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"The Jet Gamer" Review: Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch
8 years ago
Another one of those long rpg’s, this time for the PS3.
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Another PS3 exclusive, and this time it is a traditional JRPG. You don’t see as many of those anymore. When you look at this game, you can tell that it is unique just from first glances at the cover and the back. I’ve heard good things about the visuals and feel of this game, so let us see for ourselves if this is one of those games you need to get, or if this style of rpg is something that should be on the way out?
Gameplay
The gameplay of Ni no Kuni is your traditional jrpg in that you level up, you roam around and battle enemies and defeat bosses, all the while you listen to a story. That’s not what makes this game more unique and also a something that I can see being fun for many people. This game takes notes from more modern rpg’s in that you are using an active time battle system where you can run all around the battlefield as you please while selecting spells as you wish or choosing to attack at will if you wish. However, here is the kicker with this as well. While you can use your main party member characters in battle, they usually are not going to be your primary choice to do so. In this game, you tame the enemies in the game and have them join your party and have them battle for you instead. While you can battle yourself, most of the game, you are going to be using the monsters to fight for you, also called familiars. You level them up as well using their own stats separate from your own. They have their own attack and defense, but they share the main characters HP. The familiars are basically an extension of your main characters, so if a familiar’s HP hits zero, then your character will be knocked out as well, so you have to be aware of this. Your familiars do have their own level up levels compared to your main character. The reason for this is that at certain levels you can metamorphos your familiar into a stronger form. You can choose when you want to do this, be it right away, or let it max out its level in this first form before upgrading it to the next form. I’m sure you are already getting what this is similar to aren’t you? Yes, this is similar to how Pokémon all works. However, one difference between these games is that when you metamorphos your familiar returns to level one when it upgrades. However, it retains ten percent of its stats from the previous form and it gains levels back rather quickly at first. This means it won’t be long before it gets back to the stats it had in the previous form, just at a lower level, meaning you get to use that familiar more and get to let it get even stronger. This means there is an advantage to waiting to change them later. Another big difference in this game compared to some others is that your main character is a magic user and so is your main second in command. You are usually used to the main characters being all about physical characters but in this game, everything is heavily magic based. This does mean you have to manage your MP very well at times. The AI isn’t always good at this as it will try and use all its MP rather quickly. Just be glad that restoring it isn’t too difficult, at least in certain situations. You can either use items to recover it. You can rest at the inns, or the most useful and free solution is to find the little stones that double as save points that also heal all your HP and MP. Just be sure you know where these are located as you need them, plus they are useful when you are training for levels. Yes, this is a game where you will need to do some grinding in the normal mode of the game, but they even thought of this as well. Don’t want a harder time where you have to grind and everything, well just play the game in easy mode, where you can enjoy easier battles and instead just play through the game and enjoy the story. There are several things you can choose to do in the game if you wish to do so. There is a business in every city in the game where you can go and visit to do side quests that will give you more money and items. These quests either involve a bounty, which is killing a strong monster, or they involve town errands. These usually are small favors for the people in the cities. A large number of these involve another key aspect of the game, and that is that many people’s hearts are out of balance. People are missing sections of their heart and you need to find those missing pieces that you borrow from people that have an excess of that particular emotion. These can range from things like enthusiasm, restraint, love, and courage for example. When you restore the people, they go back to normal, and they are no longer lazy, or mean and such like that. Another big thing is something that while a bit minor is something I’m happy to see this game include and that is the inclusion of an open world, world map to roam around on. The world feels more alive like this, and it allows you to roam all around it as you see fit, especially late game when getting around is much easier. Monsters in this game are on the map itself, so encounters are not random. Honestly, I think many people prefer this as well, as it does allow you to somewhat manipulate the encounter rate. This is especially the case in older areas as enemies will often times now run away from you instead of trying to run you down to start an encounter. This does mean as well in newer areas that monsters are going to try and come at you and star the battles themselves. Just be sure you are ready to fight if monsters see you. You can surprise them for a sneak attack to get about five free seconds of fighting against them at the beginning of a battle, but they can do this as well if you are trying to run from them. This is what a bulk of the gameplay of the game is like. I honestly can’t see many flaws here, and honestly, the main flaws I can see some people having that you will sometimes have to grind to make sure you are ready for bosses. You don’t have to do this much if you fight normally as you progress. This is even less so in easy mode, so they even took that into consideration for people that may not enjoy grinding for harder battles. I have to say, they did pretty good here and seem to have taken everything into consideration and allow you to play the game as much or as little as you wish to do so. That’s pretty impressive that they thought about all that I must say, but is the story just as thought out?
Story
I must say that this game is pretty much structured around the great story that goes along with it with easy mode literally saying at the beginning to pick this mode if you just want to enjoy the story and not have as much of a difficult time as you may have otherwise. The story involves a kid named Oliver living in a small town, called Motorville, in the fifties or so from the looks of style of the game. He lives with his mom and he and his best friend are obsessed with cars. However, very quickly a tragedy happens. Oliver’s mom dies! Yeah, what a way to start your game. A kid’s mother dies. Oliver is beginning to go into isolation and depression from being left along, however, suddenly one of his toys that his mother made for him suddenly becomes real and changes into a real fairy, named Drippy. Drippy is quick to show Oliver that he is different and is a wizard that is able to use magic, thanks to a magical spell book and wands. This is when Oliver is shown that there is a whole other world that is in peril due to a dark wizard named Shadar. Oliver sets out on a journey with Drippy to hopefully be able to not only learn to be a better wizard and safe Drippy’s world, but Oliver learns that there may be a way to still save his mom. This is the main premiss of the game, but is very quickly turns into Oliver going from town to town trying to fix the problems in the towns, which usually involve people being heartbroken from Shadar, and Oliver is working to fix the people to make them have hope again that Shadar can be defeated. This is what most of the game involves, Oliver going from town to town helping people, while also making a few new friends along the way as well as learning how to control familiars to help him along his journey to defeat Shadar. I have to say, this is a very well thought out story, and I can say that there are twists and turns all over the place, and it constantly feels like the game is throwing new challenges at you to try and not keep things boring. Shadar isn’t waiting around to just let you come defeat him. There are sad turns, and there are cool things that are constantly happening throughout the game to keep you on your toes. There are rarely points where it feels like the story just stalls out and you aren’t making progress or that every city is just a mirror copy of each other. While you may be doing similar things in each area, they are different enough to where it does feel like you are traveling the world slowly fixing it a little at a time. I don’t want to spoil it all for you, that’s how I feel about this game. You are going to be hooked to the story if you get into it, and I can see it holding your attention all the way to the end. Even when you think the game may be over, it kicks it up again and gives you more of the game as almost like a bonus I would say. You are going to be constantly figuring out how Oliver is going to fix this world fully, and I must say, they wrote the story well.
Graphics
Not only does the game play well, and have a great story, the game looks amazing as well. It looks like one of those classic animation styles that you have seen in classic Japanese anime movies. The game has that style similar to something like Kiki’s delivery service. I’m pretty sure it’s the same company. Not only does the world match this style in its brightness and detailedness, there are several points in the game, where the game goes full on anime to where it looks like it could be part of an actual anime movie. These are very well done and a welcome addition to the game. They could have just used the in game graphics throughout the entire game and everything would have still looked great. However, they took that extra step and went the extra mile to include these anime cutscenes in several important points in the game just to add that extra step of beauty to make this world feel more alive and like you are watching something on TV at times. The world just has this very bright and lively feel about it. The cities are very detailed and the world itself is very life like as well. That’s what you get when you go to the work of adding in a world map. It feels like a real world instead of just a collection of cities with a dungeon here and there. There is a lot in between, and it really adds to the immersion that you are in another world that needs saving. This is one of those games that not only looks great, and has plenty of detail to make everything not looks plain and boring, but I don’t think I saw a single graphical flaw at all in this game. Glitches were pretty much nonexistent, and everything was smooth and not laggy in the least. I must say, they seem to have put as much attention in the graphics as they have in everything else. I could definitely see this game being changed into a long anime movie or series and it working just as well, that’s how good this game looks, especially with the full anime cutscenes that are in some areas.
Sound
I must say, this game sounds great as well. Most of the music in the game has a catchiness to it that makes you enjoy it, and it even knows how to set the scene in certain situations. For example, if something big is coming up, the music will just cut out entirely to raise the tension. When something happy is going on, the music reflects it. The same goes for the other way as well. That music is very good at setting the scene and reflecting the mood of the current situation at any point in time. On top of that, a good portion of the game is voice acted for your enjoyment, while a good bit of the game is still in text form, almost everything that involves main parts of the story, and some in between, it is all fully voice acted. The voices are heavily British based throughout the game. Many of the characters have British accents, at least in certain areas. Many of the people in Motorville where Oliver is from have similar accents as well. Even then, most areas that don’t have that influence tend to match where the area is sort of based off of in general. Once again, I can’t seem to find anything wrong here, even with the sound effects. You hear plenty of fighting, grunts and magical sounds from the battles throughout the game, and they all fit. Sure, you may get tired of some of those sounds, but the battle music will keep you from getting distracted from that, and all the voice acting helps plenty. Again, I can’t seem to find anything wrong with this game’s sound. Everything seems to match, and all the music and voice acting is perfect in my eyes. I really can’t complain at all. All the voices sound natural, and the story’s script matches that to make everything sound natural to the player. Sounds good to me!
Control
What can I say about the controls of this game? Well, the bulk of the game is roaming around the world map or towns just to get to place to place. Then in battle you are just roaming around and selecting attacks and asking the game to do what you want it to do from the menus. There really isn’t much to screw up here, other than to make sure your controls are responsive to what you are asking them to do. Really, I can’t really complain as all the movements are very responsive and navigating the menu’s isn’t too hard, sure there are times where you wonder why it is taking a bit to do another reaction, but that was actually a built in feature. You can’t just instantly switch between attack, defense and magic without a penalty. There are cool down periods between attacks, and you must wait, even if you cancel them early. You just have to be aware of this, as this is also something that can get you into trouble if you don’t learn to read your opponents and know when to attack or defend. I must say, that is a neat feature to make you have to learn to read it like that or else you face punishment. I really see nothing wrong with the controls either. I wonder if this holds true in the final area as well.
Replay Value
The replay value is good here as well. While you may be playing the same game over again when you replay the game, there are various things you can do when you play this game or when you first play through it to constantly extend your play time. First is that each playthrough, you can easily go with different familiars if you wish to try different familiar types to see if you have a harder or easier time with different familiars. This means that no two playthroughs could be the same battle wise as least. Next, is the fact that there are a large number of side quests throughout the game that you can choose to do or not do depending on if you are just interested in the main story or not. If you aren’t interested in the side quests, there is nothing stopping you from not doing them, or even just some of them if you need some side money to buy more items or equipment. If you want to do them all though, you are welcome to do so, as it does give you opportunities to level up and find better equipment and cash. There are also things you can do after you finish the game, though this is often just more side quests, but if you want a challenge, the ones after the game are harder bosses and harder quests. I do sometimes wish there was a little more here, but a lot of the replayability does come from the different familiars you can play though during the game, and the fact that of course, this being a PS3 game, means there are trophies to unlock if you wish to do so. While not perfect, I would say it is pretty close to it still. They thought about the player and added in the feature pretty much to allow you to get more out of the game if you wish to, or to just play the bare minimum to get the entire story out of the way for your enjoyment. It is still a good story, and sticking mainly to the main story line is not a bad thing at all. For those that just want to enjoy it, stick to it and you will move through the game a lot more quickly. All the side quests though, will easily add dozens of hours of gameplay though, and that isn’t something to gawk at either. So really, most of the replayability is more what you want out of the game and less about things being fully different on each playthrough. Even then, I could see someone wanting to play this again to try different strategies or to show off the story to other people. Either way, I could see someone wanting to come back to this game, even if just for the story.
Overall, I must say that Ni No Kuni does a great job of showing that JRPG’s aren’t a dying genre and that they can be done very effectively in this modern day and age. The game plays great, looks great, and has a great story to boot. I really don’t see much wrong with this game. I mean sure there is the fact that replayability may have some limitations, but other than that, really this game offers a lot and lets you take what you want from it. If you take advantage of what it offers, you have a great game on your hand. You rarely see games like this these days, and that is sad as this is a game I must say that had to have slipped under the radar and really is one of the real hidden gems in my opinion of the PS3. If you enjoy RPG’s or games similar to Pokémon in a way, I would say go get this game immediately. IT’s not that expensive and it is worth it for the enjoyment you are going to get out of the gameplay, and the wonderfully animated story to go along with it. It really is a gem.
You know, I didn’t know if I would ever do this, and I likely won’t be doing this very often, however, I don’t think there was a moment I didn’t enjoy this game, other than maybe during some of the grinding moments, but other than that, I really must say, I would enjoy finding other games like this. However, in the meantime though guys, I must say, I think it is time I finally break one of these out and put my name out there saying this is one of those games that should be a must have for your PS3 systems if you have one. It is finally time I put one of these out there. So enjoy it, you won’t see them often.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch a well-deserved and definitely rare for me, a perfect ten out of ten.
Gameplay: 10
Story: 10
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Control: 10
Replay Value: 9
Overall: 10
Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
Another PS3 exclusive, and this time it is a traditional JRPG. You don’t see as many of those anymore. When you look at this game, you can tell that it is unique just from first glances at the cover and the back. I’ve heard good things about the visuals and feel of this game, so let us see for ourselves if this is one of those games you need to get, or if this style of rpg is something that should be on the way out?
Gameplay
The gameplay of Ni no Kuni is your traditional jrpg in that you level up, you roam around and battle enemies and defeat bosses, all the while you listen to a story. That’s not what makes this game more unique and also a something that I can see being fun for many people. This game takes notes from more modern rpg’s in that you are using an active time battle system where you can run all around the battlefield as you please while selecting spells as you wish or choosing to attack at will if you wish. However, here is the kicker with this as well. While you can use your main party member characters in battle, they usually are not going to be your primary choice to do so. In this game, you tame the enemies in the game and have them join your party and have them battle for you instead. While you can battle yourself, most of the game, you are going to be using the monsters to fight for you, also called familiars. You level them up as well using their own stats separate from your own. They have their own attack and defense, but they share the main characters HP. The familiars are basically an extension of your main characters, so if a familiar’s HP hits zero, then your character will be knocked out as well, so you have to be aware of this. Your familiars do have their own level up levels compared to your main character. The reason for this is that at certain levels you can metamorphos your familiar into a stronger form. You can choose when you want to do this, be it right away, or let it max out its level in this first form before upgrading it to the next form. I’m sure you are already getting what this is similar to aren’t you? Yes, this is similar to how Pokémon all works. However, one difference between these games is that when you metamorphos your familiar returns to level one when it upgrades. However, it retains ten percent of its stats from the previous form and it gains levels back rather quickly at first. This means it won’t be long before it gets back to the stats it had in the previous form, just at a lower level, meaning you get to use that familiar more and get to let it get even stronger. This means there is an advantage to waiting to change them later. Another big difference in this game compared to some others is that your main character is a magic user and so is your main second in command. You are usually used to the main characters being all about physical characters but in this game, everything is heavily magic based. This does mean you have to manage your MP very well at times. The AI isn’t always good at this as it will try and use all its MP rather quickly. Just be glad that restoring it isn’t too difficult, at least in certain situations. You can either use items to recover it. You can rest at the inns, or the most useful and free solution is to find the little stones that double as save points that also heal all your HP and MP. Just be sure you know where these are located as you need them, plus they are useful when you are training for levels. Yes, this is a game where you will need to do some grinding in the normal mode of the game, but they even thought of this as well. Don’t want a harder time where you have to grind and everything, well just play the game in easy mode, where you can enjoy easier battles and instead just play through the game and enjoy the story. There are several things you can choose to do in the game if you wish to do so. There is a business in every city in the game where you can go and visit to do side quests that will give you more money and items. These quests either involve a bounty, which is killing a strong monster, or they involve town errands. These usually are small favors for the people in the cities. A large number of these involve another key aspect of the game, and that is that many people’s hearts are out of balance. People are missing sections of their heart and you need to find those missing pieces that you borrow from people that have an excess of that particular emotion. These can range from things like enthusiasm, restraint, love, and courage for example. When you restore the people, they go back to normal, and they are no longer lazy, or mean and such like that. Another big thing is something that while a bit minor is something I’m happy to see this game include and that is the inclusion of an open world, world map to roam around on. The world feels more alive like this, and it allows you to roam all around it as you see fit, especially late game when getting around is much easier. Monsters in this game are on the map itself, so encounters are not random. Honestly, I think many people prefer this as well, as it does allow you to somewhat manipulate the encounter rate. This is especially the case in older areas as enemies will often times now run away from you instead of trying to run you down to start an encounter. This does mean as well in newer areas that monsters are going to try and come at you and star the battles themselves. Just be sure you are ready to fight if monsters see you. You can surprise them for a sneak attack to get about five free seconds of fighting against them at the beginning of a battle, but they can do this as well if you are trying to run from them. This is what a bulk of the gameplay of the game is like. I honestly can’t see many flaws here, and honestly, the main flaws I can see some people having that you will sometimes have to grind to make sure you are ready for bosses. You don’t have to do this much if you fight normally as you progress. This is even less so in easy mode, so they even took that into consideration for people that may not enjoy grinding for harder battles. I have to say, they did pretty good here and seem to have taken everything into consideration and allow you to play the game as much or as little as you wish to do so. That’s pretty impressive that they thought about all that I must say, but is the story just as thought out?
Story
I must say that this game is pretty much structured around the great story that goes along with it with easy mode literally saying at the beginning to pick this mode if you just want to enjoy the story and not have as much of a difficult time as you may have otherwise. The story involves a kid named Oliver living in a small town, called Motorville, in the fifties or so from the looks of style of the game. He lives with his mom and he and his best friend are obsessed with cars. However, very quickly a tragedy happens. Oliver’s mom dies! Yeah, what a way to start your game. A kid’s mother dies. Oliver is beginning to go into isolation and depression from being left along, however, suddenly one of his toys that his mother made for him suddenly becomes real and changes into a real fairy, named Drippy. Drippy is quick to show Oliver that he is different and is a wizard that is able to use magic, thanks to a magical spell book and wands. This is when Oliver is shown that there is a whole other world that is in peril due to a dark wizard named Shadar. Oliver sets out on a journey with Drippy to hopefully be able to not only learn to be a better wizard and safe Drippy’s world, but Oliver learns that there may be a way to still save his mom. This is the main premiss of the game, but is very quickly turns into Oliver going from town to town trying to fix the problems in the towns, which usually involve people being heartbroken from Shadar, and Oliver is working to fix the people to make them have hope again that Shadar can be defeated. This is what most of the game involves, Oliver going from town to town helping people, while also making a few new friends along the way as well as learning how to control familiars to help him along his journey to defeat Shadar. I have to say, this is a very well thought out story, and I can say that there are twists and turns all over the place, and it constantly feels like the game is throwing new challenges at you to try and not keep things boring. Shadar isn’t waiting around to just let you come defeat him. There are sad turns, and there are cool things that are constantly happening throughout the game to keep you on your toes. There are rarely points where it feels like the story just stalls out and you aren’t making progress or that every city is just a mirror copy of each other. While you may be doing similar things in each area, they are different enough to where it does feel like you are traveling the world slowly fixing it a little at a time. I don’t want to spoil it all for you, that’s how I feel about this game. You are going to be hooked to the story if you get into it, and I can see it holding your attention all the way to the end. Even when you think the game may be over, it kicks it up again and gives you more of the game as almost like a bonus I would say. You are going to be constantly figuring out how Oliver is going to fix this world fully, and I must say, they wrote the story well.
Graphics
Not only does the game play well, and have a great story, the game looks amazing as well. It looks like one of those classic animation styles that you have seen in classic Japanese anime movies. The game has that style similar to something like Kiki’s delivery service. I’m pretty sure it’s the same company. Not only does the world match this style in its brightness and detailedness, there are several points in the game, where the game goes full on anime to where it looks like it could be part of an actual anime movie. These are very well done and a welcome addition to the game. They could have just used the in game graphics throughout the entire game and everything would have still looked great. However, they took that extra step and went the extra mile to include these anime cutscenes in several important points in the game just to add that extra step of beauty to make this world feel more alive and like you are watching something on TV at times. The world just has this very bright and lively feel about it. The cities are very detailed and the world itself is very life like as well. That’s what you get when you go to the work of adding in a world map. It feels like a real world instead of just a collection of cities with a dungeon here and there. There is a lot in between, and it really adds to the immersion that you are in another world that needs saving. This is one of those games that not only looks great, and has plenty of detail to make everything not looks plain and boring, but I don’t think I saw a single graphical flaw at all in this game. Glitches were pretty much nonexistent, and everything was smooth and not laggy in the least. I must say, they seem to have put as much attention in the graphics as they have in everything else. I could definitely see this game being changed into a long anime movie or series and it working just as well, that’s how good this game looks, especially with the full anime cutscenes that are in some areas.
Sound
I must say, this game sounds great as well. Most of the music in the game has a catchiness to it that makes you enjoy it, and it even knows how to set the scene in certain situations. For example, if something big is coming up, the music will just cut out entirely to raise the tension. When something happy is going on, the music reflects it. The same goes for the other way as well. That music is very good at setting the scene and reflecting the mood of the current situation at any point in time. On top of that, a good portion of the game is voice acted for your enjoyment, while a good bit of the game is still in text form, almost everything that involves main parts of the story, and some in between, it is all fully voice acted. The voices are heavily British based throughout the game. Many of the characters have British accents, at least in certain areas. Many of the people in Motorville where Oliver is from have similar accents as well. Even then, most areas that don’t have that influence tend to match where the area is sort of based off of in general. Once again, I can’t seem to find anything wrong here, even with the sound effects. You hear plenty of fighting, grunts and magical sounds from the battles throughout the game, and they all fit. Sure, you may get tired of some of those sounds, but the battle music will keep you from getting distracted from that, and all the voice acting helps plenty. Again, I can’t seem to find anything wrong with this game’s sound. Everything seems to match, and all the music and voice acting is perfect in my eyes. I really can’t complain at all. All the voices sound natural, and the story’s script matches that to make everything sound natural to the player. Sounds good to me!
Control
What can I say about the controls of this game? Well, the bulk of the game is roaming around the world map or towns just to get to place to place. Then in battle you are just roaming around and selecting attacks and asking the game to do what you want it to do from the menus. There really isn’t much to screw up here, other than to make sure your controls are responsive to what you are asking them to do. Really, I can’t really complain as all the movements are very responsive and navigating the menu’s isn’t too hard, sure there are times where you wonder why it is taking a bit to do another reaction, but that was actually a built in feature. You can’t just instantly switch between attack, defense and magic without a penalty. There are cool down periods between attacks, and you must wait, even if you cancel them early. You just have to be aware of this, as this is also something that can get you into trouble if you don’t learn to read your opponents and know when to attack or defend. I must say, that is a neat feature to make you have to learn to read it like that or else you face punishment. I really see nothing wrong with the controls either. I wonder if this holds true in the final area as well.
Replay Value
The replay value is good here as well. While you may be playing the same game over again when you replay the game, there are various things you can do when you play this game or when you first play through it to constantly extend your play time. First is that each playthrough, you can easily go with different familiars if you wish to try different familiar types to see if you have a harder or easier time with different familiars. This means that no two playthroughs could be the same battle wise as least. Next, is the fact that there are a large number of side quests throughout the game that you can choose to do or not do depending on if you are just interested in the main story or not. If you aren’t interested in the side quests, there is nothing stopping you from not doing them, or even just some of them if you need some side money to buy more items or equipment. If you want to do them all though, you are welcome to do so, as it does give you opportunities to level up and find better equipment and cash. There are also things you can do after you finish the game, though this is often just more side quests, but if you want a challenge, the ones after the game are harder bosses and harder quests. I do sometimes wish there was a little more here, but a lot of the replayability does come from the different familiars you can play though during the game, and the fact that of course, this being a PS3 game, means there are trophies to unlock if you wish to do so. While not perfect, I would say it is pretty close to it still. They thought about the player and added in the feature pretty much to allow you to get more out of the game if you wish to, or to just play the bare minimum to get the entire story out of the way for your enjoyment. It is still a good story, and sticking mainly to the main story line is not a bad thing at all. For those that just want to enjoy it, stick to it and you will move through the game a lot more quickly. All the side quests though, will easily add dozens of hours of gameplay though, and that isn’t something to gawk at either. So really, most of the replayability is more what you want out of the game and less about things being fully different on each playthrough. Even then, I could see someone wanting to play this again to try different strategies or to show off the story to other people. Either way, I could see someone wanting to come back to this game, even if just for the story.
Overall, I must say that Ni No Kuni does a great job of showing that JRPG’s aren’t a dying genre and that they can be done very effectively in this modern day and age. The game plays great, looks great, and has a great story to boot. I really don’t see much wrong with this game. I mean sure there is the fact that replayability may have some limitations, but other than that, really this game offers a lot and lets you take what you want from it. If you take advantage of what it offers, you have a great game on your hand. You rarely see games like this these days, and that is sad as this is a game I must say that had to have slipped under the radar and really is one of the real hidden gems in my opinion of the PS3. If you enjoy RPG’s or games similar to Pokémon in a way, I would say go get this game immediately. IT’s not that expensive and it is worth it for the enjoyment you are going to get out of the gameplay, and the wonderfully animated story to go along with it. It really is a gem.
You know, I didn’t know if I would ever do this, and I likely won’t be doing this very often, however, I don’t think there was a moment I didn’t enjoy this game, other than maybe during some of the grinding moments, but other than that, I really must say, I would enjoy finding other games like this. However, in the meantime though guys, I must say, I think it is time I finally break one of these out and put my name out there saying this is one of those games that should be a must have for your PS3 systems if you have one. It is finally time I put one of these out there. So enjoy it, you won’t see them often.
Overall, in my opinion at least, I give Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch a well-deserved and definitely rare for me, a perfect ten out of ten.
Gameplay: 10
Story: 10
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Control: 10
Replay Value: 9
Overall: 10
