New Square RPG Unveiled - The Last Remnant

1up is reporting on content from Game Informer magazine from this month, talking about Square's next big non-Final Fantasy RPG. Entitled The Last Remnant, it sounds like an interesting blend of the old and the new. While the action will stick with traditional turn-based mechanics, several elements reflect the changing landscape of the games industry. Square/Enix intends to release the game worldwide, localizing the game to an English audience as the game is created. Additionally, the game will have two selectable protagonists: one is to be a traditional heroic Square character, and the other more of an anti-hero for the American market. "The Last Remnant's been designed on Unreal Engine 3, and we should see the first official media come from [Square/Enix's announcement party] on May 12 and 13. Going with Epic's technology isn't too surprising considering the company's emphasizing the focus on Western gamers ... We don't know much about combat, but it's turn-based, more action-oriented and has a cinematic flair."

Comments

traditional heroic Square character

[earnest murderer]

traditional heroic Square character, and the other more of an anti-hero for the American market
Read as...
disaffected youth with spiky hair, and the other a disaffected youth with long hair

I enjoy these games as much as anyone else, but as their name implies their character development is about as flat as my display.

Cross Platform

[ironwill96]

Also is rumored to be for 360 and PS3, so Sony may be losing exclusivity on future Final Fantasy titles if this goes well for Square.

Re:The strategy makes sense.

[Applekid]

While I do think it's completely plausable that some Square-Enix exec said "Unreal = Western-friendly game," it just makes me shake my head.

I don't see what benefits the Unreal Engine provides versus a home-grown system except:

A) [Almost] trivial multiplatform porting.
B) Easier to subcontract out work on a familiar engine.
C) To trick FPS players who don't like RPGS into picking one up.

I don't think C will work very well. B is unfortunate as a lot of talent seems to be shifting away from the big co.s into nameless blameless little pockets in the developer pool. A... well... that's the only one I could find myself happy about. I can't think of one true* multiplatform Square-Enix game, Square EA, Squaresoft, or Enix game. I could be wrong about that one, though.

* as in, not remade or rereleased

Huh?

[BDew]

I'm no MBA, but this:

"They may still get the sales, but sales have been proven to be a false indicator of market sucess, (halo and madden do well every iteration and neither are particularly excellent)."

makes NO sense what-so-ever. What other indicator of market success is there? Are people making money without selling things?

Re:The strategy makes sense.

[LordVader717]

The same goes for the Final Fantasy VII and VIII games that were released on PC. The way all these games played made it seem like "hey, if you want play real games, buy a Playstation"
It made me save to "Slot 1" and "Slot 2" on my PC.

Re:Square, where good ideas die.

[kinglink]

New mayor from evil empire comes to town, mayor turns out to be evil final boss (or some other major enemy for the character).

Random rapscallion is picked by an underground resistance force to help them out. Random girl is found with in the first 5 hours, she turns out to be princess. Some people are loyal to the princess even though they work with the empire.

Honestly how can you say the story is that good when they continue to use the same cliches they always have. The first one is similar to so many games. The second one is FF 6/7/9/12. Have you tried games like Xenogears or saga where the characters are diverse and have full back stories which surprise most people rather than being classic cliches? Even Star ocean 3 which is far from my favorite RPG (for issues where it finishes a story point and then makes you wander) has interesting characters who don't fall into "main villian" "Hero" "princess" roles with in the first 30 minutes.

They did a good job at fleshing out the story for FFXII but from what I saw (far from the whole game, though I've heard about the governor being one of the final bosses) it is a cookie cutter game.

Re:The strategy makes sense.

[Psmylie]

Other folks have covered the ALT+TAB thing, so I'll tackle a couple of other things in your post.

First, that it looks like crap: I have to disagree. The game looks fantastic on my PC. The only way you can say that it looks the same as the PS2 is if you use all the lowest settings on the PC.

Second, that it requires a game controller to play: I've never used a gamepad, except when I've tried the PS2 version. Keyboard works just fine for me, thanks. I don't even need the mouse.

As far as it not being multiplatform... its one application that runs on multiple platforms. Multiplatform. PC/XBOX/PS2 all play together on the same servers, seamlessly. What is your definition of Multiplatform, that FFXI doesn't fit into it?

Re:Need more cofee

[Dutch Gun]

Don't forget the oh-so-subtle undertones in the story about how humans-are-not-living-in-harmony-with-nature and/or weilding-a-power-too-awesome-for-us-and-may-destro y-us-all.