After receiving the mystical "Mark of the Outsider", Zael becomes involved with a noblewoman named Calista in an ongoing war between humans and the beast-like Gurak.

Zael can command the rest of the mercenary squad during missions, and fights in battles that involve action, tactical and stealth elements.

The game was directed and co-written by Hironobu Sakaguchi, the original creator of Final Fantasy, who had the initial idea for the title after seeing the mixed responses to Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

In addition to environments within missions such as ruins and forests where enemies are encountered and fought, there is an arena where the player can improve the party and their combat abilities.

[1][4] During combat, a character's Tension gauge will fill, enabling the performance of special moves: these can vary from dealing damage to enemies across a wide area to reviving unconscious allies.

[5] A skill unique to Zael is Gathering: when activated, all enemies within an area will focus their attention on him, allowing other team members to act without interruption.

[2] In addition to standard combat, players can switch to a behind-the-shoulder perspective for manually firing Zael's crossbow, which can launch a variety of ammunition at enemies and objects.

Eventually, Zael will learn the ability to "diffuse" magic circles which will spread the spell's effect which varies depending on the element.

[9] The Last Story is set on Lazulis Island, a vast seaborne fortress ruled by Count Arganan and allied to an unnamed human empire in the midst of crisis as the land decays and dies.

To avoid being killed by the ensuing cannon fire, Zael, Dagran, and Calista stow away on a Gurak ship and eventually take it over.

According to Matsumoto, the team leads went to the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) each year and were assured that their game was in-step with current gameplay trends.

[19] After being contacted regarding both The Last Story and fellow Wii ARPG Xenoblade Chronicles, Hatano said that the games should be made for a wide audience and using a "romanticist approach".

[20] When explaining why The Last Story was exclusive to the Wii, Sakaguchi said that it was because a large proportion of the late development staff, including the testers, came from Nintendo.

[13] According to Sakaguchi, the initial version featuring a science fiction storyline was "shot down" by Nintendo, forcing the team to begin all over again with a new setting and characters.

[13] Sakaguchi used this in-game dialogue to help convey the characters' personalities: as part of this, adlibs from the actors were included, and continual adjustments were made to the script.

The world design he initially created was fairly bleak, but after Nintendo insisted on the scenario being changed, he redesigned it around a brighter fantasy aesthetic.

[13] A concept that did not make it into the final game was "Replay": after an enemy successfully cast a spell, players could rewatch the last few seconds of battle from an overhead view to see what type it was and take that into their strategy.

[19] The game's music was composed by Nobuo Uematsu, a long-time collaborator with Sakaguchi who had worked on the Final Fantasy series, Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey.

[49] Eurogamer's Martin Robinson found the characters the most appealing part of the game, an opinion shared by Francesco Dagostino of 1UP.com, who particularly cited Syrenne's portrayal.

[2] Edge Magazine found the story fairly traditional despite a strong cast and emotional power, while Matthew Castle of Computer and Video Games praised the effort made to flesh out the party members in side-missions despite referring to the main narrative as "tedious".

[45][46] GameTrailers, while noting the familiar plotlines the game explored, said that The Last Story handled its plot better than others of its kind, praising its character development.

Jason Wishnov of G4 was also critical of the characters and plot, calling the former "one-note" despite convincing camaraderie and well-written in-game dialogue, and the latter impeded by problems with formulaic writing despite some late-game twists.

[2] Walton found the battle system fun and enjoyed the amount of side quests, while Dagostino was highly positive about the game's successful efforts in moving away from genre tradition.

[4][44] Juba enjoyed the multiplayer and praised the game for moving away from the genre's traditional battle systems despite faults with their overall implementation, while Robinson found the gameplay suffered from the design goals that had fueled its creation.

[48][51] Castle was positive about the variety of gameplay and tactical elements despite some stiff combat mechanics, but noted the inability to alter difficulty being a point against the game.

[45] Wishnov praised the fast pace and variety of the combat, but found that more cumbersome RPG elements and a lack of overall control negatively impacted the experience.

[52] Edge, while noting multiple core similarities with other games within the genre, found that other elements came together to make it a more fast-paced cinematic experience than other traditional RPGs; Fuller enjoyed the battle system, but thought that it lacked challenge and had difficulties with the camera.

[3][46] Parkin was generally positive about combat, particularly about the blending and gradual growth of character abilities, while Nintendo Power called the battle system "satisfying" and the multiplayer "surprisingly worthwhile".

[46] Juba praised the character models, but found environments to be "ugly and muddy in comparison"; Fuller, while not actively criticizing them, said that players used to high-definition consoles would be disappointed.

[52][53] Nintendo Power said that the graphics gave the game's setting an "authentic" appearance despite some low-resolution textures, while Eurogamer praised them for their "sepia tone".