Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, the awesome Tier-5 MMORPG review

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Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds’ western debut prompts us to reconnect with a generation of mobile games characterized by unprecedented production value for this market, as they are often designed to land on PC and consoles simultaneously, as was the case with Genshin Impact recently. provides. .

The series has also become very popular with us, starting with The Threat of the White Witch, which was developed specifically for PS3, but the connections with the world of smartphones and portability experiences have always been present: imagine making its debut on the Nintendo DS. and the history of the first mobile division dates back to 2010.

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So what we’re witnessing more than a revolution is a sort of return to origins, although in the form of an MMORPG with some rather obscure aspects, you see the blockchain and cryptocurrencies-based substrate with many speaking with little enthusiasm.

Either way, the wait is here Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds review.

History

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds connects to our character Soul Divers

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds connects to our character Soul Divers

The magical world of Ni no Kuni has been recounted several times by Level-5, even in non-video game formats. It almost always happens that the heroes of the game History they suddenly find themselves thrown into this mysterious place, grappling with the threats they face and people in need of help, and from this perspective Cross Worlds is no exception.

However, the beginning changes in a perhaps less original but effective narrative method: a multinational corporation discovered how to connect our universe to Ni no Kuni’s and gave life to a kind of universe. virtual reality game that people claw to use. But when we connect with Soul Divers, something unexpected happens.

Ni no Kuni: The style of Cross Worlds

Ni no Kuni: The style of Cross Worlds

In fact, it seems our alter ego is a kind of hybrid, a creature that actually belongs to two worlds at once and has the ability to change things precisely because of it. He found himself witnessing the violent confrontation between a mysterious assailant and Queen Sia. nameless kingdomThe protagonist receives the gift of great power before teleporting away from Cluu.

The latter somewhat represents the mascot of the adventure: a funny man flying and talking pig this will not fail to reenact every situation and every dialogue (by the way: the game is entirely in English or Japanese, with Italian subtitles) accompanying us on a mission to rebuild the Nameless Kingdom after asking for help from the surrounding areas. starting with eostaria.

Structure

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, our Swordsman and his inventory

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, our Swordsman and his inventory

At the beginning of the adventure we will be asked to choose one of the following. five classes available, namely Witch, Destroyer, Engineer, Outlaw, and Swordsman. Depending on our choice, we can have different abilities: spells from afar, great physical resistance, the ability to summon mechanisms and weapons, shoot with a bow or fight with a sword. We will also be able to change the appearance of each fighter, thanks to an editor and a large number of cosmetic items to unlock.

After the entry stage and landing on Eostaria, we will be able to take part in one. lots of different activities, as in MMOs, we act in scenarios with all the other players on our server. As mentioned earlier, our goal will be to rebuild the kingdom that was just destroyed, and to do so we will have to explore a total of thirteen different locations, but these can only be accessed by leveling up.

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds explores the protagonist from one of the first scenarios

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds explores the protagonist from one of the first scenarios

Such an approach inevitably shows some degree of bias. repeatabilityOften the quests required to increase the reputation and then move on to new stages of the story turn out to be simple fetch quests, there are even quests that we can complete automatically by paying a few coins.

It is also necessary to accept the interventionism of a person.interface Whether it’s an unlocked achievement or an available item, summon tokens or access-related rewards, special timed events or more, it always seems willing to distract us with something new: a decidedly “oriental” environment, however, it seems very chaotic and fragmented.

gameplay

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds is one of the characters that will give us quests

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds is one of the characters that will give us quests

The mechanics of Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds refer to the MMORPG tradition, so fight in real time however, we will have to deal with a rather chaotic and poorly organized touch control system, currently lacking options that allow you to set commands up differently.

In fact, we have a virtual analog stick on the left side of the screen, but this is very often confused with the movement of the view, rather than the small gap between the right side or better (small). dedicated buttons for attack and movement, special features for jumping and dodging, and icons that literally fill the screen and create incredible confusion at first.

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, a fight sequence highlights the interface's crowd

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds, a fight sequence highlights the interface’s crowd

In this respect, the comparison with the aforementioned Genshin Impact (review) is brutal: the miHoYo header, thanks to an already significant update path, manages to manage its functions much better and offers more rationally organized controls. In addition to supporting the use of controller On iOS: A feature that is unfortunately still missing from Cross Worlds.

Then there automatisms, which is really overwhelming and not easy to disable completely. For example, accepting a quest will activate the character’s automatic movement towards the next point of interest by default, and you will occasionally have to tap the icon with the quest target to return to manual commands.

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds acts as a big cat mount to move faster

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds acts as a big cat mount to move faster

For fights, it’s even more complicated, and it actually took us several hours to finally figure out how to act on the options screen to prevent our character from engaging with any enemies that might come within range. special moves and healing techniques: it’s ridiculous that developers place an implant by default Works without any interference by the playernot the other way around.

Having said that, even once all the unpleasant automatisms of Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds have been dispelled, we are once again faced with. battle system with some interesting extras, see the Familiars and their abilities, but overall less refined, precise and satisfying than Genshin Impact, very inconsistent and slick in rendering effects (which happens often in MMOs though) and also spoiled with big issues with camera management when selecting the view.

graphics and sound

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds and Studio Ghibli-style character design

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds and Studio Ghibli-style character design

Undoubtedly, it is the artistic sector that represents the strength of the game and effectively incorporates the game’s gorgeous character design. Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli presenting great characters and sequences with a high degree of flamboyance, very well-directed and always keeping the attention, even if we are witnessing a simple connotation perhaps.

There graphic Cross Worlds stays in shape on consoles, thanks to clever use of cel shading, as well as settings that can deliver a rich set of animations and generally stunning scenery, especially for heroes.

Ni no Kuni: Crossed Worlds.  some of the many graphic options

Ni no Kuni: Crossed Worlds. some of the many graphic options

Everything can be adjusted with many options for scaling resolution and effects depending on the device used: from textures to shadows, from details to effects, from anti-aliasing to ambient occlusion, finally from framerate to transition. On the iPhone 12 Pro it’s possible to play everything at max, but limited to 30 frames per second. 60fps The phone heats up quickly.

when it comes soundamazing music by Joe Hisaishi they manage to develop any series very well and the dubbing seems very well done in both English and (especially) Japanese. The presence of subtitles in Italian is also an extra that should not be underestimated, because other similar productions do not have a localization in our language.

professional

  • Exceptional technical and artistic sector
  • Structure full of content
  • Many scenarios, many characters
AGAINST
  • Excessive and intrusive automatisms
  • control system to improve
  • inevitably repetitive.

Source: Multiplayer

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