Level-5 created White Knight Chronicles especially for the PS3, with a key differentiating element of a transforming hero, you can play solo, or in a group of up to 4 online (more on that later).

During the princess of Balandor’s coming of age ceremony, a group known as the “Wizard” raids the kingdom looking for the power of “Knight.” A young man named Leonard escapes into a cellar and finds a mysterious set of armor, which transforms him into the White Knight, and he defeates the Wizard’s enormous monster. However, the princess was kidnapped during the battle. Leonard sets off with his newfound power to find the kidnapped princess.

The concept of the White Knight Chronicles world is an authentic fantasy world created on an enormous scale. One of the characteristics is that there are lot of enormous creatures in the game, such as a monster so large, it has a town on its back. The White Knight, the Black Knight, and the Dragon Knight, which has a pair of wings are all huge (7 meters high). Leonard is a young man who works for a wine merchant before being drawn into the events detailed above. Cisna is the aforementioned princess. Yulie and Eldore provide support to Leonard. Yulie is a childhood friend of Leonard, while Eldore is a mysterious warrior lending advice to Leonard.

The Battle System

Players can freely register commands into the “function palettes”. You can create and name your own combos to be used in an active-time battle using simple controls. Many, many combinations are possible.

Sometimes you (and your friends) are going to come face-to-face with incredibly large enemies, impervious to most of your attacks. But you’ll likely want to transform into one of the huge Knight characters. But it’s possible to fight successfully with a mix of small and transformed warriors.

There will be significant character customization in WKC as well. The created avatar will take part in the epic story Leonard’s companion

Online vs offline mode:

When offline, Leonard is the main character and plays through the story. When online, up to 4 players cooperate to battle as their created character. A video demonstrates a number of characters traveling together through the countryside, the customization options. Male and female characters are shown, with vastly different looks. The type of character (warrior, magic user, etc) is customizable as well. Players can invite others from within the game, and another joins.

The group is then shown taking on a huge troll with a giant club. More areas are then shown, countryside, towns and castles, and other vistas and landscapes.

Players share money, items, and levels that are earned in one mode into the other, many more new elements to this that will be revealed later in the development cycle. White Knight Chronicles Producer Kentaro Motomura assures “a huge number” of online quests, and reiterates that it’s different from the offline “story” mode. It’s basically 2 RPGs in one title.

White Knight Chronicles hits Japan on Christmas Day 2008, but so far there is no release date yet for North America or Europe.