White Knight Chronicles review

Posted by Kevin in Featured, Reviews, Sony | 4 comments

Mar 15, 10

Truth be told I was less then excited when I got this one in the post. Why? Because for one, I’ve no idea about this game, partially because I keep away from anything looking remotely like something a Korean suicide-gamer would enjoy. Not out of some sort of pathetic rally cry to FPS and racing games, ensuring I stay a manly man. No no, this is merely a hate affair for all things MMO and RPG. I have yet to play one type of game in this genre that I enjoyed. Straight up jRPG, MMO or turn-based type gaming is not my style. Even Diablo III disinterests me.

So, when faced with the prospect of churning 60 laborious hours into White Knight Chronicles came about I did what any man who runs a game site would do – try to give it to someone else. Alas, no one could take. Nor did they want to. Perhaps because they played Level 5′s previous titles, namely Professor Layton; a cool looking game, but ultimately not my kind of thing.

Texture warp heaven

Now I must jump into this game, a game with possibly the worst timing of any release of its kind ever. Not only does it arrive just after Final Fantasy hits shelves, it also must compete with God of War III in the near future. So, I played this so you don’t have to.

So your introduction to this title couldn’t be worse. Amidst a flurry of people bemoaning the game it intro’s with a dreaded installation screen. And once you play the title you question why. The graphics are sub-par. A title with a huge world like this can be forgiven for shoddy graphics, but how does it manage to be beaten by something like Oblivion? If you leave the game sitting there for a moment a rather homosexual intro sequence will begin. It’s as if it was catered for Japanese e-paedophiles rather then a Western audience. They didn’t even try to make this look cool.

Once you create your awfully similar-to-everyone-else character (mine was a young blonde boy with a womans voice called Raiden… but then thought that was cliche so called him Helghasm instead). Then the game begins in Balandor with Disney style font, music and world. And this is where things take a turn for the worse… kind of. The dialog, acting and graphics are awful. This is game development from 1993 dumped into a blu-ray disk and installed on my hard drive. For no reason.

Having said that, I did begin to get twangs of joy. Thinking of this of an RPG to challenge Final Fantasy is absurd. It can’t. Production values aside, FF is a huge series with huge budgets and an actually entertaining story. This? No way. Instead this is a Disney tale, and play it like you’re 12. The awful dialog is forgiving then. And you’ll enter a realm more akin to childrens’ “save the princess” stories rather then the usual RPG fare. It’s not as gritty as Oblivion, or as interesting as Final Fantasy, but it is still doable.

Let's get this party STARTED!

While the story is fairly basic (it literally is Mario-style saving the princess stuff), it does throw in a bit of fore-shadowing and intrigue to bring about plot twists later on. No, it’s not enthralling. No, it’s not Metal Gear Solid, but it will hold your attention. Even if it doesn’t, the awful lip syncing provides a fun game in itself: “Create your own dialog based on their lips!”. Add alcohol and you’re onto a winner.

The story follows a young boy named Link Leonard who is a zero-come-hero who saves, you guessed it, the princess. Or at least tries. He’s the main protagonist because he manages to control a mystical weapon called the “White Knight” (get it?).

Fighting is a bit awful, really. Even as someone who doesn’t enjoy these games I can see the combat system is tediously slow and awkward. It is an open-ended world where you encounter enemies at random (MMO style). It would benefit with a keyboard & mouse, as your combos and moves are placed at the bottom of the screen to scroll through and select. Not exactly a warm welcome to FPS fans.

Chronicling the White Knight, one swoosh at a time

The games world is split into zones which act as your different levels. The first being the immediate town you live in to explore, and then it spreads out into the open world. All of it set up much like an MMO, with people chatting and dialog set aside for you to join in, too. Nothing as complex as Fallout 3 or Oblivion… but it still harks back to MMO’s.

Overall this is a game that takes itself very seriously, or at least wants to. Rather, the developers should have focused a bit more on the fact that they had a nice Disney-esque story on their hands with some interesting plot points and a boy-becomes-hero adventure. Instead, slapping a knight on the cover and releasing at the same time as Final Fantasy seals the unfortunate fate for this title. Oh, I also mentioned a 60 hour game time at the start. Yeah, turns out that was rubbish too. I always thought RPG’s were long. This isn’t anywhere near that long. There are extra quests to go online via the GeoNet, but it’s still not a sprawling title.

RPG fans will probably still enjoy this. This won’t win over any new RPG fans, though. It also won’t win over people who are stuck into Final Fantasy at the minute. It’s marketed at the wrong audience, at the wrong time sadly. It’s not a good game. Nor is it a bit game. The best I can say is that it’s pretty inoffensive. Worth a shot if you think you’d like it. Otherwise, Final Fantasy will do a better job of keeping you happy.