The Hard Mode Guide

The definitive Guide to the Last Remnant's Hard Mode. Includes survival methods against the toughest opponents, union composition and formation recommendations, mystic and combat arts viability assessments, and more!

Introduction

Congratulations! You are one of the few who have reached this stage of the Last Remnant! And that is no reference to the poor sales of the game...You are one of the few who have embarked on a considerably greater difficulty journey than the Normal Mode of the game offers.

To reach Hard Mode, you must first complete the game fully, watch all the credits (yes, you can't skip them stop asking me that), save game completion data, and then load it and answer "Yes" to Hard Mode.

This guide assumes a few things of the prospective reader:

• Indifference to any spoilers (you must have completed the game to even reach Hard Mode, so no worries there I should think)
  
• Some knowledge of the excellent Wiki found here http://lastremnant.wikia.com/wiki/The_Last_Remnant_Wiki_-_The_Last_Remnant_Guide
  
• Some knowledge of some of the other great Steam guides by Zloth for instance (nods in acknowledgment)
  
• Ability to not rage quit at the ultimately RNG machine at the heart of Last Remnant (War God IV 9999+ dmg to all anyone??)
  
• Love of the Last Remnant

For the purposes of this guide a considerable amount of information is not repeated from the Last Remnant Wiki, as well, you could just read the Wiki instead, no?

This guide was created out of sheer enjoyment of the game even 500 gaming hours after its purchase. Not bad for a 10 euro game, eh?

In the beginning

Preparations

Coming over from Normal Mode hopefully you would have stockpiled some components, collected most formations and magazines and achieved "Legendary Customization" level.

None of that is mandatory however. It just makes the transition from Normal to Hard Mode easier.

Union Leader choices and Weapon upgrades

Rush
First thing to do is deciding what you want to do with Rush. Is he going to be a poison-spewing Sage with the oh-so-useful Cachexia? Or will he be a backstabbing ultimate dual-wielding warrior Ninja? The choice is yours and you can succeed with almost doing anything with Rush.

Once you open up the Weapon Smiths and customizations, choose the best weapon for Rush you would like. Upgrade either to Superlative (= for Balanced classes) or Shielding (= for Combat classes) or Enchanted (= for Mystic classes) versions of the weapon. There are at best nominal differences between the weapon types. Yes, some are better suited for spellcasting than combat, and yes, some will have Weapon Arts, but I put it to you that for Rush with his Omnistrike, Talisman protection and Cyclops Summon (in addition to his other Arts) doesn't really need a Weapon Art. If going Mystic route, this goes without saying.

Just do what looks the coolest to you, you can't go wrong with Rush, the overpowered protagonist.

The Four Generals of Athlum
Blocter with his Wonder Bangle is a very useful Union Leader, as Animalcule and any status debuffs do not last until the next turn, might save yourself a "Game Over" screen by picking him.

Torgal gets the Remnant Brionac which grants him the Remnant Weapon Art "Lugh's Revenge" at high union morale, similar to Rush's Omnistrike. It is devastating and coupled with the fact that Torgal is a killing machine with his balanced stats (and especially STR) makes him a very viable leader indeed.

Pagus has Heartache (so what? get a new girl friend) and receives "Megalore" as his Remnant Weapon Art. Arguably not useful at all to a Mystic guru like Pagus who could learn Arcanas at his choosing that perform the same function only usually better (Blackout and especially Crimson Flare). Still, he gets a late-game Remnant Weapon called Ama-Gi, and his stats are solid to make him your Mystic Union leader if needed, or maybe better yet, a union companion to Rush as the leader.

Emmy is...incredible. Her Hundred Flowers Art triggers at low HP, which in Hard Mode happens as often as Rush is confused about story progression and says "Let's just kill stuff". And it hits hard usually. She might also have the highest STR growth I've seen out of any leader when choosing "Combat" specification for her. On top of everything, she gets a Remnant Summon Namul Niram, and she is a powerful Remedies healer. I kid you not, if you do not choose Emmy as one of your union leaders, you have just made Hard Mode even harder.

Honourable mentions
Irina gets a lot of scoff due to her underdeveloped combat arts and low STR but consider this. She gets the best stats weapon in the game, the Nightbloom, and she has Omnistrike which like Emmy's Hundred Flowers triggers at low HP. It is gold. Remember that you are invulnerable during the turn when casting the Unique Art, up until it is cast. She is also a great healer and morale controller with Remedies, Traps and Psionics. Nothing to scoff at.

Jager is always popular with the crowd. With good reason. A Unique Art Beowulf, with Schiavona his Remnant Weapon Art and Lob Omen his summon, there are plenty of reasons to like him. However, Beowulf triggers at a specific time only, when under high union morale and out of Deadlock, which makes it less useful than others. Yet he is a very viable union leader.

The Enlightened Seven is...well, an enlightened choice. If you think DLC usually breaks the balance of the game a little bit, this would be that DLC that broke the balance of the game a little bit. All of them are amazing with very very good weapons and stats and skills and unique arts. The only problem is...you have to defeat them to get them and then you need to train them. At that point in the game you usually just have the two Conquerors left to deal with.

Learning Arts and Skills

I could have called this section Grinding. But I didn't.

There are a few things we need to realise about the Last Remnant and BattleRank and level scaling.

1. It is perfectly OK to grind in this game, in fact it is a must for Hard Mode.
   
2. By grinding, we mean fighting normal mobs using the specific formation "Mystic Seal"
   
3. Doing "Low BR runs" is not recommended because it is not enjoyable, and there is no real reason to do so.
   
4. Level scaling for bosses does exist, but is mostly limited to skills (i.e. Conqueror learns "War God IV" at BR 112+)

Let us examine these statements further.

The Mystic Seal formation

The formation "Mystic Seal" nullifies physical attacks (when union member executes "Attack" command) and gimps Combat and Mystic Arts to about 10-20% effectiveness. Basically your unions will be dishing out about a tenth of their damage output capability. In return, you get an increase in defensive stats, DEF and M.DEF.

Where is the catch? Couple said formation with the knowledge about learning skills and arts. Basically every time you attack using a Combat or Mystic Art, you get more experience in learning new Arts and upgrading existing ones. You get less xp for merely choosing the Arts commands, and not even executing them. Even less xp is gained for Combat and Weapon arts just by using the "Attack" command.

With me? With Mystic Seal, you end up using Arts and skills far more frequently than if letting simple "Attack" commands do the damage. The end result is a well-oiled machine of destruction. In a normal formation.

You basically have to endure hardship to become experienced.

After a point in the game (past Fiery Idol) you can turn on Mystic Seal and see how it goes. If you keep dying, turn it off, and progress more in the story and get more/better union members and leaders until you can turn it on. Then turn it on, and leave it until you hit a wall (hello the Fallen and Ancient Ruins). At this time, you are a well-oiled killing machine with skills like Peerless Rift Cleaver V and Cachexia V in your arsenal.

Grinding advantages and disadvantages

What are the benefits of this approach? Well, you can play the game normally, progressing through it, doing all the sidequests and killing all mobs and enjoying the game whilst gaining skills at an increased rate so you can eventually destroy the hard bosses like the Fallen, the Lost, the Conquerors etc. In short you will be Arts-maximised per BattleRank, that is you will be at peak performance for any given BR.

What are the disadvantages? It will take longer to kill the enemy, occassionally you will die to normal mobs if you are not careful. You need to manage your items nearly after any dungeon and keep stocked up as you will be running through items like crazy.

Alternatives

Aveclyff landworm grinding - this well known grinding techique is really only useful for the specific BR range that makes stat growth peak, i.e. <BR32 or similar. Beyond that there is little stat growth. On the plus side, you get an additional exp modifier from linking more than 350 battlechains. If you couple this method with the Mystic Seal method, it is a very fast way of learning Arts. However, it also entirely boring and you miss out on Glenys throughout this time. If you really really want to spend your time not progressing in the game at all, be my guest, spend hours "grinding" worms.

Bai Ze grinding - Killing Bai Ze over and over again is also appealing because you get an additional exp modifier from dying many times in a battle (which a low BR team will do). The problem is not gaining skills quickly enough versus BR and not being able to use the Mystic Seals formation early on.

In summary, I recommend you play most of the game with the Mystic Seal formation. It's more challenging and more rewarding at the same time. Win win!

Survival Techniques

Unique Arts

These give you a period of immortality coupled with insane damage output. This is also the sole reason why I recommend leaders like Irina and Emmy to be some of your union leaders as their Arts, Omnistrike and Hundred Flowers are triggered by low HP, making them unkillable until they offload that amount of damage. This will prove crucial in some boss fights.

The "One-in-One-Out" vulnerability

If you are facing foes that use Overdrive (the ability to attack multiple times in a row), pay heed to this ♥♥♥♥♥ in their armour.

Let's start with 5 unions, all free non-Deadlocked.

Send 2 unions to fight. Most likely, the first union got slaughtered, but the second union gets a free pass. No retaliation from the foe.

Next turn, you have 1 Deadlocked union, 1 dead and 3 standing by/healing.

Send 1 union to attack. What will happen is the deadlocked union likely dies, but the union you sent to attack gets another free pass.

Rinse and repeat.

This is confirmed working with foes like the Observer, but it ceases to work in multi-deadlock mode. That is the first union does not die, and the second one enters multi-deadlock mode. Also, sometimes the foe "Raids" one of the standing by/healing unions and again if the foe does not kill them you enter multi-deadlock mode and are subject to retaliation.

Defeating the Observer at low BR with Mystic Seal is entirely possible using this method. This does not really work against bosses with a timelimit like the Fallen or the Lost and/or against bosses with End-of-Turn (EOT) attacks like the White Conqueror.

Cachexia and a slow formation

To nullify those EOT attacks of the Fallen and the Lost and the Conquerors, use Cachexia as the last thing in the turn.

To accomplish this you need something to slow down the mystic union. I recommend Mystic Henge, as it's only downside is 40% Speed, the rest are defensive benefits. This should hopefully guarantee you are not only the slowest member in the union, but also the slowest union in the party.

Again, casting Cachexia and then engaging the foe with another union nullifies the use of Cachexia in the first place as they replenish AP each turn.

Conclusion and Summary

• Upgrade all weapons for all characters yourself if possible
  
• Use Rush and Emmy as leaders, with Irina as an honourable mention. The other two are up to you.
  
• Start using the Mystic Seal formation when possible to "grind" the Arts quicker.
  
• Stop using the Mystic Seal formation when you hit a wall like the Fallen. Switch to Mystic Henge/Trident formations.
  
• Grind Ancient Ruins for BR and stats after using the Mystic Seal grinding method for Arts.
  
• Always have Cachexia for the Fallen, the Lost and Conqueror battles, with the Mystic Henge formation.
  
• Kill the True Conqueror (Rank 8) at around 110 BR, which is the sweetspot for grinding Ancient Ruins. Grind more BR and stats if you cannot defeat him.

[rojimboo]

Thanks Zloth!

Casket seems useful too, especially if you rotate union leaders.

[Zloth]

Wow, that's a lot of Mystic Seal! I mostly just stuck with Casket formation (which covers the union leader in nerf but helps everyone else) to keep Rush from stealing all the kills.

Good guide!