GDC 08: Wii Ware: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles - My Life As A King
We just sat down with a roomful of Squeenix fans, devs, and translators for a talk on Square Enix's forthcoming Wii Ware title, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King. With a miniscule 40MB data footprint and a price point of 500-1000 Wii Points, FFCC:MLaaK (as I like to call it) will be breaking the mold in more than one way - for better or for worse.
This world-building RPG puts the player in the role of a young king, while AI adventurers set forth into the outer world and return with gold, stories, items, and most of all, demands. You'll build your city from the ground up to provide your automated adventurers with the resources that they need, and every day they'll give you a report of where they've adventured, what they've accomplished, and more specific feedback that should help guide you in your quest for adorable autocratic perfection.
Just about everything I learned about this game today was pieced together from two short videos, so bear in mind that the accuracy of the following (and the preceding, for that matter) is subject to Tiny's Patented Disclaimer.
What I saw: the cute king running around town, little conversation balloons a-popping above the heads of NPCs with multiple dialog options while popup menus in the top right corner of the screen give live reports of the progress of the king's cadre of presumably non-playable adventurers. Their morning report looked simple but helpful, listing the amount of gold won as well as adventurers' opinions and feedback which you'll need in order to properly grow your town. I'm thinking Dark Cloud meets, well, Crystal Chronicles.
You'll also see the heroes return to town and, in a bit of a bittersweet reversal, spending all their gold on fancy equipment - "I just bought a broadsword!" announced one lucky bastard. All the king had was a jaunty hat! (Never underestimate the power of a jaunty hat.)
There wasn't much to go on, but the game is set for a Japanese launch date of March 2008, so more details will be pouring in soon. I'm honestly still on the fence so far - Crystal Chronicles have always been experimental, and there's a lot that could go wrong. That said, Square Enix certainly knows how to please their fans!
tiny dancer
Posted to GDC, Hot Stuff, Video Games on 21 February 2008
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Name: Dave