Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch™ Remastered

As a massive Ghibli fan, I started the game insanely hyped, and my first impression was really feeling like I was jumping into that universe. The animated cutscenes are just stunning, they really are little slices of Ghibli perfection. When outside of those cutscenes, the backgrounds remain absolutely lush, and even though the characters aren’t quite as lovely, they still look great, and do a wonderful job of capturing that same charm. What’s more, I really liked the voice acting, and found the characterisation and the writing on the whole to be really good, even often for very minor roles. Unfortunately, I have to be honest and say that despite the wonderful visuals, my overall experience is very much mixed. The story as a whole is decent enough – nothing mind-blowing, maybe a little bland, but perfectly serviceable, and presented so charmingly that it’s still very enjoyable. However, the story beats that you play through in the side quests are just too repetitive to be at all compelling. Person A has had one of their personality traits stolen by the big baddy, oh no! But person B around the corner has a surplus of the same personality trait. Talk to B, do a spell, return to A, do another spell, and balance is restored, they have returned to their right mind once more, what a hero you are! You do exactly the same thing dozens of times, so it’s hard to muster up any interest or satisfaction from going through the motions. Worse, the overarching narrative also includes multiple cases of more fleshed-out versions of this same idea, which means that any impact these moments in the main story could have is significantly diminished due to the heavy repetition. A bigger problem by far, though, is the combat that makes up the bulk of the game, and which I found to be substantial flawed in several aspects. The attempt at a hybrid between real-time and turn-based combat seems like a misguided mashup: real-time combat, but controlled via the typical menu system of turn-based. Scrolling your way through menus in the middle of a fight is massively clunky, and means you sacrifice the dynamism of real-time *and* the meticulousness of turn-based. Another of the attempts to differ from the norm also felt poorly judged to me: the shared health and mana pools. Normally in a game with monster taming elements, the tactical option of swapping out to your next creature can be heavily guided by wanting fresh mana and HP to give you a fighting chance, and at the same time forces you to use a different move set. So, the fact that changing your fighter has no impact in this regard ultimately reduces variety in combat, and results in an over-dependence on the (highly overpriced!) mana replenishment consumables, whenever things are taking too long, or don’t pan out as hoped. One more issue is the number of ways in which things can indeed not pan out as hoped. It is reasonable enough that enemy actions can interrupt your own, though frustrating that this results in your precious mana just being wasted with no action being performed, and forces you to wait out the cooldown timer… Infinitely less reasonable, though, is the fact that your own allies can interrupt you in exactly the same way and unintentionally nullify your actions. Similarly, they can (and regularly do) run in front of you when you are attacking, and so physically block your attack from making contact. Likewise, it is always frustrating to watch the countdown timer tick away, during which time you *should* be laying into your opponent, but instead see your creature inexplicably wander around a convoluted pathfinding route to get into the “correct” position, and end up spending only a tiny fraction of the allotted time actually attacking. On top of all this, the party AI as a whole is very poor – not only will they make terrible tactical decisions, but they can even become an outright liability, forcing you to step in and take control. Compounding all of these problems with combat, the game is just monumentally grindy. You have the high number of forced encounters that is to be expected from a JRPG, but on top of that have random difficulty spikes which force you to grind to get past them (and result in you feeling over-levelled for the next couple of hours). Then there’s the (baffling) fact that your creatures reset to level 1 and become wildly inferior every time they evolve, forcing even more grinding to get them back into a useable state… It doesn’t stop there – being offered a chance to catch monsters is 100% RNG-based, so if a specific monster catches your eye and you want to add it to your party, you can fight dozens of times just with the wild hope that you might get lucky. This is exacerbated by the fact that there is a significant bonus for using the less common *double symbol* monsters, so if you are focussed on grabbing one of these for a particular creature, I can easily see it potentially being more like hundreds of fights before RNG finally smiles on you! The monster designs are really nice, but the prospect of grinding to be allowed to catch one and then grinding to get it levelled usually proved much more (negatively) compelling than any curiosity to see if it could be a good fit in my team to justify the effort. The wild thing is, despite my many issues with the largest component of the game… I still kind of dig it! It really is so damn charming, and even after putting all these hours in, I still find myself happy enough, just zoning out and going through the fights on autopilot in order to spend more time in this world and see more of those gorgeous cut scenes. Overall though, I can’t bring myself to recommend it, because those fundamental issues are too substantial to overlook.

[h1] A standard setting creature collector rpg [/h1] Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch is a creature collection rpg set in a lore filled fantasy world. The game doesn't bring anything new and mindblowing on the table. Instead it focuses on refining the already familiar concepts. For example, the combat system overall is in my opinion the single most polished aspect of the game. It's mostly in real time, which in my opinion surpasses the usual turn based combat system in the genre. Once you get the hang of it, it's very intuitive and fair. One of the coolest things in the game is that they made a whole book with over 300 pages, which explains to the player how the world works without breaking the fourth wall. It really feels that the book is from the world. The foundation of the story reminds me a little of The Never Ending Story by Michael Ende. You play as a young boy named Oliver, who tragically loses his mother. This drives Oliver to isolate himself from the world. He is lost and afraid in life and can't get a hold, as you'd expect from anyone going through such an event. While grieving his plush toy becomes alive and gives him hope and guidance. His name is Drippy. A fairy from a different reality with a very strong personality. Drippy is a well respected figure in his world, at least in his own words. He leads Oliver to the world of Ni no Kuni, a typical fantasy world with all kinds of creatures and a classic fight between good and evil. I have a slight issue with the story. Many others have praised it. I don't find it to be the best quality of the game by a long stretch. It's not terrible, don't get me wrong, but it's nothing special either. Some characters have actually great backstories and there are many great lore drops. The world and lore itself isn't the problem. Its even great! What's not great in my opinion is how convenient everything is for our protagonist. Oliver befriends many different characters on his journey. Most of the time it seems that the relationship between Oliver and other characters just instantly become deep and trusting. One time you heal a broken family literally with a wave of the wand and suddenly they all love and care for each other and are your best friends. I get that the game was designed for kids (and has magic), but it still doesn't have to be dumb with the logic. Take for example any older Pixar movie. Lets say Toy Story. It's definitely meant for kids, but even adults enjoy the film because the interactions of the characters are humane. Many characters don't seem to have but only one layer [spoiler] Shrek!? [/spoiler]. Some do, but most of the time their character is made clear with the first interaction and that's how they are going to be. It doesn't make me invested in the plot if most of the characters are this one sided and shallow. But don't take this the wrong way, there are moments of greatness in there. In the post game content you meet a mysterious character who shares a short yet profound statement about our existence as humans, which left me frozen for a solid minute. Before I wrap this up I want to make a notion, how Japanese entertainment media often has this unique ability to shove itself full of goofiness. If you have played the Yakuza games, you will be pleased to see how Ni no Kuni is full of similar bizarreness, though not to the same extent. Here's a small list of all the things I liked in the game: - Studio Ghibli cutscenes (sadly there aren't too many of those) - Combat - Goofy errands and interactions - The fairies and how they talked x) Thanks for taking the time, means much <3

In all honesty, you are much better off watching a full playthrough which allows you to skip the grinding this game has, instead of playing it yourself. This game offers maybe max. 10 hours of unique content, and the rest is filled with grinding or fetch quest. The gameplay has no real strategic depths as you will have a very limited selection of monster since leveling up those is already so much grind that you wont dare take any other monsters with you. The world, music, story, characters are all nice and have their charme. But the gameplay just does not support the game enough for its length.

[h1]Почему ты отправился в это путешествие? Все это ради того, кого ты любишь? Я думаю это просто потрясающе [/h1] Ni no kuni - это очень хорошая но и утомительно плохая игра.... [quote] Те, кому крылья подрезали, оставляют объявления на доске поручений вот там. Поглядите, вдруг сможете протянуть крыло помощи кому-нибудь.[/quote] [u][b]Что понравилось[/b][/u] [list] [*] Огромный открытый мир, который интересно исследовать. Первый город получился просто отличным. Все персонажи и объекты на своем месте, они не просто болванчики. У всех что-то происходит. [*] Разнообразие игровых механик. Три средства передвижения, как только думаешь вот опять надо плыть на лодочке, как вдруг открывается новое. И ты в полном восторге наслаждаешь новой силой. Как и открытие новых заклинаний в этом есть своя прелесть [*] Долгая сюжетная кампания. Это как плюс, так и минус. Игра не спеша тащит то влево, то вправо через всю карту. Заставляя ходить кругами. Но даже без этого. Хватает видео роликов и диалогов. Но можно устать. У меня заняло 64 часа. Можно пройти за 45-50 часов, если чисто по сюжету идти. Я же заранее доп квесты пинала. [*] Визуализация студии Гибли. [*] Сюжет действительно хорош, пусть это и история со множеством других историй. Время от времени игра попадает куда надо, в самое сердце... [*] Русская локализация. Обычно мы принимаем как должное наличие или отсутствие перевода. Но здесь...они адаптировали книгу на 200 листов, ибо в игре достаточное кол-во завязано на загадках и алфавите. Они сумели обыграть многие моменты с юмором где прям вот чувствуется, наши постарались. Хотелось вручить награду в духе "золотого пера". Давненько не получала такого удовольствие от русских буковок в японской игре. [/list] [quote] Разве это было ошибкой? Зачем я вообще пытался? В этом мире нет ничего хорошего...только отчаяние.[/quote] [u][b]Что не зашло[/b][/u] [list] [*] Унылые битвы, которыми будешь сыт по горло уже на 30 часу игры. Не приносящие ничего нового кроме опыта... [*] Дополнительное задание №078, которое выполняется часов 7-8 из-за рандома в получение финальных ингредиентов и специфичности места их выбивания. [*] Малая наполняемость локаций. Первый город просто волшебный, все настолько лаконично и гармонично. Но чем дальше, тем скуднее ассортимент. Эй мне говорили тут красиво, так покажите нечто большее чем коридорные кусочки...хочу больше декорации и атмосферности... [*] Бесполезные финальные награды. Которые прям вот совсем не стоят того. А ну да...достижения в стиме, как я могла забыть. [spoiler] В конце игры проводник бы мог показать мир, где мать Оливера жива. Но нет, вот тебе машина на которой ты можешь катать по острову. Что? У тебя уже есть кораблик и дракон, пффф вот наземный вид транспорта. Он золотой, как ты любишь..наслаждайся!![/spoiler] [*] Постоянно будет ощущения что тебе рано идти в ту или иную область, либо ты приходишь слишком поздно. Всегда так. Никогда не будешь понимать норм ли тебе быть тут (да некоторые враги бегут от тебя когда ты достаточно силен, но есть враги что всегда будут бежать на тебя вне зависимости от лвл) [*] Крафт. В этой игре совсем не впечатлил. Ожидала что оружие ручной работы будет как то сильнее, но на деле разница в пару очков практически не играет. [*] [spoiler] Ловля покемонов[/spoiler] на конец игры было всего 137, а для ачивы надо 250. Прикалываетесь? Причем как только мне открыли данную игровую возможность я постоянно использовала. Но видимо этого оказалось недостаточно. Лайфхак - часть дают билетами в храме испытаний, часть можно купить в казино. Это поможет немного скрасить монотонность [/list] [quote] Счастливые моменты...печальные моменты...все надо воспринимать как есть - и продолжать идти вперед [/quote] ____ В итоге я могу посоветовать тем кто всегда хотел поиграть в [spoiler] покемонов[/spoiler] на пк. А также тем, кто просто проходит игры и удаляет их. Пройдя игру вы хоть и не увидите секретных боссов/диалогов. Ничего не потеряете. Любителям платины с осторожностью...эти 45 часов которые ушли у меня можно было бы потратить на что-то еще. Вам не нужен это рандом. К черту все игры где все держится на рандоме!!!

A game from my childhood, I watched Stampy's Let's play, now experiencing it, It's one fun ride!

Amazing game, great story, great characters, I got into this game just cause I saw stampylonghead play it a long time ago.

i remember watching stampy play this game bro. <3

I learned about this game by watching Stampylongnose play it, a decade later i find it on steam and ive had so much reliving my childhood by playing the game myself.