're about to get damage during a dodge frame, allow you to counterattack without repercussions - makes fights against single powerful foes much easier as you can both nullify damage against your characters and deal massive damage against the enemy yourself. Meanwhile, Gizmo Supremo gives four special equipment slots that you can use to bring special gadgets (drones, healing aura, massive falling ball) into the fight - somewhat useful. Both of the Martial Methods are available to all characters, but only one can be equipped on any particular character. This new mechanic adds some diversity to combat, but it also makes battles far less challenging, to be honest. The entire DLC is unvoiced and doesn't really have any decent plot or character building. The Labyrinth is basically a regurgitation of reused content with a little bit of new polish that gets old fast (and it takes like an hour or two to get from one save point to the next, unless you're skipping all combat and loot in favour of just speedrunning to the exit). It would be one thing if the DLC was a freebie or nearly-free, but it's definitely not worth the 10€ asking price unless you're specifically looking for some mind-numbing grind.

I have never taken the time to write a review for a DLC before, but this DLC has forced me to do so. I cannot recommend this to any player who has enjoyed Ni No Kuni II. The level of care that the developers put into this DLC was so lackluster it is almost astonishing. Its super grindy without any fun, and the level designs were so baron and repetitive that it just sucked all enjoyment out of going through this dungeon crawl. Sure it was nice that you leveled up a lot quicker and they gave you great gear, but man oh man is it just not worth the slog through it all. Nothing is better than going from floor 81 to 100 to finally get to the boss, leveled my characters up through that time from 124 to 132, to only get defeated by the boss and restart all progress before starting level 81. Like, honestly why would I want to go back and play through it all again? This DLC has completely turned me off from the game. The combat changes with the discipline points was a nice change of pace and allowed for a slightly unique combat experience but it was definitely not enough to justify this mess. All in all, I really had high hopes for delving into the DLC for this game, but honestly just skip this one. It literally is not worth your time.

To be honest, I really enjoyed the content and it's important to know that you don't need lvl 120 for this DLC. Basically you can start from lvl. 50 step by step grinding your way down. Every 10 Floor there is a boss fight and every 20 Floor you can save the game by opening an additional Door in the floor to escape the maze. Plus that, you can grind the ultimate gear in this dungeon On the other hand the martial arts that you get in this DLC are very powerfull and fun to play / experiment with. I can recommend the game and the DLC and I can't wait for the next DLC inthat comes early 2019 ;). Small tip for those who would like to start to play this game. Definately begin on "Hard Mode". Normal Mode is way too easy. This game in Hard-Mode and with all the additional content at the moment is a 8-9/10 at least a 7-8/10 ;).

Probably the most disappointing DLC I've ever downloaded short of Horse Armor. It's a super repetitive 100 level dungeon that offers absolutely nothing new. It's just a grind for the grind's sake. There's apparently a "story" but not even one piece of original voice acting. It's basically some shoveled together text lines and then off you go to do yet another grind, just like the Dreamer's Maze. After waiting half a year for the season pass content, this is the weakest, saddest excuse for post launch content that I could imagine. Even though I loved the base game, it's things like this that ensure I will never play the next game. Truly the worst example of a season pass I've seen to date. Do not buy this.