This game's pretty damn decent.
I can't quite afford it right now and I didn't expect it to be any good anyway, so I gave it a rent over the weekend. The concept was always quite intriguing to me and I thought that it would be good enough for one or two hours worth of fun.
To begin with, I think that the story and art-design are pretty great. The background story is unique in an awesomely disturbing way, the art-design isn't anything special but it's interesting to look at and gives me a little ICO vibe. Pretty cool. I think the first five minutes are already more intriguing than the whole of Last Story's architecture and story, no kidding.
Story-wise it's all a big mystery in the beginning. There's that cursed girl who's slowly turning into some tree-monster and the only way to cure it is giving her the hearts of some disturbing monsters to eat (and as demi sad, when she eats these hearts she's making bizarre orgasm sounds and that's not enough: she even moves accordingly.
). There's the player character who's kind of a bland white knight, who's doing everything to save his beloved one. And there's some kind of strange demon merchant grandma who's obviously not to be trusted, but hey, you trust her anyway, because she's awesome. Oh, and then there's the 13 towers that are floating above a big chasm and which are holding the world together with some pairs of giant-ass-chains. The world is quite nice, really. The story isn't the main focus of the game and it doesn't really move forwards for quite some time, but it's still omnipresent in its own way. It's kind of like ICO: the story is a little in the background, but what is given to you makes you feel pretty immersed with the world and gives a great atmosphere. It feels like more than just the sum of its parts.
The gameplay? Not quite as interesting. The combat is a little shallow, the boss fights are not as epic as I thought and the usage of your own chain could be fleshed out more. When I finished the first tower I actually felt confirmed with the assumptions I made before I started playing the game: It has a nice idea, it's fun to play, but not fun enough to keep my interest. At that point I turned off the console and thought that I'd probably never touch the game again.
Well, I was wrong. I booted it up today morning again and ... I played. And I played more. And I couldn't stop playing. I'm now at the sixth tower and after pretty much every tower I was thinking "okay, it's enough, I'll stop playing for now". But I didn't. I don't even quite know what is capturing my interest, but
something is.
Long story short: If you have the chance to play it, give it a try. It really is worth it. It won't make any GotY lists, but it's the kind of game that will be considered a "hidden gem" in a few years time. It's flawed, but nevertheless fun and even though it doesn't do anything groundbreakingly new it still feels fresh and interesting. It's not quite the stuff I'd want to pay fullprice for (and the LE is quite lame), but I think I'll be able to pick it up for 30€ in a few months.
Oh, and it's a better looking game as Last Story by any means. It's running smoothly, it doesn't try to shoehorn some next-generation effects on the Wii and even the image quality is quite good for a Wii game. Though, after Last Story's vomit-like IQ
everything is better to look at.
