Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch was developed for the PlayStation 3. The team planned to bring the game to the console from the beginning of development, but opted to work on the DS version of the game beforehand due to the larger number of DS users in Japan at the time. The team found the PlayStation 3 allowed them to render the game world with great detail, using the hardware to its full potential to present the animation, world and music. Hino felt that the PlayStation 3 version allowed the game's music to accompany the imagery, which was not possible on the DS version. The team found particular technical difficulty in animating Oliver's cape, which was overcome by a combination of mathematical calculations and hand-drawn motions by the programmers and graphic artists, respectively. The team considered utilizing the PlayStation Move controller for casting spells in the game, in a similar fashion to the use of the touchscreen in the DS version, though ultimately decided against it as it would limit the potential sales. The battle system was revised over ten times, in order to achieve something new and unique. For about a year of development, the battle system used a turn-based system, though this was ultimately changed when the team felt that it was not fun for players. The team eventually merged turn-based combat and action elements, popular in Japanese and Western regions, respectively, in order to appeal to both regions. Level-5 worked with localization company Shloc to translate the game; the two studios collaborated for many weeks. The team found great difficulty when localizing the game for Western regions, particularly due to the large amounts of text and audio that required translation. Other minor changes to the artwork and animation also occurred, such as making Oliver bow in a Western manner. By December 12, 2012, development on the localized version of Wrath of the White Witch was completed and the game was submitted for manufacturing. Reception Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch received generally positive reviews. Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating in the 0–100 range, calculated an average score of 86 out of 100 for the PlayStation 4 version, 85 out of 100 for the PlayStation 3 version, and 84 out of 100 for the Nintendo Switch version. Critics praised the visual design, characters and story, soundtrack, and combat system. Colin Moriarty of