I hate chosen ones. When there’s some big destiny involved with a clueless “chosen” dork, you know he is going to win. There is no tension and no interesting character growth by having someone be “the chosen one.” It’s an outdated and unnecessary trope. Sometimes a story involving a chosen one can get around this by twisting the formula in an intriguing way or by engaging in a way that allows the chosen one aspect to fade into the background. “Star Wars” and “Harry Potter” are good examples of these. “Ni no Kuni” is not a good example.
“Ni no Kuni” stars the good-natured and bland as butter Oliver. After his mother dies, Oliver brings his stuffed doll, the Lord of the Fairies Mr. Drippy, to life through the power of plot-convenient magical tears. Mr. Drippy lets Oliver know that because he is the most boring little kid in the world and his backstory has a tragedy rating of 7.4 out of ten, he can be the chosen one and save both his world and a parallel magical world from ultimate evil — an ultimate evil whose greatest crimes are spreading apathy and kidnapping. He is not exactly Sauron, but whatever. So Oliver must now go on a quest spanning both the real and magical world in order to master the arts of magic so he can (say it with me) save the world! Along the way he will meet people somehow more boring than he is and do a load of side quests because child labor is not outlawed in the Second Country.
Now because of all the contempt I weaved between my words in the last paragraph, you may think I am down on this game. I am really not. It’s only the story and characters that make me want to bash my skull in. The rest of the game is fantastic. The art design and world were made by Studio Ghibli (“Spirited Away”, “Ponyo”) so everything and everyone in the world looks gorgeous.
The enemies have some clever names and actually show up on the overworld map, eliminating random encounters (a huge point in its favor). And the battle system is solid, if a tad goofy by installing an unneeded Pokemon element into the mix. So the mechanics and world are great, but there’s nobody in the world worth caring about. The only character that I actually liked was the guy who constantly called the protagonists idiots because it was really hard to disagree with him. If you can get past the snore-fest of a plot and pathetic cast, then the rest of the game is pretty good, but don’t be surprised if it runs out of steam.
