Review: Last Rebellion
Posted by David "Snarkasaur" Stewart on March 4th, 2010
Last Rebellion is a difficult game to review. I enjoyed playing through it. I found the combat system engaging, many of the technical aspects to be smart and helpful, and the art style unique and mostly beautiful. It’s also a flawed creation, and while none of these flaws break the game, they definitely spoil an experience rife with potential, an experience that could have been something special had someone taken a left when they instead went right, or looked away when they should have paid attention. Last Rebellion is not a bad game, but it could have been a great game.
The story of Last Rebellion is one of its main issues. To be frank, it’s almost incomprehensible, and what is comprehensible is boring and predictable. Is it a problem of translation? Is it a problem of storytelling in general? Is it some conglomeration of issues too tangled to fix? I don’t know. The basic story is fairly simple, and even compelling in a way. There is a goddess of destruction and a goddess of creation (who by the end are largely irrelevant). Unlike most games, it is the goddess of creation who starts out as the main antagonist of our two heroes. This goddess of creation has gone mad with her own ability, never letting anyone die and causing chaos with the very essence of life. Nine and Aisha, our protagonists for this adventure, are tasked with roaming the land and sealing away monsters too stubborn to die. The goddess of death gives them this ability, and it is a required skill for each battle. There are also political struggles and an antagonistic brother to deal with, but it’s difficult to fully understand exactly what everyone’s role is. The brother, named Alfred, kills Nine’s father and Nine himself. Nine is saved by a Sealer named Aisha who casts a complicated spell that basically fuses Nine and Aisha into one being. They are able to switch forms at will, but forever inhabit the same soul or shell or whatever we might wish to call our mortal coil. The only time and place that they are aloud to co-exist as separate entities is within a central hub-like area called the Vamino Room that serves as a warp home and save point. As a mechanism for story, this concept is bizarre. Fortunately as a game mechanic it’s actually quite ingenious.
While running around on the field, the square button switches between Nine and Aisha. For the most part, the character you run around with is irrelevant aside from aesthetic favor. But there is a regen (regeneration) factor for each of them that makes the choice have some meaning. Nine regens magic power when he’s running around, and Aisha regens health. The regen is slow but noticeable and helps out quite a bit for the majority of the game. They also have spells that they can cast while in the field that can only be cast with the person to whom the spell is currently equipped, but that can be changed on the fly. In combat, both characters participate in a turn based system that is somewhat traditional for JRPGs, but that definitely has its own spin. Players choose which character goes first and which goes last, and character speed determines if the player or the monsters act first. Each character has the ability to melee or cast magic, and despite seemingly sharing a stat pool in regards to health, mana and speed, Nine always does more melee damage and Aisha always does more magic damage. This is proper, however, given their natures.
There are no upgradable weapons to speak of. Magic is gained by finding a proper item in treasure chests located around the world. Unfortunately these treasure chests have an annoying key system attached to them. They generally require 5 keys each, and the keys are random drops from common enemies. At times, I ran around with an abundance and never had an issue, particularly at the end of the game where I had more than I’d ever use. At other times, I was frustratingly void of any keys while chests sat around with precious skills in them going unused. Keys aren’t a 100% drop item, and players can find themselves grinding just to keep up with the skills available.
Thankfully the magic system is quite broad and provides players with an ample amount of battery for often difficult enemies. There is an entire array of buffing, debuffing, attack (both magical and physical), poisons, etc. There are also different levels of spells, though these levels aren’t gained by using the spell but rather by finding the item. It makes lower levels of the spell quite pointless, yet still leaves them on the spell list thus making scrolling through it quite a hassle at times. Thankfully not too many of the spells have varying levels. Instead, all spells have 5 strengths that can be cast. The higher the strength, the higher the mana used. And the higher levels can only be cast if they are assigned the proper pages. It’s actually incredibly confusing until the moment comes when it all clicks into place and then it becomes second nature.
Actual combat can also be insanely confusing at first because it involves a system of stamping the body parts of enemies in order to cast spells on them.  Each enemy has a certain number of body parts that Nine or Aisha can hit. This can range from four to a dozen, and each has a value for how much damage it will take. If the body part says 100%, it’s going to take significantly more damage than one that says 30%. There is also a specific order that the body parts need to be hit in that will not only up the damage, but also give players more experience at the end of a battle as they increase their bonus meter. This order is a process of discovery that generally doesn’t take too long to puzzle out. Simply trying out different orders of attack will usually net the proper sequence after a few battles or in one battle if it lasts long enough. There’s another factor at play regarding how many parts the two characters can hit because in addition to health and mana, there is a combo bar that needs to be kept track of. It starts out fairly low, but rises as the characters gain levels. If there are two enemies each with 5 body parts, players can hit all 10 body parts if they have 10 combo points. If they have 20 combo points, they can hit all 10 body parts with both characters. Alternatively, once a body part has been stamped, it can have magic cast upon it by either character. Stamps can last for several rounds, and again, if the proper sequence of body parts is hit, those stamps will last longer.
When I type it out, it sounds ridiculously and insanely complicated, and truthfully it might be for some people. The game also does an awful job of explaining just how these nuances all work together. Perhaps my long days with RPGs made it more intuitive for me than it might be for others. Maybe I just had a stroke of math genius, but before too long I understood everything completely and was performing the proper actions when I needed to every time. It certainly makes the experience easier when the system is understood because towards the start of the game I found myself getting squashed and pulverized to no end. However, being able to buff up for each fight (enemies are on-screen so there is prep time before they are engaged) and even having the ability to engage from behind for bonus speed in combat helps immensely.
Visually, Last Rebellion is almost a controversial game. The art style is very anime inspired, but also unique in its pastel-like quality. The actual action always looks good though, and the framerate is constantly high. The only thing that might take away from the aesthetic pleasures of the game are the conversation scenes, which are merely portraits with text boxes running below them. The portrait art isn’t nearly as inspired as the overall style of the game, and it bears a washed out quality that sucks the life out of the story itself, assuming one can follow it.  But the spell effects are nice, and the character models are stylistic to a fault. Aisha in particular is one of the most pleasing to the eye characters I think I’ve seen in a game. Load screens also have a series of guest illustrator paintings that in some cases are gorgeous enough that I’d hang them on my wall in a frame.
Like I mentioned at the very start of this, Last Rebellion is a game that is difficult to review properly. It has so many things going right for it, things I’d love to see implemented in other games, that if taken out of context those aspects might weigh heavily in its favor. I like having spells to increase my run speed or to make me invisible to enemies. I like a combat system that is complicated but capable of being mastered. I like having two characters so in sync with one another that their skills and abilities have the capability of complimenting one another perfectly. But I dislike poorly written stories, badly paced leveling, horrid tutorials in the form of jokester demons standing around at random spots, status effect mechanics that can render the characters incapacitated for an entire battle, and lazy cut scene implementation. So I’m going to go with the upper middle road and say that this is a game worth playing, particularly for RPG hungry PS3 owners. I would warn players, however, not to enter the action with heavy expectations. In the end, I found myself disappointed at wasted potential, and not even a few optional Prinny bosses to slay could change that.
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| Doin It RIGHT:
- Unique and often beautiful style and artwork. - Complicated and engaging combat system. - Good technical and logistic RPG mechanics for the most part. - Optional Prinny bosses. |
Doin It RONG:
-Â Inane story and hilariously bad voice acting. - “Cut scenes” are lazy and uninteresting to watch, not animated. - Awful, awful, awful status effect system. |
FINAL SCORE:Â 6 / 10 |
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