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The Last Story: Sakaguchi back at the helm

As many of you know, Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series, is currently working on an project named The Last Story, being developed for the Nintendo Wii. It is tentatively to be released in Japan, at the end of 2010. In a interview he did about a week ago, Sakaguchi explained about his motivations and the restless feeling he had during development of The Last Story.

Sakaguchi makes mention about his decision to leave Square-Enix back in 2004. His personal feelings of going through the motions, or as he puts it, "riding the wrong wave". All of these recent experiences in his life have finally lead Sakaguchi back to what he should be doing in the first place, telling epic story narratives through the use of a interactive medium. That (to quote from a famous movie) ...is his first, best destiny.

In his own words, "The Last Story is one of gratitude for the fans". Gratitude that he feels to be able to create RPG's once again on such a large scale. The name The Last Story, as many have suspected, comes from Sakaguchi's own "particularly strong feelings". His strong feeling of "no regrets", because if this is to be his "last project", or if this should "fail", he will be asked to retire. Which is pretty harsh, but lets hope that this won't be the case with The Last Story. I must say, the screen shots so far look amazing and so do the character drawings. It's pretty clear from the drawings what job-classes the new characters are.

Let's see. First we have the Fighter or Warrior Class, most definitely. He looks a lot like Kiba from Wolf Rain, so I'm already predisposed to liking him. I'm going out on a limb to say that he is probably our Hero and the Protagonist of the story. He is a young man with one large weapon (stop, get your mind out of the gutter). The broken chains and left arm guard give the feeling of, an angsty - Spawn meets Dante.

Next we have a Knight, possibly? Also, there is a combination Black Mage. That would certainly save time from a game play perspective. He looks to be carrying a broadsword along with another weapon, a samurai sword. Interesting? Is he the older male character, there to give the younger a helping hand and life advice? A sort of younger Han Solo, with a definite rockstar feel. Especially with him wearing about 50 friendship bracelets, on each arm. (Not unlike a Bass Guitarist who accompanies the Lead Guitarist).

Continuing, this next person maybe a Blue Magic user. He is wearing (dark) blue so that might make him a Dragoon, or Gun Mage? (aka: Gunner, especially wearing those cowboy boots). He seems to be carrying a short blade or dagger, which could make him a Thief or Rogue Class character. Or it could simply be a secondary weapon, making his primary weapon a Halberd or Harpoon as the game progresses.

Moving on to the ladies. We can see from the first girl's outfit (if you can call it that), she is dressed very similar to Rikku, from Final Fantasy X-2. Wearing her stylish short-shorts and a bikini top, if I were to take a wild guess from the obvious similarities, her class title would be that of a Thief. However, the red hair, red henna shoulder tattoos, and matching double handed weapons give a clearer indication that she could be a Red Mage. Lastly, we come to the young woman wearing white, who is no doubt the Princess of this story and a White Mage. No question. (Those boots are wicked).

The characters seems to stay very close to the classic RPG tradition. That's not necessary a bad thing.  I like tradition (in my gaming). A lot of gamers do and much more than we're willing to admit. I mean, we say that we want something different, but what we actually mean is, "We want a slight variation on the a classical theme". Basically, we want a traditional RPG with a twist. I know that I'm not alone in this feeling, because it seems that when Sakaguchi, or any developer goes too far outside of the classic RPG parameters in-order to do something new and different, many gamers, myself included, have more than a few unflattering things to say about it. Very loudly and for a long period of time.

No matter what, I always like to give a new IP a chance to surprise me in a positive way. Especially a game directed by Sakaguchi himself. The man who created two of my favorite RPG's Final Fantasy 9 & Final Fantasy 10. Sure, they both had their problems, without question. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed both and play them repeatedly every two years or so.

I'm truly looking forward to this title, more so than I'd like to admit. The music alone is simply beautiful. However, in situations like this, dealing with a new IP, you never know what to expect. As gamers we should never raise our expectation too high, as many of us often do. No game, person, or tech-toy will ever live-up to the standards set in ones own imagination. Which I will freely admit to doing myself, on more than a one occasion.

However I will remain ever optimistic in regards to The Last Story. I will continue to hope for the best; the possibility of playing a truly epic RPG on the Wii (other than Zelda). But I will expect the worst; that this game may not hold-up to the hype.  It's always best to error on the side of caution, that way I'll never be disappointed. But, in this case, I hope to be pleasantly surprised.