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I don't know if I should start by talking about the current state of this website. I feel like it's both inevitable and also not the place to do so. I'll keep writing, because I think written content is undervalued these days. Someone has to keep every piece of video game chronicling from splintering into yet another undetectable Discord, right? I think that sums up enough.
I'm still neck deep into the first entry of this series and the Game of the Year of 2021, Fantasy Life Online (FLO). Despite Giant Bomb once more deleting my vote, thereby ensuring I'll never vote here again, that game is still good and it's still kicking. They've just increased the level cap of every character, on top of their weekly new events. This game is how I start my day, every day. Naturally, that means I've gone into the next mobile release from Level-5, Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds, with some expectation. On top of that, the anime franchise is likely a little more known, so I imagine everyone else is hoping for some quality as well.
Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds keeps the massively multiplayer online (MMO) game theme of FLO going. Rather than a one-button adaptation, however, this thing is the full English breakfast; cooldowns, guilds, raids and everything. If you've ever played an MMO, it's like that. On the off chance you've never dipped your toes in one, just think of a role-playing game (RPG), but with a ton of people playing it at once. So, you'll be taking on daily missions, grinding dungeons, collecting loot to upgrade later and so on. There are several classes, but as soon as I saw someone that looked like Constanze from Little Witch Academia, I didn't look at a single other person. They're an engineer, which really sealed the deal, as that's usually my go-to anyway.
Stop me if you've heard this anime story before: You land into a strange new world, where you quickly discover that you're stuck in a video game. If you get past that factoid, there is a kingdom at peril from a band of dark mercenaries. They're probably actually a game virus or something. It might not be the most original, but there are furries and you get to look at your sidekick's butthole a lot. It's not all that bad. The game also looks the part and has some solid sound design, so the Ni No Kuni name is aesthetically upheld pretty well.
As for gameplay, that's a whole other can of worms. In short, almost all gameplay has the character performing real-time combat with a set of skills and three weapon loadouts. Elemental differences encourage you to switch to the proper type of weapon, which gradually also charges an ultimate attack. Additional help comes from tiered familiars. There are three slots for them as well, which can be used to call in more support on a cooldown. One layer deeper are the applications of a ton of buffs, through either consumables or a variety of shops. Did you get all that? Good. Now forget all of it.
Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds automates almost every step of the above. You travel to the next mission, you automatically use your skills and, should it occur, you use potions on low health. As long as you click through the dialogue, everything else just happens until the job is done, sometimes even chaining together the next event. I put some gameplay on Twitter, to give you an idea. I've played twenty hours and was only asked to intervene twice, for a platform puzzle. Weirdly enough, this brief act of agency is pretty early on in the game, letting you believe this will be the diversity that it implies, but it literally happens only one more time. You could do everything manually, as there are environmental benefits to explore, but there is almost never a reason to do so. Hell, the game literally sells "AI time" that will remove even more interaction, so the goal is for you NOT to play.
Any time I've spent in Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds, I've spent into the menu. I'll get the mission ball rolling, then start diving into one of the hundreds of splintered objectives you have. Collect an achievement, boost skills, upgrade your gear, get more familiars, automatically clear a side dungeon; if you can think of it, you've got a button for it. Meanwhile, in the background, your character goes to the designated spot and picks up the objective, kills monsters or flicks a switch. As long as there's no talking involved, you stay in those menus, clicking the next exclamation mark. There are, in fact, so many branches of stuff that I've completely lost track of what's available, even with the dozens of prompts there to constantly remind you. I say this with confidence: I've never seen a game with so many splintered branches of shit to grind, each with their own bespoke rewards. I don't think I can even list everything, but I'll try to see what I can remember:
Boss dungeons, raid bosses, world bosses, vending stalls, team fights, familiar fights, reputation building, tiered dungeons, familiar gardens, item fusing, item crafting and also fusing on a separate branch, daily missions, set missions, achievements, records, collections, gear potency enhancing, gear tier increasing, familiar training, guild missions, guild dungeons, guild building, guild defense.
I'm definitely forgetting a bunch. There are about forty menu buttons that I've counted, each for their specific goal. At face value, however, having an overflow of content isn't necessarily bad. Sure, it's very old-hat MMO to just dump a ton of stuff in there without much direction, but an abundance of choice does mean that the game is playable forever. I don't see anyone getting through all the branches available now within the next year and that's if there aren't updates, which are already happening. If you want a game that will keep you busy until perpetuity, Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds is there for you.
No, there is a more sinister reason for this excess. Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds is the most monetized game I've seen since Dungeon Keeper. Hell, I'm pretty sure it tops that easily. The reason that you have a million separate things to do? There are well over a dozen stores, each with bundles and offers for hundreds upon hundreds of Euro. Each time a new branch opens up, you'll also get pushed with a full screen pop-up for a limited offer, once more encouraging you to spend a lot of money. There even are multiple battle passes for different aspects of the game. I tried calculating what you'd spend if you wanted to get the most out of your daily sessions, but it honestly made my head spin. I've never seen so many ways to spend money, not even on the shittiest mobile cash grab. I can ignore it, because I'm poor, but it's a relentless assault on your psyche. In almost every entry of this blog series, I've told you to just ignore the monetization aspects, even the brutal ones. I think it's impossible to overlook how much Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds wants you to fold; its monetized push is inevitable.
When I tell you that I wanted nothing more but to like this game; I really gave it my best shot. I'll tell you my breaking point: Dozens of hours in, Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds is still giving you tutorials for the next branch that it can monetize. I was level 36 and got hit with yet another pop-up. It was the tutorial on how to level up. The game didn't think it was important to tell me a core mechanism until now, yet it had already given me several prompts for endless store purchases that I had to act on now, before I missed out! The priorities of this game are pointed clearly in one direction and it's not the gameplay.
It's a major bummer that Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds turned out the way it did. Inside of it, there's the core of a wonderfully diverse, if outdated, MMO that kinda feels like Final Fantasy XIV, before it was reborn. It needs work, but it could get there with some tweaks. It's just that the game is, I dunno... kinda rotten. I don't have more fitting words for it. It could be good, but it sucks extremely hard instead. I know that's not as descriptive as I'd usually rather be about telling you about games. Sorry about that. I'll keep playing it, just to see if it's worth the effort in the end, but deep in my heart I know it will only get worse as it goes. Oh yeah, the game is also going to get NFTs.
I wish we could have nice things.
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