Austin Daily Herald

“White Knight Chronicles II”

3.5/5

Rated T for Teen: PS3

Giant white robots may look awesome, but good art design won’t always save a game.

While “White Knight Chronicles II” makes key improvements, this Japanese attempt at a massively multiplayer online RPG doesn’t quite cut the mustard. It’s pretty at times, the art style is beautiful and the CGI scenes are gorgeous, yet there’s still not enough to make this game great.

WKC II is an interesting apology for a mediocre first game. The game’s battle system works a bit cleaner and is a tad less clunky. The action is pretty fast although there’s times when your NPC companions go haywire, leaving you up a creek without a healer. The customization aspect of the game is marvelous and even the Incorrupti (giant, awesome robots) can be customized to an extent. There’s massive amounts of quests, content and items to find both online and off.

What this game suffers from is a lack of originality and a somewhat stubborn approach to game design. The single player is monotonous and you’ll suffer from a so-so story with bad voice acting and a ridiculous tutorial. You can’t go online until you’ve made big gains in the single player mode, which makes all those boring, tedious fetch quests you’ll do to get better gear into a fun adventure with friends.

There’s better MMOs out there than WKC II, but there are few games so expansive. If you can spare more than 50 hours, you’ll get a ton of benefits for your Incorruptus, which can be taken online too. You even get to build your own town in the online mode, getting you great benefits and adding a nice Sims-like touch to the game.

Put in the time, and WKC II can be a lot of fun. It’s too bad the game makes you jump through too many hoops beforehand.

—Giant white robots and stunning art design draw in gamers.

—Tons of content to explore

—Tedious hoops and unoriginality cripple an otherwise fun MMORPG