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The Legend of Heroes Thread - Trails of Cold Steel in the Sky

Reinhardt

Arcane
Joined
Sep 4, 2015
Messages
32,081
CS3 does act like Rean didn't romance anyone in CS1 or 2, which is a bummer. God damn consoles preventing 2->3 save transfers.

Very realistic depiction of character too bland and stupid to remember what happened in previous game.
 

Gearmos

Educated
Joined
Jan 24, 2016
Messages
95
Location
Alicante
CS3 does act like Rean didn't romance anyone in CS1 or 2, which is a bummer. God damn consoles preventing 2->3 save transfers.

They could have fixed it with a recap before starting the game, where you could select the character you had the final bonding event with. Some games do that, like The Witcher or The Walking Dead.
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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Strap Yourselves In
It's not a harem as he's not actually with them and it's not even specifically about Rean, it's more forced fangirlism over the main character that the player controls. It's less anime and more RPG trope in this case.
This is one of the most fundamental problems of being a player in an RPG videogame. By virtue of wanting to encourage choice in picking your favorite girl, they have to make all of them available. The NPC/PC disconnect should never be there in a tabletop setting, but it has to be there in videogames to provide the choice, because the medium is inherently restraining. I personally very much enjoy having the freedom to explore all available girls as choices and pick one I like rather than having some annoying whore forced upon me.
The game anyway quite heavily promotes monogamy for Rean and the majority of other characters are mostly quite traditional romance+marriage inclined.


And I don't recall CS4 mentioning any romance choices from CS3 either, but I might have missed it during the intro.
 

rashiakas

Cipher
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Messages
839
Pathfinder: Wrath
The whole romance shit hasn't any impact anyway. Aside from the short cutscenes there is no change in behavior between the characters after any of these events, so why even bother?
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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Why do fuckin anything in life?

Do you go into a story for the ending or for the journey it involves?
 

rashiakas

Cipher
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Joined
Oct 4, 2011
Messages
839
Pathfinder: Wrath
This was more aimed at the devs. The romancing part is so half-assed that it would have been better left out instead of feeling like some tacked on shit. I vastly prefer the relation build up between estelle and josh per example.
 

HoboForEternity

LIBERAL PROPAGANDIST
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liberal utopia in progress
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
this series (cs 3 and 4 especially) is proof broken and unbalanced can be fun. i think it's always good to have crazy adjustable setup like this if the players are asked to be involved a bit. sure you can just auto-equip everyone and get decent party to get you through normal or even hard difficulty, but if you're a bit more involved you can have the chance to outwit, then completely break the system. like in CS 3 kurt is by default the designated EVA tank, but with little bit know-how you make juna eva tank in gunner mode for less counter damage output but reliable because she can counter ranged attack and so on.

in CS 4 I made crow and rean both eva tanks and crow has super high STR stat and a gunner mode even his melee weapon have higher range than average so he's absolutely strong. or stacking ATS on emma/musse with pandora and mirage bell so they do like 90k damage/ albion wolf using arts celebration so they only use like 100 EP/cast. i think my record was almost 200k (granted against enemy with 100% weakness against the element) using mystic art, ats buff stacking from orders, buff spells and art supports from linked party members.
 

Sarathiour

Cipher
Joined
Jun 7, 2020
Messages
3,276
in CS 4 I made crow and rean both eva tanks and crow has super high STR stat and a gunner mode even his melee weapon have higher range than average so he's absolutely strong. or stacking ATS on emma/musse with pandora and mirage bell so they do like 90k damage/ albion wolf using arts celebration so they only use like 100 EP/cast. i think my record was almost 200k (granted against enemy with 100% weakness against the element) using mystic art, ats buff stacking from orders, buff spells and art supports from linked party members.

Crow has the highest overall stats from the whole class 7 (old and new ), a powerful kit and great orbment line, just like sara, you can pretty much build him anyway you want. Also, lost are going to surpass anything in term of raw input, regardless of vulnerability.
Lastly, i know i'm going to get some flak for that, but alisa is probably the best caster of class 7. Musse and Emma are only slightly under , with different niche.
 

HoboForEternity

LIBERAL PROPAGANDIST
Patron
Joined
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Messages
9,427
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liberal utopia in progress
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
in CS 4 I made crow and rean both eva tanks and crow has super high STR stat and a gunner mode even his melee weapon have higher range than average so he's absolutely strong. or stacking ATS on emma/musse with pandora and mirage bell so they do like 90k damage/ albion wolf using arts celebration so they only use like 100 EP/cast. i think my record was almost 200k (granted against enemy with 100% weakness against the element) using mystic art, ats buff stacking from orders, buff spells and art supports from linked party members.

Crow has the highest overall stats from the whole class 7 (old and new ), a powerful kit and great orbment line, just like sara, you can pretty much build him anyway you want. Also, lost are going to surpass anything in term of raw input, regardless of vulnerability.
Lastly, i know i'm going to get some flak for that, but alisa is probably the best caster of class 7. Musse and Emma are only slightly under , with different niche.
I use alisa as CP generator along with jusis they prettt much can cast adamantine shield every turn so your party is invulnerable amost all the time.
 

Sarathiour

Cipher
Joined
Jun 7, 2020
Messages
3,276
I use alisa as CP generator along with jusis they prettt much can cast adamantine shield every turn so your party is invulnerable amost all the time.

Well you're missing out on something ,because they both make great caster with their high ats and speed. Angel's gift and platinium shield sure are excellent tool, but prefer using offensive option, most of cs4 ennemy so far did not hit very hard, even in nightmare. I'm just at the beginninjg of finale though, maybe i will meet more things that could actually pack a punch.
 

abnaxus

Arcane
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Dec 31, 2010
Messages
10,889
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Fiernes
fja5p4V.png
 

Ventidius

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
552
I'm sad that I'm not able to use Laura as my S-Craft nuker in 3 and 4 with Domination like i did in the first two since they nerfed the s-crafts. :negative:

Actually, Laura is still a powerful Domination nuker in Cold Steel 3, however, she does feel the nerf in 4. That said, she was a mainstay during my first playthrough of 4 and I still got some good use out of her: she still packs a huge punch, which means that she can either 1) put a considerable dent on enemies in Break state or 2) help put them in Break state fast. She also requires minimal setup to work well (Minotauros, Domination, and some Break tools if you want her doing that) and has an excellent Brave Order that synergizes well with other characters (especially Crow). It's kinda sad that she no longer towers over other units like she did in previous games, but she's still great.
 

Sarathiour

Cipher
Joined
Jun 7, 2020
Messages
3,276
Actually, Laura is still a powerful Domination nuker in Cold Steel 3, however, she does feel the nerf in 4. That said, she was a mainstay during my first playthrough of 4 and I still got some good use out of her: she still packs a huge punch, which means that she can either 1) put a considerable dent on enemies in Break state or 2) help put them in Break state fast. She also requires minimal setup to work well (Minotauros, Domination, and some Break tools if you want her doing that) and has an excellent Brave Order that synergizes well with other characters (especially Crow). It's kinda sad that she no longer towers over other units like she did in previous games, but she's still great.

I would not say that laura really tower over other that much. She's great in CS1 because she give early acess to S-break and the cast stay relatively small, but millium is just a better nuker in cs2 ( yes, it irks me too ). Alos, what dragh her down in cs4 compared to cs3 is how much competition she suddenly get : gaius, crow, ashe and kurt can do as much as her, if not even better. She still got a very good BO, but she moved to being a good unit to an average one, just because the average got much better.
 

Ventidius

Arbiter
Joined
Jul 8, 2017
Messages
552
Actually, Laura is still a powerful Domination nuker in Cold Steel 3, however, she does feel the nerf in 4. That said, she was a mainstay during my first playthrough of 4 and I still got some good use out of her: she still packs a huge punch, which means that she can either 1) put a considerable dent on enemies in Break state or 2) help put them in Break state fast. She also requires minimal setup to work well (Minotauros, Domination, and some Break tools if you want her doing that) and has an excellent Brave Order that synergizes well with other characters (especially Crow). It's kinda sad that she no longer towers over other units like she did in previous games, but she's still great.

I would not say that laura really tower over other that much. She's great in CS1 because she give early acess to S-break and the cast stay relatively small, but millium is just a better nuker in cs2 ( yes, it irks me too ). Alos, what dragh her down in cs4 compared to cs3 is how much competition she suddenly get : gaius, crow, ashe and kurt can do as much as her, if not even better. She still got a very good BO, but she moved to being a good unit to an average one, just because the average got much better.

Yeah, I'd agree that the unit balance - and thus competition - generally got better, which took her down a notch, comparatively speaking. That said, she still seems above-average to me.

She still excels in her niche: Gaius and Ash only start to rival her when they get their second S-Crafts , which is late in the game. Even then, I'd say only Gaius can actually outshine her (thanks mostly to Absolute Delay), since Ash's second S-Craft is more situational (being single-target in a game that loves its boss squads).

Even against Gaius she has some advantages like better affinities and the useful CP recovery options offered by her Linkages, which are especially handy in a game like this where enemies are often beefy.

As I said, she also has the advantage of being relatively low-maintenance: apart from minimal setup, she has no need to do Trial Chests to use her already top-tier BO or anything like that.

To me, what hurt her the most is that her specific niche is no longer as relevant as it was before. Evasion-tanking, spell-casting and AT Delay seem to dominate the meta more than ever, while burst damage seems to have been somewhat left in the lurch. At the very least, they should have improved her versatility a bit, as her lack of it has always been her biggest weakness (one that is now more comparatively pronounced).
 
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Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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One important thing that has not been mentioned about Laura is the Lion Rush craft, which is very important. It's one of the few crafts that allow you to reposition exactly where you want to be. Being able to get your tanky person in the frontline or between or behind enemies is vital.
 

Valestein

Arcane
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Vatnik
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Dec 31, 2011
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PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Insert Title Here Strap Yourselves In
I gotta say that Juna has grown on me a lot in IV. It's too bad Rean is too much of a liberal chump that doesn't support Erebonian annexation of Crossbell that he doesn't give that Crossbellan cooter a good eight leaves dicking to get her on board with it.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
790
Location
Australia
I gotta say that Juna has grown on me a lot in IV. It's too bad Rean is too much of a liberal chump that doesn't support Erebonian annexation of Crossbell that he doesn't give that Crossbellan cooter a good eight leaves dicking to get her on board with it.

The thing I liked about their use of Juna it shows her to be much more than just a Crossbellian pro-independence fan girl; she shines as one of the few people that actually has a strong family nucleus from which she draws a lot of strength in the face of the impending crisis. Her interactions with Campanella (and as a consequence Mariabelle) in particular are also very interesting and she seems to have the maturity to see the issues clearly of complex characters like Musse and Cedric - it makes you wonder how they might use her as a character in other games.
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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Strap Yourselves In
I've taken a liking to Rean. He's been steadily just fucking annoying throughout 1-3, but I guess there's finally a little bit of character growth, which is always good. I think it's good for the character with the most screentime to be relatively apolitical and objective, because it opens up just so many possibilities for doing different things all around the world. Yeah, I wanted him to join
Mille Mirage
, but it honestly makes more sense that he didn't. It's good writing.
Yeah, he's still worse than almost every other character, but still better than Lloyd, who's just about Crossbell. I recall Rean saying he'd sacrifice the whole world for a friend in dialog (I think he was talking to Altina?). That's the kind of stuff I want to hear from the main character, I'm a sappy fag on occasion.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
790
Location
Australia
I've taken a liking to Rean. He's been steadily just fucking annoying throughout 1-3, but I guess there's finally a little bit of character growth, which is always good. I think it's good for the character with the most screentime to be relatively apolitical and objective, because it opens up just so many possibilities for doing different things all around the world. Yeah, I wanted him to join
Mille Mirage
, but it honestly makes more sense that he didn't. It's good writing.
Yeah, he's still worse than almost every other character, but still better than Lloyd, who's just about Crossbell. I recall Rean saying he'd sacrifice the whole world for a friend in dialog (I think he was talking to Altina?). That's the kind of stuff I want to hear from the main character, I'm a sappy fag on occasion.

He is actually relatively quiet about sacrificing himself throughout CS4, which is coherent with him knowing that he needs to hid from his friends about what he is really thinking....
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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Strap Yourselves In
Let's talk about Juna. In CS3 she was a dumb fuckin whore, obsessed with Crossbell like many characters in the series that came before Cold Steel (the series that shall not be named). In CS4, as others have said here before, she's finally getting some real development and details about her family life and personality are finally revealed.
So, to recap: Juna was brainwashed into being a Crossbell-bot due to the proximity to the SSS HQ.
Solution: dissolve the SSS.

He is actually relatively quiet about sacrificing himself throughout CS4, which is coherent with him knowing that he needs to hid from his friends about what he is really thinking....

No spoilerinos yet, aussie. Still finishing up.
Although I can imagine a few different scenarios mostly involving souls from the story thus far.
 

Maxie

Guest
Let's talk about Juna. In CS3 she was a dumb fuckin whore, obsessed with Crossbell like many characters in the series that came before Cold Steel (the series that shall not be named). In CS4, as others have said here before, she's finally getting some real development and details about her family life and personality are finally revealed.
So, to recap: Juna was brainwashed into being a Crossbell-bot due to the proximity to the SSS HQ.
Solution: dissolve the SSS.

He is actually relatively quiet about sacrificing himself throughout CS4, which is coherent with him knowing that he needs to hid from his friends about what he is really thinking....

No spoilerinos yet, aussie. Still finishing up.
Although I can imagine a few different scenarios mostly involving souls from the story thus far.
try having good taste next time
Crossbell arc was the last time this series was playable
 

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