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Ragnarok's The Last Story (Wii)
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| [September 29, 2012 11:20:11 AM]
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For my final entry on The Last Story, I am going to skip covering the game’s presentation (which is stellar, by the way) and go straight into my complaints about the game’s design.
Indeed, while I do love The Last Story for the most part, it isn’t all cupcake and rainbows in its design. I have three issues with it that wish to address. The first are its side quests. The game lacks a means of which to keep track of what side quests are available, which ones you are currently in the process of completing, and which ones you have completed. Actually, that’s not entirely true; the game does have a means of keeping track of side quests you’ve completed, as well as ones that are currently available, but it only hints at the later and is far from intuitive in any case, plus there is no way of monitoring what your current side quests are short of keeping track of them in your head. That said, all but really one side quest are so short and simple, that this isn’t much more than a simple annoyance.
The second issue is the game’s multiplayer component. Specifically, my issues is that there are a few select items and pieces of equipment that can only be obtained as prizes from the game’s multiplayer, and if you, like me, have no one to play against, you have no means of obtaining these items. This isn’t a deal breaker by any means, given that nearly all the online-exclusive items are novelties for the most part, but it is annoying.
Those first two issues are ultimately minor nuisances. The biggest deal breaker, and one that almost made me stop playing, is ironically New Game Plus. Typically, New Game Plus is designed to allow you to play through the game again with a bunch of stuff from your previous play through carried over, so that you start New Game Plus as an overpowered badass and can simply enjoy the narrative and feeling of empowerment early on, while gaining access to new challenges and content later on. But some one on The Last Story’s design team thought it would be a good idea to give EVERY boss in the game, plus some regular enemies, a MASSIVE power boost for New Game Plus. I steadfastly believe said design team individual deserves to be punched in the face repeatedly. The bosses in The Last Story’s New Game Plus are so overpowered that it’s not even funny. Nothing sucks the fun out of game faster than dying to the same boss six times in a row before finally getting lucky enough to beat it, or spending two hours straight whittling away at the final boss. I mean, yes there are ways to compensate for the power gap, but that doesn’t change the fact that every major battle in New Game Plus is almost a losing battle. Luckily, this all only in New Game Plus, so it’s not that bad.
And so, my log entries for The Last Story come to an end. I hope you all enjoyed them, that it made you want to go out and get this game, despite my above issues, and I will see you all next game!
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| [September 21, 2012 05:46:45 PM]
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Continuing from my previous entry on The Last Story, I was covering the battle mechanics of the game, discussing the Gathering power and magic circles. One final facet of the battle system is that it incorporates certain FPS elements into the adventure-RPG mix. Crazy, I know! Specifically, protagonist Zael has crossbow, in addition to his sword, which can be drawn at any time to go into a first-person perspective and snipe enemies from afar with arrows. Your arrows are fairly weak, so this is used primarily to draw enemies to you or to soften them up before going in for the kill; however you can obtain specialty arrows that do extreme damage to certain enemies or cause status effects. On top of this, while in first-person mode, you can scope out destructible terrain that you can instruct your mages to target in order to bring it crashing down on the enemies’ heads, as well as hidden passages that lead deeper into the current dungeon. Speaking of terrain, the other FPS element is a cover system. In every room of every dungeon, you’ll find various bits of terrain that can be used as cover to find from enemy attacks, thus allowing you to snipe and target from relative safety, as well as launch surprise attacks on the unsuspecting enemies. Indeed, the battle system of The Last Story is so robust that its creators thought that it could support an optional multiplayer mode. Sadly, because I have no one to play against, I can not properly review the multiplayer.
Outside of the combat system, The Last Story is conventional adventure-RPG fare. In between dungeons, you’ll be able to run around the game’s hub city, doing the usual adventure-RPG stuff: buying and selling equipment, upgrading said equipment (note that there are no potions or other healing items in The Last Story, just equipment and stuff for upgrading/side quests), talking to NPCs, and taking on side quests. One last thing of note is that there is system that allows you to customize the appearance of your characters’ armor; purely cosmetic but cool nonetheless.
In my final post for The Last Story, I’ll talk about the game’s presentation, as well as level some complaints I have with it. Stay tuned!
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| [September 14, 2012 07:22:11 PM]
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So, in my previous two logs about The Last Story, I discussed the game’s plot and characters. While this is all well and good, what’s a game without game play, am I right? Of course I am. Luckily, The Last Story delivers in spades.
The battle system for The Last Story is equal parts familiar and unique. At its core, it’s your traditional adventure-RPG battle system: You run around fighting enemies in real-time; hacking at them with your sword, blocking and dodging, while your A.I. controlled allies support you with swords and spells. It should be noted that there is no ‘magic point’ system with your mages; there is simply a charge-up period in-between spells, that if your mage is attacked during it, the spell is interrupted. So how do you keep your mages from being thwarted, you may ask? The answer lies with one of the unique attributes of The Last Story’s battle system: the mysterious power that the protagonist Zael possesses called Gathering. Gathering is easily activated and deactivated with the push of a button, and while active, it draws all attacks towards Zael i.e. the player. While this may seem to be a bit risky, and it can be, it also speeds up all allies’ casting times and slows down enemies for a time. This allows your mages to blast the enemy apart with magic easily. On top of all this, you can revive fallen allies while Gathering is active. Note that all characters will auto-revive a set number of times each battle before being knocked out for good, or in Zael’s case, getting a game over; but with Gathering, you can revive allies faster and with a temporary power boost as well!
On the subject of magic, spells work differently in this game than in most other RPGs. Instead of just hitting an enemy with a fireball or something, or simply healing an ally for that matter, all spells in this game will create a magic circle on the ground. This leads itself to different strategies involving magic. The first is simple: while an offensive magic circle is on the ground, any enemies inside will be continuously damaged and allies will be able to enchant their weapon with that magic’s element whenever they attack an enemy within said circle. Likewise, healing magic circles will continuously heal allies standing inside. So the obvious strategy is to use Gathering to lure enemies into offensive magic circles to rack up damage and retreat to healing magic circles when in danger. The other strategy revolves around a special skill Zael will learn that allows him to diffuse magic circles. By diffusing a magic circle, you will cause damage to all enemies, or heal all allies in the case of healing magic circle, as well as an added effect, like silencing enemy mages. However, the damage is a fixed amount, not continuous, though the added effect usually counterbalances that fact. You can also diffuse enemy magic circles in order to get rid of them, thus preventing further damage or preventing the enemy from healing. So the question is: which of these two strategies do you use? Both are equally valid, and you will usually use both during the course of a fight.
Speaking of strategy, since this is starting to be a bit drawn out, I’ll cover battle strategies and the rest of gameplay in my next post. Until then!
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| [September 6, 2012 01:32:24 PM]
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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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| [September 1, 2012 10:54:15 AM]
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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's The Last Story (Wii)
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Current Status: Playing
GameLog started on: Saturday 1 September, 2012
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This is the only GameLog for The Last Story. |
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