White Knight Chronicles II E3 Preview

One of the games I was looking forward to from D3 publisher was the upcoming White Knight Chronicles II.  Developed by Level 5 and the direct sequel to 2008’s White Knight Chronicles and taking place one year later, you take control of Leonard and his allies, including the player-run Avatar once again.

In the years after the release of the original game, Level 5 has taken the time to tweak the issues with it and improve where needed for this game.  You can bring your Avatar over from WKC, which is good as one of the biggest changes is that the Avatar now has his own Incorruptus, which is completely customizable as is Leonard’s.

The Avatar’s Incorruptus can go online, which leads to the next major change to the game, as they’ve increased the number of players that can go online and quest together at a time from four to six.  As the Avatar can have his or her own Incorruptus, this means that all six players have their own Incorruptus which can make for some interesting fights.

While you can bring your character over from the first game, for those who have never played it, the great news is that a remastered version of the original White Knight Chronicles is included on the disc, and also has all of the improvements from the second game added to it.

Most of the changes are more minor in nature, however.  The Active Time Battle system has returned, but it moves just a bit faster this time, which makes the combat almost real-time, and definitely makes the game run a bit more smoothly.  Another update is that you begin battle with the slots are full, which allows you to begin combat by using abilities.

Also, positioning now counts.  In the original game, combat was almost like an MMO.  If the target was within range, you could hit it, and it did the same amount of damage no matter where you or they were.  In WKC2, where you are in relation to your target, the type of weapon you’re using and the type of attack you use all will affect the amount of damage that you do in combat.

Also, as in the first title, you can target body parts.  This time, however, you can combine this ability with skills that can disrupt spells, disable attacks, or many other effects.  This will allow players to be much more strategic in combat than previously possible.

To end the demo, I was shown a boss battle against a magi who transformed into a giant … thing.  However, he was protected by a number of crystals which caused him to take much less damage.  While the rest of the party attacked normally, the Incorruptus used a shield bash to damage and then destroy the crystals, and then used a number of attacks targeting various parts of the boss to cause different reactions.

With the game coming out in just a couple of months, it won’t be long before we can see how these changes shape up.  Still, combining the original game with the sequel and improving upon it is definitely making this look like a good value from the get go.  We’ll have more on this as its release date approaches.

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