Little King’s Story Review
Who better to rule the world than a young child with a magic crown and the ability to charm others? In this whimsical real-time strategy game (RTS), command your citizens in battle and exploration, venturing into foreign lands to defeat the seven other kings, and unite the world under the banner of the kingdom of Alpoko, all while building your city and keeping your citizens happy. Don’t let the kid-friendly appearance of Little King’s Story fool you; there’s enough to keep players of any level interested, as long as you can handle the often crushing difficulty. Get ready to dish out commands and conquer new lands, there’s a kingdom to run.
For the most part, the plot is not terribly complex, just a little mysterious. When the young protagonist finds a strange crown, he becomes king of Alpoko. With the assistance of his three ministers, you are given the task of reviving Alpoko, and at the insistence of Howser the Bull Knight, you must defeat the other seven kings and conquer the known world. Meanwhile, the perpetually panicked astronomer Skinny Ray insists that the recent earthquakes mean the world is coming to an end, and you must investigate. Overall the themes are largely goofy and quirky (matched by the cutesy graphics and character designs), such as the drunken king who thinks everyone should drink and be merry, or the egghead king who thinks and worries too much. It certainly adds some flavor to the otherwise monotonous task of exploration and city-building, but it’s not all drunks and candy forests. There are some surprisingly serious themes as well; the egghead king goes off on some existential ponderings, and one part near the end reveals the bittersweet origin of many of the adults in the game. Yet even as it builds to a climax, the ending cuts short and fails to resolve anything. Instead the story is left as a cute and comical romp that will surely make you smile, but won’t leave you with much else.
Mingle with the laid-back country folk or recruit them to adventure with you.
Little King’s Story is really a mix of genres, but both require you to cater to your units, guiding and protecting them. From your throne, you can construct your kingdom and accept quests from worried citizens. Whether on the field or in the comfort of your castle, your citizens’ needs weigh upon your head–unlike other RTS games, it’s not easy to continually spawn units, so you’ll have to be careful with them. Charging into battles is a sure-fire way to die; strategy is the key word in combat, and until you master a proper attack and retreat pattern, progress is slow and corpse ridden. However, the game has an odd system for death. If and when someone dies, they may permanently die or they might wash ashore on the beach the next day, supposedly from the land of the dead. The latter is far more common, and actually makes death rather superfluous. As long as you’re at a point where you can return to town and rest until the next day, you can reorganize your troops and try again, albeit with some wasted time.
It’s when you don’t have that option that the game becomes frustratingly difficult and tiresome. Boss fights can spark a love-and-hate response. Each is imaginative and clever, such as the pinball-style fight against King Shiskebaboo, or the duel of wits battle against King Omlet, where you have to answer a series of questions and riddles. The first time you encounter each fight, you’ll surely be amused by the unique new challenge you face. By the third or fourth try, the charm wears thin. These fights are unapologetically difficult, and worse than that, they are tediously long. Nothing is worse than coming close to the end and failing, and unfortunately this is all too common in boss fights for this game. The distinctive style of each fight is a blessing and a curse–each fight seems fresh, but there is little way to prepare for them aside from failing a few times before mastering the battle. The final boss might be the worst offender. Though it’s a fairly straight-forward fight, instant kills and the incredible length of the battle will surely erode your enthusiasm. Challenge is one thing, but when boss fights aren’t fun anymore, it’s time to tone back the difficulty.
As you progress, it’s out of the frying pan and into the fire…literally.
Outside of combat, you’ll have plenty of opportunity to explore the wide world of Little King’s Story. New obstacles are constantly popping up, so you’ll have to conquer new territory and build more homes and job centers to keep progressing. However, the execution is not as easy as it sounds. Once you have the ability to bring more units with you exploring, it can be difficult to control all of them at once. A bad path-finding system means one or two units is likely to get caught in a corner as you round a turn, forcing you to return to them and regroup. It’s an annoyingly common occurrence, and even different formations do little to relieve this problem. Still, it is addicting to simply wander the earth, collecting items (to be turned into money) or rare and valuable treasure. Treasures such as spears or bows can be equipped to your citizens, granting them increased attack power, more energy, or immunity to status afflictions like poison or burning. The system adds another layer of strategy to the game while granting you a little more control over your preparations.
Surprisingly, Little King’s Story forgoes using any motion or IR controls–instead everything is controlled through standard button movements. Granted, there isn’t a lot of opportunities for motion controls, except for one key point. Instead of being able to point at the screen to direct your citizens, you aim with the control stick, and depending on which way the little king is facing, that’s where the unit will be sent. It’s not a terribly smooth system, especially since the camera angle does not always complement this aiming style–it’s incredibly easy to send a unit off in the wrong direction, or just barely off the mark. When time and maneuverability are of the essence, aiming feels far too clunky. Additionally, there is no easy way to send groups of units off on a job, instead you have to send each unit individually according to his job. It’s not exactly a game-breaking problem but it makes it harder to quickly have more than one group of units doing something at the same time, and early in the game it can be particularly awkward trying to form a group of citizens.
Collect your units in front of your podium before beginning the day’s adventure.
The game’s visuals match the colorful and cutesy story elements, but not in a gratingly cute way. It remains charming and fun to look at throughout the game, yet for some reason the entire game has an odd blurred filter. Everything appears a little fuzzy, as if someone smeared grease on the camera lens. It grants the game a dream-like atmosphere, but it makes details less clear and can be annoying after playing for long sessions. While playing, your ears might just perk up to a few familiar tunes; in fact, most of the music in the game is remixed from classical songs or other well-known compositions. It’s fun to sit back and try to remember where each song is from, or hum along to the ones you know. Though characters don’t actually speak, their mumbled gibberish language is reminiscent of actual languages. You might encounter someone who sounds like he’s speaking Spanish or French, though it’s just nonsensical noises. Whatever the language, the effect is charming, and the meek “hello”s from your citizens is sure to amuse.
Little King’s Story may seem like a light-hearted frolic, but it has enough content packed into it to satisfy any gamer. Focusing solely on the main quest can easily take you almost twenty hours, but you won’t want to pigeon-hole your experience. As your kingdom grows, citizens start requesting more of you, generally in the vein of destroying some pesky monster, or in the case of your princesses (one for each conquered king), you are expected to collect food, animals, or types of enemies, among other things. You can also find one hundred pieces of artwork submitted by contest winners and fill out your art gallery. You are, of course, well rewarded for your efforts, whether it be money or the more valuable treasure items. There is also your kingdom to consider; you’ll need to clear an area of monsters before you can build there, and once the area is monster free, homes and job centers aren’t exactly cheap. To begin this game with a “quick and easy” mindset is a grave mistake, as you’ll quickly become addicted to exploration, construction, and collection.
Little King’s Story is a gem of a game, with one debilitating fault. All the charm in the world won’t make up for the bitter taste of defeat that lingers on your tongue as you progress through the game. Wasting time on retries and failures from inconsistent difficulty is a serious problem, and can easily color your opinion of the game. Still, there’s a lot of game for you to experience, and even with oddly distracting visuals and a rather flat story, this is a fantasy tale you won’t want to miss. Just, maybe take it on easy mode.
7/10
~Eliwood
