The Last Story

I’ve been wanting to play this game since I saw the first Japanese trailer a few years ago. I’m not sure what it was but something was appealing about it. For sure, I adore the artwork. (I believe the character designs are by the same artist that did the ones for the Drakengard series which were beautiful works. *___*~) And the combat system seemed very interesting too!

My copy of The Last Story came yesterday and I put in a few hours into it already. It’s quite fun! 😀 (Alas, if only Unchained Blades invoked the same feeling.)  I do have a few small gripes though which I’ll copy and paste from my post at Gamerspot:

• Attacking enemies simply consists of moving up to them. I am SO used to having an “attack button” in any action RPG. In this game, if you move and hit the A button on the ‘mote/controller while moving, you end up rolling. 9_9 There’s supposedly an option in the configuration menu that lets you enable an attack button so I guess I’ll try that out. The problem of rolling around may remain though. Maybe I can assign another button to dodging …?
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• No names of locations, shops, etc. are marked on the large overlay map. I have a terrible memory so the unmarked map is really bad for me. (It took me forever to find one of the quest-giving lady again cuz I kept thinking she was in the Market. Kind of forgot there were stands outside the Arena. .___.) I ended up screencapping the damn thing and adding in the info myself. I’ll throw it up on my WordPress blog since I’m sure it’ll help others. I think I missed one of the random scalpers/peddlers that sell things for cheap though. And the hide-and-seek mini game kid. And probably a few other things.
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• No quest log. I suppose this won’t be an issue for people that aren’t forgetful like me. I think I’ll need to keep a notebook open next to me while I play the game. :B
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• (Adding a new point that’s not from the post:) The character’s faces can look kind of scary and plastic-like. 😦 I also do wish they would have used actual traditional, hand-drawn artworks for the character portraits during conversations.

Regarding the map of Lazulis City, here it is! It’s not complete, of course, but this should be sufficient for up to chapter 6. ^^

Since this was a map designed for my own use, I should note that the turquoise circles indicate save spots and the bright orange stars are just people sitting or standing around the Artisan’s Way or whatever that provide services. I haven’t gotten to the point in the game where the unmarked peach-coloured rectangles become accessible. Er, I assume they are places you can eventually go to. I’ll update the map when and if they do. Edit: Noooo. The Sellers are at random locations. 😦

Incidentally, is it my imagination or is there someone  in the city that sells raw resources like iron and copper? I could swear I came across someone like that but after going all over the city, I couldn’t find the person again. I suppose I was just imagining things. Anyway, I still need those for the pocketwatch guy. Edit: Copper, Iron, Pelt, and Silk are in the Goods Shop in the Artisan area. 9___9

Oh yeah, I made note of the Windy Alley or whatever it’s called since it’s a great place to get the 5x+ combo with seeking. I only managed to do it once due to my terribly slow reflexes but I’m certain other players can accomplish the 5+ combo quickly~

Some other things about the game:

In the screencap above, Zael slipped on an apple and went through a wall. XD Ah, clipping goofiness.

Sorry about the image quality of the screencaps. (They’re a bit less blurry if you view their full versions! You can do that by clicking on the images~) I’m using an S-Video connection that’s going through the GameBridge so it’s like DOUBLE quality fail but then, this is a Wii so it’s not really too much of a fail. I DID, however, have my PS3 hooked up this way.  Haven’t re-connected the console to the GameBridge since playing stuff on the HDTV downstairs though. XD

BTW, this Amazon review is useful if you want to get the GameBridge to work on Windows 7 32-bit (any version, I’m using Home Premium). I used to have a dual-boot with Win 7 and XP but after my hard drive died, I just stuck with 7 and didn’t feel like re-installing XP.  There’s an alternate method that involves running Windows XP in a virtual environment though. I’m not sure if it’ll help with folks on 64-bit, however. Also, for what it’s worth, I’m using a GameBridge AVC-1410.