Netbooks aren't meant for gaming!

Can I punch the idiot who's asking if LasuRemu will work on his netbook? Seriously... Speaking of which, I just got a netbook myself so I can type up my notes during class instead of writing them out. Kinda need to since my papers are getting a little on the messy side. Anyways... the requirements for LasuRemu aren't that demanding if you're just planning on running the game. If you want it to run very smoothly, then you'd need a lot more than the listed recommended specs. I have this feeling that I'm bottlenecking the GPU somehow, so I may need to look into that at some point. The resolution isn't really bothering me, so I'm good for now. Kinda pissed that Windows 7 Starter doesn't let me set my wallpaper, so currently stuck with this blank looking background. Bleh. A netbook just isn't strong enough to run the game anyways, so stop asking. By the way, it'll run on Windows 7. Or if you're crazy enough, just run it using the XP compatibility mode.


Progressed pretty quickly to the Aqueducts... Maybe a little too quickly? I haven't had the time to go looking for materials for those little soldiers. And... because of that, they're a little behind in their equipment. Well, not that it really matters because they're growing past their max (360) stats anyways. Still, they're taking a lot more damage than I had anticipated. Still, not that it really matters since all of them are quite capable to reviving, as long as I remember to let them revive. What I should do is never touch the "make the art unavailable" button and see what happens in my next run. But... that might screw over my Unique Leader run that I've been looking forward to doing all this time. Not to mention the recording at 1080p! I'm thinking about redoing the playthrough anyways, since the one that I recently did was really for testing purposes for the computer. Needless to say, it passed with flying colours. Still, recording at 1080p for the entire run is out of the question. Hard mode with the soldiers it is then! With no farming for components, and no need to show the grinding since that aspect of the game is boring to watch. And I'll throw in what the unique leaders are up to in the meantime.

So yeah... progressing quite well. Just cleaning up the side quests at the moment. Did all the ones concerning The Seven, so now I don't have to worry about recruiting them. Not that I'm going to end up using them anyways. They'll be needed for the Dragontail III formation, which grants a nice 200% ATK rating, for the next run, but it'd still be a while before they can even be used. The only ones that could be considered useful are Hinnah/Hannah (Shards, Twin Snowpetal), Ludope (Galaxy [Omni attribute, rarely seen], Arcana) and Milton (Wards, 10AP buff skill, and the fact that I don't have many people with Power Grip). Good thing I also have Cheat Engine installed to use the speed hack while traversing The Great Sand Sea, aka "the really, really, unnecessarily big obligatory desert stage."

I find the Grandhammer a rather amusing weapon to look at. It looks even too big for a yama to use properly~ Still, it's not a very good weapon considering the new PC stats. It's geared towards mystic users, but the ones that come with the weapon? Item users. Utterly useless for them, since their focus would be towards their item arts, or smacking the enemy with combat arts, which would favour higher ATK stats. Hm. Too bad it doesn't have an upgrade path that would lead to a better weapon path... Eh, whatever. They're mostly support units anyways. Good thing for my current run, I don't need certain skills to boost INT because it's absolutely pointless. Oh, and I'm definitely going to be struggling against a certain set of bosses. There's hardly any morale control since I'll only have access to the Traps users' Retreat/Rousing Flare and/or Pandora's Box, and there are only 3 of them. So much for morale... Might as well go all out with increasing my BR. At least the scaling isn't as bad as the 360 version... Or is it? It seems that the PC version monsters still hit a hell of a lot harder than the 360 version, and still longer to take down.

Of hockey and Sovanis...

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Torgal's upgrade paths are pissing me off. They go from Power to Speed to Power then back to Speed, and that affects the modifiers on his arts. But if I give him the weapons, then he'd lose all the equipment EXP he would have gained thus far. Pretty sure there are others, but he's the only one I've looked at somewhat thoroughly. I've already decided to let him go the Combat route, along with Caedmon. Wyngale and Leucetius... Still not too sure. Probably both will go Mystic. Still just poking at the characters. I actually haven't started the run yet since I'm kinda just focusing on the no MA run. Started it, but I've only made it to Dillmoor, and currently camped there, experimenting with the trainer. I'm going to transfer the stats over when I actually start the run. Until then, they can stand around while the soldiers have vastly superior stats and inferior weapons.

Speaking of which... I'm still looking for a way to change the modifers on the end-stage Bluesteel customizations. I'm not sure how big the difference is between Mighty and Godly, but effects they have are tempting (Physical/Mystic Resist +5). Just don't want to train the arts that have been modified for speed suddenly changed towards power. Maybe I'll figure it out.

Also noticed that the game engine is incredibly stupid. You can trip flags, then roll back your BR, and the effects remain. What am I referring to? Recruiting the soldiers. By setting your BR to something ridiculously high, you can reveal all the soldiers that only appear based on BR (but the tiers are based on story progression). Then when you set it to 1, then disappear... but if you set it to a minimum BR, whatever effects that occurred from BR255 stay. So, by changing the BR each time before talking to the recruitment officer, you can force them to reach max stats AND have them reach maxed out arts! Too bad their weapons remain the same. Unfortunately, it also screws up their class if you were aiming for something. This is especially true for Herbs and Lotions users, because the Guardian/Scout/Hunter classes are all Rank 5 and have some shared requirements. The Scout class is especially annoying because the requirements are Rank 4, but it's a Rank 5 class. So, in other words, if you want Guardian, you HAVE to achieve combat significance, or not use items at all until reaching STR47. So then... what's the point of having IA if you're not going to use them?!

Then there's the formations I want to use for the unique leader run. Blizzard, Rattail, Whirlpool, Raiders' Fork, Pendulum, Hawk-Eye (only 4 units!), Batwings, Mystic Seal, Obelisk (?), and maybe Comet (if they can actually take damage).

Soldier formations? Uh... Let's not talk about that. There are hardly any formations they can use past the base. Still, since I probably won't be playing for a while, I can keep poking at formations a bit since I have no access to MAs.


Just making a note.
save01 - Fiery Gates.
save02 - White Conqueror.
save03 - Dead Heart, before using the Tablet.
save04 - Enlightened Seven.
save08 - Idols fight.
save09 - Demigod.
Archived: 22.Feb.10

Actually, there's another reason why I'm screaming. It's tied to my country and the Olympics. Go figure.

Mostly done...

So uh... I killed The White Conqueror without any problems at BR84. I don't think that was supposed to happen! Also got rid of the Demigod while I was at it. Recorded them too, so that was a plus, although it was with JP text. I think I accidentally killed The Lost Remnant without recording it, so that fight is currently missing. Unless I did record it... The one fight's that really pissing me off is the Idols fight. I actually managed to beat them... with 3 unions down. But I haven't been able to reproduce the fight. If I don't flank them, my team's screwed because of the end-of-turn attacks that really, really hurt. Especially from the Charged Idol and Divine Idol. They just don't have good enough defense to deal with all the damage, even while in the Mystic Henge formation, which boosts M.DEF by about 13% in its most basic form.

Oh, can't forget the Jhana Royals. That was a fun fight. Everyone survived and there wasn't much of a struggle against the giant piece of armor, Ala Melvilana Fusion. I still find it funny that they use Hermien's voice clips during the fight. Guess they can't really do too much about it since it's a DLC boss. Still, I wonder how the fight would go on the 360... Seeing as how everything just hits a lot harder on the PC. I watched MasterLL's version of the fight, and was amazed at how little damage Assault Frost did. Only about 600 or so. Normal mode at about BR21? I'd suffer almost 2000. Hard Mode? Uh... Practically kills the union (about 4000~6000, depending on units hit and if there's a critical). Uh. Yeah.


Started a new run with unique leaders. I'm just goofing around with the trainer at the moment, since I still need to do the Rank 8 fight with those soldiers. I really think it's going to be near impossible once the Valeria Heart pops up. It's physical damage, and I don't have anything to protect against that, unless you count using the Shield Potion. Yeah. It's really not going to help. Crimson Flare and Fatal Eclipse are going to kill as well since they have the Omni modifier. There count be a chance for them to dodge those... but only if they're Mysticknights. At least they seem to be dodging and countering a lot more lately. Kinda weird. The Ancient Ruins isn't giving me as many stat ups as I'd like. Not to mention that there aren't that many enemies to deal with in the first place. How the hell did I manage to get Rush's Intellect to 255 anyways?! I don't think too many of the soldiers are anywhere near 200 for either Strength or Intellect. Speed and their Unique don't matter too much, and trying to get their arts to the Peerless/Swift modifiers. Still taking too long, and they're bound to kill Bai Ze in fewer than 30 turns. I don't have enough units to lower Morale without dealing way too much damage. Maybe I should bring in those Rogue Athlum Soldiers? They all have WAs to use if I can get their weapon and wield stats high enough... Anyways, was just checking to see what types of weapons they would take along their upgrade line. What I WILL do for the run is to change the BR to force them to ask about their focus (and re-focus) and their new arts. Oh, and change their class to their legitimate end-game classes. It means that I'll be at a slight disadvantage because they'll be stuck in the first rank of said class until they reach the requirements for the next rank up. Which WILL take a while since most of them are Rank 5 or higher. Rank 7 in Rush's case. I'll give Emmy the Legendary Ninja class as well since I'm not exactly keen on giving her the Nightbloom. Maybe. I'm going to have 2 other simultaneous runs. One is a fresh run. The other is a No Mystic Arts run. Yes, absolutely no MA. Morale control is going to come solely from items (Pandora's Box, Retreat/Rousing Flare) and flanking. All soldiers that are going to be hired will be using either IA or only WA. Going to choose the soldiers that have One-handed and Power Grip options. That'll help with variety of moves used. Again, I'll only be recording special fights (events too for the 1080p Unique-乱殺 run).

Last Remnant references...

So, I got bored and started looking up all the Remnants, then weapons, and some of the skills. Well, what do you know, lots of callbacks to the SaGa series, which really shouldn't come to a surprise. Considering the Executive Producer, the fact that its working title was "SaGa Frontier 3" and plays like a successor to the Romancing SaGa trilogy? Well... It's just missing the Minstrel to spin the tales~ It's very much a work-in-progress, and I'll probably never finish it, but this is what I have so far. Mind you, I've only played RS1/MS and SaGa2/SaGa2GOD extensively, so any mumbling would really be limited to those 2. The others... I'll get through someday. *looks at computer and emulators because systems are really old*

ONWARDS!

Remnants

アンバーマリーチ/Umbermarici - Celapaleis' Remnant. Appeared in SF2 and MS as an accessory, more specifically as a necklace in MinSaGa (Amber Maleate).

ヴァレリアハート/Valeria Heart - Athlum's Remnant. Appeared in SF as a sword, but was spelled "Valleria Heart." Interestingly, the flame attribute carried over to the Conqueror's version.

オブシディアン/Obsidian - RS1/MS. The Obsidian Sword, one of the Destiny Stones used to seal Saruin. Funny enough, you find the Obsidian Sword in the Frosthold Fortress, which I mistook the Ancient Ruins for. Must be the ice-like walls...

エメス・タグ/Emeth Tag - Royotia's. SF. An accessory.

グゥエイン/Gwayn - Nagapur's. RS3. Was also a dragon.

ゲイ・ボルグ/Gae Bolg - Another of Athlum's. RS2, where it appeared properly as a POLEARM.

月下美人/Nightbloom - RS3, SF. Found as a katana, much like here, but was named "Silvermoon" in SF. This one's an interesting one as well... The JP name is a name for the "Dutchman's Pipe," which is an actual flower. It's sometimes also called the Nightblooming Cereus.

ケレンドロウス/Kellendros - MS. Was a polearm, spelled Khellendros, and channels Aerology (wind magic).

氷の剣/Frostsword - RS3. Large sword. You get this when you kill Young... Too bad it's not the Ice Sword!
*アイスソード/Frostblade - RS1/MS. This one is. It's probably a little jab at a certain character that many people will remember as "the guy who had the Ice Sword." Why is this significant? Because no matter what, you can't really get the weapon. Galahad will always buy the sword right when you get enough money. So, how do you get it? Get him to join the party... OR KILL HIM (and earn Saruin's favour while going towards the Evil end). Or you can take the Ice Sword to Pyrix and watch Galahad's horrified expression when it's destroyed. Fun. I personally opted to kill him~

シルティーク/Syltique - RS3, SF. Armor, but I think more specifically as clothes.

スキアヴォーナ/Schiavona - MS. Was a Long Sword. Also, it's a historical sword, more specifically of the basket-hilted types. Cue WTF expression when I learned that it's a Spear here.

トウテツ/Tao Tie - Balterossa's. RS2, SF, SF2. Was a monster in RS2, and accessory in SF/SF2. Known as the Tao Tie Pattern then (Tao Tieh Pattern).

ハートエイク/Heart Ache - RS3. Accessory.

ハルモニウム/Harmonium - Undelwalt's. SF2. Accessory. Known as the Harmonium Earrings.

ビールキス/Bilqis - Ghor's. US, MS. In Unlimited Saga, anything made with the Queen Shiva as the base material would result in a weapon called Bilqis. Was a Hand Axe in Minstrel Song, which allowed the skill ベルクウィニスの刃/Fury of Bel'kwinith. Strangely enough, it looks like an axe mixed with a chainsaw. Could it also be a reference to the chainsaw weapon found in the original SaGas (hilariously broken in 魔界闘士サ・ガ because you can OHKO God)?

フラショナル/Flachonelle - US, MS. Armor.

ブルーエルフ/Blue Elf - Melphina's. SF, MS. Armor.

ブリムスラーヴス/Brimuslabus - Baaluk's. SF2, MS. Appears a staff. It also appears as a staff in TLR, if you use a trainer to hack it into your "Special Items" list. Too bad it's not usable. Anyways, it channels Bewitchery in MS. Very useful~

ブリューナク/Brionac - SF/SaGa2GOD. Appears as a gun in SF. Since SaGa2 was released AFTER TLR, you could almost say that its part of the SaGa family. Oh, it was a spear.

ラストリーフ/Last Leaf - Crookfen. SF2, MS. Accessory, and a ring in MS.

ラバーソウル/Rubber Soul - Dillmoor. SaGa in general. Usually pops up as shoes or some sort of accessory.

ロブオーメン/Lob Omen - RS2, MS. Appears as a sword. Was renamed "Werewolf" in Minstrel Song, and can be upgraded to the "Beowulf."

ワンダーバングル/Wonder Bangle - RS2, RS3, SF, MS. Was a shield in the first 3 listed, and gloves in MS. Sometimes translated as "Wonderous Bangle."

デッドハート/Dead Heart - Darken Forest. RS3. Accessory.

シルマールリオン/Simarrionne - SF2 accessory

ブラッドチャリス/Blood Chalice - SF accessory, no Instakill.

アラ・メルビラーナ/Ala Melvilana - Siebenbur. MS. Appears as... armor. Named A'la Melviranna, is a quest reward. Decent defense ratings, but kinda heavy.

E7 fights, go!

Yep. I got mauled by Ludope. The problem is that I kill off Snievan way too quickly leaving me against Milton, so it doesn't give me enough time to regroup. I also don't have the advantage of having a summon for a distraction, so no massive regrouping. May need to abuse Bewitch and set the Hex users as leaders. Cachexia isn't going to do any good against them, although it can stop Milton's massacre if he starts with an AP-based ability (like Mixed Message V). So that was attempts 1 through... I lost count.

My attempt on recording day, after going through about 2/3 of the Ancient Ruins, I beat them. Yay! Of course, it could also mean that I was vastly overpowe(ry. Like hell I was overpowered... Morale was still mostly red when I start the battle at BR71. I didn't take that many chances against Milton, so it took longer than necessary. Not to mention that he didn't abuse Iron Will III as many times as my previous encounter. When Ludope and Zuido entered the scene, the bar was all blue, so that helped with keeping the damage lower, although they still kinda died from excessive damage. Young was easy. Hinnah and Hannah weren't too bad, but take too long and they'll hit you with Twin Snowpetal fairly often. Kept a save around because a friend wants to see the fight. I don't have a save before I went into the Ancient Ruins to upgrade my equipment. Actually, I think I would have won at BR67 if I had remembered to turn on only Bewitch... Oh well. Wait. I think I still have a save at BR66. Hm...

Also bested The Fiery Gates. Wasn't too bad, but I decided to fight it multiple times, and noticed that the flow and outcome of the battle varied quite wildly. Some of them turned out OK, without too much effort required of bashing of my unions. One of them was spectacularly bad because I always had one union Enthralled, and managed to kill Mayfield's union so that the Gates could use Pandemonium on them. Oh, and the fact that no one could get the morale to anywhere near the middle. Spelled out to lots of pain my way...


Anyways, on the "game-related, but doesn't involve actual playing" front... I've decided to go through the ENTIRE SaGa series for their arts, characters, locations, etc. to see what was referenced in Last Remnant. Insane, probably won't ever finish, but it's something to do over the Reading Week other than, you know, read/study. And maybe learning how to play D&D. I can't believe that I've actually caved into playing with them... but now's a good time to explore one of the first commu-based RPGs. With my friends, no less.

Farming...

OK... Component farming now. Grinding can be done along the way since the weapons are more important right now. After beating The Fallen, it's off to the Ancient Ruins for even more grinding! And maybe not dying against the Demigod? Most of the components needed are from magazine drops, making it even more annoying since I would have to chain them together to improve drop rates. I should also clear up some of those Guild Quests now. Still can't seem to spawn Prometheus, which is annoying me to no end. It's required to reach Union of the Golden Chalice Rank 2. Rank 1 is easy enough by zoning in and out in Blackdale. And to think that I'm planning to do this all again in Japanese for my next run.

Notes
Mattis upgraded to an Excellent Konbo from the Commander's Bludgeon, and has items listed for the Blackjack. Will probably stop upgrading at Superlative Blackjack. If that's the case, he too will have a Weapon Art: Double Down. It looks like if there's a customization to another "type" of weapon that's less expensive, they'll go for it. Although... There was a soldier in my previous run that didn't do that. He was using the Tomahawk customizations, but didn't upgrade to the Hawkwind. I think the line has to split sufficiently early before they do that. The Commander's Tomahawk only has the Elite's Tomahawk as its upgrade, unlike a few other "Commander's" weapons. Still, it doesn't really explain why Mayfield goes from Spatha to Bluesteel, other than it's less expensive and requires fewer materials. It's still stupid though. He goes from the Power modifier to the Speed modifier. At least for this run I realized that and just kept him from using ANY arts. Still hits a few things with the sword though. Still... Can't upgrade to the Bluesteel until after beating The Fallen.

CE has a speedhack that I can use. USE IT WHILE GRINDING.

... I need to start drawing again. Really want to draw ラシュダヴィ just to annoy a few friends, and possibly much to the delight of another. Stop looking at me like that.

Curbstomping the Gates of Hell?

Well, the Gates of Hell isn't even a challenge anymore. What the hell. So, I'm currently past the 1st half of the game, and now have the option to create a full party. I've already hired everyone that I need (I think), so I think I'll get right onto training them. Really no need to component farm for now, since they'll just upgrade on their own. I'll probably start farming once I need to beat The Fallen.

Jager and the Lob Omen weren't too much trouble. Don't really remember how many unions fell, but I was able to keep the two away from each other. The Base fights weren't too bad, but it's a good thing I left Snievan for last. The Cyclops was a huge pain to deal with. So much that I had to restructure my unions to 4 just to survive the Gae Bolg [Berserk] blasts every other turn. And in return... having to run around healing all the damn time as well. Eh, whatever. It's over and done with. The unique leaders should have an easier time with this. I kinda want to start a fresh file just for kicks. Anyways, need to grind and possibly component farm a bit because The Fallen can kill everyone in 2 turns. Ugh... BR's already kinda high and they're not quite good enough to grind against Bai Ze for some reason. Will probably have to re-evaluate my tactics against it if I want to get those Peerless and Swift arts ready for smacking around. AP is also a little on the low side... Somewhat annoying for the larger unions. Not so much for the Item Arts union, since most of the damage is from throwing around Frost Tinctures, Flame Bottles and Cyclone Creams. The Land Mines and Explosives aren't dealing that much damage yet. Still no components for Rousing Flare, so I guess Retreat Flare is all I have to work with at the moment. The only other place I can grind right now would be in Aveclyff. I have the option of going against a huge number of Landworms, or smack around those dragons. No items will be used, or else they're going to die too quickly. Hm...


Hm. So Irina says "やった！" when she wants something, and says "えぇ。。。しかったないと。" Or at least that's what I heard. It's a good thing that they have to be in the active party if they want to request equips that weren't dropped or were dropped when they didn't participate.

This is interesting... We'll see what happens from here. Hopefully it's true, because I know that I'll definitely get it for the PS3 even though I already own it for the PC (thanks Tommy!). I'm holding out for a sequel/prequel as well. There are still things that could be wrapped up, and ラシュダヴィ. Want/need more ラシュダヴィ! It's just so blatantly obvious.

The other interesting thing... Square-Enix and 5 unannounced games, of which 2 will come out this year. One of them better be a SaGa game... And there's supposed to be Versus XIII info this month too.

Speculations...

And thus I have confirmed that you can spark the same tech twice in the same battle. The Speed/Power modifier and Art level. Got Lavelle to spark Blue Streak IV, then a few turns later, Nimble Blue Streak IV. This makes sense since the experience gains for them are independent of each other. Other stuff later...


Also, I'm having a decent convo on GameFAQs. Kinda strange, isn't it? Well, we're just talking about the possible changes if there's a Last Remnant sequel/prequel. We're just throwing around ideas, although it hurts my brain a little bit when I'm reading the posts with not-so-perfect English.

Anyways... I wanted bows and more unique assisted arts. There was a whole cast to work with, but we only got 1. OK, 2. Twin/Dual Snowpetal were added for the PC release. The difference between the 2 were the activation conditions and the characters required to use them. Twin Snowpetal requires Hinnah and Hannah, 50AP, can be used at the beginning of every battle, Godly Slash modifier, can be recruited as soon as you can beat the Enlightened Seven. Dual Snowpetal requires Irina and Khrynia (who can't be recruited until past entering Undelwalt), 50AP, high Union Morale/Tension (I think) and has the Godly Pierce modifier. Those are the differences that I know of. Think about it... There are many character relationships, so there really should be more assisted arts. Rush and Irina, Rush and David, David and his Generals, Torgal and Allan, Pagus and his buddies (Maddox and Sibal), Caedmon and his Silver Falcons, Nora and the Ladies of Bloody Alice, etc. There was also the suggestion of stat boosts and decreases when certain units are placed in the same union. I'm assuming that's on top of the formation attributes as well. Would make sense to me since certain characters may not like each other all that much. Don't mind the idea of support convos either.

I don't like the idea of "manual" control simply because of how it eliminates the need for unions. That wasn't the point of the design, which uses pooled AP, and can be used to justify the escalating AP costs for the end-game skills. I mentioned the Fixed Order thing that I really liked from Unlimited Saga and Minstrel Song. Seems like they agree as well, but there's the potential for making the game too easy. By controlling when (and how) the unions moved, you could force very specific art users to flank the enemy. This could be balanced by making the enemies harder to beat, or tone down the damage from attacks. The Raidlock thing, I can understand because you're purposely taking a risk by attacking from afar, leaving yourself open for attack from other enemy unions. The one option I would have loved was allowing units to defend while healing and maintaining Deadlock. Breaking Deadlock in this situation may be beneficial, but if you had bad morale control, it could just lead to being Terminated.


Then there's this poster that comes along to suggest a bunch of things that don't quite fit into the established LasuRemu world. Firearms could be used, but only if it was a sequel. The world suggests that the tech isn't quite good enough to make guns. Or there are guns, but aren't widely used. Guess he also hasn't played enough SaGa, because there's the martial arts style that units could use. No need to bring up Tifa or Sabin for it. And then there's the one thing that really pissed me off: suggesting chocobos. THIS IS SaGa, NOT FF. LasuRemu references the SaGa series. There was no (or barely any) trace of FF in it. A stronghold for storing stuff and your own blacksmith? Redundant. Why? Because you visit towns along the way that provide you with those services. Also, individual character inventories? That would only work if you didn't have that many units to deal with... But with an entire army?! Not to mention the costs for upkeep on Item Arts users... Guess he also didn't catch that Remnants don't really do anything until it wants to or the one that it's bound to uses it. Survival battles suck, and SaGa's kinda been a series where you try to find the fastest way to kill something. Eh... I could skewer it even more, but I'll stop here.