Brilliant RTS game by Marvelous, a highly enjoyable and charming experience.
Story: 9/10
You play as King Corobo, a little boy who stumbles upon the Kingdom of Alpoko, you soon find out from your Advisor, Howser, that you are the true king of the land and must use your power to expand your kingdom and eventually conquer the world.
The story itself is nothing ground breaking, although you eventually learn of the pretty unique setting that you're in, along with the charm of each kingdom that you visit. Every major character is brimming with personality and some of the kings you encounter hit you with some pretty deep and/or intellectual dialogue, which is why this game is clearly not meant for children.
Again, the whole setting and journey of the game reminds us of the limitless wonders a child's imagination can behold and delivers it in a manner directed towards the mature and developed mind, something rarely seen in games today. I will say that the ending itself is not that great, closes the story well but nothing memorable compared to the rest of the game.
Visuals: 9.5/10
Even though it's technically not the most ground breaking Wii title in the graphics department, the art style of this game is very pleasing to the eye and makes excellent use of the Wii's hardware limitations. Really, aside from maybe the character models themselves, this game probably wouldn't look much better on an HD console, because Marvelous has done such a brilliant job crafting a colorful, bright and vibrant world that you would enjoy exploring from start to finish.
Each kingdom has its own unique identity and so do the king's, ensuring that you won't forget any of them, same thing with each major character.
Sound: 9/10
The music is very charming, although not highly memorable, there are some classic tracks remixed for the game. Each track matches each area perfectly and really adds to the mood of each field and kingdom.
As for the voice acting, something I found very special about it was that listening to it at first, it just sounds like a bunch of random gibberish, but I soon discovered that pretty much every character speaks in a different language, although I haven't been able to identify each language spoken, I'm pretty sure characters like Ray speak Spanish, The Jolly King speaks Japanese, and I believe Howser speaks German. Even though it's nothing huge, I still found it something special that further adds to the overall charm of the game.
Gameplay: 9.5/10
The Little King's Story is an RTS game, similar to Pikmin where you control a certain amount of "units" with different classes, all having their own unique capabilities. It's your job to build an army, assign roles to your units (after the Grunt Warrior and Farmer, every other job costs money to train), gather resources (every item you pick up, except equips, is converted into money "Bol"), expand your kingdom and conquer other kingdoms.
There are a wide variety of classes, you start off with "Carefree Adults" which are basically bums who can sort of dig holes and gather items laying around, every new citizen gained starts off as a Carefree adult, from there you can train them (in order of obtainment) to become a farmer (excellent at digging holes and are the only ones that can uncover hot springs), Grunt Warriors (primary attackers), Hunters (long range archers, can take down incoming projectiles), Carpenters (builds bridges and stairs), Lumberjacks (destroys giant tree trunks and can easily break down wood), and I'll let you uncover the rest. It is VERY wise to always bring at least one of each class with you, usually two farmers and carpenters would be good as you will find holes or bridges/stairs that would take a long time to complete. Also take note that the 2nd batch of kings you fight unlock unique citizens that you will need to access certain areas or destroy specific obstacles.
Your success against each king depends on what units you bring to battle, and just to make the final battle for you easier (trust me you'll know when you've reached the final battle), the only non offense type unit you'll need is a farmer (bring 2 just in case one dies), besides that you should bring your best offensive units.
This game is by no means a pushover, if you want to ensure that everyone in your Royal Guard survives, you need to learn the attack patterns of the monsters/enemies and attack or call back your units accordingly. While you can train your citizens to have more health, King Corobo will forever only have 3 units of health and if you die, you start back from your last save point, unless you're in a boss battle. This is a strategic game that punishes you for making bad decisions so always make sure you save before a major battle and plan accordingly.
On a side note, a good way to earn money, especially later on when you've completed your kingdom, is by collecting taxes from your citizens, you can send in every single one of your royal guard but they can only collect once a day. Most houses only give 1,000-2,000 Bol but when you've unlocked the wealthy districts, those houses tend to give up to 10,000-24,000 and when you have a royal guard of up to 30 units, it becomes very easy to amass a great deal of money, although it is rather time consuming to do this.
The controls work great for the most part, the game does not make use of the Wii's pointer capabilities and instead relies on whichever direction the king is currently facing to aim. This works well for the most part but sometimes it's hard to point at the right target when there are multiple targets surrounding it.
Value: 9/10
The game took me about 24 hours to beat, although how much you want out of the game depends on you. The game has an endless supply of side quests, although they mostly amount to just killing certain monters in specific areas after you've unlocked everything. There are a wealth of collectibles to uncover, from the 100 fanart scattered around the world (collecting them rewards you with very useful equips), and of the major sidequests each of the princesses tasks you with. For me personally, because I loved playing this game so much, after I got my butt handed to me by the final boss, instead of going back to fight him again, I decided to replay the entire game over (something I've never done before).
Overall: 9.5/10
The Little King's Story is a fantastic experience from start to finish, it takes you on a very charming journey in the perspective of a child. With several mature themes and intellectual dialogue, along with the challenging gameplay, this is clearly not meant for children. If you enjoy strategy games, this is clearly one to try out and never got the attention it deserved.