STORY:

The story continuing where White Knight Chronicles left off, one year later, Grazel continues his campaign to conquer the world and become the new leader of the Yshrenian Empire. Leonard and company must travel to new territories, and familiar ones, meeting new characters, and proving help against Grazel’s Magi army. The party’s main goal is to keep Grazel’s army at bay, return order of the three kingdoms of Faria, Greede, and Balandor, and finally settle the fights that happened during the Dogma Age once and for all.

Overall, White Knight Chronicles II’s story arc feels rushed towards the end. The story has a value of a full length feature, but it feels like Level-5 have taken shortcuts to end the story as fast as possible. Most of the time players will be exploring the fields more than the actual story itself. Each of the main characters has an important part to play during parts of the game, but sadly they are completely forgotten during other segments of the story, and at the same time the villains make a brief appearance, quickly detailing their actions. This provides little reason to completely hate the villains of this story. The whole story brings into question “why do I have to hate these villains so much?”, or “why do the main characters have mixed roles?” This makes players feel distanced from the story, and care less about it. This simple and generic storyline feels inconsistent and rushed, made deadly with poor character development.

GAMEPLAY:

White Knight Chronicles II plays the same as its previous title. The only difference is the improvements that Level-5 have made. Level-5 did listen to the fans, and they have made quite a few welcome improvements that have made this title more enjoyable then the last. Level-5 even gives players additional content like errands, bounties, and more; there is even an enhanced version of White Knight Chronicles on the same disk.

Like I said before, Level-5 made a slew of improvements to White Knight Chronicles II. The first major improvement is the combat itself, veterans will see that the combat is faster paced then before. Players will also see an increase of status information, this includes weight of armor and weapons, positive and negative statistical effects on the player, critical hit value, smaller text, and an improved interface. These are welcome improvements that are, not only in White Knight Chronicles II but, in the enhanced version of the first game as well.

There was one long awaited request by veterans, the ability to transform into a knight for your avatar. Finally that request has come true and players will be happy to see that their avatar has finally some meaning. Players receive the Knight Arc, which allows the players to transform into their fully customizable knight. Players can change the color, armor, weapons, and enhancements of their knights. This ability is really helpful and important for future quest and bounties.

White Knight Chronicles II also has additional content for players to take a break from questing or doing the story. Players will have the option to do bounties and errands; bounties are basically marked hunts where the players must track down a marked monster and kill it for guild points, experience, money, and even rare items. Errands are nothing more than typical running around quests; NPCs will ask the player for certain items, or make him/her talk to certain people. Errands can be annoying and there is really little incentive to continue them besides guild rank points and rare drops.

Besides the improvements and additions to White Knight Chronicles II, it basically has all the same elements as before. Georama is back and players can import their georama from White Knight Chronicles to improve upon, combat has been overhauled dramatically, but still plays the same as before, quests are still a major part of getting guild rank points. Multiplayer supports up to six players, depending on the quest requirement. Players can still also bind materials to create new items, weapons, armor, and accessories, along with an increase in binding level. Players will all start at level 35 when starting the White Knight Chronicles II story, and the level cap has been increased to level 80. Rebirth requirements have also been changed so you’ll require a certain guild rank and being level 80. Skill sets have been changed to accommodate the improve combat. Players can still explore and gather in the massive environments that White Knight Chronicles II has to offer.

There are still some problems that Level-5 failed to address, firstly the camera; During combat the camera will auto-lock onto one enemy leaving no option to rotate the camera around unless you disengage from the lock-on. This takes time away from the fasted-paced combat, and soon players will get hit no matter what the case. The camera is also an issue when it comes to close quarters combat as well.  Another issue would be the lack of AI support, this is a frustrating issue that can easily get everyone killed. The problem is the complete lack of detailed commands you issue them, and  at the same time they will stand there and do nothing, whilst sometimes they fight for no reason. The AI cannot make up its mind on anything.

Overall, White Knight Chronicles II is a dramatically improved game with a few frustrating issues. The core gameplay is basically the same, most of the features are the same. Combat is fast-paced, with more detailed status on your character, which includes; weight, status effects, critical hit values, and much more. New additional content like bounties and errands are welcome, but are nothing special unless you count rare items or your knight arc.

PRESENTATION:

White Knight Chronicles II doesn’t set anything in the graphical department, it has a nice unique world, but doesn’t have the graphical power to support it. There is an improvement of some of the textures and character models, like water on cloths, small details on monsters, armor, and even hair. Sadly that wasn’t the case with the environment, it suffers from bland textures and outdated graphics. Due to not having a powerful engine, it does suffer from massive framerate drops, and slowdown, when the action starts to pick up or there are to many enemies on screen.  The Voiceovers are not bad at all for a Japanese RPG. There are some corny lines and way too much talking during the field exploration, but they do get the job done. Soundtrack wise the game features improved music, but most of the soundtrack has been reused from the first White Knight Chronicles game.  Overall, presentation wise White Knight Chronicles II isn’t special and barely does anything to improve upon itself.

CLOSING NOTE:

Overall, White Knight Chronicles II is a good JRPG that had the potential to be great. Sadly the story isn’t as good and is quite disappointing on how they ended the tale of the White Knight so quickly. Gameplay has been dramatically improved in almost all categories. There are still some frustrating issues that Level-5 forgot to address like the camera and ally AI support. Graphically, White Knight Chronicles II does not set anything ground breaking. Level-5 did touch upon the game’s engine here and there, but this unique world doesn’t show much potential with outdated graphics. Voiceovers are not as bad for a JRPG, but can get annoying when running through the environment. The core soundtrack has been updated with a few new tunes, but most of the music is still re-hashed from the previous game. White Knight Chronicles II is an improved sequel that has tons of content for the fans of the game, but sadly it feels more like an expansion pack than anything else.

FINAL VERDICT: 3/5

Tonight beginning at 9pm (EST) we will be streaming White Knight Chronicles 2 Multiplayer as to not ruin the story for fans. Watch as TGH staff members Chris and Nathan go through quests and level up their Guild Rank!  The stream will end at midnight (EST) and will run approximately three (3) hours. We hope you can join us and chat with us.  Check back with us in a few days as we will have the review for White Knight Chronicles 2.

White Knight Chronicles 2 Stream 

D3 Publishing was able to send over some awesome new screenshots of the DLC for your custom character in White Knight Chronicles II. You can dress them up as the White Knight itself, yep that just happened. White Knight Chronicles II is the highly anticipated (in North America) sequel to White Knight Chronicles International Edition. It brings the quality story of the singleplayer into the massive infrastructure that is the online community of White Knight Chronicles (I & II). With over 400 weapon and armor choices no two characters may ever look the same. Fight online alone or with friends and if you haven’t experienced White Knight Chronicles, have no fear. It includes the original at no extra cost. That is two games with over 100+ hours of gaming each and carry your character from one adventure to the next.

The Gamestop exclusive pre-order features equipment exclusive to the DLC. It allows the players avatar to wear the armor of the White Knight. Once the exclusive code is enabled players will be able to purchase the equipment in the game itself.

White Knight Chronicles II releases in North America on  September 13th.

Intro

White Knight Chronicles was released in Japan December 25, 2008 and now it has been 2 years for the North America and Europe to get a shot at White Knight Chronicles. White Knight Chronicles is a new IP created by the makers of Dark Cloud and Rouge Galaxy. This is Level 5’s first game on the Playstation 3 platform that they made and will it be as good as Dark Cloud and Rouge Galaxy.  So here is the review for White Knight Chronicles.

Story

White Knight Chronicles will take you on adventure with your main hero Leonard and your own avatar. The kingdom of Balandor was a peaceful kingdom till one night the kingdom would have a party but, a group called the Magi would crash the party and start attacking. Leonard would soon save the princess and learn about the white knight and then the princess gets taken and your adventure begins there. The plot of the story is very simple but, very much well-done. Save the princess and uncover the secrets of the knights. The story will take you about 15-20 hours to complete and have many different locations to go. From a forest to caves and to a desert the many different environments keeps the game at the good pace. With some plot twist here and there, and some weird story issues that doesn’t make sense at all are just very little to stop this pretty good storyline. Overall the game has a story that follows a very safe and simple guideline that makes it a unique story on its own.

Gamplay

The gameplay for White Knight Chronicles is a third-person RPG that is in real time. You battle creatures in an open-field and it pretty much like Final Fantasy XII. White Knight Chronicles does have a little twist to the combat. You pick the skills you want for any of your characters and also you can to make your own combos from the skills you have learned. White Knight Chronicles does have a customizable character progression system and you choose what your character will excel in like; swords, spears, axe, white or black magic, and more.  There is also AC into play and AC stand for Action Chips that let you cast even more powerful attacks, combos and to activate the White Knight for Leonard. The White Knight needs 7 Action Chips for Leonard to transform and become the White Knight. The White Knight is pretty powerful but, you will more or less use the White Knight for Boss battles and creatures that are bigger than your normal characters. White Knight is cool to use but, is sometimes overkill for the creatures that are smaller than the white knight and sometimes just makes it too easy. There are some gameplay issues that need to be fixed. The enemy attack range has glitches from attack thought doors and a half a mile distance attack and also AI issues that some enemy don’t attack when there are too many enemies on screen.

Online and Geonet/Georama

Online is a very fun experience that last long and short term affects. Your created avatar can join the many other created avatars on quest to boosted your Guild Rank(GR) and get valuable items to being back for the single player and for Georama. Online will have you do about 50 quests with your friends from helping lost children to saving a caravan from being destroy. The quests have much variety and will keep you for a long time. Georama is a fun and very much expansive thing to work on. This will keep you for a while too. Georama is more or less creating your own town and you need to find people to work in your town and buy things for your town. Georama will put your hard earn time and money into it and its also a base/lobby for you and your friends to hang out and do quest.  Georama is based from the Dark Cloud game and you can put your buildings anywhere but, you do have to level up your Georama space to level 10 to get the full feature and more space to put things in your town.  Online and Georama is all used by Geonet and Geonet connects you to your friends and lobby. Geonet also have message boards and bigalow mail(The mail service) to talk a chat to friends or any random person for help or just wanting to talk and make friends.  With the international edition of White Knight chronicles you are also able to use Live Talk and Voice Chat.(Later Patched for Japan) The only downfall in Online is that there is no feature to trade, or get any money from people buying in your hometown.

Custom Avatar

The Custom Avatar is a great and in-depth feature that let you make your own person. The depth they put into this makes it a very fun and pretty neat experience. You have about unlimited body types to choose from or to your liking and pretty much you use the sliders to make you person fat, skinny, tall or short and also give them a name. The only thing that bugs me is that your avatar is very quiet and doesn’t do much and just stares like it was say “What did I get myself into.”  Overall it a neat feature but, the avatar sometimes just feels out of place.

White Knight Chronicles is a pretty good game. With more White Knight Chronicles coming soon we will just have to find out what happens to Leonard and his friend in future installments. This trilogy is only beginning and will get better with time. Give White Knight Chronicles a shot and it will give you a reason to come back to JRPGs

Pro: Pretty good story, Custom Avatars, Great Music, and Online is very fun.

Cons: Out-dated Graphics, Some story plot issues, and some online and gameplay issues.

[starreview tpl=16]

Developer: Level 5

Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment

Platform: Playstation 3

Release Date: February 2, 2010(NA), February 26, 2010(EU)

5.) Graphics Are Sub-Par- White KNight’s graphics are comparable to any Final Fantasy game on the PS2 which is a bad thing mind you because we are now in PS3 era. It’s not just the graphics as a whole because the cutscenes are pretty well off, but the lip movement does not in ANY way coordinate with the words spoken in the game! It’s almost like they didn’t even care when they ported it over to the US.

4.) It’s Been Done- Between the battle system and the leveling up grid. It seems to copy many elements from previous Final Fantasy installments. The battle system is real time but its just waiting for your bar (circle) to fill up till you can attack again. The only new implement is the White Knight itself and even that can be seen as a skewed version of a summon.

3.) Little To No Story- The story tries to make you care at first by creating your own character, but it doesn’t help at all. The story has been seen many times, its simply another good vs evil story with no real deep thought put into it. Too bad.

2.) Character Creation Amounts To Nothing- Usually when a player creates a character, especially in an RPG they know they are in for the long haul and they know they will make a big difference in the outcome as a major character. However in WKC, your created character simply sits in the back, a boring lifeless MUTE. There is really no point to create a character, it was just a very unneeded game feature. The main character is Lenoard who is a OK character but again, what story?

1.) Feels Like FFXII- It’s sad that such a big name release on Sony’s platform could look and FEEL like a last-gen game. Not that FFXII was a bad game; far from, actually. It’s just that it’s 2010; we expect more from them. The game had such potential but the game feels so last gen. Do yourself a favor: either skip it altogether and wait for FFXIII. Or, if you must… rent/wait until it’s a Greatest Hits.

In the end, this game was a great effort but from the looks of the trailer for WKCII, this was just a practice run.

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