My history with the game
While there are no previous Ni No Kuni games for me to have a history with, Level 5 is one of my favorite developers. Dragon Quest 8 was my favorite RPG of the PS2 generation, I enjoyed its graphical style, voice acting, and expansive world riper for exploration. I also enjoyed Dark Cloud, and the portions of Dark Cloud 2 and Rogue Galaxy that I had time to play. I am aware that the White Knight Chronicles series received mediocre reviews, but I have not played them. In general, I have found that Level 5’s games have a great sense of character and personality due to their use of cell shading and the extra care paid to voice acting. I have also found that Level 5’s games offer very generous amounts of content both as part of the main quest and in end game activities.
Gameplay
I will start the discussion of Ni No Kuni’s gameplay elements with an admission, I have never played Pokemon or any of its imitators. I was slightly too old for the Pokemon explosion of the late ‘90s and I have never picked one up in the years since. As a result, this is my first “monster collecting” game. I have played a few games, like Dragon Quest 8, that featured some amount of monster collection as a side pursuit, but never one where the system was this robust or a central feature of the game.
I also want to get a discussion of the game’s AI out of the way, the AI is not great. Your party members do not always make great decisions during battles, they often deploy a familiar that does not make sense given the tactical situation, or choose to battle without a familiar when they are “squishy” and in melee range. While I cannot think of any fights that I lost solely due to the bad AI, it did cause resource management issues. The AI burns through Magic Points at a staggering rate, mostly due to all the extra self-healing it has to do. In fact, I spent most boss battles dispensing potions and heals rather than directly attacking the boss. So while enemy AI is not Mickey Mousecapades bad, it will cause some frustrations.
The gameplay is a cross between Dragon Quest, Pokemon, and a more active game like Star Ocean. The game follows the traditional Dragon Quest path of having the hero go to a town, solve the inhabitants’ problems, and move on to the next town. The interesting twist of collecting monsters, called familiars, and raising them is added to the Dragon Quest formula. The player collects monsters by defeating them in battles, occasionally a defeated monster will not die, but instead will gaze at your party in adoration for a while. During this phase you can serenade the love-struck beastie and convince it to become your familiar. Once a familiar has joined your party you can raise its level by adding it to your active party and give it additional stat boosts by feeding it, and eventually can change its form by feeding it magical drops. These familiars will be doing most of the fighting.
The fighting system is superficially like a traditional Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy game. The enemies line up on one side of the field and your party on another, you select actions for your character from a menu list. The combat system is actually very different from traditional games, it is far more actin oriented and has more in common with Final Fantasy XIII or Star Ocean than Dragon Quest. The action takes place in real time, although it does pause for some action selections, and you only directly control one character at a time.
You swap out your familiars to take advantage of their different skills, you can only use each familiar for a limited amount of time before swapping it out. Some of your familiars are better at physical combat, some at defense, and others excel at attack or healing magic. You can see an example of a fight in the YouTube video below.
You will collect a lot of these familiars throughout the game, possibly in the hundreds. Each character can only have three active familiars at any one time, you can also have three more familiars tagging along to be swapped in to your line up between fights.
The fighting remains challenging and interesting throughout the game. My only real issue with the combat system were the teammate AI problems that caused resources to get used at an alarming rate. Restoration items are fairly expensive for much of the game, so this is not a trivial problem.
The game also includes a robust crafting system. I feel like I only scratched the surface of it in my play through, mostly only making restoration items. I did find it to be less opaque than these sorts of systems tend to be in console RPGs. The in game wizard's book contains many recipes and guidance on how the system works. I can see myself messing around with this more in the post game content.
There is a whole familiar arena battle that I did not even touch during my play through, I will comment on it if I go through the post game content.
Sound
The voice acting is wonderful, it is not quire up to the standards set by Dragon Quest VIII, but it is very close. There are no annoying JRPG cliche characters with squeaky voices. The soundtrack is fantastic, I would rank it ahead of the Dragon Quest VIII soundtrack. Joe Hisaishi of Studio Ghibli composed most of the soundtrack, and while it is fully orchestrated, it is video game music. I mean that in the best possible sense, it has charming repeating loops that you can easily listen to, and enjoy, for the 50 to 60 hours it will take to complete the game. I place this soundtrack on par with Final Fantasy XI, one of my all time favorite game soundtracks.
Graphics
The graphics are gorgeous, Level 5 and Studio Ghibli have taken the formula that worked for Level 5 on Dragon Quest VIII and injected it full of personality and charm. The game really does look like an animated feature, I feel like they have achieved what the Tales series has been attempting for years. All of the characters are memorable and instantly recognizable, the took cartoon logic and ran with it, allowing for a wide variety of characters. This is important due to the large number of familiars. There is some pallet swapping for the monsters, and some monsters that just get features added to form a new monster, but there is not an excessive amount of this. The monster families give an in game reason for this to happen anyway. The environments are excellent and draw you in to the world. My three-year-old watched me play the game as though it was a movie.
Story
I want to avoid any spoilers, so I will keep this short. Oliver, a young boy in a world much like our own, and his friend build a homemade car and take it for a test drive. During their test drive there is a horrible accident and Oliver's mom dies saving him from drowning. Oliver learns, from a stuffed toy named Mr. Drippy, that his mother has a soul mate in another world and that his mother could be saved by saving her soul mate. Oliver and Mr. Drippy travel to this other world to defeat the evil menace, Shadar, and save his mother. Throughout the game Oliver, Mr. Drippy, and their companions travel from town to town. In each town they help the people overcome local problems and, in turn, are helped with their larger quest. The themes of teamwork and mutual benefit are deeply woven into the game.
Oliver discovers that he is a wizard and has the ability to cast spells and command familiars. He also discovers that he has the ability to borrow virtues like courage or love from people who are strong in them, and bolster those who are weak. This is used to strengthen the themes of community and compassion in the story more than it is used as a puzzle element.
The story is charming, well told, and bittersweet. Level 5 has done a lot more with the Dragon Quest formula, and this still very much follows the Dragon Quest formula, than I have seen a developer do before. The writers did a good job calling back to characters in towns you left behind, and give you reason to return. The interaction between the party members is believable and entertaining.
Verdict
If pressed to decide my favorite game of the PS3/360 generation I would say the Mass Effect trilogy. But, if I was forced to choose a single, stand-alone game, this is it. This is my favorite RPG since Dragon Quest VIII, it delivered everything I was looking for when I bought it.
I will start the discussion of Ni No Kuni’s gameplay elements with an admission, I have never played Pokemon or any of its imitators. I was slightly too old for the Pokemon explosion of the late ‘90s and I have never picked one up in the years since. As a result, this is my first “monster collecting” game. I have played a few games, like Dragon Quest 8, that featured some amount of monster collection as a side pursuit, but never one where the system was this robust or a central feature of the game.
I also want to get a discussion of the game’s AI out of the way, the AI is not great. Your party members do not always make great decisions during battles, they often deploy a familiar that does not make sense given the tactical situation, or choose to battle without a familiar when they are “squishy” and in melee range. While I cannot think of any fights that I lost solely due to the bad AI, it did cause resource management issues. The AI burns through Magic Points at a staggering rate, mostly due to all the extra self-healing it has to do. In fact, I spent most boss battles dispensing potions and heals rather than directly attacking the boss. So while enemy AI is not Mickey Mousecapades bad, it will cause some frustrations.
The gameplay is a cross between Dragon Quest, Pokemon, and a more active game like Star Ocean. The game follows the traditional Dragon Quest path of having the hero go to a town, solve the inhabitants’ problems, and move on to the next town. The interesting twist of collecting monsters, called familiars, and raising them is added to the Dragon Quest formula. The player collects monsters by defeating them in battles, occasionally a defeated monster will not die, but instead will gaze at your party in adoration for a while. During this phase you can serenade the love-struck beastie and convince it to become your familiar. Once a familiar has joined your party you can raise its level by adding it to your active party and give it additional stat boosts by feeding it, and eventually can change its form by feeding it magical drops. These familiars will be doing most of the fighting.
The fighting system is superficially like a traditional Dragon Quest or Final Fantasy game. The enemies line up on one side of the field and your party on another, you select actions for your character from a menu list. The combat system is actually very different from traditional games, it is far more actin oriented and has more in common with Final Fantasy XIII or Star Ocean than Dragon Quest. The action takes place in real time, although it does pause for some action selections, and you only directly control one character at a time.
You swap out your familiars to take advantage of their different skills, you can only use each familiar for a limited amount of time before swapping it out. Some of your familiars are better at physical combat, some at defense, and others excel at attack or healing magic. You can see an example of a fight in the YouTube video below.
You will collect a lot of these familiars throughout the game, possibly in the hundreds. Each character can only have three active familiars at any one time, you can also have three more familiars tagging along to be swapped in to your line up between fights.
The fighting remains challenging and interesting throughout the game. My only real issue with the combat system were the teammate AI problems that caused resources to get used at an alarming rate. Restoration items are fairly expensive for much of the game, so this is not a trivial problem.
The game also includes a robust crafting system. I feel like I only scratched the surface of it in my play through, mostly only making restoration items. I did find it to be less opaque than these sorts of systems tend to be in console RPGs. The in game wizard's book contains many recipes and guidance on how the system works. I can see myself messing around with this more in the post game content.
There is a whole familiar arena battle that I did not even touch during my play through, I will comment on it if I go through the post game content.
Sound
The voice acting is wonderful, it is not quire up to the standards set by Dragon Quest VIII, but it is very close. There are no annoying JRPG cliche characters with squeaky voices. The soundtrack is fantastic, I would rank it ahead of the Dragon Quest VIII soundtrack. Joe Hisaishi of Studio Ghibli composed most of the soundtrack, and while it is fully orchestrated, it is video game music. I mean that in the best possible sense, it has charming repeating loops that you can easily listen to, and enjoy, for the 50 to 60 hours it will take to complete the game. I place this soundtrack on par with Final Fantasy XI, one of my all time favorite game soundtracks.
Graphics
The graphics are gorgeous, Level 5 and Studio Ghibli have taken the formula that worked for Level 5 on Dragon Quest VIII and injected it full of personality and charm. The game really does look like an animated feature, I feel like they have achieved what the Tales series has been attempting for years. All of the characters are memorable and instantly recognizable, the took cartoon logic and ran with it, allowing for a wide variety of characters. This is important due to the large number of familiars. There is some pallet swapping for the monsters, and some monsters that just get features added to form a new monster, but there is not an excessive amount of this. The monster families give an in game reason for this to happen anyway. The environments are excellent and draw you in to the world. My three-year-old watched me play the game as though it was a movie.
Story
I want to avoid any spoilers, so I will keep this short. Oliver, a young boy in a world much like our own, and his friend build a homemade car and take it for a test drive. During their test drive there is a horrible accident and Oliver's mom dies saving him from drowning. Oliver learns, from a stuffed toy named Mr. Drippy, that his mother has a soul mate in another world and that his mother could be saved by saving her soul mate. Oliver and Mr. Drippy travel to this other world to defeat the evil menace, Shadar, and save his mother. Throughout the game Oliver, Mr. Drippy, and their companions travel from town to town. In each town they help the people overcome local problems and, in turn, are helped with their larger quest. The themes of teamwork and mutual benefit are deeply woven into the game.
Oliver discovers that he is a wizard and has the ability to cast spells and command familiars. He also discovers that he has the ability to borrow virtues like courage or love from people who are strong in them, and bolster those who are weak. This is used to strengthen the themes of community and compassion in the story more than it is used as a puzzle element.
The story is charming, well told, and bittersweet. Level 5 has done a lot more with the Dragon Quest formula, and this still very much follows the Dragon Quest formula, than I have seen a developer do before. The writers did a good job calling back to characters in towns you left behind, and give you reason to return. The interaction between the party members is believable and entertaining.
Verdict
If pressed to decide my favorite game of the PS3/360 generation I would say the Mass Effect trilogy. But, if I was forced to choose a single, stand-alone game, this is it. This is my favorite RPG since Dragon Quest VIII, it delivered everything I was looking for when I bought it.
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