Author Topic: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3  (Read 7524 times)

Offline idolminds

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Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« on: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 11:33:22 AM »
Linky

Ni no Kuni! Its the game that will come with a hardcover book of spells that you use to play the game. DS game comes out in Dec in Japan, and the PS3 game in 2011. I hope these come to the US. C'mon, Atlus! You know you want to!

Offline Pugnate

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #1 on: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 11:49:54 AM »
Yea I saw this on Kotaku earlier. As a PS3 owner, I am excited.

Offline TheOtherBelmont

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #2 on: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 01:01:32 PM »
Awesome, I was looking forward to getting this on my DS but I will definitely hold out for the PS3 version now.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #3 on: Thursday, June 24, 2010, 01:44:18 PM »
I don't think they are exactly the same game, so it might be worth it to get both. I probably will just because I'm that in love with the concept.

Offline idolminds

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Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #5 on: Friday, June 29, 2012, 05:43:36 PM »
I have never wanted to spend $100 on a game before.

The Wizard's Edition. Has some DLC familiars, a stuffed version of the little lamp guy, and the 300+ page hardcover version of the spellbook.

Oh do I want that.

Offline TheOtherBelmont

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #6 on: Friday, June 29, 2012, 11:48:44 PM »
I have never wanted to spend $100 on a game before.

The Wizard's Edition. Has some DLC familiars, a stuffed version of the little lamp guy, and the 300+ page hardcover version of the spellbook.

Oh do I want that.

That's awesome!  I have to get that!

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #7 on: Thursday, July 19, 2012, 11:35:46 PM »
Ninostarter

Taking a page from the Kickstarter craze, this keeps track of the number of people preordering the Wizard Edition of the game. The more people preordering, the more stuff they will add to it!

Ugh...I can't justify that price but....ugh...

Offline TheOtherBelmont

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #8 on: Thursday, July 19, 2012, 11:42:46 PM »
Ninostarter

Taking a page from the Kickstarter craze, this keeps track of the number of people preordering the Wizard Edition of the game. The more people preordering, the more stuff they will add to it!

Ugh...I can't justify that price but....ugh...

As much as I would like to see it hit the goal, I never preorder games that early.  Its not coming out for another 6 months!

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #9 on: Tuesday, December 04, 2012, 09:00:11 PM »
Yo, demo is out now on PSN if you guys want to check this out.

Offline TheOtherBelmont

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #10 on: Friday, December 07, 2012, 02:20:38 AM »
Got a chance to play the demo and it was a lot of fun.  There are two sections they let you play in the demo.  Each of them has a boss fight and are have a time limit of 30 minutes to finish each one, which is more than enough time.  One of the sections lets you go to the world map and you get to listen to this awesome music while running around on it:



The battle system is fun and requires you to be on your toes to defend from super attacks that the enemies sometimes do.  I can't fucking wait until January to play this.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #11 on: Thursday, March 14, 2013, 08:45:27 PM »
So like... how is there no more post here?

I had a return of something else on Amazon that didn't work out, so used the extra money toward this. My life has been just dreary and somber and not good lately, so needed something light and happy. This is totally doing the job. It's pretty much JRPG: The Game, but it's just fucking beautiful and it makes you laugh and smile. My thoughts so far are that this is Final Fantasy XII-Lite at the base level, crossed with Eternal Sonata in the visual/color/theme department, with little sprinklings here and there of Secret of Mana, Dragon Quest, and Pokemon.

I'm digging on it.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #12 on: Thursday, March 14, 2013, 09:03:44 PM »
Haven't picked it up yet. I'm worried its going to be too JRPGy for my taste, though. Still...I can't say no to that art style.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #13 on: Thursday, March 14, 2013, 10:53:50 PM »
It doesn't feel too offensive to me. No random battles, has kind of a Persona 3 - 4 system where you run up to monsters and then a battle ensues on another screen. Then it feels to me kinda like FFXII just a bit, where you directly control one person/monster and everyone else is running around, and you can switch who you control at any time, plus swap out monsters at any time. FFXII again with how towns feel (I mean this in a good way), plus job boards and bounty hunts that pop up as you go. Secret of Mana in the sense of progression, how the world is put together, the style of each main party character, the desert/ice/forest level motifs (so far), and how new equipment seems to pop up in each new town.

Honestly my biggest complaint with the game at this point is that in many ways it just makes me want to go play FFXII again. But the music and art are fantastic, and I just want to see and explore more of the world. Plus the companion tome is fun (even in PDF form) and the monster designs are just fantastic, so I want to see more, and collect *ahem* them all. The battle mechanics are pretty great so far now that things are opening up a bit. I suspect this will continue to improve as it goes.

Might be worth waiting for a price drop if you're on the fence, but I don't think this one will be overly JRPG for you. It hasn't been for me so far. I mean it's unquestionably the quintessential JRPG in many ways, but the combat is fun and bouncy and active, so it hasn't bored me the way a lot of RPGs have. Other than the annoying "you're in a battle! cue annoying battle music! kill everything! end battle summary screen! you got xp, gold, and items!" thing, which is sort of as annoying here when you're fighting multiple quick battles as it has been in EVERY FUCKING RPG EVER. But that can't really be helped, I suppose. haha

I will say this: the storytelling is a touch weird. Everything looks like a Studio Ghibli movie, so you sort of constantly expect everything to be one... but that doesn't happen. You have some dumb RPG dialogue (though the localization is good, and Mr. Drippy is fucking awesome), some moments that are a little stilted because they're being told in text panel by panel, characters who sometimes seem to leap over a few stages of emotional development on their way from point A to point G. No more offensive here than any other RPG, but it does seem weird when you have production values like this. It constantly sets you up to expect more than you sometimes get because you're in a minor part of the story, or a side thing, or one of the mechanical links on the way from MAJOR STORY SECTION II BIG EVENT A to MAJOR STORY SECTION II BIG EVENT B.

And it does feel a little bit childish thus far, at least here and there. I've heard numerous times from others that it isn't a kid's game and that this becomes apparent as things go, but this feels more like a kiddie thing to me than any of the Studio Ghibli movies have. Or at least there are touches that strike me that way. I suspect the game will grow up as it goes and deal with more interesting stuff and more varied/less strictly cartoonish stuff, but some of the strokes are pretty damned broad so far with a few characters and features (though to be fair, that's certainly not always). The first big fantasy town, for instance, is named "Ding Dong Dell". I have no idea why. You'd think there'd be a bell or something with a name like that, but there isn't, and it sounds dorky as fuck every time someone says it. And the main character really seems like he's 10 years old or something, with a constant sheepish awkwardness and dialogue to match (and voice acting). Which isn't strictly a problem or a bad thing, it just adds to the vibe, along with the fact that he never understands anything and has every last fucking thing explained to him by Mr. Drippy, who ceases to be entertaining only when he's getting overly verbose about game mechanics or objectives that are completely obvious to anyone over 5 years old. Normally I read every line in an RPG with care, just as a force of habit, but I've found myself clicking very quickly through the ends of a lot of conversations where it's just: Oliver: "Really? Does that mean..." Drippy: "Exactly! It's because <xyz>!" O: "NEATO!" D: "Sure is!" O: "Well gee, so should we go over to the place now?" D: "Why yes, maybe we should GO TO THE NEXT STORY LOCATION AND DO THE THING I SAID WE SHOULD DO."

That shit has definitely gotten old, and I'm really hoping they curb that a bit. I think so much of this stuff is just kind of par for the course now that people don't even question it, though. In reading/watching reviews, I didn't see any of this kind of thing mentioned at all, and while it honestly hasn't hampered my play experience where it counts, I do find it sort of constantly annoying in small ways.

But anyway, that's really about as negative as I can be so far. The game really is a treasure. Even if at times it's felt a touch juvenile, it has totally made up for that because it's capable of instilling an appropriately childlike wonder and joy on a regular basis. There's an innocence here that stretches beyond itself into a realm of earnestness at the prospect of light and moral goodness. This is, as it must have been intended to be, a storybook come to life.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline TheOtherBelmont

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #14 on: Friday, March 15, 2013, 01:05:58 AM »
I picked this up and have the physical wizard's companion to read along with it.  I can't wait to jump into it once I have regular access to my PS3 and a quiet home again.  I keep reading a little bit of the book here and there and have to force myself to put it down because I don't want to dive too deep into it until I'm playing the game.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #15 on: Friday, March 15, 2013, 04:19:48 PM »
Yeah, the book is really fantastic. Even in PDF form.

Loving this even more after the last story segment. Stuff is opening up a bit more now and there's just so much to do. Choosing what familiars to use is impossible because they're all so awesome-looking! And they all have multiple forms that open up as you go, so it's like... MUST LEVEL ALL OF THEM.

EDIT - Shit just got real. Damn, this game gets hard in a hurry when it wants to. Which is good, though. And I find this is probably the first RPG in the history of gaming where I'm constantly out of money and there's still stuff I wish I could buy. The alchemy system is fantastic. This is JRPG: The Game except balanced in such a way to fix a lot of defects that have afflicted the genre for years. Not all, mind you... many are present, probably too many than is entirely forgivable considering the overall quality of the product. But it definitely tries to mend some of those usual gulfs, which is refreshing for sure.
« Last Edit: Saturday, March 16, 2013, 05:00:07 PM by Quemaqua »

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #16 on: Saturday, July 27, 2013, 11:45:21 PM »
Best Buy...$20 with free shipping. I really shouldn't splurge...I think I'm going to sleep on it and see if there are any copies by morning.

Offline K-man

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #17 on: Sunday, July 28, 2013, 07:06:04 AM »
DAMN IT.  I KNEW AS SOON AS I BOUGHT IT THAT THE PRICE WOULD DROP.

Oh well.  Buy it Idol.  Just buy it.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #18 on: Sunday, July 28, 2013, 04:11:45 PM »
I buyed it.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #19 on: Tuesday, July 30, 2013, 11:28:42 PM »
I was rather surprised to see I've already put 12 hours into this. I just got to the boat part but I think I need to level up a little more before I can continue. The next boss fight kicked my ass pretty well. It also might help if I fed my familiars and bought better gear. So far I've been sorta hoarding my money.

I'm pretty much loving the game, but there are a few things I don't like. A party of three but when an enemy is launching a special attack that hits everyone for high damage...only the character you are currently controlling can block. The other two just stand there like idiots and take the full damage. [EDIT: Turns out after the boss fight I'm stuck at I will get the ability to make everyone defend? Seems like a shitty thing to keep locked up] It's really frustrating because then it's almost better to take control of the healer and play healbot instead of fighting. Also having to select your action in realtime as you run around is sorta...not good. It will pause the action for some things, like tap L1 to switch characters/familiars and it will pause to let you do so. When you are selecting a spell or selecting a target for your attack actions it also pauses. If I could pause the battles at any time and still issue commands it would be great but that's not this game. It doesn't help that the AI is sorta braindead and will do stuff like cast a big mana spell when the only enemy left has just a sliver of health anyway.

TLDR: combat could be a lot better than it is. But hey, welcome to JRPGs, I guess.

I do like that you can see enemies in the field and if you're good you can avoid them. When you level up far enough they will actually run away from you so going back to lower level areas to explore you don't have to do a bunch of meaningless fights. For a game with a shitload of little monsters to catch having to just fight and fight and randomly one may want to join you so you can catch it is a real pain. I know later on you get a spell that makes this easier but right now it's a bit frustrating when you want to try catch something specific.

I like all the side quest stuff, and collecting stamps by helping people. The game is gorgeous and I need the soundtrack. So overall a thumbs up from me so far.
« Last Edit: Wednesday, July 31, 2013, 09:32:54 AM by idolminds »

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #20 on: Monday, August 05, 2013, 07:19:36 PM »
I thought I was doing real well, getting kind of over leveled and I went to kick Shadars ass and move into the post-game stuff. Of course, it's a JRPG so what you think is the last boss actually isn't so lol here are 20 more hours of these fights that you were tired of 10 hours ago.

After playing so long some things have cropped up as issues that really shouldn't have been issues. Stuff like the green chests. Only Swain can open them, with his thief gun from a distance. Ok fine. But if you see a green chest you can't just switch to him and use the gun, you have to run around the area to find the one spot where it will let you stand and do it. It's a retarded 3D version of the pixel hunt. Making going back to find all the chests a bigger chore than it should be.

Also for a game where the primary method of combat is to collect and raise little creatures, the method of catching the creatures is TERRIBLE. If you're after something specific all you can do is go get in fights with it over and over and over again until the random dice roll gods decide that this one, finally, wants to be your buddy. Why was there no spell or anything for this? Like a spell that you cast on the one you want, but maybe that ends up making it stronger and you still have to defeat it in a fight? That would be ok, right? I guess that would make the "Collect 250 creatures" trophy a lot easier but holy shit who cares?

I think for me the combat has just gone stale. Yeah I know, I was power leveling and got the one big unstoppable creature but I did that so I could breeze through fights since i was already tired of them. It pretends like it wants to be realtime, but it's sorta not. You don't really have direct control over the creatures or even yourself. I can't run up to the enemy hit a button and smack him in his bitch face, i have to select "Attack!" from the menu and then the creature will...I dunno, backup from the enemy sometimes. Maybe walk around a little. And then if he gets close he might give him a whack before i have to select "Attack!" again. If I was given more direct control over the creatures then it would be more fun.

Also nothing worse than selecting an action to take and then the boss goes into his attack animation when there is not enough time for you to bail and defend...just have to stand there and take the hit.

Anyway, I want to see it through...it's just getting kind of tiring.

EDIT: Oh yeah, one more thing I wanted to bitch about: the spells. There are a lot and some of them don't have any use outside of very specific circumstances. So why then must I scroll through them all when they obviously cannot be applied to my current situation? When I run up to a ghost and attempt to talk to it, why must I open the spell menu, scroll through the list to find Spirit Medium, and then cast it? Why couldn't that be more automated? Same thing with talking to animals, or having to cast Spring Lock on every blue and purple chest. Stop making me dig through a big list to do really simple shit. What does that add to the game? Breach Time can only be used once in a lifetime, which is drilled into your head by the story. And it tells you that in the spells descriptions. So once I've already cast it at the one single story point that requires it....why is it bloating my list? I can't ever cast it again. On the other side, one person gives you what seems like a crapload of spells after you finish a dungeon. Seriously, theres like 15 of them and you need to click and listen to the little "you got a thing!" jingle for every single one. Turns out most of them are just for lore and aren't even usable. At least they don't take up room in the spell list.
« Last Edit: Monday, August 05, 2013, 08:43:54 PM by idolminds »

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #21 on: Monday, August 05, 2013, 09:04:10 PM »
I fully understand all your woes. One of the reasons I stopped playing at the industrial pig town. I wanted to keep going, but I just sort of couldn't. I will likely return to it at some point, as I'm not totally sick of it or anything, but I definitely was going a bit too far out of my way to try to capture/train awesome creatures and all that. I always try, but I'm just not enough of a gamer for it anymore. I don't have the patience, even when I make the time.

天才的な閃きと平均以下のテクニックやな。 課長有野

Offline gpw11

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Re:
« Reply #22 on: Saturday, March 15, 2014, 04:04:06 PM »
Bought this through PS+ a while ago for $10.  Put maybe 2 hours in today....a little unsure how I feel

Offline gpw11

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #23 on: Monday, March 24, 2014, 09:42:03 PM »
Aaaand 20+ hours in and still kinda unsure.  On one hand, I like the feeling like I'm playing through a disney movie or something like that.  The animations and environments are really what pulls me in.  On the other, the whole RPG thing is dragging it down a bit for me.  I kind of have a hard time when the storyline seems so generic.

I might just see how fast I can blast through the rest of it in order to see the locales.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #24 on: Monday, March 24, 2014, 09:56:09 PM »
Yeah, it kind of wears thin. The combat bit wasnt really as good as I had hoped it would be, and the method for collecting new critters was a crapshoot that just lead to more grinding. But the story and visuals kept me going a lot.

Offline gpw11

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #25 on: Saturday, March 29, 2014, 07:58:56 PM »
Yeah, gave up.    I was still enjoying it quite a bit and found the visuals to be amazing, but that type of collecting pet RPG mechanic just doesn't appeal to me all that much.  I finally got what I thought was a good team of "pets" and then all of a sudden I was getting bored/frustrated with all the micromanagement and battles.   That and although the dungeons/overworld/towns were nice to look at, it was just the actual art itself - I felt the designs were rather generic, especially in the copy-paste towns. 


In short:

Great:

Graphics
Music (save for the battle theme)
Battles.  I found the boss battles to be pretty fun (some of them).  The reaction times needed to evade/defend and control your entire group was a really fun experience for me

Horrible:

A ton of the dialog
Repetitiveness of the sidequests, towns, and use of generic characters
Battles.  Pretty much all the battles save for the bosses

Offline PyroMenace

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #26 on: Saturday, March 29, 2014, 09:17:18 PM »
Heh, looks like almost everyone lost steam on it, I did too, but man I fucking loved some of the music in this, incredible.

Offline MysterD

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #27 on: Friday, June 07, 2019, 11:05:17 PM »
Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is returning:
https://www.destructoid.com/ni-no-kuni-returns-with-a-switch-port-and-a-pc-ps4-remaster-556384.phtml

Info on Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch's return:
-- PC and PS4 will get a Remastered version.
-- Switch will get their own separate version entirely.

Offline idolminds

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #28 on: Saturday, June 08, 2019, 12:04:08 PM »
Huh, unexpected but thats cool.

Offline gpw11

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Re: Remember that Studio Ghibli game for DS? Its coming to PS3
« Reply #29 on: Wednesday, June 12, 2019, 11:38:57 PM »
Interesting to read my initial thoughts on this above.  I went back to this years later, but like blitzed through it.  Didn't worry about side quests or capturing everything - just progressed the story.  Far more enjoyable that way.

Don't think I'll be partaking in either of these re-releases but def worthwhile if you catch them on a sale.  These kinds of whimsical games don't come along super often.