Little King's Story (Nintendo Wii)

Little King's Story is a cutesy Real Time Strategy (RTS), Role-Playing (RPG), simulation, and action title that definitely stands out from the pack. Aside from some strange design decisions and a few graphical flaws, this is a shining example of an original idea that I hope to see grow into its own franchise. Fans of the Harvest Moon/Rune Factory series as well as fans of Overlord and Pikmin will probably immediately recognize the influences in Little King's Story.

PROS:
+++ Original gameplay that blends a variety of genres
+++ Creative and colorful graphical design
+++ Clever and interesting enemies, bosses, characters, and townsfolk bring the game to life.

CONS:
--- This game should have used pointer controls similar to Pikmin New Play Control.
--- The blur filter on the graphics is extremely over-used
--- The game gets off to a pretty slow start for the first hour

GAMEPLAY: Very, very awesome. Role-playing, city building (but not planning), exploration, lite resource management, and total subjegation of your loyal subjects. It's a good package. Basically, you play the role of a young child who gets whisked away to a magical world where he becomes King. Specifically a King with a bent towards world domination. Despite the cutesy presentation, the Little King is actually a bit of a tyrant and dictator. There is definitely no democracy to be found. I certainly wouldn't want to live in this country that I'm running, but I'm having fun running it. You bend the citizens to your will, ordering them to do whatever you wish, be it farming, digging holes, or even charging to their untimely doom while battling a cow. You can wander around with a gang of citizens and soldiers, gathering taxes from the homes of others or raid and pillage other countries (7 in total). If you have shiftless, layabout unemployed people, you can force them to get jobs, whether or not they like it. All the while you are exploring the countryside and building a small nation. Although the game has a plot, you are basically allowed to proceed at your own pace, which really allows for multiple play styles. Throughout the game you also get the opportunity to participate in little mini-quests and objectives to keep your populace (and princesses) happy.

Similar to Pikmin, combat relies very heavily upon using your companions. You can choose to attack using Little King, but your loyal subjects make much better soldiers and cannon fodder. Some citizens can perform special functions, such as farmers, carpenters, merchants, and lumberjacks, while the combat focused units are a bit more obvious. Different enemies are weak against different types of citizens, so planning your raiding party in advance is critical to your success, although mobbing and swarming enemies is frequently an effective yet crude tactic. Throughout the game you gain frequent opportunities to increase the size of your kingdom, purchase upgrades, new buildings, and equip your citizens with different items and artifacts. Despite the game's kiddie look and storybook presentation, this one is a deep, deep game that keeps growing on me the more I play it.

CONTROLS: Good, but they could have been better. For a game that is very clearly inspired by the Pikmin series, the controls feel archaic. Moving from the slick and neatly improved controls of the Wii re-release of Pikmin to Little King's Story is a rough transition. It isn't that the controls don't work, but the complete lack of pointer control seems like an oversight. Because of this issue the process of selecting and directing units in combat feels a little clumsy. The camera feels a little to claustrophobic and close as well. Honestly, if the controls were better this game would immediately jump to 5 star ranking since the controls are the only thing holding this game back from its fullest potential. Luckily there are some upgrades that you can unlock that make navigating your units through the world much easier, such as the defensive and evasion formations. I really would have preferred that the squad formation controls to be available from the moment you start the game instead of having to purchase an upgrade, but once I took over the first kingdom of the Onii, my complaints about navigating the world really became moot.

GRAPHICS: Good and bad. The art style is cookie cutter cute. Brilliant design and beautiful color palettes bring the game to life. The whole world is animated, down to the trees and flowers. Cut scenes are particularly striking and look like an animated children's book. Simply amazing. Unfortunately, many of the in-game textures are very low res, which combined with the overuse of a blur/brush filter tends to mar the otherwise beautiful designs. The in-game graphics never get in the way of enjoying the game, but they really could have been a lot crisper.

SOUND: Good, but not original. The voice acting is somewhere between "so-so" and "good" and consists of structured gibberish sounds, similar to games like Banjo-Kazooie. Some people will find the voice acting cute and charming, others will find it annoying. The music is public domain classical and arranged quite nicely with a nice mix of classical, romantic, and baroque period pieces. I really feel that the music fits the game perfectly, although some original tunes would have been nice to see as well.

VALUE: This game is going to take most people quite a while to beat. My current estimate is about 20 hours, give or take. There doesn't seem to be any one "right" way to play the game. The open and relaxed approach to progress means you can take the game at the pace you prefer. While no where near as addictive as Rune Factory, the game will probably keep you coming back for more. The constant minor upgrades to your kingdom definitely keep me going and I frequently found myself saying "I'll conquer just one more section of the map...." until far too late into the night.

Some people may be turned off by the cutesy look of this title and the lower resolution graphics, and I can't blame them, but they will be missing out on a great little game that is unique to the Wii. I already hope a sequel is planned for this game and I really hope that it will address some of my complaints about the controls, because this game truly screams for pointer control. Young children may struggle with this title as it is quite complex and the controls aren't as intuitive as they could have been. Even with these issues I definitely recommend this title as a purchase for most gamers, especially fans of the Pikmin, Overlord, Rune Factory, or Harvest Moon games.

The game itself certainly isn't. Little King's Story looks like it might just be some cutesy childs game, but that couldn't be farther from the truth. This is a reasonably complex game of strategy that includes village development, army building, conquering territory, etc. It's hard to resist the addictive quality of the Little King and his loyal followers who will happily give up their lives for you.

Story: You play the role of a young, lonely boy. One day he chases some rats that infiltrate his room, and in the process of chasing them into the forest he comes across a magnificent crown. This royal head piece causes the people of a nearby village to see him as their rightful king, and they obey you without question. Howser, the Bull Knight, gets you headed in the right direction to establishing your kingdom and world domination. You also find that the rats you chased live in you new "castle" which looks more like a hut.

Gameplay: Similar to Pikmin or Overlord: Dark Legend, you have a group of units (your villagers) following you that you give commands to (you use the "A" button to send them to a given task rather than use the pointer like in Overlord: Dark Legend.) They can attack, build bridges, dig holes (in designated spots), etc. Your village has a certain population size as well as a maximum troop size that can follow you, so it's important to not let your villagers die needlessly in battle. You can give your Carefree Villagers jobs such as grunt soldiers and farmers that will grant them special skills to serve their liege all the better. As you conquer new areas, your village expands and new units become available. It shouldn't be too long before you have a sizable army of loyal villagers that can get married (adding kids to the village) and fill up your land.

Controls: Fortunately, there are no real flaws to the controls in this game. If you tap "Z" there will be a targeting line aimed in front of you to show where your villagers will go if you tap "A" to send them on some task. This makes it easy to know if you're sending them in the right spot. The camera is magnificent. The only real issue I have is that the pointer wasn't used to guide your army, but it still works fine the way it is. You can easily sort your troops by type with a simple tap of the control pad, so you always have the right troops ready to command (a feature that is necessary in these types of games).

Graphics: Very stylish. The artbook feel is unique, and it circumvents the weaknesses of the Wii's capabilities. It looks beautiful, and the style adds lots of flavor to an already appealing dish.

Music/Sound: The music in Little King's Story is great. It's classical music, and it's integrated perfectly into the game. It fits the mood and enviornments better than I would have imagined. Their is no real voice acting, but there are some random mumbling sounds when characters are talking. In my opinion these mumblings are fine, but others might find it annoying.

Overall: Little King's Story is an excellent game. The controls, graphics, sounds, and gameplay work together to make a great story for anybody willing to put the time in. It was well worth the money I spent for it (46.99 here at Amazon), and would advise anybody to give this game a shot.

If you're like me, you have probably been waiting about two years for Project O (Little King Story) to be released. Let's just say, the wait was worth it. The story is heart warming and hilarious, the style is brilliant, and the world is huge and uhhh... adorable. Two major gripes I have with the game are the combat system & the camera. Combat could not be more clunky unfortunately. Maybe it's just me, but I haven't been able to sort through my citizens to find the soldiers/farmers to defeat an enemy. This makes the player have to distract the unnecessary citizens so one can use the ones further down in the trail following the king. Also, the camera is at an odd distance, and is often easy to forget where you are, as it is far to zoomed in. Neither are deal breakers though, the game is superb. One of the best features is the humor. Yesterday, I got a challenged from the Onii King. Reading, "Aljerko, You suck, we are the best. Love- The Onii King" Of course the town is outraged, "WAAAAARRRR", they scream. The Job system is great and sitting on your throne is quite satisfying. Do NOT pass up this gem. This will be better that Wii Sports Resort.

Graphics: 8/10

Gameplay: 8/10

Presentation: 9.5/10

Extra Credit: +2

Overall: 27.5/30 (Big Recommendation :-)

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