The Last Remnant (Xbox 360) Review

Posted by Joe Roche on 02.17.2009

With The Last Remnant Square Enix adds some new wrinkles to the traditional JRPG style, are they enough to make this game worth the 60+ hours of time you can spend with it, or do the limitations hold it back?



Title: The Last Remnant
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: JRPG
Players: 1
Rated: M

Recently there has been a trend in the gaming media to slam JRPG’s as tired, and developers (especially Square Enix) for not trying to move the genre forward. I’ve made these statements myself on more then one occasion. Even as a devoted fan of Square Enix I realize that something has to be done to keep the genre feeling fresh. Enter The Last Remnant, a game that might seem like Square only dipping their big toe in the pool of change, but it’s a move towards change none the less.

The Last Remnant really is an ambitious project. It is the first (to my knowledge) JRPG made for simultaneous world wide release. The game was designed to appeal to both a Japanese (clean cut hero, princess in distress) and American (a little bit of grit) audience, and was created using the Unreal 3 engine. None of that may seem like a big deal to most people, but for Square to undertake a project like this was breaking a habit for them built up over decades.

For those of you who are interested in such things, The Last Remnant was directed by Hiroshi Takai, who had previously been involved in Legend of Mana, and Romancing SaGa (1, 2, 3 and Minstrel Song), as well as co-directing The Bouncer. This might seem insignificant but if you’ve played Romancing SaGa you will notice the touch of Takai when it comes to the battle system in The Last Remnant.

Story

I’m adding this category to the top of the review because as with most role playing games the story should be the main focus.



The story begins with the main character – Rush Sykes – coming upon a massive battlefield. During this opening scene we see a youthful looking tan person unleash a massive weapon, but more importantly we see Rush run into the battlefield calling for “Irina.” The young tanned person we will learnis the Marquis of Athlum David Nasser, and the massive weapon is the Gae Bolg, a Remnant (weapon) which is bound to David (pronounced DAH-VEED). We learn this because Rush and one of the Four Generals of Athlum, Emma fall into a cavern and get acquainted. The cave serves as a tutorial on how to initiate battles, search for treasure and fight. When that ends you come out on the other side and meet the Marquis of Athlum and tell him your story.

Your young sister Irina was kidnapped by a flying monster and some creepy dude. This happened right after you got a message from your parents who work for the mysterious Academy that they wanted the two of you to come to them. Rush is now scouring the world to find his sister – and apparently the Marquis of Athlum wants to help. You have basically now been introduced to all of the main characters of the game, Rush, Irina, David, and the Four Generals of Athlum (Emma, Pagus, Torgal, Blocter). As the story progresses more people will join up with you, but these are the major heroes of this particular tale. You return with them to Athlum and learn more about Remnants (The Vitus Heart, a massive sword stuck in the ground in Athlum that protects the city), and how they possess massive power. Basically they’re left over from a time long gone past, and protect the people with their power (David is bound to the Gae Bolg for instance).

If that story sounds pathetic to you don’t give up on The Last Remnant just yet. Admittedly the game takes awhile to get going. You’ll see later in this review that there are numerous options throughout the game for you to experience and as such you are going to have to play a handful of hours before the game really opens up. Treat the first three or four hours of TLR as introductory materials and you’ll be thankful after that. Lord David of Athlum has some leads on where your sister might be, and you will follow them as a group battling weird monsters and visiting distant cities along the way. Each city has its own ruler, who is bound to his own Remnant, and that is reflected in the city when you reach it. Take a trip to Nagpur and you’ll see a massive dragon-like Remnant overlooking the city, it’s a pretty fantastic sight, and a bit foreboding.

The game spends some time as your traditional JRPG, young impressionable youth without much strength trying to gain power while looking for a mysterious girl (in this case your sister). But after awhile it starts to morph into something very different – a political backed game with themes that seem like they deal with the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. He who controls the Remnants, controls the world.

The entire game changes when The Conqueror shows up. The Conqueror is a stranger from a foreign land who marches with a massive army led by two powerful Generals and claims to have been chosen by The God Emperor himself. He shows up in Elysion and demands a Remnant of his own from the Congress (led by Lord Hermien). The Conqueror immediately takes his place alongside some of the best JRPG villains for his sheer mystery. I’m not kidding you play almost this entire game without ever really knowing the type of power you’re up again. There is one cut scene in particular (on Disc 2) where The Conqueror vaults from simple mysterious powerful being, to straight up bad ass and the game takes on a whole new dimension at that point.

The second disc of TLR really moves the story to a different level. I don’t just mean that the plot thickens; I mean that the entire first disc is almost just the tutorial because most of the game happens on the second disc. I don’t mean to say that the first disc is a throw away disc or a waste of your time. I just mean to say that you’re going to enjoy the depth of the second disc much more. This is where you will start to understand The Conqueror, where you will engage in battles that last 1 hour plus (not an exaggeration), and discover the secrets that the first disc set in motion.


- The Conqueror (middle) with his Generals, Castanea (right), and Rojas (left).

As you uncover the secrets of The Conqueror, and begin to realize the depths of his power you will begin to build anticipation for the climactic battle between good and evil. This game was an exercise in patience and fortitude and if the end was a let down it would have killed my entire buzz. The final stage presents some decently difficult battles. The final rare monster before you reach the end battle is fantastically difficult, and when I forgot to save after that battle and subsequently turned off the console I thought I might shed a tear. I’m not willing to say that The Conqueror is the most difficult enemy in the game, but when he casts “Savage” near the end he becomes awesome. Basically the spell turns him into a glowing red bad ass that throws his sword down and starts swatting your attacks away with his arm. I may be along in this, but I loved The Conqueror in this game, he is just an enigma wrapped in a mystery and I dug that about him.

It’s obvious that Square Enix wanted to tug at your heart strings at the end of this game. The final battle with The Conqueror is pretty good, and the final cut scene does its job of wrapping up the story (with room for a sequel in my opinion). Unfortunately, because the dialogue was so average (at best), I thought the end lacked that real moment to take you back and cause an impact. Don’t get me wrong, I thought the end was solid. I just wish there had been more. I wish that after investing 80+ hours in a game the ending would have left me speechless whereas when TLR finally ended I understood the impact that was meant to be felt, I just didn’t feel it.

If that description made sense to you then you have probably already played this game. I don’t want to give away any spoilers, but I’d love to hear from other people who’ve already finished TLR about how you experienced the ending. With that being said, I thought the post credits dialogue did its job perfectly, and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Gameplay

This is where the majority of the tweaks to traditional JRPG style have been made. Whereas in other games you control each individual character in battles that spring up at random as you walk around a map, in The Last Remnant you control groups of party members (called Units) that act as one, and you battle enemies that appear on the map at all times.

I’ll address the enemies first because it’s the easiest thing to convey. One of the most aggravating things about JRPG’s to me is the fact that when you want to level up and battle monsters you have to run around in circles until you trigger some phantom monster to jump out of the dark and attack you. TLR addresses this problem by making all enemies visible. You want to run around without fighting, just try to avoid the monsters and not spook them. But if it’s a fight you’re looking for there are plenty of monsters around, just run up to one – wait until the bubble above their head turns read and hit RT which will trigger the battle sequence.

One thing that I enjoyed about TLR is that Rush has the ability to manipulate time. No it’s not a Lost scenario where you’re jumping back and forth in history, but more like the ability to slow things down. This allows Rush to “tag” numerous enemies and pull them all into battle at once. This provides for tougher battles, with more enemies on screen, but allows for greater rewards. It’s especially good for later on in the game as your Battle Rank increases and fighting lone enemies (or even 2 or 3 “chains” of enemies) becomes increasingly simple.



But where TLR really shines is in Unit formation. As with most games of the genre as things progress you will meet new and interesting people from various races who all have different strengths and weaknesses. Instead of the tried and true – 5 people in a party method of doing things though TLR has tried to switch it up to make things feel larger in scale. You will not battle as an individual, but will instead make choices for a number of characters (the number in each unit grows as the game progresses) all bound together into one unit. What this does is allows for massive HP attacks, plus stronger HP for your party, and creates some strategy as you move forward. The further into the game you get and assuming that you’re searching out all the goodies in the world you will unlock new and more powerful formations. Each formation that a unit can be grouped into will have its strengths and weaknesses. If you have a strong magic casting unit you might not want a formation that provides greater flank protection while sacrificing the spell casting capabilities. However, if you’re a powerful smashmouth unit you might not care about defense and just want all out attack power. If you only learn one thing from me in this review it’s that you’ll want to try different formations with different groups of characters – some are more powerful then others, and they might surprise you.

But who makes up these units? Well I’m glad you asked – like I said, throughout the game you’ll meet new characters who have their own back story and can be recruited as Unit Leaders. These people can be signed up to tag along with you from the Union’s which pop up around the world as you progress through the game. These are the more powerful members of the party, and as such you’re only allowed a limited number of Unit Leaders at a time. To round out your allies you’ll need to sign up some less developed characters from the Army Recruiter that will appear in Athlum as the story progresses. These faceless drones each have their own strengths that you’ll want to take into consideration when hiring them and more powerful ones will become available the deeper into the game you get.

Some reviewers have criticized the unit system. I’ve read that sometimes a unit won’t heal another unit even though they’re about to be killed. I never ran into that situation because if you just press “X” before selecting an action you’ll see what each member of a unit will do depending on what style of attack/defense/magic you’re planning on selecting. There are times when only one member of a unit has a heal magic/item art and if you select that the other members of the unit will stay in standby. I’ve heard this called cheap, but I loved it – a simple decision that will add to the depth of your choices. If you put a unit together with only one healer then you might not select that group to heal another unit when the time comes.

There is also a button mashing component to battle in TLR that can be turned off for those who would rather just watch their battles go by without their involvement. If you’ve played Lost Odyssey you are familiar with how that game implemented the ring system, well TLR does something similar. At points during battle you will be prompted to push a corresponding face button at the perfectly timed moment. When you do this it will trigger a critical offensive hit, and bring one of your unit members into a teamwork scenario where they will attack before the enemy (even if the enemies turn was before theirs). This becomes important when you’re low on HP and your healer is the last to act in the turn. You’ll want to hit the mark perfectly with the buttons so that you can trigger a healing spell before the enemies attack. It’s also helpful in boss battles near the end if you can use your remnant before the boss attacks and kills you. But moreso then anything else it is a minor addition that keeps you engaged during battle, instead of feeling disconnected which can sometimes comes from JRPG battles.

One thing that you’ll want to know about this game is that for whatever reason your units will have staggering amounts of power compared to the monsters you’re facing. In some instances a monster will attack you and do 10 HP of damages, while you attack them doing 2000 HP of damages. This is offset by the fact that your unit will have 3000 HP, and the monster you’re fighting will have 30,000. It’s a strange set up that takes awhile to get used to, but once you have the hang of it you won’t even notice the disparity between the two sides.

Another interesting gameplay choice pertains to the navigation of the world map. In a traditional JRPG you’d be used to traveling by foot around the entire world map, occasionally bumping into people or towns. In TLR you will unlock various map points throughout the game which you can travel too immediately. This allows you to travel between towns without walking through monster infested open fields, which becomes a huge help if you decide to go back and work on side quests where you can just shoot around the map to wherever you need to go. One thing I will point out though is that if you follow the main story alone – you will NOT unlock all available towns. There are towns that you will want to search for because they contain additional side quests, and various items that aren’t available in the main cities.

What is my biggest complaint about the gameplay choices in TLR? You’ll know as soon as you open up the final stretch towards the end of the game. Without giving away too much there is a point where you must take your allies into war across various bases. You will be faced with a wide array of enemies, and once you clear them a boss battle. The problem – there is no save point between the fights. So you survive a twenty minute battle to storm the base, and then have to fight another twenty minute boss battle where if you die – you’ve got to start over from the beginning of the first phase of the fight. By the time I finally got to the bases I had leveled up my characters to the point where I wasn’t that afraid of dying – but it still happened, and trust me nothing saps your energy for playing a game like having to restart from forty five minutes ago. It’s amazing that this is the case in TLR too because Square made it so easy to save the game almost at every point in the game. I think I saved every six steps and then the end of the game arrives and I can only save once every hour? Not a great choice on the developer’s part.

These might seem like minor changes, and individually they are but when you actually sit down to play TLR you will notice that they combine to create an experience that the traditional JRPG player will not be familiar with. I really loved the variety offered by the unit structures, and the ability to zip travel across the world map really made it easier for me to catch up on side quests that I had missed. I do wish that the main story lead you to all of the cities and towns without having to find them via side quest or walkthrough but that’s a minor complaint.

Graphics

Yuck.

If you’re looking to TLR to be a tour de force in the graphics department you will be terribly disappointed. From the moment you put this game into the disc drive and start it up you’re going to notice the choppiness, the staggering amounts of pop in, and texture layering. I might have just invented that word but every time you open a new area, or engage in a battle the graphics will chug along behind you to the point where after a few seconds all of the people on the screen still haven’t appeared. This is a major problem for a game that encourages you to have as many as 18 allies on the screen at one time.

When the game starts there will be a long cut scene where Rush will be running across a battlefield towards what he believes is his sister Irina. This scene is pretty important to the overall game (hence the jumping off point) but the graphics are so clunky, and skittish that you’ll think you’ve bought a broken game. After playing through so many beautifully mastered games the graphics will drive you nuts early on in TLR. Many reviews that I’ve read for this game have been hung up on the graphical issues, but I’ve never been a huge stickler for them so after the first hour or so I stopped noticing.

Aside from that issue (which I attribute to the game having a simultaneous worldwide release) the Unreal Engine was used to craft this game, so you should know what to expect. The worlds (once they fade in) look beautiful. The character models are interesting, and the enemies have a real sense of size and uniqueness. Like most other Unreal powered games the water looks beautiful, and the Remnants all glimmer with a magical glow. Honestly if you let the game fix itself the textures and graphics are about as good as you would expect from an Unreal game. It’s an impressive feat for the engine too because the TLR world is full of vibrant colors, a lot of tan, orange, and green so the engine isn’t chugging out the faded blues and browns as much as you’d expect.



If I were to pick the major weakness of TLR I would not pick graphics. I think they’re pretty good, when they work. For me graphics aren’t as important as story and gameplay which is why they didn’t bother me in this game, but that being said I can see where some people get hung up on the graphics and not be able to enjoy this game.

Sound

Is it possible for a game to have a beautiful soundtrack and a terrible soundtrack all at the same time?

Let’s start with the good – the songs that play during battles are great. When you face off against a boss, or rare monster the music will speed up and the tempo will increase. When someone is close to death, the music will change to set the mood. I loved the in battle music because it really did give each battle a sense of importance. The chance in pace is also important in this game because the some of the battles (namely those near the end) can be VERY long. I don’t mean five minutes, I’m talking close to thirty, and if you had to listen to the same few chords for that long you might throw your console out the window.

On the bad end of things we’ve got the voice acting. First and foremost I understand that in JRPG’s you have to expect a level of annoying voices, and dumb dialogue and that is here in spades. Some of the more emotional scenes are so poorly acted/voiced that the feeling is completely lost. Trust me, this game is supposed to pack an emotional punch about an older brother trying to protect his young sister from danger. Unfortunately Rush’s voice is so high pitched and whiney, and the dialogue for most of the game is so poor that you’re just left with an emotionless train wreck. There is some good voice work done here – the Conqueror is handled pretty well, and Torgal is also pretty great. Trust me though, you’ll hear Rush says “Lets kick some A” so many times that you’ll be having nightmares about it for weeks.

But the poor voice work, and average script aren’t the worst part, that honor belongs to the fact that there is almost NO voiced dialogue to speak of. In a game that could stretch to 100 hours I’d be surprised if there was more then 10 hours of voice work actually recorded. I understand that for a simultaneous worldwide release doing voice work for every character was not possible, but reading long text exchanges went out with the Super Nintendo.

One last note about the sound – the voice of Pagus (one of the four Athlum Generals) is so annoying that I tried to avoid using him for most of the game.

Lasting Appeal

I guess your opinion on the lasting appeal depends on how you define the category. As I said, if on your first time through the game you try to complete all the side quests, explore the entire world, and complete the main story then you’re going to invest somewhere between 60-100 hours of your time. To me, that’s a lot of bang for your buck. I had multiple save files going during the game so that I could go back after I finished (for this review) and find the rare monsters, and side quests that I had missed the first play through. It says something about a game when it can keep your interest for 60+ hours and have you come back after the fact.

That being said, I don’t think I’d be able to start from square one again, so in that regard there might be less Lasting Appeal for some people. I’d say that once you’ve put in the time with TLR you won’t want to go back, and you won’t need to go back but that doesn’t mean you won’t spend a very good chunk of time with the game on your first trip.

Fun Factor

If you’re the type of person who needs flawless graphical presentation, and short (or no) loading screens then you’re not going to have fun with this game. However, if you can over look the glaring flaws in the presentation and focus instead on the story, the characters, and the variety of things that you can do then you will enjoy yourself. You’ve got to have patience, because this is a very long game so it might start to drag at parts. One of the best compliments I can give TLR is that every time I started to get bored the story would hit a point that would reinvigorate me. Trust me on this – if you haven’t finished the first disc and you’re already getting worn out, play to the end of the disc. There is a story arc around the end of Disc 1 that is both emotional and action packed and will make you want to pop in Disc 2 immediately.



If you don’t like turned based roleplaying games you will not like TLR, and in that sense there is a very low fun factor. The game was designed to appeal to Western and Japanese audiences, and I think it does a very good job of it. However, if you’re playing Halo 3 or Gears of War 2 right now and have no desire to play a JRPG you might not want to invest the time in TLR. I think there are aspects of the game that will appeal to everyone, but it’s such an intense time investment that if you’re not committed to giving it a try then you shouldn’t waste your time.

The 411

To their credit Square Enix did some things that are innovative with The Last Remnant to move the entire JRPG genre forward. The sheer depth of The Last Remnant make it a solid title that does more good then it was given credit for upon its initial release. Unfortunately Square Enix will be criticized for going half heartedly into the innovations that they tried to implement. The most focused upon complaint will be the graphics, an issue that cannot be overlooked. When your game relies upon the massive scale of its battles and the large unions of your own troops but doesn’t have the engine to turn those textures out – well you’ve got a problem.

The story is solid if nothing else. The mystery surrounding the main villain is enough to keep you interested, and the spectacular cut scenes throughout the game will keep you moving forward. Unfortunately too much mystery bogs things down at points, and you’ll find yourself feeling a bit directionless as the game progresses across its 60-100 hours. The problem with a game that features many characters with “secrets” is that you never get a feeling that there is any character development taking place, so you’re not connected to anything. If I could find one major fault with TLR that would be it – I just never felt connected to many of the characters.

That being said the things that The Last Remnant does right make this game a solid title. If you can get past the graphical issues, and the poor dialogue you will find a massive world full of interesting characters, and plenty of things to keep your busy for well over 60 hours. I wouldn’t recommend this game if you’re thinking of taking your first foray into the JRPG genre, but for someone looking for some innovation from Square Enix I strongly suggest The Last Remnant.

Final word: I’ve started to see this game pop up in stores at a $39.99 price range. You will absolutely get value for your money with The Last Remnant at $40.

Graphics	6.5	The cut scenes are beautiful, and the towns are all expertly rendered. Unfortunately the hiccups are frequent and do damage the overall experience.
Gameplay	8.0	A deep and mysterious story, an awesome villain, engaging side quests, and massive battles all hold The Last Remnant together.
Sound	6.5	The music is great, the voice acting is pretty terrible across the board (when there is voice acting).
Lasting Appeal	8.0	I'm not kidding when I say that you could spend anywhere from 60 to 100 hours with this game.
Fun Factor	7.0	The story drags at parts, and the disjointed nature of the missions may leave you missing chunks of important side quests, and the large scale battles without save points are tiresome.
Overall	7.5   [ Good ]

Screenshots
All 19 The Last Remnant Screenshots