The Last Story Got Its Cover Mechanic in My JRPG

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT0keV-P6nM&hl=en_US&fs=1]

A long time ago, Hironobu Sakaguchi, famed man behind Final Fantasy I through X and designer on The Last Story, said he wanted to make a game like Gears of War. Let’s hope his version of Gears of War, The Last Story, works better than Square Enix’s.

And from this trailer, the first gamey bits we’ve gotten, it looks like yes, it definitely will be. An RPG with a cover system, a combo mechanic, and characters who don’t look like Tetsuya Nomura drawn abortions? A main character who looks like Geddoe, resident badass of Suikoden III? Why yes, The Last Story has all these things.

I mean, I’m not convinced it will be amazing, but it’s reassuring to see Japanese developers try to experiment some with the tried and true JRPG tropes. And there’s few designers I would have more faith in than Hironobu Sakaguchi; even if I didn’t particularly like Lost Odyssey, it was a game with ideas that took some chances, and I appreciate that. And sure, The Last Story might fall on its face. But, from this trailer, I’m optimistic that it’ll be able to avoid that fate. If it can combine the gameplay promised here with the mature storytelling of Lost Odyssey, we might have something fantastic.