White Knight Chronicles, created by Level 5, is a hybrid of a role playing game¹ and an online multiplayer game. It has an age rating of 16+ in Europe, and has been released on the PlayStation3 by Sony.

In the solo RPG campaign your characters cross through various terrains while following the plot to save the princess. In the multiplayer game your avatar can embark on quests, either solo or with other players on the online servers. What pulls the two together is your Georama - the village you build that can host online games.

This Entry contains some minimal spoilers.

The RPG

White Knight Chronicles follows the journey of Leonard, a delivery boy, in his quest to save Princess Cisna from the clutches of the evil Dregias. Along the way he picks up other characters that help and hinder him. He also gains the ability to transform into the powerful White Knight, using ancient armour created by one of two warring factions from long ago.

You start initially by creating your avatar, who is the new employee at the shop and who follows Leonard throughout the story². You can choose to make your avatar the character you control in-game and it's the one you'll use in the online quests. As you'll be looking at it a lot make sure it is someone you are happy to watch running around on your screen!

The plot is simple - fight your way from location to location as you track the princess across the world. There are a few twists and turns but the plot isn't noteworthy - you'll find yourself second-guessing it correctly with alarming regularity but there are moments where it takes you by surprise. The scenery is what makes this game pleasurable to play, as the visuals are stunning. You can often see for miles across plains and up to mountains in the distance. Monsters also contribute to the sense of scale, as they are often much much bigger than your party as they are correspondingly more powerful.

Once you complete the game there is an option to play through again, retaining your character and all of your kit. Unfortunately they have not made the game correspondingly harder, given that you are now of a higher level. It does give you different raw material drops and chest items that you need to upgrade your party further, and, as you are a lot stronger than your opponents you can complete the whole plot in a fraction of the time (about twelve hours, if you avoid as many pointless fights as you can). Take off your armour to increase your speed, and get a walkthrough for chest locations to save yourself some time.

The Combat System

Along the journey you fight the creatures you meet with a party of three characters. You control one of the characters directly and the others are controlled by the AI, who you set up with an overall command, such as 'Heal First' or 'All Out' attack. You can switch between characters mid-battle to use the individual character's abilities.

Each character has a basic attack move for each weapon, and it's then up to you to decide how to specialise. Each weapon class has a different set of abilities and, with a few exceptions, any character can choose any path (check before you buy that shiny new axe!). A path is a mix of weapon-specific skills and attributes, such as more hit points for a swordsman or magic for a spell caster. As you progress along the path it unlocks higher level skills and attributes so it tends to be better to specialise in one class to start with.

In order to use skills that you have learnt you need to add them to your Action Palette, which limits you to 21 separate skills (although you can save up to six Palettes and swap them outside of battle). These are the skills that you can call upon in battle. Early on in the game this seems like a lot of slots, but as you develop more skills and buffs³ you may become quite picky, often changing the Palette depending on the monsters you are about to fight.

In combat you have the the ability to target different parts of the body according to your weapon. For example, a bowman can hit any part of the body, while a swordsman is limited only to what it can reach, usually the legs. When enough damage is dealt or dealt in a specific way you may be able to temporarily knock the creature down, allowing you access to more vulnerable bits of its body. This can also change your style of attack when you realise that different body parts may have different vulnerabilites - a 'thrust' attack may work on the torso but do less damage to the legs, say. Using the elemental weaknesses and the different attack damage types can make a big difference.

What stops you using your most powerful moves all the time is the Action Chip system. You gain AC by defeating monsters and taking and dealing damage. You have to use chips in order to be able to do certain moves - the better the move, the more AC you use. You can also only convert to your White Knight form if you have enough AC so you sometimes have to kill the small fry first.

An interesting novelty is being able to create and name move combinations youself. You can string different moves together in a combo, potentially allowing you to do a lot of damage at once rather than doing them one by one. A combo also only takes up one slot on your Action Palette. You can create them just for generic damage, or for specific types - you may have a 'Thrust' or an 'Ice' combo, for example, to deal damage to certain types of monsters. It's up to you how far you go. You still have to be aware of your Action Chips though - you will find yourself using them up quite fast!

Finally, once you complete the solo RPG and get up to level 50 you can choose to go on a rebirth quest to drop your character back to level 35. You lose all the skills you have learnt but you are given close to their worth in skill points. This allows you to customise your character again, perhaps going for a different weapon or deciding not to learn a couple of skills that you never used first time around. You can then start questing and levelling up as normal. By the time you get to level 50 again you have a lot more skills and the option to repeat the process.

Your Georama

Not content with letting you customise your own character, White Knight Chronicles also lets you create your own village. It may initially seem a bit pointless, but it has two important functions that pay dividends later.

Having a Georama allows you to access shops when at a save point. As you spend most of your time outside of a settlement this becomes quite important. It also enables you to buy specific items that you will need to upgrade your equipment. Given the vast array of raw materials you can acquire when you kill monsters or explore the world, it can be hard finding exactly the right flower or ore through defeating enemies alone⁴. Certain Georama parts that you can buy and put down in your village can also produce items themselves, which means you don't have to buy them.

The second thing it can do is become a centre of your online activities. Every player has their own Georama, because you have to be inside one to create an online quest. The bigger and better your Georama is, the more likely you are to have visitors. It is not necessary to do this, as you can set up a room in someone else's Georama, but there's something satisfying about wandering in your own village, talking to the people that work there⁵ and being pleased when they give you a bit of ore or a plank of wood for free. A home page can contain up to twenty instances of your Georama, known as rooms, and each room can hold up to twelve players.

The Online Game

Playing White Knight Chronicles online is a completely different experience to the solo RPG. In the online version you can only control one character, your avatar. Although it uses the same world and scenery as the plot, you only go into it through quests, which are time-bound⁶and can be done with one to four people. They will have one main goal and possibly a sidequest or two. Completing the quest earns you Guild Points that cumulatively earn your Guild Rank, and usually you get a bit of money and some items as well. Some weapons, armour and quests can only be accessed if your Guild Rank is high enough, and it can also allow you to build a bigger and better Georama.

There is no formal system⁷ of players getting together to go questing, like Guilds in World of Warcraft. There is a message board where people will agree to meet up together, and you can ask other players to be friends, which allows you to follow them to the room in which they are currently playing. You can wander into others' rooms unless they are private and start or join a quest at any time which allows you to meet people at similar levels quite easily. Communication between players is done either via a microphone, typing with an attached keyboard, or using the on-screen keyboard (which is very slow). This is only recommended when characters are out of combat as you would have to stop fighting to type. You can also make your avatar 'emote' actions such as nodding, waving or cheering, to show your approval or disapproval rather than having to type out what you want to say.

Who Would Be Interested?

White Knight Chronicles has had mixed reviews in the media. Some aspects of the game, such as the plot, have been slated for their lack of originality. Other elements, such as the personalised combos and graphics, have been praised. There are some flaws that make it frustrating, such as the range of attacks⁸ and the cool down period between commands⁹. It has also been criticised for making the fights, especially the final boss fight, far too easy. Finally, although it is not the fault of the game makers, the official walkthrough guide contains many bits that are either wrong or completely missing.

Although the game has a 16+ age rating, it has no sexual themes, there is no blood or gore in the visuals, and only occasional instances of milder bad language. Some of the sound effects are eerily realistic - the crunch of a wasp as you kill it, for example - but it is a world away from the gritty realism of Grand Theft Auto. The background music is mainly orchestral to fit with the quasi-European historical setting and can be turned down or off if having background music doesn't interest you.

Overall this is a game that you can play how you want to. If you enjoy completing everything in a game, there is plenty to keep you occupied - getting your character all the skills, 'binding' the best weapons and armour, getting your Georama to the highest level and completing all the quests at rank 'S'. If you enjoy just playing through an RPG there is a good thirty hours of gameplay for you. If you enjoy a bit of casual online gaming with no commitment to a guild, pop online and join up with a few people who are at about your level. If, however, you are the sort of gamer who enjoys having to become very skillful at combat merely to succeed, you may want to think again - you will probably find this too easy.