I

ivysaur12

Banned

• May 12, 2008

• #1

What is Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles - My Life as a King?

MLK, as it will henceforth be called, is, as its core, a simulation game, similar to the Dark Cloud games. Players take control of King Leo, whose job it to rebuilt his kingdom after the destruction of the Miasma through a power granted from a crystal called Architek. Architek grants Leo the power to build Houses, Taverns, Inns, and all sorts of buildings.

Is that all?

Nope. Since King Leo is too young too fight, he must recruit adventurers to fight for him. These adventurers can be one of four classes: Warrior, Thief, Light Mage, and Dark Mage. Leo then sends them out to the world to fight and bring back Elementithe, which is used to power the crystal and Architek.

The buildings that Leo creates affect the power of his warriors, and Leo can choose where to level to send them, where to train, or to rest.

Anything else?

Yup. Leo also can invest in the stores, increasing the power of the weapons that are available for the adventurers. He also can send adventurers out to get materials to increase the power of the weapons in the shops.

There are also Inns, where traveling merchants can come, Taverns to create parties, and more.

How much does it costs?
1500 Wii Points ($15)

What about the downloadable content?
You have to pay for it (boo!). But, the race pack, where you unlock the Yukes, Selkies, and Lilties might be worth it for pure aesthetic purposes, even though it costs 800 Wii Points.

Some screenshots and a piece of artword:

REVIEWS:
IUP Review: B+
IGN Review: 7.5

My impressions from the other thread:

ivysaur12 said:

When I started it, I was really disappointed. Basically, the flow of the game is that you send out adventurers to the outside words to collect Elementithe to power your crystal. You are then able to make new buildings.

It's pretty bare bones for the first chapter (I just started Chapter IV). You recruit 5 adventurers, all warrior class, and then you build a couple of houses, a bakery, a weapons shop, and that's about it.

After the second chapter starts, you can start to change the classes for your adventurers. It gets more interesting. You then can build schools of magic, defense shops, item shops, a training station, and you can give money to different attributes of each. Like, say you want to make sure your adventurers have better swords. You give money to researching swords. You also might have to send your adventurers out into the wild to get materials so they can research better swords. There's also a Tavern, where you can make your adventurers go into parties to be stronger.

You get money by building more houses so you can tax your residents. People are happier when they're around a bakery, but this all takes elementithe. The cycle continues.

I know the way I explained it seems like it's not very fun, and it really shouldn't be, but honestly, it's completely worth it. I just don't know why it's as fun as it is.

Click to expand...

I've played it for maybe 5 hours or so, and I can't put it down. Seriously, it's really addicting. I realize the price is a little steep, but I think we've all payed much more for worse games. Seriously, get this.

 

A

Amir0x

Banned

• May 12, 2008

• #2

Well even if I had space, the price IS too steep.

But i hope in the future when we get a HDD, these sort of games keep coming.

 

D

DXB-KNIGHT

Member

• May 12, 2008

• #3

ivysaur12 said:

I've played it for maybe 5 hours or so, and I can't put it down. Seriously, it's really addicting. I realize the price is a little steep, but I think we've all payed much more for worse games. Seriously, get this.

Click to expand...

I also had a hard time putting it down, I just can't resist playing when starting a new day. Actually I was going to ask someone to turn the console off for me. Its SOOO addicting XD

 

Z

Zhengi

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #4

Nice, thanks for the impressions again.

I'm thinking of getting this as the impressions have been very favorable and I love sim games. The only thing I'm concerned about are the add ons and the pricing for those.

 

S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man

• May 13, 2008

• #5

It turns into a bit of a grindfest near the very end (particularly the last two-three dungeons)--I went from around 70 days before those two dungeons to around 190-200 days. Each day was just Behest to level up, auto-assign everyone to the Behest, end day, rinse, repeat.

Totally awesome though. Very easy to lose hours just playing this.

 

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GaimeGuy

Volunteer Deputy Campaign Director, Obama for America '16

• May 13, 2008

• #6

Zhengi said:

Nice, thanks for the impressions again.

I'm thinking of getting this as the impressions have been very favorable and I love sim games. The only thing I'm concerned about are the add ons and the pricing for those.

Click to expand...

Maybe they'll make the packs free after a certain period of time -_-

 

D

Divvy

Canadians burned my passport

• May 13, 2008

• #7

The add-ons seem to be ripoffs but I really don't think the main game is overpriced at all. For 15 bucks, I'm having loads of fun. A lot better deal than a lot of games I've bought.

 

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Father_Brain

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #8

GaimeGuy said:

Maybe they'll make the packs free after a certain period of time -_-

Click to expand...

 

F

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)

• May 13, 2008

• #9

I'm still on the fence about this one because of the DLC... I'll keep an eye on this thread to decide.

 

Alex

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #10

If it's fun and something that appeasl to me, I don't really care what the price is, 15 bucks seems fine. I'm going to buy it later tonight, probably Lost Winds too

 

I

ivysaur12

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #11

Stumpokapow said:

It turns into a bit of a grindfest near the very end (particularly the last two-three dungeons)--I went from around 70 days before those two dungeons to around 190-200 days. Each day was just Behest to level up, auto-assign everyone to the Behest, end day, rinse, repeat.

Totally awesome though. Very easy to lose hours just playing this.

Click to expand...

How many chapters are there?

 

C

Classic_Gs

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #12

Solid impressions but this is why Wii Ware needs to have demos for every title. If I tryed it and liked it, I'd buy it, but impressions just are not enough to push me over the price of entry.

 

S

Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man

• May 13, 2008

• #13

ivysaur12 said:

How many chapters are there?

Click to expand...

You'll know when you're near the end.

 

B

BuddhaRockstar

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #14

Just wondering, since it's a sim game, is there that infinite replayability draw to it? As in, can you keep building and improving and expanding, or is there an end to the story and only so far you can go?

 

M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware

• May 13, 2008

• #15

Purchasing the DLC now. Some of these are combo packs that include other individual DLC, right? Otherwise, the ultimate price for this game is basically retail... :/

 

I

ivysaur12

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #16

Mejilan said:

Purchasing the DLC now. Some of these are combo packs that include other individual DLC, right? Otherwise, the ultimate price for this game is basically retail... :/

Click to expand...

Tell me if the race one changes anything. I might actually get that :-\

 

Alex

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #17

Mejilan said:

Purchasing the DLC now. Some of these are combo packs that include other individual DLC, right? Otherwise, the ultimate price for this game is basically retail... :/

Click to expand...

I found this searching around for information:

the total cost of My Life as a King's array of downloadable content comes in at $13

Click to expand...

 

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farnham

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #18

The Price is steep but its looking like an actualy retail game (Arguably Lost Winds does too)

SO im going to get this.. and the downloadable content too..

 

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Stumpokapow

listen to the mad man

• May 13, 2008

• #19

The ending is pretty predictable:

Spoiler

Your adventurers defeat the Dark Lord. Just as you're about to celebrate, he warps into the village and tries to kill the Little King. Epitav runs into the village and tries to sacrifice himself to save the Little King. Then everyone in the village tries to sacrifice themselves to save the Little King. The power of loyalty paralyzes the Dark Lord. The Little King flips the hell out and shoots stars at the Dark Lord. The Crystal promotes the Little King to "Archlord"--this is a reference to a scene around half-way through Chapter IV.

You get the daily debriefing.

The village coronates Epitav as king. Epitav thanks his son for all the hard work and abdicates the throne to the Little King. Even the Penguin is friendly to the Little King. Everyone cheers

Game lasted around 11 hours and 10 minutes tota.

There is new game plus, and you are given a letter grade based on your performance in the game.

New Game Plus:
- Select between three difficulties (Normal, Hard, Very Hard)
- Has event skip (not sure if this was there before)
- Your town is not preserved.
- Neither your elementine nor your cash is preserved
- Automatically overwrites your game clear data, so make sure you pick the right difficulty to start new game plus.
- Actually I have no idea what the NGP keeps other than the town and king's name and some medals you get when you finish the game. Everything seems to be reset (research, items, etc).

 

M

Mejilan

Running off of Custom Firmware

• May 13, 2008

• #20

We've got quite a bit more than $13.00-worth of DLC.

It's closer to $15 or $16. Though, the $8.00 bundle includes $9.00 worth of goodies (were you to buy them individually). I bought it all.

Looks like I've got a TON of extra dungeons on my map now, though most are dungeons in the levels 16-40, so I'm far from ready to tackle them.

Edit - Happily enough, it looks like all of the DLC gets bundled up into a second, specially-created save file resident on the Wii's on-board memory. That makes copying it over to the SD card nice and easy. The more DLC you buy, the bigger that second file gets!

 

S

soul

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #21

Stumpokapow said:

The ending is pretty predictable:

Click to expand...

Wow, already done? :lol
Sounds very nice, might buy it tomorrow.

 

D

Deku

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #22

I'm hoping they can patch this game with an expansion of some sort.

Very neat concept for SE to come out on WiiWare like this and not having something on the PS3.

 

T

thetrin

Hail, peons, for I have come as ambassador from the great and bountiful Blueberry Butt Explosion

• May 13, 2008

• #23

I'm downloading it right now. I never download VC (the whole concept of downloading games I already own is lost on me), so I have tons of space on my Wii. I'll offer my thoughts in a bit...

 

L

leroy hacker

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #24

From the Gamasutra interview:

Toshihiro Tsuchida said:

My thoughts are that you have to have rules in place and win and loss situations for a good, solid game, and we don't want to sacrifice that just to go for the casual market.

Click to expand...

How does one actually lose in this game? Is there skill of any kind involved?

 

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SpudBud

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #25

I'm really tempted to buy this.

Man, I wish there was a demo.

 

T

Teddman

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #26

This should've been like an online version of the GameCube game.

Hell with it.

 

X

Xabora

Junior Member

• May 13, 2008

• #27

Amir0x said:

Well even if I had space, the price IS too steep.

But i hope in the future when we get a HDD, these sort of games keep coming.

Click to expand...

SquareTAX man...
Wonder why the Square games are 10 bucks more on the DS!
Its the SquareTAX!

Don't quote this.
Made a discussion here: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=294426

 

I

ivysaur12

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #28

Teddman said:

This should've been like an online version of the GameCube game.

Hell with it.

Click to expand...

An online version of FF:CC isn't going to be a WiiWare game :-\

 

Eteric Rice

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #29

Damn it, now I guess I need to buy this.

I'll have to buy $40 in Wii points, my God. :O

 

C

crowphoenix

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #30

I was really tempted to pick this game up, but that price point and the price of additional content was a bit steeper than I wanted to go.

 

V

Varshes

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #31

I bought the Triple Race Pack, is that going to be applied to my current game, as in will the other races start showing up, or do I have to start a new game?

 

S

Speevy

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #32

Lenny died of dysentery.

 

V

Vyse The Legend

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #33

Amir0x said:

Well even if I had space, the price IS too steep.

But i hope in the future when we get a HDD, these sort of games keep coming.

Click to expand...

Don't speak with such certainty.

 

S

sevenchaos

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #34

I like this wii bit of an addiction.

 

N

Narag

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #35

Posted this in the other thread but as far as I've seen so far, the race DLC adds a nice aesthetic but not much else. They might be more useful as one learns how to work stats ingame though. Chime's outfit isn't really worth it either but I'm way tempted to get the rest of the dungeons.

 

Z

Zhengi

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #36

I just gave in and got the game. So far, it's pretty darn cool and charming

 

I

ivysaur12

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #37

Narag said:

Posted this in the other thread but as far as I've seen so far, the race DLC adds a nice aesthetic but not much else. They might be more useful as one learns how to work stats ingame though. Chime's outfit isn't really worth it either but I'm way tempted to get the rest of the dungeons.

Click to expand...

Yeah, the races are probably the best of the DLC.

 

S

Scrubking

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #38

Isn't there also a tower that gives you infinite dungeons being released later?

 

S

soul

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #39

Scrubking said:

Isn't there also a tower that gives you infinite dungeons being released later?

Click to expand...

Last DLC announcement by Famitsu revelead the following two:

- [300 Points] 11 Dungeons Pack: Adds 11 new dungeons. Coming this month.
- [300 Points] Tower of Eternity: New dungeon - Once one of your adventurers beats the powerful creature that's inside you gain an "unvaluable treasure". Coming in June.

 

B

BuddhaRockstar

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #40

soul said:

Last DLC announcement by Famitsu revelead the following two:

- [300 Points] 11 Dungeons Pack: Adds 11 new dungeons. Coming this month.
- [300 Points] Tower of Eternity: New dungeon - Once one of your adventurers beats the powerful creature that's inside you gain an "unvaluable treasure". Coming in June.

Click to expand...

Just curious, since I don't have the game. I thought I read that you don't actually go in dungeons, you just send your townsfolk in to do it for you... if that's the case, what are you actually buying when you buy one of these dungeons?

 

S

schuelma

Wastes hours checking old Famitsu software data, but that's why we love him.

• May 13, 2008

• #41

1up review

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3167773&p=44


My Life as a King's depth is surprising for a downloadable title, and it suggests that this could have been slapped on a DVD and sold at retail price. But such as it is, downloadable is the way to go, and based on the evidence here, the Crystal Chronicles series has a bright future ahead of it. The only knock on the game is that it portions off the extra races (Selkies, Lilties, and Yukes) as downloadable content, but it's otherwise highly recommended.



B+

 

S

Speevy

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #42

I don't think MLK would make a value-packed retail game on consoles, but definitely it would on handhelds.

 

J

jj984jj

He's a pretty swell guy in my books anyway.

• May 13, 2008

• #43

Speevy said:

I don't think MLK would make a value-packed retail game on consoles, but definitely it would on handhelds.

Click to expand...

If they priced it at $40 like they (surprisingly) priced Chocobo's Dungeon and included all the DLC I'd buy it.

 

E

EDarkness

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #44

I picked this up last night when Wiiware went live and it's a lot of fun. I'm not really into "god" games, but this one is great and telling the recruits to go out and kick some ass. Pretty addicting and I keep telling myself, "just one more day!" Heh, heh.

The question I have is how do I make a party? The white mage I have keeps getting thrashed and can't really level up (currently stuck at 2). I have the adventurers place, but I don't see an option to form a party. Maybe I'm missing something. Anyone have any idea how this is done?

 

S

Speevy

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #45

I actually like these townspeople, so I haven't tried this, but can worse things happen than them fleeing battle?

 

L

leehom

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #46

don't disappoint me gaf. if this game is motion controlled only, i will refuse to play it. i'll still buy it cuz i'm a SE fanboy.

 

E

EDarkness

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #47

Speevy said:

I actually like these townspeople, so I haven't tried this, but can worse things happen than them fleeing battle?

Click to expand...

They can get defeated. I had one of my adventurers decide to go into a high level dungeon on their own and get thrashed by some mobs there. I laughed pretty hard when that happened. Luckily, if they get defeated, they'll only sit out one day to recover.

 

I

ivysaur12

Banned

• May 13, 2008

• #48

schuelma said:

1up review

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3167773&p=44


My Life as a King's depth is surprising for a downloadable title, and it suggests that this could have been slapped on a DVD and sold at retail price. But such as it is, downloadable is the way to go, and based on the evidence here, the Crystal Chronicles series has a bright future ahead of it. The only knock on the game is that it portions off the extra races (Selkies, Lilties, and Yukes) as downloadable content, but it's otherwise highly recommended.



B+

Click to expand...

Higher than I thought it would get.

I'll add that to the OP.

 

F

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)

• May 13, 2008

• #49

Whatever, who am I kidding, I can't resist. I got it. Will have to try it out tomorrow, though. I'll think about the DLC later.

 

S

Stormbringer

Member

• May 13, 2008

• #50

schuelma said:

1up review

http://www.1up.com/do/reviewPage?cId=3167773&p=44


My Life as a King's depth is surprising for a downloadable title, and it suggests that this could have been slapped on a DVD and sold at retail price. But such as it is, downloadable is the way to go, and based on the evidence here, the Crystal Chronicles series has a bright future ahead of it. The only knock on the game is that it portions off the extra races (Selkies, Lilties, and Yukes) as downloadable content, but it's otherwise highly recommended.



B+

Click to expand...

Excellent.

Damn...I absolutely can't wait for the European launch. And the fact is that you guys really aren't making it easier waiting for this game with your endless praises... Anyway this and LostWinds are just sooo mine. Let's just hope both will show up on the Wii Shop in due time on the confirmed release day... Well, with Nintendo, you just never know...