 This Little King is wee bit of a Tyrant |
| Review Date: July 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Halicon5, Casper, Wyoming United States |
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.
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The King may be little, but . . . .
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| Review Date: August 3, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Nightmare, |
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. |
OH Baby! It's About Time.
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| Review Date: July 23, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Synchronized Synergy, Ohio |
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 :-) |
Third Party?!
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| Review Date: July 27, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Orion, Happy Town, USA |
This game is awesome. I've been playing nonstop since I got it (Release Date Shipping-thanks, Amazon!) and am still finding more and more things to enjoy. RPG and RTS fans will instantly feel right at home.
My one complaint is that you don't actually use the remote to "point" at the location where you want to send your troops, instead you have an arrow showing where they will be thrown. This is annoying in some of the harder boss battles, but not bad enough to ruin the fun.
All in all, I feel that this was a great purchase and RPG/RTS fans will not be dissapointed. |
Little King's Review
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| Review Date: August 7, 2009 |
| Reviewer: J. Greene, Birmingham, AL United States |
| A lot has already been written about this game and most of it is true. It is a pretty good game, fun to play and well executed in most ways. Some clever minds put this thing together and it shows. My only gripes are the also the same as you have probably read elsewhere. The wii-mote controls do not take advantage of the on-screen pointer or motion sensitivity. For a game designed for the Wii this seems like a missing element. The control scheme works OK as-is, but it could have been a little better. My only other complaint is that there is not a lot of information/instructions included with the game. You get enough basic tutorial to get started, but then the information seems to dry up and you just have to figure things out. Given the scope of the game these problems are minor and not road-blocks to enjoying the game. I've played almost 15 hours and there is still tons of stuff left to discover. |
So close to greatness... yet so far
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| Review Date: August 10, 2009 |
| Reviewer: B. Mills, MA |
I have been looking forward to this game since this time last year. Now that I have it in my hands I find that despite my anticipation for this game I was still surprised with this game. It wasn't at all what I expected which for me its rare to be surprised by how the game plays (its usually just a matter of how well). The simple reason is: you just can't sum up this game in a review/preview so I won't try. What I will say is that despite being pleasantly surprised by this game I found myself increasingly aware of just how close it came to all-time greatness... but missed.
There are some weird/bad choices which hurt the pure joy of this game which I was made painfully aware of thanks to an TERRIBLE save/load system. BEWARE! IT is very easy to erase/save over your game... my GF saved over my first game because even when you start a new game it takes you strait to the last created save and you can easily delete saves by simply pressing Z twice while in the load screen (which I also did). So, by having to restart the game twice do to a terribly designed save system (I just don't understand how these things make it past testing) I had the ability to fully realize the reach of the game and where it falls short.
This game has so much more depth than you might realize and building up your kingdom is so fun that it becomes very disappointing that you can't do certain things. I wish your people did more on their own or anything at all. I wish you could assign people daily tasks, which wouldn't be necessary for all players but just a good way to get through the game more quickly if you are a skilled player. Which reminds me, in some ways this games punishes you for being a thorough. For instance when you make citizens get a job class there is a random element to how much life they receive, but since that is the only random element I find it unacceptable to settle for anything other than full possible health which i spend hours obtaining by reloading saves (until my save gets erased. They should have just had everyone come out with the same health or at least have different things like attack strength which balanced this out.
A great game should be playable by players of any skill level with good gamers capable of achieving more such as a record of no deaths, however this game simply makes it frustrating by adding no skill elements to the equation such as the life thing mentioned above which has the result of simply being easier to not care if your people die (which it doesn't really matter). However don't think this is game is easy either... its not! I have to beat every boss for my GF because the actiony part of the game is not for her at all which reminds me: its too bad there is no pointer functionality in the wii-mote it could really go a LONG way in this game. Also considering the way my GF lieks to play the game it reminds me of something else they could/have should have done: make the treasure finding more extensive without requiring battle.
All that said its still a very good game and for anyone who likes Pikmin or Overlord you will like this game a lot. The story is great... the cut scenes are fantastic and despite being unbelievably adorable its not just a kids game. Like I said in the title: this game is very close to greatness but also very far ( I wish I could give it a 3.5) |
Fun game that is a little hard and repetitive.
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| Review Date: September 5, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Jaimie Mancham-case, |
I got this game because I am interested in games where you have to build up your city and you are in charge of everything. After reading numerous reviews, I felt like I was promised that much and more in this game.
The game starts with you being crowned king of a country and you have to work to build it up and give people jobs, and have them join your army. What the reviews didn't tell me was that this game was kind of hard. Now, it may not be hard for gamers, but for someone like me, who doesn't really play video games, who got the wii because it was more family friendly it was hard.
There were points in the game where I had no idea what I was meant to be doing (no real help in the game, took me researching online to find answers). The game is also very repetitive, with you having to do the same things over and over again to raise money.
Also, make sure you save the game frequently. I didn't realize how important that was until I died 3 hours into playing the game and had to start all the way at the beginning again!
All in all, this game was fun, cute and an enjoyable way to pass the time. |
Awesome Strategy/Role Playing Game for the WIi
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| Review Date: August 13, 2009 |
| Reviewer: RPG Gamer, Seattle, WA USA |
This game is awesome for the Wii and the most fun I have had on the Wii in awhile! I really enjoyed Rune Factory for the Wii but like this game even better (although this game is shorter than Rune Factory). This game does not get overbearing with micromanaging like Rune Factory did. I like that I can choose where I want to go, what I want to do, and which of my citizens I would like to take with me. The main bosses in this game actually go a step beyond your typical hack and slash. For example one game will have you answering trivia questions by sending your followers to the correct answer (of about 7 choices). Another game will is figuring out where the boss is hiding on the world-like map from the clues he gives (kind-of like Carmen San Diego). They even have one that is like a pinball game. These sort of varieties of battles make the game enjoyable to play even after playing it for 10-20 hours and help lower the monotony in a game. It also has a nice learning curve in the game to help introduce new things in the game slowly instead of all at once. The game also makes jokes and references to other things, like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I hope they keep making games like this for the Wii and it makes me glad I bought one.
There are some minor problems with the game (like occasional bad camera angles), but nothing to stop you from enjoying a top notch product. This game is definitely a must have for people looking for a good strategy/role playing game for the Wii.
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Great reason to own a Wii
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| Review Date: August 28, 2009 |
| Reviewer: Jesse Murphy, |
Despite the incredible sales of the Wii system, great games have been few and far between. And great games not made by Nintendo are even less common.
Now, with the release of Little King's Story, Wii owners have a fantastic third party exclusive. Possibly the best overall game released this year, and likely the best third party game released this far for the Wii. The game plays like a blend of Pikmin and My Life as a King, with a humorous, if wacky, story, and enough content to please most hardcore gamers. You, as the Little King, take control of your followers, each of whom has a certain occupation that provides abilities ranging from combat abilities to digging to climbing trees. Using these followers, the Little King must conquer the other kingdoms, uniting them under his rule.
Other reviews have described, in-depth, the gameplay and attention to detail that make the game shine. While I think the game is phenomenal and should be a purchase for all Wii owners, I'll be brief and just point out a few things that stood out for me. First, the music in fantastic. I've seen complaints regarding it's 'recycled' nature, and simply don't understand - the score is excellent, varied, and the music fits the game extremely well. Second, the incredible attention to detail. The kingdom really comes alive as it develops, with people going about their business and animals walking around. Citizens seem to converse with each other and little things happen all the time that really pull you into the game. Finally, the learning curve of the game is near perfect. I never felt over or underwhelmed with the amount of content the game threw at me. I always had somewhere to go and something to buy. Several quests to choose from at all times. These are just a few things the game has to offer; either things I hadn't seen addressed elsewhere or that, IMO, were good enough to cover again.
The game has a few flaws, although I haven't found them to detract much from the overall package. The awkward save system is, well, awkward. Somewhat inconvenient, and I've had to replay a good amount of days due to forgetting to save. The various menus are well done, but there are a few inconsistencies that could use some work (the map/quest status screens could have been better, as could the method for equipping items). The pathfinding AI of your followers is pretty poor, leading to citizens becoming trapped behind fences and staircases. And finally, the graphics are pretty muddy; I've had difficulty making out the identity of items (or seeing which citizens I had in my crew) at times.
Overall, Little King's Story is a fantastic, huge game and should be played by anyone with a Wii. The game really transcends genres and the final product is a shining example of what good gameplay is worth and what can be accomplished despite the technological limitations of the Wii. |
Little King, Big Game
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| Review Date: January 17, 2010 |
| Reviewer: S. Cutler, Portland, OR USA |
At first glance, Little King's Story may turn off a lot of "hard-core gamers" with its cute graphical style and characters. Look beyond the exterior, however, and you'll find a difficult game with incredible depth, length, and replayability. Bare in mind however, that this game is far from childish. It's depth might detract younger gamers, and its subtle inclusion of topics including world domination, polygamy, and tyranny might turn off other younger gamers parents.
Little King's Story has you playing the role of a small boy who finds a mysterious crown that grants him the power to govern others, and in effect, he becomes the dictator of Alpoko. You then are challenged with "uniting the world". While the plot is somewhat cute, the story is far from a driving factor in this game.
Anyone familiar with the game "Pikmin" will feel relatively at home with the games controls. In fact, much of the gameplay is very similar to the aforementioned "Pikmin", and thats not a bad thing. Enemies are generally defeated by "throwing" your townsfolk at them. And thats where the similarities end. Little King's Story has much more expansive features, such as town building, organization of townsfolk (their "class", I.E. Guard, Farmer, Archer, etc), and equipment.
One of the neatest things about LKS is the fact that each and every person you come into contact with has a name and perhaps a history. A guard may have a wife and kids, or another will have become skilled at a certain job. On occasion ive found myself searching for my favorite person by name. It creates an individuality within your population that makes keeping people alive in battle all the more important. If you loose a lot of townsfolk in battle one day, your population is surely to go down, as the spouses and children of that person mourn.
As you battle creatures (or UMA, as the game calls them), you can collect treasures with in turn become money. You can use the money to build more houses, with gain you more citizens, build trade building, where you can train citizens for a specific job, or special upgrades to the King or Alpoko in general. Theres never a shortage of things to buy, and it keeps the game from getting stale.
Graphically, LKS is something interesting. It looks great in stills, and good in motion, but the game uses a thick filter over everything that makes everything appear blurry. Its a nice style, but at first your eyes may not like it. Stylistically, the game is amazing. Everything is colorful and seems to have a life of its own. People age as they take damage in battle, hearts flow when two fall in love, the leaves on a tree are heart shaped, etc. The game oozes with cuteness and you cant help but smile.
The only flaw i can think of in this otherwise perfect game is its unfortunate lack of an motion controls. After seeing New Play Control Pikmin (a game very similar to LKS) its a disappointing playing Little King's Story without Pikmin's precision.
Xseed's Little King's Story has earned critical acclaim, and for good reason too. Its one of the best games I've played in all of 2009, and one of the best games on Wii period. At a solid 30 hours long, the game offers plenty of bang for you buck, and its quality throughout. |
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