I was told The Last Story was a 30-40 hour game, but I fast forwarded a lot of scenes because they were hella cheesy and finished in 28 hours and 40 minutes. I finished it in January so I don’t remember too many of the details now. General experiences and impressions follow.
First, the battles. After 20 hours I finally started to get the hang of the battle system. For one thing I realized that 5 KO’s before a Game Over is a lot of leeway. Just take off Gathering when the heat gets too much and pass through a Heal Circle once in a while and Zael will be just fine. Once I figured that out, I was able to spend time focusing on my allies and what they were getting up to.
By the end of the game I was actually enjoying myself, running around reviving people, killing mages, dispelling enemy circles and generally having a good time. I even got to control some of the other party members, which wasn’t as exciting as I’d hoped. It’s a shame that I only got to this point when the game was almost over. The last boss was eeeaaaassyyy, possibly because I was over-leveled (avg. 67). Definitely easier than some of the battles I’d faced till then (you haven’t seen the last of me, Cave Cougars!). Maybe Mistwalker made the game so short because they were gambling that players would enjoy fighting enough to replay it? If the rest of the game wasn’t quite so dreadful they might have won that bet.
Visuals, graphics, whatever they’re called. All the browns and yellows and dark shadows made things hard to see, especially in the dungeons. For that reason (and that reason only, I swear) I left my characters virtually naked throughout the game. To make them stand out from the backgrounds and enemies, you see. Dungeons, the town and the castle were all bleh. And the weird rubber faces in CGs actually scared me the first time. They looked like chipmunks with too many teeth. 2/10 all around.
Next the soundtrack. It’s no FF8 soundtrack or even Guin Saga soundtrack but it had some memorable tunes. The regular battle music, the boss music (always got me pumped), the arena music…hmm, maybe I spent too much time fighting. I don’t comment too much on music because I’m majorly tone-deaf. At any rate Uematsu does “grand” music and “tense” music very well, and the rest of the soundtrack wasn’t too bad either.
Last, the story. I was expecting it to be bad, but it was BAD. Like, there are interesting kinds of bad, and there’s So Bad It’s Good, but this was just a not-even-trying-but-hoping-you-won’t-notice kind of bad. (spoilers follow)
I’m not bothered or even surprised that Dagran turned out to be the last boss. I only wish it had happened for a far more sensible reason than “Astor killed my daddy and I was looking for revenge this whole time.” First off, there was no hint that Dagran was out for revenge on Astor at any point in time. It seemed a lot more natural to me that Astor found out something he shouldn’t have and had to be silenced. Then Dagran made Jirall take the fall for Zael to cover things up. I thought the Count was in on the whole thing as well. Only Zael threw a spanner in the works by refusing to become a knight when he should have, leaving Dagran high and dry.
Up to that point, cool, made sense. When Dagran disappeared for a while I knew he was coming back to cause trouble, but… I just thought his reappearance would make sense, you know? Seriously, what did he want the power of the Outsider for? If he wanted his mercs to become knights, Count Arganan was long dead and Calista was on their side. Knighthoods galore were bound to follow. He’d already gotten his revenge on Astor. Plus Zael had a mountain of treasure in his room from the Gurak raid so they weren’t going to starve. Why the Outsider?
And if Dagran was just envious of Zael from the start then why drag in all that irrelevant stuff about Astor and Jirall? Or maybe Dagran wanted success but only by his hand and on his terms? Basically he was just throwing a massive hissy fit at the end? Which is not a bad motivation for a normal villain but is really weak for a serious last boss. Either way I was very disappointed by that turn of events.
The love story between Zael and Calista doesn’t even deserve a mention. But I mentioned it anyway so you wouldn’t think I’d forgotten. Congratulations Zael for porking the girl before the end. And at least she didn’t turn out to be his long-lost half-sister or anything. We probably got off lightly, considering how much worse it could have been.
As for the Outsider, a.k.a. the love child of Meteor and Lavos, well, no one has ever accused Mistwalker of originality before and now thanks to The Last Story no one ever will.
Your review made me laugh, in a good way, several times. I almost shot beer out of my nostril in that second to last paragraph. It’s nice to read something that isn’t pure gush about this game.
I should say, I am a fan of Mistwalker, I absolutely loved Lost Odyssey, though the fact it was essentially the unreal engine dropped on top of what could’ve been an 8-bit gaming experience was what sold that game to me. And made it a turn-off for plenty of others, I understand. I also loved the ‘memories’ in that title, which made up for some quite quirky story arcs…
Anyway, I’ve not played The Last Story (yet) but plan to sometime this year. In the meantime though, great blog – keep it up and keep it real 🙂
Thanks for reading! I’m a champion gusher when gushing is called for but TLS wasn’t worth even a trickle. My experiences with Mistwalker haven’t been as positive as yours, probably because I haven’t played Last Odyssey and Blue Dragon. What I have played are Away: Shuffle Dungeon and Archaic Sealed Heat, which aren’t well-known outside Japan for very good reasons.
Still, you like the developer and the game is super-affordable ($29.99 last time I checked) and it’s not so bad that I regret playing it. Who knows, you might enjoy it.