White Knight Chronicles

[miir]

Interesting game.
Been sick the last 2 days so I've has a lot of time to dig into it.

Story is pretty typical RPG/JRPG... unlikely hero, kidnapped princess, etc.

Voice acting is above average. The banter between the characters in the party is often amusing and isn't too repetitive.
I think the graphics and style is great. The armour and weapon models look quite good and alto ugh there doesn't seem to be a lot of variety in monsters, the detail and animations are good. Character animations on the other hand can look a bit awkward at times. The music is fairly unremarkable.

Character creation is insane.
There's a ridiculous amount of customization that can be done.
The odd thing is, the character you create is not the hero of the story. They don't even really factor in the plot.
It felt a little strange at the beginning but with the way the online component of the game is designed, it makes a lot of sense.

The game is really more of a JRPG/MMO hybrid... along the lines of Phantasy Star Online.
There's not a whole lot of item (armour, weapons, jewelry) drops. The majority of the loot is components for upgrades and recipes. Most of my gear upgrades have been purchased from a vendor.

The combat system is turn based and you only control one character at a time.
You buy skills (attacks, debuffs, buffs) with skill points and you can place them on the palette at the bottom of the screen. You have access to 5 palettes which you can scroll through using the directional pad. It works quite well.
There's a pretty wide range of skills specs depending on weapon type. For my character I did a Staff and Elemental Magic spec consisting mainly of Ice and Fire spells.

Your party in the single player consists of 3.
The main character, Leonard can be specced any way you like, he has no weapon restrictions... but it makes sense to have him as a sword+board warrior type. You probably want him on the front line.
Another character you start with, Yulie is a very competent healer. I equipped her with a bow and did a divine magic/bow spec. She stands back and pops the mobs with arrows and heals debuffs and cures when needed
The last character you start with, Eldore.. well I couldn't really find a specific use for him, so I just left him out of the party.
The AI is pretty decent. I didn't have to worry about not getting healed or my party members getting lost of stuck. If they fall behind, they warp back to you after a little bit.



More to come...

[Fairweather Pure]

After reading the universally bad reviews, I'm so glad I cancelled my preorder for this game. I feel like I dodged a bullet on this one. Even after it was cancelled, I found myself at Best Buy on Tues, staring at the box on the rack. An ad even played for it on tbe high def TV while I was waiting in line to buy Zombieland. I resisted tempration one last time, and am
glad I did. Maybe when it hits the cheapie bin, but I doubt it.

Bioshock 2 and Dante's Inferno are out next week, so I wouldn't have had the time to give it my undivided attention anyway.

[Funkmasterr]

Yeah I also decided to pass on this one. I have a handful of JRPG's I haven't finished as is and this one got very sub par reviews (even by JRPG standards).

I'll probably look for it on sale in the off months too.

[miir]

The current metacritic score is heavily skewed by the 1up and IGN reviews.
Take those two reviews off the score and it sits in the mid 70s.. which i think is pretty accurate. If you dig the online play, you could probably bump it up to 80%



There's no fucking way that a terrible game like Enchanted Arms could be scored similar to White Knight Chronicles. WKC looks better, sounds better, has better voice acting, better writing, it plays better and has fleshed out multiplayer.
I'm also enjoying this game a hell of a lot more than JRPG-on-rails Eternal Sonata which scored an 80 on metacritic.

It seems that the low scores are given by reviewers that didn't even touch the online multiplayer aspect which is a large part of the game.

[Fairweather Pure]

Even the Japanese scores were low when it was released last year.

[miir]

Even the Japanese scores were low when it was released last year.

The ones I saw were in the mid 70s and 80s.
Which is about where I would rate the game.

[Funkmasterr]

Even the Japanese scores were low when it was released last year.

The ones I saw were in the mid 70s and 80s.
Which is about where I would rate the game.

I don't know where you saw reviews like that, I sure didn't. The Japanese reviews (player and critic) that I read said the online was shallow and the quests were obnoxiously repetitive, the battle system was shallow, story was overly generic, etc. Cool if you like it but I haven't seen any favorable reviews yet besides yours.

[Winnow]

So it sounds like this one's rating better than FFXIII.

Seems like the type of game I would enjoy even with flaws although no time for it atm.

[miir]

OK, well it sounds like most of you have already made up your minds about what you think of the game so I'm not even gonna bother finishing my review on it.


It's too bad because the game has a modestly fun single player storyline and some really cool online features.

[Funkmasterr]

OK, well it sounds like most of you have already made up your minds about what you think of the game so I'm not even gonna bother finishing my review on it.


It's too bad because the game has a modestly fun single player storyline and some really cool online features.

Oh don't get your panties bundled up, it's just that you always like to assert that critics have shared your view on things when it's not necessarily true. And I'm in a bad mood because my computer hasn't shipped.

[miir]

After reading the universally bad reviews

Even the Japanese scores were low

GameZone - 80%
Cheat Code Central - 78%
GameTrailers - 76%
Game Revolution - B-
Gamerators - 80%
Famitsu - 73%
Spike - 76%
Just Push Start - 80%


Far from 'universally' bad... Plenty of sites (Asia, Europe, North America) have given this game a decent review.

[Fairweather Pure]

Funk beat me to it. Don't be such a pussy. I am interested in your review (especially the online portion). I just don't think of it as a "day 1" title. Actually, I will likely pick it up when it hits the 20-30$ range.

Generally speaking, player reviews mean more to me than professional ones. Despite the low scores in Japan, I was still going to get this. It was only when the new reviews came out for the "International Edition" that confirmed my worst suspicion and caused me to cancel my preorder.

This review was the nail in the coffin for me. First in a 3 part series made me go "I ain't got time for this", especially considering all the other JRPGs I still have to play for the 360.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/revie ... ight/61565

I like GT reviews. Very even handed IMO.

[Winnow]

For 1000 VVs I'll endorse this product!

[Animalor]

I was interested in this one but Gametrailers.com changed my mind. I love their reviews.

[Fairweather Pure]

For 1000 VVs I'll endorse this product!

You wouldn't like this game because Apple doesn't have anything to
do with it.

[miir]

I was interested in this one but Gametrailers.com changed my mind. I love their reviews.

They gave it a generally favorable review, I thought.

[Animalor]

I was, but full price for 20 some hours and a MP I won't play it made up my mind.

I also have a backlog I need to get to =)

[miir]

After putting in another dozen hours this weekend, it's even more obvious that the sites that gave it a poor review only played through the sinle player.
I don't think they actually touched multiplayer at all. There's is literally a shit-ton of content in multiplayer.
What sort of rating would a game like WOW get if the reviewer only played it for 20 hours?

Leveling up your town (georama), upgrading your shops and recruiting higher level NPCs unlocks new components (for new armor, weapons, buildings, etc). Binding posts also have dozens of armor sets and weapons to unlock. Guild leveling also makes new quests available.
The online play is lag free and works very well.

After you complete the single player component and get level 50, you can reincarnate your character which bumps them down to level 35 and gives you 40 extra skill points to spend. This can be done repeatedly.

It really has more in common with games like Phantasy Star Online and Monster Hunter than it does with more typical JRPGs.

[Aslanna]

Beginning this Thursday, March 11th, we’ll be offering up additional quests for free every week through the end of June! You read right, free. Just log into the PlayStation Network, start up your copy of White Knight Chronicles and you’ll see new quests pop up on the World Map. Each week we’ll be releasing a new permanent quest, as well as limited quests that will only be available for two weeks at a time. To find out which quests are active, be sure to follow our Twitter account. We’ll be shooting the names of the permanent and temporary quests out through there.

Why do companies keep pushing Twitter? Twitter sucks. I mean really.. It sucks!

[miir]

That's awesome.
There's so much potential content for this game.
Looking forward to the new quests.

[Fairweather Pure]

The sequel is getting an American release. It will be packaged with an improved version of the original. Two games for the price of 1! I'm glad I skipped the impulse buy. I would be interested in a 2 for 1 deal!

[Fairweather Pure]

Well, a year later and the sequel will finally arrive in the US this summer. It will include the first game, redone with all the improvements from the sequel, and sounds pretty solid on paper. However, once again, it did not receive great reviews in Japan (even with significant gameplay revisions), so I'm on the fence again. Also, Sony declined to publish the game here in the US which means it will likely end up in the cheapie bin that much faster.

Did you end up finishing this Miir? What would you rate it? What is it comparable to?

[Aslanna]

A year later and Twitter still sucks.

[Winnow]

I spent a long time creating my character and sitting through the long opening scenes. I never even got to the first save point so lost all my initial work. I never went back to the game. Hopefully saving your character after it's created is one of the improvements made in the follow up.

[miir]

Well, a year later and the sequel will finally arrive in the US this summer. It will include the first game, redone with all the improvements from the sequel, and sounds pretty solid on paper. However, once again, it did not receive great reviews in Japan (even with significant gameplay revisions), so I'm on the fence again. Also, Sony declined to publish the game here in the US which means it will likely end up in the cheapie bin that much faster.

Did you end up finishing this Miir? What would you rate it? What is it comparable to?

I finished the single player in like 20 hours and probably put another 25-30 hours into multiplayer.
It's comparable to Monster Hunter, Phantasy Star, God Eater, etc.

I still stand by my initial opinion.
It's a good game if you get into the multiplayer. It's an average (or below average) if you only play the single player. The single player isn't even really a complete story... it's 1/3 of the story.