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Ni no Kuni - Wrath of the White Witch preview

Ni no Kuni - Wrath of the White Witch preview

Written by A. H. on 12 Dec 2012



Waking up at an ungodly hour of the morning to make your way to London in the freezing cold and drizzle is, in many circumstances, the precursor to a horrible, forgettable day.  Not so when you know that the reason for your journey is to sit down and spend a few hours at Namco Bandai's UK office with what is effectively the final build of perhaps the mostly hotly anticipated game of the moment, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.  As a joint production between Studio Ghibli (who handled the artwork and story) and Level-5, any further explanation as to why the game is so anticipated is probably moot, so the only real question floating around in my head as I made the journey to London was just how effective this combination of artistic powerhouses could possibly be.

Arriving into the warmth of the office and after a brief preamble and a promise of drinks and snacks (don't worry dear reader, our opinions aren't bought so easily, no matter how good the cookies were), we got straight down to it - sitting down in front of a TV hooked up to a PlayStation 3, grabbing a controller and starting a new game for what would prove to be a single, mammoth three-and-a-bit hour JRPG gaming session.

As you might expect, the Studio Ghibli influence upon Ni no Kuni is immediate, with character designs and an overall visual aesthetic which are undoubtedly their own while Joe Hisashi provides the soundtrack to make for a recognisable and powerful backdrop to the game before you've even hit the "New game" button.  While both English and Japanese languages options are offered up by the game, with the limited time we had I opted to plump for the English dub to see how it shaped up - a question to which I'll discuss the answer in due course.

Considering that the typical experience playing a Japanese role-playing game in this day and age tends to involve a long, slow and protracted build-up, Ni no Kuni is notably light on its feet and quick to set up its premise - we meet our protagonist, Ollie, familiarise ourselves somewhat with his hometown of Motorcity, and set up the heartbreak which calls him upon his quest.  Once Ollie's soft toy companion Drippy is released from his curse to introducing himself as the Lord High Lord of Fairies, it isn't long before we're whisked off to his parallel world on a mission to put an end to the reign of the Dark Lord Shadar - a dangerous mission that Ollie is hardly thrilled to be taken upon were it not for the fact that it could also hold the key to regaining what he has lost.

At a high level, Ni no Kuni from this point forth is pretty traditional in terms of its setup, with a story that has you moving from location to location on various quests, encountering random and unceasingly unfriendly beasties upon the way and building a party of creatures crafted from the human heart to fight alongside you or on your behalf.  Alongside the major story quests you'll also find yourself able to take on errands from those you meet along the way, which largely seem to consist of finding particular items or individuals to help out whoever made the request of you, while all encounters earn you money to spend on new equipment, food and so on.

Where Ni no Kuni really stands out in terms of its core gameplay mechanics is how engaging it manages to make them (within these early hours of the game at least). Don't be fooled by the cutesy creatures and designs on show, the game can be uncompromisingly tough, and simply trying to hack and slash your way through every foe won't get you far - you'll quickly reach a point where some level of tactics and thought will be required, leaving you needing to juggle your party and their abilities with an expert touch to make the most of exploiting the weaknesses of your enemies before they can dish out too much damage.  Thankfully, the combat mechanics of the game are more than up to the task - although you might find yourself selecting the wrong option in the heat of combat, switching between characters and picking the correct actions for them is a cinch that soon becomes second nature without too many overbearing explanations or tutorials.  Even boss battles, much maligned in other games, become a tense and tactical affair that remains entirely enjoyable to play.

The only real frustration along these lines is the frequency of those random encounters, or more precisely the inability to avoid them.  When you're running low on health and supplies, it becomes nigh-on impossible to avoid getting drawn into scrap after scrap - most enemies can (and will) outrun you, and trying to make your escape risks the enemy attacking you from behind, giving them the upper hand in the ensuing battle.  While all these encounters are great for building up experience and money (and given that you lose 10% of that money if you die, you might need it), the knowledge that it's hard to keep out of trouble if you need to during a quest, or even exploring the world, can make things a little fraught.  Add a system of shared health points across your entire party and occasional camera glitches post-battle that leave you facing in the direction from whence you just came, and regular death becomes a distinct possibility.

Another minor gripe is with the game's errand system - although it's great to see so many simple side-quests and miniature stories to spice up and expand Ni no Kuni's world (and your potential time spent playing the game as a result), we didn't manage to find any easy way to focus on an errand by making it the primary objective on your map or anything of the like.  This seems to be entirely by design (as most errands involving hunting around for something or someone, with clues as to where they might be), and in fairness it's easy to bring up a list of currently active errands via the menu system, but giving the player a way to focus their attention more directly upon a particular errand would have been a nice addition to encourage pursuing them.

Although we could devote plenty more words to the game's systems and mechanics, it's probably best to just boil it down to the simple assertion that the game "just works" in gameplay terms - everything feels balanced, when you die you have to acknowledge the deficiencies in your play which brought it about, and whether you're exploring the world, using magic, solving the occasional simple puzzle of fighting enemies and bosses, the experience as a whole feels eminently satisfying.  As someone who doesn't necessarily enjoy protracted gaming sessions these days, the fact that I feel like I could have happily spent the entire day (and beyond) playing Ni no Kuni without getting bored of it speaks volumes.


A. H.

Author: A. H.


A. hasn't written a profile yet. That's ruddy mysterious...

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