New WiiWare Game is Wonderfully Old Skool
Order! lets you do good or evil as a king.
Posted May 20, 2009 at 03:15, By Anoop Gantayat
Old school lives, and WiiWare is its savior! Take a look at Order!, from Poisoft:
Order! is a "king simulation" game. Players get to experience life as a king in a middle ages Europe-like fantasy kingdom populated by humans, elves, and dwarfs.
The name is a rare pun that crosses two languages. The actual Japanese is read "Ou-da!" which can be translated to "It's the King." It could also be read as "Order," which appears to be the English language name, and is pretty much what you do in the game.
Your goal as king is to lead the world to peace by helping out visiting heroes and stopping the advances of the demon lord. New heroes periodically come to your kingdom, and you'll have to send them out to fight monsters, rewarding those who perform well with items.
As a warning, these heroes, being standard RPG types and all, will freely enter your castle's storage room and take items. You'll have to be alert when you have valuables in storage.
To the left, options for affairs of state, diplomacy, military, and law. The right chart in the left image shows your population, tax income, and level of population satisfaction. The screen to the right shows an interview with an arriving hero.
Outside of directing heroes, you'll also have to build up your kingdom, making use of capable citizens to serve in your various areas of government. You can build schools, weapons shops, churches, casinos, farms, and magic research facilities, which are useful for increasing your kingdom's political, magic, and educational strengths.
You can also develop a foreign policy, training troops to serve in an army that can be used to expand your land by invading neighbors. Your neighbors can invade too, although it's possible to use diplomacy to counter this. You have a number of techniques at your disposal for foreign affairs, from forming alliances to staging assassinations.
To the left, diplomatic options, including sending out an ambassador, asking to form a commonwealth, sending support, and declaring war. To the right, internal options such as expanding your castle, improving food quality, creating a barrier, and strengthening your defense.
(left) A hero dies at the hands of a demon. (center) Sending out armies for attack. (right) Failing at an assassination attempt because it turns out that you were targeting a double!
There appears to be a good amount of freedom in Order!. You don't even have to set your sights on world peace. If you prefer, you can choose to support the demon lord by giving money to the demon army or capturing heroes and turning them in.
You can even take a more convoluted approach to your support for the demon lord. By ordering item shops to stop making heal potions, you'll make your kingdom unattractive to heroes and, thus, more welcoming to the demon kind.
Siding with the demon lord and imprisoning heroes.
My initial impression of Order! after hearing about the hero portion of the game was that it's going to be a knock off of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. However, with the foreign affairs and the overreaching good versus veil theme, there could be a whole lot more to the experience. Plus, it has old skool 2D sprite graphics, which is always a bonus!
Order! hits WiiWare some time in June at 1,000 WiiPoints.
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