Ni No Kuni Wrath of the White Witch | The Completionist

hey everyone and welcome back to another brand new episode of the completionist today's video is sponsored by amino apps now amino apps is this awesome cool fun app that is for free that you can get on your ios or android based device i.e tablets or phones and it's kind of like this cool social media interconnection network where you can kind of follow all different kinds of your interests in a cool community hub within the app you can do all kinds of fun stuff you can talk to other people you can do trivia questions you can ask a question you can share fan art you can talk about theories for trailers and all different kinds of stuff depending on the games that you're into honestly i'm really blown away by the supportive people i've found and connected with here on the platform one of the neatest things about the app is there's always something to do at any given moment in some communities there could be up to 300 people just chatting you can talk to them via text leave voicemails just do voice chat it's all really cool and to my understanding it's all pretty safe as well you can share your love and passion for all things video games and more now for a limited time only if you check out the explore tab in the amino app you'll notice that there is a tab that says the completionist's picks these are all of my personal picks based on the games i've recently completed on the completionist so these communities specifically are where i'm hanging out in as a reminder this app is completely free if you want to use it and if you're using the app you want to follow me you totally can the completionist i'm a part of a bunch of different communities i'm a part of the zelda community sonic kirby dark souls bioshock a hat in time cuphead and so many more guys amino apps check it out in the app store today and let me know what you think in the comments down below hayao miyazaki studio ghibli has been a gold standard for 2d animation since its start with my neighbor totoro they helped to introduce japanese animation to tons of americans with stunning visuals unique emotional storytelling and respect for the viewers kids and dolls alike as time went on the successes of disney's pixar's and dreamworks as cg movies seemed to ensure that nothing flat would ever make a splash in the west ever again but studio ghibli refuses to budge sure they've never broken box office records in the u.s but all you have to do is look at their metacritic scores to see or their numerous oscar nominations or countless japanese awards these guys are juggernauts so when a second nino kuni game was announced fans were elated since studio ghibli was responsible for all the cutscenes in the first one and the general art direction for the entire series is heavily inspired by the prolific animation studio and fans were even more excited to hear that it was being developed by a team called level 5 who was responsible for professor leighton but more importantly the critically successful rpgs dark cloud and dark chronicle it was 2011 in america we were used to licensed games being massive disappointments and no one wanted to see a bastardization of the ghibli movies they had come to cherish but as more and more footage was revealed it was hard not to feel those warm tickles that studio ghibli had been responsible for all those years prior it was vibrant endearing and much bigger than anyone could have ever anticipated the hype was so real to all gamers in the know except for one hitch hayao miyazaki hates video games huh well that could complicate things when i complete nino cooney wrath of the white witch there's been a game that i've been working on for many many years ever since i kind of became friends with jesse cox he introduced to me nino cooney wrath of the white witch it's a game that we streamed on his channel for quite some time and after a while i kind of got busy with life and i didn't get the chance to finish it however right when bannon amco decided to go ahead and announce that nino cooney 2 reverend kingdom is here i had to go back and play the first one and after spending hours and hours and hours investing in completing this bad boy i am ready to talk about nino cooney wrath of the white witch very special thank you to bannon amco for sending me the game early hashtag free product for nino kuni 2. i have spent a lot of time playing it and hey if you want to check out my unboxing video the special edition you can go to my instagram link in the description down below and check that out with that said let's complete this yes [Music] great [Music] the truth is nino cooney the wrath of the white witch is a studio ghibli joint on the outside in a level 5 studios production on the inside the team known as level 5 development started as a partner of sony studios after ceo and president akihiro hino worried being an independent developer wasn't in the cards and it turned out to be a pretty good idea with the support of a major studio level 5 was able to release a fully fleshed out rpg dark cloud the unique village building system and level mechanics made it a standout amongst critics and ended up selling at least a million units in the united states by 2008 level 5 had already had a few home runs on their record with titles like dragon quest 8 and 9 and the surprise sensation known as the professor layton series with the 10th anniversary of the studio on horizon level 5 thought it was time to do something special the idea they ran with was nino cooney a childhood tale of all ages with gaming elements that are equal parts pokemon and final fantasy to push it over the edge level 5 thought that they might as well take a snowball's chance in hell and reached out to japan's most internationally recognized animation team studio ghibli enter naoya fujimaki fujimaki had worked with hino before and was wrapping a production on the film ponyo it was just enough of a connection to get hino in the door with long-time ghibli producer toshio suzuki it was the right place at the right time oddly after ponyo there was no movie planned to follow it up charmed by hino's enthusiasm suzuki gave the green light to nino cooney it wasn't long before news of delay started to float to the surface suzuki assumed that animating for the game would take three months tops he also stated that at its highest output the animation team can whip up five minutes of film quality footage in about one month well there was about 20 minutes of hand animated cutscenes so that's at least four months right there the other reason for the delays was a bit more interesting what was originally going to be a ds exclusive was now being restructured as a ps3 game as well and not just some port but a fuller more fleshed out experience eventually and about a year after its intended anniversary nino cooney wrath of the white witch dropped onto shelves but that was in japan america would not get that game until a year and a half later because of deep localization efforts but it was well worth it though nino cooney ended up being enjoyed by critics and sold 1.4 million copies worldwide becoming the third best-selling rpg for the playstation 3. now i have learned my lesson over the years any rpg that comes out of japan is not to be with look i'm like chris pratt in jurassic world i have control over the jrpgs but at any given moment they could rebel and take a chunk of flesh right out of me except instead of flesh being removed it's time with my friends and family my primary challenges fall to collecting the pretty massive amount of familiars second are the post-game bosses and endurance combat trials doing one i assume will feed the other grinding to tame each creature should give me the experience to level up above and beyond the requirement for the post-game ass kicking how hard could it be god damn it nino cooney just give me five minutes i'm just asking five minutes for me to say goodbye to my girlfriend i already know that there is no hard mode in nino cooney and it was made with the intent to be accessible to all ages i am not expecting a ridiculous amount of pushback here in nino kuni's case it's not a matter of if it's a matter of when when am i going to nad that incredibly low capture chance when are they going to drop that special secret item i need how long can i play before i start to hallucinate fat little welsh fairies i'm not sure but i'm willing to find out ninokuni has a vibe i don't often get in games it's about kids for kids and kids at heart it makes pokemon look like manhunt by comparison pardon me for waxing poetic but this game is adorable as level 5 and studio ghibli shared an intimate relationship to achieve the feel of their famous films the companies were constantly consulting each other for ways to establish the presentation that the animation team had come to perfect in their movies hino would play footage from the ghibli films every day in the office and would call in producers and animators in on a regular basis to a judge story structure and feel that kind of collaboration refined ninokuni into a game with an emotionally effective story spot on visuals and a musical score to rival the best in the medium nino cooney starts exactly where you'd expect it detroit mother oliver is a young boy trying to make it in the cutthroat scene of underground rap battles all while dating brittany murphy and vomiting mom's spaghetti on himself alright so it isn't so much eight mile but it does start in a town based off of the motor city in the late 40s it's called motorville not the best name in the world but it's better than what japan got in japan it's named ah hot troit you say hot troit i say hoe troit let's call the whole thing a gross ass word in this simple town you play as young oliver the archetype of the brave but innocent protagonist immediately a mystical being from another world mentions a prophecy and tries to murder the poor kid instead it's his mother who dies of a heart defect made worse while saving her son this thing goes full bambi on you fortunately through the power of tears oliver's beloved stuffed animal mr drippy is free from his cottony curse to reveal he is actually a fairy from a world parallel to oliver's and in that world may be a chance to save his mother oliver agrees to go under mr derpy's one stipulation then oliver also tries to stop the evil shadar from destroying all life in the land which bears the name nino kuni literally translating to the second country from there it's your classic alice in wonderland kind of tale oliver has one focus to save his mother's spirit along the way he meets all sorts of extreme personalities needing someone a pure spirit to change their wayward hearts which he literally does oliver has the magic ability to break off a piece of someone's personality like their courage or kindness and give it to someone else in need a concept that creeps me out the more i think about it did i mention that this young wizard is 13 yeah i don't exactly buy that he is so innocent and polite i was definitely not like that when i was in middle school i was a little goblin obsessed with finger boards and unaware that axe body spray was not a deodorant but more of an odor enhancer look i'm getting sidetracked certainly oliver is not alone in his journey he is joined by the aforementioned mr drippy the high lord of the fairies with a thick welsh accent and the ability to switch between encouraging and demeaning at a moment's notice there's also esther the headstrong 12 year old daughter of a legendary saint and swain he's 34 and he's got a gun yeah he's like that older guy some of your friends would hang out with after school until you realize how sad he was the cut scenes hand drawn by studio ghibli are no doubt the best part of the game's presentation they have that undefinable life to them that comes with hand drawing in every frame it was right at this time when miyazaki banned all the computers from the studio and every image was completely manual it's obvious the same amount of love went into the 3d models but even after that the team wasn't happy with the results the motion was real looking but not animated looking so more time was spent demaking the movements so they would appear a bit choppier and thus imperfectly drawn oliver's cape took weeks of dedicated programming so it would flow and drape naturally and then they're the digimon i mean i mean i mean familiars sorry familiars with 300 in tow the developers did a decent job creating a diverse lineup with a few endearing winners here and there it feels real unfair to compare them to pokemon but i'm gonna as i scan through the familiar list looking for my bunny a lot of them felt kinda boring in pokemon all the buddies look like they belong in that world because their world was designed around them in nino kuni it's the opposite you know cooney's creatures didn't fit the style of monster i would expect to find in a miyazaki film maybe it's just my taste but i would love to see something akin to the spirit of the forest in mononoke or haku from spirited away there's so much to pull from here which is why i was surprised to find a few uncanny resemblances between some of the nino kuni familiars and pokemon i mean look at poliwag now look at tally wink how about don fan and triumphant steedra and stressy plessy i guess it's bound to happen when hundreds of characters are involved but it's still a fun game to play most of the familiars are scattered throughout the overworld the overworld is reminiscent of those in the psx golden age of rpg a large expanse of different biomes sprinkled with cities your avatar is half the size of once inside these cities the game does an excellent job making them feel larger than they actually are places like castaway cove and the ferry grounds are tightly packed with citizens and decor in the distance you can see inaccessible but populated areas all of these together make a convincing illusion of a full-sized town or bustling metropolis the score to nino kuni is as ambitious as the animation joe hisyashi brings an epic orchestral style he used in ghibli projects the title sequence draws you in immediately with a powerful fanfare and the pieces get even more humble after that it again reminds me of the days of final fantasy when i would find myself humming the soundtrack while doing chores or whistling it while i was in line for the final fantasy movie the spirits within my favorite scene was none of it it's great to see that a brilliant mind like joe was able to cross over to video game soundtracks so successfully the sweeping orchestra cements the cinematic feel within the constraints of having to write in the loops necessary for hours of play as far as movies go the vocal performances range from decent to very good that thing's about as magical as a flipping cabbage but compared to jrpg voiceover it's some of the best out there don't expect the star power studio ghibli has with its films there's no liam neeson or billy crystal here although that doesn't mean the game is without bright spots there is some real commitment to the dialogue and direction that is especially noticeable during the stranger parts of the game heavens what a dear sweet child bring it to us now there's a good boy now i would never think to criticize a child so i'm gonna have one of my new writers here do so hey writer okay uh the voice actor for oliver had hours of dialogue to record and he's only 12. so it's understandable that the performance is a little uneven to be honest there are a few cringy lines that pulled me out of the experience ah what a jerk i personally loved the performance he's 12 man come on luckily he is balanced out by stefan rodriguez mr drippy his thick welsh accent coming out of a one foot tall gumdrop with a wicked piercing is delightful in the tens of hours i've played i ran into absolutely no glitches no bumps or even a clipping issue it's tight as a swiss watch everything ran at a smooth frame rate and loading times were never really an issue but more of a minor frustration as i had to run in and out of maps to refresh the familiars i needed to fight for parts of the completion process overall studio ghibli held up its end of the bargain the visuals are beautiful the familiars may not be perfect but for a first go-round while under the pressure of differentiating from the pokemon aesthetic it's a valiant effort everything else i laid my eyes on was awesome and that soundtrack is so powerful i'm gonna have it playing the next time i'm at a public pool when i whip off my towel to reveal the speedo wrapped glory of my american steel chassis oh yeah you sick son of a just think i'm gonna do a live action bit i'm not [Music] [Applause] nino cooney's gameplay is kind of like quentin tarantino hear me out tarantino pulls moves from his favorite films and unashamedly reuses them check out one of his screenplays he literally writes the things he's stealing from in the shot notes the result isn't a movie that feels like a rehash but something that is unique to the director ninokuni does this but with the game's mechanics it's a blend of everything the team loved about classic rpgs hopefully leaving out the classic over 99 hours of gameplay that used to feel like an achievement when i was 10. it's as if level 5 couldn't decide whether to make pokemon or kingdom hearts and then someone popped up and said why not both at first you play solely as oliver as the prophesized master wizard he has his own set of spells and abilities to use in a real-time battle system as you recruit familiars with their own skills to your party and progress through the main campaign the world slowly opens up to you and so do the customization options while you played pokemon did you ever wonder why ash never just walked up to a mr mime he was trying to catch and instead of sending pikachu out ash just slugged mr mime in his oblong solar plexus well in this game you can do that oliver and his two mates can switch out with nine other familiars at any point during battle and in real time select from abilities afforded to each character the humans each have their own teams of three familiars all having unique stats except for hp and mp which is shared so if one of oliver's familiars gets knocked out so does oliver and the rest of his team you have to rely on spells abilities and liking them hearts little spheres of health magic and special attack boosts called glimpse that drop around the battlefield but this system has its advantages it makes resource management a little easier to keep track of and emphasizes the need to switch between offensive and defensive options during battle since you can only control one character at a time ninokuni gives you the option to make more subtle adjustments to the ai but be forewarned the ai in this game blows i made every tactical choice available to me and i still couldn't quite get the ai to behave here's what's most frustrating at one point i wanted swain to use a defensive familiar like monolith or tin man i switched to him and manually tagged him out for one of those boys then as soon as i switched away swain was like you i like my little birdie and sent that out and died immediately sometimes i don't want to go full defense and full offense can be suicide if not used in the few choice opportunities bosses give you now you would think that having familiars to level up like pokemon would be intricate enough to carry nino kuni's combat well they went several levels deeper maybe more than they needed to like pokemon familiars have different types resistances defense attack magic attack magic defense etc unlike pokemon though every tameable familiar has two evolutions uh i mean metamorphosis also unlike pokemon but like early final fantasy every familiar can equip three items some can equip swords some only shields or armor or accessories and so on it's an interesting idea that yields a wealth of options for stat manipulation and if that wasn't enough for you it also has a feeding system giving certain items like chocolate or cupcakes to your team increases particular stats and raises affection levels oh and alchemy there are 120 recipes in the game as well that give you new equipment and consumables there is a lot of pieces to this puzzle so you will have a lot of down time figuring out the perfect builds now this amount of customization is intense and i love it but it's just well over leveling your characters which will happen if you do all the side quests as you progress completely trumps the other methods of stat boosting why would i spend a bunch of time and money on food so i can increase a staff by one point when i can just go fight monsters for five minutes and level up all my stats by 6. it's not like you won't buy and equip stuff there's really nothing else to do with your money it's just not as important since leveling is easy and the game doesn't have many spikes in difficulty where every point in the stat matters now you aren't going to be fighting familiars the whole time nino kuni throws some bosses in for more dramatic events as far as looks go the bosses are impactful especially the late game bosses that are like feral versions of characters you've met previously in the game they just aren't as devious as their look may imply again nino kuri's difficulty level kind of shoots itself in the foot most bosses boil down to attack them defend against aoe heal status effects and attack against resistances i never had to do more than that against any of them the only real challenge was holding back on using mp until a boss fight it wasn't that the familiars on the way to the boss were particularly tough i just had to resist getting bored as the battles were condensed to hit attack weight and progress through the level levels consist mostly of a straightforward path with a few offshoots leading to collectibles like purple or green chests the first of which are only openable with an upgraded unlocked spell and the second found off the walkable path and open with swain's gun occasionally you will run into an obstacle and overcoming it will take one of the many spells oliver has learned for example a broken bridge requires a rejuvenation spell spells can also be applied in some quests in town and in the overworld as well unfortunately it's never really a head scratcher as to where and when to use them the only thing close to a brain teaser are horus trivia questions horus is a young little ghost and he grants you spells when you answer his riddles the solutions to which are found in the wizard's companion a sort of in-game manual you could play guess the alchemy recipe but that's not actually a part of the game and you'd have to be a total lunatic to try nino cooney is at no lack for collectibles there are several hidden chests and by hidden i mean invisible until you get the seek fortune spell when i found the first one by accident i was more nervous than excited how many of these phantom chests are out there it turns out it's a hundred and you're not gonna be able to locate them all until much later in the game which is lame because at that point a lot of the items you find are rendered obsolete and then there are the slew of the alchemy recipes all of which take some sort of enemy dropped item boy i did not think this would be as hard as it was for a majority of the recipes it took a little bit of hunting an hour here an hour there and then there's errand number 78 all you have to do is make an axe but the axe needs two items that have ridiculously low drop rates from ridiculously rare enemies i was at it for six hours until someone clued me in on something swain has an ability that is triggered by a miracle glim called light fingers and that has a hundred percent shot at stealing an enemy's rarest item son of a god damn it all i had to do was bide my time until that golden glim appeared and then bam it still took another two hours and then there's that real business collecting all the familiars huh this not only do you have to collect every tameable familiar you have to collect two of each that's right one for each final evolution i mean metamor you know what kid i'm using pokemon terminology from now on evolution so a lot of the pocket monsters have a decent capture rate but several have four percent hey d d kids you're familiar with critting hitting that 20 well that's a 5 chance and you know how rarely a natural 20 happens well this is one percent less so it's like one out of every five crits doesn't even count after completing enough side quests you do have the option to get an ability called jack of hearts which increases that capture rate by twenty percent yes twenty four percent we're going to be swimming in tokotos no that's an additional twenty percent of the existing four percent so it's an extra point eight percent they couldn't even give me the one out of 20 shot but god damn it i made it happen i made it happen no tricks no glitches just grinding power leveling and zero sugar monster hashtag should be an ad hashtag good being that hashtag monster hook at the up after that the rest of the modes were cakewalked down in ice cream mountain with a shirt pomade of fudge there's the solution for one-on-one trials of strength and the temple of trials if you don't feel like fighting alone the casino if you want to use your spells to manipulate a slot machine or straight up play blackjack and after fighting pokemon for hours on end my team had more than enough levels to take on the ultimate boss the guardian of the worlds if you have a few level 99 familiars then fighting him is almost embarrassing and there you have it the guardian trophy done the alchemy recipes done every side quest done all chests all solaceum trials and every familiar done done and 300 times done in the end the gameplay is a good time that just barely misses the mark as far as a challenge goes i love all the ideas involved but at this point you must have seen what i was talking about the glimpse in the way you choose moves in real time are very reminiscent of kingdom hearts the overworld is similar to the original playstation jrpg days i mean the whole game is centered around a very pokemon-like mechanic but that's not a bad thing caramel and apples were two great things and then someone decided to combine them and deliciousness happened it occurs all the time marvel vs capcom rage against the machines rock and rap and the greatest soda of all time doritos the dorito flavored mountain dew as seems to be the standard for me now all of you know cooney's unlocks happen during play acing the guardians of worlds and the other post-game bosses will get you rare items if that is still what you need at that point the top rewards at the casino are playable cut scenes from the game those unlocks you get for finishing side quests they range from the useful like speeding up your flight ability or increasing hp and mp to the deceptively useless like that damn capture rate hike now the temple of trials is worth it he has to be around level 90 to really stick it to the final rank but at the end you get a familiar named mandragor upon completing all the hunts and side quests and finishing off the guardian of the worlds that creepy bunny donnie darko quest giver guy gives you what may be one of the most useful things given to you in any game however he gives it to you at the end game where it's freaking useless he gives you a buggy this car buggy makes oliver and friends go so freaking fast that i wish i had this from mid to late game because oh my god yes you get a dragon but for the floor i would like a car but two things do bum me out number one is not unusual for the show there is no 100 completion reward i have said that so many times i almost want to add it to the title of the channel gerard the completionist there is no 100 bonus khalil doesn't quite roll off the tongue but it still rings true the second bummer is the complete lack of recognition for collecting all the familiars i mean even pokemon red blue yellow gave you a goddamn diploma this game took forever to complete and the one completion criteria i thought i would receive fanfare for turned out to be the only one that didn't give me anything at all even though that was a major blow to my ego and the casino prizes were a bit lame everything else actually felt like a decently fair reward for the effort and overall i was charmed by the game it may have been a bit arduous to get through the capturing and the item drops but i was uplifted by the storybook innocence of the game that made me feel like i was inside a 13 year old i mean okay that sounds gross but one of those was bound to happen while i completed the no kuni wrath of the white witch there were 252 hours of gameplay 15 deaths 138 errands and bounties conquered over 350 familiars caught and raised including the gold ones and one big feast for the crew after i found out my tears can make breakfast nino cooney is worth playing for sure as a ghibli piece it may not be the tops but the worst of their efforts are still leagues better than the best animated movies of most other companies in gameplay nino cooney doesn't make giant compromises for the assumed lack of intellect in kids it's a deep and intricate customization system that may not be completely exploited by difficulty but it still gives the players the opportunity to fine-tune their favorite familiars into a team of devastating beasts are the trophies worth it most yes what's really earned for nino cooney is that it's an excellent way to introduce a kid to rpgs or to reignite the inner child in yourself that may have been buried by work or car payments or game of thrones completing this game may not be worth all that effort but nino cooney is certainly something special you can't play it without finding some sort of magic within yourself nino cooney was an incredible time i love this game through and through i love the story i love the characters even though their voices are kind of weird i loved the familiars i loved everything about this game except when it comes to completing it guys this game is a nightmare to complete trust me on this as someone who spends hundreds of hours on jrpgs this one is not messing around getting every single familiar is going to take you for freaking ever do not do it trust me do not do not do not do not do it play the game for the story play for the characters play for the plot do not complete it enjoy it so with that in mind guys i give this game my completionist rating of finish it finish it that's all time here today guys so please as always let me know through today's episode somewhere on the internet if you like what you saw hit that like button leave a comment down below for future episodes of the completionist if you're new hit the subscribe button you can click or tap that and hey a big thank you to our sponsors you can give a clear chat to their link in the description down below i'm going crazy i've been drawing the collisionist i'll see you next week for another brand new episode bye

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 643,289

Keywords: ni no kuni, wrath of the white witch, ni no kuni wrath of the white witch, ni no kuni ii, ni no kuni 2, studio ghibli, jrpg, ni no kuni 2 gameplay, ni no kuni review, rpg, wrath of the white witch review, ni no kuni wrath of the white witch review, ni no kuni gameplay, video game review, video game reviews, jirard, review, gameplay, kuni, level 5, bandai namco, revenant kingdom, ps3, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, ni no kuni ii: revenant kingdom, jirard khalil, completionist

Id: AYGgQvjlujM

Length: 31min 5sec (1865 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 23 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/thatonevideogamer]

This video was real hard to make. Hope you guys like it!

[u/TDigger]

So hyped to watch this after work!