[BreakABone]

The post is titled "Chaos and Order." These are themes Mistwalker CEO Hironobu Sakaguchi addressed months before The Last Story's official announcement at the Mistwalker blog.

Writes the director, "Making order from chaos. Or, pulling the enemies who were in order into chaos. Using one of the main character's skills called 'Gathering,' we wanted to make a system that would let you control that type of situation."

During battle, the current focus of the enemy is marked with a line, called a "Pointer." "This is probably the most special feature when you see this game," writes the director. The pointer's color can be used for strategy, as it will indicate enemy type, such as soldier, mage, or archer who attempts to disrupt your own mage's magic chants.

The gathering skill is used to steal the focus of an enemy. Execute the gathering skill, and you make the enemy turn his focus on to you.

One example of this system's use is in a situation where enemies are focusing their sights on your mage. You can use gathering to turn their sights on to you, assisting your mage in chanting his magic.

"Controlling chaos and order on the battle field ties in to victory," finishes the director.

The producer notes that when playing sports or doing anything where you face off against an enemy, the first thing you do is create a strategy. In order to have all members move in accordance with a prescribed strategy, participants need to cooperate, sending signals to each other and getting into formations.

"Combat in games is the same," writes the producer. "Ordered movements of your allies is the key to victory. But what if there were an opponent who could bring confusion to that order?"

A story board at the blog shows how the gathering and pointer systems work, beginning with the start of battle (above) and continuing to the main character gathering the enemy focus on himself so that a party member mage can successfully cast a spell that makes the main character's sword more powerful.

The Last Story