Blogimasta: subverting expectations (the last remnant)

otherwise known as part 1 of my unincindeary blog posts! also known as a blog that won't be commented on a lot :)

I may have to come up with a cool picture for the top and shamelessly copy @video_game_king but that is not this time

okay, so I've been playing The Last Remnant (spoilers for this BTW). like, a lot. because it was either that or going through Dark Souls again with my sorcerer Parvati (and yes that is a HP reference). So, I had played it for 30 minutes like when I downloaded it (8 months ago at least) and then forgot about it, redownloaded it, finally got the gameplay, and started plowing through (I've got 40 hours and I've just hit where the 2nd disc would have been had I been playing the 360 version)

This game has the most side content of a JRPG I've played this generation, besides Resonance of Fate, and that's pretty cool. It's got so much side content that like half of my map is optional... Including, like, 6-7 cities I would never have had to go to in the main story. It's also nice to see a JRPG on the PC and why don't they do this more :(

The best part is how... weird the story is. Not in the normal sense, because the main plot is pretty much Final Fantasy 12 but with remnants (basically godly instruments of power or something) instead of magicite, but of all the small things and the characters.

This is a JRPG with a mom! a mom who is like 40-50 and who's daughter is all grown up. who looks eerily like her mother (it's a little creepy). but I honestly can't remember the last game where there was a playable mom, and especially not in a JRPG. She's also the coolest character in the entire game, because she takes no shit, she calls the MC out on being generic shounen "OH MY KIDNAPPED SISTER IS THERE MAYBE I SHOULD YELL HER NAME 30 YARDS AWAY INSTEAD OF SNEAKING UP TO GET CLOSER" protagonist guy. She even faces off against THE CONQUEROR, who basically looks like a viking and has main antagonist powers, pretty well until, you know, he kills her.she was my favorite character too :( and then her daughter just like comes in and takes her spot as one of ATHLUM'S FOUR GENERALS.

because you know she is obviously as good as her mom and why would we need to test that shut up this is a JRPG what do we care of logic

Also the main character's family is all alive! okay the dad was in a coma for a while but they're just like, scientists. I just finished a sidequest for the mom, in fact. Usually the parents are either gone, evil, dead, trapped, not mentioned, or die at the start, but nah, they're just there. They'll probably die near the ending or something, but it's intensely refreshing and if the main story was better this would probably be close to one of my favorite JRPG's just because of how refreshing it is. I mean, the side quests are cool and all, but most of em aren't very interesting in the story department.

Also I think the main character wants to have hot steamy sex with lord david or vice versa (who is the lord of Athlum, which is basically HQ for your party) because they have a lot of cutscenes near this garden of flowers and it's intensely homoerotic but maybe this is just me!

I just love when games subvert my expectations of them. Like, when that late game twist happens in Hotline Miami (that is to say, chapter 11-12 or whatever it was). or playthrough B of Nier (because yes, I can't go a whole blog without mentioning Nier). It's also a danger of paying attention to trailers too much.

uh, so I guess I should say that last remnant is pretty cool? I don't know. It's not a bad JRPG. Also the title is bullshit because even the first town has TWO REMNANTS. fucking get your names right square

I think my next blog will probably be about the sailor moon RPG, so STAY TUNED.

I like how you combined blog and your username together like that... and that's all I have to contribute.

@yummylee: that's because clever wordplay is essential.

for everything

the sailor moon RPG

There should be a Persona-inspired Sailor Moon RPG just so we can laugh at how terrible it is.

it's actually not that bad (the one that exists, that is). I mean the gameplay is pretty similar to the SNES final fantasies at least.

Here's about all the material you'll need. You'll have to find the fonts on your own, though.

This is the only part I could really read, since I've never played The Last Remnant and @dochaus seems to have stopped his LP of it. Rest assured that I will eventually copy the hell out of this Sailor Moon premise, though. Not now, of course, since I've just started a Persona 3 binge, but eventually.

Last game I can think of with a playable mom would probably be Chrono Cross. You could get Macha as a party member who was the mother of Korcha.
Also I've always been interested in playing the Last Remnant but sadly I think that will be one of the games to stay on my list of games I may never get around to.

Why have i never heard of this game when it sounds like a game i would love to pieces?

Edit: Just checked that link. Its only for 360 and pc (a jrpg on pc and not ps3? Color be surprised). I may need to check this out when i get some extra money.

@video_game_king: apparently there are hella sailor moon games. Most of them are beat em ups though, apparently

Also Sailor Moon is getting a new anime this summer so this is the perfect time to blog about sailor moon video games!

@korkesh: Watch a video of a boss battle; if it interests you than I think you should check it out (maybe at a steam sale). It has it's problems but I think it's interesting enough to forgive said problems.

You mean, like, in a week? Because I've already written enough blogs to cover up to nearly August, and I already have a few other games in mind. Some of them may even be good!

Lost Odyssey has two playable mothers! Seth and Sarah are both parents, you even get to use Seth's son in your party, which is odd to say the least.

The last remnant is an excellent (tactical?) RPG. More people need to play it!

Only the PC version though, the 360 versions sucks all the dicks.

the summer season doesn't start until like july or something. Still, gotta pregame that shit!

@canteu:I feel like lost odyssey shouldn't count because they're both immortal... Sarah is the lady immortal, right? I haven't played that game in forever (and I never beat it because the little kids were annoying and had the same VA as phil and lil)

@animasta: Yeah, they're both immortal, but both of their children are alive during the adventure, so it totally counts!

Only Cooke is Kath Soucie, Mack is somebody else.

So if I started playing then, then the blog wouldn't be posted until, like, December. Besides, I feel like this is enough preparation for whatever's coming.

@animasta: Right around now you'll start realizing that the leveling system is incredibly obtuse unless you're using a guide; chances are you'll hit a brick wall somewhere along the line; if nothing else the last boss is next to impossible on a blind run. You could always go fight the Fallen and get your hopes dashed prematurely however, though I guess since you're on the 360 version that's not actually mandatory to access the powerleveling "oh shit we fucked up guys" DLC area which could make the game playable again. According to steam I have 150 hours logged; the combat system is fascinating even if it's extremely poorly explained and it's so hands off that you can do something else entirely for a few minutes while your team goes through the motions, especially without the fast motion option that the PC version has.

@gogosox82: I got it for $1.42 off amazon several months ago, can you manage saving up that much?

: im not on the 360 version! I mean the only thing I'm angry about right now is that I just got the last unit upgrade according to the wiki and it's not 25, or even 20 :( 18 is such a dumb number for it.

18 is much more interesting than 25, 25 is just 5 5 5 5 5; 18 is 4 4 4 3 3 or 5 5 5 3 0 or 3 5 3 5 2... and so on. Union HP caps at 9999 and it is very easy to get that with 4 characters, so the purpose of having 5 is nebulous at best; all it does is increase how much AoE damage you take. Additionally the less characters in a union the more reliable the selected commands of those characters will be (granted AP generation will be lower), for instance if I want Milton to use a Peerless Moonshadow IV for 300k damage then I know that takes 53 AP and if that if one of the selectable commands requires 53 AP then Milton will use it.

Emma's a pretty good character, aside from Rush probably the only character that has any amount of development; of course Emmy doesn't really have any of that. But the plot of this game is meh, I mostly like how it runs on UE3 and looks better than almost every other UE3 game but still runs fine on a 2007 comp.

I should add there's 200 or more rare monsters and each one of those is basically another boss battle that scales to your level, so in addition to having 150 odd proper boss battles in the game you've still got another huge mountain of content to go through after that. For me I was just dying to play a JRPG and this one definitely fits the bill in terms of the monstrous amount of content.

I totally bought this game for dirt cheap because I heard it was weird. Maybe I'll play it. @fredchuckdave: says it has obtuse mechanics, so of course it's up my alley?

@arbitrarywater: The leveling is definitely obtuse, I think the combat is quite elegant and interesting but it doesn't really tell you how to play it at any point so you could be halfway through the story and still relying solely on luck of the draw for commands issued.

The combat seemed to play itself in this game and I completely lost interest in it.

I am basically doing this. occasionally I will stand by for 3 of my groups to get it higher, but most of the time I just hit buttons and see what works.

It's was stupid cheap on GameFly, so I thought why not? Well, that Rush guy opened his mouth and the game is now going to collect virtual dust.