Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King
- April 16, 2008 14:45 PM PST
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Being a king never felt so good. We check out why this downloadable title might just be worth every amount of space.
This is your kingdom, and you better get used to it, becuase in the FF game you're not able to leave.
The Final Fantasy franchise is finally making its way to the Wii, but it's not in the form you'd expect. It's not an turn-based RPG, nor is it on a disc. The first Wii Final Fantasy is a Wii Ware launch title-- a single-player sim-RPG from the Crystal Chronicles universe. You won't engage in a single battle; heck, you won't even leave the cozy confines of the city you start in. What will you get? Just the most imaginative new direction for the series we've seen in quite some time.
The best way to describe Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King is as a mix between Animal Crossing and SimCity. Your character is a young king named Leo who must rebuild a fallen kingdom. In order to do so, you need to harvest materials from faraway caves, forests, and other dangerous places. That's no work for a king, so you must train an elite army to safely procure these important items. As you'll soon find out, keeping a kingdom happy and safe is just as tough on the guy on the throne as it is on the men on the battlefield.
Part Animal Crossing, part Sim City, in My Live as King you'll need to use all of your resources to make your people happy.
Leo's kingdom has quite a few cogs he needs to keep turning to ensure it runs proficiently. You'll need to build new homes to increase the population, research new weaponry, armor, and magic to keep your soldiers trained, and keep morale high by being an efficient leader. Your faithful assistant, Chime, is summoned with the shake of a bell (the Wii Remote), and provides vital information for running your kingdom properly. Chime provides important reports that keep you up to date on the most important aspects of your town--the status of your soldiers and the state of your finances. If you've got unhappy soldiers, they may not survive when confronted with danger. If you've got no money, they won't be prepared to fight.
The greatest leaders keep in touch with the common man, which My Life as a King allows and requires you to do. You've got to visit people to find out about their personal problems and address them, and you've got to visit armories and guilds to make sure your soldiers are getting proper training. Most of all, talking with the people makes them happy, and makes your community a successful one.
What's a Final Fantasy game without Moggles? In My Life as King they will play a helpful role.
You may not be casting a spell, equipping a sword, or using a Phoenix Down in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King, but you may just get an entirely new perspective on the familiar franchise. Your new life begins in less than a month.
