2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

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JustLikeHeaven
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby JustLikeHeaven » May 30th, 2018, 1:16 pm

Can we please get the focus of the responses back onto the games themselves? I think we've veered off-topic long enough and nothing is going to be resolved from this. Thanks!

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nesfan
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby nesfan » July 14th, 2018, 11:50 pm

I loved Ni no Kuni. It's one of the only games I currently have a platinum trophy for (I only have 3). The gameplay was pretty fun and the story, art, and music were all pretty great too. However, it's flawed. There a few things that really bogged down the experience for me. First off, the battle system. Although I didn't dislike it, it still irks me that I never had full control over my party. I will never understand why you'd make an RPG with a turn-based battle system and then have the rest of my party controlled by AI. Dictating the actions of an entire group of people is one of the main reasons I like RPGs in the first place. I also wasn't a huge fan of the monster catching mechanic. I got used to it but I still would have preferred to just fight as Oliver, Esther, and Swain. The whole monster-catching thing felt a little tacked-on to me. Those issues are a result of my own preference and kind of nit-picky but my biggest issue with the game is not nit-picky. There is something fundamentally wrong with Ni no Kuni and that is the in-battle cut-scenes. You know like when the boss you're fighting is about to use his most powerful attack, so the game cuts away from the action to show off the attack? Yeah. That's what I hate about this game.
Let me walk you through one particular scenario I found myself in. I was fighting a boss, this wizard guy that you encounter on a boat about half-way through the game. The game was hyping him up to be the main antagonist up til that point but he ended up not being that. I don't remember the guy's name. It's been a few years. Anyway, he hurt Esther pretty bad. I switched over to Oliver to cast a healing spell. I've got the healing spell queued up and wizard man decides to use his super attack that hits everyone. It triggers a cut-scene and cancels out my healing spell. Luckily Esther's still alive but barely. I go for the healing spell again. He uses another attack that triggers a cut-scene. Esther is now dead and my spell gets cancelled. Again. I try to use a resurrection item on her. The animation for the resurrection plays out but gets cut off right at the very end by another cut-scene. This time, Drippy interrupts by jumping in and using Tidy Tears to heal my party... And ultimately interrupted me using the resurrection item. Thanks so much, Drippy! You weren't 5 minutes late at all! You're doing great, buddy! I'm gonna try using that resurrection item one more time but oh no! Our old pal, wizard man is up to his old action-cancelling tricks! Now Oliver and Swain need more healing and Esther is still dead! Fantastic!
I eventually got Esther back up and my party healed and everything. But I would like to point out that all my frustrations started because all I wanted to do was heal ONE party member ONE time! And the game refused to let me do that. It should not be that hard to heal someone in an RPG. It's not the only time I found myself in a situation like that and it really dragged down an otherwise excellent game.

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ptdebate
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Re: 2018/5/14: Playstation 3: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Postby ptdebate » July 31st, 2018, 4:48 pm

Hi Everyone,

I'm sorry I have been away from the forums for a while. I was out of the country again and also wanted to take some time to think about what I wrote.

It's really not a black and white issue. There is truth in arguments from both sides. Yes, if a game sucks for 10 or 20 or even 5 hours then the game itself sucks for it - even if there is some good content buried at the end. But if a game that is one thing for the first few hours then evolves into something very different, separate perhaps from the question of quality - either for genre reasons (as with JRPGs) or as a sleight of hand (one GREAT example on this site is MGS2) - there may be a need for the reviewer to push further through the experience to get a sense of what that shift is and what it means for the game as a whole.

Due to the reasons the reviewer disliked Ni No Kuni, I ultimately stand by him in his decision to not finish it.

In light of all the discussion here, I think there is no blanket answer and it varies greatly based on the type of game being reviewed. And ultimately, it's the Critic's final word that matters because this is his site. The number one criterion for reviews on this site is that they are useful and entertaining for readers - not that they are exhaustive or encyclopedic. I apologize for the bluntness of my original reply. I easily fell into the trap of applying my personal review philosophy to a site with a different (but equally valid) approach. But I'm glad we had this kind of debate here. It's these types of discussions that keep the site interesting. If we all agreed about everything all the time then it would be boring.

Thanks everyone for entertaining my argument, and I'm glad that the discussion has broadened my perspective.


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