dbarry_22's Video Game Reviews (221)

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The Last Story   Wii 

A RPG on the Wii You Need to Play    4.5/5 stars

The Last Story is finally a RPG worth playing on the Wii. With beautiful visuals, enriching music, solid voice acting, and a thought out game play mechanic, this game will keep you interested till the end.

The story is solid but not overwhelmingly amazing. You follow a group of mercenaries as they work to find answers to their past and to work for a better life by becoming knights. Eventually the main character does encounter a woman and a love story begins which intertwines with everything else. Most of the story takes place on Lazulis Island, most of which is made up of a large city and castle. Soon into the game you're introduced to the Gurak, another race on the planet which is at war with the humans. I'm not going to spoil the whole story, but lets just say it's good enough to keep you interested.

As the main character Zael, you have powers the rest don't. By activating the power of the outsider, you attract enemies from the rest of your group and you can revive downed comrades. Every time you begin a battle, you have 5 lives to work with so if you fall you don't have to hope your healer revives you. When one of the meters is completely charged, you can also order the rest of your part what to do, which is necessary at times since it takes different strategies to take out opponents, a quality I'm a big fan of.

Most RPGs that come out now have strayed away from random encounter and turn based attacks. While this does immerse you into the environment and battles more, to me the actual game play has been lacking when it comes taking down enemies. Often times you just try to run behind your enemy and swing your sword as quickly as possible, doing as much damage before the enemy notices. Not much is done when it comes to interacting with your environment to help you with your battles. The Last Story incorporated multiple elements to help do that and make battles much more fun. First, when equipped with burst arrows, you can blow up pillars and bridges. Falling debris can rain down on your enemies or they fall to their death if standing on them. Second, you can hide behind walls and rocks, giving you an opportunity to strike your opponent when near doing massive damage. You can also climb up walls to thrust your sword down on your enemies as well. When it's all said and done, you should be looking to take advantage of the room you're in instead of focusing just on the enemy.

When it comes to weapons and armor, you spend more time upgrading them than you do obtaining them. This can be frustrating at times because you will hit a wall that can't pass until you get later in the game. There are many side quests to find which will help level you up, gain money, and learn more about the world, so I recommend you find as many of them to do as possible.

The graphics and music in this game are top notch. Yes, the resolution is 480p and the frame rate isn't ideal at times, but for the most part you don't notice it. It's realistic but not boring brown, castle floors looked waxed, characters have a wide variety of clothing. It's something I haven't experienced before on the Wii.

There is one major bug in the game worth noting. There are a couple times you encounter a person in town that you have to chase and catch. When I have had to do this, as I've tried to catch this person, after a while I end up in a white nothing-less background, unable to move past obstacles that are suppose to be there. Eventually I found a way to get out of it, and the white eventually turns back into the people and buildings they were suppose to be, but it was jarring. It also happened to me multiple times so I don't think it was a situation unique to me.

The game isn't long when compared to other RPGs. I finished it in under 30 hours. But, I do know now I failed to find all the side quests and there is the ability to play a plus game, so it's likely I will be playing this again in the not too distant future.

Truly a high quality RPG on the Wii. And yes, it's about time.

4.5/5

PS - The final battle for me was by far the most challenging, so keep at it!

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dbarry_22- wrote on 01/17/13 at 04:24 PM CT   Considering my Wii was serviced not that long ago and I haven't experienced any issues with any other games, I'm going to say the way I chased the guy is different than the way you chased him. I'm confident in saying that it's a bug in the game and not my console.

Nelson Schneider- wrote on 01/11/13 at 04:06 PM CT   I never encountered that bug you found. From your description of it, it almost sounds like your Wii was having trouble streaming data off the disc.