I replayed Ni no Kuni, partly to refresh my memory before the release of the sequel, partly because "platinum cleanup".
I love the artwork, world design, and the music (even if the battle theme doesn't loop properly).
The story and characters are charming, if not particularly inspired. However, although the localization has high production quality, I have "artistic issues" with the mismatch between the English text and Japanese audio. The pointless renaming of several characters is bad enough (e.g., Mark->Phillip, Sherry->Myrtle). But I really get irritated when a translator introduces their own sense of humour. If the source material has puns? Sure, go nuts. You're haven't got a chance of anything near a literal translation at that point, so pretty much anything goes. But if the source material has a serious tone, and you drop in an unnecessary pun? I'll hate you forever. I'm hardly a zealot about exact translations (sometimes a translation even improves on the original), but
don't screw with the tone of the material.
The gameplay was passable right up to the third stage of the final boss. Then its weaknesses became obvious. Issuing commands to a character only to have them cancelled a few seconds later by an enemy attack, getting stuck waiting to regain control before I can switch to another character...I spent more time fighting the battle system than the boss. As far as real-time/turn-based hybrid systems go, this isn't a very good one. I'd rather play FF12 without gambits.
It's not like I actively dislike the game, but I'm not exactly brimming with adulation, either. I'm not going to pick up the sequel at release. I'll wait for the reviews.
And now back to farming for the platinum. (It won't be worth it).
Resonance of Fate - Still in Chapter 2. I think I'm getting a good hang on the battle system, and have managed to fight well without using the action point-draining run-and-gun mechanic.
Resonance of Fate dumps all the game mechanics in your lap right at the start, but it isn't until you're a bit further along that you really need to start exploiting them (or have enough bezels to do so).