I was speaking with my co-worker today and he was telling me how his wife bought MySims Kingdom for DS. Turns out, she didn’t care for it that much. So I asked him if it would be possible for me to take it off his hands. $15 bucks later, he handed the game over to me – (only had $10 and a $5 bill, sweet). I had to dust off my DS for this game as I hadn’t touched it in ages. No, not due to the fact that there isn’t any games for it – theres plenty. It’s just that I don’t game on the go that often.

But back to the point. After playing the game for a bit, I think it’s time for me to break out a review on the game. If you’re undecided about getting the game, then this review is for you. Please do keep in mind that this is not a typical review – just a brief explanation and my thoughts during the time that I played. Not to mention, I’m not that great when it comes to writing a professional review 😉

The game starts off with the town’s mayor and King Roland introducing the player to the town. My character, Wallace, was instructed to drop off a package to the local Mad Scientist’s house, Dr. F.   After visiting him, he whips up a new invention called the “Essence Blaster”. This tool allows you to suck various elements from objects (houses, fountains, props, etc). Collecting two of these essences, I was then prompted to return back to his house so he can use them with another invention – but it failed.

Returning to my character’s house to catch some Z’s, a troublemaker shows up in the middle of the night stealing various objects from the town. Morning rolled around and the game prompted Wallace to drop by Dr. F for a solution to the town’s problem.  He managed to fix the invention that failed on him calling it the Synth-O-Tron.

It involves your first mini-game where you’ll have use the stylus and drag elements to mix them together. You’re going to have to shake the tool up/down and left/right in order for it to work. After a few times it becomes a hassle in my opinion as you’ll be doing a lot of it. Luckily it also includes an “auto-shake” feature in case which I often use to skip the process.

Once these elements are mixed together, they create various objects for your character to plop around the town. After plopping a few objects down, I revisited the mayor to see what she has to say. She’s shocked when the King drops by and sees how the town is ruined.  My character mentions to him that Dr. F’s invention should be able to fix the town and the king leaves him with the responsibility of restoring the town back to its original condition.

The mayor instructs Wallace to visit the townspeople so I ventured out to greet Richard, the town’s treasure hunter.  He complains that his compass is broken and asks if Wallace could fix it for him.  Who’s the guy to visit when it comes to repairing things?  Dr. F, that’s who!  Handing him the compass for inspection, he tells me that if I could collect two items, he’ll fix it.

Searching for the parts, I dropped by Roy’s Furniture Shop.  Poor Roy is feeling down in the dumps as he wants to supply the king furniture but the town is in shambles.  My character was given 4 choices to pick from (Joy, Angry, Sad and Encourage) to respond to his problem.  It seemed I went thru all 4 (I might of just picked the wrong one at the wrong time) before he handed me over a gift for listening to him.  Part 1 collected!

Trying to find the second part was troublesome.  No, it wasn’t because it’s hard to find – it was due to the fact that I am a complete idiot and never realized their was another part of town that I missed.  Doh!  In reality, the second part was very simple to get.  I ventured over to Sharon’s Cloth Shop to hear that she would love to have flowers on front of her building to attract customers.  Luckily, I had a few in my inventory from the elements that I mixed with the Synth-O-Tron.  I planted a couple of flowers and she thanks me for my time and hands over the second part that I need.

Before heading back to Dr. F, I decided to finish exploring the rest of the town that I missed.  I made my way to Victoria’s house.  It appears she’s mad at her parents (like 95% of today’s teenagers) as she believes they have lied to her on getting her some presents.  To help cheer her up, she offers me the chance to play a round of tennis.  Mini-game time!

Tennis is set up to be simple.  Pressing the A button serves the ball as well as hitting it back and forth.  The control pad allows you to move your character and change the direction of where you want the ball to go.  I was thinking to myself, “I love tennis!”…that is until I played this mini-game.  My character was beat in no time with a score of 0-11.  She owned me.  But it’s not the game’s fault – it was the fact that I was unfamiliar with how to use the moves.  I had to play a few rounds of practice tennis before I became good at it 😛  Once I became used to the controls, I had a blast in dueling with Victoria.

Getting back on track, Wallace took his 2 parts to the Doc so he can repair the broken compass.  With the parts, he whips up the “Auto-Compass”.  Giving it back to Richard, he helps me out by taking me on boat to a new part of town.  (NOTE:  When the troublemaker caused the ruckus in town, he took the bridge that connected the town).

In this new location, I made my way to Lily’s Appliance store.  Since I had some cash raked up from the tennis practice games (mini-games and selling items is the way to make cash in this game), I purchased a big television for my house as it is bare.  Also bought a radio as well.

Strolling around the new location, I managed to make my way into the zoo.  A cut-scene shows my character running around and discovering a baby animal in a cage.  Running away, Wallace bumps into Tim, the zoo keeper.  He explains that most of the zoo animals have gone missing due to the troublemaker and asks for assistance to round them up.  He hands me over a camera to take pictures of the animals that I find so he knows where to catch them.

Unfortunately, this is where I plan to end my review as if I keep on going, who knows how much I’ll end up writing :P.  I’ve only scratched the surface of what this game has to offer.  There are a few mini-games that I wanted to try (stargazing as well as kayaking) but I haven’t gotten around to them yet!

Gameplay: From the time that I played it, I had a blast.  The areas are wide-open and huge and there there are a ton of areas to explore.  Not to mention you’ll spend some time creating objects with the Essence Blaster and Synth-O-Tron as well as mingling with other mysims in the town.  It seems as if there is plenty of activities to do, as well as the fact that the mini-games should keep you busy for awhile.

Graphics: The DS isn’t capable of pumping out high graphics so keep that in mind – but they fit this type of game just fine.

Audio: It’s a DS, so don’t expect any wonders in audio, but the music was enjoyable to me.  The town theme had a “Legend of Zelda” music style to it.

Online: The game allows you to send mini-games and materials to players nearby and also allows you to play “head-to-head” games with your pals.

Enjoyed:

  • Game seems to have a mixed feeling of Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon
  • Designing your room
  • A number for objects and cloths are available to purchase
  • The game’s areas are huge
  • Dr. F!
  • Many mini-games that will keep you entertained

Disliked:

  • Using the touch screen to use the Essence Blaster tool (optional)
  • Item menu takes a few seconds to load each time
  • Not much interaction with objects
  • You cannot design your own patterns for cloths (sorry, used to Animal Crossing :P)
  • Labels are not shown (names of characters on town map, buttons on screen)
  • Your might make the mistake I did by combining some elements over and over till you remember what objects they create as it doesn’t list what they are made of.

Final Verdict: If you’re a simulation fan and enjoyed the following games – MySims, Animal Crossing and Harvest Moon, it’s no doubt you should pick this up. However, disliking even one of those games you’re probably not going to enjoy it.

SCORE

SimProgram’s Score for MySims Kingdom DS: 83%

MySims Kingdom DS
Price: $29.95
Developer: EA
Publisher: EA
Purchase: Amazon, Walmart, BestBuy, GameStop