RPG Maker Dungeon #14: Last Scenario
Link: https://site.scfworks.com/?page_id=8
Last Scenario came out of nowhere for me when it dropped in 2007. At the time I was a lurker at GamingWorld, the hub for English language RPG Maker development at the time. Developers teased their games for years through screenshots before releasing them--that is, if they ever finished them. Last Scenario though was made and released outside of that ecosystem. You could only find it by going to the developer SCF's website. Even after I downloaded a copy, I struggled to install the MS Gothic font that would properly display the game's text.
Once I got Last Scenario working, what I found was probably the most fully realized game made in RPG Maker XP to that point. It's a long RPG with mostly original face and sprite art. The systems aren't particularly flashy, but are polished enough that they feel as if they were always part of the engine, rather than new features added through scripting. There's even a card game that's just like Triple Triad from Final Fantasy VIII!
Any one of these features would have been the pride of any developer from that time period. The fact that SCF did it all in their first release without prior promotion in RPG Maker circles was wild to me. Here was proof that you didn't need to spend time hyping your game on forums. You could just make something cool in your own circles and put it out there for people to play. For that same reason, I bristled when I saw folks on the internet dismiss the game as "just another JRPG." Didn't they know what they were missing?!
Well, it's been over a decade now since 2007. While XP is no longer the RPG Maker engine of choice, there have been some very technically impressive games made in the engine such as Nocturne Rebirth. I began to wonder: did Last Scenario still stand up in 2025? Or is this game that came out of nowhere back in the day just normal now?
Last Scenario begins simply. The protagonist, Hilbert, is a young man who dreams of greater things. A mysterious woman named Zawu reveals to him that he is the secret descendant of Alexander, a great hero who once saved the world from demons. Hilbert is encouraged by her to join the army in preparation for the end of the world. In the process he gathers a team of misfits and ne'er-do-wells, including a stubborn fighter and a mysterious girl related to a long-lost culture.
These are all cliches that any fan of Japanese RPGs will have seen before. Even the name, "Last Scenario," is a dead ringer for Final Fantasy. Of course, this is just what SCF wants you to think. A few hours in you start asking questions: is Hilbert a destined hero or just a kid in over his head? Can Zawu be trusted? Is the Empire across the sea really that bad? The answer to these questions is yet another set of cliches, but arranged so that they contradict most of your first assumptions. It's a sneaky trick designed to mess with the kinds of nerds who play RPG Maker games in the first place.
To get to that point, though, you have to make it through a hard and unrelenting game. Dungeons devour your resources. Enemies have tons of HP; early in the game, just one takes three hits from your party to go down, and that's assuming you don't miss. If you do miss, they have that much more time to do damage and inflict statuses, which require specific items to cure. Your characters have a bar that lets them use more powerful abilities when filled; but unlike in Final Fantasy VII, your "limit breaks" require MP to use (and are sometimes as banal as, "heal every party member a normal amount.")
Buying weapons can help speed things up, but equipment in this game is so expensive that a sword can cost 2/3rds of your money on hand. Defense stat scaling is busted so that it's only relevant later in the game; armor only affects defensive stats, so investing in armor doesn't help you much. Potions and revival items are much more affordable, which is a blessing because you will need them. Tents in particular are necessary to top up HP and MP in dungeons. If you run out of tents, and you happen to be at one of a few "points of no return" in the game where you cannot return to town without defeating a boss, your only option is to buckle down and get gud.
Why is Last Scenario so tough, considering that the SNES and PlayStation RPGs it takes influence from were so much kinder? In the case of the defense scaling, it could have been an oversight on the developer's part. I like to think, though, that the game's difficulty was also a purposeful choice. Last Scenario is surprisingly grounded when you set its fantasy cliches to the side. Hilbert's first choice of action after discovering his heroic destiny isn't slaying a dragon but joining the military. His enemies are not mythical creatures but hypocritical generals and politicians. Meanwhile, his allies are (mostly) working adults who are more mature than he is.
Your party members are mere creatures of flesh and bone. Why shouldn't they miss all the time and struggle to bring down just one enemy? Items and equipment skew the power scale in your favor, but Last Scenario asks that you work for them. That's just what it means to be human. The game has an exception: Felgorn, a powerful "hero" who is capable of mass slaughter. He's more complicated than you might think, but from the moment you meet him his strength is depicted as something monstrous. Nobody, SCF says, should have the power to hurt that many people so easily, even in an RPG.
SCF followed Last Scenario with Exit Fate, an equally polished homage to the Suikoden series. Most of the coverage I saw around its release had to do with it lifting setpieces whole-cloth from Suikoden II. In retrospect, though, I'm surprised by how much of Exit Fate's DNA was already in Last Scenario. A willingness to mix military fiction with JRPG style fantasy; a script that references the classics in order to distract you from subversions elsewhere; challenging combat that demands you master (admittedly simple) systems to survive.
As far as I know, SCF hasn't made a game since Call of the Underworld, a Touhou-style shooter with the same style of character art as his earlier titles. It's a shame; as much as Last Scenario borrows from the classics, there's a distinct vision behind its flourishes that I'd love to see further developed in another game one day.