Ni No Kuni Review

[forevercloud3000]

kupomogli said:

forevercloud3000 said:

Ok, so you actually did beat the game. I still think your lack of understanding in how the combat flow works(proven by your OP) warps your opinon of this great game for sure.

Seriously, read my long post from the 1st page and reassess what that means for your review.

I'm aware how to play the game.  Using skills against enemies that weren't strong against physical, and defending against anything that didn't attack all allies during random battles was useless.  It was more efficient to have the only equipped skills or low level attack skills and to not bother defending and restore health with Oliver after the battle.

I didn't defend or evade on any random battle after acquiring my second character unless the spell was cast on multiple characters.  There's no reason to defend when the attack usually hit another character, and it's a waste to just defend with everyone, then after defending the next monster casts a skill and you can't defend.  So instead of defending, I focused my attacks on a single enemy until they were dead, whichever one I found had the best spell. 

Only against bosses I'd defend.  Bosses were actually the only time combat wasn't complete  garbage. 

You continue to trivialize the combat as if Attacking really means that you are just pressing a single button. You are managing which enemy to attack first off(probably the weakest opponents), you are dealing with timings to cancel enemy's attack, you are dealing with alternating to other Familiars when one's energy runs low. Its not just simply "Press X to Attack, Win". There is also the little concept of catching the familiars. not just pressing X to do that now are you? What are you doing when they start Hexing your team members with all manner of stuff? Not just pressing X.

I'm lost at why you would think that every random encounter should force you to utilize every battle tactic in the book. I can't think of a single JRPG where after leveling for a good while you couldn't just bash all there heads in with attack or one shot them with a swift attack. Think about that. Is NiNoKuni somehow committing a gaming sin by not makinging you really struggle for your life with the common encounters? Of course its mostly the boss fights that demand serious skill of you. The game also has many unlockable and explorable areas that amp up the challenge. Ulks for instance are a Familiar with the verociousness of a boss. There is the Arena where they pit you against fairly skilled Familiars who can and will use every tactic you do.

You are demonizing this game for a common nuance of just about every RPG. 80% of random encounters are meant to just be cannon fodder exp vessels.