This game is an RPG starring the human child Yuu, who longs to become a "hero," and the dragon "Overlord" who fosters her.
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Absolutely stunning looking game and lovely story, sadly hold back by the repetitive turn based combat and boring side quest that can be summed up by fetching an item and take it back to an npc.
I adore the art of this game. The sketchy outlines coupled with watercolor hues breathes life into the game's world and characters. The art style is downright adorable, but manages to keep subtle dark undertones intact, giving this cutesy storybook world a hint of a twisted edge to it. There's so many different unique species of monsters, many with their own little personal touches that make them more distinct, instead of simply being palette swaps. There's a strong attention to detail throughout, from the foliage swaying and small creatures living in the background, down to every weapon your party members can wield each having a unique design. Combined with the music, it creates an atmosphere that I could only describe as "enchanting".
The overworld outside the villages are unfortunately quite barren. They're all hallways that you traverse horizontally. Granted, they're very pretty hallways with tons of charming elements, but there is very little to break up the monotony of walking left/right until you finally reach your next destination. You might find a treasure chest, an interactable object, or maybe even an NPC, but you'll mostly just be walking until you get into a random encounter.
The RPG combat is very typical and derivative of the genre as a whole. There is one notable gimmick, though. Every monster has a weakness that you can exploit by using the "survey" ability and using their little quip of dialogue as a hint. Some of them are fairly straightforward, but most of them are far too contextual to warrant exploiting them as opposed to just attacking them. When a weakness is exploited, the enemy will be dazed for for a turn or two, and from here you have two options: attack them for more damage, or use the "release" ability to let them go free. I'm not entirely sure what the mechanical significance of the latter is. For all I know, it just exists to make you feel good.
The narrative was definitely the driving force for this game in my eyes. The main plot is fully narrated in Japanese by a single woman, as if she were a mother reading a story to her children. She goes as far as to give each character their own unique voices (it's so damn cute), and it continues to drive this game's distinct style forward. Sidequests kind of reminded me of Nier; not necessarily in terms of story beats, but in terms of keeping me invested. Also akin to a game like Nier, you'll be backtracking through areas you've already been through several times in order to get the items required to complete the sidequests. I always did all the sidequests just to see the resulting development from whoever Yuu helped (they're literally called "Yuu's Acts of Kindness"). In fact, the sidequests each follow what's essentially their own self-contained plots, separate from the main story, though both are compelling in their own right.
I was really looking forward to this game, so I am a bit disheartened that my experience turned out this way. If I rated this game on charm alone, it would earn a perfect score. It's crystal-clear that there's a metric ton of love and care put into the presentation. The game's decent, but I don't think it's "30 hour RPG" decent. It didn't earn a runtime that high, it just forced me to run back and forth to an incessant degree. I wish I could rate this higher, but it is what it is. I still recommend this game, just go in expecting a decent amount of tedium.
The overworld outside the villages are unfortunately quite barren. They're all hallways that you traverse horizontally. Granted, they're very pretty hallways with tons of charming elements, but there is very little to break up the monotony of walking left/right until you finally reach your next destination. You might find a treasure chest, an interactable object, or maybe even an NPC, but you'll mostly just be walking until you get into a random encounter.
The RPG combat is very typical and derivative of the genre as a whole. There is one notable gimmick, though. Every monster has a weakness that you can exploit by using the "survey" ability and using their little quip of dialogue as a hint. Some of them are fairly straightforward, but most of them are far too contextual to warrant exploiting them as opposed to just attacking them. When a weakness is exploited, the enemy will be dazed for for a turn or two, and from here you have two options: attack them for more damage, or use the "release" ability to let them go free. I'm not entirely sure what the mechanical significance of the latter is. For all I know, it just exists to make you feel good.
The narrative was definitely the driving force for this game in my eyes. The main plot is fully narrated in Japanese by a single woman, as if she were a mother reading a story to her children. She goes as far as to give each character their own unique voices (it's so damn cute), and it continues to drive this game's distinct style forward. Sidequests kind of reminded me of Nier; not necessarily in terms of story beats, but in terms of keeping me invested. Also akin to a game like Nier, you'll be backtracking through areas you've already been through several times in order to get the items required to complete the sidequests. I always did all the sidequests just to see the resulting development from whoever Yuu helped (they're literally called "Yuu's Acts of Kindness"). In fact, the sidequests each follow what's essentially their own self-contained plots, separate from the main story, though both are compelling in their own right.
I was really looking forward to this game, so I am a bit disheartened that my experience turned out this way. If I rated this game on charm alone, it would earn a perfect score. It's crystal-clear that there's a metric ton of love and care put into the presentation. The game's decent, but I don't think it's "30 hour RPG" decent. It didn't earn a runtime that high, it just forced me to run back and forth to an incessant degree. I wish I could rate this higher, but it is what it is. I still recommend this game, just go in expecting a decent amount of tedium.
If this had a charm stat it would be through the roof. The art style has a child's storybook feel, to the point that the battle transition is flipping a bunch of pages. One of the biggest letdowns, however, is that all the side quests involve you treading over old ground very slowly to either pick something up or kill something and then traipse back to the quest giver for a reward. Battles are turn-based, not that challenging and can get a bit repetitive after a while. The game certainly has heart and has moments when it will capture yours.
Review on Reddit with Images
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE
-Turn based JRPG
-Relatively short game ~25 hours to beat the game and all sidequests
-JP voiceovers only. The narrator voice narrates all of the voices during story scenes.
-Party consists of only two members total during battle.
INTRODUCTION
Nippon Ichi Software are best known for their Disgaea games and other related titles. However, they have a number of other smaller titles that often gets overlooked which is a shame since some of them are worth playing through. The Cruel King and the Great Hero is one of them.
The game is a successor to the art style found in the Liar Princess and the Blind Prince. Both games making use of the "storybook" style in presentation. There is no relation between the two games (as far as I know). The gameplay in the Cruel King is also done as a turn based JRPG compared to the Liar Princess' platforming style.
STORY
The Cruel King and the Great Hero follows the young girl named Yuu. She was raised by the Dragon King who would often tell bedtime stories about Yuu's father, a great hero who slew the Demon King that terrorized the lands. At some point in time, Yuu came into the care of the Dragon King after her parents' deaths. After hearing countless tales of her great father, it is no surprise that Yuu someday wished to be a hero just like him. Thus begins Yuu's journey to become a hero. What that means is that Yuu spends most of the game helping the monster citizens in the surrounding areas.
As seen with the game's presentation and art style, the story is also mostly lighthearted in general. The mini stories (chapters) throughout are essentially something that can be found in a children's book. There's a lot of good feels and happy moments. Also as expected, these stories aren't particularly deep or anything.
While each of the chapters have very little to do with each other and are quite episodic in nature, there is a single overarching storyline in the background that's always at the front of player's minds. It is also where the game's serious moments are usually found due to the twist on the story. At the beginning, the player learns that the Dragon King is indeed the same Demon King from the stories which puts Yuu unknowingly on the path to someday defeat her foster father.
For me, the simple and mostly lighthearted story was executed very well. At no point did I found it boring despite how episodic it felt. The bigger story parts were full of emotions and had me feeling sad and happy at certain moments. The ominous tagline regarding the Dragon King that lingers throughout the chapters in the background had also kept me invested to the end.
CHARACTERS
The game has a number of fun characters you meet throughout. Although, most are of the monster variety. Many are written well enough that despite not being particularly deep, are easy to connect and sympathize with. As the main character, Yuu is an endearing protagonist and is known for her kindness. Her good natured attitude made me just want to root for her when things get difficult.
The other supporting story characters don't get as much screentime as Yuu, but do a good job in helping develop Yuu's character.
A highlight of the game are the NPCs. Excluding the NPCs that you meet in the dungeons since they just give one liners, the NPCs in the Monster Village are written surprisingly well. All of the monsters in the village are involve in the sidequests in one way or another and they all have a story to tell (some more than others). More on this in the sidequest portion.
GRAPHICS/PRESENTATION
The Cruel King's most striking feature is likely the story book presentation with the water painting graphics. The game looks beautiful and the artstyle is very distinctive. The character designs are charming and even the enemies have mostly cute designs. The different expressions and animation for Yuu in particular are a highlight of the game.
MUSIC/AUDIO
The game's soundtrack fits very well with the story book theme and light hearted tone of the game. There isn't a whole lot of tracks overall unfortunately. What it does have as a standout are the very few vocal tracks which are sung by Akiko Shikata of Ar Tonelico fame. It's surprising that the composers other than Akiko Shikata do not have a substantial background on game composition. Overall, a solid and enjoyable soundtrack.
The female narrator is the only voice actor in the game. She also narrates the dialogue for the story characters as if she was a mother reading a book to her child. Her rendition of the characters are not drastically different, but you can hear different variations on her tone and speech depending which character is speaking. It helps to have knowledge of the Japanese language as well. For me, I thought she did a good job overall and found the different voice variations interesting.
EXPLORATION
Most of the time, you'll be exploring and traversing dungeons which consists of forests, caves and mountains. You move mostly from one side of the screen to the other side while engaging in random battles along the way. Several areas have branching paths that sometimes leads to treasure chests and locations of sidequest related items. You always have a waypoint in the map to show you where your destination is (including sidequests), but the dungeon map only covers areas you visited already so you only have a general idea of where the destination is.
The dungeon layouts are all on the simple side. There's no platforming required. Areas may be blocked out or inaccessible until going back at a later time or acquiring something to remove an obstacle.
Going straight to your destination doesn't take very long assuming you know the direct route to it. However, if you're going to explore every different path and area, then it will take a while.
Within the dungeons are peddlers who will sell you items and special fountains that will heal you. These fountains can also be used as fast travel between other ones across the dungeons and the Monster Village.
My issue with the exploration is how frequent the random encounters can be. You can have up to 3 battles before making across to a new room. It gets worse when Yuu can't run for some segments. She'll walk if the enemies in the room are roughly "stronger" than her, but if she gets stronger due to leveling up, she'll be able to run instead. Even then, the encounter rate remains and high and can be an annoyance to deal with. You can help mitigate it by using an item that removes encounter rates for the next 50 steps, but it won't work when she's in a room with monsters that are stronger her. Overall, this aspect of the game is one of its worse parts.
BATTLES
The combat system is a pretty standard turn based one. You have your typical attack, guard, run, item, and skill function. There's no visible turn order that is prevalent in many JRPGs these days. You input your commands for all of your party members first before any of your characters and enemies act. Only two party members are allowed in battle. On a related note, Yuu's partner rotates out every chapter so you don't have a say in who to bring in battle.
The part where it differs includes the Energy Point system which is ultimately the same as SP/MP in other JRPGs. You recover one EP per turn, but you gain an additional one if you guarded that turn.
Yuu does come with some unique skills in Survey and Release. Survey allows Yuu to observe the monster and reveal to the player the monster's monologue. This often directly or indirectly reveals what their weaknesses are. This is where the Release skill comes into play. Once you exploit a monster's weakness, they will enter a dazed state for about 2 turns. During that state, they won't act and will take considerably more damage.
After a monster becomes dazed, Yuu can then use her Release skill to send them running off. It's guaranteed to work, but you don't get the full Exp as compared to defeating them. In return, you have a better chance to get an item drop from them although it's not guaranteed. In practice though, the Release skill isn't that useful. Oftentimes, it's just easier to just attack them normally with skills which saves you time and even items in certain cases. The conditions to exploit weaknesses can vary from simple to very impractical.
The battle flow remains simple for most fights. You don't need to adjust strategy all that much. The battles are not that challenging , but mindless attacking can lead to a game over since enemy deals surprisingly a large amount of damage unless you're way overleveled. The boss fights on the other hand provide a larger degree of difficulty due to their bloated health (especially in the second half of the game) and high attack. Skills and items that aren't particularly necessary during regular monster battles do become more useful during these fights. That said, the combat system isn't particularly deep here.
My other issues with the battle system includes the 2 party system. Having less party members during battle does take away the potential options and strategies you can play around with. Some monster battles don't balance very well with just two party members especially when a hoard of 5+ monsters show up. Due to their high damage, a party member can quickly die in one turn if they all gang up on that member which isn't all that rare.
Overall, the battles comes off as mostly just serviceable. Decent if you aren't looking for a deep combat system with many mechanics to mess around with.
SIDEQUESTS
Sidequests make up a substantial part of the game which significantly increases the game's time. Called Yuu's Acts of Kindness, the sidequests are all about Yuu helping monsters from the Village or the ones in dungeons. At its core, the sidequests mostly amount to fetch quests and a few that requires beating a specific monster. While the core gameplay sounds generic, the Sidequests are a game's highlight due to the story involved in each of them.
Doing the sidequests will provide the background story for each NPC and make the world feel more alive. The stories are all slice of life, but are interesting nonetheless with a decent amount of dialogue. Many of them are part of a series of sidequests which provides further development as well so it's not just a one and done thing. Some sidequests includes finding rare food for a dying lizard, helping an idol manager search for his idol bee sisters, searching a forbidden tome to help a child become a witch apprentice, help members of the sheep and wolf clan make peace between their two leaders, help a wolf gatekeeper exchange letters with a mysterious penpal, and search for a way to remove a traumatic memory for a friend.
The actual in-game rewards for the sidequests includes Star Fragments that you can use to unlock stuff in the gallery, money currency, and equipment like accessories and armor.
As much as I liked the sidequests, they do have their issues. Due to the nature of the (many) fetch quests, you'll be running back and forth through the same dungeon areas over and over. The time spent in random battles in between will build up over time and does significantly increasing the game time unnecessarily. It goes back to the same frequent random encounter rate issue I had.
With everything said, the sidequests are well worth experiencing just for the sidequests story themselves and makes up a core part of the game's experience.
FINAL REMARKS
The Cruel King and the Great Hero is essentially a game full of charm, cute characters, fun and heartwarming moments. The gameplay is on the simple side, but it's great for those that are looking for a relaxing feels good game without anything complex from story to mechanics. It doesn't have an epic story, but it does have a good one that can move you and remind you of a simpler time.
The game is also on the relatively short side of 10-15 hours if you focus only on the main story. Completing all of the sidequests and exploring every area of the dungeons will put you around 25 hours. Another 5 hours or so for the Platinum trophy.
IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE
-Turn based JRPG
-Relatively short game ~25 hours to beat the game and all sidequests
-JP voiceovers only. The narrator voice narrates all of the voices during story scenes.
-Party consists of only two members total during battle.
INTRODUCTION
Nippon Ichi Software are best known for their Disgaea games and other related titles. However, they have a number of other smaller titles that often gets overlooked which is a shame since some of them are worth playing through. The Cruel King and the Great Hero is one of them.
The game is a successor to the art style found in the Liar Princess and the Blind Prince. Both games making use of the "storybook" style in presentation. There is no relation between the two games (as far as I know). The gameplay in the Cruel King is also done as a turn based JRPG compared to the Liar Princess' platforming style.
STORY
The Cruel King and the Great Hero follows the young girl named Yuu. She was raised by the Dragon King who would often tell bedtime stories about Yuu's father, a great hero who slew the Demon King that terrorized the lands. At some point in time, Yuu came into the care of the Dragon King after her parents' deaths. After hearing countless tales of her great father, it is no surprise that Yuu someday wished to be a hero just like him. Thus begins Yuu's journey to become a hero. What that means is that Yuu spends most of the game helping the monster citizens in the surrounding areas.
As seen with the game's presentation and art style, the story is also mostly lighthearted in general. The mini stories (chapters) throughout are essentially something that can be found in a children's book. There's a lot of good feels and happy moments. Also as expected, these stories aren't particularly deep or anything.
While each of the chapters have very little to do with each other and are quite episodic in nature, there is a single overarching storyline in the background that's always at the front of player's minds. It is also where the game's serious moments are usually found due to the twist on the story. At the beginning, the player learns that the Dragon King is indeed the same Demon King from the stories which puts Yuu unknowingly on the path to someday defeat her foster father.
For me, the simple and mostly lighthearted story was executed very well. At no point did I found it boring despite how episodic it felt. The bigger story parts were full of emotions and had me feeling sad and happy at certain moments. The ominous tagline regarding the Dragon King that lingers throughout the chapters in the background had also kept me invested to the end.
CHARACTERS
The game has a number of fun characters you meet throughout. Although, most are of the monster variety. Many are written well enough that despite not being particularly deep, are easy to connect and sympathize with. As the main character, Yuu is an endearing protagonist and is known for her kindness. Her good natured attitude made me just want to root for her when things get difficult.
The other supporting story characters don't get as much screentime as Yuu, but do a good job in helping develop Yuu's character.
A highlight of the game are the NPCs. Excluding the NPCs that you meet in the dungeons since they just give one liners, the NPCs in the Monster Village are written surprisingly well. All of the monsters in the village are involve in the sidequests in one way or another and they all have a story to tell (some more than others). More on this in the sidequest portion.
GRAPHICS/PRESENTATION
The Cruel King's most striking feature is likely the story book presentation with the water painting graphics. The game looks beautiful and the artstyle is very distinctive. The character designs are charming and even the enemies have mostly cute designs. The different expressions and animation for Yuu in particular are a highlight of the game.
MUSIC/AUDIO
The game's soundtrack fits very well with the story book theme and light hearted tone of the game. There isn't a whole lot of tracks overall unfortunately. What it does have as a standout are the very few vocal tracks which are sung by Akiko Shikata of Ar Tonelico fame. It's surprising that the composers other than Akiko Shikata do not have a substantial background on game composition. Overall, a solid and enjoyable soundtrack.
The female narrator is the only voice actor in the game. She also narrates the dialogue for the story characters as if she was a mother reading a book to her child. Her rendition of the characters are not drastically different, but you can hear different variations on her tone and speech depending which character is speaking. It helps to have knowledge of the Japanese language as well. For me, I thought she did a good job overall and found the different voice variations interesting.
EXPLORATION
Most of the time, you'll be exploring and traversing dungeons which consists of forests, caves and mountains. You move mostly from one side of the screen to the other side while engaging in random battles along the way. Several areas have branching paths that sometimes leads to treasure chests and locations of sidequest related items. You always have a waypoint in the map to show you where your destination is (including sidequests), but the dungeon map only covers areas you visited already so you only have a general idea of where the destination is.
The dungeon layouts are all on the simple side. There's no platforming required. Areas may be blocked out or inaccessible until going back at a later time or acquiring something to remove an obstacle.
Going straight to your destination doesn't take very long assuming you know the direct route to it. However, if you're going to explore every different path and area, then it will take a while.
Within the dungeons are peddlers who will sell you items and special fountains that will heal you. These fountains can also be used as fast travel between other ones across the dungeons and the Monster Village.
My issue with the exploration is how frequent the random encounters can be. You can have up to 3 battles before making across to a new room. It gets worse when Yuu can't run for some segments. She'll walk if the enemies in the room are roughly "stronger" than her, but if she gets stronger due to leveling up, she'll be able to run instead. Even then, the encounter rate remains and high and can be an annoyance to deal with. You can help mitigate it by using an item that removes encounter rates for the next 50 steps, but it won't work when she's in a room with monsters that are stronger her. Overall, this aspect of the game is one of its worse parts.
BATTLES
The combat system is a pretty standard turn based one. You have your typical attack, guard, run, item, and skill function. There's no visible turn order that is prevalent in many JRPGs these days. You input your commands for all of your party members first before any of your characters and enemies act. Only two party members are allowed in battle. On a related note, Yuu's partner rotates out every chapter so you don't have a say in who to bring in battle.
The part where it differs includes the Energy Point system which is ultimately the same as SP/MP in other JRPGs. You recover one EP per turn, but you gain an additional one if you guarded that turn.
Yuu does come with some unique skills in Survey and Release. Survey allows Yuu to observe the monster and reveal to the player the monster's monologue. This often directly or indirectly reveals what their weaknesses are. This is where the Release skill comes into play. Once you exploit a monster's weakness, they will enter a dazed state for about 2 turns. During that state, they won't act and will take considerably more damage.
After a monster becomes dazed, Yuu can then use her Release skill to send them running off. It's guaranteed to work, but you don't get the full Exp as compared to defeating them. In return, you have a better chance to get an item drop from them although it's not guaranteed. In practice though, the Release skill isn't that useful. Oftentimes, it's just easier to just attack them normally with skills which saves you time and even items in certain cases. The conditions to exploit weaknesses can vary from simple to very impractical.
The battle flow remains simple for most fights. You don't need to adjust strategy all that much. The battles are not that challenging , but mindless attacking can lead to a game over since enemy deals surprisingly a large amount of damage unless you're way overleveled. The boss fights on the other hand provide a larger degree of difficulty due to their bloated health (especially in the second half of the game) and high attack. Skills and items that aren't particularly necessary during regular monster battles do become more useful during these fights. That said, the combat system isn't particularly deep here.
My other issues with the battle system includes the 2 party system. Having less party members during battle does take away the potential options and strategies you can play around with. Some monster battles don't balance very well with just two party members especially when a hoard of 5+ monsters show up. Due to their high damage, a party member can quickly die in one turn if they all gang up on that member which isn't all that rare.
Overall, the battles comes off as mostly just serviceable. Decent if you aren't looking for a deep combat system with many mechanics to mess around with.
SIDEQUESTS
Sidequests make up a substantial part of the game which significantly increases the game's time. Called Yuu's Acts of Kindness, the sidequests are all about Yuu helping monsters from the Village or the ones in dungeons. At its core, the sidequests mostly amount to fetch quests and a few that requires beating a specific monster. While the core gameplay sounds generic, the Sidequests are a game's highlight due to the story involved in each of them.
Doing the sidequests will provide the background story for each NPC and make the world feel more alive. The stories are all slice of life, but are interesting nonetheless with a decent amount of dialogue. Many of them are part of a series of sidequests which provides further development as well so it's not just a one and done thing. Some sidequests includes finding rare food for a dying lizard, helping an idol manager search for his idol bee sisters, searching a forbidden tome to help a child become a witch apprentice, help members of the sheep and wolf clan make peace between their two leaders, help a wolf gatekeeper exchange letters with a mysterious penpal, and search for a way to remove a traumatic memory for a friend.
The actual in-game rewards for the sidequests includes Star Fragments that you can use to unlock stuff in the gallery, money currency, and equipment like accessories and armor.
As much as I liked the sidequests, they do have their issues. Due to the nature of the (many) fetch quests, you'll be running back and forth through the same dungeon areas over and over. The time spent in random battles in between will build up over time and does significantly increasing the game time unnecessarily. It goes back to the same frequent random encounter rate issue I had.
With everything said, the sidequests are well worth experiencing just for the sidequests story themselves and makes up a core part of the game's experience.
FINAL REMARKS
The Cruel King and the Great Hero is essentially a game full of charm, cute characters, fun and heartwarming moments. The gameplay is on the simple side, but it's great for those that are looking for a relaxing feels good game without anything complex from story to mechanics. It doesn't have an epic story, but it does have a good one that can move you and remind you of a simpler time.
The game is also on the relatively short side of 10-15 hours if you focus only on the main story. Completing all of the sidequests and exploring every area of the dungeons will put you around 25 hours. Another 5 hours or so for the Platinum trophy.
what i liked:
-the characters, espcially yuu, is v lovable
-the tracks are super catchy
-the art and designs in this games, especially the enemy designs are wonderful.
- really the art rocks
what i didnt
-the weakness system. while intresting on paper, it felt lacking in execution. i like the idea of figuring out weaknesses that isnt clearly laid out but 1) sometimes it feels too vague and 2) party members in this game is hanlded in a v unflexiable matter and the game suffers for it
- walkcycle...is....so slow....
-so u can see completing quests can be pain in the ass, espically since the fast travel is kinda....stiff
all in all a super charming game that sadly gets bogged down by gameplay frustrations.
-the characters, espcially yuu, is v lovable
-the tracks are super catchy
-the art and designs in this games, especially the enemy designs are wonderful.
- really the art rocks
what i didnt
-the weakness system. while intresting on paper, it felt lacking in execution. i like the idea of figuring out weaknesses that isnt clearly laid out but 1) sometimes it feels too vague and 2) party members in this game is hanlded in a v unflexiable matter and the game suffers for it
- walkcycle...is....so slow....
-so u can see completing quests can be pain in the ass, espically since the fast travel is kinda....stiff
all in all a super charming game that sadly gets bogged down by gameplay frustrations.