Impressions: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As A King
That's right folks; Nintendo has officially opened the WiiWare doors. I took the opportunity to sit down with some of the more prestigious releases last night and let me tell you, they have a strong launch. After what I'm going to coin "the block shuffle", I managed to free up enough space for Lost Winds and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. Yes I know it's a mouthful. Both games are easily worth the price of admission, but let me focus in for a bit.
I was a bit apprehensive about Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King initially. I've been a fan of the Crystal Chronicles franchise for a while, and I wasn't sure that it would translate to a size limited title; honestly I wasn't far from the truth. My Life as a King is not a Crystal Chronicles per-say, as it is set in the Crystal Chronicles universe. Adventure and co-operative play need not apply.
You fill the roll of an energetic up-start king who has been given the keys to the kingdom by his late father. The back story is vague, but fleshed in as chapters unfold. Your father was a great man, he's dead or missing (it's not particularly forthright here) and the kingdom was plagued by a deadly miasma displacing all the citizens. Now it is up to you to rebuild the kingdom.
The game play is best described as causal, almost minimal. My Life as a King takes place in one location, and one location only, the castle town. Time is sliced into days, with which you are tasked with building, commissioning adventurers, investing and generally entertaining those around you. Building takes resources, adventuring produces resources and talking with the civilians improves their morale. Improved morale increases tax revenue. The game is fundamentally about making money and spending it on more people so you can make more money. It's like Monopoly solitaire.
This is not to say My Life as a King is not fun, quite the contrary. I will admit that the game is a little slow to start, often I found myself wondering what I was suppose to do while I waited for my adventurers to return, but the game quickly picks up pace as your town grows. I began playing around 8pm, only to find that it was close to 1 in the morning and that I had to wake up early the next day.
Amusingly, Noun and I were discussing the title earlier this morning. "You realize that the game is just Metropolismania with an adventurer system, right"? He was spot on in his observation, so this makes a good point of reference. The game is a little slower paced, and your citizens are less demanding but that is essentially it. The game is beautiful, simple yet addicting. If you have a life-manager addict in the house, this is definitely a title for them.
Asterick
Posted to Hot Stuff, Video Games on 13 May 2008
· Comments (2)
Other stuff like this: enix, final fantasy crystal chronicles, my life as a king, nintendo, square, wii, wii ware
It's a really good start for SE on Wii-ware, but after playing through My Life as a King once, I REALLY WISH SE combined this gameplay with a normal crystal chronicles game, and made a sort of Final Fantasy Dark Cloudish game.
It can greatly be improved upon, but I really enjoyed it regardless!
I'm inclined to agree... but I have to say that this is the WII we are talking about... Having played the first 6 hours, I'd say SE was trying more to get a G Rating by excluding as much violence they can off the title while keeping their gorgeous aesthetics.
I can see overly bossy/control-freak little girls (or queerettes) and their moms/ grandmas playing this one.
I'm sure SE wont have too much trouble with em sales.