Not many people in Australia really know very much about Little King's Story (despite our own eGames Expo being the first place to see the game outside of Japan), and those who may have heard of it may have taken one look and written it off as yet another Japanese RPG to add to the ever-growing pile. However, this is no simple RPG. The all-star development team have put their heads together, and crafted an impressively rich and complex game that takes elements of adventure, RPG, life-sim and even RTS, and weaves it all together with a glowingly beautiful "oil on canvas" art style.

Games On Net recently had the opportunity to sit down with Ben Chalmers-Stevens of Rising Star Games, who was visiting Australia to show off just what this Little King was capable of.

Download the Little King's Story 'Ben Stevens' Interview

The "dream team" Ben refers to is part of Marvelous Entertainment, collectively known as the "Samurai Six", and is made up of executive producer Yasuhiro Wada (creator of the Harvest Moon series), producer Yoshiro Kimura (director on Chulip), director Yoichi Kawaguchi (main programmer on DragonQuest VIII), character designer Hideo Minaba (character designer on Final Fantasy XII), game designer Norikazu Yasunaga (game designer at Cing, developers of Hotel Dusk and Another Code) and Kazuyuki Kurashima, who has perhaps the coolest job title ever - monster designer (a job he also held on Super Mario RPG).


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In the early days of the game, the Little King starts out with a fairly rundown cottage/castle (including a fairly uncomfortable-looking straw bed). Your loyal subjects are 12 carefree adult citizens, three cows and three ministers (Howser, who gives you quests; Liam, who provides you with tutorials; and Verde, who acts as a save point) - and you have no money. Obviously, your first task is to get some cash! ...but you're a Little King! You can't get your hands dirty! It's time to round-up some of your carefree adults, and get them to help (your maximum team size at this point is five - but it will increase to up to 50 as you progress through the game). Once you have your beloved carefree adult followers, it's a simple matter of searching for treasure and getting them to dig it up for you. Returning to Howser with the treasure will see him convert it into bol, the local currency, and you will be able to order your first building! Because the Little King is only a young boy, after giving the command to start construction, it's time for bed, with Howser promising the carpenters will all be finished by the morning.

...and so it goes from there. The RTS elements are limited in that you have no say over where buildings are placed, but each one built enables more citizens to move in, or gives you the ability to teach some of the carefree adults a skill. It doesn't cost you anything to train up simple occupations - farmers or basic buff soldiers, for instance - but as the tasks get more complicated, you'll have to fork out to train up your adults. There are roughly 30 different occupations ingame, including blacksmiths, farmers, carpenters, soldiers, lumberjacks, stone masons and even chefs. It's worth remembering also that each of your adults has their own personality, and their own name. As time progresses through the game, you may see them forming friendships and getting married, growing older (before a quick dip in the Fountain of Youth, obviously!), showing their approval or disapproval of your royal rule, and - sometimes - they will die, which will see their neighbours organising a funeral for the fallen.


As the game progresses and more and more buildings are unlocked, you can choose to expand your palace as well as the township - maybe add on a second bedroom for those Little Princesses you found on your travels... or a room full of paintings, which you can choose yourself, from competition entries sent in to Rising Star... or maybe you're the sporty type and would like a quick mini-game of table tennis? All of these - and plenty more - become available to you as you continue your reign.

It's not all fun and games though. As Ben mentioned, there are boss battles, and these can get pretty scary! The first one you'll face is the dreaded Cow Bones. One of your adults has heard a rumour of a graveyard, haunted by a cow with a skull for a head, and has left you a note about it in your newly-built Suggestions Box. Being the righteous Little King that you are, it's time to collect up five of your buff soldiers and head into battle with Cow Bones, trying not to get yourself killed in the process (if you die, you guessed it, the townsfolk will hold quite the serious little funeral for their beloved leader, which made me feel hideously guilty). A tip for dealing with Cow Bones: he's at his most vulnerable when his head comes off. I think we can all learn something there.

The art design for Little King's Story is - as you can see - truly a thing of beauty. The introduction is presented in a sketchy, almost chalk-drawing style, before opening out into this gorgeously lush landscape, full of colours and looking almost like a painting or a tapestry. The characters are all teeth-meltingly cute, and everything is created in a way that is totally appropriate for this Little King. He's only a young boy, remember, so you face suitable enemies like turnips, and there's nothing too scary (except maybe the Grim Reaper, as Ben hinted in the video), but there's also nothing too sharp either, with everything given child-safe rounded edges.

Don't let its looks distract you though, this isn't a kids' game, despite the age of the main character - it's definitely complex enough to keep older gamers happy. For those of you concerned about length of gameplay, Ben loaded up a save-game that had logged more than 30 hours, which saw the Little King's castle transformed into a sprawling mansion, his township landscaped and full of buildings, and his kingdom expanded to now include the neighbouring towns - and this was still nowhere near the end of the story.

With the Samurai Six at the developer's table, it would be difficult for Little King's Story to go wrong, and what I saw certainly lives up to expectations. As mentioned, Little King's Story is launching in Australia and other PAL regions (including Europe) before it arrives in Japan - so you can look forward to this one onshelf, exclusively for the Wii, on April 24th. In the meantime, why not head to our File Library, and check out some of the videos and trailers we've added for the game!