Studio Ghibli, the animation studio behind titles such as
My Neighbor Totoro and
Grave of the Fireflies, has teamed up with
Level-5, the development studio behind games like
Professor Layton and
Dragon Quest IX, for a game titled
Ni no Kuni. Not much is known about the title other than that it is an RPG created for the DS and PS3 which deals with a young boy as he struggles with the death of his mother.
Level-5 released some screenshots and trailer for the PS3 version and I must say, they look amazing. The tone and art direction reminds me of Tales of Vesperia and Eternal Sonata except with more fluidity the character models and increased detail in the environments. The combat looks to be a real-time system very similar to Tales of Vesperia, but more cinematic due to the use of short cutscene sequences. The game is set to released sometime in 2011.
Screenshots
Trailer