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At E3, RPGamer's Chris Privitere had the privilege of sitting down with Nobuyuki Ueda, Producer, and Syuichi Kobayashi, Senior Publicity Director of The Last Remnant, to discuss their highly anticipated game.
Please note that this is not a verbatim record of what was said. Content has been modified for length and clarity.
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*The trailer is played for RPGamer*
Syuichi Kobayashi: Sorry we can't show you anything playable or in game. Everything that you're seeing in this trailer is realtime footage, it's not a movie. Sorry it's very short.
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RPGamer: Only a few more months.
Kobayashi: We'll have something more to show at Tokyo Game Show.
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RPGamer: I guess the first thing to ask is what more can you tell me about remnants themselves?
Nobuyuki Ueda: The remnants are ancient relics that are scattered about the world within The Last Remnant. But it's unknown to even the characters within the game where they came from, how long they've been there. So all the people of this world know how to use their power, but they're not really sure of the source or when they came to be, but the players of the game also begin without this knowledge. But as you progress in the game, the secrets of it are slowly revealed.
Kobayashi: So the giant sword that you can see in the city in some of the previous trailers, that is also a remnant. And there's also treasure chests and things that you find within the game that are also remnants. And so obviously they vary in appearance, in size, so we want the players to also slowly figure out what these remnants are and enjoy finding out throughout the game.
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RPGamer: Has it been revealed yet what the title of the game, "The Last Remnant," refers to specifically?
Ueda: There's nothing that we're specifically calling "The Last Remnant" at this point in time, but definitely if you play the game all the way through, each person is going to have a different interpretation of what "The Last Remnant" will be to them.
Kobayashi: What do you think of when you hear "The Last Remnant?"
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RPGamer: Honestly the image it inspired for me was some sort of thing happening to all the remnants you mentioned being in the world and there being only one left and I didn't know how that would go from there.
Kobayashi: I see. You should definitely look forward to spending some time with it.
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RPGamer: One of the tag-lines in the previous trailers was that this was a "SquareEnix RPG for the World," right? I was wondering if you could expand on the meaning of that statement.
Ueda: So, of course, SquareEnix being a development house in Japan, we have capabilities for developing for the JP user, typically. But with the simultaneous release, and with the development for all regions going on at the same time, we wanted the title to grow into something that is acceptable in all regions, that's accepted by people in all regions. So of course we've taken the opinions of characters and world settings in each region, and combined it into what we feel is enjoyable to the entire world. So most of the development started with the english development running ahead. So the lip sync is matched more to the english language, so you'll see it synced perfectly-which is rare.
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RPGamer: Yeah, that is.
Ueda: The motion capture has also been done by American and European people so that the slight changes in movements between the Asian countries and here, is actually depicted by someone from the US and Europe.
Kobayashi: So now they're having a little trouble to match the lip sync to the Japanese, but...
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RPGamer: We've had to deal with it for a long time.
Ueda and Kobayashi: *laughter*
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RPGamer: It doesn't seem like there's much gameplay footage in the trailer right now. Have things changed heavily from some of the brief glimpses we had in the previous trailers? I guess what I'm after is more details of the gameplay itself: battle system, exploration, kind of the flow of the game. I don't know what you're able to share with me today.
Ueda: So, what you've seen in the previous trailers, the battle systems, in-game things that were shown before, hasn't changed. It's just we wanted to focus this trailer on telling the story and kind of showing more of the characters and the world. So there's definitely going to be more gameplay footage in upcoming trailers in the future, but if you wanted more detail about the battle, then we can definitely go into that.
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RPGamer: I'd love more detail.
Ueda: So to give a brief overview of the system, it's a command based RPG. There's multiple characters that you can control with simple controls. So basically, there's groups called unions. These include up to five characters in a union and you can have up to five unions. And the commands are given per union, so you can control these massive groups of people very easily.
Kobayashi: It's actually playable now, but we just don't have it here at this time. You'll have to wait.
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RPGamer: There's a scene on the battlefield in the trailer, is that a glimpse of the actual battle system type layout or is it that just kind of a cutscene?
Kobayashi and Ueda: What you see right there is actually an event scene just before they go into battle, so that will translate into a battle straight after that scene.
Kobayashi: The reason why there's so little in this trailer is that Microsoft limited us to a 1 minute trailer. We were planning on more, but this is what there is now. If we had five minutes, we would have shown a lot more.
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RPGamer: So what can you tell me about the characters who appear in the trailer?
Ueda: *points at the blond haired hero* That's the main character, Rush. So Rush that you saw in the very beginning of the trailer is the main character of the story, [it] will develop around him. And the reason that the story deploys in the first place is Irina, his younger sister who is suddenly taken from him. And he embarks on a journey to try to find her, and that battle scene that you saw, after that event occurs, he meets David, who has his own intentions of why he's helping Rush. And the story starts to unfold from there.
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RPGamer: *points at the man dressed in red* What about him?
Translator: This is the Conqueror.
Ueda: So the Conqueror, as you can tell from his name, is extremely powerful. But as far as his relation to Rush, there's definitely going to be some sort of relation between the two, but as far as how their dynamics will play out, is still a mystery.
Kobayashi: The costume that The Conqueror wears is red. Everything he's wearing is red, and it's all the color of blood.
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RPGamer: There were two nonhuman races that I saw, a large hulking lizard guy and a small gecko type of green guy. I assume there's a main character from each?
Kobayashi: There's also a cat too. *laughs*
Ueda: So the frog-like, the gecko-like character is a race called the Qsitis. And the large fish-like character is the Yamas race. And the cat one that you don't see in this trailer, you've seen, he actually was featured in some of the earlier trailers, is the Sovannis. And there's also a female who also appears in the trailer, an older female, and her name is Emma. And these four characters are actually who are known as David's four generals, and they play a key role in the game.
Kobayashi: And the frog-like character, by the way, is extremely smart. So the frog-like character is stronger in knowledge, so he is going to specialize more into magic. And the Yamas, the fish-like race, is very strong and powerful.
Ueda: And in the world setting of The Last Remnant, all the races are living together, it's not like certain areas of just certain races, it's all mixed.
*Ueda and Kobayashi share some words and laugh*
Translator: They're not sure if it actually did take place in the general part of the game, but you can sometimes see the different races hitting on human girls. So a little humorous aspect as well.
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RPGamer: Is there any idea of the length of the game at this point?
Ueda: If you just play the main storyline, then we're expecting just 30 hours. But there's also going to be quests and other side missions as well. We can't say for sure how long it'll add up to, but we're expecting 40 to 50 hours with those included. And you can expect some downloadable content later that'll add some gameplay hours.
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RPGamer: Besides the main quest are there any additional game modes or gameplay types? Anything to do besides just the main story that stands out?
Kobayashi: Like minigames?
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RPGamer: Yeah.
Ueda: There isn't anything necessarily like minigames or side games, but the battle system itself is very unique, so we think that you'll be able to find multiple ways to enjoy the battle system within the game.
Kobayashi: Although we are referring to the battle system as a command RPG, it's definitely not a "sit-back-and-watch" type of command RPG. There's a lot of things included in it, such as critical triggers, things like that to where you're not going to be just sitting and watching things happening, you won't have the time to rest while you're in battle.
Ueda: So with the release date determined and aiming towards the simultaneous release, we really recommend this title with confidence and we think that you'll really enjoy this battle system that's different than anything that you've ever seen in a typical RPG.
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RPGamer: I'm very excited to try it.
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RPGamer would like to thank Square Enix for the opportunity to discuss the game with two of the game's producers. Check RPGamer for more interviews from Square Enix at E3 2008.
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