I have to be careful with this one here because it seems that I have not been good with first impressions lately, both with the whole Touch My Katamari thing the other week and....some other things in my personal life that are -very- frustrating and the entire reason why I actually didn't get a post out last night. Or rather, why I typed up a short post and, still in a blind fury, hit "Save" instead of "Publish" and closed the window so I could go be angry until I wanted to relax, which is when I turned to New Little King's Story. You'll notice that the post is still not up, which is...mostly because it was me embedding a youtube video of a Halestorm song and typing a few angry sentences about how I wasn't able to do a proper post. So you didn't really miss anything but the song which you are not missing now. But that all is a terrible tangent and I've gone completely off-point.
Ahem.
Anyways, I bought New Little King's Story because it was going for a paltry $9.79 thanks to the wonderful Japanese Games Sale that I talked about a couple weeks ago. Unfortunately I didn't play it until the sale was over (as it was just a couple days ago that I started playing it.) so I couldn't recommend it before it went back to retail price and it's -seeming- like that might be a bad thing. I'm absolutely enchanted with the game from the start of it, so it's obviously endeared itself to me, surprising myself, to the point where I might be tempted to recommend it to others. Except I'm wary to do so, mostly because of the issues mentioned above. Especially with the price back up to $20 in North America, it's something I want to be a little certain on before I shout that you need New Little King's Story in your life if I do indeed end up doing just that. I'll have to probably....like, beat the game first before I can decide if I'm going to do that or not and I'm not even -close- to that point.
What New Little King's Story -is- is something that I can't quite put a finger on, mechanics-wise. It's like a really odd blend of what I can only assume Pikmin is like (having never played it) as well as the sort of easy-job system that probably has a better example than Fat Princess, but that's all I can come up with. Basically the jobs, like in Fat Princess, are designated by hats, and you get the hats from buildings. In NLKS' case, you send the members of your Royal Guard (basically people that you make follow you around) running into a building that gives (or sells in some cases) the hat you want them to wear and they walk out with that job. There's a little more of a level of permanency to it than you might expect in that, while you can switch their jobs, and there doesn't seem to be a reason -not- to do so if you aren't so inclined, they will stay in that job from day-to-day. So when you finish up for the night (game has a Day/Night cycle) and get up the next day, when you walk around town to pick your Guard again, those who were Grunts yesterday, Farmers, etc. will all still be in that job, mingling with the townsfolk until you recruit them again.
The story starts with you more or less building a domain from which to rule and that's a pretty decent start-up as any I've heard really. Neighboring areas have monsters that don't trouble you unless you step out into the wilderness and even then they're start-of-the-game monsters so you won't be too fussed. Though it introduces a system where a Miniboss controls the monsters of the area and when it's defeated, you gain control of the land. So clearly, that's the idea to start out with so you can build more buildings and expand your kingdom for more subjects who will be more recruits with more jobs. Etc. etc. What this also means is that you should generally give a good bit of thought into your Royal Guard because there's certain things that you -don't- want to do, and the list includes: walking across a long, long distance with a group of grunts only to find out you need a carpenter to build a stairway, and walking directly into the den of a miniboss with a Hunter, Two Farmers and Two Carpenters. Both can be very frustrating situations, let me tell you.
I haven't really even gotten into the meat of the game, though I suspect the meat is what my next objective is, so I'm -close-. But even then, it's the first of many bits that comprise the meat, so it's going to be a fairly lengthy game, I'm guessing. That's good. I'm hoping that by the time I'm finished with NLKS, I'll think of it as the right length instead of wishing it'd been more or, even worse, thinking there was entirely too much there. But I don't know -how- the game will get to a point where it will be too much of what I consider a good thing, nor do I know how this good thing can wear out its welcome. So, overall, I'm just being quite positive about it. It's going to be a nice ride in the meanwhile, figuring out the further nuances with the game and the jobs that it'll continue to offer. And I'm sure this isn't going to be the last post that I make on the game, so there's that to look forward to as well.
I was lucky in that one miniboss encounter, however, since it just sat there and let my Hunter murder the shit out of it
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