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Platform
Playstation 3
Genre
Role-Playing
Publisher
SCEA
Developer
Level 5
ESRB
T (Teen)
Released
February 2, 2010
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Gorgeous visuals
- Rich musical score
- Plenty of customization options for characters and GeoRama
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Almost endless grinding
- Semi-forced online play
- Unclear information on implementation of skills
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Review:
Heavy Rain (PS3)
Review:
Dynasty Warriors: Gundam (PS3)
Review:
Lost Odyssey (360)
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White
Knight Chronicles
Score: 7.5 / 10
Of all the Japanese developers who put out
JRPGs, I have a particular fondness for Level 5. Their Dark Cloud series
was a standout among the other major JRPGs like Final Fantasy or
Suikoden because of the combination of whimsical art style, evocative
music scoring, and their “GeoRama” mechanic which let players
essentially build towns and other areas in the game. You can imagine how
excited I was when I first heard about White Knight Chronicles. It
sounded like the start of a new and intriguing new series from a
developer with an excellent track record.
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After finally getting my hands on it, I'm
inclined to think that it is just that, with all of the goodies and
failings of a first title.
The visuals in WKC definitely share a lineage with the style found in
Dark Cloud, but they are also considerably evolved from that series, as
you would expect for a PS3 title. Rather than the hyper-realistic style
found in Final Fantasy XIII, WKC goes with a more manga-esque style
which gives the game the feel of an |
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anime series as opposed to a more cinematic
feeling. The character models are excellent, particularly the giant
monsters that you find yourself fighting from time to time and the
titular alter ego that your character becomes. The variety of weapon and
armor styles are also incredibly well done. Strangely enough, you almost
want to spend time just putting the characters through various
combinations of weapons and armor just to find what looks the coolest to
you. There simply isn't anything ugly or substandard about the visuals
in this game. It's a feast for the eyes.
In much the same way, the sound and music for WKC is also a treasure
trove of audio goodness. As I've said before, the hallmark of a good
soundtrack is one that I want to pop into the CD player in the car and
go bombing down the highway with, and the only thing stopping me from
doing that is importing the CD from Japan. From sweeping orchestral
scores played during the cinematics to bouncy little ditties stepping
into the local tavern, there isn't a bad piece of music in the batch. My
only problem might be that the combat music does get a little tiresome
after a while, and I kind of wish they'd found a good way to change it
up. The voice acting in the game is top notch, though only a couple of
names were immediately recognizable. As far as sound effects go, they're
present but generally subdued, as if they're being kept low key to let
the music and voice take center stage.
There's a lot to love about the gameplay in WKC, but there's also room
for some concern. You start the game by creating your avatar, which
promptly gets demoted to the role of playable sidekick while the main
character in the story makes their way through seven chapters of
steampunk swords and sorcery. Early in the game, the main character
Leonard gains the power to transform into the White Knight, which
certainly makes taking out the giant monsters in the game easier, but is
more irksome in the Guild Quest multiplayer portion because your avatar
never gains a comparable ability. Character customization in terms of
skills and abilities is very open ended, but there's a dangerously
temptation to simply buy everybody the same kinds of armor regardless of
their abilities. While the game uses a timer to indicate when a
character can take an action, and armor can affect the speed at which
the timer runs, there's not much point in trying to armor your
characters differently. The ability to build your own multihit combos is
offset by the slow method by which you regain the Action Chips necessary
to execute them. A few skills can be learned by characters to help speed
that process up, but they're buried deep in the skill lists, and not
every skill category has them. Characters have a much larger number of
skills than they have command slots to use them, which is only natural,
but the distinction about which skills can be used under what
circumstances is a little less clear. Some skills are meant for putting
into combos, but the description of the skill suggests it can be used
elsewhere in general combat. Additionally, there are some skills that
can really only be used either on the giant monsters by themselves or on
regular monsters as part of a combo, and the distinction is not entirely
clear.
If one were to try and make a speed run through the main quest of game,
they could probably accomplish it in about twenty hours, give or take,
which makes this probably one of the shortest JRPGs I've ever played.
However, the online multiplayer component is considerably larger,
primarily because of the tremendous amount of grinding you have to do to
get all the items you need to improve your avatar's online “guild rank”
which allows access to special sets of weapons and armor. The GeoRama
system in the game is a fun little sandbox that you get to build, run
around in, and buy equipment at, but players looking to max out their
GeoRama's size and capabilities might take issue with the fact that you
have to improve your Guild Rank. It is possible to solo Guild Quests,
but as a practical matter, you're better off delaying that until one has
improved their character significantly or finding people online that you
can group with. Completists will undoubtedly be grinding through the
Guild Quests in order to get all the goodies and max out their avatars.
It's good to see Level 5 doing big RPGs again, and White Knight
Chronicles is a solid first effort in what could be a new series.
- Axel Cushing
(April 22, 2010)
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