• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Last Remnant |OT| of DON'T LISTEN TO REVIEWERS!

Krelian

Member
I don't know ES's story, but I wouldn't say TLR's story is that bad. I agree that it isn't very good and the story certainly shouldn't be the main reason you're playing this game, but it's still alright. By JRPG standards anyway.

As for the technical problems, they're exaggerated. Installed the game runs perfectly fine, although textures do tend to load a bit longer than they should and when it gets really busy in battles you'll see slow downs. Other than that it's really nice to look at.

If it helps you to make your decision: I know a guy who played ES prior to playing TLR. He didn't like ES at all and actually recommended I shouldn't even try it, but he loves TLR.
 

desverger

Member
I haven't really been bothered by the performance, sure it gets choppy every now and then, but nothing worse than running a new PC game with a few years old computer :p

The story.. well, I would say, all things aside, the reason to play this game is the delicious battle engine. It's almost more of an SRPG with all the layers of tactic, character growth and other things.

Reasons to play aside, something's really bugging me - I'm trying to customize my weapons, but apparently I'm missing the customization books. I got basic, intermediate and legendary customization books, but missing advanced and professional. Now, I checked that you get those from the DLC guild tasks, and I do have all the items for those (Dwarven Core etc.), but the guild tasks themselves aren't showing up. Storywise I have progressed after the battle of Holy Plain. I also got ranks 1 through 5 from the Golden Chalice.

What I'm wondering is, that after a little bit of fooling around (not sure what exactly I did, maybe progressed the story a little) some DLC tasks showed up in the Union of Golden Chalice, killing the Enlightened Seven and something else. Is there some sort of a limit to how many DLC tasks you can see or why aren't those two tasks coming up for me? Or do they just show up extremely late in the game?
 
Tailzo said:
What do you think? A PC version much later (when I get a better pc in the future), a 360 version installed on the HDD (I've heard it helps) or wait for a ps3 version (that may never come and be worse)?

The 360 version is out now, awesome, available cheap, and has extremely minimal technical problems when installed to HDD -- less texture pop-in than Mass Effect, minimal loading time, and hardly gamebreaking slowdown.

I'm sure the other platform versions will be good too, but if you have a 360 and you're looking for a game to play right now there's absolutely no reason to wait.
 

Diablos

Member
The framerate issues and texture pop-in are greatly exaggerated. Most people think of the IGN video that shows the first part of the game, which IS super slow, however the rest of the game is not like that. Install it to the hdd and quit your crying. :p

Anyway, I'm at the
Catacombs
(and have been playing this game at a snail's pace). For some reason, I'm just not feeling TLR yet... I'm going to give it another shot, though.
 
In case no one noticed

PC Demo went up

According to Aeana in the other thread, it has proper Keyboard, gamepad, and 360 controller support. GUI displays accordingly to what your using as your input.
Supposed to be well optomized too just like the Benchmark...

Demo may be down as Square may have not wanted it released early though...
 

desverger

Member
Yay, Absolute Conqueror down! This seals The Last Remnant as my #1 favourite game, ever. I was practically playing it non-stop for a month and a half, it just gripped me, straight from the introduction demo, to the turn 8 of AC, where I was sitting on the edge of my seat, with 1 union standing with critical health, cringing if Torgal's Hawkarang was gonna hit or not :lol

I went with 3 unions to the last fight, 1 union with all my WA users (Torgal, Glenys, Nora, Khrynia) using Battle Crown formation, then two unions with Rush and Emmy each throwing heals around in a Pegasus formation. The warm-up bossfight I was basically just amassing AP with my WA union, and could toss two Weapon Arts per round after Conqueror showed his ugly mug.

As Khrynia said it: OMG, WTF!

On a final note, thank you everyone who helped me out in this thread with my questions! I gotta think of a RPG to play next :p
 

Diseased Yak

Gold Member
desverger said:
Yay, Absolute Conqueror down! This seals The Last Remnant as my #1 favourite game, ever. I was practically playing it non-stop for a month and a half, it just gripped me, straight from the introduction demo, to the turn 8 of AC, where I was sitting on the edge of my seat, with 1 union standing with critical health, cringing if Torgal's Hawkarang was gonna hit or not :lol

I went with 3 unions to the last fight, 1 union with all my WA users (Torgal, Glenys, Nora, Khrynia) using Battle Crown formation, then two unions with Rush and Emmy each throwing heals around in a Pegasus formation. The warm-up bossfight I was basically just amassing AP with my WA union, and could toss two Weapon Arts per round after Conqueror showed his ugly mug.

As Khrynia said it: OMG, WTF!

On a final note, thank you everyone who helped me out in this thread with my questions! I gotta think of a RPG to play next :p


Awesome! Congrats, man. I have to say, it is getting close to being one of my favorite RPG's ever, and I've been playing them since the NES days. I just beat Base #4 last night, only #5 and 6 to go. Gonna keep grinding and doing side quests all the way to the AC.

What was your BR in the end?
 

desverger

Member
Diseased Yak said:
Awesome! Congrats, man. I have to say, it is getting close to being one of my favorite RPG's ever, and I've been playing them since the NES days. I just beat Base #4 last night, only #5 and 6 to go. Gonna keep grinding and doing side quests all the way to the AC.

What was your BR in the end?

Tip. Don't do Base 5 last :p

My BR got up to 110 with the final fight. In retrospect, I probably overshot the requirements for that fight quite a lot. I was mostly grinding at the end of disc2, first for The Fallen to get some weapon arts, and then for the AC to get everyone their final weapons since I was lazy to hunt for components. In the end, I had 6 people with weapon arts, but the differences between those were huge. Torgal's Hawkarang was hitting for 170k when Caedmon's Heaven's Door hit for a measly 40-50k mostly because I didn't use Caedmon a lot and his stats sucked. Shame I never got Snow Petal for Emmy (probably because I didn't level her 1h combat arts), but last night I just decided to try the AC again and did some reshuffling with my unions/tactics.

You most likely can finish AC with 2-3 leaders that have weapon arts, provided you have been getting good stat upgrades for those leaders. Glenys and Torgal were definitely my hardest hitting leaders, with Nora a little bit behind. Battle Crown formation helps a TON, you just have to have enough HP so you can survive his rare magical attacks. Oh and I didn't follow some crazy leveling / stat maxing scheme either.

I really wish you'd got to use more leaders in your unions, I really grew attached to some of them and getting to use only 6 of them made me do some big compromises. Even though some of my soldiers had more HP than Rush (1,5k), the leaders were just more personal with unique models, weapons and samples.

Some of my favourite ones were definitely Torgal (he grew to be an absolute beast), Khrynia just for her voice samples, Nora ("I'll crush you like a bug!"), Glenys, Emmy and Haruko (she can cast Revitalize on me anytime).
 

Krelian

Member
Congrats! I'm doing a second playthrough at the moment to beat AC, but it's taking longer this time because I'm playing several games at once. Just wanted to say that The Last Remnant is one of my favorite RPGs as well.
 

Zzoram

Member
I read somewhere in this giant thread months ago that grinding in this game is bad, because gaining battle rank makes bosses harder without making you stronger.

What was the strategy to min/max unions again? Is it to fight only battles required, or only fight when you can link multiple enemies together?

Any other tips for item distribution among unions?

I'm playing the STEAM demo and it has no tutorial so it's mega confusing.
 
I DL'd the demo on a whim the other day. For reference, my RPG repertoire consists of Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross, half of FF7 and half of FF10. I really enjoyed the demo though! It reminded me of FF11 but with a more traditional combat system. Nice clean graphics even on my shitty 7900gs, good performance, and a fun combat system.

I didnt get the digging though, I used all my digs on one spot and it kept giving me the same thing than on the last dig it gave me a rare item. I thought digs were unlimited so I ended up wasting them.

Anyway, im very interested in this, nice change of pace from the same ol genres I keep playing.
 

Zzoram

Member
Lion Heart said:
I DL'd the demo on a whim the other day. For reference, my RPG repertoire consists of Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross, half of FF7 and half of FF10. I really enjoyed the demo though! It reminded me of FF11 but with a more traditional combat system. Nice clean graphics even on my shitty 7900gs, good performance, and a fun combat system.

I didnt get the digging though, I used all my digs on one spot and it kept giving me the same thing than on the last dig it gave me a rare item. I thought digs were unlimited so I ended up wasting them.

Anyway, im very interested in this, nice change of pace from the same ol genres I keep playing.

Digs apparently reset when you leave and re-enter an area.
 

Zzoram

Member
The only thing that bugs me about this game is screen tearing. Forcing v-sync in the ATI drivers didn't seem to work. I'm lowering my framerate cap from 60 to 30 to hopefully minimize tearing.
 

Zzoram

Member
Lion Heart said:
Ah cool. Does one hole keep giving you the same item with an occasional bonus or something? And is there unlimited items in a hole?

I read there are usually ~2 items each dig point usually yields, and rarely you'll get something better.
 
Zzoram said:
The only thing that bugs me about this game is screen tearing. Forcing v-sync in the ATI drivers didn't seem to work. I'm lowering my framerate cap from 60 to 30 to hopefully minimize tearing.

Weird ...forcing Vsync with Nvidia CP works =/
 

Zzoram

Member
AgentOtaku said:
Weird ...forcing Vsync with Nvidia CP works =/

Last Remnant favours nVidia confirmed?

I have an HD4870 512mb with the latest drivers, and I get screen tearing when I force vsync.
 

Zzoram

Member
Turbo mode battles are way better (not unbearably slow) but the exploration camera is pretty jerky and not very good. I don't think I like this game, which is a shame because I wanted to buy it to encourage more Square-Enix releases on STEAM. I prefer Tales of Vesperia, since it's got far better voice acting and pacing.
 

desverger

Member
Zzoram said:
I read somewhere in this giant thread months ago that grinding in this game is bad, because gaining battle rank makes bosses harder without making you stronger.

What was the strategy to min/max unions again? Is it to fight only battles required, or only fight when you can link multiple enemies together?

Any other tips for item distribution among unions?

Basically, fighting linked foes gives you better loot, and fighting single foes gives you stat gains faster.

There's no really need for that though, just fight a few enemies in each new area when you're still getting a lot of stat gains per fight, decide early which leaders you're gonna use and you should be set. I only linked enemies when I was trying to find certain components. If you notice you're only getting 4-5 stat gains total per fight, it's time to move on, or avoid fights.

One really basic tip that'll get you a long way is to just have 1 healing-capable person per union, be it herbs or magic. This will allow you to break a deadlock in a pinch and heal up.
 

desverger

Member
Zzoram said:
what is a deadlock?

Is the RT ring the only way to engage enemies without being at a disadvantage?

Deadlock is when two unions engage each other on the battlefield. This basically limits the unions to fight with each other and a few nearby unions, if they're close enough.

You can take advantage of this if you need a heal for one of your unions. Break off and heal with one union, while you target the enemy union with one of your other unions. If the unions aren't too far off each other, you'll first get morale from the heals itself, and after if your union intercepts the enemy you'll get additional morale from Interference. I used this quite a lot to bump up my morale bar. Or even swap targets between two of your unions so you get double Interference :p

Yep, the RT ring is the only safe way. If an enemy bumps into you, you'll break your battle chain and the enemies get a free turn at the start of the battle (notice that you still amass AP from this extra turn).
 

Zzoram

Member
desverger said:
Deadlock is when two unions engage each other on the battlefield. This basically limits the unions to fight with each other and a few nearby unions, if they're close enough.

You can take advantage of this if you need a heal for one of your unions. Break off and heal with one union, while you target the enemy union with one of your other unions. If the unions aren't too far off each other, you'll first get morale from the heals itself, and after if your union intercepts the enemy you'll get additional morale from Interference. I used this quite a lot to bump up my morale bar. Or even swap targets between two of your unions so you get double Interference :p

Yep, the RT ring is the only safe way. If an enemy bumps into you, you'll break your battle chain and the enemies get a free turn at the start of the battle (notice that you still amass AP from this extra turn).

Getting a huge battle chain makes you gain stats faster? What is the morale bar for?
 

Jonsoncao

Banned
Zzoram said:
Getting a huge battle chain makes you gain stats faster? What is the morale bar for?
no, huge battle chain makes your loot better

fighting stronger enemy(the initial moral bar of yours is very low) makes your stat increasing faster within one battle rank
 

Llyranor

Member
Does the end-game still scale? I'm about to go to the
Holy Plains after defeating the 6 bases and getting Irina back from that forest
BR is about 60, and I have 5 unions with an average of 2000-2500hp each. So far, game's been a good challenge, but nothing overwhelmingly difficult. A friend says that the final boss doesn't really scale, and that he had to 'grind' to finally defeat it. Am I fine as I am, or will I need to go do more sidequests and such? I'm not planning on doing the optional bosses or whatever - just planning on finishing the game at this point.
 

desverger

Member
Llyranor said:
Does the end-game still scale? I'm about to go to the
Holy Plains after defeating the 6 bases and getting Irina back from that forest
BR is about 60, and I have 5 unions with an average of 2000-2500hp each. So far, game's been a good challenge, but nothing overwhelmingly difficult. A friend says that the final boss doesn't really scale, and that he had to 'grind' to finally defeat it. Am I fine as I am, or will I need to go do more sidequests and such? I'm not planning on doing the optional bosses or whatever - just planning on finishing the game at this point.

To my understanding, only things that scale are boss' abilities, meaning they will do more damage and inflict status effects more easily. You can see this when a boss uses an ability, it will have a rank after it (like Brawl III, Galaxy II). You can still overlevel a boss in terms of BR, which means your morale bar will be higher, the boss' *plain attacks* will do less damage, all your attacks will do more damage since the boss doesn't have the defense to match with your attack. This is true the other way around too - the minimum you need to beat a boss is to survive at least one of his attacks :p

How much this affects? Well, it depends entirely on a boss. A boss that uses solely special attacks will of course be scaled more than a boss with just a few specials. Some optional bosses like the Fallen don't even scale at all.

In your case, you should be fine. You only have a few places left, Holy Plains is just a silly fight (make sure you have at least 1 hour to spare, I did it when my parents were over for lunch just pressing A every now and then). After that, you're pretty much in the finale. I'm not entirely sure how much damage the last boss dishes out with his attacks, but I think you should be covered if you can at least make 3 unions with 3k health each. It might help you to get a few formations though, namely Mystic Shield and Battle Crown - if you don't have those yet.

Spoiler about the bosses you have left:
Watery Idol, The Conqueror

Edit: Misread.
 

Aaron

Member
Llyranor said:
Does the end-game still scale? I'm about to go to the
Holy Plains after defeating the 6 bases and getting Irina back from that forest
BR is about 60, and I have 5 unions with an average of 2000-2500hp each. So far, game's been a good challenge, but nothing overwhelmingly difficult. A friend says that the final boss doesn't really scale, and that he had to 'grind' to finally defeat it. Am I fine as I am, or will I need to go do more sidequests and such? I'm not planning on doing the optional bosses or whatever - just planning on finishing the game at this point.
Make sure you have a lot of spare time is all. Holy Plains is a super long fight. If you passed the bases, you should be able to take care of it without any problems. Just stock up beforehand.
 

desverger

Member
Wow. I just realized why I never got the other customization books.. Turns out I forgot to download the challenge pack #1. I got the AR key and pack #2, but.. Why oh why they keep doing this :lol

So, here's a checklist if you're just starting out the game:

[ ] Install game discs
[ ] Download Key to Ancient Ruins (free)
[ ] Download Challenge Pack #1 (free)
[ ] Download Challenge Pack #2 (free)

Now you should have all the content unlocked from your game that came on with the discs :p
 

Llyranor

Member
Alright, finished this game earlier this week. Great game, fantastic gameplay.

Ending was awesome(ly bad). I loved it. In addition to the hilariously awful acting, the best part is that the devs really delivered in fan-service there; it did what pretty much everyone who played this game really wanted to do
(killing Rush)
. Man, the story was so bad, and I enjoyed it for that. So bad it's good.

I quite liked the music throughout the game, actually. Some very nice tracks overall.

Performance-wise, it was fine when installed. Loading was negligeable, texture pop-ups were minimal, and framerate overall was decent; the slowdowns were pretty rare, and didn't actually affect the gameplay.

Gameplay was fantastic. One of the more innovative turn-based battle systems in recent years. I really liked how they were implementing a large number of party members while making it manageable. I really don't see the people complaining about this not having depth. Customizing party/union configurations was a lot of fun, and I changed my party setup radically on multiple occasions during the game (when I got new soldiers to recruit, when I got new leaders, when I was trying to optimize my current setup, etc). Going for more unions to allow more flanking maneuvers vs aiming for higher hp unions in order to tank better, going for balanced unions vs specializing some of them in order to get access to the bigger union-group spells. Good options all-around.

I quite like how the actual system itself was implemented. I quite liked how deadlocks and flanking worked; it quite affected my tactics in boss fights where the enemy was capable of multi-deadlocking (holding unions back, waiting to backup heal, going for the kill, etc). Essentially, it was a WEGO (both sides implement their commands, and then orders are carried out in terms of initiative) system, but with a more JRPGesque presentation. I could see them really expanding and improving it.

Good pacing, too (you can run through dungeons without fighting anyone, you could engage enemies as in standard JRPG battles, or you could group everyone together for massive encounters). Never needed to grind. Never needed to powerlevel. I just did most of the sidequests (some good boss fights here and there) and the main story. I avoided most single-enemy fights and would group up a bunch of enemies together when the opportunity showed up. Game was a good challenge throughout, never too easy or overwhelmingly hard.

I'll replay it again at some point. I will admit I'm a bit jealous of the PC version getting that turbo 5x animation speed feature. Unlimited leaders doesn't sound good, though. The restricted leader setup played a significant role in how I configured my unions. Balance would potentially suffer for it.
 

Tailzo

Member
To those that convinced me to buy the game, thank you. I have it (actually, my fiancé bought it for me), and I klike it a lot. Seems like a very gameplay focused RPG with a lot of challenge so far. Since the story is kind of light, it hasn't bothered me yet.
 

EvilMario

Will QA for food.
I've seen this title around (Toronto) now for $38~.. thinking of picking it up. Not that I need another long, long game. :lol
 

starsky

Member
This game is so gooood. I'm in the end of Disc 1 and I'm still addicted to playing it. Some of my friends gave up early in the game though, because the battle system is a little too unfriendly for them.

If you're interested with hardcore strategy JRPG, definitely pick it up.
 

kinggroin

Banned
Played the demo on steam and was completely turned off by the interface. Maybe it was just my demo or setup, but the whole thing still functions as if you're playing it on a 360 controller (with colored facepad button shortcuts, bumpers and all).

No true mouse support (the cursor is invisible, but moving it up and down allows you to scroll through options :p), terribly inconsistant performance (everything max with no aa gave me a framerate that went anywhere from 60 to 25fps - and this is no crysis), inexcusable texture glitches and pop-in, and absolutely no tutorial.

I uninstalled 15 minutes later.


rig:
Sapphire 4870 512mb toxic edition
C2D @ 3.4ghz
2Gb ram
 

desverger

Member
Llyranor said:
Ending was awesome(ly bad). I loved it. In addition to the hilariously awful acting, the best part is that the devs really delivered in fan-service there; it did what pretty much everyone who played this game really wanted to do
(killing Rush)
. Man, the story was so bad, and I enjoyed it for that. So bad it's good.

Aw.
What comes to Rush as the main hero - he wasn't nearly as annoying as say, Capell in IU ("Dancing RHAPSODYYYYyy!"). I didn't really need to reach out and tolerate him, as usually is the case. He never really grew to be a powerhouse gameplay-wise either, just a back row healbot and an AP pump. But still, I think he made an passable hero to this game - and that's more than I can say about the protagonists in majority of JRPGs
.

Some of the other (english) voice acting in the game was surprisingly good actually. Only one I didn't really like was David - out of curiosity, is he the same person voicing Capell in Infinite Undiscovery?

I agree with the rest of your sentiments. The game really packs a challenge and it was half the deal for me. Even though the combat system has a steep learning curve, what with all the mystery of making a specific command appear in the command menu.
 

Diseased Yak

Gold Member
I beat the Holy Servant at BR85 and now I'm in full grind mode on the Ancbolders in AR. Loving this game so much, even if it's punishingly difficult at times. I'm really anxious for a few of my peeps to get their Weapon Arts. So far no one has them, but I'm only at BR91 currently. My Torgal has upgraded his weapons to the ones right before the final versions, so I'm getting my hopes up that he'll upgrade a final time soon. Probably after I get more Jewel Steel (have only seen 1 piece drop since I got to the Ancbolders, and Caedmon snapped it up).

Here's my final party build, one that I'm carrying all the way to the end:

1) Baulson, Jager, plus 3 generics (all of whom have great combat arts and healing) 6800hp
2) Rush, plus 4 generics 4600hp
3) Torgal, Emmy, plus 3 generics 4800hp
4) Caedmon, plus 4 generics (3800hp)

My hp probably isn't that great for my BR, but then I only started grinding around BR70, and didn't do any grinding early on.
 

desverger

Member
Diseased Yak said:
I'm really anxious for a few of my peeps to get their Weapon Arts. So far no one has them, but I'm only at BR91 currently. My Torgal has upgraded his weapons to the ones right before the final versions, so I'm getting my hopes up that he'll upgrade a final time soon. Probably after I get more Jewel Steel (have only seen 1 piece drop since I got to the Ancbolders, and Caedmon snapped it up).

Make sure not to lose yourself in AR, check back in town after you've gained a few battle ranks. The reason for this is that your leaders sometimes upgrade their weapons automatically at certain battle ranks.

After you get your final weapon, most of the time you get your weapon art as well. The only leader that didn't hold this true for me was Nora, for some reason she just learned it after a fight like a regular new skill after getting her final weapon (Shielding Blackjack).

edit: Jaeger never got his WA, I'm not entirely sure if I gave him the Glaive (if you do, he never gets Shievona and learns his WA) or what happened. Either way it was a bit of a disappointment, seeing that he's pretty much the leader with the highest HP.
 

Diseased Yak

Gold Member
desverger said:
Make sure not to lose yourself in AR, check back in town after you've gained a few battle ranks. The reason for this is that your leaders sometimes upgrade their weapons automatically at certain battle ranks.

After you get your final weapon, most of the time you get your weapon art as well. The only leader that didn't hold this true for me was Nora, for some reason she just learned it after a fight like a regular new skill after getting her final weapon (Shielding Blackjack).

edit: Jaeger never got his WA, I'm not entirely sure if I gave him the Glaive (if you do, he never gets Shievona and learns his WA) or what happened. Either way it was a bit of a disappointment, seeing that he's pretty much the leader with the highest HP.

Yeah, If I remember what I read correctly, you get a weapon (glaive? dunno) from Blackdale and give it to Jager, and he'll automatically learn a WA off it, Shinova. I need to go do that I guess.

I was definitely planning on leaving AR every 3 or for BR levels and head back into town so people will upgrade their stuff.
 

desverger

Member
Diseased Yak said:
Yeah, If I remember what I read correctly, you get a weapon (glaive? dunno) from Blackdale and give it to Jager, and he'll automatically learn a WA off it, Shinova. I need to go do that I guess.

Jaeger's Final weapon is called Shievona Virtutis and his WA is called Shievona as well. He was just using a lytic Glaive for me, though.
 

Diseased Yak

Gold Member
So today I hit BR100 and killed The Fallen. I feel the end of my journey with this game, finally. What a long road it's been! Obviously I still have a lot more to do, but it's winding down, that's for sure. Such an awesome game, anyone remotely interested in jrpg's is doing themselves a disservice by not checking this out.
 

MoogPaul

Member
I just started this the other day. Spend about an hour running around a desert looking at columns. I think this game would benefit from a little bit of a retooling and streamlining. Might make a good basis for a turn-based/srpg hybrid. SaGa leveling combined with more strategic movement of unions on like a huge battlefield... I'd buy that shit.
 

Durante

Member
The PC version of this will be out in a week (and I've got it preordered). I don't know what the usual procedure is in "late/improved version" cases like this, should it get it it's own thread or continue to use this one?
I seem to remember a few cases where a new thread was made, like Bioshock or Eternal Sonata.
 

Cmagus

Member
Im playing through this and maybe it's me but is anyone else lost with this game? Everything in this game just seems so overly complicated and confusing especially battle.Like honestly I have no idea what the hell is even going on in battle Im at the point of just hitting buttons and hoping i win
 
Top Bottom