Well that depends on your tastes, ni no kuni isn't even half as innovative as the titles you mentioned. What it is, it's very traditional while somehow managing being very fresh. The gameplay has many very familiar elements of jrpgs that we've come to call our staples over the years sometimes put together in a way that we've haven't had before but still familiar elements.
For me the major breakouts are of course the visuals and the music, coupled with story that's very straightforward but driven by emotional theme's that are very easy to empathize with, I feel it's very hard not to love the game, that is if you have a human heart :P. (On a side not srsly screw scores, my head explodes on the silly notion that numbers have subjective value at that point just creating a rating system of your own that translates what you mean makes a 100 time more sense.)
I've been doing some imajinn collecting lately maybe working towards the platinum but without real commitment. Just feeding the ocd player in me.
Also damn I hope level 5 does not what so many japanese studios like to do and scrap the technology used here to create the look.
I would be in for another title that makes use of it doesn't necessarily have to be ghibli dictating the style this time.