I have a Wii. Sometimes I forget that, because releases that I'm interested in are few and far between. I've been following Little King's Story for a while though, and I picked it up at the beginning of the week for a measly AU$60 new. Wii games are cheap here, apparently. I've been skipping past that isle at the JB for so long I didn't notice until now.

Little King's Story is a cool little game. It reminds me alot of the Pikmin series, Pikmin 2 in particular (of which I have a particular fondness for), mixed with some town building and expansion stuff. You start the game with a pokey little town, a ramshackle hut of a castle, and a few lazy good-for-nothings that make up your citizenry. The aim of the game is to TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, but of course this is a gradual process. You basically do this by giving your citizens specific jobs that will allow you to access different areas and unearth certain treasures and defeat certain enemies, which earn you Bol that is used to upgrade your town, the amount of citizens in it, how many you can take exploring with you, etc. After you beat a boss that holds land, you will take control of that land, giving you more options to expand your town and citizenry in preperation for the next boss fight.

The first few 'days' of play are a tutorial of sorts, showing you what your citizens can and can't do, showing you how to add buildings to your town to give your citizens specific jobs, and rounds it all off with a mini-boss fight. After you defeat the boss and assume control of it's land, the next day is set aside for a festival celebrating your victory, where your town will be decked out with decorations and your citizens will be wearing a costume partaining to the boss you just killed and dance around an effigy of your benevolance, which is both adoreable and disturbing at the same time.

The citizens themselves are a character in Little King's Story. Each one is fairly unique, having different ages, health values, looks, and personalities when you speak to them (although some occasionaly give the stock hint as to what to do next or explanation of their job dialogue). Young citizens will generally have low health, but will eventually grow to middle age and gain more, then regress into aged citizens and have their health drop again, and eventually they will die of natural causes, and a day of mourning will be held much like the festivals when you beat a boss, except this time everyone will be dressed in funeral garb and moping around instead of partying.

You can probably tell by now, but under Little King's Story's cute and colourful exterior is a game with some pretty mature social themes. It's not the first game that's done this, and definitely won't be the last, but I find myself enjoying the use of these themes in otherwise unassuming games. From pretty close to the start of the game you sorta wonder, is this the right thing to do? My advisor isn't exactly tactful with containing his desires of ultimate power... My citizens seem pretty civilized, but regress into bloodthirsty tribals when I forcibly take land from someone... And why am I killing these black Onii dudes that were happily chatting and playing a few seconds ago and drop toys and candy as loot? And why is my queen segregated to a wing of my castle instead of the main hall where I make all my kingly descisions?

I'm sure alot more of these will crop up too, since I still have to take over the countries of another five Kings to finish the game.

I have a Wii. Sometimes I forget that, because releases that I'm interested in are few and far between. I've been following Little King's Story for a while though, and I picked it up at the beginning of the week for a measly AU$60 new. Wii games are cheap here, apparently. I've been skipping past that isle at the JB for so long I didn't notice until now.

Little King's Story is a cool little game. It reminds me alot of the Pikmin series, Pikmin 2 in particular (of which I have a particular fondness for), mixed with some town building and expansion stuff. You start the game with a pokey little town, a ramshackle hut of a castle, and a few lazy good-for-nothings that make up your citizenry. The aim of the game is to TRY TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD, but of course this is a gradual process. You basically do this by giving your citizens specific jobs that will allow you to access different areas and unearth certain treasures and defeat certain enemies, which earn you Bol that is used to upgrade your town, the amount of citizens in it, how many you can take exploring with you, etc. After you beat a boss that holds land, you will take control of that land, giving you more options to expand your town and citizenry in preperation for the next boss fight.

The first few 'days' of play are a tutorial of sorts, showing you what your citizens can and can't do, showing you how to add buildings to your town to give your citizens specific jobs, and rounds it all off with a mini-boss fight. After you defeat the boss and assume control of it's land, the next day is set aside for a festival celebrating your victory, where your town will be decked out with decorations and your citizens will be wearing a costume partaining to the boss you just killed and dance around an effigy of your benevolance, which is both adoreable and disturbing at the same time.

The citizens themselves are a character in Little King's Story. Each one is fairly unique, having different ages, health values, looks, and personalities when you speak to them (although some occasionaly give the stock hint as to what to do next or explanation of their job dialogue). Young citizens will generally have low health, but will eventually grow to middle age and gain more, then regress into aged citizens and have their health drop again, and eventually they will die of natural causes, and a day of mourning will be held much like the festivals when you beat a boss, except this time everyone will be dressed in funeral garb and moping around instead of partying.

You can probably tell by now, but under Little King's Story's cute and colourful exterior is a game with some pretty mature social themes. It's not the first game that's done this, and definitely won't be the last, but I find myself enjoying the use of these themes in otherwise unassuming games. From pretty close to the start of the game you sorta wonder, is this the right thing to do? My advisor isn't exactly tactful with containing his desires of ultimate power... My citizens seem pretty civilized, but regress into bloodthirsty tribals when I forcibly take land from someone... And why am I killing these black Onii dudes that were happily chatting and playing a few seconds ago and drop toys and candy as loot? And why is my queen segregated to a wing of my castle instead of the main hall where I make all my kingly descisions?

I'm sure alot more of these will crop up too, since I still have to take over the countries of another five Kings to finish the game.

I've been following this game and was going to buy it, but I went with Dawn of Discovery for the Wii instead. I would get Little King's Story too, if I hadn't already pre-ordered Wii Sports Resort. Oh, well, sounds interesting, maybe I'll check it out down the road.

Thanks for the tip, mate. This def sounds like I'd be interested in. I may just have to check it out next time I'm wandering around JB!

I'm about an hour in and this game is fantastic.  One of if not the best third party Wii titles ever!