Lots of Things to Do
In every RPG game, I always look for sidequests and in Ni no Kuni, you will be overwhelmed in the amount of things you can do. Aside from collecting all Familiars, you can take a break from the story and do errands from people in various different towns. The errands, also known as Tasks in the game, will give you money to spend and some rare items that you will only get by completing missions. There are over 100 tasks that are available for you to do. Some tasks requires you to repair people with brokenhearted illnesses where you will have to give them hearts that vary from courage, kindness and enthusiasm. Since Oliver is a wizard, you can help him find people with a big heart that have good qualities, take them and give it to the people with brokenhearted ones.
Other stuff that you can do in the game are doing bounties. If you are up to slaying down monsters, certain tasks will require you to go out to the world. Yes, there’s a world map where you can fly or walk and defeat certain types of enemies. If you are fond of colosseum challenges, there is an arena where you and Familiar can team up in taking down wave of monsters. When successfully completed, you can earn rare Familiars. As for the end-game content, more tasks get unlocked and the ability to catch Golden Familiar will be possible, in which they are more stronger than the regular ones you encountered earlier.
The amount of things that you can do in Ni no Kuni is almost overwhelming. There are so many things that you can do, you can expect to spend hundred of hours playing the game. Of course if side quests are not your thing, you can easily finish the game in roughly forty or so hours.
NOT
Too Much Grinding
One of the things that annoys me in Ni no Kuni is the non-stop grinding. While it’s common in many Japanese RPGs, Ni no Kuni’s grinding can get tiresome as that’s what you will do almost all the time. Since enemies tends to get tough when you go from one area to the next, you will have no choice but to get your Familiars up to a certain level where it can compete with them. At some time you encounter an enemy and you know you’re weak enough to tackle them on, you can run but most of the time, you cannot since the enemies will keep on blocking your way until they kill your Familiars.
Random Difficulty Spikes
Remember how I mentioned that grinding is common in this game? There’s a reason behind that since on and off, enemies and even bosses will randomly increase their difficulty. If the boss you beat seems easy, you can expect the next one to be hard where it can wipe out the party in one hit. To prevent this from happening, you will have to grind until you notice the experience bar is not moving anymore. When that happens, you know that you’re over leveled in the area you’re grinding on and it’s time to move to the next one.
VERDICT
If there’s one word that I can describe Ni no Kuni, that would be ‘Charming’. Overall, the presentation and the way the game is laid out is simply phenomenal. From the art style to the production values Level-5 and Ghilbi Studios invested on the game, I must say that Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is a RPG that no fan of the genre should not miss. While the tedious grinding is there, it’s to be expected since most JRPGs are common and who doesn’t like using cute creatures to fight? If you are a hardcore JRPG fan and are looking for a fix, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch should do it for you as the game will let you experience an extraordinary world.
[Editor’s Note: Ni no Kuni Wrath of the White Witch was reviewed on the PlayStation 3 platform. The game was provided to us by the publisher for review purposes.]
