"This game has a big problem - its addicting"

While many people throw this game away saying that it's the most boring RPG they have ever played they have made one crucial mistake, this is not an RPG, it is a sim. You do know what a sim is right? This game has kept me well entertained for about 20 hours. Long cut scenes at the beginning give people an excuse to say that the game is boring, but if they stick with it they will find it is surprisingly deep and simple at the same time.

The storyline revolves around a child king who has found his father's ruined kingdom and intends to rebuild it. Given the power of Architek by Final Fantasies signature crystal he can rebuild the town by building out of his memory. While building he finds that his father's kingdom was destroyed by a mysterious figure known as the Dark Lord. He must rebuild his town while overcoming the dark lord.

The game play is simple yet gives you a feeling of complexity at the same time. You assign adventurers who can be one of four classes (Thief, Warrior, White Mage, and Black Mage) to gather elementite (The crystal consumes elementite when building) and slay nearby monsters. They are four races of people that live in your town, Clavat (Humans), Selkie (Human-like thieves), Lilties (Small but fierce warriors), and Yukes (Magical creatures encased in armor). The adventurers unlock new buildings to be built and advance the storyline.

The list of buildings to be built is not amazing but is still a respectable amount. This is but a few: Small House, Large House, Spacious House, Lilty Huts, Yuke Shacks, Selkie Dens, Weapon shops, Armor Shops, Item shops, Gaming Halls, White Mage Temples, Black Mage Temples, Training Halls, Inns, Taverns, Fountain arks, Bulletin Parks, Sacred Shrines, And so on and so forth.

Gathering morale will not only make your people happy it can also be used to advance your village. You gather enough morale and you will receive a Morale Sphere which can be used to further people's relationships with their families or change from a town to a city to a kingdom to an empire to the Promised Land. Building bakeries and an emporium increases the amount of Morale spheres that you can fill up at a time.

Your people pay you daily tithes, which differ depending on how much your people like you, and you can use that money to fund weapon research and things of that sort.

All in all, the game will keep you busy for hours and while it may sound like a lot of work its very satisfying to see your town grow from a barren land into a full fledged kingdom. While later in the game you may experience some lag while summoning chime, your assistant who is half selkie half clavat, it is not much and goes away as soon as she leaves. The graphics are very good for the Wii and show a lot of promise for the new WiiWare. This game is well worth fifteen dollars.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/02/08