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Sep 6th, 2012 at 13:32:24 - The Last Story (Wii) |
In my previous entry about The Last Story, I had talked about the plot and how, while not wholly original, it was interesting and unique enough to separate it from other RPGs. The biggest contributing factors to this are the characters that inhabit the game. The core of The Last Story is a romance between protagonist Zael, the aforementioned idealistic mercenary who was gifted a mysterious power, and leading lady Calista, the noble woman whose bloodline is at the crux of the political intrigue and plot, and their feelings for one another and their relationship as whole feels completely natural, not a simple “one is the protagonist, the other is a princess/lady, therefore they must fall in love” plot.
And it is not just those two who steal the show. All of the playable characters are memorable in their own right, from Syrene, the unapologetic alcoholic warrior woman of the group, to Lowell, the rugged womanizing warrior-mage, to Yurick, the antisocial, cynical, eye patch wearing mage, to Mirania, the soft-spoken, motherly healer with a voracious appetite for food, to finally Dagran, the somewhat enegmatic leader of the mercenary troop who acts like a big brother to the protagonist. All of their personalities are completely natural, especially given their individual back stories, and play off each other well, giving the team the feeling of a dysfunctional surrogate family as well as a group of battle-hardened mercenaries.
Even some of the major NPCs are well written and characterized brilliantly. One of the secondary antagonists in the game, Jirall, is every pompous, arrogant, flamboyant, self-absorbed, pretty boy noble stereotype rolled into one character, but he is so over the top and well written, you can’t but be entertained by him and even feel a little sympathy for him by the end. However, not every NPC gets this treatment. Zangurak, king of the Gurak, a lizard like race who serve as the game’s primary antagonists, gets too little screen time, despite being the Big Bad, that his character never has time to be properly explored or developed, which is a shame because he had a lot of potential. Overall thought, The Last Story is most definitely a character-driven game.
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Sep 1st, 2012 at 10:54:15 - The Last Story (Wii) |
They say that good things come to those who wait. In the case of The Last Story for the Wii, this is most certainly true.
I have just started my second play through of this gem of a game and I am thoroughly enjoying every minute of it. For the uninitiated, The Last Story is the latest game by director Hironobu Sakaguchi, who is best known as the director of the first seven Final Fantasy games. It suffered a long and tumultuous road towards being localized in the States, and is one of three Wii games that were the focus of the internet petition group Operation Rainfall, alongside Xenoblade Chronicles (which I also own) and the yet-to-be-released-Stateside Pandora’s Tower. Like its fellow Op Rainfall game, Xenoblade Chronicles, The Last Story uses the European localization, complete with spelling and voice actors, instead of opting for a new translation for American audiences.
Since this is a decently sized game, and I am still in the midst of my second play through, I will break up my review into multiple entries.
Since The Last Story is an RPG, the most important aspect is, arguably, the story. I mean, it IS called The Last Story, after all. Luckily, the game more than delivers on that front. The basic plot threads of The Last Story are nothing that RPG aficionados haven’t seen before: an empire at war, a world slowly and mysteriously dying, the protagonist being gifted with a mysterious power, a band of mercenaries destined to save the world, an idealistic mercenary and a noble lady falling in love, and loads and loads of political intrigue. But it is how The Last Story weaves these familiar and somewhat overwrought elements together that allow it to create a tale that is both familiar and unique. But, most of all, it is the characters that inhabit the game that separate The Last Story from its RPG brethren. But I will save that discussion for my next entry.
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Ragnarok has been with GameLog for 12 years, 2 months, and 24 days |
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