REVIEW:The Last Remnant

Developer: Square Enix | Publisher: Square Enix| Format: PC

Reviewer: Craig Jay Gallagher

Japanese RPG’s have predominantly found their homes on one of the major consoles, generally the results for PC versions have been poor and ill judged. To say that Last Remnant manages to successfully accomplish a successful port from the 360 to PC wold be an understatement. It’s one of the most refreshing and entertaining PC RPG’s in as long as this reviewer can remember.

Rush Sykes our plucky hero is searching for his sister who was recently kidnapped. Being an epic RPG his path soon crosses with that of an up and coming city leader and before you can say what, he finds himself involved in a world wide conflict which could decide the very fate of existence.

The battle system is a little different, rather than controlling a group of heroes you will instead recruit leaders and then soldiers grouping them into various unions. Each union will then have their own stats, equipment, etc you will issue army wide commands during the battles. Traditionally RPG’s have you issue specific commands such as casting a spell  in the Last Remnant you have to issue commands on a far greater scale. You will heal entire units or raise Rush’s awesome Cyclops into helping you vanquish the enemy.

In the game you’ll eventually encounter some truly amazing battle. While this look amazing they are also quite difficult. These battles can involve dozens and dozens of unions. Restrictions on your finances and the rather hard enemies make battles long and torturous meaning that any casual gamer looking for a quick and easy RPG should look elsewhere. There us between 40-50 hours of gameplay in The Last Remnant which is something which should be celebrated given that many modern games can be completed in less than 10.

The game sounds absolutely fantastic though that said the voice acting does suffer due to some of the awkward dialogue which the actors try their best to make sound natural but come across stilted and plain odd. The soundtrack really inspires, it’s rousing and gives battles an additional level of grandiose. Graphically the game is top notch with battles and individual characters taking your breath away.

While it’s not the greatest game ever made, The Last Remnant remains one of the most refreshing PC based RPG’s in a long time. Casual gamers may feel a little lost in the games complexities but for hardened fans it’s a truly wonderful game.