Things I Wish I had Known... (newbie guide)

[Zloth]

Things I wish I knew when I was playing through for the first time…

>>> This has been replaced by a proper Steam guide! <<<

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=113566410

There are many things about this game that are not really obvious. In fact, there are a lot of things hidden in this game that, IMHO, should be out in the open. So here’s a little list for the prospective new player. Well, sorta little.

Keyboard prompts If you are playing with keyboard/mouse, you're going to want to tell the game to pompt you with keys instead of XBox gamepad buttons. Go to the main menu, pick options, go over to the gamepad section of the options, and there will be an option right at the top saying "Key Signal Display". Select it, press space, and select the Keyboard option.

Gaining battle ranks (BR) is bad. It’s not nearly as bad on the PC as it seems to be on the X-Box but you still want to avoid gaining levels without a good reason. It’s not a big deal for Rush and the characters you get early on as they will gain power right along with the increased rank; the trouble comes with the new hires. If you go out and grind through a dungeon 50 times early in the game, the characters you do the grinding with will be pretty strong but everyone you hire is going to be a wuss.

Don’t take this tip to heart too much, though. The characters that you can hire do get stronger as the game progresses. You just have to make sure you are progressing at a pace that’s fairly close to what the developers expect. You can crank your levels up AFTER you get all the people you want hired on.

Take on as many as you can. Use your time warp power to group together as many enemies as you can defeat. Not only does this increase your rewards, it is also FAR more fun than attacking one puny critter at a time. It also helps keep your BR down and your skills/rewards up.

Do as much as you can. Many quests in the game require that you have done some other quest earlier in the game. Some quests will give you access to very good characters for your squad or will increase your ability to customize weapons and magic items. Guild quests eventually start giving you special items that allow you to get better loot from critters. You probably aren’t going to want to do *everything* in the game but I think it’s a good idea to go to the Wikia website and check quests out before you blow them off.

Avoid the Aqueducts! Eventually the story will get to a point where you are supposed to go into the aqueducts of a town. David and his generals will all be standing near the entrance. Feel free to pop in and play around a bit but do NOT go far! Once you get to the boss battle, you’ll be locked in to a game changing event that will close off almost all of the non-guild quests. So get back out of the aqueducts and go do all the quests you intend to do. David well yell at you but David does not understand the deep meaning of the phrase “insert Disk 2.”

Choose your targets! If you’re trying to train up somebody’s skill and don’t get the skill you want, try to target a different enemy union. The skill may come up. (You also might run into an “interference” but your characters will still perform the actions you gave them.)

Buy/make weapons for yourself, not your party. There are hundreds of weapons and variants in this game, several of which are race specific. It’s tempting to buy or make a sweet weapon in hopes that somebody in your party will use it but characters only seem to want a few very specific weapons. The chances are good that they will ignore whatever weapon you make for them. You can check the Wikia website to see who might use a weapon but, honestly, it’s a lot easier to just give them the items they want so they can make their own weapons.

Don’t sweat the ‘what should I focus on’ questions. Characters that focus on fighting or mystics will still use all their skills and will still advance just as before. The ‘focus’ just determines what sorts of weapons and magic items they favor. Also, you’ll likely get a second chance to direct their focus.

Really don’t sweat the ‘should I learn art’ on PC. Unlike the XBox version of the game, you can turn powers on and off for characters in the PC version. So go ahead and let all the characters learn all the skills they want. If you don’t like them, you can just turn them off! (That’s almost a ‘must’ for Rush!)

The Arts

Combat arts are simply your weapon skills. Rush will advance with whatever weapon you pick for him so pick out something you enjoy. As for advantages, though, they seem quite well balanced. About the only confusing thing is one handed vs. power grip. Power grip means you use two hands to wield a one-handed weapon. If you are going to advance in one-handed then be sure to pick up a shield.

Mystic arts are the spells. Invocations start with a couple of single target attacks, then get a speed buff, then move on to some very good area of effect attacks. Evocations are similar but have some status effects like silence or paralyze. It’s harder to find characters that can do hexes (and Rush can’t learn them until very late in the game) but the spells in that set are particularly strong, doing great damage and status effects. Cachexia is of particularly strategic importance. Remedies are exceptionally good healing spells though it takes the set a very long time to get the power to raise the dead. Psionics provide very strong spells for improving morale. Wards provide some very handy shield spells, an agro-gathering spell, a morale boost, and a stat boost.

Herbs don’t cost AP to use but they require ingredients, which translates to money. Herbs are a fairly weak set for healing but they get the ability to raise the dead quickly. Potions are buff powers – buffs that I never was very impressed with. Lotions is a fine healing set if you can get it started. Unfortunately, the first power in the set is rarely handy making it difficult to improve and earn the much handier eye cream power. Explosives are fairly good powers against unions, though they get rather pricey. Shards can be very devastating to large groups of enemies but are, unfortunately, even more devastating to your pocketbook. Traps have some nice powers once you get past the rather sad first powers in the set.

While item powers are terribly draining on your funds in your first playthrough, playing the game a second time will give you a truck load of starting cash, making the item powers fun and easy! (Except Shards – you can’t get ingredients for that set until the second half of the game.)

The Guilds

Yes, there’s more than one guild. A couple more will open up if you do the right quests – and you definitely want those things open.

The quests are pretty generic stuff. You’ll probably get most of the “Bloodthirsty Warrior” quests just by playing the game. Monsterslayer quests are done by defeating the ‘rare’ monsters – these can be quite annoying as you keep popping in to a dungeon over and over, trying to make the monster spawn. (It helps a lot if you kill any rare you see in normal play.) Collector missions require you to find various components. You’ll get a lot of these simply by playing the game, too. Weaponmasters are much more of a pain – keep checking the Wikia pages to see how to make the requested weapons or if some character actually starts with the weapon. Leader quests are mostly easy but some require you to have certain rare classes of characters, which is very difficult to make happen. Battle chains and treasure hunts are trivial; you’ll get them just playing the game.

The biggest problem with the guild system is the ranks. To gain rank, you need to do a certain guild task and there is *no* indication as to what that task is! Unless you plan to do every single one of these things, you’re going to need to consult the Wikia.

In the early game, guild rewards are typically money, some blueprints (used to make magic items), and a new leader will be available for hire. If you’re lucky, you’ll get a new formation. Later on they start rewarding “weekly” and “daily” items that will help you get special drops from monsters. These are downright critical as those special drops will allow your characters to keep upgrading their weapons.

SAVE! There's plenty more to learn in this game. Keep your eyes and mind open at all times! Make sure you save often so you can experiment without risking a lot of playtime.

The Wikia mentioned above is at http://lastremnant.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Remnant_Wiki_-_The_Last_Remnant_Guide

[fightingfish18]

I'll take these to heart!

[hubris]

This is some of the best advice you will find on playing this game. Thank you for this well thought out and well written primer. I have always had the policy of 'do all side quests then move story' and it works well. I recommend using it, but the only down side is you will be holy hell high BR and be forced to make your generals into group leaders.

Have fun!

[Zloth]

That can be done! Group things up as much as you can without getting yourself killed, skip things that can't be grouped up, and don't go out of your way to get into fights except to get rare monsters or if you are in search of certain components.

Something I didn't mention above - the leader of a group has an influence over what the group does. For instance, if you're trying to get VIolet's "Flash Bomb" levelled a bit, you'll get more opportunities to use that power if you make Violet the leader of a group. If you are trying to level up skills that cost a lot of AP then being a leader of a big group will help because they can generate enough Action Points to let the leader use the power.

Thanks for the compliments, folks! Big kudos need to go out to the Wikia, too. That place just keeps getting better!

[ExxoToxin]

okey just one thing i just dont get the formations at all every time you get like an updated version it says an formation has been updated"insert name formation"but then i think how the hell do i know what formation got updated and how to make it happen get what i mean ?
i think i playe dmost game with the starting formation because i was like okey i dont get crap of this

[Zloth]

Yeah, formations could haved used a lot of extra info. They just give you some generalized info about it but these things are actually pretty complex. Each position in the formation has plusses and minuses. Watch the stats on the left as you move a character around to different places in the formation. Remember you don't have to fill the positions in order!

To raise the level of a formation ("you have unleashed Whatever Formation 3!"), you need to pick the right characters. Sometimes its based on gender, sometimes race, sometimes whether the character is versed in combat skills when you first get them. Raising the level of a formation makes the stat buffs stronger and the stat penalties smaller and will also increase the bonus the formation itself gives (so the "Leash 3" gives more of a bonus against flying insects than "Leash 2").

Each formation has 3 levels but some formations build on others. If you see a message saying you have unlocked more a powerful version of a formation, that means you just unlocked 3 more levels. For instance, if you fill a wedge formation full of fighter-types that are special characters you'll get Wedge 3. However, if you've unlocked the more powerful version and you use Qsiti for at least 3 positions, they will be put in the Chisel formation. Essentially, Chisel is the 4-6th level of Wedge.

For ALL the details, head out to the Wikia: http://lastremnant.wikia.com/wiki/Formations

Personally, I don't mess with them much unless I'm up against something really nasty. Then I wade into the stats and try to figure out just what will work best for the situation at hand. Most of the time I just keep an eye on the stats to the left. Actually, more like half an eye - my MAIN concern is that the party isn't too short on healing/rezzing powers.

There are some particularly interesting formations. Orb lets you use powers for less AP cost. That can be great mid-game when you're trying to learn high level magic skills. It does nasty things to your attack stat, though. Melee Stance and Cup of Celapaleis have no penalties for any position.

Casket is interesting, too. Instead of using it when things are rough, you can use it when things aren't so rough but one of your characters is blowing things away so fast that the rest of the characters in the union don't get to do much. It does this by severly nerfing all the leader's attacks. Mystic Seal is along the same lines but even more so - it works on the entire union and it doesn't just nerf attacks, it 0's them out! GREAT for practicing your skills... just don't use it will all your unions.

Remember, you only have to fill out the leader position! Many formations will have nothing but buffs if you avoid certain positions in the formation. Vanguard, for instance, puts a penalty on position 2 and 3. If you don't put any characters in those two positions then there are no penalties! Of course, you can't get the rank to very high level doing that but sometimes its better to have lower rank than to take the penalties.

[ExxoToxin]

you really know alot about this game :P well i finished my first play trough in less then 100 hours but i saved the at the last world map tele so i could do more stuff before doing the final boss like some side quest.... on in particular dont know the name tho but its made out of 2 or 3 parts i think and well i just seemed to keep encountering a rare mob that just kept calling in reinforcements was even at D unit for the second time ... really wanne finished that quest tho

[Zloth]

Thanks! I wonder if that quest is Nora's special quest? That's a tough one for sure.

After you win and the credits roll, you get prompted to save again. Start from that save and the game starts in Hard Mode[lastremnant.wikia.com]. That lets you start with a lot of money and all your components, formations, and maps carry over to the new game. Rush remembers the arts he had before but has no advancement in any of them. To make up for all that, the monsters hit harder. A lot harder.

I've found it to be pretty fun. It's rough at first but, once you're allowed to craft weapons, Rush can get himself something incredible to help counter the high difficulty. The extra money makes the item-based arts (like explosives and traps) a lot more viable and there are enough characters in the game to keep the variety up. Heck, even with the same characters you'll find their skills don't advance the same way as before.

[ExxoToxin]

nah was the TheAssistant but yeah nora;s quest is hard to you need that to open the 3rd guild wel just got lucky i got gae bolg very quick with that quest :P and just finisned off the first groupes very quick

[ExxoToxin]

and yeah i also still need to get all the art for rush but kind of a pain :P also it sucks to get some items so he can lvl like lotions and stuff

[ExxoToxin]

ah sucks just read the requirment for the last quest to open 3rd guild and well i should have done it way earlier before 6 bases dam dam dam ah wel

[Zloth]

Bah, do it on your second play-through.

Rush already has Remedies and Herbs, doesn't he? There's not much point in doing Lotions, then. He's already got two ways to rez/heal/restore. About the only thing he can't do is fix his own silence status.

[Zloth]

Some words on getting components....

Weapons (and shields) are upgraded by getting various components together. When Rush wants to upgrade, he goes to one of those hammer icon stores and uses the party inventory. It's different for party members, though - they have their own ideas on what to build (determined by those questions you answer about how they should focus). If you look at their 'check items' menu, you'll see what components they currently want. Unfortunately, you can't tell how many they currently NEED, just how many they want.

You can get these components in a few ways.

• Monster drops. You'll see these in your victory conditions. If you you would rather keep the component for yourself (or if you just want to hear the character complain) you can take their share away from them. Note that only one character will get a particular kind of drop. If Nora and Loki both need godwood timber and three drop the one of the characters will get 3 and the other will get 0.
  
• Monster splits. When you cut up a critter, EVERYONE gets a share if they need the item. So, in the above example, if you split up a monster and get three godwood timbers the Loki, Nora, AND your own inventory get three godwood timbers!
  
• Mr. Diggs - acts just like monster splits. If the little guy hauls out 3 divine metals then everybody who wants divine metal gets 3 plus 3 go into your inventory.
  
• Breaking up weapons - also acts like monster splits. The only problem is you don't have any clue what you're going to get. The Wikia can help there.
  
• Buying components.... sorta. If you buy components then the party members will NOT get a share. However, party members can buy components themselves! I'm not real sure how that works (nor is the Wikia[lastremnant.wikia.com] but I do know that characters are somehow upgrading weapons without the help of Mr. Diggs or anything else I am doing. So you might be able to upgrade party weapons simply by popping around the towns and checking store inventories!

What does not work is having components on hand when the character decides s/he wants them. I think there are a couple of gameplay reasons for that. First, if you are saving up for a weapon for Rush, you aren't going to be happy if Dave suddenly takes a component you've been saving up. Second, in hard mode you get to keep all the components you had in your first play through so you can give Rush a super weapon. If anyone could dip into the party inventory then everyone would be getting super weapons in hard mode play-throughs and the game wouldn't be very hard any more.

[Zloth]

Oops, you're right! You don't have any clue when you are buying a weapon but it does tell you before you break it up.

[Zloth]

Jeez, how could I forget to put some help in for keyboard pompts!? Well, it's there now.

Another nice page on the Wikia covers tweaking the ini files. Decreasing texture pop-in is particularly handy. See: http://lastremnant.wikia.com/wiki/PC_Tweaking

[Seedling]

Don't forget to save regularly! As in, make a save for each dungeon as you enter it... I didn't at first (I enabled auto-save, but it doesn't make any), so when I did my first quest (save some yama 'kid' from some desperate bandits, or is it the other way around? ;), and forgot to get some units at the guild, I ended up losing on first turn, then.. game over.