Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds is the newest mobile installment to the Ni No Kuni franchise that focuses on a gacha system very similar to that of Genshin Impact. It is a mobile game that also has cross-play features with a beta version of the same game available on PC. When you start up the game, you will be asked to choose from one of five classes that you will use to traverse through the story. You can always go back to the main menu and play as a different class if you choose to so you are never stuck with your first choice! These classes include Engineer, Destroyer, Swordsman, Witch, and Rogue. The story does not change depending on the class you choose though you can complete achievement and codex lists by playing through every class.
Once you’ve chosen your class and customized your character, you will immediately embark into a world being controlled by a virtual reality game called Soul Divers. As you progress through the story, you slowly start to realize that the world is not virtual at all and that you are destined to rebuild Kingdoms and protect the real world and the Soul Divers world from destruction. In order to do that, however, you need to complete different requests and story missions while also upgrading your characters and mounts. As stated before, the game follows a gameplay system that very much mimics Genshin Impact in the sense that you can unlock new items, weapons, and familiars by opening up different packs. Every class has a different set of items that are exclusive to those characters so you can choose between opening weapon packs, familiar packs, or armor packs to obtain both new items as well as items to help you upgrade. You can also obtain rewards from completing daily and weekly missions as well as checking in with the app every day for a variety of different announcements and gifts.
How Do We Feel About Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds?
The overworld is absolutely gorgeous and full of color, as you would expect from a game that takes its stylistic choices from Studio Ghibli. The world is relatively large and oftentimes will ask you to fast travel to certain areas for a fee in lieu of walking. There are many different missions that you can complete as both part of the story as well as side-quests that help you gain more rewards which can be used to really easily upgrade things in your inventory. I say easily because you will consistently receive notifications that tell you what you can upgrade, receive, or open whenever you unlock anything. Something else that I find very convenient about this game is the fact that you can automatically walk to where you want to go by selecting the particular mission on the hub screen. The game pays very close attention to how a mobile player would play the game and invokes many automatic options for travel and combat.
Considering the fact that you can view all of this on the main hub screen, it doesn’t seem cluttered at all. You have all of the important notifications and area map in the top right which also includes a settings button with more options. The top left corner is reserved for your character’s HP level and any missions available for you to do. The bottom right corner is reserved for all the attacks and abilities that you can use to defeat your enemies. Much like a regular RPG, you are walking around the overworld using a directional button (or you can auto-travel) and fighting using different attacks (you can also auto-attack). Lastly, the bottom center is reserved for three familiars that you can take around with you and train to fight with you, each representing a different element that you can use to your advantage. You can enjoy an organized HUD that still gives you everything you need without having to dig around.
Besides the fact that you can earn many items from just playing the game, there are many features that can be purchased with real currency to help you advance faster. These come in the form of different class bundles as well as events that will play out as time passes. These help you become stronger so that you can benefit your Kingdom (which acts as a guild) so that you can be the strongest in the land. You can also join other players in their Kingdoms and help grow them to be the best among all the others if you so choose to. These Kingdoms consist of 27 players and are rated according to their level and general ranking on the online leaderboard.
Overall, the game is a great installment to the Ni No Kuni series and an even better mobile game. You can easily jump in and the initial tutorial does a great job of explaining everything without being too overwhelming. You can also tell that there will be a large fanbase community for the game similar to other popular games of the same nature as the time comes because of the vibrancy of the world and the characters in it. The best part is that once you finish up playing on your phone, you can pick up from where you left off in the beta of the desktop version!
Disclaimer:: This game was downloaded from the Apple App Store and was reviewed on iPhone 13.
