Little King's Story (Wii)

...perhaps quite so impressive, with little voice acting but rather the usual subtitled garbage talk, although a soundtrack of well rendered classical standards definitely does add to the feel of the game..


== Longevity ==

It's perhaps a little slow in places but this is a pretty big game; think of the year round content of something like Animal Crossing crossed with the dungeon delving quests of something like Zelda. ...
...a rental - unless you can totally dedicate your life to it - so it's definitely something worth buying.


== Overall ==

I'd happily put this alongside the likes of Okami and Twilight Princess as one of the best role playing adventures on the Wii. Despite the cutesy look and feel, there's some real depth in here and the addition of the strategic features truly makes it one of a kind, with much appeal to fans of games ... more

Introduction

In this game, from some of the creators of the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series, you play the role of a young king, Corobo, in charge of Alpoko, a small and backward country. However, all that's about to change as under your inspired leadership, as you'll inspire your populace to new heights, expand your borders, conquer the world and pick up a lot of cute princesses along the way.

Gameplay

Essentially, this is a role playing game in the Zelda mould, but with something more of a strategic element thrown in. Rather than just going off on a set of pre-planned adventures, you get to manage your kingdom hands-on. This probably isn't the game for you, if you've ever styled yourself as a ruthless tyrant though, as one of your first actions is to build a suggestion box in the town square that basically gives you a set of quests to choose from. Whilst some of these do form a set plot, there's also a wealth of side quests to bolster your kingdom, and build up your resources for some of the trickier missions.

Before embarking on a quest, you have to go and round up the characters you wish to take with you. You start off with just soldiers and farmers, both of which have obvious specific skills, but you can add additional classes such as miners, hunters, cooks and lumberjacks as time goes on, as well as more advanced soldiers. These will trail along behind you as you wander along like a big conga, and you can set them to work as appropriate.

You have to manage your forces carefully though, as you don't want to get a valuable specialist caught up in hand to hand fighting whilst your soldiers stand idle and, like all good generals, you don't want to get too heavily involved in the fighting yourself; there's no autosave, and indeed you can only save back at the castle, so it's all to easy to lose a few hours of play from a single mistake. With seven other kingdoms to compete with, you've also got an uphill struggle against you, but eventually you'll find yourself in a position to take on the first of them and, after a suitable boss battle, it can be yours.

The rest of the game plays somewhat akin to MySims Kingdom or Animal Crossing, as you go about your town making improvements and being the benevolent ruler, although it's less directed and with less finicky controls than the former.

Graphics & Sound

A lot of Wii games have given simplistic cute graphics something of a bad name, but this is certainly one of the exceptions. There's a very individual style with a hint of watercolour to it and the end result is quite individual; at times you might think of Animal Crossing, at others Okami or Zelda.

The sound isn't perhaps quite so impressive, with little voice acting but rather the usual subtitled garbage talk, although a soundtrack of well rendered classical standards definitely does add to the feel of the game..

Longevity

It's perhaps a little slow in places but this is a pretty big game; think of the year round content of something like Animal Crossing crossed with the dungeon delving quests of something like Zelda. You're unlikely to do much justice to the game with a rental - unless you can totally dedicate your life to it - so it's definitely something worth buying.

Overall

I'd happily put this alongside the likes of Okami and Twilight Princess as one of the best role playing adventures on the Wii. Despite the cutesy look and feel, there's some real depth in here and the addition of the strategic features truly makes it one of a kind, with much appeal to fans of games like The Sims.

Highly recommended.

(Review may also be posted on Ciao.com and Dooyoo. co.uk as Phantom Wombat) 

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