The Last Story
Last year my Game of the Year was Xenoblade Chronicles. I was blown away by its scale, beauty, complex yet simple Gameplay, awesome soundtrack and remained in Awe by the technical achievement or fitting it all onto one disc with minimal loading times. I believe it is safe to say the Xenoblade is the best JRPG since Skies of Arcadia.
Xenoblade is one of three games that have been released in Europe with no American release planned. Well that was true in the past, thanks to Operation Rainfall they got all three anyway (Yet Earthbound still hasn’t found its way over here outside of Emulation. Thanks Nintendo).
The Last Story is another one of these Rainfall games. It’s a JRPG made by the people behind Final Fantasy. So everything is pointing to being an amazing JRPG and a fitting Swansong for the Wii.
Sadly it’s not nearly as good as Xenoblade. Out of these Rainfall games it seems that Xenoblade is the only truly amazing one of the three (with Pandora’s Tower also being disappointing apparently, I have yet to play it).
To its credit The Last Story does experiment with some interesting ideas. It aims to combine the fluid combat of real time with the strategy of turn based and in some ways succeeds in this. You control Zael for most of the game, a Mercenary desperate to become a knight.
Fights occur in real time and unlike many real time RPG’s you have the ability to take cover behind chest high walls (Yes Gears even infects JRPG’s now). Zael has a special ability called Gathering where after a single button press the majority of enemies target him alone.
This is a simple way of taking heat away from your allies but leaves you vulnerable. Unfortunately like Final Fantasy XIII if you lose your leader you lose the fight. Each character is given five lives that are restored in between battle. Using Gathering you can revive a fallen comrade before they use a life, but if you leave it too late they will run out of lives and only one character can bring them back. Taking cover while being chased by enemies will blindside them allowing you to make a powerful attack in their confusion.
Magic also works differently. Magic users cast a circle on magic on the floor, standing in that circle allows you to attack with that element, i.e. standing in a fire circle allows you to make Fire attacks. Using another of Zaels special moves you can diffuse a circle to get their effects. For example Diffusing an Ice Circle cause enemies to slip leaving them vulnerable. You can also diffuse enemy circles to stop their effects.
While it does offer a unique fighting experience I am unsure whether or not if offers a good fighting experience. Despite claiming to be tactical there doesn’t seem to be much strategy involved. Most of the battles seem to be pretty easy with only the occasional boss causing problems, although the last boss may require some grinding.
Some bosses do require the right strategy to beat them and this is how it should be. Others, particularly the final boss show just how limited the combat is for strategy. The best RPG’s never rely on grinding to win, but I found myself under levelled for the final boss and could find no strategy to beat him.
Fortunately grinding is really quick and easy but I will always mark a game down when you are required to reach a certain level before a boss, and this is not achieved without grinding.
Outside of combat The Last Story has some real problems. There is no real over world, Just one town and castle and some dungeons. Neither are particularly big and leave little room to explore.
Progression is very linear. While you can play groups of chapters out of order, and even skip some optional ones, progression through them sees you going down corridors and following a single path throughout. Like the town and castle they offer little room for exploration.
Barring some funny dialogue and some good characters, the overall plot is pretty clichéd, to the point where you can guess who the real villain is halfway through. Their motives also seem dumb at the end meaning his actions just seem pointless. They could’ve ended it one boss earlier and it would’ve worked better in my opinion.
It’s also very short for a JRPG, clocking in at around 20 hours with nothing in place to expand its life. There are barely any side quests waiting for you post game, you’ll finish it and that will be that. Perhaps the Multiplayer may help extend its life but it never seemed to interest me.
It does look superb for a Wii game and I did enjoy customising my parties clothes. I thought that was a nice feature but not enough to give it a really high mark.
The Last Story feels like they have decided to experiment with new ideas and see what happens. Unfortunately these ideas never really work and they don’t seem to bring any real benefit. It’s nice to see a developer dare to do something different but not at the expense of other things. The world is far too small and it’s all over far too quickly. It’s all just a unique but shallow experience, some good ideas overshadowed by a some really bad ones.
7/10
Xenoblade is one of three games that have been released in Europe with no American release planned. Well that was true in the past, thanks to Operation Rainfall they got all three anyway (Yet Earthbound still hasn’t found its way over here outside of Emulation. Thanks Nintendo).
The Last Story is another one of these Rainfall games. It’s a JRPG made by the people behind Final Fantasy. So everything is pointing to being an amazing JRPG and a fitting Swansong for the Wii.
Sadly it’s not nearly as good as Xenoblade. Out of these Rainfall games it seems that Xenoblade is the only truly amazing one of the three (with Pandora’s Tower also being disappointing apparently, I have yet to play it).
To its credit The Last Story does experiment with some interesting ideas. It aims to combine the fluid combat of real time with the strategy of turn based and in some ways succeeds in this. You control Zael for most of the game, a Mercenary desperate to become a knight.
Fights occur in real time and unlike many real time RPG’s you have the ability to take cover behind chest high walls (Yes Gears even infects JRPG’s now). Zael has a special ability called Gathering where after a single button press the majority of enemies target him alone.
This is a simple way of taking heat away from your allies but leaves you vulnerable. Unfortunately like Final Fantasy XIII if you lose your leader you lose the fight. Each character is given five lives that are restored in between battle. Using Gathering you can revive a fallen comrade before they use a life, but if you leave it too late they will run out of lives and only one character can bring them back. Taking cover while being chased by enemies will blindside them allowing you to make a powerful attack in their confusion.
Magic also works differently. Magic users cast a circle on magic on the floor, standing in that circle allows you to attack with that element, i.e. standing in a fire circle allows you to make Fire attacks. Using another of Zaels special moves you can diffuse a circle to get their effects. For example Diffusing an Ice Circle cause enemies to slip leaving them vulnerable. You can also diffuse enemy circles to stop their effects.
While it does offer a unique fighting experience I am unsure whether or not if offers a good fighting experience. Despite claiming to be tactical there doesn’t seem to be much strategy involved. Most of the battles seem to be pretty easy with only the occasional boss causing problems, although the last boss may require some grinding.
Some bosses do require the right strategy to beat them and this is how it should be. Others, particularly the final boss show just how limited the combat is for strategy. The best RPG’s never rely on grinding to win, but I found myself under levelled for the final boss and could find no strategy to beat him.
Fortunately grinding is really quick and easy but I will always mark a game down when you are required to reach a certain level before a boss, and this is not achieved without grinding.
Outside of combat The Last Story has some real problems. There is no real over world, Just one town and castle and some dungeons. Neither are particularly big and leave little room to explore.
Progression is very linear. While you can play groups of chapters out of order, and even skip some optional ones, progression through them sees you going down corridors and following a single path throughout. Like the town and castle they offer little room for exploration.
Barring some funny dialogue and some good characters, the overall plot is pretty clichéd, to the point where you can guess who the real villain is halfway through. Their motives also seem dumb at the end meaning his actions just seem pointless. They could’ve ended it one boss earlier and it would’ve worked better in my opinion.
It’s also very short for a JRPG, clocking in at around 20 hours with nothing in place to expand its life. There are barely any side quests waiting for you post game, you’ll finish it and that will be that. Perhaps the Multiplayer may help extend its life but it never seemed to interest me.
It does look superb for a Wii game and I did enjoy customising my parties clothes. I thought that was a nice feature but not enough to give it a really high mark.
The Last Story feels like they have decided to experiment with new ideas and see what happens. Unfortunately these ideas never really work and they don’t seem to bring any real benefit. It’s nice to see a developer dare to do something different but not at the expense of other things. The world is far too small and it’s all over far too quickly. It’s all just a unique but shallow experience, some good ideas overshadowed by a some really bad ones.
7/10
posted by Master hunter at 1:39 pm
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