I might just be lathered in nostalgia playing this game. But the story of this game has always stuck in me, this is one of those games I come back to when ♥♥♥♥ gets tough, and as many times as I beat it, ♥♥♥♥ around in the casino, play with the cauldron genie it never gets old for me. Is the fighting a little clunky... I do have to agree, but I kind of enjoy the constant multitasking it takes. It gives the game, the fights a sense of urgency. The pacing is slow, you have to take your time. You have to be strategic with your familiars, your items, your armor, your levels, your timing. Its a game you take your time with. you might find this boring or frustrating and that's chill. However for me this is a game that transports you a lot of grinding is involved but its in some of the prettiest settings ever! with a cool ass story waiting for you.

Whilst I will always recommend this game to people, I cannot recommend the Steam version of it. I had a bug where it wouldn't allow me to save. I tried a handful of fixes and none worked and eventually I had to give up due to this. Additionally, the performance wasn't great at all. I was constantly lagging, and I very rarely get lag on games I play.

If you're interested in playing, get it on console instead if that is possible for you. It's such a beautiful game and it holds a lot of happy memories. Just don't get it here.

Edit - I'd like to add, because someone decided to make assumptions, I'm not on a laptop. I'm on a pretty good PC that can run games that are a lot bigger than this one, like BG3 on the highest graphics with absolutely no lag. Also, my main issue was the fact the game literally does not save, that has nothing to with whether or not I'm on a laptop. I could've gotten by with the lag, but it was the fact I literally couldn't close the game or else I'd lose all my progress as saving didn't work.

Ni no Kuni is one of those games that wraps around you like a warm blanket — the Studio Ghibli art style is genuinely stunning, and Joe Hisaishi's soundtrack never once got old across my 50+ hours with it. Drippy is an absolute highlight as a sidekick, and the world itself is so charming that I kept pushing forward even when the game frustrated me. And it will frustrate you: the combat is a clunky hybrid of real-time and turn-based that never quite commits to either, your AI companions burn through MP in seconds, and the familiar-catching grind can test your patience. That said, don't let the kid-friendly Ghibli aesthetic fool you — there's real heart in this story, and moments that genuinely hit hard. If you can snag it on sale for around $20 and have a controller handy, I'd absolutely recommend giving it a shot.