White Knight Chronicles Review

White Knight Chronicles follows the story of a young winery-shop apprentice named Leonard and his silent, but handsome side-kick, (insert name here) on their way to rescue the kidnapped Princess. Despite being a Princess, Cisna hasn’t exactly had the ideal life she’d always wanted. When she was roughly eight years old, Cisna witnessed a tragedy that left her scarred for life and turned her into a mute. On the day of her 18th birthday, when she was finally going to start talking again, she was kidnapped – leaving the entire country to never hear her sweet voice. Now, Leonard and his trusty new friend embark on a journey to not only save the world as we know it (as always), but to also bring back Princess Cisna because it’s the right thing to do!

While this may sound like the most cliché story setting for a roleplaying game possible, it’s overshadowed by the fact that Level-5 chose to push this story forward without any true emotional attachment to its characters or any investment to the cause. This is one of the bigger downfalls that White Knight Chronicles has to offer. To be honest, the lack of any true attachment to the people you’re watching go through this tragic tale makes it impossible to immerse yourself in the entire experience, which is something every roleplaying game should aim to do. Unfortunately, when you throw in the voice acting talent that was green lighted for this project, it creates a plot line and casting gig that isn’t anything to write home about.

Furthermore, none of the characters featured in the game seem to have any lasting personality. If you’re a roleplaying enthusiast like myself, you crave to come across characters and personas in a game that imprint themselves in your head to recall later. Sadly, White Knight Chronicles doesn’t provide any of that to the gamer and the reason for that falls squarely on the poor choice of voice actors and how the dialogue was written.

Now, I know this sounds like the game is riddled with negatives and isn’t worth picking up, but I’d like to get the rough patches out of the way first so that the light can shine through on everything Level-5 has done right with WKC.

My last main problem that I take with WKC is that the level design or terrain design is lacking anything prominent and feels more-so like a dungeon crawler than anything else. The layout is almost maze-like to an extent and making your way through it can often times be annoying due to the abundance of enemies in wait. This isn’t to say WKC offers an annoying random battle every few steps like roleplaying games of the 90s, but the fact that the battles with these enemies are like defeating a guy with no arms in a boxing match is just shy of boring.

Readers Comments (18)

  1. Awesome review. Sucks that I won’t be buying this until Sunday.

  2. I’m picking up this game today.

  3. me too

  4. my psn is ZIn_Oo-Orochi see you guys on Online mode of this game

  5. Great review. I was really worried about the battle system after watching the review of Gamespot, but it seems pretty decent after reading this review. Actually, I’m still contemplating whether I should get the game now or later.

  6. im gonna get it later

    and plz post a vid review that would be nice

  7. I GOT IT!! After the 3 years i been waiting for this game!

  8. So in few words the game sucks and is not even worth a rental :
    Bad Graphics
    Bad Characters
    Bad Battle System
    Bad Exploration
    Bad Story
    According to this review this is one of the worst videogames ever, ty i won’t even rent this crap =)

  9. Oh goody… I have to put up with N4G 260 *******’s on other websites too. Back to your cave bloodmask and bungie. Losers.

  10. To Bungie, your comment has been removed -we don’t appreciate racism. On-Topic: Great review The Dean.

  11. LOL at the two comments above.
    @Bloodmask, that’s your choice, I’ve been excited about this game a long time. I know Level 5 make great quality titles.
    @Bungie, you’re obviously a stupid fanboy and racist. Maybe member of the KKK too? Guess what, Japanese are way ahead of USA (and any other country) when it comes to technology. The Japanese are much better at not wasting recources in their factories (yes I know it cause I had a course called industrial production). And so on. I’m not saying Americans are bad, Japs are ahead in technology. “Is time for Japan to dissapear from the planet” Wow that’s really nazi…
    X-Box 360 being the ONLY real gaming console? Wow really? I’m sure none of Atari’s consoles are real, I’m sure none of Nintendo’s consoles are real, I’m sure none of Sega’s consoles are real, I’m sure none of Sony’s consoles are real, HELL I’m even sure that the original X-Box ISN’T REAL etc. .
    As for war, it’s really stupid and retarded.
    Make love, not war!

    Fanboys+Racists= One of the worst combinations ever

  12. Now this is a real review hahaha worst game ever ! the game is annoying, boring, repetitive “only on PS3” “a must NOT buy”, while we get the EPIC Mass Effect 2 , i love PSU the best pro 360 website ever! and proud americans too!

  13. Wow, fanboyism is back up to 2006/2007 levels. I’m AMAZED at how hard 360 fanboys are on the offensive. And it’s not just random idiots on the internet, the big/major websites are back to their 2006/2007 levels of fanboyism. I actually though MS paying these sites to bash anything PS3 related was over, but I guess with the amzing PS3 lineup yhis year, M$ got the checkbook back out to pay reviewers to give PS3 exclusives low scores just like they were doing through 2008. And of course the rats took the cheese.

    Noitice the bigger review sites have ALL been giving MAG and now White Knight alot lower scores than both smaller websites and users? That’s the tell-tale sign. Just like in 2007, PS3 exclusives are being given low scores for no good reason. Just like Ratchet and Clank Future being given a 7.5 with it’s only negative “too much variety” and Heavenly Sword being given 7.5 for being too short when it’s 8-10 hours long when Gears of War got 9s and 10s being 4 hours long. And in 2008 MGS4 getting a lower score for it’s story than Halo 3 (GT)

    Now MAG for example, IGN does a review, the review describes a SOLID 8 game, but then just randomly gives it a 7. All the big sites are scorring it low, while players of the game all LOVE it and smaller sites have all given 8plus. And now with White Knight it seems there’s a contest for who can score it lower. First I see 7s, then I see 6s, now IGN gives it a 5, lol. REALLY? A game that got all amazing reviews in Japan and by websites that reviewed imported copies? Yup…..M$ is cutting checks again, otherwise the gamespots, the IGNs and all the other big sites just have complete 360 fanboy trash reviewing PS3 games.

    It’s probably a little bit of both. This will be confirmed when these “journalist” start giving out their scores for Heavy Rain. If you start seeings 6s and 7s for that, you KNOW the M$ checks are flying. Then they’ll give GoW3 7s 8s, lol.

  14. You guys are crazy like the Big Mac Snack Wrap! Lol

  15. man i enjoy reading your reviews cause they are so not bias unlike other sites

  16. By this review, it sounds like this is a bad game but you love it :D. Definitely going to have to try this game, coming from Level-5, but maybe a rent, first.

  17. I just picked up my preorder and this great, but not amazing. If you’re into jrpg, pick it up now.All you haters and 360 fanboys stop wasting your time, M$ doesn’t pay you to cheerleaders.

  18. Good review of White Knight Chronicles. This game sound like it is more of a rental than a game someone would buy based on the review.

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