PlayStation 4 Critic Reviews

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is a cute story-side-scroller with great music, a fantastic storyline and lovely art-style. Voicelines are only available in Japanese, but you will have English subtitles to enjoy the storyline. Its a great game for kids, but also for adults and a real feel-good-comfort-zone to escape this cruel world for a bit.

It may not be the deepest RPG but The Cruel King and the Great Hero is certainly one of the most heartwarming. In fact, I adored its story and cast of characters so much that I highly recommend it to anyone with a soft spot for unconventional lighthearted tales.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is a wonderful adventure suitable for adults and children: a hand-drawn fairy tale.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is a sincere production, which does not aim to overturn the canons of turn-based role-playing games, or to amaze with who knows what technical innovation. Quite the contrary: precisely to the extent of this moderate simplicity Nippon Ichi Software inscribes a winning design idea, which - even without some structural ingenuity - manages to convey first of all the message of a light-hearted but also intimate and profound story. The most relevant stylistic figure then remains the art direction, which with such a graceful hand drawing style makes the game world a real videogame fairy tale.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero combines an excellent storyline and an exceptional art-style with a significantly simplified gameplay, which wouldn’t be an issue if not for the tons of very repetitive fights that end up constantly interrupting the narrative flow. Perhaps more exploration and less combat would have served the game better, but unfortunately that’s not the case.

The Cruel King and The Great Hero could have been the right evolution of its predecessor, but for every step forward there's one back. It remains, however, a nice fairy tail to play with the youngest.

The Cruel King and The Great Hero is a heartwarming story that surprisingly has some depth to it. The visual and sound design brings the world to life with its attention to detail that remains pleasing through the entire fifteen-hour playtime. The depth and detail however doesn’t make its way into the battle system and gameplay. The encounter rate and slow pace can be frustrating while battles don’t require much thought until the end. However, the short playtime means it doesn’t take long to get there and ultimately the positives win out. Simply put, The Cruel King and The Great Hero is a charming tale and world that is worth visiting.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero shines with its captivating art direction, but lacks deepness in gameplay mechanics and would have enjoyed a far better pace.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero‘s storybook narrative and great designs are a classic that arguably never should have left the page. With too many shallow gameplay and world elements, it’s hard to feel invested in anything but the main story cutscenes, but that said, as the game is aimed at a far younger age group, if you are in the market for an RPG for kids, you could do far worse.

The Cruel King and the Great Hero is a game with interesting ideas, a unique visual style and a lot of potential, but it ends up failing in key points that take it away from its best and force the player to deal with its most negative points, spoiling quite an experience that could have been so much more.