While this is something long sought after in a feasible working manner, White Knight Chronicles does not break through the barrier. Instead, it has its moments of great functionality, but like any other online co-op experience, it can suffer from lagging or faulty connections and will have you retrying again and again, sometimes more! Unfortunately, the online is my biggest complaint about the title. Since it doesn't directly affect the single-player experience though, this is only a minor issue as far as I am concerned.

It would be extremely easy to dismiss the graphics of White Knight Chronicles as dated. However, taking into account the game's already been out for more than a year, White Knight Chronicles is an example of a beautiful RPG. Unfortunately, there are moments of framerate issues and occasional screen-tearing. The moments can get bothersome but never to the point of ruining the experience. One other complaint is the pop-in you will face in the game. Nothing as horrendous as in some other titles, but occasionally a shadow or a creature may pop into existence a little further into the environment. The pop-in, however, happens infrequently. In fact, the only time you may notice it is when a large creature materializes.

The voice track is another area where White Knight Chronicles falters. While most of the voice cast appears to have some experience in voice acting, some are way over the top. So much so in the case of one villain, you may never take the villain seriously. This is a problem and the removal of the Japanese dialogue from the game is puzzling since this is, after all, called the International Edition. I would normally say just turn the volume down to avoid the occasional grating voice acting, but that would be a disservice to the score of the game - a wonderful score that never becomes too annoying nor too sure of itself - a truly pleasant surprise.

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White Knight Chronicles does something that recent traditional RPGs have not: it has played it safe and close to genre conventions. While taking a worthwhile risk in the combat system, Level 5 doesn't stray from the old magic of what makes RPGs some of the greatest games published. Sure, you can easily write this off as a "been there done that" just by looking at the outside, but once you step into the world of Balandor, you'd be hard-pressed to find a good enough reason to leave. White Knight Chronicles may not herald the return of traditional RPGs with blazing affirmation, it is definitely a welcomed stepping stone for the genre on current-gen systems.

By Matthew Walker
CCC Project Coordinator