Ni no Kuni

[engel762]

Any of you fine gentlemen and ladies started playing Ni no Kuni yet?  I was thinking about buying it and was hoping for some first impressions.

[Crabmaster2000]

I know Fleach picked up a copy. He was talking it up to me a little while ago.

[Fleach]

Yeppers, bought it on launch day.

In a word it's great!

In many words it's a fun game with beautiful visuals and a great heartfelt story. If you like Studio Ghibli movies (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, etc) then you'll enjoy this... It's very Ghibli. And it's by Level-5 and hopefully you know their catalogue of RPGs.

Battles are fun and a bit frantic. You can choose little monsters to fight for you and you give them commands (Pokemon anyone?)

What I liked is that the main character, Oliver, is just an ordinary little boy who's thrown into a magical world. No cliche badass sword-wielding hero here.

The game is supposedly 40 hours for the main story and 80 if you want to explore every nook and cranny.

Oh yeah, character names are all puns which is kind of cute. The sheep monsters are "Baatenders" and the cat king is referred to as "your Meowjesty."

[engel762]

Excellent, I actually just got home from buying it.  Studio Ghibli is what drew me to it in the first place!

[Fleach]

Cool. Let me know what you think after playing. I'm loving the experience so far.

[engel762]

Any idea if there is a paperback version of the strategy guide?  Couldn't find one when I was out.  I looked on amazon and I'm only seeing hardbacks. 

[Fleach]

As far as I know the guide is only in hard cover and it's quite pricey ($47 in Canada).

[wildbil52]

My buddy bought it and is letting me borrow it when he's finished if I don't own it by then.

[Leynos]

Yeah I got the Wizards Edition

[Addicted]

I picked up a copy for $38 but it just sits there mocking me. I have Dead Space 3 and the new DMC keeping it company.  Work is eating up too much of my free time of late.