The Last Story "Alone in the Stars" 5:39

Time to close out the month with determination and earnestness from Bluelighter, who presents a beautiful solo piano take on The Last Story! As a wrestling fan, I'm more familiar with this melody in the context of the intense arrangement of a section of it for New Japan Pro Wrestling legend Tetsuya Naito, so while I already knew the source, hearing its more pensive original context is still a trip for me. Bluelighter actually encountered Uematsu's original theme by way of personal research, wanting to learn more about the FF composer's catalog:

"Here is a piano arrangement of the song theme of Last Story, "Toberu Mono", composed by Nobuo UEMATSU. I've tried to make my tribute on it by this arrangement. I've discovered this OST by curiosity about composer on his works, after his collaboration on the Final Fantasy series. I was really touched by this music when I discovered this OST, so emotional and sad.

I've tried to respect this in my arrangement, alternating some soft parts and flights, but keeping restrain in the whole piece.

I wanted to announce the main melodic line from the first notes (with some variation on the melody). The following part is based on the intro (part 2). Thought for a string orchestra with long notes, it wasn't evident to adapt in piano. I've taken some liberties with this part to give a piano playing more natural.

After that, the song starts with the real melody and a clearer rhythm. It was more natural to play this in piano. Enjoy!"

Judge prophetik music found the source tune to be a revelation as well, with kind words for both Uematsu's piece and Bluelighter's approach to it:

"really strikingly beautiful scoring on this original.

opening broken chords make sense given the nature of the original. the additional left hand movement at 1:01 is really nice as well. [...] we get the vocal line at 1:52 with a similar backing rhythm and voicing to the opening. there's a fuller section that covers the culmination of the exciting part from the original.

after this, we start to get into some recap material. at this point we've gone through the song mostly in a straight line, so i liked that this is starting to recap and explore a bit more. the big hit at 3:39 is rich and initially well-voiced [...]

4:20's the last big blow of the piece, and [...] after this is a very delicate representation of the melody with a beautiful set of arpeggios to back it, and then it's done.

the original is really stellar with a beautiful melody line, and you do a great job relaying that throughout. [...] nice work."

Judge (and pro wrestling fan) Hemophiliac was new to this theme too, praising Guillaume's exquisite execution of the fundamentals:

"Secret Uematsu source I have never heard before, and it feels both like and not-like him as well.

Beautifully executed arrangement, the source is fully dominant and it's full of the perfect piano embellishments I would expect to hear.

Not everything needs to be super complex or virtuosic to be good and beautiful."

Short and sweet, you fellow VGM fans know, love, and respect Nobuo's game, but if you're only familiar with his Final Fantasy compositions, you're missing out on a ton of great tracks he's composed since going freelance in 2004. Bluelighter learning about this theme by delving into Uematsu-san's broader musical history gives me hope that we eventually get more deep cut piano arrangements like this one! Fantasian, anyone? Or even better yet... Blue Dragon? ;-)