The Last Remnant (PC)

10 May 2009

The Good: Interesting fantasy setting, very good story, innovative combat system and level up process, wonderful music, one of the very few JRG that hit the PC in the recent years (if you don't count games that can run through emulation)

The Bad: Overcomplicated combat system, the story became dull after the first play through, not much side quest (as compare to games such as Elder Scrolls and Fallout 3), buggy leveling system that can make the game unplayable

As expected from Square Enix, The Last Remnant is a very story driven JRPG. The main character named Rush (yes, you can't change his name). He's a young (happened to be) hero that begin his journey to save his sister and eventually stumble upon political struggle that center around Remnants - the powerful artifacts with great magical power that give the game a name to called. Yes, It's not very interesting but as the story go on, you will surely think otherwise.

The world is constructed very well with a lot of sightseeing. The graphics' also impressive as it use the powerful Unreal 3 engine (although it's buggy for some systems, I'm not sure it's because of the engine or not but I do not suffer from other games that use the same engine).

The game combat system is really hard to learn but also very interesting. At first, you will control a handful of characters and the fact that you cannot control precisely how they act can be very frustrating. But as the game move on, you will happy with it simple because you cannot (and surely don't want to) control 18 character at the same time.

There are three main paths for Rush to chose (he can learn nearly anything you want him to learn, as oppose to these not-very-important-characters): Weapon Arts, Mystics (magic) and Item Arts. The way to train is up for you to decide as there are many sub-paths in these three main-paths, which make a very complicated class system (one of the most complicated out there)

If you are willing to seriously learn how to play a game, then the depth of The Last Remnant will be very satisfying. Although hard to learn, this is a great game once you get through that barrier and enjoy the game itself.