A young vintner named Leonard is asked to make a wine delivery for the coming-of-age banquet being held for princess Cisna. During the delivery, the banquet is infiltrated by an evil organization and King Valtos is assassinated. Leonard and Cisna are forced to flee to the castle's lower levels where they find a giant suit of armor, called an "Incorruptus". Merging with the armor, Leonard becomes the "White Knight" and fights off the assailants, but is unable to stop them from kidnapping princess Cisna. Gathering allies and new knights, Leonard attempts to uncover the reason behind the princess's capture and the king's assassination.White Knight Chronicles treads a lot of familiar ground, using tired tropes and themes without adding anything new to help invigorate the painfully cliché narrative. The main cast for example, consists of an intrepid hero, youthful archer, and elderly wizard saving a damsel princess from a mustache-twirling villain; if you don't mind a spoiler heavy run-down of the entire plot I highly recommend giving Lowell's amazing article "They Steal the Princess Again?" a read. There are some original ideas and fun but underutilized concepts in White Knight, like giant toad people in the desert, a mining colony built on the back of a turtle monster or becoming a giant robot-knight. These moments could be awe inspiring at times, so it's a shame to see them squandered on a title destined for the bargain bin.
White Knight Chronicles is plagued by archaic mechanics and odd design decisions. One of the most perplexing is the avatar you customize at the start of the game. Your avatar is not the protagonist, Leonard is. Your avatar never talks, never factors into the story, and they never get a knight of their own. Half the time I forgot my avatar existed, and was disturbed whenever I caught a glimpse of them tailing Leonard's group like a silent, creepy stalker. Outside of combat, the avatar serves no meaningful purpose. Speaking of which... The battle system is a repetitive, cluttered mess. Skill points are used prior to battle to unlock various attack options that can be strung together for combos. Every action triggers a cool-down meter, forcing players to wait until another action can be performed. Action chips are used to initiate the Knight transformations, which are powerful enough to occasionally end boss fights within minutes.
For some reason the story is arbitrarily stretched across two games when it easily could have been one complete game title. And the terrible design choices only get worse in the sequel. Every character with a knight is sent away for starters. Then you have to defeat an army, two mini-bosses and one full boss all in one go while protecting a very squishy NPC. This section happens to require an archer, and ironically the game takes away your archer just before the fight starts. Needless to say, I quit playing real fast.
There honestly isn't much to say about White Knight Chronicles. It has some unique elements that are wasted on a forgettable story and generic gameplay. If White Knight looks interesting, and you don't mind another generic fantasy RPG, then it might be worth a try.
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