Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Despite the controversy with Namco and the wizards edition scandal, and having to wait two years for a proper English port of the game, Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch arrives! The game came out early in 2013, finally got the time to actually sit down and put in 50 hours of time to beat the game, which is standard at this point for JRPGs. Ni No Kuni has a mixture of emotions from gamers. Seems to vary between people loving the game naming it one of the best JRPGs they have ever played, or others just thinking it is an okay game. Haven't come across anyone who passionately despises the game yet though. However, Ni No Kuni reminds me of a rich 1990s JRPG that has long been missed. The game is a sigh of relief in the JRPG genre, to have another solid entry into an ever so quiet genre. If you are not a fan of JRPGs currently, Ni No Kuni is a great starting point for you, and could easily get you hooked on the genre.

Ni No Kuni is based on a story where a young lad name Oliver comes across a pretty serious tragedy that changes his life. Oliver then goes to another world in which he hopes to reverse the tragedy that has happened in his world since both worlds are connected. In addition to solving Oliver's problem, Oliver is also helping this other world with the perils it is going through at the same time to stop the main antagonists Shadar's evil doings. Pretty standard for JRPGs if you ask me, boy has to save the world from big bad evil and spoiler alert, he needs to have some big bad weapon to do it. However, there isn't anything wrong with staying with the standards set of blueprints of typical JRPGs, and in fact Ni No Kuni's story is one of thee best if not thee best part of the game. The story is a story we can all relate to, and may even give some nostalgic memories of childhood with dare I use the word "cute". I don't really want to expand more on that, as it could spoil the story. To give a short spoiler free version, its a story of a young boy struggling with a real tragedy in his life, and how Oliver overcomes this tragedy.

The main protagonist Oliver is adorable. Oliver wants nothing more than to make everyone happy, and speaks so politely and innocently. Since Oliver is such a kind and innocent character, I cared deeply about him and his struggle. I rarely feel this touched by characters like this in video games, the more or less just become an after thought for many titles. Oliver also has rather funny and enjoyable characters to go with him, who all have their own unique side story to complete. The team works well together, and their personalities all clash to make an interesting gathering. Drippy specifically is hilarious, and has some interesting dialog exchanges. Not to mention, to go along with these amazing characters is also superb voice acting despite it being so limited, and having to read sub text a lot. However, that may have just been due to financial issues, which I don't think is fair to complain about.

Despite Ni No Kuni being cute, it is no kids game. In fact, the story is actually rather dark and sinister. The story has some interesting twists, some that I didn't really fully suspect until right before the end. It really leaves a life long message in you, something not many games can achieve. The narrative itself is also very interesting to read, and as I have already expressed with characters like Drippy, it's funny. For once in a game, I am not quickly trying to skip dialog to get on with the game.

So the story is good, it should be something you expect from a solid RPG honestly. How about the gameplay? It is very similar, if not an extensive rip off of Pokemon. You catch familiars "Pokemon" train them and evolve them with large amounts of sweets and then fight with them. It is quite surprising that all my familiars did not end up with type two diabetes by the end of the game, because eating 10 sundaes, chocolate bars, ice creams, pies, or cakes will never end well. Jokes aside, the whole concept of leveling your characters with these sweets is awfully tedious and time-consuming to give them the treats one by one. Course, you could just give them the sweets that have more fullness, but you have other resources to buy then just making these sweets to evolve them, such as weapons and armor. It got to a point where I just stopped evolving them because the whole task just got so cumbersome and took forever. Despite barely evolving them, the game was very easy. I only had some troubles with about one to three of the regular bosses, and then had quite some trouble with the very last boss. Other than that, I played the entire game on normal and had no problems doing much of anything. About half way through the game, you get a spell called travel that makes matters only worst for the games difficulty. Essentially, travel is the fast travel of Ni No Kuni. Once I got travel, the game went so much faster, which was something it didn't need because it was rather simple already. Others have claimed they never had enough MP or always ran out, and for some reason caffeine must be scarce because Coffee costs a fortune at 1,000G in this world. I never really used the spells, and still had no problem. The one I did was Oliver's healing touch, and that only took 3 MP per cast.

There is a whole thought out system of weaknesses and strategy set for you, but I didn't use any of it as I didn't need to. Many people I have seen complain about the battle system and the battle UI. I had no problem with it, and quite frankly liked the battle UI. It has a wheel style menu interface, where you select the options. I also feel as if Level-5 had a huge missed opportunity with not including multiplayer into the game. There is a place called the Solosseum in the world, which is similar to a gym in Pokemon. You fight a bunch of other characters in the game, with your familiars against them. It could have brought so much more replay value, and gave reason to the weaknesses and other strategies implemented into the game. There is also an extension to the ending added, which I won't discuss in fear of spoiling the game. It just feels out of place, or forced on. I like how this wasn't DLC, and the extra ending was all well narrative wise, however it felt excessive and the efforts could have been put to other use like more soundtracks or more voice acting.

Another complaint I had with the game was the whole concept of errands. All the errands and such are repetitive, to the point where they use the same characters. Most of them involve finding someone with a broken heart and then mending their heart. I don't really want to explain the whole concept of the hearts to avoid spoilers, but essentially it is a "take this from this person to this person" type of situation. At first, they had some variety in Ding Dong Dell with errands, and then post-completion they had the variety they needed during the game all along and were rather enjoyable rather than boring. Errands however, are still worth doing despite being awfully linear and boring, as they remove the grind from the game for the most part, give you the majority of your funds, and supply you with neat bonus attributes with merit cards. Merit cards are earn from doing errands for a reward of attributes that may boost the xp gained per battle to boost the loot of battles and much more. Bounties on the other hand I didn't have as much of a problem with, yes they were very much the same but still the battle system is fun in my opinion.

The game itself is very aesthetically pleasing, but we could have expected no less from a studio collaboration with Studio Ghibili. It has a happy-go-lucky vibe to it, despite having the story be rather dark and sinister. Each town however is just so beautifully designed, and looks as if it was straight out of an anime. The towns go down into specific small details as well, it blew me away. The dungeons in the game were all very unique, and had their own style to them, something I complain about in other RPGs such as The Elder Scrolls. While the game is not realistic looking, it is unique and still a beautiful game. I was disappointed with the lack of actual Studio Ghibili cut scenes but the Level 5 engine cut scenes were fine. While the soundtrack is jaw dropping amazing, there is not much of a variety. Some tracks a reused constantly, and even one area doesn't have any music at all. Some say that was intentional, but I think that is a lazy excuse for the lack of music. Still, its a full orchestra, those are not very cheap! So I figure if Namco Bandai and Level-5 are going to take the financial gamble of trying to release a JRPG in the west, can't complain about cost of music.

Ni No Kuni does have it's flaws and missed opportunities here and there with the game play, but I believe they can be overlooked. The story is just too amazing to pass up, and the world is too aesthetically pleasing. While the game play has its minor flaws, overall it is still good, it just holds Ni No Kuni back from being a masterpiece. If what you look for in a game is a rich JRPG with a flawless story, than Ni No Kuni is what you need to satisfy your needs.

5/5