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[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I’ve gone up to a point where there are 6 Bases and honestly I’ve just had it at this point with this horribly designed game.

1. Let’s start with the BR mechanic: it seems like no one knows how it really functions? Some people say you should NEVER fight anything that you’re not forced to fight. Others say NEVER fight any weak enemies. Some people say chaining is ok. Some say never chain enemies. Etc. It’s incredibly irritating! Every fight I’m scared of my BR going up, and enemies suddenly taking out most of my health. At least in a game like FFVIII (which has stronger enemies the more you level up), turning the situation around and making the game piss-easy is very doable and quite quick, too.

2. There are way, way, way too many optional areas and party members that are also MISSABLE and I honestly cannot imagine anyone beating this game without sidequests, especially considering that a lot of “solutions” to difficult parts of the games are things like “accept the quest in this city BEFORE (story event). When you’re transported to (location), on the second floor there should be a monster that appears 20% of the time and after you kill it, you’ll get (useful party member). Otherwise you cannot recruit (useful party member). The monster starts off with an attack that will kill your entire party unless you have (useful character ability), which you can learn after (missable sidequest in optional city). Recruiting (useful party members) will allow you to easily kill (mandatory boss) because of their (ability).” Just utterly tedious ridiculous nonsense.

3. The AOE attacks in this game are insane and pure luck. Even if you take formation into account and your position and the enemy you choose to attack (or just standing in place), enemy AOE attacks will sometimes miraculously damage 1 party member for 100 HP…. Sometimes that same attack will kill your entire unit and also damage some other units.

4. Almost every time you go back into the world map there’s anywhere from 1-7 party members asking you to get a very specific item with zero indication on where to get it. Okay. Just an annoyance.

5. Towns are almost copy-paste, dungeon designs are uninteresting with some annoyingly tight corridors. In a game where you’re discouraged from “carelessly” engaging in fights.

6. Story and characters are so uninteresting. But I knew what I was in for when the game starts off with Rush thinking the commander of an army is somehow his super dainty little sister that loves to pick flowers.


I don’t see what people see in this game.


You can’t make the game be full of secrets/obscure AND also have luck and lack of total control play a big part of the game AND also include mechanics that can make a player feel like they’ve screwed themselves over. Like, what? Terrible game design. I’ve also tried SaGa Frontier, and I also ended up hating that. Don’t know what people see in these games!

This is flame-baity of me to say but I’m worried about XVI’s director being the director of this simply because I like almost nothing about this game. Even seeing that XVI’s cities all have a giant crystal gives me PTSD because it reminds me of TLR’s giant Remnants for each city. I don’t want the director’s incompetence stinking up a mainline FF.

 

[BennyBlanco]

I don’t remember much about this game other than the combat being ass. Lost Odyssey was wayyyy better.

 

[remember_spinal]

It was the first game i ever bought (on 360) that was literally unplayable. The premise of having big scale turn based battles is what drew me in

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

I don’t remember much about this game other than the combat being ass. Lost Odyssey was wayyyy better.

I gave the game a shot on the 360 as well. The Remaster has A LOT of improvements (for one, the game isn’t a slideshow), and it’s apparently a lot harder to screw yourself over, but…. The horrible game design is still there.

 

[nocsi]

It’s amazing that people spent the time to understand the underlying mechanics to really layout how screwed up the game really is. I play it on iPad where it runs extremely well

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

It’s amazing that people spent the time to understand the underlying mechanics to really layout how screwed up the game really is. I play it on iPad where it runs extremely well

Those same people will unironically say “it’s an amazing game” and praise it online but I’m convinced it’s Stockholm Syndrome at that point. The game has nothing to offer other than its battle system and its battle system is a mix of luck, bad game design, and a cool/interesting concept.

 

[Punished Miku]

The gameplay and battle system balancing have some significant issues which I agree with. Never beat the game.

However, I think it has one of the coolest villains ever in a SQEX game. Just a total badass. Also actually loved the characters as well. Emma is awesome. Rush is not as bad as some of the typical SQEX main character designs. Then of course the OST is just totally out of control amazing. The game has flaws but also many redeeming qualities. I love the world, art, characters and music.




Major Spoilers

 

[Meicyn]

Nah, you’re on the money, the game is terrible. You’re justified feeling nervous about FFXVI given how bad The Last Remnant is, and that it’s the same guy directing.

Just bear in mind, he undoubtedly learned a lot as codirector and designer for FFXIV A Realm Reborn through the Stormblood expansion. It’s also worth noting that he playtested FFXIV 1.0 before it launched and warned upper management that the game was “defective” and should not be launched, and most certainly could not run on PS3. He was right.

 

[Northeastmonk]

I bought it the day it came out. I got to a cave and the battle system wasn’t clicking with me. It felt weird to attack in groups. I turned it off and sold it. I didn’t like it at all. Same with Infinite Undiscovery. Some of Square’s worst stuff. I don’t understand why it came back. You can buy it on iOS.

 

[Graciaus]

I quit at that point. The difficulty spike then was insane.

I'm told the game is a hidden gem but it is basically a saga game and I never enjoy them.

 

[Kimahri]

Huh, I never had an issue. I killed everything in sight too. Game felt super intuitive to me, to such a degrer that when I played thr remaster years later I didn't need any refresher on what to do.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

Huh, I never had an issue. I killed everything in sight too. Game felt super intuitive to me, to such a degrer that when I played thr remaster years later I didn't need any refresher on what to do.

This game? Super intuitive?

 

[Brigandier]

Got upto that 6 part battle aswell in the 360 release years back and couldn't progress it was way too hard, performance was disgraceful if it wasn't installed.

Gave remaster a shot and enjoyed it, music is fantastic and I like some of the environments, battle system clicked with me, Not a great game and is so unfinished it's bizarre as I visited about 4 areas/towns that were not even part of the main story, It's not a bad game though.

 

[NahaNago]

I do agree that it is kind of bad but I still really enjoyed the game. I kind of want a sequel and I now want to play that game again.

 

[Kimahri]

This game? Super intuitive?

To me it was. It just clicked with me.

 

[Klayzer]

To me it was. It just clicked with me.

One of my favorite games of all time. I love SaGa battle systems. Bought the 360 version, PC release, and the PS4 release. Great times.

 

[Aion002]

One of the reasons that I bought a 360.


I completed the first cave (tutorial) and went to the first city... Then I went back to Lost Odyssey and I completely forgot about it.

I never played it again...

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

One of my favorite games of all time. I love SaGa battle systems. Bought the 360 version, PC release, and the PS4 release. Great times.

I just don’t get SaGa fans at all. But whatever floats your boat

 

[anthony2690]

This game was awful, I really wanted to like this game, but after 5 hours or so, I think I threw the towel in and decided I really couldn't play any more of this.

 

[Klayzer]

I just don’t get SaGa fans at all. But whatever floats your boat

The strategy, randomness, and complexity of their battle systems interests me. Of coarse, its not for everyone. Also, big fan of the character designs of Last Remnant.

 

[IoCaster]

Nah, it's a good game. You just suck at it. *shrug*

 

[Klayzer]

Nah, it's a good game. You just suck at it. *shrug*

It's an acquired taste no doubt.

 

[SkylineRKR]

Personally I loved the remaster. I beat it but didn't do everything. I see it as a SaGa game, so yeah its a bit weird, obscure and random at times. But its the only SaGa I managed to beat.

I think you can manipulate the combat to some extent, I could pull of attacks like Blackout at will. It depends on your formation, and casts you do in succession.

With BR, I believe you should try to keep it low... but it might've been rebalanced in the Remaster. idk anymore.

 

[RoadHazard]

Is that the one with the gif? If it is I disagree, otherwise yes.

 

[Krathoon]

It sounds like a very JRPG JRPG.

 

[Wildebeest]

I didn't really have a problem with combat difficulty on PC because you could stack your squads with unlimited unique characters with OP stats. If anything, I found it too easy.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

It sounds like a very JRPG JRPG.

We get it you don’t like JRPG’s

 

[Labadal]

I love the game.

 

[Rykan]

I fucking hate this game. Can you believe that the original version that was released on the Xbox 360 is even substantially worse than the version that is widely available right now? They made some changes to the PC version and the version released afterwards.

The scaling in this game used to be so broken that you'd most likely be forced to quit the game at some point because the scaling fucked you over so much that you are now stuck and can't progress. Your only option is to start over. I often see FFVIII being cited as a game with bad level scaling and while that is true due to how easy it is to exploit, it actually works really well if you play the game normally.

If you play through FFVIII and simply keep going to the next objective and win every single random battle that you come across, you'll be just fine. You'll have a perfectly fine difficulty curve and you'll never have to grind even once. That's how FFVIII was intended to be played. Not in TLR. If you do that, you'll fuck yourself over so hard. It's a real shame because the concept of the game (Large scale party based turn based combat) is actually insanely cool and the game has a pretty good soundtrack too.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

Nah, it's a good game. You just suck at it. *shrug*

If I can beat games like Resonance of Fate, Souls, Sekiro, etc., I can beat this. The game isn’t interesting enough nor competently designed enough for me to want to be good at it. *shrug*

 

[Teslerum]

One of the best games released by Square in the past 20 years.

That said if you aren't into SAGA type games you get filtered on it. (And the OP very much reads as such)
Just not for everybody.

 

[Fbh]

It has been a long time since I played it but I remember really enjoying it even though it's clearly flawed.
I enjoyed the world, characters and music. The combat had issues but at least felt unique. I really liked the cities too, yeah they are a bit copy paste in their actual design but at least there's a bunch of them and they are visually distinct which is more than what we got in FFXIII.

I really liked the side stuff too, specially how much missable content there was. I loved how sidequests could take you to unique and totally missable towns and cities, or how you'd sometimes get unique party members or even stuff like Summons from sidequests. It made them actually feel worthwhile as opposed to time wasters like in 90% of JRPG's.

My 2 biggest issues were that the combat had too many random elements to it. Mechanics like Summons being random often made it feel like I got lucky with a summon at a right time rather than it actually being a result of my strategy. There were also some parts with a bunch of lengthy battles in a row and with no checkpoint so dying at certain points could easily mean having to replay and hour or more of content which absolutely sucks.

 

[theclaw135]

It’s amazing that people spent the time to understand the underlying mechanics to really layout how screwed up the game really is. I play it on iPad where it runs extremely well

The 360 version was so poorly optimized, they had to scrap the PS3 port.

Then there's the fiasco of removing the game from Steam for no good reason. The PS4/Switch enhancements were never brought over to PC.

 

[bbeach123]

Does the game ever explained the BR scaling ingame ? You either reading guide or get fucked in the ass .

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

I remember 2 things about this game:

1. The retarded characters and writing. There was some early game scene where MC meets the king like “hey DUDE, how’s it going BRO” “DONT SPEAK THAT WAY TO YOUR KING” (note this was like 15 years ago so I’m sure the exact words were different, but it was some scene where MC addresses the king the way a 21st century teenager would talk to his bro, then gets chastised for it. It was really stupid)

2. Then I looked online for tips on how to play the game. All I found was people freaking out about Battle Rank. How to play the game the exact right way to avoid fucking up your BR. Some people were using mods for the PC version attempting to fix the BR

FUCK THAT SHIT. That’s like my #1 peeve, when you can inadvertently screw yourself just by fighting battles and exploring the game.

Don’t think I made it more than 2 hours before uninstalling. Thankfully I got it very cheap.

 

[Wildebeest]

Overdoing level scaling was a rotten design trend across the industry at the time. There were other interesting things the game did with its battle system, but all people will remember is they didn't like it because it was different, and the level scaling was terrifying like the evil timed water chip quest in Fallout which ruined many gamer lives. Pour one out for the homies who died from panic attacks as the water chip quest timer slowly ran down.

 

[Krathoon]

We get it you don’t like JRPG’s

Actually I don't. I just realize JRPGs have a tendency to be obnoxious. They fall into certain tropes.

 

[KingT731]

While I do like the game I had my gripes with a lot of the "background mechanics" due the excessive amount of RNG the game has. If it were actually explained at all it would have been a lot easier to onboard with the game but instead it's all hidden from the player.

 

[Soltype]

One of my favorite flawed games, actually like how little they tell you ,kind of reminds me of final fantasy 1. You can beat the game with a messed up BR, my first playthrough was blind and I managed to beat the game. The the world is interesting and the music is incredible, I honestly feel if they had made another one it would have been solid.

 

[Krathoon]

Isn't the Steam version of the game a better version? I remember something about that.

 

[KingT731]

Isn't the Steam version of the game a better version? I remember something about that.

Yeah. No named unit limit, enemies are stronger, stats are massively adjusted as well as massive other differences to gameplay systems in addition to NG+ as well as Hard Mode. The PS4 remaster is based on the PC version.

 

[SaintALia]

Ah I remember this game. It was a good test for my Radeon 4870 back in the day.

As for the game itself, well, I had some issues.

The graphics were great, but the ragdoll physics for it was...lol. Like you had some intimidating well designed monsters, but as soon as they died, they just flopped around.

Hadn't figured out how to equip individual members, maybe you couldn't at all.

The battle system was just random AF. Sometimes I thought I had some sort of valid strategy, but I constantly felt I was just throwing dice at times. I remember once in a boss fight with some sort of twin bosses or something, I got my ass handed to me, just completely wiped. I was there thinking about how or why I fucked up and trying to formulate some sort of plan of attack when I got back in(since there didn't seem to be much I could do pre-battle), only to go back in and completely breeze through it(and it was a boss battle too, went from frustratingly hard, to meh, in one go).

Status effects are a COMPLETE BITCH. Like, physical attacks or magic can be bad, but due to how the battle system and parties are arranged, cursed are poisoned are the most MOTHERFU- of MOTHERFU- ailments in ANY game I've ever come across

Like seriously, it's like playing Final Fantasy and every turn the enemy casts Doom/Death and if it kills a certain party member you just flat out lose. Jesus Christ, I want to find the stupid SOB that implemented that and choke them out.

But maybe I was fucking up and not playing it correctly, I kind of bailed out at a certain point. The story wasn't very interesting and I didn't care for any of the characters, and the battle system wasn't very engaging and I couldn't even customise my characters. The graphics were great, but the ragdoll thing was just too weird. Also, there was some weird slowdown at points, and I knew my system was way above the system requirements at the time too.

Maybe I'd play it again if they actually implement a proper battle system. Saga games were random yeah, but the battles were quick, the battles in LR can be pretty long and when those status effects hit, oh boy...just an annoying play experience....

 

[Zannrebel]

I fucking hate this game. Can you believe that the original version that was released on the Xbox 360 is even substantially worse than the version that is widely available right now? They made some changes to the PC version and the version released afterwards.

The scaling in this game used to be so broken that you'd most likely be forced to quit the game at some point because the scaling fucked you over so much that you are now stuck and can't progress. Your only option is to start over. I often see FFVIII being cited as a game with bad level scaling and while that is true due to how easy it is to exploit, it actually works really well if you play the game normally.

If you play through FFVIII and simply keep going to the next objective and win every single random battle that you come across, you'll be just fine. You'll have a perfectly fine difficulty curve and you'll never have to grind even once. That's how FFVIII was intended to be played. Not in TLR. If you do that, you'll fuck yourself over so hard. It's a real shame because the concept of the game (Large scale party based turn based combat) is actually insanely cool and the game has a pretty good soundtrack too.

There is no point in this game where you can get stuck and can't progress. If you are not beating an enemy or boss than you need to grind more for it. People don't exploit the battle sway metter enough. You can get to the half way point of the game as low as BR12. And you can get to BR90 before the 6 bases and wipe bosses in 1-2 turns. Game is broken if you go off path and explore.

 

[Zannrebel]

I’ve gone up to a point where there are 6 Bases and honestly I’ve just had it at this point with this horribly designed game.

1. Let’s start with the BR mechanic: it seems like no one knows how it really functions? Some people say you should NEVER fight anything that you’re not forced to fight. Others say NEVER fight any weak enemies. Some people say chaining is ok. Some say never chain enemies. Etc. It’s incredibly irritating! Every fight I’m scared of my BR going up, and enemies suddenly taking out most of my health. At least in a game like FFVIII (which has stronger enemies the more you level up), turning the situation around and making the game piss-easy is very doable and quite quick, too.

2. There are way, way, way too many optional areas and party members that are also MISSABLE and I honestly cannot imagine anyone beating this game without sidequests, especially considering that a lot of “solutions” to difficult parts of the games are things like “accept the quest in this city BEFORE (story event). When you’re transported to (location), on the second floor there should be a monster that appears 20% of the time and after you kill it, you’ll get (useful party member). Otherwise you cannot recruit (useful party member). The monster starts off with an attack that will kill your entire party unless you have (useful character ability), which you can learn after (missable sidequest in optional city). Recruiting (useful party members) will allow you to easily kill (mandatory boss) because of their (ability).” Just utterly tedious ridiculous nonsense.

3. The AOE attacks in this game are insane and pure luck. Even if you take formation into account and your position and the enemy you choose to attack (or just standing in place), enemy AOE attacks will sometimes miraculously damage 1 party member for 100 HP…. Sometimes that same attack will kill your entire unit and also damage some other units.

4. Almost every time you go back into the world map there’s anywhere from 1-7 party members asking you to get a very specific item with zero indication on where to get it. Okay. Just an annoyance.

5. Towns are almost copy-paste, dungeon designs are uninteresting with some annoyingly tight corridors. In a game where you’re discouraged from “carelessly” engaging in fights.

6. Story and characters are so uninteresting. But I knew what I was in for when the game starts off with Rush thinking the commander of an army is somehow his super dainty little sister that loves to pick flowers.


I don’t see what people see in this game.


You can’t make the game be full of secrets/obscure AND also have luck and lack of total control play a big part of the game AND also include mechanics that can make a player feel like they’ve screwed themselves over. Like, what? Terrible game design. I’ve also tried SaGa Frontier, and I also ended up hating that. Don’t know what people see in these games!

This is flame-baity of me to say but I’m worried about XVI’s director being the director of this simply because I like almost nothing about this game. Even seeing that XVI’s cities all have a giant crystal gives me PTSD because it reminds me of TLR’s giant Remnants for each city. I don’t want the director’s incompetence stinking up a mainline FF.

BR determines the moveset your enemies use plus how difficult they are. Case in point fighting the boss at the half way mark of the story at BR12 vs BR50 makes a difference.

 

[IoCaster]

If I can beat games like Resonance of Fate, Souls, Sekiro, etc., I can beat this. The game isn’t interesting enough nor competently designed enough for me to want to be good at it. *shrug*

I wasn't referring to the difficulty. I've beaten plenty of difficult games as well. The game design and the complexity of the battle system are the best part to me. This isn't a mindless hack and slash grindfest.

Once you understand the underlying mechanics at play it becomes very engaging and endlessly replayable. Of course, this is all subjective as hell, so whatever. *shrug*

 

[Griffon]

The Last Remnant was released in a time when JRPG were pretty much dead, it got attention because it was one of the rare ones to come out at the start of the PS360 gen.

During any other time this game would've been shunned and forgotten faster then light.

 

[Rykan]

There is no point in this game where you can get stuck and can't progress. If you are not beating an enemy or boss than you need to grind more for it. People don't exploit the battle sway metter enough. You can get to the half way point of the game as low as BR12. And you can get to BR90 before the 6 bases and wipe bosses in 1-2 turns. Game is broken if you go off path and explore.

You absolutely could get stuck if your BR was screwed on the Xbox 360 version of the game, which is exactly why they changed it for the PC version and onwards.

 

[Arsic]

I somehow beat this game back on release. I was quite starved for a new square jrpg at the time. I recall liking it, but not loving it. The cliff hanger ending at the time made me sour. Never getting a sequel also sucks.

 

[Krathoon]

The game came out back when Microsoft was funding JRPGS on the 360.

 

[IoCaster]

I'm going to address BR real quick since it seems to be misunderstood. Your BR increases by +1 for every set number battles/enemies engaged. On the other hand your stats increase by using arts. So when you use combat arts you gain STR, take damage gain HP, use mystic arts gain AP, INT and so on. If you go around pummeling and one shotting hordes of trash mobs you get very little stat gains, but you still raise BR. So the world gets tougher, but your stats don't keep pace and fall behind the curve. If you watch some videos of good players you'll see them run past the weaker enemies since there's literally nothing worthwhile to be gained by battling them. You want tough, long battles that'll let you use arts and gain stats to keep pace with BR increases. It's simply the way the system works and it's not particularly complicated.

I played and beat the X360 version on release and that was a very tough slog. If you dig through the archives and find the original OT you'll see that I posted a few rants at the time as everyone was trying to figure shit out. It ended up being one of my favorite games of all time. It has a permanent place on every PC I own and I occasionally fire it up to make gimmick runs when I'm inspired to do something different like an all female or all item arts users or all shield wielders, etc. I certainly disagree with the claim that it's a "bad" game.