Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch Preview

Have you ever wanted to play a Studio Ghibli film?  Well Level 5 studios is giving you the chance by bringing the insanely stylized RPG Ni no Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch state side for all of us to get our hands on.

Ni no Kuni's story revolves around a young boy named Oliver.  After his mother dies rescuing him from drowning, his tears animate a doll his mother has given him.  The newly animated friend introduces himself as the fairy "Shizuku" and rewards Oliver with a spellbook and a new world to explore.  Oliver takes to the adventure filled with monsters, magic, and mayhem all in the hopes of reuniting with his mother once again.  There isn't much in the way of imagination that this game is lacking.  Its style is on par with its wackiness and it doesn't look like the game will get much less ridiculous the more hours you end up pumping into it.  But of course, my knowledge of the story beyond that is limited as I cannot read Japanese.  However, as with any RPG, it takes more than story to build up a game to my liking (or hopefully anyone's). 

Turn Based Tuesday: Xenoblade Chronicles Review

It has been quite some time since I have turned my Wii on for any reason, much less a title I was excited to play.  When I heard about Xenoblade Chronicles, I was less than intrigued to say the least. I thought to myself "generic rpg for a generic console."  And it wasn't for any reason other than having little faith in the Wii to harbor anymore good games.  It was a dying console in my heart and I wanted nothing more to do with it essentially.  But fuck am I glad I changed my mind. This game has much more to offer than shitty graphics and motion controls.

I have not played any of the previous "Xeno" titles before so there was little to interest me.  In fact it wasn't me who purchased the title at all.  My roommate (massive fan of the JRPG) heard about it at GameStop and thought it sounded cool.  They told us that it was an "exclusive retail" offer that could not be purchased at any other location and they were going to hold a midnight release of it on Friday Mar. 30.  When I arrived, there was about...nobody there...give or take a few lost souls.  This was not a highly anticipated game from the looks of things.  Despite all of this, doing some research on the title we found out that people were calling this game "the next great RPG" and was considered by those at the pre-release to likely be the last great game on the Wii.  Well I can't make any such claims about whether the Wii has anything more up it's sleeve, but what I can tell you, is they were not kidding, this is a great game, and one you should not pass up lightly. If you own a Wii, this almost garners "must have" status.