I must admit, I was initially wary about this purchase, especially after initial reviews – see IGN. However as they say when expectations are low you might be in for a surprise, this was definitely a pleasant one. I can't disagree more with the score given to this game.

Yes it suffers from a fair number of faults, but at least to me, they were nowhere near as disastrous as that review implied. For example I experienced far worse texture pop in Mass Effect then in this game, yet noone complained much then. The framerate can be annoying but gets much better if you install the game.

The game itself by far makes up for these, the battle system is actually exciting to play unlike turn-based RPGs normally are. However if you are looking for a Final Fantasy like experience, perhaps you should try elsewhere, this plays much more like a tactics game. The game also has a lot of varied side-quests, and if you take the time to finish all of these before advancing you should have no problem with the boss-fights. However the game punishes you harshly if you try to power through the main story without taking your time on other quests – as IGN obviously tried to do.

The game does throw away some “conventions” which may or may not be appreciated. You only equip the main protagonist, which helps a lot since your army can be made up of like 30 people. There is no need to heal between fights, you get full HP after every battle, similar reason as last. Also the world map and towns themselves are made up of locations which you instantly transit between.

The story itself is a fairly political affair somewhat similar to FF XII, however doesn't fall into its trap of having a story which became in the end far too removed from the actual protagonists themselves. It's nothing original but it is by no means bad and keeps the game moving. All in all it's definitely not a game for a casual player – then again what JRPG is? – it is most definitely flawed, however it is not poor because of that. Definitely think about borrowing or renting it if your not too sure.

Just a few bullet points regarding my personal opinion of TLR: Like most of the reviewers before me, I really enjoy the game.

The story is your classic coming of age RPG, based around the search for your kidnapped sister.

I had no issues with the graphics or frame rate once the game is installed on the HD. There is still some very quick texture popping, the same as in Mass Effect. In fact, there hasn't been an area in the game I didn't like the look of.

The cities/towns are particularly spectacular. The cities are presented on a grand scale with massive ‘remnants’ floating above them though you can only visit 3–5 sections of any given city. Good water affects and cool character design – particularly among the different races and bosses.

Amazing sound track (which I now own) composed by Tsuyoshi Sekito with assistance from Yasuhiro Yamanaka: around 100 different orchestrated pieces which do a great job of setting the mood of the game, particularly in the cities and in later boss battles (some truly epic pieces).

The combat (which is covered in more detail by Matthew in his review) is what really makes this game. Totally addictive, strategy based combat with great attack animations, satisfying weapons (some clichéd massive weapons and the Sovani race's ability to ‘quad-wield’ weapons is awesome) and a large list of wield types (one-handed, dual-wield, two-handed etc) with their own set of skills. Major battles can take anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to complete and you heal after every battle.

I had a lot of fun customising my unions (groups of warriors). You can spend hours (if you want to) creating unions of characters and soldier types that mesh well together. Choose from the many, upgradeable, battle formations and pick heroes from a massive roster of leaders and common soldiers to make up your miniature army.

However, and this is an important however, the levelling mechanic of the game is broken. At least it certainly feels that way: Monster strength increases with your Battle Rank.

At the start you are told to group as many enemies together as possible to get a greater chance of better loot. Fighting enemies raises your stats and also raises your Battle Rank, which is not linked to your stats. Your Battle Rank increases faster if you fight multiple groups of enemies. This means that, if you go around pulling large groups of enemies, your Battle Rank will skyrocket out of proportion to your stats and that means that monsters get tougher while you remain relatively weak. To the extent where some bosses become almost impossible to beat. If it gets to this stage you'd literally have to start over.

So if you do buy this game (and I if you like rpgs I recommend you do) don't pull large groups of monsters. Take them one at a time or bypass them altogether.

To beat the bosses in the FREE (yay) downloadable content easily, you will probably need to follow a ‘low battle rank’ walkthrough, which involves only fighting in battles you are forced to fight (like bosses).

TLDR: 9/10. A great game; beautiful world, brilliant music, fun and rewarding combat and a reasonable story. Research the levelling system before getting to far into it.

I'm enjoying this game immensely. The story is pretty standard fare for a JRPG but, the combat system is unique and fun, the graphics are beautiful, detailed textures are gorgeous for the most part. The cut-scenes, at least the mo-capped ones are stunning and look almost CGI quality. The audio is excellent, the score is outstanding and doesn't get boring and monotonous (like Blue Dragon for example). The character designs and models are excellent and the voice work is pretty good too (except for Pagus, his voice is not so great).

You may have seen and read a lot of negative reviews published on the net, most of them sighting graphical glitches like texture pop in and an inconsistent frame rate. This does happen, quite a lot, but I've installed it to the HD which seems to keep the texture pop in to a minimum. It's not like The Last Remnant is the only UE3 powered game to suffer from texture loading (Mass Effect and Bioshock too name a few), but it's by far the worst offender.

That said, it hasn't affected my experience with the game nor does it take anything away from the fun and addictive combat system. This is important as there is a lot of fighting in this game.

Unlike most JRPGs where each party member will individually attack an enemy each turn, The Last Remnant groups party members (or Units) together into Unions. A Union can have from 1 to 5 units and at least one of these units must be a leader. You can recrute soliders and leaders from NPCs or Guilds in some of the cities. Some of the leaders will have special abilities that can be unleashed from time to time. These abilities will evolve and change as the characters level up.

Combat is initiated in two ways. Initially you'll be limited to pulling the right trigger. This will throw out a circle similar to Blue Dragon, and anything inside will be attacked. You can attack multiple enemies this way. Once you've been playing the game for 30 or so mins, you'll be given the ability to Timeshift. If you hit right bumper, time slows down and you can then mark an enemy (it will turn red) by being within range and looking at it. You can mark multiple enemies in this mode, and before the time runs out you pull the right trigger to bring all the enemies you marked into the battle.

Hit points are assigned to the union and not to individual units. If all hit points are depleted, the union is terminated. When attacking an enemy union, each unit will take it's turn attacking the other union. There are some quicktime events here, which adds another layer to the combat. If you hit these QT events (called offensive attacks) just right, you can ensure that all of your units in a union will get to attack before any of the enemy get a chance to respond.

There are also QT events when your being attacked (offensive defence). These are rarer than the offensive attacks and result in the enemy unit either being counter-attacked or hit and stunned (it no longer makes any moves for the rest of the turn). If a union is attacked by multiple unions, you will take greater damage from those attacks.

For the first hour or two, the battles will be small in scale and not that exciting, but once you get a second union, the combat begins to feel strategic, especially in the later stages of the game with the large scale battles and 5 friendly unions. Deciding which enemy union to attack and with whom can make or break a battle at times. If you don't get this right, you can quickly find yourself on the back foot.

The main quest is pretty lengthy (I haven't finished the game at the time of writing this) and there are plenty of side quests to get into. If you can get past the glitches, you'll find an enjoyable game, with an engaging combat system and hours of fun.