White Knight Chronicles released in US

I so want to get this! Comes out on the 25th here in NZ same day as Heavy Rain which I have already pre-ordered!

Hmmm what to do!!!!!!! Can't get both

Wow, I can only imagine the outrage this would cause if someone bought the ticket, then either lost their power, or forgot to save...

$5 is a bit steep for this. I would have priced it at more like $1, or free...

You may want to rent WKC before you buy it. It has some features that are a bit of an acquired taste. For one, combat is somewhat of a cross between Secret of Mana and Final Fantasy 11. After doing a move, a fairly slow recharge starts. You can't attack again until it's recharged, which really slows down the combat. Can't do any action at all, nor really queue up another attack other than moving your cursor over it and get ready to execute it. And unless you setup a combo, you can only do one attack per one of these long recharge cycles. (about 10 seconds it seems.) Combos and advanced moves use up AC, which take even longer to recharge. Combos also take very specific timing to get right.

If you like FF11, you might like this. It has much of the same feel but offline. even the methods of selecting your moves are similar (Macro bars where you can move right and left, and up and down on the bars.) Environments feel very FF11ish. The main thing lacking from FF11 is the difficulty level.

Online play is like a cross between FF11 and Phantasy Star Online. FF11 but only a few players at a time.

Georama is right out of Dark Cloud 2 though...

I saw the GiantBomb quicklook and the game just looked boring to me.

Tell us what you really think. Are you an RPG fan, or do you normally play FPS games. Context is important with blanket statements like that.

I do believe that they missed an oppourtunity with this game. It would have been better if they released it shortly after its Japanese release date. With Resonance of Fate and FF13 within a month of its release, it just looks a bit dated. It could have been an RPG on a system with few rpgs released, rather than a lackluster RPG stacked against several, likely better, choices.

Well, I don't know what my history in gaming has to do with my opinions on this game.

So will just say, the battles just don't seem to flow well at all. I mean I understand the need for the ATB guage but in an action RPG which this seems to be, it destroys any type of flow when you have to stand still for like 5 seconds waiting for the meter to refill.

Compare it to something like the Tales series which does have a recharge meter after combos and stuff, but you can still move around, get in position, dodge and all that other stuff.

It allows other gamers to determine how similar their tastes are to yours so they can gauge how much weight to put on your opinions as to if theirs will be the same. For example, I'm into Traditional JRPGs, Strategy rpgs, 4x strategy games, and I used to play FF11. My opinion on a game as it relates to FF11 would be meaningless to you if you're a pure action rpg and action gamer and had never played FF11.

Also, I know that I get pickier when I get outside of my favored genres. Give me a strategy RPG or JRPG, and I'll play it for a bit even if the vast majority of people think it sucks. I play nearly every game from Nippon Ichi Software... But within Action RPGs, I'm much more selective. I love Radiata Stories, Castlevania's 2d RPGs, and Dark Cloud 1 & 2, but the Star Ocean series is hit or miss for me, and the entire Tales of * series has not had a single game I enjoy. (Though I've only tried 3 of them.)

You don't have to stand still, in fact you can move around quite freely, though it's not an action RPG. Even if you dodge a move, it will still hit you just like in Dragon Age: Origins. I'm actually finding that your position relative to the enemy only matters in a very few small areas.

1. If your characters are further away from the enemy, then he'll randomly kite around between them. Your melee characters will follow though, making the battle steadily move towards your characters doing range attacks. This means that battles with large enemies will often push towards smaller enemies that prove a nuisance in battle unless you try and clear out the shrimp before going after the tuna.

2. AOE effects. You want to stand away from your other characters to minimize this. Your position when the enemy initiates the AOE matters, not your position when he executes it.

3. where you stand determines what portions of the enemy you can hit. If you're on his right side, you can only hit his right leg or arm, for example, on larger enemies.

Other than those reasons, there's little reason to shift your position in the game. It's far closer to FF11, FF12, and Dragon Age than it is to more action oriented games like Dark Cloud, PSO, and the Tales series.

It doesn't matter if you physically hit in FF11/12, Dragon Age, and WKC, the fact that you're standing close enough when you press the button to execute the attack, then it's all statistical, rather than a skill based thing on your part. When you switch to the more action based systems it turns more into a skill test, if you hit or miss largely depends on your skill in making your sword actually hit the enemy on screen.

You are right about the game not flowing well. This is a complaint I have about many games that are time sensitive. They often they are either too slow or too fast unless they really work on fine tuning the battle system.

Grandia is by far my favorite battle system. It is time dependent, but not time sensitive, so it gets around most of my complaints about active time systems in traditional rpgs. Time actually matters more in their system, but it's something to think strategically about rather than something forcing you to react faster. Another time-dependent but not time-sensitive game is Final Fantasy Tactics.

Well fair enough, and my statement may have come off more harsh than intended.

Partially because your natural assertion seemed to be it was either FPS or RPG. I assume that FPS was the first one to pop into your head.

I ramble... I enjoy pretty much any genre of game, if I had to lean I would lean towards platformers, Mario, Sonic and Ratchet and the irk.

I'm not too keen on RPGs, but do prefer them with either active battles like in the Mario RPG series or with action elements like in the Tales series.

As for the rest, it goes into details more on the battle system which just doesn't excite me so eh.

Well, it's just one of the axis and it's a good one for filtering criticism on a rather coarse level even though it's not really a good axis for categorizing things. It turned out the concern was a finer action vs statistical axis instead though. RPG vs FPS isn't really a good name for it though.

R&C is one of my favorites too, but because it is an action game with fair RPG and adventure elements (Less so in the first one.) I haven't really been a fan of Mario platformers in years, at least not anything since the SNES.

Yep, perfectly reasonable choices. Different is good, more gamers rather than less. Paper Mario is more of an action game than you think. It's certainly less statistical than just about every other rpg in existence. It's even more action based than Star Ocean, even though the action is on a limited set of controls and not full freedom of movement.

Nod. WKC isn't your kind of game since it's far less action than the Paper Mario games. It's only marginally my kind of game as well, being a Realtime RPG.

WKC in my opinion is awesome!

Are you going to get this Kaz? Online is VERY well done and heaps of fun with a group!

Trophies arent easy to get in this game! Over 20 hours alreay and only have two so far! >.<

Not everyones cup of tea but for me this is a fantastic jRPG that I have been waiting ages for!

I already have it, but I haven't had time to really play it.

Well make sure to add me as a friend in the game! Might be able to do a few quests together!

This game in my opinion is so much deeper then the reviews make out! Even when you finish the main story this game will continue for anyone interested in the multiplayer quests etc...

F*c* that!

I knew this wasnt going to be a game for you stuie

Got three now though! Over 30 hours ..........