The Last Story Review | January 27, 2014
Nintendo Wii, Wii U Compatible Exclusive

When it comes to a RPG on the Nintendo Wii they have been more misses than hits. Right before the release of the Wii U this was one of the last games to be put out for the Wii. Add in a Hironobu Sakaguchi who is best known for the Final Fantasy series and other titles from Square Enix and that there have not been a lot of big titles for the Wii coming out when this game was released, we had some high expectations. The Last Story is a 3rd person action RPG and for a game on the Wii it looks good graphically but everything does have this gray undertone color to it. You are Zael a mercenary whose village was destroyed when he was a child and hopes to one day live the life of a Knight. During a mission he is given the power called "The Outsider" and meets a girl who is running from the palace guards, only to find out she is a princess.
The Last Story breaks the forced motion controls problem. Many Wii games have unnecessary controls that mostly hurt the game. Here you don’t have to swing the controller all over the place, you just walk up and it attacks automatically. This is mostly good but if you want to get a better spot to attack your foe sometimes it won’t let you and it will just keep hitting them over and over. In some cases you will get trap in a corner and there is not much you can do about it. Combat has a choice of using strategy and stealth or just run up and attack. Sometimes you do have to use your brain because hacking and slashing will not work. The storyline is a little predictable but it does take some turns and it is voice acted beautifully. So if you are a storyline gamer you will very happy with this game. Most of the humor comes from the interaction between your mercenary crew making fun of each other. There are lots of cut scenes and in this game it is a good thing. It fills in the gaps of the storyline and the voice over story telling is welcomed and gives you important information but sometimes the dialog gets cut off when you walking into a room and the next scene start’s. It happens a lot and you never know what door or area will start the next part of the game.
There is a lot of good stuff in The Last Story but for some reason they completely ignored the camera and it destroys almost all of the combat elements and really makes you want to stop playing at times. It is never in the right place. If you take a big hit the camera points straight up and sometimes into walls and does not self-adjust. You have to figure out where it is pointing and fix it yourself if you have time before you get attacked again.  Camera and combat issues get worse because the game is always on auto attack. Whenever you are trying to get a better position to attack you have to adjust the camera at the same time, this will cause you at start attacking when you are not ready or in the right position. It is a problem the whole time. The game also makes you tip toe and stop attacking whenever you get near a ledge or cliff. It is stupid and does at every spot where there is a drop off. This game might have one of the worst cameras for not only the Wii but in all of gaming.
The Last Story could have been great. There are certain combat elements that we really like. Luckily the combat is not all bad because of the camera issues but it is a constant problem. We did like the storyline, voice acting and the boss battles are all fun. Many of them are challenging and a bit time consuming mostly during the final chapters. We went through the game between 20 to 25 hours and there is a New Game+ mode for replay but once you play the game you will not want to replay it again. Keep your price under $30.00
 
7.5 out of 10
OK Game

7.5 out of 10
OK Game


Rated
T for
Teen

Rated
PEGI 16