2286
« on: March 11, 2012, 02:46:45 PM »
Having just finished the game, I have to say, both the story and the combat became more interesting towards the second half. The combat system in Last Story has quite abit of potential but the game doesn't really surface this complexity until much later in the game when the Command Mode feature is put to better use. I really wish that this was utilised sooner as by the time the credits rolled I found myself wanting to play more combat scenarios (I haven't played the online mode yet but hopefully it will satisfy in this regard).
I have to say though, there were three big annoyances for me.
Firstly, the frame rate is not acceptable. I'm not usually a snob about these sorts of things, but the frame rate in Last Story is truely terrible.
Secondly, I became increasingly frustrated with how cutscenes and gameplay were intertwined. The transition to cutscenes was always really jarring, with no attempt made to make it feel more integrated. Often, after having just seen a cutscene, I would regain control of my character for all of 5 seconds before another cutscene was triggered. I'm not a big fan of cutscenes to begin with, but giving control back to the player only to take it from them again a few seconds later seems needlessly frustrating.
Thirdly, although the story is relatively good overall, the reveal at the end (which was pretty obvious) was handled poorly, as it made no sense either for the story or the character.
Those are just some personal niggles though. Taken as a whole I enjoyed the game quite a bit. It might not be quite as epic in scope as Xenoblade Chronicles, but there's something to be said for this tighter and leaner JRPG.