Review of The Last Remnant - PC

Customer Ratings:
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Overall I enjoyed this game greatly, especially after tweaking it...

PROS:

The Last Remnant looks GREAT on a high end PC (circa 2008) and plays very smoothly.

Awesome movie sequences.

The gameplay can be addictive. If you enjoy leveling in an RPG, you'll find tons of that here (every stat levels as you fight).

HUGE party size, you've probably never played an RPG with this many NPCs that can join you (there are over 40 of them that are 'unique leaders' and countless others)

A massive number of quests (especially optional sidequests).

Battles require some strategy (trying to win every battle with the same formation and attacks will not succeed).

It's just FUN between the slick animations and the strategy, these large scale battles are a lot of fun to watch and to play.

CONS (reasons it's not 5 stars):

The addictive gameplay becomes repetitive gameplay at times.

Certain game design decisions require you to repeatedly visit an area, just to spawn a special monster (with a random appearance chance), this can be very tedious for those that try to complete 100% of the games sidequests.

CONS YOU CAN REMOVE:

You cannot equip your NPCs, only your main character (Rush) has editable inventory, but with a change of a line of code in a config file, all characters can be equipped as you see fit.

With the right trainer (look for a "C# Last Remnant Trainer" on the web) you can change your BR level (which you should read about on the wiki [see below] before you go leveling your party excessively) along with MANY other factors so the game will not become too difficult nor easy. That's why this game on the PC, when tweaked, can be a LOT of fun.

Instead of spending hours looking for arcane components to upgrade a weapon, you can use the same trainer mentioned earlier to spawn the weapon automatically in your inventory. If you think this is cheating then don't do it, but if you have better things to do with your time, the PC version of this game is sufficiently editable that you can do JUST the things you want to do with this game.

Party cap size! Your total party size is capped well below the 40 unique leaders that can join you and that's just the leader characters! So, again, use the trainer to open up the party size. I use 7 unions of 5 characters each giving me 35 characters to play with and equip...it is GREAT.

OTHER INFO:

If you try to beat the entire game (and do all the sidequests, get all NPC bonus parameters, etc..it will be WELL over 100 hours of gameplay). For some people this is just too long a game especially when aspects are repetitive, but others will love the lengthy campaign (which people claim you can beat in 10 hours if you just burn through the main story I would never do that though as gaining power in the sidequests is half the fun).

I had fun playing with a gamepad (I used the Logitech Rumblepad 2), and using the original Japanese voices (with subtitles turned on) rather than the English audio I suggest you try it this way too.

NOTE:

Search the web for "Last Remnant Wiki" and you'll find a comprehensive site that will remove all the questions about what is unlocked where, when to visit certain areas, and most importantly when some quests become inaccessible (you need to complete them before certain plot points happen, or you'll never be able to do them again). This game is not that logical, items and events can become accessible or inaccessible without a lot of warning if you constantly revisited old areas then this probably wouldn't be an issue, but when the map becomes massive you're less likely to do this. Generally speaking you're better off heading to this wiki whenever you are stuck OR you sense a major plot transition is about to happen. The game does give you a heads up when something major is about to happen.

I would recommend this game strongly if you're into PC RPG's, you like having lots of party members to chose from, and you have a (in 2008 or later terms) high end PC. If you have the patience to learn about it and edit the game as you see fit, you're in for a real treat.

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Do yourself a favor and get this on PC. The visuals are absolutely enchanting. Works well with a gamepad or even a 360 controller with PC adapter, if you have one. I play it on my tv whilst sitting on the couch-just as I would, if playing it on the 360. The only difference is the graphics are much much inproved. The textures are very detailed technically and artisticly.

Story-wise the game seems pretty generic. The main kid, is the exact same kid from phantasy star universe and a dozen other JRPGs. The races the game has are very well done asthetically, but bland on personality. Gameplay wise its well done the combat is fast, entertaining as well as challenging.

All in all a respectable JRPG with very pretty graphics.

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The Last Remnant is meant to be the new forerunner franchise for Square-Enix(most likelly taken FF's crown once the XIII series of games is concluded, but only in theory...) and it gets off to one hell of a start. A lot of people neglected giving this game a chance on the 360 because it had rampent lag issues and texture pop-in throughout the entire game. This does take away from the game somewhat, but with that out the way now, there is nothign preventing this version from making it a strong 9.5 rpg title.

It is heavy on story(even if it gets off to a somewhat slow start) and indeed establishes an interesting universe and premise that SE can easily expand upon in future titles. The whole jist of the game itself is to start to reintroduce the tried-and-true turn-based combat style while also making it appear to be as close to real-time as humanly possible. They do a steller job of creating the most deep and interesting battle system seen in an rpg in a long while. It can involve as many as a couple hundred enemies at points and some battle easily span 30 minutes to an hour of gameplay and, yet, you never get bored. The music plays a large part as it is a huge part of the appeal for me. It is very much like a cross between Final Fantasy symphonics and Castlevania-esque japanese, guitar-laiden, metal riffage that is done with such a perfect flair for the overall feel of the combat. Once you understand the system well enough, you can easily get absorbed in the battles more than almost any rpg I've ever played.

The characters are all interesting enough and well developed as well, including the main hero. Of late, SE seems to have pretty-boyed the protaginists in most of their next-gen rpgs and it has not gone over very well.

The graphics are nothign short of incredible on the pc. They were great on 360, but you still can't compare console power to an upgraded pc capable of playing the best games on ultra high. Check out the demo for the game first and I'm sure you will be as blown away as I was. Watching the various races move during even simple dailogue exchanges looks like a movie. The movement is beyond fluid and, when you couple that with the amazing art of the FF veteren artists, it just jumps off the monitor. The world itself is very imaginative and vast and definatelly geared towards the scope of the universe itself. It's one of the few games where I've really felt enthralled by the world and as much a part of it as any of the people within it.

The lag issues are gone, simple as that. They no longer exist and what might have taken 2 hours on the 360 now can be done in half the time thanks to that. The texture pop-in is simply a result of the engine and still comes in here or there, but it doesn't detract from the overall experience of the game itself. If you're one to define value of a game by something like that, then I don't think you're playing for the right reasons anyways.

I was hoping they would release this next for the PS3 with additional content, as well as the bug fixes, but it's looking less and less likelly so I picked this up rather than wait. I'm going to say this once and only once: IF you are any kind of rpg lover and are looking for a console style rpg that has a great story, severe polish in the graphics, a massive world full of depth, and a combat system you have never played before, then you need look no further than this game. I strongly urge the past, present, and any future fans of Squaresoft rpgs to buy this version of Last Remnant and enjoy one of the 3 best rpgs I've played in the past 2 years.

Honest reviews on The Last Remnant - PC

I need to say right away the story is as cliched as all of the other Square Enix games. Once again we have a 15 years old boy, who doesnt know his parents, who will lead armies to battle, and who will save the world. Happily, the cut-scenes are completely skippable. I'll be really blunt -None of the characters in the story are even a little memorable.

The great news is that Square came up with something a little different in this game with the combat engine. You lead armies rather than individual characters into battle. It will be 10 hours before you can create armies with lots of different combat abilities, but once you do, there is some genuine strategic and tactical thought needed to succeed at the battles. It can be fun and challenging to create different types of armies (strong magic or strong melee or a combo of the 2) to fight against a particular type of enemy.

Its important to note that you cannot directly control or directly upgrade your characters, except for the main character. This could be frustrating to same gamers but here I see why Square did it. There are so many characters that handling each one would be tedious and boring.

The graphics are a mixed bag. On the one hand there are genuinely excellent enemy models. And then there are large but bland outdoor areas. The textures repeat a lot in the outdoor areas and there is a notable lack of detail like trees or grass, just lots of cliff walls of differing colors. Over all, the game is stable and runs at a fact clip on my 9xxx Geforce card and nothing special Core Duo 2 PC.

This is turn-based combat and the game is easily 40 hours long, so I urge folks to try the PC demo if you arent sure about the gameplay.

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I bought The Last Remnant off of Steam last week when it was on sale for $10. I had heard some pretty bad things about this game when it was on the consoles but I gave in and bought it on Steam because 1) it was so cheap and 2) I've heard that they worked out all the technical difficulties in the game and, if not for those, it would have been a great game.

Well, I haven't gotten very far into the game yet but, as far as I can tell, it's a pretty great game in the 'school of FF style turn-based RPGs' and really quite an amazing deal at $10. I'm really quite pleased and impressed. The pc version of this game (at least from Steam) is really worth more like $30 or $35 in the current market.

Like I said, I'm still very early on so we'll see.

It would have been perfect if they had enabled 'Steam Cloud' with it but maybe -maybethat will come down the road. I've decided I'm not going to buy any more games from Steam unless they're enabled for Steam Cloud.