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Solid classic RPG Maker stock

  • Mewd
  • 06/21/2007 04:10 PM
  • 1510 views
Last Legend sets out to be a tribute to the countless (canceled) epic RPG Maker games that so many of us set out to make when we first got a hold of RPG Maker. Erave and Fighter succeed in this for the most part, with the wrinkles that entails.

The dialogue and story are pretty flimsy, mainly just an excuse to go on adventures and the grand majority of combat boils down to 'Mash the confirm button until you win.' The game gives you a dozen elemental options with your mage character, but there doesn't seem to be any way to take advantage of elemental weakness. Trial and error, maybe, but it's easier and usually more effective to just mash attack anyway.

On the flip side, the game is very straight forward. It doesn't muck about with frivolous, burdensome custom systems, overwrought plots or an overblown sense of scale. It's a solid, hearty RPG adventure. It doesn't take itself too seriously, it enjoys itself and thus one is inclined to enjoy along with it. The game isn't anything gorgeous or mind blowing, but it is immensely playable. It manages to achieve its goal admirably, making a solid classic RPG Maker game. Which is more than can be said about the grand majority of RM games.

There are a couple things that make the game special beyond this, though. The music, which seemingly has a lot of original compositions, and songs are chosen fairly well. The sound track isn't very bombastic, very subdued, but it works very well in a quietly dignified sort of way. Which is hard to do with midis.

I really liked the twist with Zak'N'Nik. It kept the game from getting too humdrum 'Now do this,' and made good use of the magic book as a plot device. Most of the game plot just feels like filler, but it's solid filler and makes for a fun enough game.

The boss battles, thankfully, most often DO require you to stretch yourself strategically. Most of them require careful healing and stat boosting to really plow through. There are a few cheap battles. The Ruby Dragon and Golex in particular seemed to have unfairly powerful attacks that might be impossible to counter if you aren't well stocked on curative inventory.

Even though I wasn't impressed with the story of the game for the most part, there is a plot twist I am anticipating that would probably set the game apart. I will have to wait and see if my prediction is correct, though.

The party balance seems a little unbalanced on top of this. Josh's firework weapon was ridiculously powerful compared to any other force in the game. Meanwhile, Melanie seemed strangely useless for most of the latter part of the demo. Most of the other characters did more damage with their normal attacks than Melanie could do with ANY of her magic attacks.

Graphically, the game is simple and straight forward. It works. Like everything else, not mindblowing in any way, but it helps maintain that quiet dignity that the game seems to hold.

Last Legend is simple and solid. It doesn't muck with the excess of an overly ambitious game, and makes good use of the basic resources RPG Maker has available. And it's certainly leagues better than the hamfisted games we all tried to make when we first got our hands on an RPG Maker engine.

Posts

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This review helped a lot. I tried to fix mostly everything I could including battles and party balance.
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