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The Last Remnant
Publisher: Square Enix
Developer: Square Enix
Genre: RPG
Release Date: November 20, 2008
Platforms: Playstation 3, Xbox 360
ESRB: M - Mature
Reviewer: Eric
 Square
Enix hasn’t been exactly delivering top notch games as of late. Infinite
Undiscovery was a good game and all but it did not quite have the polish
gameplay that Square is known for. The next Square Enix game, The Last Remnant,
feels just as unpolished but certain aspects make it a lame duck in the RPG
world.
As of late the Xbox 360 has been getting its fair share of role playing and
action adventure games. Square Enix announced more than enough games during E3
this year and they have delivered, the final product just isn’t what we would
expect. The Last Remnant fails to show off any real excitement and that is a
real shame because this game has a strong story.
The Last Remnant tells the tale of Rush Sykes, an ordinary man who is trying to
rescue his kidnapped sister. Rather than asking help from his parents, who are
off researching for the better of the world, Rush goes and does things his way.
At first it seems like an ordinary kidnapping but you will soon find out that
Rush and his sister mean a whole lot more than anything in existence.
First things first. When you first start out the latest Square Enix game you
will see how the company licensed the Unreal Engine 3, a tool that doesn’t seem
normal in the RPG world. It seemed strange to me that Square did this, the
company is known for creating innovative graphics and just about everything else
that goes into a role playing game.
Some of the problems that plague other games that use this engine can be found
in here. Frame rate issues hurt battle sequences almost to the point where it is
laughable. Speaking of battles it takes a good 5 to 10 seconds to load a single
battle. In-between each battle Square does manage to throw up some what helpful
screens, but this just makes the game feel less of a RPG. If you do play this
game you have to install it on your hard drive, if you don’t you will go crazy.
Load screens will go away after a few battles, making one of the games problems
go away.
The battle system in The Last Remnant is different but I don’t think it is
anything great. Instead of having your main characters take a turn and attack
you have to group them into small groups. Once this is done you have to pick
from a few options in the battle. Do you want them to attack or use special
abilities? There is a lot of strategy that goes into battles and I don’t see
why. Battles seem to have a life of their own and to tell the truth half of the
time I have no idea what is going on. Once you get friendly groups to join your
cause it seems like they do most of the work, all you are doing is healing
yourself.
Leveling
up in The Last Remnant is as fun as Final Fantasy 2, the bastard child in the
entire series. As hard as you try to get your health up it seems the only times
it will go up is if you pray for an enemy to take all of your damage away expect
a few measly hits. Half of the time this won’t work, your strength or something
else will go up instead. It is a real headache trying to make your team
stronger; you would have thought Square learned from their mistakes with Final
Fantasy 2.
The Last Remnant does break the boundary in a few ways. You can save the game
whenever you want. Simply pull up your screen and save the game. Most of the
time, you will forget about this, especially right before boss battles. Boss
battles in this game are impossible so if you don’t want to die a lot you better
save your game more than you normally would.
Another nice thing The Last Remnant does is offer its gamers beautiful cut
scenes. Square has outdone themselves with these cut scenes. If you can bare
through this game you will find some real events and that is thanks to some of
Square Enix’s colorful cast of characters. The Last Remnant has some of the
coolest villains in video game history.
Now back to the bad. Rush is the only character that is customizable. The game
adds in too many concepts from other games. There is no real world map to
explore and in-order to get the most out of the game you will have to take up
different quests. Quests are a real pain though, once you except one you have to
complete it right away, the game loads up the area and you have off. There are
some other guild missions you can do, but how long is somebody going to find
iron and kill certain enemies?
Final Verdict
I think it would have been best if Square Enix passed this game off on somebody
else. The Last Remnant needed about three or four months to polish up a few
things. It has a great story and cast of characters but everything else is
poorly executed. If this is what we have in store for future Square games I
might be playing Atlus only RPGs.
Rating
6 out of 10
The Last Remnant Trailer
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