Last Remnant

Grindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrind.
Toldya already. A game with brilliant and unique combat system ruined by the publisher who wanted godlike reviving trashmobs.

I've really no complaints, I paid five bucks for this game and gotten maybe forty solid hours of fun so far, and haven't won it yet. I need a way to avoid taking the companion quests though because I think I'm set with my team as is, unless mister or missus par excellence is still lurking out there somewhere.

Carnifex said:

I've really no complaints, I paid five bucks for this game and gotten maybe forty solid hours of fun so far, and haven't won it yet. I need a way to avoid taking the companion quests though because I think I'm set with my team as is, unless mister or missus par excellence is still lurking out there somewhere.

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It is a great game indeed, like I said in this same thread 7 years ago:

wolfing said:

Just finished Last Remnant yesterday, boy is it long! (Steam says I played it for 90 hours). It is quite good, enjoyed it a lot. Plenty of tactical and strategic decisions to be made. Hard, but not too hard (except some optional bosses that I just decided to skip).
I would have preferred it if I had much more control over the characters' equipment and actions though. But overall, I'm glad I bought it.

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The Duke is excellent! Who else have you got?

Level 40 is about right… for the middle of the game when you fight Fiery Gates! Quit anti-grinding and fight some stuff! (And no sneaky exploiting that poor dragon!)

Series of quests from the same person… a "scientist" perhaps? That one was funny! Did you run into the rare Opiliones in that cave?

Ahhh lets see, I've got the Duke, Allan, Garu, Irina, and those are the ones I like. I also have one group of four magi, most of which I've had for quite a bit. My melee guys seem to perform much better, but the mage team often gets in an early shot and can wreak havoc on enemy squads that have more than two opponents.

I'm still using David but as the game goes on, he's starting to seem weak compared to others such as Emmy and Glenys. Jager also fit right in, his team always seems to be in the thick of things.

Jager is another really good one - he and The Duke have some devastating single target attacks.

Wyngale can fit in just about anywhere. If somebody in your group doesn't advance very well (it's random so it happens sometimes), put him in instead.

Paris is good but he's trying to get married to a 10 year old girl.

Darien is fun - gotta have him in there!

Even if you don't use her, Nora should be in your party so you can get her quest. It's a good challenge.

The girl that's always asking you for stuff is pretty good in the New Game+ where you've got a lot of money to feed her item-based skills. In your first game, though, money isn't quite so easy to burn.

Finished it today. Not sure if it is a game I'd ever replay, but I certainly got more out of it than I paid. I would really like to see another game come along that uses a similar system, too bad this one didn't inspire a franchise.

Next up.....Avernum three: Ruined World. I've put maybe two hours in so far, and enjoying it. This one seems to have quite a steep learning curve right from the beginning, so I'm a happy clam.

So can someone tell me how to play this game. Two specific questions:
Is there a quest log any where that show active or completed quests ?
During combat arrow keys will pop up on the screen for some sort of qte. Does it matter which arrow key you hit ?

Great game. I like that you don't have direct control. It's a change of pace from the usual Total Control RPGs. There is a .ini setting you can turn on to let you give your people equipment, though.

I would like to see the autonomous system for equipment and actions taken further in some future RPG. I've been saying this for awhile but I think games like NWN, Last Remnant, etc., can be pushed further in their respective directions in an interesting way that gives you more "overarching" control but less "minute detail" control. I think that adds a sort of unpredictability that can be fresh and interesting. At the very least it's a deviation from the usual "I will totally control every minute detail of every member of the party, down to how the dudes trim their mustaches" RPGs.

you said:

Is there a quest log any where that show active or completed quests ?

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No. There really isn't much need. When you pick a side quest, you're teleported right into it. There's no walking into a town, signing up for a half dozen quests, then venturing out to do them all. If you forget which way to go on the main quest, just go back to Athlum (?) and talk to David.

During combat arrow keys will pop up on the screen for some sort of qte. Does it matter which arrow key you hit ?

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Yes. You've got to do the one it tells you to do or you don't get credit. If you get the right one 4 (? - it's been a long time) times in a row, the character gets a special attack. I think damage is raised every time you hit it, too, though I'm not real sure on that.

Sometimes you will want to miss, though. You're not just trying to defeat the enemies, you're trying to practice your skills as well. If somebody in another squad (don't ask me why the are called unions) is queued up to use a skill that needs practice bad, hitting all those prompts can win you the battle before the skill gets used. Sometimes it's best to toy with your enemies.

I've posted tons more info in the guides section on Steam.

Zloth said:

I've posted tons more info in the guides section on Steam.

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Ok thanks Zloth. Joxer your post isn't helpful. Zloth any specific guide. So far the game seems simplisitic but it is hard to tell why you win some fights and not others (this is still very early game). Fights seems like a coin flip and not based on any actual decision you make. Btw I don't really understand these special things like deadlock (are they good or bad - do i want to break deadlock or do i want it to happen)

I found the combat to be pretty simplistic, get a new bloke in, put him in a squad and level up a few arts, rinse and repeat. Where I spent the most time in this game was running around cities and looking for new or available quests, I swear I spent ninety percent of my time doing that very thing. I was also pretty picky about my squads.

I ain't blinking first, kid. No chance. Not happening. Nope. No way.

Aw frak.

You haven't got a lot of input but being able to push a little here and a little there adds up a lot. One of the big choices you have is who will be a union leader. The leader's class strongly influences what commands will show up. For instance, if the character is a healing class, healing options are more likely (not certain!) to show up. Class is determined by what skills the character has been using.

Deadlock means two squads are locked in combat. If one squad tries to leave the deadlock, the other gets a 'raid attack' on them which does quite a bit more damage and raises morale. If another squad comes to join the attack, they will get a flank attack. If enough squads join in, it will turn into a back attack and really do a lot of damage. (In practice, though, it's rare for an enemy to survive long enough to get a back attack on them)

Bosses are a bit different. They can deadlock a few unions at once. If they couldn't, you would rip them to shreds in no time with flanking/back attacks! There is a subtle advantage for you, though. The 'raid attack' thing only happens when the enemy is not deadlocked with anyone. So, if you have three unions attacking a boss and one gets killed, you can send the second union over to heal them while the third union keeps the boss busy.

Interception/Interrupt happens when somebody doesn't get to attack the union they planned to attack. If an enemy union goes after your healer union but your fast-moving melee union gets to them first, you'll intercept them. Interrupt is just the other side of the coin. If an enemy gets to you before your union gets to its target, you'll be interrupted. Having a higher speed rating and attacking unions that are closer will give you more intercepting and less interrupting.

There's actually a lot of depth in this game but the game itself rarely even tries to explain it. You've got to get it either by a lot of experimenting or reading up online. Or getting the gist online then doing some experimenting to figure out what that wall of text was really saying.

Ok thanks. Yea this is my first game of this sort. Thought combat would be a bit different. I think when I finish DKS I will get back to it and finally play the full thing after all these years. It is a bit disconcerting to keep dying and not understand that you have no options.
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I'm at the very start so there are very few combat options just magic attack and heal. Also attack and defend.

Man…

1. Grind. Grind. Grindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrindgrind. Over and over. Game=baby difficulty=dark souls. No, you can't finish the game without grinding trashmobs that respawn indefinetly, whoever tells you it's skill based is lying in your face.

2. There is only one hard battle (boss) in the whole first playthrough and it's a sidequest close to endgame. Why is it hard? Because in this particular case you'd need to grind too much of time. Skippit and do that one in NG+ if you'll bother replaying the grinding junk. In fact if you finish the game at all. I've crammed my teeth and squeezed my balls and did the second job, once it ended I was releived so much and uninstalled the junk for good. Fluent wasn't able to keep that tempo and abandoned the unpaid job midway. He's smarter than me.

I might feel the same way after I play a bit Joxer but it is too early for me to have formed an opinion.

I had a friend that briefed me on this game before I played, he shared some tips about squad building and one place to do some grinding at a certain point of the game. I did that for two hours, which allowed a lot of skills to grow, and let me suss out which squads needed work. I'll say this: if you build your teams right, marrying the right people/arts together, nothing will stand against you for very long, including any nameds and final enemy.

I didn't grind at all. Still beat everything in the main game the first time through and everything but the White Conqueror in NewGame+ (aka hard mode). A lot of them sure weren't easy, though. That multi-eyed critter (Hell's Gate?) at the end of disk 1 kicked me around pretty hard. And the Enlightened Seven from the DLC… ouch.

Oh wait, actually getting that stupid Prometheous (sp?) to spawn took something like grinding: reloading over and over until the stupid thing showed up so I could kill it. Still, that didn't take all that long. Certainly not even half an hour.

The final boss actually isn't all that terribly hard. He's no pushover but you're not going to find yourself unable to complete the game because the final boss is too hard.

The Enlightened Seven actually provided me with a challenge, had to revive people during those battles. That was great!!