Okay, so I made a thread over here on whether or not should I get Dragon Age II for £3.99 in the PSN Jan Sales. I didn't want to hijack that thread and turn it into something else (which I imagine would be frowned upon) so I decided to create a new thread.

Ni no Kuni is also in these Jan PSN sales and is going for £5.93, I'd always wanted to play it but was scared off by the time commitment and the traditional aspect to it. I really don't mean to create a Western RPG's Versus JRPG's - Fight! thread because tha'ts not good for anybody, but I'm just wondering from a time constraint to enjoyment perspective, out of Dragon Age II and Ni no Kuni, which one would I get more enjoyment from and which one would I actually finish? I've heard crazy stories of Ni no Kuni being 100 hrs + and while that doesn't daunt me too much I know I'll only chip away at it and if that's the case, I definitely wouldn't have any time to play DA II as well what with everything else I have to play. I imagine DA II to be 40 hours and Ni no Kuni being 100? (please correct me if this is wrong).

Ni no Kuni seems really interesting to me, a Pokemon esqure battle system with traditional JRPG roots and some of the animation finese from Studio Ghibli. I grew up with traditional JRPG's and it would be good to get back into one again (although if its too traditional like I've heard it may be, then that might turn me off for the very reasons why I got out of JRPG's) - £5.93 - playtime - 100hrs (?)

Dragon Age II, as I outlined in the other thread, I really liked the dialogue and character interaction in DA:O so I'd be happy for more of that - £3.99 - and possibly a lesser time commitment to Ni no Kuni.

For the record, I haven't played Ni No Kuni or DA:O but according to HLTB, NNK is about 45 hours

http://www.howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=6585

@razielcuts: I've played both. Finished DA:2. Enjoyed it save one annoying fight. Ni No Kuni on the other hand was traded in to Amazon. Beautiful game, decent music. Meh Combat. I really wanted to like it, I even preordered it, but it just couldn't hold my attention. Kept the steelbook in case i pick it up on a rainy day. It's an extremely traditional JRPG

@drbobbint: Like that's the thing, I really want to like Ni no Kuni from the outside looking in, it looks like something my inner child would really enjoy but then I've watched the GB QL and other sources and then I'm just like...oh its Dragon Quest VIII combat with a slight twist and even that was a throw back to the days of yore. I'm not sure if I like the idea of Ni no Kuni more than I'd actually like playing it.

Ni no Kuni isn't a 100 hour game unless you try to do every single thing in the game. I like to take my time with games and I don't recall getting anywhere near that.

It really depends on what you're looking for, but Ni no Kuni was one of my favorite games of the last year.

@reckless_x: And thanks for that, I don't know where I got 100+ hours from, think I got that from Phil Kollar's Polygon review. That doesn't sound like too much of a time sync now, just wondering if it's actually worth it.

The combat really doesn't feel like DQ8 at all.

@razielcuts: Yeah it's only 100 hours if you're doing all the sidequests for the stamps. I seem to remember there being difficulty settings, if that wasn't a dream then I put it on the easiest (the combat was still challenging before I started exploiting a grind spot) and my playtime was somewhere between 30-40 hours. I've played both it and Dragon Age and I think Ni No Kuni is much, much better, even though I still enjoyed Dragon Age.

Lastly, a slight negative for Ni No Kuni - I realise it's unrealistic for Studio Ghibli to produce content for the entirety of the game, but the first two hours are amazing and filled with their stuff, but then it's very sporadic and quite short for the rest of the game. There's also not as much voice acting as I fell there could have been, with quite a few lengthy text-only narrative sections, but then this may be typical for JPRGs, I'm not sure. Hope I've helped.

Regardless, one of my top 5 games of last year, very memorable, incredible music and Mr.Drippy will fill your heart with joy. And I liked the combat, was engaging but not hectic.

@razielcuts: I probably would have enjoyed the DS version more. For whatever reason i find it easier to do jrpgs on portable systems. ie chrono trigger, FFiv, FFVI, DQV etc.

Ni No Kuni is 100 hours if you are collecting the creatures and reaching level 99. I beat it at around level 60 I think. It's pretty good. I haven't played DA2.

@mosespippy: @markini6: Ah okay, thanks. I guess I came into this with a misconceived perspective then. I thought the average playtime was 100+ hrs and I remember Brad always giving that as his excuse for never finishing it or giving it a review. I guess that opinion got out there and just scared some people off. Although I did playthrough Skyrim and Fallout with 100+ hr counts so I guess it depends on the type of RPG. Like Persona 4, watched about a third of the Endurance Run, I really want to buy the PS Vita version but every time I think of '100hrs' I'm just like....maybe not then.

I'm pretty sure even 50 hours is considered impossibly long at this point for Brad and most of the Giantbomb crew. (Unless it's Dota.)

Like people have said Ni No Kuni isn't 100 hours if you don't try and do everything. For reference though it took me almost exactly 100 hours to get the platinum trophy. Also the game keeps opening up even very far into the game. It keeps giving you new abilities and mechanics so it never dulls out.

It was my favourite game of 2013.

Get Ni No Kuni.

NNK is about 100 hours if you want to do EVERYTHING. The main story is about 45hrs and it will take another 60 ish hours to finish out all of the optional stuff. So, it can be as long or as short as you want it to be really.

I'm about 10 hours into it and I'm still pretty early (I've been doing a lot of side quest stuff and have been grinding a little. I don't think you need to, but level progression is pretty quick and can be meaningful). I like the combat and gameplay, but the thing that kind of annoys me is that there is a lot of dialogue (at least early in the game) that seems to mostly consist of;

"oh, it looks like this needs a thing"

"it needs a thing"

"yes. you know what that means!"

"no, what does it mean?"

"it means we have to go and get the thing"

"oh, so we have to get the thing?"

"yes, do you remember where it is?"

"no, where is it?" etc.

and you can't really skip ahead of these dialogue sections by just doing the obvious thing without initiating some sort of annoying interaction. Maybe that's being super nitpicky?, but it can be kind of frustrating when I just want to progress in the story and I seem to be continually stuck in these conversation loops.

I think my playthrough was 44 hours -- did most of the sidequests except for the ones which required me of capturing certain enemies.

Once you stumble upon rare enemies that give you a ton of experience, you don't have to grind a lot. Just saved and restarted a dozen times (takes a few seconds) to get the rare enemy before it escapes.

Not sure what this means, but I bought Ni No Kuni and have never played it. While I've never owned Dragon Age 2, but I've played it to completion.

This is true.

My play through of Ni No Kuni was around 75 hours, and that was with me doing a lot of extra stuff such as grinding and side quests. From what I understand you mainline the game in around 40 hours or so. I've never even played a Dragon Age game, so I can't speak it's quality, but I definitely recommend Ni No Kuni to anyone. A warning though, it does get a little grindy later on in the game. Though, the atmosphere and music made it less of a slog and more of a labor of love.

If I had to make that choice I would go with Ni No Kuni. Dragon Age 2 was a massive let down compared to DA:O. It also reuses assets all the time. In fact the game only has a few areas that aren't just the same cave copy pasted over and over again. Ni No Kuni on the other hand is pretty incredible. The art, music, combat, it really has it all and if you don't want to do all the side stuff you can beat it in around 40 hours (I haven't beaten it yet but that's what I hear).

I have a save right before the final boss in Ni no Kuni at 49 hours. I did a lot of the side stuff and was high levelled at this point, so I'd say it would take roughly 40-50 hours to get through the main game with some side quests thrown in.

Ni no Kuni is a good game with a few too many problems, but at that price I'd recommend it.

@themanwithnoplan: That's the thing, I feel like it's cuteness may shine through the harsh times (Is it bad I'm already expecting harsh times? Grinding for me is harsh times, I feel like I've paid my dues, I'm done with that style of play).

Grinding is really not an issue in Ni no Kuni. In fact, I feel like it's too easy to overlevel honestly. There's a couple "rare" enemies you can fight that will give you stupid amounts of exp. Fight a couple of those and you're set for awhile.

I'll just say this, I came back to Ni No Kuni over the course of a year and picked away at it in chunks. I don't think it's the kind of game meant to be marathoned over the course of a week. I feel like the game balanced itself enough to where if you mainline the game, along with doing the occasional side stuff, you won't have many problems. There were times where I did have to grind to reach a certain threshold before I could reasonably move on, but it never felt malicious like so many games of it's genre can be. I'd say try it out and by the time you reach Al Mammon, the second main city in the game, you can tell whether or not the game play system/progression is for you. Al mammon is the first time I had to start grinding and it's also the same time you get a second character introduced for the story and battle system.

Ni No Kuni ended up in my top 5 last year, and like you I've grown tired of the grindy aspects these types of games can consist of. Something kept me coming back to this game though. The world it created, the art style, the music(I never once got tired of that music) and quirky Studio Ghibli charm we've all come to know is all there and represents the best of what the genre can offer in my opinion. If you're even slightly interested I'd say give it ago, especially at the cheap prices you can find it nowadays.

They're 2 completely different kinds of RPGs. Ni No Kuni is a lot of different JRPGs molded into one amazing game. Dragon Age 2 is a western RPG, that focuses on dialogue and action (I havent played it so I cant say much else).

At this point it's really up to which looks more interesting to you. I personally would recommend Ni No Kuni and advise yes it is a very long game.

I would skip both, honestly.

NNK is a dissapointment in every way, it takes so goddamn long open up a little and the game treats you like a total idiot. I stopped 26 hours in, under the great Ghibli charm lies the archaic Level-5 game design.

*Scurries back to the 100 floor Demon Shaft of Dark Cloud*

Get P4 for the Vita! It took me like 72 hours to beat but it's so worth it. Actually, I didn't get the true ending so that would've took about another 30 hours or so, so I guess it can be 100. Count in the sidequests and you're screwed but the sidequests aren't important so you don't have to do them. Also, I played the game on Normal and I think the game would be much shorter if you played on Easy. So buy it and play it on Easy. A tip: When you get to December and look up a guide because if you don't answer a certain couple of questions with the right answers, the game flies to the ending instead of letting you play out the next 3 months. That kind of annoyed me since I didn't know that would happen.

On topic, I only played the demo for both these games and enjoyed Ni no Kuni's. DA2 was meh to me. Play the demos!

wrong thread.

I loved NNK and actually finished it close to the 40 hour mark. I'd recommend it to any RPG fan. It's fantastic...

@razielcuts: The Persona games are well worth the time. Dragon Age 2 definitely wasn't for everyone, but I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone that would really say P3/P4 sucked. I'd say get persona 3 fes on the PSN. Its relatively cheap and there is enough going on in the game where the grinding doesn't make you want to kill yourself. I prefer the portable version P3P if only for the Yawn-B-Gone items (or meth as my friend used to call them) There is more character interaction in the persona games than you'd find in NNK plus a the persona blending system is pretty deep if you play with it.

So, is NNK accessible for someone who pretty much sucks at JRPGS and just wants to mess around in a really good looking well realized fantasy world and raise a bunch of faux pokemon? From videos the battle system looks incredibly hectic with no breathing space.

More or less. You can actually pause the battle by going into the menus, thus giving you time to survey the situation. It never really gets that crazy anyways until way late in the game.

Yes, Playing on Easy or Very Easy dramatically shortens P4G because you don't need to grind. My most recent play through was on Very Easy and I basically only attacked the gold hands or seeked out enemies with sidequest items. I was finishing dungeons probably 80% faster than when I played on Hard. I also hit level 99 in November without using any XP doubling gear. Having played P3P, P4 and P4G two times each I'm not playing for the combat anymore. The more I can do to shorten it the better.

I played the first time on Normal and god was it (sort of) a pain in the ass. That lego/baby boss was so hard, I stopped playing for 3 months. Then decided to head back into it and finally beat him. This was last August, which is the last time I played. I started my second playthrough, dropped it to very easy and got the strongest weapons from my previous playthrough and I demolish everything. Which is great because I don't have to grind. If there's one thing I hate, it's grinding. Man, I really need to head back into P4G to finish that second playthrough.

Just checked P4G and I'm 18 hours in and already in July. It took me like 40 to reach July on my first play. The perks of playing on very easy. I also have been skipping most the dialogue since I know what they say. I'll have to jump back into it when I beat some of the games I'm currently playing (Tales of Xillia). I also put some time into Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen. I'm just surrounded by RPG's at the moment and it's killing me.

I played and finished both. In the end I enjoyed both, for DA 2 it probably helped that a friend of mine recommended that I should play/see it as action game and not a fully fledged RPG. But I really, really enjoyed Ni No Kuni and would rank it in my Top 5 for 2013, so I would recommend Ni No Kuni.

P. S. Regarding the time investment, it took me 80:37 hours to get Platinum in Ni No Kuni