If you are a fan of old-school, turn-based JRPGs, you would probably prefer Xenoblade’s approach. If you’re more of an action gamer, though, you are more likely to like Last Story’s system. Winner: The Last Story Last Story is predictable and clichéd, whereas Xenoblade contains a more elaborate and original story with a few genuine surprises and a unique premise. While that should give Xenoblade the upper hand, its story is weakened by bland characters and a conventional approach, while the Last Story gets a leg up from more focused storytelling, sharper dialogue, and slightly more engaging characters. Winner: Tie But Xenoblade Chronicles goes beyond the basics; each article of equipment offers a mix of strengths and weaknesses, and a gem-crafting system allows you to change weapons in significant ways. There is yet another elaborate system to earn and assign various abilities. For those who really want to delve into character development, there is no debate on which game is better. Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles With greater complexity comes greater dysfunctionality, which may be why, in the same way that there are dozens of great features in Xenoblade Chronicles, there are also myriad annoyances. Menus are consistently unwieldy. The gem crafting menu resets every time you craft a gem, so after leaving your Gem IV collection in order of type you are returned to your Gem I collection in the default sort. (Last Story at least lets you consistently remove subtitles from cutscenes, although it keeps them for everything else.) The game is often unnecessarily frustrating; finding a particular character or item can be exhausting and tedious, and one’s inventory will eventually fill up with useless items that you have no way of knowing are useless without a cheat sheet. You can argue that its epic scope makes Xenoblade’s aggravations understandable, but they are still wearying. Winner: The Last Story. In terms of the score, it’s pretty close. Last Story has an absolutely gorgeous theme song, but overall Xenoblade has more interesting incidental music. Both scores are excellent. In terms of the English versions’ voice acting, Xenoblade suffered from a poor casting choice in Shulk, who sounds slightly snooty with his upper-class British accent. Last Story’s similar protagonist Zael has the everyman’s voice one would have wanted for Shulk. In general, Xenoblade’s voice acting is more cartoonish than Last Story’s. Xenoblade also has those voices repeating certain battle phrases endlessly, whereas Last Story offers varied dialogue appropriate to the situation. Winner: The Last Story Winner: Xenoblade Chronicles In the comparison above, The Last Story wins on more categories, yet the victory goes to Xenoblade Chronicles, because when The Last Story wins a category, it does so by a little, but when Xenoblade wins, it does so by a lot. This epic game is four times as long, has far more side quests of far greater variety, has a more imaginative premise, and offers a greater sense of world immersion. While The Last Story can’t beat out a game that is easily one of the greatest JRPGs of all time, it is still a wonderful game. In any contest, there has to be a loser, but among JRPGs, both of these games are winners. Victor: Xenoblade Chronicles
