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Back in December 2008, Japan got a new RPG title called The White Knight Chronicles. A new Role Playing Game developed by Japan Studio and Level-5 (the same guys who brought us such titles as Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy) and published by the good old people at Sony Entertainment.

Almost two years has passed since the release in Japan, then finally in north america on February 2nd 2020, the game decides to show up on game store shelves, then on February 19th, us people on europe finally get the taste of the action. Now I know release dates have a bit of a gap between japan and america, but two years? seriously!?

So what has this title got to offer a quite frankly crowded genre that is the Japanese RPG? Well the story revolves around a party of characters who’s shindig was crashed by an evil organisation. This organisation has gone and stolen a princess and your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to go and save her. Along your way you stumble across a huge mechanoid suit of white armour which you can then morph into when you com across the games bigger and more challenging battles. Yes that’s right, we are looking at your classic medieval fantasy based game with a robot suit of armour.

Fans of Final Fantasy XII will be a little at home here, as the battle system for the smaller battles is set in realtime. Much like FF XII you will be running at enemies brandishing a sword over your head, so if you want to do a battle cry as you do so then feel free too. During battle you hack and slash your  way through enemies in real-time, the more you attack the more action chips you will obtain so you can unleash some more powerful attacks and spells. Or you can save up your chips to morph into you 50 foot mechanoid and deal some hefty damage. This is cool and all but I can imagine it being a tad overkill if you were to morph into this night if you are against some basic enemies. Thinking about it though, morphing into a huge robot so you can kick butt sounds a bit Power Rangers to me, but hey, whatever is effective in battle right?

One of the games more interesting features is character customisation, this is a different road for a JRPG to take as most of the games in this genre you play, only go as far as to let you change the name of the main protagonist. At the start of the game you are given a nice selection of sliders to change your character, and get them looking like yourself, or if your not comfortable with that you can probably try to make them look like Squall from Final Fantasy VIII, It’s a free country.

Having a fully customisable character comes at a price though, from what I have heard the game centers more around the other characters in your party, making you the mute 3rd wheel who has a creepy vacant stare in the background. But if the story and game play are good then this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.

White Knight Chronicles looks like an interesting title, Your classic JRPG mixed with character customisation and a huge mechanoid knight. All you gamers with a PS3 out there should probably pick it up, as it’s out now. I suggest you grab is quick before your soul gets taken over by Final Fantasy XIII in March.

Garv