Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King

• Your adventurers are stupid

- YOU CANNOT FIRE ADVENTURERS. Once they're on the roster, you're stuck with them. Don't shell out for the three new races DLC and end up unable to hire them because you've hired too many Clavat.

- The adventurer shops' shopkeepers are clever guys. If you build your adventurer shops (Weapons, Armor, and Items) too far from the action (your behest boards and the adventurers' homes), they'll start inventing crazy shit to try and drum up business. THIS IS BAD. All the "X" (experimental) weapons and armor boost one stat and detract from another, and it's random. The minute you let Leroy craft a set of staffs that give +10 to Dexterity and -10 to Willpower is the minute all your fucking White Mages will decide they need new weapons. It's easier to minimize the risk of this happening by building your adventurer shops close to the rest of your stuff.

- When you choose to demolish a building, remember that it isn't immediate. It will be gone when you wake up the next day.

- Don't demolish too many adventurers' homes at once. See, they go shack up in the castle when you bulldoze their homes, and sometimes the game bugs out and they find themselves a bit too comfortable living in the opulent royal quarters and refuse to move when you rebuild their home. When it's necessary to demolish homes, I do it one at a time and verify that the squatters have moved before continuing.

- The game is sort of laggy when you have lots of stuff built. Playing with your display set to standard definition seems to help this a bit (and looks better if you ask me), but expect things to slow down once you start running out of room to build things. If you've got a lot of big stuff right on the main drag (alongside the main path from the castle), it'll be especially slow.

- Don't just run to your behest boards and send everyone out at once through the menu accessed by pushing A in front of it (you did know you could do that, right?). See who wants to go and who doesn't first. Green and orange icons in their speech bubbles means they're good to go, and the sad blue face means they're big fucking babies who need to go rest for the day.

- If you post a high-level behest and only a couple people show up for it, don't freak ou -- veryone else is out leveling up. Once in a while, you'll get some reckless dumbass who wants to take on a level 28 dungeon at level 2, so pay attention to who's asking to go and send them to grind if they're not up to snuff.

- Thieves are great at finding shortcuts, but this isn't always preferable. There are a couple dungeons where in order to increase your exploration rate your dudes actually need to get lost. In those rare cases, having a thief go with them will just hinder your progress.

- When you upgrade the stocks at adventurer shops, only the best equipment is listed. Don't worry, they still sell all the lower level stuff, you just can't see it for some reason.

- Materials quests (go get magicite/sword metal/armor plating, etc) are fucking tough. Yes, the material you're after is in a level 4 dungeon, but expect your level 20 dudes to have a hell of a time getting to it. They'll manage it eventually, though.

- The plot at times communicates some urgency ("Ohmygod, the enemy is at our doorstep! We must do something!"), but you can take as long as you like with things. I've played the hell out of this game and haven't come across any limit on the number of days you can play.

- Refer to my first point. There's no way of knowing what order they'll visit shops in, but they'll visit all of them before they leave town (including their own class-specific buildings like the Gaming Hall for Thieves, etc), so keep that in mind when you're building or you'll spend all day watching your little dudes run back and forth across town checking all the shops. I put them all in a line right by the most commonly-used exit, so at least they're near the door when they get done. It doesn't take them long to do their business in a dungeon but they have to actually leave town before you go to bed!