Ni no Kuni Message Board

I'm playing Ni No Kuni when my daughter sits down beside me, enthralled by the visuals. "It looks like Ponyo," she says. "It's made by Ghibli," I tell her. That was all it took for her to be interested in her first RPG.Read more...

From Ni no Kuni to Pokémon, we're talking all things JRPG on today's Very Special Edition of Random Encounters slash Burning Questions slash Kirk And Jason Talk About JRPGs For A While.Read more...

Sam Joseph Delves adores the score composed for Ni no Kuni by Joe Hisaishi. So much so that he's enlisted professional musicians to help him recreate the entire thing.

Initially, Delves' thought to capture the attention of Hisaishi by simply re-creating his Ni no Kuni score as a hobby. Delves set up a Tumblr (aptly title "SamScoresNiNoKuni") to document his efforts, but once word spread, he received an unexpected outpouring of support for his work.

The video you see above is Delves performing alongside an orchestra enlisted by BBC documentary composer Howard Davidson. The SamScoresNiNoKuni Tumblr features an additional 15 songs drawn from the game, and those of you who particularly enjoy Delves' take on Hisaishi's music can download a free, three-song EP directly from the site.

Despite Delves' impressive work, he has yet to have any contact with Joe Hisaishi.

This is pretty incredible: 23-year-old musician Sam Joseph Delves put together an orchestra and re-scored the RPG Ni no Kuni in its entirety.Read more...

The school season is just starting for some, but GamerDeals has round up evidence that Best Buy and Amazon have no intentions of encouraging good study habits.

Best Buy's sale has Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Halo 4, Dead Space 3 and Crysis 3 for $19.99 apiece. Company of Heroes 2 has its sights aimed at $40, while Tales of Xilia can be had for $50.

Amazon's offerings include The Bureau: XCOM Declassified for $40 on PS3, 360 or via Steam key. Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Blacklist can be snatched away in the night for $50 on PS3, 360, PC or Wii U. There's also a slew of Sims 3 expansions priced from $13.99 to $29.99, in case you need more content for the addictive virtual life simulator.

Level-5 sales numbers suggest there's a big pile of cashola sitting beneath that big top hat of Layton's. The Japanese studio shifted 15 million units of the prof's puzzler series alone, along with 1.4 million PS3 and Japan-only DS copies of the glorious Ghibli RPG Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch.

As Siliconera reports, company CEO Akihiro Hino revealed the figures at a press conference yesterday, and that the company's success is not limited to those franchises. Soccer RPG series Inazuma Eleven scores 6.5 million sales, while the dream-team-developed Guild games on 3DS, including Crimson Shroud, Liberation Maiden, and Attack of the Friday Monsters, are up to 400,000 downloads combined.

At the same conference Level-5 announced Layton 7, a new spinoff for the prof's series that's coming to iOS Android, and 3DS. Layton 7 is the series' second game on mobiles, the first being whodunit Layton Brothers: Mystery Room, unearthing a million downloads.

A couple of retailers are offering Ni No Kuni at a hefty discount. Amazon has the wonderful RPG down to a mere $40. If you like your shopping a bit more up close and personal, Target has it available for the same price in-store. That's like ... 80 cents an hour.

Namco Bandai assured us it's making available more, limited stock of Ni no Kuni to the UK's leading retailers this week following widespread reports of it selling out across the country. The Level-5 and Studio Ghibli PS3 game was the surprise leader of this week's UK charts, becoming the first JRPG outside of Final Fantasy or Pokémon entries to grab top spot in the last ten years.

#ninokuni What's more adorable than Ni no Kuni? Homemade Ni no Kuni arts and crafts. More »

#kotakumelodic The first time I heard the battle music in Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, I thought, "Ugh." More »

In Europe, a free Ni No Kuni familiar - they're essentially monsters you defeat, recruit and then train to fight for you - has been available for download. On February 12, Namco Bandai will extend the gesture to North America and offer the same critter, named Draggle, as a free download.

Draggle is a plump little domesticated dragon said to have "downright adorable eyes" that families looking for a pet seem to favor - at least, so says the little guy's PSN page. In Europe, Draggle was offered gratis alongside Golden Hurly, though it would appear Namco Bandai has no intention of giving us the latter.

#ninokuni When playing video games, it's easy to get caught up in the notion of utility. Is this ability useful to me, does this skill make my character more powerful, will it improve the ratio of my numbers to my opponents' numbers, robot, robot, numbers, beep, boop, etc. More »

#ninokuni More »

European PS3 owners who pre-ordered Ni No Kuni on PSN are still waiting for the game following download issues. Although the game can be downloaded, when you try to play it a message appears saying it isn't installed properly. PlayStation EU says it's republishing the game onto PSN now, and hopes to complete the process by afternoon time over there.

The PSN issues in Europe follow the debacle on the US side with pre-orders of the Wizard's Edition, which left many customers with cancellations. The issues threaten to overshadow what's generally been a very well received game, one which we doled out four and a half stars to in our review. We felt the Studio Ghilbi and Level-5 collaboration is what made the game tick, saying that "one without the other might have been good, but together they've created a superb role-playing game for this generation to savor."

#review It would be easy, while reviewing Ni no Kuni, to sit at my desk and fling adjectives on the page like a fantasy novelist. I'd call the game whimsical, charming, beautiful, fascinating, smart, pleasant, challenging, slow-paced, grand, surreal, and aggressively colorful. More »

#ninokuni Thanks to My Inner Fred for making this "Official Pro Wizard" video of Ni no Kuni. (It's somewhat spoilery, in that it shows some stuff from after the first act.) More »

#ninokuni The splendid new role-playing game Ni no Kuni is, in many ways, a game about stories. It's a fairy tale of the purest sort, full of morals and messages, overflowing with heart. So it's fitting that within the game lies a book filled with richly-drawn fairy tales. More »

#worldmaps No doubt about it: we all love video game world-maps. That moment when you first set foot into a game's wide blue yonder and see just how far the horizon goes… it's magic. More »

#ninokuni I'm a sucker for sidequests in Ni no Kuni. I blame the stamps. In the game, each time you do a sidequest, you get a number of "merit stamps" on your stamp-card, and if you fill out a card, you can trade it in for power-ups. The tougher the sidequest, the more stamps you get. More »

#ninokuni I heard this one thing this one time. I heard that Ni no Kuni is whimsical? Have you heard that? I dunno man, I just heard it randomly somewhere. More »

#ninokuni This morning, I got an e-mail from a Kotaku reader named Jaime. More »

#ninokuni There's a lot to love about Ni no Kuni, the wonderful PlayStation 3 role-playing game that came out last Tuesday. More »

After some orders for the Wizard's Edition of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch started being mysteriously cancelled, Namco Bandai stepped forward to clarify that the special edition had been oversold, that the issue was caused by an error in its e-commerce provider's software and that said provider would be in touch to work things out.

Shortly thereafter, Wizard's Editions were found on PlayCanada's eBay store, marked up to an astronomical $400 each. The Internet, being the Internet, quickly jumped to the conclusion that Namco Bandai and/or Digital River had entered into a clandestine agreement with PlayCanada, removing inventory from its official site in order to maximize profits through an eBay scalper.

"NAMCO BANDAI Games America is not, nor has it ever, worked with or in conjunction with the EBay seller known as 'PlayCanada' to sell units of Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - Wizard's Edition at a price premium on EBay," Namco Bandai has told us.

"According to our records, this individual or group of individuals purchased Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - Wizard's Edition during the NinoStarter promotion period (August 2012); at which time, no limits were placed on how many units an individual could order. PlayCanada's claims that they officially worked with NAMCO BANDAI Games America to obtain their stock is entirely false."

Namco Bandai is still attempting to make it up to fans who pre-ordered the Wizard's Edition and aren't going to receive one; every affected person will receive a 400-page hardbound strategy guide that includes a code for an in-game "Gold Hurly Familiar," as well as a $20 clubNamco voucher.

#ninokuni Fans were not pleased this week when they learned that their orders of Ni no Kuni Wizard's Edition were cancelled due to stock shortage. Some were puzzled as to why an eBay merchant, Play Canada, was able to get hundreds of copies of the game; many postulated that there was something sketchy going on. More »

#ninokuni Many of the people who pre-ordered the special edition of Ni no Kuni from publisher Namco Bandai's online store still haven't received their copies. There seem to be all sorts of issues surrounding inventory and distribution of the new PS3 role-playing game. A lot of people are pissed off. More »

#ninokuni Anyone within earshot of me in the last week and a half will attest that I'm absolutely loving Ni No Kuni. It is, without a doubt, one of the most charming games I've ever played. It simply exudes character from every single pore. More »

The special "Wizard's Edition" of Level 5's Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, available exclusively through Namco Bandai's online shop, has been oversold, resulting in a multitude of issues for those that placed orders while the package was supposedly still in stock.

Digital River, the e-commerce middleware provider that powers Namco Bandai's shop, experienced an error in its ordering system that resulted in the Wizard's Edition's erroneous post-sellout availability. As a result, some orders have simply seen shipping delays, while others have seemingly failed to process at all or have been cancelled entirely. The number of non-existent packages sold is unknown.

"If your order(s) has been cancelled, we will be reaching out to you by email with additional information as soon as possible," an official update reads. Affected customers that feel proactive about resolving their issue can also contact Digital River directly by emailing namcobandai.en.cs@digitalriver.com, or by calling 952-392-2057.

It's also worth mentioning that while Digital River says it will be addressing the issues of everyone affected, the update does not go into detail about what that resolution may look like. To be on the safe side, we recommend tempering your expectations towards a refund and an apology.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in!]

Level-5's Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch delivers that Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle) animation charm like it's tapped into a fascination factory. Reviewers were pulled into the game by its engrossing world, but the gameplay they found there is where things begin to vary.

• IGN (94/100): "I wanted it to keep going. That's because Ni No Kuni is just that special, and every RPG fan owes it to him or herself to pick it up and see why."
• Gamespot (90/100): "Ni no Kuni proudly joins that elite group of games providing such an enticing world that you can't imagine never having visited it. The only problem, of course, is that you may never want to leave."
• Eurogamer (90/100): "Ni no Kuni is rich yet breezy, classic yet modern, exquisitely made and completely sure of itself. Best of all, Level-5 and Ghibli's artists have worked together to create a gorgeous adventure that feels like it belongs to both of them."
• Game Informer (70/100): "Despite the adrenaline-pumping intensity, the battle system has its frustrations. Sometimes the window to defend passes far too quickly. Not only must you select defend for your character, you must also order the sub-par AI companions to protect themselves as well."
• Polygon (65/100): "I was charmed, but always by stuff surrounding the gameplay - never by the gameplay itself. Level-5 hasn't created a bad game but an inconsistent one that doesn't seem to understand its own strengths and weaknesses. The flashy look and cheerful tone will pull some people through, but at its core, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch is missing a chunk of its heart that's hard to ignore. "

#ninokuni A whole bunch of people who pre-ordered Ni no Kuni are having all sorts of issues getting their copies of the PS3 role-playing game, which came out Tuesday. More »

You know the phrase "You should never judge a JRPG by its authentic adaptation of a cherished animation studio's art style?" Well, that happens to apply to Level-5 and Studio Ghibli's Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, in a good way. It's like a computer made entirely out of triple chocolate; the sweet Ghibli coating is as inviting as it is generous, but it distracts from the magnitude of something that works when it probably shouldn't.

Ni No Kuni's combat, its all-important core, is an ambitious fusion of elements from many different walks of Japanese role-playing games, and in particular Pokémon. On paper it's a muddle of methods, but on screen it is the game's enduring component, and frankly a bit of a triumph. It is also what best exemplifies Ni No Kuni: a marriage of styles with a very happy ending.