GameSpy writes: "Square Enix is hoping that The Last Remnant, the company's next RPG, will appeal to gamers all over the world. The company is promising a simultaneous North American and Japanese release, with a release in Europe to follow. GameSpy and other members of the press took part in a roundtable interview session with key members of The Last Remnant's development team: Nobuyuki Ueda (Producer), Yusuke Naora (Art Producer) and Hiroshi Takai (Director). Read on for the first details on the game's premise, info on the combat mechanics, and tidbits about working with Epic's Unreal Engine.
GameSpy: What was the inspiration behind creating The Last Remnant?
Square Enix: A group of our designers got together to talk about this new IP, this new game, and they came up with the idea of the Remnant, a mysterious object. That started the creation of the plot and story.
GameSpy: What separates The Last Remnant from other Japanese RPGs that we may have played in the past?
Square Enix: What most separates this game from the usual RPG is that in those games you generally give one command to one character, and one character will act. In this game, with its massive battles, you give commands to a bunch of characters, and they react differently."
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Game Rant - "From Star Ocean to Final Fantasy, there have been a number of JRPG's that have been unfairly undervalued by their Metascores. Here are 10 examples."
While I agree that the combat in Star Ocean 5's combat is pretty fun, saying that its story is more enjoyable than its predecessors is highly debatable. Also, it's not just the technical issues the game suffers from.
Completely disagree the games I played from the list all deserve their scores (Star Ocean, Nier, Tales of Zesteria, Type-0). While there are certainly people that love these games, they have flaws in many categories, that justify those scores.
Star Ocean especially bored the hell out of me. Lame story and face roll battle system (I finished the game anyway). These games are really niche and when rated by a broader public, fall short. In my opinion even in their own genre.
In this episode, we explore The History of The Last Remnant. A game the recently received a remastered release and had an interesting development cycle.
It's a good game, but the story is only okay. The gameplay is where the game really shines, but the game itself does an atrocious job of explaining it's own systems. Basically, you need to read a "what I wish I knew before I started" somewhere online, and then the game becomes great.
How can it be a worldwide launch when only the 360 gamers are getting the game months before the PS3 gamers.
So since you're not controlling individual characters like in other RPGs, does that mean it will play like a Dynasty Warriors game? I'm not sure how well that will go with the RPG crowd. Definitely will need to try the free demo first (which will eventually come to XBox Live).
GameSpy: The big announcement is that The Last Remnant is coming first to Xbox 360. Is this a marketing decision, or were you having trouble working on the PS3?
Square Enix: This is mainly for development reasons. We're developing the game using the middleware Unreal Engine, and the Unreal Engine has a slower development on the PS3 side. It was only really workable after Unreal Tournament was published, so this was mainly a development decision.