The Last Remnant is an interesting experiment, succeeding partially, failing partially. The system itself is complex, but unfortunately it gets bogged down far too quickly in requiring endless amounts of grinding to progress, making a full run roughly three times longer than is necessary. A game can be long, but unless the play is remarkable, such as that of Demon’s Souls, hinging the entire game on that play is just going to frustrate the player (it should be noted that Demon’s Souls has already been beaten in an hour via speedrun). The other half of the game is a talkie combined with a character builder, which is itself remarkably complex, but equally uninteresting, largely due to problems with its relationship to the fighting system.
In the game itself, the other problem is how the fighting system is not really related to character. Which is to say, characters have personalities outside of it, but not really inside of it. When gameplay commences, the player only suggests what the characters should do, and the result is that the player is only tangentially in control of the flow of battle. But the problem stems from the characters not really, at least in relation to their characteristics outside battle, having character.
The system would be easier to swallow if characters reacted to events on the battlefield. For example, as morale changes the pace of the fight, characters might take on different attributes, start saying different things, fighting more or less aggressively. But the morale system is a sort of pie in the sky system that oversees everything. So even though The Last Remnant’s clearly a strategy role-playing game, the player never really plays a role, unless being a manager of a less than intelligent group of individuals can be considered a game role.
Arguably, that’s the role of all players during any game, but all the characters controlled in the game have identities, and to constantly have a jerky flow between having direct control of them via character management and not having control of them during actual battles is frustrating. To resolve the problem of The Last Remnant, characters needed to evolve, and there was never a feeling of evolution. The experience always feels a bit like stumbling around in the dark rather than having at least a semblance of where you’re headed, at least in relation to your party’s ability.
The characters themselves are mostly less than inspiring, a number of stereotypes with some oddly well-acted and well-written characters. It’s refreshing to be confounded, but it’s a kind of bulky, fumbling experience that doesn’t know where its strengths and faults lie. The result is a system that’s interesting until the player tries to wrangle with it, likely quickly heading to a FAQ or giving up on it entirely. The game is thus a sort of lurching behemoth, but one that is confused, an idea without the will to focus what works and cut away that which does not.
Recommended: No