The Last Story

 Wii
User Score
8.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 239 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 196 out of 239
  2. Mixed: 28 out of 239
  3. Negative: 15 out of 239
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  1. Bulbotrax
    Aug 26, 2014
    0
    this game is just beyond crap.... lame gampeplay (the stealth sections is a total embarassement), a silly story, no exploration... and the framerate is a joke.... no interest at all... what a shame for sakaguchi....
  2. TheTriscut
    Aug 30, 2012
    3
    If I wanted to recommend an RPG to someone this would be at the bottom of my list. The story line is short, there is virtually no character, or weapon customization besides linear upgrades. You spend a majority of the game doing random town gathering quests, the in town arena is the same couple of battles over and over again. There is very little exploring, there is only one town in theIf I wanted to recommend an RPG to someone this would be at the bottom of my list. The story line is short, there is virtually no character, or weapon customization besides linear upgrades. You spend a majority of the game doing random town gathering quests, the in town arena is the same couple of battles over and over again. There is very little exploring, there is only one town in the game and then story-line quests outside of town. The only reason I continued playing was the hope that it would expand the more I played, but it didn't.… Expand
  3. Whitney
    Feb 22, 2013
    0
    I was really disappointing in this game. I know the Wii isn't known for its good graphics but this was terrible. The story line was predictable and the characters were also. Also the controls are whack, probably due to it being on the Wii. I was excited about this game when I skimmed over the back of the case and through the guide booklet, but in game the textures on the towns, forests,I was really disappointing in this game. I know the Wii isn't known for its good graphics but this was terrible. The story line was predictable and the characters were also. Also the controls are whack, probably due to it being on the Wii. I was excited about this game when I skimmed over the back of the case and through the guide booklet, but in game the textures on the towns, forests, and even the people was just low res pixels. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.… Expand
  4. LionSilverWolf
    Aug 21, 2016
    0
    The game is terrible, it's a cheap Final Fantasy ripoff with janky controls, poor combat mechanics, and a cliche story. To attack you literally run into the enemies, there is no attack button. The story railroads you hard, there's almost no way to spend time doing what you WANT to do. The game suffers massive slowdown just running around town. The story explains nothing. Not in an 'oohThe game is terrible, it's a cheap Final Fantasy ripoff with janky controls, poor combat mechanics, and a cliche story. To attack you literally run into the enemies, there is no attack button. The story railroads you hard, there's almost no way to spend time doing what you WANT to do. The game suffers massive slowdown just running around town. The story explains nothing. Not in an 'ooh mystery' way, but in a 'okay why are we actually doing any of this?' way.

    The only reason we play it is because we paid full price, and we won't get rid of it because we don't want anyone else to accidentally buy it.    … Expand
  5. A_Fnord
    Oct 27, 2016
    3
    The Last story is an utterly medicore game turned bad due to hardware limitations.

    The Last Story is a JRPG made by some of the veterans of the genre, with music composed by the almost legendary Nobuo Uematsu. This is a game that "should" have been good, considering the people behind it. The story in The Last Story is actually somewhat interesting. There's a backdrop of some grand    The Last story is an utterly medicore game turned bad due to hardware limitations.

    The Last Story is a JRPG made by some of the veterans of the genre, with music composed by the almost legendary Nobuo Uematsu. This is a game that "should" have been good, considering the people behind it.

    The story in The Last Story is actually somewhat interesting. There's a backdrop of some grand sweeping events, with a big war between two people brewing, but instead of focusing on this war, the game focuses on the more personal relationship between a few characters, and their goals & aspirations in life. In terms of structure, the game actually spends a large portion of its time on the buildup (act 1 in most movies) than more or less any other RPG, J or otherwise, that I've ever played, and it's not an unwelcome change of pace. Sadly, while I kinda liked the main characters, I found the villains to be bland and boring, and the conflict to be uninteresting.

    For a game with music by Mobuo Uematsu, the music is surprisingly forgettable. It's never terrible, but most of the tracks feel generic, with only one or two actually being good.
    The voice acting, while never great, at least has a lot of personality to it, for the good guys at least. The voice actors all have distinct voices that makes the characters easy to tell apart, even when you can't see them. Sadly, the villains fare a lot worse here, with unimpressive voice acting that make them hard to take seriously. In terms of sound effects, the game is utterly alright. Nothing more to say about it, the sound effects do what they need to do, and little else.

    In terms of graphics, the Wii hardware do show its limitations. Some areas look really nice, due to good art design, but a lot of the details look muddy and dark. What's far worse is that the game is pushing the Wii's humble hardware far beyond what it can take. Early on in the game, it's not too bad, but towards the second half, there's just too much going on at any given time that the framerate not only dips down into the single digits, but stays there. It's like a slideshow, and it seriously hurts the game.

    Gameplay is a bit different from what you would expect from a JRPG. Combat is in real time, and you're expected to use the environment to your advantage, by taking cover, shooting at weak points and so on. Sadly, while the combat shows potential, the game feels incredibly simplistic to play, with the vast majority of the battles requiring no skill what so ever. It might be a good thing that combat is simple & simplistic though, considering the frame rate. It would have been a pain to play a game with a more involved system with such poor performance.

    Overall, had The Last Story been released on a system with more powerful hardware, any system with more powerful hardware, it would have been a lot better. It still would have been an utterly mediocre game, but it would have been a lot better than what we got.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

4
#4 Best Wii Game of 2012
3
#3 Most Discussed Wii Game of 2012
3
#3 Most Shared Wii Game of 2012

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
80

Generally favorable reviews - based on 61 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 49 out of 61
  2. Mixed: 11 out of 61
  3. Negative: 1 out of 61
  1. Game Revolution
    Sep 4, 2012
    90
    This game is the product of a true master.
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  2. GameCritics
    Aug 28, 2012
    50
    The Last Story feels like a JRPG that took incomplete notes as it tried to learn from Western design. The simplistic implementation of massively multiplayer online (MMO) combat motifs makes battles boring or frustrating. The character customizability, though wonderful, is purely cosmetic, never really extending into the play or storytelling. Worst of all, the gameplay and story might as well be two ships passing in the night. While Zael confronts the game's real antagonists in cutscenes, the player simply sits on the sidelines. In games, that's the last way you should try to tell a story. Ra
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  3. NintendoWorldReport
    Aug 28, 2012
    80
    While my review may seem overly positive, the game's small number of flaws are incredibly frustrating at times. That said, if you feel you can look past a few missed opportunities and a flawed but fun combat system, I can't see why you wouldn't enjoy The Last Story. Just don't expect it to be as genre defining as previous Sakaguchi titles.
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