Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds

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Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds is a single player and multiplayer role playing game with a fantasy theme. It was developed by Netmarble Neo and was released on June 10, 2021. It received neutral reviews from players.

Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds is a fantasy role-playing game featuring single-player and cooperative multiplayer modes, including a multiplayer kingdom with player versus player combat. It offers an intriguing and wholesome story, impressive visuals, and ingenious music, but is noted for lots of grinding, frequent ads, and technical bugs. Players explore a virtual reality world through five distinct character classes.

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52%

Audience ScoreBased on 2,040 reviews

story283 positive mentions

grinding123 negative mentions

The graphics and art style are stunning, capturing the essence of Studio Ghibli.
The voice acting and music are well done, enhancing the overall experience.
The game offers a lot of content and events, keeping players engaged.

The auto-play feature is intrusive, making the game feel like it plays itself rather than allowing player interaction.
There are long queue times to log in, often exceeding 30 minutes due to server congestion and bot issues.
The game heavily relies on microtransactions and has a pay-to-win structure, making it difficult for free-to-play players to progress.

story
809 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
35%
57%
8%
The story of the game is generally well-received, with many players appreciating its engaging narrative, beautiful graphics, and voice acting reminiscent of Studio Ghibli. However, the overwhelming presence of auto-play features detracts from the experience, as players often feel they are merely watching the story unfold rather than actively participating. Additionally, some users express frustration with the pacing and repetitive nature of quests, which can hinder immersion and enjoyment of the storyline.
- “Overall, I am enjoying the game; can't find another game that has this good design and story.”
- “The story's beautiful, same goes for its graphics!”
- “The way the story is told is fantastic as well; gameplay, controls, events, quests, personalization of your character and pets: all amazing and very fun.”
- “The story is repetitive and the gacha rates are terrible.”
- “The game has potential but it turns me off when a game has an auto quest and auto battle but since it just released ill give it a shot then decide if i'll continue.”
- “The story was just so confusing and there were so many bugs and it really didn't feel like an open world game considering it is all cut into small sections.”
graphics
635 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
70%
28%
2%
The graphics of the game have received widespread acclaim, with many users praising the stunning visuals and charming art style reminiscent of Studio Ghibli. While the graphics are generally well-optimized for mobile devices, some players have reported performance issues and glitches, particularly on lower-end devices. Overall, the game's aesthetic appeal is a significant highlight, often overshadowing its gameplay mechanics.
- “The graphics are stunning.”
- “The graphics are amazing for a mobile game and I like that you can play it on different platforms.”
- “The graphics, animations, music, and visuals all look insanely good.”
- “Whether on the lowest graphics setting, even on a new smartphone I bought this year with 6 GB of RAM, the game still has glitches.”
- “The graphics are a complete disappointment, the 'healer' doesn't have a single healing skill in the beginning (but 3 attack cooldown), the UI is so bad they added a function for the game to essentially run itself that toggles weirdly... the list goes on and on.”
- “Despite boosting the game and lowering the graphics to the lowest, it just crashes the game.”
gameplay
335 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
24%
61%
15%
The gameplay of the game has received mixed reviews, with many players expressing frustration over its heavy reliance on auto-play mechanics, which detracts from player engagement and immersion. While some appreciate the graphics and story, they find the gameplay repetitive, grind-heavy, and lacking in meaningful interaction, often feeling more like a spectator than an active participant. Overall, the game offers a visually appealing experience but suffers from shallow gameplay that many players feel needs significant improvement.
- “The gameplay has enough to keep it exciting, although there is some serious grinding involved if you want to reach higher levels.”
- “The graphics are amazing, the gameplay is so smooth even if it's not very detailed for graphics I can play 45-60fps on mobile devices at high settings.”
- “Super gorgeous, fun gameplay, interesting story, wonderful music!”
- “The gameplay feels repetitive and it differentiates itself with the familiars but the system is underdeveloped, nothing game-changing, just gear-changing.”
- “But the gameplay itself is mostly auto everything, there's no fun or skill involved in quests, travel, combat, etc. there are also constant quests, notifications, achievements and features bombarding the screen as you progress which feels overwhelming.”
- “The gameplay is shallow, a lot of auto stuff.”
grinding
125 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
98%
The grinding aspect of the game is heavily criticized, with many players noting that it is excessively tedious and time-consuming, often requiring hours of farming to progress. While some appreciate the auto-play feature that alleviates the monotony, others feel it detracts from the gameplay experience, making it feel more like a chore than an engaging RPG. Additionally, the presence of pay-to-win elements and low drop rates for essential materials further exacerbate the grind, leading to frustration among free-to-play users.
- “This game would be nice if it was a complete grinding style game, where players are immersed in playing missions without auto play.”
- “I do like the auto feature sometimes, especially with the early grinding, but it would be nice if that feature could be turned off.”
- “There needs to be some experience balancing; there are too many points in the game where my character is just stuck farming monsters for hours while I wait for it to level up. Not to mention the very limited amount of side missions makes it harder to keep up with the monster level increase per mission since experience is so very limited.”
- “The story is just a walking simulator until you hit a wall, then you farm and upgrade, repeat, etc. It literally has an AI mode to encourage AFK farming because they know how boring the game is.”
- “It's so sad because the art and animation are so beautiful and charming, but the gameplay is super boring and grindy.”
music
83 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
73%
23%
4%
The music in the game is widely praised for its quality, often compared to the works of Studio Ghibli, with many reviewers highlighting its ability to enhance the overall atmosphere and immersion. Players appreciate the beautiful soundtracks and voice acting, noting that the music is one of the standout features of the game, even amidst criticisms of gameplay mechanics. Overall, the combination of stunning visuals and excellent music creates a captivating experience, although some players feel that the gameplay does not live up to the high standards set by the audio-visual elements.
- “The art, music, animation, storytelling, everything is top shelf, studio ghibli quality.”
- “Incredible Ghibli art, great music, and solid voice acting elevate this auto self-playing MMO.”
- “The music and the art are pretty good.”
- “There's a gacha system behind literally everything and the constant background music and sound effects are confusing.”
- “Excited for the first 3 hours, but bored later on with little to no new content. I personally think the content (i.e. the music, town, feel) looks like this game reused everything from the previous game.”
- “The English voices are atrocious and the music in-game is just mediocre.”
monetization
60 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
8%
45%
47%
The monetization in this game has been widely criticized for being overly aggressive and predatory, with numerous microtransactions and pay-to-win mechanics that detract from the overall experience. Many players feel that the game prioritizes profit over gameplay quality, likening it to a cash grab that heavily relies on in-game purchases, including plans for NFTs and cryptocurrency integration. While some appreciate the game's aesthetics and mechanics, the pervasive monetization tactics have left a negative impression, leading to frustration among users.
- “Also, there are no ads!”
- “It's aesthetically pleasing, and there's a lot of microtransactions for both customization items and power, but I haven't felt like I've needed to spend money, which is good.”
- “The monetization is nothing new, but the game is generous with free pulls if you actually use the mechanics to grind them out.”
- “Sad to see this game turned into a cash grab.”
- “The worst aspects by far are the overly aggressive monetization deals and packages everywhere, and for pretty much everything.”
- “This game suffers from a case of greedy cash grabbing developers, typical for mobile games.”
optimization
42 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
40%
41%
19%
Overall, the game's optimization is a mixed bag; while many players report smooth performance on various devices, particularly older models, there are significant issues with controls, server lag during large-scale events, and optimization for mobile users. Some players experience frustrating glitches and performance drops, especially in PvP scenarios, indicating that further improvements are needed. Despite these challenges, the graphics and animations are generally praised, suggesting that the game has potential if optimization issues are addressed.
- “Well unlike other popular open world games, this is the only one that runs smoothly on my device and it's easy and enjoyable to play.”
- “It's story rich, well optimized, works on older devices (which is amazing considering it has really nice graphics), easy to understand, fun mechanics, nice animations.”
- “Beautiful graphics and the game felt really optimized even on a potato phone.”
- “The movement wheel is really annoying; when it syncs with the camera orientation, it suddenly zooms in, which is really frustrating, especially when playing PvP. It has a huge impact on the performance of the players.”
- “This game is poorly optimized for mobile.”
- “I like the game; however, here is why the low rating: the game becomes unplayable despite large scale optimization (runs lower than 10 fps even if everything is set to low during boss battle).”
character development
30 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
53%
37%
10%
Character development in the game receives mixed feedback, with many players praising the beautiful character designs and graphics, often likening them to Studio Ghibli's style. However, some users express frustration over limited customization options and repetitive gameplay, which hampers deeper character progression. Overall, while the aesthetic appeal is strong, the depth of character development and individuality appears lacking.
- “Beautiful story, excellent characterization, lovely graphics, lovely and beautiful characters, and powerful character development and combat systems.”
- “The character design is amazing, and I'm really enjoying all the content.”
- “Pro: beautiful graphics and cute character designs thanks to Studio Ghibli.”
- “Honestly not enough character design; the game kicked me out like 22 times and yes, I've tried everything to fix it!”
- “But not much control on character development; you're just any other player, looking just the same.”
- “But repetitive gameplay for horrible drop rates means slowing down character development and progression makes it unplayable.”
stability
24 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
96%
The game's stability has been widely criticized, with users reporting numerous bugs, glitches, and performance issues, including freezing during gameplay, animation problems, and laggy servers. While some players acknowledge that these issues may be expected in a new release, the frequency and severity of the problems significantly detract from the overall experience. Many hope for future updates to address these stability concerns.
- “The game runs great.”
- “I haven't experienced any crashes or bugs, which is impressive.”
- “The stability of the game allows for a smooth and enjoyable experience.”
- “Event boss fight is buggy; sometimes you can't attack because of the animation bug.”
- “From worse performance to extremely laggy servers and numerous glitches.”
- “The game runs pretty well, but after doing a task or playing for a few minutes, it freezes, becomes unresponsive, and I can't progress on the story missions, forcing me to exit and restart the game.”
emotional
13 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
92%
23%
Players express mixed emotions about the game, highlighting its addictive and heartwarming qualities alongside frustrations with control mechanics and auto-play features. While the beautiful art and wholesome nature of the game are praised, the inability to customize controls and the reliance on auto-combat detract from the overall emotional engagement.
- “It's addictive, heartwarming, and a great time.”
- “Beautiful art, the game seems wholesome in nature which is amazing.”
- “But so far I really don't enjoy watching my characters do everything without me touching the screen.”
- “The emotional moments felt forced and lacked genuine impact.”
- “I couldn't connect with the characters; their struggles felt superficial.”
- “The story was so dull that it failed to evoke any real feelings.”
atmosphere
7 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
57%
43%
The atmosphere of the game is widely praised for its beautiful animation, nostalgic and whimsical vibe reminiscent of Studio Ghibli, and engaging music, creating an enjoyable and immersive experience. However, some players feel that the lack of meaningful gameplay detracts from the overall enjoyment, despite appreciating the chill and visually appealing environment. Overall, the atmosphere is a strong point, but it is somewhat overshadowed by concerns over gameplay depth and monetization.
- “Pros: fun game, free-to-play is available, chill atmosphere, good graphics, good overall.”
- “Beautiful animation and the Ghibli vibe is awesome; also, the story and the overall atmosphere are well done!”
- “As much as I love the atmosphere and being able to be in groups, it feels pointless when there's little to no gameplay. Even when auto-play is on, you just tap the attack button over and over again until battles end.”
- “I enjoy the laid-back, nostalgic, and silly atmosphere, as well as the plot and music.”
- “I love Ni no Kuni, and this game captures the atmosphere while adding a mobile MMO structure.”
humor
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The humor in the game is widely praised for its engaging and funny storyline, enhanced by excellent voice acting and clever fourth-wall breaks. Players appreciate the combination of beautiful graphics and humorous dialogue, contributing to an overall enjoyable experience, despite some minor criticisms.
- “Visually beautiful, fun, funny, and interesting story. I love the fourth-wall break element and great voice acting.”
- “Beautiful, fun visuals combined with a unique take on its story, delivered with excellent, hilarious dialog and wonderful voice acting.”
- “I liked this game; it has a funny story and beautiful graphics.”