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After dozens of years to be courted by the world of video games, the legendary Studio Ghibli has finally yielded to the advances of Level-5. Beginning of the romance on the DS.

All About My Mother

Even for children, it always takes a tragedy to give his original rationale for a narrative. Ninokuni do not go with the back of a spoon: it’s running to help his son Oliver, too busy to play, Arie Mother “singletons” known as the cut in Miyazaki’s films will find death. The boy could do nothing to save her from the disease which was eating. Tortured by remorse, he cries with big drops on the plush precisely given by his mother.

Shizuku, it is called, will come to life and tell him that in fact there are two parallel realities inseparable, two sides of same coin. It is ours, where there is the reality and where we pay taxes. And then the “second”, that evoked in the Japanese title, populated by fantastic animals and magicians, a fantastic world stamped “Studio Ghibli”. All human beings exist in these two continuums, but living different lives. His mother is alive, somewhere in this second world, and no evil sorcerer is going to put in her way to find it, not even the final boss.

“Ghibli has decided not to end up like the dinosaurs”

No tale of revenge, or even less fratricidal war of treason, just the pain of a orphaned kid, this will be the matrix shown Studio Ghibli for its entry into the world of video games. Yet we should remember that his mentor, Hayao Miyazaki (director of Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, Totoro, and so many other classics listed in the pantheon of animation) has always expressed a deep disgust for video games and contempt for everything that is “NoveltyGifts multimedia.” Sad reality that the studio needs to prepare seriously for the post-Miyazaki, which in recent times, no longer writes the scenarios (as is the case of the last Arrietty, the small world of scroungers). Change or disappear, Ghibli has decided not to end up like the dinosaurs.

Those who managed this impossible marriage is Level-5. Dragon Quest IX Inazuma Eleven, is the publisher who has the luck this time. By signing the pact with creative Ghibli, the company confirms its place in Fukuoka the G7 Japanese developers and wins the position of “DreamMaker” Hand of Square Enix. Thanks to the reputation of the animation studio is now a quasi-official that Level-5 is the firm that thrills young and old.

This event could not give a “little game”, just like the gargantuan box that contains the title, the equivalent of a good big deluxe pack very heavy. To understand why and how, Oliver and Shizuku flashback. On awaking, the little mascot, who literally “nose gear on,” offers a grimoire by the boy apprentice magician. The player has the same in the box. Embellished with gilt, brocade and old Jules Verne Library grandpa set with a gem guaranteeing the outstanding pedigree of soft and filled with pages to Maroon true, it contains above all the spells associated with runes.

Each time, two features suffice to trigger the spell. Oliver, so you will have to trace these extracts alphabet magic on the screen of the DS for the trip. Most of the time, it will be possible to use some shortcuts to save the hassle to search through the 352 (!) Pages of a book too heavy to carry anywhere, but it will keep on hand because the game will often call. So much for the apple if it is forgotten during a long flight or a long stay “game” in the cabinets, a small explanatory note floats in the big box to remind you that without this book You can not move forward in the adventure.

Your Move, synergy

At first glance, one might think that this beautiful book has been designed from the perspective of protection against hackers. Sometimes you will even Ninokuni require passwords in these pages, scattered randomly throughout the book to counter the evil followers of the small photocopier. We think very hard on these books filled with PC games codes anti hacker in the corner of the pages. A real drain on loyal customer, systematically annoy everyone starts games he has honestly acquired. Twenty years later, such a method would underestimate the players a bit hustlers who find a PDF of the Internet era.

Receiving exactly the same book Oliver discovers the pages of a manuscript that exceeds too big for him, too big for us, Level-5 plays the card setting abyss. A road blocked? A return to his own dimension? Giving voice to a cute cat? Some features and it’s done, but still linearly coherent. Nothing new in this approach, adventure games (especially in Sierra On-Line) have already attempted the transaction, but the merger succeeds Ninokuni playful, a real synergy with the use of the stylus (like the Japanese children in TV commercials who master stroke order rune), an accuracy critical for a correct learning of writing kanji. Ninokuni knows segment, he chose to appeal to children.

Apart from this “literary event” Ninokuni remains a J-RPG (role-playing in Japanese) in the finest tradition of style, drawing here and there different productions Level-5. No random battle like in Dragon Quest IX is available through a rotating team of monsters that are recovered in his team and then, of course, good old turn-based system families choose where you just its position, prior to strike harder and vice versa. There is absolutely nothing original in that direction and somehow, it’s quite reassuring. Nothing beyond, as if Ninokuni was imagined with a benevolent parental control in mind.

So now, every RPG tried to imagine his own nothing but him, you almost back to the 16 bit generation to remember something so basic, so “square” that the course of fighting Ninokuni, influenced by the simplicity of the legendary turn-based Dragon Quest. Even if the game has the elegance of not stepped on, always moving forward, it has many side quests to increase its shelf life. In addition to traditional hunting, we will use his runes to take courage, kindness or confidence from the NPC to release them from others who do not.

A universe that permeates the expertise Ghibli

This hardiness, it is found even in the 3D game characters (and especially the monsters), leaving considerable room for improvement until the next Ninokuni on PlayStation 3. Meanwhile, Ghibli provides in all other areas. As master of body language in the movie, the studio puts his paw in each movement famous characters. The cartoons remind us how the studio can give life with simplicity to a world of fantasy and baroque. As for movies from the studio, there is really a search for this nostalgic flavor and powerfully evocative in each set, all drawn to the old. And it lives, it causes a lot, thanks to the actors, some experts will recognize the Japanese voice of Professor Layton.

Finally, the key to every great RPG, it is an effective soundtrack. Miyazaki’s regular composer and first Kitano, who is Joe Hisaishi meets the challenge and pushes all the fears I must say that the composer of themes incredible Porco Rosso and Mononoke has a reputation for often recycled his ideas of a project to another, which earned him sometimes gentle teasing from Toshio Suzuki, the producer of all the films of Miyazaki. And gamers remember well his only indiscretion in video games, Tengai Makyo 2 whose soundtrack is more than strongly inspired by My Neighbor Totoro. For Ninokuni, Joe broke loose. A dozen completely new tracks for an audio CD that he will not need a spellbook from 300 pages to be listened to. A real success.

But what is most remarkable about Ninokuni is subtly opposite view to the imagery of the usual narrative of the key rite of passage Discount Ghibli. The phrase “is the story of a young girl who discovers that growing up, it’s not so easy” could sum up the vast majority of films the studio. The abandonment of the passing of time, the delicate transition to adulthood … all these themes, Level-5 has slashed in favor of a scenario taking into account the requirements of an RPG, which is more for children. Choose a boy than a girl as hero was a step towards a more classical framework which aspires Ninokuni.

Thus, there is no roughness disturbing, there is progressing in butter, assisted by the same arrow direction and the same explanatory sentence at the top of the screen that was already in Inazuma Eleven, already an RPG targeted “playground.” Level-5 as if he realized he had to seduce a whole new generation of players who have more great adventures to live. Every symbol is there Ninokuni: Oliver does not seek revenge on a ruthless monster, he goes to save his mother beyond the worlds. Ghibli sanctified the pursuit of excitement passed, now famous Ninokuni time regained.

Conclusion:
By targeting the public openly traditionally childish movies Ghibli, Level-5 made a bet, even more burdened by a book too heavy to be dragged into his satchel. On the one hand, Ninokuni trying to complicate the sauce so that the player deserves to live in the skin of the apprentice magician. And the other one feels well that this RPG will never leave the comfort zone when it is confined. Not daring, either. It will not be a creative revolution. But the kind that seeks a second wind that is the artistic and commercial J-RPG, Level-5 has chosen us symbolically embody a boy full of tenderness desperate to save his mother. Like a movie Ghibli Ninokuni invites us to visit the landscape with the scent of nostalgia and childhood. And, certainly, nobody did better in the genre on the DS.