The Last Remnant is Square Enix’s latest title, and the first to realize Yoichi Wada’s desire for Square to shift focus toward a worldwide, Western-dominated gaming market. Unfortunately, being the first try in Square’s new arena of game design, it suffers from a number of problems and doesn’t quite find a place in the West or East.

The game starts off similarly enough for anyone who’s ever played a Square Enix title (or any JRPG, for that matter). 18-year-old Rush Sykes is off searching for his lost 14-year-old sister, Irina, when he happens to stumble upon a cliff. Below, he spies a large battle taking place, and what looks like Irina stuck right in the middle. Like any RPG hero big brother, Rush hurries down and joins in the fun.

Over the course of the game, Rush and the other characters you meet along the way get swept up in epic events, ultimately surrounding “Remnants.” Remnants take many forms, but are best described as being ancient artifacts capable of great magic. Some want to control the Remnants to keep the peace; others want to control them to unleash devastation – you know…normal RPG stuff.

It’s a fairly formulaic plot, but an interesting one nonetheless. While it won’t win any awards for ingenuity or writing, there have been other RPGs out this year with worse stories. If you’ve played a number of RPGs and don’t mind the similar cliché themes found predominantly throughout most of them, then you’ll be just fine with The Last Remnant’s tale.

While the story and characters are par for the course, where Square Enix really tried to shake things up was the combat and actual gameplay. For starters, The Last Remnant utilizes the Unreal Engine 3 rather than their newly revealed Crystal Engine, which Square showcased at this year’s GDC. It’s Square Enix’s first attempt at using Epic’s technology, and it shows. Throughout the course of the game (especially in combat) there are noticeable slowdown and framerate issues, as well as pop-in.