Nintendo Wii Fanboy

Where would Europe be without Rising Star Games? Answer: in a very, very dark place. The European publishing arm of Marvelous has already announced localizations of Muramasa: The Demon Blade and No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle, and has now confirmed plans to bring Cing's hat-obsessed strategy title, Little's King Story, to the region next March.

You can watch a trailer for the game here, if you like, and make yourself queasy with the cloying cuteness of it all. Not only that, but nine new screens (sadly not wearing adorable hats) sneaked into our gallery!

We've stared at Little King's Story for a while, so we're quite familiar with the look of the tiny monarch and his populace of multifariously-hatted thralls. But, partially as a result of being stood up at E3, we have only the faintest notion of what playing it entails.

Like its contemporary tiny-king-building-a-town game, My Life as a King, Little King's town uses different buildings to determine what can be done. In Little King, the buildings serve to train the occupants in different skills, including fighting and farming. Unlike the WiiWare title, every townsperson is called into combat at your command, and their skills determine their abilities on the battlefield.

Your population doesn't seem to be able to diminish; according to the preview, when someone dies, a new resident washes up on the beach, though this new person will have "no loyalties and no relationships." And when someone does die, you have to attend his funeral. It's a strangely personal touch for the strategy genre.

You must also participate in hand-raising votes about the growth of the kingdom. If you fail to vote along with the majority of your constituents, your popularity will decrease and people will be less likely to do what you ask.

Remember all those coloring contests when you were a kid? As you grew older, it became fun to scoff at the children's feeble attempts to color within the lines, and chortle at their crayon selection when a pencil was clearly the superior implement. Well, since we're all so great at drawing and coloring, it's probably a good idea to enter the Little King's Story "UMA" Contest.

A UMA is an Unidentified Mysterious Animal. Create one, and your entry is complete! Little King's Story features a whole range of wacky inhabitants, and one UMA entry will be chosen to become an in-game creature! The top 100 entries will also be featured at a museum within the kingdom.

Release some creative tension, because there is no limitation on what you can make -- be it an animal, person, entity, or even a higher plane of existence. Just keep it in this dimension, okay? Hit up the contest details, along with some sample creations, right here. Happy drawing, and good luck!


[Via press release]

Nintendo Power already reported that Little King's Story (Project O) had picked up a North American publisher last month, but Marvelous Entertainment USA and XSEED Games are just now getting around to releasing an official statement on the bright and colorful strategy title.

The two companies have partnered to bring Little King's Story -- not to be confused with Square Enix's somewhat similar strategy title, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King -- to the States this winter. Hopefully, the charming looking game won't be lost amid all the other holiday releases.

Quick primer on the game: You play as Corobo, a shy boy who stumbles upon a crown in a nearby forest. Corobo discovers that with the crown, he can charm anyone in his village and give them orders. Howzer, a bull-knight, soon stops by and tells the kid that he's now the king of the village and that it's his responsibility to lead the hamlet into building a grand kingdom. Bring your scepter into the gallery below for some kingdom-building screenshots!

We have yet to see a copy of the latest Nintendo Power for ourselves, so we're technically calling this a rumor, but according to the NeoGAF writeup, XSEED has announced plans to publish Ousama Monogatari/King Story in the U.S. under the title Little King's Story. As if it weren't confusing enough to have two games about little kings building towns, now the title has become more similar to My Life As a King's Japanese title, The Little King and the Promised Land. XSEED recently announced their plans to publish a number of Marvelous games, so it's no surprise that one of their highest-profile Wii games is on the list.

According to Revogamers.net, Rising Star Games is planning to publish the title in Europe as well. Again, this makes sense, as Rising Star is a subsidiary of Marvelous.

With Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King out and tempting obsessives with DLC, it's easy to forget about the other Wii simulation game about a tiny king building a town: Ousama Monogatari (King Story). The latest screens show off King Story's unique textured style well, but they also reveal three of the jobs that the magical king Corobo can force people to take on.

Soldiers (possibly translatable as "grunts") stay close to the king and protect him with close-quarters combat. Carpenters, labeled "normal," act both as builders and architects, designing and building new structures and roads for the town. And farmers, described as "serious," dig holes and plant crops.

Sure, these may seem obvious, but we don't think we can expect normal real-world logic to apply in a game about a kid whose magic crown makes everyone do what he says.

We spent yesterday going through the big releases that've been announced for next year so far -- Smash Bros. Brawl and/or Wii Fit likely topping your personal "must get" list -- but what about the second-tier games that don't usually receive much press or attention?

Though we haven't forgotten about the low-key releases, we've collected a selection of games and media to ensure that these titles stay on your mind too! Read on for our top ten list of awesome 2008 games that you totally forgot about!

Not all of you shared our excitement when we posted Project O's trailer two weeks ago, many questioning our declaration of the game as a "must buy." We considered sassing back with our usual acerbic wit, riposting, "Yeah, well your mother is a 'must buy.'" Oh, how it would have burned. We eventually decided against attacking our readers, opting instead to chip away at your defenses with as many updates on the RPG/sim as we can muster.

Jeux-France posted new artwork of Project O's buildings and characters that strengthen analogies between the game and a Pikmin-styled RTS. Some of the structures are predictable, like the smithy and archery hut, while others, such as the mustachioed and heavy-eyebrowed fish restaurant shown above, are a bit more eccentric.

We've got more images past the post break which you can preview while you try desperately in vain to shake the musical stylings of Starship out of your head. Consider that last link our weekend gift to you. You know, to make up for that whole your-mother-being-a-must-buy burn.

We've had some pretty messed up dreams in our time -- like that one where we drove through the mall in a robot octopus to pick up girls, beckoning eight of them at a time with our come-hither, mechanical arms -- so it's no small feat exceeding our sleeping imaginations. This trailer for King Story (Project O) does just that, however, seducing us in just its first fifteen seconds with an arrangement of Maurice Ravel's "Boléro."

The three-minute English trailer goes over a lot of what was already revealed in yesterday's site update, but the accompanying cartoon has more charm to it than a box of leprechaun cereal. In-game clips show off your cheering villagers, town building and maintenance, and even some combat with a spicy dragon! If this RPG/sim wasn't a "must buy" for you before, it should be now.

Publisher Marvelous Interactive has finally replaced its King Story (or Project O, if you prefer its "working title") teaser page with a more substantial site, and, joy of all joys, there's an English version!

Along with listing King Story as a cross between a role-playing game and a "simulated life game," the new hub has information on a few of the characters and creatures that populate the village. The UMAs, Unidentified Mysterious Animals, are particularly interesting -- miniature humanoids with a featureless turnips for heads, mushrooms bearing the faces of old men, and spicy dragons!

We also love the story: "In a small village, there was this little timid young boy named Corobo. He was often lonely and too shy to make friends. Until one day when he received a mysterious Crown. This Crown had a mysterious power. The power 'to charm people and make them follow any orders ... '"

Any orders, you say? We can already imagine ourselves smiling cruelly, watching our minions toil under a terrible sun to erect a monument immortalizing our rule. An advisor pleads, "Your highness, this cannot go on! They'll revolt if you continue to push them like this."

We answer, "Obviously, you've no idea what power this Crown holds over them. Lest they wish their women and children sold to the Spore slavers, they'll break their backs completing the obelisk." The advisor opens his mouth to object, but finds that he's suddenly paralyzed, frozen in place by an unseen force. He screams silently, a sentient statue, unable to live or die for an eternity.

It's been so long since we heard anything about the fantastic Project O that as soon as new information popped up on IGN, we gobbled it like a tasty bar of chocolate. The best part? There's more information to come at this year's Tokyo Game Show. We are now officially counting down the days.

For those who need a refresher, Project O is a large-scale simulation game with elements reminiscent of Harvest Moon, but from the sound of this latest interview from Famitsu, it seems this title will have some significantly darker themes, despite the cheerful anime-inspired look. Each individual NPC in Project O is set to have their own unique attitudes and memories, of both good and bad events in their lives. In fact, one of the examples given in the interview is of the darker sort, but definitely intriguing -- an NPC will be affected while traveling a route he once walked often with a girlfriend who died. How sad! And yet, that tiny, humane detail makes us rabid for this game.

How will all of this affect your actions as the main character in the game? Will you even be a main character? So much remains shrouded in mystery, but we'll be watching this one anxiously for new developments.

Marvelous Interactive, Townfactory, and CING recently announced that they had joined their development forces in hopes of producing a new game for the Wii titled Project O. Not much else was revealed except for a vague release date of sometime in 2008, but hearing that Hotel Dusk: Room 215 developers CING are involved was enough to hold our interest.

We didn't have to wait long for more hints on what the game could be, as Marvelous Interactive has already uploaded a Project O teaser site for our analysis. The concept art shows what looks like resource gathering, structure building, multiple units engaged in combat, and an overhead shot. Could this mystery title be an RTS game? We will keep you informed as more news develops!

[Via Jeux-France]

Cing, who developed the recently-released Hotel Dusk: Room 215, along with Interactive Marvelous and Townfactory, are all coming together like Voltron to complete a title on the Wii. As of now, the only information we have on the title is it is being called Project O and will be available to Japanese gamers sometime in 2008. Still, even with the lack of information, a trio of developers coming together like this is news in and of itself.

[via Go Nintendo]