So I finished up Ni No Kuni on stream the other day and I have to say that it was a thoroughly enjoyable experience from start to finish. While the game certainly isnt perfect, I found the story to be enchanting, the graphics to be exemplary and the combat to just be delightful. Overall I cant say that the experience was anything less than charming and other than a few problems I had with some of the mechanics and gameplay features, I enjoyed it. So lets start with the good and move onto what I had a problem with.
First of all the story is basic but like I said, its charming. You play as a prince whos father just dies and somehow a president from another reality gets pulled into his world, just as there is a coup and the prince is being overthrown. Sounds a bit complicated but you get used to it. You basically team up together and go into the world and try to build a new kingdom free of war and needless death. You aid other kingdoms in order to get them to sign a global treaty to unite the continent and usher in an era of peace. This is all happening while another story is taking place in which the main villain is trying to bring back an ancient kingdom and beast that will bring all the kingdoms into war.
This is all done in chapters and each kingdom has its own story background and beautiful art design. The pacing of the game is fantastic in this aspect and the way that stories are told through cutscenes cutting out much of the monotony of reading quests is a good thing in my opinion. If you plan on just playing the main story, you will find it fulfilling to say the least. There are actually 3 types of gameplay styles in the game which is pretty interesting as well. One is your normal action RPG hack and slash combat style which I personally am a sucker for, while the second form of combat is an interesting army minigame tactical minigame where you battle other armies in large scale battles.
The third is the kingdom building portion, which I had mixed feelings on. The Kingdom building portion is a minigame that basically is used to add time to the game an an option for completionists out there. I wouldnt have a problem with it because it doesnt completely force you to use it, but many of the things you unlock make the game much easier. Also most of the side quests that are basic fetch quests, pretty much require a developed kingdom unless you want to spend an hour grinding mobs. This it where I think the game falls a bit flat. I found myself addicted, but I wasnt really having fun per say. I was literally leaving my console running while I did other stuff so I could collect gold and upgrade my buildings. It felt like a weird facebook game built into the game. It was a bit rewarding, but thats coming from a guy who played cityville on Facebook.
Overall if you are looking to play the game and get the most out of the experience, I would personally say just stick mostly to the main story line and dont worry too much about your kingdom. You do need to level it a bit but dont worry about maxing it out or even doing most of the side quests in the game. The side quests offer little to the experience and are mostly used just to recruit more followers to bring into your kingdom. You can easily just bypass them and stick to the meat and potatoes of the experinece. Overall I had a blast, especially with 
-Calaber24p