Ni No Kuni DLC Errors

Today I woke up early to grab Ni No Kuni, a game that is a rare blend everything the gaming community has wanted from RPG’s on the PS3 but rarely ever had the chance to fully enjoy. What should have been a day of blissful joy alongside my adorable pokemon esk familiars was actually filled with agony.

Since I had preordered from GameStop I was under the impression that I was supposed to receive something called a “Griffy” a small bird that possesses the power to evolve into a couple other odd looking bird things ( at least that is what their Ni No Kuni page had stated just a couple days before when I decided where I was going to buy the game, and I’m really angry with Amazon right now so Gamestop was pretty much the best choice) . I was actually excited about preordering this adorable little Pidgey because I was planning to call him “Ken Griffy Junior” and weave all kinds of delightful tales about this former baseball star turned bird of death and our whimsical adventures inside an anime while we try to restore a child’s broken heart. Jokes like these are sometimes my only form of entertainment. The game , manual, case, and receipt was all missing the dlc, and I vowed I was going to get my freaking bird. GameStop staff at the store thought it was a snag with Sony, I tried calling Sony and they said it was likely something that could be fixed through Namco because ” we are only able to see the demo  when we look into the store”, and when I talked to Bandai via phoneline they first asked me to confirm with GameStop that they didn’t have the content.

I was getting annoyed at this point but Ken Griffy Junior needed to exist so I called up GameStop. I was expecting their phone lines to smell of mortar and brimstone while I hear endless cackling in the background but none the less I was instead given bongo drums. The most chipper lady ever asked me “what’s up?”, so I gave her my deets, and explained how to spell Ni No Kuni. She  then waved her magical wand hoping to find the code that would heal my ailing heart but to no avail she came up with nothing.

“well that’s weird….. ha…hahahaha why isn’t it telling me whats going on?” all I heard next was a few manic cries.

I then informed her she sounded similar to everyone else I had talked to about this issue. After talking to others in the office she informed me that GameStop had a steelcase ( which if one looked online was something Gamestop had taken down a few months ago. It’s a limited run item that only a few Gamestops actually got and very few of them were given to the stores….what a shitty preorder concept) but they agreed that something weird was going on but Gamestop didn’t have any codes so they said I should travel back to Bandai and ask them for a replacement.” it should be a really easy process”, how wrong they all were.

After picking up my wand yet again and brandishing the right numbers on the dial pad I was once again whisked off to a direct phoneline at Namco. The man ( again very chipper) was more then pleased enough to help me out, that the process was indeed easy, that I wasn’t the only person that had run into some issues with the release, they then requested I email their technical support division via email to hopefully get it all sorted out fast since they were still trying to figure out what in the world had happened. I hung up after thanking the man, I sent an email, and the response I received a while later was ” Talk to GameStop”.

I sent a second email out, and the customer service rep by the name of “Chaos” hadn’t even bothered to read the second explanation and just immediately stated ” Go talk to GameStop”. I believe anyone with a little patience (and common sense at this point)  would have noticed that I had already talked to them (twice) and that we had already moved beyond the common everyday issues and were now staring at GameStop writing things on their website that they didn’t actually have. Plus I even told him I had finished to speaking to their more competent phone line department…. WE HAD MOVED BEYOND JUST TALKING TO GAMESTOP!

My third letter was rather angry, but it got a different response.

This has been copied word for word

”
As mentioned previously the “Griffy” familiar DLC was not included in the Gamestop pre-order bonus. If this was mentioned in their ad for the game or in the store then it was a mistake on Gamestop’s end and you would need to contact Gamestop for more information regarding their mistake.

We have obtained some additional codes for this title as other customers have also contacted us regarding missing DLC codes with their pre-orders. We would like to apologize on behalf of Gamestop (for falsely promising content that was not supposed to be included in their pre-orders). We have included a voucher for the “Griffy” (Amazon-exclusive) DLC below for you to use.

Please note that normally for any missing pre-order bonuses/items you would need to contact the retailer where the pre-order was placed as they would be responsible for fulfilling any promised content.—”

Lesson’s to be learned? Gamestop has issues, Sony was delightful, getting angry can get anything done, and some jokes are so classy it’s actually worth the effort. Now I just need to figure out how the hell I activate this Griffy voucher ingame and invoke the birdlike fury of one of Baseball’s finest.

(Side note: NI NO KUNI IS AMAZING)

 UPDATE:

Bandai apparently dropped a massive amount of the Wizard Edition preorders . Ken Grify Junior has evolved to look like the Seattle Mariners, and now contains the power of a small god. The joke is writing itself.