How does Last Story remind you of Final Fantasy IX? I have noticed this myself, but I have not been able to explain how the two compare to each other.
Have you seen Final Fantasy X-XIV? The Last Story looks like the opposite if that. It's old-school Final Fantasy, not that George Lucas-esque BS Square Enix has been passing off as Final Fantasy for the past decade.
Xenoblade and Last Story seem to be the modern day equivalent to both Chrono Trigger and Final Fantasy 6. Granted that those two titles will always be reveered by RPG fans the world over, I do see Xenoblade and Last Story as being spiritual successors in the sense of redefining the RPG. They certainly rekindled my interest that was killed off by Final Fantasy 13.
The best games on the Final Fantasy series will always be VI, VII, VIII and IX. Those game kicked ass and really made the series shine, of course that was when Sakaguchi was still with Sqaure though. Looking at Final Fantasy 13 I can see where the real talent in that series went to after he left the company.
I wonder if Sakaguchi and Mistwalker would work with Square on Final Fantasy XV under contract? It would interesting to see the next console Final Fantasy go back to its roots in the same manner as FF IX did back when it was released.