For anyone who’s ever wanted to root through the mind of Hayao Miyazaki without getting thrown in jail forever, here’s the trailer for Level 5 Studio’s upcoming Ni no Kuni, a Studio Ghibli production for the PS3:
At 0:40, the trailer compares hand-drawn animation (above) with PS3-rendered visuals.
It looks incredible, of course, and Ghibli regular Joe Hisaishi’s score ensures that it’ll sound that way, too. It’s hard to tell if the combat is turn-based, real time, or a hybrid – the clips appear to show Oliver, the game’s hero, standing back and ordering his minions around the battlefield, but it’s unclear how the system will end up working. The world map at 1:34 looks familiar.
Level 5, who developed Dark Cloud, White Knight Chronicles, and the Professor Layton games, is also releasing a DS version of No ni Kuni this December. Prepare to meet interesting and stimulating characters from the Studio Ghibli universe… and kill them with swords. Be the first kid on your block to get a confirmed tree-spirit kill in 2011!