At Long Last

Four-armed cats, sentient cannons, a teenager named "Rush"... they're all essential ingredients in a game being lovingly crafted to give the J-RPG formula a big tweak where it counts: combat. And it all combines in The Last Remnant, which might just be what the genre's doctor's ordered - multi-limbed felines and all.

State of the Union

“Personally, I like to create situations in which there is one enemy against many of my unions…for a really thorough beating,” shares Last Remnant director Hiroshi Takai, as he describes the game’s unique take on turn-based battles and his personal strategy for how he likes to play them.

Bloodlust aside, Takai’s crafty combat tactics highlight one of the major defining features in the game — large-scale battles that you control. No more fiddling with executing individual turn-based attacks for a five-member party facing an orc-filled five-member enemy party. Instead, your combat team is now called a “union,” of which there can be several — both friendly and hostile — in one massive battle. You’ll control only your own union, which can include as little as one unit or as many as five, while other allied groups (A.I.-controlled) follow their own objectives. In some instances, you can expect giant clashes where a couple dozen allies and enemies wage war on the field.

In Control

That all sounds fine and good in theory, but how does it really work? When you’re in any open field, enemies roam, giving you ample chance to engage or avoid them. But once the combat hammer falls, you’ll assume tactical control over your union through a series of different commands. Takai describes these orders you give your union as “frameworks for battle strategies.”

Instead of the usual commands like “Attack” or “Use Spell” — the battle directions you find in most turn-based J-RPGs — you’ll give your entire union more general orders that work along the lines of the “battle strategies” that Takai mentions. Telling your union to “prioritize physical attacks” or “provide back-up” might not offer you minutely detailed micro-management, but he explains that “the characters within a union will act in a way that best suits the given command.” So you’ll have to trust your troops.

Of course, the breadth and variety of these union commands flip-flop and shift based on different factors such as your union’s status and how far you are from the enemy or your allies, leaving you — in the commanding officer’s chair — to call the shots from your couch.

But before you start clutching at your Chocobo dolls, fearing that Square is going all real-time tactical strategy on you and your favorite genre, rest easy. Yes, you’ll be charged with giving orders to any or all friendly unions, but the commands are streamlined. You can flip through a menu to select which union you’re directing, and hop between them as you see fit. And combat isn’t simply pressing a button to “prioritize physical attacks” every few seconds until you win.

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