If you’re anything like me… you’re probably a pretty awesome person… but you probably also have a thing for a well-crafted JRPG (not the garbage that Square has been crapping out for years since Hironobu Sakaguchi left to form Mistwalker).

In my humble (but also true) opinion, Lost Odyssey felt more like a true Final Fantasy game than the abomination that was last year’s Final Fantasy XIII (seriously, if you liked that game, gtfo because it was awful)—a beautiful soundtrack from Nobuo Uematsu (the man who created the Final Fantasy sound), a wonderfully emotional story from Hironobu Sakaguchi (the mind that gave Final Fantasy its start), and traditional, turn-based combat like JRPGs were meant to be played.   Lost Odyssey stands as one of my favorite games this generation and my favorite JRPG of all time—I love the game!   Blue Dragon was a solid title, too, but Mistwalker really sunk their claws in me with Lost Odyssey and I’ve been longing for their next console release since then (I’ve been begging for a Lost Odyssey 2, but that doesn’t seem to be happening), and finally a new console release has arrived!   … in Japan.

The Last Story (yes, we all know how much the title resembles Final Fantasy.   No, you are not clever for pointing it out), Mistwalker’s latest release, seems to be a bold new direction for the developer with more real time, action-based combat than their traditional RPGs… but it’s a combat system, from what I’ve seen in videos, that actually looks good!   None of that lazy, self-playing crap featured in FFXIII, but a strategic approach to action combat that looks fun and innovative.   I can’t speak from personal experience, since I haven’t played the game (and I don’t speak Japanese, so I can’t really understand the videos I watch), but I would really, really like to have the opportunity to experience this game.

Being a Mistwalker game, it’s bound to have a story worth experiencing (Sakaguchi-san knows how to craft a brilliant tale) and a beautiful accompanying soundtrack, but the game also manages to look beautiful on the limited hardware of the Wii.   Sure, I would have liked for it to be released on an HD system, but I think releasing on the Wii was actually a smart move for the developer.   Their previous games haven’t really received the sales they deserve and development costs for a non-HD system are cheaper (and the Wii has the largest install base of all the consoles).   So, I really hope that Mistwalker can find financial success with this release… but if they’re really looking for more sales, why not release it over here in North America?   I would buy it!

This might seem like a non-article, and it kinda is, but I was thinking about The Last Story yesterday, so I tweeted that it’d be nice if Mistwalker would release it over here, so I’m sure someone else out there does, too.   Mistwalker replied to my tweet saying, “Thanks for your tweet.   More info to come.”   So, I have hope that we’ll be hearing some news on a The Last Story North American release… I just hope it’s not, “We have no plans to release The Last Story in North America.”