I loved Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles on GameCube. Many didn't. I'm guessing this is because they attempted to play the single-player mode, which is universally described as the most horrible and painful thing in the history of video games. Crystal Chronicles wasn't meant to be played this way, though. Assuming you had the extra GBAs, link cables, and warm bodies to back it up, FFCC offered a unique and satisfying cooperative multiplayer experience the likes of which has never been seen in a game before or since.
But forget all that. FFCC: My Life as a King is a totally different beast. Unlike the cooperative action-RPG that preceded it, FFCC's new WiiWare entry is a simulation-styled city-building game that inverts the usual RPG setup. Where most RPGs place you in the role of a hero in service of a king, My Life as a King lets you to be the monarch in charge of who lives and who dies in a town of your creation. But does it work?
If you have the patience for it, My Life as a King is a worthwhile, if simplistic, take on the simulation genre. As a king, you call all the shots. You decide the locations and types of buildings that should be built, in accordance to the wishes of your townspeople. Keep them happy, and they'll extend their monster-beating and dungeon-exploring services to you. As you go about a day of gameplay improving your village, you're given regular updates on the status of your adventurers. Often, they'll return with items and material that allows you to extend your kingdom's reach and attract more townspeople.
All that's missing is, well, any sort of action whatsoever. Detailed reports of your underlings' exploits will filter in at the conclusion every day, but all this does is make you wish you were out fighting their battles. Reading a line of text that says "Martin has defeated the evil slime boss!" makes it sound like Martin's the only one having fun. You'll see no enemies, battles, or exploration in FFCC. It places its gameplay sights squarely on the simulation aspects of running a town, and it accomplishes its goals within the depth and scope the genre will allow, for better or for worse.
Despite its scope, though, My Life as a King has all the drawbacks of a game that was obviously made on a strict budget. While the graphics are serviceable, they're still a big step below what was seen in the original GameCube Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles. Most noticeably, all characters share a limited set of canned animations, and you'll run through them in their entirety within your first few minutes of play. Cutscenes quickly become repetitive afterward. When characters aren't responding to dialog with the "laughing" or "surprised" animation set for the hundredth time in a row, they're robotically following set paths through town and disappearing through solid walls because there's no animation that shows them opening doors and entering buildings.
Presentation normally wouldn't be much of a concern, given the typical level of quality to be expected from downloadable console games, but as the most expensive WiiWare game so far, it's surprising that Crystal Chronicles looks as rough as it does. In fact, by many accounts, My Life as a King feels like an incomplete game without much of its extra downloadable content. By the time you've fleshed out FFCC with all the dungeons and characters it was missing, you'll have spent more than $30 on it.
For a price approaching that of a full retail game, I'd expect Crystal Chronicles to feature presentation quality that's at least on par with its WiiWare competition. The $10 LostWinds puts it to shame, though, and after playing both back-to-back, Crystal Chronicles' corner-cutting is hard to ignore. Its narrow gameplay focus makes it feel even more limited.
My Life as a King is entirely decent for what it is. Go in with your expectations low and you may avoid disappointment. Think of it in terms of what $30 can otherwise get you at retail, though, and it'll be hard to come away from the experience without feeling ripped off.
