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The Last Story PAL WII-SUSHi
English | Platform: Wii | Release: February 22, 2012 | Publisher: Xseed Games | Developer: AQ Interactive | 4.86 GB
Genre: RPG
Have you ever felt that JRPGs can be a bit… well, sterile? That you're essentially walking down a series of very pretty corridors dressed up as castles or forests or caves full of doors you can't open, knee-high walls that you can't jump over and enemies that can only be fought in separate, specially-approved arenas? The Last Story isn't like that. There's a pleasing physicality to the world and the combat that completely removes that sense of detachment. You can crouch and sneak and take cover behind those walls, collapse pillars and bridges with magic and fire an arrow at an enemy lurking at the other side of the room without being magicked away to a combat arena. Some of the doors still don't open, but you can't have everything.
The Last Story swirls the best of JRPG characterisation, presentation, customisation and storytelling together with third-person action combat and elements of stealth and real-time strategy. It's among the best-looking games on the Wii; its visual style and setting aren't as idiosyncratic as the colourful, vaguely surreal environments of Xenoblade Chronicles, but it handles huge bosses and detailed cities and busy action scenes confidently. It tells a good story that incorporates familiar elements – the orphaned hero, a band of mercenaries who aren't what they seem to be, princesses with magical powers – without relying on them completely.
The game tells the story of Zael and his friends, a charmingly ragtag bunch of kind-hearted swords-for-hire that end up mixed up in something much bigger than their usual missions. It familiarises you with its characters and themes gradually, leaving you to develop a bond with the core protagonists before introducing an overarching evil that threatens the peaceful Lazulis Island. The Last Story's locations are varied: a detailed city, smaller towns, volcanic caverns, forests, tombs. A largeish section of the game even takes place on various boats.
Its greatest strength is its characters. None of them are that interesting on their own, but together they have great chemistry and banter that makes you want to like them - and believe in them, too. This is helped greatly by superb localisation, with accents from every corner of the British Isles from Northern Ireland to Scotland to posh Southern England. Most of the bad guys have gravelly Cockney voices, where Syrenne – one of the main characters – is a cheerfully drunken, sweary Mancunian, and her fellow mercenary Lowell has a soft, Ewan McGregor-style Scottish lilt.
The script is lively, colloquially translated and peppered with jokes; you can tell that Nintendo's localisation team had a lot of fun adapting this for an English-speaking audience. It really emphasises the difference that good writing and translation makes; it can turn characters from sterile, by-the-numbers stereotypes into loveable, vivacious personalities. However, as far as I'm aware there's no option to play the game with the original Japanese soundtrack, which will disappoint some purists.
These characters rescue an overarching plot and setting that's a bit uninteresting on the surface, despite its variety. Really, though, it's that battle system that makes me want to urge you towards The Last Story. This is the only game in this genre I've ever played where I've actually wished that there was more combat. You dive behind cover, dodge and guard in real-time; while guarding, you can automatically vault over and around small walls, enemies and allies, letting you beat a strategic retreat without fiddling with the controls.
Attacking with swords is done by moving the stick towards your intended target. In first-person, you can hide behind cover and pepper unsuspecting guards with arrows, luring them out on their own for a stealth attack, or pick off dangerous mages and healers from a distance while the rest of your team takes care of the front lines. It's fluid and exciting from the start, but it gets better as new abilities are taught to you over the course of the first five or so hours. You soon unlock Zael's Gathering power, which lets you pull the attention of all enemies towards him so that the team's mages have time to cast. Later, a top-down strategic view lets you give individual commands, co-ordinating magic effects and physical attacks - something that becomes more and more important in the later boss fights.
This is one of the best combat systems I've played with in any RPG, Japanese or otherwise. But it's easier than it should be, giving characters five lives each for every individual battle. Marshalling your team effectively gets you through fights quicker and is much more satisfying, but in anything other than the showcase fights, the smart AI will usually carry you through while you just hack away at an ogre or backflip over your team-mates for fun.
The Last Story breaks genre convention in its structure as well as its mechanics. It has the brisk pace and chapter structure of a cinematic action game, which helps keep your interest in the story and character development alive. It also doesn't suffer from the endemic JRPG vice of long-windedness: you can get through the game in 16 or so hours, though 20 is a more probable figure for players who aren't in a hurry. That might feel a bit light for players coming to The Last Story fresh from a more substantive adventure like Xenoblade Chronicles, but the trade-off is that there's no fluff; no fetch questing, no log full of menial tasks that you'll never get around to doing. It lets you concentrate on the story alone.
If you're left wanting more, the inclusion of online multiplayer will come as a pleasant surprise. It's always difficult to test the reliability of these things pre-launch, but the concept – teaming up with five others to take on bosses from the story mode, or a six-player deathmatch/team deathmatch – is great, and shows just how strong the combat mechanics are. There aren't many RPGs whose battle system would be enough on its own to support a feature like this.
You can pick from a gradually expanding roster of skins for multiplayer, including enemies as well as the heroes from the single-player adventure. Items like poison bottles and sticky bombs add an element of chaos that livens up one-on-one face-offs and six-player scrums alike. Pre-launch, with near-deserted servers, I could only get a couple of matches going – but with a busy player population, this could be one of The Last Story's best features.
There's no denying the professionalism of this package. Hironobu Sakaguchi is a titan of Japanese gaming talent, and his direction is evident in The Last Story's confidence and mastery of the genre. A score by his long-term collaborator Nobuo Uematsu lifts the presentation, too, and it's a relief that lacklustre localisation hasn't marred the game's personality. It would be better if it did as much to innovate elsewhere as it does in the combat system, but it's still an encouraging sign that this genre is in rude health – as is the announcement of a North American release later this year.
CLOSING COMMENTS
The Last Story has no significant shortcomings apart from a slight lack of verve; it’s not the JRPG revolution that Xenoblade Chronicles was, and its setting and story remain within safe territory, but great characterisation and an excellent, innovative battle system keep it interesting from the very first chapter to the last minutes. The quality of the localisation is superb, and that great combat makes it more exciting to play on a minute-to-minute basis than any other game of its sort. It’s a game worthy of its pedigree, then, and sits comfortably alongside Lost Odyssey as Mistwalker’s best work.
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