Little King's Story

This game is an under-played gem of a title, and is an example of the reasons why I prefer Nintendo Wii over any other console at the moment; Not afraid to have cute graphics that suit the gameplay, lack of unnecessary violence and guns, short load times, and gameplay that is genuinely funny and carefree.
It's certainly not underrated - all the reviews I've looked at for this game give it ratings of over 90%, which should make it an instant classic. It has a permanent place in ONMs top Wii games along with Okami, also left untouched by the majority of gamers.

I picked this game up for £6 yesterday in HMV, although I have wanted to buy it since it came out, I'm now glad I waited for it. The past few months I've just seen in plummeting in price - clearly, nobody is buying this game! I suppose that's due to poor advertising, which goes for many excellent Japanese games (Okami, Monster Hunter on PS2).
It was developed by Rising Star, also responsible for Muramasa: The Demon Blade, another Wii exclusive, one with exquisite graphics and hardcore gameplay.
In LKS you control a king who controls his subjects. It plays quite similar to Pikmin, and also has elements of Animal Crossing, and Warcraft 3. You Convert your ordinary, lazy citizens into different job classes such as farmers or hunters, each suited to different purposes and obstacles. These hand-picked men and women follow you into the field to dig up treasure, collect resources and hunt UMA, the enemies of the game.



As you can tell from these images, the game is an absolute charmer. Your residents make sounds of their own language, much like the Sims, and it's amusing to watch them go about their daily business. Hunters practice their Archery, guards patrol the Kingdom, and Carpenters sit on a rug and smoke. Beat a boss and the next day a festival will be held, like when you defeat Cow Bones, everyone dances ritualistically, wearing skulls on their noggins.
So far, the game hasn't been too challenging for me, except for a poisonous frog boss who ate most of my men, we only just managed to take him down. It was exciting.
I'm looking forward to playing more of this game, it's not only addictive, it's NINTENDO addictive.

Buy it! £6! You can't go wrong.

Monster Hunter Tri

I have started this new blog to talk about video games, movies, cartoons, music etc. It will mostly be about things I like. And so to start, I'm going to talk about Monster Hunter Tri.

So far I have spent over 50 hours enjoying it. Truly, a very manly sounding game on the surface, you-hunter take big smash-stick and crush scary monster. Then you mannishly retire to your rugged man-room, maintained by your personal feline housekeeper, or perhaps you pay a visit to your farm (also maintained by cats) to (manly) snuggle your pet pig.
The premise of the game is to hunt monsters and carve items from them so you can forge armour and weapons strong enough to fight the next, inevitably more difficult, monster. And it is difficult...battles can last for a while, and there have been many times where I've been totally spent and an inch before death when I finally land that killer blow.

I have yet to try what is actually the major selling point for the series which is it's multiplayer mode, mainly because no-one I know owns this game. In fact, very few people I know even own a Wii. Sad face, however, although the Wii's online facilities are poor, for once you can play with strangers! Now I'm hooked on the series, it's more than a little bit tempting to buy a PSP for the upcoming Monster Hunter Freedom 3, which sounds delicious. Perhaps Capcom should do the right thing and release Monster Hunter frontier to us Westerners (currently out on xbox 360 in Japan - the least successful console in their market.) I especially enjoy the part at 5:50, that sense of impending of doom is part and parcel of the series.

In tri's single player mode, you meet a little tribal guy called Cha-Cha who helps you out. He is a Shakala, who are a race from previous versions that have been hostile to the player. In Tri, he dances to heal or power you up, and gathers items for you. Equipping him with different masks will change his actions, such as making him more aggressive or use nothing but barrel bombs (A risky choice, since they can and will explode in your face quite often). You can change his dances, and certain abilities, such as giving him a useful paralysis attack, or increasing his defence. I like to give him the fluffy mask - he avoids danger, but gets you more lovely, lovely loot.

Once I try multiplayer, I reckon I'll make a post about that, or just edit this one.