A friend gave me MySims Kingdom (DS) for my birthday a couple of weeks ago, so that’s taken over the bulk of my gaming time. At first, it seemed fine. I created my Sim and sent her off on errand after errand for the people on her island, playing any mini-game I came across. I sort of followed the storyline, which I think was meant to explain why the island was so sparse. The King was constantly lecturing the mayor and me for not rebuilding the island.
Over the weekend, it finally occurred to me that I wasn’t really playing a Sims game. I was ignoring the player-controlled design for just trying to get through the game. I was trying to play an RPG. I started using the tools and mini-games to acquire things. I ran myself silly trying to collect things, without using them. Again, I still wasn’t playing a Sims game. By that time, I had finished enough of the tasks that the storyline had effectively vanished, leaving me with nothing but the design aspect of the game. Realizing that, I slowly started actually trying to design each of my little houses. I even started building in some of the areas.
And then, in trying to plan out the design for the area where the game started, it finally occurred to me why I wasn’t paying the game as it was intended: I was waiting for the game to begin.
I know it sounds odd, especially since I’d seen Sims games before, but I kind of expected a game with “Kingdom” in the title and castles, dragons, and magic wands in the commercials and trailers to actually exhibit more fantasy tropes than an angry king and a rumored Star Prince. And there I was with a modern kitchen in one of my houses and a helicopter to fly me between the lowest and highest levels of the island.
Yep, that’s fantasy!
A little research soon revealed that MySims Kingdom for the DS was pretty much just like the MySims game, just with a King, and that all of the Kingdom theming went to the Wii version of the game. I’m so disappointed. I had specifically picked this game as my formal introduction to the Sims games because I love fantasy. I thought it would be an easy way to get involved and have fun. But it turns out it was too hard to theme everything in the DS game to match the title.
Adding to my frustration, the gameplay seems so pointless at times. For example, there’s no real sense of scarcity. Acquiring money and essences are both fairly simple and abundant, so you never really have to strategize how you’re going to save up enough to do what you want. Navigating across the island takes a while, too, even once you set up the heliports, and that can keep you from getting where you want to go during the time that spot is open for play. If I really want to be somewhere, I often have to kill time in that area or the adjacent area to make sure I can get where I need to be when I need to be.
Some of the Sims also have bizarre reactions to things. One of your errands is cheering up one of the shop owners. You encourage him and encourage him and encourage him…and he berates you for not being angry alongside him. I have no idea how that cheers him up, but… Another Sim blames you for the fact the pizza shop (that doesn’t actually seem to exist on the island, despite the fact the chef keeps appearing and demanding you give him vegetables) keeps screwing up his order. Once you get angry, he calms down. So, the indirect lesson here is if you get angry, things will be better.
Despite this major disappointment, I have had some fun exploring the island. I’m slowly designing each section (and it’s been quite a process to decide how to use each area). I enjoy playing the mini-games, too. I like how they make sense with their objective and their location. Now that I’m actually trying to rebuild the island, I’m finding that I enjoy trying to theme an area (despite the fact the themes I’ve selected for most of the areas are very difficult to find items for).
As a game, MySims Kingdom is fun. As a Kingdom, the game could use a definite redesign.
