Thursday, June 25, 2009

(Review) The Last Remnant (PC)



Title: The Last Remnant
Genre: RPG
Developer: Square Enix
Platform: XBox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows
Release Year (PC): 2009



Square Enix brung The Last Remnant to their thirsty RPG lovers in 2009. The game brings an almost realistic gameplay system in the battle section. Although, the traditional turn-based system returned.

Up to 18 playable characters can participate in a battle. However, those characters aren't controlled individually, but rather in a 2 to 5-character groups called Unions. Players control their unions by issuing several battle commands, which is kind of a macro which orders multiple characters with one order. Players may choose "Attack!" which will order the selected union to attack a target union physically, or "Keep your HP up!" which will result in a general attack while prioritizing healing the union's HP, and many more.

Targeting and approaching enemy unions will trigger some certain conditions related to battle maneuvers such as Deadlock, Flank Attack, Rear Attack, and more. For example, if one union is attacked by more than one unions, a Flank Attack will occur, which will increase the latter attacking union's damage to the targeted union. These features further elaborate the complex and realistic battle system.

Graphics are not bad at all. Players can find at battle, while battle commands are waiting to be picked, that the characters will engage themselves with the enemies automatically, as a graphical seasoning. A really dynamic battle. Square Enix also used the Unreal Engine 3. PC players can also customize the graphical settings to optimize performance.

Storylines are nothing special. Players will find that the progress of the story is generally linear. There are no story branches, and advancing with the game will usually cause several locations and quests to be no longer accessible. While this is especially painful for XBox 360 players, because completing all quests nets them an Achievement via the XBox Live™, PC players would lose nothing at all, other than an added value in replay.

Musics in this game are average. The battle songs are especially not fitting in with the game theme. A little bit too rockish, if you ask me.

There are several differences in gameplay between XBox 360 players and PC players. While XBox players would have to be content with 6 Leaders (special characters) per battle, PC players were given the luxury of no Leader limit. Because of this, XBox players are forced to use more soldiers and doing so effectively, while PC users are virtually in no use of them. Many gameplay exploits in the XBox 360 version had also been nerfed in PC version. Some claimed that the gameplay of the PC version is far superior from the XBox 360 version.

Overall, the ratings for the game are: (PC version)
Gameplay: 8/10
Storyline: 6/10
Graphic: 8/10
Music: 6/10
Features: 7/10
Overall: 7/10

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