Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch

[The Kid]

Well I'm almost finished with everything. I only need about two more trophies. This game kind of drags a bit towards the end, and the grinding for some of the items is a complete drag, but otherwise it's a fun game.

[Badnik Mechanic]

I would if it was actually complete. No Boss Theme? The Soundtrack isn't even that big so there was no excuse

 

Hey Hogfather if you're reading this be sure to give us an update on your playthrough, I'm curious.

 

I havn't actually played too much of it since I last posted. I only have time/energy to play it on the weekends now since I want to enjoy it without being drained from work.

 

That said though, I've now at... aladdin town, and just got some girl and her father into my party... my thoughts are still the same, the game is great. But there have been some points where I've become very frustrated with it.

 

For instance, when I was restoring the forest, I was so strong that enemies would run from me, then I entered the desert area and enemies suddenly shot up in difficulty. I died so many times that I was starting to grow tired with this section of the game. At times I'd come painfully close to desert town only to get killed in the last fight because I couldn't switch to a character who had defend fast enough.

[pppp]

I entered the desert area and enemies suddenly shot up in difficulty. I died so many times that I was starting to grow tired with this section of the game. At times I'd come painfully close to desert town only to get killed in the last fight because I couldn't switch to a character who had defend fast enough.

 

Well this is a throwback to old school JRPGs, so that kind of thing is normal. A lot SNES and PSX JRPGs did that. It's just a matter of keeping your party at a good level. FFIX also did this sort of thing.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Yes it's all very well of keeping your party at a good level. Only if I'm in one area an enemies are running away and giving poor experience, and I enter another area and enemies are very hard and giving 'ok' experience. Something isn't quite right.

[The Kid]

Once you get far enough into the game you can grind with some special enemies that make your characters way overpowered. I ended my  playthrough with around level 90 for all my characters. If you want to beat the Solloseum Challenge you're going to need high levels (or some tank characters, but that isn't any fun).

[Badnik Mechanic]

Well I just beat it... Bloody hell! This is one of the best games I've played in years, certainly one of the best RPG's I've played for a long long time. I've not had this much fun with an RPG since I was heavilly invested in FF7, whilst FFX is my favourite, Ni No Kuni is by far a superior game.

 

Just everything about this game was close to perfect.

 

Theres tons of stuff I've not yet fully looked into, like the familiar raising, barely touched it, synthing weapons/items, barely touched that and thats part of the reason the game works so much, with the exception of maybe a side mission or two, theres no 'Oh you have to do this or game progression is impossible.'

 

That said, there are one or two things which did really bore me... the 'Take heart/Give heart' Why do I have to listen to the entire dialogue when I do this... I know what the problem is let me fix it! How some spells you get are basically just 'key's' in order to progress to the next stage of the game. Theres a lot of just going to a place, talk to a guy, return to original spot... talk to a guy... then go talk to the other guy again...

 

Also what was quite a let down... the final boss... But not for the reasons you think, while the White Witch is a bit underwhelming for a final boss fight, it's mainly due to the fact the enemy isn't bugging you for the whole game. In this game, Dark Djinn is the one causing Oliver trouble, who actually looks and sounds scary, I wanted him to be the final boss since he seemed the bigger threat. Yeah the Queen had her 'manna' spell which makes people go zombie horse, but Dark Djinn was constantly trying to kill Oliver and constantly making his presence felt, and the ending was a tad 'Oh... it's finished?'

 

But for the stuff I didn't like, it's insignificant compared to how great this game is, it's so much fun and such an easy RPG to get into. No stupidly over-complicated storyline to try and make itself seem sophisticated and clever, no ridiculous deep mysical stuff that makes it try to seem deep and meaningful. It was an absolutely cracking game.

 

If anyone had lost faith in the JRPG genre or who has fond memories of what Final Fantasy used to be like, you have got to try this one.

[pppp]

Indeed, yet another brilliant JRPG from Level-5. For those that haven't played their other awesome RPGs check out Dark Chronicle, Rogue Galaxy and Dragon Quest VIII / IX. Dragon Quest VIII is the best RPG of the 128 bit era as far as i'm concerned.

Edited April 10, 2013 by pppp

[MegasonicZX]

Indeed, yet another brilliant JRPG from Level-5. For those that haven't played their other awesome RPGs check out Dark Chronicle, Rogue Galaxy and Dragon Quest VIII / IX. Dragon Quest VIII is the best RPG of the 128 bit era as far as i'm concerned.

I love dark chronicle and rogue galaxy though there's one enemy on chronicle that keeps me from actually finishing it cause it scares the crud out of me, curse those stupid trees.

[pppp]

That reminds me, has anyone seen Level-5's next JRPG? It's a 3DS game called Fantasy Life and it looks like a mix of Dragon Quest IX and Animal Crossing. Hey Hogfather you mentioned how Ni no Kuni reminds you of classic FF games, well guess what, the character designer of this game is Yoshitaka Amano(FF1-6 and 9) and the music is by Nobuo Uematsu:

 

[Badnik Mechanic]

So I'm on the post game stage now... have to say... this is one of those post games that really makes me hate the game.

 

I want 100% completion, but since beating the game I've been at it for hours and still have tons to do, but what I have to do is so laborious. Tame another 100 animals, and do tons more alchemy spells... which I don't like doing.

 

I really hate stuff like this, it takes so long, even though I didn't sell a single item in the game or use any of the rare items it's still taking such a bloody long time. Oh well... at least it's not as mindless as FF13's grinding for rare materials.

 

Oh yeah, anyone thinking of getting this game. Make sure you ALWAYS have some MP items on you when you visit Motoville... turns out theres a major game breaking bug in the game.

 

It's possible to go to motoville and become 'stuck' there. If you visit it during a story mission, such as when you need to speak to the dog, if you don't have enough MP (one such visit takes place after a boss fight), you can't progress with the story, you can't even go back to Drippy's world as he won't let you.

 

See here.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iB0AkS8NabI

[pppp]

Well the Conductor side quest is awesome, especially at the end. I mean if you're trying to 100% a traditional style JRPG there's obviously gonna be some less fun stuff, even FF9 is guilty of that in certain aspects. Hey Hogfather, what do you think of the soundtrack? For me it's one of the best soundtracks in any game, 90 hours and i still can't get enough of the world map theme:

 

 

[Teoskaven]

Star Ocean: The Last Hope is grinning above all of you people. You don't even have any idea how post-game quests are in Tri-Ace games; only Atlus and NiS have done worse.

[The Kid]

Whoever came up with the "Befriend 250 Familiars" trophy should be shot.

 

Even if you befriend most of the ones you meet you're stuck with hours upon hours of grinding familiar meetings.

[Badnik Mechanic]

Whoever came up with the "Befriend 250 Familiars" trophy should be shot.

 

Even if you befriend most of the ones you meet you're stuck with hours upon hours of grinding familiar meetings.

 

That one isn't so bad. I was on only 140 when I started to go for it, I'm now at 212 and I don't think I've captured many more, I got that extra 70 or so just from evolving them. So long as you captured them during the game, odds are you'll be close.

 

The horrible one though is Mad scientist. For 2 reasons.

 

1: The damn thing is glitched. It's not popping for me, I've seen someone else say that the trophy glitched on him too and he had to alchemise some or the really hard items which is what I've now got to do.

 

2: What is the point in alchemy at all in this game?

 

No really? It's completely pointless... theres around 5 weapons in the game that are considered ultimate, whats the point in going for them? There isn't any. The game prevents you from farming these weapons until you've beaten the game, by that point, what exactly is there left to fight?

 

The new bosses for the conductors mission? They're easy, if you've beaten the white witch, you can beat these things. The guardian of worlds? I can beat him using just oliver and 1 familiar. It's not a hard fight.

 

So whats the point in Alchemy exactly?

[Thigolf]

Some fans are trying to get the game on the 3DS and Wii U with a Facebook campaign.

 

https://www.facebook.com/NiNoKuni3dsWiiU?ref=stream&hc_location=stream

[PSI Wind]

Honestly, I think it should just get ported to the Wii U.

[Badnik Mechanic]

I thought this game was on the 3DS? Or at least there is a version of it on the 3DS

 

 

Honestly, I think it should just get ported to the Wii U.

 

Why?

 

Though I suppose it would be kinda neat if you could draw some of the spell symbols on the touch pad, though I doubt I could remember any other than the 'heal' spell.

[Carbo]

I thought this game was on the 3DS? Or at least there is a version of it on the 3DS

DS. Never came overseas though.

[PSI Wind]

I thought this game was on the 3DS? Or at least there is a version of it on the 3DS

 

 

 

Why?

 

Though I suppose it would be kinda neat if you could draw some of the spell symbols on the touch pad, though I doubt I could remember any other than the 'heal' spell.

Because it started life as a Nintendo platform game.

Of course, I know someone's gonna bring up Bayonetta 2, but Ni No Kuni wasn't in danger of being developed, cancelled, and then picked up by Sony and financed by them.

Edited May 1, 2013 by PSI Aqua

[Cola]

I'd love to see the DS version come overseas as a 3DS game.

 

A Wii U port of the PS3 version couldn't hurt, either.

[PSI Wind]

Also, I'm not saying that I want a Wii U port. It'd be nice, but I think I'd just rather have the console version than an updated version of the handheld one.

[Cola]

Also, I'm not saying that I want a Wii U port. It'd be nice, but I think I'd just rather have the console version than an updated version of the handheld one.

 

But the handheld one is a game that most of us haven't played.

[Thrippa]

One of the reasons (excuses?) given for the DS version not coming overseas was that the DS version came with a Wizard's Guide, and they didn't think they could print enough to sell them overseas as well.  Pity they didn't remember that when they set up the PS3 special edition.

 

I expect it had more to do with translation than actual printing -- actually I see that it now the official reason given.