It's all over. I'm done with The Last Remnant. I still have a significant amount the story left, but I've hit a road block. There's a boss battle that is kicking my ass and according to the advice I found online, my problem is that I made a mistake with my party composition several hours ago and I lack characters with sufficient healing abilities to survive the boss' onslaught. I could grind up my medicinal skills, but who knows how long that will take. I'm going to cut my losses and move on to something else.
Playing this game has gotten me thinking about genre. It's obvious that The Last Remnant shares some of its DNA with previous Square classics like Final Fantasy or Chrono Trigger, but I find myself unable to appreciate its unique characteristics, and wound up constantly comparing it to games I enjoyed more. I'd always thought of myself as a fan of the jrpg genre, but I'm not sure how to parse this experience. Does appreciating a genre mean that you care about its core aspects and resent deviations from the formula? Or is the nuance that distinguishes different games a key aspect to a mature enjoyment of the genre?
The part of the game I enjoyed the most was farming previously visited areas for weapon components. Towards the end, I began to dread advancing the story, because I feared (rightfully as it turned out) that I would not be powerful enough to handle the new areas. It's embarrassing to admit, but I spent a lot of time wishing this game were more familiar and conventional. I especially wanted to have levels that provided a consistent benchmark of character power, instead of this vague battle rank system.
I think that means I'm less of a jrpg aficionado and more of a jrpg curmudgeon. I want things to be like how I remember them from my youth. This is a strange experience for me, because I'm used to enjoying novelty. Is this a result of me getting older? Am I becoming more set in my ways? Or am I reading too much into a single game? As far as I know, The Last Remnant isn't really considered a classic so much as an ambitious yet forgettable entry in the genre. It could just be that I don't like the game because it's not especially good.
I may come back to this game some time. For all my harsh words, I'm still moderately interested in how the story turns out, and when I wasn't stressing out about the level-scaling I found the gameplay moderately diverting. I will, however, have to start from the beginning in order to unscrew my party composition and that's a project that will have to wait for a time when I have nothing better to do (so, realistically, never).
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