Little King’s Story is an original title designed and developed by some of the most respected names in the gaming industry. Featuring the efforts of Yasuhiro Wada (Creator: Harvest Moon), Hideo Minaba (Art Director: Final Fantasy XII), and Youichi Kawaguchi (Main Programmer: Dragon Quest VIII), Little King’s Story combines life-simulation, real-time strategy, and adventure elements along with an enchanting storyline to offer a unique gaming experience.
gamestop":1vtqu03z said:
- An original new game built from the ground up for the Wii by a seasoned development team.
- Accessible Controls
Give commands and control your townspeople to a wide variety of tasks with ease.
- Have your townspeople dig for treasures, build new buildings, and break obstacles to access new areas all in the name of bettering your kingdom.
- Each NPC (Non-Playable Character) in your village is unique with individual likes, dislikes, and evolving memory based on daily experiences.
- Any good king puts the welfare of his subjects before himself, so help your villagers by accepting some of their requests.
- Unite the surrounding rival kingdoms under your flag to become the best king of the world!
gamestop":1vtqu03z said:Once upon a time there was a young boy named Corobo. He was a shy, withdrawn boy with few friends. One day while wandering the forest near his village he came across a crown infused with a mysterious power; the power to charm any person and make them follow any order. At this time an adventurer, the bull-knight Howzer, appears and informs Corobo that he is now the king of his village and that it is his responsibility to become the best king ever.
Corobo then returns to his village to begin his efforts to turn his sleepy little hamlet into the best kingdom ever.
ign":1vtqu03z said:Amidst all the licensed rehashes and mini-game cop-outs, many Wii owners – usually the Nintendo "lifers" that have been through thick and thin with the company – are holding out for those truly innovative, truly unique Wii-exclusive titles. We get them once in a blue moon, with games like the upcoming Demon Blade, No More Heroes, Madworld, or Zack & Wiki, and they become must-play experiences that last the system's lifetime. I'm not the first to review Little King's Story, and I won't be the most raving, "greatest game of all time" compliment-fest compared to others out there, but at the end of the day I'd still have no problem putting a game like Little King's Story right up there with the other system-specific greats. What we first saw with a promising little title called Project O has grown and thrived into a game that truly feels at home on Wii, and while it's missing what I would consider to be a few key elements on the system Little King's Story is one I hope to see played and enjoyed by Wii owners, and given its rightful sequel down the line.
Little King's Story is a mix of many different elements from many different games, all wrapped up by a pretty strong Japanese talent base. Envisioned by the creator of Harvest Moon Yasuhira Wada, Little King's Story is a mix of life-sim, strategy, RPG, and town building game, grabbing the best element's from Wada's own works and combining them with the likes of Pikmin, games like Black & White, and even a touch of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles for that softer, playful vibe. Really though, it's the mash-up of Harvest Moon and Pikmin that defines the Little King's Story design, and that's some great groundwork to base an adventure off of.
The general premise around Little King's Story is pretty simple, but taking from its inspiration the game opens up fairly quickly and allows for some great customization and depth to explore. You take the role of a young boy named Corobo who falls into a mysterious world and instantly becomes king. While weak yourself, Corobo has infinite charisma and is able to command members of his kingdom to perform tasks and further the influence of Alpoko – the town – and eventually take over the known world. Grabbing hold of a villager comes with the tap of a button, and various training areas will transform them (stats and all) into a new role, such as soldier, farmer, or carpenter. After a short introduction the game opens up freely, and it's up to you to keep citizens happy, go out and dig for treasure or battle beasts, generate income, and build the town. It's a very "go at your own pace" feel, but with more side quests and story elements just a screen away the game begs to be explored.
The gameplay feels pretty fresh, as you'll constantly be upgrading your village, growing the population, furthering the available classes, and hitting up side and main missions, but it's really the style and presentation that pushes this game into being such a desirable experience. The game is funny, constantly poking fun at games or giving nods to classic industry favorites (Princess Apricot, for example, who is an obvious name play off of Princess Peach), and the humor that surrounds the playful nature of taking over the entire world with an army of villagers (slaves?) at your disposal is enough to generate serious smiles. Everyone from the cow-riding Howzer to the religious extremists or lazy villagers around town add to the soul of the game, and it all comes together very well. The voiceover work is well done, the visual style is great on-screen, and the cinemas - done with a sort of pastel presentation – fit the game's youthful design well.
It isn't all fun and games though, as Little King's Story does have some downsides. I've mentioned it in previews and on podcasts, but the lack of pointer control in a game that's inspired by the likes of Pikmin is just a huge oversight, and one that really proved to be a continuing distraction for me. With a crowd of villagers behind you players might assume that being a king is easy, but with the actual commanding of the troops being archaic and slow that isn't the case. Sending a villager off to attack or perform a task means using the analog stick to point the King directly at the object and then sending them out like a bullet or fireball. If the villager hits, they perform any applicable task. If they don't, they come running back. We saw an amazing difference between the controls in the original Pikmin and the "New Play Control" version, and seeing what could be done with pointer precision – and the fact that Little King's Story doesn't make any use of Wii-specific tech such as motion or IR during core gameplay – makes King's Story feel like a step backwards. It's a Wii-exclusive game, so to miss out on a core concept that would truly set it apart from games found on other platforms is a big misstep in my opinion. Pointing directly at objects is not only natural, but is expected on a system like Wii, so while the game is certainly playable and fun (very fun, I might add) it feels like we're now waiting for a "New Play Control: Little King's Story" to truly get the game's full potential. Huge oversight.
The other real downside comes with – oddly enough – the presentation. While there's an impressive visual design and a truly beautiful world to explore, it isn't perfect, and the faults do shine through at times. The style itself looks great, but the game has almost too soft of a look, acting as if the lens has smeared Vaseline on it or just a blurry filter to try and soften up the visuals even more. This doesn't come through on most of the videos and trailers out there, but some players may be surprised to see that while King's Story has a beautiful visual look, it's also a bit foggy and lacks resolution. The graphics just aren't as crisp as they could be, and that's a totally separate issue than the soft, playful style. On the audio side of things the voiceover work is entertaining and a bit over the top at times, and while the music is well composed and oftentimes humorous in its own right there's also a lot of public domain songs in there. They work in their own right, but a more original soundtrack would have given the game a feel all its own, and Yoko Shimomura could have been let loose and simply rocked this game's audio design. One listen to her "best of" album Darammatica is proof of that.
And while there are obvious places that I wish would have more effort, time, or follow-through the game is still amazingly rewarding and a beautiful piece of work for Wii's library. There's constant innovation and imagination happening in the world, be it in the form of "you hate to kill them" baddies or entertaining boss fights to the subtle humor in the side quest generating "town comment box," and everywhere in between. Conquering a new section of land grants you a celebration the following day (of course with a reason to party the villagers are too lazy to do real work), the subtle design concepts like having people grow old as they take damage and eventually crap out is a nice playful touch, and there's just so much life and soul in the game it rivals titles like Animal Crossing normally produced only by Nintendo.
Closing Comments
Little King’s Story misses the boat in a few key areas for me personally – the largest of which is the lack of IR pointing in a game specifically based around real-time strategy elements – but at the end of the day there’s no denying that this title has serious staying power, an immense amount of charm, and is downright fun despite its faults. Yasuhira Wada of Harvest Moon fame is back with a series that – while still very early – has the makings of being just as big, if not even bigger, than his most well-known franchise. There are a few quirks I don’t personally dig, such as the use of public domain music when the amazingly talented Yoko Shimomura is on the project, and I’ve made my gripes with a Wii-exclusive game not using Wii-exclusive tech, but at the end of the day it comes down to whether or not this is an entertaining game despite any of its faults, and it absolutely is. If you – like I – have been waiting for this game for over two and a half years now, the wait is over, and the final package is one developer Cing should be proud of. This is a game with impressive humor and style, a beautiful design, and a world I can’t wait to play though again and again in a hopefully very successful franchise. On the control front though, more could be done, and Little King’s Story leaves me wanting in ways that are both good and bad. Hopefully this is just the beginning for our newfound king.
IGN Ratings for Little King's Story (Wii)Rating Description
8.5 Presentation
The cinemas, style, characters, world, humor, and overall vision is nothing short of amazing. The musical production could have been better though, and some Wii functionality is ignored.
8.0 Graphics
The art style wins out over a few technical issues, but they’re in there. A crisper, clearer playfield view would have been great, considering the art direction is nothing short of captivating.
8.5 Sound
There’s plenty of voiceover work and the music is well composed. With that being said, the music is also public domain. Yoko Shimomura is capable of so much more, and feels under-used.
8.0 Gameplay
All of the elements are presented well, balanced, and a lot of fun. No pointer control is a serious oversight though. This could have been 9.0 quality with the right implementation.
8.5 Lasting Appeal
One of the deeper and more engaging Wii-exclusive adventures out there. Give it time, and Little King’s Story will pull you in. Bring on a sequel.
8.5
Great OVERALL
(out of 10 / not an average)
gamestp":1vtqu03z said:First impressions can be misleading, and this is very much the case with Little King's Story. At first glance it looks simplistic, but this is actually a mature, fresh, and challenging game. There are references to everything from Nietzsche to Cervantes, and Douglas Adams to Captain Beefheart, as well as nods through the dialogue, visuals and music to gaming classics such as Super Mario Bros and Space Invaders. It has its foibles--a weak story, occasional pathfinding and targeting issues, and what may be the single most annoying sound effect to grace a console this generation--but it succeeds in delivering a lengthy and satisfying role-playing and strategy experience, with some truly epic fights unlike almost anything else you'll find on the Wii.
Little King's Story opens with you, the titular royal, in a rather squalid little hut, set on an island in the middle of a charming and seemingly safe little world. Your quest pits you against a few troublesome creatures that are getting in the way of you expanding the poky little kingdom that has just accepted you as its ruler. You'll be directed by Howser the Bull-Knight, who has a slightly unhealthy and poorly hidden desire for world domination, and accompanied by your trusty bovine steed, Pancho.
You head out into the world with instructions from Howser to seek out treasure to fill your coffers and so expand your domain. The gameplay itself is an intriguing combination of real-time strategy and role-playing traditions. Your ability to deal with the threats and obstacles that you encounter in the world is defined by the make-up of your group, and though this is relatively easy to do when you have only a handful of subjects with two or three job types at your command, it gets fairly complex towards the end when you're juggling up to 30 characters with more than 15 different jobs.
After easing into the game via a gentle tutorial, you have to choose a combination of farmers and grunt soldiers. The former are good at digging, while the latter are much better at dealing with any threats you come across, but completely incapable of unearthing the treasure you need to expand your kingdom. After you have amassed a small horde and defeated your first guardian--the game's mini-bosses--you'll soon have the options to create hunters, who are your ranged attackers, and carpenters, who can build stairs and bridges to allow you to reach previously inaccessible areas. Soon enough you start to encounter obstacles too tough for your grunts and farmers to simply bash out of your way, and a little more treasure--as well as the defeat of another guardian--allows you to build a logging camp. At this point you can train lumberjacks, who can smash hulking great tree trunks into manageable pieces for your less-able subjects to hack into, and later you'll gain access to miners who can do the same thing with rocks.
While this may sound a little arbitrary, it works well as a method for restricting and guiding your progress, as well as steadily increasing the complexity of your group-building without ever overwhelming you with options. With almost every mission you complete you'll be able to either expand your team, access a new type of unit, or make your subjects tougher, and so feel that much closer to being able to take on the next big challenge.
Combat in Little King's Story starts out very simply, as you have very few weapons in your arsenal; it's simply a matter of sending your grunts and farmers in to bash your foes over the head with their swords and shovels, and recalling them at the right moments if the enemy in question looks to be charging up a more-powerful attack. Your hunters have a very limited ammunition supply, which quickly forces you into creating strategies that require you saving them for times of dire need rather than simply keeping the various creatures at arm's length in an effort to stop your troops taking too much damage. Later on, more specialised combat characters come into play--Chefs, for instance, can saute a massive chicken in seconds, saving your grunts a gruelling encounter, but are little use for anything else. Thankfully there is no great penalty initially for getting these things wrong--while your troops can die they are generally returned to you the following day, as they mysteriously wash ashore of a morning. Every so often news comes in that one of those washed ashore had passed on before anyone could reach them, which prompts mourning from your subjects--seeing them wandering around in funeral garb sobbing quietly serves as a good reminder to be a little more careful next time you go into battle.
Controlling your team is a fairly simple affair, and is managed through a combination of the Wii Remote and Nunchuk. The Nunchuk's analogue stick controls targeting and movement, while the Wii Remote's buttons let you send subjects out, call them back in, add to your team if you're short, or change their formation. This system works really well for the most part, making it very easy to either overwhelm single targets or spread your forces across several when attacking more balanced packs of enemies.
There are two notable exceptions to this, however. When you have several closely packed targets, it can be a little tricky to choose the one you want. Your targeting indicator, in an attempt to be helpful, locks on to the closest targets in the vague direction in which you're pointing, causing problems when you're trying to quickly prioritise and take out multiple targets at slightly different ranges. This doesn't happen that regularly, even in boss fights, but it crops up often enough to be irksome. The other issue is that once you have more than a handful of subjects under your control, you will find yourself quite regularly going back to retrieve those members who have gotten stuck behind pesky walls, fallen over small ledges, or have simply proved themselves incapable of following you up a flight of stairs.
In addition to the random, wandering foes there are three different types of set-piece battle to contend with. The first of these that you come across is the guardian fights. These are battles against much more powerful enemies than you'll find roaming the plains, and each one requires a slightly different strategy. The second type you come across are smaller encounters with relatively powerful creatures that essentially have bounties on their heads--a farmer might want you to get rid of his plague of man-eating watermelons, for instance. These fights are randomly generated throughout the game and so do have some elements of repetition, but there are enough different missions on offer at any given moment that this never really becomes a problem.
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While not hugely challenging, these missions are a valuable way of making money between the larger battles so that you can expand your kingdom and troupe of subjects. Finally, you get into fights with other kings, and the fun--in terms of combat at least--really begins. The game's various kings all offer wildly different boss fights, ranging from one who insists you match him intellectually via a series of riddles, to one truly obese individual with whom you have to literally play pinball among other weird and wonderful tasks. Others take a turn for the decidedly bizarre and downright nasty, with one king throwing up on you as a primary attack, and another eating your subjects only to spit body parts back out at you.
This Little King's story is a little weak, however, and for the most part it plays out as a simple tale of world domination. Nevertheless, the beautiful and often surreal cut-scenes and set-pieces that punctuate the story make up for this in some fashion because they are often worth watching in their own right. The main storyline takes about 24 hours to play through non-stop, though even on the standard difficulty level, you should expect to have to have several attempts at most of the major fights, some of which can take in excess of half an hour to complete by themselves. The total play time can also be easily extended by completing a series of collection side-quests to earn rewards that will make your subsequent progress easier.
With its soft-focus look, brightly coloured and varied landscapes, and some truly bizarre enemies--expect to fight everything from skeletal dragons to angry turnips and over-animated office supplies--the game is a pleasure to look at, especially during the beautifully rendered cut-scenes. The endearing nature doesn't stop with the way the game looks, either; pause for a moment with no enemies around and your subjects will stop and begin to chat among themselves, and those citizens not in your royal guard will greet you cheerily as you wander past on your way out into the wilderness. Given enough time and successful outings, members will even start to fall in love--a process which can lead to marriage and then children, who are useful in their own right because they're the only type of character that can be sent scrabbling up trees to fetch items that have found their way into the branches.
The quality of Little King's audio is inconsistent, but its classical score is a great fit for the look and feel of the game. You will almost certainly get sick of hearing the William Tell Overture by the time you reach the final guardian battle, and the charming gibberish-speak of your subjects can grate after a time, but almost nothing here is so irritating that it should seriously detract from your enjoyment of the game as a whole. That having been said, the decision to assign a sound apparently sampled from a dog's chew toy to each footstep was a gross error; when walking back for a third or fourth attempt at a particularly challenging boss fight, it may induce rage most unbefitting someone playing such a charming game.
Little King's Story is one of those rare games that manages to keep on surprising and pleasing you as you play it. In addition to featuring amusing characters, gorgeous visuals, and challenging boss fights, it also raises interesting points about religion, the nature of leadership, the rights of monarchy, and a whole host of other things. It is not without its foibles, but Little King's Story is still a great game for any Wii-owning RPG or RTS fan.
Hi, Im adorable and I'll be your next king.
yes, you too pink doggy sir.
A nice, quiet, rural village
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O...O...Oh dear.
(tbh, I have know clue what is going on)
The royal grounds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4KSPZpqamQ
Trailer
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I dont have the game, but it sounds good from what I;ve heard. Thoughts and opinions? Does it look good or not? Whatever you want really. :D
Just post something please. ;o;
