Last Rebellion, the collaboration between Hit Maker and Nippon Ichi Software has been under quite a lot of heat since it has been released, mostly in forms of bad reviews regarding well…. everything, and even word that they apologized for releasing such a game (From NISA I believe), however knowing me and my interest in Nippon Ichi games, I just ignored all the reviews and jumped in… I mean, I cannot be that bad right? Well unfortunately it might have been prudent to follow the advise of other reviewers.
As a quick summary, this game has a lot of wasted potential, the storyline is one that could have been expanded on greatly, the gameplay mechanics where unique but could have been expanded on and generally, it is a game that could have done quite well on a mid-life PS2 and done well, possibly even on the PSP, however, whilst there is content there, it isnt really enough to merit its release on the PS3 and instead would have been better as a PSN release.
However, as I do not plan on leaving the review hang there. So, if I have not scared you off contemplating this game, after the jump, I have a full review of the game and all its glory (?).
In the future, the people will look back on this time as an age of darkness. An age where two gods were in disharmony.
One presides over the death of all people, taking away their souls. This is Meiktilia. The other presides over the births of all people, granting them new souls. This is Formival.
From time out of mind, people have looked to these gods to bring life and death to the world. But one day, the balance was upset. Too many souls were revived by the reckless actions of Formival and the world descended into chaos.
The weak prayed to Meiktilia for guidance and for the strength to resist the terror and power of Formival. Those who recieved the god’s blessing to take life were known as Blades. Those blessed with the ability to deal wandering souls were known as Sealers.
Would this age sink into the dark abyss? Or would they seek out the light of hope? Even the warring gods had no answer to this question….
As can be seen from the above game manual synopsis, they had a fairly good foundation backstory and if they had implemented the storyline well into the game, then it would have been fairly good, however the storyline sort of drops out for most of the game and only occurs in small bursts, with the other times just wandering around hunting for your brother who just happens to kill the King of the kingdom, your adopted father.
The storyline primarily focuses on two characters, Nine Asfel and Aisha Romandine, with Nine and Aisha being a blade and sealer respectively. Nine is killed off early in the game and is forced to share a soul with Aisha, with one being forced to stay in a Vamino Room whilst the other can roam freely around the world, switching places at will. The premise of the storyline is that Nine’s younger brother Alfred, killed the king and fled, leaving you to chase after him, but besides that, that is all you really do until the end, where the “main” storyline is loosely linked in with the secondary storyline.
Besides the three of them, there are two other characters that appear regularly, Sephi Einis, a young girl with cat ears and tail who hunts Nine as she believes he is her daddy and Aisha because she believes she killed her daddy. On the other hand, Jacob Wybrin is a mysterious man who utilizes Mechanical soldiers to attack enemies, however both of them for the main part are just background characters used to progress the storyline, and are non-playable.
The graphics in the game are for the most-part subpar, PS2 quality graphics. Now you may say that Nippon Ichi games have almost always had below state-of-the-art graphic quality, however with the sudden conversion into 3D, it doesn’t have the charm that other games have had, and overall looks a bit messy. The character designs are generally poorly detailed and essentially for both Aisha and Nine, they generally have the same character model, with a few differences, they even hold identical types of blade (With a small colour change). Environment designs are dark and barren, which you may expect from the storyline, however, I personally didnt like them.
However, there are a few shining factors in terms of graphics quality. First off, the CG art as well as the character portraits all have that hand-drawn style to them over the computer designed look of most games. This is actually a really nice touch and goes well with the games genre and style. As well, sadly you will come across many loading screens during the game, however there is the benefit of guest art loading screens which improve as you progress through the game and they are very well detailed…. just not enough of them.
To start of with, when you load the game, you are presented with the opening cinematic, and the music is fast paced, goes with the video footage well and is an enjoyable song overall. However, besides this, there is not much to enjoy in the music. The overworld and dungeon music is very basic and not enjoyable at all. This game includes one of the most annoying dungeon themes I have ever heard, where one component consisted of what I thought to be a highish pitch squeal. However, the battle music is rather enjoyable, with a few good tracks, including the second most oddest boss battle musics I have ever heard, which consisted of a tune with the words Neko~ Mikan~ Neko Mikan~ being repeated whilst you were battling the games secret bosses.
Voice acting is unique in where every version of the game, regardless of the country had only english vocals. This may be good or bad for you depending on your personal preference, however I didn’t mind it really, the voice acting was not terrible, and they pulled it off well.
The battle system of this game is similar to the game where you have to crack a number code to win by guessing numbers. The main goal is to identify which order your characters should attack the monsters body parts, in order to achieve a multiplier so you can do more physical or magical damage. There are several complications however:
- Nine and Aisha share one body, therefore they share one HP, MP and CP gauge.
- There can be up to 12 body parts per monster and up to 5 monsters per battle, making it very exhausting on the CP gauge (Basically, how many times you can attack). This gauge cannot be automatically recovered outside of battle like HP or MP and needs to be recovered in battle or through limited use CP healing poles.
- You need to seal the enemies when they die within a few turns or they will come back to life to full health.
Honestly, these complications are only troublesome in the early stages of the game, and half-way through you are given a spell which can restore CP, and allows you to progress without the need to stop and do replenishing battles. In terms of difficulty, the same can be said, originally you may have some trouble or die once or twice, but a little bit of grinding will make you invincible almost all the way through the game.
The environments you travel across are generally open area locations with monsters crawling around which are almost impossible to dodge. You can however collect keys which you can unlock chests with to gain new spells and replenishing items. These are important as there are no towns and no shops to purchase from, leaving the collection of items to killing monsters for them.
In terms of replayability, it is very easy to gain platinum through one playthrough and according to PS3trophies.com, 72.16% of all people who own the game , have acquired this platinum trophy. There are a total of 18 GSB trophies split up into 9 gold, 8 silver and 2 bronze, some with really funny titles such as “Congrats: You Beat a Little Girl”, which is ironic since this girl was the most tedious boss in the game to me. However, once you have acquired this trophy, you would have 100% completed the game and I found there was no desire in my to replay the game.
Personally, I stand by what I said at the start, this game, had great potential and sadly, that became wasted potential. It isnt a terrible game and I dont regret spending the money on it, however I hope that any future games Hit Maker are inclined to do, are compared to this game to ensure that a title of this quality never appears by them again. I wouldnt be so disappointed if this game was say, a PSN Network downloadable title, then I would say it would be a satisfactory purchase.
Total Score
Storyline: 2
Characters: 2
Graphics: 3
Music: 3
Gameplay: 3
Replayability: 1
Personal Opinion: 2
Total Score: 2
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