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Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch |OT|

Zia

Member
The mentions of time-sinks and difficulty spikes make me salivate. I was actually worried this game would be too easy.

I'm really interested to see. Philip Kollar, the guy reviewing the game for Polygon, has done nothing but complain on Twitter about how difficult the game is for him. It must ramp up considerably, because the demo was brain dead easy.
 
so upset with that GI number... im not one for review scores, but that one 70 brings the MC average from 93 to 87.

i just feel upset for the game in general.

well....atleast it seems all of gaf bought it...

can't wait for my copy to arrive. just shipped!



I'm really interested to see. Philip Kollar, the guy reviewing the game for Polygon, has done nothing but complain on Twitter about how difficult the game is for him. It must ramp up considerably, because the demo was brain dead easy.

its possible they also tuned the demo down to not scare people off
 

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
I'm really interested to see. Philip Kollar, the guy reviewing the game for Polygon, has done nothing but complain on Twitter about how difficult the game is for him. It must ramp up considerably, because the demo was brain dead easy.

Arn't you overleveled in the demo?

so upset with that GI number... im not one for review scores, but that one 70 brings the MC average from 93 to 87.

i just feel upset for the game in general.

well....atleast it seems all of gaf bought it...

can't wait for my copy to arrive. just shipped!

The worst part about it is the fact things they complain about is stuff others praise.
 

Zia

Member
so upset with that GI number... im not one for review scores, but that one 70 brings the MC average from 93 to 87.

i just feel upset for the game in general.

well....atleast it seems all of gaf bought it...

Be prepared for what I'm guessing will be the two most negative heavily-weighted reviews tomorrow from Polygon and Gamespot. At one point the GS writer mentioned on Twitter that he thought people were convincing themselves that they liked the game more than they actually did, which is an infuriating, weak tactic people use when feeling excluded.

Arn't you overleveled in the demo?

I sprinted through it to try and dig into every nook and cranny, but that would explain it.
 

zeopower6

Member
I'm really interested to see. Philip Kollar, the guy reviewing the game for Polygon, has done nothing but complain on Twitter about how difficult the game is for him. It must ramp up considerably, because the demo was brain dead easy.

He is probably trying to play through the game as quickly as he can. The game does not want you to do that by any means, lol.

In the demo, you're not so much overleveled... it's more like you have really good equips and an uber!familiar (the snow Totoro-thing) who is a Level-5 beast.
 

Amir0x

Banned
I hear you. I'm in the middle of Persona 4 and then after I'm done I'm jumping to this. It feels like 2005 for me again.

Persona 4 is a good game to wait for this one on too...

...so, is Ni No Kuni legitimately strategic? One thing that's important, if battle is so frequent, is if difficulty stays at a decent level (provided you're not grinding all the time) and that strategy is a necessity to defeat hard enemies. Hard to tell how deep this goes since I don't want to spoil myself too much
 

Snookie

Member
I got my amazon promo items in the mail today. It's definitely the Japanese wizard guide edition. Not sure what ill do with it. I might just end up selling

r9HGDu7.jpg


sorry this is massive size. I uploaded it from my iphone.
 

zeopower6

Member
The 'subtitles' for the Japanese version are just the script from the English version like it tends to be in most dual audio scenarios. I guess they could 'clash' since it's so localized as opposed to being a straight literal translation.

The latter part though? No idea, lol.
 

Aeana

Member
I'm really interested to see. Philip Kollar, the guy reviewing the game for Polygon, has done nothing but complain on Twitter about how difficult the game is for him. It must ramp up considerably, because the demo was brain dead easy.
Difficulty spikes were one of the most common complaints with the JP version, and it's why they added easy mode. The demo is not at all representative of the full game.
 
The 'subtitles' for the Japanese version are just the script from the English version like it tends to be in most dual audio scenarios. I guess they could 'clash' since it's so localized as opposed to being a straight literal translation.

The latter part though? No idea, lol.

ugh, i know. it's Shizuku, not Mr. Drippy. i think the girl's name is Mari, and the other guy's name is not Swaine. UGHHHHHH...why oh why..
 

Eusis

Member
The 'subtitles' for the Japanese version are just the script from the English version like it tends to be in most dual audio scenarios. I guess they could 'clash' since it's so localized as opposed to being a straight literal translation.

The latter part though? No idea, lol.
Yeah, you'll always get dubtitles with localized games, the only exception may be Sakura Wars and I think they only switched the names back.

I can understand it, honestly. Games can have way more text than some movie or anime would, and you'd pay way more for less work (purely in regards to localization effort) in a movie/series anyway.

EDIT: Though either keeping the names the same or going for a toggle (that probably would need to be done at the start of the game) might've helped, switching out all instances of a name with the alternative, though that may wreck any terrible puns.
 

zeopower6

Member
Nah, even Disney does it with their Ghibli films. The Japanese tracks never really get their own set of subtitles from my experience, or the ones they do get are really... different... from the actual Japanese dialogue. Like an edited set of dubtitles?

And judging from what I've seen dialogue-wise, whoever translated this went to town on the puns, lol.
 

madhtr

Member
Heh, I just traded in my broke ass 360 (and wireless adapter) to pay off the rest of my regular edition. Ended up getting $120 out of it. Funny, since I actually considered trashing it before I took it in. I am ready to wake up and travel on up to the store to pick it up.
 

madhtr

Member
whats the odds of Gamestop giving me a steel-book if I ask for it, even though I didn't preorder?

They were rubberbanding games to copies with receipts of customers getting the steelbooks at the store I shop at.... so depends on how your store is doing it, I guess.
 

zeopower6

Member
Sorry, I'm on Jack Daniels.

To rephrase: i'm complaining about Drippy. i dislike when developers throw an accept onto a character for the sake of giving them an accent that seems out of place. So with Japanese voices on, and specifically using drippy as an example, I hear one thing while my mind is processing a seemingly Welsh accent. The juxatoposition is distracting.

So if I turn the English voices on, is Drippy going to sound Welsh while all other character speak witha formal English accent?

I dunno; i find it distracting :(

Pssst, he was given that accent because in Japanese, he spoke in Kansai-ben. It doesn't really translate well from English to Japanese and vice-versa. It's sort of like how whenever they translate/dub Osaka-ben, it tends to come out like a Brooklyn/Southern accent.

You know, before the game got all hype-y, some people's GameStops were literally just handing out the steelcases about two weeks ago. Bad move. Now they're not gonna have enough.
 
Pssst, he was given that accent because in Japanese, he spoke in Kansai-ben. It doesn't really translate well from English to Japanese and vice-versa. It's sort of like how whenever they translate/dub Osaka-ben, it tends to come out like a Brooklyn/Southern accent.

You know, before the game got all hype-y, some people's GameStops were literally just handing out the steelcases about two weeks ago. Bad move. Now they're not gonna have enough.

which means you should go when the store opens to secure your steelcase again
 

Eusis

Member
Nah, even Disney does it with their Ghibli films. The Japanese tracks never really get their own set of subtitles from my experience, or the ones they do get are really... different... from the actual Japanese dialogue. Like an edited set of dubtitles?

And judging from what I've seen dialogue-wise, whoever translated this went to town on the puns, lol.
Pretty sure that's a problem only Laputa had, I distinctly recall very different tracks for English/Japanese on those films, as they're actually worth rewatching in each language.
 

madhtr

Member
I really don't get the guide.... How is it going to arrive if it hasn't even been boxed up yet? Stupid Amazon Release Day Delivery... :(

Status: Not yet shipped
Latest Event: Order Received - Jan 3, 2013 12:33:47 PM
Description: We've received your order, but we haven't started preparing it for shipment yet. The amount of time your order spends in this status can vary based on the availability of the item(s) and the selected delivery.
 

Cheddahz

Banned
I'm seriously excited for this tomorrow, I'm going to ask for the steel book case when I go pick up my copy (and hopefully I get one)
 

RPGCrazied

Member
I don't mind difficulty spikes. Grinding will help with that. As long as it doesn't get Demon Souls hard, I'll be fine. Hated that game.
 

Eusis

Member
I don't see this being Demon's Souls style there anyway for better or worse. A lot of the challenge there was familiarizing yourself with the game, once that was done you could eviscerate anything that stood in your way. Most likely Ni No Kuni would still be a challenge until you reached a high level, then they'd just run in terror from you.
I remember Kiki and a few others being slightly 'off'.
Kiki WAS an earlier example, I even saw a trailer for it on a Disney VHS tape we had to watch in middle school. I know Mononoke avoided dubtitles and I vividly recall the subtitles for Spirited Away not matching the spoken dialogue (English) whatsoever. So they probably got better at it over time rather than sticking with dubbing and one subtitle track.

Although, I do recall Halo Legends apparently stuck with dubtitles, but there's a reason something like that is phoned in while they strive to improve Ghibli's.
 

Alex

Member
I would be pleased if the difficulty level is decently punishing. Nothing annoys me more than getting an RPG or a strategy game with lots of dials to turn and things to experiment with and it largely being rendered meaningless by poor tuning. Ie; having to mod the damn XP out of questing in Xenoblade for a modern example.

Traditional RPGs and more notably strategy RPGs seem to be the types of entries that traditionally suffer the most. Especially SRPGs, there's like a 90% chance in a a Japanese SRPG that something is just crazy busted by default and I'm not talking about going in and breaking the game yourself like in TO classic or any NIS game.

For traditional entries, from childhood to now, I've always really respected Dragon Warrior/Quest's tuning. It always seemed just right, absolutely perfect for a baseline level. I always loved my wacky learning curves and difficulty spikes, but even as I'm starting to get older and mellow out of it a little I still have a really hard time enjoying a game that can't push back some.

All the blah blah aside, if there's an easy mode why is someone bringing a spiel against the game and it's difficulty, or is the easy mode also just that bad ass or something?
 

zeopower6

Member
Not sure about the former, but for Polygon: http://www.twitter.com/pkollar

https://twitter.com/fiddlecub GameStop's here. He's about 55 hours in and the review will be up tomorrow. He was also like "This game is getting a lot of praise that isn't warranted" or something.

or is the easy mode also just that bad ass or something?

From what I have heard.... even on Easy Mode, if you try blasting through the game, you're going to get slapped in the face, lol.
 

Purexed

Banned
Two hours in and so far, so awesome. It's like staring into a video game version of the Gnomes, my fave childhood cartoon growing up! :)
 
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