I want to like White Knight Chronicles II; to recommend it to you as a fellow RPG enthusiast. Don’t get me wrong – there are some wonderful aspects to WKCII. It features classic RPG elements like towns brimming with interesting Non-Player Characters to converse with; errands to run and bounties to collect. The visuals and music are inviting and serene. In fact, this is Level-5’s best-looking game yet.

Once you enter the “dungeon mode” of WKCII, however, it becomes a boring, repetitive and relentless grind-fest which quickly makes you forget the pleasant things about the game. Unfortunately a lot of modern Japanese RPGs share these unfortunate characteristics, and I’ll admit that there are plenty of gamers out there who like this type of drawn-out, extreme challenge. However, I’m not one of them and I feel the developers could have at least added an easy difficulty setting to make the game more accessible and quicker to “breeze through” than it is in its current state.

One thing the WKCII package isn’t short on is content. The Blu-ray for the game includes the first White Knight Chronicles which is a mammoth RPG on its own, let alone as part of a compilation. The original game has been re-mastered and features improved graphics, gameplay balancing and exactly the same menu aesthetics as the sequel. You can carry your items and abilities over to the second game using your completed WKC save file, but be warned that your character level will be reset to level 35 when you transfer your progress to WKCII. Just thought I’d warn you before you spent the rest of the year building your characters up to their maximum level so you could slice and dice the enemies in WKCII with reckless abandon.

White Knight Chronicles II is set in a highly stylised (and idealised) version of medieval Europe where various political powers jostle for control over certain territories. It’s exactly the same thing you’ve seen in countless other JRPGs and the cutscenes before and after story triggers do a pretty good job of making your eyes droop. The voice acting is pretty decent, and you can’t fault the actors when the script is the main culprit behind the humdrum nature of the narrative. What’s surprising is that the conversations with the hundreds of NPCs in the game are fairly entertaining, so it’s not as if the writers don’t have a good education behind them. It’s just that they seemingly lack the will to craft an original, compelling plot.

You begin the game by customising a character, but all this really does is add another playable protagonist to the mix during battle. During story events he or she just stands around looking dumb (quite literally), which certainly doesn’t help improve the impact of these scenes.

As I mentioned before, WKCII is a game of two halves. There’s the enjoyable town part and then there’s the frustrating dungeon part. Towns are vast, packed with detail and there’s always plenty to do as you run around chatting to people who invariably ask you to run errands for them. You can even recruit townsfolk to live in your custom village which a very neat concept indeed (although reminiscent of Dark Cloud). The map and menu design is very well executed and does a sterling job of keeping track of all your quests and showing you where your next objectives are to be found.

The overall scale of WKCII is immense, and the game’s dungeons are no exception. Expect to spend at least an hour navigating each one until you reach the next story trigger. In one highly frustrating instance, I spent a ton of time reaching the end of a dungeon only to be pointed back to the entrance again – truly soul shattering stuff. The frustration is compounded by the fact that enemies respawn after awhile. Is it not enough to defeat a hundred plus enemies in a dungeon without the wretched things having to respawn all the time?! I can only hope that the developers see the light and patch in an easy mode which makes battles easier and reduces the number of enemies in the game’s huge range of dungeons.

Save points are few and far between and if you fall trying to reach the next one, it’s back to the last save area for you and your crew. Being able to save anywhere would have at least softened the blow of mindless, time-consuming combat a bit, but the developers opted for the old-school console RPG route on this occasion.

Obviously a big part of the appeal of the White Knight Chronicles series is being able to co-op with your friends – up to six of you can brave the dungeons together in the sequel. Unfortunately the review copy I received didn’t include an online pass code so I only got to experience the singleplayer campaign.

To its credit, WKCII features a very deep combat engine which blends action RPG elements with a turn-based, menu-driven system. You can run around while you select your next attack from a horizontal menu spanning the entire screen, or put your sword away and run straight past your enemy if escape seems like the more attractive option. You can choose to directly control anyone from your party, and assign tactics to the remaining members to effectively assist you in battle.

The sheer number of weapons, armour and skills in the game is overwhelming, even before you factor in the special abilities the “knight” variant of your characters boasts. These noble giants are a huge help against larger foes, and tower above ordinary grunts giving you a great sense of power as you pummel the battlefield. As you administer blows and take hits your “action chips” will build up, and once they’re at a certain level you can transform into the aforementioned knight for a limited period of time.

Developers Level-5 is well-known for its work on the Professor Layton series, as well as many other DS titles such as Dragon Quest IX. White Knight Chronicles II is one of its few games on a high-definition console, and the leap to a more powerful system is a wonderful opportunity for the members of its talented art and technical team to demonstrate their prowess.

The environments in the game are beautifully rendered, and enticingly stretch off into the distance. Many of the outdoor areas have a serene feeling to them with rippling water meandering through a valley or leaves gently falling from autumn trees. The frame rate suffers from slowdown occasionally and the recycled environments from the original White Knight Chronicles look dated when compared with the new locales. Overall, though, this is a fine-looking game which makes the phrase “only possible on Playstation 3” pop into your head.

The musical score is another strong aspect of WKCII’s presentation. The tunes are melodic and subtle – especially affecting when you’re standing still outdoors admiring one of the game’s many stunning vistas.

Look no further than White Knight Chronicles II if you’re the type of gamer who loves lengthy co-op RPGs with an emphasis on combat and with enough content to last you a good couple of months. However, if these sorts of JRPGs have proved frustrating and soul-crushing in the past then don’t get your hopes up for this game. In my opinion the developers haven’t struck the right balance between challenge and reward that a title like Demon Souls possesses. This is a real pity because the “town mode” in WKCII is right up there with the best JRPGs in recent memory.

Purchase: