WKC: Update

Since I think I'm one of the few that actually goes back and reviews posts on older blogs (because I subscribe to be emailed on them all), I'll post my update on the game in this new post.



I've played the single player mission up to Albana(sp?), the desert town. It's not that far into the game, I think, maybe 10-15 hours, but enough that I have a good feeling about the various game mechanics.

I was right on about the single player story. Typical, predictable, and yet, you still feel the need to push forward. So I'll give it a 3 out of 5 on the Likert Scale. I haven't seen any plot twists, but then, I'm not far into it, I'm not sure it even has any, and this is planned to be a story spread across at least two games, so the story doesn't end with this game.

I've now had a chance to mess with the Georama. That's where you can build your own city. Not to get too deep into it, but I think it is one of the best city builders for a console I've ever seen. Now, how does that fit into the game? I'm not sure yet, because I've just messed around and added a few things so far, but I have a feeling you can build it up so that the people you recruit to live in it have jobs that help you, like harvesting for needed materials, or blacksmiths to improve armor, etc. And to give you something to do that helps you forget the story :P

The other mechanic in the game is online or solo questing. Think beast hunts in FFXII. But with friends. This aspect of the game is what I am most excited for. It took me a long time to figure out how to actually do a quest, as I tend to skip the menu helps they throw at you early on, but I went back and read the quest one and realized you have to pick a location where a quest is on the world map, and then select that quest in the submenu that pops up. Oh well, I live and die by the speed at which I navigate menus.

Anyway, I only did one quest, though I've purchased (in game, not real money) additional quests. The first quest was "Boot Camp I", and the goal was to slaughter (ok, so I think they say kill or destroy, but that doesn't sound cool enough anymore) 25 enemies in 30 minutes. I hate time clock games. It's an element in a game I don't care for now that I've grown up. I have enough stress in my life, I don't want my games to add that time crunch that simulates work deadlines! And since I was trying the mission on my own instead of finding strangers to do it with, I was already feeling the pressure. Until I fought the first monster. Two shots from my bow (my avatar is being skilled as a Ranger) and the little Kibble lies in pool of it's own blood (not really. The game isn't that graphic, but I'm taking editorial liberties). Five minutes later, a box pops up and tells me I've completed the mission. Reflecting on the carnage of 25 enemies down in 5 minutes, I can't help but be reminded of my days in Guild Wars, and how having some buddies there to lay waste with would be sooooo much more rewarding (with chat!).

All in all, I think this is a great buy for the JRPG fan, or any fan that likes to get a full value from a game they buy. This is not a 10 hour play for $60 USD. It seems like this can easily cross into that three-digit hour time-consumption if you do all the missions and single player quest. That's not even including the hours you could spend building your city, interacting with it, visiting friends cities, interacting with them, blogging on the in-game message board, collecting trophies, taking in-game snapshots with the crystal camera, and so on, and so on, and so on...whew. So much to do! The coolest part about this game is that after the first ten hours of the single player quest, and you collect the abilities to do these tertiary things in game, you have to ask yourself not IF you want to play the game, but HOW do you want to play the game today?

[Image linked from http://playstationlifestyle.net/2009/08/19/white-knight-chronicles-gamescom-09-trailer/]