White Knight Chronicles PS3 Review

When White Knight Chronicles was released earlier this year, I was overwhelmed with all of the other big name releases such as Bioshock 2, God of War III, and Final Fantasy XIII, that I never really got a chance to play through WKC and see how good or bad it really was. I had played about an hour of the game and then never came back to it. This past summer I had some free time and decided to give White Knight Chronicles a second chance before being relegated to my pile of games that never were finished. I am pleased to say that after giving it a second chance, I am quite glad I did so, as I am now eagerly awaiting the sequel.

White Knight Chronicles takes place in the kingdom of Balandor with an evil group called the Magi, invading the kingdom and trying to kidnap the princess who unknowingly has the power to unlock any of the Knights. While the main character Leonard tries to help her escape through the cellars of the castle, they unwittingly come across the White Knight, which Leonard unlocks and the story unfolds with Leonard attempting to rescue the princess from the Magi and their masked leader Dregias. Dregias has his own Knight, Ebon Wings, but wants to control all five.

The history of the Knights is that the two ruling kingdoms at the time, (10,000 years ago) the Yshrenian and Athwani empires, were at war. The Yshrenian developed and created the Knights to destroy the Athwani. In their desperation, the Athwani were able to seal away the Knights with magic and thus the war ended with heavy casualities on both sides. Now the Magi seek to control the Knights and use them to subvert their enemies.

White Knight Chronicles is a turn-based RPG with a huge amount of customization. There are a total of five playable character and one playable avatar character created by the player to be used online and in the single player campaign. Only three characters may be in battle at once, with one always needing to be Leonard.  Characters have a variety of skills to choose from and specialize in. All characters start off with their main ability which can be any of the following: Shortswords, Longswords, Polearms, Ranged Weapons, Axes, Restorative Magic, and Elemental Magic. All characters should have some experience points allocated to healing and then specialize in one category fully. After the game is completed once, players have the ability to play through the game again as many times as they want to gain more levels and experience. As a result, a player could technically have a character that has a mastery of all skills with enough experience points collected. The drawback is that every new game plus keeps all enemies at the level of difficulty they were from the first playthrough, thus diminishing returns of experience over time. The other neat feature is the ability to rebirth, which basically means that a player at max level 50 can revert to level 35, and get 40 additional skill points to use as a bonus for the level sacrifice. The trade-off is that the player can only do this procedure four times.

The other major portion of the game is the online Georama. White Knight Chronicles has an online component that allows for up to four players to play through special quests cooperatively using their created avatars. Avatars will gain a guild rank from 1-15 from completing the quests. Also, players can create their own little towns complete with vendors and working villagers who will collect resources for the player. The purpose of the custom towns is for the player to collect materials and create items and also to have a meeting place for groups to go questing. The online quests have a major drawback, which is that some quests have to grinded in order for a player to reach certain gaps between player rank levels. Playing each quest once will not net a guild rank level and all quests require a minimum guild rank level just to proceed. The Georama is a nice touch to the game and allows a bit of cooperative questing that the player does not need to go through in order to complete the game, but allows for replayability.

White Knight Chronicles, although a very easy game, is an excellent gem for any RPG gamer looking for something new and short to whet their appetite. White Knight Chronicles 2 is already out in Japan and supposedly the avatar from White Knight Chronicles can be imported into the sequel and retains guild rank. The sequel also includes the first game in the Blu-ray disc and requires new players to complete the first story in order to proceed through the sequel. White Knight Chronicles can be found on online retailers for less than $20 shipped an is a great game to add to the collection. If a player is looking for something relatively easy, White Knight Chronicles definitely removes the need for boring level grinding. For more hardcore players, breeze through the campaign and jump into the more challenging online gameplay. Hopefully, White Knight Chronicles 2 will be just as good as the first one.