Ni no Kuni is a deceptively challenging game. I wasn't expecting
this much resistance from a game that hands out tutorials like candy on
Halloween. The game constantly explains the most basic concepts of a JRPG
from healing to saving, yet, the regular battles are kicking my ass.
I was thinking that the best time to rush through a JRPG is
in the beginning since catching up is easier later on when the enemies
give out more exp, but I've been forced to grind. I'd almost forgotten this is
a Level-5 game. It's difficult when I can't even run past most enemies. They
catch up in a matter of moments, so it's either fight them head on or let them
ambush me.
As much as failure frustrates me, it's the only way I can learn
and master the game's mechanics. Ever since I died mere steps away from a save
point which would've restored all my health and magic, I've become much more
aggressive when it comes to switching between familiars and taking advantage of
my abilities. In a way, I had a breakthrough and I'm now exploring
the limits of the battle system.
Something similar happened in Tales of Xillia in the battle
against Muzét. All of sudden, I'm forced to learn how to manually position
myself against enemies when I just semi-auto'ed my way to victory before.
That's still the hardest boss fight in the whole game for me because I leave
all the healing and item management to the AI.
While it's in my best interest to dial down the difficulty if I
want to clear my backlog as fast as possible, my gamer pride won't let me. It
looks like I'm going to need more than two weeks and a half to complete the
game at this rate. I blame the NBA playoffs for my slow pace.
Aside from the challenge, Ni no Kuni is a better
Kingdom Hearts than Kingdom Hearts since it deals with parallel words and
matters of the "heart" without the convoluted nonsense that
plagues KH. It's been a while since I played as a kid. It's a nice
contrast to all the killing and cussing I do in BF4.
If the game didn't force me to grind so much, I'd like it a lot
more. Hopefully, the curve evens out a bit because I've already died more in
normal battles than I have in the entirety of Tales of Xillia, and in Tales, I
only died because of a BS full party petrify.
I'm enjoying it so far and it's definitely testing me. I just
hope the game doesn't throw a huge wall at me later on.
