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You know that really gorgeous chick that you see walking to class every morning? You know, she probably sits somewhere near you in your English 101 class, and you stare at her every morning wondering what it would be like to be her boyfriend? Then one day you finally get the balls to talk to her, but it turns out she gets around more often than Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman, and probably isn’t as cute as you thought once you snap out of your daze. Well, White Knight Chronicles is that girl. Yes, I just compared a video game to the body of your dream girl.
When I first heard that Level-5 was creating a PS3 title, I jumped for joy and ran a good mile in excitement. They are, of course, the creators of many great RPG titles, including my absolute favorite PSP game, Jean D’ Arc. Yet for some reason, I still wasn’t getting my hopes up too high for WKC. Good thing too, or I’d be killing myself out of disappointment right now.
As many people know, I’m not the biggest RPG fan out there. I do, however, have faith in Level-5. Unfortunately, my favorite RPG studio failed to come through for me this time. WKC is full of flaws (mostly due to its new combat system), making it one of those titles that is a great idea, but horribly executed.
The game follows the story of Leonard, a worker at the Balandor Winery. Right from the opening, he (you) is tasked with fetching a shipment of wine for an upcoming party in honor of the princess. And so he skips off into the forest holding hands with a pretty girl, and he gets the wine to the party without a hitch. Ok, I lied, of course shit hits the fan. During his epic quest to deliver the wine, a group called the Magi gets inside the town's gates posing as a circus. As you might guess, they indeed are not clowns.
Leonard returns with the wine and gets inside the castle, but instead of leaving, he and his friends decide to stick around and stalk the princess. Luckily for them, the Magi decide to attack the castle, leaving Leonard to rescue the princess, travel all across the castle, find his magical armor, and allow the story to begin.
Even though this is basically just the prologue to the rest of the game, you will encounter pretty much every flaw in this single section. The first and most annoying disappointment is the new fight system. While it is more creative than your standard turn-based game, it needs a lot of work before it’s, well, not boring. There are two steps to battles: 1) setting your attack or combo move to a selected button and 2) waiting for the timer to let you attack. In essence, it is still turn based—just with the capability to move around during fights. So why is it so horrible? Well, like I stated earlier, it’s boring. There is nothing more to it than waiting for the timer to fill and then pressing a single button to attack. Lather, rinse, and repeat. |
