[Multiplatform] The Last Remnant: Life at 12 frames a second is a beautiful thing.

I like how their global marketing strategy includes Japan and America and leaves out Europe. This'll probably sneak out 7 months later here, if at all coz, you know, we only play football games and Tomb Raider in Europe.

At least they're trying something new although just from looking at the screenshots one wonders how much innovation there's actually going to be in there. For now at least, something like Mass Effect looks like a much more exciting proposition.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I would hardly describe SE as losing consumer confidence. Sure, those of you who pay attention to the career paths of their employees and wish their lives away waiting for another FFVII might be wary but as Enk said, they're in the business of making money, not catering to obsessives and "Hard core" gamers (Such a contradiction in terms that phrase).

They churn out FF cash-ins because that's what the majority of the game buying public want and that's how they make their money. It seems to me that some people here are mistaking businessmen for artists...

There's nowhere I can't reach.

I think some of the drop in sales is due to saturation of the market as well. Obviously things were different in the US but here in England, when FFVII came out there were literally no more than five other rpgs available on the Playstation. For a while I was the proud owner of every single rpg available in PAL format on the PS and still had plenty of time to play through each before the next came out.

These days though, despite PAL being an unpopular option for rpg makers, there's still fucking loads to choose from which enables gamers to be a bit more picky. Essentially, it's not that earlier Square games were better than the current lot so much as there's better alternatives now so people are increasingly looking at other games.

I'll admit I don't really understand all this Nomura business. I ain't the type to read the credits at the end of games and couldn't tell you who designed or directed any of the games I like. I pick games based on the opinions of people who've played them (One advantage of our shitty release dates here) and on the strength of earlier games in a series. I'll always buy Suikoden games because I've enjoyed them all so far. Likewise, I bought FFXII because I liked the earlier ones. I personally reckon IX was the best and X was let down by an over reliance on levelling up to beat the tougher bosses and some truly terrible voice acting (You'd think with the time delay for a European release they could dub over the American accents along with dubious pronounciations).

With this new series, for people like me a FF connection would probably be a good thing to be honest...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by Kairi Li

November 20th worldwide release date for the 360 version.

Actual worldwide or Japanese games companies idea of worldwide which often seems to leave out Europe?

I only ask because when they released launch dates before it was for a simultaneous US/Japan launch, not strictly a worldwide one (In fact catering only to the two smaller of the international gaming regions).

Looks like a fun game though. Kinda FFXII with bigger battles.

How ya doing, buddy?

I preordered this at GAME the other day actually, it looks pretty cool I think. I'm not sure if they'll be doing anything special for preorders though, except the usual double loyalty points,

I was speaking idiomatically.

The list of achievements is out for this game. There are 22, for 1,000 points, 5 are secret. Also, a move I really like is the descriptions don't make it completely bloody obvious what you have to do to get them:

Spoiler:

1. The Battlemaster
Do you have a taste for blood? Participate in battles and find out.20 points
2. The Rules of Consecution
Are you keeping an eye on the chain count? Try to get as high a number as possible.30 points
3. Death and Destruction
Do you want your party members to grow stronger? Try defeating lots of monsters.30 points
4. Unleashing Secret Powers
Are you putting Timeshift to good use? Try using it as often as possible.10 points
5. Timing is Everything
How is your hand-eye coordination? Try using Critical Triggers whenever possible.10 points
6. The Guildmaster's Faith
Have you accepted the guild masters' challenges? Try finishing lots of guild tasks.10 points
7. March of the Soldiers
Do you want a bigger party? Recruit some soldiers at a guild.10 points
8. The Heir of Ultimate Fate
Have you been creating items? Try creating a certain one...30 points
9. The Ravenous Hunter
How is Mr. Diggs? Try harvesting a certain item...30 points
10. Guru of the Mystic
Do you like collecting items? Try obtaining a certain one...30 points
11. Monster Dismantler
Are you collecting components? Try taking apart lots of monsters.20 points
12. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Do you recycle? Try taking apart lots of equipment.20 points
13. The Lone Fighter
Do you want a challenge? Defeat the monster that appears from a certain quest.30 points
14. The Dragonslayer
For a bigger challenge, defeat the monster that appears from a certain quest.40 points
15. The Great Soldier
For a huge challenge, defeat the monster that appears from a certain guild task.40 points
16. Hero of the Dawn
For a great challenge, defeat the monster that appears from a certain guild task.50 points
17. The Godslayer
For the biggest challenge of them all, defeat the monster they call The Fallen.

Two of the secret achievements go for 200 points each, meaning they're probably along the lines of collect every fucking thing in the game in under 2 hours or something silly like that. Still, I prefer the way the achievements aren't just a clinical list of "Kill 50 monsters, Use this skill 200 times" and so on. It's still pretty obvious how to go about getting them but more in a way that you'll just get them as you play, rather than having a set goal and grinding up to it which to me is not a fun way to play games.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Oh sure they're just a checklist but at least there's a hint of mystery as to what they are. Having thought about it a bit, I reckon one of the big secret ones will be collect all the remnants or something similar and the other will be finishing the game. Given that the exact details of how to get them all will be plastered all over GameFAQS within days there's no point making them really criptic anyway but I just personally like the idea of not having definite numbers written next to everything.

I did find it amusing yesterday though when I was looking at one site that listed these out and in the comment section 2 of the 5 comments were along the lines of "I'm going to hold off buying this until a list of exactly what you have to do to get the achievements is available so I know if it's worth it". I mean, it's sad that there are people whose main consideration when getting a game is the achievements it offers rather than, you know, whether they'll actually enjoy the game but I guess as a developer you've got to be pretty happy that you can churn out a stinking turd of a game and some people will still buy it if it lets you grab 1,000 easy achievement points...

FELIPE NO

I'm willing to bet £10 that big statue thing in the background of the city does a Final Fantasy IX and starts moving and fighting by the end of the game.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Originally Posted by Rotorblade

I don't know if I trust Famitsu as an RPG review source, especially with Square. However, I am still fairly intrigued by Last Remnant. It wasn't what I thought it was going to be at all given the earlier trailers and the just recently released videos of the game in action. It looks like Square might have made a really good game, and the 40 dollar preorder on Amazon USA is extremely tempting. You don't get to see many games like this for that kind of price these days and, dare I say it, that's a fucking smart move on SQ Enix's part.

I wasn't sure what to make the mechanics explanation trailer, as it was entirely in Japanese, but it certainly left me puzzled. I'll likely end up looking into something on Gamefaqs or what not.

I think it was Eurogamer that had a pretty good hands-on review from the TGS where the guy seemed impressed by it. I like the idea of a stripped down command system (In that you only have options in combat relevant to the situation, if your team are at full health there's no heal option) and the way you rope in enemies to fight so you can set your own difficulty against the potential rewards. I've not bought any current-gen jrpgs yet so I'm planning on this being my first. If you pre-order it you get three extra battle formations to use in game too apparently, although I suspect they'll be available in-game too at some point.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

I think it depends how much of an effect those formations have on the gameplay. If they just add a few tactical options then I'll use them but if they're game winners in themselves (Like the magic boosting one in Suikoden 5 which when combined with Zerase and the rune that gave her magic points back pretty much broke the game or the one in Breath of Fire 3 that made the whole party as fast as Rei) I'll steer clear until I unlock them in game I think.

I'll be surprised if they're more than simple "Increase magic/ranged/melee" types, just for a bit of tactical choice early on.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

If a GameFAQ member found the battle system only a little confusing then it's probably dead simple. Looks encouraging though, I'm quite looking forward to picking this up on Friday.

How ya doing, buddy?

Originally Posted by Miles

I'm hesitant to buy this game. Of course famitsu gave it a good score since the game apparently had a 10 page flip-out ad in that issue. On the other hand, there's only a 7/10 rating so far on game rankings. I want to get more opinions on the game before I buy it. After the garbage that was Blue Dragon and LO I'm scared to buy another random next gen RPG.

Well I'm picking it up later today and will be playing it most of the day tomorrow so I'll put some thoughts up over the weekend.

Bear in mind though that according to Skills I have incredibly shitty taste in games.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

I've played about six hours so far. The slowdown in battles is horrific although that does make the QTE easier to hit. There's a lot of texture pop up but no more than GTA or Mass Effect. I've not installed it and spend about 10 seconds waiting for each fight to start. The main character's running animation is as bad as Suikoden IV's and he's got buck teeth. The music is bog standard Jrpg fare and pretty uninspired and most of the text is unreadable on an SDTV.

And yet despite all that I love this game so far. The battle system is really intuitive and although I've not got far enough to unlock too much depth yet, I can see how it'll get interesting later. Also this is a grinder's dream. You have to collect new weapons, can build new weapons from ingredients and upgrade the ones you already have. You can kill monsters for ingredients and dig for them, so there's hours of finding shit to be had. The story is probably pretty standard but develops slowly. I can see me playing this for a while. I got killed four times earlier trying to beat a boss too so it's harder than most jrpgs. If you like technically poor but interesting rpgs then get it. If you're one of the people who hate Square on principle then don't bother.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by Miles

Also, can you only change Rush's equipment throughout the whole game or do you get access to do other characters later?

I'm sure I read a preview somewhere that said you can only change Rush's stuff but that was a while ago and I've not got to the point of recruiting anyone besides guild mercs yet (Assuming you ever do recruit the main characters at some point).

Has anyone worked out what the little symbols besides some characters stats mean yet? Also, how come every character has a different last stat? For example Emma has a love stat, whereas Rush has bravery or something. I assume it has something to do with binding Remnants later in the game but that's only guesswork so far.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I've heard a few people complaining that they don't get options to heal when their party is about to die but personally, I find that this issue is lessened if you form a union where every member has either restore spells or can use herbs, which makes the "Heal the others" option crop up a lot more, especially if you keep that unit out of deadlock. Also, playing it by ear seems to result in healing spells a lot more often than the available commands would suggest. I started out trying to make all my unions balanced in terms of combat skills, offensive magic and healing but specialising seems to work much better.

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by SuperSonic

what's really turning me off is the battle system. While it's original, I'm just not into the whole "choose your command for the entire party" and then switching to another party (if available). If I had to, I could probably get used to it.

I really don't understand why people have a problem with this. If you can get past the stupid idea that each unit is a seperate character and instead think of each union as a character in itself then you see this is hardly any different from any other rpg. Each union has a single hp and ap total so why would you think of each member as a seperate character anyway?

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

One of the secret achievements is for obtaining 200,000 gold, the other for spending 100,000. There's also the two 200 pointers but I've not looked them up yet.

Does anyone know, is there a point at which you can no longer upgrade a weapon and have to create or buy a new one? At the moment I've got Rush with a sword and shield and I've upgraded the sword twice, I think it's a Warrior's Broadsword or something now. Can I keep upgrading this over and over into a mental weapon by the end or will it max out at some point and need replacing?

On a similar note, do you reckon it's better to keep the leaders you recruit and build them up or hire more expensive ones instead?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Yeah, I've not got a revive ability yet at battle rank 20 so that's a possible I guess. Rush not dying is silly shit though, it's way too easy to get killed in this game by being gang-raped by enemy unions while the rest of your team are deadlocked for that to be fair. Unless of course you just fight one group of enemies at a time but that'd be boring as fuck and you'd take ages to find any items. Does anyone know if the enemies scale in this? I'm guessing not as the two rare monsters I tried to fight so far (Both on the plains near where you start, a big bird thing and a big wyvern thing) both took my party apart in a matter of turns and increasing my stats up to their level was the only hope I held out for beating the fuckers.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

In which case I may have to rethink my "Run in and hope for the best" strategy against the Dominator and the rareys. I've noticed you get more, harder monseters when you revisit a location (Demons in the Ivory Cliffs place the second time I went there) but also, if you go back into Blackdale after finishing the story bit there, there's whole extra sections opened full of monsters than kill you very, very quickly so I assumed it was more like FFXII whereby you can get to most of the places on the map pretty much right from the start but the monsters there will kill you very easily.

Most amazing jew boots

It might be me just getting used to it but I'm sure the slowdown and loading times have decreased since I downloaded the DLC.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

When you buy trade good weapons, are they un-customisable or something? I only ask as I have Rush wielding a flamberge but the workshops say they can't improve it. Does this mean it'll never get any better or do I need to find a certain item or better workshop to allow it to be improved?

Also, I noticed for the first time yesterday that your reserve leaders improve their skills to match your main party but I've only seen main character ones do it so far. I hadn't used the four armed dude for ages (As he's not that strong, sucks at magic and has fuck all hit points) but when I switched him in on a whim, I noticed that he'd changed his swords for axes and learnt a bunch of new arts, despite never being in the active party. Is it just the main story people that do this or will all your leaders improve, even if you don't use them? At the moment, I'm favouring ones that look like they'll have missions for me at some point (i.e. those with specific descriptions on the recruiting screen) but there's already far more than I can fit in my party. I'm currently in Elysion, about to go off with Emma somewhere but clearing up side missions first and there's only room for three leaders other than the Athlum lot in my party so I've gone with Baulson (Who is ridiculously powerful), Violet (She costs a lot, she must be good right?) and Gabriel (Linked to Violet and has the funniest in-battle comments of anyone in the game, also pretty hard, great defense) but there's a guy called Loki in Athlum and the leader of some knights or something in that town in the desert I could add who have specific descriptions.

I finally managed to beat a rare monster yesterday although admittedly it was only the Lil' Salamander at the entrance to the Great Sand Sea. I do love how even when you're pretty well powered this game can still fuck you up in random fights. I spent fucking hours ploughing through the caves under the Sand Sea doing a quest to kill a monster or something and found it far harder to beat the random Wyverns down there than the actual boss. Multi-deadlock type monsters with attacks that hit your whole team like Dust Devil can fuck your party up really quickly, especially when there's a couple of them to fight at once so you can't just deadlock them with one union and keep the rest at long range either healing or if you're lucky, using the "Attack from distance" command.

I'm enjoying this game more and more the further in I get.

I was speaking idiomatically.

I started using Loki last night, mainly to activate his quest but once he'd caught up to the rest of the party he's a bit of a beast. I told him to study Hexes and had him supported by two soldiers who both know Poison and Paralyse cloud. Their "Attack from afar" command produces 3 lots of Poison Cloud II as a rule which is enough to wipe out most of the unions I'm facing at the moment.

I'm still stuck with the opening amount of leaders and unions (4 and 3 respectively) and I reckon max number of unions is better. That way you can avoid getting flanked too often and with a bigger party, you're often wasting attacks by killing monsters before everyone's had a go.

Currently I have Rush and Gabrial or Emma in the first union with a soldier who's a double hard quisti sword user, a combat leader heading up two soldiers as my second union (Baulson, Blocter or the dude with four arms whose name I can never remember) and a magic basde third union (Loki, Pagus, David). I try to match the soldiers to the leader so the aforementioned hexers to go with Loki and a couple of Spark and Wind Shear dudes if it's Pagus or David.

Although the magic union is a little more fragile, you can counteract that with the vanguard formation which gives them a good defence bonus. I try to put some form of healing skill in every union to cover themselves and the others and touch wood, unless I get greedy and take on too many monsters at once I'm managing ok.

I did the bit with just Rush and Emma in the mines last thing last night and had them as seperate Unions. They both had Spark V as a default option in every fight so I was one-hitting everything they fought. The boss was a bit tougher as it had Spark V itself but a tactic of healing up at every opportunity and a run of three Omnistrikes killed it off quick enough. Emma got killed but only because she got shocked on the second to last turn, dropping her defence against Spark to zero. The toughest random monsters I've met so far have to be the Evil Eyes in the Lavafelt cave place. I think I might need to swap down to two, powerful unions to beat those as they're multideadlock enemies, making extra Unions work against you, not for you as they get in more attacks that way and your unions don't have the HP to take them.

That's one of the things I love about this game so far. If you're getting killed it's not because you're neccesarily under-powered, it's more likely you need to re-think your strategy. Everything's killable, if you approach it the right way.

Edit: Has anyone worked out the right combinations of units to get any of the advanced formations to work? I think I've got Ballista and one other but I've not yet managed to trigger them.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

You can get Blocter to learn Hexes too, I use him and Loki together for maximum status effect combat. Blocter has a huge amount of HP too which is handy.

I can't say I've used Arrow of Athlum much. It struck me as the middle of the road, average formation and I prefer to specialise rather than create a load of jack of all trades types when I play rpgs. I've been using the one which adds to the Mystic attack and defence of the back ranks for my magic union and either Vanguard or the one with three across the middle and one up, one down which improves attack and defence for my Combat arts union.

By having a dedicated magic using union, I generally either trigger 3 spells at once when I use Mystic Arts, get the "Attack from afar" option which again, only triggers spells or the soldiers there rarely do enough damage with a melee attack to end the fight. That way, the leader is casting a spell pretty much every turn, thereby maximising the chance of improving the ones they have. I'm not sure if it doesn't hurt to have them just do attacks now and then though. I've not played enough to work out how to increase your chances of getting a new art rather than improving an old one but all the help text suggests that using the same one over and over improves it so I'm pretty sure that just selecting the Mystic Arts option increases your chance of getting a new art, regardless of whether they get to cast the spell or not.

I believe that the official guide has been released now so doubtless someone will have transcribed it onto GameFAQs soon (Along with those hilarious copyright notices they always use when they're basically copying the guide and in-game menus out, fucking idiots) which might go some way to dispelling a bit of the mystery behind how a lot of things in this game actually work. To be honest though, I quite like not knowing exactly the maths behind a game's mechanics as it encourages you to develop your character the way you want them rounded out, rather than going for the most mathetically effective option all the time which I feel takes any semblance there ever is in a JRPG of actual role-playing straight out.

Most amazing jew boots

Haha, I'm really tempted to set defensive triggers to auto, I never seem to hit any (And I get 95% of offensive ones). The side quests can take hours at times, the first one in the cave under the Great Sand Sea took a long fucking time as I fought most of the monsters rather than running past them as I was getting a lost of skill points off them, probably about an hour altogether including a couple of attempts at beating the groups of Wyverns. The second quest down there I just ran straight to the teleporter and fucked over the boss, took about 10 minutes.

I had a go at beating the monster at the end of the shard quest without bothering to look for any shards. Took him a lot longer to kill me than I thought it would, almost 10 turns. I think I'm overpowered for where I am in the story but I've not been grinding as such, I just tend to kill every monster I come across while I'm doing the side quests and I guess the skills keep adding up. I think my battle rank is 30-something and I've just done the Rush/Emma bit in the mines.

Most amazing jew boots

I think the defensive ones are harder because you're not expecting them. With the offensive ones you grow to learn your character's animations pretty quickly and the point at which a critical will trigger so you're looking out for them.

Unlocked the ability to have four unions, five leaders and twelve total units in combat last night. Recruited Nora and am saving up for Caedmon. Also unlocked three new formations from Violet's guild, Cascade being the most useful I think. I've now gone with four groups of three, Rush and Gabrial (His in battle comments sound like Chris Morris, I can't bring myself to get rid of him), Baulson and a combat group, Loki and a magic group and David and a balanced, backup group with good healing spells and a mix of Combat and Mystic arts.

It's a real shame there's no option to save your union set-ups because fighting large, single monsters is much easier with two powerful unions than four weaker ones but swapping them all around all the time is a real pain in the arse so I tend to just run past the really scary ones at the moment.

At the rate I'm progressing, I think the next dlc will have hit before I advance the story much further (Dec 22nd) which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Jam it back in, in the dark.