A witches broom is a term used to refer to a specific plant growth pattern caused by the invasion or colonization of a plant by fungi, viruses, or other pathogens. This condition causes the branches or shoots of a plant to become massively elongated and dense, resembling the shape of a broom. The affected plant often exhibits an abnormal growth pattern with stunted or deformed leaves, resulting in a striking and abnormal appearance. The term "witches broom" is believed to have originated from the association of this abnormal plant growth with mythical folklore and legends surrounding witches. In these tales, witches were associated with riding brooms as a means of transportation. The resemblance of the plant growth to a broom, both in shape and density, may have led to the adoption of this term.
The gameplay is where people will either love or hate Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. It features tons of typical elements from the most common of JRPGs, such as leveling up, various equipment, a bit of grinding (but nothing too absurd), item crafting, puzzle-solving, sidequests, and an overworld populated by monsters and NPCs. There is also a bit of Pokémon thrown into the mix. You can fight alongside little creatures called “familiars” and you can capture and train them. It’s like as if Ni No Kuni saw everything that had ever been added to a JRPG prior to its release and decided to include it in its gameplay in order to try to appeal to every niche possible.
From the second Ni No Kuni starts, you re greeted to a big orchestral tune that makes you feel like you re on an epic journey, and it never slows down from then on. It was one of those games that always made me want to buy a used PS3 just so I could experience it, alongside a few Yakuza titles as well as Resistance.
The resemblance of the plant growth to a broom, both in shape and density, may have led to the adoption of this term. Witches brooms can occur in various plant species, including trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants. They are often caused by fungi, such as rusts or phytoplasmas, but can also be the result of viral infections or genetic mutations.
Wot I Think - Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch Remastered
In Ni No Kuni: Wrath Of The White Witch, saving the world isn't so much about doing battle with the forces of evil (although that's certainly part of it). Instead, it's about mending the broken hearts of the people within it. Whether it's restoring the enthusiasm of a depressed town guard or snapping the bovine ruler of a desert kingdom out of their all-consuming cheese obsession, it's the personal struggles that come to define this otherwise bright and breezy adventure. They give it a lot more heart than your Dragon Quests and your Final Fantasies, where the extent of people's troubles often stop at 'please kill ten of these giant rats for me so I can give you a stat-boosting sock in return'.
It's the kind of warm, fuzzy goodness you might expect from a game made by RPG veterans Level-5 and animation studio extraordinaire Studio Ghibli, and there's equal warmth and fuzziness in the way our young hero Oliver goes about fixing these problems as well. Instead of sitting the afflicted down for a motivational pep talk about how it's okay to cry into a tub of ice cream every now and again, Oliver can simply magic up the emotion they're missing, by borrowing a bit of it from someone else who has it in abundance - for example, the aforementioned guard's spirited buddy, or the cow queen's patient and restrained vizier. Squint a bit and, yes, you'll realise that what he's doing is essentially a series of dressed-up fetch quests, but gosh darn it if they aren't the most wholesome and uplifting set of fetch quests I've seen in ages.
The sad thing is, as I started patching up more and more of these brokenhearted citizens, I couldn't help but see the whole game as this kind of whipped personality cream I was skimming off the top of their ultra virtuous neighbours - especially when you compare it to its infinitely superior sequel, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, which came out early last year. Now that was a game absolutely brimming with fresh new ideas and more perfectly tuned systems than it knew what to do with - a bit like that depressed guard's energetic buddy. In Wrath Of The White Witch, on the other hand, it only feels like you're getting a very tiny portion of what that game had to offer.
Gone are the sequel's dynamic RTS battles and enthralling town management sections that made Revenant Kingdom feel so refreshing (Oliver is, after all, only a lad trying to save his mum, rather than a usurped boy king trying to rebuild his kingdom). Gone too, therefore, are the dozens of sidequests which fed into those systems.
Oliver's locket will turn bright green when you come across a good egg like this one (or you can just look for the flashing green dots on your mini-map).
Without all that, what you're left with is a much purer, more traditional take on the genre that follows the JRPG rulebook almost to the letter. That's no bad thing, of course, if it's done with the same degree of polish as, say, the ultra-streamlined Dragon Quest XI, or with a gripping battle system like that of Octopath Traveler. But Ni No Kuni doesn't really have either of those things. It might look all cuddly and kid-friendly on the outside, but as the hours wore on, I found it to be increasingly mean-spirited - and often outright frustrating.
Don't get me wrong. This smartened-up version of the PlayStation 3 original is a sumptuous and handsome remaster that looks absolutely gorgeous on PC. This is especially true when you've got it running at 4K and 60fps (or higher, thanks to its uncapped frame rate option for those with high refresh rate monitors). Bar some slightly flat-looking character models in the early hours of the game, it looks every bit like the interactive Ghibli movie you'd hope it would, especially thanks to the gorgeous orchestral score by Ghibli stalwart Joe Hisaishi.
Alas, it seems the vat of remastered fairy dust ran dry after sprucing up the overall look of the game, as the rest of its underlying systems remain unchanged. And yes, sadly, that includes its stupendously bad companion AI.
At the start of each battle, you can decide which of your Familiars to send out first.
My difficulties began when I found I was lacking a good, old-fashioned tank character to absorb incoming damage. Like Revenant Kingdom's boy prince Evan Pettiwhisker, Oliver's talents lie in hanging back and casting spells as opposed to rushing in swords (or in this case, twig wands) blazing. He's also your only party member for quite a large chunk of the game's opening act.
It's a tension that's partly remedied by the game's Pokémon-like Familiars system, through which Oliver can send out tiny monsters to do some of the sword-whacking for him. Again, you only have one to start off with - the orange goblin Mitey - but eventually you gain the ability to tame more cutesy creatures after defeating them in battle (or, in Ni No Kuni parlance, by impressing them so much with your fighting prowess that they instantly fall in love with you and can be 'serenaded' into service).
The battle system you're sending them into is quite unusual. You move around an enclosed battle arena selecting attacks in real time, but time freezes the moment you enter a drop-down menu to look through your item inventory, for example, or cast a spell. Each option has its own cooldown timer, and while attacks will play out automatically for a set length of time, you can cancel them at any time if you need to switch up your strategy.
Some of the, err. Familiar names are a bit on the nose.
Your Familiars abide by these rules as well, and they do - to an extent - give you a bit more flexibility in how you can approach certain enemies. The more you acquire, however, the bigger the strain they become on your collective resources. For starters, Familiars share the same health and magic meters as you do, so you'll need to ration how often you take advantage of their damage-dealing magic attacks instead of using your own. Go bananas on Mitey's heavy-hitting Cut Loose attack, for example, and you'll have nothing left in your own reserves for a last minute heal when your collective HP gets low.
Familiars also have limited stamina bars, which means they can't be left out in play indefinitely. In theory, this should create a steady rhythm of swapping them in and out as battles evolve over time. But when you've got three party members with three Familiars each who all have their own individual weapon, defence and accessory slots, there's a lot to handle. Apart from anything else, I found the sheer cost involved in keeping everyone tooled up was almost always out of balance with the flow of money I accrued from battles and side quests. As a result, there were some Familiars on my team that were next to useless most of the time: even though they'd been levelling up along with the rest, their lack of equipment meant they either got pummelled immediately, or were completely ineffective, in battle.
Then there are the party members. Admittedly there are only two more in addition to Oliver, but man alive are they the biggest bunch of imbeciles I've ever seen in my life.
You and me both, you Cat Bus impersonator.
I thought I'd be able to leave the bulk of the healing to Esther when she eventually pitched up, for example, but even this proved to be too optimistic. Despite equipping Esther (and Oliver at this point) with the maximum of three Familiars each, Esther kept refusing to switch up when her main Familiar's stamina expired. Battle after battle I watched her plough moronically into the front lines, doling out single units of damage with each strum of her useless harp until eventually she got herself killed. It wasn't through my own neglect, either. Most of the time, she carked it either because she was taking damage faster than I could heal her myself, or because she'd spent all of her limited magic points earlier in the battle so she had nothing left.
To make matters worse, she also didn't seem to understand how to use her own 'Defend' ability. Now, normally I ignore such options in JRPGs, but here it's really quite important, as the game itself makes clear in the very first boss battle. There are some attacks, you see, that will absolutely nuke you if you don't tap Defend at the right time. This is particularly true when it comes to boss battles, but learning when to use and deploy it effectively is key to winning any of the game's tougher fights.
Esther, however, just couldn't get to grips with it. More often than not, she left me to slog it out on my own, as she and her Familiars stood around gormlessly waiting for the next big lightning beam, giant rock, fire ball or some other such fatal attack to smack her in the face. My long-awaited tank Swaine wasn't any more with it when he finally arrived, either, as he proved to be just as cretinous as old Esther.
Eventually, I got to the point where I had to look this up. Everyone raved about this game when it came out in 2011, and Ni No Kuni II had an absolute beaut of an AI looking after your other two party members. Was I the only one to have encountered this problem with the original? Had I just fundamentally misunderstood this entire battle system? Alas, Google 'Ni No Kuni AI' and the answer is plain. It is, in short, terrible.
The monster designs may not be particularly iconic, but the pun-filled name generator often comes up with some pretty good bangers.
If it was some weird quirk you only encountered in a very small portion of the game, such as in Ni No Kuni II's infrequent RTS battles, for example, it would probably be just about forgivable. But when it's something this big that affects what you're going to be doing and engaging with for 95% of your time, it's simply not good enough.
I've struggled through a good chunk of the game now, and while I haven't quite had time to finish it completely yet, the thought of having to babysit these bumbling morons through the final boss battle just fills me with a kind of existential dread. And before you ask why I can't just revive them or top up their magic points with items from my inventory, I would kindly direct you back to the 'I never have enough money to buy anything' conundrum I mentioned earlier. Yes, I could spend hours and hours grinding away until I had more money than I knew what to do with. When you're dealing with idiots of this calibre, I'm just not sure they deserve it.
If you're at all intrigued by Ni No Kuni, I'd strongly advise you to just go and play Revenant Kingdom instead. It's a far more enjoyable JRPG than Wrath of the White Witch, and it won't make you feel like snapping your keyboard in two out of a white-hot fury of your own (if only because its actual mouse and keyboard controls are much easier to get to grips with in the first place).
And if you've played Revenant Kingdom already, well, go and play that again. The main story beats are almost laughably similar to Wrath of the White Witch, so it's not like you're even missing out on a brand-new plot, either. Much like that weary town guard you encounter at the beginning of the game, I've ultimately been left broken-hearted by my experience with this Ni No Kuni remaster. And alas, there's nothing in the real world that can magic it all better.
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It's the kind of warm, fuzzy goodness you might expect from a game made by RPG veterans Level-5 and animation studio extraordinaire Studio Ghibli, and there's equal warmth and fuzziness in the way our young hero Oliver goes about fixing these problems as well. Instead of sitting the afflicted down for a motivational pep talk about how it's okay to cry into a tub of ice cream every now and again, Oliver can simply magic up the emotion they're missing, by borrowing a bit of it from someone else who has it in abundance - for example, the aforementioned guard's spirited buddy, or the cow queen's patient and restrained vizier. Squint a bit and, yes, you'll realise that what he's doing is essentially a series of dressed-up fetch quests, but gosh darn it if they aren't the most wholesome and uplifting set of fetch quests I've seen in ages.
The pathogens disrupt the normal growth and development of the plant, leading to the growth of abnormal shoots that form a dense cluster resembling a broom. While witches brooms are generally considered harmful to the affected plants, they have also been utilized for ornamental purposes. Some gardeners intentionally cultivate plants with witches brooms to create unique and visually striking features in their landscapes. Additionally, witches brooms have been studied and used in scientific research and breeding programs to understand the mechanisms behind such abnormal growth patterns and to develop disease-resistant plant varieties. In conclusion, a witches broom is a term used to describe the abnormal growth pattern of a plant caused by the invasion of pathogens. This phenomenon results in the formation of dense, elongated shoots that resemble the shape of a broom. Despite being harmful to some plants, witches brooms can also be appreciated for their aesthetic qualities and have scientific significance in studying plant pathogens and breeding disease-resistant varieties..
Reviews for "The Intriguing Terminology of a Witch's Broom: Explained"
- John Doe - 1 star
I found "What is a witches broom calld" to be incredibly dull and uninteresting. The author goes on and on about broomstick history, but fails to engage the reader with any compelling narrative or intriguing anecdotes. Additionally, the writing style is dry and tedious, making it a chore to get through. Overall, I do not recommend this book for anyone looking for an entertaining read.
- Jane Smith - 2 stars
As someone who has always been fascinated by witches and their lore, I was excited to dive into "What is a witches broom calld". However, I was quickly disappointed with the shallow content and lack of depth in this book. The author barely scratches the surface when it comes to exploring the history and significance of witches' brooms, leaving the reader with more questions than answers. Furthermore, the writing style is disjointed and lacks coherence, making it difficult to follow the author's train of thought. Overall, I was left unsatisfied and would not recommend this book to fellow enthusiasts in the subject.
- Emily Thompson - 2 stars
"What is a witches broom calld" promised to provide a comprehensive exploration of the topic, but instead left me feeling confused and underwhelmed. The author jumps from one aspect of broomsticks to another without any clear organization, making it hard to understand the main points being conveyed. Additionally, the writing lacks clarity and the frequent use of jargon and technical terms only added to the confusion. Overall, I found this book to be a frustrating and disappointing read.