The Last Remnant Preview

The voyage of discovery story is classic JRPG

Complimenting this is a moral system which allows you access to special powers, displayed on a bar at the top of the screen. The better the fight is going for you, the more blue it is. The worse it's going, the more red. One of Rush's special attacks is called Omnistrike. That's right Final Fantasy VII fans, we said Omnistrike. But you won't see Rush slice and dice his enemy with a ridiculously long sword. It's more of a flurry of punches that rekindles memories of Tifa's Limit Break.

The 'turn burst' system looks very interesting indeed. It's new, feels fresh and makes you think in ways unheard of in most JRPGs. But each battle will take a decent amount of time to work through, on account of its complexity and larger scale. It will be interesting to see how it feels after extended play, but given that after every battle you automatically recover all of your health and action points, and that you can save wherever and whenever you want, it shouldn't become too much of a chore.

You might be wondering what the title of the game means (after Infinite Undiscovery, this is a question we find ourselves wondering whenever we see a new JRPG). Thankfully it actually makes sense. The Remnants themselves are powerful artefacts that manifest themselves differently depending on who's using them. King David (say it like you're Spanish, not as in 'Big Dave'), one of the game's central characters, manifests his into a huge cannon, called the Gae Bolg, which he starts readying to fire as the battle we talked about at the top of the preview rages.

King David's got four generals who all play an important part in the story. Blocter is a huge tank-like Yama, Torgal is an arrogant and aloof Sovani, Emma is a matriarchal Mitra with a sexy posh English voice and Pagus is a Qsiti who looks like the love child of Kermit the Frog and Jar Jar Binks. King David fires the Gae Bolg, which blows a hole in the ground and sends Rush and Emma spiralling down into an underground cave. She's not too happy with his appearance, and fancies him a spy of some kind. Pleading his innocence, he explains that all he's trying to do is find his sister. Cue a flashback.

Rush and Irina are standing in a field in some far away land watching a holographic message from their parents, scientists who are away researching the power of the Remnants. They've just told their kids to pack their bags and come live with them when a winged beast appears in the sky and lands with a pack of monsters, surrounding the two. It snatches Irina, but not before she drops her pendant. Rush grabs it and somehow manages to destroy the remaining beasties with a magical blast without knowing how or why. Turns out the pendant is part of a Remnant, and of great interest to the game's big bad evil - The Conqueror.

Surely it's going to be better than Infinite Undiscovery

Apart from the fact that the game has been made using the Unreal Engine 3, and as a result has that classic, unmistakeable sheen to it (everyone seems to have silver hair, too), and that all the motion capturing has been done with Western actors, not Japanese, The Conqueror is perhaps the most obviously Western feature of The Last Remnant. He's been designed specifically to appeal to Western gamers, with Western facial features, a more brutish, bulky posture and an outfit caked in the red blood of his enemies. He looks like Sephiroth's weight-lifting dad, and very mysterious and menacing to boot.

From what we've played, The Last Remnant looks sure to satisfy any Xbox 360-owning JRPG fans left hungry by the disappointing Infinite Undiscovery (it's undoubtedly a better game than Tri-ace's effort). Despite the clear pandering to Western audiences, it's still a very Japanese game, and we're glad of that fact. But if Square Enix's most Western role-playing game in its history means it's going to be one of the best original RPGs it's made in years, then we welcome the approach with open arms.

The Last Remnant is due out for Xbox 360 on November 20. PS3 and PC versions are due later.