From the magnificent software house Level 5, author of the sagas of Inazuma Eleven and Professor Layton, and thanks to the help of the famous publisher Bandai Namco, it was released in 2010 in Japan Ni No Kuni: The Menace of the White Witch on Nintendo DS. Given the huge success, the team set to work to expand their title and make it accessible to a greater share of the market. After a little less than a year, a re-edition of the title for PlayStation 3 was released in the land of the Rising Sun, which finally arrived in Europe in 2013. In addition to a graphic implementation, given by the greater computing power of a fixed console and more in step with the times, the team decided to expand the work also at the content level, thus transforming an apparent porting into a real expansion.
What the software house achieved was an even greater success, which finally led the chapter to become a saga with Ni No Kuni 2: The Destiny of a Kingdom, released on PC and PS4 in 2018. One year later, Level 5, with the publication of Bandai Namco, returns to the attack with Ni No Kuni: Threat of the White Witch Remastered on PS4 and PC, and with a port of the title not remastered on Nintendo Switch. We had the opportunity to evaluate the title in the PS4 and PS4 Pro version: let's find out together in this review the characteristics of the new Level 5 product!
New generation, same game
Although many years have passed since the release of the first title, it is good to give some hints on the history of this real fairy tale. Ni No Kuni: The Menace of the White Witch presents a truly unsettling plot, which starts from the first hours of the game with a bang. The protagonist, Oliver, finds himself at any moment in a catastrophic and unsustainable situation for a child, but a series of events give a new and important purpose to his life. His tears of pain awaken and animate a simple rag doll that was given to him by his mother. The new character, Lucciconio in the European version, he will lead Oliver into his world, asking him to save him.
This is the narrative premise of a truly intriguing, mature but often funny story, which knows how to accompany and intrigue the player throughout the course of the adventure. The narrative, just like the gameplay, hasn't changed one iota, making the restoration done by QLOC faithful to the team's original creation throughout. The title is strongly Story-driven, but there is no lack of interesting and innovative combat system. In the game, the combat takes place through a turn-based system that is however very particular even for the present times, for its incredible dynamism. There is almost talk of a turn-based system… in real time! The choices must be made quickly and it is possible to move around the playing field during the course of the clashes.
We must forget the canonical combat systems, here we are faced with a completely new gameplay. The enemy creatures are encountered directly on the map of the game world: we are therefore not faced with random encounters with the many enemies, but they will be eludable and programmable. To take the field in the arena, however, it will not be only our Oliver with his magic: The protagonist is always accompanied by gods familiars, who are drawn into battle and fight valiantly to ensure victory! These are the animals that we will meet in the game world, and by fulfilling certain victory conditions, we will be able to bring them into our collection and field them at our side! Of course, even our human allies, Ester e Arsuino, they will be accompanied by their faithful familiar.
A successful JRPG returning in great shape
Ni No Kuni: The Menace of the White Witch has had an excellent artistic sector since its first edition. The animation studio Ghibli and Level 5's signature graphics have indeed produced a magnificent work of art, which is a splendor to watch and play. The cutscenes, models and animations all contribute to creating an almost perfect whole, which is artistically enviable even if not graphically jaw-splitting. In the version PS4 that we could try, we found an obvious decent improvement over the PS3 one, but not everything has been smooth sailing. The framerate of 60 still frames at 1080p even on the smooth console was a nice surprise, but the polishing of the models and the overall quality a little less.
In many places it seems that the restoration work did not take place, but fortunately the original game has not aged particularly badly, which therefore makes the overall vision always pleasant, especially given the artistic sector that compensates for the graphic deficiencies. Up For PS4 the speech changes, fortunately radically. You can choose between 1440p (2K) at 60 frames or 2160p (4k) at 30 frames. Both options are valid but half of the framerates may perhaps not justify a difference in terms of resolution that is not particularly marked. The choice is fortunately given to the player, who can, according to his preferences, change the parameter when he wishes. Even the general graphic quality improves significantly on PS4 Pro, not reaching the highest levels of the generation, however, it stands out on a more than decent result.
