Well I’ve taken my sweet ass time to finally pick this game up, but with the onslaught of games we have had this Christmas it hardly been surprising! So for anyone who missed this game, Last Remnant is the latest RPG baby to come from the powers that be, Square Enix. The game starts with a delicious cliché where you, our hero, Rush watched his younger sister Irina, being kidnapped. So like the very best big brother you are you embarked on a journey to find her. During your trip you naturally encounter different cities, people and team mates to help you through; all the while you hold the power a Remnant. The Remnants power can be harnessed by the one they are bound to and can take up the form of beasts, weapons, gems and artifacts allowing the controller to have enormous power.
The game is breathtakingly beautiful, possibly one of the most beautiful RPG’s I have played in a long time, however it is still in close competition with Eternal Sonata. Square Enix have definitely taken full advantage of the power of the 360, the characters move with a fantastic likeness and the world in which they live is designed spectacularly. However amazing, it does lack the smoothness of those FMV’s that Square Enix made itself famous for, in fact from what I’ve played so far the whole game lacks FMV’s? Yes, this is a minor detail and I should be happy that the game looks so damn incredible, but I guess, when I see Square Enix on the box I do expect a certain something from the game, a breath taking, hard hitting opening FMV that leaves me dissolving into some sort of fangirl squeal is defiantly one of them. A blessing and a curse that Square Enix has bought on by itself.
It’s also not long until Last Remnant throws you into its first major battle and for the first time you are introduced to the new battle system. The system itself is a mix between original RPG turn based battle and something that vaguely reminded me of Kesseen on the PS2. It is turn based to the point where you have to pick your move and then wait for your turn; however, instead of controlling your character separately you control them in units or unions. Each union has its own HP and if that HP went to 0 the whole union were KO’d. When attacking however different unions would attack from different directions, one may reach deadlock by running head on, another would attack a flank (its worth mentioning that I have no idea how you actually control where your union attack from). The whole battle system came off as feeling like one great big cluster fuck. I often had no idea who I was controlling, how I was controlling them, why I was only allowed to heal when it told me I could and why the hell I couldn’t control the movements and each player individually, after all that’s what I’m used to in an RPG. The whole battle experience left me feeling very put out, my characters would attack 8 or 9 times despite me only pressing one button, how the hell does that happen?! I felt like I had little or no control over it, I felt the tutorial was poor and the battle system included a very steep learning curve.
The battle system leads me to another problem within the game, no obvious save points or auto save. Due to the nature of the battle system I found I had within the first hour died, twice. Not a great thing to admit, but none the less it happened, much to my horror, my last save had been towards the start of the game, how tedious! I had to go all the way back and do all the same crap over again! It has now reached the point where I have become an obsessive compulsive saver, continually interrupting the gamer to save after every battle, be damned if I am repeating all that again!
The first city you reach looks amazing, with a fair amount of running around, exploring, shopping and talking to be done. However, unlike other RPG’s this isn’t free roaming, you can’t wander across the world map from town to town and once in a town, you can’t walk from district to district, you simply pick off the map where you want to go and appear there. Yes, very convenient and works much like the world map worked in Final Fantasy X.2, however this made the world feel very much closed in.
The story appears to be developing slowly, but since most RPG’s these days boast 70+ hours of game play I can’t say I am not surprised. However the notable negatives that I have encountered so far are making it difficult to enjoy the game. A good story can save even the worst RPG from damnation. If a story grips you and holds you strongly enough you will put up with numerous amounts of crap just to see how it plays out, yet with the slow story I really don’t feel all that captivated by Last Remnant, if anything I feel disappointed. This game is by Square Enix, the masters of RPG gaming, there isn’t a need for the annoyances. I’ve seen Square Enix do RPG gaming at its very best, so when they throw out something that feels less than that I feel disappointed in them. This game is suffering from having the Square Enix stamp on it, the expectations run very high.
**HEALTH WARNING**
Also I just want to warn you that unless you play this game on a rather large HDTV your eyes well eventually melt. I play on a rather small 26” TV and it is almost imposable to read the writing in this game, now to a point where I have a headache, but those CONSTANT loading screens do provide lots and lots and lots and lots of rest bites, saving you from partial or full blindness. How thoughtful of them.
None the less I will power through. As a true RPG gamer I want to stick with it to see what happens to that story. I’m certainly hoping it will turn into something so amazing that I simply cannot put it down and that after a few more hours I might finally start to understand what the hell is going on in those bloody battle sequences!
December 10th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
I’m not a huge RPG person myself, but this certainly doesn’t sound good… Also, making the text hard to read for anyone but the people with 50+ inch tellies is a joke. If anything, make the text adjustable in size so those with SDTVs and small HD sets can have a go at it as well as those with bigger sets.
December 10th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
I think SE needs to put out something that’s not RPG in nature. You know, kind of clear the air and allow for something new. Project Sylpheed was cool but hard as hell and it made me cry.
I’m wondering if the PS3 version of Last Remnant will feature a bunch of fixes and tweaks.
December 11th, 2008 at 11:27 am
The first battle I was in completely blew my mind. I pressed “Okay” and didn’t get control of my army back for like thirty minutes.
But stick with it, and you’ll get the hang of it.
February 17th, 2010 at 5:22 pm
you guy just try out the pc version its more and more superior than the x360 version