Come on, let's kick some A! -IN- The Last Remnant

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Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

The Last Remnant is a Strategy JRPG developed by Square-Enix for the Xbox 360, and later ported to the PC. It was developed by the team which made the SaGa games, which like to hide the working of their mechanics from the player, and boy does that show in Last Remnant.

Music: The First Awakening (Title Screen Music)

The story revolves around Rush Sykes, a young man whose family gets caught up in a conflict over control of Remnants. What are Remnants?

�Academy Visistones 1-3, 46-47� posted:

[Remnants 1] � Remnants are mysterious objects that hold powers beyond those of men.
[Remnants 2] � No one knows when or how Remnants were created.
[Remnants 3] � Men have used Remnants as beneficial tools since ancient times.
[World Races 1] There are four main races in the world: mitra, yama, qsiti, and sovani.
[World Races 2] It is said that sovani ruled over all of the other races during ancient times.

That should be enough for now, as the game explains other important aspects as the plot advances.

The game also nixes the usual fantasy races. There�s nary an elf, a dwarf, an orc, or a goblin to be seen. For that matter, there isn�t any such thing as a human, either � the local human analogues are known as Mitra. The other three major races are the Sovani, four-armed bipedal cats, the Yama, big hulking Fish-men, and Qsiti, really short guys who look kinda like lizards with rabbit ears. Despite all this, the game shies away from using fantasy racism as an issue. The races intermingle, live, and work side by side without anyone batting an eye.

Refreshingly, the game also doesn�t use the �teenagers saving the world with friendship� JRPG trope. I believe only one party member is below the age of 18.

The plot is fine, but it won�t blow your socks off. Nevertheless, as is standard, no plot spoilers. That includes "nudge nudge, wink wink, if you get what I'm saying" type comments. Gameplay spoilers and the names of spoileriffic party members are okay in tags.

***

The Xbox version was widely panned for a lot of technical problems, and a bug that punished you too harshly for fighting too much, but the PC version was a dramatic improvement, fixing a lot of the problems, giving you more freedom with party composition, adding in new classes and integrating the DLC into the game. That�s the version I�ll be playing.

I�ll be doing this as a hybrid LP. Most of the game�s dialogue is unvoiced, including all side-quests, plus screenshots can cover a lot of territory that would make for too-long dungeon videos. This game has a number of grindy things which would make for bad videos.

Screenshots alone will not suffice. The main plot videos are fully voiced, and the motion/facial capture really looks good, and trying to get a screenshot of everything cool in the cutscenes would make for browser-killing updates. The highlight of the game is its fantastically fluid combat animations, which really has to be seen in motion. I know that some people don�t watch videos accompanying screenshot LP�s, but that won�t really work that well for this game. If you don�t watch the videos, you�ll miss out on the main appeal of the game.

Screenshots will be used for information, and videos will be used for dungeon exploration, cutscenes, and boss battles. This will let me present the game most efficiently. I don�t plan on having any commentary in the videos, because there�s either not much to say (there�s only so much to say about the dungeons), or there�s TOO MUCH to say in too short a time. It�s better to do that through comments between screenshots, where I can devote as much or as little time as I need.

I am planning to do dungeon videos for every dungeon of reasonable size. Some of the really long dungeons may get speeded-up videos, or maybe none at all. If no one cares, it'll only be cutscenes and major battles which get videos. After the opening tutorial bits get out of the way, I plan to update once a week or so. Twice a week if I have a lot of spare time.

This icon is my commentary.

This is official system messages.

- This is a video so you should watch it!

This is totally real dialogue from the actual game! Awesome, dude!

Too bad we don�t have a silent protagonist. You�ll just have to make do with this additional, made up dialogue.

This is me making a journal entry. This dialogue is also completely real!

I�ll be making frequent use of the Last Remnant Wiki. It�s an excellent resource for information about the game, and it�s easy to avoid spoilers unless you specifically go looking for them.

The wiki is practically a necessity when it comes to fulfilling the requests of party members, which I�ll explain when they start coming up.

I am going to do a New Game Plus run, which carries over a lot of stuff which will make doing the LP a hell of a lot more convenient for me. My first playthrough was a 100% sidequest complete run (not counting guild requests � but that was pretty close too), so I�ll start out with 4,546,603 gold in my pocket. There�s not a huge need for that much unless you�re doing a lot of crafting and fast upgrading to the game�s best weapons � but I�m not going to do that, I�ll be upgrading my weapons at about what would be a normal pace for the game.

What carries over to a new game:

All crafting components. - These are for crafting and upgrading weapons and items. This is not as useful as it sounds, as it�s only helpful for Rush. Everyone else is too polite to ask for things from Rush�s inventory, so you have to get them fresh. Even if you have 100 in your inventory doing nothing.
All magazines. � This IS very useful, because it allows enemies to drop additional upgrade components. Your party members can ask for those things before you have unlocked the magazine that allows them to drop.
All Formations. � This is the specific placement of your units in a union. I tend to generally set them to something which increases the stats I want for that union and forget about it, because even I can only stand so much mind-numbing tedious crap to look over.
Rush�s Arts. � This lets Rush start the game with the first skill of all the possible Mystic and Item Arts. In a fresh playthrough, you slowly accumulate those through quests over the course of the game. This is very helpful, but you should turn most of them off as soon as possible, to force you onto the path you want to take him.
Harvesting upgrades and digs count. � The digs count is the total number of times you can harvest during a dungeon, so this means searching for components is faster, and you don�t have to leave and re-enter dungeons to restore your digs count. The upgrades increase the chances for recovering more and better quality components. Everything on my equipment is maxed out.
All area maps � So you can see where you�re going. Very handy, as sometimes the maps are found in the middle of a dungeon.

Don�t worry if some of this doesn�t make much sense - I�ll explain in detail what this stuff means when it comes up.

Want to play along?

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

All right, Here is a .ZIP of two LR save files for those who wish to play again. Rehost it somewhere else if you want, I do not care.

savegame4 is at BR 103, just before the final boss. From there, you can still go back and do other things if you want, although all sidequests and most guild tasks are done. Laugh at my hilariously bungled party! MASSIVE SPOILERS, OBVIOUSLY

savegame49 is the "Continue to New Game" save. All you can do with that one is start New Game Plus

By default, the save directory is:

C:\Users\{USERNAME}\Documents\My Games\The last remnant\RushGame\Save

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Apr 13, 2017

# ? Dec 1, 2014 21:42

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 17:34

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

Gameplay Information

This might seem intimidating, and if so, don't worry about it. This is going to be a reference to a bunch of mechanics and features that will come up repeatedly.

i. Tactical Situations

Note: For these diagrams, allied unions are in shades of blue, and enemy unions are in shades of red. Dimmer shades are unions which are required in-place for the situation to happen.

Deadlock

A deadlock occurs when an allied union and an enemy union mutually target each other and meet. Each union can attack the other. This is the most common tactical situation.

Flank Attack

A flank attack occurs when a union is in a deadlock, and another union attacks one of the participants. The flanker can attack the target union without fear of reprisal, and gains a bonus to Morale and attack. It is possible to be flanked by two unions at once.

Interference and Interception

Interference is when an enemy union is targeting an allied union, but a second allied union succeeds in deadlocking it before the enemy union reaches it. It is called Interception when one of your unions targeting an enemy union is intercepted by a second enemy union. Once contact occurs, it is treated as a deadlock, and there is no attack bonus, although the intercepting side gets a Morale boost. The intercepted unit will perform the commands it was following on the intercepting unit.

Raidlock

A Raidlock is a one-turn surprise attack against a vulnerable union. They get an attack and Morale bonus. A Raidlock can be triggered in the following ways:

A union in a deadlock breaks the deadlock to perform another action (such as healing an allied union), and is attacked by the unit they were deadlocked with.
A union is on standby and is attacked by another union.
A union is performing a long-range attack and is attacked by another union.
A union receives a flank or rear assault command, but at the time the command is actually executed, there are no other unions deadlocking the target.

Raidlocks last until the end of the current turn, after which they become normal Deadlocks, but if another unit attacks a unit that is Raidlocked, it does additional damage.

Rear Assault

A Rear Assault occurs when a deadlocked union is flanked twice, and a fourth union attacks it. I think it can also happen if you break deadlock and are attacked by a unit positioned directly behind you based on the battlefield map orientation (hey, it�s actually used for something?).

(Another possibility � I am not entirely sure about this � if a union attempts to a flank attack on a unit which is in Raidlock. (Raidlock only lasts for the duration of a turn, after which it becomes a Deadlock, and for a rear assault to take place, the Raidlocking unit has to still be alive.) )

Unions performing a Rear Assault get a Morale boost, and a higher bonus to attack than flanking unions. This is a rare occurrence, as most of the time, piling several unions onto an enemy union will kill it before you can pile on a fourth or fifth union (and the rare unions that can survive that can typically perform a Multi-(union)-Deadlock.

Multi-Deadlock

Multi-Deadlock occurs when allied units are facing a particularly powerful (or just a particularly large) enemy union. That is often (but not always) an enemy boss union. The powerful union can deadlock multiple unions at the same time. It is able to attack each union deadlocked with it. Such powerful unions require more units attacking it to flank. If it can Multi-Deadlock 3 unions, you need to hit it with 4 before you can get a flank attack (there may possibly be an exception for specific battle commands). Only enemy unions can perform a Multi-Deadlock.

This can have an advantage for the player, though: as long as one union remains deadlocked with the powerful union, other unions can disengage from the powerful union without fear of getting Raidlocked by it. This can be used to rotate squads in and out for healing, although it�s not guaranteed, as you�ll still need to get battle commands that let you disengage. It also doesn�t help against AoE attacks that hit the field, which are common for multi-deadlocking unions to have.

Massive Strike

An extremely rare situation, which occurs when a union surrounded by four unions and at Rear Assault stage gets attacked by a fifth union. They receive a Morale boost, and a massive bonus to attack. Very rare because very few enemies can withstand being attacked four times, and those which can usually are capable of a Multi-Deadlock.

ii. Arts

These are the active skills you use in battle. There are three categories: Combat, Mystic, and Item.

Combat arts
These are your weapon skills. Some Combat Arts are shared for all weapon types under a category, but in addition to that, different weapons will get their own specific arts. All combat arts have unique animations. These are virtually all single-target attacks, but some high-level ones can affect more than one target. Mages should turn these off, obviously.

One-Handed

One-Handed (1H) are combat arts for using a one-handed weapon with one hand only. The second hand is either free or using a shield to block. These tend to be faster than power grip arts. These work with Swords, Katanas, Axes, and Maces.

Power Grip

Power Grip (PG) are combat arts for using a one-handed weapon with two hands. These tend to be stronger than one-handed arts. These work with Swords, Katanas, Axes, and Maces.

Two-Handed

Two-Handed (2H) are combat arts for using a two-handed weapon. These tend to be slow, but powerful. They work with Staves and Spears.

Dual Wield

Dual Wield (DW) are combat arts for using a one-handed weapon in each hand. They tend to be slower than Power Grip arts, but stronger.

Combat Arts � Sovani-Specific
Sovani get exclusive combat arts to take advantage of their four arms. Only Sovani can use these, and they won�t use any of the ones above.

Dual Two-Handed

Dual Two-Handed (D2H) is wielding a pair of two-handed weapons.

Dual Power Grip

Dual Power Grip (DPG) is wielding a pair of one-handed weapons in the power grip style.

Quad Wield

Quad Wield (QW) is wielding four one-handed weapons, one in each hand.

Mystic Arts
Mystic Arts are your magic skills. There are a few subtypes, each with a specialized role.

Invocations

Invocations (INV) are your Short-Range damage spells and status effects. Only two of them can be used at long range, outside of a deadlock. It also includes the Double Time buff, which increases a target�s speed, possibly letting them avoid getting Intercepted easier. They are required to get the Blackout and Crimson Flare Arcanas.

Remedies

Remedies (REM) are the magical healing spells and debuff-clearers. They�re pretty good, and you�ll never risk running out of items, but they get the ability to revive K.O. unions very late. They are required to get the Rejuvenating Water Arcana.

Evocations

Evocations (EVO) are your Long-Range damage spells. Only one of them cannot be used outside of a deadlock. They have lower damage than Invocations, but inflict more powerful status effects. They are required to get the Whiteout Arcana.

Hexes

Hexes (HEX) are status-inflicting damage spells that hit entire unions. Some of the better ones can�t be resisted. They�re really good, and all but two can be used outside of Deadlock. In a fresh playthrough, Rush can�t learn them until late in the game. They are required to get the Animalcule Arcana.

Psionics

Psionics (PSI) are mostly Morale-boosting spells. It doesn�t do little damage on its own, but having high morale is extremely good, so these are great� but it takes a while to get them/party members who can use them. They are required to get the Fatal Eclipse Arcana.

Wards

Wards (WRD) are protection spells. They can make a union immune to an attack for one hit, make them untargetable, or make them draw aggro. They�re another mid-late-game thing, though. Few party members can learn these. There is no associated Arcana.

Arcana

Arcana (ARC) are special group-casting spells. They are automatically learned by an applicable leader once he and two other party members have the appropriate prerequisite spells and levels, and have enough AP to cast the Arcana. They�re extremely powerful arts that hit the entire battlefield.

Item Arts
Item Arts require items to use, obviously, and they come in several flavours. Some components are cheap, others are really expensive (unless you�re on New Game Plus!), and it can be hard to find shops that sell all of what you need. Some items simply are not available to buy until late. They have some good benefits though - they can�t be prevented by Silence or Paralyze status effects and have 0 AP cost to use.

Herbs

Herbs (HRB) are the lowest level healing item. They�re cheap and common, and you will need these . They get early access to an ability to let you Revive KO�ed unions. They don�t heal much though, but you�ll want to use these just for reviving. The highest level item is actually an attack item, but you�ll probably never use Herbs enough to see it. Sold everywhere, but Athlum has the complete set of Herbs components.

Potions

Potions (POT) are stat buffs, and not that good. They can boost Strength, Intellect, Speed, Attack, Evasion by 15%, but you�ll probably find better uses for your AP. Celepalais has the complete set of Potions components.

Lotions

Lotions (LOT) are full-union status-healing healing items, but the big problem is that lotions first level is an anti-poison one, and poison is rare and easily ignored, so getting this art to level up to gain access to more useful lotions is hard � even though the experience needed to upgrade Lotions is lower than anything else. Elysion has the complete set of Lotions components.

Explosives

Explosives (EXP) are damage + status effect items, which are close-range only. They cost a lot, so aren�t that practical. They�re also trickier than usual for Rush to learn, as it�s done through a certain guild quest (acquire Dragon Egg * 3), instead of a formal sidequest. Balterossa has the complete set of Explosives components.

Traps

Traps (TRP) are debuff and morale-affecting items, but they�re a lot cheaper. Only one trap does damage. Some unique leaders (including a mandatory one) start out with these. Melphina has the complete set of Traps components.

Shards

Shards (SHD) are area-effect, multiple-union targeting effects. Rush can�t learn these until literally the second-last sidequest in the game. Even in New Game+ it�s tough because you can�t even buy these very expensive components until Disc 2. Nagapur has the complete set of Shards components.

iii. Classes

iii.1 - Classes: Overview

To put it simply, a character�s Class is determined by the actions they perform in battle. Classes give a bonus to certain stats and skills, and in some cases, can even let you use unique abilities. The basic Fighter�s benefit is +5% Max HP, for instance. Your class is basically determined by the way you play. If you use a lot of items, but basically no mystic arts, you�ll unlock a class which grants benefits to item usage. If you cast Hexes a lot, you�ll move into a class that grants a bonus to Hexes.

On your first time playing, don't particularly worry too much about your class.

There are three focus areas that determine the character�s class: Combat, Mystic, and Item, and combinations of those three (except Mystic + Item) can also determine the class. Mystic and Item arts are considered to be opposing when it comes to determining class. There is a set of conditions which are checked in order, which can be read on the wiki if you care - I wouldn't bother unless you're specifically trying to make Rush a certain class.

There are something like 45 possible classes, but a lot are uninteresting, and at times if a character�s growth changes enough, they can switch to a higher ranked class. It just happens, there�s no way to decline a switch, and control over switching classes is limited and finicky. In a clean save, Rush unlocks arts through the course of the game, so it can be a lot more difficult to move him towards a specific class. It�s much easier on a New Game Plus, with all the Mystic/Item Arts unlocked from the beginning.

Each class has a tier rating � there are seven tiers, and you can only change by moving to a higher tier class. A Marksman (Tier 3), can never move to any of the other Tier 3 classes. Class changes only happen once you reach specific values in STR or INT.

Most classes also have internal upgrades of the format: Classname -> Expert Classname -> Adept Classname -> Master Classname -> Lordly Classname -> Legendary Classname. Those have higher requirements to meet, but grant larger bonuses.

Upgrading and changing classes requires your Strength or Intelligence to reach certain values.
The criteria for changing classes first starts with your current class. You can only get from certain classes to others.

iii.2 - Classes: Leadership Skills

The most important thing certain classes do is to give you Leadership Skills that increase the chance of getting special battle commands. Not all classes can get these.

Side On � enables the �Strike from the Sides� command without an existing flank attack. Can be used on enemies which would normally multi-deadlock you. Target union still has to be deadlocked.
Ambush � enables the use of the �Hit �em from Behind� command � forcing a Rear Assault on a deadlocked union WITHOUT two flank attacks already in place. Can be used on enemies which would normally multi-deadlock you.
Hot Blooded � increases the chance of getting Combat Arts commands. Pretty worthless, since you can just disable arts you don�t want.
Esoteric � the above, but for Mystic arts.
Survivalist � the above, but for Item Arts.
Medic � the above, but for Recovery commands. This one is actually fairly useful, because when you need healing, you really want to see these commands.
Duelist � enables the use of the �Stand your Ground� command. That just holds the unit�s ground, but without the risk of getting raidlocked when targeted.
Commander � enables the use of the �Wait for a Chance� command. That waits for an enemy to become deadlocked or flanked, and then joins in. If both flank positions are taken, it becomes a Rear Assault.
Defender � enables the use of the �Defend� command, which increases defense, and the fourth and 5th members will use arts or do a self-heal if not at full health. Not that spectacular.
Fatal Blow � nullifies a target�s immunity to Instakill abilities. This would seem worthless even if any classes actually had this, which they don�t.
No Instakill / Safety � immunity to Instant Death attacks. Attacks that deal more than 2.3 times a units max health (Overkill) will still kill them, though.

iii.3 - Classes: Class List

See the Arts list above for what the abbreviations mean.

Combat Classes

(click for larger)

Changing into one of these classes requires Strength to be the highest attribute and reach the specific value. There are hidden XP counters and levels for your weapons and the style you wield them in, and every combat class from Tier 3 and up requires you to have a dominant weapon or style. Of course, you can�t actually see what level your weapons or wield style is.

Tier 1
Fighter is a starting class only - it can't be changed into. It only has one internal upgrade to Expert Fighter.
Tier 2
If STR reaches 29 before INT does, you change into one of three possible classes, based on if your Mystics (Ranger), or Items (Monk) are significantly higher, or if they are balanced (Freelancer).
Tier 3
These classes all require you to have one weapon skill higher than the others. Swords, Katanas, Maces, Axes, Spears, or Staves.
Tier 4
These classes both require you to have one-handed weapons at level 9, and either Power Grip (Warrior) or Dual Wielding (Fencer) at 9 as well. Warriors get a bonus to normal attacks and an increased chance of critical hits. Duelists get extra weapon hits and the Duelist leadership skill.
Tier 5 - Guardian
Good luck getting the Guardian class. It requires any wield style except Dual Wielding to be at level 13, AND either Lotions or Herbs to be level 6, and Item arts have to be greater than Mystic arts. The hard part is getting Item significance without changing into an item-class like Scout or Hunter first. Guardians get resistance to both physical and mystic attacks, and immunity to critical hits, as well as the Leadership skill Defender.
Tier 6 - Gladiator
Gladiator requires Power Grip style to be level 16, Mystic to be greater than Item arts, with Wards as an important mystic. My first playthrough�s Rush eventually changed from Scout to this. They get the Commander Leadership skill.
Tier 7 - Ordainer
Ordainer is the ultimate Combat class, but it will require a substantial amount of grinding, because it requires you to reach level 19 with each and every weapon type: Swords, Katanas, Maces, Axes, Spears, and Staves, AND your Mystic and Item arts have to be balanced. They get the Commander and No Instakill Leadership skills.

Mystic Classes

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Changing into one of these classes requires Intellect to be the highest attribute and reach the specific value. There are hidden XP counters and levels for your mystic arts. The highest one will determine which class you change into.

Tier 1
Shaman is a starting class only - it can't be changed into. It only has one internal upgrade to Expert Shaman.
Tier 2
If your highest Mystic skill is Remedies, you become a Sorcerer. If it�s another mystic, you become a Magus.
Tier 3
The class you become is determined based on whether Invocations, Evocations, Hexes, or Remedies is the highest one.
Tier 4
Scholars are the lone Mystic class which has Mystic and Item arts in balance � the others don�t care (because a mystic class presumes mystic dominance anyway). Wizards require Psionics to be your highest mystic, Bishops require Remedies to be the highest, AND at least two other Mystic skills to be at level 7+. Bishops get a boost to max AP, and an AP cost cut. Scholars get a bonus to max AP and the No Instakill Leadership skill.
Tier 5
The Tier 5 classes require at least 3 Mystic skills to be level 7+, as well as Hexes for the Sage, or Invocations or Evocations for the Thamaturge. Sages get a boost to initial AP, and Tharaturge's get AP Charge on Damage (gain AP from dealing damage), as well as an extra hit with Mystic arts.
Tier 6 - Commander
The Commander requires Wards to be the highest Mystic art. They gain the Leadership skill Commander.
Tier 7 - Warlock
Another very hard-to-unlock class, Warlock requires you to have learned all Arcana. Learning even one Arcana takes a great deal of focus onto one mystic school, learning all the arcana takes a LOT of work. They gain a bonus to Arcana, AP Charge on Damage, and the No Instakill Leadership skill.

Mystic + Combat Classes

These are hybrid classes, and they start at the mid-tiers, obtained at Tier 4 at the earliest. Three of them are Sovani-exclusive, and the rest all require Mystics to be greater than Item arts.

Tier 4
These depend on what your dominant mystic is. Invocations and Evocations become Mysticknights, Remedies become Cavaliers, and Hexes become Druids. Mysticknights gain the Duelist Leadership skill, Cavalier's gain the Leadership skill Defender.
Tier 5 - Paladin
The Sovani-specific version is a Cleric, which requires Quad-Wield. Paladins require Psionics as their highest mystic. Both of these classes gain Defender.
Tier 6
Both classes here are Sovani-specific. Dual-Power Grip users become Deathknights, Dual Two-Handed users become Ataraxians. Deathknights get Duelist, Ataraxians gain Commander.
Tier 7 - Ninja
The Ninja class is more combat-focused than the other hybrids, it requires both Dual Wield (or Quad-wield) at 23 and Katanas at 19. Mystics have to be greater than Item arts, but that�s it, making this notably easier than the other Tier 7 classes to achieve. Ninjas gain the Ambush and No Instakill leadership skills.

Item Classes

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Note: The legend is different for these classes. Normally, I colour the bubbles based on the Mystic/Item focus, but all of these classes have an Item focus, so instead I coloured them based on whether they were considered Item-only or Item + Combat classes.

Item classes are distinctly less popular than other ones �mostly because they�re a lot less feasible to use, because of the requirements to maintain a supply of consumables. There�s only one class for each type of item art. There also is no ultimate Item class, although the Alchemist with its Shards is a good endpoint for Item users.

Tier 4
Item-focused characters who focus on Potions become Bards. Bards get lower Debuff duration. Characters who meet the STR/INT 41 requirement and have Herbs as significant will end up in the Tier 5 Scout class.
Tier 5
Explosive-focused Item users will become Thieves, Trap-focused ones will become Wanderers, Lotion-focused Item users will become Hunters, and Herb-focused item users will become Scouts. Thieves gain the Slowdown added effect (delays enemy turns) and the Survivalist Leadership skill. Wanderers gain lower Debuff duration, and Added Effect Occurrence. Hunters gain bonus Speed, increased Buff duration, and the Medic leadership skill. Scouts get an AP cost cut, increased Buff duration, and the Medic leadership skill.
Tier 6
The Shard-using Alchemist is the top-tier pure Item user. The Assassin is a hybrid class which requires items to be significant, AND One-handed must be level 15, and Swords must be level 13. Alchemists get Added Effect Occurrence and No Instakill. Assassins gain Speed and the Ambush Leadership skill.

The Scout class is special (as is obvious by the tier-spanning bubble). It was a Tier 4 class on the XBox, but changed to be considered Tier 5 on the PC. However, it retains the STR/INT 41 requirement for a Tier 4 class, instead of requiring STR/INT 47 like the other Tier 5 classes. That makes Scout one of the easiest classes to change into, and one of the harder ones to change OUT of, making it obnoxious and potentially ruining your intended class progression. That's especially problematic on a fresh game.

Herbs are the significant item required for Scout, and Herbs are the only early game way to revive fallen unions mid-battle, and so they will likely become quite high quickly.

iii.4 - Classes: Changing Class

Since all class changes and upgrades have a stat requirement, the process for changing a class starts when Strength or Intellect reaches a certain level.

The wiki says this more clearly than I can, so I�ll just copy what it says.

�Last Remnant Wiki� posted:

Definition of Significant, Highest:

A stat (STR, INT) is considered significant if it's at least 12% greater than the other one.

A skill group is considered significant if the sum of its skills is higher than the average of the skill sums (ignoring the wield style group).

An individual skill is considered significant if it's higher than the average of the skills in its group.

An individual skill is considered highest in its group if it's at least as high as the highest one.

The first step in class changing is to satisfy the requirements for a class type. While these could be considered as actual class requirements, none of them have to be satisfied to change into a class with a type matching the current one, which makes them more of a requirement to change between class types. The requirements are checked in the order following; if any of them are met the evaluation stops there and the class type is determined, none of the other class types are even looked at. If none of these requirements are met the character cannot change class.

All Combat classes are checked. If the character qualifies for any, and his Strength is significant, Combat Type is picked.

All Mystic classes are checked. If the character qualifies for any, and his Intellect is significant, Mystic Type is picked.

All Combat classes are checked. If the character qualifies for any, and his only significant skill group is Weapons, Combat Type is picked.

All Item classes are checked. If the character qualifies for any, and Items are among his significant skill groups, Item Type is picked. Unlike the similar Combat and Mystic checks, this does not require both of the other skill groups to be insignificant.

All Mystic classes are checked. If the character qualifies for any, and his only significant skill group is Mystic, Mystic Type is picked.

All Mystic+Combat classes are checked. If the character qualifies for any, and has 2 significant skill groups with one of them being Mystic, Mystic+Combat Type is picked.

All Item+Combat classes are checked. If the character qualifies for any, and Items are among his significant skill groups, Item+Combat Type is picked. This is exactly the same requirement as that of the Item type classes.

Finally, classes of the same type as the current one are checked. There are no extra requirements here, if the character qualifies for any, the current Type is picked.

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Mar 1, 2015

# ? Dec 1, 2014 21:43

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

World Map

Here is a roughly current map of the world location we've uncovered so far. Dungeons are given a number, use the legend below to locate them.

(Click for larger.)

Dungeons and Battlefields

Orange background and lighter text indicates Battlefields, which are one-time-only locations only used for large battles. Blue background indicates underground dungeons, Green background indicates outdoor dungeons.

Cast of Characters

This post will eventually contain spoilers for party members, their arts, and some story parts. Values in brackets indicate the characters initial values upon recruitment. Updated whenever I remember to check. Arts which are ~~struck out~~ are disabled or unusable.

If I say that there are only X characters who get an art, I am only counting unique leaders, and of those, only leaders who you can get before about BR 80, because that's about the time you're able to take on the final boss. Characters you gain after that point will require some grinding to get their stats up, and there's not really a lot of game left to use them on.

Union, Stats, and Known Arts current as of Chapter 31. Bug me to update it, would you?

Current Union Setup

Battle Rank: 71

Bench
B1. Baulson (Combat, Outclassed)
B2. Loki (Mystic [Invocations, Hexes], Outclassed)
B3. Gabriel (Combat/Items, Outclassed)
B4. Nora (Mystic [Invocations, Hexes], Outclassed)
B5. Rhagoh (Healer, Worthless)
B6. Leshau (Mystic [Evocations, Hexes])
B7. Maddox (Mystic [Invocations, Hexes])
B8. Roberto (Combat/Potions [Bard], Outclassed)
B9. Allan (Combat)
B10. Sheryl (Mystic [Evocations])
B11. Zolean (Mystic [Invocations, Hexes])
B12. Yuniver (Mystic [Invocations, Hexes])
B13. Haruko (Mystic [Remedies], Worthless)
B14. Sibal (Combat/Items, Outclassed)
B15. Jorgen ([Aristocrat], Worthless)
B16. Aquarius (Generic [Commander])

1. Rush's Troop (Combat / Morale)

Rush
Duke of Ghor
Darien

2. Emmy's Squad (Combat)

Emmy
Caedmon
Glenys
Torgal

3. Wyngale and Buddies (Mystic)

Wyngale
David
Kate
Pagus

4. Irina and Friends (Healing)

Irina
Khrynia
Violet
Blocter

5. Jager's Sect (Combat / Morale)

Jager
Gaou
Paris

Party Members

This is just a summary of the various party members, there are far too many for anyone to get anything useful out of going too in-depth in all of them.

-Mandatory Party Members-

Rush Sykes

A Mitra youth raised on Eulam Island. Friendly, honest and open to a fault, he cares deeply for his family.
(Voiced by: Johnny Yong Bosch)

Class: Fighter -> Ranger -> Cavalier -> Ninja

(New Game Plus Note: On a NG+, Rush starts with all of the Mystic and Item arts he learned in the previous playthrough except Arcanas and story arts. On a clean save, Rush only starts out with Herbs learned. Either way, he starts with no items for Item arts.)

Unique/Special Arts

Omnistrike, his first unique art, does significant damage to a union, and it can be triggered at high OR LOW union morale. It's not the highest damaging unique move, but it's one which will see a lot of use.
Talisman's Gift is an art which gives Protection status to all units in his union (absorb the next physical attack completely).
Cyclops is Rush's Summon. He has bound the Cyclops which sleeps within his Talisman, and can draw it out onto the battlefield to bolster the army's numbers.

Comments
Rush is the main character, the only one you can fully control gear and class progression for by default. On PC, you can actually take him out of the battle party, but why would you? Rush is the only character in the entire game who can learn every item and mystic art - and the base level of any Mystic or Item art carries over in New Game Plus. (Although you can�t max all of them unless you go insane and grind for ages and ages). Rush can be good at whatever you build him for, and he gets several unique arts no one else gets, so he should always be leading a squad.

Tags: Versatile, Combat, Healer, Mystic, Unique Arts, Psionics, Wards, Arcana

Emma Honeywell

One of Athlum's Four Generals. Stern and driven, but dedicated to Athlum � and her only daughter.
(Voiced by Susan Duerden.)

Class: Swashbuckler -> Freelancer -> Cavalier

Comments
Emma is unique in that she is one of very few leaders who dual-wield. She is combat focused, but knows some mystic arts too. Remedies is particularly helpful, and help to keep her Intellect stat up, but every character learns at least one mystic art, so I tend to keep Emma as a physical attacker. The specials which Emma gets are also pretty great. Chapter XXXVI - She was killed when the Conqueror attacked Athlum. Her daughter Emmy has taken her place in the party.

Tags: Combat, Healer

Pagus

One of Athlum's Four Generals. Master of intelligence gathering, he's also quite the history buff.
(Voiced by Chris Kent.)

Class: Shaman -> Magus -> Healer -> Bishop

Unique/Special Arts

Comments
Pagus is a mage all the way. He starts with a Combat Art, but he�ll never be that good in melee, so you may as well disable that so he can conserve his AP for spells. He uses a wand as his weapon, and the farther you go, the worse his damage gets, so that he'll end up doing as little as 0 damage with physical attacks.

Pagus is the only unique leader who starts out as a Shaman, which is the starter class for Mystic characters. He is one of only FOUR leaders (before BR 80) who can get Wards. It happens pretty far into the game, but you should definitely learn them. Pagus is well suited to leading a union of mystic users. He can learn Herbs, but you may want to turn them off either right away, or wait until he learns Vivification Herb before turning them off.

Tags: Mystic, Healer, Wards, Arcana

Blocter

One of Athlum�s Four Generals. Covered in hardened muscle, but a big softie at heart. Sees David as a brother.
(Voiced by Dave Vincent.)

Class: Fighter -> Freelancer -> Scout

Comments
Like almost all Yama, Blocter has substantial HP. He�s all about pounding things into a pulp. He may not have a lot of special skills, so he looks unimpressive at a glance, but there will eventually be a very good reason to have him in the active party. He learns Hexes as a token Mystic art, but it�s pretty late, and his Int stat is not likely to have improved a lot from the time you get him, so it�s probably best to disable it to keep him focused on hitting things. He gets a unique item through the main story that only he can use. You may also want to disable his Herbs after he officially joins the party to keep him from becoming a Scout. (I failed at this, even though for me, he only leveled Herbs up a bit past Restorative Herb II before I turned them off. Sheesh.)

Tags: Combat, Healer

Torgal

Leader of the Four Generals, and David's right hand. It is unknown why a sovani, infamous for their pride, works for Athlum.
(Voiced by Johnny Hildo.)

Class: Fencer -> Freelancer -> Mysticknight -> Cleric

Unique/Special Arts

Comments
Torgal is the first of the relatively few Sovani who join the party. He�s also the first Evocation user you get. For Combat Arts, he can either Quad-wield, or dual-power grip. I decided to have him quad-wield, since I think he's the only recruitable Sovani who can. Torgal is good at either attacking through physical or mystic arts, although Evocations are better at status effects than at dealing direct damage. Potions don�t do a lot and under advice in my previous playthrough, I tended to turn those off. Psionics will take a while to get, but they are pretty useful as morale control gets increasingly important. He gets a unique item through the main story that he can use.

Tags: Combat, Mystic, Arcana

David Nassau

The ruler of Athlum. Cool-headed and poised. Controls the Remnant Gae Bolg.
(Voiced by: E. Jason Liebrecht)

Class: Mysticknight

Unique/Special Arts

Ex Machina
Gae Bolg
Blackout

Comments
Dave is a Mysticknight, a fighter-mage hybrid. That means you can build him in either direction. He has both Herbs and Remedies. Both are good, but herbs mostly for the easy revivification option, and you�ll want to use Remedies for the healing. The problem is that mixing combat arts and mystic arts muddies the battle commands somewhat, and slows progression of both arts and stats, so you�ll probably have to turn off the side he won�t use (Remedies, since he gets that one pretty late).

Dave's special arts are pretty good though: Ex Machina does heavy damage to a single target (which should also kill the entire union), but it requires high union morale, and David�s Division can�t be in Deadlock. Gae Bolg is just as impressive in gameplay as in the cutscenes. It�ll wipe out an entire screen of enemies at once. The trick is that you can only use it if 3+ unions are on the field, David�s Division is not in deadlock, and has enough AP to cast it. Once you know that trick, you can fairly reliably trigger it at will in certain story battles.

David has gotten the Spark Invocation up to Rank V, and so has learned the Arcana Blackout. Blackout is a screen-hitting attack that does substantial damage.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Mystic, Unique Arts, Shards, Arcana

Emmy Honeywell

One of Athlum's Four Generals. Has pledged herself to Athlum, as her mother--and namesake--before her.
(Voiced by: Siobhan Flynn)

Class: Ranger -> Cavalier

Unique/Special Arts

Hundred Flowers
???

Comments
Like her mother, Emmy is skilled in Dual-wielding, and is a good Mystic healer. She also gets two unique arts later on, and can make a good leader. She knows all the ways of one-handed weapon usage, but is best with dual-wielding, so turn the others off. She makes an excellent addition or leader of a combat + healing union. She gets Hexes and Traps, but those probably won�t be that useful.

Emmy learned Hundred Flowers through a quest early on Disc 2. It's a powerful single-target attack, but she can only use it if her union is at critical HP.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Unique Arts, Arcana,

Irina Sykes

Rush's sister. Sweet and cheerful, but with a deep stubborn streak. Able to control Remnants through Marion's Blessing.

Class: Scholar

Unique/Special Arts

Unique 1: ???
Unique 2: ???

Comments
After the entire first half of the game dedicated to rescuing Irina, she finally joins the party. She starts out with Kiss of Life and a lot of Lotions, including Throat Salve, making her immediately useful. She is a Scholar, the only Mystic-class with a Mystic-Item balance, and fitting that, she starts out with the highest in in the party by far, as well as a lot of item arts. Her high int unfortunately isn't that useful because she only really knows Remedies, and she only gets Psionics, and that's at party BR 75.

Tags: Versatile, Healer, Items, Combat, Unique Arts, Lotions, Psionics, Shards, Arcana

-Unique Leaders-

Baulson

A mercenary based in Athlum. Cautious, and always prepared. Saving money for someone dear.

Class: Fighter -> Monk -> Expert Scout

Comments
A pretty standard Yama fighter. He�s tough, but doesn�t get a lot of interesting arts. His skills are easily replaced by other party members later, but it�ll be tougher to replace that chunk of HP. He�s the first of Rush�s recruits, which means he�ll spend a lot of time gaining stats before you can find enough unique leaders to consider swapping him out, making it tempting to keep him in the active party. He doesn�t get any unique skills, nor is he required for any quests past the one you need to recruit him. Like Blocter, he can fall into becoming a Scout, but I can�t turn Herbs off on everyone, because they�re critical to surviving in the early game.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Outclassed

Loki

An infamously savage bandit. Of late has avoided mindless violence, seeking redemption.

Class: Fighter -> Freelancer -> Marauder

Comments
Loki starts as a Fighter, but easily converts into another Magic-Fighter hybrid like David � mediocre in both spellcasting and fighting, but he learns Hexes fairly early, and his starting STR and INT are basically equal, so I favour him becoming a caster. He�s well suited to join the Mystics club when you recruit him, but eventually his lack of focus will probably end up benching him in favour of a more dedicated mystic once better mages become available. You�ll need to recruit him, and talk to him in town to unlock a late-game sidequest.

Tags: Mystic, Combat, Outclassed, Arcana

Caedmon

Leader of the Silver Falcons. Surprisingly public for a sovani. Dutiful and principled, but despised by those in power.

Class: Ranger -> Mysticknight -> Ataraxian

Comments
Now we�re talking. Caedmon, our second Sovani, starts out as a Master Ranger, with a bunch of Evocations skills learned. Still though, his starting INT lags 10 points behind his STR, and his only other Mystic art is the common Remedies. However, His HP does starts out notably low for his BR, suggesting a caster role. Recruit him right away, for he has three quests to do.

Tags: Versatile, Combat, Mystic, Items, Healer, Arcana

Nora

A rough, belligerent warrior who rages against all restraints - as if trying to forget a painful past.

Class: Freelancer -> Mysticknight

Unique/Special Arts

Blackout

Comments
Nora is pretty similar to Loki and fills in a similar niche of a character which can go to either Combat or Mystic focus. She�s required for a pretty difficult sidequest late in the game. Similar to Loki, she�s a good early-game mage, but will be overshadowed by other characters eventually.

Tags: Mystic, Combat , Outclassed, Arcana

Violet

Wife of a powerful aristocrat in Celapaleis. The sad story of her own family's fall moves many.

Class: Freelancer -> Cavalier

Comments
She�s recruitable after a pair of quests fairly early into the game. Violet�s got lower health, but better stats otherwise than same-time recruit Gabriel, which means she can eventually be better overall than he will be. In my first run-through, she ended up as a substantial damage dealer. She later gets a unique item that she can use, which offers a 15% boost to her health among other effects.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Arcana

Gabriel

Sellsword from Celapaleis. Enamored of Violet. Tends towards the dramatic, but often regrets this bluster later.

Class: Monk -> Scout

Comments
Gabriel is available after completing two sidequests. He�s an item-focused fighter, and comes already knowing Vivification Herb, in case no one else has learned it by then. He gets Lotions which might come in handy, eventually. Maybe. In my first playthrough, I eventually benched him for better people, though. In this playthrough, he's begun to pull his weight pretty well.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Items

Rhagoh

A frail youth mourning his dead twin sister, Kate. Perhaps there is a way he can find happiness...

Class: Healer

Comments
Benchwarming material if there ever was any. You have to complete a quest to recruit him, and there�s another quest that he�s required for later on, but I mean, come on: He starts out with only Remedies learned � that�s basically the most common Mystic art. At least most other leaders start with two schools learned. He doesn�t get anything special either. Hire him, then bench him.

By the time he can even start learning Hexes, you should have better casters who know the same or higher, and the same goes for Lotions.

Tags: Healer, Mystic, Arcana, Worthless

Leshau

A young adventurer, deeply concerned about Baaluk's future. Na�ve, but dedicated.

Class: Marksman

Comments
Recruitable after completing his quest. He�s the second dedicated magic-user, and the earliest character to learn Psionics. He�d make a good fit in a union of Mystics.

Tags: Mystic, Psionics, Arcana

Maddox

Ex-Celapaleian general. Once shared a vision with Pagus. A real chatterbox of an old man.

Class: Marauder

Comments
Another decent mage. Available after completing his quest.

Tags: Mystic, Healer, Arcana

Darien

More a danger to himself than to others, this troublemaker is oddly endearing, if very strange.

Class: Scout

Comments
Recruitable after completing his quest, Darian is a solid addition to the party. He starts with a healthy amount of arts learned, and he has the second tier of Lotions. He knows a lot of good Herbs, but you should probably turn off everything except Vivification to encourage him to use Eye Cream to level Lotions (important for getting the higher tier status-effect removing Lotions).

This is one guy you don�t have to worry about him falling into Scout because he starts out there, and has no chance to get into a Mystic/Balance class. He�s a pretty decent character. Starting out with that stuff makes him a great fit in the party.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Lotions, Items

Glenys

A striking female warrior. Driven and a bit anachronistic. Her heart burns for revenge.
(Voiced by: Michelle Ruff)

Class: Ranger -> Cavalier

Comments
Glenys is recruitable after you complete her first quest, but that quest is notable for being an excellent place for grinding, and if you complete it, you lose that. But nevermind that, Glenys is awesome, so feel free to recruit her right away. She�s also required for two quests later on. She also gets a unique item that she can use as well.

She�s also one of only a couple Unique Leaders who�s VA�s are known. She�s voiced by Michelle Ruff, who you may have heard of.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Arcana

Roberto

Captain of the Order of Melphina. Chivalrous, honorable, and dedicated. Sworn to Marsha, Forest Maiden leader.

Class: Monk -> Bard

Unique/Special Arts

Comments
Roberto starts out with substantial health for his BR, and good strength, but relatively little Intellect. His Arts are underwhelming as well, although at least he starts out with three potions learned. He later gets a unique item that he can use. He�s recruitable after completing three quests, but only if you agree with his side each time.

Tags: Combat, Outclassed

Gaou

Fabled warrior of the underworld. Wrathful and a lone wolf, but at times is quite kind to others.

Class: Hunter

Unique/Special Arts

Comments
Gaou is notable mostly for his extensive list of known Lotions, which can make him very helpful at clearing status effects when a union is silenced. No quests associated or required. He also carries a huge-rear end sword, which is always a plus in a party member. He can get a special item later on.

Tags: Combat, Lotions

Jager

Ex-captain of the Third Commitee. Rough, but open and jovial. Bound to the Remnant Lob Omen.
(Voiced by Gerald C. Rivers)

Class: Vagrant

Unique/Special Arts

Comments
Here�s a surprise: Jager, the jerk who kidnapped Irina and kicked Rush in the face at the start of the game joins our party. I knew I liked something about him. He starts out with a boatload of HP and only one Combat Art category learned, but he gets a few devastating specials that more than make up for that and make him worth of a leader spot (because only leaders can use specials). Jager has the unique class Vagrant which grants him extra HP, Max AP, STR, and skill with combat arts. He�s also required for a sidequest, and can get a unique item. He�s recommended as a leader so he can make use of his powerful specials. If he�s not a leader, he can only use combat arts, and Psionics.

I know someone will ask about this, so I may as well say it. His description says he�s bound to the Lob Omen, but right now it is not available. That is what his quest is about, in fact..

Tags: Combat, Unique Arts, Psionics

Allan

Once ran the Steel Syndicate with Torgal, but objects to its current actions. Becomes quite nasty when he needs to ask a favor.
(Voiced by: Liam O�Brien)

Class: Deathknight

Comments
Allan starts with an impressive array of known arts. His high strength makes him more suited for melee combat, despite knowing Invocations very well, and getting Hexes. He also gets a bunch of Item Arts. He�s recruitable after completing his quest.

Tags: Versatile, Combat, Mystic, Items, Arcana

Paris

Son of the marquis of Royotia. Pure-hearted and slightly na�ve. Sworn to his paramour, Charlotte.

Class: Paladin

Comments
After many quests involving him in Disc 1, Paris finally is recruitable in Disc 2 after completing one final quest. He starts off with Psionics, making him very helpful. He starts with Maladict II, so he can learn the Fatal Eclipse Arcana for Psionics pretty much right away. His intellect is higher, but his Strength score is also good, meaning he will perform well when used in melee combat as well. If that wasn�t already good enough, he can learn Wards too. This guy should be in your party ASAP.

Tags: Versatile, Mystic, Healer, Combat, Psionics, Wards, Arcana

Sheryl

Kosmosfest's Cosmos Maiden. Absent-minded or empty-headed. Wishes to rid the world of war.

Class: Marksman

Comments
Recruitable after completing two quests. She doesn�t seem all that impressive, only knowing Evocations at the start, so I never bothered. Her stats aren�t exactly wowing me either. By the time you can get her, you should have better Hex and Lotion users already. I smell the aroma of bench-warmer. That said, she starts out with Snare Shot, meaning she is immediately capable of learning the Whiteout Arcana.

Tags: Mystic, Arcana, Worthless

Kate

Rhagoh's dead twin sister. But as if in response to his dearest wish, she suddenly reappeared.

Class: Druid

Comments
So she�s back from the dead, I guess? She�s better than her brother, but probably not good enough for a spot in the active party. Her stats are unimpressive. She�s recruitable after completing Rhagoh�s second quest, but she�s not required for anything herself, so I never bothered hiring her. The only really notable thing about her is that she starts out with Dispirit, so she can immediately learn the Animalcule Arcana for Hexes. Not a lot of people learn that so that�s notable I guess.

Tags: Combat, Mystic, Arcana

Yuniver

An honest young mage. Weak due to a past injury, he began to study mystic arts, rare for yama.

Class: Specialist -> Wizard

Another mid-game Yama caster. He starts out knowing Invocations, Hexes, and Psionics, and can learn Evocations. A decent pick for someone who wants a caster who also has a bunch of HP.

Tags: Mystic, Psionics, Arcana

Sibal

Royotian miner who, along with Pagus and Maddox, dreamt of finding a legendary Remnant...

Class: Guardian

Recruitable way too late into the game to be much use for the little he brings to the table.

Tags: Combat, Healer, Items, Outclassed

Duke of Ghor

Chairman of the Congress. A grizzled yama well known as a warrior. Bound to the remnant Bilqis. (Voiced by Anthony Lander.)

Class: Warrior -> Axman

If you talked to the Duke of Ghor after the first, third and fifth base battles, and complete his quest after Koenigsdorf, he can join your party. He doesn't get a lot of arts, but he is a very powerful fighter and comes with a Remnant Weapon Art.

Tags: Combat, Unique Arts, Psionics

Haruko

Former director of the Academy. Skilled and insatiably curious, she's studied Remnants for years.

Class: Healer

A born bench-filler. Haruko offers nothing that can't be done better by other party members you've had for ages.

Tags: Healer, Arcana, Outclassed, Worthless

Wyngale

A rough and violent fighter who fought for the Imperator until he was imprisoned by the Fallen.

Class: Cleric

If you are able to beat an incredibly tough sidequest boss, Wyngale can be recruited. He is a phenomenal caster who can learn all the Arcana if you train him enough.

Tags: Versatile, Mystic , Arcana, Combat, Healer, Psionics, Wards, Shards

Khrynia

A self-absorbed and frivolous mage who became a mercenary to finance her excessive expenses.

Class: Thief

The second unique leader you meet is the second or third-last one who can join you. She starts out with a lot of Shards already learned and brings a very special unique art to the table as well.

Tags: Versatile, Items, Mystic, Combat, Unique Arts, Arcana, Shards

Jorgen

An amnesiac desert wanderer. His scarred face hints at a rough past. Is what he remembers real?

Class: ??? -> Aristocrat

Jorgen's multiple-choice past lets you decide what class you want him to be. Unfortunately, they all suck.

Tags: Outclassed, Worthless

Leucetius

An aloof young knight. Relatively inexperienced, but his talent � and pride � are top-class.

Class: Sage

Leucetius can't be recruited until you reach BR 80. Unfortunately, by that time you already should have a lot more impressive characters recruited.

Tags: Outclassed, Mystics, Arcana

NPC's

Forces of The Conqueror

The Conqueror

An eminently mysterious figure. The ruler of Veyriel, a "backwater" town in the east. He wishes to become a Lord recognized by the Congress and to be granted a Remnant. He has a strange power over Remnants and an stranger interest in Rush. He is now threatening war on the Lords, who have delayed in granting him a Remnant.
(Voiced by: Christopher Sabat)

Wagram

A mysterious mage in white, who has been taking Irina to Remnants for some as-yet-unknown purpose. His right eye was burned out somehow, and it has been replaced with a dark gem. He uses a fan to channel his powerful spells - which are unlike the regular mystic arts in common use.
(Voiced by: Chris Ayres)

Roeas

The Conqueror's lieutenant and spokeswoman.
(Voiced by: Victoria Harwood)

Castanea

Another of the Conqueror's lieutenants. Big guy, doesn't speak.

Hannah

A member of the Seven, Hannah is Hinnah's overly protective twin sister. Though usually good-natured, when angry, not even Hinnah can hold her back.
(Voiced by: Tricia Dickson (as Wendy Tomson))

Hinnah

A member of the Seven, Hinnah is Hannah's twin sister, so devoted to her that she would do anythign for her. She acts tough, but is quite the crybaby.
(Voiced by: Tricia Dickson (as Wendy Tomson))

Young

A member of the Seven, Young searches for the meaning of his life through fighting. He is a true romantic.
(Voiced by: Dameon Clarke)

Snievan

A member of the Seven, Snievan dreams of filling the world with nothing but beauty. His odd behavior has made him an outcast from his own race.
(Voiced by: Freddy Douglas)

Ludope

A member of the Seven, Ludope was a former captain, who lost his entire troop (Melphina's second brigade) in battle. His hatred for everything comes from the pain he holds inside.
(Voiced by: Michael McConnohie)

Milton

A member of the Seven, Milton is a legendary swordsman, victorious on many battlefields. He devotes his life to the way of the sword.
(Voiced by: Harry Molloy)

Zuido

A member of the Seven, Zuido is usually a gentle soul - though his alternate personality is quite the opposite. They say it comes from a childhood trauma.
(Voiced by: Kyle Hebert)

World Figures

Duke Wilfred Hermeien

Wagram's master, the one behind Irina's kidnapping. Chairman of the Congress and head of the Academy. Really does not it like when womenfolk get uppity. (Ch. XLVI) Presumed killed in the Battle of Nagapur.
(Voiced by: Emmet James)

Duchess Bertrude di Balterossa

The Lady of Balterossa, master of the Tao Tie. Her husband died in an accident long ago, and she intensely loves her daughter Charlotte.

Duke Priam

The Lord of Royotia, and father to Paris. He likes quiet. He's enlisted Rush's help in dealing with an evil bird imprisoned in a volcano.

Duke Qubine

The Lord of Celepaleis, Athlum's ruling state. Only 10 years old, but a shrewd and powerful ruler. Not actually all that bad, despite Athlum chafing to be free of Celapaleis's control.
(Voiced by: Beau Sterling)

The Duke of Ghor

The Lord of Ghor. The city of Ghor has been the site of many battles, and it has a strong force of fighters. Ghor lacks a powerful City Remnant, and desires of acquiring one. He's considered an unfriendly power by Celepaleis and Athlum.
(Voiced by: Anthony Lander)

Duke Olebeag

The Lord of Melphina. We know even less about him than we do Ghor.

Charlotte

The daughter of Bertrude, and heir to Balterossa. She is very popular with the people of Balterossa. She had a secret boyfriend called Paris, but broke it off with him after a second attempt on their lives.

Other

John Sykes

Rush's father. A top researcher in the field of Remnants. A principled man, he is against their use as weapons. He has awoken from a 6-month coma caused by Wagram.
(Voiced by: Kyle Hebert)

Marina Sykes

Rush's mother. Another top researcher in the field of Remnants. She possesses the power of Marion's Blessing. She was hiding in Numor Mine, but has since left in search of something.
(Voiced by: Erica Shaffer)

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 02:10 on Apr 14, 2017

# ? Dec 1, 2014 21:44

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

Rush Fools In -OR- What in the hell�

- Video: Opening

We start out in a forest, and pan down to meet our protagonist. I�ll tell you now that he�s called Rush Sykes, to save us all a lot of ???? dialogue.

drat! Where is she?

He notices some purple petals blowing in the breeze.

Music: The Search

Irina�s favorite.

Last Remnant drinking game #1: Take a drink each time those goddamn flowers appear in a scene. I don�t think the game ever even mentions what they�re called, but boy do they ever show up a lot.

Rush hears shouting in the distance, and races off in that direction.

Huh?

What in the hell�

Two armies are marching upon each other. The one on the left is made up mostly of beastmen and some large animals. The one on Rush�s right seems a little more organized.

The right-hand army has brought a large� thing of some kind with them.

They�re also a lot more racially diverse. The Last Remnant eschews the traditional elves and dwarves for some pretty unique-looking creatures. They even call the human analogues by a different name (Mitra). The small guys with long ears (Qsiti) are moving towards the left, and getting too close to the big thing, which is a Remnant called the Gae Bolg.

Out of the way, you idiots!

Everyone stops and silence falls.

One of the big fish-men guys (Yama) releases the framework holding the Gae Bolg.

It falls onto camera and�

A large cloud of dust spreads from the impact. I�m guessing the Gae Bolg is not fragile.

The leader of the army puts a special eye-patch on. It�s for interfacing, I suppose you�d call it, with the Gae Bolg.

The Gae Bolg is ready!

We are ready, my lord.

*nods*

Victory shall be ours!
Troops: Yeaaaaaah!

What is this?

In the midst of the army to his right, Rush spots something.

Irina!

Last Remnant drinking game #2a: Take a sip each time one of Rush�s sentences consists of �Irina� and nothing else.

Rush slips and slides his way down the steep slope, racing towards the female figure he spotted.

The enemy army charges. At least, I�m pretty sure they�re the enemy, because we didn�t see any of THEM get detailed models or dialogue.

Irinaaaa!

Rush races into the battlefield, the screen fades to white, and�

Music: Clash of Opposites

- Video: Yamarn Plains Battle (and Aftermath)

-Battle Controls-
The controls to use the menu-based combat are not relevant because this is an LP. I�m a keyboard+mouse using heathen anyway, and those work just fine. (By default the prompts are displayed as Xbox controller prompts, but under the Controller section of the menu � how intuitive � you can change that to display keyboard/mouse prompts.

Oh, our first tutorial battle, right in the middle of the introduction movie! Well, I�m sure this will start us off simple at fir-

Holy crap.

Yeah, the game just dumps you right in. You probably don�t understand most of this, but don�t worry, you don�t need to, nor does the game expect you to understand this immediately. This is just showing you what you�ll eventually have to manage up front. The first couple hours will get you up to speed better.

To avoid ruining the pacing, I�ll make a separate post explaining the battle UI after Chapter 3. In the meantime, just go with the flow.

The four-armed cat is called Torgal, and he is of the Sovani race. He�s going to use his quad-slice combat art. All playable Sovani characters are show-offs, and will only use Sovani-exclusive wield styles that make use of their extra limbs.

Gae Bolg: Fire!

It doesn�t matter what you do, because after the first turn, all the options are gone, and you can only use the Gae Bolg. You can�t lose this battle.

Eh? What is Emma doing? She�s too close!

The Gae Bolg�s firing sequence is complete. Not even Lord David can stop it now�

Being too close to the Gae Bolg�s target will never come up again.

The Gae Bolg�s firing sequence is suitably impressive. The display of enemy unions to the right means that it is an area-effect attack, which can affect multiple unions.

Well, uh, everything near the blast seems to have crumbled to black ash, so I guess that�s the end of Rush.

Oh, never mind, he and the woman he was chasing are safe within some kind of bubble.

The bubble shrinks until it disappears back into Rush�s talisman.

Hey!

Irina? � Huh? Who are you?

That�s what I should be asking you!

W-wait, hold on!

The ground starts to rumble�

� And collapses under their feet. Insert the obligatory �well, that was a short LP� joke here.

Flower Count: 1
�Irina� Count: 2

Video: Opening
Video: Yamarn Plains Battle (and Aftermath)

Next Time: We�ll be sending someone to pick you up.

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 15:31 on Feb 14, 2017

# ? Dec 1, 2014 21:45

HenryEx: Mar 25, 2009; ...your cybernetic implants, the only beauty in that meat you call "a body"...; Grimey Drawer

So, are you going to play with the bug fix that makes Leaders actually request Mystic Accessories instead of Balance accessories?

# ? Dec 1, 2014 22:45

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

HenryEx posted:

So, are you going to play with the bug fix that makes Leaders actually request Mystic Accessories instead of Balance accessories?

I hadn't actually heard of that, so I probably should... but the listed fix only works on retail box copies, not the steam version, so the only apparent way to get around it that involves downloading an EXE that someone hex edited.

I might just ignore it. It's totally playable without it, and typically, there aren't a whole lot of Mystic-only characters compared to mixed ones anyway.

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 23:02 on Dec 1, 2014

# ? Dec 1, 2014 22:51

Drachir D Nalem: Aug 14, 2012

Man, I've restarted this game like five times because I always give up in the middle and don't touch it for months and forget everything. It's really, really loving grindy, unless I'm just loving up something fierce.

# ? Dec 1, 2014 23:20

HenryEx: Mar 25, 2009; ...your cybernetic implants, the only beauty in that meat you call "a body"...; Grimey Drawer

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

I hadn't actually heard of that, so I probably should... but the listed fix only works on retail box copies, not the steam version, so the only apparent way to get around it that involves downloading an EXE that someone hex edited.

I might just ignore it. It's totally playable without it, and typically, there aren't a whole lot of Mystic-only characters compared to mixed ones anyway.

If you have Cheat Engine and don't mind starting it up when you play the game, i can link you an old-rear end table i made for the game which includes that fix. You'll have to re-apply the fix on every start, though. :v:

If you just want the fix, enable the entry "TLR Script" and it will apply the bug fix automatically, it's enabled by default.

It has a lot of other fun stuff, too, like forcing common/uncommon/rare/very rare monster drops to drop when they can, or the common/rare magazine things. Really handy to cut down on the grinding. Can also display the stats of all the Unions (enemies and allies) in a battle, or just the currently highlighted one. Nice to get a detailed overview.
It's kinda unorganized, though, since it was basically developed for personal use. I was planning on programming an in-game display of health/AP/morale for in-battle unions with the DirectX hook of CheatEngine, but lost interest eventually. :effort:

Actually, with CE's automated trainer generator, i might be able to whip up a tiny bugfix-only "trainer" to run along with the game... Hm...

# ? Dec 1, 2014 23:42

POOL IS CLOSED: Jul 14, 2011; I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.; Pillbug

I really enjoyed this game, but at the same time was frustrated by its pile of un/under-explained mechanics. I look forward to seeing what I missed out on (and maybe I'll finally finish that NG+).

# ? Dec 2, 2014 00:31

PaletteSwappedNinja: Jun 3, 2008; One Nation, Under God.

For those who don't know, this game was made by the team at S-E that usually makes SaGa games and is a SaGa game in all but name.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 00:34

Sir_Faolan_Hound: Aug 19, 2010

I'm glad this is finally happening! despite it's flaws I count The Last Remnant my favorite game of all time, people seem to complain alot about the battle system but I always found it extremely fun.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 00:43

ZenVulgarity: Oct 9, 2012; I made the hat by transforming my zen

PaletteSwappedNinja posted:

For those who don't know, this game was made by the team at S-E that usually makes SaGa games and is a SaGa game in all but name.

It also rules

# ? Dec 2, 2014 00:44

Smiling Knight: May 31, 2011

I would love to know how the battle system works; I completed the game without really understanding what was going on under the hood. Made the game more difficult, but also made it a really awesome moment when the perfect tactic would appear at a critical juncture.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 00:50

Revenant Threshold: Jan 1, 2008

This is.... well, not an awesome game, pretty far from it, and it's one of the few games I can think of that has methods that both demand grinding while also punishing you for it. But it's also got a really neat combat system!

# ? Dec 2, 2014 00:58

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

The next update is basically ready, and I'll have that up later tonight. We won't actually get to gameplay in it though - I've decided to organize updates based on content instead of cutting them up to fit a specific length.

Drachir D Nalem posted:

Man, I've restarted this game like five times because I always give up in the middle and don't touch it for months and forget everything. It's really, really loving grindy, unless I'm just loving up something fierce.

Well, I took a break partway through my first playthrough and didn't come back to it for a while, but while I did remember dying a lot, I don't recall having to grind too much. Grinding might have been helpful, but I don't remember it. It could have been that I did most of the "grinding" for party member gear requests.

And I made a lot of mistakes when playing the first time, too, but I still was able to recover.

HenryEx posted:

If you have Cheat Engine and don't mind starting it up when you play the game, i can link you an old-rear end table i made for the game which includes that fix. You'll have to re-apply the fix on every start, though.
If you just want the fix, enable the entry "TLR Script" and it will apply the bug fix automatically, it's enabled by default.

It has a lot of other fun stuff, too, like forcing common/uncommon/rare/very rare monster drops to drop when they can, or the common/rare magazine things. Really handy to cut down on the grinding. Can also display the stats of all the Unions (enemies and allies) in a battle, or just the currently highlighted one. Nice to get a detailed overview.
It's kinda unorganized, though, since it was basically developed for personal use. I was planning on programming an in-game display of health/AP/morale for in-battle unions with the DirectX hook of CheatEngine, but lost interest eventually.

Actually, with CE's automated trainer generator, i might be able to whip up a tiny bugfix-only "trainer" to run along with the game... Hm...

I don't have Cheat Engine installed. The idea of those other tweaks is tempting, but I am trying to play fairly close to a vanilla game, without tweaks, the way the average person would. That'll put me in the correct mood when I complain about monster drops.

That doesn't mean that I won't be taking advantage of the NG+ stuff. Oh, I have plans. Well, a plan.

PaletteSwappedNinja posted:

For those who don't know, this game was made by the team at S-E that usually makes SaGa games and is a SaGa game in all but name.

Right, thanks. I added a brief note about that to the OP, although I have never played any SaGa games, though.

Revenant Threshold posted:

This is.... well, not an awesome game, pretty far from it, and it's one of the few games I can think of that has methods that both demand grinding while also punishing you for it. But it's also got a really neat combat system!

The punishing for grinding I heard was mostly on the XBox version. I didn't worry too much about avoiding grinding on my first run and I did okay. Playing normally should work just fine on the PC version.

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 01:10 on Dec 2, 2014

# ? Dec 2, 2014 01:06

Onmi: Jul 12, 2013; If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

I love this loving game, everyone should buy it. I will be watching this with a giant smile. Some of the dialog in this game also makes Rush to be a sassy dick. Not voiced, but most of the text based stuff is swear to GOD the localizers having a tonne of fun with the game.

Also I always modded the game to just equip my party with whatever (It's an option in the Ini, you just change to No to a Yes.) and on later playthroughs, I used a trainer to have all of my unique leaders in unions. Which made battles huge and caused my computer to strain but was SO worth it.

There's also one giant area of the game that I used to set up a battle against somewhere around 200 foes. You'll see it when we get there.

I just... I love this game, it's so fun, the music is so good too...

# ? Dec 2, 2014 01:11

Drachir D Nalem: Aug 14, 2012

I still have the bloody game installed, I'll most likely start anew once more as I follow this LP because I still like the drat thing despite it being a bit frustrating.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 01:30

POOL IS CLOSED: Jul 14, 2011; I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.; Pillbug

Oh no, the punishment was there in the PC version as well. It may not have been quite as bad as the XBox version, but it was definitely there when I played. You can kind of put yourself in a sour spot if you grind the wrong amount.

(All amounts of grinding are the wrong amounts :eng99:

)

# ? Dec 2, 2014 02:19

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Last Remnant owns, as does Dave.

I'm kind of staggered your NG was a 100% sidequest run. Was that, in and of itself, a fresh game? What the hell BR were you when you took on the Fallen?

# ? Dec 2, 2014 02:33

Onmi: Jul 12, 2013; If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Stelas posted:

Last Remnant owns, as does Dave.

I'm kind of staggered your NG was a 100% sidequest run. Was that, in and of itself, a fresh game? What the hell BR were you when you took on the Fallen?

I was about 86 and beat him in 7 turns, I think I got lucky.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 02:35

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

RedTonic posted:

Oh no, the punishment was there in the PC version as well. It may not have been quite as bad as the XBox version, but it was definitely there when I played. You can kind of put yourself in a sour spot if you grind the wrong amount.

(All amounts of grinding are the wrong amounts )

Maybe it was because I didn't grind too much. I went into the game being warned against grinding, so I was relatively cautious. I finished Disc 1 at BR 39, and beat the game (and all sidequests) at BR 83. Only fight enemies for a reason and you should be perfectly fine. Sometimes the reason is as simple as "the tunnel is too narrow to avoid them".

Fighting too few battles can also be bad though, since you only gain stats after battles - including health. That can certainly be a problem. I am not doing a "low BR" run, so I don't care about avoiding battles to min-max everyone.

Stelas posted:

Last Remnant owns, as does Dave.

I'm kind of staggered your NG was a 100% sidequest run. Was that, in and of itself, a fresh game? What the hell BR were you when you took on the Fallen?

My first run-through, a fresh game was a 100% sidequest run. I of course used the spoiler-free Quick walkthrough of sidequests.

That doesn't count guild quests, though. I beat the spoiler at BR 75. Without having Cachexia. (I still didn't have it by BR 103.) Yes, it was a colossal pain in the rear end and it took so very many tries. I think it took me 9 turns.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 02:46

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

We�ll be sending someone to pick you up

Music: Truths Revealed

- Video: Abduction

Ow�

Oh, Rush and the woman are just fine after apparently being crushed between boulders and a rocky floor. Maybe he somehow did the shield thing again? Also, this update is entirely on video.

Lady Emma, are you hurt?

Is that you, Blocter? I�m fine.

I can see a light in the distance. That should be the way out.

Yes ma�am! We�re en route now!

With barely a glance at Rush, Emma heads out. Emma is pretty great.

H-hey! Wait up, lady! What�s goin� on?

The Gae Bolg blew a hole in the ground, and now we�re in this cave. Anything else obvious you�d like pointed out?

Cave?

Apparently so. Look:

Emma begins pointing at various things.

Rock? Water? Moron?

At least the exit isn�t far.

Hey wait, listen to me!

Hey!

I�ll hear whatever you have to say once we get out of here. Your story better be good, spy.

What do you mean, spy?

Think about it genius. Why else would you be on a battlefield?

What are you talking about? I�m just looking for my sister Irina.

That name gets a reaction from Emma.

Music: The Search

Irina? What�s your name?

Me? Rush! Rush Sykes!

Emma releases Rush.

Rush� Sykes�

Ow�

You say you�re looking for your sister. What happened to her?

Speak!

We�re from this island called Eulam.

And we flash back to a few days ago�

There are those flowers again.

Irina!

Music: Home

It�s a package from Mom and Dad!

Aw, it�s probably just another lame excuse why they can�t leave their research.

Aw, cheer up, sis. Whoops.

Rush drops the package, about the size and shape as a deck of cards.

It�s a visistone. Let me set it up.

A hologram of John and Marina Sykes appears.

Oh!

Hi Rush, hello Irina! Are you two behaving yourselves? Both of us are having a great time here at the Academy in Elysion, and we were lucky enough to have a break in our research. But, as you�ve probably guessed, things are taking longer than expected.

See? Told you.

So your father and I have agreed that you should come live with us in Elysion.

It�s always about what they want.

What we�ve found is a key that�ll let us use the Remnants in new ways. It�s gonna change the world for the better� but you kids are more important to us, and I�m sorry we haven�t been out to visit for so long.

John, we�re running out of time!

Oh, uh right! We�ll be sending someone to pick you up!

Better start packing your bags!

And Rush, you look after your sister, all right?

Take care of yourselves!

We�ll be seei-

Out of time. Dad�s never been good at keeping track.

�

It�s just a short scene, but it does an excellent job at painting John and Marina Sykes as somewhat negligent parents, who go gallivanting off on their research for months at a time, with barely a word back, leaving Rush to take care of his sister.

You worried about leaving?

A little. I mean, I�ve never been off the island before.

Aw, I�ll be fine. After all, we�ll be back with Mom and Dad!

You know it.

The sky darkens suddenly, and a strange sound can be heard in the clouds.

Huh? What?

What?

There�s a strange shape, which has a man in the middle. He's hard to see, I know.

Four blobs in formation around the blob plunge towards the ground to surround Rush and Irina.

They turn out to be some kind of monster.

Uwahh!

Rush!

Last Remnant drinking game #2b: Take a sip each time one of Irina�s sentences consists of �Rush� and nothing else. :v:

Let me go!

Rush charges back in, dodging the monster�s attacks.

He enters slow motion for a dramatic leap.

Unfortunately for him, everyone else is moving in real-time. :v:

Ruush!

Get your hands off me!

Heh!

The hooded man kicks Rush in the face.

No, leave my brother alone!

He then knocks Irina out.

Irina�s talisman falls to the ground.

Ice him.

Rush grabs the fallen talisman. This is something I didn�t actually catch in the videos until I was going frame-by-frame. It�s easy to miss.

The hooded man takes Irina, and the flying thing envelops them and takes off at high speed, leaving a trail in the sky.

Rush screams in rage, but then something strange happens.

Namely, he starts glowing green. This seems to confuse the monsters, as they back off and let him get to his feet.

And they promptly get disintegrated.

Rush looks at the talisman in his hand for a second, then charges off, a look of determination on his face. Even though the talisman was originally Irina's, it's now Rush's for good, so I'll be referring to it as Rush's Talisman.

So there's his explanation for why Rush was wandering in the woods at the start. He crossed over to the mainland and headed "thataway" into the heart of the continent, hoping to find his sister by wandering aimlessly. ... I'd say I've seen better plans, but I don't think this even has enough steps to qualify as being CALLED a plan.

Flower Count: 2
�Irina� Count: 3
�Rush� Count: 2

Video: Abduction

Next Time: He�s surprisingly simple, wouldn�t you say?
_{(Also, actual gameplay.)}

Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 15:52 on Feb 14, 2017

# ? Dec 2, 2014 02:56

Nihilarian: Oct 2, 2013

I remember that opening. I watched my brother play a bit of this game.

Looks more interesting than I remember. Maybe I should try it out sometime.

Also, Rush is an idiot, Emma is cool.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 03:27

Onmi: Jul 12, 2013; If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Nihilarian posted:

I remember that opening. I watched my brother play a bit of this game.

Looks more interesting than I remember. Maybe I should try it out sometime.

Also, Rush is an idiot, Emma is cool.

Rush is an idiot, but I do like him, because at the very least he has his goal and it's not likely he's trying to drag absolutely everyone in the world to go charging around for it.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 03:44

POOL IS CLOSED: Jul 14, 2011; I'm just exploding with mackerel. This is the aji wo kutta of my discontent.; Pillbug

Emma is cool--I think she's the best character. Rush always felt like the weakest part of this game, but I don't prefer that type of protagonist.

That was a nice screengrab showing him getting the amulet--I had forgotten about that.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 03:50

marshmallow creep: Dec 10, 2008; I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Speaking as someone only passingly familiar with this game, I kind of want a game that just stars someone like Emma from start to finish, really. A hard rear end older woman taking the typical JRPG plot by the horns and showing it who's boss would be pretty...boss.

marshmallow creep fucked around with this message at 04:23 on Dec 2, 2014

# ? Dec 2, 2014 04:21

Nissin Cup Nudist: Sep 3, 2011; Sleep with one eye open

We're off to Gritty Gritty land

At least Irina being Rush's sister instead of a half-assed love interest makes his "Irina" sentances somewhat more tolerable, I guess?

WKC :argh:

# ? Dec 2, 2014 04:38

FractalSandwich: Apr 25, 2010

Lotish posted:

Speaking as someone only passingly familiar with this game, I kind of want a game that just stars someone like Emma from start to finish, really. A hard rear end older woman taking the typical JRPG plot by the horns and showing it who's boss would be pretty...boss.

We can dream. :unsmith:

# ? Dec 2, 2014 05:07

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

That doesn't count guild quests, though. I beat the spoiler at BR 75. Without having Cachexia. (I still didn't have it by BR 103.) Yes, it was a colossal pain in the rear end and it took so very many tries. I think it took me 9 turns.

Just for fun, I loaded up the save from that point I fought The Fallen again. The first attempt I was wiped during Turn 5. The second attempt, The Fallen was in critical health during Turn 5, but I barely eeked out an ugly win on Turn 10 with my last standing union and their special move (enabled at critical health). Good enough for a "just for fun" attempt. For the actual LP, I'll try and do better.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 05:34

Black Balloon: Dec 28, 2008; The literal grumpiest

I was just thinking earlier today that I would really like to see an LP of this game, because I just cannot be assed to finish playing it myself. So thanks for reading my mind!

# ? Dec 2, 2014 05:59

Roobanguy: May 31, 2011

the real best thing in this game are the yes/no dialog choices in side quests. who ever wrote those were having a lot of fun.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 07:27

Onmi: Jul 12, 2013; If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Roobanguy posted:

the real best thing in this game are the yes/no dialog choices in side quests. who ever wrote those were having a lot of fun.

Yes, good god if you play this game you owe it to read all the incidental NPC dialog and unvoiced stuff. It's amazing.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 07:29

Mraagvpeine: Nov 4, 2014; I won this avatar on a technicality this thick.

I'll check out this LP. Also, why do the cutscenes look like they were filmed with a shakey-cam?

# ? Dec 2, 2014 08:12

Drachir D Nalem: Aug 14, 2012

Wait, you shouldn't grind in this game? That's probably what I did wrong then, because I like exploring and have a need to fight everything I see, upgrade everything I got and collect everything shiny or in a box of any kind.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 12:30

Onmi: Jul 12, 2013; If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Drachir D Nalem posted:

Wait, you shouldn't grind in this game? That's probably what I did wrong then, because I like exploring and have a need to fight everything I see, upgrade everything I got and collect everything shiny or in a box of any kind.

Here's the thing, fighting what you see properly (that is, chaining them all together with the mechanic that hasn't been introduced yet) is perfectly fine, and you will get through the game... if not great then reasonably fine? there's a lot of invisible EXP bars because it's a SaGa game.

But if you try 'GRINDING' you're going to suffer.

There are two or three areas in the game where you can 'Grind' with specific methods.

Another thing to consider is that the lower level you are, the faster you learn abilities and such, which is why saying "You shouldn't grind" isn't quite correct, it's rather, "You need to fight and grind correctly."

But honestly, so long as you learn chaining, you should be fine.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 12:41

Stelas: Sep 6, 2010

Drachir D Nalem posted:

Wait, you shouldn't grind in this game? That's probably what I did wrong then, because I like exploring and have a need to fight everything I see, upgrade everything I got and collect everything shiny or in a box of any kind.

It depends what system you played it on. If you played it on 360 then a) I'm sorry, b) fighting randomly can permanently leave your stats gimped because of the way it handles BR. PC is much more palatable and theoretically will never leave you in an unwinnable situation, but a lot of (the coolest) characters will be severely under par if you go through the game at a high BR.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

That doesn't count guild quests, though. I beat the spoiler at BR 75. Without having Cachexia. (I still didn't have it by BR 103.) Yes, it was a colossal pain in the rear end and it took so very many tries. I think it took me 9 turns.

That would just about do it, though I sort of cringe at those numbers because so many characters end up kind of gimped by the time you get them. The 'low BR' route is apparently to do a low-sidequest first game, collect all the gear (components) you could want while not giving a gently caress about BR, then restart while carrying it all over to beef people up. I've never had the patience to do it myself.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 15:02

Stabbey_the_Clown: Sep 21, 2002; Are... are you quite sure you really want to say that?; Taco Defender

I've cleaned up and reformatted the Characters section.

I'll try and get another update up today. It's written and the video encoded, but nothing is uploaded, and I want to do another pass at it.

Onmi posted:

Yes, good god if you play this game you owe it to read all the incidental NPC dialog and unvoiced stuff. It's amazing.

I'll be talking to every NPC and screengrabbing anything interesting. I will also show off some of the "quest declined" dialogue, but only if it's actually funny or interesting (Khrynia :allears:

).

It might take me a couple attempts to get the town sections to feel right, so if people think I could be doing a better job with something, let me know.

Stelas posted:

That would just about do it, though I sort of cringe at those numbers because so many characters end up kind of gimped by the time you get them. The 'low BR' route is apparently to do a low-sidequest first game, collect all the gear (components) you could want while not giving a gently caress about BR, then restart while carrying it all over to beef people up. I've never had the patience to do it myself.

I don't have the patience for that either, and since the game is perfectly beatable without playing that way, gimped characters and all, so I'm not going to give too many fucks about my BR. This is not going to be a "low BR" run.

That said, those numbers were from my first playthrough, when I spent a good chunk of the game not really knowing what I was doing - including recruiting some characters a lot later than I should have. Now I can probably do better and maybe even have a lower BR.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 15:23

GOTTA STAY FAI: Mar 24, 2005; ~no glitter in the gutter~
~no twilight galaxy~; College Slice

I'm glad you're doing this. I absolutely love this game. It's gorgeous, fun as hell, and you can tell lots of effort was put into breathing life into the characters.

I bought it on release day and played the everliving poo poo out of it, but got to a point in the game where no matter what I tried, I couldn't trigger the next plot flag :eng99:

Looking forward to seeing where I went wrong.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 15:33

Onmi: Jul 12, 2013; If someone says it one more time I'm having Florina show up as a corpse. I'm not even kidding, I was pissed off with people doing that shit back in 2010, and I'm not dealing with it now in 2016.

Stabbey_the_Clown posted:

(Khrynia ).

So... so many mixed feelings. I'll also remove that if it causes a problem.

GOTTA STAY FAI posted:

I'm glad you're doing this. I absolutely love this game. It's gorgeous, fun as hell, and you can tell lots of effort was put into breathing life into the characters.

I bought it on release day and played the everliving poo poo out of it, but got to a point in the game where no matter what I tried, I couldn't trigger the next plot flag

Looking forward to seeing where I went wrong.

Despite all the polish their is one thing the devs didn't manage to put in. A second game mode for another character who has yet to appear.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 15:44

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 17:34

OneDeadman: Oct 16, 2010; [SUPERBIA]

Despite getting horribly stuck on a boss fight that I made essentially unwinnable way later that was at a save point with no return (unfortunately, I didn't have a backup save) , I really like this game. The combat system is hella cool and I do enjoy the challenge of it.

I also enjoy the games crazy good auto-save.

# ? Dec 2, 2014 15:44

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Come on, let's kick some A! -IN- The Last Remnant

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