New wallpaper.

Also, I don't know why but it seems to still get occasional coverage by Japanese outlets. I don't see this happen often for games so long past the release. Maybe Nintendo pays for it, or they really love it.

Did you bump this just to torture Edgecrusher?

Cause of the graphics and it looking FF-esque.

Art here

NGamer said:

NGamer play The Last Story: In English

Now, it's taken years of planning, countless dark magic rituals, and the sacrifice of a beloved pet rat, but the Wii has finally, bewilderingly and brilliantly become the go-to format for the big-budget JRPG.


Monster Hunter Tri was the instigator, generating an army of warriors with oddly curved claw-hands; the incredible Xenoblade came next, proving that both the Wii and the genre can do open worlds. And now The Last Story hits the UK this coming February. We've been playing the English version of Mistwalker's bold, unusual, all-encompassing RPG, and after a few overwhelming and content-packed hours in Lazulis City, we're still no closer to finding a neat pigeonhole to stuff it in.


But it can't hurt to have a go. The Last Story is a real-time tactical action role-playing shooter, or RTTARPS for short. We'll go into the specifics of its initially baffling combat later, but beyond that it's also a game with great characters, an exceptional translation, and the same wonderful British voice acting that made Xenoblade's motley band of adventurers so enjoyable to listen to. ("Man, what a bunch of jokers" aside.)


SONG TO THE SYRENNE

Right from the opening line - "Let's get these Reptid bastards" - you know your ears are in for a decidedly different treat to the usual shrill tones of a 40-year-old voice actor pretending to be a 14-year-old girl. The line in question is uttered by Syrenne, a hard-drinking mercenary with a lascivious nature, but it's the disarmingly natural delivery that endears her to you instantly - not to mention the fact that her actress appears to be a genuine Northern lass. Of course, as with Xenoblade, the result is a slight disconnect between the voice and the character - these are regional, salt-of-the-Earth types that look like they're dressed for the Tokyo fashion show - but it's a feeling that fades the more time you spend in their illustrious company.


Syrenne's a member of a seemingly unnamed group of mercenaries operating out of a tavern (where else?) in the gigantic Lazulis City. She's joined by Lowell, a charming Scottish mage with a penchant for the ladies; Dagran, a more reserved greatsword-wielding warrior type; Yurick, a grumpy kid-wizard with a suspiciously missing eye; and a quiet, petite healer named Mirania. Oh, and we almost forgot about Zael, the comparatively bland male model/orphan who's soon identified as the main character.


It's a great bunch, on the whole, and unlike a lot of JRPGs you truly feel as if you're part of a close-knit team. It helps that they don't all get along - early on, Syrenne refers to Yurick as "creepy eyepatch kid", which is as accurate as it as hilarious.


You're certainly thrown into the thick of things together, as the gang explore a dank cave on a mission to exterminate a bunch of Reptids - goblin-like creatures - for a certain Count Arganan, who lords it over Lazulis Island where the game is set. After surviving an attack by some unkillable skeletons - only to see Syrenne take an arrow to the heart (noooooo!!!) - Zael's granted a mysterious power by a mysterious entity, which allows him to mysteriously revive downed characters (among other mysterious things).


The stage culminates in an epic Lord Of The Rings-style boss battle on a crumbling bridge, and before you can say "You shall not pass!" in your best Ian McKellen voice, the mercs are already basking in the sunshine, returning to Lazulis to claim their hard-won reward.



If you're concerned about spoilers, you should know that all of that happened during the first 45 minutes or so of the game, during the tutorial dungeon. The real Last Story begins when you approach the city itself, something the game reinforces by saving the title screen for its glorious reveal.

A TALE OF ONE CITY

Lazulis is... astonishing. We can think of no other word to do it justice. It's a huge, freely explorable, architecturally exquisite place, bustling with pedestrians, traders and guards; harbouring courtyards that give way to impossibly narrow alleyways that Zael can shimmy down to discover hidden loot. Stroll along the aptly named Windy Alley, meanwhile, and you're liable to find a lost item blowing in the breeze. If you're quick enough with your Seek ability (zoom in to examine stuff), you can pick it up and stuff it into your inventory.

Where Xenoblade achieves grandness via the sheer size of its world map, the relatively linear Last Story achieves it by examining a smaller world in much greater detail. The game positively revels in the intricacies of Lazulis City; while it's nowhere near as large as your average GTA location, it's clear that Mistwalker have spent serious time making it feel alive. After visiting the tiny, static towns of so many JRPGs over the years, that comes as a huge relief.



Why else would Mistwalker allow Zael to bump into pedestrians, bang his fat head on shop signs, and - best of all - tip baskets of fruit to the floor, so that approaching citizens (and Zael himself) slip comically to the ground? The Last Story is full of these small moments - moments that wouldn't even be considered for modern western RPGs that set their sights so unwaveringly on the big picture that the minutiae of their worlds often suffer as a result.


However, it isn't all banana peels and head-bumps. Lazulis is also home to stores and market stalls, not to mention travelling traders who'll flog produce dirt-cheap if you can reach them before they shut up shop. The game has a simple trading system, the sort of feature normally reserved for German merchant games and space sims. Buy low, sell high - that's the essence of making money in The Last Story, particularly as monsters don't have the courtesy to excrete banknotes when they die.


Another, more enjoyable, way to make moolah is to enter the Arena. You know the drill: clear a specific number of rooms of their enemies, before beefing up and returning later to take on more powerful challenges. While we only felt brave enough to tackle one round of the Arena - we were two levels below the recommended requirements, apparently - we know we'll be back, thanks to the game's extravagant, indefinable combat.

ZAEL TO THE CHIEF

Our first, second, third and tenth fights were completely overwhelming, to be frank; the screen a mess of prompts, tutorial messages and tangled coloured lines. We won every battle, but we couldn't work out how or why, or even what it was we just did - it takes a while for combat to settle into a familiar rhythm.


On its most basic level, The Last Story is an action RPG. Make contact with enemies and Zael will automatically have at them, while his two AI friends support him with swords or spells. He can also guard, take cover and take potshots from a distance with his nifty crossbow - so far, so genre typical.


Things get more complex when Zael learns the Gathering ability from the aforementioned mysterious entity. In addition to letting him revive party members, Gathering also redirects enemy attention to Zael and Zael alone, giving Syrenne or Yurick or whoever's with him a chance to recuperate or blitz monsters from behind. Casting time decreases, and enemy speed seems to slow down as well - the only downside is how quickly things can turn sour for Zael if he's surrounded. Damage increases exponentially, plus your escape route might become blocked. Luckily, he can revive himself up to five times before it's Game Over.


Gathering adds a welcome tactical element to battles, the most basic one being to activate it before deflecting everything that's thrown at you, letting your AI colleagues take care of the baddies instead. Other options might be to flank or sneak-attack the enemy, or to take advantage of a nearby context-sensitive structure - toppling a crumbling bridge on enemy heads, perhaps. Before most large-scale battles you're given a tactical overview of the area, so you can plan out your own method of attack.

BANANA-DRAMA


Have we mentioned the range of bomb canisters that also litter most battlefields, looking worryingly like containers of toxic nerve gas? Rather than safely quarantining the area, Zael instead decides to chuck them at the enemy. They come in multiple varieties, although we've only discovered two so far: explosive ones that obviously explode all over bad guys, and healing ones that are best thrown in the faces of your friends. They may suffer third-degree burns as a result, but hey, at least their Hit Points will be nice and full.


On a similar note, we're pretty sure we told you about Zael's handy ability to pinpoint enemy weaknesses by using Seek on them, and about the differing ammo types for his crossbow. Wizard Slayer arrows, as the name suggests, deal more damage to magey types, while Banana Prank ones fire joke bananas.


BioWare/Bethesda, take note: this is an RPG that features joke bananas. Sadly we didn't get a chance to use these, but they're yet more evidence of the delightfully light-hearted tone that runs parallel to the game's more serious political plot.

We're almost positive we talked about the weapon/armour upgrade system, or the dungeon-based floor portals that spawn optional combat scenarios against stronger opponents. There's so much variety, and so many ideas, in The Last Story that it can be difficult to take it all in.

LAZULIS 'ERE THEN?


As much as we appreciate the game's hyperactivity, we do hope it settles down slightly later on. Our favourite parts of RPGs aren't the epic setpieces or the one-off minigames (speaking of which, there's a faintly awful Assassin's Creed-style chase sequence awaiting you later on) but the situations in which we're firmly in control: character development, or using our noggin to plan difficult battles against overwhelming odds. We simply haven't seen enough of these elements to judge how the game compares with the competition, whether itswings more toward the 'casual' or 'hardcore' side of things.

There are other, more tangible issues. The frame rate took a noticeable hit when we emerged, blinking, from that Reptid cave, and it remained variable while we explored Lazulis City. The authentic regional accents might sound charming coming out of the mouth of a grumpy Cornish shopkeeper, but it was less impressive hearing a gang of street-urchin children talking like a group of middle-aged Lancastrians down t'pub. The version we played appears to be finished code, so we don't expect these things to be fixed in time for release - but even if they aren't, they'll likely be chicken-feed in the grand scheme of things.


This isn't shaping up to be a great year for the Wii. Nintendo are dedicating all their time, energy and resources to the 3DS and Wii U, leaving behind a release schedule more barren than a Nintendo Gamer writer's Little Black Book. Yet, as is so often the way, some of the very best Wii games are emerging during the system's twilight years.

Xenoblade and Skyward Sword both took our breath away last year, and while it's too early to tell whether The Last Story will do the same, what we've seen of the English version suggests that great times still lie ahead of us. It may be one of the last stories we'll experience on the Wii, but unless something goes dramatically wrong in its later chapters we can console ourselves with the knowledge that it will also be one of its very best. Roll on February.

New screens

It's not going to be ONLY the English dub is it?

I pre-ordered the standard edition

Euro trailer 2