The PS3 is a bit low on unique and exclusive RPGs, and Last Rebellion seems to be offering something really nice. Turn-based, using a completely unique battle system, and being one of the few PS3 exclusive RPGs, it seems to be made to please PS3 users.

So does Last Rebellion really offer something fun and unique to PS3 users looking for fun exclusive RPGs?

Read on and see!

Developer: Hit Maker
Publisher: NIS America
Date of Release: February 23rd 2010
Platforms: Playstation 3

Genre: Turn-based RPG
Players: 1
Rated T for Teen

Looks and sounds
The graphics are… okay. This doesn’t really feel anywhere near top tier PS3 graphics… It looks more like a launch title. The character models are pretty nicely done, if not a bit bland-looking compared to their drawings. The environments are nice and varied, but they don’t look incredible. The high point of the game, graphic-wise, is the artwork. It looks really nice for the most part. The loading screens also feature art by guest illustrators, some of which look really cool, others which are a bit lame. But the game actually looks quite good. The enemy design is a bit on the meh side though, with some of the monsters completely being ripped-out of other games, and others just being really generic (like the ogres and lizardmen) or boring.

Sounds-wise… Well the voice-acting, other than a few sketchy lines, is actually quite good. Most of the voices are believable at least. The rest of the sounds are basic stuff: explosions, random sounds for light and shadow attacks, sword slashes, etc. The music is… lame. None of it sounds really good, and the only good tracks are from the extra bosses fights (agsinst the prinnies, and the orange box-cats).

Story
You play as Nine, the world’s strongest Blade, and Aisha, the world’s most powerful Sealer. This world has 2 Gods. Meiktillia, the goddess of death, and Formival, the god of birth. Formival is going crazy here, reviving people left and right, and eventually overflowing the world with souls, somehow creating demons. Blades and Sealers were created by Meiktillia presumably to fight the demons and put a stop to Formival’s… crazyness… At the beginning of the game, you get a few fights as Nine, but in a twist his foster father (the King) is killed by his brother Alfred. And Nine is killed as well. Aisha, the Sealer who is there at the time, uses a forbidden spell to combine her body with Nine’s, keeping him alive and keeping them both in 1 body, switching between them as needed. The rest of the game is passed looking for Alfred, finding out what his plan is, and fighting demons.

There’s a few twists which are okay, the characters are actually pretty interesting, the writing during the conversations is okay… but it’s not a great story, and definitely not one you’ll want to go through again. And the ending is REALY anti-climactic (I seem to get that a lot recently). And clocking in at around 13 hours, the game is really short for an RPG.

Gameplay
Fighting
There’s a few things you can do in battle. Most important is physically attacking. When you decide to do that, you get a list of the monster’s body parts. Here you can press triangle on any of them to choose the order in which you will attack them, and if there’s multiple monsters you can target all of them. Each body part you target uses 1 CP (chain point). Attacking physically does damage, of course, and also puts something on monsters called “stamps”, which stay for a number of turns. You can now use Stamp Magic once the enemies have stamps on them. Here you can choose a spell, and choose the spell’s level. Once you start attacking, the spell you choose will hit every stamp once. So if an enemy has 5 stamps on him, the spell will hit him 5 times. Otherwise you can use Support Spells (buffs, healing) and items (buffs and healing too). Nine can Absorb enemies. This is done when the enemies are dead, and it just takes some of their MP to give it to you. It takes 1 CP for each enemy you absorb. To end battles, you have to seal every enemy using Aisha’s ability. Sealing also takes 1 CP for each enemy you target, and, in addition to removing the enemy from the field, it heals some of your HP. Sealing and Absorbing can be done on living enemies, but the chances of that working is very slim.

The battle flow is pretty simple: Give an order to either character, and then give an order to the other(so both Nine and Aisha get a move every turn), and then it all plays out, with you and enemies exchanging hits until every character and enemy did an action. When an enemy has 0 HP, he dies, but stays on the field. The only thing you can do to dead enemies is sealing and absorbing. Any stamp on them disappear too. Enemies have weaknesses and each enemy also has a different order to attack their body parts for optimal damage (and better EXP). Each body part takes a different amount of damage, and each enemy can be weak to certain spells. On your side, you have only 1 HP and MP bar to worry about, since Nina and Aisha are technically sharing one body, therefore the same HP and MP. So any stunning or poisoning or paralysing you may get on one character also carries over to the other. After each turn, you heal up a bit of your CP.

After the second dungeon, you get access to Meiktillia force, a power given to you by the Goddess of Death. Getting hit enough raises your MF meter, and getting it at 100% (you can control the meter’s growth with certain spells) summons Meiktillia, who basically just kills any normal enemy in one hit, and deals massive damage to bosses. I only saw her once though… Since I kicked too much ass after the second dungeon.

Overall, despite seeming quite original, the battle system is surprisingly simple. Eventually you’ll never use magic again, and instead just try to get the right order of attack for every monster you meet (maximizing EXP gained).

Everything else
Equipment is really simple. You have 3 places to equip stuff: your arms, fingers and ears. Each character can equip one piece of equipment to each of those. Equipment will give various effects like HP, MP and CP boost, or resistance to certain status effects. And there’s that incredibly stupid piece of equipment that “let’s you physically attack enemies without damaging them”… Yeah, unless you REALLY want to get the right attack order on old enemies, this is pointless.

Then you have spells. While visiting the spell menus, you can put pieces of Aria Paper on each of the spells, unlocking the higher levels of the spells (each spell goes up to level 5). You can move around the Aria Paper all you want, so if there’s a spell you don’t use anymore, you can just take away the Aria Paper from it and put it anywhere else. You can also equip the spells to either of the characters to fit your preferences/strategies. Out of battle, you can use Support Spells, either healing or Buffs, and the effects will be there once you get in battle, so you don’t have to waste turns in battle to use those spells if you don’t want to.

Outside of battle, you are running across the fields and dungeons. If Nine is out, your MP will slowly regenerate, and if Aisha is out, your HP will slowly regenerate. Battles aren’t random, you see the enemies so you can avoid them (there’s spells made just for that purpose too, like running faster or being invisible to them). Once the enemies see you, they will chase you until you run far away enough, or if you teleport out of their way. Other than that, you can find… green poles or something, and hitting them recovers your CP. There’s also monoliths, which bring you to the Vamino Room, a place with a save point and mirrors which can be used to fast travel to areas you’ve already been. Speaking of the Vamino Room, be sure to enter all the monoliths, because having all the mirrors activated opens up a special room where you can fight the extra bosses. Finally, the fields/dungeons also include treasure chests. Red ones contain spells and other special items needed to advance through the game, and the blue ones contain healing items. The red ones disappear when opened, while the blue ones can be re-opened all you want. To open chests, you need “Keys of Gannon”, which are random drops from enemies (any of them can drop Keys of Gannon).
There’s also invisible treasure chests. Those can only be opened once you get the True Sight spell. Those chests are all in a small square with 4 small poles and red electricity linking them toghether(you’ll know what I mean when you see them), and you HAVE to remember where all of those things are, since one of the last dungeon requires going back to all of those and opening them up to get items required to advance through the dungeon. Now THAT was tedious.

Fighting gives you experience. The number of experience you get is determined by how much you hit the enemies in the right order (in regards to body parts), and by how easily you killed them. The easier they are to kill, the less experience they give. Enemies that give you over 1000 EXP at first will quickly give you less than 20 once you become stronger. By the time you finish a dungeon, monsters outside of that dungeon will give you no EXP at all. Literally. When you level up, your HP, MP and CP increases. Other stats increase as well, but you actually can’t see all your other stats… Weird.

Difficulty
The game starts out a bit difficult while you learn how to play, but never overwhelmingly tough. CP is hard to manage at first since you don’t have much to start with, but once you get the Chain Booster spell(before or during the second dungeon, I don’t remember exactly when) you never have to worry about it anymore.
Once you get to the second dungeon, the difficulty spikes. Here, you pretty much HAVE to grind, but grinding isn’t very effective since enemies give less EXP as you become stronger. Once you’re around level 19, the second dungeon becomes manageable, finally. And then, the game becomes too easy! The second boss of the second dungeon, if you beat him with enough physical attacks to at least max out the bonus EXP, gives you enough EXP to get 5 levels at once. From there on out, nothing will ever come close to killing you, except MAYBE the fourth Prinny side-boss, who is the strongest enemy in the game, and if you’re level 50 by then he can’t do anything against you (at level 55 you’re literally unstoppable). The final boss either for that matter, he’s also incredibly easy to kill if you’re close to level 50. After a short while spells become useless since you can kill everything in one turn of melee attacks with both characters (if you have the right attack order for each enemy).

So yeah… the game is WAY too easy, after the random difficulty spike. I never died once after finishing the second dungeon.

Overall
It’s not a bad game, but despite its original and unique fighting system, it’s surprisingly simplistic. And it’s way too easy. The story isn’t memorable, but it’s not too bad, and I liked the characters. It’s just that, once you finish it, it feels like a few things are unresolved.

It’s okay for a rental during a weekend or something, but it’s gonna be done almost as soon as you’ll start playing with only 12-13 hours worth of playing (around 14 if you want a Platinum trophy). Not worth buying unless you find it cheap, but still kinda worth checking out. It’s a nice distraction until FF13 come out… which is in a few days.

Pros and cons
Pros
- Some nice art in there
- Prinnies!
- Original fighting system
- The characters were pretty good

Cons
- Incredibly easy, despite the huge difficulty spike in the second dungeon
- Even the extra bosses are pushovers
- Rather short, clocking in at around 13 hours (not a lot for an RPG, and I did spend a short while grinding and I wasted a lot of time at the Tower of Freya)
- No cutscenes, just art and conversations
- Very anti-climactic ending
- The Tower of Freya is probably the worst idea for a dungeon in any RPG ever

The Save Factor
The game has a starting price of $40, which is relatively low. But sadly I think paying more than $25 is a bit too much. This is a rental.

jobocan Console, Games, ps3, Review