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

sprsk said:
My favorite encounter so far had me and Quark sitting outside this room where a guy and his gang of thieves were hanging out. Quark says to me, "Elza you stay here, we'll go around and attack from the other side. Don't move till I give the sign" So I stay there and wait. Then, I hear Quark go "Ok get ready to attack in 3... 2... GO!" and I see him bust through the other side as I'm running in through my side, we sandwich the enemies and take em out. It was so cool. The whole dungeon (The raid on this thief's hangout) really felt more than just an RPG dungeon and more like we were really in there with a purpose. Something you just don't get in RPGs.

Anywho, it's late so forgive me if my impressions are all over the place. To me the game is really something special. Nintendo has to be localizing this. They HAVE to be.

So you get to think like a general and fight like a Spartan? Do they do anything awesome with the press of a button?
 

sprsk

force push the doodoo rock
Cow Mengde said:
So you get to think like a general and fight like a Spartan? Do they do anything awesome with the press of a button?


From what I saw before the game came out, you can totally micromanage everything, but as far as I know I don't have access to that yet. I may just not be looking in the right place though. I assume I have to wait a little while longer before they give me free reign. Battles can very quickly go wrong if you just start whacking bad guys.

I'm about 2:30 in at the moment btw.
 
sprsk said:
From what I saw before the game came out, you can totally micromanage everything, but as far as I know I don't have access to that yet. I may just not be looking in the right place though. I assume I have to wait a little while longer before they give me free reign. Battles can very quickly go wrong if you just start whacking bad guys.

I'm about 2:30 in at the moment btw.

I was partly poking fun at Dragon Age 2, but it does sound really cool. I've actually been dreaming of something like this, but for a strategy game. Your gameplay impressions definitely caught my attention. Before, I was just looking at it with curiosity.
 

farnham

Banned
Cow Mengde said:
I was partly poking fun at Dragon Age 2, but it does sound really cool. I've actually been dreaming of something like this, but for a strategy game. Your gameplay impressions definitely caught my attention. Before, I was just looking at it with curiosity.
this is described as a a/srpg isnt it ?
 
Actually, now that I think about it, there might be a serious flaw here.

The combat requires that you follow orders exactly to win? Does that happen in every battle? Doesn't that make things incredibly linear and mindless? You don't even strategize on your own, and just does what the game tells you to. I hope it's only the beginning.
 
sprsk said:
This game is not importer friendly, it is fuuuuuuuuuull of voice and it's not just meaningless chatter. I liken it to when I got burning rangers back in high school. I had no idea what to do and I was bored as shit. This was because I didn't know that they were giving me directions. The characters in Last Story are fairly constantly forming strategy on the fly and telling you to do things.

Meh, I finished the Japanese version of Burning Rangers in one sitting so not too concerned. Doesn't really matter as watching the streams has just sold me even more on the game.
 

thefro

Member
Cow Mengde said:
The combat requires that you follow orders exactly to win? Does that happen in every battle? Doesn't that make things incredibly linear and mindless? You don't even strategize on your own, and just does what the game tells you to. I hope it's only the beginning.

There's multiple ways to go about all of the battles, and once you get command mode you can manage who and where the other characters attack.

An example is there's a boss battle at the end of Chapter 1. After you fight the boss for a while and maybe knock off 10% of his HP after a lot of effort, you're told to lure him onto a bridge with your gathering skill which leads to an event scene. Gooch tweeted yesterday that you can also just stay and take the time to kill the boss and you get an experience bonus.

Another scene at the beginning of the game the obvious thing to do is to blow up a bridge that enemies are on, but I've also seen streams where the players just take out the enemies on the bridge one by one with arrows.

Unfortunately I'm going to have to wait another day or two to play since FedEx screwed up my delivery.
 
Well if it's just the beginning battles, then that's fine. I was worried every battle requires that you follow some spoken instruction to fight the most effectively instead of coming up with them on your own.
 

Amir0x

Banned
damn this game sounds hot

fuck, the one Mistwalker game I'm really interested in... goddamn it NINTENDO BRING THIS SHIT
 

Azure J

Member
farnham said:
this is described as a a/srpg isnt it ?

After watching some gameplay from that stream yesterday, I think calling this a "Squad Based Action RPG" is more apt. Interestingly enough, I wanted something like this for YEARS now, it just looks so dynamic and the possibilities in battle alone are staggering. I definitely spoiled myself though since the scene I watched being played through was the same "thieves' hideout" sp0rsk was talking about.

So. Godlike.
 
AzureJericho said:
After watching some gameplay from that stream yesterday, I think calling this a "Squad Based Action RPG" is more apt. Interestingly enough, I wanted something like this for YEARS now, it just looks so dynamic and the possibilities in battle alone are staggering.

....A shame for us in the west.
 

thefro

Member
AzureJericho said:
After watching some gameplay from that stream yesterday, I think calling this a "Squad Based Action RPG" is more apt.

I would agree, that's a better description than what I've been saying. It's not perfect but it's going to be hard to come up with a good name initially since this is a new subgenre of RPG.
 

Big One

Banned
After watching the streams for hours on end I think I've decided that this game definitely isn't import friendly at all, very text heavy. That's usually the case with most JRPGs though, but don't be fooled by the screens with their names in English in battle and minimalistic UI. This is someone who played through Mother 3 before it's fantranslation twice and thought it was pretty easy to understand w/ a translation walkthrough.
 

onipex

Member
I don't think I ever hated Nintendo for not bringing a game to the US before. I never really cared to get my hopes up or let it bother me. First for everything.
 

EDarkness

Member
Cow Mengde said:
Well if it's just the beginning battles, then that's fine. I was worried every battle requires that you follow some spoken instruction to fight the most effectively instead of coming up with them on your own.

Well, the first boss fight you can do two ways:

1. You can knock the guy off the bridge.
2. You can try to take him down normally.

I thought this was pretty awesome. Especially since the scene starts out saying "We can't win." Heh, heh. Felt good to down the guy. I hope other fights are this way because it spices things up a bit.

I hopped online and ran a couple Versus fights and a few Raids. Man, the Raids are intense. Downed a boss and go this awesome sword that lets me use it in the main story. Ha, ha!! I ran a number of raids, but was only able to down one boss. The other fights are hard as hell, and with other people not knowing what to do, our merry band of 6 kept getting our butts handed to us. Think I'm gonna run some more raids tonight. I barely lost my Versus fights, but it was fun running around smacking people with a bottle of wine! Heh, heh.

Nintendo did a good job with this one. I'm having a lot of fun.
 

sprsk

force push the doodoo rock
Cow Mengde said:
Actually, now that I think about it, there might be a serious flaw here.

The combat requires that you follow orders exactly to win? Does that happen in every battle? Doesn't that make things incredibly linear and mindless? You don't even strategize on your own, and just does what the game tells you to. I hope it's only the beginning.
You definitely don't have to follow orders exactly, but in the beginning it's something you'll have to do cause you're not really used to how everything works.
 

farnham

Banned
man

tales of graces - best tales in ages combatsystemwise
xenoblade - best jrpg in ages
this - also best jrpg since xenoblade


and we dont get them

well i bought them all in japanese but whatever
 

traveler

Not Wario
This is the first JRPG in forever that I've been excited for. As someone who grew tired of the relatively mindless gameplay after experiencing the unique encounter to encounter raid design in WoW, it looks like an breath of fresh air for the genre. No more random battles? Pre-battle planning? Real time combat system with an emphasis on positioning and a pause available for mid fight tactics ala BG2, DA:O, etc.? Just amazing. Looks better than most WRPGs on the horizon to me and, given my preferences, I find that quite a shock. I really hope this we get an English version, one way or another.
 

Skiesofwonder

Walruses, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers and badgers.
This game is coming over, I am VERY confident it that. Xenoblade is the one to worry about, sadly. :(

Sprsk your impressions were amazing that is the most hyped I have gotten over a neogaf post since the (in)famous Scribblenauts post.

Was that you too lol?
 

Hiltz

Member
These hands-on impressions have also got me quite excited and I generally don't play JRPGs on the home console.

NOA's silent treatment about bringing this game overseas is really scaring me.
 
Skiesofwonder said:
Sprsk your impressions were amazing that is the most hyped I have gotten over a neogaf post since the (in)famous Scribblenauts post.

Was that you too lol?
No, that was Feep. Who I believe was at that party you held, wasn't he?
 

EDarkness

Member
More impressions:

Went online again and ran a few more raids. Damn, these fights are intense, long, and fun as hell. I got a badass new sword and was able to rank up to 4. A few of the bosses are downright nasty, and having a good strategy is the key to winning as well as having a balanced set of roles in the group. I think I'm gonna get back into the main game, but it's hard to not keep rolling with the same party for a few fights, especially if they know what they're doing.

I really hope this game does well.
 
Just finished the thieves hideout mission. Wow, so much fun!
Despite the fact this REALLY isn't a novelty to JRPGs overall, there was not a single second I felt bored playing this mission. It feels surprisingly refreshing and I have to admit that I had a hard time playing JRPGs at all in the past few months.
And oh, I'm really digging the character dialogues, especially Seiren lol.

So I'm 3hrs in, explored the city quite a while (damn, so many items to find) and so far I'm really loving this game. I didn't play any online yet, so I may do that next.
 
ivysaur12 said:
First shipment was 120k, so that's awesome.

Just to note: when Nintendo/ Wholesalers are out of the stock for the first day, assuming the first shipment estimate was actually correct(which we can't be positive about), that just means that Nintendo shipped 120,000 copies out. 120,000 copies are in stores/gamers hands now.

It does not mean that 120,000 copies have been sold through at retail.
 

squall23

Member
cosmicblizzard said:
So of those that have it, if you guys could compare the battle system to any other game, what would it be?
Mass Effect 2 with swords and magic with a bit of Monster Hunter thrown in.
 
squall23 said:
Mass Effect 2 with swords and magic with a bit of Monster Hunter thrown in.

Ugh.

I REALLY want to be excited about this game (it is the Gooch after all) but I'm finding it to be extremely difficult. Why did his last game have to clash with my tastes so much :(
 

farnham

Banned
FINALFANTASYDOG said:
Just to note: when Nintendo/ Wholesalers are out of the stock for the first day, assuming the first shipment estimate was actually correct(which we can't be positive about), that just means that Nintendo shipped 120,000 copies out. 120,000 copies are in stores/gamers hands now.

It does not mean that 120,000 copies have been sold through at retail.
well there wont be a second shipment so soon if the reaction was that bad

i saw one shop that sold out of the game yesterday

also sofmaps last story promotion was stunning
 

Skiesofwonder

Walruses, camels, bears, rabbits, tigers and badgers.
cooljeanius said:
No, that was Feep. Who I believe was at that party you held, wasn't he?

Oh wow that was FEEP! I can't believe I didn't put two and two together, I would of said something for sure at the party! :0
 
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