Game: White Knight Chronicles

[Nai]

The newest JRPG experience from Level 5 known as Shirokishi in Japan and previously known as White Knight Story here in the West. A new Japanese trailer is out and I dare say it looks absolutely splendid. So splendid that this game has gone from a must have to my most desired JRPG.

http://cdn.jp.playstation.com/4m/pre07/shirokishi.wmv

Have a look for yourselves and you'll see what I'm talking about. Beauty does have a name after all. It's White Knight Chronicles.

[Paulyboy]

Game looks nice plus you can transform into a bad ass beast or whatever.

[darkshadow]

I didn't like that they changed the art direction for this game at first, but watching the latest cinematic trailer really made me wonder why I even dared to doubt Level 5, this game is going to be really good.

[YaGaMi]

I remember seeing the old trailer and the game looked very smooth, especially the battle animations. Going to check out the new trailer.

[Idealistic]

This game looks really good.

I also heard there was this thing called the eye-toy (is it a webcam for the ps3?). Well it scans your face and puts it into the char creation screen. Of course, they adjust it to fit the games graphics. That sounds really cool though.

[RyougaZell]

Where did you read that? What I had read was that there was an edit mode to create a companion character (with no lines obviously)... and not that you could scan your face or anything.

I've been expecting this game ever since the first trailer came out (which DID include gaming scenes and not just video of cutscenes)

[SK]

I was interested until you used splendid so many times, along with 'I dare say.'

[Idealistic]

Where did you read that? What I had read was that there was an edit mode to create a companion character (with no lines obviously)... and not that you could scan your face or anything.


Screenshots I got from another forum this guy posted up. He says it's been confirmed you can scan your face with Sony's Eye Toy 2. Don't know where he got it from, but it seems to be true to me.

http://www.n4g.com/M/8/Images//52000/52475_med.jpg
http://i10.tinypic.com/628gjo4.jpg

[Nai]

Screenshots I got from another forum this guy posted up. He says it's been confirmed you can scan your face with Sony's Eye Toy 2. Don't know where he got it from, but it seems to be true to me.

http://www.n4g.com/M/8/Images//52000/52475_med.jpg
http://i10.tinypic.com/628gjo4.jpg
I'm relatively sure it's still just a rumor... but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. What I have heard is that they have implemented an incredibly potent character creation tool similar to what The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion used. They have also confirmed that they have created all characters currently in the game using this tool. Yeah, I'm rather excited about creating my own character.

[Idealistic]

I'm relatively sure it's still just a rumor... but it wouldn't be too much of a stretch. What I have heard is that they have implemented an incredibly potent character creation tool similar to what The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion used. They have also confirmed that they have created all characters currently in the game using this tool. Yeah, I'm rather excited about creating my own character.

This isn't a MMO right? Just a single player RPG?

I wish some MMOs had features like Elder Scrolls IV did.

[RyougaZell]

Yeah... I remember reading that. That the tool was very potent...
My guess is that that character was created with a lot of patience.
But yeah... It would be cool to just scan :P

[Nai]

This isn't a MMO right? Just a single player RPG?

I wish some MMOs had features like Elder Scrolls IV did.
It's not an MMORPG by any means but it's supposed to have some multiplayer features. I'm not sure of what exactly but I would imagine it involves taking our own character online to team up with other characters.

[Marik]

White Knight Chronicles Walkthrough

Japanese Developer Walkthrough (http://www.gametrailers.com/player/42480.html)

This 14-minute presentation includes a tour of the Level 5 offices, plenty of gameplay footage, and a special trailer.

Information from TGS '08

October 10, 2008 - Although I had the pleasure of writing up some trailer impressions yesterday after sitting in on the White Knight Chronicles theater viewing, the real information about Level-5's upcoming RPG came out of a special behind-closed-doors session scheduled earlier today. Not only were story details finally revealed, but several new gameplay features were more clearly explained. This is definitely good news for gamers eager to hear something more than what we've all heard before.

The story of White Knight Chronicles is set in the Kingdom of Balandor, where Princess Cisna is undergoing her Coming-of-Age ceremony in the halls of the royal castle. Unfortunately, just as the ceremony is underway, a mysterious group by the name of "The Wizard" attacks the castle and causes some serious damage to the general happenings. Apparently, the Wizard is attacking in order to uncover the power of the knight and in the process attempts to capture the Princess.

The game's main character, Leonard, just happens to be in the castle during the attack (of course). Being of the nobler variety, Leonard attempts to rescue the Princess by leading her deep into the castle and out of harm's way. Leonard accidentally stumbles on a suit of armor that, when used, transforms him into a massive warrior known as the White Knight. Upon defeating the Wizard's monster, Leonard realizes that Cisna has been captured during all the commotion and sets out to save her.

The presentation moved on to cover a few other details, mainly giving names to the things that we've previously been uncertain about. According to the presentation, there will be at least three of those powerful knights in the game, including the aforementioned White Knight, the Black Knight and the Dragon Knight. Each character had an excellent design and a high level of detail. Perhaps more importantly, however, was that the characters were officially given English names. Besides Leonard and Cisna, the purple-haired girl seen in some of the trailers is named Yulie and the bearded, cloaked man is called Eldore.

We were then told that the battle system in White Knight Chronicles, as I imagined yesterday, will allow gamers to freely register different commands and techniques into a "function palette" which allows you to create your own combos. Although battles will not be entirely in real-time, they will be "active time" systems, meaning that the intense action can be delivered with a straight-forward control scheme -- or so they say.

But of course, a tremendous part of the White Knight Chronicles experience will be transforming into the White Knight, which can be done after energy is built up in a gauge. This transformed state will allow you to face larger, more vicious enemies that would normally be too difficult to defeat. However, we were told that players adept at advanced strategies could potentially take out the larger foes without transforming, which is nice to know that you're not forced to play a certain way.

The real surprise came in the form of the avatar announcement. Although we knew before that you'd be able to create your own character and (as we just recently learned) take that character online in a MMO style dynamic, it turns out that White Knight Chronicles will support play across those two different modes seamlessly. In other words, you can create your own personal character that will accompany Leonard and co. into the single-player campaign, just like any other RPG. But now, you can take that created avatar and transfer him or her into the online space, where other players' avatars will gather. Thus, your character is shared across both the single-player and multiplayer experience, which is very intriguing.

And it gets even better: all the items, money and experience you gain in one mode will be reflected in the other mode. So if you build up your character with friends online, you can then take that very character into the story mode and deal out some damage. Very neat stuff.

Although the presentation ended without a live demonstration of the game, we were promised that more was to come, so keep your eyes peeled.

[animus]

Been looking forward to this game. Probably the PS3's first Triple A or atleast Double A next-gen RPG. Too bad there isn't a US release date yet, though I'm 99% sure it's gonna hit our shores sooner or later. Won't expect it until atleast next year or early 2010.

[Marik]

It comes out in Japan on Christmas Day, so hopefully it won't take them til 2010 to translate and make whatever changes for the US.