Monday, September 27, 2010

Little King's Story

Developers: Cing, Town Factory
Publisher: Xseed Games
Release Date: July 21, 2009
System: Wii
ESRB Rating: T
Official Web site

In a nutshell: Farmville + Pikmin + an extra helping of cute.

0:00 I remember hearing surprisingly good things about this one when it hit last year, and it just now finally came up on my Netflix queue. High hopes abound as a trumpet fanfare and little shadow puppets dance around the preview screen.

0:01 A tinny a capella choir sings over the title screen. A velvet curtain pulls back to reveal two small puppets on popsicle sticks dancing about. "I am more noble than you, and he is more noble than me? The rich are more noble than the poor and those who work hard are more noble than the lazy? Than who is most noble of them all." Heady stuff...

0:02 The camera pans out to reveal a boy playing with the puppets. He follows a family of rats out into the forest, where he finds a magical crown. "They say the boy became a magnificent king, and all people and animals, one and all, they all became his loyal followers. and somehow, in some such way, the boy was no longer lonely." The art style and the voice-over narration are incredibly endearing. I just want to melt..

0:04 "Pomp and Circumstance" plays over options screen for some reason. I turn the difficulty up to Hard because I assume the game is tuned for little kids.

0:05 I choose a "random" file name and get the title "King Xerxes." As I start a new game I'm treated to some soaring music over shots of nature rendered in dreamy pastels. "This is our kingdom, the kingdom of Alpoko. Let's go inside your castle. It's a little slapdash, but isn't it grand nonetheless?" This is all through subtitles of the game's Simlish-style language, unfortunately. The title appears for the third time in five minutes...

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1 comment:

Garrett said...

I really like your blog. I like how you give a minute by minute summary of how the game starts out. And i agree, this game is awesome and warmed my heart to play it.