REVIEW: Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As King (Spoiler Free)
By Jacob Bond
February 14th, 2008

This past Monday Nintendo launched WiiWare, a downloadable game service much like the Virtual Console, but providing 100% new material. Six games were offered on Monday, one of which was Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life As King.

I haven't played the original Gamecube game but from what I understand if you expect this to be anything like that one, you will be disappointed. The game's premise is simple: you are a small king given the incredible power to magically create buildings out of thin air, so long as you have the proper materials. At first only a few buildings, such as houses, are available to build but as you send adventurers out into the world to explore, they open up new options.

Because of the Final Fantasy name attached many people might be looking for the expected RPG-style of game. Those people will be severely disappointed. The game can best be described as SimCity-lite. As king you build your city, build your growing populations morale, fund shops and training, and send adventurers on certain tasks. You never get to fight yourself, instead living vicariously through the young men and women sent to battle. So if you're a hard core RPG fan looking for a traditional experience, this isn't it.

Despite the lack of directly getting involved in battles, the game is strangely addictive. I downloaded it on a whim, only half-heartedly interested in the idea. From day one, however, I found myself clocking in stretches of four hours, five hours, seven hours... The way the game is structured makes it very addictive. A full day passes in a couple of minutes in the game, taking you to reports page to see the progress your people made. Because of how quickly a day passes and the fact the game saves before you view reports, it's difficult to not continue and see how things play out further. It's simple but effective.

Now it's only fair to warn everyone that this is one of those Pay-and-Play games, but don't allow that to scare you away. It simply means there's downloadable content to enhance the experience. Some is pointless, such as clothing for your young king, but others appear to be more worthwhile, such as extra dungeons and race classes. On my second playthrough I'm definitely downloading the latter. Without downloadable content there is a complete game here. I played for nearly nineteen hours. For $15 I certainly feel I got my money's worth. In comparison I paid $50 for Gears of War and it took only ten hours to finish the campaign the first time.

Graphically don't expect much beyond Gamecube graphics. It still looks nice, but considering size limitations due to the storage issue on the Wii there's only so much Square Enix could do. It's also because of this that space to build quickly feels like it's running low and there's no voice acting in the game. Still, Square did an amazing job considering what they had to work with. Supposedly there will be future downloadable content available that could open up areas like the castle. I noticed one area had a small patch to build on but had a huge section that served no purpose, so I suspect Square already has future plans for things like that. With the promise of more content so long as I have the ability to build on more areas than what's provided I can see myself playing this game far down the road.

The value was well worth the experience, and had this been a DS release I certainly would have handed over thirty dollars for it. Any concerns that this isn't a full game experience can be put to rest, because despite the simple nature of the title and the limited content there is a surprising amount to do. The game will not be to everyone's liking, but for RPG fans who also enjoy sims it should be right up their alley. It certainly was a pleasant surprise from what I was expecting.

SCORE: 7.5 / 10