Little King’s Story is a strategy-RPG developed by Cing and released for the Nintendo Wii in July of 2009. In it players control a young boy who finds a mysterious crown that gives him the power to charm people into following him. Using this he becomes the king of a small village, and before long he is charged with uniting the surrounding land underneath his leadership.

Players move the king about the game world directly, recruiting followers from among the townsfolk. At the beginning of the game followers only have a small set of options, but as the game progresses more and more jobs become available. Followers might become warriors to battle monsters, workers to construct new bridges or stairways, or gatherers to collect goods and dig holes. Players lead a group of followers around to a specific task, exploring the area, assigning townsfolk to various jobs and venturing into new lands to battling various enemies. As players progress they will encounter new challenges, expanding their kingdom and unlocking new jobs, abilities and sidequests.

Educationally, Little King’s Story’s strengths are in problem solving and creativity. Players constantly encounter new challenges, from new enemy types to new follower jobs with new abilities, and figuring out how to use these to reach various goals is the meat of the game. Players always have new lands to explore, and the game is always providing plenty of sidequests, optional goals and other rewards to particularly adventurous players. Business skills are another of the games strengths; though there’s just one simple currency in the game, players are constantly pressed to come up with more gold to fund new buildings, jobs and other items.

Classroom Facts

Little King’s Story’s fantasy RPG setting doesn’t leave much room for classroom facts. Math is an important focus of the game, as much of it revolves around collecting gold to construct new buildings, and pages of various records and statistics are easily accessible at any time. Dialogue is also an important part of the game, with many major features and mechanics described to the player in text.  In addition, the game’s soundtrack is also highly notable, being made up almost entirely or arrangements or totally recognizable pieces of classical music; the game opens up with Pomp and Circumstance, and later on Rhapsody in Blue plays as players explore certain areas.

Creativity & Imagination

By the Player:

The player’s first and foremost goal in Little King’s Story is to explore the land surrounding the king’s kingdom to defeat monsters, collect resources and conquer new lands. Besides the game’s main goals, players can choose from a huge number of side quests as the game progresses. Players often have plenty of options open at any given time when it comes to exploring as well, with some paths leading to treasure or new areas, while others might lead to powerful boss enemies.

Encountering any of these issues will likely lead to treasure, and as players collect enough gold, new building options begin to become available. Players can choose to focus on buildings that increase their kingdom’s population, buildings that offer new jobs for townsfolk or even the construction of new villages as the kingdom begins to grow. There are usually a number options at any one moment, and very rare is the situation in which the player can choose them all. Different players’ kingdoms will develop in different ways, lending a sense of personalization to each player’s kingdom.

By the Developer:

Little King’s Story is a truly remarkable title. Up front it offers a strong, unique art style that is careful to appear child-friendly. Characters are mostly cute, with the game’s various buildings looking like something out of a fairy tale and in-game tutorials being displayed in many colors on a chalk board. This powerful visual style, though, masks the game’s depth and dark sense of humor. While the game is child-friendly, it becomes difficult fairly quickly, and it’s not long before players will see funerals for fallen villagers or come under pressure from a God-fearing man to build a church in the kingdom.

The game’s mechanics are fairly simple, but over the course of the game they are explored extensively. The game crosses genres in a number of ways; the villagers do all of the player’s work in the game, and they are treated as units with different jobs and abilities, but unlike a standard strategy title the player controls a single avatar - the king - who walks around commanding his subjects directly. The game also incorporates an RPG-like feel in its progression, with the player’s kingdom expanding to incorporate new jobs and abilities over time that allow it to access new areas and enemies.

The game’s soundtrack is also highly notable, being made up almost entirely or arrangements or totally recognizable pieces of classical music; the game opens up with Pomp and Circumstance, and later on Rhapsody in Blue plays as players explore certain areas.

Business Skills

Business skills are an extremely important element of Little King’s Story. Players use gold to access new jobs for villagers, construct houses for new villagers to live in, build various tools to assist in controlling villagers smoothly, and more. Gold is collected as enemies are defeated and various pieces of loot and treasure are collected. Adventuring will allow players to discover plenty of treasure, but many of the upgrades and buildings available are exceptionally expensive, requiring players to conserve their gold over time. New things to buy are also springing up constantly, especially as the player’s territory really begins to spread out.

People Skills

Little King’s Story features no multiplayer modes, but the single-player quest features a fairly large focus on people skills. The game is really about the player’s relationship with the various townsfolk under the king’s control. Players are given an approval rating, which is affected by many of the player’s decisions, and particularly the player’s skill in battle. Losing a lot of villagers can lead townsfolk to dislike the king, and players will even come into town some mornings and witness funeral processions and mourners after battles.

Conquering new lands, on the other hand, will lead to great celebrations and parades that leave the king almost entirely unable to control his subjects.

Problem Solving

Players almost always have a few different problems to solve at a time. The game is structured into days; players go explore or complete tasks, collecting treasure all the while, eventually returning to the castle to cash in loot and purchase various upgrades for the next day’s adventures. Players might have a new path to clear out, a new bridge to build and a powerful enemy boss to deal with in a single day; this will involve picking groups of villagers with appropriate jobs for each new task, taking them to complete the task, and then collecting new villagers for whatever’s next. This sort of flow persists throughout the game, as players always have many new goals, especially as they spread out to discover strange beasts and even other enemy kingdoms.

When the day’s work is done, the other major problem presented to players is deciding how to spend all of their hard-earned gold. Players again have a large number of options here, and their choices will affect precisely what challenges they can tackle on the next day.

Simulation

Little King’s Story is not a simulation game.

Popularity

Little King’s Story has received extremely positive reviews since its release, with most critics praising the level of depth and challenge in the title despite its possibly childish visual style, though the high level of difficulty received criticism as well as praise.

Controls & Options

Little King’s Story features a handful of standard audio and visual options. Three difficulty options are available from the beginning of the game, which affect the strength of enemy bosses.

Tips

Little King’s Story received a T from the ESRB with descriptors for Crude Humor, Mild Cartoon Violence, Suggestive Themes and Use of Alcohol.