The Last Story (24th February)

[LostOverThere]

Just posted on IGN. Not sure if new or not.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(so, i herd u leiked bl0om)

Edited November 20, 2010 by LostOverThere

[Dante]

The bundle also comes with the OST.

[Dante]

New scans:

[LostOverThere]

Nice moustache.

[Dante]

The Last Story Iwata Asks: AQ Edition

As reported earlier, The Last Story's mystery developer has at long last been revealed to be AQ Interactive. For the latest in a long running series of Iwata Asks column surrounding the game, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata sat down with director Hironobu Sakaguchi and AQ Interactive's Takuya Matsumoto to discuss AQ's work.

 

The last time Matsumoto worked with Sakaguchi was seven-and-a-half years ago on Xbox 360's Blue Dragon. Matsumoto, then operating under Artoon (which was absorbed into AQ earlier this year), served as director on that title.

 

TOFU

 

The two ended up working together on The Last Story following some meetings at an izakaya restaurant in Tokyo's Daikanyama area (this is where Mistwalker is located). Sakaguchi was making a design document for the game at the time. He and Matsumoto would get together at the izakaya and discuss games.

 

It turned out that they both had some big regrets about Blue Dragon. Looking at player reactions to the Xbox 360 title, they felt that they'd perhaps been making the same style of game too much, taking things easy.

 

As they met for drinks, they discussed the new style of games of the time. They received particular shock from a video of a game which they saw at a video sharing site. They were both surprised upon seeing the completely new style of game shown in the video. Sakaguchi felt a regret that as someone who's supposed to surprise players, he himself was being surprised by something another person had made.

 

(For the record, they did not identify the game that caused this reaction, although it does seem to be one particular game.)

 

With this experience in mind, Sakaguchi and Matsumoto decided to do prototype work to determine the direction to take with The Last Story. This prototyping phase lasted for about a year and consisted of demos using blocky characters that they refer to as "Tofu."

 

As an example of how they used the tofu characters, Matsumoto detailed how they arrived at The Last Story's battle system. They felt that they needed a new battle system for the game, and felt that if they didn't change the basic rules they'd end up repeating the same mistakes. So, they created a prototype with three blue tofus representing the heroes and three red tofus representing the enemies. They gave the enemy leader glasses.

 

Using these blue and red tofus, they conducted a series of trial and error tests. In the prototype, when you turned your focus on the leader enemy, you'd be given the option of instructing your allies to kill him off first. This ability to give directions to your allies became a central element in the final battle system.

 

Also during their drinking meetings in Daikanyama, Sakaguchi and Matsumoto decided to put effort into collision work on the fields of play. They made it so that players can explore the reaches of fields of play which consist of complex land formations -- hiding in shadows, turning horizontally when trying to fit through spaces, entering doors after pushing them open with their hands. Because they were doing proper collision with complex land formations and objects, they were able to incorporate the land formations into the game -- making players climb over walls, for instance, or hide in spaces.

 

This collision work actually tied into the game's scenario work, as the story and land formations are intertwined. Work on the story side of The Last Story took place in three steps. First there was Sakaguchi's general outline. This was followed by the character exchanges that took place within the dungeons. These were worked on by Matsumoto. The final step brought in the details and voice acting.

 

In that second step, Matsumoto would take Sakaguchi's general outlines and come up with ways to incorporate the land formations into them in the form of events.

 

Some of the elements Matsumoto came up with ended up contributing to the actual character settings themselves. An example is Elza's habit of kicking doors in order to open them. Party members would make fun of him over this. Sakaguchi found this to be a nice element to the character and made it part of the character setting.

 

GATHERING

 

All this prototype work lasted for about a year. During this time, Matsumoto feels the most difficult part surrounded the game's Gathering component. This system has main character Elza gather the attention of all enemies, something that can be used when you want to give your spell casters time to cast a spell without being struck by a foe. Thematically, the Gathering system comes from the game's keyword of "Chaos and Order," or "If you bring order to the battle field that is in chaos, you will win."

 

Actually making the gathering concept work in the battle system and become something advantageous to the player took quite a bit of trial and error. The big area of difficulty, said Sakaguchi, was that the strength of the Gathering command would have to change depending on the enemy and the current battle conditions.

 

Regarding the Gathering skill, Sakaguchi said that you will actually be able to kill off enemies even without using it. Also, although Gathering is an ability exclusively available to main character Elza, there are allies who have similar skills. To some extent, you'll be able to make enemies drawn in to some allies.

 

As suggested by this varied use of Gathering, the player is free to choose how they approach the battles. Sakaguchi feels that because of the ability to make such decisions, players will end up having their own play style.

 

The development staff certainly had their own play styles. The big dividing factor appears to be in the use of Guard. There were two types of players on the staff: those who would guard and use Gathering to get a grasp of the battle, and those who'd just jump right in and fight. Matsumoto was of the former type. Sakaguchi joked that Matsumoto is making the game's tutorial and put in a recommendation that players use Guard.

 

While the Gathering system made it all the way from the game's prototype phase into the final product, some systems weren't so lucky. During the prototype phase, the game had a "replay" system. Replay was meant to be a system where the previous few seconds of battle were automatically saved to memory, allowing you to review what happened. Using this, players would be able to pick up on things they might have missed due to the chaos of battle -- seeing, for instance, which enemy dealt you damage. Unfortunately, because rewinding lead to bad battle tempo, Sakaguchi begrudgingly stopped work on it.

 

The replay system gave birth to something that did go into the game, though. When you input commands during battle, the action freezes and you're given a birds eye view of the action. This is a remnant of the replay program.

 

Some systems were added in whole after the prototype phase. The biggest example of this, said Sakaguchi, is an action that lets you climb walls. The addition of this meant that they had to redo all the early dungeons they'd created, as they were incompatible with it.

 

Another major example of a system that was added after the prototype phase is the auto attack. This system makes your character automatically attack when you approach enemies as long as you have the stick pointed in their direction. Matsumoto feels that with the addition of this system, players are able to get a better grasp of the battle situation.

 

Auto attack is actually the "Normal" setting for battle. You can go into the options menu and switch to "Manual" if you like, though. This gives you direct button controls over your attacks. Balancing both types of attack options took quite a bit of time, Sakaguchi said. They wanted to make sure that switching to manual attacks didn't make the game a breeze. Tuning for this area lasted right through the end of development.

 

The dialogue between Iwata, Sakaguchi and Matsumoto will continue in future Iwata Asks columns.

[LostOverThere]

Meet the Last Story cast

[ShadowV7]

*stamps foot*

 

Confirm it for Europe already ¬_¬

[killer kirby]

*stamps foot*

 

Confirm it for Europe already ¬_¬

 

It's quite fun following Mistwalkers now on Twitter, http://twitter.com/#!/mistwalker

 

A lot of the things that get talked about are in english and sometimes insightful, minor but fun to read

[Dante]

Nintendo have been running this advert on Japan TV about a presentation conference

[Hero-of-Time]

The conference was last night and here's a bunch of details from GoNintendo.

 

- Elza's wind magic can be used to disperse the Magic Circles of enemies

- free-for-all battle mode does allow for characters other than Elza to be used

- swim ability

- characters can strip down to their underwear

- Kanan's theme song is sung by artist Kanon

- Mario Club worked on The Last Story for nine months, which seems to be the longest testing period ever put in by the team

- in free-for-all combat, every time you defeat someone you get a point

- play online with random people or friend codes

- there's a secret about the sleeve packaging for the game

- Fujisaka says the logo and the main illustration showing Elza and Kanan are his favorite pieces of art for the game

- Uematsu says he likes the main theme song the most

- Sakaguchi said that the first three songs Uematsu submitted were all wrong

- everyone talks as you run through a dungeon

- Shokunin Street is where all the workers gather

- shoot bananas at people with the 'banana shot'

- Arganon bridge is one of the two bridges connecting Central Plaza to the rest of Ruli City

- Kanan can cast Holy, which forms a barrie

- turn the camera control on and off for the event camera adjustments

- set the controls so that A will forward through the events

- black circle is a heal circle for the enemy

- use Wind on Jackal's ice magic circle to make the enemies slip

- spread the effect of multiple Magic Circles by making your Wind magic target both Magic Circles

- enemies tend to first turn their sights on your weaker mages

- use Z for enemy targeting mode to see weak points

- using the analogue stick and A, you can dive to avoid enemy attack

- at one point, Elza walks into a fire magic circle, giving his sword flame properties

- Elza can be given the ability to destroy a pillar

- even in auto mode, you use B to guard

- attack is auto or manual, depending on what you want

- hold down B while walking to leap over obstacles

- tutorials are done using videos

- Chapter 01 is called Lizard's Cave

- the dev team is giving 120% and working as if it would be their last title

- hide behind objects by pressing the "A" button

- "C" to activate gathering

- real time battle system

- target background objects

- use Yuris' magic to shatter ledges from a distance

- when casting a spell, Yuris floats and a number appears over his head

- if hit during this number period, the spell is broken

- Cocoon is a boss from the first area

- scan for an enemy’s weak point and use the power of magic circles to damage the boss

- "Prominence" circle sends a blast of flame

- "Recovery" circle as well to restore a party's health

- other characters can shout at a boss/enemy to lure them

- Freeze Circle hits enemies with ice magic and causes slip status

- use the wind ability for a Freeze Circle to blow away the enemy heal effect

- a bunch of item names spin when you open a treasure chest, and you get whatever item it lands on

- another boss battle with an enemy called Muruu

- use a Holy Circle to protect your party with a barrie

- give characters direct orders

- change weapons on the fly to deal more damage

- quick time event where Elza can press A to jump up on an enemy and then hit A again to attack

- fast forwarding feature lets you speed through event scenes by holding the A button

- voice stops while fast-forwarding, but resumes as soon as you stop fast-forwarding

- purchase different kinds of armor at a shop and then equip them to style your character

- armor/item examples: feather armor and heavy legs, dragon armor, one piece dress

- another boss revealed: Monstrous Spider

- bigger attacks like Meteor and Accelerate

 

You can watch the conference here.

 

http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/11665869

[killer kirby]

 

Pure gaming sex : peace:

[Pit-Jr]

That looks most excellent.

[Dante]

Songs

[ShadowV7]

And I still see no release date for out of Japan from that event

 

Srsly, c'mon already.

[Dante]

Last Story Director Q&A

During a presentation yesterday, director Hironobu Sakaguchi shared first details on The Last Story's exciting banana peel system. More details have surfaced.

 

As detailed yesterday, The Last Story allows players to shoot banana peels via main character Elza's bow gun. During the game's story mode, the banana peels can be shot at townfolk, making them slip over. During online play, you can use the banana peels to make your fellow players slip.

 

The banana peels tie into events, Sakaguchi revealed during a group Q&A session that followed the presentation. For example, a group of nobles are having tea in the plaza and looking down upon the commoners. A waitress will tell you, "It would be nice if they'd slip on a banana." Fulfill the waitress's wish, and she'll give you a reward.

 

Banana peels aren't the only way to make townfolk slip and fall. As another example, Sakaguchi mentioned lemons in a basket. If you should scatter the lemons on the ground, people will slip over them.

 

Sakaguchi also took up more serious topics during the Q&A. 4gamer and Famitsu provided transcripts.

 

In past posts at his development blog, Sakaguchi made some comments suggesting that The Last Story could be his last game. He was only speaking figuratively -- that is, he's working on the game as if it's his last game. However, there may be some truth to the comments. Said Sakaguchi during the Q&A, "If the game is received poorly, perhaps my sense does not match with the times. In that case, while I won't go as far as 'I won't ever make games again,' it would be meaningless to make games for a while. With that feeling, I've given my all."

 

The theme of The Last Story is "Nakama," or "Companion." When you work through the end of the game, you'll have this theme on your mind. During production, Sakaguchi made an effort to push the theme and hopes that people end up feeling "It was nice to have an adventure with those companions."

 

Does the game's battle segments look somewhat MMORPGish to you? Sakaguchi feels that the game does, in a sense, resemble a sort of single player MMORPG in that you experience a 30 to 40 hour quest with a party of six friends who speak throughout. Also, at the system level, the game has some elements that resemble the systems one finds in an MMORPG.

 

Incidentally, as far as MMORPGs go, Sakaguchi is interested in playing World of Warcraft. He's never played it, but it's the number one thing he wants to do once The Last Story is finished. In the past, he played EverQuest quite a bit.

 

Regarding the background conversation system, where characters speak continually in the background as you run through the dungeons and during other gameplay parts, Sakaguchi feels that there may not be a game with the equivalent amount of this type of conversation. The dialogue gives the game a "live" feeling, Sakaguchi feels. While quite a bit of the conversation is insignificant, towards the latter part of the game in particular, there will be a lot of story-related conversation.

 

One of the big surprises at the event was when Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata showed up to speak to Sakaguchi and other developers briefly. This was a surprise for Sakaguchi himself. He hadn't been briefed on Iwata's appearance.

 

Although Sakaguchi was on his own most of the time, the conference itself was Nintendo's idea. Sakaguchi was surprised when he heard of the idea.

[D_prOdigy]

I can imagine the reason for this not releasing outside Japan will be that Reggie thinks it's too brown.

[ShadowV7]

Still, could atleast mention the other territories instead of completely blanking us.

 

Still that's America not getting it *pats Disaster box*

[Hero-of-Time]

*pats Disaster box*

 

I'm sure they are stroking their copies of ExciteBots....GITS!

 

I'm still hopeful that this will get released to us western devils, especially with the amount of hype it's getting from various places. I think this stands a better chance of coming over here than say Xenoblade, although I still want them both.

[killer kirby]

I'm sure they are stroking their copies of ExciteBots....GITS!

 

I'm still hopeful that this will get released to us western devils, especially with the amount of hype it's getting from various places. I think this stands a better chance of coming over here than say Xenoblade, although I still want them both.

 

Who knows what Nintendo are playing at at the moment, I mean we are now starting to get DS games that we thought we would never have gotten. Perhaps Nintendo have a whole new plan on bringing out games where at the end of it's life it doesn't have to be finished, but casually drift away, with awesome games.

[darksnowman]

*pats Disaster box*

 

I'm sure they are stroking their copies of ExciteBots....GITS!

 

*hugs Another Code R*

 

Who knows what Nintendo are playing at at the moment, I mean we are now starting to get DS games that we thought we would never have gotten. Perhaps Nintendo have a whole new plan on bringing out games where at the end of it's life it doesn't have to be finished, but casually drift away, with awesome games.

 

I wish someone would do something with 7th Dragon. It never even made it to the USA.

[daftada]

Why are people surprised they havent mentioned a us/pal release at this event - its only focussing on the upcoming japanese release. I'm sure it'll be released eventually just not until 2012. After all nintendo have had their translators working on pokemon black/white, they still have xenoblade to work on, and all the 3ds stuff. Last story has a huge amount of text & speech to translate so i hope they take their time and make an awesome job of it.

 

My gaming backlog has got so big since xmas i think i've got enough to last me till then (its still in my top 3 anticipated games tho...)

[Guy]

As Nintendo fans you should all be used to being denied great games in Europe. If you're not outright denied, you'll wait almost forever. At least the DS is region free and importing is possible on that, right? So long as it makes it to America, which is sadly never guaranteed.

 

What's the Wii Freeloader situation like currently? I used one to play an import copy of Brawl back in the day, but I'm sure Nintendo closed the door on it with subsequent updates.

[D_prOdigy]

they still have xenoblade to work on

 

[Dante]

The Last Story's Online Play Detailed

The conversation system, team play, bananas and more!

 

We've been hearing preliminary details on The Last Story's online play system for some time now. This week's Famitsu has a close up look at this particular area of the Mistwalker RPG through a four page spread.

 

To get into a multiplayer session with The Last Story, you select "MULTIPLAY" from the game's title menu screen (the screen, shown in Famitsu, also has selections for "CONTINUE" and "NEW GAME," set against a background of ruins).

 

You can choose from two different types of online play: Versus and Raid. The former is a free-for-all fight. The latter is a co-op boss fight. Both modes have lobbies, respectively the "Versus Lobby" and "Raid Lobby," where you select and set up your character and chat with fellow players (more on that below).

 

You can also choose the type of match you want: "random," played with unknown players, or "friend," played with friends. In addition to these two options, the match type select screen has selections for "ranking" and "friend list."

 

RAID MODE

 

During group Raid play, your character's equipment and parameters carry over from single player mode, although the game does equalize everyone's level. You'll be able to select your character from Elza and his mercenary friends. As this is a team-based fight, party balance is important.

 

Famitsu introduces a couple of the beast you fight in Raid mode: Kraken and Atar. Kraken is a giant squid-like beast. Atar is a monster with a number of wings. Atar capable of flying around, so you'll probably want to have a long-distance character in your party.

 

One strange point about Atar is that he seems to have two HP gauges. Your rival monster's HP gauge is shown in the upper right corner of the screen. In Atar's case, there are two of these gauges, and they seem to deplete independently. Perhaps there are two targets on the creature?

 

Defeat one of Raid Mode's beasts, and you'll find yourself with items themed around the creature. A results screen in Famitsu shows everyone in the party earning an item called "Kraken's Foot."

 

■Raid Mode

 

VERSUS MODE

 

In Versus Mode, the game does away with any differences in level and ability for your story mode characters, resulting in an even fight for all players. Your character customization data is reflected only as physical appearance changes, with no changes to parameters.

 

Your choice of characters for this mode includes not just Elza and his mercenary allies, but members of the recently introduced Gurugu race and other characters. Yes, it looks like you'll be able to use characters who aren't playable in story mode!

 

You're also free to select your stage in Versus Mode. The choice is important, as the stages all have unique formations and gimmicks, making for a different play experience.

 

■Versus Mode

 

As you defeat opponents, you earn points. When you're on the defeated end, you lose points, but respawn elsewhere to continue the fight. Your goal is to have the most points at the end of the five minute fighting time limit (Famitsu doesn't say if the limit can be adjusted).

 

At the end of battle, all players are rewarded with items, weapons and paint (used for painting your equipment during item customization). While all players receive rewards, the top placers get the best stuff. Players are also given a title mark indicating their skill level.

 

Obviously, you'll want to make sure you end up as close to the top ranks as possible. While the game doesn't show the current point count for players, it does flag the current leader with a crown mark.

 

You'll need to make use of items if you want to gain an advantage over your opponent. Items appear on the fields of play as you fight. Famitsu introduces the following:

Prank Banana

This can be set as the ammo for your bow gun sub weapon. The item will make your opponent slip.

Sticky Sword

This sword does damage and also slows down your opponent. The game has other weapons that are equipped with similar bonus properties.

Destruct Arrow

Just one example of special arrows for your bow gun sub weapon. The Destruct Arrow explodes upon contact. The explosion can engulf multiple enemies.

Inishie no Katamari

This item ups your defense temporarily. Your character becomes surrounded in a purple aura.

 

At last week's Last Story Presentation, director Hironobu Sakaguchi mentioned something about team-based play for Versus Mode. Famitsu confirms that the six players will be able to split into two teams, although it does not have further details on rule changes.

 

CHAT

 

One final area of multiplayer play detailed in Famitsu this week concerns chatting. You can equip your character with preset messages which can be used for chat in the lobby and during battle. The game provides messages pulled from the the story mode's dialogue, along with multiplayer-specific messages. The messages are shown as text and played back aurally.

 

Hironobu Sakaguchi Reflects on His Last Story

 

Hironobu Sakaguchi, the veteran game designer who's the chief brainchild behind the entire Final Fantasy series, left Square nearly a decade ago in the wake of the FF: The Spirits Within box-office bomb. "After I quit Square in 2001," he recalled in a Famitsu interview published this week. "I did no work for about three years, just floating around. I established Mistwalker in the midst of that, and after three years of rest, I felt like I wanted to make something. So, starting with a staff of three people, we kicked off Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey at the same time."

 

The Last Story, Sakaguchi and Mistwalker's latest RPG, is hitting the Wii January 27 in Japan. The way Sakaguchi put it in the interview, the project's inspiration chiefly came from reflecting upon the mistakes the team made with their previous two RPGs. "Both of those games used the Final Fantasy formula as a base to build up from," he said. "There were assorted new challenges we tackled with them, but they were all story-oriented ones -- we didn't try to alter the gameplay system much at all. When we had a wrap-up meeting after it was all over, our biggest regret was that we basically used old-gen methods to make next-gen RPGs. That's how this project began."

 

One big way The Last Story differs from previous Sakaguchi work: The battle system, which is realtime and has a fast-paced, strategic bent to it. "Our top goal there was to allow more than one method to survive any battle," the producer told Famitsu. "The basic idea is to use Gathering [drawing foes' attention toward a certain party member] to pool enemies together and then use magic on them, but you're free to just melee your way through, or maybe use something in the environment. Each battlefield has a lot of exploitable features, and the system itself is versatile enough to allow players a lot of leeway. We made it so players can often come up with some novel way of winning a battle and think to themselves 'Wow, I'm a genius!'"

 

The action-oriented fights are a bit of a departure for Sakaguchi, whose games have nearly all used a command-based battle system up to now. "Like I said, that was one of the regrets we had with Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey," he said. "Gamers see [command-based battles] as old-fashioned, as too slow-paced, as unexciting. It just felt like that had to change. The way people enjoy games has changed, and I felt like if this didn't change as well, then it'll put a stop to the evolution of RPGs. I realized all too well that simply going through the motions again would be pointless."

 

Another little innovation in The Last Story: The ability to "fast forward" through cutscenes, playing them very quickly instead of skipping them entirely. "I hate the idea of a 'skip' function," commented Sakaguchi, "but sometimes, like for character introductions and so on, you have no choice but to put in a long cutscene. So I wanted a way for people who hate long cutscenes to be able to zoom past them while still being able to follow the story. I figured that fast forward would be a novel way to do that while still giving gamers a feel for the game world. It was not easy to implement, though -- all the events had to be done in the game engine, for one, and we had to accommodate for fast-forward from the very beginning of development. But people criticize the games I make for having long cutscenes, so if I didn't put this feature in there, they'd just say 'Great, here are these huge event scenes again.'"

 

Has Sakaguchi thought about future plans now that work on The Last Story is nearly done? "No," he replied, "I'm not thinking about what comes next at all. I'm not saying that this game is perfect, of course -- it's the product of a lot of trial and error, so I think it feels a bit patched together in spots. But I think that adds to the flavor, too. You don't often get the chance to make a game like this. It may be weird for me to say this, but having the right staff at the right time, all feeling the same way about the project, is so important -- it really worked out great with this one."

 

"That's why I think I'd like to take some time for a while," he added with a laugh. "We gave our all here, so I think you'll enjoy the game if you try it."

[Dante]