Fans clamoring for the Q1 2012 release date of Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch got a punch in the gut this morning, as Level 5 has announced the Studio-Ghibli co-developed game has been pushed a year.

"We have worked very hard on Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch and it has been a great honour to collaborate with Studio Ghibli and [composer] Joe Hisaishi, so it was important for me that players outside Japan also have the best experience of the game we can give them," said Level-5 boss Akihiro Hino.

"To make this possible, we decided to invest the time in localising the game so that as many people as possible across Europe can enjoy the full experience in their own language"

Not sure why it's going to take a year to localize it. Perhaps they are planning a Wii U port. Maybe they never wanted to port it and are banking on the world ending first. Who knows! Nevertheless, the good news is that the game will have dual audio and include a Japanaese audio track with english subtitles. Awesome.