Ni no Kuni and Its Giant Box

Posted by brandon in Uncategorized on Dec 13th, 2010 | 0 comments

I got Ni no Kuni on the day of release. Amazon Japan had it at my door on release day and I thought by now that I’d have torn into it and been well on my way into the story…when I pre-ordered four months ago. Now that it’s here though, I have just been sitting on it for four days, and I’m expecting not to touch it until next year. Ya see, the reason is…it’s just too cumbersome. What’s that mean? Well, the reason that Ni no Kuni’s packaging is so huge is that there’s a huge magical tome in there. The game comes with a hardback spell book and it’s heavy. You need this book to play, as far as I know. You have to look up all the spells so you can cast them. There are a fair number of them, and I imagine that until you’ve done them a bunch of times, you probably won’t remember how to draw them with your stylus from memory. Some of the more basic spells like ‘heal’ and ‘open the gate’ aren’t terribly difficult, but the more arcane the spell, the more involved the writing procedure.

Having to refer to this book kind of kills the portability of the game. DS games have always been my go to gaming platform for trips and commutes, but I’m pretty sure I won’t want to drag this book with me everyday on my commute. I also don’t want to drag this book back with me on my Christmas trip to America either. So, while I might still take my DS with me, I think I’ll probably just leave Ni no Kuni here in Japan. And then I can dig in in the new year.