When engaging another party, a deadlock will be instated. In order to attack another group, you need to clear it first. If everyone has a deadlock on a specified group, you enter a state of raidlock. A party on their way to achieve a deadlock can also be intercepted and forced to face other foes.

In addition, attacks can be launched from the flanks or from the rear, with added bonus damage. I know it sounds complicated, but it's really not that bad, and the game rating kinda prevents kids from trying this anyway. I personally love a complex fighting system, I think it adds more depth to a game and makes evolution of characters especially rewarding in a RPG.

Like in the best Final Fantasy tradition, the fight is turn based with an initiative system so units have their proper fighting order depending on their class. You can have melee, casters, healers, and all in-between; each unit gains levels and new abilities depending on what type of attacks he's doing.

This brings up a couple of new problems again: since combat is squad based, you cannot order abilities individually, and depend on the AI to suggest what you should use, via a list with 4 or 5 options. Don't get me wrong, the AI does a decent job in anticipating your possible response to various situations, but sometimes you cannot get off that heal you wanted to, no matter what.

And on the other hand, this forces you to have mixed groups, because casters have low defenses and health. Which is again fine, but you cannot choose to do magic attacks with the casters and melee attacks with the other classes for example. It's either melee for everyone, or spells for everyone. You can see how this can become a problem in leveling; you really can't easily specialize a unit in a certain area and make it like the "dedicated healer" for example. This can be compensated by grinding experience through battles, and you'll be happy to know monsters re-appear once you leave a certain area of the map and come back.

I haven't spoken about equipment, and how does it fit in this whole equation. You only have to take care of Rush, our main character in this story, and there are plenty of shops to buy armor and weapons. Equipment can be enhanced and customized using parts you found on monsters or ore mined in various mining spots found everywhere on the world. The rest of your union members will ask for a part here and there from a certain monsters, and take care of their own upgrades. You just have to decide if you want to give them the part or keep it for yourself. Giving it is usually the best idea.

But look at me, all this talk of combat, and no story. Last Remnant excels with a great story and believable voice acting, and most of all manages to create that unique bond between the player and the game. You fall in love with the characters and get attached to them as you begin to learn more and more details about their life, their personal problems and achievements.

Everything begins with our main character, Rush Sykes, desperately trying to find his missing sister Irina, kidnapped by some strange unknown men. His fortune leads him straight in the middle of a battle, where he meets David Nassau, the Marquis of Athlum. The Marquis is impressed with Rush, and out of kindness he offers to help him find his missing sister. Rush helps Dave as well in his fight to regain independence for Athlum. Along the game, you'll have the opportunity to play with almost every loyal servant of the Marquis, each with a unique personality and fighting style.

Athlum is one of the nine cities in the known world empowered by a magic artifact known as a Remnant. Important city leaders like David are also bound to a Remnant, and can invoke their power in combat, in time of need. The devastating Gae Bolg attack is Dave's power, for example.

One last thing I should mention before going to any conclusions is the controls implementation for the PC. Of course, if you are lucky enough to have an Xbox 360 controller for Windows, there's no need to worry. But keyboard and mouse implementations are possibly the strangest I've ever seen in a game. And, oddly enough, they work pretty well. If I told you all the keys, you wouldn't expect the Last Remnant to be a pleasant experience, but I caught up with the control scheme quite easily really.