''Little King's Story'' is a
real-time strategy
Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, turn ...
life simulation
Life simulation games form a subgenre of simulation video games in which the player lives or controls one or more virtual characters (human or otherwise). Such a game can revolve around "individuals and relationships, or it could be a simulation ...
role-playing video game
A role-playing video game (commonly referred to as simply a role-playing game or RPG, as well as a computer role-playing game or CRPG) is a video game genre where the player controls the actions of a character (or several party members) immers ...
co-developed by
Cing
(styled CiNG) was an Independent business, independent video game developer based out of Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan. The company, a small development house employing only 29 people, was founded in April 1999, and was run by Takuya Miyagawa ...
and Town Factory for the
Nintendo Wii
The Wii ( ) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released on November 19, 2006, in North America and in December 2006 for most other regions of the world. It is Nintendo's fifth major home game console, f ...
. The game was published by
Rising Star Games
Rising Star Games Limited is a British video game publisher based in Hitchin.
History
Rising Star Games was founded on 10 July 2004 by Martin Defries as a joint venture between Bergsala Holding and Japanese publisher Marvelous Entertainment ...
in Australia on April 22, 2009 and Europe on April 24, 2009, by
Xseed Games
Xseed Games is an American video game company founded by former members of Square Enix USA. It later became a subsidiary of the Japanese game company Marvelous, providing the localization and publishing services for video games and related mat ...
in North America on July 21, 2009, and by
Marvelous Entertainment
(MMV) was a multinational corporation that produced animation, music, video games and television series. MMV is known for its involvement in the ''Story of Seasons'' series. They merged with AQ Interactive in 2011 and became Marvelous AQL; the ...
in Japan on September 3, 2009.
The player character is a timid boy who has found a mysterious crown which gives him the power to charm people and make them follow orders. As king of the village his goal is to expand the village and make his subjects happy. The design of the game combines various simulation elements as well as real-time and adventure elements. Yasuhiro Wada told CVG that the game would be a "single-player life-sim set in Europe." An altered re-imagining of the game was released on the
PlayStation Vita
The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international territo ...
under the title of ''New Little King's Story'' to fulfil a licensing contract with
Konami
, is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...
, although this version was later discontinued. A
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
version of the original Wii game was released on August 5, 2016. This port was published by Xseed Games, the North American publisher for the original Wii release.
Gameplay
Building
In ''Little King's Story'',
player
Player may refer to:
Role or adjective
* Player (game), a participant in a game or sport
** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games
** Athlete, a player in sports
** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...
controls the new king, Corobo. With his undeniable charm and control, he issues various orders to citizens. Though starting in what is essentially a cluttered field, player begins to upgrade the kingdom of Alpoko with activities such as treasure hunting and fighting. Within a few hours, player is able to purchase and institute various buildings, training facilities, and other castle commodities, while the population steadily grows. All important stats such as population and finances are tracked constantly through an easily accessible menu system.
When walking around, Corobo is able to select any citizen to follow him. Afterward, the player is able to issue commands to each citizen, including actions such as digging and fighting. While the player can have a group of people follow him, he can only issue commands to one citizen at a time. Early in the game, the player has the option to buy a podium that allows the player to gather choice citizens without walking around and searching for them.
Corobo's followers are initially very limited and weak in capability; however, this is quickly corrected when training facilities are built. At that point, the player can send his citizens into the buildings and change them into a different type of worker. The game offers different jobs for civilians, including but not limited to soldier, carpenter, peasant, farmer, and hunter. Each job allows citizens different capabilities and weaknesses. For example, a farmer is exceptional at field work and digging, but is a poor fighter, while soldiers are strong but lack the ability to traverse environmental obstacles. Corobo is also able to converse with his followers whenever he desires, though it usually only produces small talk.
Outside of the main story, side
quests
A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. The word serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult journey towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Tales of quests figure prominently in the folklore of ev ...
are widely available via a suggestion box in the town square. Courtesy of varied civilian complaints, Corobo can accept missions that range from fetch quests to hunting and fighting that allow him to keep his public satisfied and increase finances. On some days, players are actually unable to do much due to events such as celebrations. After conquering a rival land, for example, the next day a massive parade is held in Alpoko. During this day, commanding people is a futile effort as they are too busy enjoying themselves.
Saving progress can only be done in the kingdom.
Adventuring
Along with building and fortifying the kingdom, adventuring and questing constitutes the bulk of ''Little King's Story''. Alpoko is only a small portion of the world, which the players must explore in order to advance the plot, collect valuable treasures and bounty, and conquer the seven rival kingdoms. It is here where having variously classed citizens comes in handy, as the player encounters various environmental obstacles, including things such as gaps in the land, caved in areas, and of course a wide slew of dangerous enemies, including
boss
Boss may refer to:
Occupations
* Supervisor, often referred to as boss
* Air boss, more formally, air officer, the person in charge of aircraft operations on an aircraft carrier
* Crime boss, the head of a criminal organization
* Fire boss, a ...
battles.
Corobo attacks with his sceptre, but his attacks are extremely weak. Instead, he must have others do all fighting for him. All civilians and Corobo possess a set amount of
life
Life is a quality that distinguishes matter that has biological processes, such as signaling and self-sustaining processes, from that which does not, and is defined by the capacity for growth, reaction to stimuli, metabolism, energ ...
; should a civilian lose all of his he will die, while if the king dies it is
game over. Scattered throughout the land are little hot springs that allow the player to replenish his life; however, in order to save and collect bounty, the player must travel back to Alpoko first.
Plot
Corobo is a lonely boy who enjoys playing with his toys in his dark and cluttered room. One day, while chasing out a group of rats, he wanders into a mysterious land and finds a
crown
A crown is a traditional form of head adornment, or hat, worn by monarchs as a symbol of their power and dignity. A crown is often, by extension, a symbol of the monarch's government or items endorsed by it. The word itself is used, partic ...
. Upon putting it on, he discovers that the crown allows him to give people orders with which they cannot refuse. Corobo is also appointed the ruler of a little
kingdom
Kingdom commonly refers to:
* A monarchy ruled by a king or queen
* Kingdom (biology), a category in biological taxonomy
Kingdom may also refer to:
Arts and media Television
* ''Kingdom'' (British TV series), a 2007 British television drama s ...
known as Alpoko, accompanied by Howser the Bull
Knight
A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...
, his friends, Liam and Verde (who become
Minister of Anything and
Record Keeper
An archivist is an information professional who assesses, collects, organizes, preserves, maintains control over, and provides access to records and archives determined to have long-term value. The records maintained by an archivist can consis ...
, respectively), and a slew of obedient
citizens
Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection".
Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...
.
After building up Alpoko slightly, Corobo is issued a challenge by a foreign kingdom, which he defeats and conquers, gaining more money, territory, and a princess to keep and be with. Howser then encourages Corobo to unify the other six kingdoms under his reign. These kingdoms are ruled by kings which are: the evil
Oni
An is a kind of ''yōkai'', demon, orc, ogre, or troll in Japanese folklore. Oni are mostly known for their fierce and evil nature manifested in their propensity for murder and cannibalism. Notwithstanding their evil reputation, oni possess i ...
i King (the one who issued the challenge in the first place and the leader of a group of demons called Oniis), the drunken King Duvroc (who uses his skill with liquor as a form of fighting), the obese King Shiskebaboo (who uses his obesity to fight back), the riddling Omelet King (a weakling that has his men do all the work while he cowers on his toilet), The TV-obsessed TV Dinnah, the tall Long Sauvage (who is, in reality, a
pygmy
In anthropology, pygmy peoples are ethnic groups whose average height is unusually short. The term pygmyism is used to describe the phenotype of endemic short stature (as opposed to disproportionate dwarfism occurring in isolated cases in a pop ...
), and the giant eraser man King Jumbo Champloon (the first man created by "God"). While doing this, the little king also meets Skinny Ray, a man who claims that the universe is coming to an end as evidenced by earthquakes of growing magnitude, though nobody listens to him. Eventually, Corobo unifies the whole world and gains an additional six princesses; however, as the quakes escalate to
Armageddon
According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon (, from grc, Ἁρμαγεδών ''Harmagedōn'', Late Latin: , from Hebrew: ''Har Məgīddō'') is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies ...
scale, it is decided that the king must build a flying machine (which he does) and discover the cause of Armageddon. Right before, he discovers that his kingdom has gone bankrupt and that all of his princesses demand to come.
Upon choosing any one of the princesses or Verde (who also loves Corobo) to be with him, the king sets forth into space only to discover that his universe is contained within a box, and that its inhabitants are actually microscopic in size. It is then revealed that many of the characters are actually fantasy versions of people the owner of the box knows (Howser being a deceased grandfather turned into a knight and many of the bosses being parodies of various influences throughout this person's life). In fact, Little King's Story appears to be a child's diary acted out in the box. After facing a nasty group of rats, who are the cause of the tremors, little Corobo discovers himself to be alone while a giant boy awakens and chases him into a corner, only for a light to reveal that the giant is actually Corobo as he was at the beginning of the story. The game ends there without telling us whether the entire story was Corobo's dream or if there are two respective Corobos (a miniature king version and a regular boy version), as well as two different worlds.
Development
''Little King's Story'' began development under the title "Project O". The game was executive produced by
Yasuhiro Wada, who is the creator of the ''
Story of Seasons
''Story of Seasons'', known in Japan as and formerly known as ''Harvest Moon'', is an agricultural simulation role-playing video game series created by Yasuhiro Wada and developed by Victor Interactive Software (acquired by Marvelous Entert ...
'' series. Wada contracted a developer in
Fukuoka
is the sixth-largest city in Japan, the second-largest port city after Yokohama, and the capital city of Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan. The city is built along the shores of Hakata Bay, and has been a center of international commerce since ancie ...
to create a new title for the Wii and asked
Yoshirou Kimura to sign on as a producer.
As there was no other staff at that time, Kimura contacted
Norikazu Yasunaga to aid in the game's design,
Youichi Kawaguchi to direct and
Hideo Minaba and Kazuyuki Kurashima to design the characters and monsters respectively.
Kimura had previously worked on cult titles such as ''
Moon: Remix RPG Adventure'' and ''
Chulip
, stylized as ''Chu♥lip'', is an adventure/simulation video game developed by Punchline (company), Punchline and released on October 3, 2002 in Japan by Victor Interactive Software for the PlayStation 2. After numerous delays, the game was rel ...
'', and came up with the concept of ''Little King's Story''. Kimura states that his inspiration for the game came from ''
The Little Prince
''The Little Prince'' (french: Le Petit Prince, ) is a novella by French aristocrat, writer, and military pilot Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 an ...
'', a storybook he read as child.
His goal the first year in development was to create a
real-time strategy
Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, turn ...
game with easy controls, specifically one that used the
Wii Remote
The Wii Remote, also known colloquially as the Wiimote, is the primary game controller for Nintendo's Wii home video game console. An essential capability of the Wii Remote is its motion sensing capability, which allows the user to interact with ...
.
''Little King's Story'', as "Project O", was first shown at the
Tokyo Game Show
, commonly known as TGS, is a video game expo / convention held annually in September in the Makuhari Messe, in Chiba, Japan. It is presented by the Computer Entertainment Supplier's Association (CESA) and Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. The ...
in 2007.
The official website held a "UMA" (Unidentified Mysterious Animal) contest, where people were able to send a sketch of a monster they created. The first prize winner would have their "UMA" star as an in-game character, and 99 other winners would have the artwork displayed in the game. Six of the creatures that won were "Bruno", "Flummex", "Octoknight", "Pirabbit", "Ninjūn", and "Kabelle".
Rereleases
On August 24, 2011, it was announced that Marvelous Entertainment was working on a reimagining to ''Little King's Story'' titled published by
Konami
, is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company, video game and entertainment company headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo, it also produces and distributes trading cards, anime, tokusatsu, pachinko machin ...
for the
PlayStation Vita
The PlayStation Vita (PS Vita, or Vita) is a handheld video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, and in North America, Europe, and other international territo ...
. According to ''
Famitsu
formerly ''Famicom Tsūshin'', is a line of Japanese video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly formats as well as in the fo ...
'', the game would have "love elements, along with new visual stylings for its characters."
In August 2016, ''Little King's Story'' was ported to PC via
Steam
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization ...
by Marvelous, Inc. Although initially it had a mixed reception due to bugs and bad controls, after a major update, many of the complaints were fixed.
Audio
The game's music is composed and arranged by
Yutaka Minobe.
Yoko Shimomura
is a Japanese composer and pianist primarily known for her work in video games. She graduated from the Osaka College of Music in 1988 and began working in the video game industry by joining Capcom the same year. She wrote music for several game ...
, famous for her music in the ''
Kingdom Hearts
is a series of action role-playing games developed and published by Square Enix (originally by Square (video game company), Square). It is a collaboration between Square Enix and The Walt Disney Company and is under the leadership of Tetsuya ...
'' series, also contributed an arrangement of
Boléro
''Boléro'' is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. At least one observer has called it Ravel's most famous composition. It was also one of his last completed works before illness forced him into retirement.
Co ...
for the first trailer of the game, which debuted at Tokyo Game Show 2007. Sound and voice effects were handled by
Vanpool
Vanpools or Vanpooling is an element of the transit system that allow groups of people to share the ride similar to a carpool, but on a larger scale with concurrent savings in fuel and vehicle operating costs and thus usually a lower cost to the ...
.
The game's main background music comes from
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
's
Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Opus 125, 4th movement from 9:00 to about 10:20.
Reception
''Little King's Story'' received critical acclaim by many reviewers. It received 92% from
Official Nintendo Magazine
''Official Nintendo Magazine'', or ''ONM'', was a British video game magazine that ran from 2006 to 2014 that covered the Nintendo DS, Nintendo 3DS, Wii, and Wii U video game consoles released by Nintendo.
Originally published by EMAP as ''N ...
,
a 9/10 in UK magazine ''
Edge
Edge or EDGE may refer to:
Technology Computing
* Edge computing, a network load-balancing system
* Edge device, an entry point to a computer network
* Adobe Edge, a graphical development application
* Microsoft Edge, a web browser developed by ...
''
and an 8/10 from
Eurogamer
''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson.
Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...
also ''Little King's Story'' .
The game also won a
Satellite Award for Outstanding Puzzle/Strategy Game.
As of November 13, 2009, ''Little King's Story'' had sold 26,000 units in Japan, 37,000 units in North America, and 67,000 units in Europe. Despite modest initial sales, Rising Star's Product Manager Yen Hau stated in 2010 that the title "is still selling well to this day,
hich is
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
something
hat
A hat is a head covering which is worn for various reasons, including protection against weather conditions, ceremonial reasons such as university graduation, religious reasons, safety, or as a fashion accessory. Hats which incorporate mecha ...
doesn't happen often to video games," citing Rising Star's satisfaction with sales. Kimura explained, "We are planning to make a sequel to ''Little King's Story'', like ''Super Little King's Story'', but we're still in the idea phase." However, Cing has declared bankruptcy since then; this does not mean studio closure, but rather that they will be tightening their financial belt. Regardless of Cing's closing,
Marvelous Entertainment
(MMV) was a multinational corporation that produced animation, music, video games and television series. MMV is known for its involvement in the ''Story of Seasons'' series. They merged with AQ Interactive in 2011 and became Marvelous AQL; the ...
currently owns the full
intellectual property
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
rights to ''Little King's Story''. Both Kimura and Wada left Marvelous and joined
Grasshopper Manufacture
is a Japanese video game developer founded on March 30, 1998 by Goichi Suda. They are well known for creating titles such as ''killer7'' and the '' No More Heroes'' series.
History
The company was founded on March 30, 1998 in Suginami, Ja ...
in 2010.
Notes
References
External links
Official North American websiteOfficial Japanese website
{{Authority control
2009 video games
Cing games
Construction and management simulation games
Fantasy video games
Konami games
Marvelous Entertainment
PlayStation Vita games
Role-playing video games
Wii games
Windows games
Real-time strategy video games
Life simulation games
Single-player video games
Rising Star Games games
Xseed Games games
Video games developed in Japan