YMMV / The Last Story

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• Alternate Character Interpretation: Jirall is a real nasty piece of work, but it's also entirely possible that he did legitimately harbor feelings for Calista, as he never physically harms or intentionally demeans her and puts at least some effort into trying to come across as charming during his introduction, with Calista more rebuffing him because she finds his arrogance and cruelty towards everyone else disgusting. His rant after he completely loses his sanity indicates that he legitimately doesn't know why Calista despises him so much.
• Awesome Music:
  • The track is composed by Nobuo Uematsu after all. The music that plays when Calista and Zael escape Zael's knighting ceremony as well as when Zael fights General Asthar, part of this track is way epic.
  • The music heard during the wedding of Zael and Calista. Very heartwarming.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Yurick. Youngest member of the group, uses fire, is needed in party to break the barrier of the final boss, and after fighting the replicas during Yurick's sidequest mission and at the end, he gets the Character Development that sets him apart from the typical angsty teen standard and smiles.
  • Lowell is very popular with the male fanbase, on account of being manly enough to make lilac seem like the manliest colour ever and being a badass playboy with a surprising amount of Hidden Depths. Also? He wields frickin' ice as his main element! Yes, that's right. Lowell is so badass that he makes the stereotypical "healer" element into an awesome offensive force.
  • Syrenne is also pretty popular, as she's a legimate Action Girl, to point of being the Big Guy of the mercenaries (and the best physical character), and like Lowell, possess Hidden Depths. Her being a very attractive, somewhat stripperifficaly dressed (although in a relatively realistic manner), and having strong implications of being bisexual, also helps among the male (and sometimes female) fanbase.
  • Sir Therius became this, mainly due to his Character Development of initially despising all mercenaries to learning to trust and work with Zael and the main party, on top of becoming Fire-Forged Friends with Zael by the game's epilogue. His close bond with General Asthar also helped as well.
  • General Asthar. Not only is a Mentor Archetype to both Therius and eventually Zael in the game, he's also one of the happiest, jolliest military-type characters you'll ever meet, save for his tragic backstory as well as his Tearjerker-worthy death midgame.
• Fan Nickname: Some fans call this Final Fantasy: Mass Effect.
• Game-Breaker: Summon Circles. Activate, get into relatively straightforward fight, receive a redonkulus amount of XP and goodies, repeat. Level Grinding has NEVER been this easy!
• Goddamned Bats: Literally, there are damned bats in the haunted mansion area, which if you don't react quick enough, will drain your life to zero in 10 seconds or less. You can't even kill them, which makes it worse.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Zangurak, a clear Expy of Ganondorf, has some very long hair. Come Hyrule Warriors, that game's incarnation of Ganondorf has long, wild hair.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The chief criticism lobbied at the game is that its plot is fairly derivative and doesn't veer too far from standard JRPG conventions.
• Ho Yay: Syrenne and Lisa/Calista in a bathing scene. She also mentions later how she wants a piece of Mirania's silky smooth skin later.
• Like You Would Really Do It: The game has numerous instances that play up the supposed or expected deaths of cast members, often of the You Shall Not Pass! variety, but occasionally as Taking the Bullet. The character in question nearly always survives, with one exception who's brought back to life soon afterward, anyway.
• Magnificent Bastard: Dagran, hero Zael's childhood friend and boss, after losing his family to the corrupt nobility, masterminded the Garuk and Lazulis war. Desiring his group's future and revenge, Dagran planned to get the Outsider's power to gain Count Arganam's support, but when Zael got it instead Dagran tried appealing him to the count, even pushing him to wed his niece Calista. While doing this, Dagran staged a Gurak invasion as cover to kill General Asthar, leader of the knights who killed his family, but when Zael was blamed for it, he framed Jirall, Calista's fiancé, to secure their marriage but when Zael denounce Arganam, Dagran realizing his plan has crumbled, decide to get the full power of the Outsider to reshape the world, manipulating the wielders Zangurak and Zael before taking the power for himself. Confronted by Zael's group, he reveals his entire plan to them before reluctantly battling them in a final fight, and after being cut down Dagran, in his last moments, reconciles with his team and resurrects Lowell with the last of his power. A crafty mercenary, Dagran's wit showed how he was able to be the one ruling everything.
• Obvious Judas: The fact that Dagran is the game's main villain is a secret easy to figure out. The multiple instances of foreshadowing that he was not exactly on Zael's side were so blatant the game basically tells you it's him. Some of it includes the fact he is known to be a good manipulator by framing Jirall for Ashtar's death, he never has an alibi, and is missing during the entire final segment of the game up.
• Strangled by the Red String: Zael and Calista's relationship. The fact that the Beta Couple of the game is fleshed out waaaay better doesn't help, either.
• Tear Jerker:
  • When Lowell jumps in the way to save Syrenne from being stabbed by a sword of light.
  • When General Asthar dies.
  • When Dagran dies, and the party goes to the grave they made for him at the end of the game and reminisce about him. Doubly so when they affirm that Dagran really just wanted the best for all of them.
  • In the Epilogue, if Zael and Calista enter Count Arganan's office, Calista will mention a few notes about how she "never really talked" to her uncle, noting that he didn't really have anyone close to him like how she is with Zael. Given this, as well as the Pet the Dog moment that ensues with reading Arganan's journal full of regrets over using Calista as a pawn in his schemes in his journal, you can't help but feel at least a tiny bit bad for him, even if he was a terrible person.
• That One Attack: Terracor's curl, the possession attack of the two Shade bosses (which, in addition, can potentially kill any possessed party member so the bosses can recover part of its energy) and Mystic Spider's swallowing attack.
• Vanilla Protagonist: Both Zael and Calista are largely considered average, which makes the rest of the supporting cast to stand out next to them.

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