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[March Climber]

This thread and the replies perfectly match what the game is: A mixed bag.

It deserves it’s review scores of 7s.

 

[Shifty1897]

For so many years I tried to love this game. It was my first Steam game.

It's trash.

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

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.

But from what I’ve seen the best way to grind is to go to Aveclyff for this one sidequest (missable! And if you completed it, you can’t trigger this opportunity again) that endlessly respawns hordes of pathetically weak enemies and chaining them. So that doesn’t exactly track with what you’re saying about BR.

And I’ve heard in general it’s not good to use the Timeshift and link numerous battles together even if the enemies aren’t weak??

I’m also not a fan of how sidequest-heavy this game is. 99% of any suggestions online involve doing some tedious missable sidequests and honestly at this point in the game I’m over them, they’ve become Guide-Dang-It quests and some of these optional locations have terrible design, like that one optional castle, then there’s the desert.

And usually for difficult games or games with difficult mechanics to grasp (like Resonance of Fate, Valkyrie Profile 2, Sekiro, Lightning Returns, etc.) there’s something pushing me to keep going. In my opinion, the world is boring and feels like a cheap version of Ivalice (and I already think Ivalice is a little unimaginative and dull), the lore feels like it’s about a paragraph long, the characters aren’t charming (though I like their designs), and the story is insanely dull. Music can be good at times. That’s it for me

 

[pleaseinsertdisctwo]

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....

Oh my god yes. The fucking status effects. Curse being the worst one.

When a squad is Cursed:

1. Before EVERY unit acts, the “Character is cursed!” message pops up. This applies to every status effect (I think) and it’s super annoying.
2. There’s a 50/50 chance of death for each unit each time they act.
3. The status lasts FIVE turns
4. I don’t think there’s any way to cure it, other than ordering another squad to kill the Cursed squad and revive them with a Vivification Herb. I don’t think you can learn how to use a Vivification Herb without doing a sidequest but I might be wrong.


And that’s another thing: there are way too many useful party members, skills/abilities/arcana/whatever-the-fuck, formations, etc. tied to the dumb and tedious missable sidequests.

 

[chromatic9]

Never got into it after maybe 5-10 hours. I remember it being called one of the better jrpgs at the time as there was a lull for the genre but it's not for me. Really wanted it to be good.

 

[IoCaster]

But from what I’ve seen the best way to grind is to go to Aveclyff for this one sidequest (missable! And if you completed it, you can’t trigger this opportunity again) that endlessly respawns hordes of pathetically weak enemies and chaining them. So that doesn’t exactly track with what you’re saying about BR.

And I’ve heard in general it’s not good to use the Timeshift and link numerous battles together even if the enemies aren’t weak??

I’m also not a fan of how sidequest-heavy this game is. 99% of any suggestions online involve doing some tedious missable sidequests and honestly at this point in the game I’m over them, they’ve become Guide-Dang-It quests and some of these optional locations have terrible design, like that one optional castle, then there’s the desert.

And usually for difficult games or games with difficult mechanics to grasp (like Resonance of Fate, Valkyrie Profile 2, Sekiro, Lightning Returns, etc.) there’s something pushing me to keep going. In my opinion, the world is boring and feels like a cheap version of Ivalice (and I already think Ivalice is a little unimaginative and dull), the lore feels like it’s about a paragraph long, the characters aren’t charming (though I like their designs), and the story is insanely dull. Music can be good at times. That’s it for me

The Wisdom Echo quest works because you can build a chain over 300 which gives you a multiplier. It'll eventually stop giving you good stat gains once your BR is high enough. It's really only useful to about BR ~30 for meaningful stat gains and you need to build up a long chain which can get awfully tedious. There's no need to grind like that unless you're trying to boost up for the 2nd half of the game. Totally unnecessary and boring way to play.

The sidequests fulfill multiple functions. You do them to recruit some unique leaders and help them so that you gain their parameter bonuses. Some are there for collecting remnants when you get the Tablet. They introduce the Seven and get the Salia for the Fiery Revolt quest. You also build up the combat experience and farm upgrade components. It's really all about the combat since that's the meat of the game. When you're not fighting you go to towns to get quests/rewards and upgrade or prepare to go back to the field for more battles. It's not a deep or involved game as far as story is concerned. Everything is geared toward improving for the end game Bosses and Rares which get increasingly tougher as you go. That's the style of game it is and if you don't like the combat for it's own sake you won't enjoy it. I love it because there is an endless variety of ways to play and beat the game. Strategy and tactics matter in this game. One single fuck up will lose a battle that you should otherwise win easily. I have beaten Nest of Eagles at BR 6, but I've also gotten wrecked in the same battle at BR 20+. You have to play smart and build your unions to take advantage of the strengths and abilities of those which you choose to recruit. There's so much involved in choosing who to recruit, what classes you'll need to lead your unions, morale shifting (super important) and more that is beyond the scope of this discussion. What it comes down to is that it is a unique style of game that's not for everyone, but it is by no means a "bad" game.

 

[Soltype]

Definitely going to reinstall this now, anyone know if auto HDR works on it?

 

[Krathoon]

There was also Resonance of Fate and that game with the big chain. I will have to dig it out.

Edit: Here it is:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infinite_Undiscovery

 

[nocsi]

But from what I’ve seen the best way to grind is to go to Aveclyff for this one sidequest (missable! And if you completed it, you can’t trigger this opportunity again) that endlessly respawns hordes of pathetically weak enemies and chaining them. So that doesn’t exactly track with what you’re saying about BR.

And I’ve heard in general it’s not good to use the Timeshift and link numerous battles together even if the enemies aren’t weak??

I’m also not a fan of how sidequest-heavy this game is. 99% of any suggestions online involve doing some tedious missable sidequests and honestly at this point in the game I’m over them, they’ve become Guide-Dang-It quests and some of these optional locations have terrible design, like that one optional castle, then there’s the desert.

And usually for difficult games or games with difficult mechanics to grasp (like Resonance of Fate, Valkyrie Profile 2, Sekiro, Lightning Returns, etc.) there’s something pushing me to keep going. In my opinion, the world is boring and feels like a cheap version of Ivalice (and I already think Ivalice is a little unimaginative and dull), the lore feels like it’s about a paragraph long, the characters aren’t charming (though I like their designs), and the story is insanely dull. Music can be good at times. That’s it for me

You’re in for a treat then. FFT is getting remastered and there’s a greater ivalice remaster at work soon.

 

[iorek21]

It was one of my favorite Jrpgs before playing Persona 5. Loved the world, the races, the cities and specially the music… oh the music.

I often come back to it, love the atmosphere.

BTW, The Last Remnant’s director is now directing FFXVI. It bodes pretty well for me since atmosphere matters a lot.

 

[Lady Bird]

You’re in for a treat then. FFT is getting remastered and there’s a greater ivalice remaster at work soon.

Which greater Ivalice remaster? I've only heard about FFT.

 

[The Cartographer]

The Last Remnant's inner mechanics (360) are too abstruse for me so I don't think I'll ever be able to complete it.

 

[Merkades]

I don't disagree with all the points OP made, but I don't agree with the whole. I bought this game twice, and on Steam I am just over 200 hours played. I still think about replaying it occasionally since I got to the end but never actually finished it. My main issue is the BR thing and some bosses can be super hard (Gates of Hell, and the 10 turn boss The Fallen). Speaking of the BR thing...I just finished Chained Echoes and I realize I pretty much always hate when games use alternative leveling systems. Won't stop me from playing, but never once have I thought "this is cool".