Review: My Life as a King lives up to its name
Sunday, May 18th, 2008 at 5:00am by Blake
I detest Final Fantasy games. Truth be told, I loath all RPGs. Yup, I’m in the 40 percent minority of gamers that doesn’t enjoy a good role playing game. After downloading Final Fantasy: My Life as a King, however, I can confidently say that I now adore the venerable series. Of course, the latest game is anything but an RPG.
My Life as a King is a city-building game similar to Sim City and akin to Animal Crossing, but it plays a whole lot faster — enough to entertain non-sim lovers even. Players assume the role of an aspiring little monarch that is tasked with rebuilding a castle town via home building, outsourced dungeon exploration, resource management, taxes, and inhabitant morale. It doesn’t sound that exciting, but boy does the game suck you in thanks to the aformention speed of play, strategy, and delightful presentation.
That’s you and your well-endowed assistant named Chime.
Building materials don’t grow on trees, so it’ll be up to you to first populate your town with new residents, then ask those willing and able to mine additional resources for you in the surrounding (non-playable) dungeons. You’re a king after all — get somebody else to do your dirty work!
My Life as a King is counted in days that last no longer than 3-4 minutes real time. A typical day consists of: receiving a daily report telling you how much tax you collected the previous day, what your “adventurers” accomplished, and granting you the ability to assign new work so you can gather more loot, make more money, and grow your town further still.
It’s good to be king.
It’s difficult to explain — given the boring game description — why My Life as a King is so addicting (it can be played in small doses or half-day sessions). What stands out the most, however, is that the game does a fine job in making you feel like an omnipotent but protected king. By doing so, Square Enix underscored the importance of strategy over combat while giving reason for being a patriarch over fighter, which is a nice change of pace.
Even though the game is less than a 40 MB download (287 blocks), the confined presentation rivals that of the best-looking GameCube titles, greatly adding to the gameplay. The visuals seem a bit washed out, nevertheless, they remain charming. Building animations are reminiscent of Wind Waker-like smoke swirls, select stores will hang parade-like decor on promotional days, the writing is witty and U.S. specific, and the music is amazingly memorable — like Mario good.
Talking with folk is a great way to boost morale… and fill your tax coffers.
My Life as a King is far from innovative. While motion-controls are tenderly used to call on your assistant, the experience is very straightforward and could easily be played on other consoles. Regardless, it’s difficult to criticize the game other than for its lack of pioneering ideas — its just so well-crafted.
“You little city is growing,” my wife told me today. My efforts had not be in vain!
Some reviewers have called My Life as a King “shallow” because it doesn’t let players explore and de-boss the various dungeons. Others have questioned the downloadable content, forgetting that it’s optional and of no consequence to the primary experience or story (DLC can extend the mileage, but I haven’t felt the need to buy it).
These shortsighted critics are grossly missing the point, however, and forgetting the game’s namesake: My Life as a King. Royalty may never engage in close combat, as is the case with this Final Fantasy title, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have any fun.
May 18th, 2008 at 5:05 am
is it coming out on ds? Because that would be wicked
please post a comment and answer
thanks!!!!!
May 18th, 2008 at 7:23 am
i bought the game yesterday and been playing it. its strangely addicting. its a cute game, so people afraid of cute games should stand clear. the music is soothing, and overall its pretty good. kind of interesting you never take part in the battles, but you know what’s going on from afar, and you can assign which warriors to go where. i’ve yet needed to buy downloadable content, but in the future who knows. i’d say its a must buy only because it will keep you addicted for hours.
May 18th, 2008 at 7:37 am
I was hooked to this game! I just couldn’t stop, it was always, ‘one more day’ one more day, one more day!!! @_@
May 18th, 2008 at 8:01 am
Dammit…now I’m going to have to get it.
Just keep piling on the games that I’ve NEVER get around to…good lord. OK, that’s it. I’m going all out, balls to the wall this coming weekend. I’m going to sleep as little as possible and just beat Mario Galaxy and at least one other game.
Jeah, it’s unhealthy. But it’s in the name of videogames!
May 18th, 2008 at 8:03 am
My god they need to release that damn Wii hardrive! Now I have to get LostWinds AND FFCC:My Life As King! That’s like all more than half of the space I have left! WHY NINTENDO, WHY!
May 18th, 2008 at 11:54 am
No Sam, I don’t think this is coming out on DS. Just for WiiWare.
May 18th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
(287 blocks)! Count me out.
I only have 209 blocks free…
May 19th, 2008 at 3:38 am
@Bii: unless you have a really slow internet connection, in which case erasing and re-downloading a game is a pain, you can erase any game on the console and still be able to re-pick it up any time you want (they are tied to the console itself).
And that’s not counting the possibility of transferring them on an SD card, erase them from the console, and then re-transfer them when you want to play them again!
May 19th, 2008 at 4:57 am
My connection is good, well, when the EVIL that is Time Warner doesn’t packet shape it and prematurely time it out…
Deleting games for more room is kind of a throw back to my the old DOS days when my hard drives were puny. I’ve been kind of hesitant to do so with my Wii and would prefer an alternative method to having to download them again. I would like the option of trading a few of them back in though. :O
I WANT MORE ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! :]
May 19th, 2008 at 6:41 am
Buy an SD card and move your games over to it. Then moving them back on is quicker than having to download them again. SD cards are cheap so I haven’t had a problem. I guess I don’t get all the people who are reluctant to delete any VC games to make room. Are you really playing them ALL with that much frequency?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:01 am
I play them ALL!
I have billions if not trillions of SD cards. I’m just LAZY!
But.. I recall trying a back up to my SD and it didn’t work?
Anyways, I did some searching and apparently it’s possible to play games off the SD card if you do it right — this will rock if it’s true. I had originally tried backing up my games before I played them, so I guess that was the issue. I’m going to try again later this morning after I finish up some work.
http://www.neowin.net/forum/lofiversion/index.php/t545624.html
May 20th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
thanks ninja it doesnt matter if its not coming out on ds i just wanted to know
thanks again
sam!!!!!
May 20th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
I guess I’ll buy it. I’ll give up on waiting for Dr.Mario.