The story begins with Rush Sykes, the son of two Remnant scholars, having his sister kidnapped. In his quest to rescue her, Rush finds himself in the middle of political struggles, uncovering several mysteries and makings allies in the process. It's as bad as the typical JRPG story, but with a slightly better supporting cast.

But make no mistake – battles are the focus here. The Last Remnant's combat system is the game's high point – as well as its most divisive aspect. Instead of individual characters, the player controls “unions”. Each union can have up to five units, and the number of unions and units grows as the story progresses, up to five unions and 18 units per battle.

The HP, stats and skills of each union depend on its formation and the units comprising it. Instead of directly choosing attacks, you give general orders like “Use magic!”, “Heal yourself!” or “Charge!” to each union, and its units then decide how to act.

There are many nuances like Battle Rank, morale, engagement and hidden stats, all of which are poorly explained. This makes combat artificially complicated at first, but it becomes rewarding once you mastered it, especially the large-scale battles near the end.

The game has many sub-quests, crafting, mining, random unique monsters, challenging optional battles, and sudden difficulty spikes which may lead players to grind, but you're actually punished for it. Enemies scale up after you pass a certain threshold and some can grow so powerful as to become near impossible.

As such, The Last Remnant has a sweet spot – you should do all the side-quests and pursue its excellent optional battles, but grinding or min-maxing too much can spoil the fun. JRPG fans with the patience to learn its mechanics will have a good 60-100 hour experience with the game's unique combat system, great soundtrack and beautiful art.