I’m always up for a good RPG. I don’t tend to buy as many of them as your typical action, fighting, or sports game because of how long it takes to beat one. That being said, all of the RPGs that I’ve played lately have been great. The Last Story, Final Fantasy XIII and XIII-2, Kingdom Hearts II, etc. I can’t say that I had outrageously high hopes for White Knight Chronicles at first, but this is also part of the RPG style of thinking. I usually don’t really get into it until the plot is underway. Because of this, White Knight Chronicles has been in my backlog for possibly over 2 years. I died instantly in the first level and never went back. Now, I finally got around to going back and completing it. White Knight Chronicles is certainly an RPG that I’d recommend to anyone and it’s one of the best that I’ve experienced.
The plot in White Knight Chronicles is surprisingly basic for an RPG. Of course, there are many subplots and other plots introduced to make the game longer, but I am covering the game as a whole so it’s pretty basic from the way that I am discussing it. Leonard, Terry, and Yulie deliver some wine to a castle during a party, but they are late as per usual. That’s when another army attacks and monsters invade the place. They are driven off, but not before the Black Knight murders the King. Much more importantly, the princess is kidnapped and Leonard quickly goes to protect her. The heroes ultimately lose the Princess and now the three of them must team up with a strange man named Eldore to rescue her. The adventure takes them through many areas and there are several plot twists. Seriously, there are about a dozen twists in the final few cutscenes.
The plot is fun enough and the open world feeling of the game makes it all cool. It’s typically sunny out so the game is actually very light hearted despite the calamities and the deaths. We have a subplot where a few guards are sad about this and go on a journey, but this goes nowhere. The end of the game shows that they are still walking so that unsubtlely hints that it would be covered in the sequel. The concept of saving the princess may be pretty old at this point, but it’s still good enough. There is also the fact that Leonard has the power of the White Knight within him and he can transform. There are 5 Knights in the prophecy and the heroes need to make sure that none of them fall into the hands of the villains. Let the games begin!
Leonard is the main character of the game and I can’t say that I really cared for him. He definitely wasn’t a bad character, but he didn’t have much of a personality and it was hard to root for him. Luckily, his worst scene was reversed as there was a plot twist behind it. He wants to rescue Princess Cisna and he’s earnest about it, but he’s more into romance than most leads. I just couldn’t really take him seriously and it got worse when he constantly let the villains get away with murder (literally) and never stops them. Why is Leonard so slow when it counts? (This also applies to the rest of the heroes for the most part)
Kara is introduced at around the middle of the story or perhaps a little earlier. She’s really serious compared to the rest of the cast and she is always exchanging hostility with Eldore. The party members may not always get along, but at least Kara isn’t petty about it. She usually just sticks to glaring as the group goes about their business. She’s skilled with a sword and also comes attached with a sad origin. She’s a good member of the group and definitely more likable than some of the others as she can fight pretty well.
Terry is easily the best character in the game, but that goes without saying. Terry is the avatar that you create and add into the story. Not only was Terry a whole lot stronger than the other heroes, but his design was incredible. He had a beard and he looked as if he was in his 70’s instead of being a teenager. Terry really stole the show for me and he towered over the other characters. It’s just too bad that he couldn’t talk.
Cisna is the main reason as to why the game lasted so long. It’s a classic save the Princess story and Cisna takes it all pretty well. She gets friendly with Leonard a little too quickly I’m afraid, but I suppose that it was inevitable. Cisna vaguely has some abilities, but unfortunately, she doesn’t have any real attack magic. It would have come in handy in so many different scenes, but I suppose that it was just not meant to be. I wasn’t a fan of Cisna, but she wasn’t a bad character either. She just didn’t get enough screen time to actually get a substantial personality
Yulie is one of the main characters, but her role is very minimal. She gets a smaller role because she doesn’t have any big plot twist moments and doesn’t contribute to the plot. She has her own subplot as she’s sad that Leonard is being more distant lately, but there are no time for friendships during war. She is all right, but Yulie really didn’t get much of a personality as the game went on.
Eldore is one of the original members in White Knight Chronicles and he’s around from the start. He always sounds like he’s very tired or just completely bored so I can’t say that he was one of the more likable characters. I really could have done without him and Eldore is always very vague even when he doesn’t have to be. He can fight, but one has to wonder how much help he will be since he’s so advanced in age. Eldore isn’t a bad character, but as with some of the others, he’s not really a good character either.
Caesar joins the group a little later into the story, but he definitely lightens the atmosphere. He’s always talking and his skills are very impressive. He never really backs down when the villains appear and he’s brimming with confidence. Caesar isn’t the best member of the group, but he’s much better than what I had been expecting when he first appeared. He was very useful and he had a strong personality.
Grazel is the main villain and he actually gets introduced pretty late into the story. He is really the only good villain in the entire series who doesn’t hide his identity. He wants to be ruler of all and he’s very direct about this. His abilities are solid and one can understand his motivations. He may not be a villain that I’ll find very memorable in the long run, but he’s infinitely more interesting than most of the other characters. Grazel can also back up his tough talk, which is always an added bonus.
The Black Knight is a mysterious figure who appears throughout the story. After he took out the King, it was safe to say that few could match his incredible power. The Black Knight is one of the few characters who takes the heroes seriously at first and he gives it his all. The Black Knight reminded me a little of Darth Vader. I guess the big question is who’s behind the mask? It’s a question that you will be wondering about as the Black Knight faces off with the heroes from time to time. They never get a break! He’s definitely a pretty solid villain and someone who you can root for.
Belcitane is one of the big villains and he always acts like he’s in charge even if that assumption could be fatal. He’s definitely not likable as he can hardly fight and he’s really just an overweight politician who has gotten in over his head. He’s seriously not my kind of villain and there’s nothing menacing about him. He could have been cut out of the villain and nobody would be any the wiser.
Shapur is the right hand man of Grazel and he doesn’t do a whole lot in this game. I assume that he will do a lot more in the sequel to explain what his purpose is and why he has some interesting powers. Grazel should definitely watch his back whenever Shapur is around. Shapur makes for a cool boss fight design wise even if he wasn’t much of a challenge. I’m definitely waiting for an explanation as to how Shapur could obtain that form because it may have looked cool, but it didn’t make sense. Shapur isn’t really likable, but it’s always good to have more villains.
The gameplay for White Knight Chronicles is very similar to the .Hack series. Essentially, it’s a turn based system like Pokemon, but you can get into big battles of 10 against 3. When it is your turn to attack, you need to be close enough to hit your target or you can also use the turn to heal or transform. You are able to run around during battles and fleeing requires you do run far away from the battle that is taking place. I still prefer the typical RPG (Pokemon) style gameplay, but this one can be very fun as well. I have played the game for over 30 hours and I’m still ready for more. The gameplay doesn’t really get old during combat and you can fight for a long time without getting bored. I plan on getting the trophy for beating 3000 enemies and I likely wouldn’t try if the gameplay wasn’t fun. Outside of combat, you run from area to area and some of the locations can be long. That is really my only complaint and I wish that they could have shrunk the areas a bit. It is simply this large so that you can take your time getting through the levels and it can be fun, but not when you’re in a hurry. Still, the negatives could have been a lot worse so I’d say that this is ok.
In terms of the soundtrack, the game isn’t as good as you may expect. There were no really memorable tunes in the game and even the boss fight themes weren’t that good if they were around at all. I really only recall the minion theme and that’s about it. It’s definitely possible that the game just didn’t have a wide selection of music to play and that’s why I can’t remember them.
White Knight Chronicles’ graphics are not extremely impressive, but they will have to do. We get a few large scale CGI cutscenes that look impressive and get to show off what the game can do when it’s serious. We don’t get a whole lot of them, but they aren’t bad. Most of the cutscenes are really just the gameplay models moving around, which is still good, but not great. The characters aren’t very detailed, but look good enough so that the transformation scenes never get old. This is good because you’ll have to experience them a bunch of times. I do give the animators props in that we get quite a few battles in the cutscenes. They may not look amazing, but I’m still glad to have them. The graphics are certainly bearable and won’t take away from the experience.
One area where White Knight Chronicles excels in is replay value. It’s almost unlimited and you could end up playing this game for months or even a year if you tried to do everything. After completing the story mode, (Which took me 30 hours) you can complete it again. This is recommended because you can get some extremely impressive gear. After that, you are ready to enter the world of 50+ missions. The first few are decently easy once you are at around level 30. After that, the missions get pretty tough. I’ve only completed around 5-6 missions and the rest are mostly beyond me at this point. Without all of the legendary gear that you could have obtained online, it’s very difficult. Still, you can keep on leveling up and rebirthing until you have mastered all roles and have a very impressive fighter at your side. Just doing this will likely take weeks unless you get to some tough missions where you get a whole lot of exp. Just going to the stores and trying to get all of the gear to upgrade them to bind more gear will take hours as you have to keep going back and forth unless you get a checklist. (Highly recommended) Most of the missions can take anywhere from 20-50 minutes and you need to hope that you beat them off the bat. Either way, time is not an issue in this game and you can be certain that you got a lot of content for the price that you paid. (9 dollars in my case)
Of course, another factor involved in replay value are the PS3 Trophies. Unfortunately, this is one of those games where the trophies aren’t really well done. It’s all a matter of perspective of course, but there aren’t enough of them and you should at least get one trophy for completing the game. Completing the game and not getting any story related trophies is a little dicey. I got a decent amount of trophies considering that many of them are really made when considering that you would be in a group. The trophies are just too time consuming and some are borderline impossible at this point. I’m not going to spend the hundreds of hours needed to get the final trophies. It’s just not worth it to me. Of course, that is a lot of replay value so I suppose that it can be seen as a positive.
Overall, this was an excellent game and it was fairly close to getting a 9. Transforming into the Knight form is always fun and it really increases your attack power. The gameplay stays fun throughout the whole game and the plot is nice and light. It’s fun to experience the world and there aren’t many boring moments. There are definitely a few of them scattered around, but nothing too drastic. The heroes can get very annoying as they constantly watch in horror as the villains murder their friends or just let them escape to fight another day. The game ends rather abruptly on a cliffhanger, which is great news for those who plan on buying the sequel. Having such large amounts of replay value is great as well and I definitely recommend this to all RPG fans. You’ll love it and get hooked right away as the plot thickens.
Overall 8/10
Update 12/3/2021 Ultimately I have to give this to Madara. As powerful as Sasuke is, I don’t think he could win this one alone. Madara wins.
Dragon Ball Evolution is one of those films that should have been downright amazing. The trailer was decently impressive and the visuals were intense. We were going to see some nice city busting feats and people could finally see how strong Goku is. Unfortunately, the film didn’t really have a lot of budget behind it and the writers forgot to actually read the Dragon Ball volumes. As a result, this is kind of adapting the King Piccolo arc, but very loosely to the point of fanfiction. Was it still an incredible film? Time to find out!
The plot is simple enough as Goku lives an ordinary life with his Grandpa. He is very powerful, but Goku is told not to hurt the bullies. Goku agrees and quickly smashes them into the ground without actually attacking them. Unfortunately, his grandpa is eliminated by Piccolo and Goku must now find the 7 Dragon Balls to stop the world from falling into ruin. He is accompanied by Bulma, a woman who wants to be rich and famous. Will these two be enough to get past tricky bandits and rock creatures of unlimited power? More importantly….can they defeat King Piccolo!!!!!?
Goku is the protagonist of the film and many people around the world have started to call this version of him by the name of Geeko. This is because the bullies of the film called him that and it sums up the universe in general. As a disclaimer, I still like the main character here, I just don’t like him as a portrayal to Goku. It’s even worse than Mario’s live action appearance and America’s first attempt at creating a Godzilla film. Goku simply isn’t Goku and that’s the problem. Unfortunately, one of the few things that they do keep in is the fact that Goku can turn into an Oozaru. This is one of my least favorite parts of DBZ so that was a little disappointing. As expected, Goku just roared a lot before finally transforming back to normal.
Unlike the real Goku, our hero is a very timid person and he lets the bullies have their way in the beginning. Usually the bullying scenes are always sad for the heroes, but at least we know that Goku could defeat them so it’s not as bad. This Goku brags a little more and he always wants everyone to know how strong he is. This Goku is constantly grimacing as if he’s in pain or something and his walk towards Piccolo is now famous. Intentionally hitting a fly into Gohan is also completely out of character and attempting to cheat during training is simply terrible. Goku is also a lot more interested in romance here, which won’t really be helping his reputation.
Now, let’s ignore the fact that this guy is supposed to be Goku. That makes things a lot more interesting. In that case, his personality is basically the same as Peter Parker. Goku’s pretty timid, but he does like to taunt the villains when he has finally had enough. He gets them to knock each other out and destroy a car while using some super acrobatics. I’m glad that Goku taught them a lesson and he looks decent from there on. He doesn’t hold back against Roshi and he confidently goes up against Piccolo. Goku can be a little cheesy at times, but overall he was a solid main character. He always fought to win and he never went down without a fight. This just wasn’t the Goku that I had been expecting and that’s the problem. I could likely go on about Goku, but this is the Dragon Ball Evolution Review and not the Goku comparison story.
Chi Chi is the main heroine of the film and she’s a good fighter. Her role may not be incredible at first, but she’s still a nice person. Her fighting skills are shown once she enters the tournament and then in her fight against Mai. She’s a good character as well and is a little easier to root for than her original counterpart. Chi Chi may be a little overconfident since she believes that she can defeat Goku in a fight, but that’s not necessarily a negative trait. Overconfidence can do wonders and it made Vegeta an awesome character.
Bulma is one of the main characters and her portrayal isn’t bad. She’s usually a good character in the original series as well so I definitely wouldn’t say that she’s better here, but at least Bulma’s character was good. She was one of the few characters who could hold her own in Evolution and I’m glad that they didn’t try to wreck her with a lot of romance. There was certainly some, but it was luckily glossed over. She was a decent fighter with her guns, but the film barely gives Bulma any opportunities to use them. I wouldn’t mind seeing her get some more action in the sequel as the gun fights provide a nice contrast to the hand to hand battles in the series.
Piccolo is the main villain and he’s not that bad. My only complaint with him would be the fact that Piccolo’s goal is vague at best. What does he have to gain from blowing up the world? I have nothing against villains blowing it up for no reason, but I have my doubts that Piccolo could survive this. Piccolo wanted the Dragon Balls and I guess that he would have made a wish, but if they mentioned this, it got lost in the long narration. Piccolo’s voice is appropriately deep and he’s a lot more experienced than Goku. Seeing him fly was pretty intense and he reminded me of General Zod from Man of Steel in appearance and personality. His only sad scene would likely be the post credits moment where Piccolo looks very, very weak. I would have preferred an epic line or a nice zoom in. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that. Either way, Piccolo makes for a solid villain against Goku.
We all knew that Master Roshi would be in the film, but I was still hoping that he would be cut out. He’s not as obnoxious as he tends to be in Dragon Ball, but it could be attributed to his lack of screen time. Roshi is still terrible and his few scenes are pretty bad. He’s easily the worst character in the film and it’s hard to feel bad for him in the climax. He should have trusted in Goku’s supreme abilities. Roshi also says that the heroes must hurry, but then he takes his time in the pit. If he could have jumped out all along….why spend most of the night down there letting Yamcha taunt everyone? The heroes lost a lot of time and Roshi could have prevented it all if he had just jumped. The humanity!
Yamcha is one of those characters who you can’t help but dislike. Yamcha didn’t appear that much in DBZ and while he was a terrible character in the original Dragon Ball series, he got better for Z. In Evolution, Yamcha really has no point and he never looks good. From the beginning, it’s impossible to take him seriously. He’s not a great fighter and he’s mostly there for the one liners and to get thrown around. The film definitely could have left him out and I would have been pretty happy about that. I can’t believe that the heroes fell for his trap.
Gohan doesn’t get a huge role, but Goku’s grandpa rarely does. He was all right and we don’t get many reasons to dislike him. He helps Goku get stronger and that’s really all that we can ask of him. It would have been nice if he could have looked a little more impressive during the big fight, but I suppose that it wasn’t meant to be. The cake that he baked looked pretty great.
Mai is one of the main villains of the film and she’s Piccolo’s right hand man. At least she is actually a solid character and she doesn’t shame her manga counterpart. I dare say that she is more likable than the original Mai from the manga and that’s saying something. I still can’t say that she is a great character since she gets no development. She’s just a villain who is there to take down the heroes and show them what true power really is. Her hand to hand skills are decent since she was doing well against Chi Chi and having a pair of guns always comes in handy.
The film is really devoid of an epic soundtrack. There should have been a good one for something like Dragon Ball, but it was likely not in the budget. It’s too bad because a few good tunes are always appreciated as they make the fights more enjoyable. At least I can imagine some real DBZ music for the fights…it’s a start.
The film has its share of romance as well. We get a little between Bulma and Yamcha while most of it is between Goku and Chi Chi. It may not be a whole lot, but it’s still more than the film needed. They should have spent more time focused on their training instead of being with each other. Why must these films insist on adding romance subplots that do not strengthen the characters or add anything substantial to the plot? It gives the film an excuse for Goku to fall for the fake damsel in distress trick, but that’s not something that I had been looking forward too.
This is one of those films that really could have used an extra hour. The film is just too short and you’re already in the climax before the film has time to do anything. Because of this, we have to skip most of the “Collecting the Dragon Balls” part and just launch into the action. Fighting the lava creatures was pretty fun, but I would have liked for them to have put up a little more resistance. The whole thing just felt a little too easy for the heroes if you ask me.
The film only has a few fight scenes so you’ll want to saver them. The first fight scene will definitely remind you of Spiderman as Goku pulls off a bunch of acrobatic moves to keep the bullies guessing. He beats them without actually attacking and the fight scene was fun with all of the random slow mo moments that would happen. We got to see Chi Chi fight Mai on two occasions, but one of them barely counted since it was all part of the plan. That fight was good although it was a little on the short side. There was a brief gunfight with Mai and Bulma and then the film concludes with a battle between Goku and Piccolo. That one is easily my favorite since you can finally see a little DBZ in it.
Goku and Piccolo attack each other so quickly that their hands are a blur and they also throw around a lot of ki blasts that destroy many of the rocks in the area. The big moment for fans was when Goku fired his Kamehameha, but it’s more of an air bending technique in the film. That means that we don’t get a cool beam and we only see a blast of air that Goku uses to ride through the sky and blast Piccolo. Well, that’s certainly one way to end the fight, but I simply cannot accept that as a Kamehameha. It just doesn’t work.
I have to say that one moment, which stood out was Goku’s house. After being blown up and smashed to pieces, we find out that a few rooms were still kept intact. The guys who built the house should be proud of themselves! Also, Bulma’s Dragon Radar is very strange. At times, it can sense Dragon Balls that are miles away and other times it can’t sense ones that are very near. They were in the tunnel for a long time before it finally located the Dragon Ball. That’s a little too long and they almost didn’t find it.
Overall, Dragon Ball Evolution was not as amazing as I had hoped, but it was still a solid film. You simply can’t compare it to the amazingness that is the DBZ anime or the Broly film in particular. Aside from that, I did enjoy the fighting scenes and the two main characters (Goku and Bulma) were likable. Some of the supporting characters were pretty bad and the film’s pacing is a little off. The romance and lack of soundtrack isn’t good so the film has a lot of ups and downs. In the end, it’s still pretty fun and I recommend it to any action fan. Trust me, you don’t need to know anything about Dragon Ball since the film writers mostly ignored it as well. There are enough plot holes and logical inconsistencies to make you get out the thinking cap. Oh yeah, make sure to stay past the credits for a bonus scene. It sets up the sequel and I’m sure that it would have been much better, but the actual scene is pretty bad and looks like the budget had been long gone by this time. I guess even post credit scenes can lose their epicness sometimes.
Overall 6/10
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