Looks to be pretty good when played as single player.

Videogirl said: Stats87 said: *~Onna76~* said: Read Amazon Japan comments from serious gamers and tell me again if the game sounds so great... Indeed Legend11, if they said Haze was great then they don't sound very trustworthy to me concerning WKC if you ask me.   Amazon Japan has this, and since I cannot read Japanese all this tells me is that some people loved it and others didn't. 星5つ:  (4) 星4つ:  (9) 星3つ:  (10) 星2つ:  (7) 星1つ:  (9)     The version with bundled CD has this : 星5つ:  (46) 星4つ:  (30) 星3つ:  (22) 星2つ:  (6) 星1つ:  (10)             The bad : Shorter than the 100 hours promised, maps and cities too big = sensation of emptines, story good but not great plus the fact it ends with a cliffhanger = sens of incompletion for the player, they don't like charadesign of the male characters and find the game monotonous. The good : Great liberty in customisation character design, combos, great varitety of competences to expand. They like the fact to be able to use any of the parties as lead during exploration/battles. Wide range of environements and pleasant to look at, music is really good. Online game is appreciated, notably the fact to be able to collect items and bring them back in the story mode.  Very few loading time seamless exploration.

Yeah, most people seem to like it.  The guys on Gaf that have it are really enjoying it:

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=14151790&postcount=823

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=14144866&postcount=785

As for the comments you made, I agree with the bit about the character models.  I find that many of the faces look outright goofy.  To be honest, I find that Level 5 excels with cel-shading.  As mediocre as Rogue Galaxy was (imo), I thought it was an absolutely beautiful game.    And then there's the awesome Dark Cloud 2.

Hell, just compare the awesome character designs of White Knight to the in-game models. If those character designs had been brought to life via cel-shading, it would've been great.

Of course, cel-shading probably wouldn't work with the whole character creation thing, so it probably won't make it's way into the sequel either.  :(

I have a feeling that White Knight Chronicles will be better recieved by western reviewers than it was by Famitsu. Frankly, White Knight Chronicles has always had a distict western feel to its gameplay and features in comparison to almost all other JRPGs. Honestly, I have difficulty even thinking of another JRPG with an online component. I would imagine that could be part of the reason why Famitsu rated it so harshly. Perhaps WKC is just too western for the Japanese.

@makingmusic: Yeah the impressions on gaf are pretty positive compared to what some japanese gamers are saying. Still though, there seems to be a host of minor issues (no actual pausing, no autorun, problems with the tageting system). I hope these issues are addressed and patched into the japanese version and ship with the us version.

previews always make the game sound good. And what makes famitsu wrong and 1up right?

I have found that highly hyped games tend to get over rated big time in the U.S.

He seems a little overly defensive of the game - he says: "Don't believe everything you read. The game is no disaster." Famitsu never said it was a disaster.

The game looks good though.

Can't wait to get this game next year!! Well, hopefully my bro will get this game >_>

14/40 (14/40!!!!) Mass Effect

34/40 Haze

I'll trust ANY western publication over Famitsu "reviewers".

Ah - and WKC has a 4/5 on amazon.jp atm. More people rated 5 than rated 1/2. Currently 46 ratings for 5, 30 for 4, 8 for 2, and 11 for 1. Love it or hate it game it seems to me.

http://www.amazon.co.jp/gp/product/B000J0R3G0/ref=s9subs_c8_63_at1-rfc_g1_si1?pf_rd_m=AN1VRQENFRJN5&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=0FPM11RFRWZSAE0KR8P7&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=463376756&pf_rd_i=489986

seriously they give Mass Effect a 14 wow

Hope the single player mode is good, I dont like playing this kind of games online, Mario Kart is one thing but RPG's... not so much.