The Last Story (Coming to NA)

[demi]

There's no fault in enjoying The Last Story, as long as you are aware you are enjoying something not as good as Xenoblade. Sometimes you're high and dry for an RPG. It's cool.

I'll be playing Graces F next week. It's probably not as good as Xenoblade. But it's cool.

[Bebpo]

My problem with The Last Story is that the story was insultingly terrible.  If they had the same linear weird gameplay with a story I could actually get behind I'd call it a flawed gem or something and be supportive.  But it's a flawed rpg with an annoyingly bad plot and characters.  So I dislike it even if it was still entertaining and the mechanics were not bad in themselves.

[Bebpo]

There's no fault in enjoying The Last Story, as long as you are aware you are enjoying something not as good as Xenoblade. Sometimes you're high and dry for an RPG. It's cool.

I'll be playing Graces F next week. It's probably not as good as Xenoblade. But it's cool.

Graces isn't as good as Xenoblade, but it's still pretty good.  The combat and title system are fuck awesome and fun.  Story is bland as hell and not many interesting characters and the world is boring, but it's enough to get you to keep playing and enjoy the combat and building your characters into badasses.

[wrowa]

My problem with The Last Story is that the story was insultingly terrible.  If they had the same linear weird gameplay with a story I could actually get behind I'd call it a flawed gem or something and be supportive.  But it's a flawed rpg with an annoyingly bad plot and characters.  So I dislike it even if it was still entertaining and the mechanics were not bad in themselves.

Flawed gem? I wouldn't be able to call it that either. I had fun times with it and I like the ideas it brought to the table, but considering that I can't think of any idea that hasn't been executed poorly in the game, I wouldn't be able to use the word "gem" in a sentence together with Last Story.

And, yeah, the story... It can't even be called a trainwreck, since that would imply that there would have been a train to start with. The title Last Story was probably not taken literally enough by people. It's the last unused story that was burried somewhere deep down in Sakaguchi's drawer; a story so pointless he never decided to use it.

It tries to be political -- and it fails. It tries to be about racism -- and it fails. It tries to be about the tragic bond between two childhood friends -- and it fails. It tries to tell a love story -- and it fails. It tries to build up some really weird lore -- and it fails (honestly, I can't think of any other RPG whose lore was less credible than Last Story's...). It tries to tell a story -- and it fails.

The only two party members that are somewhat likeable are Lowell and Syrenne. The way they constantly pick on each other is entertaining -- at the same time both of them don't have any background story whatsoever. It simply doesn't exist. The other party members, including the main char, have something that resembles a small background story, but the stories are as deep as a puddle. What all of them also have in common have are shallow, one-sided, boring personalities. The side-characters of the game, guess what, have neither backstories nor plausible motivations for what they do. The same is true for the antagonists, sadly.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And then there's the final plot "twist". A twist that was after a third of the game obvious to even a braindead person...

[close]

Oh well. At least it's no Eternal Sonata whose story made me seriously question whether or not witnessing it made me lose some IQ points.