White Knight Chronicles (PS3)

[Briareos]

Finished the story mode last night and am now ready to properly focus on the online segment (aka doing best served cold over and over), I have my Bullova axe so once it's upgraded I'll wop an Ice element on it and that Fire Ogre should go down a bit quicker.

Quick notes on the story though

->Open Spoiler<-

What is the Magi's beef? I mean they keep talking about rebuilding their lost Empire but from the game they already look like the dominant super power. The Empire you work for seems to have no troops whatsoever (barring the drunk castle guards) and the bad guys have enormous amounts of troops and the ability to control Golems and Dark Knaves etc and a secret shipyard that must be able to build airships. The final shot of the game before the credits really showed their might. How did this 20 year old (ish) manage to build it all in 15 years?

UPDATE 29/03

Just got to GR7 at last! Now I can focus on my georama and armour upgrade from the new chests in NG+, huzzah!

[Brad]

Put about 8 hours into this. So far so good. Better than FFXIII in almost every respect.
One weird thing though. All the characters seem like fairly typical JRPG stuff but that Eldore guy seems like he's just been dropped in from Dragon Age!

No tricky battles just yet but plenty of opportunity to try out techniques. Oh, and one totally awesome thing. When my healer doesn't have anyone to heal she'll actually pull out her bow and help with the fighting!!! I know! Crazy eh!? ;-)

[112]

So is this very much playable without the need to go online then? What i mean is, is there a substantial amount of game in there for a solo journey?

112

[Brad]

Well, can't answer that yet. But, 8 hours in, lots of environment variety, interesting story, lots of leveling up of skills, weapons, armor, spells etc. Not in the least bit bored and massive bosses. It's not provided any real kind of challenge yet although I've managed to die twice despite this (stupidity combined with complacency)!

[saturn-gamer]

I'll just post it here.

WKC 2 has been reviewed by Famitsu and it received a 33/40. Supposed to be an improvement over the original in a lot of ways:

Famitsu has given White Knight Chronicles 2 a score of 8, 9, 8 and 8. This is an improvement over the first game, which got -- shock! -- 7s!

The magazine's reviewers said that the game fixes many of the problems from the original. They found the game's map display, chat interface and other interface areas improved, and also appreciated the tremendous volume of content.

Regarding gameplay systems, the reviewers noted that the differences between various weapons have become clearer, adding to strategy. Skills have also seen adjustments. As you might have guessed from the various trailers, the combat tempo has also been upped.

Now they aren't the most credible mag around, but since they kind of slagged the original it could actually mean something.

Also, PSP game is on the way, according to Andriasang:

It looks like Sony and Level-5 are taking White Knight Chronicles to the small screen. The tentatively named "Shirokishi Monogatari New Project" appears in leaked images of Famitsu's table-of-contents under the PSP section. Shirokishi Monogatari is the Japanese name for White knight Chronicles.

Expect more details later in the day.

[Orgun]

Received this from boomerang the other day, usual annoying JRPG character types so far but I do enjoyed turning into the Knight and whaling on the little mobs

[saturn-gamer]

Kick.

The sequel will be available in stores near you around May 2011

[Phar]

Kick.

The sequel will be available in stores near you around May 2011

Only just bought the original last month so looks like I'll really need to get cracked on with it before May. Is it true that you have to complete the first game before starting the sequel which is why the first game is on the same disc?

Also looks like the PSP WKC game is getting an EU release in May as well.

[saturn-gamer]

Yes. Its not a true sequel anyway but rather a complete edition. The new part is reportedly about 15 hours long and features about 3 or so new areas.

If I were in your position I wouldn't even start with vanilla WKC 1. The WKC 1 included with the sequel features the improved WKC2 gameplay and fixed lots of issues the original suffered from.

[Phar]

So it's a similar concept to the Dreamcasts Phantasy Star Online V2 then.