'White Knight Chronicles' Review - In The Heat Of The Knight

Released in Japan in late 2008, Level-5's RPG "White Knight Chronicles" took forever to reach North American shores. Here's the question: was the wait worth it?

The Basics

In "White Knight Chronicles" you'll control a variety of party members in a pedestrian tale of woe, destruction, revenge, and deceit. The narrative hinges on Leonard, a wine peddler who stumbles onto a set of 20-foot-tall organic armor that only the chosen, like him, can use to defeat a group of bad men set on destroying the planet.

The Highs

Well, At Least This Place Looks Different
As boring as the narrative is, and as slow as the game moves, I did take small initial delight in the diverse landscapes presented. I wandered through a searing desert, scintillating mountaintops, a flower-infused plain, and a tremendous neo-fantasy city built on top of a massive roving turtle,

There's some MMO in my JRPG
In addition to the standard JRPG single-player campaign, there's an online component which is basically a collection of quests featuring objectives like "kill the monster" or "collect this." Four players can hop into a lobby, called a hometown, before they venture out into the wilderness. But don't expect this mode to represent meaningful content. It's merely something extra to do, and more importantly, something interactive to do.

The Lows

Convoluted Combat
Battle is simple, but the components are fatty. The worst offender is the ludicrous amount of skills that can be learned. There are just too many options and too many applications for the skills. It's confusing and annoying to have to contend with, worrying about status attacks and that jazz.

Fetch Quest for the Princess, Save the World
Nothing's worse than doing a pointless mission to hit the next plot point. "White Knight Chronicles" does this a lot, forcing numerous retreads and pointless battles. On a similar note, the game's twisty dungeons require tons and tons of retreading. Each seems maze-like, but they're constructed in a way that has you running in what feels like a huge hamster wheel, never really progressing past the starting point -- a parallel to what the game progression feels like in general.

Shackled by Tropes
Pastoral boy finds he has an amazing talent and saves the world; a darling princess needs to be rescued; the too-wise old man is not who he says he is; a trusted friend is really a foe -- and so on and so on. While I'll gladly admit there's a charm to an age-old construction, there's no charm in a game that rehashes it and throws it in your face over and over again. Pouring every single archetype into a game's story and beating you with it for over 30 hours is not a good thing.

Final Word

More like "Final Fantasy XII" than any other JRPG of recent memory, "White Knight Chronicles: International Edition" is a dull and monotonous adventure with combat that crawls. You'll travel from boring set-piece location to set-piece location, all the while collecting pointless items and characters for the sake of plot progression, as you search for a kidnapped princess. Like a worn boot, you'll immediately feel comfortable with "White Knight Chronicles" -- but that doesn't change the fact that it reeks, its sides are worn, and its sole is rotted.

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