Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Whitch

 

I recently got a copy of the game Ni No Kuni for PS3, mostly based on the fact it had animation done by Studio Ghibli and therefore looked rather decent. So I start up and what greats me is this bombastic soundtrack to these amazing visuals and that's even before I pushed start. So I begin playing the game. It's about this kid Oliver who lives in Motorville somewhere in the US in the 1950's wanting to build the worlds fastest race car with his friend (and former bully) Phillip. But observing him is this menacing queen, the white witch (no, not the one from Narnia), who seems him as a potential threat so when Oliver sneaks out in the night to test drive it with Phillip she sabotage one of the wheels. It cracks in the middle of the run and Oliver drives straight into the river (how kids that is between 10-15 years learnt to drive I don't know, must be the 50's). Now, Oliver's concerned mother woke up a bit earlier and goes out looking for him and sees the accident and runs into the river dragging him up. While Oliver is safe his mother sadly succumbs to a heart attack... and dies. And I thought it was gonna be a kiddie game. And this is the first 5 minutes. So when the floodgate is open on the player as well as Oliver his tears falls upon a doll his mother gave him and what did you know, it turns out it's the Lord High Lord of the Faeries Drippy that was cursed by the evil Shadar and the tears is the sign that Oliver is the pure-hearted one and must come to this other world and save it (which incidentally is what Ni No Kuni translates to, The Other World). After pursading Oliver that he might save his mother due to a soul mate system between the worlds Oliver agrees and of we go.

If you really delve into the story you realize pretty fast it is cliched as hell, but as you probably know I don't mind it. For example, this is gonna be spoiler filled so stay away if you want to play it for the first time, all you see of Shadar is some red/orange hair braids sticking out from his cloak. This immediately sent out a couple of warnings, 1) Shadar is his father as it is strongly hinted that his mother came from the other world originally or 2) Shadar is Oliver's soul mate. The second option turns out to be true at the very end of the first part of the game. Then we have Pea (which is a very unfortunate name for a child) who helps Oliver along, but can't be seen by anyone else but Oliver. I guessed it fairly late, but still before the big reveal that it was an alternative version of the White Witch (which I guess is spoiled as soon as Shadar - Oliver connection is established). And finally, the ending is kinda disappointing, you save the world and that it pretty much it. You can't save your mom and the adventure just goes on. The post-game tease wasn't even better. You re-fight all the bosses on a harder difficulty and then fight this guardian of the Universe and are then taken to yet another world, an alternative reality of Motorville where Oliver wasn't born. There he is given the race car he and Phillip worked on to travel around on the world map. Probably a fun payoff if I wasn't expecting an alternative Allison (that is his mother) to turn up and comfort him, especially when the freaking end credits song is all about how he wish he could meet her one last time with an orchestra and choir boy singing *sob* It almost made me cry dammit and they chicken out in the end.

The gameplay mechanics then, closest thing is the Final Fantasy ATB-meter when you attack as a meter builds up and then await your turn. Difference is you only control one party member out of three. Also another mechanic is the what everyone describe as the Pokemon portion of the game, catching monsters, train them and use them since they often excel in physical combat compared to the wizard, cleric and thief the main characters are closest to. Annoying thing is that it's completely random if you can catch them and if you can some of your bloody teammates might just kill it of before harp girl can sing to it (I solved that by constantly have the others do nothing while I'm in command of her since that's the only time I would be playing her). Another gimmick is the take heart and give heart gameplay related to finishing a lot of the quests. People lack a piece of their heart since it was stolen by Shadar (how that happened after he is defeated is another puzzling thing) and you need to borrow someone else abundance of the the thing and level everything out. It can get tedious since the game tells you everything all the time, what piece you need, how to get said piece which spells to use all the freaking time. I got it after the very first quest thank you very much. Now, since it was targeted at children I can understand the repetitiveness and if you don't play in a while it might be good with a reminder. The other complaint which is more my personal taste or expectation of a big budget RPG of today, it wasn't voice acted enough. Only certain scenes had voice acting and the rest was text, the majority was text. Compare this to Final Fantasy X where all story and even some non important people had voices. That game came out in 2001, we have got a bit higher standards, heck even Dragon Quest VIII had more voice acting. Then again, since there is more (or sounds more) like child voice actor it might have been a good decision since at times Oliver could become rather grating.

Overall a fine game that really wants to pluck your heart strings, so story, visuals and audio makes it worth it. Certain annoyances in gameplay and presentation, but chalk it up and just play... ON OUR JOURNEY THROUGH ANOTHER WORLD!!!