Review #339
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Last Rebellion
Publisher: Nippon Ichi Software America
Developer: Hit Maker
Genre: Turn Based RPG
Release Date: 02/24/2010
Despite their name, Hit Maker is not a developer that has produced any real hits. Most reviewers haven’t been kind towards their titles, but I have to admit Blade Dancer wasn’t bad for a $4.99 game, which is what I paid for it when Nippon Ichi put it on sale in the Playstation Store. As well our own Aileen Coe gave a fairly positive review to A Witch’s Tale and we tend to be one of the harsher gaming publications around. I also liked A Witch’s Tale for its innovation and weirdness.
Now here we are with Hit Maker’s fourth game, Last Rebellion. Even before the game was officially out, people were badmouthing it and some were even proclaiming it the worst game of the year, which shows that said publication hadn’t experience the hell that is Walk It Out. The weirdest things I heard was the bitching that the game used static images for dialogue instead of fully rendered CGI. This confused me greatly because MOST RPG’s have gone that route. I grew up in the 8 and 16 bit era so this is pretty standard for me. I mean the old Sega Genesis Shadowrun didn’t have CGI or animated cinematics and it’s still one of the ten best RPG’s ever released. Disgaea didn’t have either of those things and it won our 2003 Game of the Year. So I went into this game assuming that these complainers were only concerned with how a game looks rather than how it actually PLAYED (which is both stupid and sadly how many gaming publications actually look at products these days) or that these were younger people who have probably never played quality RPG’s like The Bard’s Tale, Ultima IV or Shining Force that earned their status as legends through gameplay and story.
So did that turn out to be the case? Was Last Rebellion actually a good game that just happened to be retro in look and feel? Was this a case of judging a budget niche game by Final Fantasy fanboys (the second creepiest scourge in gaming). Or did it turn out that Last Rebellion was indeed a pile of pure unadulterated suck?
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