This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
White Knight Chronicles is a fun little title as far as the battle and character building goes. It's fun to create combos, watch them work (or fail), and mess around with your customized character to your hearts content. I wanted really hard to give this game a higher score but there were so many things that lagged down the fun gameplay that just couldn't be saved. I'll save the worst for last.
The gameplay itself I find to be rather fun. I enjoy the combat mechanics for the character you do control and like to pick all sorts of weapons eventually getting to master a good bit of the many weapons available. I also enjoy shoving a cape on my back and running around and pretending to be Batman...with a greatsword...and E sized breasts. Of course while you're over there chopping enemies to pieces the companion AI has very little merits. They just stand there and hash out their weakest attacks. Pretty much they're there to heal you since they seem to stink really bad at combat. The gameplay and combat however are what dragged this game to a six.
The story is unoriginal, bland, boring, and overall horribly cliche. I can't think of a more overused story then...princess gets kidnapped who has special powers go save her. That is the gist of almost every lame fantasy game ever made. The story is so lazily written, so lousy that I found myself grunting in physical agony as they dished out lame sub-plot after lame sub-plot. The story is bad...really bad, not to mention just some of the words for those ancient civilizations made me laugh because they were such dumb sounding words. I will not give it's story any merits. It sucks...plain and simple.
Now the graphics and surroundings are alright as far as the PS3 is concerned. Not great, but not terrible, but with my favorite RPG of all time being Wild Arms...I don't think graphics count. What does count is the fact that they looks semi-human mixed with anime which just kind of weirds me out. Leonard's eyeballs are the size of tennis balls yet his head is normal sized. It just looks awkward.
As for music...I forgot it had any.
Now on to the absolute worst part of the game. The thing that drug it down so far on the score meter. I could have given it an 8 even past all of the terrible writing and generic and boring storyline if it weren't for the characters. We start with the master dork himself, Leonard.
Leonard is about as absolutely lame, cookie-cutter, and retarded as it gets. He has a single track mind to save a girl he met all of ten minutes ago because he briefly met her for all of thirty seconds in his past. This is as cliche as it gets. He is a walking, talking, mouth-breathing, useless idiot. His dialogue makes you want to kill him every time he opens his stupid mouth since all it consists of is him whining over the princess who he's known for all of ten minutes. And if the creep isn't obsessing over the princess he's just being all around dumb. His supreme overconfidence makes Cloud look a go-getter and Link a conversationalist. Now we move onto dork number two, Caesar.
Caesar is that guy who thinks he's cool. The guy who thinks he's so cool that when he wakes up his stupid dreadlocks actually look cool, and not only to him but to everyone around him. With his mind-numbing dialogue, his stupid face, and his cocky attitude he almost makes me want to barf. Not to mention a few other dumb things about him...like dragonsight. Because dragons can totally see into the hearts of men. Moron. I can't stand him or Leonard, and when you put them together it's a ticket to disaster.
Then we've got Yulie...who tags along. That's all on her.
Kara, and Eldore were about the only people I liked. Eldore was the wise, and strong magician who could still best you in a swordfight or at a match of wits, and Kara was just a badass who took little crap from anyone. They alone could not help my brain recover from the overload from Leonard and Caesar...also the princess is the super generic good girl with zero personality.
In the end the game was ruined not by terrible storyline, but by it's god awful characters. The characters were so bad that I found myself straining just to finish the game. The giant knight was kind of cool...if not useless, and the gameplay was fun. However nothing could ever save it from Leonard or Caesar.
On a side note...who names their main character Leonard? That's like naming them Gunther, or Melvin, or Norman, or...Leonard.… Expand