Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch
It’s only taken a few months to squeeze in the time for it, but Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witchhas finally been completed for a Late Bird Review. After having spent more than 40 hours on the grand adventure in Studio Ghibli’s epic, the residual feeling is a rather positive one. There are plenty of issues this game had that would keep it from being considered the best of its kind, but that doesn’t mean Ni No Kuni doesn’t have anything to offer. It’s time to analyze this game and see if it’s still worth picking up or if the hype painted a prettier picture when it was first released.
Story
Let’s get this out of the way right away: Ni No Kuni is a JRPG in every sense of the acronym. If you are unfamiliar with what a JRPG is, it would pay to check a Wikipedia to understand the relevance of that genre defining term before reading any further; or you could just play the game and the definition will be spelled out for you. There are a lot of gameplay and story tropes common in Japanese RPGs that make an appearance here. If you are not a fan of other games that use this style of gameplay and storytelling, turn back now because you will not like Ni No Kuni.
All the clichés make an appearance in one form or another, ranging from the predictable plot twists, to how character identities and pasts are revealed, to how the story ultimately unfolds. You will see everything coming from a mile away and just wonder when an airship will make an appearance or when the over-the-top acting will finally disclose how so-and-so is actually royalty. By the end of the game, Ni No Kuni has told a story that has been told many times before it with multiple sub-plots that have been used a dozen times over.
Yet, that is okay. A fair amount of what makes all those clichés and archetypes of the story okay is the special charm and class Ni No Kuni has. A fair amount of that comes from Studio Ghibli’s style. They are able to tell a very familiar story without feeling completely stale. This obviously is a double edged sword considering the fact that without the charm, the story becomes just an uninspired adventure that would rely on the combat to make the game enjoyable, which would be a mistake for this particular game. It’s fortunate then that the studio does so well at telling familiar and straightforward tales about children going on adventures for grander reasons than their own to help make players a little more invested in the story.
Which isn’t to say there weren’t moments that brought sighs for being a little too familiar or pointless. For instance, there is really no reason for anyone to see the main villain’s lair as many times as they show, considering nothing of value is ever disclosed. Players also have to endure some love scenes that come out of nowhere and really don’t mean anything since the love is actually between two characters that players will barely know. It isn’t like they were in the party the entire time; one was just introduced 5 minutes prior to the love scene in question. These more ridiculous moments are thankfully infrequent and didn’t hinder in the overall storyline much.
The plot is best left to the game, as explaining it here feels like risking making the story even more familiar and predictable than it already is. Instead, let’s look at the characters, namely one: Drippy. This character is perhaps the one that carries the story to the end in both a direct and indirect fashion. Drippy operates as the narrator (without actually narrating the story), the teacher, the last resort, and the comic relief. From the moment he makes an appearance in the story, he steals the show with his clever quips and natural flow to dialogue. Part of what makes him so special is just how well his dialogue is written. He’s a generally likeable character for being so clever as well as putting the main protagonist, Oliver, in his place when he starts to get a little annoying. Even in what Drippy says as he explains the story or gameplay mechanics shows a very self-aware attitude. Before giving exposition, he will tell you to sit down for a bit, “since it might take a while”. After he explains a game mechanic that has just been introduced, he’ll say something like “…but I’m sure you’re tired of hearing me yap on,” to indicate that the writers are aware of how long JRPGs can tend to drag. On top of all that, he’s useful in combat. Though he isn’t a playable character, he still provides support in battle and proved himself very useful multiple times.
Unfortunately, the other characters fall into familiar archetypes and never really live up to anything interesting or developed. Their plots just kind of end and life goes one with a few references here and there to their problems. Oliver’s storyline is satisfying to carry out and thankfully does not take up the entirety of the game as it by the end of the it gets a little thin, considering how infrequently players are reminded of why he’s going on this journey in the first place. However, this is still more than what the other characters in your party experience as their arcs are resolved rather quickly, sometimes prior to them even joining your party, never to have another interesting story to tell again.
Regardless of how uninspired the characters may seem, the charm and presentation of a Studio Ghibli story that ultimately helps make the experience more satisfying. However, if there were a primary criticism to make about how the story is presented, it would be that the pacing is a little off. The beginning is certainly compelling enough with its introductions to the characters, the world, and the various systems at work. But once the main systems are in place, it feels like the story loses focus. The primary reason that Oliver goes on his journey takes a backseat and is rarely mentioned up until its conclusion as the characters get looped into side quests and errands that feel like delays for the inevitable ending. The quests where Oliver is trying to become more powerful work, but when he is running between villages to fetch a item to go somewhere else comes across as just superficial and fickle.
Not to mention that players are introduced very early on (and repeatedly) to the villains and their schemes. These schemes are never fully disclosed and remain vague, though they serve well to undermine any mystery to the villains. Essentially, we are told the villains are planning something, they use some cryptic terms (which mean nothing to those of us not from their world), and the story goes on until the inevitable die is cast. Repeat this formula ad nauseum. Thus, the villains don’t come across as mysterious as they should and when Oliver confronts them and the tension is lost as a result. Either tell the players the villains’ plans outright and let the tension build from the fact that players know what will befall the heroes, or don’t say anything at all so there is nothing to anticipate.
Also, in typical JRPG fashion, much of the identity and motivation of the villains is explained via expository dialogue a few short moments before their demise, eliminating much of a possibility for feeling any emotion toward them. Both of the primary villains have tragic pasts, but the method and timing of delivering them was so soon before the player/Oliver defeated them that witnessing Oliver suddenly feel sympathy toward them was more awkward than anything else. Had these discoveries been made over the course of the game in smaller bits than lengthy exposition, it would have given more time to consider the villains and their issues, thus making their stories and demise more compelling. By the end, the story had lost some of its momentum, making the ending not entirely as satisfying as expected. At least, the journey was still pleasant, overall.
Gameplay
Many of the reviews or examinations of this game essentially broke down to one formula: Studio Ghibli + Pokémon = Ni No Kuni. Though, the first 8 hours would make you think otherwise, essentially this is true, with some additions from games like Final Fantasy XII. Some of these same reviews hailed this game as a truly new type of RPG for integrating Pokémon mechanics into a Ghibli journey, but it wouldn’t be the first game to accomplish this. Jade Cocoon is a cult classic from the PlayStation One that had some Studio Ghibli art design mixed with some very similar mechanics to this one. Though, Jade Cocoon was more like Princess Mononoke and Ni No Kuniwas more like Spirited Away in terms of content, tone, and substance.
As it was said earlier, the Pokémon elements of the gameplay didn’t come in until at least 8 hours had been poured into Ni No Kuni. First, the core mechanics were laboriously introduced and explained about having a mage as a main character, using familiars, the MMO style of skill cooldowns mixed with turn-based attacks, and the AI of party members. The AI and skill cooldowns were reminiscent of Final Fantasy XII with being able to move around freely on the battlefield picking up health and magic while waiting for your attack to be ready again as your party enacted very basic decision-making. While the mechanics of skill usage and moving around the battlefield worked fine, the AI left a bit to be desired. FFXII’s gambit system was much more specific and would have been useful in conserving your teammate’s magic points as well as convincing them to use more than just their first familiar until it’s dead or tired.
The other mechanics that are similar to Jade Cocoon involve your impact as the mage on the field and your familiars. You can do a fair amount of damage with your magic and you have the liberty of being able to use items. However, it’s the familiars that are likely going to be doing most of the grunt work in battles. They’re the ones whose common attacks actually do significant damage and whose statistics make a difference in surviving battles. You all share a health and magic bar, while each familiar has their own stamina bar determining how long each one can be used in a battle before having to take a break. Whichever familiar you have out at the time is the one whose stats determine how much damage you will dish out or take. For instance, Oliver may not be able to take much physical damage, but if you toss a tank out into the battlefield, suddenly the enemy’s attacks account for very little. The same is true for weaknesses, being forced to fight a fire enemy with only familiars that are weak toward that element is a death wish.
These simple design choices build up a very complex strategy necessary to winning a majority of the battles in Ni No Kuni. Personally, the battles always felt relatively engaging when it wasn’t just grinding or monster hunting. The boss battles up to the end were often much longer than a usual encounter and required a fair amount of mid-battle strategizing and clever item management. It never strayed into the territory of difficult, but if you aren’t paying attention, you could die rather quickly, no thanks to your inept party members. Overall, combat was relatively fun, even though it followed the typical JRPG tradition of happening way too often.
In getting back to the Pokémon aspect, suppress some of the excitement you may feel for having a Ghibli Pokémon game as it isn’t quite that simple. Pokémon’s main mechanic—its main message for that matter—is that you can catch any and all of the creatures you encounter and use them in battle. Aside from the boss monsters you encounter, the same can be said for familiars. However, the way in which you catch them is somewhat inconvenient and frustrating by comparison. InPokémon, you just had to lower the creature’s health to a weakened state, without killing it (or making it faint in terms of the game), before throwing a pokeball in order to catch it. After throwing the ball, there was a random percent chance that the creature would escape and you would be force to continue to battle it, with the option of throwing another ball to try again. Ni No Kuni’smechanic is more cryptic in that you have to beat the creature into a weakened state by simply lowering its health to 0. Then there is a small chance that the creature will solicit itself to be captured for a brief period of time, in which you must have your Bard teammate sing a seductive song to capture the creature.
It doesn’t seem so bad except for where the chance for failure exists. If you over damage a Pokémon, it’s your own fault and you’ll have to wait till the next battle to catch it, or if you don’t catch it with a pokeball, you can just throw another and try your luck again. As for Ni No Kuni, you have to hope that one of the creatures out of the (most likely) three you are fighting at the time might come back after having its health diminished. The chance of this happening feels like less than 10%. If you are fortunate enough to get a creature to enter this state, you have to make sure your specific monster catcher teammate is not incapacitated, because if they are, the monster will escape. Even if the chance of catching Pokémon was the same as making these creatures enter the solicitation state, the illusion of hope in Pokémon along with the fact that you could keep throwing pokeballs till it was caught makes the monster catching mechanic of Ni No Kuni not entirely satisfying or fun. It’s especially tedious and frustrating if you’re going after one particular type and can’t seem to catch them.
As for the other mechanics outside of combat, you will occasionally come across puzzles or side quests involving NPCs that require your magical talents. Unfortunately, most of this feels superficial due to several issues. One issue is that most of these problems ask you to cast a spell from your spell book, but no animation or indication of a spell cast is made outside of the screen flashing briefly. Considering they went to the effort of making an ancient alphabet, symbols to indicate a gesture for each individual spell, as well as detailed pages in the book describing the world’s lore and each creature, you might expect there to be some sort of animation for Oliver when he casts a spell. It’s a small touch that is missing, but it would have added a bit of weight to your actions rather than just providing a solution to a problem without anything tangible.
The other main issue with the side quests also has to do with the presentation in a different way. In the end it feels relatively pointless. The game does give you reason to do these quests because with the completion of them you earn merit points you can then trade in to gain new abilities and permanent passive abilities that are extremely useful, including improving your chances of catching the creatures. However, the quests themselves are not very fun to do, nor are they very interesting. Aside from simple fetch quests or, heaven forbid, monster catching quests, you will primarily have to do heart healing quests. These involve going around to NPCs, determining that they are missing a significant positive trait in their personality that they had at one point, but lost due to one reason or another, and then find another NPC that has an excessive amount of this same trait and give it to the malnourished one. You will do this over and over again and again, sometimes to the same people. At first you may go through the trouble of reading the story behind each person, but eventually you will likely not care anymore and just skip through till you know what they need and go get it, because it doesn’t matter. Maybe if the writing for these pointless characters was a little more interesting or making them less pointless would have given a reason to care about the story of the side quest, but essentially it always came down to the same thing.
There are some interesting side quests however. Diamonds in the rough, you will encounter the occasional side quests that will be hidden away somewhere or has an interesting backstory behind it, which often serves as a driving force to do any and all the quests you can get in the game. It’s too bad they aren’t as frequent as the heart healing quests, but that might be what makes them so special when you complete them.
Presentation
It’s already been mentioned plenty in the previous sections about how crucial to the experience the Studio Ghibli element of the presentation is. If it weren’t for the overwhelming charm and art direction of the game, Ni No Kuni would fall further into JRPG obscurity with its all too common gameplay elements and predictable story. The mechanics would still be sound, but the experience wouldn’t have been nearly as enjoyable. Without going too much further into the Ghibli qualities of the game’s presentation, here are some more pieces of the game’s presentation that both worked and fell short.
First, the art direction is extremely impressive and enjoyable. It’s just a good looking game. The colors are vibrant and the towns you visit are constantly bustling with various NPCs and activity. The way the world looks is a sight to behold with its cell-shaded look to maintain the anime style. The amount of effort poured into making this world exist with all the lore and backstory rivals some of Bioware’s various encyclopedias found in their games. If you wanted to nitpick though, the NPCs don’t have much to do or say. Yes, we don’t need every single character to have a purpose in the grand story, but with the stiff dialogue that you’re not likely to read because you just want to see if they’ll give you something, their existence in the game is shallow at best There insignificance is only exacerbated by the occasional sound of voices saying a word or two in the background. They don’t speak full sentences, just a word or two.
That’s where the game’s presentation is a little disappointing as well. At the very beginning of the game, there are a whole lot of animated sequences drawn by the artists at Studio Ghibli and lengthy conversations that are voiced exceptionally well. Unfortunately, these sequences dissipate as the game goes on and soon there is rarely a moment where voice work comes in except for the brief moment where everyone is screaming as they fall or something that really felt pointless to have the actors do. It would have been better to have them speak more dialogue throughout the game and move much of what we’re left with (walls of text) to the moments of less significance. It’s unfortunate that we get so spoiled at the beginning of the game and it never quite reaches the same production value again.
Lack of voice work aside, the sound is still fantastic. The musical score is very impressive in managing to carry a large amount of emotion in its sweeping and uplifting sound. It also managed to not become a bore by the end of the game. While it would have been nice if more songs were changed around by the end of the game or if the battle music took a different tone occasionally, it never got too grating. As great as the Persona or Final Fantasy soundtracks were, they all ended up getting muted at some point in favor of having a personal musical choice play in the background instead. Ni No Kuni’s music was strong enough that it never felt necessary to silence it in favor of some Slayer or Chopin to properly set the mood.
Conclusion
Even though this review was filled with plenty of criticisms, Ni No Kuni was still a great experience and is highly recommended. If you have never had an interest in JRPGs before or always disliked their style and storytelling, Ni No Kuni will not change your opinion; it breathes and bleeds the tropes and failings of that genre to a very fine point. However, if you are a fan of Totoro or any other Hayao Miyazaki feature, or you have an affinity towards games like Pokémon, you may enjoy the wealth of substance that Level 5 and Studio Ghibli have prepared for you in Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.