''Little King's Story'' is a

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...

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 Role-playing video games, also known as CRPG (computer/console role-playing games), comprise a broad video game genre generally defined by a detailed story and character advancement (often through increasing characters' levels or other skills) ...

co-developed by

Cing (styled CiNG) was an independent video game developer based out of Fukuoka, Japan. The company, a small development house employing only 29 people, was founded in April 1999, and was run by Takuya Miyagawa, who served as President and CEO. Miyag ...

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, ...

. 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 Marvelous USA Inc., (formerly Xseed Games), is an American video game company founded in 2004 by former members of Square Enix USA with the goal to localize Japanese games for American market. Xseed Games later became a subsidiary of Japanese ...

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), ''Story of Seasons'' series. They merged with AQ Interactive in 2011 an ...

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) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 17, 2011, then in other international territories on February 22, 2012, and was produced ...

under the title of ''New Little King's Story'' to fulfil a licensing contract with

Konami , commonly known as Konami, , is a Japanese multinational entertainment company and video game developer and video game publisher, publisher headquartered in Chūō, Tokyo, Chūō, Tokyo. The company also produces and distributes trading card ...

, although this version was later discontinued. A

Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

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 i ...

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. It serves as a Plot (narrative), plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult Travel, journey towards a goal, often symbolic or Allegory, allegorical. Tales of quests figure promine ...

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, ...

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, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

; should a civilian lose all of his he will die, while if the king dies it is

game over "Game over" is a message in video games which informs the player that their play session has ended, usually because the player has reached a loss condition. It also sometimes appears at the successful completion of a session, especially in ga ...

. 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, parti ...

. 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 known as Alpoko, accompanied by Howser the Bull

Knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a 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. The concept of a knighthood ...

, 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 consi ...

, respectively), and a slew of obedient

citizens Citizenship is a membership and allegiance to a sovereign state. Though citizenship is often conflated with nationality in today's English-speaking world, international law does not usually use the term ''citizenship'' to refer to nationality; ...

. 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. They are believed to live in caves or deep in the mountains or in hell. Oni are known for their superhuman strength and have been associated with powers like th ...

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 po ...

), 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 Armageddon ( ; ; ; from ) is the prophesied gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, according to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. Armageddon is variously interpreted as either a literal or a ...

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 farming life simulation video game series created by Yasuhiro Wada and developed by Victor Interactive Software (acquired by Marvelous Enterta ...

'' series. Wada contracted a developer in

Fukuoka is the List of Japanese cities by population, sixth-largest city in Japan 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 ancient times. ...

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'', 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'' (, ) is a novella written and illustrated by French writer and aviator Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. It was first published in English and French in the United States by Reynal & Hitchcock in April 1943 and was published po ...

'', a storybook he read as child. His goal the first year in development was to create a

game with easy controls, specifically one that used the

Wii Remote The Wii Remote, colloquially known 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 an ...

. ''Little King's Story'', as "Project O", was first shown at the

Tokyo Game Show , commonly known as TGS, is a video game trade fair and 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 Publication ...

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

for the

. According to ''

Famitsu , formerly , is a line of Japanese Video game journalism, video game magazines published by Kadokawa Game Linkage (previously known as Gzbrain), a subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, Kadokawa. ''Famitsu'' is published in both weekly and monthly f ...

'', 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 water vapor, often mixed with air or an aerosol of liquid water droplets. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. Saturated or superheated steam is inv ...

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. Shimomura wrote music for severa ...

, 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) and owned by The Walt Disney Company. A collaboration between the two companies, it was conceptualized by Square employees, Japanese gam ...

'' series, also contributed an arrangement of

Boléro ''Boléro'' is a 1928 work for large orchestra by French composer Maurice Ravel. It is one of Ravel's most famous compositions. It was also one of his last completed works before illness diminished his ability to write music. Composition T ...

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. He is one of the most revered figures in the history of Western music; his works rank among the most performed of the classical music repertoire ...

Symphony No. 9 Symphony No. 9 most commonly refers to: * Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven) in D minor (Op. 125, ''Choral'') by Ludwig van Beethoven, 1822–24 * Symphony No. 9 (Dvořák) in E minor (Op. 95, B. 178, ''From the New World'') by Antonín Dvořák, 1893 ...

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 journalism, 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 p ...

'', 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 alongside parent company Gamer Network. In 2008, it started in the formerly eponymous trade fair EGX (Eurogamer Expo until 2013) organised by its parent company. Fr ...

. 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 () is a village in Golabar Rural District of the Central District in Ijrud County, Zanjan province, Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq ...

something

hat A hat is a Headgear, 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 incorpor ...

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,

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, co ...

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, J ...

in 2010.

Notes

References

External links

Official North American website

Official Japanese website
{{Authority control 2009 video games Cing games Construction and management simulation games Fantasy video games Konami games Life simulation games Marvelous Entertainment PlayStation Vita games Real-time strategy video games Rising Star Games games Role-playing video games Single-player video games Video games developed in Japan Video games scored by Yutaka Minobe Wii games Windows games Xseed Games games