First Day Sales (12/25)
 
[PS3] White Knight Chronicles (SCE) - 132,000 (54%)
[NDS] Phantasy Star Zero (Sega) - 63,000 (31%)
[WII] Wii de Asobu: Pikmin (Nintendo) - 25,000 (22%)
[NDS] Team Batista no Eikou: Shinjitsu o Tsumugu 4-tsu no Karte (Hudson) - 16,000 (40%)
[WII] BioHazard (Capcom) - 11,500 (21%)
 
[PS3] Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (CyberFront) - 2,400 (35%)
[PS3] Far Cry 2 (Ubisoft) - 1,900 (18%)
[360] Sid Meier's Civilization Revolution (CyberFront) - 1,700 (34%)
[PS3] BioShock (Spike) - 978 (10%)

As I sat down to write this preview, I reflected on the influence a major critical entity can have. In the case of White Knight Chronicles, my preconceived notions were strongly colored -- stained, really -- by a damning 29/40 review from Famitsu. The score seemed shockingly low, especially for a game coming from a major advertiser like Sony. Even the generally horrible Infinite Undiscovery did better (32/40), while the unfairly maligned The Last Remnant did much better (38/40). More alarmingly, Level-5's own disappointing Rogue Galaxy was considered the superior game (36/40). In short, I was expecting a disaster.

White Knight Chronicles is anything but. I don't get the feeling the game is a vibrant masterpiece -- not yet, anyway -- but it is certainly superior to Infinite Undiscovery, and corrects most of the problems with the deeply flawed Rogue Galaxy. Although WKC will turn out to be enjoyable comfort food for JRPG fans in whatever state it arrives on Western shores, a few simple tweaks here and there could improve it dramatically. I hope this preview will serve to highlight some of the niggling interface problems I encountered in WKC -- those little issues that all too often find their way creeping into otherwise highly polished Level-5 games.
Despite how Sony has promoted WKC since its announcement at Tokyo Game Show 2006, it is an MMORPG at heart. Indeed, online adventuring is ostensibly half the game: The giant robot fantasy you've been seeing images of for two years, or "Story Part," is but a one-player experience built on a foundation clearly erected to serve the "Live Part," a Final Fantasy XI-lite four-player online RPG. (I say "ostensibly," as it has been impossible to play WKC online since its release two days ago; more below.) To serve the Live Part, the game presents you with an incredibly elaborate character creation mode as soon as you complete the five-minute, 2GB install necessary to play the game. Level-5 president/evangelist Akihiro Hino has said he expects gamers to spend two hours crafting their avatar before the game even begins, and in my case that turned out to be accurate: After an evening spent coaxing nine pages of sliders ranging from ear curvature to nasal-labial trough ratio, I ended up with an unnervingly accurate 3D representation of myself -- faithful down to slightly asymmetrical eyes. When all is said and done, WKC may be best remembered for this feature; I'd be fully comfortable calling WKC's avatar editor the most advanced in gaming history. Indeed, it makes the character creation modes of titles like Oblivion and PlayStation Home look laughable in comparison.

That influence is first noticeable in WKC's vast, wide-open areas, which can take a good 15 minutes to traverse the length of. Cities are completely seamless -- opening the door to a shop or home simply lets you inside, with nary a screen transition to be seen. Environments have a true lived-in quality; there is a sense that the world continues beyond the boundaries your characters can move within, and that it would continue to function whether you inhabited it or not. WKC may not be a technical marvel, but its superb world design can make for the occasionally breathtaking moment, as you crest a rise to see glittering lakes far below, or stop to admire the intricate way a bridge loops back over an area you had been through hours before.

Two areas in which WKC differs significantly from FFXI are its character growth and Combo systems. You have complete freedom to acquire whatever weapon skill, magic, or stat bonus you choose through the use of Skill Points obtained when you level up, and only through the learning of them are subsequent skills unlocked

As much as I'd like to tell you all about the Live Part, I can't. The WKC servers have been mercilessly hammered since launch, brought to their knees by "higher than expected traffic

As I noted in my introduction, a DOA network isn't the only problem WKC suffers from. A few troubling, elementary interface issues that demand mentioning:
 
* There is no pause function. You're completely out of luck should you need to put the game down for a few minutes during one of the lengthy cut-scenes.
* There is no camera recentering function, which can occasionally cause awkward control issues.
* There is no auto-run. For a game so clearly inspired by FFXI, this is an egregious omission. Auto-run was designed so that targeting could be accomplished simultaneously with movement -- something that is virtually impossible in WKC.
* There is no quick access to area maps. Although a minimap is always present, the vast areas require frequent calling up of maps buried in the Select button sub-menu.
* Most unfortunately, there is no voice chat -- a complaint voiced by Famitsu and confirmed by the game's manual. In this day and age, there is simply no excuse. I realize Japanese gamers are frequently nervous about speaking online -- during my FFXI days, half my LinkShell members used voice changing software -- but Westerners have no such qualms. Despite these issues, my two days with White Knight Chronicles illustrated that highly valid, age-old point: Don't believe everything you read. The game is no disaster, and all its issues could conceivably be addressed with a patch, or eliminated entirely from the forthcoming English version. It is immediately the best RPG on PlayStation 3, a platform that is desperate for a good one. Depending on how much the online mode has to offer, it may even have the potential to be great.