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.

When one of your groups gets close enough to an enemy union, you’ll be plunged into a situation called “Deadlock,” from which there really is no escape. It’s mortal-combat time, and the closest union is locked into fighting that one enemy group until they’re obliterated. Outside of Deadlock, you can switch up targets as you please — but once it’s engaged, it’s do or die.

Morale Majority

Distance and targets aren’t the only factors that determine how a battle plays out. Like any good commanding officer, you’ll have to babysit your union’s morale as well. With a gauge displayed across the top of the screen during battle, morale becomes a quantifiable feature that can, on the fly, change the number and types of commands you can issue to your troops.

As Takai tells us, “In a situation where neither enemies nor allies have much strength left, if the morale is high, the command of choice will be “Don’t miss this chance!” while low morale will offer ‘Be cautious, stick to defense.’” In fact, the amount of damage you inflict or incur is directly proportional to where on the morale meter your union sits.

So, how do you please a union whose morale is in the gutter? Takai’s answer remains somewhat vague: “Do things that annoy your enemies and make your own troops happy.” We don’t suppose a round of beers is the answer.

What’s My Motivation?

Yet even with all of the fancy additions of tactics and potential strategic depth, the heart of Last Remnant remains its characters and story. Set in a world populated by four races (see boxout, opposite page), its core tale involves a war over ancient artifacts called “Remnants.”

Well, calling them “artifacts” isn’t technically correct, as Remnants can end up being anything from a living cannon to creatures to quasiinanimate structures. Thousands of them are waiting to be discovered around the game’s sprawling world. But what are they good for?

“The way that each is used varies,” explains the game’s producer, Nobuyuki Ueda. “For example, in [main city] Athlum, there are two Remnants: the Gae Bolg and Valeria Heart. Gae Bolg has the ability to destroy enemies, so it’s used for just that — functioning as a powerful weapon for the Athlumian army. Valeria Heart, on the other hand, is the large, sword-shaped Remnant situated at the center of Athlum, and as an emblem of the city, its power gives the residents courage.”

But the thing is, the Gae Bolg, like many other Remnants in the gameworld, is bound to a specific character. In this case, it’s David Nassau, the young Marquis of the game’s main metropolis, Athlum. Where he goes, the Gae Bolg follows. “Just as David has [this]connection,” Ueda tells us, “others, such as main character Rush, are linked directly to different Remnants.” The hows, whys, and whats are left for you to discover. Neither Ueda nor Takai would go into much more detail about the Remnants and their “bonds” with characters.

Unlikely Heroes

With a wide cast of characters in tow during battle, the story itself focuses on a much smaller group of hero-types led by the teenaged Rush Sykes. Like any good J-RPG protagonist, Rush doesn’t so much storm off to war as he’s forcibly nudged into it by circumstances beyond his control. In this case, his sister Irina gets carried off into the night by a group of shady military types, forcing him to ditch his idyllic island life to take up arms and give chase.

As Rush hightails it to the mainland, he’ll eventually join forces with David and the Four Generals of Athlum (see boxout, opposite page). Throw in the war-torn landscape and the search for lost Remnants, and the game’s epic tone is all but guaranteed…and something we’re always ready to welcome on Xbox 360 with open, RPG-loving arms.

Why did Takai’s team decide to take their RPG in such a different direction? “When it came down to it, we wanted to create something that stood out from the existing Square Enix RPG lineup,” he tells us. Mission accomplished.