The Ghibli Game: Ni no Kuni

[enderzero]

Y'all seen this?

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via GeniusTown

[N3ur0n0saurusl2exs0r!!!]

Wow that is totally amazing. It looks totally like a cartoon. I couldn't even tell at first. It looks like at some point they even imitated low frame rate kind of animation that you see in some of the old cartoons. Very cool, probably the best whatever you call it - rotoscoping? I know it is not that but actually cooler really.

This style of game has everything I hate in an RPG though. Ultra yucky cutsie kiddie style Japanese zero suspension of disbelief graphics that make me feel like I am a five year old watching cartoons that I really didn't like that much as a child that came on later after all the cool cartoons ended. Horrible horrible horrible. This is actually the pinnacle of what I hate hate hate. Yuck. Barbies would be almost more fun to play with for me than playing a game like this...

The rendering technology is pretty damn awesome though.

[N3ur0n0saurusl2exs0r!!!]

Seriously though, why in the hell would you play something like this? I don't understand.

[N3ur0n0saurusl2exs0r!!!]

it obviously doesn't have as much depth but to me is nearly the same as the above game. If the graphics were ascii graphics for the cutsie games instead of what they are then I would be more interested in playing them but they are graphics for children. I am actually not trying to make fun of the game I am just trying to understand the appeal.
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[enderzero]

Because it will likely be a brilliantly told story and immersing game play. If it is, I'll check it out.

[N3ur0n0saurusl2exs0r!!!]

No story could make up for the ridiculous "monsters" that the video shows during combat that totally ruin the game. If Diablo, or any other rpg, had the same style of graphics I would feel the same way. Having a great story is a great thing but not nearly as important as the gameplay, art, music, and sound effects are. Having all those elements match each other stylistically is important as well - not just with the overall style of the game but even from game object to game object. The music for that game is very good but again doesn't match what you see. Even the terrain goes from being rendered very closely as hand drawn to very obviously computer generated with more vivid color. The gameplay itself looks very similar to as it was way back when from final fantasy. You just wander around on the zoomed out terrain. You never know when you are going to go into combat as it just happens as the screen does a quick transition to the up close turn based combat that looks just like final fantasy. The combat itself is just a fixed lackadaisical sequence of choices instead of being a much more exciting urgent free for all where you really don't know what is going to happen. An urgent freeform combat system keeps it exciting the whole way through instead of it being the same turn based thing over and over again. Having an rpg structured like all the old square games nowadays takes away from the ability to be more creative. There is barely any real innovation going on here - in fact I don't know where they have done it since I haven't played the game but the video doesn't show anything.