Last Rebellion review

Last Rebellion offers an interesting idea for its world: the main character(s), Nine and Aisha, share a single soul, so only one of them can exist in reality at a time. The world in which these characters live is pretty brown and boring, but this otherwise passable RPG’s ace in the hole is its creative attack system. The player can choose to target any or all of its enemy’s body parts, which are then ‘stamped’ so you can inflict magic upon them for the next few turns.

The strategy comes in making sure that you don’t deplete the CP gauge too quickly, which will force your second character to skip their go. See, you can set up combo attacks where you swap characters mid-attack. The risk-reward theme continues with the ability to harvest fallen foes for magic points, at the risk of them awakening.

A shame then, that outside of some gorgeous artwork, the rest of the game is boring and brown, the presentation is dire (we’re talking PS2-era graphics) and it has a camera that hates your guts. The story also is full of cliches and has a weirdly emotionless tone to it. Right at the beginning Nine sees her dad murdered by his brother right in front of her eyes. Instead of an anguished “Noooooo!” (yeah, ok, that’s cliche too), Nine just shrugs and lets out a bored retort.

Save points are frequent and the game is, at least, well paced. JRPG addicts might find something to enjoy here, but otherwise it’s a mixed bag of cool combat and weak-to-really-weak everything else.

Mar 2, 2010