Before I begin ripping Ni No Kuni a new one, let me start by saying I enjoy JRPGs, but I'm so-so on Level-5 and Studio Ghibli. I didn't finish Ni No Kuni, but I played around 13 hours of it which was more than enough for me to say that I wasn't going to change my mind on this game. I did play Tales of Graces f before moving on to my next JRPG (which happened to be Ni No Kuni) and playing Ni No Kuni made me appreciate Tales' battle system a whole lot more, but I, in no way, compared Tales with Ni No Kuni during my playthrough. After putting Ni No Kuni down, I looked at the next JRPG I'll be playing (which is Tales of Xillia) and looked forward on playing it because I had a lot of fun with Graces f despite its flaws.
Lastly, this is my opinion, so don't get so worked up over one man's opinion. I'll bullet point the main things for the lazies.
The Good:
Graphics - Simply breathtaking. The art style, the colors, the animated cutcenes. I find games with this type of art design more interesting than games approaching realism.
Trials of friendship - This is a small puzzle in the game when you navigate both Oliver and the blonde girl (forgot her name since she's uninteresting like that rest of the cast) through some tiles without falling by using the left and right analog stick. I had trouble with the first and second try since I tried navigating both at the same time, but once I changed my approach and moved one character at a time, it became easy. Still was fun to play though.
Sadly, that's pretty much the only things I enjoyed throughout my 13 hours of Ni No Kuni, and one of them only lasted like five minutes. On to the bad...
The Bad:
Lack of story - The plot started off good; Oliver's mother died, and he's given hope that he could bring her back by traveling to another world and rescuing her soulmate. After traveling to the other world, that's when the story dies off. Most of the story consisted of going to different dungeons and towns looking for more magic and the great sages, and also going back hometown to look for soulmates. Despite all the cutscenes and dialogue it has, there's practically nothing going on in the story which is impressive when you think about it. Also the dialogue is a little too cheesy: Neato! Your Moojesty.
Characters are also lacking - There's nothing interesting about any of the main characters including Drippy, Oliver, the blonde girl and the thief (don't remember the last two names). I don't really know much about them aside from Oliver liking to say Neato, and they all lack personality. There's no interesting background story about them, and there's also no playful or funny banters between the party members; they're just there for the ride it seems.
Battles are too difficult to avoid - The dungeons are too narrow which makes it difficult to get by them, and they have 20/20 vision which means they can see you from far away and run towards you. Also, you can't outrun them since they're sprinters. When they see you, you're fucked, and you want to avoid battling because...
Battle system is too boring - One of the main problems I have with JRPGs is that they're too easy, and you could pretty much beat them just by selecting the attack command. Sadly, Ni No Kuni is no exception. The first familiar I started with (which I also forget the name of) is good enough to send to battle and just have him fight by selecting attack. Sometimes I do use his skills, only because I want the battle to end as soon as possible. Sure you can run around when you're not attacking, but there's not much excitement going on.
High enemy respawn rate - This one annoys me the most. You kill an enemy, take a few steps forward to open a treasure or w/e, but when you turn around, the fucker respawned. So you have to fight him again unless you manage to avoid him which is damn near impossible due to the corridor designs and 20/20 vision.
Boss battles are uninteresting - When the party only consisted of Oliver, the boss fights were good and somewhat intense. This was actually a few occasions when actually had to run around and use magic since bosses can easily manhandle your familiars. However, once you get the blonde girl in your party, this intensity falls apart since one party member can have the boss distracted while the other member can cast magic from far away. And to add to the boss battles, the boss move animations sometimes appear too much which ruins the flow of the combat. The biggest offender was the genie who kept casting hubble bubble again and again and again. This fight was so annoying.
Side-quests are mostly uninteresting heart-quests - Most of the quests were either finding missing stuff around town or giving-taking away emotions. Too boring and practically a waste of time.
Familiars start or revert to level 1 - This game is kind of like pokemon in which you can capture monsters and have them battle. However, when you capture a familiar, they start at level 1. When you're at level 20 and have a member of lvl 1, it's not going to make sense to have the lvl 1 monster having to fight for you. You have to wait and level him up to a respectable level before you can properly use him. Familiars and human members use the same HP, so it won't be wise using a weakling in battle. Also, they have the power to convert to a "powerful" version of themselves, but when they do, they go back to level 1. So again, you have to wait and level him up properly, so you can actually see his powerful version take form.
Party members AI are dumb - They waste MP over the dumbest things, use the inappropriate familiars and practically never defend themselves during a big attack. I tried changing their tactics, but nothing seems to change. Let's say my max HP is 130, but I currently have it at 90. I don't need healing at this point, but both party members seem to think so, so they end up healing me. Waste of MP, and they always seem to run out of it fairly quick during a boss battle. Which in turn, makes them die because they can't heal themselves.
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There's probably more things I didn't enjoy about Ni No Kuni, but those are the main things. I wanted to like the game and probably should have dropped it after the awful genie fight, but I kept on going until I just had enough. Did anyone else hate it?
Also, tune in next time for ripping either Batman Arkham Origins, Tales of Xillia, God of War: A, or Last of Us a new one. Whichever one I end up hating.
