The Last Remnant

The Last Remnant is an ambitious Japanese RPG about a world where power flows from so-called Remnants, ancient artifacts of enormous strength whose ownership decides the fate of entire realms. A young hero gets caught up in the conflict while searching for his kidnapped sister and gradually becomes a commander leading entire corps of soldiers into battle. That is the main thing that sets it apart from the rest of the genre: the player doesn't control four heroes but several so-called unions, groups of several fighters to whom the player gives general orders like attack, heal, or flank, while the individual actions are chosen by the characters themselves.

Battles feel like commanding a small army as a result. Flanking units, going around enemy groups from the side, and timing the moments when it's worth risking an attack instead of topping up health all play a crucial role. The character growth system works indirectly, with stats rising according to what the player actually does in battle, which makes the game unusually sensitive to playstyle and, at the same time, less transparent. Technically it was one of the first big Japanese titles built on the western Unreal Engine 3, and it showed: sprawling battles with dozens of characters on screen looked impressive for their time, but the Xbox 360 version suffered from long loading and texture pop-in that appeared even in dialogue scenes.

Reviews were mixed, praising the boldness of reworking combat and the scope of the campaign, while criticizing the technical state and insufficient explanation of the rules. Still, the game found a following that considers it one of the most interesting attempts to push Japanese RPGs toward tactics, and its union system became a reference point regularly brought up in discussions of the genre. Today it's worth attention mainly for how differently it plays compared to anything else on the Xbox 360. Anyone who fights through the first hours and grasps how morale and unit positioning work gets battles with a genuine dramatic arc.