The demo for Ni no Kuni will be on PSN tomorrow in US/Canada. Nothing about whether it'll be on European PSN as well.

Aww. Oh well, I'll buy it anyway. Playing a demo would only make me feel less patient, like with the FF13-2 demo...

The Japanese version of this has been staring me in the face for the past year on the Korean shopping sites where I buy games. It came here on the Japanese release with a booklet containing Korean translations. My Korean's a bit rough, and I can't imagine actually playing through a dialogue-heavy game having to read a book along with it anyway, so I'm excited about this. Now I just need to lower the unplayed-games pile a bit so I can validate the purchase when it actually gets released and I have to import it at some ridiculous price...

Nice. Thanks for the heads up Abdo.

Dude, I had no idea this game was coming out on PS3. That is super exciting news, as I love Studio Ghibli films.

Dunno about a demo, but it's out on January 25 here in Europe. Stoked about that.

Any idea what time it'll be up? On a side note, I really dislike the new(ish) PS Store layout

Wow pretty good demo, man. I could play the full game.

I thought the game looked great (apart from a few textures on the first boss and the tree but I cant decide if those were just poor or by design). Im not entirely sold on the combat, it got better when you moved into the second part of the demo but I'll have to wait and see. I'll probably like it more when playing the real game and not just thrown in with little understanding.

hmm didn't know this was coming out soon, i was interested , gonna have to download the demo.

@Happenstance said:

I thought the game looked great (apart from a few textures on the first boss and the tree but I cant decide if those were just poor or by design). Im not entirely sold on the combat, it got better when you moved into the second part of the demo but I'll have to wait and see. I'll probably like it more when playing the real game and not just thrown in with little understanding.

Ha ! Ha ! Who thought it was a good idea to throw people into a boss fight? I think I died twice before I figured out how to swap character and throwing out a heal.

Seems pretty cool. Totally ready for another great Level-5 RPG.

@Grissefar said:

@Happenstance said:

I thought the game looked great (apart from a few textures on the first boss and the tree but I cant decide if those were just poor or by design). Im not entirely sold on the combat, it got better when you moved into the second part of the demo but I'll have to wait and see. I'll probably like it more when playing the real game and not just thrown in with little understanding.

Ha ! Ha ! Who thought it was a good idea to throw people into a boss fight? I think I died twice before I figured out how to swap character and throwing out a heal.

yeah... weird demo. i want to like this game but i'm not sure.. the battles were better than i'd expected, but the endlessness of shuffling down corridors and fighting battles is what kept me from finishing eternal sonata. i should mention i love jrpg's, but these are too... slight... too.. directed.. or something... but i like the monsters.

Cool, as a big studio ghibli fan I've been looking forward to playing this for a while.

Just downloaded it! Put in my pre-order a month ago, and I can't wait to actually play it :)

I was kinda bummed by it when I realized how JRPG it was going to be with the Tales overworld map. I liked what I played of it, but I'll set my expectations accordingly.

I wonder why so many people are excited about this game when it didn't do all that well in Japan? I guess I'll try out the demo myself, but other than the graphics, sounds like another run of the mill JRPG.

@JCGamer said:

I wonder why so many people are excited about this game when it didn't do all that well in Japan? I guess I'll try out the demo myself, but other than the graphics, sounds like another run of the mill JRPG.

Did it not do well? The reviews I've seen have been pretty favorable.

I can't decide between the English and Japanese voices. The British voices from the trailers have somewhat sucked a dick. Not that there is much voicework anyway. Ha ! Ha !

@SpunkyHePanda said:

@JCGamer said:

I wonder why so many people are excited about this game when it didn't do all that well in Japan? I guess I'll try out the demo myself, but other than the graphics, sounds like another run of the mill JRPG.

Did it not do well? The reviews I've seen have been pretty favorable.

The reviews have been really good, I think rpgLand gave it a legendary, that's something like a perfect score.

In Japan it did not sell well at all. Reviews were mixed

@cosi83 said:

In Japan it did not sell well at all. Reviews were mixed

Seems so weird that a Ghibli/Level 5 joint wouldn't totally crush it in Japan.

Or am I wrong (uninformed) about those companies' popularity over there because of their popularity in the west?

I just lost all my progress at 86% downloaded when my connection to the PSN Store timed out. Grr...

Edit: I lied. It kept downloading in the background. Installing now.

About to play this demo. I am hopeful, it's a make or break for me.

Loved the demo, even if it was a bit on the easy side. I hear you were set to be much stronger than you would normally be at that point so I'm good, my only other complaint with it would be the linear levels. If it opens up later on I'm fine with having the beginning streamlined but I'm kind of cautious at the moment.

@ProfessorEss said:

@cosi83 said:

In Japan it did not sell well at all. Reviews were mixed

Seems so weird that a Ghibli/Level 5 joint wouldn't totally crush it in Japan.

Or am I wrong (uninformed) about those companies' popularity over there because of their popularity in the west?

From my understanding there could be a multitude of reasons. It was a game marketed towards children but ended up being too complex for them, the difficulty supposedly fluctuates quite a bit as well. When the PS3 version was being released it wasn't made clear what the differences between the DS and PS3 versions were, on top of that the PS3 version was overpriced even by Japanese standards. When given the option between a bargain bin DS version and a pricey PS3 version the former probably looked more appealing. I feel like there has to be another reason though, Ghibli is a huge name and I wouldn't think the last few times Level-5 dropped the ball would have this big of an impact.

@WMoyer83 said:

About to play this demo. I am hopeful, it's a make or break for me.

L1 is the button you're looking for.

@Ducksworth: Did the DS version do well? Maybe too many people felt they had already played it and didn't feel the need to get the PS3 version when it came out.

@ProfessorEss The initial shipment for the DS version was 600,000 units, the game came out December 9, 2010 and by March 2011 it had sold 500,000 units. In the first week of sales Ni No Kuni DS sold about 170,000 units, in comparison the PS3 version only pushed about 65,000 unitswhich is 40% of its nitial shipment. I wouldn't exactly say they sold "well" but they seem to be ok with the way it played out, I'm not expecting the game to get a great reception here but I really hope it sells well enough.

@cosi83 said:

In Japan it did not sell well at all. Reviews were mixed

not enough grinding and random encounters.

I can't stop playing the demo. The game looks amazing and the gameplay is addicting it's like a cross of Pokemon and a Tales game.

Died in that very first battle you get into (I picked the default story from the two options, the one on the left) because I could not tell what I was doing and choose Marr Mite to go up against that hefty green dude. Once I picked Oliver the second time around, it was great fun! I liked the English voice actor that used for Drippy, and the over world was very pretty. Shame it didn't sell well over in Japanaland.

Played the demo last night. I liked the Welsh bell-moon-pokemon-thing. I think it looks pretty nice and the music is understandably great coming from Joe Hisaishi, but it's always hard to show a game like this at its best in a demo. It seemed a little boring maybe, I didn't find any of the cutscenes or fights you can get into particulary exciting. I'm still really interested in it, I worry that there is going to be too much to take note of. In the volcano part of the demo there was eight separate characters leveling up with things to take note of and I assume, seeing as their was slots below your party could be three or four people at a time, potentially with their own three pokemon. I know some people love all of those stats and characters and whatnot, but it's something that really puts me off getting into another JRPG.