The hero of the game is an apprentice swordsman who lives in a secluded tower, studying martial arts with the old master Daido. One day, bad news reach the tower: the hero’s father, the great knight Allen, is missing. Receiving the blessings of the wise teacher, the hero immediately begins the long journey, hoping to find companions who would help him on his quest to find the missing knight.
Free Will: Knight of Argent contains elements of a traditional Japanese-style RPG, such as top-down world map navigation, random battles, simple character growth (automatic level up), etc. However, it has several features rarely found in games belonging to this genre. Each dialogue with an NPC brings a menu with four options: Information, Companion, Justice, and Negotiate. “Information” corresponds to standard NPC conversation; “Negotiate” is mostly used in shops to buy items, but can also be used in specific situations to trigger events. The two other commands are the more interesting ones. It is possible to convince an NPC to join the party; this doesn’t rely on story events, and since there are many characters who would join, it is possible to build completely different and quite large parties. The “Justice” commands is basically attacking an NPC on the spot. It is possible to attack anyone, even key plot characters - although in most cases, naturally, the battle will be over very quickly, and the hero would be “welcome to heaven”, as the game itself calls it.
