The Last Story

[Geoffrey Taucer]

Game looks pretty cool, but I hate the title -- sounds like a deliberate parody of Final Fantasy.

If it actually were a parody, it would be pretty funny, but to make a serious game and give it a title which is simply a paraphrasal of the name of another series seems pretty weak.

[UmJammerSully]

To be honest, I'm just really tired of all these overdramatic JRPGs that often fill every cliche in the book. Star Ocean 4, Last Remnant, White Knight Chronicles and Infinite Undiscovery to name just a few. I feel they all have lame voice actors and generic plots and although it's hard to tell as it's in Japanese, I have a strong feeling The Last Story will fit right in with those examples, even if the gameplay looks pretty cool it's the story that makes or breaks a JRPG, which is a real shame.

The last truly good JRPG I played was Persona 4. Whilst graphically inferior to the examples I mentioned, it has so much more personality, originality and plays superbly to boot.

[The Dual Dragons]

Game looks pretty cool, but I hate the title -- sounds like a deliberate parody of Final Fantasy.

If it actually were a parody, it would be pretty funny, but to make a serious game and give it a title which is simply a paraphrasal of the name of another series seems pretty weak.

I know, the title could have been a lot better lol But I guess he is trying to tell the people that don't know who he is, that he was the creator of Final Fantasy lol Who knows.. maybe for nostalgia reasons, to create anticipation.

But the game looks awesome, has a serious feel to it, looks like it'll have unique game-play mixing action elements into a action battle system. This will be bought on its release day IF it get's a US localization

[The Dual Dragons]

To be honest, I'm just really tired of all these overdramatic JRPGs that often fill every cliche in the book. Star Ocean 4, Last Remnant, White Knight Chronicles and Infinite Undiscovery to name just a few. I feel they all have lame voice actors and generic plots and although it's hard to tell as it's in Japanese, I have a strong feeling The Last Story will fit right in with those examples, even if the gameplay looks pretty cool it's the story that makes or breaks a JRPG, which is a real shame.

The last truly good JRPG I played was Persona 4. Whilst graphically inferior to the examples I mentioned, it has so much more personality, originality and plays superbly to boot.

Agree with most of the titles you mentioned, but SO4 isn't all cliche. The characters may be unlikable to many, but they're not all cliche. And I don't think going to planet Earth of the past and ending up blowing it up before returning to the future is cliche. Tons of unique stuff in SO4..

And the way the main character becomes 'EMO' to most people, he became extremely rich and interesting to me.

PS: Not to pick a fight, but I pull my hair playing Persona, I've given Persona 3 a shot.. and I can't stand the whole school concept.. makes me sick to my gut.

[UmJammerSully]

Agree with most of the titles you mentioned, but SO4 isn't all cliche. The characters may be unlikable to many, but they're not all cliche. And I don't think going to planet Earth of the past and ending up blowing it up before returning to the future is cliche. Tons of unique stuff in SO4..

And the way the main character becomes 'EMO' to most people, he became extremely rich and interesting to me.

PS: Not to pick a fight, but I pull my hair playing Persona, I've given Persona 3 a shot.. and I can't stand the whole school concept.. makes me sick to my gut.

You startin' summat, eh? *raises fists*

I haven't played Star Ocean all that much so judging by what you said, I'll let it slide.

And yeah, Persona isn't for everyone. It's different f'sure.

[liquid wind]

This was finally confirmed for US release a few minutes ago by Reggie, will be out sometime this year

Looking forward to this and Xenoblade, haven't played any new JRPGs in forever

[Meteo Xavier]

The Wii is finally getting a shot of some serious RPG gaming.

[Thalzon]

The Wii is finally getting a shot of some serious RPG gaming.

Well, besides Rune Factory, Arc Rise Fantasia, Fragile Dreams, Muramasa, Opoona, Tales of Symphonia 2, Phantom Brave, Valhalla Knights, Super Paper Mario...

[GravitySuitCollector]

Since Tales of Graces doesn't seem to be planning a US release, curse them lol.

DDD:

Anyways, the game looks cool. I'll be looking forward to it.

[XPRTNovice]

Old Thread...rise from your grave, to save my daughter! [/obscure Altered Beast reference]

So did anyone ever play this? Thanks to my move I'm way behind on my games, but I heard absolutely amazing things about Xenoblade Chronicles and absolutely abysmal things about The Last Story. Did anyone play TLS or both of them?

[Swifthom]

Played both. Loved both.

They offer 'very' fundamental experiences. Xenoblade is a 'massive' open world adventure, with a huge exhilarating story that takes you through the end of the world and back again.

The Last Story is much quieter, more personal, more involved, more detailed, but just as fun in different ways. Loved both, and bizzarely, if I play them again i'd do Last Story first.

My full thoughts on Last Story:

http://imburningout.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/it-feels-little-unfair-to-constantly.html

Haven't reviewed Xenoblade, but it's an excellent JRPG (as long as you can forgive VERY involved inventory management, something which is very quick and easy and not particularly important in Last Story)

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

Well I only played the game a bit last year, since Dolphin still wasn't running the game particularly well and my Japanese at the time still wasn't amazing, but from what I played I could definitely gather why people might assume early on that it MAY be a bit simple? But honestly I could tell by the way more and more concepts were being added(performing sneak attack headshots, using Area of Effect magic, healing and so on) gave me the impression that the game was going to get more complex as time went on. That's as far as my impressions go I'm afraid.

[XPRTNovice]

Thanks for the opinion Swifthorn. Joe Juba's review in Gameinformer basically called The Last Story lackluster, saying that "in a genre where so many games are mediocre, it shouldn't have been this hard to make something above average". I think his problem was that it was just another JRPG. I was really disappointed when I read that review, because in the past he and I have linked up almost 100% in our opinions of games. I'll have to put Xenoblade and TLS in my queue though.

[Necrotic]

Play both, they're some of the best RPGs I've played in a while.

TLS has an 80/100 on Metacritic. That's about where I'd put it too. It has a fantastic battle system with a lot of depth. I highly recommend if you play it, switch the battle setting to "Manual" and it becomes a very deep and engaging game. The gameplay is tight, has a really good upgrade and loot system, the plot has some redeeming qualities (quest for knighthood/princess stuff introduced at the beginning of the game is a really charming aspect of the plot) but there's other more obscure stuff that you might not like, on the other hand the characters are some of the most memorable in any RPG ever and the side-quests have a lot of personality. The music by Uematsu has some really fantastic tracks, but outside of those a lot of them also feel heart-breakingly generic. In Swifthom's review above, he describes TLS as being a different game with a different goal and I liked his use of the word "personal"; the game is really intimate in its characters and the setting takes place mostly on an island kingdom called Lazulis and doesn't take you outside of the central city much. It has a New Game+ feature and is VERY replayable. Definitely worth purchasing and playing through. It's the farthest thing from "just another JRPG" but at the same time I wouldn't expect your mind to be blown away by it either.

I just started Xenoblade for the first time a week ago. The production values, while still quite good, aren't as good as TLS, but I can already tell they sacrificed close details for a game that's going to be a lot more expansive. To make up for the lack of detail and polish, the world has a lot of character and vibrancy to it; it's pretty gorgeous in its own way. The battle system is very MMO-like. The music so far is amazing, many steps ahead of TLS'. The side-quests are far more generic though, very MMO-style as well - but one thing I like is that you generally don't have to collect back from NPCs on your fetch/kill quests as the game will reward you immediately when you complete them. The game knows it does a lot of things, the game knows it can throw an overwhelming number of quests your way, but the game also values your time and I like that. I'm not far enough to comment on the story and characters yet. It feels a lot more traditional. For what it's worth, it has a higher score on Metacritic (92%) but I don't want that to take away from the fact that I think The Last Story is worth playing.

It's hard to compare the two, especially when they're so different. So I definitely recommend playing both if you have the cash.

[Brandon Strader]

I own a Wii, but my mom uses it to watch Netflix. If someone could tell me a very easy way to hook up dolphin, I would really appreciate it, then I could check out the last story and Xenoblade possibly.

[Malaki-LEGEND.sys]

You can check out their website over at http://www.dolphin-emulator.com/. The emulator is pretty advanced at this point, and as long as you have a computer with the guts to play something circa 2008 or so and are cool with not running it in HD, you should be able to run it just fine(Skyward Sword looks beautiful on it in HD). They have a start up guide video on their front page.

You WILL need a USB bluetooth dongle to get it working with your actual WiiMotes and nunchucks though, as well as either a wireless IR sensor or 2 candles(yes it works). You can map most all controls to your keyboard and mouse if you have absolutely no other alternative though.

[Thalzon]

Still getting around to finishing this game. I think I'm basically right at the end. Xenoblade seems like the longer game of the two, but I've been having fun. I think I know what's gonna happen in the end, though.

[Swifthom]

Xenoblade's the longer by far... But it also involves a LOT of needless backtracking and insane random 'stuff' that's practicaly worthless to anyone besides hardcore box tickers.

On the other hand every speck of dust in the Last Story is there for a reason

Edit: Oh, predictions for the end. Exactly where are you and what do you expect?

I was quite pleased by how things I suspected at certain points turned out not to be... quite... nah.

Need to know where you are before I can comment on whats really what. There are some BIIIIIG spoilers in Xenoblade.

[Thalzon]

Well, without giving anything away, I correctly guessed the final boss and what they did throughout the story, but I guess that would be pretty obvious by the time you're railroaded for the last few dungeons.

I beat the final boss and am now on the epilogue, which is pretty neat. Apparently in new game plus all weapons can be raised to level 99, so there's that to look forward to as well.

[Swifthom]

EDIT: can't get spoilers to work so screw it