The races in the game look cool; what they say is boring, though.

Not to extract you from the medium to which we are all so wonderfully addicted, but I was thinking of this past summer's moving production of "Hair" in Central Park while playing The Last Remnant, the big game this year from Square Enix. In "Hair," the brilliant, heart-tugging actress of a thousand faces Allison Case plays Crissy. Case sings the song "Frank Mills" as if she may never find what she's looking for in relationships, and maybe even in life -- even though she's unrepentantly idealistic and brimming with youthful peace and love to give.

Less than halfway through The Last Remnant, I felt like Allison Case's Crissy: I had many hopes and expectations for the Square Enix game, anticipating my life in the game and feeling more alive for its diverting turn-based entertainment.

See, the epic one-player offering promised I could bring along as many as 25 other characters for my team in search of Remnants, artifacts and obelisks with powers so, so awesome. Plus, with two disks of gameplay, I thought the role-playing experience would be a compelling one, not only full of Square's lengthy computer movies, but also Kurosawa-like battles that wouldn't let me down. Because it uses the Unreal Engine 3 as its software, I thought commanding these massive, violent encounters would be a slam dunk: tough strategy that yielded powerful, satisfying results.

Morgo wants to sell you a withered sword and chipped axe.

The story? Everyone wants more and more Remnants, kind of the way everyone wants cold, hard cash, and they'll do anything to get it. This tale of woe and war due to greed isn't new, as old as the haves versus the have-nots plot that is also present in The Last Remnant.

After a half-hour movie and a tutorial that lets you engage in battle for the first time, you begin to see some potential problems with the game. You witness utterly beautiful graphics of unknown worlds, giant Remnants (especially one in the center of town that looks like a massive sword) and huge battles -- but they're somehow banal. The characters don't react with the appropriate drama and emotion, and the script is, at best, run-of-the-mill. You've got an M-rated game with a PG action film's immature script that's B-movie in quality -- at best. And the characters' movements, especially their hands, seem forced and generally not lifelike.

Once in battle, you'll see frame rate issues. To me, that's not the worst thing in the world if the rest of the game is top-notch. But I still had to wonder about these graphic jitters, because there were just a few characters battling on-screen at a time. Maybe they should have waited for the Unreal Engine 4 to release the game.

Repetitive: Each time you engage in battle, you'll hear, "Let's DO it."

And maybe the whole approach towards leveling up should be revisited. You've got to kill the little monsters before you get to the big monsters, and a lot of them are the same: scorpions, giant flies, things like that. Once you tell the battle system how to proceed, you're generally just watching the carnage, with the exception of having to press the occasional button quickly to land a superior blow. And you know they wouldn't have added this option if they didn't think you'd be bored with the battle system in the first place.

And maybe the whole idea of the cheeky, snarky young protagonist has to be revisited, too. Rush Sykes is just too cookie-cutter. Every time I started a battle, Rush yelled, "Let's DO this!" and then, "Let's kick some ass!" Where's the damn variation? Hearing these two lines over and over is the verbal equivalent of Chinese water torture. I'm not asking for tons of gray areas between the black and white; I'm just asking for just a little nuance early on, something to make the young dude more believable -- because the story certainly has its flaws right away.

Why did they make me so one-dimensional. WHY?

Snarky kid Rush (who makes me think of Limbaugh -- argh!) is searching for his sister. The sweet one's been abducted by this giant flying insect-like thing while the parents are off being work-obsessed research scientists who are trying to save mankind. So as the flying thing zips away and leaves Rush under the feet of some minion monsters, he summons up the mystical energy to kill them all. So why couldn't he have done this before, when the flying thing was kidnapping his sister? Plus, what parents -- even ones who are career-driven -- would leave their young kids to fend for themselves on an island? It doesn't make sense. These world-renowned scientists couldn't ante up for some guards or an au pair?

The Last Remnant was either too ambitious a project for the Xbox 360, or the developers needed more time to iron out the many challenges with the graphics and story. As I moved through the various locales, I wasn't scared, wasn't too curious, and didn't feel at all adventurous. (And, yes, I do like the Final Fantasy series, of which I've been a fan since FFVII). In 20 hours of The Last Remnant, I didn't once get the teary-eyed, complex emotions that Allison Case gave me in just three minutes of singing in "Hair." I just felt like I was running around, occasionally stopping to admire my surroundings as if I were a tourist more than a participant.

The architecture is so darn awesome.

There are some worthy parts other than the world's architectural wonders. You can create and customize lots of weapons and magic spells. You can save at any point, so you don't have to worry about mislaid save points. And you should probably save often: You might have a dozen enemies behind that 30-foot oak door you're so cavalierly opening. Later battles can take the better part of 45 minutes to finish because so many monsters keep coming at you. At these points, the game did get my blood going, but I felt weary after they ended, especially if I didn't win and had to start over. I just don't have the kind of time to spend on such bland warring.


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Yes, the story has some mysterious twists and turns, especially later with Rush and his sister. But the tale is as uneven as the character development. Even the tertiary characters' stories seem unfinished. One bartender at the pub is interesting because he's gay and has a crush on the local head of state. The other bartender next to him isn't developed at all. And why are there two bartenders when the pub has five people in it? Are they expecting the Last Remnant football team later?

Sadly, unevenness is ultimately a grave problem with The Last Remnant. Some of it seems ready to jump into bed with you and give you the hottest, sweatiest roll in the hay of your life. And some of it seems like it needs more practice before it even begins to touch you. In these recessionary times, fry this one ? in the turkey fryer.

This game is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.