Ni no Kuni

[The Sonic Mole]

It's not so much that I feel the need to grind, just like to do it every so often to keep ahead of the curve combat wise.

This is definitely the way. I tend to grind until the lowest level enemies in the world field of that particular area leg it from me.

[BasementShaxx]

Ni No Kuni farming tips below:

Spoiler: show

There is a great spot to farm when you get the ship and the world map opens up. To the north of the Summerlands is a series of islands, the small one in the south east of the group (Ugly Duckling Isle) is the only place where the incredibly rare and almost impossible to capture Toko spawns. As well as being the most Totoro-esque looking of the familiars, you get around 6000 xp for beating one. They are incredibly skittish and will always flee from you on the world map, and will also take every opportunity to flee from battle too so make sure you concentrate on the Toko as soon as the battle starts. FYI, that isle appears to be the only place that Mites spawn, if you wish to have both final iterations of that familiar.

Next good farming point is accessible once you have Tengri. To the north-west of Hamelin, is a town called Perdida, and the path on the world map that leads down from Perdida is the only place the next evolution of Toko appears - Tokotoko. This one is as rare as Toko but the area is bigger so you'll stumble upon a fair few after a while. Same deal as with Toko, but this time worth around 9000 xp. Tokotoko was the only one of the Toko family I was able to catch, apparently there's a 2% chance of catching one in battle!

Finally, for those who are far enough, Tokocolds spawn every now and then in the Ivory Tower. Can't remember how much xp you get for beating one but it's a lot!

Also, a good tip for all these areas - once you've made a loop of an area it's worth casting Gateway twice to reset the spawns.

Hope these tidy tips help, mun

[BasementShaxx]

Ps. Just remembered, those xp quotes might not be accurate for everyone. I bought the swift solutions reward that gives you more xp for battles as soon as I could afford it so I'm not sure what the base xp is.

[ratsoalbion]

Great stuff - thanks for that Mr D!

[The Sonic Mole]

Ps. Just remembered, those xp quotes might not be accurate for everyone. I bought the swift solutions reward that gives you more xp for battles as soon as I could afford it so I'm not sure what the base xp is.

I did the same. I would say doing this is a pro tip in itself.

[Cass]

So Ni No Kuni is going through something of a bargain explosion at the moment, with plenty of outlets offering it at sub-£20 and even sub-£15 levels, which for 40-60 hours of prime JRPG meat is not bad at all.

JRPGS as a genre are something that I've fallen out of touch with as years have gone on (read: as Final Fantasy games have become progressively more shit) but I love both Ghibli and Pokémon so picked this up when it was around £14 for PS+ members a few weeks ago. 10 hours in and it has yet to disappoint - it's charming as all get-out, the mechanics are surprisingly deep and robust, and the story has just enough darkness and humour to it to keep it from being saccharine.

My main reason for making this thread, apart from general discussion, is tips and tricks. This is a game with a ton of mechanics, hundreds of trainable critters, lots of sidequests and a huge world - I'm certain there's things I'm missing, be it great familiars to tame, missable items etc etc.

I'd love for there to be a C&R of this game, but since it's so huge I'm not holding my breath. In the meantime though, would love to hear from anyone else making their way through this gorgeous world.

[BasementShaxx]

You might want to peruse the original Ni No Kuni thread, it's full of tips and farming locations - http://caneandrinse.com/forum/viewtopic ... NI+NO+KUNI

[ratsoalbion]

Merged!

[Cass]

I suck. Clearly my search did not reveal enough. :p

[Flabyo]

I knew I waited too long to sell my copy on after deciding I didn't like it... hehe...

[Cass]

Just finished this. Enjoyed every minute of it, loved quite a lot of it, but not without reservation. Disappointed with where the plot decided to go.

Spoiler: show

I was really hoping that the entire world would turn out to be a creation of Oliver's. Following the death of his mother, the guilt causes him to hallucinate a world in which he is a powerful hero capable of resurrecting his mother and solving complex emotional issues simply.

But nah, it's Ghibli, of course they didn't do that. The story played its fantasy elements incredibly straight, which was disappointing. Still, the game experience was fun (if a little too easy) all the way through. Thoroughly enjoyed it. Can't wait for a C&R (if there ever is one!).

[gallo_pinto]

Now that the threads have been reorganized around a bit, I just wanted to pop on to this one to say how excited I am to see Ni no Kuni getting the Cane and Rinse treatment. This game is the one I was most hoping to hear you guys talk about, but I was a bit doubtful you all would ever tackle it given how long it is. I'll save my longer thoughts on it for when we get closer to the recording, but I think it would make for a real interesting discussion. For me personally, this game has elements that I think are the absolute best in its class as well as game design decisions that had me throwing my controller towards the end. Can't wait to hear you all talk about it.

[Craig]

I bought the DS version with the book a while back but due to my limited Japanese it's been relegated to my "games to play when I/to improve my Japanese level. That being said even if I never get back round to it I won't regret my purchase. The few hours I played was inventive an fun and looking up the magic spells made me feel like a kid again. Being in Japanese probably added to the mystique of thumbing through the gorgeous book, too.

The DS version is dirt cheap now. I think I've seen it as low as ¥500 which means you can get a lovely little spell book full of studio ghibli art for the price of lunch.

[Flabyo]

This should be an interesting one for me because...

This is the game that convinced me I no longer like the entire JRPG genre.

It looks great, it sounds great, I hated playing it. I lent it to a friend years ago and I've never bothered chasing up getting it back.

It does everything I dislike in JRPGs, all at once. It's repetitive, it's grindy, it has weird difficulty spikes, it takes an age to get to the point of anything...

I think the only JRPG I've played since and actually enjoyed was 'The Last Story'. And I'm someone who used to adore the genre (I still think Xenogears is the game that's had the most impact and stuck with me the longest of anything I've ever played, but I don't think I could ever play it again now).

Tastes change, it's like looking back at the first CDs you bought (remember those?) and thinking "I used to like that?".

[gallo_pinto]

Here's a really cool take on the ending(s) of Ni No Kuni. The author now writes for the AV Club's video game section. I think his points make a lot of sense and this made me retroactively appreciate the ending and themes of the game more.

(Might be common sense, but the link contains HUGE SPOILERS for the ending of Ni No Kuni)
http://caspiancomic.com/gametheory/?p=393

[gallo_pinto]

Ni No Kuni is a lavish, extravagant feast where some of the meat has been undercooked. The food looks so mouthwateringly delicious that you can’t help but scarf it all down and it tastes amazing, especially at first. But there is maybe too much food and it takes a little too long to finish. And that undercooked meat undercuts some of what had previously been a fantastic meal. When you’ve finished, you’re still really glad that you ate, but also disappointed that the chef didn’t quite pull it off, because this had the potential to be the greatest meal of all time.

Everything about Ni No Kuni’s presentation is gorgeous. The collaboration with Studio Ghibli really pays off (though I feel like they front-loaded the animated cutscenes) and the art style is sublime. The environments look great and the character designs of the familiars are probably the best I’ve ever seen (Puss in Boats is my favorite). I think that Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack is one of the greatest ever and is one of the main reasons this feels like a Ghibli film. Lastly, the Wizard’s Compendium is the coolest and most beautiful digital book I’ve ever seen in a video game.

There are elements of the gameplay that I really enjoy. Catching the different familiars is really fun as is choosing how to level them up. I wish the side quests were a bit more involved, because most of them are just fetch quests, especially the ones that require you to find the pieces of heart. But my biggest issue with the game by far is the combat. It wasn’t really a problem in the normal enemy encounters, but it had me throwing my controller several times in boss fights. Ni No Kuni layers SO MANY systems on to its combat and I think that could have worked great if it was a purely turn-based RPG, but because of it’s real time elements, it was very challenging to get everybody to do what I wanted. It’s such a credit to the rest of the game that I completely beat it and went on to beat the The Guardian of Worlds even though I really disliked all of the boss fights for the last thirty hours of the game.

Out of all of the games I’ve played in the last five years, Ni No Kuni has evoked the most complicated feelings. I love its art direction, soundtrack and sense of style sooooo much. I wanted so badly to stay longer in that world that I put over 70 hours into it even though I found the combat extremely frustrating. So many people unreservedly love this game, and I’m genuinely jealous of those people, but for me, Ni No Kuni is both a great game and a missed opportunity.

Three Word Review: Sumptuous, Beautiful, Frustrating

[gallo_pinto]

And this isn't part of my correspondence, but I wanted to post some of the character designs, because I think Level 5 dances circles around the Pokemon designers. It was surprisingly hard to find good pictures of the familiars through Google, but in the game, they look fantastic.

Puss in Boats was my favorite:


I really liked Flash Fry:


And I think Mite looks good in all of his forms, but I prefer his first one:


(And sorry for the triple post! I had hoped someone else would have posted before I wrote my correspondence)

[Thejudge625]

This is one of the games that makes me want to kick myself for selling my PS3. I loved every minute of this game. I had taken a break from the JRPG genre for years after Grandia II on my Dreamcast, but after looking at the pictures and videos on the PSN store I bought Ni No Kuni. Going in with no expectations I was just looking for something different and this game delivered. The art immediately pulled me in and I would sit for 5-8 hour long sessions in this game without even realizing time had slipped by. While I enjoyed the story it never struck me as incredible but the characters within were very memorable and full of life. The combat was also engaging but I kept it as simple as I could and only really captured a couple of dedicated monsters to fight by my side. The casino was great and I would spend hours racking up cash in the Platoon mini-game. I'll never forget when 30 hours in encountering what I thought the story was building up to be the final Boss only to find out there was another 30 hours of game ahead of me and being stoked about the prospect. All in all a wonderful experience from a JPRG and nothing since in the genre has been able to evoke the same feelings of affection for a game from me.

[RCheeze]

Three word review: I gave up.

I'm new to this forum so I don't really post too much. And perhaps it's inadvisable to comment on this game since I did not finish it, but I suppose Ni No Kuni, along with a few other JRPGs, shored up something in me that had been percolating for a while: The fact that I'm done with RPGs.

I feel like I cannot stomach these massive adventure games anymore. It's almost an anxiety-inducing thing because I realize that RPGs nowadays are so much bigger than they ever were in the 90s or early 2000s and while Ni No Kuni was an absolutely gorgeous game exuding in charm, brilliant art direction and an expansive world, I just could not get through more than 10 hours before feeling overwhelmed.

Regardless, I'll likely listen to the podcast to hear what you guys all thought. I'm also curious to hear how you could play, let alone finish, a game this large for the Cane & Rinse podcast.

[Alex79]

I wish I'd played this, I saw a review of it on the Ginx video game channel yesterday (they're not very up to date!) and it just looked stunning. The closest I've ever seen to playing an actual cartoon. The graphical style reminded me of the prettier Tales Of... games, only times a thousand. Absolutely gorgeous looking.