Previous investigation into the game through chats with experts and reading forum posts I know I leveled my characters and acquired arts and stats correctly. I did leave some side quests and guild tasks (dungeon exploring) undone. Another mistake as this left me under leveled for an important boss fight.

You will read forum posts or the like of players implementing a low BR strategy who have no issue with difficulty. You will also read of players with all levels of BR who can't continue the game and you will read of players who have all different levels of BR who have completed the game. Not to say they didn't have any trouble.

BR serves two purposes:
- BR is a measure of how many battles you've fought.
- BR is a measure of how many battles your enemies have fought.

BR serves no other purpose. Except for the two points above ignore BR.

A player who afforded me the opportunity of a chat has a guide here as well and mentioned an interesting tidbit. "Play the game how the developers expect you to play the game".

So I asked how do you know how developers expect you to play the game? I didn't get a concise answer. I can answer this question and the answer can be found below when I was able to ultimately match my BR of 42 to the upper boundary of The Gates of Hell base BR and win quite easily.

Source[lastremnant.fandom.com]
Gates of Hell Battle Rank
***Base BR: 40-42***
From BR 45: 46-49
From BR 50: 53-58

In the subsequent and immediate battle (you are locked in this sequence) with Jager and The Lob Omen I found myself again slightly under leveled and really had to work and think hard to win. Notice how the developers accounted for players matching a BR range for The Gates of Hell by subtly increasing the BR ranges for the subsequent fight.

Source[lastremnant.fandom.com]
Lob Omen Battle Rank
***Base BR: 42-44***
From BR 47: 48-51
From BR 52: 55-60

Q: How do you know how developers expect you to play the game?
A: Every battle you fight should be a relative test. No walk overs and no picking on enemies who are afraid of you, i.e. broken swords. Link always or whenever possible. If a couple broken swords wind up in your link then that is OK since you will have other enemy unions, preferably slightly stronger or stronger than your unions present.

You will know your limits if you link too many strong enemies. I have lost battles because I under estimated the enemy or have given them the initiative. You can hear your leaders communicating this to you at the start of battle.

There are other game strategies like low BR that will work but I don't believe the developers intended the majority of players to experience the game this way and I'll leave you the reader to research further.

One last point. By instituting additional enemy boss BR ranges the developers have mostly covered the scenario where the player over levels. I can only attest to encountering The Gates of Hell at BR 42 and combating The Gates of Hell at BR 42. Say I was BR 45 and drew a Gates of Hell at BR 49 (drew implies an arbitrary draw in this instance of a BR 46 though BR 49). I am sure the experience would be vastly different.

If you think about what I said by inferring enemy BR to be representative of the battles the enemy has fought in the way the developers intended the game to be played then The Gates of Hell at BR 60 not only has stronger attributes like HP, strength and intelligence just to name a couple but also has significantly developed arts and new stronger arts as well. Which is why I've read level 67 unions having difficulties with bosses at the upper boundary of their upper BR range.

Further if you ferment that thought The Last Remnant becomes highly re-playable. The Gates of Hell at BR 40 is not anywhere close to The Gates of Hell at BR 60. Finish the game and retry these encounters at widely varying BR levels than your initial encounters.

The Last Remnant is a monument of a game. A grand masterpiece of game design exposed by it's underlying mechanisms. While it took me over a decade to discover The Last Remnant I can at least say I found one of the greatest JRPGs ever constructed.

The Last Remnant wiki[lastremnant.fandom.com] lists the bosses and their associated BR levels so you can see approximately what BR you should be for each boss. Adventuring through The Aqueducts to ultimately encounter the terrifying Gates of Hell I didn't realize this. I took a step back and looked at The Last Remnant like any other JRPG. I was BR 29 and playing the game correctly, linking enemies for harder fights and better rewards yet I was easily losing to The Gates of Hell. I was under leveled though being at BR 29 is not an indication of being under leveled.

Like any other JRPG and according to the principles I laid out in the introductory section of this diary, I leveled character abilities, weapons, weapon attributes and character attributes and wound up at BR 39.

My goal was to be at BR 42 when re-encountering The Gates of Hell and I knew I might level more as I went through The Aqueducts a second time. So there I was in The Aqueducts again at BR 39 playing according to the principles laid bare in the introduction, ultimately arriving at The Gates of Hell at BR 42. I was indeed able to match exactly the high end of the Gates of Hell base BR.

Gates of Hell barely put a dent in my union's armor. My unions conquered or did they?

As I left off in the last section, the developers boosted the enemy BR and at first I had trouble.

Reading around and found a discussion on gamefaqs[gamefaqs.gamespot.com]. The original poster was at the same exact BR 42 as I. Another poster inferred that if you were below BR 50 you would need five unions of three. Not true.

Winning this battle at BR 42 without losing a union proves as much though the aforementioned thread concerned the Xbox version. In this battle I used three unions of five. I'm not sure if there was any luck involved but a change in my initial strategy helped tremendously.

Apparently Emmy can trigger special arts like Rush and David though I have never seen her do so. Most likely because these characters must be union leaders in order to get a chance to initiate special arts. I put Emmy at the head of my 2nd union, Rush and David lead the others.

I changed formations to Vanguard (Rush) with the two mystics in the rear and two other combat units up front with Rush. Emmy's and her combat centrist union I set to the melee formation primarily for the formation's mobility attribute enhancing flanking opportunities. Davids' union's formation I set to Arrow of Athlum thereby protecting the one pure mage in the rear.

Since I sent David's union after Jager, this union (at least in what I observed) will get flanked by Lob Omen. Selecting the action "Strengthen Your Defenses" as this union's initial action significantly enhances protection of this union's flanks and thereby provides protection against Lob Omen's devastating and often union terminating flanking attacks.

At the start I sent Rush far left and Emmy far right after enemy unions in an effort to try and limit flanking to the innermost enemy support unions. I instructed David's union to deadlock Jager.

Lob Omen of course flanked David's union on Jager. Using "Strengthen Your Defenses" I was prepared for the Lob Omen's flank and weathered Lob Omen's dive bomb attack with only 25% HP loss where previously I was getting decimated (and then I was caught in a revitalization cycle).

Taking out the the supporting units was quickly facilitated by area of effect mystic arts from Rush and Emmy's unions. By quickly dismissing outer deadlocked enemy support unions my unions now controlled the battle field. Emmy's union controlled the outer left, Rush's union controlled the outer right and David's union controlled the center. The enemy, no matter their strength was surrounded. By removing the enemy unions flanking advantage, their initial battlefield numerical and strength advantages were gone. In reverse by gaining a numerical advantage my unions had the flanking advantage.

Before the last enemy support union was dismissed, Jager was removed from the battlefield with David's Ex Machina special ability. I haven't figured out how leader special arts are triggered and perhaps I just got a good roll so to speak but I was already in control and Jagar's union was flashing red at that point so I do not believe being able to trigger a special ability is essential for winning this fight.

Battle won!