White Knight Chronicles?

RyanB

RyanB

Legacy of Elijah Guild Leader
Just picked this up the other day ($45 shipped @ Amazo or Newegg). Anybody else have it and interested in playing online?
 
Wish I saw this, I picked up Star Ocean International this week. X_X

How's the game's online, pretty fun or just alright?
 
Ok, I've spent about 10-15 hours with this game, so I'll give my initial impressions. I'll put as much info here as possible, since I plan to play this a lot and hope interested parties join in.

First, the bad...

Battle System
As I expected from reviews, the battle system is definitely the game's weakest spot. I think the main problem is the weird mix of being able to run around freely with an "active time" battle system. You can run right up to someone, but can't attack until the little circle fills. It's even worse when you're equipping heavy armor like I have on, because your guage fills more slowly. Also, for some odd reason...you can melee attack an enemy, then run 10 feet away, only to be melee attacked from a distance. It's odd, and really gives you no motive to try to dodge attacks. One last complaint is a lot of the large enemies have a ton of HP, which is fine in and of itself. But, right now I'm at a point where a few of them are no danger to me...but it still takes me 5 minutes to slowly wittle them down while they hit me for 1 or 2 hp. Ultimately, I often find myself basically standing there just waiting for the circle to fill up. Not very involving just yet.

Caveat to add to the above:
Bear in mind I haven't played for that long and I tend to explore more than normal on maps; I'm over-leveled for where I'm at. I also know that stuff gets harder. I wouldn't mind a 5, 10, or even 20 minute fight if I was actually being challenged. I'm thinking I should put all of my folks in lighter armor - take a little more of a beating and get a faster-paced attacks going. I just figured out how to work with combos last night, which let you do a lot more damage (up to four attacks in one). So, I don't think the problem is nearly as bad as I'm reporting - I'm just doing a lot less damage than I should be, which is making the fights longer. Also, I have my avatar's build set up as more of a tank/paladin (short sword + shield, healing), so I'm not exactly spec'd for DPS. Lastly, in the single player, you can summon the knight for most of the larger enemies, which really helps take them down much faster.

Probably the only other bad is that a lot of mechanics aren't explained very well. For example, combos are very, very easy to set up...but no where does it tell you "hey, why don't you set this and this up as a combo and try it!" in the story. I guess modern games are starting to rub off on me, and I should've just referenced the book. Not really a huge negative, just thought I'd mention it.



Now, the good (which I think far outweighs the bad):

Difficulty
The single player game is mostly easy, but fun. Again, I'm not super far in, but what I've seen so far (and read from others' views) is that it's typical JRPG faire, which is just fine by me. The online quests can be very tough, and require a well-coordinated team to beat unless you're a lot higher level than the enemies...which is good in my book.

Graphics
I think this game is beautiful. The environments often look photo-realistic in a lot of ways. I often find myself just stopping to enjoy the scenery. Also, it's more than just high-res textures, things just look very pretty. In battle, the animations and enemies are great, Trolls/Treants/Bosses (and who knows what else) are HUGE, and it just looks very nice. Think ~2 stories tall. It's very fun to bust out that giant knight to go head to head with those huge beasties.

There is also an in game Crystal Camera that you can use to capture the scenery and save it to the hard drive.

Here's one of the opening trailers. Looks very nice in hi-def:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DhVHJKAxc8

Skills/Magic
There are eight areas to specialize in: short swords, long swords, elemental magic, bows, spears, axes, divine magic, and staves. There are enough skill points to max 2 tiers, or 3 after rebirth (explained below). Or, you can go for one and snag passive skills out of the rest. Lots of different ways to go, and totally open. In the single player story, I'd just recommend having a relatively well-rounded party.

Rebirth: When your avatar reaches level 50 and you complete the game (which will come before 50, I believe), you can "rebirth", which basically drops you to level 35 and gives you back all of your spent skill points, plus 40 extra skill points your first four times. You can rebirth and respec as many times as you want, you just only get the bonus the first four times.

Items/Equipment
There is tons of equipment to be bought and found. From the newbie stuff I've seen it looks pretty good, graphically. You can equip any weapon...but skills are tied to the six weapon tiers above, so you won't really be wanting to swap around very much.

You can upgrade a weapon's strength by adding materials, which is nice. Also, there is a system in place for binding new weapons from old weapons + some materials. I haven't gotten into this yet, but had a ton of fun doing this in past Level 5 games (Dragon Quest 8, Rogue Galaxy).

Online
Ok, so yeah...the thing you actually asked about...online play. I would say that all of the things above add up to an above-average game. The online portion is great.

First thing to know is that online, you play only with your avatar character that you design when you start a new game. The single-player story is mostly about Leonard and others while your avatar is just along for the ride. I really kind of like that set-up...because many games that have you create a custom from scratch character end up telling no story at all, with no likeable characters. You just have a lifeless shell that you created for your battle style.

You can hop online once you unlock GeoNet (the online service). Really it's just a few hours into the game. The online quests take place in explorable areas from the single player game. Pretty much standard go here/do this/kill this type things, and the maps are pretty big. The few I've done have taken about 20-30 mins. Once you sign in to GeoNet, it's very easy to hook up with other players. I just use an option "find players close to your level" and it gets me into someone's town (more below) with a group doing quests at my level. You can also add people as friends in-game (don't have to be PSN friends), talk over text or voice chat, etc. Completing quests gives you items and Guild Rank which allows you to unlock tougher quests as it increases.

There are new quests coming each week (until June, I believe), so overall should be a lot of variety. From what I have read, getting platinum on this game will take 600-1000 hours...so there is plenty of online playing to do, although that would involve a lot of repeating quests, I'm sure. I'm planning on at least playing until I've hit most maxes, not sure if I am going to get 10m guilda, buy every item in the game, etc. I'll probably be shooting for hitting 50 S-rank quests, though. So, I guess the nice thing is that there is a lot to do...so if other folks pick this up we could be doing a lot of playing together.

Online - Georama
If you've played Dark Cloud 1 or 2, you might recognize this term. Georama is the mode where you get to build your own town. The more money and time you sink into it, the grander it'll be, selling higher level goods. You get a discount in your shops. Other players can visit your town and shop or meet up to head out on quests. You can also unlock a lot of special armor sets and other really high-level stuff.

Here's a vid showing some town-building:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM1jUSRX1X0

Bottom line is...the game isn't perfect, but between questing, binding items, building up a village, etc...there is a ton of fun to be had playing the game on or offline.
 
PS: let me know if you have any questions that I missed. How is Star Ocean so far?
 
That sounds pretty cool, especially the Georama part.

Combat is fun and fast, but the story is extremely slow and uninteresting (like most Tri-Ace games). I'm 5 and a half hours in and half of that was doing 2 dungeons. :/ I think Resonance of Fate would've been a better buy. :p

Is there a PSN card tied to the game so you have to buy it new? I'll see about buying it Used locally if not.
 
Nope, nothing tied to it used or new. Only stuff you can buy DLC-wise is a $5 token if you want to re-customize your avatar (blah) or some items to speed up your Georama. There isn't anything you can buy that you can't get in game.
 
Just wanted to add some more feedback for anyone on the fence, since I've spent some more time with this game now.

When I hit the next shopping area to buy things, I decided to buy myself a set of both light and heavy armor. I am attacking much faster now, and don't feel like I'm sitting around twiddling my thumbs during battle at all anymore. I use my heavier armor when I am planning to tank or unload a lot of combos/magic. My thought here is...I can only bust out so many, so the faster attack isn't a huge deal. I'm also using combos regularly to do much more damage, so that has pretty much taken care of my main complaints.

I'm building up my Georama town now, which is sort of addicting, and am the point where I've unlocked the binding posts to combine weapons into new ones, which is very fun as well.

Got online yesterday with a friend and did a few online quests. Voice chat worked well, and a fun time was had by all. Would recommend this game.
 
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Blah, it's 52 bucks with Alaskan shipping. /shakes fist

Hurry up and have a new sale, Amazon. xD
 
Holy cow! That's ridiculous!

Well, Amazon has been insanely fast at price matching deals lately. I'd expect a drop soon.
 
Getting the game from Goozex, should arrive by next Friday-ish. Can't wait. ^_^
 
Looking forward to playing online with you. I'm currently lvl 34, although it doesn't take that long to level up and I have a lot of lowbie-quests I haven't gone and done an S-Rank on yet. I've almost exclusively been playing the story mode so far.
 
So got the game today, made a character that looks like a Final Fantasy knock-off. For the skills, I was considering Spear, Longsword, or Staff. What do you think would be a better choice?

Edit: Or Bow? xD
 
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Game is pretty balanced, so I'd say choice will depend on your play preference. Also remember you're not stuck with any one thing...as you can "reincarnate" at level 50 and do completely new choices as often as you want. You can fully max out 2 trees (3 after the 2nd or 3rd reincarnation). You can also max one tree and get just the +attributes from all of the other trees...but I'm working on just making sure I max every tree by my third reincarnation.

Shortsword/Spear are one-handers with shield...little less damage.
Longsword/Axe are your weapon power hitters.
Divine - obvious
Elemental - obvious, versatile amount of elemental damage types
Staves - combos well with Divine or Elemental to augment...but you definitely won't be doing a ton of damage
Bow - Actually has pretty decent damage, but it's versatile in that you can deal every elemental type. Nice for when you know what you'll be fighting (like doing online quests)

Would recommend light armor for attacking faster...I just finished the single player and really haven't had any problem. I went maxing short swords and divine, and spammed a ton of mollify (enemy def down), inspire (attack up), and haste.

Other nice thing is that regardless of which path you go...you have enough characters to try everything. I had one person on spears, longsword, one elemental + staff, one on axe, one on bow...so you get to see all the abilities. Once I maxed out the main weapon with each of those...I'd work on getting the +attributes from the other weapons.
 
Oh, few other getting started tips...first is don't sell anything (if you plan on doing a lot of binding). You really get next to no money for it, and if you really want to chuck it, you can donate equipment to the binding post later to level it up.

Other is...if you do plan on pumping a ton of money into your georama, you can just reload your save after. IE: Spend all money, upload it to geonet, reload save. Sure, you have to rebuild it every time you want to change...but you can sink all your money in without losing it.
 
Longsword it is! I've yet to actually play past character creation, but I'll update when I unlock the online part (monday maybe?).
 
Sounds good...it's just a few hours into the game. Once you unlock the knight, you can buy a georama deed for 1,000 from the papitaur near the main gate in Balandor.
 
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Is that the um, city where the traveler tells you to stock up at? I got the Knight, but hated my characters looks. xD Went Axe instead. When does the online part activate so I can hop on it?
 
If you got the knight, you are ready to go. Hop into balandor near the southwest gate...there's a dude selling a georama deed for 1000. He is the one that had a shop icon since the start, but wasn't open yet.

Once you have the deed, you can hit any savepoint edit your georama, or sign online.
 
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