Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Great art direction is undercut by interminably underdeveloped combat system, from clunky interface to dumb AI.

The very definition of mediocrity.

Starts off really promising, and then, bit by bit, goes down the drain. The art is consistently beautiful Studio Ghibli work, but while the story starts in an interesting place - crossing between '50s Detroit and a fantasy world - it gets simultaneously weirder and less interesting as it goes on. There are too many mechanics, in combat and out; evolving monsters is complex enough, why do they also have armor and weapons to track? And bosses get increasingly frustrating as you go.

If you like Miyazaki films, this gives you the feeling of playing through one. Story is good and the combat is fun. Collecting familiars is a bit boring

love the art world story charm setting and monsters sometimes. combat bad, needed more pausing. i like the helping people powers but they're so simple. using spells in the world gets annoying. monsters dont evolve fast enough and the rng for catching them is terrible. shoulda switched to easy earlier lol still annoyingly hard at times. like 60h but shoulda been 20. as a tv show or movie woulda been 85+. loved drippy in the beginning. sad mom. shadar and pea story saved.

Looked cool, combat was boring, game felt like it was holding my hand. and didn't let me figure any thing out on my own. Might give another try but put several hours into and was unimpressed.

The first true JRPG I was really giving a try, aside from Legend of Dragoon I guess back when I was a dumb baby. I was enjoying the charm of Ni no Kuni up until my save file corrupted and set me back 10 hours worth of progress. No way I'm powering through all that again, so I suppose this game will remain undone for the foreseeable future. Maybe I'll jump right into the sequel...

Rating based on Remastered version. Like an overlong interactive Ghibli film. Looks great and has an incredible soundtrack. Took me a decent while to get into the combat system, but ultimately enjoyed it and its customisability. Bonus points for the moments in which some Welsh is used and I could enjoy the simple glee of "I know that word!".