Little King's Story (Wii) - Review by Chris

Introduction

While Nintendo quietly works away on the next iteration in the Pikmin franchise, leaving all but themselves unaware as to what will eventually become the final product, the Wii has seen little in the way of real time strategy titles to make up for the absence of Nintendo's own strategy game. But with an absence to fill, Marvelous have stepped in to take a stab at providing strategy fans with something deep to sink their teeth into, in the form of a new IP, continuing their altogether superb support of Nintendo's home console. But does this have enough substance to muscle even Nintendo off of the top of the throne?

Gameplay

Little King's Story sets out to provide a fairy tale story with a sinister twist coming through in the gameplay. Young boy Corobo sets out for a walk in the woods one day and stumbles across a mysterious golden crown. At seeing this, he places it upon his head and finds that it grants him the power to make people obey and follow his orders. When Howser the Bull Knight of the village sees this, and with an empty seat in the regal palace, he immediately appoints the young boy as king to lead the village in the hope that he will take it out of poverty and bring it into a new era of prosperity.

Your initial days of life as a king are subdued to say the least. The game eases you into its workings by giving you small quests to accumulate money and expand your already small borders ever so slightly. With the initial days out of the way and a slightly larger kingdom and royal guard, Howser proposes to you that you head out and defeat the Onii King to gain his land as part of your own kingdom. From this point on, the story heavily focuses on the idea of world domination, where you'll be tasked with further bringing your kingdom into an era of prosperity by heading out and conquering the rival kingdoms to create a single and unified kingdom under your rule.

To conquer your rival kingdoms, you'll need to appoint your villagers to various jobs and roles so as to help you acquire both materials for the expansion of your kingdom but also to help you reach these far off lands. The game world is large and seamlessly created with the only barriers that are in place arbitrary and capably removed once you have the right townsfolk for the job. With such a large world and it taking time to reach your destinations, the game's prospects can at first seem rather daunting but while the game is tied to a day and night cycle that moves over a succession of days, there is no time limit for when you have to get the main quests done and as such, you are able to go out and explore the world and make as much or as little progress as you wish. And this freedom is something which you'll explore openly as you'll often head out with townsfolk of varying professions to scout out the routes to the other kingdoms, unblocking paths and building necessary structures to facilitate your march to war.

Running alongside the main quest, which will take plenty of time to complete, are a large number of side missions submitted to you by your townsfolk. These can take on various forms, such as rumours about ghostly characters in neighbouring regions whom once defeated allow you gain that region as your own or monsters plaguing certain areas, and with these being delivered to you on a daily basis, you'll always have plenty of quests to see too. So many in fact that it can be difficult to keep track of them but the game only allows you to take on 5 at a time and each of these are time restricted.

While the game presents itself as a child friendly experience, the gameplay presents itself as anything else. The game is a real time strategy title and definitely not one for the faint hearted. You'll have to assemble your royal guard and take the long road to the rival kingdoms and along the way, you'll encounter copious amounts of enemies of varying degrees of difficulty looking to thin your numbers and when you do reach your quest location, if you enter the battle with the wrong strategy or with the wrong squad members and formation, the game's difficulty and AI will be unforgiving and show no mercy on you. This extends to many of the boss battles which do often become a trial and error design but if you fall in battle, the game allows you to immediately jump back into battle again to try a different strategy.

The gameplay is incredibly deep though, and with a very good challenge to be taken on, you can literally and easily sink 20 or so hours into the game and not have come close to finishing it. And it doesn't end there as there are 100 pieces of artwork scattered throughout the entire world for you to collect, with special items awarded for reaching specific landmarks. This adds significantly to the already vast amount of playtime you'll need to invest to unite all of the kingdoms.

Controls

Making use of the Wii-mote and Nunchuk, it's strange to see that the game doesn't employ any use of the IR functionalities for movement of characters or troops around the field. Instead, all movements are mapped to the analogue stick and although it would have been a much smoother experience with the pointer controls, the controls work well enough to carry you through the gameplay although not unhindered. Throughout your play, even with the controls working well enough, there are many instances you'll wish the pointer was used. Selecting of the members of your royal guard can be tricky and will usually require you to shuffle through them before you get to the right ones. It can make the difference between winning and losing in some of the at times extremely difficult boss battles. Further issues do occur when the game switches to a fixed camera angle, which makes it even harder to manoeuvre your troops around and even keep track of them.

Graphics

The initial impression of the game's visuals won't blow you away. Everything is created well enough but it isn't pushing any limits. Yet it is the attention to detail which makes the game jump out at you, with characters going about their daily lives aside from your own questing and a general high attention to detail for all buildings and scenery, with trees and the likes swaying in the breeze. Perhaps the best piece of graphical work is seen when you let the king go too long without sleep and he slowly begins to grow and regal beard before having his hair turn from a youthful brown to grey to white. It adds an extra layer of character to an already charming game. At times, there can be a lot of things happening on screen, with large numbers of units making up your royal squad and other villagers or enemies and bosses filling the screen. As such, it can lead to anarchy and at times the game can be seen to drop in frame rate. It's not an all too common occurrence and something that you can often overlook as not affecting the gameplay, but it is slightly annoying.

The use of a blurring technique for the camera is used to soften the often rough and jagged outlines of the buildings and scenery and while it does look a little out of place initially, it does fit in with the whole fairy tale ideal of the game's story and gameplay. The pastel drawn cutscenes further lend to the notion of a fairy tale setting and provide the game with some humorous moments.

Sound

While some may begrudge the absence of any true original score or music to the title, with there only being a few instances of original tracks by legendary composer Yoko Shimomura, the developers have brought in a plethora of grandiose classical music that really complements the gameplay perfectly. The likes of Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, and Rossini are but a few of the composers who have their work represented here and these help to create an involving atmosphere, with the music almost always fluctuating to punctuate every piece of action that takes place on the screen. From the soothing orchestral pieces to the more ruckus ones, there's plenty of music on offer to draw you into the game's world and more often than not it will provide some humorous moments. There are the occasional pieces of voice work, covering select languages but most of the time speech is represented as gibberish. It's not a drawback in the slightest, lending itself to providing some comic moments.

Final comments

For all the flaws that the game has, Little King's Story easily pushes them aside and presents itself as one of the best titles on the console. The visuals exude charm and personality, something further conveyed through the music, the content is often imaginative, poking fun at various fairy tales, and the gameplay is of such a depth that every day is different and you'll find yourself coming back for weeks and beyond just to see the little changes to the world of your little king. This is a perfect example of a game tailored to the Wii's capabilities, most of them anyway, and definitely a game that deserves a place upon your shelf. A must buy that is easily fit for a king.

Pro: Vast amount of varied and enjoyable gameplay, visuals exude charm and humour, music is fantastic
Con: Frame rate can at times dip due to the action on screen, controls can be frustrating, can be unforgivingly difficult at times
Final score: 9.2

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