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
To be honest, what drew my interest to the game were two elements of the trailer that my brother downloaded this time last year - 1) Yulie smashing the bottle over some guy's head in a bar brawl, and 2) Kara on top of Caesar - I'm such a perve. It surprised me to see a scene like that and I just had to see what was up with it, and Yulie stood out simply for not being a girl that does nothing during a brawl. Sadly, despite getting the game on release, I only played it for 30 minutes at most and swapped it out for Final Fantasy XIII - not because I was fond of the latter, but simply because I knew I'd hate it and I wanted the torture over and done with, or at least hope to be surprised.
I returned to the game towards the end of last year, having realised that I had made no progress in it and that I wanted my shot at getting the Platinum Trophy. You see, I didn't realise that the Trophies were practically achieved online and knowing that servers are up for a certain time and players would be into it for even less than that, I had to get a move on. I'm not really hardcore into Trophy Hunting, but I want to at least have the option of getting it if I want to. I just had no idea that this game was so heavy on the online elements and was practically an MMORPG - I guess the World of the game should have been a hint, since it had MMO elements...Then again, I knew nothing about it apart from that one trailer.
Right, I'm not sure how to summarise the game - it should be easy, seeing as how simple it is - but I guess I would describe it as the following:
Balandor is a prosperous kingdom, preparing to make peace with the neighbouring Faria with whom they have been warring for decades. The setting for this treaty is the Princess Cisna's 18th Birthday, unfortunately despite the merriment surrounding the happy occasion, a dark shadow looms on the horizon. Chaos ensues, resulting in the awakening of the White Knight Incorruptus and it falls to Leonard, the pilot, to rescue the Princess from the clutches of the Magi who wish to harness this power for themselves.
Something like that anyway, though it's roughly spot on without giving too much away.
The story of the game is nothing special - pretty generic and simple stuff, that can actually have you rolling your eyes, or at worst yelling at the TV - but it's certainly not the worst. While it is on the pathetic side, I find it hard to hate it since the characters keep it entertaining - I find Leonard's constant mewling over the Princess both frustrating, yet funny and reminiscent of simpler story times where you had the hero with the one-track mind. However, with this disposition it's quite easy to forget that he has a personality, and when he does show it, it's quite refreshing.
Interestingly, something strange happens close to two-thirds of the way in...Leonard is no longer the 'main character'! He's still the team leader, but the focus shifts to another character with a pretty big mouth - as such, he loves to talk and is usually the first to share his opinion, not to mention he has a handy ability that steals even more of Leonard's limelight. Of course, one could argue that having been in Leonard's company for most of the game already, we should be accustomed to his personality, and so compared to this new character, he's quite quiet and reserved. Having put up with the story so far, it gets really interesting in this latter portion as further revelations are made about the group and their powers. Throughout, we also see the goings on with other parties and how the events at the Princess' birthday have affected them, though I hope to find out the resolution to these events in the sequel. As there is a sequel, the game ends on a cliffhanger - much to the detriment of most players - which is quite a ballsy move by Level 5 - the game's developers. The director was commissioned to make the game complete in one release, but he felt that a player could play only a certain amount of time and that a sequel would be something to look forward to...and that I do. I really hope part two comes out this side - it's already seen it's JP release.
Another point to note about the characters is their intelligence. They play with cliches, yet it's only a foundation and you may find yourself surprised by the maturity, cleverness and wit displayed by them. I woud love to give examples, but I fear that doing so may detract from your enjoyment and I don't want to hype it up more than it deserves...I'll just settle for saying that the story is awfully cliche, yet different.
Now, let's get down to the lesser points - graphics are good, but not the best I've seen, but the environments created are beyone breathtaking. The number of times I found myself clearing a pack of monsters, just to stop and marvel at the detail and beauty programmed into being of the surrounding area...I even snapped images with the ingame Crystal Camera! Oh and the soundtrack...there are so many beautiful scores in this game, that again, I would sometimes stop and just listen...here's an example of one of my favourites:
Greede, The Capital of Freedom - White Knight Chronicles ~Ancient Heartbeat~ OST
Gameplay on the other hand, is relatively simple. You can customise your avatar - you create an avatar for the online portion, which is also playable in the Story Mode, though I stuck to using Leonard as my main - with a range skills from a range of 'Jobs' as it were, though it's not that simple as the combinations are near limitless. Of course, if you're aiming for a specific purpose for your avatar, there are guides to help you fashion them to your ideal. I hope to ultimately make a Paladin-type avatar - my preferred class; able to dish out pain, while lending support when needed.
Battles are simple and character AI is quite intelligent, so all you do is load up the skills and let them do the rest, while you focus on staying alive and winning. Of course if you happen to get carelessly KO'ed - as happened to me once - you can switch control to another character and either continue the fight, or focus on reviving whoever you were using before. As I have said before, I'm not fond of MMORPG's, but hopefully I'll have more luck as it seems like everyone who's still around is quite nice.
Completing the Story Mode was the easy part...now it's time for the hard part - QUESTING! I'll be sure to chronicle my progress either in the event I quit or achieve the Platinum, or decide it's time to write something.
White Knight Chronicles II Opening - Japanese
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