A incomplete Ni No Kuni Review!
Hey guys, I wanted to share with you a review I made in like 30 mins of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. It is still incomplete and probably very rough around the edges but I want to see what you guys think of it so far.
"Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Review
Backstory:
Recently Level 5 has released some RPG titles such as White Knight Chronicles, the sequel as well, along with Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies; but with the release of Ni No Kuni, I believe they have found their best title into the genre.
Ni No Kuni follows the story of Oliver as he travels back and forth between his hometwon of Motorville and the magical and colorful world of Ni No Kuni, which is a parallel world to his own, to save his mother.
To help Oliver on his quest is Drippy, a Great Fairy of Ni No Kuni who was turned into a doll after an encounter with the Dark Djinn Shadar.
As it turns out Oliver has a very important role in the world of Ni No Kuni that has started to get a lot of attention from Shadar who uses both the world of Ni No Kuni and Motorville to stop Oliver from fulfilling his destiny.
Gameplay:
Gameplay is broken into multiple aspects:
Running around the world of Ni No Kuni which is needed to go from town to town as well as find monsters to fight. Along with fighting Oliver may encounter specific areas that he can gather items which will be used back in town.
Going into a town to progress the story
Going into dungeons
Combat:
Fighting in Ni No Kuni is a heck of a lot of fun. Ar first you can only control Oliver and use his wand to attack, but later on Oliver will be able to summon familiars, use items, use tactics and even cast spells.
Spells and items are just as straightforward in Ni No Kuni as they are in any other RPG but what stands out the most in this game are the familiars Oliver and company can use.
Familiars are summons in this game, they can attack enemies and use abilities but they CAN NOT use items. Familiars DO share HP and MP with whoever summoned that familiar so make sure to de summon to cast a heal or use an item if needed.
One other important ability Oliver and even some familiars have is 'Defend' which does just what you think it does, the ability allows Oliver and/or the familiar to block for a certain amount of time but what makes this ability REALLY important is that defending will negate any knock ups that an enemy ability might have done if you did not defend.
Sadly defending does not mean you avoid status ailments like poison or sleep.
Also in combat Drippy will run around the field and he will ocassionally drop health and/or mana orbs that will replenish some health or mana. Along with Drippy dropping them, some enemies will drop them as well if you defeat them or do a 'nice' attack which will essentially stun the enemy or cancel an attack that the enemy was about to unleash.
Towns:
Towns in Ni No Kuni have many different functions:
They have a weapon/armor/trinket shop which you can enter to better equip your familiars.
They have an item shop which sells your basic health items, mana items or items to help cure ailments.
Towns also have an inn that, for a small price, will allow Oliver and company to restore all their health and mana.
The final main building towns have are called "Very Swift Solutions" and this building offers errands and/or bounty missions.
Errand missions range from fetch quests all the way to helping an NPC who is broken hearted (will clarify what that means soon).
Bounty missions are just what they sound like, once you leave the town and enter the huge open world of Ni No Kuni, you search around fora specific NPC that is causing trouble and then you defeat them.
Each errand and bounty mission will reward you with the usual items/equipment and money but they also reward you with a certain amount of stamps.
Stamps in Ni No Kuni are very important because as you accumulate 10 stamps, you will have filled out a card (so far the amount of cards you have is unlimited) and so once you complete one card you will instantly start on a fresh card.
Each card has a total of 10 circles that need to be stamped before the card is considered full.
Trading in these cards at the Very Swift Solutions store will reward Oliver with passive abilities such as the ability to run faster in the open world portions of Ni No Kuni or the ability to sometimes get more rewards when you are gathering.
Broken Hearted NPCs:
Before you can enter the first town of Ni No Kuni you need to help a guard who has had his heart broken by Shadar and so Oliver eventually finds this vial that he can use to hold emotions that range from enthusiasim to happiness all the way to courage.
Oliver can only store one type of emotion (so if you already have enthusiasim in the vial you can not take enthusuasm from another NPC until you give the first enthusiasm away.
Music:
All the music from Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch was composed by Joe Hisaishi, who is better known for composing the scores of several Studio Ghibli films.
From what I have seen in the game, every theme is orchastrated which really makes this game stand out.
Characters:
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch has such a wide array of unique characters from the normal citizens of Motorville to the human/cat innkeepers.
Aside from some NPCs looking identical, there are quite a lot of NPCs that stand out and really help make this game so more mysterious.
Oliver's Book:
Before Oliver can leave Motorville he needs a Wizard's Compendium which will hold information ranging from every spell Oliver will need to simple stories that add charm into this game.
(More to come!)"
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