1 Name: Inuhakka !u4InuhakKA : 2013-12-18 19:12 ID:PeDWaiWi (Image: 1013x634 jpg, 318 kb) [Del]
The Last Story is a third-person action JRPG directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and published by Nintendo. It was released in 2012 in North America, exclusively for the Wii. People who pre-ordered the game or bought it soon after it launched got a special art book with character art, enemy art, and various scenes/settings.
The story starts with a group of mercenaries fighting their way through hordes of monsters on their way to Lazulis City on Lazulis Island. Before they arrive, Zael (the main and player-controlled character) discovers a strange being known as 'The Outsider', and is granted a mysterious power called the Gathering. After they finally reach the city, Zael and his friends are hired to be bodyguards for the Count of the City, and that is where things start to go crazy.
The gameplay is strategic, while incorporating some elements of stealth. One key element is Zael's Gathering ability. When used, the Gathering attracts the attention of enemies towards Zael, leaving his teammates unhindered to use various magic abilities. When active, the ability also builds up power whenever Zael is damaged, and when released it damages enemies and deals negative status effects, such as slowing or completely stopping them. Another part of gameplay is Zael's ability to issue commands to his teammates. He can instruct each character to use specific strategies or spells, as well as a special attack unique to each character. There is also a cover system, in which the player can avoid drawing the attention of enemies, confuse enemies by suddenly disappearing and using a surprise attack, or use a crossbow to pick off mages or launch prank bananas.
I liked this game, in particular the detail. The main city you could walk around had something everywhere. It wasn't just a couple of shops mixed in with some NPC's walking around. There was a lot of stuff to do. There were item gathering quests scattered about, hidden items, hidden challenge stages, there was even an NPC who counted the number of times you bumped into people, slipped, and hit your head on signs and awarded you items based on it. It was detailed and I appreciate the work the creators put into it.
The gameplay was good, although by default you automatically attacked an enemy when you were close enough, which I didn't like. There was a nice item upgrade system. There were also about 8 different types of armors (2 extra secret armors) that were upgradable as well as color customizable.
I also liked the characters. They were all unique and likeable, and the dialogue was pretty good too.
There were two things I didn't like about it:
First, it was for the Wii only. The graphics looked good, but could have looked really excellent on the PC or PS3. The artwork for the game was amazing; I got an artwork booklet with the game that featured all the characters and some enemies. They looked so good on paper, but not as good when put on the Wii. Plus, enough things on the screen at once and gameplay got laggy really fast. I feel the game would be that much better if made for the PC.
Second, despite having many different characters with different abilities, weapons, armors, etc., you could only ever control Zael. They showed it was possible to control other characters; near the end you got to play as almost every one of Zael's friends, and it was really interesting playing as a mage. However, this only happened once, and being a strategy game I was very disappointed you couldn't switch characters.
Over-all, I would recommend the game. It's pretty fun to play, but I feel it is not the game it should have been.
