Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1654 in Video Games
• Brand: Square Enix
• Model: 90814
• Published on: 2008-11
• Released on: 2008-11-20
• ESRB Rating: Mature
• Platform: Xbox 360
• Number of items: 1
• Dimensions: .57" h x 5.43" w x 7.51" l, .33 pounds

Features

• The Last Remnant for the Xbox 360 is the first role-playing game in a new series from Square Enix
• Breathtaking visuals, a mysterious storyline, and a massive battlefield provide hours of exciting gameplay
• Battles are fought between multiple friendly and enemy unions -- groups of up to five characters
• Commands change depending on the current battle situation or the distance and positions of friendly and hostile unions
• In Deadlock gameplay, the two unions must fight each other until one union has been completely destroyed

Amazon.com Product Description
The Last Remnant for the Xbox 360 is the first role-playing game in a new series from Square Enix. This game delivers breathtaking visuals only possible on next-generation platforms, a mysterious storyline full of powerful artifacts, and a massive battlefield where you'll be surrounded by countless foes and friends alike.

Join Rush and David as they battle the Conqueror's Army and search for Irina. View larger.

Castanea, the Conqueror, and Roeas lead the enemy's search for the Remnants View larger.

Orders in battle are given in a command-select style. View larger.

Morale plays a role in a unions ability to inflict damage. View larger.

The Story Unfolds
In ancient times mysterious artifacts, referred to as Remnants, were discovered all over the world. People used these objects for their awesome powers -- a choice that eventually caused a rift in the world's balance. A thousands years later, the story of The Last Remnant begins.

Rush Sykes and his sister Irina are children of scientists researching the esoteric Remnants. One day, Irina is kidnapped right before Rush's eyes. Determined to rescue his sister, Rush joins forces with David Nassau, the marquis of a small city-state called Athlum. Together they are determined to pursue the criminals and save Irina from her strange captors.

Meanwhile, the world is thrust into confusion as ruling powers bicker over dividing the Remnants' powers. Soon a mysterious man appears calling himself the Conqueror. His presences escalates tensions as everyone eagerly attempts to answer the question: Into whose hands will the power of the Remnants fall? Before he knows it, Rush becomes wrapped up in this international power struggle and realizes that he is somehow connected to the enigmatic Conqueror.

Allies and Enemies
Before her kidnapping, Rush Sykes lived a peaceful life with his 14-year-old sister, Irina Sykes. Irina is a cheerful, resilient girl who stays upbeat even during the toughest of times. Some mysterious power seems to rest within here, but she herself has no understanding of what it is or what it can do. David Nassau, the 19-year-old who rules over the state of Athlum, spends his days working towards better his homeland. Although he decides to join Rush on his quest to rescue Irina, his motives are his own. Emma Honeywell, the matriarch of the Honeywells clan, Plagus, Blocter, and Torgal round out the allies.

The man known only as the Conqueror and his minions are eager to seize the Remnants throughout the lands. His origin is shrouded in mystery, but it appears that something strange and elusive connects this villain to Rush. Enamored with the Conqueror, Roeas has declared her eternal allegiance to him and acts as the ambassador of the Conqueror's Army. Although beautiful in form and voice, Roeas is sadistic and menacing on the battlefield. Originating from a large-bodied species with pronounced fighting abilities, Castanea is Roeas right-hand-man. He rarely speaks or expresses himself, so it is difficult to decipher his thoughts -- although Roeas seems to understand him easily. In addition, the strongest fighters in the Conqueror's army are referred to as The Seven. The Seven lead their own troops and report to Roeas and Castanea.

Combat Systems: Morale, Battle Unions, and Deadlock
Battles are fought between multiple friendly and enemy unions -- groups of up to five characters who fight together. Players give commands to unions as a whole, who then carry out the actions. Orders in battle are given in a command-select style that is familiar to most role playing gamers. However, The Last Remnant commands are not delivered with standard terms, such as "Item" or "Magic." Instead, players control unions with specialized commands, such as "Slam 'em with status ailments!" or "Do area attacks from afar!" Available commands change depending on the current battle situation or the distance and positions of friendly and hostile unions.

The Last Remnant adds a Morale component to the gameplay. Players can check current morale via the gauge across the top of the screen. The higher the morale, the more damage is dealt and less damage is taken by friendly unions, and vice-versa. When friendly and enemy unions go toe-to-toe and engage in melee combat, they enter a state called Deadlock. Once in Deadlock, the two unions must fight each other until one union has been completely destroyed.

Enemy monsters roam the land where they can be avoided or engaged at will. When battle is initiated, the scene changes to a specialized battle map where friend and foe can fight it out. Horizontal lined icons labeled A, B, C, etc. represent the on-field battle unions. Players choose which hostile union they wish to attack on this screen. The Last Remnant offers a wide variety of commands that focus on dealing damage or executing defensive maneuvers. Knowing which commands are most suitable for each situation is the key to winning battles.

The Last Remnant delivers breathtaking visuals, a mysterious storyline full of powerful artifacts, and a massive battlefield.

Customer Reviews

Pretty good title from SE
I've played almost every Square Enix game there is, and when I saw the across the board bad reviews for Last Remnant, I was a bit worried. But I bought it anyway, and I don't regret it. Just for some background, here's my preference for Final Fantasy games, so you can compare with your own tastes and see if TLR might be for you. I thought FF3 (6 US) was the best hands down, FF2 (4 US) and 7 were tied for second, 10 and 1 (for the sake of nostalgia if nothing else) were tied for 3rd. 12 is next, 9 was not terrible, but it was definitely forgettable. And 8 was a steaming pile of garbage.

With that out of the way, there's one thing you have to accept before you get into this game. If you don't just accept it going in you won't appreciate the game, and if you do you will. And that is the fact that the hallmark of this game is the battle system. That was their #1 priority. Story came second, even graphics came second. Don't get me wrong, I think the graphics are fantastic personally and the story is fine. But the battle system is very impressive and there are a lot of intricacies to it, and it really shows that they were willing to sacrifice other areas of the game for a stellar battle system.

The levelling system has been redesigned as well, although it's up to your taste whether you'll like it. You don't actually "level" your character, instead your skills go up as you use them. For example use a lot of combat skills and they'll become more powerful, use a lot of magic and you'll get new spells. Do a lot of physical attacks and your strength / attack power will go up, get hit a lot and your HP will go up. Etc. Again, some people will like this and some won't, I personally get a sense of satisfaction about hearing that ding every time I raise a level, and keeping track of how much more exp I need to get there, but I can live with this system, it's not that bad once you get used to it. One interesting aspect of it is that it really requires your characters to specialize, since you want to get access to the more powerful techniques you have to keep using that same type of technique over and over, and using some other type of technique will delay you getting the stronger ones from the original category.

The slowdown and stuttering that everyone talks about is indeed an issue, but one that I hardly notice. It's completely forgivable as far as I'm concerned and it doesn't interfere with my enjoyment of the game at all, period. And that's with the disc in the drive, if you install it to the hard drive it may be even less of an issue.

The main complaints I have about this game are as follows:
- Exploration has been eliminated. I like the fact that I can go anywhere I want, whenever I want in an RPG. This game doesn't have that. The second you accept a quest, you are teleported to the dungeon / place where the quest takes place instantly. This is just weird, is it really that hard for me to walk there? A side effect of this is that you usually only have one quest active at once.
- Travel is instantaneous. Again I like walking, or taking a boat or something. Opening a map and just clicking something and bam I'm there takes away from the nostalgia feel, makes me lose sense of how big and expansive the world is. You can still travel to any previously visited place at any time, even if for example a bunch of people join your party and yell "We must get to Elysion with haste, Rush let's go now!" You can still take your entire party and travel around to lots of previously visted places. In fact doing this you might find a few secrets :P But nevertheless, it also makes the game feel more linear that no matter how far away something is, you can get there instantly.

That's pretty much it. If you're an RPG fan, if you can accept this game for what it is, I think you'll find it to be of good quality.

Faults aside, a solid 8/10
Okay... first of all, I read reviews before purchasing this game. BUT, I'm a huge RPG buff, so the positive I had read/seen about it outweighed the negative.

I've only had the game for about a week and a half, but I've played it quite a bit. YES, it does have some technical issues. It graphically lags a bit when super fancy-schmancy effects are processed. So they used the Unreal engine and hadn't perfected said use... big deal. AS LONG AS YOU INSTALL IT ONTO YOUR HARD DRIVE, none of the load screens or technical issues really become that big of a deal.

All that aside, the voice acting is pretty freakin awesome if you ask me. The rest of it plays much like any of the more recent Final Fantasy series, but it feels a little different. Most notable are the combat system (A combination of old-school turn-based and a tactics-type system, with a hint of nutmeg), the item customization system (It's pretty ridiculous... in a good way), and the treasure digging system! Heck yes, it's almost like a little mini-game-type nugget that you pick up early on and take with you throughout areas that you explore.

The only problem I've had so far was that my party seemed SO INCREDIBLY WEAK early on (once you reach a point at which Rush ventures off on his own for a bit). It was taking me forever to fight anything or get through areas, and I had to take enemies on in as few numbers as possible. It was later that I realized how to put additional party members into a union. It's MUCH better after that, haha. But that's what I get for not reading the manual.

Honestly, so far, My only complaint (other than that, ideally, there shouldn't be any problems, really, with graphical lag) is that in the morale system, you get a severe detriment to morale if an enemy engages you before you can initiate combat yourself, BUT, there's ABSOLUTELY no way for you to gain any advantage on an enemy. It's either starting at 50/50, or 75-25 in the enemy's favor. Unless, of course, I just haven't gotten that far yet... But, even so, it should be accessible already. It's fairly difficult to sneak up on an enemy...

If ya like RPGs, and you especially like them with an extra dose of strategy, then go ahead and snag this one ^_^

A Great Concept Flawed Beyond Redemption
It's like Square and Microsoft brainstormed every possible way to ruin a strategy game and still have it be sorta fun.

Concept: 9/10
The Last Remnant is turn based strategy game set in a fantasy universe created by the masterminds who created Final Fantasy. You play as a young adult named Rush. Rush's sister has been kidnapped by villains that want to use her innate magical abilities to take over the world.

You can access areas through a World Map. There are towns where you buy weapons and equipment, or even craft your own. There are also dungeons and battlefields where you fight enemy Squads and Bosses.

You advance through the game by fighting turn-based Battles.
You hire Warriors, Mages, and Leaders and form them into several Squads.
The number of Units in a Squad = the number of attacks that Squad gets per round. (Each Unit attacks per turn.)
The Squad's HP is the combination of the Units' HP. As long as the HP is above 0, ALL of the Units in that Squad can keep attacking. If the Squad's HP = 0, all of the Units in the Squad die at the same time.
You can issue commands to the Squads during the battle, like "Charge", "Heal", "Attack with Magic"...
After the Battle, all of your Units are resurrected and improve based upon what they did during the battle.

In a Battle, you cannot retreat, and if you lose, you must return to your last Save.

Sounds Awesome... now here comes an avalanche of flaws that ruin the game.

Technical Art: 1/10
Square licensed an old version of Unreal before it had streaming. As a result, there are Load Screens everywhere! The game also is hindered by the most slowdown that I've seen since Aladdin fought Jafar on the SEGA Genesis. Textures and Bump-Maps constantly pop in and out whenever characters or scenes are rendered. It's incredibly distracting and makes your Xbox 360 feel like a PC with a 9 year old graphics card. However, you can avoid most of these bugs, by installing the game on your 360 Hard Drive and playing it from there.

Gameplay: 2/10
During Battles, when you give orders to your Squads, you only get a few options per turn. These options seem completely random. There are many times when a Squad is at Full Health and you get an option to Heal them. However, when a Squad is low on HP, sometimes the Heal Option doesn't show up, causing you to lose a battle. There are other times when you fight an enemy and you're thinking, "My Poison Gas Attack is perfect for this." But it doesn't show up in your Command List. Whoever thought of taking the Player's Options away in a Turn Based Battle Game was a good idea, is clearly insane. Too often, you are forced to make bad decisions because the options you want just aren't available when you need them most.

Even when you do get the commands that you want, sometimes the characters "REASSESS" and ignore your commands and do something different. If your Squad's Leader gets KO'ed with a spell, it's called a BOTCH and the AI takes control of that Squad.
It feels like the game is doing everything possible to take control away from you in a game where the fun is supposed to come from you commanding your army. As long as the AI is good, this usually isn't too much of a problem...

AI: 3/10
At times Allied Squads join you. You cannot give them commands and they act on their own. Sometimes, they attack enemies for 20 points of damage instead of healing one of your Squads, restoring 2000 HP! The AI is so bad, you'd swear that Leroy Jenkins hacked into your 360 through your live account and he's controlling the Allies.

BOSSES: 2/10
Because of the AI and Gameplay issues, the Bosses feel incredibly cheap. Also, all of their Health Bars show up as ???. You have no idea how many HP they have. When they are close to death, their Health Bar flashes red, but that's the only hint that you get. Bosses attack hard enough to take out an Entire Squad, or Charm them and make them fight on their side. If you have 3 Squads, and the Boss decides to Charm all 3, you lose! There are times when you don't get the commands that you need to win the battle at the times you need them, causing you to die.

QUESTS: 4/10
Most of the Quests are of the dungeon crawl variety. You gain access to a dungeon and fight to an objective with an AI companion. Most of them are ok, and some are horrible. One Quest in particular has you running through a barren desert for 12 minutes, touching posts. The only way to Identify them is to touch them and if you touch the wrong one in the wrong order, you have to start over. It's got all of the excitement of your Gym Coach making you run 3 miles in real time.

ART: 5/10
Slowdown aside, the art is very dull. The lighting is very dark throughout the game and colored lighting is pretty non-existent. Everything looks dull and drab, like you're watching the game through a dirty window. The Character Designs are interesting, but lack the Style found in the Final Fantasy series. Another issue arises when your army fights another humanoid army. The characters in the battle look nearly identical, so it is really difficult to tell who is who. When you see a guy swing an axe at an identical guy and a 1000 appears above the injured character, you don't know whether to cheer or panic.

WRITING: 3/10
If you're looking for an epic script, look elsewhere. The dialogue in this game is as epic as 2 third graders talking about their lunchables. The lines are delivered like the actors are in a breakfast cereal commercial where the first 5 ingredients are Sugar.
Rush's Battlecry, "YEAH, Everybody is getting HYPED!" He says stuff like, "Yo Dave, whassup?" "Yeah, No Prob. Whatever..."

Another annoyance is that the team reversed the Critial Hit Dialogue, so when your characters critical hit the enemy, they say what they would have said if they had gotten critically hit. If you do 5000 damage to an enemy, your character is likely to grumble, "Aww shucks."

BROMANCE: 0_o /10
Homophobes beware. The first major NPC that you speak to is an aging bartender at the Tavern. He calls you "Cutey" and hits on you. In all fairness, your character is feminine and he's wearing leather chaps as a fashion statement. Later on, Rush meets Dave, a flamboyant magistrate, and they get along better than any other two characters in the game. In one scene Dave gives Rush a flower and they gaze into each other's eyes. Normally, Rush replies with a nonchalant "whatever" to the other NPC's but if Dave says something, Rush says, "Aww, I can't say no to you." If the enemy surrounds you, they can attack with a "REAR ASSAULT" and Rush says, "They caught us with our pants down!" So, after a while, the game starts to feel like Brokeback Kingdom.

ECONOMY: 1/10
Rush is the only character that you can equip, and it seems like once you buy a decent sword, there's no reason to get another one until Disk 2. The game has a crafting system, where you can make things for Rush, but the parts are so rare, it's not even worth searching for them. Also, 90% of the items that you can create are the same as items that you can buy. Your NPC's equip themselves and manage their own gear. Sometimes, they'll ask you for something in the inventory and you have the right to refuse. But if you refuse, the NPC just becomes less effective.

The Game is Rated M for Blood, Language, Violence and Suggestive Themes (between males)

Overall, the game is at least 50 hours long full of Quests and Side Quests. At times, the game is fun and the cutscenes are pretty good. Your Characters do improve after almost every battle, so it does feel rewarding. It's a semi-decent way to kill time in small doses. But, the lack of control that you have over your army is incredibly frustrating and the homosexual undertones as well as the juvenile dialogue can get on your nerves.

If you're dying for a turn based strategy game for the 360, and don't mind playing it from your hard drive... and all of the stuff I just wrote about doesn't bother you... Buy this game.

Avoid this game if you hate Slowdown, Bromances, Bad Art, Load Screens, Dull Quests, Awful Dialogue, or if you actually want to control your soldiers in a strategy game.
Note: There is also a bug that prevents you from getting 200 Achievement Points when you finish the game.

If the flaws that I mentioned above are just too much, but you still want a strategy game, check out the Fire Emblem series for the Nintendo Systems, the Total War series for the PC, or King's Bounty for the PC.