When Little King Story was originally released on the Wii, it was one of those sleeper hits that successfully combined a variety of gaming genres together to provide this engaging experience. Given that, Little King Story is one of my favourite top ten games on the Nintendo Wii and I was thoroughly excited when I heard that the Vita would receive the sequel.

Although a little apprehensive at first on how the sequel would pan out on the PS Vita, the innovative controls of this console definitely enhanced the original gaming experience and 30 hours later, I'm still enjoying this title and finding new things littered through the gaming world. It's just down right fun and quite playable!

The story of "New Little King Story" continues from the previous installment that has seen the kingdom you built in the previous game overrun by your evil nemesis the Devil King and his creatures. Fortunately King Corobo still has his trusted advisors who will assist you in not only winning back your lost Kingdom but building a new Kingdom. You also have your Royal Guards who will generally do the nasty killing for you and get their hands dirty. Best of all, previous knowledge of the original story is not a mandate as the game welcomes newcomers to the franchise quite well. 

The first part of the game serves as a tutorial to teach you the game mechanics and the controls of the PS Vita. In essence, you need to build a new kingdom and visit other parts of the world in order to liberate your citizens and more importantly, rescue the royal princesses who have been imprisoned.

At its fun gaming heart, New Little King Story is a combination of RTS meets RPG as you complete quests, build new structures and of course complete a variety of missions as you search for the missing princesses. New classes, items and building are available as you progress through the game which is generally opened up to the player once they have defeated a boss of one of the 7 locations that you must liberate.

Your townsfolk can also be used to perform certain tasks such as turning them into soldiers for killing or woodcutters to gather wood which is a precious resource. It's actually quite an engaging game on the PS Vita and dare I say as enjoyable as the Wii version but maybe more so due to the fact that the game is portable. Controlling your citizens or more specifically your royal guard is extremely reminiscent of Pikmin as you send your followers in a particular direction to complete a task such as moving a huge rock in your path or attacking enemies.

Enemies range from grunts to massive boss battles which is quite fun as you send your royal guards into battle. There is an element of online for New Little King Story that include downloadable content, item combining co-operative play and even leader boards. For me however, the single-player game is where this title shines. As mentioned the gameplay is just fun and I love exploring this world and sending my Pikmin like creatures to do work.

Graphics/Audio

Graphically, New Little King Story is pure eye candy on the PS Vita with some fun anime looking characters and environments. As the hours in the day progress so does the lighting which looks rather impressive. Backgrounds, albeit a little simplistic suit the cartoon atmosphere of the game and the pseudo 3D environments help immerse the player into this world.

Sound effects and music work well with the gameplay and more importantly, the controls are quite flawless on the PS Vita. I especially love the inclusion of the touch screen into this franchise which makes it more receptive to the player. The only downside to the graphics is that some of the text is a little small to read which may effect some older gamers and that lag is an issue when you have more than 15 followers.

Final Level

Some critics have been too harsh with New Little King Story on the PS Vita and as my King would say... off with their heads. No, New Little King Story is probably once again misunderstood by these critics but if you want a title that successfully combines elements of RTS and RPG with a colourful story and some great characterisation than New Little King Story is for. Controls are quite responsive, graphics are cute and all in all, New Little King Story is probably the most fun I've had on the VITA in months! Recommended!