New Little King’s Story is a tale about young King Corobo whose kingdom has been attacked by a mysterious force. After fleeing with the few remaining citizens he starts to build a new settlement, preparing to retake his home.

The story is a weird but charming one. You meet some strange people along the way all while trying to save princesses that have been captured and trapped in pillars of light guarded by an odd cast of bosses. From the princesses you save you’ll be trying to figure out what exactly happened when your kingdom was under siege. You know, in between private cake parties and town wide rescue celebrations. It can get cutesy at times which goes well with the graphics.

The look of this game is very soft. Soft in-game colors; chibi style character design as well as the monsters.

The field map is quite large and there are citizens going about their daily lives in the settlements you build. The loading times are fairly quick and traveling from one end of the map to the other can be done with minimal loading. The cutesy design isn’t an issue but the slow-downs might be. Especially when you have a team with you. It’s not incredibly annoying or game breaking but its a big blemish on an otherwise nice looking game. It might bother some more than others. Don’t let the visuals fool you as the game can be challenging.

You need to train soldiers to help you fight; you need miners and builders to build bridges and stairs or tunnel through some rock to get to the next area of the map; and you need money to build these training facilities. For some of these jobs you need money so taking down monsters and searching for treasure will be routine.

Luckily some expeditions can be quite generous. A very good thing since when you reach a level cap you need to pay a fee in order to level higher or to increase the amount of people you can have on a team. Not to mention building houses to increase the population/workforce. You can also pay a fee to pass little things like dress code. You can change peoples jobs in case you feel you’re low in other groups. And if your guys are hurt in battle they’ll take some time off to heal in the hospital. You can speed up the healing by paying a fee.

On a side note if you find a compatible couple in your town you can send them to the church to be married.

In a fight you’ll be commanding your team. There’s going to be quite a bit of team managing on the battlefield from organizing ranks to ordering attacks and defensive strategies. The field will have different types of enemies and it can exhaust you trying to keep an eye on everyone and sending the right people. Attacking itself isn’t very active. You’ll find yourself mostly mashing X to slash when you want to jump into the battle yourself.

You can have a princess accompany you and they will have a special ability to help but they can only use it a certain amount of times.

It can take a while to understand how your team moves and until then it can be awkward, and in a boss fight, unforgiving . But there’s plenty of chances to get used to the combat with the amount of side quests you’ll receive.

Changing weapons can be humorous. I’m not sure how many knights would go into battle with a metal fold up chair but one of my top knights is rushing into battle with one. And is dressed as a panda bear.

Overall I give the game a 3.5/5. It’s a charming little title with a bit of a learning curve. Attacking isn’t very exciting but utilizing all the skills at your disposal when you encounter one of the tougher fights can be a challenging task. The cast can be quite amusing with their varied personalities and you might end up being attached to your teammates. After all they’re with you through out the game. There’s plenty of quests to do along with the story and you can catch yourself just wandering around town watching and talking with your citizens as they live their lives.