Ni No Kuni - The jrpg with Studio Ghibli art

Wow, that special edition looks great. Any chance we can see a few pics of what the book looks like JetLagger?

Yep as soon as I get home from work. The physical magic book looks to have the same content as the in game book. With the exception that you don't have access to all of the pages in the game at the start. You unlock stories and spell pages as you progress through the story.

The Escapist review (3.5 out of 5) takes Ni No Kuni to task for the grind:

Well, at least now I don't find myself pricing PS3s. I get enough grinding in real life, thanks.

Man, I was really pulling for this game. It makes me think of games like Dragon Quest IX where you don't...haaaave to grind, but if you don't want to pull your hair out in frustration, it's recommended. Which is unfortunate because I really, really wanted to play this game. I guess if anything I'll just get Gamefly again when they offer me another discounted month and play it then.

I always hope something like this gets ported to PCs and someone mods the grind out. Sadly that seems to never happen. :-(

Did anyone comment on if playing on Easy removes the grind?

Well, to be fair, I've played about 18 hours or so and I've yet to have to grind. I have been fairly completionist about sidequests and I do have a slightly overpowered pre-order familiar to lean on but I have yet to had to stop anywhere just to get levels.

which familiar did you get? by the time I got the golden hurly, all my characters were like 50.. so having a hurly is super pointless. I still use my Mite most of the time.

The griffin from the amazon preorder. I was also fortunate enough to get the code right about the time I could unlock him. He and the Mite are definitely a step above the rest so far.

nice, I been recruiting everything I can get my hands on. Out of 50+ familiar, the one you start off with still feels like the most powerful ones..

the Dodo Bird(the fat bird) still my strongest spell damage dealer, while the little faerie thing still my best healer. I like the Tin man(evolved twice already), but low accuracy kind of make it unreliable.

I been trying to find strong familiar that can equip sword and can defend, but it's kind of hard. only my mites use sword, and I literally got about 15 different swords.

Maybe I should just go catch a few more mites for all my party members.

I took a couple of shots of the Wizard Book. Thick book, 340 pages. The book reminds me a bit of the old D&D monster manuals. Monster, spell, weapons etc. with background information, pictures and stats. Cool little stories sprinkled about. Maps at the end of the book with a bit of local history. I put the pics in a spoiler tag to minimize the post size. The art is top notch.

Namco finally released a statement regarding the wizard edition foul up. According to them, anyone who lost their copy will be eligible for a free copy of the hardcover strategy guide. The bad news is that Digital River is supposed to get in touch with them to set it up, so who knows if we're going to get anything for all the annoyances.

you get the decoder on a page at least for the in game book. I actually never bother, the high lord of faerie will decode for you any time necessary.

Wow! The Wizard's Companion looks amazing!

Not if you're using fucking Digital River, the infamously shitty e-commerce provider.

My wizard edition came today surprisingly. The whole book is incredibly well done and I'm going to read through it tonight. Played up to the first dungeon, so far it's ok but it does start out somewhat slow compared to Xenoblade Chronicles.

How is the fighting in this game, does it have enough depth? I cannot bear with old-school blobber JRPGs that have ridiculously simple gameplay anymore. Something like say Blue Dragon is OK. This looks like Blue Dragon meet SMT.

If you own this game and played Dragon Quest 8, how does this compare? Because I'm hearing the exact things I heard about DQ8 -- classic (grindstorm) JRPG with charming (childish) plot that's a bit too slow (fucking glacial) in handing out new mechanics (that most games include by default these days).

I played Dragon Quest 8 start to finish and to this day could not tell you why. It's not a good game. It brings no innovation to the table; its pacing is sluggish; and the story is vapid. But I beat it, unlike so many vastly superior JRPGs which I get 50-75% into and set down never to touch them again (Xenoblade being the most recent victim).

Yes, I got tired of Xenoblade very quickly, I think it got hyped because of its elusive status until it got a Western release. It was one boring, generic and easy MMO-lite quest after another with a typical convoluted JRPG story in a pseudo steampunk environment and teenage characters. Not worth playing at all.

On the other hand I also loved Dragon Quest VIII, charming game with lots of exploration, gorgeous environments, great beastiary and it doesn't take itself too seriously. Alas most every game that Level 5 did by themselves after this release failed to live up to it, so I'm still skeptical.

I have figured I will have to buy this. It will be out here on Friday. I notice that Sony promises two familiars, Griffy and Flutterby, if I pre-order on PSN. Is this something I should get? The price appears to be about the same as a physical copy here. I don't think there are any extra familiars to be had in stores anymore, but I can get a Blu-ray of Arrietty (I have seen it, I wouldn't mind seeing it again, but it is not a priority) as a bonus in one shop if I pre-order now. Which bundle should I get, two familiars or Arrietty Blu-ray?

best quote ever.....

Uhh, then why does everyone here love it more than Chrono Trigger! Even non-JRPG fans like that guy. I bought it but haven't started it yet.

I played around five hours of this over the weekend. Enough to get through all the content in the initial area, including Ding Dong Dell. My next stop is the desert city after going through the golden forest or whatever.

So far I'm enjoying the game. The pace is indeed slllloooooow, which is exacerbated by the nigh constant attacks you have to endure on the world map. Even that wouldn't be a big deal if each battle weren't annoyingly padded out with the load to the battle screen and then the summary afterward. That stuff really adds up. On the plus side, enemies will eventually run away from you as your level gets higher, but like everything in this game so far, it takes a while.

I can see the battle system getting frantic when other party members are added. Honestly, I can see it getting overwhelming. It's certainly not yet, but the real time nature of the battles makes me a little nervous about how I'll handle it when some more elements get mixed in.

Criticisms about the characters being dumb are well founded. Or I should say Oliver is dumb. I can see why Drippy is always exasperated. The kid's got rocks in his head, which directly contributes to the 25 words where five would do problem mentioned by idris.

I just got my ni no kuni box set. someone convince me that it's ok to open and play it instead of selling it on eBay for HUGE PROFITS.

What kind of huge profits are we talking about?

Sell it! Just buy the zillion page guide from Amazon for $20 to make up for the loss of the cool printed book.

With a brief search, it looks like the Wizards Edition is going for $500 on EBay. So quite a bit.

~C~

Huge profts: GO!

the guide is like $50 right now..

Wow! I'm glad I ordered my copy with the game. I think I paid $23. MSRP on the thing is $39.99, so that seemed like a good deal. Something I'll never understand about these guides is printing them with a hard cover. A ring binder would be so much better for actually laying the thing flat to use it and read it.

I felt similarly. It isn't bad but I don't get the fuss.

After thinking about it a bit, i realized i would RATHER own it via digital download, and i don't really care much about the 'feelies'. So I am selling this puppy.

LISTED. Prepared to roll around in a huge pile of gold doubloons, while downloading the digital edition, which is superior since it doesn't come with a retarded "disc" that some of you earthlings seem to insist on using.

How much is it going for on Ebay?

I think this guy got pretty lucky.

I'm seeing prices ranging from $250 to $500. I listed mine at $229 tonight -- and already have a bid.

Even with Dead Space 3 on the horizon I've taken the plunge on this. So far it's a jrpg but man it's a really pretty one with great voice acting and music. Downloading and installing 22 gigs is probably something I'll never make the mistake of doing again though.