Joystiq impressions: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King (WiiWare)
by Zack Stern 
{ Apr 15th 2008 at 5:45PM }
If you think upgrades and management are RPG highlights, maybe you'll like My Life as a King. Your young character returns to an abandoned castle to reclaim his dynasty after his dad left in exile. Your job is to spruce up the place, adding new shops that attract and upgrade townsfolk. Some buildings just allow for more people to move in, while weapon shops, magic guilds, and other structures help advance your people.
But with limited coffers, you'll have to send these citizens on quests to raid dungeons and return with more resources to keep building. Force a weak party into a dangerous situation, and they'll crawl back, beaten-down and loot-free. Send a well-equipped party into battle, and they'll bring back treasure.
That's the main mechanic of the game; you never leave the castle walls, trapped to mange your peoples' lives. I couldn't figure out how a story would be presented through this structure, but I was told that the roughly 10-hour game builds in its narrative, leading to a final boss.
Maybe if I played for a few hours, I'd get into the raid-by-proxy style. And simulation fans will enjoy building structures and maintaining the castle. But I'm cautious about My Life as a King.
Square-Enix didn't confirm a price or ship date, but previous news suggests it'll launch May 12 in the U.S. and cost $15.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
LaughingTarget @ Apr 15th 2008 5:52PM
$15 for a 10 hour downloadable game or $50 to $60 for a 10 hour game pressed on a disk. Decisions decisions.
Liquid Ocelot (call me Liquid) @ Apr 15th 2008 6:30PM
$15 for what looks like a Final Fantasy cash-in or $60 for the real thing (FFXIII, if it ever comes...)?
Decisions, decisions...
LaughingTarget @ Apr 15th 2008 6:39PM
The real thing will also be 5 times longer, justifying the price tag.
Liquid Ocelot (call me Liquid) @ Apr 15th 2008 6:43PM
Except the two games are almost nothing alike. At least based on these impressions, this is controlling the city of an RPG. In FF13, you're actually guna be...y'know, PLAYING IN the city.
LaughingTarget @ Apr 15th 2008 6:45PM
Maybe, but if we get another gender androgynous main character (which FFXIII is getting), this will be a breath of fresh air.
Draco @ Apr 15th 2008 5:52PM
That sounds pretty interesting.
I always enjoyed the strategy part of the final fantasy games, not so much the battles. at 15$ you can't really go wrong, its only a quarter the price of any other game.
tmacairjordan87 @ Apr 15th 2008 5:53PM
Sounds like the NFL head coach of RPGs, aka boring.
Rask @ Apr 15th 2008 5:54PM
Why is it that WiiWare titles seem a lot more interesting than full Wii titles....
kinshadow @ Apr 15th 2008 6:00PM
Anything sounds more interesting than a bunch of random minigame collections.
Shagittarius @ Apr 15th 2008 5:55PM
PEGGLE!
LOLZ!
Sorry I just remembered peggle.
whosmav @ Apr 15th 2008 6:11PM
SimCity FF-style. Could be good.
Fingers crossed for an Actraiser WiiWare-make.
Jerk Face v 2.0 (MSDF Edition) @ Apr 15th 2008 6:22PM
Kind of reminds me of how you could send your units off to do little quests in FF Tactics Advance, right? You'd send them off and based on their attributes they would either succeed or fail and come back with items.
That was cool, and all, but I'm not sure if an entire game could be built around it.
Amstrad @ Apr 15th 2008 7:25PM
The concept being put forth here is enough to make we want to buy a Wii.. if the game has enough depth it'd be worth it. Right now I'm imagining the job system from the FFT games with individual units grouped into your different adventuring parties. Stick a fairly deep city building simulation on top of that and I could see myself sinking quite a bit of time into it.
lwelyk @ Apr 15th 2008 7:34PM
http://gamingdungeon.ikrell.com/?p=282
Don't get this game, the DLC is ridiculous.
Benny @ Apr 15th 2008 7:41PM
My Life as a Pauper?
Worst Review Ever @ Apr 15th 2008 7:44PM
I want an urban-crime simulation called My Life as a Pimp.
Jacksons @ Apr 15th 2008 9:36PM
This doesn't sound good at all, but I'll wait and see.
FriendlyFiend @ Apr 16th 2008 2:06AM
Hmm ... is it just me or does this sound a lot like "Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim"?
Dash @ Apr 16th 2008 10:03AM
That was the first thing to come to my mind. Maybe that's a good sign, I really liked Majesty for PC.
Nguyen @ Apr 16th 2008 3:45AM
Give SE's track record with Sim building games (big fat 0), I'd be cautious about this one too.
I think the Crystal Chronicles series should stay in the same genre. Then again, this is like the third (or fourth?) spinoff of the Final Fantasy franchise... so why not a spinoff of a spinoff? Wait so what was X-2?
But let's be honest, any FF fan (myself included) would still wait in line to get Final Fantasy 20-3: Dark Mages Series, The Prequel - Mog's Untold Story 2
Nguyen @ Apr 16th 2008 3:48AM
I forgot, this will be a Puzzlequest style game, except with Picross, where you level up every 10 pictures.
RitchCORRUPTION @ Apr 16th 2008 7:27AM
Your whole comment gets a big fat PHAIL for not knowing who made actraiser.
But yeh, I'll play anything square enix shit out as it's usually better than most other stuff around, certainly for my tastes.
& it IS refreshing to just pay $15/£15 for a ten hour game, compared to the full whack, becfause let's face it guys.. most games just don't last any longer than that.
Nguyen @ Apr 16th 2008 11:52AM
Dude, that was Enix only, honestly, did anybody even know about any other games they made except for Dragon Quest/Warrior? Also, my excuse is I did not have access to video games when ActRaiser came out.
Phil @ Apr 17th 2008 10:36PM
I'd rather have a game with budgeted updates in the 1-3 dollar range than buying a 50 dollar game and only getting 10 hours of content...
I'm looking at you Metroid Prime 3.