The Last Story (review)

The Wii has always gotten some flak from gamers (mainly Xbox/PS3 gamers) for it's inferior,outdated engine and thus was dismissed by a good chunk of gamers.At the end of Wii's life,the developers had the brilliant idea of proving us that graphics shouldn't define a game by giving us a gem that goes by The Last Story.

The first thing many will notice is that,barring some rare minor frame rate issues,this game has graphics nearly on par with a Xbox game,which is fantastic,especially considering it comes from the Wii.As a result,it's at the very least,one of the best looking games the Wii has,by a fairly huge margin. It's easy to see that they went all out on the artistic direction.

RPGs being scarce on Wii,Last Story stands out for being an Action RPG,but not only that;it's an Action RPG with stealth,warfare AND strategic elements and it works,thus this batle system is instinctive and fast-paces experience.While this game is pretty linear in execution,each fight has some gimmicks that changes the pace of the fighting (such as having a terrain disadvantage,having to ambush the opponents...).Having to use those situations to your advantage to crush the opposing squadrons is very rewarding and makes the fighting that much more interesting and varied.

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Your teammates actually gives you advices you should listen to.

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The fighting is really situational and that's what makes the fights stand out.

The plot,while not being extraordinary for a JRPG (even frankly wasting some plot lines),is still fairly interesting and boasts both great characters with very human motives (making you care for them) and such,and an excellent narrative as well.It really helps that the sidequests are very well integrated into the plot,to the point they sometimes feel like part of the main quest.That said,a 25-30 hours of story is definitely short,by RPG standards,even though the game is fairly strong in content during those 25 hours.(not to mention,New game Plus and the many,many sidequests)
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The plot suffers some issues but the characters and narrative more than makes up for it.

Interestingly,the game has a lot of smaller details that makes the experience that much better such as the ability to choose what you characters wears (as well as the color of their clothes),the highly interactive environement (being able to play pranks or to eavesdrop almost all the NPCs) and the main city being huge and really full of things to do

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Humongous.

Thr multiplayer is the cherry on top of the cake,though you could arguably do without it.You can either have a battle royale against from 1 to 5 other players,or fight together to defeat a single powerful boss.The battle royale has some degree of balance issues,though it's notably more fun with many competitors at once.

All in all,the game has very few faults that really impedes the game (and even then,more often than not,they're minor) and it's at a rather cheap price,even with the artbook and boxset.(and the normal edition is now even cheaper)It's non-arguably one of the best Wii game out there,if not the best and one of the best JRPGs you will find as well.

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