RandomNPC – Video Game RPG Reviews, Editorials, and Features

White Knight Chronicles is one of those games we heard about a lot a while back, then…not so much. The biggest draw, or at least what set it apart, was the hero’s ability to become a huge knight and fend off giant enemies in a clash of massive scale. Of course, the real question is how well this actually plays out.

Since the game is already out in Japan, it’s likely that the demo we were able to play on the show floor is pretty close to the finished product. The first thing I noticed was how good it looked. It may not look quite as nice as Final Fantasy XIII does, but it still looked pretty good. I was a little surprised to see how detailed the character creation was as well. The style isn’t exactly realistic, but it fits the game world fairly well. The enemies hog the most impressive design though.

In the interest of time, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time in the town, though there certainly seemed to be plenty that could be done there. I rushed out into the field to try out some combat gameplay. Since battles take place in real time, I was honestly expecting a control scheme more typical of a hack and slash action RPG, but I was once again surprised. Combat is actually quite unlike the standard hack and slash, and even the control scheme is different. The d-pad is used to select commands from a menu and a certain amount of time needs to pass before another action can be selected. The player is free to move and dodge at will during this time, but I was only able to guard when it was my turn again. This ends up creating a bit of strategy when it comes to timing, and a lot more care needs to be put into fighting cautiously in tighter situations. The demo wasn’t very hard, but we were told that the playable characters in the demo were apparently a bit overleveled and that the game itself would be quite a bit more difficult.

There is a very wide variety of abilities at the player’s disposal at well, though the battle menu can only hold a few of them at a time. When I checked out the main menu, I saw a huge number of skills to choose from, divided up into various sets. There’s quite a bit of overlap, but not all characters have access to the same skillsets, and it’s likely that the differences are large enough that everyone won’t fight in exactly the same way. At the same time, there will probably be enough similarities that it won’t totally throw players off when they switch characters either, depending on how the player builds them.

Of course, the hero can turn into a giant knight in order to make some battles easier, but I was surprised yet again to find that it isn’t at scripted points. You’re perfectly welcome to take down giant enemies without transforming, or at least try to, and you can transform in order to crush smallfry as well. There’s a special meter that fills up and can be activated at the most strategic time of the player’s choosing, and the transformation won’t end until the knight defeats all nearly enemies or runs out of HP or MP. Once again, strategy comes into play since various abilities use different amounts of MP. Unloading everything quickly onto an enemy may be a quick way to inflict a lot of damage, but it could very well cause the hero to revert prematurely and leave them in a dangerous situation. Taking too long to crush the enemy, on the other hand, might endanger the other party members or even the knight itself. Ah yes, characters without the ability to transform into a knight can use their meter to unleash a quick flurry of attacks instead, so they won’t be totally useless when fighting giants either.

Overall, I was impressed with the game. The gameplay was pretty solid, and it seemed to make good use of the knight system without making parts of the game feel broken. The potential for strategy, though a little difficult to test with overleveled characters, is likely to help set White Knight Chronicles apart from other action RPGs as well.