Ni no Kuni (DS) preview: Turn the page
Ni no Kuni: The Jet-Black Mage on DS hasn't changed much since I saw it at last year's TGS, but a new demo allowed me a chance to (attempt to) use the game's spellbook accessory. It also offered me a shot at my first boss battle, which subsequently forced me to learn a bit more about the battle system. Read on for my impressions.
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The spellbook has players draw runes out of its pages to unlock spells, but that's not the only mode of interaction. In the demo, I spoke to a shopkeeper (in Japanese) who asked me for a secret word "from page 61" (meaning from a page 61 or higher in the book). I needed the booth attendant's help to find the answer, but I could read enough to understand that rather than a simple flip-to-the-page search, this was a sort of riddle. I had to determine which word would be the secret word based on the clue.
This puzzle seemed quite similar to those used in old PC games to thwart piracy (where you might have to extract a code out of the game manual), and the Ni no Kuni attendant suggested this might actually be the case here -- a smart idea for the piracy-ridden DS. The extremely fancy book may be attractive enough as an object to sway some potential downloaders toward a purchase anyway.
After I -- and by "I," I mean "helpful Level-5 booth staff" -- finally cleared the Japanese-language puzzle, the solution somehow summoned a genie ... who then picked a fight with me! No wonder this guy was stuffed into a bottle.
The DS game's battle system is strictly turn-based, with each character picking an action from a menu before launching into combat. The bottom screen forms a grid in which you can position your characters, strategy-RPG style; some attacks have area effects that can be avoided with smart placement.
Ni no Kuni for DS is likely in its final iteration: It will be released in Japan on December 9. Of course, those of us residing in North America have to wait an unknown period of time, since no announcements have been made about localizing the game -- not to mention translating the spellbook! I can confirm that, thanks to this book, Ni no Kuni is not an ideal game to import without some serious Japanese language skills.
Thankfully, you don't have to understand Japanese to enjoy the new trailer posted on the official game site.
