Another review of a Namco game!....Eh? You're probably saying: "So what? Why are you getting so worked up?" Talking about Namco isn't such a big deal. After all, they are among the gaming elite and most people know who they are in one way or another. The thing that's a bit more unusual is that this is a strategy RPG. While that isn't anything special to some, Namco is so busy pumping out Tales games these days (with MANY Tales games currently existing...even on mobile phones!) that it's a bit nice to see something like this that shows they can step away from Tales for a while. Pocket King sounds like a game that's low budget and uninteresting, but in actuality, there is a lot more going on in this game than the generic title gives off. You will take control of Elrick (name at default), a young man whose city was destroyed by a horde of demons. Shortly after, Elrick meets a strange creature called Pukuru and together, the two of them decide to go up against the demon army. Elrick will meet survivors from the city and reunite with old friends along the way.
This game is best played on a Game Boy Advance, GBASP, or Game Boy Color...though it will also play in a regular Game Boy as well as a Super Game Boy. Since I was originally playing this game in the Super Game Boy, I thought that the graphics were decent for a portable Strategy RPG. I popped this into the Game Boy Advance though and the "real" colors make the game look quite nice indeed. For those who don't know what I mean by "real", SGB doesn't always give the best colors (*See SNES System FAQ for more info*). The enemies sport simple, yet respectable animation due to how much stuff is in this game. The way Elrick summons certain units onto the field also looks pretty cool. The audio is fairly good, though I wish that the # of actual BGMs were a little higher. The sound effects are average, but the audio suits the theme of this game as well as the environments quite nicely, with fast paced battle/war music and slower and refined map themes.
The gameplay is the real thing about Pocket King that I want to focus on. This game reminds me of a portable version of Dark Wizard (Sega CD) and the game sponsors a couple of neat options and novelty features. You have the main game, a versus mode (with 14 battlefields to choose from with varying terrain, etc.), a trading mode (to do simple exchanging of things with a friend), a game encyclopedia which talks about all 159 (Yes, there are 159!) different unit types in great detail, and the feature to erase save data. Pocket King gives you a TON of different units that will fight alongside you. A unit with a star next to it means that they are capable of liberating a town from demons. However, the enemy can also do this! What's the point behind this? Well, you have MP in this game. You must use it to recruit warriors and summon friendly demon units and you can only summon them from your castle. You recover MP after each full turn that passes. However, you recover more MP per turn depending on how many towns you have occupied! You know what that means...enemies will try to take over towns as quickly as possible! To that, Vyse says NO to enemy scum!
You can summon as many units as you want per turn as long as you have MP and as long as too many units aren't on the field. How much is TOO much? A LOT. That's another great thing about PK! For a portable SRPG, you can have up to 32 troops on the field at one time! Most units learn powerful new abilities as they level up and once a unit levels up enough (around intervals of 10), they change classes. Units also have various strengths, weaknesses, and other factors such as terrain advantages (as well as disadvantages) and many variables to consider. You can form parties of 3 by having units meet up with each other to further boost your abilities. Say you want a cleric that can fly to heal others in a jiffy. Just pair her up with a harpy or flying unit and not only can the cleric soar over terrain, her mobility increases as well! You get many items and the game offers a lot for a game no one ever mentions...so obviously there are some bad points, right?
The enemy units can also send swarms of enemies, summon new units, gain MP per turn, and they also start rather close to towns. As you might imagine, that means that you will be summoning many units and battles are slow placed (though not nearly as slow as Dark Wizard for the Sega CD). On top of this, units that you work so hard to train can easily be killed and lost for good. If you didn't like that aspect in games like Fire Emblem, you may not like it here. The plus is that once a character changes class, you can summon a new character under the new class, though they won't be as powerful as a basic class trained from the start. The game is challenging, but also fun and rewarding as you must use strategy to win...not just make one unit overpowered. I like this gem a lot and I hope you will too.
- Written by Vyse the determined - |
