What's up with all the Rush hate in this thread? From one of the very early scenes, where Emma shoves him and he cowers and acts all confused, I knew I was going to enjoy watching him bumble through the game.
Not sure what the Remnants thought they were going to achieve by sending a baby to liberate them though. Did their plan to create a liberator in the form of a docile kitten also fail?
For anyone who isn't already aware, there is a bizarrely extensive tool for this game available here.
It made me realize how I absolutely loathe the RNG of the context-sensitive battle commands and the strength of the Crits in this game.
I had to level up some after the first dozen or so times I slammed my head against the wall of this fight, and even then I won through a fluke.
My entire game plan hinged on whether my mage union is graciously given the option to just annihilate a flanking enemy union with a bombardment of long range spells as their first action, and/or getting a Crit chain or two so that the rest could get wiped out with one round of combat by my melee union.
If I don't hit the effectively binary diceroll to kill my flankers with my more offensive unions in 1, maybe 2 turns of combat, my more supportive union can't keep the CPU meatshield allies alive long enough to combine all my forces before the boss mows everyone down with an AoE. So may as well restart the fight there.
"Last Remnant, may I please mortar my enemies on my first turn?"
LR: "lol no, don't feel like it right now"
I think the one thing that really wore me down as I was playing it was searching for specific enemies to kill for either quests or materials. Spawning things came down to entering, running through a few screens to see if it is there, and then exiting if it wasn't. This became almost all I did as I was trying to get everyone's weapons to their final forms and all quests completed in the last stage of the game.
Loved this game despite some faults (I mean my username doesn't give it away does it?). Absolutely ridiculous they haven't made a sequel and improved on the originals foundation.
This is easily one of the worst games I played last gen. I got about halfway through the game before I got fed up and gave it away to a friend. The game lacked interesting characters, had a predictable plot, and god that battle system was plagued by bad design choices. The game basically played itself and the only REAL gameplay was the settings you chose for your units before going out into the field.
We won't even talk about the performance issues. Apparently the PC version is fine, to be fair.
Actually, there's one bit of design in The Last Remnant that I like a lot, and wish other games with big parties utilized it too.
Party members ask for the equipment in your inventory that's an upgrade to their gear, and ask you about future skill choices.
That's actually really neat and gives a lot of flavor to the squad management. You can't adjust these things yourself, which is a pity, but I prefer your party members being out of your control out of combat, rather than the same thing in combat
This is easily one of the worst games I played last gen. I got about halfway through the game before I got fed up and gave it away to a friend. The game lacked interesting characters, had a predictable plot, and god that battle system was plagued by bad design choices. The game basically played itself and the only REAL gameplay was the settings you chose for your units before going out into the field.
We won't even talk about the performance issues. Apparently the PC version is fine, to be fair.
This part is very false. But I don't blame you for thinking that because as we established in the thread up to this point, the game doesn't explain itself one bit.
One of my favorite games, but I don't blame anyone for disliking it, lol. The game tells you fuck all about itself.
Actually never completed it, only made it to the halfway-point 3 times (my bad habit of starting a game from the beginning after getting side-tracked with something else for some time), but I got farther, found more optional content and got more familiar with the systems each time.
The soundtrack is awesome, the battle system is amazing and I really like its progression system. Not entirely fond of the BR system, but I didn't care about the "you shouldn't fight" advices much and still made it past Nest of Eagles just fine. But maybe I fucked up something later down the line, who knows
Welcome to the wacky world of Akitoshi Kawazu! Pretty much all the games he's involved in have the same sorts of things you complain about here, going back to Final Fantasy II and its "beating up your own party is the best way to get stronger" system of leveling. You either find some fondness for his eccentricity or are baffled by its obtuseness.
Yeah! Final Fantasy II was his big break before Square gave him his own series so his wackiness could be kept away from the main Final Fantasy games. Learning-by-doing is a key element in the SaGa series down to the present day.
Yeah! Final Fantasy II was his big break before Square gave him his own series so his wackiness could be kept away from the main Final Fantasy games. Learning-by-doing is a key element in the SaGa series down to the present day.
I've heard about the SaGa games and Last Remnants similarity to them in terms of progression, but I've yet to play one. Eventually I'll check one out, haha.
Saga games are inherently obtuse about their mechanics and TLR is essentially a Saga game. I can understand the barrier in this game being a real detriment if you aren't familiar with that series, but I really loved TLR, at least the PC version which was a massive improvement over the really flawed 360 release.
There's nothing to fix on the PC, the leveling system works as designed. The OP is misrepresenting it a fair bit, you don't need to go out of your way to do anything odd. Unless you're grinding against weak mobs you won't run into issues. Doing weird power leveling stuff is only needed for bonus bosses.
This part is very false. But I don't blame you for thinking that because as we established in the thread up to this point, the game doesn't explain itself one bit.
I remember you can order units to attack/defend against other units and do other things but they never got really specific. You could order a heal but who gets healed was totally up to the game's discretion. It's been a while, but that's what I remember.
I also remember the difficulty spikes being pretty nuts. You'd reach a boss and it would be so much more difficult than everything leading up to it that you would have to grind for hours and hours. I know this is par for the course for JRPGs, especially at the time. But, it was egregious in TLR.
I managed to beat it without guides, without skipping a fight, even beat a sideboss dragon/demon that was supposedly very hard. I grinded a lot for mats so my characters were actually strong but the difficulty was thru the roof in the end.
I got all the achievements for this game on the 360. It's pretty easy if you follow a guide. Not very complicated, you just have to be aware of some quests and to do them before a certain point.
This was one of my favorite RPGs on the 360, if not my favorite one. People complain about the battle commands being unclear but I felt like everytime I chose something, it did exactly what I was expecting or something better for the most part. Like it was reading my damn mind or something.
I also really liked the leveling up system. It made me feel like even small worthless battles weren't really a waste of time.
This game has fuggin' awesome music too.
Also, I bought this game on Steam for $1 through a green man gaming deal.
I remember enjoying the story and the main characters (Rush, David, Irina), but the ending is kinda a wet fart. I was actually expected the game to go on for another 10 hours or so instead it just... ends.
Overall OK game, I wouldn't recommend it in particular, but it's pleasant enough to play, I suppose.
This game was a lot of fun, for reasons already stated. I didn't really use a guide so I was really surprised at how the world kept expanding and expanding with new dungeons and quests and characters. I think most Japanese RPGs have overall gotten considerably smaller in scope since the transition to HD consoles, but The Last Remnant is one of the few that still managed to make the setting feel very large.
If nothing else I'm glad we basically managed to get at least one SaGa game on a console last generation. I'd be totally down for a sequel since Square Enix has been somewhat open to giving games they made last gen that failed a second shot, but that's probably not happening.
Loved this game despite some faults (I mean my username doesn't give it away does it?). Absolutely ridiculous they haven't made a sequel and improved on the originals foundation.
Because this game isnt popular, thats why it didnt get a sequel and there isnt a lot of forum discussion about this, except for this thread. With games like Nier you encountered a lot of LTTP threads every month. With the Last Remnant the only thread is this one and the official one when it was released.
Still I like when Square Enix create games like this, its very experimental. They need to do this more. They are playing it on safe lately.
- The leveling system
The way leveling is handled is the single worst design flaw in this game. It's overly-complicated and ends up being more punishing than it should (and apparently it was much worse in the Xbox 360 version!). Here's a quick summary from the Wikia page:
The bolded part is the issue. Leveling up in this game doesn't make your characters stronger. Stats and arts are improved by repeated use of combat/mystic arts in battle. So that's the problem: you only want to engage in long battles (i.e., boss fights and rare monsters), because all of your characters will be able to improve their arts/stats. If you play the game "normally," you will engage in many battles that end rather quickly, which will not give all your characters enough chances to use their arts, which leads to you having an underpowered party. Therefore, the "optimal" way to play this game is to avoid every non-boss mob in the game that isn't a necessary fight for a quest. There are notable exceptions to this rule for those in the know, two of which include cheesing sidequests to either link a bunch of instantly respawning mobs at once or infinitely respawn a rare dragon, and one of which is an area where you can also link a bunch of mobs together to powergrind. Obviously a regular player will not know about any of that... because who expects that the best way to play an RPG is to avoid 90% of the enemies in the game, except in extremely specific circumstances? You can still beat the main quest (though some parts will likely be very difficult) if you don't play the "optimal" way, but you will almost certainly find some of the sidequest/optional bosses impossible to beat. If you want to beat all the rare/optional bosses, including the true form of the final boss, you are basically required to follow a guide (like this one), all of which include keeping your BR low and leveling certain arts (most importantly the hex Cachexia). The creator of that guide, who obviously loves this game, nevertheless had this to say near the end:
Yeah. It's just far too easy to fuck yourself over in this game. Not to mention it puts a damper on the whole experience when you're trying to avoid most of the battles, and makes exploring areas much more annoying because you're constantly running away from mobs.
I'm quoting this part specifically because it's something that drove me insane when playing this on the PC not too long ago. Not only that it exists, but that there's a lot of conflicting information about whether or not it's a concern with the PC version, it's pretty sparse even on the wiki. A lot of the material surrounding the game is based on the earlier console games where, yes, it seems to have been a big issue, to the point that Low BR runs were almost required, but a lot of PC information either conflated that sentiment or was the opposite, literally level any way you like because it no longer matters.
In the end I just played the way I wanted, I ended up skipping battles anyway because honestly I found the game to be very tedious. I really hated how they expected you to grind items for upgrades, especially if it was from those rare spawning monsters. I remember farming that big gold dragon, zoning in and out, in and out over and over before giving up after several kills and moving on. To be honest I can't remember much of the specifics I think I purged most of it from memory.
edit: I agree with your sentiment, it had so much potential to be amazing but never managed to capitalize on it, but for those that did enjoy it I can understand why you do.
Because this game isnt popular, thats why it didnt get a sequel and there isnt a lot of forum discussion about this, except for this thread. With games like Nier you encountered a lot of LTTP threads every month. With the Last Remnant the only thread is this one and the official one when it was released.
Still I like when Square Enix create games like this, its very experimental. They need to do this more. They are playing it on safe lately.
You don't have to skip loads of battles to complete all the side content. I played on the 360 version, completed everything, and I levelled up my BR quite a bit. The PC version is *much* more forgiving as well.
Utterly love the game though just due to the battle system.
I was always interested in this game but the OP put me off completely...I hate games where you can fuck up your save like that especially a long RPG. Thanks for the warning I guess
This isn't really true though. The game encourages you to rope in as many on-screen encounters as you can to maximize your gains from the battle. There is even a Blue Dragon-like circular ring that you can activate to get into a fight with multiple mobs at once, like you said. I dunno, I did a ton of single fights and group fights. I would still get small stat buffs from single mob encounters every now and then. Your allies HP can also go up from getting hit I believe.
Unless you're saying you get the most gains from taking the most damage possible. Even then though, there are some hard ass battles and it seems like it'd be ill-advised to go in without any grinding.
I personally really like this type of leveling system. You get credit for everything you do, including getting hit.
I didn't have any problems whatsoever with this game in terms of "messing" up my build and I did 0 research on how to grow my skills. I ended up using a 2 handed sword the whole game. It is possible to screw up your skills, but I wouldn't worry about it unless you're very confused the whole way through.
This isn't really true though. The game encourages you to rope in as many on-screen encounters as you can to maximize your gains from the battle. There is even a Blue Dragon-like circular ring that you can activate to get into a fight with multiple mobs at once, like you said. I dunno, I did a ton of single fights and group fights. I would still get small stat buffs from single mob encounters every now and then. Your allies HP can also go up from getting hit I believe.
Unless you're saying you get the most gains from taking the most damage possible. Even then though, there are some hard ass battles and it seems like it'd be ill-advised to go in without any grinding.
I personally really like this type of leveling system. You get credit for everything you do, including getting hit.
I didn't have any problems whatsoever with this game in terms of "messing" up my build and I did 0 research on how to grow my skills. I ended up using a 2 handed sword the whole game. It is possible to screw up your skills, but I wouldn't worry about it unless you're very confused the whole way through.
That whole part directed at the leveling system only really applies to the 360 release, in the PC version there's very little need to avoid enemies en mass or do specialized grinding. Yeah there are tricks or exploits one can use to level faster, but that's fairly common in games.
That whole part directed at the leveling system only really applies to the 360 release, in the PC version there's very little need to avoid enemies en mass or do specialized grinding. Yeah there are tricks or exploits one can use to level faster, but that's fairly common in games.
Ah well, I only really have played the 360 version extensively and that's what I was referencing from my post. I wasn't aware it was better to play a certain way. I played it like any ole RPG and I felt pretty strong by the end of the game. I even got the 1000/1000. But like you said, you could exploit if you wanted but there really isn't much of a need as long as you aren't avoiding battling like the plague.
I mostly play these kinds of games for the gameplay so I wasn't exactly shy of fighting considering the opportunities to get small stat gains from most battles.
But yeah, good point. Most people will likely be playing the PC version so they shouldn't worry anyway.
I love JRPGs and will usually find at least some enjoyment when playing a game in the genre. Hell, I even liked Legaia 2 Duel Saga.
The Last Remnant though was one of the few I just couldn't stay interested in. (Well, Infinite Undiscovery is even worse). I actually thought the game had someone brilliant ideas though, so I was rather bummed that I disliked it so much.
I think it's awesome that some love the game though. I loved Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter even though it's despised by many.
I love JRPGs and will usually find at least some enjoyment when playing a game in the genre. Hell, I even liked Legaia 2 Duel Saga.
The Last Remnant though was one of the few I just couldn't stay interested in. (Well, Infinite Undiscovery is even worse). I actually thought the game had someone brilliant ideas though, so I was rather bummed that I disliked it so much.
I think it's awesome that some love the game though. I loved Breath of Fire Dragon Quarter even though it's despised by many.
The real shame is that games like this, Infinite Undiscovery, Eternal Sonata, and so on were the JRPGs being released during the PS3/360 era. And when they failed miserably--because they were terrible games-- they basically took the genre with with them.
JRPGs are basically considered near untenable now for big-budget releases and almost no one makes them anymore, and these duds are partly why.
Nest of Eagles can be made stupidly easy though. Have your entire army do nothing for 2 turns, David's Gae Bolg becomes usable just after the 2 enemy reinforcements come in, everything but the 2 bosses die and every union except David's has a nice stock of AP to spam abilities on them.
My main strategy for big bosses was a bit scummy though. Send all unions in to attack so my last one gets a flank attack, then withdraw on all but my strongest union and the flanking union. The strong union still has to deal with the boss' turn, but for some reason the union with the flanking bonus (boss doesn't get a turn) stays active..So instead of dealing with 3 boss attacks per turn I only have 1 while still dealing decent damage, the other 2 unions just go on heal/rez/status duty.
The real shame is that games like this, Infinite Undiscovery, Eternal Sonata, and so on were the JRPGs being released during the PS3/360 era. And when they failed miserably--because they were terrible games-- they basically took the genre with with them.
JRPGs are basically considered near untenable now for big-budget releases and almost no one makes them anymore, and these duds are partly why.
The real shame is that games like this, Infinite Undiscovery, Eternal Sonata, and so on were the JRPGs being released during the PS3/360 era. And when they failed miserably--because they were terrible games-- they basically took the genre with with them.
JRPGs are basically considered near untenable now for big-budget releases and almost no one makes them anymore, and these duds are partly why.
FFXV and Dragon Quest XI are small time? SMT HD Project? Nier Automata (which has probably around the same budget as those you mentioned)? Persona 5? They're still getting made.
The real shame is that games like this, Infinite Undiscovery, Eternal Sonata, and so on were the JRPGs being released during the PS3/360 era. And when they failed miserably--because they were terrible games-- they basically took the genre with with them.
JRPGs are basically considered near untenable now for big-budget releases and almost no one makes them anymore, and these duds are partly why.
Aside from that, The Last Remnant is a lot better than Infinite Undiscovery and Eternal Sonata. The story isn't anything to write home about but I found its gameplay to be miles deeper than those 2 games. I especially hate Eternal Sonata.
This was a time of crappy jRPGs though. I would probably replace TLR with Enchanted Arms. Although, I felt a lot of HD games were worse at this time. FFXIII was super linear and had lot less features, DMC4 had a main character who only really had one weapon, and Dante had way less weapons, plus his levels were mostly backtracking, RE5 didn't leave nearly the same mark as 4 did.
I just remember the beginning of the HD era for consoles as being the worst for games in a long time. I really hated how certain games were giving us less modes and features than even previous games in certain series. It's almost like they were under the impression that nuance and depth isn't what players really wanted. They want straight forward paths the whole game and no sidequests or optional content.
FFXV and Dragon Quest XI are small time? SMT HD Project? Nier Automata (which has probably around the same budget as those you mentioned)? Persona 5? They're still getting made.
As for the others: 1 or 2 high budget games every few years isn't exactly a healthy environment. Remember, Dragon Quest X was a 3DS game. Pretty much the only two companies making major JRPGs--particularly turn based ones--are Atlus and Square, who only infrequently. (Both have been increasing their recently, but it remains to be seen if it keeps up.) You can't pin the entire genre on two companies and say everything's okay.
In hindsight, this is in my top 3 favorite JRPGs of last gen (other 2 being WEWY and Radiant Historia). Really loved the combat system and building up my army (360 version, so it was mostly made of generic soldiers I had to switch in-and-out of the parties based on my needs, rather than all unique characters).
Nest of Eagles can be made stupidly easy though. Have your entire army do nothing for 2 turns, David's Gae Bolg becomes usable just after the 2 enemy reinforcements come in, everything but the 2 bosses die and every union except David's has a nice stock of AP to spam abilities on them.
That is indeed a nice cheesy tactic, but I didn't get my Gae Bolg command and the like until right before Gates of Hell, because I didn't know the Unique Art user had to be the union leader.
In my formations, David and Rush were better served in their unions few units down the list, supporting the more consistent heavy hitters.
Going to edit in something I forgot to put in the "bad things" list: the fact that if a unit/union is dead at the end of the battle, they get zero experience. I'm surprised I forgot to originally post it, because man oh man did that piss me off.
If you're comparing purely on the abstract quality of the world, this is absolutely true. I'm looking at how the gameplay and overall experience in the particular game is mediated by the world. TLR's design isn't anything "special" per se, but in the context of the game's combat systems, the wealth of sidequests, the customization systems, etc. it worked very well -- never so big it feels pointless to engage with, not so flat or linear that every area feels the same, populated with real locations and hand-placed loot in a way that makes exploring worthwhile, etc. Compare FFXII, whose maps are filled with entirely gratuitous complication and almost never have any reason to actually explore them outside a hunt request.
I remember enjoying the story and the main characters (Rush, David, Irina), but the ending is kinda a wet fart. I was actually expected the game to go on for another 10 hours or so instead it just... ends.
I'm quoting this part specifically because it's something that drove me insane when playing this on the PC not too long ago. Not only that it exists, but that there's a lot of conflicting information about whether or not it's a concern with the PC version, it's pretty sparse even on the wiki. A lot of the material surrounding the game is based on the earlier console games where, yes, it seems to have been a big issue, to the point that Low BR runs were almost required, but a lot of PC information either conflated that sentiment or was the opposite, literally level any way you like because it no longer matters.
No kidding. Even in this thread there's people saying conflicting things about BR being an issue or not. I'm gonna go back to my last save before the final boss and raise my BR by doing a bunch of "normal" battles (chaining multiple enemies but not cheesing sidequests or rare monsters) and see how it affects the gameplay.
I was always interested in this game but the OP put me off completely...I hate games where you can fuck up your save like that especially a long RPG. Thanks for the warning I guess
Well if you don't mind sticking to a guide then you'll be fine. But as I said in the OP, if you play "normally" without a guide you'll most likely be able to beat the main quest, but some of the sidequest/optional bosses are probably going to seem impossible.
As someone who beat the 360 AND the PC version, this game is awesome on both systems. Practically 2 different games even, with the changes they made.
Anyone who thinks the battle system is completely random is wrong, but it's not completely their fault because the game gives everybody the middle finger when it comes to "here's how the game works."
It's sad that we'll never get a sequel to this game, because I love the world, the lore, and kinda the characters too in a way. Actually, that's pretty much the best part of the story and if someone were to play just the main plot I think they'd miss a huge chunk of it (among other things). Also cat people with 4 arms is just awesome.
I don't think someone who can't keep different Dragon Quest games straight should be derailing a single-game thread with irrelevant and inaccurate rants about what "killed" the JRPG genre.
I had a decent time with this game, but I'll admit I had no idea what I was doing half the time. Sometimes I won, sometimes I lost, but I pretty much never knew why.
He's mature beyond his years, intelligent, bold, and repeatedly goes all in to either keep his word or protect his land (and the world). He's a poised leader but still acts human and shows emotion. In battle he may not end up being among the most powerful leaders, but his Gae Bolg remnant art is an absolute lifesaver sometimes, especially in one of the hardest story battles (Nest of Eagles). It also helps that his English voice actor's (Jason Liebrecht) performance stood out as the best of the cast.
I found the optional bosses to be pretty tame. There were none you couldn't just go grind for, and even if you didn't you could just keep attempting them over and over until RNG went your way.
Having to rely on luck to win a battle is really lame. That's why people made those extremely specific guides (building toward having Psionic and Cachexia users in every union for morale and enemy AP control), so they don't have to keep losing until RNG gifts them a victory. And that's kinda my problem: you either have to get lucky with some of those super hard bosses, or you have to use a specific strategy. Better game design would have allowed for more flexibility.
I didn't have a place to put this in the OP, but I wanted to give a special shout-out to my favorite character: David Nassau.
He's mature beyond his years, intelligent, bold, and repeatedly goes all in to either keep his word or protect his land (and the world). He's a poised leader but still acts human and shows emotion. In battle he may not end up being among the most powerful leaders, but his Gae Bolg remnant art is an absolute lifesaver sometimes, especially in one of the hardest story battles (Nest of Eagles). It also helps that his English voice actor's (Jason Liebrecht) performance stood out as the best of the cast.
Having to rely on luck to win a battle is really lame. That's why people made those extremely specific guides (building toward having Psionic and Cachexia users in every union for morale and enemy AP control), so they don't have to keep losing until RNG gifts them a victory. And that's kinda my problem: you either have to get lucky with some of those super hard bosses, or you have to use a specific strategy. Better game design would have allowed for more flexibility.
This thread inspired me to start playing the game again. I love the combat so much; it easily makes up for the negative aspects of the game.
One question I have is: how did you guys build Rush? What did you have the most fun with? I'm currently building him as a hybrid combat/mystic arts character with sword and board. I don't know how it will work out though. I have this vague memory of having tried this exact same thing before and it didn't work out very well. Last time my brother played he just built him with two-handed lances and his Rush was a monster; he could decimate bosses in no time. Maybe I should try that out.
I downloaded the tool that GrimDarkDarrel posted a link to (http://enceler.github.io/tlrplanner/), and man I wish I had known about it earlier. It gives you a bunch of nice info. My favorite feature is that it tells you which mobs are currently on the map. I had fun this morning hunting down rare monsters that I had never fought, because most of the time rare monsters are extremely hard to spot (most are just off-colored reskins of regular mobs).
I also did some component gathering so I could craft some strong weapons early in a NG+ run, and that was a lot less fun. It's not just that some of the components are annoyingly rare drops from mobs, but the lack of quick-travel makes going in and out of the areas so goddamn tedious. Also, it gets really annoying that even the weakest mobs chase after you; if you can one-shot a union of monsters, those monsters should no longer aggro.
This thread inspired me to start playing the game again. I love the combat so much; it easily makes up for the negative aspects of the game.
One question I have is: how did you guys build Rush? What did you have the most fun with? I'm currently building him as a hybrid combat/mystic arts character with sword and board. I don't know how it will work out though. I have this vague memory of having tried this exact same thing before and it didn't work out very well. Last time my brother played he just built him with two-handed lances and his Rush was a monster; he could decimate bosses in no time. Maybe I should try that out.
On this first playthrough I built Rush as an invocation + item arts + remedies user. I kinda regret it. He is better off built as a combat + item arts user. (In NG+ it's a different story because if you got all the orbs, Rush will start with access to every type of art in the game, allowing you to have a hex/psionic/ward user from the start.) Pagus is available very early on and he's a far better invocation & remedies user anyway because of his high int, so I should have let him be the main nuker instead of Rush. I also built Caedmon as a evocation user and that was a mistake because he's way stronger as a combat arts user.
Finally finished the game again, after starting it over a week ago. It's still one of the most love/hate relationships I think I've ever had with a game that I've completed more than once too. Even if you take a master's course study on how to actually play the game, and despite the "nothing is random" comments you'll find, it really is too fucking random.
You might understand how to flank, and you might be able to weigh the outcome to your favor, but in the end it's still up to RNG.
You might understand how to make specific combat commands appear more often, but that too suffers too much from RNG. It's especially awful when you have a unit or two in a union dead, and you still have one or two units in each union (of five) that can either revive through mystic arts or item arts, or often both and the fight will continue for multiple turns without any "Clear those ailments" commands. "Heal yourself" or "Hang in there" doesn't do it, and only occasionally will "Give it all you've got" do it, or a random unit from another union might revive you if they have nothing better to do, because the enemy they were engaged with was killed before their action. Even with the "Clear those ailments" option, quite often a union will have a random, barely life threatening debuff on them, and that somehow gets priority over dead units. Now if an entire union is dead, that's easy enough to revive, but sometimes you can't even have unions with dead units die off, so you're screwed.
It's even more frustrating when the "Heal them" or "Save them" command will have unions heal another, yet skip reviving entirely. For no good reason.
I've had this shit happen for a whole seven turns on a very long boss fight, and one of my units completely missed out any experience because of it, even when I strung out the turns trying to get an option to revive.
There were also way too many "Are you fucking serious?" moments, where I'd be fighting an enemy union that could easily wipe me out if RNG was on their side (Multiple Poison Gas V + Permafrost V or Blaster > any big attack), and I would use the "Keep your health up" option, only to damage the enemy to a sliver of health, where one or two more hits would have finished it off while I was only missing five or ten percent of my own health and then the last unit would use Revitalize V. I might have initially been missing a lot more health, but then another union might have brought it back up before it was my union's turn to heal.
Besides that, I don't like how enemies get to not only attack during your turn, but then they also get their own turn. I guess it's a balancing thing since they can't really parry, but it still feels quite cheap at times. It also seems like enemies at lower health begin to dodge or block way more often as well.
Anyway, I also didn't find out about TLR Planner until slightly over the halfway mark, and I'd say it's almost mandatory now. It's too useful in such an obtuse and RNG specific game. Regardless, as I previously said, I only paid $5 for this game, and the character designs and combat animations were well worth more than that alone.
edit: Oh yeah, what drove me fucking nuts too was how certain units would prioritize something counter to their specialization. While trying to raise the mystic arts of the units in my mystic union, one in particular would repeatedly attack with his weapon, even though his skew was mystic based and I also had a huge surplus of AP. Zolean, who you can get relatively early in the second half of the game was learning new spells, or getting skill ups to existing spells at the most glacial pace I have ever seen, because he would attack seemingly over thirty percent of the time. That's while also leaving all of his Invocations and Hexes available. He was leveling so slowly that he didn't even learn Cachexia by the time I finished the game.
Beat The Fallen at BR 47, and was only that high because of trying to grind to Cachexia, which I had to eventually just do the fight without.
Pagus was doing the same thing for so long that I eventually just removed him from my union too.
