White Knight Chronicles Review

Over a year ago White Knight Chronicles was released in Japan as one of the first PS3 exclusive RPGs.  After completing its leisurely journey to the West, I couldn’t help but pick it up — Level-5 after all does boast an impressive roster of games.

Did White Knight Chronicles prove to be a shimmering armor-clad success, or are the pages of this story not worth the 0s and 1s it’s made of?

System — Henshin!

The battle system for White Knight Chronicles feels like the one in Final Fantasy XII.  The player is free to select a character to wander the map with and control.  That character is joined by two allies who cannot be controlled.  There is a time gauge that fills at a certain rate based on the respective character’s agility.  Once it’s full, a command can be executed on an enemy within range.  Repeat until victory is attained.

Learning Skills Requires SP Gained at Each Level

Commands are acquired through a weapon-based job system.  If you want your character to tread the path of an axeman, then they’ll generate some hefty attack and HP.  At any time the player can choose to dabble in other weapon abilities.  Want to sling some magic between axe swings or learn some healing spells?  No problem, it’s entirely up to you how your characters grow.  I always appreciate this openness when it comes to character development so this earned some major points with me.

Commands can be strung together to make unique combos.  This system was actually a lot of fun, since there are a number of abilities which work well together in combos.  Your axeman can smack an enemy into the air, hit it a few times, then strike it straight downwards into the ground.  Executing combos requires the player to select the next move at the appropriate time however or the combo will fail.  This kept me engaged during battle and reminded me of Legend of Dragoon which was certainly appreciated.

Ankle-Biter Watches On

The one element that many people are familiar with from White Knight Chronicles is the huge shimmering knight you can transform into.  This is mainly used to combat the game’s many enormous bosses.  Where a normal character would only attack the shins of some enemies, a knight can get all up in its grill and dish out the justice.  This system consumes all of the character’s MP and AC (action chips, used for combos and special attacks) so it must be used sparingly.  Still, the player will use it enough for it to feel like a relevant part of the battle system.  It is also pretty fun, especially since knights can boost surrounding allies and their attacks are quite flashy.

My main complaint with the battle system comes from the games AI — mainly your allies’ AI.  If I am fighting a fire troll, it’s a fair guess that he’s weak to ice.  If my allies know all 4 elements, they’ll use a randomly selected element, meaning about 25% of the time a magically inclined ally will exploit a weakness.  This system forced me to take the reins of magical characters and let melee units mindlessly slash away at any enemy.  This resulted in a pretty solid system, but I would have preferred that AI units could exploit weaknesses on their own.  Also, I cannot tell you how many times the character I was controlling would be afflicted with sleep or paralysis only to have my two allies (who have the ability to cure my ailment) stand around dumbly staring at me until the effects wore off.  This system definitely could have been polished!

Story — More Like TRANSLUCENT Chronicles

The game’s story begins like nearly every RPG you have ever or never played.  There is an annoyingly upbeat guy who wants to save a princess who prays and has blond hair.  Admittingly, the characters surrounding the aforementioned clichés are considerably deeper.  By about the 20 hour mark things begin to get interesting with no help from the main character, Leonard.

I Am Thinking of a Word That Starts with “P”

If I had to sum up Leonard I would say that he is a record, playing on repeat.  His list of phrases include “We have to save the Princess!”, “Give us back the Princess!”, and of course “Princess!”.  By the end of the game (at least in this installment) he has not changed at all.  Leonard is a static character and this style of storytelling does not enhance anything.

As I mentioned, my love of certain supporting characters helped me choke down the story.  There were even a few twists which I found very surprising, earning the game some respect.  Given a more dynamic foundation the story of White Knight Chronicles could have been great.

Presentation, Mechanics, and Online — Avatars Everywhere

Graphically, there are more recent titles which easily surpass White Knight Chronicles.  However, the game maintains a cartoon-y anime feel which felt relatively timeless so that didn’t bother me.

Cut scenes are still pretty impressive, though there are few in the game.  Occasionally detailed hand-drawn art is used to depict the past which I enjoyed as well.

One of my favorite aspects of this game is the customizable avatar you create as soon as you start the game.  This avatar character will be joining the main cast for the game’s story as well as being the player’s vehicle for online play.  There is quite a bit that can be adjusted and you can easily spend an hour or so creating an acceptable character.

This system is an ingenious way of incorporating online play with a standard, story-heavy RPG.  I applaud Level-5 for their creativity.

Naturally, this brings us into the game’s online features.  At a certain point in the main story, the player will be able to go online.  Here you can construct your own village called a Georama (a la Dark Cloud), complete with inhabitants of different professions who can harvest different materials.  The player can arrange buildings and a number of accessories to achieve their desired look for their Georama.

The Georama serves as a “room” when going online.  Other players can come to your Georama to shop, explore, harvest, and team up on missions.  I enjoy seeing the degree some players have gone when it comes to decorating.  I should mention that there is also a “cash shop” of sorts where more gung-ho players can purchase unique and more valuable items for their Georama using real money.  I became quite addicted to editing my Georama, which became one of my favorite features.

When you team up with other players online, you can complete a number of quests as if playing an MMORPG.  You can chat, emote, give items but sadly not kill each other.  When your Clan Rank is low there are few quests you can complete so moving up in rank will require some repetition.  If you aren’t afraid to grind a bit the game really opens up around Rank 7.  Certain weapons and armor can only be equipped based on your Clan Rank which is a good means of motivating people to keep playing post-game, at least for me.  I suppose if you aren’t into the grind you’ll probably ignore this feature and discard the game shortly after completing the ~40 hour main quest.

Conclusions

As a game which attempts to incorporate modern technology with a classic genre, White Knight Chronicles comes very close to succeeding.  I did enjoy the game and plan on playing it a while longer — hell, I will probably play it today after work.  Still it had its moments where I wanted to kick my Playstation in the teeth from the sheer corniness it was projecting onto my screen.

All in all I liked the game and look forward to seeing the direction the series will take.  Perhaps the later installments will be more polished and the story will mature.

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