The Last Remnant

"High hopes, low output."

I looked forward to this new addition to the RPG lineup, especially when it comes to Xbox360 owners. Square Enix arises again, this time with Microsoft to bring us The Last Remnant. Just as the title says, I hope it is the "last" of its kind.

Story: 7/10

The main character, Rush Sykes, is on a journey to discover where his sister has been taken by some evil man who attacked them. He meets a royal character who will help him to no end to hopefully find his sister and bring tranquility to the world. I for one enjoy games that have intense and deep stories that suck the player into the experience allowing them to become one with the characters. This game does its job, but it is rather light when it comes to the category of character development. There will be times when you have no idea what's going on and the unnecessary amount of suspicion that goes on between characters slows things down. Also, Rush isn't exactly well learned when it comes to speech and respect and... his name is Rush... Pretty lame if you ask me.

Graphics: 4/10

I give this a four because of the graphics during gameplay. Just running around looks like a mixture of baby food and dirt. It takes a very long time for the environments to load and makes it look even worse in the process. While there are many kinds of races in the game and each looks interesting, they still look like crap and, considering how nice the cutscenes look, it could have been done much better than what is shown. Characters during battle don't really stand out so it can be difficult to spot your own characters when in the heat of it. Also, since there are so many people on the battlefield at the time, it can be hard to tell what is going on at all. Very disappointing.

Gameplay: 3/10

To start off, the game immediately thrusts you into a battle. I will talk more about the battle system in a bit. Let's start small. World travel is very simple and takes away from the experience of exploration. It is a simple map on which you choose a destination and you go there. That's it. There is no real travel nor is there any satisfaction of reaching a new place. Even when entering a place you have already looked through, you have the ability to go to any segmented area (where a new room loads). This prevents you from having the need to know the city when you can just choose what area in which you wish to start. When in a city or dungeon, you can explore and talk to citizens. It reminds me of Final Fantasy XII, in the sense that you are free to roam. However, it looks very rough and the running mechanic is really off. Rush can be running in cartoony circles while the camera spasms out trying to understand what you're doing. I have found myself getting very dizzy and having to stop. The dialogue is boring and seems very childish, even if the game has gotten an M rating for language. The only saving grace MUST be in the battle system... right?

While the battle system is interesting and definitely brings this score up, it just wasn't enough. In a dungeon, there are no Random Encounters. The enemies are free-roaming and you must initiate battle with them yourself. Even this can get complicated. There are dialogue bubbles over the monsters' heads that mean different things, such as attack mode, alerted, and oblivious. You must initiate battle by pressing the Right Trigger. Monsters within your ring will enter battle with you. If you do not get the jump on the monsters, they can attack you first and you will be at a disadvantage. Pretty much, the game forces you to be cautious and make sure you ALWAYS be at an advantage because you can easily die when you get jumped. When battle is initiated, it takes you to a battle screen (after a very lengthy loading screen, mind you). The battle system works, but it gives too much to chance. You are in squads of several people and you command each squad's orders. They range from attack and magic, to support and healing. While it seems simple enough, you just can't really know what will happen. There are specific modes that change repeatedly when your squads meet enemy squads and you can miss more than the enemy can hit. Special characters have powerful items called Remnants that allow them to do special attacks. These are pretty much needed to kill bosses and bosses do too much damage. You will find yourself stalling for several turns, waiting for your Remnant's attack to show up. They also have a morale meter that allows you to do more or less damage depending on how much morale you and the enemy have. While this is nice and all, it is unnecessary. You simply can't know how much damage you will do until you've already done it. Squads all share HP, so you never lose one person out of a three person squad. This also makes it a bit easier to kill enemies (and for you to die) since you don't have to kill all of them to win. The system is hectic and could have easily been replaced with an easy turn based system and it would be a hundred times better. You can expect several back-to-back battles because your party is healed after every battle.

Music: 4/10

Music is meh. The battle music is annoying and it constantly repeats. I find myself finishing battles quickly to get away from the music. All the other music is sub par but bearable. Not a big player in this game.

Overall: 5/10

I was disappointed. The battle system sucked and the gameplay in general really needed to be torn apart and redone. It is a sorry excuse for a Square Enix RPG and I am not afraid at all to say that I did not enjoy this game one bit. While the story wasn't bad, it was just hard for me to play through a mess of shoddy design, graphics, and stupid battles that were completely random every time, no matter how many times I play it, just to get to the story and end this game once and for all.

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 01/05/09

Game Release: The Last Remnant (US, 11/20/08)