The Last Story: Gears of Fantasy?
Written by Ryan Johnson (RyanDJ) Friday, 20 July 2012 08:30
Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nobuo Uematsu, famous for bringing us classic stories with unforgettable music in earlier Final Fantasy titles, have teamed up again to bring us The Last Story. Clever twist on a name, yes, but what exactly is it?
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For those two names alone, I have been drawn to the Last Story. I figured anything by those two working in harmony would result in a beautiful experience. As I research it, I'm not sure what I should expect. I originally thought it would be a full-on Final Fantasy-ish title, with an epic story, intriguing missions, and interesting characters to harken back to the classic days of Final Fantasy with the modern look of today's titles. The definition of a Role Playing Game seems to be changing, though. Slowly but surely, RPGs are moving away from the "characters stand in a line and take turns hitting each other" style of old and becoming more action-centric. Over at Amazon, the official blurbs from the creators talk about a "Innovative Real-Time Battle System" allowing you to work with your team to protect, guard, and attack, and an "online competitive or cooperative mode" for 2 to 6 players. Looking at the Wikipedia entry, also discussed is a cover system, allowing you to pepper enemies with magic and arrows from a behind-the-back third person perspective.
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While the preview trailers show a lot of fantasy elements, gameplay to me looks as if it is trying a lot of things at once. I see Gears of War strongly, with the cover-based mechanics, behind-the-back control and shooting, and team-based gameplay with tactical advantages based on what your teammates are doing. I also see the stealth elements inherent in Metal Gear, Sims-style customization of characters, a main enemy that looks a bit too much like Ganon from Zelda for me, and real-time battles that remind me of Kessen (the last RTS game I played). If it has the look, story, and sound from classic Final Fantasies, and most importantly, this all WORKS together, we could be looking at an epic masterpiece.
Sakaguchi is reported to have hated the direction Final Fantasy has gone since he left, which is the main reason this is a Wii-exclusive. Being only on Wii, the non-HD system, Sakaguchi is really making a statement on what he feels is more important, or at least what is less important: graphics should never be the main draw for a game. What good is photorealistic graphics with a terrible plot? What you're left with is the videogame equivelant of a B-movie.
Amazon currently has the game available in a collector's edition for pre-order here
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