Square-Enix is a name that's synonymous with Japanese console RPGs, games whose lead protagonists have gravity defying hair, effete features and obscenely large weapons. The West a place where JRPGs are often seen as oddities, games never met with the fervour they encounter in their homeland. And yes, Final Fantasy VII did sell an awful lot of copies over here, but a huge number of those copies were traded back in, unfinished and misunderstood. The Last Remnant is Square's latest offering and whilst the main character may lack the usual volume in his hair, all of the other aspects of the company's formula are firmly in place. The game has been trumpeted as a Square-Enix RPG for the whole world rather than just Japan - but is it any good and, perhaps more importantly, will anyone over here understand it or care about it? Equip your +5 Paying Attention glasses and we'll find out.

The Last Remnant casts you in the role of Rush Sykes, a young man with a hidden past, an unknown power and reasonably sensible hair. As generic JRPG characters go he's certainly not the worst and, rather than being on a quest to regain his memory, as is usually the way with such things, this time it's your sister that you've got to save from the clutches of an evil organisation. The story, revolving around magical artefacts known as remnants, unfolds with exactly the number of twists, turns and reveals that you'd expect but it's pretty much enjoyable all the way through, always making you wan to play on to find out what happens next. I don't want to spoil too much for you, because as game stories go, it's definitely one worth experiencing.

The game itself, as with others of the genre, is split into exploration and combat sections, with the combat squarely at the heart of proceedings; however, the battle system that Square has developed for The Last Remnant is a little different from their usual fare. You control a number of unions, groups made up of up to five different characters, which share their HP and AP, or in non-JRPG speak, their health and action points. Unlike other more traditional mainstream RPGs, where you control and upgrade single characters, here you're developing a group, which adds an extra level of customisation and tactics into the mix. Indeed, tactics are very much to the forefront here, with different union set ups giving you damage and defence boosts. Formations for your unions are unlocked throughout the game, with each one offering a different way of approaching a battle.

New soldiers can be hired, either from Guilds or from Recruiters, which allows you to keep your unions fresh. Not got enough magical power in one of your unions? Go and hire yourself a mage to boost your stats. There are a variety of types to choose from, including fighters, spell casters and jacks of all trades. Discovering which type of union will work best for you is half the adventure, really. The enemies that you come up against range from giant bees to medium sized dinosaurs and undead, droopy-fleshed zombies to opposing soldiers wielding powers remarkably similar to yours. All of them have different strengths and weaknesses and all must be approached with caution. You see, instigating battle isn't a simple case of running into a monster any more; instead, battles are triggered with an aggro pull system. Pulling the right trigger when you're close to a hostile animal makes Rush sweep out a circle of smoke and if the enemy character is within this circle then battle commences. There are higher rewards to be found from battling more than one enemy at a time, meaning that once you get the hang of things you can pull in large crowds of monsters and get better items from their corpses. If, however, an enemy touches you before you've instigated a fight, then the battle begins with you at a severe disadvantage. It often comes down to good timing and a little bit of luck but as soon as the system clicks in your brain, you'll wonder why no other game has done it before [Sounds like an evolution of the system used in Blue Dragon. Ed].

I could go on and on about the depth of the battle system, the intricacies of the design and the almost infinite variety of stances, positions, formations and unions you can create, but that would be unfair for a number of reasons. Firstly, one of the joys of this game is working things out for yourself - finding the hidden little pieces that give you the edge on the battlefield - and secondly, because as good as the battle system is, it just can't hide the flaws that lurk beneath The Last Remnant's surface.

The exploration that makes up the other half of the game is as standard as standard can be; indeed, whilst the battle system at the heart of everything is splendid, this really is just a case of wandering around, fighting some monsters, getting loot from them, then rinsing and repeating. The enjoyment you find in the minutiae of the fight sequences is trodden upon by the slog of the rest of the game. The story comes through in dribbles and drips, never quite making sense, never quite explaining itself well enough to be satisfactory and never quite telling you what it is you have to do next. There's far too much dithering around, moving from location to location and hoping that by some miracle you'll talk to the right person or end up on the right screen to move things along. This is a curse that befalls many of this kind of game (I often think that the mammoth play time that developers' boast about could be halved if they better explained what you should be doing) and it's a crying shame, because for the first few hours, The Last Remnant isn't guilty of such a crime, guiding you through its landscapes with a clever mix of storytelling and description. Developers need to realise that there's a middle ground between nannying players and dropping them in at the deep end and that it'd be nice for them to take us there once in a while.

The environments you traverse are reasonably varied, ranging from the usual damp, underground caverns to lush hillsides, and crumbling castles to an odd interpretation of heaven. They're distinct enough so that you know you're somewhere new but none of them are particularly visually inspiring. The world map is exactly that, a map with all the locations you've visited marked upon it, as well as any new ones you've opened up for access. The city maps are small-scale versions of the world map, listing the districts that you can visit in each of the capital cities of the world. This means it's harder to get lost, at least in theory, but in reality, not knowing where you're supposed to go and being lost end up feeling like the same thing.

This isn't The Last Remnant's most heinous crime however; that, oddly enough, lies in the graphics. Square has decided, for whatever reason, to use the Unreal Engine instead of employing one of their own. "So what?" you might say, as the Unreal Engine has powered plenty of game types very well - why should an RPG be any different? I don't know, but it is. This is one of the glitchiest, jerkiest, most broken games that I have played in a long time. In the exploration field it's obvious but not problematic, with pop up and clipping doing little to deter from the experience; the problems really occur in the battles, where characters flail and jerk like they're in old cine-film footage. At best it's terrible and at worst it's enough to cause motion sickness. To say that this is unacceptable would be an understatement; here we have Square-Enix, one of the most respected games developers in the world, releasing a game that is sometimes so broken that it verges on the unplayable. The mess is made all the more surprising when you compare it to Infinite Undiscovery, another Square-Enix game released earlier this year that functions a million times better using one of their in-house game engines. For a smaller developer this would be catastrophic but for Square it's just very poor show.

Unlike the visuals, the music and audio of The Last Remnant are pretty damn good. We're treated to a full orchestral score, packed with soaring highs and sweeping lows that add to the emotion of the story. The voice acting is also excellent; you can't help but like Rush and the other characters that he meets, mainly because they sound real and plausible. The battle sounds are heavy and realistic, with the clash of steel enough to send a shiver down your spine - if only the graphics engine could have matched this quality then there would be little to complain about.

The Last Remnant has a lot of good, new ideas and features one of the best battle systems of recent years, backed up by an enjoyable story and memorable characters. It's such a shame then that what could have been an excellent game is thwarted by sloppy design, confusing direction and an abysmally implemented graphics engine. If you can look past The Last Remnant's flaws then there's a lot to keep you occupied but if you're a JRPG virgin then, whatever you do, don't start here. This isn't the game that finally unites Square and the West - but, graphical problems aside, it's a step in vaguely the right direction.

Reviewed by Harry Slater for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).