Perkel
Arcane
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- Mar 28, 2014
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The Last Story by Mistwalker on Wii (via Dolphin emu dev 4.63xx version)
This was in my backlog for a long time. I am not really fan of jRPGs or what i call them jaction games with longer story but after Xenoblade Chronicles on Wii which was rather good for jRPGs i decided to go for another japanese emo journey of school kids which scream "i will protect you" "i couldn't protect you" all the time.
Soooo...
STORY&CHARACTERS&EVENTS
Game definitely started not how i expected it. First of all cast of characters are not kids but adults from looks something like 19-33. Only mc seems to be something like 19-20 with mind of 16 year old though it might have been translation problems and VA problem (played english version). Main cast of characters looks more like Final Fantasy XII cast which is more or less mature in their behavior and logic.
Games starts with group of mercenaries who do mercenary work looking for better life for themselves mc and Daram goal is to live better life than mercenaries (which are shunned) and eventually become knights. After last work group stays in bar. MC goes into city which is preparing for royal wedding. MC picks up girl who is running from guards and that is how story starts.
If i can compare story to something it would be FF8. Both games central theme was love story. TLS on other hand i more down to earth in its approach with fairly logical actions for characters. MC IS a whiny shithead at times but his struggle between what is right and his goals in life puts a bit of a spin that may be interesting for some people.
Now for the story itself it would be quite good if not for as per usuall in jRPGs end twist that taste more like faplogic of new designer than proper twist. Up until that point game flows rather good which is a lot considering how many jRPGs lie flat on that point often with hours upon hours of really idiotic characters, events and so on. I think it might be because game is fairly short. When credits rolled on my screen i had something like 21 hours which is kind of crazy considering how much other jRPGs usually take something from 40 to 100 hours (mostly padding and grinding).
I didn't do any grinding through whole game and i felt like i explored most of content. Too short ? Imo no. Game would be worse if they would pad what they had there. It simply fit game narrative and content.
Well that looks good right ? Partially. Game would be a lot better if they would have someone to point out that probably saying 10 times "I can't protect anybody" is not such a good idea. Several times events didn't make sense like for example character knowing how to operate or find hidden doors like they always known from day they were born that there is hidden door in XYZ place.
Some character actions felt flat through story and what is worse some of them were complete cliches or cartoon villains.
I always wonder in those situations... Does they make this stuff on purpose to target 13 years old pokemon starved kid or they simply don't have any idea how some of that stuff is bad.
Generally point is that game story, characters and events are good but they are simply dragged down by clishes and imo lack of maturity.
For example one of main antagonist characters in game is Count which you need to work with and eventually become his knight. His reasons and behavior IS logical and fairly well presented. But as you may already figured it out he goes into jRPG clishe by end of that character story arc along with "HAHAHAHAA". Now if they would just follow on his presentation as clinical logical type of character he could be one of amazing characters in jrpgs.
PRESENTATION
For a Wii game game looks fairly well which is something like PS2 era game with some funky better FX here and there. Character design is good. Main city is a bit drab looking but fairly expensive for jRPG (though 90% game happens in that city).
Game doesn't feature a lot of places to visit and one of those you replay like 3-4 times. I think there are like 10-15 different places/maps you can fight on.
Some picks from game:
Music is kind of mediacore which is surprising because it is Umeatsu work. I think it simply comes to choice of orchestral instruments as all tracks just look like generic tracks from some other games you heard of somewhere.
Still there are few interesting tracks like those but i think those are the only ones that are worth something:
Or battle theme:
GAMEPLAY&COMBAT&LOOT
Games isn't TB it is action based combat system comparable to Xenoblade chronicles. Game divides characters into (without saying that) on mages and malee. Only you character has crossbow.
Generally idea is that this is mix of tactical/RPS/dumb combat. Game does give you intensive to look for tactical play but there isn't really any stick beside few events where frontal assault is not an option.
As for combat design. Designers did a good job to make most of combat fresh after 20h. I mean in most of jRPGs you have literally same things spammed without any plan to fight but here there is some design behind it so for example you have 3 bruttes that will steamroll you so you need to backstab them at the same time they are almost immortal if you don't take support mages.
Those mixes of different stuff gives this "fresh" feeling from combat encounters. Bosses also usually have one or two more way to deal with them from using environment like detroying walls/bridges etc to simply different weapon set and so on.
Combat encounter design is definitely a plus. Especially later stages of game with bosses which some have interesting patterns and fun to handle. So combat is definitely better than for example Xenoblade Chronicles which was based on basically streanght*time instead of tactic and weird resolutions here.
Adding to that there are few concepts here at play.
Basic gameplay is just guard, dodge, attack and movement
Gust is other concept. When characters cast spells they make pool of their respective element which standing in it gives for example fire attack. By using Gust which is something like Dash attack you can destroy those pools and by destroying them it gives you something. For example if you destroy Shining pool it gives party barrier aura which absorbs damage for short time. Fire based pool gives Armor break, ice = knockdown , leaf = silence on enemies and so on. This works also for enemies so if enemy casts some pool you can use Gust to cancel it.
Then there is crossbow which mainly is for handling mages and using environment
Then there is command. After you fill up blue bar you can give command to each character. So for example one boss needs to be hit with some element to be hit by attacks. In that mode you can execute special attacks and each character has it's own special attack which works like Limit Break in FF9 with same bar to fill up.
Loot system is also fairly interesting. Mainly because of weapons system. LVL of character is most important to character damage so designers made almost every weapon uniquee in its own way. Also they are all upgradable so by the end of game you will have stack of different weapon with fairly small pool of shit weapons. I often used in end game weapon from start of game.
This is mainly because most of weapons have abilities like % to insta kill or 30% chance to heal 20% of life on guard, 80% faster casting, 70% less guard damage, Ogres can't block your attack, 20% to paralyze&30% chance for lighting strike.
Basically aside from few items there is no shit loot in this game which is surprising for jRPG game and imo has the best loot from all jRPGs i played.
Armors on other hand are sparse but they work more like type of armor than armors as loot. There are like few unique armors. So for example my MC never changed his heavy armor just upgraded it.
So gameplay is imo good if you like action based combat system. It should be good because game is like 70% of combat.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Last Story is a good short to medium length (21hplaytime) jRPG game. It is combat heavy game but it does combat well for a jrpg, has interesting weapon system, interesting journey with more mature characters than your usually animu cast and good story that lies flat under typical JRPG problems.
Bonus points for playable epilogue (which is something like 1-1,5h)
EXPERIENCE FROM EMU VERSION:
You need latest dev versions of Dolphin to play it with good framerate. I have i53470 3,4Ghz cpu and for 95% of game i had proper framerate and no glitches. So if you have good CPU you should give it a spin.
