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The Last Story |OT| Now confirmed worldwide

Luigiv

Member
Same voice cast as Europe.

Also The Last Story actually has better voice acting than Xenoblade. It's by no means perfect (localised dubs never are) but quality of the acting is still pretty damn good and the accents fit the aesthetic like a glove (unlike Xenoblade which did take some getting use to).

So yeah, I wouldn't write off the Last Story's localisation just based off of Xenoblade.
 

thefro

Member
I know the list of voice actors has already been posted, but what about the name of the voice agency used? Always been intrigued about the company Nintendo works with for the likes of TLS, Xenoblade, Layton, Inazuma Eleven, etc...

Side UK Ltd.

Any tips? Because only Yurick seems to be able to deal considerable damage. I was not joking when I said it took me an entire hour and yet I still only got
the third form
to half health before I got a game over.

Wait until Yurick learns
meteor before using his limit break or whatever they call it in this version
, then spam that.

Probably the best tip I can give you is to grind a couple levels at the summon circle before the last boss door before trying again (or maybe 3-4 if you're really struggling).
 

Gambit

Member
Played for three hours over the weekend. At the moment, I think it's headed towards "good, not great" territory (as many others have suggested).

I don't quite grasp the battle system yet. It has not clicked, but I am still intrigued.

My favourite part so far are the characters. I like them all already. Especially Lowell has a great accent fitting his character. The one whose voice I like the least is Zael. It's still competent, but he is not like I epected.

Still, I like it and am eager to keep playing.

BTW: When should we start the FC-exchange? At one point, when I am further in the story, I'd like to try online.
 
Last session I spent most of my 3 hours mainly in the hub city. So much stuff to do and find, plus way more diverse than Xenoblade. (In which I didn't do any additional quests.) Great hub world, I love it. Also did the chapter with the
kraken boss
and also enjoyed that rather well. Finally the super awkward love scenes have been toned down. (God, I hate Calistas dub)
Nevertheless, this really is no 9/10 and in no way contender for classic RPG. And I actually looked forward to its different approach from Xenoblade (of which I wasn't such a big of a fan as others here).
I'd say I am well past half of the game and what's really striking is the soundtrack. Just where is the music? I like the music that's there, but there is literally not a single dungeon- or area theme, except for the hub city (+castle). It's always silent, excluding battles. Even outside the city, I mostly enjoy the art style for dungeons and architecture very much, but not having any kind of music supporting the mood and atmosphere is just... what where they thinking?? I don't think I've ever seen a JRPG do something like that.
Also, I've encountered lots of slowdown in battles recently and the unholy framerate stays the same.
 
It's a shame that the context of much of the Last Story conversations are fated to include mentions of Xenoblade. Playing the game it's clear that it's great in its own right, not as good as Xenoblade. But it definitely is deserving of praise.

I'd absolutely say that The Last Story is more than just good. Its been getting more fun as I keep playing.
 

Oxx

Member
'Thanks, Crazy Lady!'

Lol.

90 minutes in and I have just been running around the city. That frame-rate is unfortunate.

I'm liking the characters a lot, though.
 

Firemind

Member
Wait until Yurick learns
meteor before using his limit break or whatever they call it in this version
, then spam that.

Probably the best tip I can give you is to grind a couple levels at the summon circle before the last boss door before trying again (or maybe 3-4 if you're really struggling).

Thanks. Had to grind a bit because I was stuck with lvl. 4/6 armour. I don't understand why they didn't add a blue summon circle before the final boss, since almost every other save point before it had one. I thought it was the whole point that the upgrade guy got a teleport device! To teleport everywhere! It makes no sense.

It was a good ending and a great experience, but I was craving for a bit more. The city is huge with a sizable amount of residents, so I was disappointed that there weren't many sidequests. You can't even go into most buildings. The goods and market value thereof were mostly irrelevant. I ignored it for the most part and I still had way too much gold to spend in the end. The upgrade items I got from trading weren't needed as well since enemies kept dropping them. The one trade sequence I thought might have been interesting, but it turned out to be way too obvious and short, and the reward was irrelevant as well.

The game is great for what it does though. The ups are fistpumpingly good, but there are also a number of downs. The last boss for example was a total letdown, considering how much fun prior bosses were. I also have to give a special mention to the sewers. Whose great idea was it to have crabs that are invincible when surrrounded by water? In the sewers? That was mindblowingly frustrating. The music too had its problems. It was a bit too cinematic for my taste. I grew up with crazy synth melodies that were catchy as hell, but none of the tracks in the soundtrack left me humming, except for one battle theme which was sadly only used once (it sounds like it came straight from a boss battle in FF7).

The cast is great. I didn't really care for the two main protagonists, but the secondary characters were all great and memorable. I thought Yurick was an arrogant prick at first, but even he grew on me. It helped that he had the most devastating special attack. Lowell is the man. The moment after the final boss was probably one of the best and most emotional cutscenes. It was pretty touching (when you get out of the building, not immediately after the boss).

So, yeah, enjoyed it a lot. It's just too bad that it's pitted against Xenoblade, which fair enough is consistently a better experience with more value. I think I'll replay Xenoblade some day too, whereas I don't have the feeling I want to play this again any time soon. I suppose that not being able to play as a different character doesn't help its cause. Maybe I'll play co-op or something. We'll see.
 

Zwei

Member
wow, this OT really pales in comparison to the Xenoblade thread, in terms of activity.

I am slightly disappointed
 

Oxx

Member
wow, this OT really pales in comparison to the Xenoblade thread, in terms of activity.

I am slightly disappointed

Where's RPGcrazied when you need him? He contributed many pages to the Xenoblade thread.

'Barman! Fill me up!'
 

thefro

Member
wow, this OT really pales in comparison to the Xenoblade thread, in terms of activity.

I am slightly disappointed

It's not really surprising, there's a ton more obscure stuff to do in Xenoblade (not to mention the difficulty is higher). Pretty much everything that's obscure in the TLS got put in an English guide after the Japanese release, so that's all out there. You can pretty much do what you want for the most part and get through the game 95% of the time.

Also with the GAME thing and the US release announced, I think a lot of people from NA are waiting this time around.

I am sort of surprised there's been little talk about the multiplayer.
 

Firemind

Member
From what I've played in singleplayer, spellcasting is very one-dimensial and I usually like to be the mage in multiplayer. Does it pay off to beat some of the bosses in co-op mode?
 

Oxx

Member
Up to chapter 5. The characters are amusingly bawdy, but the technical issues have been taking the shine off the storytelling so far.
 
It's a shame that the context of much of the Last Story conversations are fated to include mentions of Xenoblade. Playing the game it's clear that it's great in its own right, not as good as Xenoblade. But it definitely is deserving of praise.

I'd absolutely say that The Last Story is more than just good. Its been getting more fun as I keep playing.

I don't really understand the XB love. It's a very nice game, but most importantly its combat is boring and repetitive :-( TLS easily wins in that area - there could be many more good battles though. Production values are not nearly as good as Xenoblade, and of course there's the awesome large world and all the exploration that goes with it, it's just that the combat was imo so boring that I can't even bring myself to play the game again. It could have been so much better with a proper non-MMO style combat system, where fights actually differed from each other and levels didn't determine their outcome almost completely :-( I especially hate that you see all the awesome high levelmonsters early on but have no chance whatsoever of beating them or stealing an item from them or anything. They're just there for when you get back later...ugh. I like TLS a lot more than Xenoblade, it was such a huge disappointment for me :-( I'll restart it after Graces though, maybe I'm wrong about it - happens all the time, like with FF12.
 

Firemind

Member
Apples and oranges, but I like that there's a lot of strategy involved by using different party members and skills in Xenoblade. I feel much more in control. In The Last Story, you're handed what you've been given and you can only issue a primary skill and a supporting skill to party members. The strategy is usually telegraphed to you, so the only thing you need to do is to execute it properly.
 

Tess3ract

Banned
Idk how you think that fights didn't differ from one another in xenoblade. There was a tried and true ideal combat style but that's just how mmos are. If you don't have that, all that changes is you spam your favorite move, but from the front. That's not necessarily better.
 

Oxx

Member
I could probably have finished most battles in Xenoblade with my eyes closed after figuring-out how to use Melia properly.

The fact that the battles were super-quick and there were no random encounters nullified most of the potential boredom.
 
Hey guys, I think they're both really good. ;)

I'm glad to see them both getting very positive review treatment, some of the better JRPG's of this gen have gotten a pretty mild critical response.
 
Apples and oranges, but I like that there's a lot of strategy involved by using different party members and skills in Xenoblade. I feel much more in control. In The Last Story, you're handed what you've been given and you can only issue a primary skill and a supporting skill to party members. The strategy is usually telegraphed to you, so the only thing you need to do is to execute it properly.

Well yeah, that is indeed a problem. TLS is not perfect by far, but I'm still having much more fun with the combat than in XB, where not even this kind of strategy was needed :-/ Anyway, the post became more about Xenoblade than Last Story when all I wanted to say was that I'm loving this game, not that I dislike Xenoblade (which I don't, my expectations were just way too high). And maybe it'll be different on a replay, happened with quite a few games (most importantly FF12).

In TLS I actually really love the story (its cliches just click with me), a lot of the small touches (the item chains mostly, but the hub city itself is awesome) and the combat itself; and since I have no problem with graphics playing Panzer Dragoon Saga or Grandia (on a projector with a 2.5m x 1.5m screen), I don't really mind how TLS looks at all. It's nice if a game looks awesome but that's just a bonus for me. I think it's actually the story that got me, I love that stuff, no matter how badly it's done :)
 

Oxx

Member
There hasn't been enough combat for me so far. Apart from the opening tutorial stuff there has been a lot of story stuff.

I appreciated that it threw you into the action right away, but I could have done with a bit more of it.
 
Like they say, if something is so eager to show you action it probably means it'll be a bit dry but its there to show you to work through it.

My copy is here. I'll wait until the weekend as the manual mentioning save points makes this sound like I'll have to commit time to sessions meaning it'll have to wait.

I found the 60Hz only blurb in the manual interesting. Well the part that went:
We at Nintendo want players to enjoy games under the best possible play conditions, so we've opted to make the exclusively in 60hz (480i) Mode, making this great game even better!
Yeah the bolded part (the ! is there) but also...if Nintendo isn't find excu*...I mean, if 60Hz is the best possible play conditions then why cripple the Virtual Console by being the exact opposite?
"best possible", Virtual console is emulating PAL SNES etc and under official conditions PAL SNES don't do 60Hz...I guess covers that line of logic.

*-I'm guessing developers are the ones who do PAL conversions (well it would explain some of the time differences between PAL releases) and Mistwalker said "no this is 2012 we didn't have to do it on Xbox" which I'm pleased about as its better than Koeis "lol worst 50Hz conversions ever. only." that Samurai Warriors 3 ended up as.
 
There hasn't been enough combat for me so far. Apart from the opening tutorial stuff there has been a lot of story stuff.

I appreciated that it threw you into the action right away, but I could have done with a bit more of it.

I'm at chapter 25 or something, and there definitely should be a lot more combat :-/
 
Started the game tonight and after 3 hours I quite like it (I don't want to compare it to other games at this point). So far I just explored the city and talked to my buddies and the town folks and did some fetch quests. Frame rate is pretty horrible, but nothing I can't bear with. And I did my first Deathmatch 1vs1 and somehow won lol. Looking forward to get some more time with it this week. Maybe we can get some games organized in here (friend codes, here we go again...).
 

Gambit

Member
There hasn't been enough combat for me so far. Apart from the opening tutorial stuff there has been a lot of story stuff.

I appreciated that it threw you into the action right away, but I could have done with a bit more of it.


I also felt there should be a bit more combat, especially since I am still figuring it all out. However, I have just reaslised that I can quick-travel - not only within the city, but even to old dungeons! So I have replayed the robbers' hideout, which was quite fun.

Now I am in chapter 8 and still liking it. Although the story seems trite at times, I quite like it because of all the supporting cast. The two leads are the least interesting characters so far.

BTW: is anyone else tinkering with the colours all the time?

There is so much brown and grey in this game, I feel compelled to add multiple splashes of colour (not least so I can tell my characters apart). Unfortunately, I only have the standard colours so far and haven't found the right ones yet.
 

Reveirg

Member
Still waiting for my HMV copy, here (importing from Canada). I guess I still have at least a few days to wait. Looking forward to trying this one out. I feel like all the Xenoblade comparisons are quite unfair, why are we comparing these games anyway?
 

KenOD

a kinder, gentler sort of Scrooge
Finally got my copy and I'm oh so very happy with it. Though I find myself more pressed to finding colours than I am anything else five hours in. If I have any complaint thus far it's needing the world to be more vibrant for my liking.

I hope people remember to turn off auto-attack, you get so much more out of it with manual.
 

Combine

Banned
So, after skimming the last pages of the thread. It sounds like the two major points are that the game is sadly technically deficient which holds back the presentation greatly, and to turn off auto-attack.
 

Oxx

Member
Classic Controller Pro.

I spent most of the opening area trying to work out if I preferred inverted or normal camera controls.
 

Gambit

Member
Classic Controller Vanilla is my choice. I even regret getting the Xenoblade special edition, as I've never liked the pro Classic Controller. The handles are too narrow/too straight.

At the moment, I am still playing with auto-attack. That's how I started playing it and now I have difficulty getting used to a different controller layout. (I always try to dodge with "B")

Finally got my first additional colour (red), so I shall add a splash of that. (Lowell's scarf for example)
 

Luigiv

Member
I found the 60Hz only blurb in the manual interesting. Well the part that went:

Yeah the bolded part (the ! is there) but also...if Nintendo isn't find excu*...I mean, if 60Hz is the best possible play conditions then why cripple the Virtual Console by being the exact opposite?
"best possible", Virtual console is emulating PAL SNES etc and under official conditions PAL SNES don't do 60Hz...I guess covers that line of logic.

*-I'm guessing developers are the ones who do PAL conversions (well it would explain some of the time differences between PAL releases) and Mistwalker said "no this is 2012 we didn't have to do it on Xbox" which I'm pleased about as its better than Koeis "lol worst 50Hz conversions ever. only." that Samurai Warriors 3 ended up as.

The actual reason the game doesn't support 50Hz is because doing so would require them to re-render all the FMVs. Including 2 sets of FMVs on the same disc means more QA work. Clearly they were trying to minimise QA costs on this localisation, since they didn't bother include dual audio either this time.

But honestly, does anyone actually give a crap about the lack of 50Hz in this day and age? I can't imagine there are too many 50Hz only TVs still in use.
 
I finally got a copy...but I have a problem. There's a stinking green line at the bottom of the screen when I play.
What's this about? It's only there for this one game.
 
Yesterday I finished the game after almost 20 hours with it. Man, that's ending on a high. The climax is really exciting, and the closure very satisfying.

I didn't like it as much as Xenoblade, and still don't know if I like it better than Lost Odyssey. But what I am sure of is this has been a great experience (even with its slowdowns).
 

Gambit

Member
Played another couple hours and am in chapter 11 now.

That means on the boat.

It was awesome! I am really starting to enjoy it more and more, mostly because of the battle system. I also like the way the story progresses through party chatter. It's all done very well.

Furthermore, I played an online match (in which I was not very good). It all went very smoothly, although filling the lobby took quite some time.

Maybe we should arrange to have a gaf meet-up. I don't want to spoiler myself though, so I'd prefer to be further along in the game.

PS: I am already hoping for a sequel on more powerful hardware (i.e. Wii U). There are a lot of elements I'd want to see improved upon.
 

Reveirg

Member
Still waiting for my HMV copy, here (importing from Canada). I guess I still have at least a few days to wait. Looking forward to trying this one out. I feel like all the Xenoblade comparisons are quite unfair, why are we comparing these games anyway?

Scratch that, my copy has already arrived! Not even a week for overseas import, great job HMV! :D

I can't wait to get started tonight. The LE is beautiful btw.
 
Scratch that, my copy has already arrived! Not even a week for overseas import, great job HMV! :D

I can't wait to get started tonight. The LE is beautiful btw.

Wow, I hope you aren't just super lucky, because I ordered from them as well (I'm in Eastern US). I was expecting to wait a couple of weeks...
 

kunonabi

Member
This wait is killing me. Expected delivery is the 9th. I guess it gives me time to polish off my backlog. Working on Muramasa right now and I still need to finish Conduit 2, Arc Rise Fantasia, and Fatal Frame IV. If all goes well The Last Story will be my last game before I start up school and my studies again.
 
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