Reviewing The Last Story

February 24, 2022

First of all, I’m kind of reluctant to put any variation of “review” in the title, since that’s usually associated with game criticism that tries to be objective. I just wanna give my thoughts on this game much like I did with Sonic Chronicles, but I have to give my blog post titles some variety. Would it be better to title all my game reviews with “I finished [Game] last night” instead? Let me know in the Neocities comments (or any of my social media) and I’ll consider changing the title accordingly.

With that disclaimer out of the way, let’s start talking about The Last Story.

The Last Story is one of the three Wii games brought over to the west in Operation Rainfall, all of them characterized by having their english voice cast composed mostly of people with a British accent. In terms of recognition, I’d say this is the second most talked about game behind Xenoblade, and for good reason (no offense to Pandora’s Tower).

I’ve had a really fun time with this game! I didn’t get all the subquests and didn’t find all the hidden dialogue, but I got all the optional chapters and clocked in at around 25 hours of gameplay. There’s not much variety in terms of game mechanics or minigames, but the base concept is so solid that I didn’t get tired of it until the very end when I found out I had missed two optional chapters before the end.

The story begins with a group of mercenaries getting hired by the count of the Arganan royal lineage. The protagonist, Zael, unearths a strange power called the Mark of the Outsider that initially lets him revive allies (in a very limited capacity) and draw the attention of all enemies toward him, but later proves to have a greater influence on the very land they inhabit, Lazulis Island.

The world has been plagued by a history of war between humans and the Gurak, a humanoid race said to have more raw physical strength and technology than humans. At the same time, a strange blight is spreading across the land, causing the soil to become infertile and forests to die out along with their guardian spirits.

A brief description of each of the protagonists:

• Zael, the main protagonist who you control for most of the game, possesses the Mark of the Outsider. A kindhearted defender of the people whose backstory is deeply tied with the royal family. The story starts out with him being a generic fantasy JRPG protagonist, but it slowly integrates some more nuance about how he handles his desire to help others versus his own personal needs.
• Dagran, the leader of the group. Laidback and loyal at first, he treats his comrades like family and wishes to make them all knights. Befriended Zael from a young age, having him be the first to join the group. Not very notable for the first couple chapters, but I have some thoughts about him I’m gonna talk about in the spoilers section.
• Syrenne, one of the two comic relief characters of the group. Her main character trait is her alcoholism and her constant use of innuendos towards both men and women. Not much is said about her backstory besides her being desensitized to the war due to getting knocked out during a battle and waking up alone in the middle of the rubble. Shares a close bond with:
• Lowell, the second comic relief character and the womanizer of the group. Even less is said about his backstory aside from his previous romantic partners having been killed, which made him have his current attitude towards relationships. He’s on the least offensive side of the spectrum when it comes to that trope, mostly because the setting kinda tones down the nature of the compliments he hands out.
• Mirania, the shy girl with an affinity for healing and nature magic. Raised in a forest that had its life energy drained, she set out to find the cause of the degradation of the land. She’s somewhat airheaded and more feminine than Syrenne, only showing rage on rare occasions. Contrasting with Syrenne’s drinking, she is said to have a huge appetite.
• Yurick, the youngest of the group. A skilled fire mage with family issues, he starts out very cold and arrogant, but an event early on in the game causes him to warm up to the rest of the group. His new personality plays off Lowell very well, and he’s often seen hanging out near Mirania although the two don’t actually have that many meaningful interactions.
• Callista, the princess of the royal lineage of Arganan. The group first meets her as she is sneaking out of the castle to watch fireworks, unaware of her true identity. She is also skilled at healing as well as light mage, but sheltered from the outside world because of her status. She and Zael quickly fall in love.

The voice acting in this game is amazing. I can’t think of a single instance of dialogue that made me cringe, all the performances are fine at worst and genuinely enhance the game experience at best. Like mentioned previously, it consists mostly of British accents.

Two names I want to highlight are Blake Ritson and Colin Ryan. The former has voiced a couple of Dark Souls characters, Alvis in Xenoblade and Aymeric in Final Fantasy XIV. Here he voices Jirall, a member of another royal lineage set to marry Callista before Zael arrives and messes up everything. He is the usual high and mighty yet cowardly minor member of a rich family you’d expect to see, but Blake really puts on an amazing performance and gives some nuance to his descent into madness.

The latter is most well known for his performance as Alphinaud in FFXIV, and his voice as Yurick here kind of sounds a lot like it (though respecting the nuances of the character). I might be a bit biased because I like Alphinaud, but I also think his performance is very good. He manages to nail the specific kind of apathy someone like Yurick would feel toward the world, and keeps his playful arrogant tone present even after the warming up.

The characters play off each other extremely well. You’d think having two pervert drunkards in your main JRPG party would make the experience unbearable, but my favorite lines of dialogue came from these two. Syrenne is blunt and simple minded (not in a bad way), making her character great for demonstrating how the war affects the common people. Lowell is mostly pure comic relief, but it's a high quality one, and he does have some sentimental moments towards the end of the game.

Dagran is probably the weakest of the cast, but only because his role throughout the story starts to rapidly decline as the game goes along until the very end. A good handful of chapters have him be on the sidelines or completely absent, but for good reason. He’s the most down to earth out of the cast, so his commentary could get boring if it weren’t for the wackier side of the party bouncing off him.

Zael is fine. I can see some people calling him generic or boring, and I wouldn’t exactly disagree. As the main driving force of a JRPG, he’s what you think he’s gonna be. No crazy twists, no super unique backstory – just a boy, his sword and his forbidden love.

Zael on the left, Callista on the right.

Now for the gameplay!

When I heard that there were 44 chapters in total, I thought my playthrough would be at least 50 hours long. But the definition of a chapter here is different from the usual JRPG format. A chapter is usually only a couple of combat screens, a full map, or a breather in between those. And I like it! It gives focus to the moment-to-moment gameplay, having each encounter feel unique and well planned. There are no random enemy encounters, but there’s optional ones that you can do as many times as you want.

The combat system is probably the most unique aspect here. It’s mostly in real time, but with a focus on strategy. By default there is no attack button, you simply run up to enemies and Zael attacks them with his blade automatically. You can also use his crossbow to shoot enemies and survey the environment for setpieces that can be used to your advantage.

Your allies are completely controlled by AI, although you get a skill that can make them favor certain moves or strategies. Aside from that, the only way to directly command their actions is making use of the aforementioned environment surveying. You can spot pillars that can be destroyed with magic, or tell an ally to investigate a hidden door for you, or to focus on a certain important enemy.

Most of the interactions involve the mages.Their magic is powerful enough to destroy the environment and send rubble crashing into your opponents, and it leaves behind a magic circle if it hits the floor. You can step over the offensive ones to imbue your weapon with the spell’s element for a short time, or get healing over time from a recover spell. You can also use a skill to diffuse said magic circle, causing it to disappear but also providing an AoE effect to allies or enemies nearby. These range from guard breaks and a burst of healing to making your enemies trip and granting a barrier to all your allies. You unlock the Spirit Gauge towards the later half of the game that lets you unleash powerful special attacks, and the ones that grant Zael a buff can be shared with the party by using the diffusing skill.

There’s a variety of enemies, but most of them are humanoid and have a clearly defined role: mage, healer, archer, warrior, or leader. This is where the tactical part of the game comes from. The strategic aspect comes not so much from what attacks you can use, but what kinds of enemies to attack first and how to get to them. If you’re familiar with RPG tropes, you’d correctly guess that killing off the healers and mages is your number one priority. Each enemy encounter has them in unique formations and environments that make that goal different and more difficult each time.

The gear is streamlined to just two (although most characters only have one) weapons slots and two gear slots. There’s only about five main gear sets in the game, and they all have the same base stats. You can completely customize your armor color for free, and even exchange items for more dye colors. You can upgrade gear by spending money and sometimes specific items, but it takes a bit before it becomes important.

Of course, this system isn’t perfect. Your mages in particular have the tendency to get stuck in positions where their spells are hitting walls instead of enemies, and some of the combat situations are mechanically unfair due to your attacks having lower priority and speed than your enemies later on. But I wouldn’t say it’s a hard game overall – in fact I had a very easy time with it until the final boss. I’ve made use of the optional enemy encounters a couple of times, but mostly because I was excited to see the new combat situations I’d be put in and not for grinding.

The exchange of mechanical depth for positioning and theoretical strategy based gameplay isn’t for everyone, though. I’ve seen some people complaining that the game is too boring or repetitive for them and I can understand that. The controls also aren’t perfect, but I can’t say much since I was using the classic controller setup (and also emulating the game). One thing I’ll say is that aiming sucks with the joystick, and also that, even if having attacks be done automatically is the best choice in my opinion, there are moments where you want to weave through a crowd of enemies but you keep hitting them instead because of the proximity.

The music is fine! A lot of the songs aren’t very memorable outside of the game, but they blend into the environment well enough that they still enhance the experience in the moment. There’s a handful of songs that are memorable even without the gameplay though, such as Dance of the Dead and Invitation to Madness. By the way, the music was composed by Nobuo Uematsu! The Final Fantasy guy.

And finally, the graphics are really pretty for a Wii game! There’s some places where the textures look like mud, and I can’t say I’m particularly impressed with a lot of the character textures, but the environments are very well done. It’s one of the few Wii games that utilizes shaders to their full potential, and it shows. While sometimes they can make the scene just look blurry for no reason (the rain effect in particular is very funny), the lighting is phenomenal and the VFX are so good that they made my emulator freeze for a couple seconds once in a while.

Even if it's not everywhere and nothing compared to what we have today, volumetric lighting in a Wii game is still pretty cool!

I’m gonna rant a little bit about some story aspects, so spoilers ahead! If you don’t want spoilers, just scroll down until you see a picture of Zael looking like the Joker. You’ll know what it is. I’ll put alt text on it for screen readers, but I’m not sure how skipping around works on that. These are mostly just copied from my Twitter thread about the game (which I should link some time but whatever).

Spoilers begin!

• Having Dagran be the one to betray the team and be collaborating with the Gurak makes sense from a narrative standpoint, but I don’t like it a lot since he’s… the human character with the darkest skin tone in the game.
• Similarly, this game's equivalent of the generic goblin enemy, the Reptids, were also designed with some poor taste in hindsight. Humanoid reptiles living under the city, hoarding gold and performing rituals? Yeah… no. One of the puzzles even has you rotating two overlapping triangles to form a symbol similar to a star of David, and while the puzzle itself was created by an “ancient civilization”, putting it anywhere near the reptids is a horrible, terrible move.
• The anti-war message is very simplified for today’s standards. Showing that civilians on both sides are suffering and eager to return to peace is cool, but I feel like there was minimal accountability from the people in power.
• On a more positive note: At the end of Jirall’s descent into madness, Zangurak finds him and gives him a cursed sword that corrupts his mind even further in exchange to making him more powerful. In the boss fight with him he starts spouting nonsense about how “people are teasing him” and calling for his mom. It’s kind of a cheap attempt at least minute sympathy, but Blake Ritson nailed the performance so well that I actually felt really bad for the guy when he accidentally impaled himself and died at the end of the boss fight.
• Therius got stabbed in the dick and died. Except he didn’t die, but it looked like it. And I’m kinda glad he didn’t die, because I think it would be really funny if he actually died from getting stabbed in the dick.
• Speaking of, the best cutscene in any video game ever (skip to 15:37 if the timestamp doesn’t work).
• Having the Outsider be a cosmic, almost eldritch entity draining the land because of its nature as a seed that absorb outer space energy to make new worlds was a twist I really wasn’t expecting, but it’s really fucking cool.

End of spoilers!

To finish this, I guess I’ll give it a score to go along with the reviewing thing. Though instead of ranking it on quality or whatever, I’m gonna make an estimate of how long the game and its aspects are gonna stick in my head.

Story

Eh, two weeks to a month. Nothing too unique here, even if there were some cool thematic moments.

Characters

Forever. Really, I think this is the JRPG party with the most chemistry I’ve ever seen, and the stellar voice acting really helps bring it to life.

Music

A month or two. Most of the music isn’t very memorable as I’ve said, but the tracks that are go really hard.

Graphics

Forever also, but just because of the shaders thing. It looks very pretty, but I can’t say the art style itself is that different from other fantasy RPGs.

Gameplay

A year or two! The more tactics focused gameplay was really satisfying to pull of even on its most mediocre moments, and I wish more real time tactics games took this approach.

Final score

The game as a whole is gonna be in my head for like… three to six months, I think. But the characterization, some of the tracks and the voice acting are gonna stick with me forever. This was truly a fantastic game and I had a ton of fun.