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Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch |OT|

Neverfade

Member
So I played the demo, and fought the fire monster fella. I used all the little critters pretty much equally in beating him up, but when it was over, one of the characters (with a move called snowblast I think) barely got any XP. What's the deal there?
 
So I played the demo, and fought the fire monster fella. I used all the little critters pretty much equally in beating him up, but when it was over, one of the characters (with a move called snowblast I think) barely got any XP. What's the deal there?
It could be that some of the familiars you get in the demo arent at that part in the real game, hence the lack of exp.
 

Teknoman

Member
I really hope this doesnt end up becoming rare in a short time since I dont think i'll be grabbing this at launch (too many console RPGs I need to play beforehand).
 

Neverfade

Member
It could be that some of the familiars you get in the demo arent at that part in the real game, hence the lack of exp.

So is the normal qualifier just having the guy out? Or does it need to at least attack once? The demo doesn't explain anything, unless I was supposed to use that talking stone (LOL NO, DEMO).
 
So I played the demo, and fought the fire monster fella. I used all the little critters pretty much equally in beating him up, but when it was over, one of the characters (with a move called snowblast I think) barely got any XP. What's the deal there?

That particular one doesn't seem to gain any XP through that entire scenario. Possibly one of the quirks of the demo. Otherwise they seem to all gain XP evenly, regardless of usage.
 

zeopower6

Member
So I played the demo, and fought the fire monster fella. I used all the little critters pretty much equally in beating him up, but when it was over, one of the characters (with a move called snowblast I think) barely got any XP. What's the deal there?

The reason for that is that he was kind of an OP one placed in there to make the boss battle easy. If you look at his EXP TO NEXT LEVEL stat, it's in the 100,000s. Keep in mind that the developers of the game are Level-5 and that creature was also.... level 5. They pretty much overpowered you for that boss fight with a ton of fire-resistant equips and a Familiar you don't normally have at that point in the game (the ice one). You can still beat that boss easily without him but his snow attack is really useful.

Oh my god, I found another adorable piece of fanart! I'd like to put it into one avatar, but it's just... ahhhhh! A little wide for just one so I made two!

yi8VV.jpg


y7p0g.png
zc0zz.png


You can barely make out the pirate cat on the right.
 

Lucent

Member
There's already been unrelated games from other publishers called "Another World" and "Two Worlds" so I guess they figured it was just easier to not localise it for trademark purposes.

I like it better this way. I'd rather them not totally change a name just cuz "lol people who aren't normally into stuff like this wouldn't get it". That's just a quote I made up. =/
 
Decided to cancel the Steelbook preorder on Gamestop and just go with PSN instead

It's nice, but not $5 more over retail when people who live stateside can just get it for free for preordering
 

Lucent

Member
Just looked through Best Buy's @Gamer magazine I got through the mail today. Had a very small Ni no Kuni review. Wasn't even a half a page long. =/

Anyway, here's their breakdown.

WHAT'S GREAT:
  • Utterly beautiful visuals
  • Engaging combat and crafting mechanics
  • Inspires a childlike sense of wonder
WHAT'S NOT SO GREAT:
  • Inconsistent story laden with fetch quests
  • English voiceovers can be pretty awful at times

OVERALL RATING: 4.25/5
 

adixon

Member
Can I have this avatar? Seems like no one took it. :)

So excited for this game... pretty bummed I missed the US wizard's edition.
 

Danj

Member
Just looked through Best Buy's @Gamer magazine I got through the mail today. Had a very small Ni no Kuni review. Wasn't even a half a page long. =/

Anyway, here's their breakdown.

WHAT'S GREAT:
  • Utterly beautiful visuals
  • Engaging combat and crafting mechanics
  • Inspires a childlike sense of wonder
WHAT'S NOT SO GREAT:
  • Inconsistent story laden with fetch quests
  • English voiceovers can be pretty awful at times

OVERALL RATING: 4.25/5

Well, it has Japanese audio as well as English, so if the English voices are awful people can always switch to the originals and turn on subtitles. I like the sound of the stuff on the "great" list though.
 

Lucent

Member
Well, it has Japanese audio as well as English, so if the English voices are awful people can always switch to the originals and turn on subtitles. I like the sound of the stuff on the "great" list though.

Yeah. Of course, we already pretty much knew the great stuff was a given. I mean I guess the battle system can go either way for people, but it's definitely beautiful and it probably will make you go =o like most Ghibli movies.

The dual-audio thing is true and a great thing. I honestly like what I've heard of the girl's VA. Oliver's didn't sound that great in the demo but it's okay. At least we have choices though.
 
Are all Ni no Kuni preorders at GameStop going to be steelbooks?

I completely forgot about this game, but I think not blowing $100 on the CE is probably a blessing in disguise.
 

FaintDeftone

Junior Member
This generation has been pretty horrible with JRPGs so I'm hoping this game will fill the void. Lost Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles are the other two worth a shit, and one of them looks like a PS2 game.
 

Lucent

Member
Are all Ni no Kuni preorders at GameStop going to be steelbooks?

I completely forgot about this game, but I think not blowing $100 on the CE is probably a blessing in disguise.

It looked liked they are separate like the Assassins Creed III steelbooks. The game itself will come in the normal case. So the steelbook will be limited and probably only for those who pre-ordered or pick it up within the first week.

This generation has been pretty horrible with JRPGs so I'm hoping this game will fill the void. Lost Odyssey and Xenoblade Chronicles are the other two worth a shit, and one of them looks like a PS2 game.

Lost Odyssey? lol j/k

I still haven't gotten around to playing either of those and I own both.
 

zeopower6

Member
Are all Ni no Kuni preorders at GameStop going to be steelbooks?

I completely forgot about this game, but I think not blowing $100 on the CE is probably a blessing in disguise.

So far, according to people who have preordered, yes. But they seem to have limited amounts depending on the store. I would contact them to see how the preorders are shaping up. As expected though, stores like GS (with the steelbook) or Best Buy (with Flutterby) only have about a dozen or two preorders from people talking to management and stuff.

The main draw of the Wizard's Edition IMO is the beautiful 300+ page book and for some, the soundtrack-selection CD. Mmmm~
 

FSLink

Banned
Well, it has Japanese audio as well as English, so if the English voices are awful people can always switch to the originals and turn on subtitles. I like the sound of the stuff on the "great" list though.

Well apparently from Japan-GAF the Japanese voice overs suck even more so....
 

Lucent

Member
So far, according to people who have preordered, yes. But they seem to have limited amounts depending on the store. I would contact them to see how the preorders are shaping up. As expected though, stores like GS (with the steelbook) or Best Buy (with Flutterby) only have about a dozen or two preorders from people talking to management and stuff.

The main draw of the Wizard's Edition IMO is the beautiful 300+ page book and for some, the soundtrack-selection CD. Mmmm~

Exactly. That's why I got it. Totally worth the extra $40 alone for me. The coin and the plush and stuff are just extras. The book looks unlike anything I've ever seen in a CE. Way better than a crappy 20 page artbook that was thrown together in a day. lol
 

zeopower6

Member
Well apparently from Japan-GAF the Japanese voice overs suck even more so....

That's incorrect! :(

It's not so much that they 'suck' but the opinion is that they didn't do a very good job at voicing their characters because they are normally stage actors not voice actors. This is kind of like how Disney casts Hollywood stars to voice Ghibli films but they probably do a lot of coaching during the process, but the actors chosen for the Japanese releases are not film actors who are placed in a role/job/whatever that that they're not used to.

The Japanese dub is very nice imo from what I've heard. There are some noises in the English dub I'd rather not hear all the time...

I would say listen to both yourself to formulate your opinion because the Japanese dub is far from terrible (to me) but you may think differently when you hear the English dub and the Japanese dub. Most people that are getting it and usually don't get JRPGs are going to play with the English dub only... :( I guess this is why we rarely ever get dual audio even in this BD age.
 
So I played the demo, and fought the fire monster fella. I used all the little critters pretty much equally in beating him up, but when it was over, one of the characters (with a move called snowblast I think) barely got any XP. What's the deal there?
At least one of the characters in the fire demo is XP locked. Normally, everyone gets XP whether they fought or not.
 

Teknoman

Member
is such a thing even possible?

I've got a slight backlog (finish Xenoblade, Last Story is unplayed, SaGa Frontier, Shadow Hearts 1, Shadow Hearts Covenant, Dragon Force, Shining Force 3, and a couple of SNES/Genesis games). Not all from this gen of course :p


I'll probably end up making an exception though, since this looks really interesting.
 

zeopower6

Member
At least one of the characters in the fire demo is XP locked. Normally, everyone gets XP whether they fought or not.

He's actually not EXP locked but if you just play through that part of the demo normally, it'd look like it. I played in that demo fighting a bunch of monsters and got a few hundred EXP since I wanted to see if his bar would go up... it went up one sliver due to his EXP requirement being absurdly high. (like... 100,000 EXP to get to level 6 high)
 

Teknoman

Member
Came back from GS. I was able to get the steelbook, but not without a hiccup. The guy that was at the counter was different from the one on the phone. He at first said that I couldn't get the steelbook until release, since there were specific directions to do so. He changed his mind after he saw how I was nice about it.

He told me they had about 47 of the books in. I forgot to ask how many had preordered, but I don't think it would be more than 20 at my store. So YMMV on if you could get the steelie early or not.

Here's a pic of the inside art:

Ended up getting mine early as well.
 
I've got a slight backlog (finish Xenoblade, Last Story is unplayed, SaGa Frontier, Shadow Hearts 1, Shadow Hearts Covenant, Dragon Force, Shining Force 3, and a couple of SNES/Genesis games). Not all from this gen of course :p


I'll probably end up making an exception though, since this looks really interesting.

phew! for a sec i thought you were talking about this gen alone.
 

Chris R

Member
Is there any crafting in the demo? I quit after the first battle since the combat just didn't grab me as something I'd enjoy doing over and over but if the crafting is top notch I might just give the game another try.
 

zeopower6

Member
Is there any crafting in the demo? I quit after the first battle since the combat just didn't grab me as something I'd enjoy doing over and over but if the crafting is top notch I might just give the game another try.

There is crafting/synthesis that involves a genie but not in the demo. I have a link to a video that has spoilers for most of it but it shows the crafting during a specific portion of the video.

Of course, spoiler warning if you watch outside of the suggested timeframe!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpN9h1d3joc
1:00 to 1:48 or so.

It's pretty much typical synthesizing though... collect recipes -> get the required items -> use the Genie to make it.
 

JebusF

Neo Member
Ni No Kuni features many battles, but most trying is the player's struggle against old-school mechanics. First off, every area contains an absurd amount of random encounters, and while enemies are visible on the field, they charge instantly once spotting you...

That's true, to a degree. But once you level up enough, the enemies will actually run AWAY from you.
 

zeopower6

Member
Why weird?

I think the expectation from IGN was that they were going to give it a pretty bad rating/review since they're not known for liking JRPGs. However, it is nice to know that just about every review of the game so far has been positive, if not glowing.
 
I think the expectation from IGN was that they were going to give it a pretty bad rating/review since they're not known for liking JRPGs. However, it is nice to know that just about every review of the game so far has been positive, if not glowing.

IGN seemed to be in love with it based on the previews. In general it seems like the press seemed to really liked leading up to the reviews. It's actually kind of interesting to see NnK and Xenoblade receive so much praise. On one hand you've got a game that many feel set the ground work for future JRPG's while the other is much more in line with the classics in the genre.
 

nesboy43

Banned
I played the demo for this a few weeks big and had no expectations for it (downloaded it for a friend who wanted to try it). I have to say that I ended up loving the game, it looked like a real high quality RPG game that was vivid and quirky. It reminds me of RPG/Adventure games of the last console generation like Baten Kaitos and Skies of Arcadia. The visuals, creatures, and characters were all well done and nothing seemed forced. I really enjoyed what I saw and am looking forward to picking this one up in the future. I don't like most RPG games out there. The last RPG game (besides Pokemon) I got was Chrono Trigger DS and that was years ago. This game is great enough that a non RPG fan like myself is happy to purchase it.
 

FourMyle

Member
So how extensive is the monster collecting aspect of this game? I absolutely love the designs and I am considering a pre-order atm.
 

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.
IGN seemed to be in love with it based on the previews. In general it seems like the press seemed to really liked leading up to the reviews. It's actually kind of interesting to see NnK and Xenoblade receive so much praise. On one hand you've got a game that many feel set the ground work for future JRPG's while the other is much more in line with the classics in the genre.

Not really sure either is all that traditional.
 

Raggie

Member
Lack of save points might be a dealbreaker for me. I rarely anymore have the time for games that hold me hostage for who knows how long every time I start playing. This "feature" needs to die.
 

Hana-Bi

Member
And how does the catching work? Do you have an extra spell for that? Or is it just luck that a familiar will join you after the battle?
 

zeopower6

Member
Lack of save points might be a dealbreaker for me. I rarely anymore have the time for games that hold me hostage for who knows how long every time I start playing. This "feature" needs to die.

It's possible that they were exaggerating. EgHeadFool@GameFAQs said this about the save point thing (it's more than a few posts so context may be lost):
This is in between. There are save points before most bosses (not all, and you don't have to save at them of course), and all cutscenes are skippable. If you die you can choose to continue even without saving (it won't necessarily put you back at the exact same spot) but this will cost you a 10% gold penalty (5% if you have the right stamp reward).

Dungeons are not multi-hour affairs though. If you have to leave in 20 minutes I say don't tackle a new dungeon, or be okay with leaving the game paused, or use the escape spell and save at the start of the dungeon and continue from there next time.

Yes I'm saying you will be at the start. But anything you did in the dungeon will obviously save. And it will take you MAYBE 10 minutes to backtrack to where you were (if you avoid most enemies) in any dungeon. Maybe. If pausing is too hard and you absolutely must turn the PS3 off.

It's not that bad.

As far as collecting Familiars, there are a TON of them in the game. Several hundred, actually. (This includes evolutions I think) However, the way the they work normally is that each one can evolve twice, once into a stronger form, and then there's a split path final evolution that happens if you want it to be an X type or a Y type. Some just have one path for their final, but it looks like the split is more common.

And how does the catching work? Do you have an extra spell for that? Or is it just luck that a familiar will join you after the battle?

At a certain point during the game, Esther aka Maru will get a spell to befriend Familiars. After you get the skill, when fighting enemies and reducing their health to 0, there is a chance that there will be hearts floating above their head and as soon as you see that, your Familars will stop attacking and you will need to switch to Esther/Maru and use that command. It's kind of like a "Master Ball" of sorts since it's a guaranteed catch as long as you can use the ability fast enough. You can pretty much just switch to her and spam X though and it should work, hahaha.
 

Hana-Bi

Member
At a certain point during the game, Esther aka Maru will get a spell to befriend Familiars. After you get the skill, when fighting enemies, sometimes there will be hearts floating above their head and as soon as you see that, you will need to switch to Esther/Maru and use that command. If you can use it before the other members of the party kill the enemy, you catch it! It's kind of like a "Master Ball" of sorts since it's a guaranteed catch as long as you can use the ability before they die.

Ah, sounds good to me. Damn you Europe and your delay...
 

zeopower6

Member
I read up on some things to clarify and it seems that you get the hearts randomly after getting the enemy's health to 0 and that once the hearts show up, your team stops attacking and there's a timer above the enemy's head kind of like the one that counts down after you use a spell or attack that indicates how much time you have to capture them.

There is some luck involved however since the hearts don't pop up all the time and you may get super frustrated because of that for certain Familiars. Not looking forward to that aspect of the game, hahaha.
 
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