Ni No Kuni: The Another World

tuna said:
I would say that Ni No Kuni is quite a unique game that will not "age" in a year. Of course, if NBG could release it now, that would probably be a nice business case. But translation, voice recording and other localization takes time, and a half assed product is not good (remember Yakuza 3?).

Also, releasing a niche title in the busiest period (Q4) is not always a good idea either....
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Most other devs are able to do all that and and do a good job of it in less time that it takes Level-5. This is simply Level-5 being inefficient.
 
I agree Level 5 are the world's worst at launching worldwide (having waited 2 years for Rogue Galaxy on PS2!), but this game won't suffer. It has no comparable games to compete with AFAICS, so sees no direct competition. Those who would have bought Ni No Kuni in 2012 will still buy it in 2013. Why wouldn't they?
 
Usually they try to build-up a lot of hype before releasing a game. Giving out new info, trailers, ect leading up to the release, gaining them free publicity from websites. Now try to carry that hype over for a whole year, or building it up again when everything is already know about the game.

Level-5 games have a habit of sneaking up on you. I follow gaming news pretty regularly, but it isn't until a review pops up out of nowhere that I'm reminded that one of their games has just been released again.
Someone doesn't follow gaming news as regularly could easily miss it. It wouldn't surprise me if they lose sales because of that.

While Ni No Kuni may not have much direct competition, and may not lose much sales because of that. That's still not a good reason to take that risk. And like I said they also do this to their other games.
 
I agree, but it's no different how much later it finally gets WW release. If Ni No Kuni was a worldwide release orignally, it'd have had that extra momentum from the initial PR. Once it's 6+ months later then it doesn't matter how much later it is. A year or two years out, it's still going to appeal to the same people the same amount. It's worth noting that Rogue Galaxy sold much more in the rest of the world than in Japan, despite being late and poorly marketed. It's in Level5's best interests to change that, but I don't think Ni No Kuni is any worse off than their other titles. In fact I think it's much better off, because the Studio Ghibli connection means those who are interested about the game will remain interested.
 
Cornsnake said:
New games still keep improving every year, so potentially everything, graphics, game design, ect.
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Graphics maybe (though progress has slowed down to a crawl), but that's hardly a concern for a game which looks like Ni No Kuni.
All the other aspects seem to be mostly regressing from one year to the next unfortunately. Even the annoyingly narcissistic and oh-so inventive hipster indie scene is kinda stuck in endless artsy puzzle platformer + tower defense limbo.
 
There's an english version trailer out there and it makes me go out and buy a ps3 right now. But then I see the release date is one year away ! Time to just chill, then !
 
i think Ni no Kuni's artstyle will make it not have problem even if its relased 2013.

any info why ni no kuni is ps3 exclusive?
i dont have a PS3 and kind of hoping it comes to xbox 360.

long ago Xbox 360 is the platform of choice for Namco Bandai games that have anime style like Eternal Sonata, and Tales of Vesperia. Then the game is not exclusive, its multiplatform.

@Renegade
Do you heard properly what Oliver said on the last sentence on the video trailer?
i heard it as "porn star!", im sure i heard it wrong :D
 
MS went around buying up exclusive JRPGs early in this console cycle. Tales of Vesperia, Star Ocean, The Last Remnant, Lost Odyssey, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, etc, are all examples of this. But they all sold like dogshit. It didn't convince Japanese gamers to pick up an Xbox 360, and in fact it probably damaged PS3 sales as well. In the end the HD market there was so muddled by Microsoft's attempt to buy their way in most Japanese RPG development and consumption retreated to the portable systems: the DS and PSP. And even out west the PS3 is overwhelmingly the preferred platform of JRPG fans. When Final Fantasy XIII came out in North America the PS3 version outsold the 360 version something like 4:1 with half the installed base.

Besides, Studio Ghibli probably doesn't want their gorgeous animation compressed to hell with Bink to make the game fit on 4 DVDs...
 
according to
vgchartz.com
FF XIII XBox 360 lost in every region and its in Japan that X360 lost FF XIII sales very a lot.

as for eternal sonata,
it sold very close between PS3 and PS3 version.

as for Tales of Vesperia cant really be compared, its not come out at west for PS3 so the 360 version sold more

as for video compression, cant they use WMV9? Tales of vesperia, Lost odyssey, they use WMV9 for the video.

also how about PC release? maybe via steam?
or Namco Bandai will see Demon Souls (or is it Dark souls?) performance on PC first then if good, they will consider pc for their other games. i hope....

then, about long localization time, seems level 5 is always long, Their games on PS2 took long time for west release, also their professor layton game for 3DS also unknown for west release even after 1 year.
 
I guess JRPGs will always focus on the home market first and foremost, and there the XB360 seems pretty dead. Thus the only reason to release a 360 port would be in expectation of significant sales in EU and NA. I guess Level 5 don't think it'll be worth the effort.
 
according to
vgchartz.com
FF XIII XBox 360 lost in every region and its in Japan that X360 lost FF XIII sales very a lot.

as for eternal sonata,
it sold very close between PS3 and PS3 version.

as for Tales of Vesperia cant really be compared, its not come out at west for PS3 so the 360 version sold more

as for video compression, cant they use WMV9? Tales of vesperia, Lost odyssey, they use WMV9 for the video.

also how about PC release? maybe via steam?
or Namco Bandai will see Demon Souls (or is it Dark souls?) performance on PC first then if good, they will consider pc for their other games. i hope....

then, about long localization time, seems level 5 is always long, Their games on PS2 took long time for west release, also their professor layton game for 3DS also unknown for west release even after 1 year.
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It's not just about comparing sales, though. The PS3 versions of Star Ocean 4 and Eternal Sonata came out much later and were an attempt to salvage the very poor sales of game as a 360 exclusive. There's no comparison to be made with Vesperia because contractually they were prevented from porting the game outside Japan. Nonetheless, it was probably the most successful of the exclusive 360 jrpgs and it still sold pretty poorly in absolute terms. Its telling that Tales of Graces f is PS3 exclusive. 360 sales just don't justify the bother if MS isn't subsidizing development.
 
this exclusivity thingy is really confusing me..
long time ago i buy Xbox 360 because of the JRPG, i buy it the same time as Lost Odyssey released.

then it got nice JRPGs like those mentioned above. But now? all the JRPGs only on Wii and PS3 -___-

and i really want to play Ni no Kuni.
hmm, hoping Sony E3 announce PS3 price drop then.

but if the game is hacked, then i can buy the game and borrow a ps3 from my friend. :) :)
 
orangpelupa said:
then it got nice JRPGs like those mentioned above. But now? all theJRPGs only on Wii and PS3 -___-
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Yep. Exclusivity sucks. We wouldn't have this problem if there was only one console (or MS could sell Xboxes in Japan! :p).

but if the game is hacked, then i can buy the game and borrow a ps3 from my friend. :) :)
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Why does it need to be hacked for you to play on a borrowed PS3? :???:
 
My friend PS3 is in old firmware, if i play the Ni no Kuni directly from BR, it will only run if accept the game updates the PS3.

if its hacked, i can put the BR in drive, install it to HDD, copy the cracked files to PS3. then i can play the game in his PS3.

its the same PS3 i borrowed i mentioned here long time ago:
http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=61230&page=3

Yep. Exclusivity sucks. We wouldn't have this problem if there was only one console (or MS could sell Xboxes in Japan! ).
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or maybe sometime where all console is the same. Like what happened with DVD player, all discs can be played on Microsoft player, Sony player, LG player, etc.

but if the PS4 is really going to use hardware similar to pc, hmm.. maybe we can hope more PS4 games also released on pc because easy porting? Maybe sony release their own PS Store for PC to deliver their "exclusive" games.

or limiting it to VAIO PC and notebooks -____-
 
orangpelupa said:
this exclusivity thingy is really confusing me..
long time ago i buy Xbox 360 because of the JRPG, i buy it the same time as Lost Odyssey released.

then it got nice JRPGs like those mentioned above. But now? all the JRPGs only on Wii and PS3 -___-
Click to expand...

I agree that it all got messed up. Pretty much everyone that was into JRPGs going into this gen thought that the PS3 would be the console of choice, especially given how much the PS2 was an RPG beast. But then MS started waving its moneybags around and then all the big JRPGs started emerging as xb360-exclusive. People who like me bought a PS3 first felt a bit shafted. And guys like you enjoyed all those sweet games.

Now however, it's we PS3 owners that get the last laugh, and you xb360-only owners have to suffer the xb360's poor performance in Japan.
 
There is indeed, and I've given it a go. A part of me would like to play an epic story game, but the demo turned me off in the end. Why are all JRPG's the same? You know exactly how it'll play, and I don't see the difference between this game, Dragon's Quest, Rogue Galaxy, etc. They're all variations on the same theme. I suppose it's the genre playing to genre stereotypes, like FPS shooters all having the same style and core mechanics etc., but I feel they have a little more variety. Every JRPG I've ever played has HP and MP, and the MP runs out after using a few skills and you live without it until you get to the next checkpoint where everything's restored. Every single one.

That is, JRPG gameplay is -

Move on the world map a bit
Random encounter with some few seconds of visual effect transition to the battle
Setup with the same old team selection
Lots of numbers
End of round, pause for scores showing how much XP and gold you got
Back to world map

A western take on the same idea would have the encounters in the world, that you wander round and fight dynamically. Gold and XP is just added without needing an obtrusive battle recap screen. The JRPG approach is so damned sllooooowwwwwwww and repetitious. And by repetitious, of course all games are. A DnD game has an encounter with two kobolds, and encounter with three kobolds, and encounter with a goblin and a kobold, etc. But each DnD encounter is over and done with, and they flow together as one experience. JRPGs are broken up into individual encounters, underlining how it's fight after fight against one or two critters. Coupled with clumsy interfaces, so to block you have to cancel your current action and then scroll through the list of possible actions, which varies between characters, until you find Block/Evade. None of these games seem to risk innovation. Like "let's scrap the MP refresh at checkpoint idea and have it accumulate on kills" or "let's have MP regenerate over time". "Let's map skills to face buttons for real-time actions without wading through menus".

I would have really liked to play this, but I saw myself off JRPGs with PS2, and this just reminded me why. I want to see the story and ideas (summons and parties) and art and craft of a top JRPG like this coupled with a western game mechanic that removes all the padding and grind and awkward interfaces stuck in legacy 8-bit thinking.

Still, the demo was pretty. ;)
 
I wouldn't say all JRPGS are like that. There's been a trend away from classic gameplay as well. FFXII was a huge shift towards more dynamic gameplay at the cost of traditional micro management. Actually Final Fantasy is quite innovative for a long running big name franchise. Too bad everything is Lightning these days.
 
Wekk there is picking up the orbs in battle to regenerate as well. Ad their are quite a few which go away from that model but the battle recap screen seems to be a major stepping point they like to keep. I like it. I just hate that Namco closed the oppurtunity to get the Wizards Edition so soon.
 
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