We are now formally in control of Roland. The game will always have the current objective underneath the minimap on the right side - which is entirely an MMO thing. Later, we can track sidequests this way as well.
At the bottom of the stairs is an open pair of doors.. and another cutscene.
Evan, being the idiot that he is, immediately charges past Roland into the Jin-Roh wannabe mouse furries who are clearly here to protect him.
The mice, realizing that the boy they’ve been sent to murder has just walked up to them and turned his back, look at each other with murderous anticipation. Evan would not last a minute in Lordran, that’s for sure.
Evan takes critical backstab damage and dies, leaving behind a small pool of souls. The mice gain a humanity and are free to go about their day..
.. except that Roland pulls a gun and caps the guard before he can finish the swing. I read a paper once on how medieval armor would stand up to modern firearms - the answer was that full plate might deflect a couple of low-caliber handgun bullets but other than that would be worse than useless. Considering the guard is wearing only a coat, I’d say he’s super fucking dead.
Roland Crane, certified as the third most competent American political figure in a combat situation behind the president from Metal Wolf Chaos and Senator Armstrong.
Have I mentioned Roland is also fully versed in the way of hanzo steel? He is.
Welcome to the combat tutorial. The game makes a lot bigger deal of it than it actually is, so I’ll explain it real quick.
Unlike the first game, combat in Ni no Kuni 2 is entirely real-time. Each character has their own melee weapon type and their own ranged weapon type. Right now, we can only use Roland’s melee of choice: swords. All weapons have a “fast attack” and a “heavy attack” - the heavy attack is almost never worth using except in very specific situations.
That’s all we’ll see for right now - the game is pretty slow about easing you into the other mechanics.
Meanwhile, Evan cowers behind a planter.
: “Open your eyes. Nobody’s coming. Nobody good, at any rate. It looks to me like we both need to get out of here.”
: “Wh-what are you talking about?”
Evan proceeds to look confused while more mice prepare to burst into the room.
Meanwhile, in the throne room..
So yeah, this guy is just kind of cartoonishly evil - which isn’t totally out of place in a game like this, I suppose.
Well, I guess we have our final boss and his dragon. Next time, we’ll go through the game’s only stealth segment and begin the first dungeon in earnest.