O Wizel, white warrior, wielder of the ancient sword, grant me your power. Verto!
Describe White Knight Chronicles here.Okay. Take your standard JRPG styled adventure, and slap a Guymelef in there as the most badass Limit Break ever.White Knight Chronicles is the first game for the PS3 by developer Level 5 Games. You are... well, you - the game features an insanely robust character creator, which was actually used to create every NPC in the game. However, the main character is Leonard, a seventeen year old boy of no real importance until, in an effort to save the princess of Balandor, he acquires the Incorruptus "White Knight", a seven-meter tall suit of white and blue armor. What follows is your standard RPG fare, involving princesses, evil conspiracies... and Humongous Mecha.While not exactly critically acclaimed (reviews tend to be mixed, with some reviewers giving it 8-9, while others setting it firmly in a 5-6 range, the general consensus being that it's not much new, but it's not bad either) the game has an impressive cult following due to its long development time and interesting game play.A sequel was released in Japan in 2010.It has a character sheet that is currently under construction.
Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: Item Binding. To get the best items and Incorruptus parts, you've got to do binding. But to bind the best equipment, you need the exactly right bits and pieces of monsters or flora (most of which have random drop rates approaching the .000% range), or else you're screwed. So go buy a straw hat and a pitch fork, because you're going farming for a couple of hours ... HA HA, no days.
Advertised Extra: You. Despite the trailers and the fact that you, not Leonard, are the one mentioned on the back of the (sealed, so people can't see the intro in the manual) game box, be fully prepared to have your avatar stand in the background of scenes, nodding dumbly, with hardly anyone even addressing dialogue directly to him or her — if your avatar is even in the scene at all.
Air Jousting: Black Knight vs Ancient Dragon in the first game, Dragon Knight vs Netherwyrm and White Knight vs Black Knight in the second.
Anticlimax: Both games sputter across the finish line when they finally get to their endings, but its particularly egregious in the second game, which feels like the ending of a Act Two of a three act story, when it is the ending of that story.
Anticlimax Boss: The Sun King only in the first game though, because Princess Cisna's spell holds back his power. You get to fight him without this assistance in the sequel, and, as a result, he lives up to his reputation as a formidable boss-fight.
Apathetic Citizens: You'd never know there was anything wrong with the world just by visiting the towns. Hell, Balandor's about as bright and cheery as it ever was the next day after the castle is raided, their king is murdered, and their princess is kidnapped.
Arson Murderand Jaywalking: This little exchange while on Redhorn Island near the climax of White Knight Chronicles 2
Kara: He'll pay for manipulating me!
Yulie: And for betraying Balandor!
Caesar: And for killing my puppy! Okay, I made that one up.
Attack Animal: The Netherwyrm was made 10,000 years ago as a weapon that can fight forever without being killed or defeated. 10,000 years later it is still around, spreading it's poison.
Back from the Dead: Kara who died at the ruins in the Dogma Rift was revived by Father Yggdra because she still has a role to play.
Badass Cape: The White Knight, the Sun King, and Eldore sport these. You can also buy or bind some pretty badass capes as accessories.
Badass Normal: Cyrus. Whenever he is not drinking or wallowing in self-pity he is seen in the midst of battle, tearing through hordes of enemy soldiers.
Beam Spam: The farian navy. It literally rains energy spears when they start shelling the Yshrenian forces.
Becoming the Mask: This the majority of Kara's character arc, to the point where it happens twice. Once before the game starts when she falls into the identity of General Dragias, and the Black Knight, and again when she becomes the Kara the party knows for much of the game.
Berserk Button: Dragons don't like seeing their kin get attacked or killed.
Big Damn Heroes: Leonard and the gang when they save Miu and Scardigne at the beginning of the game.
Bishounen: At one point in Albana, during the first game, you're required to play as Leonard and walk around looking for information. One of the NPCs the player speaks to will hit on him. It's also lampshaded by Kara.
Blood Knight: Shapur became this after stealing the Black Knight.
Bonus Dungeon: Vellgander. Madoras comes back to life after the plot of the second game concludes just to drag it out of the water and challenge you to clear it. It's Nintendo Hard.
British Accents: The Phibianacci people talk like this. Eldore too.
By the Power of Grayskull!: To activate the Knight, a pactmaker has to recite a short incantation. Each Knight has a unique incantation but all of them follow this general structure "O name, descriptive title, X of the ancient Y, grant me your power. Verto!".
The Call Knows Where You Live: Hello? Oh, one moment please. Hey, Leonard, Yulie, and Princess Cisna? There's an evil midget and a giant Walking Tank on the line. They're asking for you.
Cast from Hit Points: Inverted with the Knights, whose simplest of physical attacks eat up mana instead. At the same time, partially supported, in that if a Knight runs out of MP, they revert back to human form.
The Cavalry: In spades in the second game. Both Faria and Greede come to Balandor's aid in the Final Battle against Yshrenia. First the Farian navy shows up to help break through to Redhorn Isle, and then the frickin' Demithor appears out of nowhere to help out too.
For example the swordmage set worn by a man consists of black and purple armor worn over a darkbrown full body suit. The same set worn by a woman gets rid of the fullbody suit, revealing the leg armor to be nothing more than a metal thong with kneesocks-esque greaves. The chest armor is ommitted to make way for a big Cleavage Window which combined with an extreme case of Absolute Cleavage allows a genereous view of the female character's bust. All in all it gives the wonderful impression of the character being completely naked under the armor.
Character Customization: Not just your Digital Avatar, but your whole party up to a point. You can choose to make Leonard a healer but he'll have a much easier time with a sword or axe.
The Chessmaster: Ledom manages to play two sides of a war against each other in order to fulfill his own goals. It works. Flawlessly.
Conveniently an Orphan: The five Pactmakers. Being stolen from your parents, shoved inside giant suits of armor, and then shot forward in time 10,000 years will do that to you, though.
Cutscene Incompetence: Ok, granted there wouldn't be much of a plot if the heroes did everything in their power to save the princess during them. But, would it kill them to at least try? It's funny and silly at the same time. Especially when they half-assedly "rescue" her, only to have the bad guys re-capture her two seconds later.
Cut Short: The ending to the second game smacks of this.
The Dulcinea Effect: Leonard for Cisna like you wouldn't believe. Somewhat alleviated if you consider they met extremely briefly years before.
Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors: Fire beats Ice, and for some reason Ice also beats Fire. Likewise, Wind beats Earth, but Earth beats Wind.
Eleventh Hour Super Power: The Avatar gets his or her own Knight at the very end of the second game, just in time to go into the final dungeon.
While its not overtly stated, the Arc Knight is the only Knight not tied to Emperor Madoras, and is thus the only Knight that is usable against the Final Boss when all the Yshrenian Knights are destroyed. Plot-wise, this allows for you to finally be the hero of the game ... and still get zero credit for it.
This might be because some gamers might have decided to wait till after they beat the game to try and get their Knight and did not necessarily know the were going to lose the others Knights right before the Final Boss. Level 5 might of realized this as well, so they decided not to include the Arc Knight in the story at all.
Empathic Weapon: The Moon Maiden is shown to have a mind of her own and within the White Knight resides a Phantom that may or may not be Emperor Madoras.
Energy Bow: The Moon Maiden's bow. The laser arrows it fires are quite small but the effects are massive. One shot is enough to down one of Yshrenia's aircraft carrier sized airships.
Enigmatic Minion: Shapur, for much of the first game. The twist is, he's not conniving, just crazy.
Escort Mission: Most of the guests that join your party at random points can't die. If they do, it's considered a Game Over.
Failure Hero: Leonard—to the point where the "hero" part is highly debatable.
Failure Knight: Cyrus and Eldore. They handle their failures quite differently, though. Eldore leaps across time to forcibly redeem himself, while Cyrus becomes a wandering drunkard for a game-and-a-half.
Fetch Quest: Phibianacci's errands. The search for the Goddess statue. The search for the Insignias. Errands in general. ...Hell, both bloody games are giant fetch quests.
Foreshadowing: In the very first camp Miu advises against overusing the Knight's power because she senses something sinister beneath it's metal surface and it only gets more obvious from there. The game takes every chance it gets to remind you that something is very wrong with the White Knight.
Forgot About His Powers / Gameplay and Story Segregation: This is at play a lot in the first game, particularly regarding the party's hapless attempts to rescue Cisna. Leonard (and Ceasar) often flat-out do not transform into their Knight forms until after the Magi throw a similarly sized Rent-A-Zilla out to keep them at bay.
Once an area has been cleared, the party whiz back and forth from one end of the map to the other in the first game. On foot. The Shagna, the supposed Global Airship is acquired by the party at the end of the first game during the ending cutscene, and is only used in the second game as transportation at the beginning and end of the game.
Good Is Dumb: Invoked by the villains, and lampshaded by the heroes. The party, by its own admission, is notable for:
In fact, when they finally do do something smart, they have to hide it from the player because it would otherwise strain credibility.
Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Not a single one of the main characters wears a helmet, and the only equipment available for your character's head are glasses.
Averted. The second game had a special armor set for those who purchased the first run in Japan; the armor looked like the White Knight - helmet and all.
Henshin Hero / Humongous Mecha (It's kinda debatable on which this actually is. Probably an affectionate mix of both.)
Heroic Mime: The Avatar. He or she will grunt, groan, scream out the names of his companions if they're near death, and say "Verto!" when transforming, but is otherwise mute.
Heroic Sacrifice: The Demithor turns itself to stone in order to halt the advance of Garmatha.
Heroes Prefer Swords: Averted. You have many different weapon-type skill sets to choose from for each character (although some characters can't use some specific weapon types). Your Avatar can use every type, however.
The High Queen: Cisna, in everything but title. Seriously, she's never technically coroneted, even a year after her ascension to the throne.
Horned Humanoid: The Farians. Men have deer-like antlers while the women sport ram-like horns.
Human Sacrifice: Kara's sister was sacrificed in order to fuse three Gigantes into one creature.
Idiot Ball: Leonard and the rest of the heroes spend most of their time in the first game asking the villains to release the princess, and then make no move to stop them when they make good their escape.
Indecisive Parody: The main plot is "serious" enough, but when you sit right down and look at it, most of what happens is actually pretty goofy.
He pulls this on his own son Caesar in a Thanatos Gambit to try and get him to act responsibly. He kicks Caesar out of his house in a fit of rage after learning he'd fashioned a (pretty damn good) replica of a statue that was responsible for him meeting his wife, more-or-less saying I Have No Son. Then he goes and dies without ever reconciling with Caesar. And then Caesar finds a letter from him telling him he knew the statue was a fake all along, and he actually treasured it more than the original because it was Caesar's own handiwork, and he threw a shitfit... just 'cause. Come to think of it, scratch the "Facade" part off—the Count's a bona-fide Jerkass.
Jiggle Physics: The Succubi's breasts flap around all over the place.
Just in Time: A staple of the first game's plot. Even though the Magi have an airship, and you're on foot, and you're in a race against them to get to the next Plot Coupon point on the map, you always arrive right as shit's about to go down, even if you've spent nine hours Level Grinding. It seems like a huge coincidence, until Belcitane straight up tells you he sits around and waits for you to finally show up because he needs you there because the aforementioned shit going down is all a part of the plan.
Leeroy Jenkins: Osmund. His men would prefer it if his "plans" would include more sneaking and flanking and less "full-speed ahead" or "death before dishonour".
Legacy Character: General Dragias, whose current incarnation is Kara
Like a Son to Me: The relationship between King Valtos and Cyrus.
Load-Bearing Boss: The Black Usurper and Emperor Madoras. Both appear to hold up the first and second game's final dungeons, respectively.
Lost Technology: See all that stuff the Magi are using like the airships, tanks, attack drones, the flying fortress or the giant cannon? All of that is already 10,000 years old.
My Greatest Failure: His failure to prevent the king's death and Cisna's abduction hits Cyrus hard.
New Game Plus: The first game allows you to start a new game with all the items and gear (except storyline items) you have aquired and your level reset to 35. The world also features new chests which are filled with Guild Rank 7/8 weapons and gear that allow a smooth start into online questing. The second game let's you keep items, gear and levels but doesn't offer new chests like the first did.
Nigh Invulnerability: The Knights are indestructible, capable of routing entire battlefields alone. The Sun King takes it a step further as it is even impervious to the attacks from its fellow Knights. Until you get Falcyos.
The Netherwyrm as well. The "deathless" part of its boss subtitle wasn't just for show.
No Export for You: White Knight Chronicles: Origins and the Avatar Story DLC never made it to North America.
Obviously Evil: Belcitane, Shapur, Sarvain. Grazel also abandons any pretense of, ah, well, not being evil in the second game when he shows up in black spiky Evil Overlord armor.
One Game for the Price of Two: Inverted. The sequel includes an Updated Rerelease of the entire first game (with the second's graphics and gameplay), making it two games for the price of one. That said, the second game reuses every location from the first game with only six new visitable locations, so the Enhanced Remake of White Knight Chronicles I came about by default.
One-Man Army: Every pactmaker as demonstrated by Shapur who conquered Albana thanks to the power of the Black Knight.
One-Winged Angel: All over the place. Every named character and mook who has a summoning card can and will do this.
Orcus on His Throne: Grazel spends the majority of the second game sitting on his enormous Cool Throne and gloating over the puny efforts of his adversaries.
Perpetual Molt: The Black Knight whenever it busts out its wings
Rags to Riches: Cyrus started out as a homeless orphan and worked his way up to captain of the castleguard. End credits seem to suggest that he has taken Sarvain's position.
Really 10,000 Years old: All of the original five pactmakers, plus Eldore and Sarvain/Ledom.
Redemption Demotion: Kara, again. Though she comes back in the second game, she spends much of her time as Scardinge, so you can't change her equipment aside from her weapon, and she loses her ability to transform into the Black Knight. Not that you could use it in the first place.
Reincarnation: Princess Cisna is the reincarnation of Queen Mureas of Athwan.
Reluctant Warrior: The Moon Maiden refused to take further part in battle and sealed herself inside Father Yggdra. She changes her mind for Yulie.
Retcon: Happens in-game. Initially it appears that Kara killed King Valtos in the guise of General Dragias, making her look like a Complete Monster sociopath. Its later revealed that while Karais General Dragias, she wasn't the Dragias that killed Valtos. Who was really in the armour at the time isn't revealed until the second game. And, suprise! It was Evil Chancellor Sarvain, the guy everyone's always hated anyway.
Retired Badass: The legendary mercenary "Iron Fist" retired from his job and now works as wine merchant in Balandor.
Sealed Evil in a Can: Madoras, who's soul is locked in the five Knights, but mostly inside the White Knight.
Sequel Difficulty Drop: The first game isn't exactly diffacult, but Origins is very very easy, and even for the more difficult bosses, the strategy of "add more + to your equipment, and go into Power Ranger mode before you die" will get you through them.
Sequel Difficulty Spike: The story mode in the sequel is much harder than in the first game. Monsters are more numerous (including giant mooks), have more HP, hit harder, and your final line of defense, the Knights, are much weaker and there are several stretches near the end of the game that leave you without any Knights at all.
Schizo Tech: The world as a whole is set in medieval european fantasy but the city of Greede seems to be in the middle of the industrial revolution, Yshrenia's army is flying around in giant airships while deploying tanks and attack drones on the ground and the farians outfitted their ships with beam weaponry.
So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: Thanks to a mounting series of plot contrivances, there's a good ten-hour stretch of the second game that leaves you without any character who is able to transform into an Incorruptus. Cue several vicious boss fights.
The first game does this too, though not as egregiously, as Kara and Eldore are the only two playable characters who never get (usable) Incorrupti.
So Proud of You: King Valtos assures Cyrus of this with his last breath.
Spikes of Villainy: Grazel is seen rocking these in the second game. General Dregias has them too, to a lesser extent in the first game.
Spiritual Successor: To Level-5's unreleasedTrue Fantasy Live Online, from which it (probably) borrowed it's character creation system.
Split Personality: Setti created Grazel as a reaction to Medius trying to kill him
Sticks to the Back: Played straight with longswords, two-handed axes and spears. When wearing certain form-fitting pieces of armor, said weapons even levitate visibly away from the character's body a slight bit.
Super Power Meltdown: The Black Knight goes out of control creating the Black Usurper when Shapur murders Kara and steals its Ark from her. He manages to get it under control after he's defeated, but his mental health takes a huge hit from that point on.
Sword Beam: Three attacks in each of the axe, short sword and long sword skill trees are blade beams. White Knight, Black Knight and Sun King can do this as well.
the sequel gives us the Sword of Falcyos, the new "only sword able to damage the Sun King"
Take Your Time: This is at play through both games, but it becomes inescapable at the end of the second game when your given the opportunity to walk away from the Final Battle for the fate of the world while its raging around you to go do sidequests and run errands for the peasantry.
Telepathy: With the Dragon Knight's Knight Arc Caesar gained the Dragon Sight which lets him look into the hearts of people, revealing their true colors. It's not fullblown mindreading though and some people can block it.
Time Skip: Between Part I and Part II. Cisna says that it has been a year has passed since Grazel reclaimed his ark and declared that he and his followers where the second coming of the Yshrenian Empire.
Took a Level in Badass: Yulie, Cisna, and Miu in the sequel. They each become a Knight, a Queen, and an Archduchess respectively.
Time Travel: The Retrospecticon allows Leonard and the gang to go into the past. They find that they can't actually change history, however, but they can take objects with them back to the present.
Transformation Is a Free Action: Played with as you can still get hit while performing the incantation, up until when you say "Verto!"
Traitor Shot: Sarvain is introduced with one of these, for gods sakes! Kara also gets a lot of these in the first game.
Turns Red: Every Giant Mook except for the golems. Those turn yellow instead.
Twenty Bear Asses: Lampshaded by a Farian scholar who is baffled by human behaviour.
Fidel:"Holy Walnuts! You did it! You went right out and brought me a bunch of random crap, even though I didn't promise you anything."
Two Part Trilogy: Inverted ala-Xenosaga. Though the second game wraps up the dangling plot threads from the first game, it still seems like it's the second act of a three act story.
Unusable Enemy Equipment: Despite Kara being in your party for the majority of both games, you never get the chance to control the Black Knight. You sure fight it a hell of a lot though.
The Unreveal: A roundabout example: It's never revealed to anyone but the audience that Sarvain killed Queen Floraine, not some Farian assassin, as was assumed.
Unspoken Plan Guarantee: At a point late in the game, Setti makes the other characters believe that Eldore, who they met early on, had been setting up their acquisition of the Knights as an attempt to unite them together and take the power for himself. This causes Eldore to teleport away. However, when they set up camp later that day, all the playable characters, including a returning Eldore, confront Setti, revealing that they knew what Setti was up to, as well as who he really is—Grazel.
Unusual Euphemism: "The don's got his fingers in every pie in town."
Villains Act, Heroes React: The heroes don't have any motivations beyond "Save Cisna" in game one, and then "Stop Yshrenia" in game two. The villains motivation is slightly more active, but still consists of "Take Over the World", of course.
Your Princess Is in Another Castle: Princess Cisna, who's kidnapped four times in the first game. Once she's rescued, however, she stays rescued in the sequel.
Weapon of Choice: The game has a surprisingly wide arsenal of equipable weapon types:
What Happened to the Mouse?: Kara's sister who wasn't actually her sister is largely forgotten about after the party moves on from Albana, as is the fact that she wasn't really her sister.
This also happens to Brimflamme, who's last seen tearing away from the Yshrenian fortress on Redhorn Isle before the Garmatha lifts off. In this case it's more like What Happened to theEldritch Abomination?
What the Hell Is That Accent?: Everyone seems to have roughly North American accents; except for the Farians, who sound vaguely Spanish; Eldore, who's incredibly British; the Toads, who are shockingly Cockney; and the Papitaurs, who sound ... weird.
With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Shapur's mental health took a turn for the worse after he stole the Black Knight. He develops Blood Knight tendencies and goes apeshit when the knight was taken from him in the final battle. His addiction to the Knight's power is what costs him his life in the end.
World Tree: Father Yggdra, the giant sentient tree in the midst of Faria.
You Are Too Late: Grazel had already aquired the Sun King when Leonard and the gang arrived on scene to stop him from doing so.
You Can't Fight Fate: While the Retrospecticon allows you to go to the past and take some things (like the Insignias) with you, it doesn't have the power to change events of the past. Miu and the party learn this the hard way.
You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: One of the first things Madoras does after his revival is kill Grazel. He makes it quick and painless because Grazel was a useful pawn.
It's a bit of Laser-Guided Karma on his part, seeing as how he pulled the same move on Belcitane halfway through game one.
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