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My Life as a King Review

Started by Professor Layton, May 16, 2008, 01:47:20 PM

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Professor Layton

You are a young king; destined to rebuild your kingdom. When the king first reaches the borders of his kingdom, he discovers a crystal in the center of town that enables him the power to rebuild his kingdom. Using the mysterious “Architek” power given to him by the crystal, the king starts his long quest to rebuild his kingdom, and to unravel the mysteries of his father, King Epitav.



1. Platform: Wii
2. Publisher: Square Enix
3. Developer: Square Enix
4. ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
5. Release Date(US): May 12th. 2008
6. Channel Size (Blocks): 287 Blocks
7. Save Size (Blocks): 8 Blocks
8. Downloadable Content: Yes

Unlike your typical Final Fantasy game, My Life as a King is city-building game in which you must rebuild your kingdom.  Starting in a barren land with only a castle and a crystal, the young king must use the ability that the crystal gave him, “Architek,” to build a variety of structures in order to populate the land.

In order to build structures, elementite must be obtained from crystals found in dungeons and caves scattered throughout the land. However, your assistants will not let you journey to these dungeons and caves. Instead, you must employ adventurers to embark on daily missions to travel to these dungeons and caves to gather elementite.

In order to employ adventurers, you must first acquire money to pay the adventurers. In general, the easiest way to obtain money is to collect taxes that citizens in your kingdom pay to you. However, you can also obtain money by employing adventurers and sending them to dungeons and caves. If you are lucky, they will return with money and elementite.

Each morning, Chime, your assistant, will present to you an adventurers report as well as a financial report. The adventurers report essentially summarizes the activities of your adventurers activities for the previous day, whereas the financial report summarizes the amount of elementite and money spend and earned for the previous day. In addition to this, Chime will also allow you to post a behest. Behests are assignments that adventurers may decide to complete that day. However, behests require a down payment in advance. In addition to this, you can also declare certain days as holidays. Holidays are essentially days when adventurers won’t embark on adventures and the entire town becomes very joyous. However, holidays require money and you cannot have a holiday in your kingdom until your kingdom reaches a certain level.


My Life as a King is a mind-blowing experience.

Sounds pretty complicated, right? Well, guess what! My Life as a King is actually quite simple after playing it for a few hours. Though you may not know exactly know everything the first time you play through the game, you can certainly accomplish all the major objectives in the game without having any major conflicts.

In order to increase the level of your kingdom, you must first obtain morale spheres. Morale spheres can be obtained by interacting with citizens as well as when people buy items at a store. At first, you will only be able to have a single morale sphere at a time, but as you progress throughout the game, you will eventually be able to have upwards of five spheres.

After obtaining the set amount of morale spheres, you can then talk to Chime, who resides in the castle, to transfer them to her. Once you have collected enough, Chime will be able to promote your kingdom to the next level. In total, there are five different levels, excluding the one you start with.

"Every day is a new day" is how the saying goes, but My Life as a King shuns conventional wisdom and does things a little differently. What is supposed to be a "new day" is spent talking to the exact same people, running similar errands, and erecting building after building. Sounds repetitive? It is, sadly.


Who could this be?

Despite this, I still highly anticipated each new day. The reason behind this is because you never know what might happen. You see, one day you might unravel the mysteries behind the whereabouts of your father, King Epitav, and another, you may be able to build a new building. In addition to this, you may also discover that you can hire even more adventurers.

Graphically, My Life as a King excels exceptionally well. For a $15.00 game, My Life as a King looks better than a lot of other Wii games. Though the game looks exceptionally well, the character animations aren’t that good. Once you engage in a conversation, the characters scarcely move. Sometimes they smile even when something negative is being said. The audio in My Life as a King is also very well done, but by day 25, you’ll be tired of hearing the same piece of music over, and over again.

In Conclusion...

Overall, My Life as a King is one of the best downloadable titles I have ever played. Though it may not have the best graphics or audio, My Life as a King is, however, one of the most addicting games I have ever played. After clearing the main storyline, you can still go back and download extra content online using your Wii Points. Though some of the downloadable content if a little expensive, you can always download the more affordable content. In my opinion, My Life as a King is the best WiiWare launch title, and definitely one of the best simulation games I have ever played.

Ratings

1.Presentation: 8/10
   You spend a lot of time navigating menus but they are fairly easy to navigate menus.
2.Graphics: 8/10
   The game looks awesome, but unfortunately, the character animations do not.
3.Sound: 8/10
   Pretty decent audio and sound effects; nothing mind-blowing.       
4.Gameplay: 9/10
   It takes a little time to adjust to how My Life as a King plays, but once you adjust, you’ll adore the game.
5.Replay Value: 9/10   
   My Life as a King takes about twelve to fifteen hours to complete. After finishing the game, you can download more content.   

Overall Score: 9.3/10