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

NerevarineKing

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I can assure you there are interesting overarching plot threads.
 

Jinn

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I don't know how you could be a fan of the series and not recognize that overarching plot threads between the games is one of its main appeals. There are absolutely MASSIVE things that happen that change the world, its countries, and its people. I would even go so far to say that even if an individual game's plot might be on the weaker side, it inevitably contributes in a meaningful way to overarching plot threads and world building. I would agree that it's good to go into the series for those other reasons too, but I just don't get how someone could say that if they've played all the games.
 
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Sky sets up two ovearching storylines: the geopolitical plot about the escalating cold war between superpowers, and the Ouroboros plotline.

In FC and SC, you hear about how all of these villages were captured and burned by the Erebonians, how every other person lost someone they loved in the war, and how people are trying to recover in its aftermath. And then you have the innovation of force multipliers like airship technology that amps up the dread of conflict... just as a new conflict begins heating up. The following games introduce characters of different nationalities and alignments. The implicit promise Falcom was setting up was that there was going to be a bloody world war where characters would have to pick their sides, fight and kill each other, towns would be burned, territory would switch hands, there would be winners and losers, etc. And then come the payoff... and blueballs. Nada. Status quo resets back to situation of the first Sky game.

And then you have the Ouroboros storyline, which hasn't progressed since SC. The climax of most of these games revolves around trying to defeat Ouroboros. We are... what? 10 games and 1,000+ hours into this series, and we still don't have basic information such as what the bad guy's motivations are. And that's not to mention other things, like the feeling that the player is not making any progress in the overarching storyline. Normally you're supposed to kill off the bad guys over time, but Ouroboros' membership has only had a net increase over the series, and you never seem to actually impede their plans.

-The villains were p. dumb. You foil their entire plan and they are like, "nah we wanted you to stop us, blow up all our stuff, kill half our guys, and give us all a severe beating." Um, okay? If your plan is to get beaten up by highschoolers that is a shitty plan. In the end I struggle to see what they even accomplished.
 
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Man falcom works fast today


Hm, interesting. If one were to make a fangame, one would think that making an isometric/2D game would be the better choice. Easier to make it look good and polished with hardly any resources, time, or manpower. But for a 3D game, this is a noble attempt (even though it doesn't look good).

mRFPMMR.png

This guy looks cooler than most party members in this franchise.
 

NerevarineKing

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Man falcom works fast today


Hm, interesting. If one were to make a fangame, one would think that making an isometric/2D game would be the better choice. Easier to make it look good and polished with hardly any resources, time, or manpower. But for a 3D game, this is a noble attempt (even though it doesn't look good).


This guy looks cooler than most party members in this franchise.


Kinda looks like Principal Vandyck.
 
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Alphard

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i tried for two weeks Legend of heroes: trails of cold steel. while not properly my genre ( i usually play action games , not turn based ones) i got really a nice feeling by playing it. yes it was slow and formulaic ( at least up to where i stopped) but with a very nice atmosphere and something that gave it a charm that i cannot put my finger on.
So my question is, it is worth getting back in the game and eventually in following games of the serie, or like everything today latest installments are more and more decline?
 
Last edited:

InD_ImaginE

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Pathfinder: Wrath
So my question is, it is worth getting back in the game and eventually in following games of the serie, or like everything today latest installments are more and more decline?
Trails in the Sky trilogy are all good so play that.

Cold Steel has a much more "anime" feeling with academy setting and all, but I still find the series very charming regardless including the big cast and evolving world and NPC
 
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Alphard

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So my question is, it is worth getting back in the game and eventually in following games of the serie, or like everything today latest installments are more and more decline?
Trails in the Sky trilogy are all good so play that.

Cold Steel has a much more "anime" feeling with academy setting and all, but I still find the series very charming regardless including the big cast and evolving world and NPC
sorry i had the names confused, LOH: Trails of cold steel is the game i played for a bit. yes , the setting was the worst part . i think i looked at Trails in the sky games and the old graphic was a bit offputting. maybe i should play those first ?
 
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So my question is, it is worth getting back in the game and eventually in following games of the serie, or like everything today latest installments are more and more decline?

Trails in the Sky trilogy and the first two Cold Steel games are fantastic. The first two Sky games have rough combat and awful sidequests you should avoid, but the plot of the first game is really great and the story of the second one is still pretty decent. Also good music. The third Sky game has good combat and a good story too. The first two Cold Steel games have great combat and I think the story is great. Best music in the series.

I would hesitate to recommend Crossbell and the latter Cold Steel games unless you are really, really dying for more Trails. I think they're a big step down from Sky and the first two CS games. When the main appeal of your game is the plot, the plot and characters had better be good, but I found that Crossbell and the latter Cold Steel games really dropped the ball hard on the story and followed unlikeable characters.
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I am on chapter 2 in Cold Steel. I like the game, but I feel some slight decline in both characters and writing. Combat and music are good, though. Graphically, it is not surprisngly similar to the 3D Ys games. Looks like ass objectively, with some good designs here and there.
 

Rean

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sorry i had the names confused, LOH: Trails of cold steel is the game i played for a bit. yes , the setting was the worst part . i think i looked at Trails in the sky games and the old graphic was a bit offputting. maybe i should play those first ?

Sky is great, but not an absolute necessity to understand the story if you can't handle the graphics.

The academy setting works fine (and is, anyway, the main setting of only the first and second games, the series gradually opens up), there's a reason the Japanese prefer it and have mastered it.
Narratively, a school setting is a fantastic place where hundreds of characters organically congregate and interact.
It also signifies and marks growth, so that when the characters finally leave the academy you can observe how much they've developed, which is exactly what happens with Cold Steel.
 

Ysaye

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So my question is, it is worth getting back in the game and eventually in following games of the serie, or like everything today latest installments are more and more decline?
Trails in the Sky trilogy are all good so play that.

Cold Steel has a much more "anime" feeling with academy setting and all, but I still find the series very charming regardless including the big cast and evolving world and NPC
sorry i had the names confused, LOH: Trails of cold steel is the game i played for a bit. yes , the setting was the worst part . i think i looked at Trails in the sky games and the old graphic was a bit offputting. maybe i should play those first ?

There are whole forums on whether people should play all games in order (Sky-> Zero then Azure fan translations -> Cold Steel, the Trail in the Sky games first then Cold Steel, or whether it is fine to just jump into Cold Steel. I guess the thing to note is that they all occur in the same world in different locations and/or different times; Sky happens first and then Crossbell next but overlaps what is going on in Cold Steel.

IMO If you enjoy Cold Steel just play from there - there are references to the older games but most things are quite complicated so whilst you might learn about something that is technically a spoiler but nothing that should put you off.

In terms of decline, my thoughts for consideration:
  • Characters - Cold Steel (CS) 4 has so many player characters that some of them don't get enough character development time, which is bad in a Trails game because characters are a key part of the narrative. The new series Kuro No Kiseki (Probably English Trails to Darkness) addresses that somewhat but that was a decline for a while. Some people don't like Rean (protagonist of Cold Steel) because he is story-wise super OP, he is a disciple of one of the strongest sword fighters, he also has multiple "special powers", all the ladies love him etc. compared to earlier protagonists who are a lot more normal. On the other hand, Falcom probably know their fan base, as the latest protagonist Van is 23, which is much older than the original protagonist and probably reflects the fans getting old as well.
  • Combat - I suppose if you look ahead to the Kuro series they have got a limited non turn based option for trash mobs which is arguably decline for a series heavily rooted in being spatial turn based (although in CS2 onwards once you got to a certain level you could just whack a low level monster on the open world and auto-win so it is similar to that), but before that Cold Steel turn based gets more and more bloated and breakable as the games go on. Levelling is pretty much pointless in CS games, which is probably a good thing.
  • Music - Falcom has always had high standards in terms of music and I think since CS4 and the following, these games have had their critics; one of the favourite composers for Fans left the falcom sound team whilst the contractor composer who writes okay music gets more and more of a gig. I know that people that have played it have thought that Kuro 1 has the worst sound track for some time.
  • Setting - I would argue no decline here, the settings are always pretty nice. CS1-2 takes place in Eastern Erebonia (the country that it is set in), whilst CS3-4 is set in Western Erebonia with visits to Crossbell (setting for Zero and Azure) - it is all nicely depicted and have their own quirks. Kuro is set in Calvard which is described as being a mix of Eastern Europe but with some middle eastern bits and refugees from the Far East.
 

Stoned Ape

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Jan 9, 2018
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I'm finding it really hard to get around to finishing CS3 and I'm not enjoying it as much as I did the earlier games. I think a big part of it is that I don't really care about the new students' stories or backgrounds.

I got to the merchant city on the coast and did the island exploration from what I remember, but when I returned to see the festival I dropped the game and I've not been motivated to pick it up again since. That was a couple of weeks after it was released and the icon's just been sitting unclicked in the corner of my desktop ever since.

Is it worth biting the bullet and pushing through the rest of it to get to CS4? Unless it's a step up from this one I think I might just give up on the series.
 
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CS3's problem is that it should be the payoff game. All of the setup was done in CS1 and CS2. CS3 should have been about Rean and friends fighting against Osborne from the get go. Instead we find out that they did nothing for 2 years, and we redo CS1 all over again as a new cast of characters is introduced and they have to slowly remember who they were supposed to be fighting against: Osborne. Except this time the build up isn't even engaging like in CS1. The ILF and the Noble Alliance were interesting and their chapter of the week conflicts built up the story of Erebonia. In CS3 you spend 90 hours chasing anime supervillains who have nothing to do with Erebonia and have no coherent motivations or goals.
 

Rean

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Strap Yourselves In
CS3 is the best game in the franchise.

Every seething nobody always comes out of the woodwork to talk shit. Random baldies, stoners, I'm sure the Nintendog will be by soon.
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
In Cold Steel one: is there a benefit fully level up master quarts, or should I just swap to another one, if it seems better? I'm assuming swap?
 
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In Cold Steel one: is there a benefit fully level up master quarts, or should I just swap to another one, if it seems better? I'm assuming swap?

Level 5 Master Quartz are generally a lot more powerful than lower level versions. For example:
  • Chevalier at level 4 only has a 30% chance to taunt enemies, but at level 5 it has a 90% chance to taunt enemies, meaning that if you want a tank character you want to level up Chevalier to level 5.
  • Scepter at level 4 has a 60% chance to loot extra sepith when attacking, but at level 5 it is a 90% chance.
  • Vermillion dels 1.5x extra damage at level 4, but 2x damage at level 5.
  • Murakumo at level 4 increases crit chance by 10%, but at level 5 it increases crit chance by 20% and increases crit damage from 1.5x to 2x.
You won't be able to level up all MQ over the course of a single playthrough if you play normally. If you do want to level up MQ, the best place to do it is in the last room of the final dungeon. There are two mobs that respawn everytime you enter/exit that room that you can farm indefinitely for EXP. If you decide to level up MQ that way, then you should level up damage dealing MQs like Vermillion first, so that it will make your grinding go a lot faster. However, this is at the end of the final dungeon. You won't really get much more mileage out of your fully levelled up MQs after that, so it's mostly if you plan on doing a NG+ playthrough, as you can use your fully leveled up MQs in a new run of the game.
 

Abu Antar

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Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
One playthrough only. I will level up the ones I think that I will use, then.
 

Endemic

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CS3's problem is that it should be the payoff game. All of the setup was done in CS1 and CS2. CS3 should have been about Rean and friends fighting against Osborne from the get go. Instead we find out that they did nothing for 2 years, and we redo CS1 all over again as a new cast of characters is introduced and they have to slowly remember who they were supposed to be fighting against: Osborne. Except this time the build up isn't even engaging like in CS1. The ILF and the Noble Alliance were interesting and their chapter of the week conflicts built up the story of Erebonia. In CS3 you spend 90 hours chasing anime supervillains who have nothing to do with Erebonia and have no coherent motivations or goals.

Don't play 4 then, it gets worse in that regard.

A bullshit curse and the big dragon finale undercut the Osborne storyline heavily. Can't have someone be ruthless and pragmatic for his own reasons.

It's a shame because this is the same series that dared to have elements like the D∴G cult and Paradise in the Crossbell games.
 

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