It is absolutely fitting that the director of The Last Story, Hironobu Sakaguchi, is the creator of the Final Fantasy series. After all, The Last Story is a RPG that, unlike the latest releases of the famous, and ironically endless, Square Enix franchise, develops its ideas and characters in a mature, but modest way.

The plot is pretty basic: Zael, the young protagonist, encounters a beautiful but strange girl in the market of a city one day. And, after helping her escape from the local guards, falls in love before discovering that she is, in fact, the princess of the kingdom, Calista.

What makes The Last Story special is how this simple story is told. The romance between Zael and Calista, for example, would certainly be one of the most irritating and unnecessary elements of the plot if it were treated in a juvenile and exaggerated way, but that does not happen here. The love relationship between the two grows little by little. At the beginning of the game, they just feel a natural attraction to each other, but with the powerful experiences they eventually share, with the adventures they live together, and mainly because of the great deal of understanding that one always offers to the other, their relationship becomes something special: it becomes palpable.

Zael himself is a much more complex character than he appears to be at first. His dream is to become a knight, so he can be able to protect the people from the evil that was inflicted upon his family when he was a child. However, his journey modifies him subtly, making him see the universe around him in a different light. So, when the opportunity to make his dream come true arises, his hesitation sounds not only natural, but correct to the player.

Another positive aspect of the story is the brilliant way in which Sakaguchi manages to interconnect all the plots in the game. The transitions between the political machinations of the court, intending to poison the relationship between Zael and Calista, the war against the inhabitants of the distant continent of the Gurak, and the plot about the deterioration of nature and the imminent end of the world are seemingless, thus preventing the game from losing its focus.

And the same serious and realistic approach to the love story is also given to all these plots, which start slowly but evolve over time. The war between continents, for example, does not bring one side more correct than the other; both races (humans and guraks) have extremely similar motivations and commit similar atrocities. Political intrigue sounds logical and necessary to move the most important pieces to war and the destruction of nature comes as the natural consequence of so much battle, hatred and death.

The villains in the The Last Story stand out because they occasionally show traces of rationality, making them more realistic: they are not evil because they are evil, but have excellent reasons for acting the way they do. The motivations of Count Arganan, for example, are absolutely understandable: he is the leader of the human race and has the duty to watch over their future. His relentless pursuit of a power capable of annihilating the rival and hostile race is justified. And even his most absurd moment – the solo attack on a dormant alien entity – is understandable because of the apparent lack of alternatives. The vile and cowardly Jirall also has his hostility towards the protagonist well justified, after all, Zael is stealing not only his wife, but also his entire future at court. Now, the villain Zangurak (the lost twin brother of Ganondorf from The Legend of Zelda) appears more one-dimensional, although this is due much more to his little presence throughout the adventure than by lack of conflicts or a weak personality.

Structured in the form of chapters and moving at a steady pace, the only problem of the story is precisely this, the fact that some subplots remain underdeveloped. In the end, it becomes apparent that more time should have been reserved for several characters to grow and have their stories told: in another words, The Last Story should have been longer. The secondary missions of Mirania and Yurick, Zael’s mercenary companions, serve as good examples. These missions – which are, in fact, entire chapters – develop not only their personality, but also some of the main themes. However, the rest of the mercenary group – Lowell, Syrenne and Dagran – have no chapters of their own. With the exception of the latter, since his story has a strong connection with the main one, this lack of development is felt and represents a great loss of opportunity to further expand the narrative.

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