While The Last Story doesn't allow for any outright cheats, our reviewer, Blake Peterson, has everything you need to know for smooth sailing in Hironobu Sakaguchi's Wii RPG. For more, please check out our The Last Story FAQ.
1. Watch the tutorial videos
This sounds like a total no-brainer, but it's actually pretty easy to skip the tutorial videos (initially prompted with the + button until you dismiss them or leave the area) especially if you're prompted for one right before the beginning of a cut-scene or moving into a new area. I completely missed the tutorial on tactical squad control because I moved to a new area immediately after getting it, and had to go to the menu and watch it once I realized I was missing out on a huge part of the game a half hour later. Luckily they can be watched at any time from the pause menu (opened by pressing "-"). A good number of the negative reviews I've read for this game seem to me to boil down to the reviewer missing some primary game mechanics, and perhaps missed a tutorial that explained it.
2. Once combat starts, stay/get into cover, then use tactical command.
The most effective way to fight battles in The Last Story is to use tactical battle commands (enter tactical mode by pressing up on the d-pad, which isn't available until 4-6 hours into the game) to direct your companions to take out high profile targets (like mages, healers, commandos or giant trolls) and then go nuts on the little guys. In order to do that you need to let your skill gauge fill up completely, which can be done while waiting in cover once the battle starts.
From cover you can attack with your crossbow, including using burst or ice arrows to do element specific damage to foes. Another huge advantage is that you can use the slash command from cover to dash out and attack enemies for a much stronger attack, or even an instant kill if they are confused (you'll know because they'll have a question mark above their heads).
It's tempting, and fun, to dash right into the fray and club the enemies into submission, but this will likely result in longer more frustrating battles as your allies are killed off, and later enemies have a guard ability to protect against head-on attacks, making Zael's combat abilities less effective without support.
After you issue your commands, go nuts and slash everyone to ribbons until your skill gauge fills up again and you can issue more commands.
3. Once your skill gauge fills up use the Gale ability from the tactical menu to disperse magic circles and create status effects
One of the most powerful combat mechanics in the Last Story is the Gale ability. You can use this to have Zael disperse the effects of your own magic to create powerful status effects (dispersing Calista's magic results in a barrier, fire magic in a break in the enemy's guard, ice magic will make the enemy slip and fall prone, and so on) do active damage to an enemy, or invert the enemy's spell circles.
It's advisable to let your skill gauge fill up all the way and activate Gale from the tactical command menu, because holding A to activate gale will removed bar a from your skill gauge, increasing the amount of time before you can open your tactical menu again.
.... More on our FAQ page!
Explore the galaxy in the franchise's first open-world game.
