Zero Punctuation: Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch

[NightHawk21]

Wait, what? The "tutorial" on this game is 17 hours, too? Like Final Fantasy XIII? But XIII gets hate for having a "20 hour tutorial", but this game gets love because it is "so long" (seriously, that is about all I've heard about the game, that it is really long). Why is one ok but the other isn't? Oh wait, that's right, other is Final Fantasy so it must get hate.

I've never played either of these games, but it depends on how the tutorial is done. To use an example with movies for example, some 2 hour movies feel really long, to the point where half an hour movie time feels like an hour of real time. Then there are others where I'll start watching it, 2 hours have past and I'll think its been about 10 minutes.

So its not exactly about how long it takes to introduce all the dynamics, it about how its done and how entertaining the game is in between.

 

[Kargathia]

Needless profanities, irrevocably cynical, utterly disgusting and disrespectful analogies, a sick sense of humour, and general ambiguity as to whether he even liked the game.

10/10, would watch again.

Not sure about the game though. I dislike captain obvious tutorials, and Japanese attempts at "cute" and "charming" creep me the hell out. (Not like non-Japanese versions don't, just less so).

 

[DJShire]

I know a lot of people had a cow about the puns in the game, but they were purrfect.

 

[RaikuFA]

Wait, what? The "tutorial" on this game is 17 hours, too? Like Final Fantasy XIII? But XIII gets hate for having a "20 hour tutorial", but this game gets love because it is "so long" (seriously, that is about all I've heard about the game, that it is really long). Why is one ok but the other isn't? Oh wait, that's right, other is Final Fantasy so it must get hate.

It's more along the lines that FFXIII is extremly linear so you have todo each tutorial right after another. While NNK lets you go around and explore/grind until you WANT to continue the story.

 

[Basement Cat]

Lol oh wow. This was a good one. I laughed so hard. I thought I was going to pass out from the lack of oxygen. This is the Yahtzee review style that had hooked me to come to this website many years ago. Sadly last few years his crazy comedy reviews have been missing or just poorly done. Glad to see the crazy jokes are coming back for this week.

He's really picked up the pace recently! I'd been getting the feeling that he was getting tired of doing Zero Punctuation. This is the second one in two weeks that I've wanted to go back and replay right away--after having to go back a few seconds time and again to be sure I caught what he was saying on the first play through.

Woo-hoo!!! Go Yahtzee!!!

 

[Baldr]

Wait, what? The "tutorial" on this game is 17 hours, too? Like Final Fantasy XIII? But XIII gets hate for having a "20 hour tutorial", but this game gets love because it is "so long" (seriously, that is about all I've heard about the game, that it is really long). Why is one ok but the other isn't? Oh wait, that's right, other is Final Fantasy so it must get hate.

I thought the main issue people had with Final Fantasy 13 was that it was extremely linear, to the point where you were forced into particular characters for most parts of the game.

Fans of JRPG are pretty immune to games that introduce elements of the system several hours into it, providing those systems to be: a) fairly interesting to play at our own pace, even when not completely broken up, and b) have enough content once it opens up to make the tutorial sections a minority. FF13 failed on (a) because even grinding was limited and opened up little by little, and (b) because, by the point the whole system opens up and we are free to use any character and class we want, we are on chapter 10, out of 13...

Only the first 15-20 hours(depending on how fast you are) are linear, then the game opens up. You pretty much learn everything there is to do combat wise by the first Barthandelus encounter, which is halfway through the linear part.

 

[Razzie.Putin]

Are we playing entirely different games? you need to grind like holy fuck for exp and for money(since even the basic potions cost several hundred bucks out the gate) the only creepy thing about oliver is how he is always so chipper and polite despite the situation at hand where any other rational person would be enraged.


On a separate note entirely, drippy can go fuck himself, little yellow bastard can spit up health and mana orbs at will but does he do so when I'm in the middle of a boss fight with no mana or health items left and a sliver of HP between me and a game over screen? NOPE!

You must be. And I must be playing the same game as he. I finished the main story 2 nights ago. It took just over 38 hours, and I NEVER had to grind to do so. I played on the normal difficulty, did some of the optional stuff along the way, but there was never a point in the game where I ran around fighting things to earn money or experience. Maybe the grinding that everyone seems to talk about starts with end game content. I have quite a few gripes with the game (teammate AI being a big one) but grinding was not an issue for me.

But yeah, I agree with you on the Drippy thing. I cussed him everytime time he used the healing tears crap AFTER 2 of my party members were already gone.

 

[irishda]

No one else is gonna mention he talked about the left stick but pointed at the right one?

 

[Sylveria]

Wait, what? The "tutorial" on this game is 17 hours, too? Like Final Fantasy XIII? But XIII gets hate for having a "20 hour tutorial", but this game gets love because it is "so long" (seriously, that is about all I've heard about the game, that it is really long). Why is one ok but the other isn't? Oh wait, that's right, other is Final Fantasy so it must get hate.

I thought the main issue people had with Final Fantasy 13 was that it was extremely linear, to the point where you were forced into particular characters for most parts of the game.

Fans of JRPG are pretty immune to games that introduce elements of the system several hours into it, providing those systems to be: a) fairly interesting to play at our own pace, even when not completely broken up, and b) have enough content once it opens up to make the tutorial sections a minority. FF13 failed on (a) because even grinding was limited and opened up little by little, and (b) because, by the point the whole system opens up and we are free to use any character and class we want, we are on chapter 10, out of 13...

Only the first 15-20 hours(depending on how fast you are) are linear, then the game opens up. You pretty much learn everything there is to do combat wise by the first Barthandelus encounter, which is halfway through the linear part.

Map of FF13 -------------------------------------O----|O The | indicated the end of the story. and the O indicated the Grand Pulse areas.

It opens up only to snap shut again as you head toward the end of the game. It doesn't even open up that much mechanically because each character has 3 classes they're good at and 3 they suck at and cost 10x as much to level.

Can FF13 fans please stop this "it opens up at hour 20" defense? Do you realize how stupid that sounds that you're defense of a game being too linear is "Give it almost a solid day's worth of playing time and it gets a little bit more open"? You could finish almost every other Final Fantasy game in the time it takes FF13 to actually let you start playing it.

 

[Neefertiti]

I love you for the Psycho tie in.

 

[xdiesp]

It's pronounced "geeblee" with a hard G, not "jeeblee". Sigh.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

I honestly think Yahtzee should play some eroge with gameplay (ie. anything translated by Alicesoft or Eushully) so we can get his reactions about something related and yet different to JRPGs....And also cause I think they do away with at least some of the problems that he has with JRPG.

That said, I feel this review got sidetracked a bit (which hurt the humor) but I still enjoyed it.

Ni No Kuni's story wasn't created by Ghibli at all

The game was developed by both of them I'm sure they had a hand in the story even if it wasn't the direct script, regardless, Yahtzee is just giving us his observations.

It's pronounced "geeblee" with a hard G, not "jeeblee". Sigh.

Wikipedia and their official site say you're wrong.

 

[Ukomba]

Do developers really not know how popular older styles are? FF6,7,8, Chrono Trigger, and FF10 had some of the best RPG combat systems. The Gibli Art style would have lent it's self well to a more retro, FF6/Chrono Trigger style game. They had a nice blend of simplicity, and action. It seems like everything is now either MMORPG style combat or Zelda style action. I'm not a fan of Kiting at the best of times, and 9 times out of 10 it isn't about player skill at all, you're just taking advantage of bad AI, terrain exploits, glitches, or bad pathing.

 

[Sylveria]

Yahtzee really kinda nails this one. I finished it about a week ago and it was a fairly agonizing experience. I say this as a JRPG fan, this hybrid combat sucks. FF13 and NNK have both tried it and if it can be done right, neither managed it.
The UI is a mess, your partner AI is retarded, having specials attacks be rewards for exploiting the bosses weaknesses anyway is idiotic, the alchemy system is useless, the pokemon gathering is tedious, the game treats you like a moron by telling you everything 10x even after you know what to do, and the story is uninteresting.

I will say one thing and that's that I didn't need to grind. However, the only reason I didn't need to grind is cause it takes so long to catch the Not-Pokemon you want sometimes, you end up grinding unintentionally.

 

[Lovely Mixture]

Do developers really not know how popular older styles are? FF6,7,8, Chrono Trigger, and FF10 had some of the best RPG combat systems. The Gibli Art style would have lent it's self well to a more retro, FF6/Chrono Trigger style game. They had a nice blend of simplicity, and action. It seems like everything is now either MMORPG style combat or Zelda style action. I'm not a fan of Kiting at the best of times, and 9 times out of 10 it isn't about player skill at all, you're just taking advantage of bad AI, terrain exploits, glitches, or bad pathing.

As evidenced by many things produced in Japan, unfortunately it appears that their audiences favor style over substance (keep in mind I say this whilst being a very big anime buff, also Dark Souls is my favorite game).

In layman's terms, kids favor graphics so the gameplay doesn't get much work, and the publisher/developer feel the retro style is too risky.

 

[revjay]

With games like this they always lose me at the "J" part of the "JRPG" description. Oh and BTW, I, too, was born fully mature wearing a smoking jacket. Small world, small world indeed.

 

[Reeve]

Huzzah! Yahtzee has his mojo back!

 

[Legion]

This was the funniest one in a long time. Can't speak for the game itself, but a very amusing video.

 

[Ukomba]

Do developers really not know how popular older styles are? FF6,7,8, Chrono Trigger, and FF10 had some of the best RPG combat systems. The Gibli Art style would have lent it's self well to a more retro, FF6/Chrono Trigger style game. They had a nice blend of simplicity, and action. It seems like everything is now either MMORPG style combat or Zelda style action. I'm not a fan of Kiting at the best of times, and 9 times out of 10 it isn't about player skill at all, you're just taking advantage of bad AI, terrain exploits, glitches, or bad pathing.

As evidenced by many things produced in Japan, unfortunately it appears that their audiences favor style over substance (keep in mind I say this whilst being a very big anime buff, also Dark Souls is my favorite game).

In layman's terms, kids favor graphics so the gameplay doesn't get much work, and the publisher/developer feel the retro style is too risky.

Oh there are certainly places for those styles. I'm a big fan of Dark Souls, I enjoyed Dragon Age 1, Kingdom Hearts is one of the best games of all time imo.

Except they keep re-packaging their retro games. How many version of FF1 are there now? They re-released Chrono Trigger on the DS with added content, so they aren't un-aware of the popularity. Anyways, I have no problem with FF13 graphics. If anything, the could put more money into those graphics if they recycled older, proven combat systems rather than developing new ones.

 

[Fursnake]

With games like this they always lose me at the "J" part of the "JRPG" description. Oh and BTW, I, too, was born fully mature wearing a smoking jacket. Small world, small world indeed.

Ditto, I stopped playing JRPG's when I started high school, they just seemed to lose all appeal although I was never really that partial to them.

"You ever get the uneasy feeling you're playing something that completely isn't aimed at you?"

That pretty much sums up me and JRPG's.

I was born with hairy legs and a beard...and not a hipster beard.