There was a lot of hype surrounding this game, one of the most anticipated JRPG games of the year due to the artistic direction, the draw of the game is that Studio Ghibli is behind the animation. It turned out to be one of the best critically received JRPG's for years, so it was surprising when I played it and thought that it was pretty average as a package and nowhere near as good as I was expecting. Without further ado, onto the aspects of the game. Ni no Kuni is a beautiful game right from the start, it's a treat especially if you're a fan of Studio Ghibli and their work, coz it does feel (at least in the beginning) that you're in one of their films. The touted anime cutscenes are great and I love how they're not rare treats, but are quite regular. Oh, sorry, I actually spoke too soon, they're not rare treats in the beginning, but by the time you're ten hours in (which is still pretty much the game's introduction, since not everything is unlocked until around 14 hours in) they're quite rare (and short). The in-game animations and graphics does the job of replacing the slick anime cutscenes but of course, they would feel slightly lacking (probably because it's cel-shaded?). The environments in general are good (some of the area designs like castles are amazing) but the best parts would be the character and monster designs. What is more jarring is the voice acting, as you progress through the game, you come to realise that a lot of scenes are blocks of text and not voice acted at all.
This isn't a problem in itself but when you're scrolling through this text, suddenly for like five seconds, there's some voice acting and then it's back to silence. The least they could do is some consistency here (either let the scenes be fully voice acted or fully in text, otherwise you come to think after that five seconds of sound, what the of that was). The familiar (the monsters that you catch in the game, Pokemon style) designs are neat but the evolution (or metamorphosis as it is called in the game) designs leaves more to be desired. They just aren't different enough and more than often, it feels like they're just mere palette swaps with minor tweaks (nowhere near the level of changes in Pokemon and Digimon). The con of having so many familiars to choose from is that the equipment can be limited in some categories, which sucks if you like to upgrade your weapons and armours each time you go to a new town. This is because it doesn't mean that every equipment category is going to have new items at this new shop. The loading times are surprisingly short, and considering that you have to warp to places very often, this is a blessing. I have the digital version but I've read that the disc version also has shorting loading times. It was a great choice to have Joe Hisaishi to compose the music because it just goes hand in hand with Studio Ghibli's works. You get a stunning (yet familiar) tune at the title screen and there are many tracks you'd fall in love with during the course of the game.
On the flip side, there are also a lot of uninspiring tracks that just blend into the background which you don't notice or fall in love with. So, onto the game mechanics and how it plays out, the beginning of the story is boring and slow, especially when the battle system is painstakingly revealed to you, tiny piece by tiny piece. That said, the actual 'tutorial mode' isn't that long and the eye-candy keeps you busy. No matter what, the game is a grind in the beginning since there was on part early on where it was just go here, then here, then here and you were backtracking and just running around in the same city. It took nearly two hours before you finally got what was mentioned in the beginning. You can also start to predict what is going to happen in each city as it just repeats itself. While the story had great potential, it never lived up to it. Basically, Oliver travels to this other world to save his mum, you would expect grander things to happen and be revealed but not really. The story loses focus by the middle of the game, since Oliver's travels were being sidetracked too much. Granted, that's usually what happens in a JRPG (how else are they going to stretch a story to be 40+ hours?) but it's worse here since the story doesn't add anything worthwhile to the mix. There is one great scene when Oliver faces off against Shadar (this is not a spoiler coz you'd know right from the beginning that they will have an all-out final battle). It gives off two major revelations which was fairly groundbreaking, enough to surprise you and make the journey there somewhat worthwhile.
It was somewhat emotional too after the boss battles. The scenes before the ending where even more stuff was revealed was probably the best parts of the story. This is not saying much though. Why? One of the most important aspects of a JRPG is the story (the others are the battle system and the music), Ni no Kuni's story is bland and uneventful. Nothing much happens and it isn't fantastical. The retelling of the rise of the White Witch was great (with the still artwork) but when it got to the point where the White Witch was actually formed, it fell apart and felt forced. One moment all was well, the next, "oooooh no, I'm full of despair so I shall turn evil now!" This was probably one of the weaker moments. I guess what I'm trying to say is, the story doesn't suck you in and doesn't have enough charm to keep itself going. The ending of the story was satisfying as in, "finally, the game is finished", it ties the loose ends but there weren't any plot points to begin with. Also, why was it so short! In addition to the story, there are plenty of sidequests, which sucks up a lot of time. I was doing as many sidequests as I could and this meant that I was staying in each section for many hours at a time (the time just flies by). Most of the sidequests are fairly stock standard (and will get repetitive) but the reward system for fulfilling them compels you and gives you an objective (as well as some nice perks).
Wow, four paragraphs and I'm still not near the end? This is a huge game after all. Now, onto the next big section, the battle system. It is boring at the start and takes some getting used to. It's not fast paced, even though it is real time. The way it works is that you need quick response time, but the menu system makes it clunky to do it in real time. That, and it's still quite turn-based. You select an action and your character performs it, you cannot instantly change you tactics (like defend and instantly counter-attack, you have to cancel the defend, then select attack, by which time the opportunity would have disappeared). Maybe I'm just used to Tales of Graces f's awesome battle system. Once your party expands, it gets slightly better coz you don't have to worry as much about running around the battlefield dodging attacks and then attacking (i.e. hit and run) to conserve HP since you can set your other party members to heal you automatically. Sadly, the AI is horrible, your companions frequently burn through their MP in the blink of an eye, even when there is no reason to. They also die quite easily if you're not careful. The battle system gets slightly more fun after all battle elements are unlocked but it could be a lot better. It gets worse in the game as monsters and bosses will frequently use special attacks that do a considerable amount of damage if you don't defend. It's times like these that makes you wish the "Attack" and "Defend" commands are mapped to a dedicated button, as occasionally I would not have enough time or would accidentally miss the command when I was desperately scrolling through the menu to try and defend when a boss initiated a special move.
Outcome? This blend of turn base, real time and menu driven battle system needs a lot more refining because there are conflicting elements here (real time requires quick response time but the menus suggest otherwise). Boss battles are hit and miss, I feel that there are too many (major) boss battles so they don't feel as special. Most are okay but some of them can be a bit of a difficulty spike (especially if you don't do the sidequests). A few of the bosses spam attacks like there is no tomorrow, they'll use their special animation attack (which cancels out any special attacks you're currently trying to activate, wtf?!) and then ten seconds later, they'll use it again before you can recover from the first. It's more annoying than fatal though. One thing I liked is that even if one of your party gets KO'd they still get experience at the end of the battle (and revive with 1 HP, great as KO-recovering items are expensive in the game). For some reason, the boss designs feels very... familiar and nostalgic. They've absolutely nailed it, there were a few creepy bosses that sends chills up your spine because they're like your nightmares come to life! As you're travelling through the world map and in particular the dungeons, you'd notice that monster respawns too frequently. You fight and defeat them, you only need to look away, walk a little bit further and the monsters are back. That's quite annoying, especially in the earlier parts of the game where you cannot outrun monsters. You're also expected to backtrack which means fighting every single monster along the way again. This game forces you to grind your way through.
Grinding isn't a choice, it doesn't force you to grind by placing a super powerful boss in front of you (to an extent, it still does that but it's manageable if you're a little bit underleveled), it forces you because there is no way to avoid all these encounters (until much later on you get a spell to hide from monsters, but even then, the way to get that spell is via a long optional sidequest...). At least the developers had the foresight to make monster run away from you automatically if you're a much higher level than them (makes backtracking easier to stomach) but this has the con of making it annoying when you're trying to fight them to capture them. Speaking of capturing familiars, the game has a horrible mechanic for it. It's based purely on chance. Oh joy. At least Pokemon lets you manipulate it to a certain degree by weakening and using better Pokeballs. Here? You just have to pray and hope to get lucky on this monster with a 2% capturing rate. The luck based capturing system means you could fight hundreds of the same monster and still not capture one, this is a terrible design choice, only serving to artificially extend the game time. Overall, the game is solid but it's bogged down a lot of minor flaws, which, when consolidated together, affects the experience too much. Ni no Kuni needs a MUCH better story and a some improvement on the battle system to streamline it before it can be classified as one of the best JRPG's of all time. I'm honestly surprised at how well received this game was, and how many people are saying that it's the best game of all time, when I've liked other JRPG's more than this one, and Ni no Kuni just feels so average.
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