White Knight Chronicles International Edition

5 Responses to White Knight Chronicles International Edition

1. 

   J. C. Yoon on April 19, 2010 at 12:38 pm

   I watched the IGN and other reviews and honestly was dissapointed at the game. Those reviews made me not play it the first night that I got it from the pre-order since the expectation of the game got lower.

   I just set down this weekend to play for a few hours. At first, I somewhat had to agree with the reviews so I thought that was all.. By each level up, the whole game and the battle system grew on me. More combos and stats that I worked with, the more I appreciated the depth of this game.

   By anymeans, this is no action RPG, this is basically a Turn based RPG with a freedom of movements in the battle. I find this a great combination that’s similar to FF12. If you want to have a good battle, you need to understand your each skills and combos and what monster you’re fighting. But is there a reward for this effort?

   IGN mentioned that this game was way too easy. I kind of know what they mean in the story mode, but it is not the easiest game doing online quest. Yes, it is going to be easy if you go on a lvl.15 quest when you’re lvl.30. But I recommend you doing those quests when you’ve hit that lvl, and it is not easy playing it alone without a party.

   Out of all the bad points that IGN has mentioned which I disagree with all of them to a certain point, I’m going to strongly disagree with one of them. And that’s the waiting time in the battle that newbie rpg reviewer mentioned. I challenge them to say the same statement for Bow attacks with a Light armor or clothing set. Since the wait time for an action heavly depend on what you’re attacking with and what armor you’re wearing, bow attacks are really fast and so are dagger types. I use 2h large sword…it is slow, but isn’t that really necessary for any RPGs??? the balance? If you want to attack faster with the 2h sword, you can be naked and attack, it’s fast, IGN does not point this out at all… Misleading us to think that the game is full of wasting time. In fact, I even switch to my Bow/white magic character while my 2h sword wait time to cast some buff on me then I switch back. The only thing that I dislike is the AI, your companions are really dumb when in battle… Except the healing part, but I can deal with this by switching back and forth when necessary.

   I really can’t explain all here, but I give this game a 5/5 for its class(rpg) on ps3 platform. It is as fun as demon’s souls with a buddy or two. Let’s face it, Americans are spoiled with fast paced games and no preparation for the battle, Japanese aren’t. This game is not for everyone, I strongly recommend all the Monster hunter, FF11 gamers to try this game. The more you play, the more you really understand the depth of the game and I see a great potential of the toughest online quest to release… just when I am ready for it.
   Rating: 5 / 5
2. 

   J. Oliveira on April 19, 2010 at 10:48 am

   The single player story is pretty bland and conventional. The battle system resembles MMO interfaces which is mildly entertaining.

   You are able to taylor your character with proficiencies in Sword, Long Swords, Elemental Magic, Spears, Bows, Axes, Divine Magic and Staves. This provides for some replay or rebirth(Once you reach max level, 50, you can chose to roll back all of your proficiencies and start over at level 35).

   The multi-player aspect is a little more engaging. The ability to create a town and play with friends provides an added bonus. However, you’ll soon be bored to tears when you’ve done the same missions about 100 times to increase your Guild Rank. Guild Rank provides you with additional gear that you can create for your character as well as some additional quests.

   All of the quests get old very quickly, there are about 15-20 multi-player quests that increase in difficulty as you progress through the Guild Ranks. perhaps some additional DLC will bring some more fun into it.

   Overall, this game wasn’t very interesting to me. Story mode was typical and the multi-player mode was just too “Grind” intesive with no real incentive to get continue other than to show off some GR11 gear.
   Rating: 2 / 5
3. 

   Steve Burdette on April 19, 2010 at 8:11 am

   Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/RI1YZP3JD2GMZ My original video was 12 minutes long so there are a few awkward edits to get it down to 10, but this should give you a good idea of what to expect with this game.
   Rating: 4 / 5
4. 

   Edwin Ng on April 19, 2010 at 6:22 am

   I am going to make this review short and concise, and will not waste your time with a wall of text.

   Key Points:
   
   – This game was released 2 years ago, so do not complain about the graphics. Overall the graphics are not the best, but I would say the background and the settings of the game is beautifully done.

   – International Version? No you do not get the Japanese Vocals in this nor the Japanese Intro music you are stuck with the horrible dubbing. But you do get all the update revisions and the bonus quest for Online play.

   – How long is the game? Single player mode can be beaten within 40-50 hours of game play. But what makes this game attractive is the Online portion of the game, since many veterans who owned this game are still clocking hours and hours in the game. Online portion resembles Dark Cloud in some aspect, where you are given a Home Town which you can build upon; this Home Town can also serve as your Online Lobby among you and your friends. Online play is pretty much based off of questing.

   – Storyline? Yet a lot of people complain how simple the storyline was, I enjoyed it. A lot of the RPGs these days have a massive storyline, but end up confusing the hell out of you.

   Final Notes: There are plenty of mix reviews on this game, but if you enjoy the traditional JRPG play style then this game is for you. All in all, this game does have a lot of replay value if you intended to play the Online portion of the game. Also keep in mind that the story does not have a closure, since a direct sequel is being made at the moment.
   
   Rating: 4 / 5
5. 

   Trevor J. Edwards on April 19, 2010 at 5:14 am

   Graphics-
   
   It’s no surprise by looking at numerous videos and screen-captures of this game that it’s a far cry from cutting edge. The overall technical level of the graphics is either showing its age or they took a hit by having such expansive and large set pieces and characters. That isn’t to say they’re awful though. Each individual looking at this game will likely have to evaluate what they demand in terms of graphics from a game. I personally would call them passable because while they aren’t astonishing the locations of the game are interesting to look at and the enemies and characters you’ll meet are appropriate to their settings and fun. Character and attack animations while mostly understated still manage to be engaging and entertaining with spells being the most impressive of the bunch.

   Sound-
   
   The music thus far has been strictly average. At times I feel as though I have a pack of bards tailing me because the majority of the songs I’ve heard having that kind of simple village music sound to them, flutes with little boisterous drive to get the blood boiling. The voice overs aren’t too bad, none of the characters are particularly irritating in cut scenes or battles but the timing does suffer from the typical Japanese to English dub syncing issues. Overall I’d say everything works on a functional level but it does little inspire the player like a very good score sometimes can.

   Combat-
   
   Battles play out with a bit of a blend between turn based RPG standards with a touch of MMORPG. Before battles you can set up action bars by placing acquired skills in to slots. During a fight you will have a circular timer count up and when full you can select an action from your preselected set to use. At the very start of the game it seems painfully slow due to few options for skills and the likelihood that you don’t fully understand how the system works. As you get more attacks, build combos, and balance your load-out to your liking though it becomes much more enjoyable. One could for example play a mage with little to no armor wielding a dagger and they’d get turns much faster than a heavily armored melee fighter but the obvious trade off is that they become a bit of a glass cannon by trading defense for speed. I think there’s a lot of not so obvious depth to the combat which makes it rather enjoyable for me. Granted it isn’t a system everybody will enjoy and criticisms against it I feel have been fair from reading other reviews.

   Enemies-
   
   The enemies themselves seem to come in two flavors, big and small. Small enemies are pretty much what you would expect, find what hurts them and hurt them with it. Collect your spoils, wash, rinse, repeat. The bigger enemies however are much more fun to fight and offer more nuanced ways of defeating them. Early on you’ll be fighting trolls for example. Trolls have 4 targetable zones, their 2 legs, the belly, and their head. You can defeat the enemy just by hitting it anywhere, it doesn’t really matter, but you can grant you and your party opportunities by exploiting the enemy’s weakness. In the case of a troll for example you can shoot out their legs to prevent them from attacking briefly all the while granting your party an increased chance to hit by way of lowering the troll’s evasion. Another option in the single player mode is using the namesake White Knight to put the fight a little more in to proportion but still fundamentally the same. There’s a lot of variety in this sense though. You’ll encounter a limited number of archetypes for the bigger enemies but exploring these alternative and tactical ways of defeating them is both fun and rewarding as I believe attacking certain body parts can yield certain drops a la Monster Hunter (speculation).

   Skills and Character Progression-
   
   Leveling is pretty typical for the most part, kill a bunch of stuff and complete quests to accrue enough experience to advance a level. Upon leveling up in addition to a base increase to various stats you are awarded 4 skill points. These points can be used in several different specialties to grant abilities and stat bonuses to your character. Each individual specialty has 50 things to buy so with 8 trees you’re looking at 400 possible purchases, of which I’d say about 80% are skills the remaining 20% being stat bonuses (guestimates). Needless to say that’s a pretty adequate repertoire to choose from. Individual characters may more or less select from any set but certain story characters are locked out of certain sets. Your self created “avatar” is open to choose from them all though. From what I’ve read, but I can neither confirm or deny at this juncture, is that your created character is also given a chance for a re-specialization (or respec as we nerds call it) at level 50 and following the completion of the story mode. This respec supposedly bumps you back to level 35, refunds all of your skill points, and rewards you with 40 additional bonus points. This can be done upwards of 4 times. All things considered it’s a very flexible system with a lot of possible appeal to min/maxers by having the ability to dip in to multiple trees. By about level 22 I had “maxed” a single set so those simply going through story mode I imagine will be looking at going fully in to 2 trees or maybe touching base in 2-4.

   Combos-
   
   I just wanted to briefly address the combo system. After gaining some skills you can freely make your own combos using those skills. The advantage to a combo is that it allows you to unload several powerful attacks given a single turn counter but they also are costly in terms of battle resources. In battle you have typical MP which various abilities use, not just magic, and then you also have “Action Chips” which for lack of a better way of putting it is effectively a super bar. So a combo will typically have a pretty steep MP/AC cost but again this is pretty flexible depending on how many and which skills you build the combo with. Having a good spammable combo is just as viable as having a devastating nuke.

   The White Knight-
   
   The White Knight is a mechanic of the story and doesn’t exist in the online mode. The main character may transform in to the White Knight at will (space permitting) and may stay in the form for as long as he has MP. Each attack the Knight uses depletes Leonard’s MP and once drained he reverts to his normal form. Your other party members are allowed to fight alongside the White Knight and as you progress through the game, and Leonard develops, you will acquire equipment for the Knight which boosts the combat abilities of your party members in the presence of the Knight. The Knight also gets a baseline increase in fighting power as Leonard progresses ranging from skills to stats.

   Story-
   
   Save the princess, save the kingdom, save the world. Nothing to write home about but it’s a serviceable and time honored plot. It won’t be moving any story junkies in any particular way but it is peppered with its charming, humorous, and exciting moments.

   Online-
   
   Here we go, this in my opinion is the meat and potatoes of the game and it’s single most redeeming factor. The format is simple, select a quest, recruit some other players, and head out. This is all organized in common areas called hometowns. Initially there is only the one generic town which anybody can access but individual players have the ability to create their own town via the game’s Georama system. The town isn’t just a place to plop building and look pretty though. Depending on which buildings you have and who you put in them can alter various factors of your town such as shop inventories. Upgrading your Georama hometown is a constant endeavor. Each individual set piece needs to be crafted which requires having various collected materials from the environment and the world’s denizens as well as often large sums of cash. The residents of your home are also drawn from the single-player world where NPCs with green speech bubbles can be openly recruited. You’re only allowed to have so many NPCs in your roster at a given time so you’ll often have to revisit your recruitment efforts to select people of specific professions or finding more able individuals to replace poor performers as your town advances (most recruits have requirements to recruit and aren’t immediately available). There’s a lot of subtlety to the system though. Each NPC has a job and having multiple NPCs with the same job, and furthermore selecting a leader amongst them, grants bonuses to their respective categories (farmers, warriors, mages…) when placed in the same building. On the flip side penalties can also be issued by mixing your NPCs.

   So you’ve got your town and you’ve got your quests, now what? As you enter in to a quest you will be met with a staging area where people can prep and meet before the quest starts. Once all the players are organized the leader may manually start the quest or a pre-determined time limit will automatically initiate the quest. There isn’t necessarily anything fundamentally exciting about the online missions but the difficult is ramped up considerably and the rewards are typically quite good for completing them. Completing a mission in a timely fashion with varying level of completion also grants a rank for the particular mission and a corresponding scaling in the reward. Being able to coordinate as a team keeps the battles exciting and rewarding and really ties together the various skill sets. Magic for example does heaps more damage than bow skills but the bow skill set features many abilities to open up weaknesses for the rest of your party. All things considered it’s very fun and does away with what is sometimes a mundane single player experience to get down to the nuts and bolts of what makes the game enjoyable.

   The online and offline mode are more or less tied together though. You must advance through the single player to be granted more access to new areas and online quests so unfortunately those completely appalled by the single player would have to soldier through it to fully access the online mode. On that same note, those who don’t care for the solo-player may find it easier to swallow by doing a little here and there as you push your online efforts forward.

   And that is basically that. In conclusion I’ve found that most of the complaints I’ve read about the game to be fair, or at the very least not wildly off base, but on that same note the bulk majority of them address only the single player campaign. From this we can gather that this game offers much more value to those willing and able to access the online mode. That isn’t to say that the single player is a chore, it simply isn’t overly impressive in any particular way and it’s even harder to get excited about coming off of Mass Effect 2 and leading in to Final Fantasy 13 and several other RPGs. If sold by itself with no online mode I could only recommend this game in good faith at a bargain price or a rental.

   Pros-
   
   Good character customization, looks and abilities.
   
   Extremely fun online play.
   
   Big and enjoyable enemies.

   Cons-
   
   Forgettable story
   
   Somewhat dated graphics
   
   Rather average single player
   
   Rating: 4 / 5

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