Does Ni No Kuni get the same hate as FFXIII?

 A couple of days ago I finally finished the main story of NNK and well I see lots of comparisons to FFXIII. Actually before I begin the comparison let's get this out of the way. I LOVED NNK and FFXIII. This isn't ranting but just trying to find out why people are not complaining about NNK as they once did for FFXIII.

For starters, NNK is basically one big hallway. Look at the map and you see a bright star pointing to the correct way to go. You CAN go other places but nothing is really out of the way unless you have a side mission to do or a bounty hunt. FFXIII was the same. One long hallway with nothing else until you get to that big spot towards the end of the game with a ton of missions. 

Secondly, when I would use Oliver I would basically just spam the strongest spell I had at the time and if I used a familiar I would just use my "starter" and spam the attack option. Not once did I use any of my special attacks unless it was some sort of healing spell. Many people complain that FFXIII is a button masher and all you do is press X.

Lastly, both games are JRPGs, which is why I am making the comparison. Many people complain about this genre regardless of the series. Apparently JRPGs are really cookie cutter. 

So am I wrong to think that FFXIII haters should shut up because their are other games like it that also kick major arse? Of coarse I love NNK by far more. Definitely in my top 3 JRPGs (Chrono Trigger and FFVII).

Call me crazy or whatever you wish but I see NNK as very similar to FFXIII and I see some people on here who were praising NNK months ago and hating on FFXIII years ago...

Got something productive to say? Say it. Got something stupid to say? Go away and bother someone else as you wont get a reply from me unless its thought out well.

Happy gaming!

I honestly haven't noticed this.

But my theory is, Final Fantasy XIII got so much hate because it had "Final Fantasy" in its title (there are other reasons but this seems to be the most common). Longtime fans were expecting an experience like the ones from the "golden years" of Final Fantasy and didn't get it. However, Ni no Kuni had no such legacy. So it had a blank slate and was free to be however it wanted to be.

You already pointed out the difference. You can deviate from the path in Ni No Kuni to do side missions and bounties. FFXIII is the opposite except for the large plain late in the game. Xenoblade Chronicles also has an arrow point you in a fairly straight path to the next objective that doesn't mean you can't go off in some other direction. FFXIII's map didn't allow for this it was literally a one way path and I think that's where most of the people get angry.

It's one thing if you have a rather large map that you can run around in but when you're being forced down a path people don't like that it seems, funnily enough people eat up Uncharted, but different genres and I digress.

FF13 got hate because it's called Final Fantasy, even though it had very little similarities to Final Fantasy at all. It was, for all intents and purposes, a new IP aping the Final Fantasy name to gain sales. Not a judgement on it's quality, either. I liked the game, even though the ten hour tutorial makes replaying it a pain. It's just not Final Fantasy. I keep watching that set of trailers for the MMO game FF14, and I think "Now that's Final Fantasy".

I can't for the life of me figure out how you can compare FFXIII to Ni No Kuni in any way.   Ni No Kuni just had far far more variety in things to do, a better storyline that doesn't confuse the living hell out of someone and isn't poorly told with annoying characters.  It wasn't just a linear hallway just because it had a waypoint on where to go.    Exploration is encouraged.  Sidequests are galore.  It had backtracking.  Things to do.  Actual towns to go to, NPCS to talk with to immerse yourself in the world.

The fact that you've only been using one spell with Oliver gives me the impression that you haven't played this game to it's completion or gotten very far for that matter.  Because there is far more to the combat than just spamming one spell.   Countless familiars to be use all having a variety of attacks,  exploiting enemy weaknesses,  defending is a massive part of the games combat,  moving around the combat field,  switch party members in battle, using items are all highly encouraged.  You're either doing some heavy duty grinding or you're just not playing the game very effectively.    FFXIII had some form of strategy involved but it was so barebones.  Auto battle did pretty much everything for you to a point where selecting spells manually was pretty pointless.    You could get away with spamming auto battle as it figured out enemy weaknesses by itself.  Just spam that command and watch the flashy fireworks go for 90% of the game.  You never got the feeling that you yourself where using all these spells because most of them looked so samey as did their damage.

I loved NNK and consider it one of the very best games this gen. I didn't like FFXIII at all, but then I've never been a fan of the FF series. I felt FFXIII was too boring... mostly because of the corridor thing. I disagree about NNK being the same way. I did a lot of grinding levels and taming and exploring and sidequests and stuff, and I didn't get that feeling of being forced in one direction.

BTW, I've been playing Fire Emblem: Awakening on the 3DS lately, and I'm having a good time with it.

I can't for the life of me figure out how you can compare FFXIII to Ni No Kuni in any way.   Ni No Kuni just had far far more variety in things to do, a better storyline that doesn't confuse the living hell out of someone and isn't poorly told with annoying characters.  It wasn't just a linear hallway just because it had a waypoint on where to go.    Exploration is encouraged.  Sidequests are galore.  It had backtracking.  Things to do.  Actual towns to go to, NPCS to talk with to immerse yourself in the world.

The fact that you've only been using one spell with Oliver gives me the impression that you haven't played this game to it's completion or gotten very far for that matter.  Because there is far more to the combat than just spamming one spell.   Countless familiars to be use all having a variety of attacks,  exploiting enemy weaknesses,  defending is a massive part of the games combat,  moving around the combat field,  switch party members in battle, using items are all highly encouraged.  You're either doing some heavy duty grinding or you're just not playing the game very effectively.    FFXIII had some form of strategy involved but it was so barebones.  Auto battle did pretty much everything for you to a point where selecting spells manually was pretty pointless.    You could get away with spamming auto battle as it figured out enemy weaknesses by itself.  Just spam that command and watch the flashy fireworks go for 90% of the game.  You never got the feeling that you yourself where using all these spells because most of them looked so samey as did their damage.

Crossel777

I'm guessing you didn't read the part where I said I beat the game a couple of days ago right? Yes I did use the same spell over and over. It depended on what was my strongest spell at the time. Towards the end all I did was spam Mornstar. Final boss I spammed Evestar. And post game I spammed Astra. And as for familiars my strategy was to "Attack" and I got to the end and completed the game. Ni No Kuni isn't in need of "Strategy". By the way I beat the game at lv 59 Oliver, 59 Esther, and 58 Swaine. I finished EVERY single side quest and bounty hunt before facing of at the Ivory Tower. I also got 100% of all the "hidden" treasure chests. I also stand at exactlly 40% of trophies which I plan to platinum once I beat other stuff and take a break of NNK. Next time comprehend my original post so you wont "assume" stupidities. 

Thank you all for giving me your insights on the comparison...everyones except for the guy that clearly didn't read what I wrote in the first place. I was just curious if anyone felt what I felt over both games. I respect all your answers seeing they are just opinions and I'm glad I did this thread to give me some insight on a project I would like to begin soon. 

Happy gaming =]

Lol I did read your post, I just found it hard to believe you beat the game with that play style but I guess the game is kind of easy so far.   Doing all sidequests before hand would certainly make you overpowered.

Ni No Kuni just had far far more variety in things to do, a better storyline that doesn't confuse the living hell out of someone and isn't poorly told with annoying characters.

Crossel777

Ni No Kuni's story is extremely poorly written, there's massive plot holes and just plain weird writing, the characters have some of the driest most uninteresting personalities, the character designs and graphics are lacking, the battle system is a complete mess, and the music is mostly bland and inappropriate.

Ni No Kuni just isn't a very good game, and I say this after playing it to the very end.

NNK hasn't received a tenth of the hate FFXIII has.

I don't hate either, but I DO have equal disdain for either games' fans if they go over the top... Does that count?

:lol:

[QUOTE="Crossel777"]Ni No Kuni just had far far more variety in things to do, a better storyline that doesn't confuse the living hell out of someone and isn't poorly told with annoying characters.

Pffrbt

Ni No Kuni's story is extremely poorly written, there's massive plot holes and just plain weird writing, the characters have some of the driest most uninteresting personalities, the character designs and graphics are lacking, the battle system is a complete mess, and the music is mostly bland and inappropriate.

Ni No Kuni just isn't a very good game, and I say this after playing it to the very end.

I really like RPGs but just can't seem to get interested in this game to even finish it. I'm sailing around in the ship, and I think i have a broken heart just from playing this game. Sorry!

Lol I did read your post, I just found it hard to believe you beat the game with that play style but I guess the game is kind of easy so far.   Doing all sidequests before hand would certainly make you overpowered.

Crossel777

I wasn't overpowered either. It took me a long time to beat the final boss by using these tactics. The game just never throws anything that resembles a threat at the player.  By the way I was playing on normal...I can just imagine how easy this would be on easy. 

srry bout ur title made me respond without actually reading ur post.

no.

...

maybe Ni didnt do well or people didnt like it, but people hate (and it gets a lot of it, as it should imo) ff13 for dif reasons and Ni doesnt get as much hate, it just isnt great. whereas ff13 isnt good.

ff13 was a huge disappointment, Ni was just a lil one.

NNK hasn't received a tenth of the hate FFXIII has.

Bigboi500

My problems with Final Fantasy 13 has nothing to do with it being linear or even that I thought the combat was terrible (for the majority of JRPGs I expect boring and non strategic combat), I hated the game because I hate the world, the characters, the writing, and the direction. I liked Ni No Kuni's combat about as much as FF13s, I thought it required more strategy but the allied AI was so terrible that I thought it was just as bad as FF13. I'd be perfectly ok with FF13 being linear and lacking towns, if it was done correctly. The problem is that it being that way really hurts the game by making you have no interest in the world or it's inhabitants and because everything had to be so linear it also lead to a lot of very bad decisions when it came to layout, information given to you, and terrible endings to many cutscenes.

While I definitely would not put Ni No Kuni anywhere near my top games list, or even RPG list for that matter, outside of the combat I enjoyed everything else a lot more than FF13.

While the writing certainly wasn't perfect in Ni No Kuni I was never playing the game, looking at the characters and thinking, these are horrible people and every time I see them do something or speak I want them to die.

The fact that you've only been using one spell with Oliver gives me the impression that you haven't played this game to it's completion or gotten very far for that matter.

As the game went on I found myself spamming Oliver's spells more and more often (usually whatever was the strongest).

[QUOTE="Bigboi500"]

NNK hasn't received a tenth of the hate FFXIII has.

1PMrFister

So basically you hate the game whilst everyone else loved it is what I'm understanding here.
Quite a few people share my opinion. Don't get mad.

It received countless amounts of praise amongst critics and gamers alike.
It recieved so much praise because it features Studio Ghibli art. The game is clearly lacking in every other catagory.It's the kind of game that's highly praised simply because it's highly praised. Not because it actually does anything particularly well.

Whilst FF fans are left scratching their head as to why they're not getting games like this anymore.
How are they not getting games like this anymore if they got Ni No Kuni? Is something stopping them from playing it?

Ni No Kuni is constantly referred to as a classic JRPG experience.   Something FFXIII isn't. Crossel777

I find that incredibly hard to believe.

As far as I knew very few people hated Ni No kuni.  

[QUOTE="Bigboi500"]

NNK hasn't received a tenth of the hate FFXIII has.

1PMrFister

The pacing for Ni No Kuni is awful because Oliver and company are f*cking braindead. So much time is wasted because he practically needs to be beaten over the head before he'll understand anything. The game constantly feels the need to tell you the obvious over and over and it has you performing mind numbing backtracking across towns over and over because the characters are too f*cking idiotic to figure out what's going on.

And while on the subject of characters being braindead, the party AI is awful. So much time in battles is spent babysitting the AI trying to make sure they don't get themselves killed. That's the primary challenge of the game. It isn't being a quick thinker or coming up with good strategies, it's babysitting a bunch of f*cking morons that burn through all of their MP on stupid shit as fast as possible before withdrawing their familiars so they can stand directly in the way of attacks. And the set up for the battles are terrible anyway. It wants to play fast paced and slightly action like yet it has you selecting commands through a menu while you're trying to keep an eye on what's going on while moving around an battle arena, and that menu f*cking sucks. There's nothing to distinguish between commands at a glance so you actually have to look over and read them to make sure you're not selecting the wrong one and the game doesn't f*cking remember what the last one selected was so it always defaults back to "Attack" which is disorienting as hell and then entire time I played the game I couldn't get used to it.

And don't tell me about the all-out defense command because the party AI never listened to it, not once. It didn't matter how early I'd select the command, no one would defend unless I made them do it manually which is impossible to do when an enemy is charging up an attack. Esther would decide to bring out whatever familiar had the lowest defense so she could cast her strongest healing spells on characters that were only down 10 HP, and Swaine would just do whatever the hell.

The game sucks shit.

And while on the subject of characters being braindead, the party AI is awful. So much time in battles is spent babysitting the AI trying to make sure they don't get themselves killed. That's the primary challenge of the game. It isn't being a quick thinker or coming up with good strategies, it's babysitting a bunch of f*cking morons that burn through all of their MP on stupid shit as fast as possible before withdrawing their familiars so they can stand directly in the way of attacks. And the set up for the battles are terrible anyway. It wants to play fast paced and slightly action like yet it has you selecting commands through a menu while you're trying to keep an eye on what's going on while moving around an battle arena, and that menu f*cking sucks. There's nothing to distinguish between commands at a glance so you actually have to look over and read them to make sure you're not selecting the wrong one and the game doesn't f*cking remember what the last one selected was so it always defaults back to "Attack" which is disorienting as hell and then entire time I played the game I couldn't get used to it. And don't tell me about the all-out defense command because the party AI never listened to it, not once. It didn't matter how early I'd select the command, no one would defend unless I made them do it manually which is impossible to do when an enemy is charging up an attack. Esther would decide to bring out whatever familiar had the lowest defense so she could cast her strongest healing spells on characters that were only down 10 HP, and Swaine would just do whatever the hell.

That is definitely all true.When the game released I even had a blog entry about the terrible AI and how they made the battle with one of the games main antagonists one of the most broken fights I had ever played.

The AI in the Tales of games are fine there is no reason the AI in Ni no Kuni is so awful, and if you have AI controlled party members you need a system like the Tales games where you aren't using MP.

You could turn off the star pointer thing if you wanted to. Funny that you'd make a big deal out of something that's completely optional.NeverMore0

How is it a big deal when its just a simple question asking for people's opinions? I loved both games regardless of the star or not. If you took the time to read my original post you would know I wasn't complaining but just making similarities to see what others would answer to see you people's perpestive on my original question. I didn't have any problem whatsoever with anything on NNK besides the lack of strategy to beat the game and even then, I didn't mind it. 

Thank to everyone that posted something "productive" and something that related to the original post unlike for maybe two people that can't understand simple english.  Just simple gamer discussion...too bad this forum is full of idiots sadly. It's nice to have a reminder that not all gamers are idiots and full of themselves. 

.too bad this forum is full of idiotshappy_dude64

[QUOTE="happy_dude64"].too bad this forum is full of idiotsCrossel777

[QUOTE="Crossel777"]So basically you hate the game whilst everyone else loved it is what I'm understanding here.
Quite a few people share my opinion. Don't get mad.

It received countless amounts of praise amongst critics and gamers alike.
It recieved so much praise because it features Studio Ghibli art. The game is clearly lacking in every other catagory.It's the kind of game that's highly praised simply because it's highly praised. Not because it actually does anything particularly well.

Whilst FF fans are left scratching their head as to why they're not getting games like this anymore.
How are they not getting games like this anymore if they got Ni No Kuni? Is something stopping them from playing it?

Ni No Kuni is constantly referred to as a classic JRPG experience.   Something FFXIII isn't. Pffrbt

I think Ni No Kuni is a pretty good, fun game.

I think FFXIII is really boring and stupid, and I didn't like the story or any of the characters, nor did I care about them.

I think the action RPG aspects of both games, as well as their linearity, are the only similarities between the two games.

Also, FFXIII has two sequels nobody wanted.  So, I can understand why there's so much hate.

FF 13 received hate mostly because hyped the game to no end.  The game was announced way back in 2006, so the hype wnet on for about four years.  Ni No Kuni is not hated that much.  I personally think the game is overrated.  Ni No kuni is still great, but the sidequests do get repetitive over time.  Having to find the diary for that one guy in every town you visit is very annoying.  The same can be said about mending broken hearts.  If sidequests had more variety to them, then Ni No Kuni could have been a good bit better than it is.  The level grinding at the end of the game is a can get tedious.  Trying to run into Toko Toko monsters near Perdidia can be time consuming.  I did not really strategize that much through the game.  I just powered up my characters until they could take enemies down without an issue.  I have somewhere around twenty five stamp cards, but i never spent any of the points.  I evolved some of my familiars to the final stage before the game even explained how to do it.  Then again, I think games today are made with different options in order to cater to different play styles, so I cannot really blame Ni No Kuni for the my specific playstyle.  I am the one that chose to attack the same way every time.  I am the one who chose not to experiment with other familiars outside of a select few.   

Also, FFXIII has two sequels nobody wanted.  So, I can understand why there's so much hate.

Ovirew

I wanted them so your post is 100% wrong. I'm looking forward to 13-3 very much. Its one of my most anticipated games this year. Not Goty caliber but still excited to finish the story. Get your facts straight before you sound like an idiot.

[QUOTE="Ovirew"]

Also, FFXIII has two sequels nobody wanted.  So, I can understand why there's so much hate.

happy_dude64

I wanted them so your post is 100% wrong. I'm looking forward to 13-3 very much. Its one of my most anticipated games this year. Not Goty caliber but still excited to finish the story. Get your facts straight before you sound like an idiot.

One has to wonder do you even like JRPGs to begin with?
If they're good.
This gen must of been real shit for you right?
No, lots of great games came out.
Your sig just blows my mind. Wtf is Tom doing to Jerry?!Crossel777

Blowing creme on him.

I think Ni No Kuni is a pretty good, fun game.

I think FFXIII is really boring and stupid, and I didn't like the story or any of the characters, nor did I care about them.

I think the action RPG aspects of both games, as well as their linearity, are the only similarities between the two games.

Ovirew

[QUOTE="happy_dude64"]

[QUOTE="Ovirew"]

Also, FFXIII has two sequels nobody wanted.  So, I can understand why there's so much hate.

Ovirew

I wanted them so your post is 100% wrong. I'm looking forward to 13-3 very much. Its one of my most anticipated games this year. Not Goty caliber but still excited to finish the story. Get your facts straight before you sound like an idiot.

[QUOTE="Ovirew"][QUOTE="happy_dude64"]

I wanted them so your post is 100% wrong. I'm looking forward to 13-3 very much. Its one of my most anticipated games this year. Not Goty caliber but still excited to finish the story. Get your facts straight before you sound like an idiot.

Minishdriveby

Please don't compare Ni No Kuni to the crapfest that is FFXIII

I have been thinking of getting NNK over the last couple of days. would anyone of you who played it recommend it?ziggyww

It is a game worth playing.  The flaws I mentioned are rather small.  None of them make Ni No Kuni unbearable, but they can get on your nerves from time to time. 

NNK has a giant overworld map that can be used for exploration, grinding, and discovering secret areas and whatnot. The actual dungeons can be a tad linear, but the game is just so much better than FFXIII in every aspect.

[QUOTE="ziggyww"]I have been thinking of getting NNK over the last couple of days. would anyone of you who played it recommend it?gamenerd15

It is a game worth playing.  The flaws I mentioned are rather small.  None of them make Ni No Kuni unbearable, but they can get on your nerves from time to time. 

NNK, I think, has elements of Pokemon in it as well.  Its not a bad game, but I've played better

As for FFXIII, I can only play that if I forget that it is a final fantasy game.  Like I've said before it should have been called FF:Cocoon or something else, and should never have had a roman numeral.