[null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/gamestowatch-re2-deck-38434b-1545154044871_315h.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/gamestowatch-re2-deck-38434b-1545154044871_315h.jpg", "formatted_filename": "gamestowatch re deck b h"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/11/review-gris-20181212-1544571704738_400w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/11/review-gris-20181212-1544571704738_400w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "review gris w"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/886/886872/little-kings-story-20080707053546240-000.jpg", "src": "https://wiimedia.ign.com/wii/image/article/886/886872/little-kings-story-20080707053546240-000.jpg", "formatted_filename": "little kings story"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/biggestplottwists-blogroll-1545143747922_180w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/biggestplottwists-blogroll-1545143747922_180w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "biggestplottwists blogroll w", "alt_text": "19 Best Plot Twists of 2018"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2015/02/02/lucasjpg-ac4904_180w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2015/02/02/lucasjpg-ac4904_180w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "lucasjpg ac w", "alt_text": "Star Wars Creator George Lucas Named America's Wealthiest Celebrity"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/duurm09wwaa-e05-br-1545174833259_180w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/duurm09wwaa-e05-br-1545174833259_180w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "duurm wwaa e br w", "alt_text": "Cyclops and Wolverine Assemble New X-Men Team to Eliminate Prolific X-Villains"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/17/ignpremiere-hellboy-01-1545088308885_180w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/17/ignpremiere-hellboy-01-1545088308885_180w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "ignpremiere hellboy w", "alt_text": "How the R-Rated Hellboy\u2019s New Look Was Designed"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2017/10/24/xboxonex-1508889579484_180w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2017/10/24/xboxonex-1508889579484_180w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "xboxonex w", "alt_text": "Next Generation Xbox Is Reportedly Codenamed Anaconda"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/zero-bo4-1545171564506_180w.png", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/18/zero-bo4-1545171564506_180w.png", "formatted_filename": "zero bo w", "alt_text": "Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 Update 1.10 Out Now, Here's What It Does"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/19/forzahorizon4-fortuneisland-fixed-1545180108020_180w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/12/19/forzahorizon4-fortuneisland-fixed-1545180108020_180w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "forzahorizon fortuneisland fixed w", "alt_text": "Xbox in 2018: The Year in Review"}, null, {"document_url": "https://www.ign.com/articles/2009/04/24/little-kings-story-au-review", "unformatted_src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/10/16/gen4-1280-1539677708316_180w.jpg", "src": "https://assets1.ignimgs.com/2018/10/16/gen4-1280-1539677708316_180w.jpg", "formatted_filename": "gen w", "alt_text": "Pokemon Go: Everything You\u2019ve Missed If You Haven\u2019t Played Since Launch"}, null]


Little King's Story AU Review

There's nothing little about this gem.
By Patrick Kolan

What a devious game. On the surface, a title with a severe attack of the cutes, full of colour and glitter and sparkle and princesses and killer frogs.


Not at all. This is a game of global conquest, genocide, religion and urban expansion that is shockingly deep and subtly bleak. And it sneaks up on you with all of these themes, waving flowers in your face, all the while silently twisting a knife into your side. Make no mistake: Little King's Story is anything but little. Don't ignore this one.

Borrowing heavily from elements of Nintendo's Pikmin and Animal Crossing franchises, Little King's Story is a strategic RPG that builds slowly, pushing you at just the right strength to keep things interesting. For all its inspired elements, it comes from incredible heritage – the creative minds behind the Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy series – and it shows in all aspects.

As the Little King, pulled into a fantastic watercolour fantasy realm, you're tasked with pulling together Alpoko, a kingdom in shambles. It's bankrupt; the residents – the handful that reside – are lazy sods crying foul at their bad luck. It's in this state that Howser Oreganostein, your personal advisor and retired knight on cowback, hands you the keys to your kingdom.

More Little King's Story News & Previews

What follows is a slow-burning adventure; find money, build infrastructure and give the people gainful employment. Your first hour is an awkward blend of grasping the sometimes fiddly controls, learning the area and conquering your first oppressive rival – a demonic skull-cow terrorizing locals. Suddenly, things open up significantly; you'll start noticing areas you can't quite reach, objects you have yet to understand the purpose and significance of – and the hint of a world that stretches much farther than the boundaries of your land. It soon becomes apparent that 'world domination' is your ultimate goal, goaded on by Howser. And that's just the beginning of this grand adventure.

The key to expanding your dominion rests with your townspeople. The game has a sophisticated jobs-based system for defining their abilities – and it's up to you to form a squad comprising various jobs to suit the task at hand. Before you can assign jobs to the masses, however, you must build infrastructure. Initially, only a handful of buildings are available to you – farms and barracks, so initially the scope for experimentation seems limited. However, each class has its own abilities – farmers make short work of digging holes, for instance, while soldiers can fight, but are hopeless at construction. Suddenly the strategy that goes into choosing your team becomes more and more critical. Is it worth having two slots filled with farmers, just in case you come across some buried treasure, or are those slots best saved for soldiers, just in case you stumble upon a boss creature?

At this point, the game takes a few cues from Pikmin. As you begin to conquer lands surrounding the village, the clever game design becomes clear. You can only press on so far with certain classes in your royal guard and you must build more houses and infrastructure to unlock more classes. This requires a lot of Bol, the currency of the world, and that means spending your daylight hours attacking Onii – the scourge from across the river – or foraging with your troop. The Little King gathers his subjects by hand initially, but a better method appears later in the game.

It will take you many hours (and hundreds of millions of Bol) to unlock the bulk of the jobs and buildings in Little King's Story. This is a huge RPG and it takes a while for it to show its' full hand. By five hours in, you've only just unlocked the full map, let alone even begun to seek out the other rival kingdoms. Then there's your harem of conquered princesses, housed in a Princesses Quarters, perpetually eating cake like little Marie Antoinettes. Yes, the Little King is a polygamist. This game has it all.

The quest system is where the real longevity comes into play. Early into the game, while you're still finding your feet, you'll build a Suggestions Box in the town square. In it, you'll receive fan letters, complaints and, critically, new missions and pleas from your people. Some are story quests that further the plot; others revolve around your princesses – generally fetching items for them to keep them happy. Still others see you managing the kingdom itself – setting wages and keeping Joe Public at peace. There's a lot going on at once, and by the time you've explored even a quarter of the map, you'll feel like you've accomplished a lot.

All of this is wrapped up in intelligent menu design, with stat tracking that keeps your key data at your fingertips. While more casual players might never even bother looking at these menus (they're not essential by any means), it's a boon that you can track your population growth, your villager's satisfaction and your income.
