Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

This is a review from someone who is not a JRPG fan. I'm giving this a thumbs up, but I have to mention some chronic genre frustrations. This game might not be fun for you. It really stretched the definition of fun for me.

First, the good: it's playing inside a Studio Ghibli movie and it looks and feels delightful. It's all here! Endearing and wacky characters, innocence and wonder, and unfortunately the usual conservative family values. If you don't try to think too much about the implications and plot holes, it's easy to just lose yourself in its world. The world is bigger and more full of content than I expected, and the game can be quite long if you pursue the side quests (~70 hours for me). The graphics are wonderful: colorful, hand-drawn, and delightful. The orchestral score is luxurious. Voice acting is sporadic, but nice when it appears.

And there are many layers to this game. For example, there's a comprehensive (and a blatant Pokémon-ripoff!) creature collection system. There are many, many adorable creatures and they all have widely different traits and powers, and you can furthermore progress them individually. There are just so many ways to calibrate your own fight deck.

And now for the bad. The action elements of this game can be a real drag. There are some intricate and cool RPG systems, but they are applied in an extremely tedious way. Combat consists of highly structured encounters in which all your points and powers and gizmos come into play. On "normal" difficulty it could be challenging if you're not leveled up enough. (Solution: grind and level up.) Combat is organized around a pretty nifty mechanic that smoothly combines arcade action with real-time tactical decisions, and it could be quite satisfying to win against challenging opponents. The problem is that such encounters are everywhere and they all follow the same exact structure. Always. This becomes very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very repetitive. The core of this game is grind. Bosses especially are HP sponges and require a whole lot of rinse and repeat, even when you figure out how to beat them. And a handful of the side quests are just in-your-face grind.

A related annoyance is the game-save system. Often you can save whenever you want, but in "dungeon"-like areas you have to reach specific save points. This feels arbitrary and indeed can be frustrating to skip through the same five cutscenes and dialogs over and over again when you die. So, grind is punished by more grind. Why did you die? Likely because you wanted to experiment with some new RPG elements you've uncovered. The game punishes you for experimenting.

The grind is endemic and if just the thought if it is a big turn-off for you then don't play this game, because you will hate it. But, if you approach this game with a mood for grinding and aren't too invested in high-stakes combat, it absolutely delivers on the headline: playing inside a beautiful Studio Ghibli movie. That's awesome. And so, despite my annoyances, I give this a "you have been warned" thumbs up.