Sympathy for the Devil: Idealism in Ni No Kuni

I had a blast playing Ni No Kuni, so much so that I continued to play it long after my confrontation with the official final boss. My familiars gained levels and evolved, I hunted down lost items, I enjoyed the stellar soundtrack, and I continued to visit the in-game locations that I loved the most. This game charmed me from the first few minutes of play, and it held on to me until there was basically nothing left to do.

What was so wonderful about Ni No Kuni? It's an all-around great game, and I didn't find anything to complain about. But its world especially drew me in because it was so damned nice.

Ni No Kuni is a game that believes everyone is truly good at heart. People who are hateful, cruel, or uncaring aren't that way because they are inherently flawed. Instead, they are heartbroken, and all you have to do to help them is find surpluses of the qualities they lack (including enthusiasm, kindness, courage, restraint, belief, confidence, ambition, and love) and then magically collect and share them. Even the worst enemies usually begin with good intentions, and while you have to fight them first, you can eventually end up having reasonable conversations with them. No one is so irrevocably broken that there is no redemption to be found. Oliver, the main character of the story, is a sweet boy who brings out the best in everyone.

Despite its idealism about the inherent goodness of other people, however, Ni No Kuni is not without true emotional weight. The story begins because Oliver's mother has died, and he travels to a parallel world with the goal of saving her. It is never clear whether Oliver's travels between worlds are "real," or whether they are part of a fantasy that he concocts to comfort himself after an unfathomable loss. No matter how you want to view the story, it does not offer any easy fixes for Oliver's grief. Even if most people turn out to be good in the end, Ni No Kuni allows its characters to experience real loss, including death, love that is impaired by serious obstacles, and, in one case, even the heartbreak of estrangement from family. Hearts can be fixed, but that doesn't mean everything can be repaired with a wave of a magic wand.

Ultimately, Ni No Kuni teaches the art of being soft and open to the world, but still tough. From the mouths of babes, I guess.