trailer for Level 5’s latest RPG, White Knight Story, was first shown off at last year’s Tokyo Games Show, blowing people away with what the then-unreleased PlayStation 3 would be capable of. Of course, there’s more to gaming than just pretty pictures, and we were eager to get our hands on it and see if it was worth all the hype. This year, our patience paid off, and we got to check it out for ourselves in a hands-on demo at TGS.
The sample mission was a standard escort job, where our three heroes had to make sure that a wagon could move down a road safely. After wandering thought the grass and checking out the flowers for a bit, we made a beeline toward the red blip on our minimap. Red blips are rarely portents of good news, especially in escort missions. Fortunately, the enemies started off on the low end of things. A couple of masked goblin-like critters were putzing around just off the road, with one of them idly rolling a ball of mud (or worse) on the ground. We got in close and hit the circle button to draw our weapon and initiate combat (there aren’t random battles in White Knight Story).
One of the most interesting things about the game is its customizable chain combo system. Players earn new moves and techniques as they progress through the games, which can be placed into a bank of slots. In the demo, there was room for seven attacks in a combo. Each of the three characters had room for three combos, too. For example, we set up a combo that initiated combat with a quick sword slash followed by a move that launched our opponent in the air, which was then completed with a satisfying slam to the ground. We’re not sure how far players will have to play to have access to this many attacks and slots.
Once combos are set up, they’re initiated by tapping the attack button at the right moment. An on-screen prompt lets you know when you should hit it to continue the chain. While we were slashing the poor fellas, our two teammates were running around doing the best they could to fight their own battle. The game is obviously still in the early stages of development, and some of their moves—particularly the way they circled enemies—looked kind of strange. Still, the purpose of the mission is to protect the wagon, not stand by and critique your team’s footwork.
After taking out several more clusters of enemies, we started seeing a higher caliber of baddies. Instead of fighting those goofy little guys, we had to battle armored bandits, who were actually prepared for battle. Our combo seemed to be tuned well enough to take most of them down with ease, though. Call it dumb luck—all of the menus and attacks were in Japanese, so we stumbled our way through the combo section as best we could.
Once the road was cleared, we fought a boss battle. A towering figured appeared from behind a hill, wielding a club and looking as though he wasn’t having the best day. After the cutscene, we started wailing on him, to no avail. Fortunately, the main character, Lenard, has the handy ability of turning into a white knight. And it’s not just any white knight, either. After jamming his sword into a special slot on his bracer and performing some kind of arcane ritual, Lenard made up the 30-foot deficit and stood face-to-face with the formerly intimidating enemy.
After a few slashes, the giant toppled to the ground and the demo was over. It was a brief but good demo, highlighting the impressive graphics and the depth of the combo system. The combat is interesting, but it seemed as though the animations and AI weren’t quite up to their level yet. If a chain was broken in midair, enemies had a tendency to slowly sink back to the ground, landing on their feet and acting as though nothing had happened. Some enemies watched their friends get attacked for entirely too long before snapping awake and getting in to help.
Those minor (and fixable) issues aside, it’s clear that Level 5 is still one of the most reliable RPG developers around. We’re excited to tweak our combos even more—in English—and become even more efficient on the battlefield. We’ll let you know when we learn more about this game.