2. Difficult gameplay.

3. Great voice acting.

4. Kara/Dragias twist.

5. You become a freakin’ 23 foot tall knight and own all.

So what if it’s not for everyone? I love it.

As far as complaints go, I think there are a couple of factors at play. Top of the list is the status afforded to White Knight Chronicles when it was first announced. It was pretty much the first PS3 game to show promise. So you’ve got the double-whammy of brand loyalty fuelled by hype, the latter of which gaming websites have only themselves to blame for!

The other big one is the review criteria. This generation has seen a step-change in the way scores are awarded, paticularly with regard to Japanese games. JRPG’s always been conservative in terms of gameplay. But they made up for it with a generally solid (if clichéd) storyline in comparison to what was on offer in the west. As a result they were awarded 9′s and 10′s. Now, they are being blasted for those very same factors.

This is due to the huge improvement in narrative seen in western games of late. Creations like Modern Warfare, Mass Effect and Arkham Asylum have shown that you can weave compelling narrative into innovative gameplay without compromising either. Reviewers cannot review in a vacuum, and in the context of a dynamic West versus a dusty old Japan, games like White Knight have to get lower scores, or else the whole thing falls apart.

Of course, for people who like Japanese RPG’s, it must look like VINDICTIVE reviewers have just decided to move the goalposts because they are ‘BIASED’ and what they’re doing is NOT FAIR! And that’s the third factor. People are naturally attracted to information that vindicates their existing prejudice, and try to find reasons to undermine anything that discredits it. Of course, the answer to that is simple. Reviews are subjective, if you genuinely enjoy White Knight Chronicles then there’s nothing in a low review score for you to worry about. Feel free to disagree if you really want.

Whew! Think that just about covers it.

The JRPG ‘genre’ though doesn’t see as much innovation in terms of mechanics, or art style, as FPS games though, you have a few realtime combat systems yes, but if you stick Half Life, Borderlands, Fallout, Far Cry2, Condemned and Bioshock up as fairly diverse examples of FPS games….it’s hard to find a list of RPG’s so structurally diverse, or with such varying art and storytelling styles.

What they do have up their sleeve is stories granted, and from Shin Megami Tensei to Paper Mario you’ve got a lot of different types of story that can be told. But alas, the norm is spiky hair, crystals holding power from an anciant civilisation who knew the key to everything, saving princesses, annoying teenagers who want to join you to fight monsters too, and the odd repressed gulp from your teenage lead.

So, i think the opposite, the problem with JRPG’s is that JRPG fans want things to be the same more than FPS players. And I think if they do stick by titles that have a dearth of innovation, well, they’ll continue to be fed the same old stuff.

As an outsider re this one, I can’t see any significance to it other than it’s a Level 5 RPG, good company, but this looks to be their most paint by numbers game. Perhaps if JRPG players give their new DS game a look that has the involvement of studio Ghibli (pretty good storytellers), they might head in a better direction (or at least back to their DQ / Rogue galaxy high points on the PS2).

I just see this genre stagnating further…FF13 looks entirely regressive bar audio & graphics. The likes of Fallout and ME2 are not my bag, but they’re moving things forward so fast compared to JRPG makers, they will leave them behind imo…you want a good Japanese fairytale on the Playstation, FF or White Knight is not the place to look, Funito Ueda’s next game Last Guardian is where you’ll probably find it