{"id":10740,"date":"2013-03-16T09:29:44","date_gmt":"2013-03-15T23:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10740"},"modified":"2014-05-03T18:40:55","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T08:40:55","slug":"ni-no-kuni-wrath-of-the-white-witch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/?p=10740","title":{"rendered":"Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"2013ninokuni\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Platform:\u00a0 <\/strong>Playstation 3<\/em>
\nDeveloper:\u00a0 <\/strong><\/strong>Level 5<\/em>
\nPublisher:\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong> Namco Bandai
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

As we hit the twilight of the seventh generation of video game consoles, its easy to look back and see that the traditional Japanese RPG was one of the genres that suffered the greatest in the transition to high definition consoles.\u00a0 JRPG powerhouse Square-Enix stumbled with their Final Fantasy<\/em> series and although other JRPG developers continued to output decent games, a lot of them found their home on the handheld systems, the PSP and the DS.<\/p>\n

It’s a strange turn of events.\u00a0 For the same reasons that I found the downturn of horror games this generation to be unexpected, it seems a shame because the imaginative fantasy worlds of JRPGs seem like the exact sort of thing that should have benefited from sharper fidelity and higher production values.<\/p>\n

It’s been a long time coming but a lot of that potential in what a high calbire JRPG could be is finally realised with Level 5 and Studio Ghibli’s excellent Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The collaboration between a game developer and the world famous Japanese animation studio has long been anticipated and the results are exactly what you would hope for.\u00a0 Ni No Kuni<\/em> is a game that has very traditional JRPG gameplay mechanics running in the engine room and it is presented in the form of a gorgeous animated adventure about a young boy named Oliver who escapes into a fantasy world after the death of his mother.<\/p>\n

The characters and themes explored in Ni No Kuni<\/em> are classic Studio Ghibli fare.\u00a0 Oliver himself may be a paint-by-numbers protagonist but he is accompanied by the highly entertaining and very Welsh Lord High Lord of the Faeries Mr Drippy – a pocket sized creature with a lantern for a nose.\u00a0 Mr Drippy is brought to life when Oliver’s mother dies of a heart attack and he weeps onto a stuffed toy that is touched by his tears.\u00a0 The implication here is clear.\u00a0 The magical world and all its inhabitants that Oliver comes across during the game are in his imagination as he learns to cope with his grief.\u00a0 The royal princesses, cunning thieves and mysterious wizards that he meets in the other realm are exaggerated characterisations of people in his hometown.\u00a0 The sickly girl who never leaves her home, the friendly local grocerer or even the neighbourhood cat.<\/p>\n

\"ninokuni\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the course of the game, Oliver comes to terms with the fact that he cannot bring his mother back and learns that it is important to move forward with his life and remain a kind-hearted person.\u00a0 He discovers this through a series of interactions with broken-hearted people in the other realm who share the common theme of being good natured people that have been consumed by a setback in life.\u00a0 It’s a simple and effective story that is told with great flair.<\/p>\n

The play mechanics in the game are very conventional but I say that in a positive light.\u00a0 What fan of JRPGs doesn’t welcome the sight of a world map, an airship, a flying dragon or a multi-level dungeon?\u00a0 And particularly in this post Final Fantasy XIII<\/em> world where we can’t take these tropes for granted from the most famous staple in the genre.<\/p>\n

The combat system in the game is a blend of Pokemon<\/em> and Namco’s Tales<\/em> series.\u00a0 The battle sequences are played out in a turn based fashion but it is possible to move the onscreen characters to navigate a more advantageous attacking or defensive position.\u00a0 Each character also has three familiars that they can fight with.\u00a0 These familiars, creatures in the game that can be captured and trained, will develop new skills as they gain more experience and they can also evolve forms.\u00a0 The game wisely opts to dripfeed these characters to you so you become comfortable with their use.\u00a0 Once the whole cast is doled out, you will be juggling three character who each have three familiars.\u00a0 In effect, you will be switching between 12 different avatars in most combat sequences which can take a little getting used to.<\/p>\n

A blemish on the game is the unfortunate AI exhibited by your team mates.\u00a0 It’s possible to tailor their stance to be attack, defence or support oriented but they seem to veer from one extreme to the other.\u00a0 They either rapidly exhaust their precious magic points (which do not auto-refill) casting needlessly extravagant spells on minor enemies in the game or they are switched off entirely and only do physical attacks and can’t even be relied on to heal themselves when necessary.\u00a0 This means that during the early stages of the game, there is a fair bit of micromanagement involved with approaching combat.\u00a0 Once you get a dinocerous though, all that changes, as he can one-hit-kill the smaller enemies with his Earsplitter attack which streamlines the whole enterprise.<\/p>\n

The main story in Ni No Kuni<\/em> unfolds over a span of roughly thirty hours, which involves plenty of dungeon crawling and world exploring, interspersed with some beautiful hand-drawn cutscenes from Studio Ghibli.\u00a0 There are also plenty of traditional side quests that you can undertake including bounty hunting, fetch questing and dabbling in alchemy.\u00a0 I became so taken with Ni No Kuni<\/em> that I ended up exhaustively completing all the extraneous content.\u00a0 Clocking in at eighty five hours, Ni No Kuni<\/em> is the first game I’ve bothered to chase down a platinum trophy for on the Playstation – the recognition for completing every rewardable task in the game.<\/p>\n

Suffice to say I enjoyed this game very much.\u00a0 It scratched a video gaming itch that has been lingering throughout the lifespan of the Playstation3.\u00a0 It’s a hugely entertaining game and although I will give it some time for added perspective, I feel I enjoyed it as much as the classics in the genre – the Final Fantasy VI<\/em>s and the Chrono Trigger<\/em>s of the world.\u00a0 It’s certainly not a game without its flaws but the combination of the Studio Ghibli production design and Level 5’s entertaining blend of traditional RPG mechanics was hugely entertaining to experience.\u00a0 It is a game full of charm and shows a path forward for JRPGs to modernize their presentation but retain their gameplay heritage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My Neighbour Drippy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":10628,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1584,1583,1582,1565,414,1566],"class_list":["post-10740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gaming","tag-jrpg","tag-level-5","tag-namco","tag-ni-no-kuni","tag-playstation3","tag-studio-ghibli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10740"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10740\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14320,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10740\/revisions\/14320"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10628"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.thefatwebsite.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}