The Last Remnant Preview

VideoGamer.com: President Yoichi Wada has described The Last Remnant as the cornerstone of Square Enix's worldwide strategy. Does that mean that The Last Remnant is intended to be a long running series like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest? Are we likely to see more The Last Remnant games?

Ueda-san: Well for now we've just worked on making this game and tried to make it as best as we could, and so for any continuations we don't have any particular plans quite yet. We're going to see how it does and we'll think about it from there.

VideoGamer.com: Do you play Western role playing games, from BioWare, Bethesda and Lionhead for example? What are the main differences between JRPGs and WRPGs?

Maehiro-san: BioWare makes some pretty interesting games but I don't think they can compare to Japanese RPGs! I think we're better!

Naora-san: We like the games as users but the genre as an RPG is quite vast in the West. So Mass Effect sometimes has third-person shooting and so on. But JRPG is more sticking to the core elements of the role-playing game. Probably the way that the genre is perceived in the West and Japan is very different. Of course I like BioWare and Bethesda games and we get a lot of inspiration from those games.

VideoGamer.com: In The Last Remnant you play an 18-year-old who is searching for his younger sister. We see in a lot of Square Enix role-playing games a similar central character, who is thrust into a conflict and goes through a coming of age story. Did you ever consider trying something completely different to this tried and trusted method?

Yagi-san: We really thought starting off having a teen and having a story where he comes into his own and you help him grow based on the choices that you make, we think that's a pretty universal theme, a pretty eternal story and we did not necessarily go through thinking 'oh let's try to do something completely different', because we feel there's still a lot of ways you can go with this sort of theme. It's not bad! It's tried and true and because there's a lot of potential in that set up we didn't really think we needed to get away from this.

VideoGamer.com: There is a mole-type character who digs for you. Can you tell me about him and what you think about the reaction from the fans to that character?

Takai-san: I love that character! It's not a mole, it's called Mr. Diggs! We're deeply interested in what users say about the character, because there has been a constant discussion about how it should look. Is it to be super cute or is it not so cute? I finally made a decision to balance it.

VideoGamer.com: How is Mr. Diggs incorporated into the gameplay?

Kataoka-san: There is a mark or icons in the map as you walk into a dungeon. When you see the icon you approach that point and press buttons to release Mr. Diggs and he goes out and collects things. There are different things depending on where you are. Usually the things Mr. Diggs will get for you are used for customising your weapons and armour and your equipment. If you're harvesting in the middle of grass then you'll get some sort of a plant, if it's a rock you'll get some sort of ore. There's a lot of different things you can get. As you're playing around make sure you go and try to harvest as much as you can! There are many digging points, around 150.

VideoGamer.com: One of the main criticisms of the game from previews was around the load times. What will they be like in the final version?

Ueda-san: The disc version should be faster.

VideoGamer.com: You'll be able to install the game to the Xbox 360 hard drive. How will that improve the game?

Takai-san: Obviously the loading times will be shorter and you can play faster. And we think that the noise from the drive will be quieter!

VideoGamer.com: Square Enix has in the past been a primarily PlayStation developer, but that's changing. How do you think the PS3 and Xbox 360 compare?

Takai-san: The 360 is an easy platform to make games for. The dev environment and the dev kit and everything they've released, those were really dev friendly, so it was quite a lot of fun to work on the 360 version from a development point of view.

VideoGamer.com: Going forward will Square Enix be making its role-playing games multiplatform? Is it unlikely that there will be any console exclusive games from Square Enix in the future?

Takai-san: If there's something that a particular platform can do that the game really needs to take advantage of that then it may end up being an exclusive title, but otherwise the producers or the development teams don't have a particular favourite platform, so there isn't really anything to stop us from just going multiplatform in the future.

The Last Remnant is due out exclusively for Xbox 360 this Thursday, November 20. A PS3 and PC version is set to follow.