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

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.

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Originally Posted by Shin

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.

Blackdale's Obsidian Ridge is hard as hell whatever time you visit it. Monsters here can kill you easily. Sure, you can put up a fight against about one or two monsters, but linking them is irritating. I plan to re-visit them after my battle rank reaches 60-ish or near to it.

And yes, finally, fina-fucking-lly, defeated that huge dragon on Salamander's Belly. Guess I got lucky on that one since bfore he could cause major ruckus, half of his HP was off. Then just relied on keeping HP up.

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

Well, I can't seem to find it any cheaper then $45, and that's before shipping. I have seem the price fluctuate, but only by a few dollars here and there.

I guess I'll just wait till the price comes down in a few months.

Hmm, upon seeing the new title, I guess I should ask: is the slowdown all that bad?

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Slowdown happens every so often in battle. I don't ever really see slowdown with the game installed on my hard drive, but framerate and texture pop-in problems are still fairly apparent.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

As some of you know, I work at Game Crazy. We had a bunch of left-over pre-order prizes from The Last Remnant (the codes to unlock a few addition battle-modes I believe), so if anyone didn't get one, PM me and I'll PM you back a code.

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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.

As far as the 2 secret achievements thing which miles pointed out earlier:

Apparently they were fake, considering someone just recently posted pictures of the last 2 achievements.

Achievement List:

Spoiler:

First Secret Achievement:

Spoiler:

Second Secret Achievement:

Spoiler:

So everyone can stop worrying about not dying.

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Damn you kago. I wanted to make skills suffer. ;_;

FELIPE NO

Originally Posted by Miles

Damn you kago. I wanted to make skills suffer. ;_;

He's already suffering, so what's to worry about?

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Actually, that's kind of a shame. I may have been right, but it would have been nice to have SOMETHING to work towards instead of "do X 100 times" shit.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Even when your party is beefed up and such, shit like pinprick and surefire can kill one of your members, at worst botch the squad. Happened to me couple of times.

Aside from the 4 (past Nagapur) Athlum generals, my current leader roster has Baulson, that dude who's Kate brother is (rarely use him), Loki, Nora, Caedmon and Gabriel.

Also what do you think is the most optimal party/union distribution that you folks have used? My max leaders has gone up to 6 and 15 units can occupy any battle easily. I've been using 2 unions, 3 leaders each and the rest soldiers. Is it advisable to distribute your party thinly (i.e 5 unions of 3 members each or similar) to cover more or stick to a minimum amount that can deliver the goods?

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

The SaGa guys sure love their random factors. This is definitely the game where they got it to work, though sometimes a close battle is won or lost based on your luck stat. Especially if the enemy Reasses to something like Laser Breath or Eclipse. Luck being a factor in battle is specifically due to your character's "Personality" stat. The higher a stat such as Emma's Love is, the better your chances of dodging and triggering critical actions.

Formations other than Athlum's Arrow are useless until you get past the 12 Battle Units limit. It provides a decent spread and balanced attack and defense without compromising your defense. It'll win you the most battles while keeping you out of the Union Menu until it actually matters. Loki is decent, though he pales in comparison to Nora. She has access to the same skills he does, but she hits twice as hard, takes less damage, and has far more HP. Since bosses aren't immune to debuffs (just highly resistant), it's good to have both active if you want to tackle some of the harder foes early. I just got Silence Gas, so I can't say how effective it is, but Paralyze Gas along with Poison Gas is a godsend.

A thing to note is that you don't have to worry about enemy strength when it comes to enhancing your soldier's skills. You have to worry about the leader making primary actions before their subordinate units can act. I've found having multiple leaders prevents this. Units of the same level/development working together tends to help prevent one person homogenizing things, thus ensuring you can develop a balanced army. Again, you can't improve your magic if your units never get to use it. Units that never do anything but attack scraps won't develop very well in battle unless they have an established skill set or their luck kicks in and gets them a reassess/development action.

I unlocked the Vanguard formation earlier and that's probably the one formation I've found worth switching to. I just completed Pagus' quest easily because of it, and it wasn't as hard as that damned Ankylo Dragon thing which I beat thanks to double paralysis and two units with Revival Tinctures.

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

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.

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Blocter is awesome, he gets access to the first revival spell before anyone else in the game other than possibly Pagus. I just started branching out on formations and it is definitely the way to go once you're at a certain level of development. I just didn't have the patience for the hit in defense I was getting against certain units while in larger linked battles. Now I've hit a point where I can probably take the hit that "Flank Attacks" were giving me earlier, and Vanguard is much better for my spell casters than Arrow of Athlum ever was. Your approach has the most benefit, though I was happy just to have a better survival rate given my play style.

Have you had Synergy kick in for your spell casting units? It's a hell of a way to turn a battle around, as the damage can occasionally match attacks like Omnistrike and Ex Machina/Gae Bolg. Pagus and the magic casting union I put him in learned a Synergy spell, though I can't remember the name off the top of my head, I'd draw a guess as to it being called "Blackout" or something. I'll get it from the menu when I'm not in battle.

For spell improvement, I don't think it applies for physical attacks the same way, you can look at your character after they cast a spell to see if they're close to improving. You've probably already seen a white aura emit from your units as they perform spells. That's the sign you're at least close to an upgrade.

The only thing that mattered to me (so far) regarding info from a strategy guide was knowing if I could miss something on the first disc. Apparently you can screw your reward in the quest involving the Crimson Shards over by beating it before collecting all Nine. Word is that Hell's Gate is the point of no return on disc 1, so I'm keeping that in mind as I go along. Experimenting in this game has been very fun, and while I'm sure there's a science, I agree with you that this game is best done "from the hip" and in the player's own style the first time around.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

I'm actually really shocked at how much you've taken to this game, Rotor. Seems to've met your expectations to at least some degree?

My brother has been eating this game up quite voraciously, and I've let him thus far because of Prince of Persia. I'm giving him to the end of the day to get to disc 2.

How ya doing, buddy?

Honestly, I had no expectations coming in other than genuine intrigue. It was 30 dollars on Amazon and I really liked how it looked. I know Shin mentioned earlier that the presentation is standard JRPG fare, but if you're into this sort of presentation (the music, the story) you could do worse than Last Remnant. I like the dynamic music, because while the tracks alone are terrible, they work wonders while in game. Again, if you're into this sort of thing. Rush is goofy and likable, and probably gay, and I'm usually interested in the things I do while playing. I had this love/hate relationship for Persona 3 because I HATED social links, but this game I enjoy doing everything that's available. It's nice that that's there to appreciate.

Thing is, I pick the game up on and off between playing HD Remix, so my progress has been fairly slow. If anything, that's one thing I'll say about the game. You can sometimes play for a good hour or so and not really make any significant progress as far as overall completion is concerned, but it's just damn fun to play. If you're tired, you can also set Trigger Actions to Auto, which is a plus for folks who just want to get shit done without having to factor in nailing trigger actions (IE: Why can't I just hit the button and finish already?).

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

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.

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Man, fuck Validus. Aside from having been christened something from the Disney school of naming, this damn bird managed to keep me on the ropes the entire battle thanks to Curse. Usually if you send one unit in to intercept a bird's first round of casting nothing but this bastard of a status debuff, you're good to go. Ol' Birdo decided that it needed to have words with Rush, my guest, and Loki's unions. If there's anything I don't hate more it's getting hit with this spell. It's been an uphill battle and I still don't know if I'm gonna pull off the victory.

The "Synergy" spell is indeed called Blackout. I get about 4000-5000 damage per cast. I'm at Battle Rank 56 at the moment, though I just got finished meeting a certain NPC and his entire brigade of monsters. I made it a point to get here since this is when you have better access to leaders/soldiers in my opinion. It's made doing quests a lot smoother, though I'm happy the game has given me the impression of scaling to match my level. I've only done a few quests where it was an in and out scenario. A lot of times there's at least one monster who just will not go down.

I've had a few battles where I've lost because I couldn't pull off a defensive critical action, the thought of setting it to auto pretty much goes off nonstop when this happens, but I think part of the fun is the risk involved. Plus, nailing Critical Triggers one after the other is damned satisfying.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

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.

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

Yeah, not having the ability to save Union configurations was probably a contributing factor to my using Arrow of Athlum early on. I opt to avoid the tedium of being in the menu and messing with Unions rather than try to optimize every single encounter.

For Defensive Triggers, what tends to throw me off is the randomizing of the button required for a successful execution. Not only are animations for attacks easily recognized over time, as already said, but the buttons for Offensive Triggers are predesignated to the equipped weapon.

Swords - A Button

Rods - B Button

Spears - Y Button

Hammers - X Button

Axes - Right Trigger

Spells default to the weapon you're using, of course. What sucks is that you'll be used to hitting A for your Offensive Triggers and then, sure enough, a Defensive Trigger kicks in and you press A instead of B or some such. I find that Defensive Triggers tend to yield crappy rewards, especially if you don't get a direct damage counter or you stun the opponent and no one else attacks that enemy's union/that round of battle ends. I did set Triggers to Auto last night as a test and Triggers will occasionally miss even when set to Automatic. I didn't test the failure rate, it only failed once on a Defensive Trigger, so it's not a deal breaker if you insist on something closer to 100% accuracy. It beats being human.

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

I'll admit I never realised they were preset by weapon, I assumed it was a coincidence I was getting a lot of "A" triggers (I have a lot of sword users). That's going to help a lot...

The only time I reorganise my unions if after getting beaten by a boss or rare monster or if there's a bunch of similar randoms in a group, such as the Evil Eyes in Lavafender. I wouldn't want to fight more than one at once but regrouping into a couple of hard units really helps taking them down, as does using formations with a high mystic defence.

I was speaking idiomatically.

A word of warning, the final boss of Disc 1 pretty much comes out of nowhere. My best, non-spoiler advice for anyone who wants to avoid this is to turn back if you pick up a "Defender" two handed sword in a treasure chest. Also, Shin, how did you find the special guild in Athlum? All I've heard is that Violet has something to do with it and I'm completely stumped other than that.

Also, to anyone who cares about the story enough to talk about it, I had a flashback to Beerfest after the last story mission I played:

Spoiler:

I liked Emma a lot as a character... so why they decided to make it obvious they're going to kill her, do so, and then replace her with a far more annoying sounding look alike, is beyond me. Wagrum and his boss also strike as typical Saturday morning cartoon villains, just to round out the disappointments. The story is pretty typical, but those are things I really don't care to see in my RPGs. I get that it's simple, but some things shouldn't be THAT simple.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

The only secret guild I've unlocked is in the city northwest of Athlum, where you hire Violet after doing a couple of story missions for some old guy in the pub. There are about 3 guild quests in there though that involve killing the monsters you find in the path west of the Sandsea and the Numor mines, all of which seemed to give out new formations, Scattershot, Cascade and another one I think.

I'm not sure if Violet or Gabrial give you any quests after you recruit them because I've not managed to find either hanging around a town, unlike Baulson and Loki who are available to chat to in Athlum.

I'm crap at remembering the names of characters and places in games.

FELIPE NO