While this is a good game, it has a few major flaws (especially the way it handles DLC) that keeps it from being great.
The first and worst flaw is that it is obvious to get the most out of this game, you will need to purchase the DLC. While that is not surprising to me, I am shocked as how the game almost comes to a complete halt towards the end of the game where you can either purchase the DLC or constantly level-grind your characters in dungeons you have already been in. This is a very tedious process that is so boring that watching paint dry would seem exciting by comparison.
Another problem I have is the fact that you really don't have that much variety in the structures that you can create. Like I said, it's like the game was fully made and SquareEnix thought of the idea to take out the last 1/3 of the game (while leaving in the ending dungeon) and slap a price tag on it and put it out as DLC. Want to build more structures, use other races, change the names of your adventurers, change outfits, have a decent amount of dungeons.........all stuff that should have been in the original game? Well, it's gonna cost ya more in DLC that the original game itself cost. And that is absolutely ridiculous.
Now don't get me wrong, if the core game itself is long enough, deep enough, and good enough......I might not have a problem with that, but that is not the case here. This is not a long game. It's not as deep as it seems when you first start playing. And it's a good game, but not a great one. So the problem with the DLC is a black cloud that will hang over this game.
There are a few other annoyances that start to wear on you as the game goes along as well. Why can't I tell my adventurers what to spend their money on? Why can't I fire ones I don't want anymore? A major flaw I ran into was once you gained the ability to create 'parties'. This way you can send out a group of four at once to make things easier. Sounds great right? Well the problem is that when you complete a dungeon, you get an ability-raising medal that you can give out. You only get one and can only give it to the leader of that party. So the other three members get the shaft. Why can't I pick which character gets the medal? And some are job or skill-specific so it can make a difference.
To get your adventurers to do what you want them to do, you create 'behests' that you post on boards around town. At the start of the day, adventurers come to the behest that they want to do. The problem is you can't force an adventurer or a party to go do a certain behest. So say you have a behest out for a high level dungeon and a behest for a simple exploration task. Obviously you want your best party going to the high level dungeon and the weaker party going to the other behest. Unfortunately most of the time this doesn't work. They either both show up for the harder one or go to the one you don't want them to. It's very annoying.
And after you get everything built and hit your building cap, which won't take too long unless you pay for the extra DLC, there really isn't much to do in the game. Then the problem of repetition and monotony comes into play. The strange thing is that you really don't realize this until you are late into the game and then it hits you like a hammer. Up until that point, the game is a very fun experience though.
To it's credit, the game looks very nice for a WiiWare game. I really like the music and it is a very polished title. It has an ambitious feel to it and could have been great if a 3rd of the game hadn't been hacked off to price-gouge us gamers. If you are into city-building or 'god' games, I would see if a friend has this and try his/her game first. Since Nintendo refuses to put trial versions of their games online it's hard to tell if you are going to like the game before paying for it. While I enjoyed the game for the most part, this is not a game for everyone and it ends up being disappointing in the end.