Digital Life

Let's call this what it is, shall we?

I finished the main story last week but have been spending quite a bit of time in the post game, hence why this took longer to write than TR did.

The Story

On the surface it seems pretty simple. You play as Oliver, a young boy raised by his mom in an average, old fashioned neighborhood. Until the White Witch from a parallel world intervenes and attempts to assassinate Oliver, the consequences of which send our young hero on a desperate quest to save his mom and save two worlds at the same time. You know, no pressure.

The story is amazingly deep for being so generally straightforward, dealing with themes like depression, loss and sacrifice in a very moving, heartfelt manner. If you've ever lost someone close to you, this game will hit you hard. Right in the feels, as the saying goes. It's also a very sobering reminder of how the best intentions can sometimes go horribly, terribly awry.

But it's not all doom and gloom, there's plenty of humor and of course, it wouldn't be much of an RPG if our young hero didn't triumph in the end.

The Characters

There's a large cast of characters made twice as large by each character having a kind of soultwin in the other, nonmagical world. They are quirky and lively, with distinct personalities. Oliver is of course the most developed. Swaine proved a surprisingly complex character, though most of the details are left to your imagination. Esthar was a bit of a disappointment in that of the main cast, she had the least amount of backstory and ends up being a bit bland in comparison. Marcassin, who is apparently Howl's soultwin, despite being a very late addition to the team is just as intriguing as Swaine, for different (and spoilery) reasons.

Is it a coincidence that Esthar is the only playable female in the game? Who knows.

Even the White Witch herself, through a rather convoluted and really depressing series of events, ends up being sympathetic in the end.

The World

Ni no Kuni's world is vast and varied, with all the RPG favorites. Ice caves, haunted trials, floating castles. The usual. The world design itself is whimsical and playful as often as it is ominous, giving a nice balance throughout the game. It's also not as tedious to navigate as is too often the case in RPGs, with the addition of some very lovely magic spells.

The animation, done by Studio Ghibli, is of course smooth and beautiful. I wish there had been more of them, or that they were a bit longer. Or just do a movie version, I would totally watch it.

Gameplay

This is the one major flaw of this game. The AI is ridiculously stupid and you have very little control over your teammates in battle. This combination is the kiss of death in battle. Literally. I lost more than one boss fight due to this lovely mix. If it's not your healer chasing glims instead of, you know, healing, it's the pathfinding, or I should say, the lack of it. When autoattacking your familiar will not, say, walk around an ally if they are in your way, thus wasting your attack and depleting your stamina unnecessarily. Ugh. It got to the point where I stopped bothering to revive my allies because it was easier to just solo. Yeah.

The other huge problem I had was the stupid attack animations. If anyone uses a skill that has an animation that interrupts the battle, it also interrupts whatever you were doing. Like healing yourself or someone else on the brink of death or attacking to cancel a dangerous enemy skill.

That said, battles are Pokemon-esque, with you catching and training your monsters (called familiars) and using them as your primary weapons. You can also play as your character (you can take control of any ally in battle) to cast spells and use other special skills, or even charge in and smack things around with your magic wand. Hey, I bet those orbs hurt. I feel like gameplay could have actually been stronger without the use of familiars, primarily due to the AI issues and general lack of control. Some basic gambits would also have been much appreciated, as the available tactics were woefully unhelpful.

Post Game

After finishing the main story, a fair amount of post game content opens up, as well as unlocking any sidequests you didn't get to yet. There's plenty to do between errands, bounty hunts and even a Colosseum, but it's not too challenging either. It could be good or bad, depending on how much you enjoy challenges. I might have a somewhat skewed perspective as I stumbled across the joy of Toko very early on and also ended up with two dinosaur-things that pretty much wreck anything and everything in their path. Even bosses.

Some errands will annoy you with their tedium, though. Like the alchemy master one. Ugh. I'm still farming that one.

Trophies

The game itself is very easy to platinum, just be prepared to invest a lot of hours on farming familiars, both to recruit and for alchemy items.

Last Word

A must for RPG fans, despite the faulty AI. RPGs are few and far between these days, and this one is well worth it.