Status jademonkey Mar 31, 2021
I'm about 20 hours in to the Last Dream and having a really good time with it.
The writing is a bit amateurish and the storyline isn't anything special. The combat system is bog standard turn based RPG. It feels like an RPG maker game.
There's just a lot of attention to detail that keeps me coming back. There are …
I'm about 20 hours in to the Last Dream and having a really good time with it.
The writing is a bit amateurish and the storyline isn't anything special. The combat system is bog standard turn based RPG. It feels like an RPG maker game.
There's just a lot of attention to detail that keeps me coming back. There are a ton of side quests, treasure hunts, optional puzzles, monster hunts, fishing, etc. that are really addictive and reward exploration. I mean, most of these are rather basic implementations, but rewards are doled out well and keep the dopamine flowing. The world is also surprisingly dynamic, with many minor characters updating dialogue with story events and even moving from city to city.
You choose 4 characters from 8 classes (with multiples of a class if you like). If you want pure fire power, you can go with 3 knights/monks and a white mage. Or, you can go for a more utility based team like I did. Hunters allow you to ride moas (chocobos) and scan enemies to get a full list of their stats, drops, etc, while providing moderate attack power and buffs in combat. Thieves steal things in and out of combat, and bring some slick debuffs for boss fights. Engineers get double value out of items, open shortcuts in levels and on maps, and have some nice buffs and spell-adjacent abilities. The engineer is actually frequently my MVP, annihilating enemies with double damage bombs (well x4 with a weakness or crit or x8 with both...) and rejuvenating the party with double power fish. The game has done a great job making my team composition feel meaningful, with side quest and story events resolving differently from time to time based on party composition.
There's also an item synthesis system that lets you craft more specialized items from the basic ones bought at stores or found as loot. While it doesn't allow you to customize items per se, there are so many recipes available that it really does give you a lot of freedom to kit out characters differently to deal with new challenges.
I guess what I'm saying is that a game that is fundamentally mediocre can really draw me in with subsystems and sidequests haha.