Review: White Knight Chronicles - 2nd Playthrough COMPLETE

I planned on writing this when I completed it the first time through, which was sometime last December, but then I thought it better to write it after my second since it was more epic that way and I would more certain of my points regarding the game. Also, I had my brother to bounce opinions off of, which were pretty much the same - they usually are, except he seems to be less harsh regarding certain aspects and bases his impressions on gameplay and graphics...I tend to be more critical of the story and characterisations; graphics play very little importance and gameplay fits somwhere in the middle.

After all, you could have an excellent game with crappy graphics and basic gameplay elements. Take for example, Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. Your run of the mill point-and-click puzzle game, with nice graphics - albeit poor continuity with style when switching to animated cutscenes - and a rather interesting story with fun characters. You could hardly call it a bad game based on it's 2D graphics and simple gameplay when the story and characters prop it up to greater heights. Thus, it frustrates me when people in professional positions as reviewers or other fan-reviewers give a one-sided opinion, rather than combing through the whole. It disgusts me - yes, disgusts me - when praise is heaped onto a title that is, quite frankly, awful and the only thing going for it is the graphics and/or gameplay, or at worst it's associations to previous successful titles in the series or developer. If you haven't figured out my prime example from those hints, then you'll get your answer as soon as I can get that review out - currently it's at 5 pages and I need to do some trimming, or at least sectioning of it.

Anyway, that being said, let us move onto the main topic - White Knight Chronicles.

White Knight Chronicles I Opening - English

Addiction Woes

Why oh why do I have this addiction to video games? I just keep buying them and they take up space; I've barely played half the games I own. Life was different when I was a child and my mother was my sole source of income - I actually listened to the voice that said "No!", though it was rarely uttered. Now that I have a job, most of my income goes on games...but I don't buy one every week, it's more like once every month or so. Very infrequent, so I suppose I've been quite good about it, but time just flies and the next thing I know I'm barely half-way through the game I'm playing and another one I want to play is out...sometimes they come in three's...However, I only shell out retail price if my gut tells me the game is one of those ones people overlook the promise of and only order a few units, or if there's a Limited or Collector's Edition, otherwise I troll the internet and wait for prices to eventually drop.