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By Brandon Salcedo on November 13th, 2008
"Now, Your Highness, what would you have us do today?"
My Life as a King’s titular moniker is misleading. It has little to do with either Final Fantasy or Crystal Chronicles, so one must assume those names are simply there to sell an otherwise risky venture for SquareEnix. At its core it’s a kingdom sim, yet it’s ridiculously simplified. It’s billed as part RPG as well, yet you never actually see a single battle take place. If you’re going into this thinking big you’ll be sorely disappointed, but if you keep an open mind, you may just find yourself lost in its fresh charm. Honestly, I couldn’t put the game down once I started to care about the well being of the society I was creating.
"You never see a single battle take place. It’s only implied."
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As a young (dorky) prince inheriting your late father’s land, you must rebuild the great city that once stood there. You plan and oversee the growth and health of your fledgling estate, house by house and shop by shop. From the placing of homes next to shops to assure proper business, to managing the payroll for your hard working warriors, every aspect of being a king is streamlined and exaggerated to good effect, making for a fairly accessible, pick-up-and-play experience.
But because the kingdom building is simplified, the gameplay’s meat lies in its "battle" system. The map is full of dark and twisted locales and monsters. In all honesty nothing would happen if you just left them there, it’s just that you wouldn’t advance the game any. For every home that’s built, a new wide-eyed follower heeds your call to arms and greets you at the castle, and by hiring him or her, you’re thereby responsible for the soldier’s well-being and effectiveness.
From assigning specific tasks, like gathering materials for weapons, or rallying troops together to slay a dungeon’s boss, just about every move your warriors make is handled through the posting of "behests" on the local bulletins. Individuals showing interest in a task can then be granted or denied permission, and they’ll spend some time to prepare if needed. Then they’ll set off down the dusty trail... and that’s about it. They’ll return at night, but you won’t see them the rest of the day. For better or worse, the sunlight’s short, but as your realm prospers your citizens will stay out later and you can too.
Every morning your financial-secretary updates you on the previous day’s events. It’s here where you can pore over the specifics of the battles you missed, (since, again you never see them). As if playing a battle through text alone -- only you don’t even control it -- every attack, miss and potion taken is spelled out in plain letters. If your thief visits a hot spring to heal, you’ll know about it; if your mage gets lost on the trail, you’ll know about it. This is fundamentally what may turn some people off. You have to be willing to read through the reports each morning to get a good handle on the situation, and its definitely got a different pacing than most RPGs because of this.
"You must read through the reports each morning to understand the situation. Some may be turned off by the slow pace."
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Another aspect that’s likely to garner indifference is character development. If a boss is defeated, the warrior who gave the killing blow will earn a medal the following dawn. Medals don’t simply upgrade your base stats, there’s special ones that can change the purchasing or fighting behaviors of your crew. For instance, issuing the "Vanguard" medal will give the recipient bonuses against higher level foes, while handing out the "Game Guru" will make your character gamble at the gaming hall to win a little extra money to spend on new equipment. Medals are basically the only way to guide the development of your characters; the other and less-controlled effect would be through jobs.
At first your military consists of standard warriors, but as you beat bosses and unlock new features you’ll gain access to training facilities that cater to the education of thieves and mages. A job determines how stats will raise when leveling, so thieves focus on agility and dexterity, while mages focus on intellect and willpower. There are exclusive abilities for each job, such as spells for the mages and double-attack for the thieves. Also, certain equipment is limited for each class. It’s a good idea to stick with a career as switching jobs will have soldiers "forget" their former class’ abilities. Placing homes next to the various training facilities also reaps benefits: A house built next to a temple will result in a stronger white mage down the line, which adds more strategy in how you lay out your city.You eventually earn the ability to create teams of four, just like in a real Final Fantasy game, but it comes pretty late into the adventure so the monsters often have the upper hand until then. My Life’s got a decent difficulty, but that may be because you aren’t really calling the shots.
Even with all the battle information you get back, you still never feel like you’re in control of your troops. Other than pointing them in the general direction of your goals you have nothing to do with their in-battle performance -- They do their own thing. You can check on their actions in-town, but just because you can see that your white mage still hasn’t purchased the staff she needs, doesn’t mean you feel any better about her going into the dungeon to do zero damage and wiping out as a result. And it wasn’t once, or twice – multiple days went on where she would refuse to pickup a staff even though she had the money right there for it.
In such a strategy-based game, and one where you have to just trust in your subjects’ performance, good AI becomes a necessity. But there were times where I would be scratching my head at the stupidity of my men. If it wasn’t the staff incident, it was the thieves entering the gaming den and not playing a single round until I gave them a medal telling them to... or it was my warrior downing a potion when he had 75% health left. These problems are sparse, but they just do more to make you feel left out from the fight. Furthermore, the game loves to screw with you by throwing "surprise" encounters with high-level monsters in low-level dungeons. And in case you were wondering, no, there are no warnings when these behemoths decide to strike until you find out your men have been owned and they’ll have to sit the next day out (no one actually dies: this is an "E" game after all).
Aside from the town building and "battle" system, there isn’t much else. Since you can only afford to construct about once a day, when your troops set off for the horizon, the gameplay bogs down to improving city relations. And that bogs down to literally walking up to everybody and saying "Hi." As you converse with the citizens you raise their morale and the castle’s money in turn. This gets a little old after awhile, frankly.
"Players who devise a proper strategy will find greater satisfaction when they win."
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For such a small download, the game feels pretty big, but its visual side is rather underwhelming. Textures look like mid PS2 offerings, and the models, though detailed, are stiff and don’t even move their mouths when they speak. Particle effects are the silver lining here, as you witness every placed object come together piece by piece, literally. Everything is conveyed through text and expressions, and there’s at least an attempt at tying it together with a plot, but, to be honest, I wasn’t paying much attention. The music’s worthy of the SquareEnix name, but I would have appreciated a few more tunes. Finally, the game can be expanded with various download content, but such is beyond the scope of this review.
If you’re looking for a high-action, plot-filled journey, My Life may not be for you. However, those willing to settle down and give some time to devising a proper strategy will find great satisfaction when their victories come through. I found myself cheering for individual soldiers when their names came up with a win, and would shake my head at those troops that would always come up empty. There are unfortunate hurdles in the game’s design that keep it from going beyond what’s expected of a "download" title. But I guess you get what you pay for, and it’s at least worth that ($15). |
