The Last Story Reviews

After Final Fantasy Hironobu Sakaguchi leave Square Enix in 2003/2004. He founded a company called Mistwalker in 2004 that created games like Lost Odyssey, and Blue Dragon. Then in 2007, he started to work on a RPG on the recently released Nintendo Wii originally called “The Last World”. It had a Sci-fi setting with a dark story and a princess who cry tears of blood. Nintendo didn’t like the ideas so the team went back to the game changing the setting, story, and the characters which end up today as “The Last Story” released in Japan in January 27, 2011, Europe in February 24, 2011 and in North America in the week of August 14 of this year.

The plot has a group of mercenaries taking out a series of enemies on a cave near Lazulis Island due to the magic the cannon on the castle has. In the group we have our main character Zael who has a dream of becoming a knight and a antisocial mage named Yurick looking for Dargan the leader of the group and a woman named Syrenne who like to drink alot while killing enemies. They catched up with each other and get separated finding a way out in a ruins of somewhat. Zael and Syrenne look around for a exit but enemies surrounded them and Syrenne get hit by a arrow in the chest. Zael scared about losing someone due to an event in his past hears a voice granting him a power. Zael uses this to save Syrenne, founded the other group, and got back to a meeting base in a tavern in town. We meet the other two members of the group in the tavern, Lowell a easygoing physical/magic attacker, and a healer named Mirania that likes nature. At night, Zael heads to town to look around than he encounters a person that will change his life forever.

At Lazulis Island, you can explore the town talking to the many people in the streets. Talking to people might get you to do a sub quest during your time in town. You are able to find hidden items in random parts in town by seek mode where you zoom more of your view. There are shops around to buy items, get weapons, armor, color dye which you use to color your own armor, and upgrade your equipment. Another place to kill time is the arena where you defeat a series of enemies. The more times you complete it, the difficulty increases and you get more money. Lastly after going into a story chapter on a certain place, you be able to go back to collect some rare items but with no exp.

Let’s talk about the battle system. During battle your teammates have 4 lives and you have 5 lives, if you allies go down, they be KO for the rest of the battle and if you are out then it’s game over. Before you start the battle, you get to overlook on what enemies are there giving you ideas to plan and your teammates will also mention some details about the upcoming battle. At battles you might have a option to use the environment near enemies to take advantage of like you use seek mode during battle and it shows you what you can blow up a bridge and it falls to a group of enemies making it easier to deal with. You are able to hide on a pillar or something and you can jump over a small object. Magic is done different here, the mages you have take a few seconds to cast and it can be ruined if enemies are by them. Them ready, the spell ends up hitting them and turns to a magic circle that still has a spell’s effect. Zael can diffuse it for the effect by using gale. The power that Zael gets plays a huge role in battles. You use it in battle and all of the enemy's attention will go to you giving the mages more time to cast and it helps that using the power doubles their cast time. Another ability is curing your allies who is down a live. Lastly, Zael is able to have energy saved up and then it is maxed it, you releases it for damage and other effects.

This game also has a online mode. You have the option of playing deathmatch/team deathmatch or join with random people to take down a boss before time is up. At the meeting screen, you are able to choose any character in the game you want even if it’s a enemy. Also you are able to give messages to other players. If you win a match you get points for ranks and items that you can use in the game.

The things I enjoy is the execution of the story. While it is predictable at parts, it works due to the characters. The main characters are relatable, the other in the group are fun to listen to and surprised me at times in the story. It also really helps out because of the voice acting. The voice acting is really good that adds to the experience, the characters in the world their in, and gets you into the story. The battle system is really interesting on how they came out with it and it is engaging with having a strategic feel to it. The music by Nobuo Uematsu is pretty good with memorable themes like this one below that adds to the world we playing at.

The things I didn’t like is the slowdown during battles. When battles get crazy, it becomes to do so which is quite noticeable. Like I say on the story, it can be predictable and there was even one part I predicted and it came true. Lastly it’s abit odd that they have only a few modes for online. With a battle system like this, it would have been interesting to see it expanded into more.

Overall if you like story driven games, you might like this one. If you don’t like a predictable story, you may not like it. In my case, it has a few flaws but it turns out well thanks to the characters, the voice acting, the battle system, and the music. Recommended to Wii owners and RPG fans and for one last note. You may want to find this as quickly as possible because I believe it is on a limited run.