Last Straw
That's it, Hit Maker, you've officially fallen off our "give a crap about your next game" list, and Last Rebellion was the schlock that broke the camel-humped gamer's back.
Published: March 6, 2010
I've already spent way too long talking about Last Rebellion elsewhere, and I honestly don't want to rub salt in anyone's wounds with another couple thousand words talking about why the game isn't worth more than a passing glance. The short version is that the game is utterly forgettable and that it can be finished in less than 14 hours.
That's under 14 hours having visited seemingly every area, level grinded for a bit, spoken to every single creature capable of speech and having watched every still-mouthed talking head with two or three expressions until it was all over. There are no side quests. There is no equipment to buy or manage. There are no party members besides the boy and girl that end up sharing a soul and spend the rest of the game chattering to each other boringly. There is nothing to do in this game but finish it and wonder where the time went.
The only redeeming part of the game is honestly its battle system, which is utterly squandered under a story that's so trite and pointless it doesn't bear repeating (though at least the voice acting and localization are a step up from some of the other bigger-budget releases I've played recently) and characters that literally do not develop from start to finish. Having 66% of your story- and character-driven role-playing game be completely throwaway is... well, let's just call it bad.
That battle system is, again, pretty interesting. See, every enemy type (and there are multiple versions of the same enemy) has a particular sequence their individual body parts have to be hit in. Through a process of elimination where the right hits landed at the right time are marked, enemies' vital weaknesses can be exploited, saved and recalled by simply using the L1/R1 buttons. It's a numbers game, as Last Rebellion's explains, and it's an involved and downright addictive process.
There are a few wrinkles to consider, however. Since Aisha and Nine, the girl/boy with a shared soul, also share hit points, magic points and command points, targeting five different enemies with 10 different spots that have to be hit in sequence can be expensive; every hit costs one CP with either character, so some careful management of CP resources needs to be considered. This can happen in one of three ways: characters can rest and regain CP normally (extra if you chose to defend against physical or magical attacks and an enemy hits that person with the guessed attack type), can use magic, which hits all the targets your characters have "stamped" in the order they were attacked (hitting a creature multiple times in the same place makes the "stamp" work for more turns unless the monster burns a turn to remove all stamps) while only consuming one CP or... well, no, that's pretty much it, actually.
So battles, initially, are a constant learning act. Learn what enemies' patterns are, build their go-to lists, save 'em and then bust 'em out every time that enemy appears again. Eventually, though, the seemingly unavoidable battles start to stack up, and once you've leveled up about four times, all the enemies in the area just flat-out stop giving out XP. Not fun.
But again, I'm spending too much time on this. I'm not going to talk about the graphics (obviously made for the PSP screen and then up-ressed to HD), nor the sound (except for the awesome track that plays upon you first starting up the title screen -- it really is amazing), nor the lack of exploration, nor the point-A-to-point-B "travel" through 45 second wide areas. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you not buy this game. Rent it if your curiosity is piqued, but don't bother otherwise. Even at $40, this is still far too pricey an experience you really don't want to suffer through.
That's under 14 hours having visited seemingly every area, level grinded for a bit, spoken to every single creature capable of speech and having watched every still-mouthed talking head with two or three expressions until it was all over. There are no side quests. There is no equipment to buy or manage. There are no party members besides the boy and girl that end up sharing a soul and spend the rest of the game chattering to each other boringly. There is nothing to do in this game but finish it and wonder where the time went.
The only redeeming part of the game is honestly its battle system, which is utterly squandered under a story that's so trite and pointless it doesn't bear repeating (though at least the voice acting and localization are a step up from some of the other bigger-budget releases I've played recently) and characters that literally do not develop from start to finish. Having 66% of your story- and character-driven role-playing game be completely throwaway is... well, let's just call it bad.
That battle system is, again, pretty interesting. See, every enemy type (and there are multiple versions of the same enemy) has a particular sequence their individual body parts have to be hit in. Through a process of elimination where the right hits landed at the right time are marked, enemies' vital weaknesses can be exploited, saved and recalled by simply using the L1/R1 buttons. It's a numbers game, as Last Rebellion's explains, and it's an involved and downright addictive process.
There are a few wrinkles to consider, however. Since Aisha and Nine, the girl/boy with a shared soul, also share hit points, magic points and command points, targeting five different enemies with 10 different spots that have to be hit in sequence can be expensive; every hit costs one CP with either character, so some careful management of CP resources needs to be considered. This can happen in one of three ways: characters can rest and regain CP normally (extra if you chose to defend against physical or magical attacks and an enemy hits that person with the guessed attack type), can use magic, which hits all the targets your characters have "stamped" in the order they were attacked (hitting a creature multiple times in the same place makes the "stamp" work for more turns unless the monster burns a turn to remove all stamps) while only consuming one CP or... well, no, that's pretty much it, actually.
So battles, initially, are a constant learning act. Learn what enemies' patterns are, build their go-to lists, save 'em and then bust 'em out every time that enemy appears again. Eventually, though, the seemingly unavoidable battles start to stack up, and once you've leveled up about four times, all the enemies in the area just flat-out stop giving out XP. Not fun.
But again, I'm spending too much time on this. I'm not going to talk about the graphics (obviously made for the PSP screen and then up-ressed to HD), nor the sound (except for the awesome track that plays upon you first starting up the title screen -- it really is amazing), nor the lack of exploration, nor the point-A-to-point-B "travel" through 45 second wide areas. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that you not buy this game. Rent it if your curiosity is piqued, but don't bother otherwise. Even at $40, this is still far too pricey an experience you really don't want to suffer through.
