Ok all you PS3'ers - Tell me about your experience with this game. I have heard many good things about it. I have heard that Ghibli did the art and story. How is the Turn Based / Real Time Battle System? Fill me in whilst I wait for the price to drop ;-)

Haven't played it yet (waiting for a price drop), but so far, I like what I see. The combat system seems like something between the Tales series and the Last Story. And yes, the artwork (and the animated cutscenes) are done by Studio Ghibli (I'm a big fan of their work). Not only that, but the music is composed by Joe Hasaishi, the composer of most of their movies, which is a big plus for me.

This is one game I'll definitely buy.

It's next on my "to buy" list... whenever that actually happens.

Pissed off because the game was originally a DS game but they never bothered to localise that one (left it too long really).

Bumping - Hopefully someone is playing this and can fill us all in.

I've only played a few hours of it so I definitely don't have all of the gameplay info yet, but here's my take on it.

The combat system can take some getting used to considering you move with the left stick and have to use the d-pad to change between battle options. In battle you can freely move when not attacking/using spells or skills. This can allow you to dodge attacks, though skills can still hit you, once you choose to attack you can select one of the enemies and during the time allowed for the attack you will run towards them, yes this takes time from the attack period. As for spells, and skills, there is some charge time to them that can leave you open to attacks, but with enough distance that shouldn't be a problem.

Of course, the main character isn't the only one you can fight with through the course of the game you gain familiars each with their own strengths, weaknesses and skills. However, each one has a stamina bar that decreases the longer they're out in battle and if it runs out you need to wait for it to recharge. Familiars do have a couple drawbacks they share the HP/MP bar with the MC so if your familiar gets hurt you're hurt and too much skill use can leave you drained. The worst, though understandable, part of this is that the MC is the only one that can use healing/restorative items.

Defending is VERY important in this game, some attacks can deal ~20 damage unguarded but be knocked down to 5 by blocking. There are also the green and blue glims, which can restore your HP and MP respectively, though in the beginning they are rare. Gold glims are extremely rare but allow for powerful spells that can deal increased damage at no cost.

As I said, I'm still only beginning the game, and with the amount of sidequests even at the beginning can drag you away from the main storyline, but I've heard over 30 hours is the average gameplay time so take your time and explore.

It rocks! I love it! But I'm a huge Studio Ghibli fan.

Dusted off my PS3 for this one. Pretty sweet. Just made my way through Fairyground, which was pretty cool and bizarre. Not much I can say without spoilers, but I thought it was great.

Recommended.

If I had a PS3 here I'd be all over it. It looks fantastic. In case others are interested, they did a Quick Look at Giant Bomb.

Damn, this game looks sweet.
And "only" at 1900 RUB ($60) here. Yes, that's quite cheap for a new PS3 release in Russia.... arrgh

Cor blimey. Months have passed, finally got to it, and the more I play, the more depressing it gets. Level 5 threw some old stuff together and called it a day.

The battle system recycled from Rogue Galaxy got more annoying menus and timers, and worse controls. Your AI partners are dumber, and the ability to control their magic and item use was removed. Now they just cast whatever they can and hope that you personally will throw insanely expensive coffee cups at them. The "AI Tactics" menu can go to hell, because I have to access that shit mid battle, while scrolling though a list of every other thing my character can do, all while the action is unpaused.

The exploration, things like alchemy and casino, were obviously reused from Dragon Quest VIII. Only in DQ8 you started on a medium-sized land mass, had fun there, had fun on another similar chunk of land and then travelled to the largest continent on the map, where you conveniently received a mount for getting around faster. NNK starts you on the largest continent, forces you to trek all the way across it and all that's left afterwards is scouting the surrounding islands. Also, the fast travel spell was one of the first things you got in DQ8. NNK gives you one 20 hours in, to make you appreciate all the "go there, and get back to town" quests.

Sidequests. Over a hundred of them. Loosely they can be split into two groups: brain-dead puzzle fetch, and annoying as hell "pray to RNG god for a drop or monster taming".

Studio Ghibli stuff... there are some animated cutscenes... sometimes. Mostly the story uses in-engine walking and staring animations and loads of text.
The story overall is as generic as it gets, the characters are pure cardboard. Any possible attempts at making things interesting drown in paragraphs of garbage writing, repeating the main plot points time and time again. The White Bitch plot, added to the PS3 edition over the NDS release, is literally strapped on. At random points the game cuts to a hall where the dopey titular character sits with some aliens from Stargate and complains that the main character just won't die. "- We're crazy powerful wizards. Maybe we should try to kill him seriously, instead of again sending in that guy who screwed up every single attempt so far? - Nah..."