The law of averages

I finished up The Last Story last night. I'm still trying to figure out what I think of it. Right of the bat, the game did not live up the the expectations, realistic or unrealistic, that were placed upon it. Similarly to Lost Odyssey. From the outside the game seemed like a grand epic, which turned into a mediocre adventure once the player actually got their hands on it. The same is true of the technical side. The promotional media was carefully manipulated to give the best possible outward appearance to what is actually a very basic, and sometimes awkward game. To put it bluntly, The Last Story is the very definition of “jank.”

The game starts off strong, with characters spouting off about dreams and stars and other such metaphysical nonsense. This is simply the device to get the plot rolling along, which does happen fairly quickly and with much fanfare. Midway through, however, it hits a wall, and comes apart, which wouldn't be much of an issue, if there was a good reason for it. It's as if the writers ran out of ideas, but wanted the story to keep heading in a certain direction, so they simply started down that path without any explanation. The chapter based presentation allows them some degree of leeway here, but as a gamer I don't feel the “it happened off camera” excuse holds water. If I'm asked to play a game, I better be the one responsible for driving the action, otherwise I can go watch plenty of movies instead. It's doubly disappointing coming from Hiranobu Sakaguchi, a creator I respect, who's responsible for one of my favorite character driven games ever, Final Fantasy VI, and to a lesser degree, Lost Odyssey, who decided to make this his personal project. It only serves to underscore the fact that he isn't a very good story teller. To be fair, the official line is that the original story draft was turned down, and had to be rewritten to comply with Nintendo's standards, and likely preserve the pretty white Wii packaging. (CERO C, and above rated games ship in black colored packaging, as opposed to the usual white. The Last Story is rated CERO B, roughly the equivalent of ESRB's “T.” By comparison, Lost Odyssey is rated “C.”) It does seem like there are remnants, literally, of what may have been great at one time. Half the game takes place in ancient ruins, uncovering forgotten secrets, which perhaps given more time and money could have been explored, again literally, and from a story perspective. A brief scene at the end where the main character plays through a flashback he's been experiencing regularly gives us a brief glimpse of what could have been. The Last Story is essentially the core of a game, with barely any of the usual superficial fluff that serves to flesh out the world and the characters that inhabit it, which in turn helps make for a more compelling gaming experience overall. If the player is expected to spend the next 30 hours in this world, it batter be damn well established, and interesting. I personally look for this every time I play a RPG, and can never understand players who complain about such “useless” elements. There is no such thing. From the foods that they eat, to the gods that they worship, any and all details help define a civilization. That said, I have never once skipped a cut scene in any game, let alone a RPG, but I found myself compelled to hit that Start button so the scene I was watching would end, and I could get back to killing lizards. (Note: Cut scenes can't actually be skipped in this game, since the next level is loaded as they're playing out, but they can be fast-forwarded.)

The actual game part of The Last Story is similarly bland. It is one of those unfortunate games that are trapped on the hardware they're given, and have to make due. (i.e. Shadow Of the Colossus) A great game developer can usually make the decisions necessary to preserve the designers' original vision and execute on it. Artoon, now part of parent company AQI, are not those developers. The frame rate drops into the teens often when the screen fills up with character models and spell effects. In a turn based game like Blue Dragon (the previous collaboration between Mistwalker and Artoon) this was not much of an issue, but in an action game like The Last Story, especially in situations that require some sort of precise timing, this can get disorienting, and frustrating when it leads to a missed opportunity or even death. Thankfully the developers decided to provide generous health reserves (with Life Points in addition to Hit Points) to the characters, as well as a simple healing mechanic (regenerative healing magic, and automatic revival of fallen comrades), in addition to checkpoints before each encounter. While the game system is unpolished, it thankfully does not punish the player for it, which was one of my original fears. The crutches offered the player actually serve more to swing the balance heavily towards their favor. The hardest part of almost any encounter is figuring out the gimmick which will then allow the player to inflict massive damage to the enemy. (Using an ice spell, for example, to flip an enemy crab onto its back.) This aspect is also so unbalanced, that the few times that the player is asked to rely on their brute strength, the game can become tedious and frustrating. For this eventuality, the devs have prepared instanced battle encounters that the player can enter continuously to gain experience points and levels, which do affect the character's performance significantly. There is a noticeable difference in battle performance between a level 10 character, and level 11 character. This is one aspect of past Mistwalker games I've appreciated, and am glad to see return. If anything, Sakaguchi knows how to make a good battle system. (Which incidentally explains what happened to the Final Fantasy series, but I digress.)

At the end of the day, sadly, The Last Story feels like a shoestring budget game, albeit with all the bells and whistles of a major title, that had the bare essentials it needed, to get the points the creators wanted, across. Perhaps it's more disappointing because it was a project developed by the father of Final Fantasy, and published by Nintendo, which couldn't capture any of the magic that those names usually entail. Taken by itself, The Last Story is a competent game, if a little on the light side in terms of content and presentation. After finishing it, and starting over on New Game +, I couldn't bring myself to rationalize a second play-through. I don't feel as if I missed anything significant, as far as I could tell. The game is split into 44 chapters, some being optional, and I had seen all 44. Some parts seemed brilliant and inspired, some were bland and derivative, and some down right frustrating. If all those experiences are averaged together, The Last Story ends up squarely in the middle of the road, a very average experience. If you must boil it down to an arbitrary numerical value, I give The Last Story three out of five big cats. The extra points are for getting stuck during the “ending.” Yowza.

Coming up: My review of ASH...