cute game. the style and graphics are great, not to mention the music. the combat is kind of a hard sell in my opinion and i can see why people might not stick to the game because of that. for one, it takes you a pretty long time for you to be able to capture monsters in this monster collecting rpg, so your starting team across multiple playthroughs is pretty samey until about an hour or two into the adventure (!). second, the combat feels kind slow, and once you gain more party members, it's more of a battle of making sure to keep them alive during boss encounters rather than fighting the actual boss, because i found that before you get a command to make everyone defend, none of your party members have any semblance of self-preservation.
i shelved the game during the final boss encounter due to another issue i have with the game. now, i might have missed this (but i feel like this should not be a thing that is missable), but i don't think there is a spell or item that lets you leave a dungeon. i'm at the end of the long ass final dungeon, lose because of the problems with the combat (the sluggish movement and speed of doing actions and suicidal teammates, felt more unfair than challenging), so i want to exit the dungeon to use all the money i got cutting through the dungeon to upgrade equipment and restock items, but i can't without manually going back through the dungeon and THEN doing it all over again. uh... yeah...
so, my plans to return and finish the game will be when i mentally prepare myself to do that, but i feel like it shouldn't be this way. unfortunate...
still, if it werent for stuff like that that makes playing the game kind of tedious, i'd love this game a lot more. i really like the story and characters and the monsters are super cute :,)

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch was one of the games I was playing for streaming. Unfortunately I wasn't having enough fun to justify finishing the series and here's why.
For me problems started rearing their head after I completed Old Smokey with how weird the leveling system is because for some reason when you get a new familiar or metaphorize them they start at level one. Not level one but with still high stats, very low stats level one like you were just starting the game. Because of that you'd need to grind to actually get your familiars to levels where they're usable.
This columnated in where I decided to stop playing; the tank boss in Autumnia. Despite doing what I thought was a reasonable amount of fighting I still got my ass kicked on both normal and easy mode. And even on the way there I was getting my ass kicked by normal enemies. So I decided to grind, returned to the boss...and still got my ass kicked.
I think there's a lesson to be learned from this though. In the Xenoblade series enemies levels are shown and in Xenoblade 1 specifically enemies have a banner color to indicate how hard they'll be for you at your current level. This is a nice and transparent way to show if you're under or overleveled and if you need to grind at least you know what you should be aiming for. Ni no Kuni of course doesn't do this and you're just left to guess.
Because this is still a review I want to end things off with some positives, that being the writing and the art, Drippy is still really funny and the cutscenes were done by Studio Ghibli which of course means they're great. Honestly I think the Feywild is the best part of the game but that could be nostalgia speaking. Oh yeah I forgot to mention this is a game I'm actually nostalgic about and really sad I didn't enjoy it as much as I did when I was young! This is the game that introduced me to gaming outside of Nintendo as all I had when I was young was a Gamecube and Wii.
So, in conclusion...please just avoid needing grinding for the love of the gods.

Ni No Kuni is frustrating. It has a lot going for it, with the skeleton of a solid JRPG and the heart and soul of a Ghibli project. The latter is irrefutably its greatest strength and claim to fame. Every animated cut-scene is breathtaking, the story is solid (if immature) with some touching flourishes toward the back end, the world is beautiful and full of life, and the monsters are all wonderfully designed. I’ve seen some people complain about the ending, but I personally feel that the end-game and post-game are some of the most satisfying parts of the game both lore-wise and gameplay-wise, though the game’s charm is thickest in its first act meeting Oliver and exploring Ding Dong Dell. This is partially because everything is new and exciting, but also because there are significant gameplay flaws that only worsen the experience as the game goes on.

I’ve said Ni No Kuni has “the skeleton of a solid JRPG,” but unfortunately there’s no meat, no connective tissue, no brain as it were. The systems should work. It’s a creature collector, a genre I love, and the creatures are well-designed. It blends real-time combat with a pause function, and real-time with pause is my favourite system in CRPGs; this should translate. The movement and combat progression is paced well, and the merit reward system gives potent rewards that incentivize side quest progression. The most enjoyment I had with the game was breaking and then interfacing with it at a high level in the post-game, making it indistinguishable from, say, mindlessly grinding Pokemon. Unfortunately, that fact speaks to my core gripe with the game: it’s not fun!

Ni No Kuni is an exercise in tedium. Everything about it is tedious: overworld and interior navigation, creature collecting (!), regular fights, boss fights, and especially achievement completion. Until flight is obtained Oliver navigates the overworld at a glacial pace because movement speed is low and encounters are plentiful, and the activation of flight itself takes about 3 seconds. This same problem hampers interior navigation as well; that wouldn't be a problem if the interiors were all as interesting as Ding Dong Dell, but the cities are small and the dungeons are linear with few secrets or challenges that reward exploration. Conversely, the familiars are all interesting, but the tame system relies on pure RNG and is therefore annoying and needlessly grindy. This goes hand-in-hand with the evolution system, which resets familiars to level 1 and necessitates grinding or benching until they catch back up to the level of play. These are extensions of a generally flawed combat system that looks fine at a glance but feels wonky. The spell progression doesn’t feel powerful until well into the game, and the Unleash spell feels next to useless at the point it’s unlocked. An average fight one may even be overleveled for can take entire minutes because every enemy is a hitsponge and the time to kill is ridiculously inflated, and boss fights take these issues to the absolute maximum.

Not only do bosses have insane health pools and do insane damage, but they employ attacks capable of wiping an entire team with ~2 second block windows. Successfully defending is a feat itself, because if the player isn’t locked in a spell or item animation or watching a health bar slowly raise from the effect thereof, they have to navigate a clunky radial menu in real time. I personally acquired a Catastroceros as soon as possible to completely trivialize the following 30 hours of gameplay so that I would not have to engage with this system again. That’s a shame because some of the bosses in the late-game are actually cool, but the cool ones only start popping up in the last 10% of the game or so. The main antagonist for much of the story is the first to feature even a second phase! In fact, his third phase is the coolest fight in the game, because it evolves and experiments with the established scale and mode of combat. This is emblematic of a larger issue with Ni No Kuni made blatantly apparent in its last hours: the game is too scared to take risks until it’s far too late.

As I’m wont to mention, I like to get achievements in games. I set out, as I always do, to 100% Ni No Kuni, defying the protest of all my friends who watched me grapple with the game’s many flaws in real time. I eventually settled on 31/33, not because the remaining achievements are difficult to complete but because they are overwhelmingly tedious. In fact, every achievement not related to the story is, and many of them involve delving into the post-game. The bosses near the end of the game may still be over-tuned, but they evolve on the established model. The bosses in the post-game take this a step further, subverting the established modes of engagement learned during the game proper, and that’s cool! The same is true of the side-quests; before the post-game, the side-quests mostly consist of fetch quests, kill quests, or telegraphed Take Heart / Give Heart usage. In the post-game, the side-quests experiment on this formula and push the gameplay mechanics to their limits in fun and novel ways. This even extends to story beats! There isn’t a genuine character growth moment until the lead-up to the penultimate boss, but that moment is probably the single most powerful in the whole game. I have no idea why all of these genuinely fun and interesting ideas got pushed back to the end and post-game, because if I wasn’t a completionist I likely would not have experienced most if any of them.

For most of the game I thought Ni No Kuni would work better if it was boiled down into a 2 hour film, because the gameplay was far too tedious and the story beats and anime cutscenes too few and far between. Now I think it was really just a bit of fine tuning away from being a genuinely classic JRPG. The heart is there: the story is good, the art is very good, the concept is great, and the mechanics do what they’re supposed to. All it needed was an adjusted time to kill, controlled taming attempts, a more forgiving evolution system, some numbers tweaked, and some of the fat trimmed to streamline the actually interesting content. Bosses were given inflated numbers and made to punish slow reflexes where they should have had second phases or unique mechanics that play with established gameplay expectations like Shadar and The Guardian of Worlds do. Hell, that difficulty could have been shifted to transform rare showcases for singular telegraphed spells into puzzles actually required some thought or creativity. Unfortunately, Ni No Kuni is best remembered for what it could have been instead of what it is: a frustrating, unfun game that’s nice to look at.

considering i am not a massive rpg person, i really enjoyed the gameplay of this. the fast paced combat keeps you on your feet but also allows you to plan out your next move and assess what the enemies are doing. the story is also really solid, no spoilers but i cried in the first 30 minutes. the characters are really likeable and interesting (mr drippy is a real one). the ghibli animated cutscenes are absolutely breathtaking, each time one came on i was transfixed by the gorgeous hand draw animation. only reason im shelving for the time being is i like to play it with my partner (hi lyd !! <3) and we just havent played it recently. will pick this back up in the near future for sure though.

20 YEARS OF GAMING PART 7 BUT I JUMPED BACK AND SHIT

A pretty solid time! Ghibli's influence definitely adds a lot to it both in terms of visuals and music, but the game isn't too much of a slouch outside of that. The story is actually pretty strong and the combat is pretty fun! If it was a bit faster it would honestly be the perfect companion piece to Pokemon's combat for me. If there's anything holding this game back for me, it's the game's overall sluggish pacing. It's one of those RPGs. The ones where the main quest feels less like a main quest and more like a bunch of sidequests stuck together leading you from place to place very slowly. I also really don't like any of the voice acting but it's an old game so I'll give it a pass there. There are also just a lot of little features throughout the game that aren't as smooth as they could be and it could lead to some frustrations (looking it up it seems like these were a sticking point even at the time)

But even if it is kind of rough and not everything gameplay-wise lands, I still had a good time with it and definitely recommend it. I heard there's a sequel, but I heard people liked it less so I don't know when (or if) I'll get to that one. If only Level-5 continued to make video games..........................

OK, this definitely isn't a perfect game.
The gameplay is a little repetitive and rough. It's a bit grindy at points and the story awkwardly ends twice (due to it being an expanded version of a DS game).
But something about it so unbelievably charming. More than any other game, this one makes me feel the most like a kid again (not counting the games I actually played when I was a kid). The characters are so pure and the story is so simple. I honestly wasn't expecting to get emotional within the first 20 minutes of the game, but it somehow really got to me,
I think the world and the design of everything in it is great. Discovering every new area and game mechanic for the first time genuinely had me feeling like I was 10 years old and going on some grand adventure. The Ghibli cutscenes and the art design is beautiful. Joe Hisaishi's soundtrack is super underappreciated and needs more love as well.

O jogo é maravilhoso, o que mais me impressionou não foram os visuais de anime e sim a trilha sonora, que parece que você está em uma orquestra a todo momento, como o jogo é de 11 anos atrás, a interação do Oliver com o ambiente foi algo que me deixou surpreso como usar feitiços e guardar o coração das pessoas. Ver o Oliver completar a sua missão é muito satisfatório, ele vai de uma criança "qualquer" pra um mago fodastico.
Assim como qualquer jrpg tem bastante farming, inimigo, uma porrada de missão, sim é um jogo demorado, mas jogando em sessões pequenas ele não fica enjoativo, a história é divertida e interessante.

I finished this game twice and I still loving all the universe and the Studio Ghibli art involved. To me, this game showcases the full potential that a franchise like Pokémon has, and I feel it meets all the expectations I had for the series. Thinking objectively, the story of this game isn't anything extraordinary, but the pacing is so good, the characters introduced are so likable, and amidst it all, there's a real-time battle system that I really enjoy. The entire aesthetic of the battles mixed with the mechanic of being able to switch between familiars and humans is what sets its combat apart from the crowd.

Después de más de 10 años teniéndolo pendiente, por fin he completado el juego al 99% (hay una misión de grindeo a la que no me apetecía dedicar más tiempo). Me ha parecido visualmente precioso, con una historia bastante entretenida y con una dinámica de juego que pensaba que se me haría más tediosa de lo que creía. En general, creo que es una gran obra RPG cuya estética Ghibli es rara de ver y que hace que pasear por las distintas ubicaciones como Villa Cascabel, Al-Mugid, Playa Bikini, Porcinia o Perdida sea una delicia.

Um quase perfeito JRPG de mundo aberto...

Este jogo conta com uma direção de arte linda e momentos de cutcenes animados pelo studio ghibli narrando uma simples historia que consegue ser demasiadamente cativante, a jornada do herói na sua forma mais nua e crua sem perder a originalidade.

Um mundo aberto vasto cheio de segredos, lugares a serem explorados nos mínimos cantos com cada lugar sendo respectivamente diferente do outro e tendo suas próprias missões secundarias, entre tanto as missões secundarias são bem 8/80, enquanto algumas agregam muito para o worldbuilding sendo construído, outras são demasiadamente chatas resumindo as a andar de um lado para o outro ou enfrentar inimigos repetidos de forma exacerbada.

O jogo possui bosses e mini bosses otimos, sendo muitos bem complexos ainda mais considerando que este se propõe a ser um jogo bem família, tenho pena da criança que jogar ksksks, o sistema de magias e familiares do jogo que se assemelha a Digimon em certos aspectos é bem aplicado, não diria que a ideia de uma jogabilidade livre com mecânica tradicional de jrpg tenha funcionado tão bem em batalhas, mas consegue entreter bem o jogador.

Além de um mundo deveras vasto, ótimos bosses, uma mecânica decente nas batalhas, navegar no mundo aberto se torna bem variado ao longo do jogo o que deixa a exploração bem dinâmica vc pode andar a pé, navegar pelos mares com seu navio, voar em um dragão, andar de cart pelas planícies do mapa, usar fast travel, é realmente estupidamente variado.

Com toda certeza vale apena, principalmente se voce for um amante de jrpgs, este é um dos títulos mais agradáveis do gênero mesmo com seus problemas.

Vielleicht ist es auch einfach nur der Fluch der verdammten Glückskönigin?

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch ist durchaus ein Spiel, dass grafisch überhaupt nicht gealtert ist. Egal, ob man heute noch die "PlayStation 3"-Version in 720p spielt oder eben die neuen Fassungen auf bis zu 4K. Es ist eines dieser Spiele, dessen Alter man gar nicht wirklich ansehen kann.
Dabei hat man sich bei der Erstellung der Grafik und vor allem der Videosequenzen überhaupt keine Kosten und Mühen gescheut, sondern sich kurzerhand Studio Ghibli, bekannt durch unzählige preisgekrönte Animes, für diese gesichert.
Damit ist das Spiel grafisch eigentlich über alle Zweifel erhaben. Leider konnten die Autoren des Spiels nicht mit den Künstlern mithalten. Die Story bewegt sich daher leider nicht auf Ghibli-Level.

Was nicht ganz so geläufig ist, ist die Tatsache, dass Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch eigentlich "nur" ein erweitertes Remake ist. Japan exklusiv erschien auf dem "Nintendo DS" bereits zuvor Ni no Kuni: Dominion of the Dark Djinn. Im Original ist der Dunkle Dschinn der große Antagonist und der Kampf gegen ihn in der Nimmerburg bildet das große Finale. In meinem Empfinden gelang es leider gar nicht, die große Erweiterung der Handlung wirklich nahtlos an die alte Geschichte anzufügen. Die Weiße Königin verkommt in einem Spiel, was nach ihr benannt ist, eher zu einem Nebencharakter. Der Großteil des Spiels geht es auch in dieser Version nur gegen den Dunklen Dschinn, der auch als Person in der Welt verankert und gefürchtet wird. Die Weiße Königin betritt nach 3/4 des Spiels einfach die Bildfläche.
Ihre gesamte Handlung fühlte sich für mich leider einfach wie das Anhängsel an, was es ursprünglich nun einmal ist.

Ich fange die Kritik bei 3/4 des Spiels an, weil aus meiner Sicht im zunehmenden Spielverlauf immer mehr Schwächen offenbaren.
Das Kampfsystem orientiert sich ein bisschen an Pokémon. In der Welt laufen Viecher herum, die man zähmen kann, um sie im Kampf einzusetzen, wo sie Erfahrung sammeln können, um damit auch neue Fähigkeiten zu erlernen. Mit zunehmender Erfahrung können diese dann auch in neue Formen evolviert werden.
Die erste Schwäche gibt es bereits aus meiner Sicht bei der kompletten Zähm-Mechanik. Die basiert einzig und allein auf Glück. Es gibt halt eine prozentuale Wahrscheinlichkeit, wann ein Viech nach einem Kampf einfach aufgibt, wo es dann gezähmt und dann als so genannter Vertrauter eingesetzt werden kann. Im Gegensatz zum großen Vorbild gibt es aber keine Möglichkeit diese Wahrscheinlichkeit zu erhöhen, was aus meiner Sicht eine riesige Schwäche in einem Spiel ist, was den Spieler zum "Gotta catch 'em All!" verführen möchte. Gerade weil es ohnehin auch eine Errungenschaft gibt, die darauf abzielt möglichst viele Vertraute in Besitz zu haben.
Interessanterweise hat diese Schwäche erst durch das "Wrath of the White Witch"-Remake Einzug ins Spiel gehalten. Im ursprünglichen Ni no Kuni war die ganze Zähmmechanik flexibler gestaltet. Hat man Wesen mit Angriffen attackiert welche gegen diese besonders effektiv sind, hat man die Wahrscheinlichkeit deutlich gesteigert, dass es sich zähmen ließ. Warum man sich davon getrennt hat, um es nicht nur dem Spieler mühselig wie möglich zu machen, sondern auch das Kampfsystem weniger tief zu gestalten bleibt das Geheimnis der Entwickler.

Hat man das Ende der Story erreicht, schaltet sich der "Abgeschlossenes Spiel"-Modus frei. Man wird zwar in der Story vor die finale Konfrontation gesetzt, hat aber im Zuge dieses Modus zahlreiche neue Nebenaufgaben, wie sogar eine zusätzliche Aufgabenreihe mit Story in der Welt zum spielen.
Ich habe hier "Mastered" angegeben, weil ich die kompletten 100% vom Spiel gemacht habe. Empfehlen tue ich das aber keinem. Macht die Zusatzstory und die dafür nötigen Voraussetzungen in Form von Nebenaufgaben, was durch das nötige Leveln für die durchaus anspruchsvollen Kämpfe sowieso schon genug Zeit verbraucht.
Im "Abgeschlossenes Spiel" tauchen in allen Verliesen auch neue Gegner auf, die ohnehin nicht nur selten auftauchen, sondern auch noch extrem seltene Gegenstände bei sich haben, die man für manche der Nebenaufgaben auch noch braucht. Dort wird es mit dem Glück aus meiner Sicht zu absurd. Eine geringe Wahrscheinlichkeit das die nötigen Gegner auftauchen und dann auch noch eine geringe Wahrscheinlichkeit, dass sie den Gegenstand bei sich haben, den man braucht.
Spätestens an diesem Punkt muss man sich auf mehrere Stunden eintöniger Kämpfe einstellen. Dabei ist das Spiel ohnehin vom Gameplay ziemlich eintönig, weil es zu weiten Teilen immer aus ähnlich ablaufenden Kämpfen besteht.

Spart man sich das ganze und konzentriert sich nur auf die Story und der später verfügbaren Bonusgeschichte, dann hat man nur mit dem Leveln der Vertrauten zu tun und kann sich hier durchaus zumindest einen halben weiteren Stern hinzudenken.
Größtes Problem für mich ist aber einfach das eintönige Gameplay und das es aus meiner Sicht total ohne Not für den Spieler mühselig und in die Länge gezogen wird je mehr er bereit ist, im Spiel machen zu wollen.
Hätte aus meiner Sicht vollkommen gereicht das Glückspiel auf das Casino im Spiel zu beschränken, statt viele andere Elemente im Spiel, auch noch zum puren Glück verkommen zu lassen.

Denn eigentlich schlummert in Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered durchaus ein gutes Spiel. Die Grafik ist wie erwähnt hervorragend. Der Soundtrack ist es eigentlich auch. Auch wenn der Dark Djinn zu White Witch Übergang für mich nicht gut gelungen ist, es gibt auch durchaus Aspekte an der Handlung, die gut gemacht sind. Auch mag ich durchaus die verschiedensten Charaktere im Spiel.
Erwähnenswert ist für mich aber auch ganz besonders der Magische Begleiter, der als Buch im Spiel eine überragende Welterzeugung bietet. Es lohnt sich wirklich in diesem zu schmökern, weil er mir nicht nur die Welt mit seinen Gebieten und so näher bringt, sondern auch abseits von Lektüre durchaus praktische Anwendung findet. Beispielsweise gibt es auch Aufgaben, die sich einfach damit beschäftigen, im Buch etwas bestimmtes zu lesen um damit Rätsel zu lösen. Oder man muss anhand des Buches Schriftzeichen händisch übersetzen. Oder nicht zuletzt die ganzen netten Märchen, die in diesem Buch niedergeschrieben sind. Auch Details, dass man durch Nachschlagen im Buch bereits Rezepte kochen kann, bevor man sie zur Schnellauswahl von Leuten erhält, finde ich ein nettes Detail.

Habe erst im Laufe des Spiels mich auf die "Gotta catch 'em All!"-Sache eingelassen und damit tatsächlich viel Zeit verschwendet, was ich für Vertraute hätte nutzen können. Dazu auch manchmal schlicht am falschen Ort für effektives Leveln gewesen. Am Ende stehe ich jetzt bei über 170 Stunden für 100%. Mit mehr Glück hätte selbst ich nicht einmal 120 gebraucht. Allgemein halte ich mit einer besseren Vorgehensweise auch eine Spielzeit von unter 100 Stunden für 100% möglich.

Das Spiel wurde vollständig auf Twitch gespielt und steht als VOD auf YouTube zur Verfügung.

Análise de Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered

Pontos Positivos:

Gráficos e Animação: A colaboração com o Studio Ghibli oferece um visual encantador e animações de alta qualidade.
História Cativante: Uma narrativa emocionante e personagens memoráveis que engajam os jogadores.
Sistema de Combate: Combina elementos de comando e tempo real, proporcionando uma experiência dinâmica.

Pontos Negativos:

Facilidade Excessiva: Alguns críticos apontam que o jogo pode ser muito fácil, com soluções de quebra-cabeças e combates sendo muito diretas.
Repetitividade: Pode haver uma sensação de repetição em algumas mecânicas de jogo e na exploração do mundo1.
Jogos Semelhantes:

Ni no Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom: Continuação direta com melhorias no sistema de combate.
Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition: Um JRPG com uma história rica e um sistema de combate similar.
Dragon Quest XI S: Oferece uma experiência de JRPG clássica com uma narrativa forte e personagens carismáticos.

Duração do Jogo:

Campanha Principal: Cerca de 44 horas.
Complecionista: Aproximadamente 92 horas para completar todos os aspectos do jogo.

Campanha:

A campanha segue Oliver em sua jornada por um mundo paralelo, buscando trazer sua mãe de volta à vida. A história é bem desenvolvida e emociona os jogadores.

Vale a Pena?

Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Remastered é recomendado para fãs de JRPGs que apreciam uma boa história, gráficos estonteantes e um sistema de combate único. Apesar de alguns pontos negativos, o jogo oferece uma experiência rica e satisfatória que justifica o investimento de tempo.