Ok so I downloaded this almost the minute WiiWare launched here along with LostWinds (which I’ve played some of but not much yet). This game is probably the best £10 I’ve ever spent on a game before. Most games this price are good but don’t really keep me coming back for more. Games like Super Stardust HD, Pain, Calling all Cars and the others. This game however, although it can feel frustrating at times when your guys keep failing a dungeon or the slow progress you sometimes feel, it’s still a great game with tons of depth especially when you consider all you’re really doing is staying at home the entire time.
There is a lot of satisfaction to be had from building up your kingdom and keeping your people happy. The town will never feel bustling and alive since its not an MMO and the people are computer controlled, it will never feel like logging into wow and seeing people everywhere going about their business. However it does do as good of a job as it can. I would say it would have been nice if they could have a wider array of things to say when you talk to them, but on the other hand I often don’t read what they say anyway.
The game at first is very basic but when it builds up and you unlock new buildings, it actually starts to get pretty complicated. You’re faced with making sure you train your adventurers in the right jobs, create balanced parties, and send your guys to suitable dungeons. For a WiiWare game there is a lot of depth here and the game will keep you coming back for many hours.
When I do get to the end of the game, (although I’m not exactly sure if it ever does end) or at least finish all the dungeons in the game, I’ll probably check out some of the downloadable content. Some of the stuff here doesn’t really add to the game at all, costumes for the king and Chime aren’t really necessary and are from my point of view a waste of the 100 points each you’ll spend on them. On the other hand there are dungeon packs which will offer prizes for completing them which will up your limit on various buildings like houses which in turn will give you more gil for spending on various things. You can also get a triple pack of new races. This allows you three different building types, for each of the races, these races each excel at various jobs and so looks like it can really extend the life of the game.
Theres always been a lot of talk about how the wii doesn’t have enough storage space available. While I do agree that there is a problem, I would also say that the president of Nintendo, who said recently that they are addressing the problem which effects a small percentage of Wii owners in the near future. IGN guys said that this is a joke and that everyone is running out of space, but that’s probably because they are all heavy virtual console downloaders and therefore have clouded judgement, when in fact most people have probably downloaded either one or two virtual console titles, and a few free channels. I am that way, I downloaded the mii contest channel, everybody votes and two VC games, columns and 1080 snowboarding. I am probably someone who has downloaded more than a large percentage of wii owners because for one thing, a lot of them have probably never been connected to the internet, and even those who have may not have even downloaded any channels or games.
Now that WiiWare is coming out though, and for those people who are the hardcore retro gamers who downloaded loads of games, Nintendo really need to open up the SD slot to allow running of channels and games straight off them instead of having to copy and delete channels in order to play them.
I’m also wondering what will happen when people have more than 48 channels on their wii in the future, which can happen. Will the Wii menu continue to expand or will there be a limit to how many channels are possible?
So in conclusion, the probably isn’t as bad as some people think, but it is for a small percentage of owners, and in the near future it will be for many more players too. We’ll probably hear about what Nintendo’s plans are at E3 and a firmware update will probably follow shortly after that opening up the SD slot. I can’t see them bringing out a hard drive or anything like that, but maybe they will allow usb drives and SD cards to give people a choice. It will be either of those things, and definitely won’t be telling people to buy another wii if they want more storage. I really hope not at least.
With the US launch of wiiware last week and the UK / Europe launch on Tuesday, I’m excited with how the service is making an impact and showing its potential right from the start. With two must have games in the launch line-up with many more to come, WiiWare I hope will be a success for Nintendo and more importantly, the (mostly) small developers that are making innovative original games for the new Wii download service.
I’m definitely going to revisit this to give reviews of Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles, My Life as A King and LostWinds, the two must-have launch games on tuesday or whenever I’ve played enough of them to have my own opinion.
From looking at IGN and some other small review sites, LostWinds is by far the standout game of the bunch with my life as a king being more of a niche title, and more for people who are fans of games like animal crossing, sim city and other slower paced management games like that. The big mistake that some people may make is being My Life as A King thinking that it’s a traditional FF RPG style game, when in fact your just managing your kingdom and your people rather than venturing out to be the hero yourself. Me personally, I really like the concept, and the graphics, for a WiiWare game are stunning from what I’ve seen of it so far. LostWinds is also a stunning looking game for a WiiWare title and as IGN’s review says at the top, it’s better than a lot of full price wii games, which obviously shows WiiWare is off to a great start, unless your comparing it to data design games, but whatever.
So basically the short of this post is that WiiWare is a great step for Nintendo to take and that if you’re out there and have some cash to blow on some games then you can’t go wrong with these when you consider the price. This is the kind of stuff people need to support on Wii. This and games like Boom Blox which really use the wii remote well, and suit the console. The sales of Pro Evo 8 on Wii are apparently pretty poor which is extremely dissapointing considering how they’re really innovating at Konami with great IR controls. That’s another game you should pick up to support Konami and the effort they have made to innovate on Wii.
To quickly sum up WiiWare, great start and I hope they keep up the momentum with good weekly releases. There are some good titles on the way I’m probably going to end up buying. Especially Bomberman with 8 player wi-fi connection. That’s going to be so fun. World of Goo is coming and already frontier have announced LostWinds 2 which is great news.