Ni no Kuni: The Another World

Stand-up comic.

Games have been attempting to make us feel like we're exploring a living cartoon for a large part of the medium's history, and some have achieved spectacular results. The Wind Waker-style Zeldas seem more suited to their expressive, beguilingly childish look with every instalment. Level-5's colourful, lively worlds are often bursting with animated verve, whether in Dragon Quest and Rogue Galaxy's animι cel-shading or Professor Layton's more laid-back but equally distinctive style.

But collaboration with Studio Ghibli, the great powerhouse of Japanese animation, has taken the developer's already strong talent to a new level. You walk around in Ni no Kuni's world with the same air of wide-eyed amazement as the game's young protagonist, staring in astonishment at this beautiful alternate reality as a makeshift red cape billows around his narrow shoulders.

Ni no Kuni shares its overarching theme of childhood escapism with the studio's most famous films, Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro) and Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away). Its premise is heartbreaking; 13 year-old Oliver is devastated by the sudden loss of his mother, and upon crying into a stuffed animal that she made for him, it comes to life, revealing itself to be a magical creature that leads him to a parallel world.

It's worth pointing out that everything we know about Ni no Kuni's story we've learned from the trailers on Level-5's Tokyo Game Show stand and the demo itself. It's not clear which information relates to the DS version and which to the PS3's, whether they share the bulk of their story or diverge quickly in entirely different directions.

The PS3 on show at TGS demo offered two short scenarios to illustrate this lovingly-crafted new JRPG – a walk through a gorgeously rendered forest dotted with imaginative creatures, designed to demonstrate the battle system, and a short town quest where Oliver and Shizuku, an agitated little fellow who looks like a miniature Drowzee with a lantern hanging from his snout, must earn an audience with a king. The second gives a more rounded impression of what the game will actually be like when it arrives sometime next year.

Last week's reveal trailer for Ni no Kuni.

It starts out in the overworld – a gorgeous, lushly colourful sprawl of green with windmills, copses of woodland, misty waterfalls and hills draped in drifting fog. Miniature towns and wildlife dot the map and Oliver runs around it as part of the landscape. The look and music are classic Ghibli – natural, imaginative and colourful.

If you run into an enemy the screen fades out to a battle scene; you have to make an effort to put yourself in a creature's path. They aren't placed directly in your way, nor do they come looking for a fight. In battle, you control creatures called Imagines rather than Oliver himself – these are the little stuffed demons in the fight scenes from the trailer.

It's possible to switch to Oliver with the shoulder buttons, but he doesn't fight well or do much damage when he attacks. What we've seen suggests that every character in the game has their own Imagine creature to fight for them. Different actions – attack, guard, special attack – appear in speech bubbles to the left of the screen, and Oliver shouts out the commands.

The fighting is turn-based, but operates in real-time – you can only carry out one action every five seconds or so, but you can move around freely. The Imagine fighters dance and chatter around their enemies rather than waiting for their turn to act, bringing battles to life in a way that slow-paced action-time systems often struggle with.

After a few field battles, Oliver reaches the miniature town at the centre of the map. A cut-scene shows him wandering open-mouthed down the cobbled streets as Shizuku shoos away curious, whispering inhabitants, who gather to stare at the outsider.

There are bipedal, humanoid cats dressed in skirts and shirts walking through the town's fountain square, where a guard tells Oliver and Shizuku that they'll need a gift to be allowed an audience with the king. The animation is wonderful – it actually looks better outside of the cutscenes, where Oliver looks as natural a part of the scenery as in any pre-rendered scene.

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It's the air of childhood innocence as much as the superb animation that make this recognisable as a Studio Ghibli world.

Shizuku runs ahead to show us where to go, presumably just for the purpose of the demo – but there's no map, no HP bar, no party icons, nothing on the screen to distract your attention from the loveliness of the world around you. A happy face icon above a nearby character's head indicates that you can talk to them, and Square brings up a hint to remind you what your immediate goal is, but there are no other button prompts.

You're led down a few narrow alleyways to a pond at the end of a stream, where a red fish is lurking under the water. Shizuku does some excitable pointing and dancing and Oliver hops out across the water, balancing on poles; it dashes away upstream, leaving us to loop around the streets again and chase it into shall water, where it flops away until Oliver picks it up.

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The characters and enemies we see are all on a nature theme, either humanoids or cat-people or strange rooster-dog creatures.

The guards seem happy to grant access with the fish in tow – turns out it wasn't a red herring – and we soon see why; the king is a giant, crowned cat, lounging on a throne and playing with his tail. Shizuku prods and goads a shy, reluctant Oliver into beginning a request, but we don't get to know what it was – the demo ends there.

Neither the action-time battle system nor the simple little fetch-quest from the demo shows us anything that we wouldn't have expected. Ni no Kuni isn't taking the JRPG in a radical new direction – or certainly, it doesn't appear to be – but its touching, mature premise and incomparably beautiful world turn it into something different from anything else on the TGS show floor, even anything else in the genre. Studio Ghibli's influence in this collaboration is clearly more than just cosmetic.

Ni no Kuni: The Another World is in development for PS3. There's no word on a release date as yet.

Comments (25) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • LeD #1 2 years ago

    That's exactly what I told my wife, after she switched off the footie: no Kuni for you then!
  • cherryuk #2 2 years ago

    I hope this is as rich, involving and heart melting as the films made by Studio Ghibli
  • menage #3 2 years ago

    This looks awesome.
  • JohnnyWashnGo #4 2 years ago

    This game does look good - although I find most スタジオジブリ films to be a little too saccharine for my tastes. As long as the game doesn't veer off into this sugar coated nonsense too much, it'll be fine.
  • orangpelupa #5 2 years ago

    again.. PS3 exclusive with beautiful art style. L5 + SG = great story :D
    Sony.... please add 16:10 support so i finally can use PS3 with my monitor.... i want to play ni no kuni....
  • Osahi #6 2 years ago

    As a fan of Ghibli and Level 5 I have this on my radar for a while now. Even bought a DS to be able to play this (and the Layton games and the FF remakes and Dragon Quest IX :p), but I'm so gratefull they bring it to PS3 as well. Just hoping we don't have to wait too long for this one to cross to Europe
  • guernican #7 2 years ago

    "As long as the game doesn't veer off into this sugar coated nonsense too much"

    It's sad but true that some of we jaded gaijin find the Ghibli storytelling blueprint a little too earnest for our tastes. Which is a pity, because Spirited Away and its brethren are genuinely moving films. This one looks great... all hail Miyazaki and fingers crossed for a European release, I guess.
  • madgerald Verified Studio Head of PR & Marketing, Colossal Games LTD #8 2 years ago

    This does look Animezing! DS version is looking sweet too..
  • Cappy #9 2 years ago

    Even if the game does adhere to some standard JRPG tropes, I'm still looking forward to seeing the finished product. The PS3 hasn't really had a 'traditional' style JRPG yet.

    It's definitely on my buy list.
  • smithdown #10 2 years ago

    I actually find Ghibli films far less 'saccharine' than most of the Western claptrap that comes out of Disney et al, with a few notable exceptions (such as the first 10 mins or so of Up). Watch Graveyard of the Fireflies and tell me it's sugar coated! One of the most touching, tragic, heart wrenching movies ever made.
    This game will be a must have for me. I just hope that Sony is aware there is a market for the game in the West and releases it outside of Japan.
  • Zombie-Hamster #11 2 years ago

    I loved DQ8 and am a huge fan of Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke in particular - if you haven't seen the latter it might change some people's views on the saccharine side of things!) so have very high hopes for this!

    DQ8 itself proved you don't need to stray from the JRPG formula to make a brilliant game, that was all about the world it was in and the story.
  • Mkwone #12 2 years ago

    I can't say i'm a fan of any of their previous works, or their genre, but i'm very much interested in this game. It was, i though a move game but there's no mention of that in the hands on? is DS3 an option then.
  • Arwin #13 2 years ago

    I think they said that they wouldn't support Move in it (Move came too late for that apparently), which is a big shame. But maybe they changed their mind, which would be awesome. You don't have to worry though - big titles won't be Move exclusive for a very, very long time.

    This is/was also on DS, right?
  • iago71 #14 2 years ago

    Have been looking forwrd to this very much. :)
  • dadrester #15 2 years ago

    Games vs. art argument is about to become invalid. And ironically it'll be a "kids" game that does it :D
  • Paulie_P #16 2 years ago

    This is the first time in a while that I've been excited by game. I hope they can pull off the gameplay side to match the stunning visuals.
    Edited by Paulie_P at 23/09/10 @ 12:21
  • citizenHUNTER #17 2 years ago

    Really looking forward to this, I think a definite must buy just to experience this world, whether the final gameplay may be good or not, or to my taste or not, this world will be beautiful. We need more stuff like this and the ICO games and even more artistic game like Braid, there's far too much crass Americanised crap out there.

    P.S. Anyone who's a Ghibli fan, and actually, especially anyone who maybe isn't such a huge fan of the large fantasy element in the more recent Ghibli films, please make it a point to watch 'Only Yesterday' and 'Whisper Of The Heart', by far my favourite Ghibli films.
  • JoeGBallad #18 2 years ago

    Yes! Whisper of the heart is one of my favourites! Probably my second favourite after Porco Rosso.
  • smithdown #19 2 years ago

    Porco Rosso is awesome! I love that lazy blue, Meditteranean sea.
    I've got a massive box set of the Ghibl films and have mostly watched the fantasy ones (Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind has to count as one of my faves). Unfortunately the discs don't have the names of the films in English, so I'll have to trawl through the ones I haven't watched yet to find Whisper of the Heart.

    Man they've made so many AWESOME movies! I watched Ponyo recently - one for the kids, but still magically beautiful, esp on bluray.
  • iago71 #20 2 years ago

    Grave of the Fireflies is also a must watch, though sad as hell. Not in any way a saccharine affair. Incidentally, if you like Miyazaki and Ghibli stuff Makoto Shinkais' movies are also worth a look. :)

    EDIT - Makoto Shinkai is being hailed s the new Miyazaki in Japan.
    Edited by iago71 at 23/09/10 @ 16:44
  • ro-kurorai #21 2 years ago

    It's an interactive Ghibli Anime - d1p for me =)

    @orangpelupa
    why do you need 16:10 support? My PS3's hooked up to my WUXGA display via HDMi-DVI cable and everything's fine. Runs at 1080p, slightly stretched to 1200px vertically, though but the difference in AR is negligible.
    Edited by ro-kurorai at 23/09/10 @ 18:04
  • Scimarad #22 2 years ago

    My anticipations level is through the roof!
  • NegativeZero #23 2 years ago

    Grave of the Fireflies is also a must watch, though sad as hell. Not in any way a saccharine affair. Incidentally, if you like Miyazaki and Ghibli stuff Makoto Shinkais' movies are also worth a look. :)

    EDIT - Makoto Shinkai is being hailed s the new Miyazaki in Japan.


    Seconding Shinkai, though I'm not sure that the Miyazaki comparisons to his work are fair yet since he's only done two films, and they're fairly different in style to what you'd get out of Ghibli. It's also worth looking at Madhouse's film group, specifically The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars. Both films are much closer to Ghibli's work and their director also gets Miyazaki comparisons a lot.

    Personally though, I never really got that sad watching Grave of the Fireflies. To me it was an incredibly frustrating film, because if the main character was a little more humble he could have avoided the whole tragedy.

    This game looks awesome. I hope that it plays well too, and that they don't decide to try and be 'innovative'. It doesn't need to be anything more than a quality RPG with high levels of polish, because the art direction and atmosphere will take it the rest of the way.
    Edited by NegativeZero at 24/09/10 @ 03:18
  • Daikon #24 2 years ago

    Ni no Kuni shares its overarching theme of childhood escapism with the studio's most famous films, Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro) and Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away).

    Don't let cute characters fool you, the theme of Spirited Away is not childhood escapism, but rather growing up instead.
  • oldtrusty #25 2 years ago

    My mouth is shaped for this game.