Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the white bitch

Thiraury

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July 12, 2009
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So, i've been playing some Ni No Kuni over the weekend, played for about 15 hours, and wondered if anyone else on the board is playing.

So far I love it. I'd say it's like a mix of Spirited away, Pokemon and Harry Potter if that makes sense! I haven't played that many jrpgs before this one only a couple of final fantasy titles so for me it feels really refreshing compared to most western rpgs.

There are a few bothers tho, for example, the game likes to explain everything to you very thoroughly. For someone who's played games regularly for ~15 years the helping hands are at times too much. Thankfully you can fastskip dialogue with the press of a button if you wish.
As you get further into the game the explanations get abit less in your face. This is reflected in Olivers (the main character) personality aswell. In the start of the game he's a quiet low-selfesteem kind of guy who needs alot of help to understand the situation he's in. As the game goes on he grows in character and starts to understand more about the world and more how things work.

Anyway, I really like this game. Hopefully this will make some of you interested enough to try it out!
 
Joined
Jul 12, 2009
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I've been playing it quite a bit lately.

It's got a few flaws (what game doesn't) but overall it's been quite an enjoyable experience lately.

Reminds me a bit of Xenoblade Chronicles for the depth of its design and fairly engaging battle system (though it gets chaotic at times).

Wish alchemy items identified whether or not you've made them before.

Good stuff overall. I'm quite the CRPG (computer or console) connosieur... been playing games for a few more years than I'd care to admit. :)

-- Adam
 
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I'll play it but waiting a bit for it to go down in price. Console games start at $60, I can buy like 219 games in Steam sales for that :)
 
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Unfortunately only for PS3.

I saw the German review on GamersGlobal. The rating was 9/10 (user rating 9.8/10), and they were very enthusiastic about Ni No Kuni. A couple of minor flaws but a lot of quality gaming.
 
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I bought this, because I'm a huge fan of Studio Ghibli, even if I'm not a huge fan of JRPGs. My mistake.

Played it about 6 hours and quit. Not my cup of tea. At all. Too JRPG for me. Enemies respawn in dungeons 5 seconds after you've beat them, you cannot save where you want in dungeons (and save points are at times really far apart), combat requires twitch skills and deciphering small symbols of creature weaknesses (even on a 40 inch TV they were too small for me) for optimal performance, there's too much combat in dungeons (every five steps), the story takes f-o-r-e-v-e-r to get started (and true to JRPG traditions, the first few hours you have very little to do but follow prescripted events around the map - boring, I want to play the game!), the game assumes you're an idiot and explains everything in extensive detail like to a 4 -year-old, the sidequests are hideous (MMO-style kill/fetch affairs mostly), etc., etc.

Ni No Kuni, sorry but you're going back to the store. Should've known better…
 
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I come from the land of ice and snow
I couldn't help myself and bought this game today. It's been a while since a JRPG has come out that has been received this well (not counting Wii, of all consoles). I just inserted the disk and it's installing, so we'll see how it turns out. :) Tales of Graces f was kind of a disappointment; I didn't realize that it was basically a Wii port at the time and the story really didn't grab me.
 
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It took awhile until I stopped laughing at the title. :D
 
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I've been playing it for a few days. It's good I like it. You can save everywhere except in dungeons (I'm ok with that). There is respawning which is not great, but at least once you're a few levels above the mobs, they run away from you, so when you run around areas you already visited you don't get to fight stupid random battles.
It has lots of elements: Crafting, puzzles (even text based puzzles where you have to type in the answer), pet collecting and growing, etc. The art style is great I love it.

My only problem is in combat. You control a character (leader) while your companions are controlled by the AI. There is limited control over that, basically 'support', 'heal', 'don't use special attacks', 'do what you want' and 'go crazy'. Unfortunately, the AI uses too much mana unless you select 'don't use special attacks', so after the 3rd fight from last rest point, they're almost without mana.

But other than that, I think it's a solid game. Not perfect, but definitely enjoyable.
 
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Yes, I've read more about that overuse of mana by the AI. I haven't played enough yet to know for myself, but so far the game has really grabbed me. It's the best-looking JRPG this generation and the writing and animation are top-notch. Combat seems like fun, but I have only played for a couple of hours so far.
 
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