The Last Story (Wii) - Reviews

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13.3.2012

I am an avid gamer. I love video games. I have been playing them and loving them since I was five years old, and continue to play and love them 16 years later. I however must admit to not being a massive fan of the traditional console JRPG. While I have played the odd one here and there, it's never been a genre I've avidly played or been consumed by. At least, that was until recently. After the hype last year for Xenoblade Chronicles, generated in no small part by it's (at the time) lack of release date in America, I decided to take the plunge. And over the course of the 60 plus hour gameplay experience I was hooked. I enjoyed it immensely, and couldn't wait for the localisation of the other two `Operation Rainfall'RPGs, The Last Story and Pandora's Tower. Well, The Last Story is finally here. How is it? Does it live up to the hype? Read on to find out.Now, despite not being a huge fan of the genre, JRPGs haven't completely passed me by. I have played a number on the PSP, ranging from Crisis Core: Final Fantasy 7, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, Persona 3: Portable, Ys Seven etc. So, the story tropes and clichés of the genre are known to me. And I'm happy to say that while not exactly absent in the game; The Last Story manages to in the main stand tall above them.The Last Story is set on Lazilus Island, an Island kingdom that has somehow managed to remain prosperous while the world around it wilts and dies. Lead character Zael is a mercenary. Along with fellow merc Dagran (more of a surrogate father or big brother) he dreams of one day becoming a Knight. Not only is this an attractive proposition because of the prestige involved, but also because in the world of The Last Story mercenaries are treated poorly, seen as the bottom of the barrel in many ways. And Zael and Dagran grow sick of this life, and long for the respect they deserve.Zael and his merry band of mercenaries (including aloof pretty boy Yurick, drunken man-eater Syrenne, smooth talking ladies man Lowell and kindly if slightly air headed Mirania) are chugging along, getting by in life. Zael then however stumbles along the future leader of Lazilus Island, Lady Calista which sparks off a chain of events embroiling the group in a larger conflict with another race known as the Gurak. Needless to say that by the end of the game you'll have fought against a seemingly insurmountable foe, while being assailed internally by power hungry politicians, developed a love interest, and managed to help the members of your team shed their inhibitions and prejudices.So far, so JRPG. However, it's in the characters that the game manages to transcend the genre. They are loud, affable, flawed and ultimately loveable. They grow throughout the adventure, and are most definitely different from when the game started. This change is heightened and made even more noticeable by the excellent localisation by Nintendo of Europe. Like Xenoblade, the cast is British. And they are brilliant. Syrenne is loud and brash, and has a terrific Mancunian accent. Lowell has a lovely low Scottish drawl, akin to Ewan McGregor, Zael is stoic and strong (though a little to everyman for my taste). Everyone, from the lowest villager to the strongest Knight is brilliantly defined. Maybe it's the novelty of having the cast voiced by Britons rather than your typical whiny and high-pitched Americans, but it brings added depth and details to the characters that might not otherwise have been there.I'm not going to say it's without flaws. It's not. The story is predictable, and despite being told efficiently is sometimes a little too cloying and overly-sentimental. For example, as you can probably guess, Zael and Lady Calista develop an interest in one another that at times feels forced. And Zael and Dagran's preoccupation and adoration towards Knights confuses me in particular as they never seem anything other than petty and scared during the course of the game, and never something to aspire to. However, it's in the small details like the way your party interact on the fly during missions, and the way you can talk to them in the comfort of the pub afterwards where the story-telling shines, and makes the games (minor) flaws in the story-telling easy to overlook.Now, excitement has been brewing for this game due to the talent behind it. Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of Final Fantasy is the director, and promised if not reinvention, then much innovation in the games gameplay and combat. And in many ways, this is true. The game eschews the traditional JRPG turn based battle system in favour of real-time combat. Controlling Zael, you move freely around, slashing at enemies with just a flick of the analogue stick. As well as this, Zael can use an ability known as `Gathering' acquired near the game's outset which attracts enemies towards you.Why you may ask. Well, because Gathering is key to utilising the rest of your party members, who move freely around the battlefield themselves, fighting and casting magic. With the focus on Zael your squadmates are free to attack the enemies to devastating effect. This system is made deeper by the fact that whenever a squadmate casts their magic or ability, it leaves a circle on the ground. This circle can cause prolonged damage to the enemy within it, whether elemental or physical. However, it can also be dispersed by the player using an ability called `Gale' which spreads the effect of the magic. So, if a healing spell has been cast, the dispersion helps heal the entire party. And if blaze has been cast then the circle can be dispersed to cause flame damage to several enemies.Further into the game, this system is made even deeper by the fact that you yourself can micromanage exactly what abilities your allies use. Well, I say exactly, I mean a few. All allies have three core abilities that once a meter on the upper-left hand side of the screen has been filled, allows you to stop the action and enter an isometric view of the battlefield, enabling you to instruct exactly which of their three abilities can be used, and where.It can be a complicated system, and there are things I haven't any touched on like a cover system which lends itself to more stealthy play, and at first things seem a lot to keep up with. However, it's slowly and intelligently taught to the player, allowing you to learn and fully understand how to use one aspect before the next element is revealed. By the game's half-way point all core abilities and skills have been taught and hopefully mastered, leaving the player with a great feeling of empowerment and satisfaction when you're able to use and orchestrate the abilities to devastating effect in battle. There's no greater fun than slashing at an enemy, using Gale to disperse a healing circle, then entering the isometric view to instruct one of your members to use blaze on an enemy who's weak to fire damage and witnessing its impact upon them.I say when you're able to use it because, well, it sometimes feels like the game is fighting against you. The battles can be so chaotic that often times it's hard to really understand what's going on and how and where you and you're ally's abilities would be best implemented. Couple this with 75% of the battles being an absolute breeze to win, (you have 5 lives per battle per character before you're fully incapacitated) where you actually don't often have the time to implement much strategy before it's finished, and you're left with a battle system that while sometimes balletic and empowering to use, often leaves you feeling slightly unsatisfied.However, a battle system is just half the JRPG gameplay experience. Where would any JRPG be without a satisfying world to explore and several side-missions and extra quests to complete? And I'm happy to say, The Last Story thrives in this area. Lazilus Island is not a massive hub, and at first may leave those itching for another Xenobladesque world to explore disappointed. However, while not huge, Lazilus Island is compact and packs a great deal of detail in. Waterways, myriad alleys and side streets, shops; they're all here and depicted in surprising detail. And the amount of side-quests is surprising given such a compact hub. Many are actually given their own chapter within the main quest itself, which helps emphasise the fact that while not necessary to complete the main quest, they are important in helping to add further characterisation and further knowledge of the world. And they aren't what you would expect either. They range from the small, like catching frogs on the river edge which eventually (inexplicably) gives you the ability to dive in water to the bigger, like exploring a haunted mansion to surprisingly good comedic effect.And of course, The Last Story like any good JRPG has a satisfying amount of character customisation. New weapons can be bought and acquired, armour upgraded, your armour's colour customised to a ridiculously minor degree. It's not in the same league as Xenoblade for micromanagement, which I admit could at times become exhausting. This is mainly because there are a fairly limited number of armour and greaves found within The Last Story to upgrade. But there is still enough there for the JRPG fanatic to obsess over and be consumed by, but which the casual gamer can just ignore if they chose to. The typical grind is almost completely absent from the game as well, instead replaced by areas called Summon Circles placed strategically before big bosses. It allows you to summon waves of enemies to the player, and provides quick, easy experience points that help level up the party. This mantra of ease and accessibility extends to the games play time, which for most will take somewhere between 20 and 30 hours, which while not exactly a behemoth like Xenoblade or Persona 3, is still enough to immerse yourself fully in the world.A small mention must also go to the game's multiplayer mode. As surprising as it may sound it actually works rather well. Here, you have traditional deathmatch, which is chaotic and fun, if a little monotonous after a while. But the real meat of the multiplayer lies in its co-operative mode, where you and five other online players take on bosses from the game's single player. There are six in total, and each offers a nice challenge and good rewards for the player. While not obviously the meat of the gameplay experience, the multiplayer is a nice reward and should help extend the life of the game greatly.When I first saw screens of The Last Story, way back when the first rumblings of hype were being generated, I must admit to being impressed. It seemed to mesh the typical style of the genre with renaissance era environments. It looked very pretty. And it is when you actually get to play it. There is possibly a little to much brown and gray in the main hub, but apart from that it's a very pretty game that you'll often be surprised is able to run on the Wii. Characters are detailed and expressive, movements realistic, cutscenes well directed. However, this detail comes at a price. Maybe too high a price. Technically, the game is a mess. The framerate is all over the place, only really holding steady when you're in an area of low detail or low population. The battles can be horrifically bad, with sometimes the frames per second dropping into the single digits, and the cutscenes often fair little better. The main players in the foreground are fine, but the background details crawls along and are at times almost laughable. It wouldn't be as much of an issue if it was a less regular occurrence, but with the FPS chugging along and dipping on a regular basis, it can at times impact you're enjoyment of the game both visually and in actual gameplay terms.Issues also extend to the game's music. Composed by Final Fantasy veteran composer Nobuo Uematsu, what's here is pleasant enough, with rousing battle themes and enjoyably introspective and melancholic stuff at the story's key emotional moments. This is especially true of the main theme which is rather moving. However, it often seems to randomly cut out on the player, and also seems to be placed rather sparsely throughout the game. I would guess this is done in some way to subvert the usual tropes of not just the genre, but of video games themselves where music is often used excessively. What it does however is instead of bringing a welcome change, is often times leave the game with a lack of atmosphere which can at times break the immersion (especially when combined with the stuttering framerate).Despite these issues, The Last Story still manages to stand tall as a very good game and provides minor innovation within the JRPG genre. The combat system, while sometimes a bit too easy and played out on rather chaotic battlefields is fun and fresh and at times very empowering. The graphics are pretty and detailed though at times causes problems, (maybe a little too often), and the game is at both once deep yet accessible to one who may be uninitiated in the JRPG genre. It also has good value for money, despite its relatively short (for a traditional JRPG) length, especially when combined with its multiplayer mode.Much has been expected of The Last Story. Weighty expectations that perhaps it could never fulfil. This expectation has been made even heavier due to the exceptional critical success and fan reaction to Xenoblade Chronicles. While not that comparable with one another, people will do so which is why I have done so at brief points throughout the review. Is it as good? No, it's not. But then, nothing other than completely sustained brilliance could be. If however you go into the experience with the right mind set, then you'll have a great time. It is a good game, not a great one. Hopefully, a potential sequel will iron out the issues. I'm not exactly sure how sure fire a thing that actually is, so I would encourage anyone with a vague interest to pick it up. Trust me, it's worth it.(Sorry about the review length. I just wanted it to be comprehensive)

15.7.2012

The Last Story is a tale of mercenaries with a dream of becoming knights. The story unfolds on Lazulis Island. A fortified city located in between two warring continents. The story begins with the group of mercenaries trying to increase their standing, but it quickly escalates into a quest to find the reason behind the worlds decay. It's the latest RPG from Mistwalker, the studio behind the Xbox 360 epic Lost Odyssey and the Blue Dragon series. The Last Story is the first game Hironobu Sakaguchi has directed in 20 years. It represents a distinct departure from the traditional turn based titles of his past as he steps into the faster paced world of Action RPGs. Is this quicker, leaner style of game,a natural fit for the Maestro behind Final Fantasy or is it just one step too far.Well let's start with the important bit, the battle system. For the majority of the game you will be controlling wannabe knight Zael. Before you even take control of the plucky hero, you should choose whether he auto-attacks by tilting the analogue stick or attacks manually via a button press. I've tried out both control setups and they seem pretty much equally effective. The only issue with auto-attack is sometimes when a posse of enemies surround you, the game struggles to differentiate between attacks and movement. Once you've decided which control method to use, it's not just a case of slashing away. There's a combo system at play, the basic idea behind it is, if you attack as a team you cause more damage than attacking alone. To increase your combo, you need to alternate attacking an enemy with a party member. You attack, he attacks, you attack, and then he attacks, and so on. If one of you attacks twice in a row the combo is broken.From combos to cover systems. Yes, The Last Story has a cover system but it's not used in the way you would usually expect. Most games that use cover systems use them in a passive way, whether it's to avoid enemy fire or to employ stealth. The cover system The Last Story uses is clearly an offensive tool. It is best used when you've got a small army of Orcs trying to eat Zael's spiky head, because if you dive into cover they suddenly have no idea where you are. They become confused and are left susceptible to critical hits. It's not very realistic but then again neither was three chaps standing in a line playing Russian roulette with a dragon.Near the beginning of the game Zael obtains the power of the Outsider, don't worry kids it's not a spoiler it happens within the first 20 minutes of the game. A large portion of the battle system revolves around making use of this ability as it allows you to revive party members up to 5 times. Outsiders seem a lot like genies with the whole arbitrary number of wishes deal. More importantly the Outsider enables you to draw the attention of all nearby enemies. Distracting enemies and absorbing their blows allows Zael to increase his attack power, and greatly reduces the amount of time it takes for party members to cast spells. You do have to be careful though Zael isn't invincible, when you use the Outsider you tend to become surrounded very quickly which amplifies enemy damage. The key to success in The Last Story is keeping your allies alive, good movement, using cover well and dispelling magic circles.Speaking of which when someone casts a spell, residual magic is left behind on the ground. The remnants of these spells have both a status and elemental effect. To make use of the element left behind by the spell, you simply attack while Zael is inside the magic circle. To make use of the status effect requires you to dispel the magic circle, Zael has two abilities that can do this. The first is the vertical slice which sees him run clean up a wall and attack an enemy from above, yeah you read that right Zael makes Jackie Chan look like a pensioner... who's not Jackie Chan. The second is a move called gale which sees Zael swoop across the battlefield it's easier to use but requires 1 bar of the skill gauge. The skill gauge is the equivalent of an MP system. It recovers over time and allows you to use Gale and Party Commands. Each party member has two specific actions and a special move. They will only use special moves when you tell them to. It's a simplistic system that's main purpose is to avoid party members healing an enemy, which absorbs a particular element.The one downside to this system is it takes a while to get used to, not because it's overly complex but because the tutorial is one of the worst I've ever seen in a game. First of all it's overly long and secondly there is no real reward or consequence for following or ignoring the instructions. This means you don't take what the game is telling you in. The idea of a tutorial is for the player to get to grips with the controls and the game's concepts. It absolutely fails at this. Then quite suddenly at about the five hour mark, the developers take the stabilisers off. It goes from do whatever you want, to start using all of your abilities now or die, in the blink of an eye. It's a difficulty spike that relies on you having paid attention to the tutorial, which you almost certainly haven't. Complaints about the first five hours aside it is a really fun and engaging battle system. As the game progresses it just gets better and better, culminating in one of the best final boss battles this gen.Other than the battle system the one thing that Mistwalker really nailed is the characters. On paper there really isn't anything special about them. If I were to ask you to describe the seven different types of character most commonly found in JRPGs. Chances are the descriptions you'd give me, would be identical to that of The Last Story's cast. It's not who the characters are that's the interesting bit, it's how they interact. The balance in the script between humour and drama is excellent. It is so easy to get that balance wrong (If you're interested in seeing a game fail this balancing act spectacularly check out No More Heroes 2). The characters really do feel like a group of friends, no one seems like they're straight out of a bad anime, they just feel and sound like normal human beings. The localisation team really needs to be congratulated. British voice acting in combination with a Japanese game can so easily not mesh well and end up sounding completely alien but to their credit, in The Last Story it fits snug as a glove. The one issue with the characters chatter is that sometimes it gets cut off, due to the next scene being triggered. My advice is to wait until the characters have finished talking before moving through an area.The quality of the characters is almost matched by the world they inhabit. Lazulis City is beautifully constructed. It feels like a character in itself. The way the city changes as the story progresses is very nice to see. You really do get the sense that people are going about their daily business and it really feels like a living, breathing town. From a technical stand point Lazulis City is also very impressive. My number one complaint with Mistwalker's previous game, Lost Odyssey, was the sheer volume of loading screens. They were everywhere; you couldn't walk down a back alley without encountering one. So I was pleasantly surprised when I first started exploring Lazulis City I found that this huge detailed area didn't feature a single loading screen. You won't spend all your time on Lazulis Island but it is the main hub and focal point. The game is divided into chapters and it's structured so that you will complete a handful of chapters then return to the Island before heading out on another quest. The city itself features shops, side-quests, treasure hunts and the arena. The attention to detail is a really nice touch from Zael banging his head on signs to knocking over baskets of fruit in the market.Almost every part of the games presentation is first class. The character designs are really well done, the art direction looks like Lord of the rings and Final Fantasy IX had a baby. The animation in particular is of a very high quality. The way that characters react to walls and narrow passages is a level of detail you rarely see in games. The music is another highlight but it's the ever reliable Nobuo Uematsu at the helm. Mistwalker stop getting points for that now. It feels similar but different to his usual work, you can definitely feel the final fantasy influence in some of the boss music but for the most part it feels like a different direction. It sounds more like a movie soundtrack, slightly more subdued than usual. The main theme 'Toberu Mono' is the stand out piece and it's used to great effect. There must be five different variations of the song used within the game. I did say `almost' every part of the presentation is top draw because there are two aspects that are not so nice. The first is the frame rate which takes a considerable drop from time to time. This mostly occurs in cut-scenes where the game is obviously pushing the Wii to its limit. It's not terrible but it is definitely noticeable. The second issue is that some of the dialogue is lip synced but other parts well aren't. There are a few occasions where characters will just sort of stop mid-dialogue and do a pedo stare(General Asthar and Zael in particular), which is a little bit odd.So far I've mostly had high praise for The Last Story but there is a snag that prevents it from becoming an all time classic, and that snag is the plot. The reviews I've read criticize it for being cliched. I don't think the cliches are the issue. The problem is the flow of the story, it felt a bit too much like they'd cut out scenes from the Final Fantasy series and sewn them back together into a deformed quilt. If you've played Final Fantasy I through X you end up getting distracted by the number of nods to the series. Instead of being completely invested in the characters and the story, I was busy playing guess the Homage. This is a real shame because the characters really are well written and acted. It just feels like the scenes and plot were picked up from the Square-Enix recycling centre.Talking of recycling though there are a couple of reasons to play this game again, there's the new game plus where each of the bosses have a significant leap in difficulty. Also it's worth making sure you haven't missed any of the optional chapters. I completely missed the Epilogue on my first play through and the extra scenes are definitely worth seeing. There is also an online mode which is ok but nothing to write home about. It includes standard death match and co-op boss fights but it suffers from the same problem as Battalion Wars 2, it's fun but the community is pretty much dead.So did Sakaguchi and co succeed in their experiment? Well to an extent, yes. The battle system is fresh and innovative but for some reason, the developer's successful combat experiments had to be tempered with stories so stale, fungi and plant life have been spotted growing on them. This is a fun game but it could so very easily have been a truly great game. The Last Story feels like a final farewell to the Final Fantasy series and maybe even a goodbye to turn based battle systems as well. It may not be the flawless masterpiece we hoped for but it does seem like a first stepping stone onto something special. Hopefully The Next Story will be a perfect combination of Lost Odyssey's beautiful storytelling and The Last Story's exciting battle system.

30.3.2012

StoryThe story begins quite akin to FFVII & FFXII - a group of mercenaries fighting for the purpose of a better life. The story deals with the themes of love, friendship, power and betrayal. You play the role of a mercenary named `Zael' who dreams of becoming a knight, and questions what does a true knight stand for due to the corruption that is around him. The story is a great testament to how a RPG should be - with great direction from Hironobu Sakaguchi - aka - The Gooch, this is the game that FFXIII should have been.CharactersThe characters are all well presented and each has their own witty personality which made me laugh several times when listening and reading their dialogue - especially the banter between Lowell and Syrenne.Each character has his/her purpose and to see this explained in the story is great otherwise without purpose characters in a story are just a distraction. The band of mercenaries with Zael portray a friendship that have been through much hardship revealing the divide between the rich and poor.Game playThe game is divided up into 44 chapters and is very well thought out as you are led on an adventure which you can control by travelling around the city whenever you please. This allows you to meet the locals and help them with their problems resulting in getting rare items to help power up your own weaponry or equipment. Having just completed the game with over 43hrs I really didn't want the adventure to end, as it had such been a joy to play. You don't need to play through all 44 chapters, but I would definitely recommend exploring all areas of the game and saying yes to all quests to get the most out of the game.If you liked `Xenoblade Chronicles' and `FFXII', then you'll know that battles mechanics take place live rather than a turn based affair. Another excellent feature is that just like `Xenoblade Chronicles' and `DQ9' when customizing your equipment or weaponry - when playing your characters all display this. Even the cut scenes show the new items rather than just having a standard default cut scene. Nice touches like this enhance the feeling that the game is polished to a high standard.In addition to this once you have visited a spot on a map you can return back to it at any time by selecting it from the map which saves the player a lot of time instead of travelling back and forth by foot. I myself preferred wandering the side streets and talking to the locals as each time a local revealed some tid-bit of info which would make me pursue an item.The battle arena is useful for powering up and getting items, however I found that I had to do the same fights up to 7 times in order to open up a different route to battle more challenging competitors. Not really a problem but would be nice if the option to battle tougher competitors was available from the beginning.I also played several rounds on the online multiplayer which has you face off against a game boss of your choosing with online help. I found it to be fun as it gave the possibility of collected rare items; however, I soon realized that there certainly is a short life span to this.There are loading times. However, these are minute and don't really affect the pace of the adventure. I did experience slight slow down when the screen was crammed with enemies - however, this is forgivable as the game really pushes the Wii hardware (remember the Wii was released in 2006, and this is now in its 6th year).Music & GraphicsMistWalker has done an excellent job of pushing the Wii to its limits after a 2-3yrs developmental cycle - as the game was announced in development in 2009. The graphics and music are great... the voice acting isn't everyone's cup of tea however being from the UK, I found the voices fitted the characters very well with the odd bit of slang theron in for good measure.OverallI've played this now for over 43hrs and it really is a great RPG, Xenoblade Chronicles has as of yet not been dethroned due to its amazing story and length. In regards to ` The Last Story' my only complaint is that this adventure is over too quickly, if only it was 2 - 3 bigger it would have gotten 5/5 - never the less a great game it is still - on that high note it's a game that's worth keeping the Wii from the storage room!The Last Story is an amazing title that I really hope to see more of in future -just longer- The Last Story 2 - Gooch!

11.4.2012

With the current trend of Jrpg's taking a nose dive into the forever deepening loss. The last story (TLS) comes in swinging to remind us all just what a jrpg is about, More so when it concerns the fabled final fantasy series (to which we owe thanks to Mr sakaguchi).If compared to the likes of Final Fantasy XIII (and FF13-2 to some degree) TLS comes out on top, Easy as chips.This is a beautiful driven story with an easy to master combat system which is both fun and enjoyable. The progression and rate you gain skills fits the story line perfectly as you start your quest as a mercenary. The story is slow to start, to allow you to get to know the people you find yourself with as you take control of a young wanna be knight zeal,You find yourself on forgotten pirate ships, Chasing Spirits of the land and even exploring haunted mansions in the side quests.The game is short however, and it leaves you wanting more but skipping the side quests you can easily ammount 20+ hours of play, and there is always the extras provided by the side quests and multiplayer the game offers.The mulitplayer comes in to types, Deathmatch and co-op. the deathmatch you pit your character against another players, there is no draw backs as replaying the game after completing it allows you to carry on with the level you have attained, Including Equipment and skills, and do it all again with Scaled Boss fights. You will walk through the general battles with your lvl 68 character during your second play through and have quite a shock when the boss you face is scaled to level 75. Providing a more deadly twist to the turn of fate you find your characters in.The co-op game allows you to team up with up to 5 or 6 other players to take on the boss's. These fights are not easy and the rewards for completing them usually pay out Weapons and upgrade materials per Defeat. These items you can actually use in your solo game.So back to the game. You have alot of control over these characters, able to completely colour and customise each characters cloth look, Change equipment in a system similar to the earlier final fantasy's.The game brings back a true feeling of one of square-soft's old master pieces. And rightly so. The music is beautiful as is the story line, you find a deep story intertwining you and your party, and you find alot of twists and turns that shock and awe our you as the player.Your relationship grows with the characters as the game goes on, And you find your playing for those moments, to spend time with specific characters.The story turns from being about your journey towards knight hood to saving the world from impending doom. from the evil gurak forces. You soon realise that not everything is how it seems, and that the forces you face are more complex then one man of evil, and another of good. Your decisions impact the world and whilst sometimes it seems like those decisions are out of your control, you gain control back eventually.This is a kick ass game, with a amazingly fun battle system that seems to grow as your characters get more powerful, It reflects your skill as a player, and the skill of your characters levels too, meaning this system is easy for anyone coming over to the Wii to experience this game.Words cannot describe to true effect how good this game is, i can only say this, Whilst short, the game is great, and regardless of content your looking at 30+ hours of game play to play through everything. This game rewards those players who like to complete full content. (an example of this is unlocking the "remove curse" from weapons vendor, Allowing you to gain powerful weapons and items for upgrade, something which you will miss out on if you just stick to the main story.10/10A beautiful game from an amazing developer.

4.7.2012

The Last Story comes to us from Mistwalker, the team behind Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey. Both of these games were truly wonderful, with Lost Odyssey in particular proving to be one of the most involving and emotional RPGs around. On the surface it is hard to see the resemblance between Sakaguchi's (the director of the game) latest project and his previous works, but look closely and you will see similarities. The Last Story, like Lost Odyssey before it, is a character driven affair, with a group of ragtag mercenaries being given the spotlight. Every character (as is the norm for a Sakaguchi game) is fleshed out, and we are motivated to care for them,even if some of the dialogue occasionally seems forced and ever so slightly stilted. So we have the bawdy alcoholic, we have the reserved and contemplative mage, and of course the token ladies' man who provides much of the humour (one particularly bizarre sequence near the end left me befuddled, in a good way). The story itself is quite obviously cut from the JRPG cloth, so expect warring nations, orphaned chosen ones and a princess with more than a few secrets up her sleeve. And yet this is no sprawling epic, it is a focused, localised story that places an especial amount of importance on character building and development. This in itself is refreshing.Something that's fresher still is the combat system. Gone is the turn based action that Sakaguchi is obviously so comfortable with, and in its place is a kinetic, free flowing but deeply strategic real time battle system. Much like Xenoblade Chronicles, you attack automatically when you are in range of an enemy, but are free to give commands to your team mates and generally plan out your attack. You can get the jump on enemies by stealthily luring them over before launching a surprise attack, or you can wade in and rely on your Spirit abilities to turn the tide of battle. The only gripe I have is with the boss battles, which require you to use a certain strategy to even stand a chance of damaging the boss, and although this could introduce a puzzle element to the proceedings, the answers are instantly and invariably called out. It feels arbitrary, and you are not free to experiment in these battles. You either play ball or play dead.Of course the most contentious issue was always going to be the visuals. With the hardware it's working with, The Last Story manages to look spectacular at times, but adventurous this is not. Expect a lot of brown and a lot of grey. Sakaguchi's fondness for Gears of War has obviously influenced the visual portion of the game, which means tight, linear environments with waist high blocks of fallen masonry to take cover behind. I played the game on a relatively large TV (using component cables) which meant that image was never going to be great. At times, the pixellation gave me a headache, but overall this sits at the top-end of what the Wii can achieve visually (it also features some rather lovely water, complete with shimmering reflections and a tangible sense of, err, sogginess).Overall, I enjoyed The Last Story a great deal. For me, it doesn't reach the highs of Lost Odyssey, but that is purely down to my own peculiar proclivity. This isn't about embarking on a grand adventure, it's about going on a structured, beautifully paced jaunt through various medieval environments, punctuated by impressive set-piece battles and book- ended with lovely cutscenes. I just wish there were more places to visit, such as different towns, or a lovely piece of countryside. But that would fly in the face of the narrative focus. As it is, it's more Mass Effect than Oblivion, and there's no shame in that. Highly recommended for any fan of the genre.

21.2.2018

The Wii is not known for it's RPG library. Xenoblade Chronicles is the standout and still the best the platform has to offer. This takes a not so near but not so distant second.There certainly are comparisons between the two games, and I would recommend to anyone that they check out Xenoblade over the Last Story. That being said this is an excellent and distinctive RPG in its own right.The first similarity is in the combat. Namely in that both eschew turn-based combat and opt for mostly real time auto-attacking. This may put some off immediately, but there were some great strengths in that a lot of the battles and bosses required different strategies whilst never being too oblique or relyingon too obscure a gameplay mechanic to be frustrating.The combat is not perfect by any mean and the dodge mechanic stands out as an area that definitely needed improvement but thankfully the difficulty is low and you will usually only die, if at all, on bosses where you haven't figured out the strategy and generally you will then get through it on the second playthrough.Grinding is practically non-existent and completely optional in the Last Story. I always enjoy this in RPG's as I think that it allows the game and it's story to flow better and that is definitely the case here.A second similarity is the graphics. Xenoblade and the Last Story both go for a realistic style. Both can be considered successful but only if one takes into account the hardware limitations of the Wii for big 3D games. The textures can be a little fuzzy, there is occasional pop-in and when there are a lot of enemies or NPC's on screen slow down can become a major factor.Thankfully we have beautiful character and environment design here and above average work has been put into the animations for the characters. This is welcome as the game is story and cut-scene heavy and it adds to the flavour.Speaking of story, I enjoyed it. It's a simple JRPG story with many familiar tropes there if you stop to think about it but it's told in a different enough way that it doesn't feel stale. Some twists can be seen a mile away, whereas other developments may blindside you.I didn't find any of the characters too unlikeable. The main character Zael was unnecessarily bland, but the English voice cast, especially for the main characters do a great job. Just as with Xenoblade Chronicles I found that the English accents were able to take the cheesiness out of even some of the hackier lines of dialogue. Unlike some other people I enjoyed Syrenne and thought her broad northern no-nonsense accent perfectly suited the character. It was fun to hear a few colloquialisms thrown in there as well.This is one of the Wii's best titles. If you buy ten games for it this should definitely be one of them even at the prices it's going for at the moment. You will easily get 30 hours of entertainment out of this game. I wish it had been a little less linear as there are only a few points in the story where things open up to give you options, and sometimes it's not clear when they have and you may power through the story overlooking a side quest. It is possible to miss a few things but largely this will be through you choosing not to do something so it's on you, and a couple of minor other things.I reckon you have to stick with the game for the first couple of hours whilst it sets things up but ultimately I appreciated this as I felt like I was discovering the story as I went along rather than drowning in exposition, though initially it felt a little directionless.I'd love to see a HD and performance up-ed remake of The Last Story some da- ideally for the Switch but sadly this is probably highly unlikely.

22.10.2012

When I came across screen shots from a Japanese magazine article for The Last Story it immediately struck my interest as a game I would love to play however I was quickly brought back down to Earth when there was no plans for a release in the UK. When the game was released in Japan it immediately hit the number 1 spot making thousands of JRPG fans extremely jealous and I remember signing a petition to get the game released in the UK.To make matters worse I decided to watch some video's players had created and uploaded onto You Tube and also some of the music, everything was wetting my appetite for this game that when it finally got a UK announcement date I was over the moon and even more sowhen we were getting a limited edition version.As much as I love the Final Fantasy games they have seemed to become too big for themselves losing their way a bit from what really stands out in a JRPG. The Last Story is what I would call a new version of an old style JRPG, the look and feel is familiar yet new. The Last Story's Graphics, The Story and the music all remind me of classic Final Fantasy games, the music is especially good and so it should be as Final Fantasy's old composer Nobuo Uematsu was brought in by creator Hironobu Sakaguchi another old Final Fantasy creator back in the Squaresoft days.The battle mode takes the control away from you a bit which is difficult to get used to at first, just moving towards enemies for an automatic attack leaves you feeling a bit left out of the battle however this is built upon as you progress through the game working out certain patterns and techniques to get through parts of the story. If there was a downside to the battle system I would say it comes during boss battles, once of your characters will shout out to you telling you exactly what to do to defeat it and if you don't do it they will repeat and repeat it until you do. Once you do know how to take down a boss the boss becomes almost too simple that battles can be over in next to no time.The story like Xenoblade is pretty deep keeping your interest from the start until the end pretty easily. The graphics are good despite being on the Nintendo Wii, every character is likeable from the off and the British voice overs really suit the game to a T.The game itself is quite short and the side quests don't come up on your map so sometimes I forget what I have actually accepted to do. There is only one town but it's pretty big, big enough to get lost in without using the map, there are things to do just try not to take on to much at once.Apart from a few minor bad points The Last Story is a very good game however IMO it's not as good as Xenoblade which managed to hold my interest for over 120 Hours.

29.2.2012

I grabbed a copy of xenoblade last year and enjoyed it immensely, I also loved Skyrim but the jrpgs have a special quality about them which seperates them from there western counter-parts. Having thought about it for a while I have come to the conclusion that it the characters that are so different.Last story (and xenoblade) have fantastic characters and a much more cinematic feel to them. I know Skyrim/ kingdom of Amular have a lot of cinematics/text in them but it all feels so disjointed, where as in Last story I found myself hooked to every cut scene and unwilling to skip in case i miss an important fact.This games combat system takes a while to get used to but once you do it's quite exciting and unique.

2.3.2012

Firstly I have to say this is not your typical Japanese RPG or any other type of RPG I've played before. The battle system is very unique and you don't need to use any buttons to attack, which is all done in real time, not time delayed like in Final Fantasy which means each fight can feel relentless. What makes The Last Story so good though is it allows you to apply different tactics to each battle, elements of stealth to take out a healer while your party focus on other enemies or you can instruct team members to take out bridges or alter the tactical playing fields by effecting the environment you play.The graphics sometimes look muddy and not as sharp as I am use to from playing on my XBOX but when the game switched to a rain setting I was visually impressed,

9.4.2015

This is a great game, and is really under appreciated.If you like role playing games this is a must have, and I really enjoy it, finding it similar to Xenoblade Chronicles.(If you have played that, you will enjoy this)The game has a nice balance of serious moments and gags, that really keeps you reeling and coming back to play it again.I.e. A bowgun which shoots banana peels causing people to constantly slip over, and shout at you.(Isn't that a good enough reason to get it?)As well as a nifty arena section where you aim to take out multiple enemies with your selected party members.The backstory and cutscenes to the game are also well done, and give an insight to the characters past (and present),

25.2.2012

This is basically what I was waiting for, after summer release of Xenoblade Chronicles. Another great Japanese RPG, made by fathers of old Final Fantasy games, which left Squaresoft and now working in Mistwalker team. Game is pure fun - maybe a little bit chaotic battles, after couple of hours you get used to it. Graphically - it's Wii game - and it's enough for me. I preffer good storyline, deep characters and challenges, rather than beautiful graphics (like new Final Fantasy). Maybe it isn't perfect, but in this generation - it's a rare gem. If you liked Xenoblade Chronicles, you'll definitely like The Last Story. Brilliant game, much, much better than Final Fantasy XIII-2.

18.11.2015

This game is one of the top Jrpgs for the Wii together with Xenoblade. It is developed by Mistwalker, Sakaguchi's studio, the founder of Final Fantasy after he left Square and even the name is a synonym to Final Fantasy. The story of the game is very good and revolves around a love story entangled with a political conflict. Graphically, this is one of the best looking games I played on the Wii. However, unlike Sakaguchi's other games, this one is action oriented and has a unique battle system, which you can pause to choose certain skills, which is enjoyable. The voice acting is brilliant (British accent by the way) and the music is good.

25.1.2013

The Wii catalog is just full of good surprises! The Last Story is another one which lets the player embark on a full fledged adventure in an awesome world created by the famed Final Fantasy masters Hironobu Sakaguchi and composer Nobuo Uematsu. We take the role of Zael and his fellow companions on Lazulis Island where mystery surrounds every character, especially Zael himself and Lisa, a young girl he meets in the city. Great visuals, superb sound score and addicting gameplay will get any rpg fan hooked up and last for countless hours. The battle system is one of the most intuitive and well balanced I've seen to this date. So,

29.8.2012

An excellent game which succeeds because of the fusion of many gameplay elements:Strategy in battle - check.Simple and intuitive controls - check.Nice graphics - check.Good characterization - check.Balance between free-play and narrative structure - check.Beautiful world - check.Neither silly, nor overly serious - check.Interaction with environment - check.Plus the dialogue is relevant without being intrusive.Succeeds where games like the much touted Xenoblade fails (which IMHO is too sandboxy, and has little environmental interaction).Overall this feels like the perfect fusion of eastern and western style RPG.First rate!

24.6.2013

As a starter, my favourite FF is FF6, I love every FF from FF4 to X and FFT. I cannot enjoy FF Without Nobuo and Sakaguchi so this is the real FF successor, Last Oddysey was an experiment cooperating with Microsoft so it was pretty half-assed compared to this one where sakaguchi actually get to make the calls.RIP Squaresoft, Atlus and Mistwalker will deliver jrpg that I actually love and enjoy, FF13 was the last game i bought that trashcan company. Get it if you missed the good old FF!!

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