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The Last Story (Japan) |OT| The Gooch's Final (?) Fantasy

T

thefro

Member
2ewh093.jpg


The Last Story is the latest RPG from Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy. It is the first game he has directed since Final Fantasy V.

The Last Story is set on Ruli Island, where a group of mercenaries have arrived from the war-torn continent seeking work.

DEVELOPER: Mistwalker/AQ Interactive
PUBLISHER: Nintendo

STAFF

DIRECTOR | Hironobu Sakaguchi (Final Fantasy)
SUPERVISOR | Takuya Matsumoto (Blue Dragon)
CHARACTER/ART DESIGN | Kimihiko Fujisaka (Draakengard)
COMPOSER | Nobuo Uematsu (Final Fantasy)

RELEASE DATE | January 27, 2011 (JP)
GENRE Action RPG
PRICE | ¥6,800
OFFICIAL GAME SITE

Review Scores
Famitsu: 38/40 (10, 10, 9, 9)
EDGE Magazine: 8/10
BOXART AND BUNDLES
2u8xan9.png


  • Special edition Wii console bundle (¥25,000) with game, classic controller pro, and "Elements of the Last Story"
  • Preorders of the game get a 10-song mini soundtrack and artbook, "Elements of the Last Story".

Original Soundtrack by Nobuo Uematsu Available 2/23/2011
3 CDs with Approx. 160 minutes of music

FEATURES
30-40 hour main quest
Innovative battle system; a squad-based action RPG
Cover system, stealth, and destructible elements in the environment
Online multiplayer for up to 6 players in both cooperative and competitive modes with friends and random players
Parties up to 6 characters at once
New Game+ with difficulty rebalanced for a 2nd playthrough
Supports Classic Controller
16 save slots plus auto-save at checkpoints
Fast-forward and control the camera during cutscenes

VIDEOS
demonstration of gameplay by Sakaguchi
Sakaguchi gameplay demonstration part 2
NEW 1/24Sakaguchi Gameplay Part 3 (Ruli City) Youtube Link
Trailer #4
Commercials
Battle System Trailer
Debut trailer (July 2010)
Story Trailer (October 2010
90 min Presentation Video featuring a hour of gameplay + online mode demo


CHARACTERS

2zdyjx1.png


Elza: An orphaned mercenary who dreams of becoming a knight.
Kanan: The orphaned niece of Count Alganan who dreams of leaving the castle and exploring the world.
Quark: The leader of the group who has known Elza since their youth.
Seiren: A drinker with a foul mouth; she fights with twin blades.
Yuris: The youngest member of the party, but a highly-skilled magician.
Jackal: A cocky mage who can use both ice magic and swords but cares deeply about his allies.
Manamia: A healer who loves the forest.

10zn0uc.png


General Trista: Formerly the highest ranking official in the Imperial Army.
Tasha: A skilled knight and the apprenctice of General Trista
Count Alganan: The ambitious ruler of Ruli Island who employs Quark's mercenary group.
Zangurg: The powerful King of the Gurgs and enemy of Mankind.
 
T

thefro

Member
GAMEPLAY SYSTEMS
- You control the main character Elza
- Combat is real-time
- Two control options for attacking: Auto-attack (automatically attacks enemies when you title the control stick towards them and they are in range) or manual mode (uses button presses for attacks)
- In both options, you use buttons to block and evade
- There is a parry move where if you block some attacks at the right time you will parry and counterattack, doing more damage
- Automatically switch to combat when approaching an enemy, no transition screen, etc.

Pointer System:
- Enemies have lines drawn from them showing enemy focus (i.e. which ally the enemy is targeting). If the enemy can't see you they can't target you.
- Color indicates enemy type (archer, solider, mage)
- Several options in the Config menu from displaying no pointers to displaying them for everything.

hw038w.jpg


Gathering:
- Draws enemy focus to Elza. This allows your allies time to cast spells (a spell will fail if your ally is hit while casting it which takes several seconds).
- Gathering Burst: Elza will get a "burst up" if he blocks an enemy attack while in gathering mode. If he gets enough burst ups he can do a "Gathering Burst" when going out of gathering mode. This damages enemies & may slow them down.
- Cure: Elza can revive your fallen allies if he touches them while in Gathering mode. They will revive with temp. enhanced abilities.

99p2yd.jpg


Command Mode
- Freezes time and allows you to give specific commands to allies as to what to do, and where to target spells & special attacks.
- Game switches to an overhead view when commanding a character where to cast a spell and you can target exactly where it will land on the battlefield.
- You don't have unlimited use of Command mode. After you use it you can't use it again for a little while.

Magic Circle:
- When a party member casts a spell, a "Magic Circle" is left afterwards at the point of impact
- If an ally stands in the magic circle, his or her weapon will temporarily gain the elemental attribute of the spell that created the circle. For example, if Elza stands in a fire magic circle his sword will catch on fire and have a fire attribute for a limited period of time.

esqc6f.jpg


Spread:
- Elza can use his wind magic to spread the effects of the magic circle
- Spread an ice circle and the enemies will slip and fall
- Other examples Holy = defense up for allies when spread, and spreading Cure = Allies recover HP & Status abnormalities
- Elza can also use his wind magic to break enemy magic circles

Focus
- Elza can use Focus to see enemy weak points and special abilities
- He draws a bowgun when he uses the ability, so you can use it to sneak up behind cover and snipe enemies.
- This is useful for taking out enemy healers that are hiding
- The bowgun can be upgraded and has multiple ammo types, from arrows to explosives to banana peels.

2414ef5.jpg


Destructable environments
- Party members can use use magic to target and destroy bridges, columns, stalactites, chandeliers, etc.
- Elza can also use his bowgun with the right type of arrow to destroy some of those things
- If the debris falls on enemies it will hurt them and possibly kill them

Stealth and other tactics
- There are situations where you can take out an enemy stealthily before they see you and call for help, which triggers a much larger battle
- You can use your bowgun to take them out or a quick attack starting from cover.
- You generally do more damage by attacking an enemy from behind
- "Surround": You take more damage from enemies when they surround you and do more damage to an enemy when your party surrounds them. A "SURROUND" pop-up will appear in either red or blue when this happens.

Tension Arts
- Simliar to Limit Breaks, they are special battle moves that deplete your tension gauge which fills up over battle

Equipment
- Many different types of equipment available which can be upgraded in Ruli City
- You can customize the color of each piece of the armor and even take it off down to your underwear while keeping the same stats

Ruli City
- Battle Arena where you can test your skills and win money from townsfolk who bet on you. Sports-style play-by-play commentary by announcers during the battles.
- Appraisal shop where you pay money to identify special mystery items
- Use the upgrade shop to upgrade your weapons/armor if you have the necessary items and gold to do so

Cooperative Online
- Form a party of up to 6 to take on a boss character
- Equipment and levels carry over from the main game
- Get items based on which boss you fight
- There are special weapons and armor that can only be found online.

Competitive Online
- 5 minute Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes
- All players get weapons, items, and paint at the end of the round
- Top players get the best items
- Ranks at the end of matches
- Powerup items on map (sticky sword, prank banana, defense-up)
- Levels/stats of equipment don't carry over from single player to this mode, but the look of your character does
- Can play as characters not playable in single player mode

Remember to use spoiler tags when appropriate

English Walkthrough/Translation Wiki
 
M

mehdi_san

Member
My body (and preorder) are ready!
Dumb question: does anyone know if there's gonna be a firmware update with the disc? I'd like to keep my homebrew channel (without it, I can't play any of my US games...).
 
M

Mailenstein

Member
mehdi_san said:
My body (and preorder) are ready!
Dumb question: does anyone know if there's gonna be a firmware update with the disc? I'd like to keep my homebrew channel (without it, I can't play any of my US games...).
Click to expand...
Could be possible, since Nintendo likes to dish them out with their AAA titles, but it's not like you need to install that anyway.
 
M

mehdi_san

Member
Mailenstein said:
Could be possible, since Nintendo likes to dish them out with their AAA titles, but it's not like you need to install that anyway.
Click to expand...
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can either use Gecko to launch the DVD without using the main game channel, or install the game on a USB drive and launch it from there, right?
 
E

Effect

Member
I need to stop going into these threads. Just making myself sick since I can't play this. Great opening post however.

Just to confirm. Who exactly owns the IP to this? Nintendo correct? Or is it a joint ownership?
 
Z

ZephyrFate

Banned
I want this game NOW. Kimihiko Fujisaka is one of my favorite Japanese game artists, and 6 party members in battle is something I've wanted in an action jRPG since ever.
 
M

Mailenstein

Member
mehdi_san said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I can either use Gecko to launch the DVD without using the main game channel, or install the game on a USB drive and launch it from there, right?
Click to expand...
Correct. Or you got preloader installed and disable the auto-update function for the disc channel, so you can start it from there. But that's likely the worst option :D.
 
T

thefro

Member
Regulus Tera said:
More like The Last Story Only Release |OT| am i rite?


I hope I'm wrong.
Click to expand...

I was thinking of doing "The Last Story |OT| of perhaps Mistwalker's Final Fantasy", but I'm not fully satifised with the wording.

Playing off the pun of it either bombing and being their last game or the next Final Fantasy.
 
B

Big One

Banned
Regulus Tera said:
More like The Last Story Only Release |OT| am i rite?


I hope I'm wrong.
Click to expand...
Well if it does well enough in Japan it should be localized, I would think. It seems to have solid press so far, and I hear it's the most anticipated title in Japan.
 
M

mehdi_san

Member
Mailenstein said:
Correct. Or you got preloader installed and disable the auto-update function for the disc channel, so you can start it from there. But that's likely the worst option :D.
Click to expand...
Yeah I think I'll just go with the USB loader :)
 
R

Regulus Tera

Romanes Eunt Domus
thefro said:
I was thinking of doing "The Last Story |OT| of perhaps Mistwalker's Final Fantasy", but I'm not fully satifised with the wording.

Playing off the pun of it either bombing and being their last game or the next Final Fantasy.
Click to expand...

I would have gone with "Sakaguchi's final fantasy", or maybe something like "if this bombs Sakaguchi better go back to Chrono 3".
 
B

Bebpo

Banned
Ugly in-game character models aside, I will be playing this next week. Mistwalker has never made a bad game yet, so at worst it should still be solid.
 
R

RevenantKioku

PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
Bebpo said:
Ugly in-game character models aside, I will be playing this next week. Mistwalker has never made a bad game yet, so at worst it should still be solid.
Click to expand...
Wait, A.S.H. was good? Fuck! And I sold it for like ¥20.
 
B

Bebpo

Banned
It has its flaws, but yeah, I really liked it. Imo the weakest Mistwalker games are Away & probably BD+ (didn't play BD+ but everything I've heard has been negative).

Ash was a challenging srpg with great art, music, decent story. AI was flawed and the battles were slow iirc.
 
D

dvolovets

Member
I'm still pissed about ASH never making it outside of Japan. It seems like a great SRPG in the Fire Emblem mold -- something that you don't see too often nowadays.
 
R

RevenantKioku

PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
The battles drove me nuts with their speed. I think I played one or two before shelving it. I've never seen a game price bomb like that one. Then again, Devil Survivor is the only SRPG I've ever beaten or liked.

I kinda want to get this next week but I kinda am expecting it to bomb and I can get it cheap. Of course that never happened with Xenoblade and I'm still waiting for that to be cheap. Le sigh.

The commercials are getting me all excited, though.
 
T

Takuhi

Member
Arrggh... Waited too long to preorder and now the preorder goodies are sold out at every online retailer that takes western credit cards. (Bic Camera has it in stock, but doesn't.) Anyone know anywhere that still has it?
 
M

Mockingbird

Member
I just came back from reserving a 3DS and TRU was all sold out!

But they had a lot of The Last Story booklets out and I got one.

110120_161512.jpg
 
M

mehdi_san

Member
Takuhi said:
Arrggh... Waited too long to preorder and now the preorder goodies are sold out at every online retailer that takes western credit cards. (Bic Camera has it in stock, but doesn't.) Anyone know anywhere that still has it?
Click to expand...
I think only small not franchised stores still take reservations, even amazon sold out a while ago (but you may still get one from them by reloading the page every 5s, it sometimes pops up as in stock for a few seconds before selling out again).
 
M

Mockingbird

Member
Takuhi said:
Arrggh... Waited too long to preorder and now the preorder goodies are sold out at every online retailer that takes western credit cards. (Bic Camera has it in stock, but doesn't.) Anyone know anywhere that still has it?
Click to expand...

You do not live in JP right?


http://www.yesasia.com/global/the-l...n-japan-version/1023756742-0-0-0-en/info.html


I think you can ask them if you'll get the bonus items or not. You can also try going to Daiei supermarkets in JP if you live there.
 
S

seady

Member
I hope Nintendo of America doesn't use games like Magical Starsign or Glory of Heracles as examples/excuses to reject this game from coming stateside.
 
T

Takuhi

Member
American importers never seem to know if they're getting the preorder items and never make promises about handing them out...

I guess I'll take medhi_san's advice and keep refreshing Amazon.com... Like I have been... For a week. (sobs)
 
M

Mockingbird

Member
Takuhi said:
American importers never seem to know if they're getting the preorder items and never make promises about handing them out...

I guess I'll take medhi_san's advice and keep refreshing Amazon.com... Like I have been... For a week. (sobs)
Click to expand...

DO IT NOW! IT WORKS!

http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0036WSJXY/

Hmm. I guess my cache wasn't cleared. Some guy is selling it for 8000 yen though.
 
M

mehdi_san

Member
Mockingbird said:
DO IT NOW! IT WORKS!

http://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B0036WSJXY/

Hmm. I guess my cache wasn't cleared. Some guy is selling it for 8000 yen though.
Click to expand...
I don't think your cache is the problem. When it shows up as in stock, it literally goes away in seconds. You need to configure your account for 1-click checkout, verify that your logged in (so it won't ask you for your password at the checkout), and keep refreshing the page. I did for Last Story last week, and I also did it for the 3DS this morning :)
 
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