My Life as a King is Frustrating, Yet Refreshing

Saturday, 14 June 2008 in Videogames
Tags: crystal chronicles, final fantasy, mlaak, my life as a king, nintendo wii, square enix, videogame review, wii, wiipoints, wiiware

(Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, Image via GayGamer.net)

As the online downloading module becoming increasingly popular these days, the same can be said for the videogame industry. Microsoft has lead the pack with Xbox Live and Sony with their Playstation Network (PSN), offering online distribution of games and tv shows and more. Predictably, Nintendo has recently launched their own services for the Nintendo Wii, named WiiWare, as Square Enix’s Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (later referred to as My Life as a King) is one of the first offering.

I used to be a huge Final Fantasy fan during the PlayStation One days, still remember how eager I was to be in line for the much anticipated Final Fantasy VIII. (Possibly the most underrated one in the series.) I was also the one in five people who had actually gone to the theatre for Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. (Which i found the movie to be, oppositely, much overrated.)

But as a fan of the series, it’s obvious that Square Enix is trying to branch out in its Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles series, in which they want to put enough brand power without letting it be ruined should there ever be a bad move.

My Life as a King might as well not be a Final Fantasy game, instead be be called as The Sims: Cosplay Gone Wrong. It’s essentially a simulation game, as you, a child King with a horrendous fashion sense, are returned to an empty town which you must build and maintain the town to be as prosperous as it is morally righteous (more on that later).

(Child King with a Horrendous Fashion Sense, Image via GameBump)

Unlike other Final Fantasy games, you do not ever head out to the town and fight monster, ever. Instead, you must delegate adventurers to various dungeons in order to gather natural resources for the town. The more houses you build, the more adventurers you may gather (up to 16) and the more money you can collect to spend on weapon, magic or training upgrades.

The game is broken out in days, and depending on how happy the town is you may stay out as early as sunset to as late as midnight. Everyday you are given a daily report, as you may also assign a behest for adventurers to partake. The rest of the time you will be running around talking to people to build up the town morale meter (think experience bar), necessary to upgrade your town status to city, kingdom, empire or more. Alternatively you are able to use your morale meter to ensure the townspeople are happy so you can extend your day.

(Chime giving you a daily report at the beginning of each day, Image via IGN.com)

Here’s a few things that I really liked about the game:

• HIT: Addictiveness
  Depending on how long you are able to stay up, the duration of each day span from 5 to 10 minutes, making it extremely easy to addictively say, “I’ll go to bed after one more day.” The first time i played the game, I ended up playing for 14 hours straight solely because of that concept. Brilliant.
   
• HIT: Geektacular Details
  I know i’ve mentioned how this game is very unlike other Final Fantasy games, but at the same time they really went above and beyond in the geek factor. Within the daily report you are able to see all the adventurers’ activities, including which dungeons they went to as well as the turn-by-turn battle information with which specific enemies. This detail in the battle logs were unexpected but definitely very welcomed.
   
• HIT: Affordable
  This game costs merely 1500 WiiPoints, which is just USD$15, and though there’s not much of a story, the length of the game is quite generous given the amount you pay for. What’s more is since this game is more simulation rather than actual RPG, the replay value rivals any other Final Fantasy game, by far.
   
• HIT: Reasonable Add-on Content
  This game does offer some add-on contents which you can purchase more, including additional dungeons, tribes and of course more horrendous outfits. If you are that bat-crazy, the total cost of this game can total to around $40, but given the sizable amount of content and materials in the original game i wouldn’t colour them necessary. It’s nice to see Square Enix isn’t trying to squeeze out every cent from us.
   

But here’s a few things that really frustrated me to no end, most of them are likely due to the rush production timeline to get this out by WiiWare’s launch date or the sheer laziness of the engineers:

• SHIT: Repetitive Dialogue
  The main part of the game, besides assigning behest to adventurers, is talking to the townsfolk to collect more experience to upgrade town status. But unlike Animal Crossing, where conversations with the villagers are actually entertaining, if not LOL-worthy, the dialogue in this game is repetitive with most of the townspeople saying the same thing. Whilst that is fine for the first 50 days, this gets ridiculously old by Day 175. I understand this game is $15, but if this is to be the majority of the game, they should at least make it entertaining and worthwhile.
   
• SHIT: Incoherent Behest System
  Speaking of the behest, this makes no sense to me. As the adventurers are able to change class later in the game (how Final Fantasy), but only through the behest i issue within the daily report, why can’t i select which adventurer to go to which bulletin boards? Instead i must issue the behest and wait to see who goes to which board and choose among that. It’s fine if i’m delegating the change from one class to another, but as there are four classes to choose from it’s a tedious task to choose the same behest day after day only to chase after that specific adventurer and assigning him/her to that specific class.
   
• SHIT: Worst. Interface. Evar.
  You would think after twelve Final Fantasy games and counting Square Enix would have a solid interface design team. UI design is a joke in this game. In the daily report alone, there are some menu items you have to back up to proceed, some you have to confirm to cancel and even some where you cannot back out at all.
   
• SHIT: Inefficient Button Mapping
  This goes with my last point. When you’re in the dungeon info screen (when choosing a behest), why must you select a dungeon, hit A to view info, then backing out to choose another dungeon? Why can’t I select from one dungeon to another through the R button, or the + button for the wiimote? Same goes for the adventurer status screen. As this is standardise across most Final Fantasy games, this point baffles me.
   
• SHIT: Pavlov
  This is more of a nitpick than anything else, but Pavlov, the information wielding penguin, is useless. Most of the information he provides can be gather from the bulletin board, Chime’s tavern or be placed with Chime herself.
   
• SHIT: Frame Rate
  This is easily my biggest pet peeve. I understand that for a $15 game I do not have sufficient rights to demand for 60 frames per second. But the frame rate should at least be consistent. Whenever I summon Chime, your helper who’s glad to assist in building houses and moreso interrupting you at the end of your day (get it? Her name? Chime?), the frame rate drops to the level of intolerable cruelty. It’s not even when i’m building houses, but simply calling her when there’s nothing else going on would cost the frame rate to drop so much i constantly question if my Wii is going to make it or not. I don’t care how she’s wearing a half skirt and leggings, because quite frankly she can’t top what i wear on a holiday with a midrift and a fanny pack with stars trailing from my ass. There’s no reason for this.

All in all, I think My Life as a King is a worthy game despite all the shortcomings, most of which might be due to the short production time and the rush to get it out by the WiiWare launch date. It’s nonetheless a refreshing title at a affordable price for the amount of content and level of details and graphics that went into it. It’s definitely not for anyone but for those who happens to like simulation and RPG should give this one a try.

For a more professional take, here is MetaCritic’s review aggregation of the game.