The Last Remnant. Yea, well the title is probably the best part of this game - you don't have to expect an even shittier sequel. I mean it is LAST right? No. It's about as last as Final Fantasy is final. So what will it be called? The Second Last (Penultimate) Remnant? Last Remnant 2? Who knows, just close your eyes and plug your ears till it blows over. But I'm getting ahead of myself since we haven't even dived into how shitty the first one is.
The story is quite simple and generic, so I won't talk about it too much. Typical boy wanders out into world, has hidden fantastic powers, is out to stop super villains and eventually gets the girl. Of course, the 'girl' in this game happens to be your little sister, so unless there's some incestuous undertone here, which I really wouldn't put past the Japanese, there is effectively no romantic portion. Possibly for the best. See it how you will, but there really isn't any other female lead in this game worth mentioning.
Whoa okay, so that's not entirely true. There is one character that does blossom out to be passable, dare I say, interesting but unfortunately, no more than an hour in, you will quickly start getting the hint that this character is going to be obsoleted. First, you notice that she's over 40 and let's face it, any character that isn't within the teen's bracket is going to leave your party permanently, and bequeath his or her role in the game to another more youthful character. The game quickly introduces to you her replacement: a lone NPC that looks exactly like her, except younger. They mind as well just tell you: this character is going to be replaced by a younger, hotter version. Don't bother training her. She even repeats 'I will gladly give my life for Athlum' several times, with exceedingly painful emphasis as soon as there is even the slightest threat. No other character emits this sort of patriotic valor, but that's not the effect that Square was trying to achieve. No, they were trying to drill a foreboding warning into your mind, as if it wasn't obvious enough. To put this into perspective, you realise all this within the first hour of a game rated at a length of 70-100 hours. I would not have minded so much if she wasn't the one single good character of the game. Afterwards, you're left with a terrible and forgetable cast who you really wish you could do without.
Most of the other characters do very little talking in the game, but the dialogue is lame, both in the way that it is uninteresting and doesn't progress the game. It is meaningless chatter to fill in the void. Avoiding these NPCs entirely and continuing will have no negative impact on your experience. Unfortunately, they apply the same sort of treatment to the cutscenes, drawing out meaningless babble and adding awkwardly long pauses between sentences. I'm not sure if it was an issue with the English dubbing, but the scenes themselves are also too long. If I want to pan around the environment at a distance that is much too close to really get a grasp of the surroundings, I would happily do it myself when I am in control of the camera.
And I haven't gotten into the real shitter yet: the gameplay of this game is unbelievably terrible. First, you should know that Square designed this game off the Unreal engine, and admitted to facing many challenges converting a FPS engine to work well with a turn-based RPG game. It seemed to me that they were really forced into working with something they knew would be problematic and limiting, just so they could sell it under the pretense that it was a JRPG marketed towards the American market. Seeing that The Last Remnant was built practically around the XBOX 360, with the controls and interface contoured for the 360 controller, and that a PS3 version has never been discussed... This game was solely targeted towards American console FPSers between the ages of 13-20ish. I really hesitate to bump the number higher, as the gameplay really isn't deep enough to warrant drawing in the hardcore crowd of RPGers, who are often older geeks.
Regardless, I am still unclear as to what aspect of the game really appeals to the American audience. Does the story or setting have a strong resemblance to western culture? No more so than other JRPGs. Do the characters feel like they bear the attitudes and personalities of typical American people? No, in fact, most characters are quite soft-spoken, perhaps with the sole exception of Rush, the main protagonist (the player) who is a total moron. I guess that's very much like the typical American 360 player after all, but why just him? How could you even feel anything but alienation from this character; he's impossible to respect in any aspect. Is the game trying to appeal to American non-RPG audiences by dumbing down what the RPG genre is and reducing any complexities down to random chance and your character levels? .... I think we found a winner!
That's exactly what Last Remnant's gameplay is: a shitty, random, washed out version of what a tactical RPG is usually like. Of course, instead of viewing this as a weakness, Square promotes them as innovative features.
Here's a taste: Instead of controlling individual characters, you give commands to an entire squad, consisting of up to 5 characters each. You eventually get to control practically a battalion, with multiple squads under your command. Giving orders to a group is fine and all, but what ultimately ends up happening is that each of your groups members deliver individual commands. It completely defeats the purpose of the group-system in the first place, as you have none of the advantages and all of the problems. You can tell an entire party to attack, use spells, use skills or defend... But they all do different things. Say if you tell a party to use spells, only 2 of your party members will cast some spell of their choosing, and the others will run in and melee. You won't get to choose what spell these two use, or which of your characters will cast the spell. Switching your target to another enemy at equivalent distance will bring up a completely new set of options. You may only be able to defend this turn if you attack the enemies on the left, but you may only be able to melee the enemies on the right. Is there a particular reason that you are restricted in such a way? No! You can restart the fight, and have the exact same conditions, yet different combat options will be open to you. Last Remnant uses RANDOM chance to fluctuate the difficulty of battles. If you tell your party to attack with spells, the game may choose to have your weakest caster cast the spells and use up the party's aggregate mana. Conversely, telling your party to heal another party may have your slowest caster cast the heal... Which usually means that your allied party is already dead before the heal is completed. The inability to choose who will use what wildly changes how your battles will play out, meaning if you input a set of commands for a fight, you may end up failing miserably... Yet in the exact same battle, the same commands again may allow you to win handily because the random members and random skills chosen just happened to match up in such a way that it maximized the effectiveness of your party.
... That is an atrocity. To have the element of luck and nebulous party/combat management be the main deciding factor in your battles is a terrible idea from conception. Why not just roll dice at the start of the fight and be done with it?
But wait, it can't be that bad right? You can probably level up or gear up a little more to improve your chances. No. You can't. Although the skills chosen to be cast (and who casts them) are random, the option of possible commands that appear for your party are ALSO random. Some turns, for no reason, your party will not be allowed to heal. It doesn't matter if they have healing items on them, if they have no health, full health, lots of AP, little AP or no status afflictions... You just CAN'T. No reasons are ever given in this game, so you just got to tough it out until your heals or attacks start to appear. If you've got shitty luck, expect to watch your party get slaughtered when they cannot make any moves other than 'play it by the ear' for 5 consecutive turns. And what is 'Play It By the Ear'? That's when your party members get to do whatever the fuck they want, and you won't even know because all their skills appear as ???. It literally IS just rolling the dice for that turn. Although I'm telling you, sometimes even THAT doesn't appear as an option. Then you're really fucked and you mind as well just reload your closest save.
But what the fuck is the point? Sometimes you're unable to heal, and your only hope of healing is to select Play It By the Ear and hope to God that one of your party members will decide healing is a good idea. So if your party is technically capable of using a heal... Why the fuck wasn't the option there in the first place? Was it just funny to have it hidden? Why is there even a 5 command options limit in the first place? You have 5 things to pick from at random, and sometimes they're all shitty. But by the luck of the draw, your parties may do something that is actually helpful. There is no planning your battles, there is no skill and there definitely is no strategy. I've read some comments and reviews that compliments TLR for having an innovative level of strategic commanding... But nowhere have I found anyone who can tell me HOW they are being strategic. Simply put, these people are full of shit, and are probably indeed the never-played-a-RPG-before Americans that Square were hoping to please.
While in combat, you can maneuver your squads to deadlock other enemy squads... Once in deadlock, that's when the damage begins, pending your nebulous combat options above. There is also a strategic flanking damage bonus that you will never be able to capitalize on. Your squads can supposedly go around and attack an enemy squad at its rear for increase damage... But you simply cannot get this to happen because you cannot give your squad a command to go to a specific location on the battlefield. Everything you do is relative to the enemy squads. You can either stay put and do nothing where you are... Or you charge forwards towards the targetted enemy squad. There is no in between, there is no walking to the left edge of the battlefield, nor is there a 'Circle around the deadlock and flank them' command. This game is charge, charge, and charge.
Here's what I don't understand. Square tries to make the game easier to understand and play and not make it too overwhelming with information to the player... But they do it hiding everything. You do not get to see why certain spells cannot be cast, you don't get to know why you can't heal, you don't get to know who is even going to attack first in a deadlock. All this stuff is important, as it affects the way you're going to command the next turn. If your enemy is going to get off the attack first the next turn, you may want to avoid casting large-long-cast spells. If the enemy has been charging a long casting spell for the previous turn, you may want to have options to attack quickly and interrupt or run the hell away. But no, you're completely at the mercy of the game, who on a whim may or may not give you the commands to effectively deal with the situation.
Even GIVEN the option to heal/attack/resurrect in this game, it is still a pain in the ass. If two parties are low on HP, even selecting which party to heal becomes impossible. You cannot target friendly parties. Instead you target the enemy party that your friendly parties have targeted. You can then cast a heal to heal the target of your target. Wow. Way to make it confusing, assholes. But worse, if two parties are targetting the same enemy squad... Which party are you healing? Now that will be fucking random again. You won't get to pick, and you're definitely not going to get a second command option to heal the other group. Again, either you tough it out and hope to God that next turn you get the options you want, or you restart.
This is a fairly long game, and there are way more problems than this. Stay tuned for TLR, Part 2.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment