Speaking with Japan's Weekly Famitsu magazine, Akihiro Hino, president of developer Level-5 and producer of White Knight Story, said that he hopes to make a game with a 50 to 60 hour play time, which he referred to as a typical for an RPG. "With White Knight Story, we don't want to release a half-way product," said Hino. "We want to have a big title that surpasses the volume of the RPGs we've made in the past."
So White Knight clearly won't be some rushed first-generation RPG project. But Level-5 apparently had pressure to do just that, with Hino revealing that there was some talk of attempting to get the game out around the time of the PS3's launch. In order to meet the launch, Hino says, Level 5 would've had to cut the story short, which is something he didn't want to do.
While Hino didn't share any new details on White Knight with the magazine, he did provide some insight into his personal gaming tastes. When asked what games he's paying attention to on other hardware, he responded with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey, citing the need to match the "extremely beautiful visuals" in those titles.
Hino didn't have anything bad to say about any of the current and upcoming hardware. "The Wii, Xbox 360 and PS3, the DS and the PSP... I think this will be the most exciting year end period ever."