[XBOX360] The Last Remnant

The Last Remnant (ラストレムナント) is a Japanese role-playing game developed and published by Square Enix. The game is directed at both Japanese and Western audiences and had a simultaneous release in Japan, North America and Europe, on November 20, 2008 for the Xbox 360. The Microsoft Windows version of the game was released on March 20, 2009 in PAL territories, March 24, 2009 in North America, and April 9, 2009 in Japan. A worldwide release on the Steam network occurred on April 9, 2009. A PlayStation 3 version of the game had been planned, but published reports speculate that it may be canceled due to the game's poor sales and mixed reception.

The game was directed by Hiroshi Takai and was the first Unreal Engine 3 game to be released by Square Enix. It is intended by Square Enix president Yōichi Wada to "become a cornerstone for [their] worldwide strategy". Art direction was overseen by chief artist Kimihiko Miyamae and art producer Yusuke Naora. The game's soundtrack was composed by Tsuyoshi Sekito.

The Last Remnant@Wikipedia
The Last Remnant Official Website

The Last Remnant is the 3nd game I finished in this semester break, after Magna Carta 2 and Lost Odyssey, and also the longest time consumed to finish and get a full 1000G (~3 weeks). I wonder why my review comes not in order of games I played though. TLR is one of the first game I purchased (around December 2008) when I bought my 360 last year, yet it took me so long before I really started playing the game. As I said before, one reason is because before this I was playing on an old SDTV which really hurts my eyes, and as a consequence, it made me thought that the gameplay is crap. Things changed when I played it with HD monitor though. Overall I can say that I love the game very much and deserved a place in my top 10 jrpg played in the last decade.


Gameplay: 8.5/10
This is probably the most difficult thing to judge about TLR because what one see at the gameplay is not what other see. The game utilize what they call "Turn-based, command-based system using symbol encounters." In a simple term, battles were carried out by giving out a general command to a union (group consisted of units aka your characters) to attack the enemies, use skills, magic, healing or simply stand by. No exact command can be given so you can't force a character to use the skills that you want to use. The inability for players to choose exact skill is probably what made some players dislike the gameplay, because sometimes the tide of battle can turn horribly if they didn't carry out their specific command. Looks simple at first, but can be complicated if you factor things like character's stats and abilities, formations and leveling.

This video demonstrate how TLR battle system took place, though this is carried out at very high BR (132), fighting against one of the DLC boss of 360 version, the Lost Remnant.



One unique aspect of the game is that TLR is NOT GEARED TOWARD LEVELING. That is, there is no such thing as Level in TLR, but your whole party' "level" is indicated by "Battle Rank (BR)" which indicate you strong are your party relative to the enemies. You can't simply improve your character's stats by doing massive battles grind like you'd usually do in traditional rpg but rather, stats is gained by fighting against monsters with much higher Battle Rank. Which is why it is a good idea to AVOID fighting against any monsters in early-mid game and focus on a few huge grinding session against strong enemies to raise the party's stat. This aspect can also be another drawback for TLR, because you would not know about this BR shit unless you read proper guides. And hence, as some reviews said, TLR is "strictly for hardcore". Can't argue with that...

The game offer a degree of character customization, particularly in weapon/skill style. With this, he can be build into a gladiator, healer, mage, warrior and many more classes, although this is pretty much limited to himself only, as other heroes/leaders has fixed style/class. Other aspects of the gameplay includes morale system which effect various things in battle (eg damage/crit rate), and Remnants, which is part of the plot which allows certain characters to use super skills. At certain high BR, certain heroes/leaders can also learnt specific ultimate battle skills which is unique to weapons they equipped, called Weapon Art.

Graphic: 8.5/10

Another hard aspect to judge TLR upon. Coming from Square Enix, there's absolutely no doubt that the visual would be stunning with great design of the environment and effects in battle. Places like Vale of Gods and Crookfen looks so real that you wish you could actually stand there. However there are quite a noticeable graphical issue on the 360 version, in particular frame rate problem in battle whenever there are too many units on the screen. It really lags the battle when that happened, good thing this is not a real time action game like DMC or you'll rage to death over this problem. It seems like this problem fixed in the PC version though.

Story: 8/10

To some extent, the story are stereotypes to what you'd see in today's jrpg, but still refreshing with the plot they use. In the world, dwelled 4 race - mitra (human), qsiti (the midget), yama (big guys) and sovani (4-armed dude). There exist Remnant, mysterious artifacts which grants various powers but that itself disturbed the world's balance as there are many who went after the power. One day, the main hero' sister Irina was kidnapped by a mysterious group, which led the hero (Rush Sykes) to chase after her and eventually joined force with ruler of Athlum, David Nassau and his underlings as they seek the kidnapper, and learned more truth about Remnant.
What I like about the plot is that it doesn't restrict itself with the oh-so lover's romance like many other rpg does, and the whole truth about remnant was only revealed in the very last moment, because to be honest I really wouldn't expect that it would go that way. In a way, the ending is also typical of what you see in other rpg, still.

Others: 9/10

Also depend on one's point of view. The game offers a lot of quests and guild task, some which almost certainly require you to face lengthy battle. Some of them can be annoying, but they're nothing compared to trying to grind rare items in this game for uber weapons/items, which is THE REAL annoying/tedious thing about TLR. The game itself doesn't take too long to complete - if you didn't aim to get a full 1000G. I remember almost finishing disc 1 in my first go (not doing much sidequests) after just one day. This contrast if you aimed the full 1000G, as I myself took almost 3 weeks to get every achievements, and half of those time was probably spent merely on grinding rare bosses/items.

Talk about the achievement, it took quite a lot of your time to get 1000/1000 for TLR. Three quarter of your TLR playing time will probably be spend doing the quest and completing the achievement, because not only you need to look for rare monsters, you also need to make sure that your party is strong enough to take down The Fallen and Absolute Conqueror, each contribute to a large portion of the achievements. Some of the achievements description however was too vague for players to understand, and hence the usage of guides is a must. I personally utilize every single resource I could get reach to complete the game: The TLR Wikia, Hero stats Database, Gamefaqs guide and boards, X360Achievement boards... everything except Brady's guide, which I never bought anyway. As such, how you enjoy the game depend on how much can you tolerate the battle system, graphic and quests in TLR.


TL;DR: overall The last Remnant can be a hit or miss - depend on what you're expecting, you can end up loving or hating the game. The combat system is unique with the introduction of units, unions and formations but sometimes the unreliability of the command can be frustrating. Graphic was superb but sometimes suffers from frame rate issues in battle. Nice plot, a good amount of sidequests offered and the game itself is relatively short, but gunning for full 1000G will require 200% more time than the game. And lastly, grinding for items can be tedious.

overall rating: 8.5/10. Would I recommend it? It's really hard to say, because some people might not find the gameplay appealing, but for sure, the game hits me on all cylinders.