The Last Remnant

The Last Remnant

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Advanced Strategy Guide
By Zloth
Advanced strategy and tactics advice for The Last Remnant. No story spoilers.
   
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Training Up
Little by little, I'm becoming stronger
--Caedmon

Obviously the main goal of your battle is to defeat the enemy without getting yourself kilt! But there's another purpose underlying almost every other battle in the game - learning. This is a game where your characters learn skills by using them and doing so is absolutely critical.

Sometimes characters will learn a new skill or skill level right in the middle of battle but most of the learning is done at the end of the battle, as are the stat increases for your characters. Dead characters, however, don't get to learn and don't get skill boosts.

For this reason, you don't want people dead at the end of the battle! Dying in a battle isn't so bad (though it does mean missed turns which means few chances at learning) but having an entire union dead at the end of a battle hurts. It's going to happen from time to time but try to keep it at a minimum. Don't just leave characters lying there when you're clearly going to win anyway.

You also should try to keep the 'remnant powers' like Rush's Omnistrike and David's Gae Bolg down to a minimum. They are very effective and should certainly be used if you're in a difficult battle but don't make a habit of using them. Why? Because those powers are going to get stronger regardless of whether you use them or not. It's better to use something that can advance and take a little longer doing it as long as your victory is already secure.
Critical Triggers
The wonderful thing about triggers is that triggers are wonderful things!
-- Me, after pooh pooh'ing too many database designs

Occasionally in a battle the action will slow down and you'll be prompted to hit a key/button - a quick time event. The game gives you the option to turn these things off and let the computer do them automatically but I really recommend you keep them on. First, this gives you something to do while the battle is going on. Second, the automatic ratio is just 80% - you can likely do a lot better than that. Third and most important, you don't always WANT to succeed!

Say you've got an enemy just about defeated and one of your mystics finally gets to use the Bewitch spell you've been wanting to improve. The battle starts and the union you've set to just use normal attacks gets a critical trigger. If you hit those triggers, the enemy isn't going to survive long enough for your mystic to fire that Bewitch off! If you've got the triggers turned on you can simply miss them on purpose and your mystic will get the practice he/she/it deserves.

This is even more important for critical evades. Counter-attacks do MASSIVE damage which can be a real godsend in difficult battles but they can also end a battle while you've still got a lot of people taking dirt naps. When you control the triggers yourself, you can decide what to do yourself.

Note: If you are using the keyboard to play, make sure you go into the options under the gamepad section and set the UI to display keyboard keys! Otherwise the game is going to tell you to push the yellow Y button instead of the up arrow (or whatever you have mapped) when critical triggers happen.
Keeping Your Chin Up
Steady there! -- Blocter


The biggest factor in battles that new players tend to miss is morale. There's just a big bar over the top of the screen that moves toward the right if things are going well and toward the left if things are going bad. The effect that bar has, though, is a pretty big deal. Roughly speaking, you take about half as much damage and deal out twice as much when your morale bar is at max compared to when it is flashing red. What's more, your chances of getting critical triggers are much higher, which allows you to do even more damage and do some critical evades.

Morale typically feeds back on itself. When morale is low you take more damage so more unions get defeated. When unions are defeated, you take a morale penalty. What's more, having fewer unions standing means you're more likely to get flanked which gives another morale penalty. Left on its own, battles that start off well tend to keep going well and battles that start off bad tend to get worse.

The way out is via character skills. The psionic arts start right off with a power called Bluff that can really turn a battle around. Hexes have a couple at the higher levels that can help a bit. Traps have some good ones, too, but they will cost you some cash to use.
How Much can you Chew?
That's quite the gambit. -- Allan

Early in the game Rush gets the ability to do a little time warping. This allows you to attack multiple groups of monsters at the same time. You want to do this and you want to do this a bunch!

You see, this game is pretty good about rewarding you according to how challenging a battle is. If you are taking on monsters individually then expect weak rewards. If you are challenging yourself by taking on several at a time then you'll get better rewards. If you take on too many, you will die. But then you'll just reload. ;)

Remember that you can 'pull' enemies to an extent. If you hit your attack button when you aren't in attack range then enemies will get mad and chase you. You can then lead them to some other group of enemies and link them all up into one big battle. This is very handy when fighting enemies you can defeat pretty easily and I've also used it quite a bit to pull one or two enemies close to a rare monster.

Here's a tip that I didn't discover until recently - the order you bring down enemies matters. The things killed last get better reward rolls than the things killed first. So, if you're hunting down monster parts for weapons, be sure to save the monsters with the parts you need for the end of the battle.
Controlling Command Choices
No, the other one! The other one!! -- Loki

One of the things that can really drive people crazy in this game is the command list randomization. You'll want to use some sort of command (probably healing) and it just won't come up as an option! The command list IS somewhat random but it isn't nearly as random as people think. Two big factors affect it: the situation and your union's leader.

The situation factor is pretty self explanatory. You aren't going to get commands to clear bad status effects when nobody is under a bad status effect. It can get a bit frustrating when you get no heal commands even though you know that somebody is going to be getting hurt but the game can only give you commands based on what is happening at the time, not what you think is going to be happening soon.

The leader factor is one where you have a lot more control. Every character has a class and many of the classes cause commands to become more common. Basically, if you've got a character leading a union that has been attacking with weapons a lot then weapon arts commands are going to come up more often. So, if you're wanting to use a lot of mystic attacks in a battle, have characters that do spells be the leader. If you're up against a single target, put the weapon focused characters in the lead.

There are some classes that get special commands. Rangers, for instance, can get the "Strike from the sides" command to pop up. This command lets you flank an enemy that is deadlocked by another union. No big deal against normal enemies that get flanked by the second attacking union anyway but against bosses that can deadlock two or even three unions this command can be real handy. The full list of classes and their effects can be found on the Wikia[lastremnant.wikia.com].

You can also control commands a lot by simply turning off powers for characters. This is particularly true for Rush, who can get every art in the game. Do this on the character screen. (Just don't forget that you've done it!)

Also, as mentioned in my "Things I wish I had known" guide - if the option to heal or revive with herbs isn't appearing at all, it probably means you've run out of a required component. There's no warning when you run out of components for an item-based skill; it just stops showing up as a possible action.

FInally, the commands for attacking unions change for each enemy union. If you don't like what you were dealt, try targeting another group.
Autonomy
Characters try to do what you tell them to do but sometimes they will be stuck on standbye. Often times they will do just that - stand there and do nothing but generate action points. Sometimes they will actually do something handy, though.

I think you'll see the biggest effect of this with healing and support effects. When you tell a union to heal/revive another union it's pretty common to be able to heal that union up in one shot. After that, characters will often reassess the situation and start healing themselves or use status effect boosters (potions, wards, double time...) to buff up the healed union.

This is actually why I so strongly recommend having a character that can revive and a character that can heal in each union. It's pretty easy to get revive powers that leave the revived union in pretty good shape. So, if you've managed to set this situation up, you can always revive unions using the union that is most hurt at the time. The reviver will revive the KO'ed union and the healer will heal the union that's doing the reviving. Now you've got two unions in good shape! (And, if the wounded union was deadlocked, an enemy union looking to raidlock them.)

There is one big situation where your people won't do what you tell them - the arcana arts. If you fire off a combination of the right magics, your spells will combine into a spell that hits the entire battle field (much like David's Gae Bolg)! I consider the "ingredients" to the arcana arts to be a bit spoilerish so, if you want to find out about them, head to the Wikia and search on Arcana. Here's a quick video of one:
They can clear a battle field fast. Just keep in mind that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Some enemies can use these things, too.
Many Unions or Few?
I know size isn't everything but... -- Darien

It's amazing how much difference this question makes. Early in the game you only have two or three unions max anyway but once it lets you have four unions, you have to start thinking. Is it best to keep your characters together or should you spread them out into several unions? This calls for some intense bullet pointing!

Trade-offs
  • Bigger groups defend much better against single target attacks. Smaller groups defend somewhat better against area of effect attacks.
  • Bigger groups generate more action points (AP), allowing characters to use more expensive skills. Having more groups, however, means more group leaders, which means you'll have better control over more characters.
  • You have to have 5 people in a group to get the most advanced formations with the most bonuses. If you have fewer people in a group, though, you can sometimes leave the slots with the worst penalties empty.
Pro big-group:
  • Bigger groups mean more hit points, which improves defense against single target attacks massively.
  • If you've got critical triggers turned on (which I hope you do), having more people in a group means a higher chance of the triggers kicking in and a higher chance that the last person to attack will upgrade from a normal attack to something more impressive.
  • Once you get past the initial hours of play and get more area of effect healing/rezzing powers, it's a lot easier to heal a few big groups than a bunch of small ones. It's also easier to satisfy my "one rezzer and one healer per group" suggestion.
Pro many-groups:
  • Area of effect attacks don't hurt quite as bad.
  • Having more groups means you can target more enemies. That lets you flank more when you are up against fewer enemies and deadlock more when up against several (which keeps you from getting flanked).
  • Similarly, having more groups means you can give more commands. If you've got two groups of 5 and one falls, your next turn will probably have one character rez and one heal while the other 8 people do nothing. If you have 3, 3, and 4 and the group of 4 falls then you'll have one characte rez, one heal, 5 do nothing, and 3 get to keep attacking.

    I will say that the smallest union I would recommend is three. Having just one or two in a union makes it terribly hard to get enough AP built up to do a serious attack and such a small union would be pretty hard to keep alive. Plus you need two critical triggers in a row to get an attack upgrade.
40 Comments
Zloth  [author] 18 Apr, 2024 @ 6:51pm 
Thanks!
Ilmatar 18 Apr, 2024 @ 8:07am 
Seeing this guide for the first time. It may be a decade old, but most of this is correct and valuable. Nice write up : )
Ragnaman 28 Feb, 2023 @ 3:11am 
Those darn QTE often just tell me I missed even though i clearly hit the darn keys. QTE should die in a fire forever from gaming.
Sysgen 17 Sep, 2022 @ 11:05am 
By having Vertical Triggers turned on I assume you mean set to auto. I would advise against this as you mostly become an observer. Manual triggers heavily immerses and invests you in the game.
Stormo 10 Aug, 2022 @ 4:57am 
He means the red vertical M bar in the unit's display window. No one really knows, it's assumed that this is individual union morale, but it's not quite clear.
Zloth  [author] 14 Dec, 2018 @ 6:25pm 
That's what the "Keeping your chin up" section is about.
ZeUs 14 Dec, 2018 @ 6:11pm 
moral of union
Zloth  [author] 14 Dec, 2018 @ 5:27pm 
?? I don't see anything vertical or orange??
FineMouche16 [FR] 14 Dec, 2018 @ 12:56pm 
what uis the M orange vertical bar in the hud ?
Zloth  [author] 24 Sep, 2017 @ 11:53am 
Thanks!