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The Last Remnant [xbox360] Review

Posted By on Dec 5, 2008

Summary : Square enix have taken time aside to try bring another classic game to the scene with an RPG game that they are so renowned for making, yet within minutes of playing the word ‘rushed’ comes to mind, the frame rate is particularly bad and textures have let this game down..... Read this latest review by Liam Copping.

The Last Remnant [Xbox 360] Review

    6/10 Rushed technical failure

Square enix have taken time aside to try bring another classic game to the scene with an RPG game that they are so renowned for making, yet within minutes of playing the word ‘rushed’ comes to mind, the frame rate is particularly bad and textures have let this game down, which is a true shame as it’s a long typical Japanese role playing game with a lot of good elements but rushing this onto the shelves in time for Christmas has indeed taken its toll.
 

Some scenes look visually stunning and so expansive
 

Story
The story is centred around ‘Rush Sykes’ a typical Japanese character, strong sulky sophisticated and never a hair out of place, he is loyal to his younger sister Irina, but when Irina is kidnapped, Rush dives into action but as usual its not easy, he finds himself caught between a struggle for powerful artefacts called ‘remnants’ these are a great wonder in the world of the Last Remnant and they being researched at an academy by a host of scientists, this also includes Rush’s parents, all is well until a battle sparks between the pro- and anti- remnants factions and surprisingly a fearsome beast of a man appears calling himself ‘The Conqueror’ who claims that he can control any remnant, which factions then clash and hidden powers are revealed, unleashing conflict upon the world.
 

Though some don’t

The Last Remnant
Gameplay is ruined by the awful frame rate, sometimes slowing the game down and often pausing for a second or two at a time, especially when something big and amazing happens, the sequence can’t be seen properly due to this major technical issue, this is a big blow to the game and even more so are the painfully long loading times for battles and exploration, especially of cities, which are divided into many tiny areas which take just as long to load, which often see’s you twiddling your thumbs for a while.

It is powered by the Unreal 3 engine, and at times is beautiful but the beauty is obscured by texture pop-in, it can be up to 20 seconds before a texture appears in full beauty, from abstract areas to walls or plants, this is a true shame for such a powerful engine that has yet to be seen in its true potential.

Technical issues aside the game has an interesting battle system, where you can have up to five unions, each with up to five units, and the units each have there own special abilities, a battle can be very awe inspiring, but tedious due to the frame rate problems, you can give each union a command, this gives limitations that are very infuriating, also only Rush is customizable, the rest of the party may ask for weapons and such, but they tell you when they want them, there is also a pre-tune system, where you can maximise the potential threat of each union before you enter a battle, similar to a tune up system in a racing game, its there if you know what to do, but won’t affect the game to much if you don’t bother and leave it alone.

But surely Square Enix has included a brilliant story with plot twists? Wrong, the game is filled with many many battles, and it seems just for the sake of it, there is very little in the sense of plot twists or even any plot at all, even the ending is poor, a 50 – 65 hour game should include a good plot that wants you to carry on playing, yet you feel cheated and exhausted from the many battles and long loading times, for a two disc game the developer’s haven’t excelled there selves.

If you are a fan of side quests and things of that nature then there may be hope for this game yet, it is riddled with side quests, which include you finding a certain monster to kill or to collect a certain item and return it, and benefiting from a range of rewards to help you progress the quest more easily.
 

The Technical Battle, you’ll be seeing a lot of these

The Good
-    Amazing musical pieces, that will give you Goosebumps
-    Some areas are very beautifully detailed
-    Scenes that aren’t disrupted by the technical issues are stunning
-    Very long and demanding game

The Bad
-    Frustrating battle system with limited control
-    Very poor storyline
-    Any new people to the RPG game will easily be far to confused to play
-    Some areas have so little detail that look plain and ugly
-    Its obviously been rushed
-    Towns only have a few buildings you can enter, unlike other Square Enix titles where you could explore to your hearts content
-    Voice acting can be cheesy
-    Very repetitive
-    Square Enix should deliver a lot more

The Ugly
-    Frame rate is terrible, I cannot stress enough how annoying it gets
-    Battles move like a slideshow
-    Pure technical chaos

 

Rush’s epic struggle to save his sister, yet he has time to sight see

Summary
I believe a lot of people will be let down by this title, I and millions of other RPG lovers wanted this to be good, but unless you can handle the frame rate issues and the painfully long loads then this title is not for you, though its not a bad game, underneath the frustrations lies a solid great game, Square Enix just need to take these ideas and work on them without rushing and there’s a good chance they will be back to original ways of making classic games, bottom line is, just because this is Square Enix RPG does not make this a Final Fantasy game, very disappointing.

By Liam Copping