If you go to this game expecting to find a Squaresoft kinda gem like Chrono Trigger/Cross, Parasite Eve or Xenogears, forget about it.

The Last Story it's an ok game that could have been better if the character writting and storytelling was better and focused on the important things, plus it has lots of clichés.
Gameplay it's ok with road for improvement, some of the battles are creative (although the damn npcs don't stop yelling at you to do something ALL THE TIME, even if you're doing it) and some of the others are just tight timings and bosses with stupid health.

Overall an ok entry, not close to the best Squaresoft had to offer...

When I bring up the 2000s nostalgia of JRPGs, there's a good chance I'm referencing this game at some point or another. In preparation for making this list I usually read some literature, listen to some music, or more simply, just play the game to get caught up to speed. The Last Story was a game I remember very fondly, but I couldn't remember for the life of me why. 2012-2013 were some of my most turbulent years of my life, so a lot of gaming done around that time ended up in the memory hole, never to be seen or heard from again.

Fast-forward to 2024, and I've hooked my Wii back up to my HDTV. It took a converter to do so, but I have a lot of Wii games I want to play, especially for this list. The Last Story I bought the collector's edition for when it had a pricing error of 8 dollars on Amazon. It was a part of the Operation Rainfall trilogy of games--one with arguably the largest pedigree--and was developed by Mistwalker under Hironobu Sakaguchi's guiding light, with Noduo Uematsu's beautiful music accompanying it. The game has a compelling art style that, while looking like somebody smeared vaseline on my TV, still looks compelling and gorgeous to this day.

The Last Story had a rather subdued release. It's not particularly remembered among the Operation Rainfall games considering the massive shadow Xenoblade Chronicles cast, but at least it's not Pandora's Tower, lost somewhere to obscurity. And given that, I've met so many people who don't know what the Hell this game is or anything of note other than who made it.

The Last Story is a love story meets political struggle. Let's not mince words here; the story is generic. But its strength lies in the fantastic characterization, banter, and investment in its characters. Even booting the game up for the first time in over a decade, they immediately throw you into the action with all these characters charmingly shooting the shit and working with each other. The romance feels organic and developed. The world and aesthetic they created is very much a fantasy setting you'd expect from Sakaguchi.

So how does it play? Well, it's an Action RPG with a lot of tactics work behind it. The game utilizes a cover and stealth system, and you can aim your crossbow at enemies to signal your party to do various tactics like dumping magic in a chosen spot. There's also an aggro system. The combat is Ys-styled where it consists of running aggressively at enemies until they die, while blocking and dodging. Frankly there's a lot going on with the battle system. It's a fascinating take on a battle system that feels like it could've laid the groundwork for a lot more tactical ARPGs to come in the future.

But honestly, we are here for Sakaguchi and Uematsu. The story has a classic JRPG feel to it, accompanied by gorgeous music. The game has an immaculate vibe to it that just makes the worldbuilding and storytelling compelling, even if it covers a lot of ground both have covered before. It's just a very back-to-basics strong JRPG with some unique spins on the gameplay (ONLINE MULTIPLAYER).

"Final Fantasy" has sort of become a word salad as time has gone on, two terms that just signal an ongoing JRPG franchise, unaware of the irony that it's neither a singular fantasy nor the last one. The Last Story was Mistwalker's last game on console platforms before jumping ship to mobile and iOS. It's a very self-contained, succinct, complete story with a happy ending. And coming out in the twilight years of the Wii in the early 2010s as the gaming industry moved towards the AAA singularity, The Last Story really does sort of feel like the last of its kind, a very faithful-to-tradition, honest JRPG.

Strongly recommend. It's a hard game to play nowadays, but worth it for some forgotten nostalgia.

Mechanically, The Last Story is unique enough to appreciate even if it often falls flat. Gears of War style cover mechanics are certainly unique for a melee focused game. Said mechanics don't really work that well since enemies can often hurt you behind the cover anyways and hiding from enemies just consists of them not having object permanence when you duck/get behind a wall. Still, it's satisfying hiding behind a wall then using a Slash on a group of enemies. Mages casting spell circles and the player dispelling them is a major aspect, so there's an emphasis on tactics and working with AI teammates, but rather than having a general AI menu, all you get to influence them is an ability to command them using part of your skill meter. There's also a fair bit of moments where you have to go into first person and look at things that feel like they're there entirely because this is a Wii game.
Regarding the story, the political aspects are good. The human/Gurak conflict feels well developed. The Gurak are given good development and shown as an actual society. Chapter 29 particularly is a strong one. I wish it committed a bit harder to its themes though. The romantic aspect of the plot feels pretty weak on the other hand. To an extent, some of it feels deliberate with the way that Zael's attempts to reach high society and impress Calista only serve to upset her and drive her away, but that also winds up meaning Calista and Zael don't get much interactions to develop their love beyond "they fell in love at first sight."

One of my favorite games ever. I first played this in 2020, but for whatever reason I didn't finish it until 2021. I think it was because of the framerate issues that made the game a powerpoint presentation and the fact that I hadn't played a Wii game with the nunchuk control scheme in well over a decade.

This game has so much charm. I think the character development of Zael and his friends is what made me love this game so much. In the beginning, Zael's mercenary group gave off the vibes of "We're only together for the job, we're not really friends", but by the end of the game it's clear that they truly care for each other. I thought it was really sweet.

This game isn't very hard, in fact I learned that one of the jokes people made about this game was that it was so easy it practically played itself. It's also only 25 hours long, so if you want an RPG but don't want a 100 hour game then this is perfect. The only times I struggled was during the Kraken fight because of the wallrun move's wonky detection and the Zangurak fight because of the sword-stealing mechanic. Fortunately by the climax of the story, the game dumps experience points on you, so I was able to get leveled up from lvl 35 to 60(?) in the last stretch. I never tried out the multiplayer because it obviously requires homebrew and I didn't feel like doing that.
Not a day goes by where I don't think about this game. Mistwalker loves developing games for systems that nobody has or for systems that are on life support. Please play it.

Ok so. You got: a plot that seems to be picked straight out of a quaint YA fantasy novel, aesthetics that are peak late-00s, and combat mechanics that desperately try to mimic the play aesthetic of seventh gen western action games while at the same time being also, like, sort of very fun in their own right. I'm honestly here from all of it.

Is The Last Story clumsy? Sure. I died laughing the first time I saw enemies hiding behind chest-high walls like this was Gears of War, despite everyone in the fight being armed with swords.

But, I dunno, I love how briskly is it paced; I love how it completely commits to its silly narrative tropes; I love the idiot main character having a full-on dissociative episode when he discovers that the military is actually bad; I love how creative the boss fights and setpieces get at times; I love that everyone in this high fantasy world sounds like they're from modern London; and honestly I just love its state as the historical oddity that it is. Being a full-fledged artifact of an era where the industry was Really trying to bridge the gap between classic jrpgs and modern action games.

While in the end, we realized that that gap maybe didn't need to be bridged at all, I'm glad those in-between years gave us games like The Last Story. As their exploratory nature makes them very unique and interesting.

But yeah, I really enjoyed my time with this game. It's a silly fun time. It joins Crystal Bearers on the short but ever-important list of "Wii games with unique vibes that have surprisingly detailed interaction design and are generally very good and fun and too few people have played". Which is not an actual list, but eventually I might have to make it an actual list.

Al fin un juego de Mistwalker que no me decepciona, tampoco es que me haya flipado, seguramente Lost Odyssey me parezca mejor (aunque no mucho), pero al menos ha cumplido mis expectativas. Jugado en el #EN2022TRPG lo he disfrutado mucho con sus luces y sombras.

Es un juego que tiene decisiones extrañas para ser de Sakaguchi, vuelve a la dirección tras no sé cuántos años (desde Final Fantasy V). La historia sigue siendo una medieval bastante clásica como nos tiene acostumbrados, pero en gameplay sobre todo se sale de su molde bastante.

Para empezar se aleja del rpg por turnos para traernos un arpg, esto también evidencia un poco la crisis de identidad que sufría el jrpg en la época para calar en occidente y cómo los desarrolladores japoneses comentan lo que les costó adaptarse a los desarrollos más potentes, especialmente en las sobremesas de sony y xbox. Sakaguchi comenta además que se fijó en muchos juegos que estaban pegando fuerte en la época, no necesariamente rpgs. Juegos como los Uncharted, Gears of War o Demon Souls dejan un calado de influencia en la propuesta, y me parece especialmente interesante lo que toman de Uncharted.

Tenemos un escenario que muchas veces según avancemos o combatamos se irá destrozando y "transformándose", tomando protagonismo en algunas batallas donde deberemos tenerlo en cuenta, pero la influencia más molona de Uncharted me parece en el tema de las conversaciones ingame. Ya aprovecho y hablo de lo que más me ha molado del juego, y es ese rollo de camaradería que hay entre el grupo, y esto se desarrolla en gran medida en estas conversaciones cuando avanzas por una mazmorra y hablan de chorradas, diálogos que aportan bastante más de lo que parece. No lo hace tan bien como Uncharted, por ciertas limitaciones técnicas o que no han sabido adaptarse a ellas mejor dicho, queda un poco raro que tengan una conversación que incita al contacto físico y los veas parados mirando al frente sin gesticular, pero bueno, minucias. Lo importante es que este rollito que tienen no solo se trabaja en las conversaciones ingame, el juego te recompensa bastante que hables con tus compañeros en la taberna, para aprender más de su pasado por ejemplo (de hecho es que alguno prácticamente no lo conoces una mierda si no hablas a menudo en la taberna). Este tema me ha recordado mucho a lo que posteriormente sería Final Fantasy XV, ese rollito fraternal entre los protagonistas, donde los notas como un grupo y especialmente te interesas por ellos individualmente a través de esa dinámica grupal, en primer lugar son un grupo y luego individuos.

Pero no todo me ha molado tanto, la historia es bastante cliché, tiene algún giro y tema interesante que pega mucho con ese rollo melancólico que tiene, pero en general no es su fuerte, no me ha desagradado y sobre todo me han molado sus protagonistas, pero sin más. Sí que tiene momentos donde la narrativa la siento algo pocha, contando las cosas de aquella manera, sobre todo en los comienzos cuando va presentando al grupo y su objetivo, hace uso de flashbacks de maneras rarunas y hay veces que tiene ciertas transiciones cuestionables. También tiene algún que otro momento de humor japonés que da un poco de vergüenza ajena, aunque al final casi que le tome cierto cariño a estos momentos que rompen como muchísimo con el tono: chistes rancios con Lowell o algunos gestos ultra exagerados que hacen los personajes. Literal tienen una broma con Lowell de pegarle en los huevos, en un juego que va de melancólico, triste y un rollo más serio, son genios. Al margen de esto, la historia pues entretenida, tiene ideas buenas a su alrededor como la ya comentada de los personajes o la forma de presentarte el lore más a fondo, leyendo en la biblioteca relatos antiguos que te adelantan y profundizan en eventos de la historia principal.

Otra cosa que me ha molado mucho es la ciudad de Lázulis, aún con las limitaciones de Wii es un sitio que se siente bastante vivo, y que aporta mucho al worldbuilding del mundo. Funcionando casi a modo de hub es también un respiro visual a mucha mazmorra idéntica que tiene. Es cierto que la mayoría de secundarias que podremos hacer por la ciudad son un mierdón, pero mola tanto visualmente e ir perdiéndote por sus calles escuchando que habla la gente de allí (cosa que aporta al worldbuilding), que solo con eso ya me parece todo un acierto. Aunque en tema secundarias hay otras que tienen su propia historia y tal y molan bastante, sobre todo una en una mansión encantada o una en el epílogo que casi parece otro final. Sí que muchas se podrían usar para aportar más profundidad a los personajes por ejemplo (me hubiera molado mucho conocer más a fondo al grupo principal), pero no están mal.

Pasando ya a la revolución de Sakaguchi: el combate. Me da un poco la sensación de que es una lluvia de ideas donde tenían mil cosas y han ido descartando al azar, hay ideas que aparecen y se van, otras que no encajan muy allá y otras que sí dan variedad estratégica de verdad. El gameplay es tosquete, no es el arpg más fluido del mundo, pero tiene ideas muy interesantes. Al tener los combates planificados por historias, no son los típicos aleatorios (aunque puedes combatir en ciertos puntos infinitamente, pero solo si tú quieres), y tener una duración de unas 20 horitas si no te paras mucho (como yo), en el computo global no son demasiados combates y no se termina haciendo cansino, que es algo que le podría haber pasado con una duración mayor y mucha más repetición a la hora de combatir. Para ir refrescando cada cierto tiempo la jugabilidad te va desbloqueando mecánicas según subas de nivel, empiezas con una para atraer enemigos, que para apoyarte en las habilidades de tus aliados es clave, otra que lanzas un giro que te permite explotar buffos que lancen tus aliados, tenemos luego una especie de modo estratega para realizar combos grupales que es bastante clave, entre otras cosas. Son mecánicas que dan bastante variedad al gameplay, sin ser súper complejas, aportan lo suficiente para que un combate sencillo tenga ciertas aristas. Hasta aquí es un batiburrillo de mecánicas, pero tienen más o menos sentido, pero luego ya entramos en otras como por ejemplo cuando manejamos durante un periodo de tiempo corto a otros protagonistas y nos meten mecánicas de sigilo o cosas así que aparecen una vez y ya. Tampoco me mola mucho el rollo de la ballesta, entiendo que está un poco ahí para aprovechar el hardware de switch pero sinceramente es un coñazo y no veo que aporte gran cosa a la variedad del combate, al contrario, corta bastante el ritmo.

En general se nota que es un desarrollo donde buscaron mucho experimentar y salir de la zona de confort, muchas veces sin criterio ninguno. Y de esto leí una entrevista que incluso en la historia hubo cambios gordos durante el desarrollo. Al parecer el juego iba a girar más en torno al romance entre Zael y Calista pero termino convirtiéndose en una historia más de amistad y tomando el papel protagonista el grupo en sí, y sinceramente esta idea sí que me parece un gran acierto.

No me voy a parar mucho aquí pero mención de honor a la banda sonora de Uematsu, que lleva muchos años que no está en su peak pero aquí deja bastante temazo, sobre todo el tema principal que se te pega como una lapa y resumen muy bien el tono del juego: https://youtu.be/ICSprZTmk78

En fin, The Last Story es un buen juego, con muchas luces y sombras, pero valiente en su concepción, con ideas cojonudas que no terminan de explotar pero aportan variedad. Puede hacer muchas cosas mejor pero de momento me parece el juego más interesante (que no mejor) de Mistwalker.

Objectively? it's not the best game. Personally? it's my favorite game of over 150 games.
Why is it my most-liked game?

artistic choices:
Whether it be the design of the city or the music design, It gives the perfect vibe of medieval times mixed in with a bit of magic (fantasy). As you spend a lot of time in the city, as well as will hear certain music it is nice that they reinform your perception of how the game's world is portrayed as.

Story + characters:
I Mc's team contains a good mix of personalities and character designs (that fit into the world). For all characters, they feel they seem to be living, and based on their personalities you could imagine them doing the same things if they existed in reality.

Gameplay:
Difficulty-wise I felt it was good, not too easy, but nor did I win against some final bosses too easily. Maybe not the best System, but I felt it was quite good and I enjoyed it a lot especially diffusing circles or using ultimate abilities.

I also remember playing some side quests gathering items to either craft or buy certain cool armor.

Overall:
Everything felt so alive combined with a good combat system made the game feel so good. I have played it at least 2.5 times and even now while I'm not playing it I still like to listen to some music from the game. (e.g. toberu mono, sounds of the city)

This game holds a very special place in my heart. Going into GameStop in 2012 looking for Xenoblade, I came across this instead, not knowing this was part of the Operation Rainfall collection. I picked it up despite not seeing the greatest reviews online and I ended up playing it to Death, multiple times over.

I'm not going to act like it's perfect: it has quite a few bugs and jank. It even has an unfinished sidequest built into the game where the map dosent render fully. This happens every time I do this one particular sidequest. It has a somewhat cliche story. The gameplay is fairly simple and level ups don't mean much late game. It also dosent run the best in some areas.
That said, this game is so beautiful. Soundtrack, incredible. The characters are fantastic. Superb voice acting. The setting, the style, it's all stunning. And it has a great amount of content. Even coming back to this game so many times over, I kept finding secret areas and sidequests I never explored before.

There is just so much to love here. It is not the most amazing game but it's charming and great as is. Highly reccomend.

This game surprised me. I always imagined I would like it, and I had been interested in it since it came out, but now finally playing it, the game has shattered some specific expectations I had about it in some wonderful ways. Going in, I knew next to nothing about this game. I knew it was part of Operation Rainfall and that it was developed by Mistwalker, but pretty much nothing else apart from the handful of screenshots I saw over the years. On the outset, The Last Story seems like a dour, typical JRPG. It has a very muddy aesthetic thanks to the Wii’s graphics, and the mixed reception led me to believe this is a very love it or hate it experience.

I can safely say those expectations are almost entirely false. This game is tons of freaking fun, not only in its gameplay but its characters. The Last Story is a contender for one of the best casts in any JRPG, all of them are so lovable and fun that you latch on to them pretty quickly, even if they are just well-written tropes. Operation Rainfall is perhaps the best thing to happen to JRPG locolization because it resulted in British talent getting their hands on characters that might otherwise have been stuck with forgettable American voices. It worked with Xenoblade, and it has done wonders for The Last Story. The accents add so much flavour to every character, especially Syrenne, Lowell, and Dagran who feel like they were ripped straight out of an epic fantasy novel. The protagonist, Zael, is unfortunately the weakest link of the cast, but he has compelling story to follow and his romance with the story’s heroine, Calista, was satisfying to follow.

The combat and structure of the game is perhaps The Last Story’s most interesting aspect, however. It is atypical from your normal JRPG, the game’s events taking place entirely in a single town and its surroundings. It’s not as much a grand adventure as it is royal court intrigue with an overarching war as the backdrop. It’s a refreshing take on the RPG format and keeps the story going at a great pace, especially for a game that didn’t even break 20hrs. The action combat is also unlike anything I’ve played, though it can feel strange at first. There’s more of a focus on strategy and teamwork, which by the end, felt awesome to mess around with. The combat grew on me steadily, but once I was having fun, the fun never really stopped.

The Last Story is the type of RPG we need more of: experimental systems with focused stories that don’t outstay their welcome. It was a great experience from beginning to end, made even better by its fantastic cast of fun and interesting characters that breathed life into a setting that would have been dull without them. I would love to see a remaster one day, but I think a sequel would be pushing it. This game, these characters, this world, this story…they’re complete. And I am more than satisfied with my time spent with them.

The JRPG equivalent of Mass Effect, this is a truly special game that sadly looks like it will be locked to the Wii forever. Not only is the combat a ton of fun and the soundtrack is amazing (Invitation to Madness is one of Uematsu's best/most underrated battle themes), but the story is a perfect example of how to do romance well in a JRPG like this.

This and Lost Odyssey desperately need ports to anything else so more people can experience how great they are, but sadly that's unlikely to ever happen.