Surprising as it may appear with an output as close, White Knight Story has decided to play the card of discretion this year, with a demo video projected in a corner booth of Sony. White Knight Chronicles: International Edition designed to teach us more about online gaming will arrive February 2 in the country of Uncle Sam and later in the year in Europe. The first PS3 game to Level 5 (Dark Cloud, Dragon Quest VIII), White Knight Story, having split from a small demo for the Tokyo Game Show 2007, we had the privilege to play for ten minutes.
The formula is hardly new, but the interaction between the two modes could sometimes cause some problems of ergonomics. What about the involvement of the player-heroes once online, for example? White Knight Story provides an answer with a simple idea: the character created through the publisher at the beginning of the game represent the player’s avatar, which accompany the band of heroes in the solo mode, before joining his friends once in line for a handful of quests, and vice versa.
The game takes time to find his rhythm, but when it succeeds is as enjoyable now as it was last February when the Japanese import version had collected a 8 / 10 .. He has the full color lightness and creativity that are sadly lacking in the genre today. Abandoning the design while roundness of their previous productions, the developers have opted for a more European character design, with characters in the line of those of Rogue Galaxy, by injecting some fantastic elements. The result, rather atypical, do not have a lot less charming. Indeed, after choosing one of your companions (customizable to wish thanks to a publisher of characters), the playable demo began on a country road where we found our hero flanked by three adventurers, including the one you had just just to refine, decided to escort a cart drawn by a sort of cross between a mammoth and a meerkat. A few steps later, began the first battle of the adventure, against a mere goblin.
However, a full year has elapsed. You suspect that he did not take all that time to bring some nonsense about princesses kidnapped and armor owned – we are entitled to a larger version and more complete White Knight Chronicles as the launch expanded by all the fixes and content in line with Level-5 has overwhelmed the Japanese public in the meantime. Given the disappointment of multiplayer online botched when it was released, much of his potential was never exploited, which is huge. The solo play has also clearly changed, since it is now in English with the voices of American actors. The dubbing is not transcendent, but the manic enthusiasm of people at least has the merit of being in unison with the warm and cartoon aesthetic. The translation has not done much to enhance the story – the story has never been the main reason to like White Knight Chronicles – but she did not sabotaged. The lip sync is sometimes a little lag, and battle cries are still quite generic and repetitive, but there’s nothing to scream foul.
The transition between Story Part Live Part and should be naturally an invitation from one player’s friends list, and it is possible to join the company immediately after a backup of the solo part to avoid losing its progression . Of course, the online experience will be kept back offline, after touching farewell to the rest of the team via the chat window. This has actually nothing new, but few RPG Japanese have ventured to this kind of adventure in parallel. The number of quests is not defined yet, but we know that the game will meet at sixteen in a lobby, to form a team of four hunters. Four, certainly the key figure of the post-TGS Monster Hunter.
The international version of White Knight Chronicles also offers a brand new game mode focused on online gaming, the system Georama. It is a game in the game of building a village, which reminds Dark Cloud, one of the previous games from Level-5, which allows you to create your own village recruited NPCs in the game solo exhibition which will provide quests for multiplayer. This system was added the Japanese version at the end of last year, and the level of customization is impressive. Some people open a store in your town and offer some weapons and items from top stuffing. It is a nice way to highlight your success within the game, because it also functions as an interactive trophy room that can visit your friends.
First good news, the clashes are not random, your enemies are visible and therefore preventable. So if you want to fight, it will be up to you to initiate the confrontation by pressing the appropriate key. Once done, you’ll need to strike utilizing a combo system. The idea is not bad at all because it requires a little patience and dexterity. So you have the opportunity, through a menu to change at any moment your adding them in combinations of movements of attack, they dash from the sword, etc.. Returning to combat itself, you must choose one of your three suites of sequences (using the directional cross) and knock. At this stage, everything seems simple, except that here, you will need to pay attention to a circle that appears on screen after your first attack. Indeed, that circle will light quickly several times to inquire about when you should hold back on attack button to continue your combo. A kind of light version of the Wheel of Destiny Shadow Hearts somehow.
Finally, if the efforts of the hero and his friends (whose responses left something to be desired in terms of taking initiative) were good enough to overcome some knights encountered here and there, the demo ended with the confrontation with a gigantic monster we exceed five meters good. This meeting was an opportunity to use the transformation of the hero (by simply choosing an option terminating one of the three chains of attacks), this metamorphosis into a huge knight is not unlike the Escaflowne anime series of the same name. Once given way to giant metal fighting could resume more beautiful, the technique described above also apply to "mecha" medieval. Despite the meeting of two worlds expected to bring freshness and vigor in White Knight Story, we were fighting seemed a little soft, as in the movements of the protagonists that a perspective more global. We therefore believe our fingers that the fights are gaining momentum, not to mention the scenario that we hope full of romance, betrayal and blows chips because apart from this danger, the RPG from Level 5 has a little something at the bottom of his heart which will make us impatient until his scheduled release next year on PS3.
The game does not allow you to perform quests online for several hours that is almost as if one were to earn the right to enjoy – so that players who had hoped to try quickly to online quests just to see how they look will be somewhat discomfited. Even when the open line quests, the game takes a perverse pleasure in not explaining how to access it by hiding behind layers and layers of a jumble of menus. Originally, you had to buy quests online with a merchant from a village, and then start from a save point, the international version has about 50 missions that have been released on disk and all appear on the world map as soon as the online mode becomes available.
Level-5 should absolutely make it more accessible. It is true that the quest line are primarily designed for players who have completed those solo, but there is no way of knowing. Many players buy White Knight Chronicles on the faith of the promise of multiplayer mode, or at least are curious about how it looks, and they will not appreciate that they prohibit this aspect of the game for so long – nor difficult to understand when they finally have access. Without playable demo, hard to tell if the solo part has openly changed since last year. The excerpts of the video again illustrating the principle of combo kit to make oneself at the point of giving them each a name. Once finalized, it remains only to run on the beta testers in the form of monsters, with a little timing to be followed strictly. With its huge expanses and its combat system dynamics in real time, White Knight Story recalls necessarily Rogue Galaxy the same studio. Small particularity of this one: Leonard can transform into giant white knight deal with enemies too powerful to be vanquished normally. Nice, but we would have liked to be reassured on a point that unfortunately has not changed since last year, namely the achievement.
White Knight Chronicles is perhaps greatest, but it is not better than before – the translation and dubbing are correct, the system Georama is great but it is a superficial improvement, and the quests should be online before while less disruptive. It is always best as a solo game with a combat system inspired, the multiplayer is admirably ambitious but it is still not an essential aspect of the game There are many, many, hours of bonus content Hidden behind all this, but you must be very patient to find them.
Tips for White Knight Chronicles:
This quest is imposed in the course of the adventure. It starts after you took the train into the city on the back of the great turtle. Just go through the following steps to complete.
- Fetch the Bakkeiya’s Honey in the bar of the upper town (1st floor)
- Visit the bar low city (Downtown) and share this object against a membership card by talking to Shu, who stands near the counter.
- Through this membership card, you can now cross the door that leads to the star marked on the map. It gives you a new mission.
- Go to the 3rd floor of the upper town and enter the house marked with a star on the map. Talking to the man who is there, you get the bait to the fire lizard.
- Leave the city and enter the cave (the previous level). There are no stars on the map but you have to travel to the south-east cell D5 to fall into a hole. A little later, you face the fire lizard then consider the big red crystal to get the stone of fire.
