Level-5 nailed the feeling of playing a Ghibli movie and I was charmed by it the moment I started playing. The characters, environments, and Wizard Compendium book are visually beautiful and the way practical spells are used to explore the world kept me engaged anywhere I went. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is super cozy on Switch, especially in handheld mode. I rated this game high because most of the time I spent with it was time I enjoyed, but I am also left with mixed feelings about some aspects. For every solid idea this game had, there was a failure to follow through as well.

Joe Hisaishi's music is at the heart of many Ghibli movies and he knocked it out of the park again with this soundtrack. The main theme that plays on the overworld is beautiful and it's one I'm going to be happy to have in my head for a long time. My only complaint is that there aren't enough individual tracks in the game. There seems to be songs for different types of situations with unique tracks only for the most important events. The battle theme in particular is a great track but it falls prey to a common RPG problem where the opening notes are the most repetitive and that's what you hear most often as you move about the world and run into fights. All non-boss fights had the same song and it was beyond irritating hearing those opening notes that lasted only as long as the fight itself usually did. I hate to admit it, but if I wasn't doing story related stuff, I would often have to mute it to save my sanity.

Most of the ways Ni no Kuni resembles a Ghibli movie are positive, but there were moments where it was a little over-referential and the game would momentarily lose its own identity. I noticed it most in character designs and isolated bits of the music. A nod here and there is expected and appropriate, but going so far to have Oliver be a near copy of Markl from Howl’s Moving Castle and Marcassin looking and acting like Howl during his introduction was a little much. It made the characters feel cheaper, like store brand versions of their Ghibli counterparts even though they weren’t really that similar beyond the resemblance. I didn't need to be reminded of specific Ghibli films to enjoy Ni no Kuni. The world and the story stand on its own two feet well enough. When it was doing that, the game excelled.

Besides Ghibli's involvement I was also drawn to Ni no Kuni for the monsters. The familiar designs are quirky and fun; there’s something for everyone here from animals to robots to weird objects and ghosts. Their metamorphosis often left something to be desired though. The first metamorphosis is always just a palette swap with the third and final form being a silhouette change with inconsistent degrees of departure. Sometimes the third form was really interesting, but often it was not. On one hand, the issue I tend to have with other monster taming games where creatures I like eventually evolve into something painfully over-designed is not present in Ni no Kuni. Every familiar has a comfortable simplicity and complete concept. But evolution/metamorphosis should be exciting. For how little some of these designs actually change through metamorphosis, it almost feels like it was a secondary consideration in the system. I don’t think the game necessarily needed it. If most of the designs were stand-alone or single stage, disappointment would have been a non-issue.

I was impressed with the battle system right away and really appreciated the versatility. It can be as easy as all out attacking with strong enough familiars and spells but there can be a lot to consider with monster types, genera, movement, and attack timing as well if the player chooses to approach it that way. I was very interested in all of it but I was also overwhelmed. Ni no Kuni trusts the player to experiment and learn through doing without holding their hand. In an age of overbearing tutorials, this can be a real blessing. But the chaotic nature of the battles and demanding reaction time to blocking meant that I sometimes couldn’t read what was going wrong when I was doing poorly (especially in the mid-game’s sudden difficulty spike). In an attempt to slow things down for myself, I changed the difficulty to Easy at some point. This didn’t solve my problem because it just eliminated the need to engage with the game’s more complex battle mechanics instead of making them more approachable. Either way I was missing something.

It took me a bunch of play hours to realize this, probably because I don't play nearly enough non-Pokemon RPGs, but Ni no Kuni doesn’t primarily act like a monster taming game. I spent a lot of effort trying to figure out team compositions, which familiars I liked best, who worked well with which character, which skills were most useful to me, etc. I struggled with how infrequently wild familiars join you and with having enough materials to metamorphose them in the late game. I wasn’t able to get the majority of the familiars I wanted simply because if I put the necessary time in, I would never be done grinding. And despite how deeply engaged I could become with the monster collecting, ultimately Oliver's spells took center stage in the game’s final acts so my familiar choices didn’t end up being that relevant beyond having adequate damage and healing. The monster taming ended up feeling secondary in Ni no Kuni despite how much I interacted with it. Whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing depends on someone’s expectations I think. I certainly brought my own expectations to the table here. It’s better to not worry and just pick whatever familiars I think are cool, but I do wish I had understood the role of familiars in the game earlier. I also don’t think the game communicated its priorities well enough. Either that or the difficulty scaling on Easy is just that bad. I’ll share the blame on this one.

Narratively, the story in Ni no Kuni was compelling and I was grateful for the snappy pacing. I loved that I could sit down to play for an hour or two and have visible progress in the story - something you can’t always count on while playing a JRPG. It wasn’t overly complex and never took itself too seriously despite the themes of grief and anger being forces that consume people. The beginning and middle of the story sold itself the best, folding plot into the gameplay mostly seamlessly. The climax, however, felt disconnected from the rest of the game.

The ending was acceptable but nothing more. Casseopia wasn't a villain I could sympathize with and I think both her and Shadar before her would have benefited from more screen time before Oliver and friends were confronting them. If a villain is more than a cloaked entity, shortly before their defeat isn't an effective time to show the player their flawed humanity. A lot of games fail in this department so this isn't a problem unique to Ni no Kuni by any means. On paper these characters are compelling but in the game itself I wanted a little more from them.

I was also a little disappointed that the entire system of taking and sharing Heart that was used all through the game didn't apply to Shadar or Casseopia. Of course these characters were beyond such simple fixes, but it seemed strange to me that the act of magically sharing abundance with those who lacked would be dropped altogether. The White Witch's castle also had no mysteries or puzzles, just repeated curving corridors filled with plenty of fights for EXP and a handful of good items to help with the final fight. Compared to earlier dungeons like the Temple of Trials and the Vault of Tears, it felt purely utilitarian and uninspired. The final fight itself was somewhat simplistic as well. I enjoyed the great Final Fantasy-esque imagery and multi-stage combat, and it required near constant casting of Oliver's best spells - but not much else was being asked of me besides blocking at the right time and managing my consumables. I don't really feel like the game's final battle required any skills I could have developed while playing the game. Again I question that difficulty scaling. It certainly made it less trouble to roll the credits but also less interesting.

That’s most of my thoughts on Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. All of these complaints were ultimately tolerable. What the game does well, it does SO well that its shortcomings could always be put aside. I’m curious about the sequel and plan to check it out in the future.