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

KeighnMcDeath

RPG Codex Boomer
Joined
Nov 23, 2016
Messages
12,867
I've wondered on this entire franchise.... are they more deep into story than grinding? Can you endlessly grind? I saw the Sky trilogy and was considering. I saw the Steel series and grimaced a little as the art style might take time for me to get used to.
 

Ysaye

Arbiter
Joined
May 27, 2018
Messages
771
Location
Australia
Worldbuilding is the focus; if you need to grind you aren't paying attention to the systems and enemies (maybe getting certain quartz or accessories can be useful which may require you to squirrel away some money). The later games actually penalize you for grinding by resetting everyone's levels and equipment to a certain point once you reach a certain point in the story.
 

Jermu

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Aug 13, 2017
Messages
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After finishing every trails game on nightmare only games I would say that require grinding is sky 2 and maybe sky 1. Other games you are probably fine just skipping every random encounter and doing only quest monster encounters. At least CS 1-4 I just skipped every random encounter I could and found those games very easy.
 

Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,930
I just fight every encounter I see once and avoid them if I have to back-track or something. That usually lands me right where I need to be in terms of experience and sepith gathering. Since Sky, the series has been pretty actively anti-grind, with experience gain dropping drastically once you match the levels of the monsters in a given area.

Still don't agree with people who say the Cold Steel series is super easy on Nightmare, but I tend to avoid any overly OP cheese tactics when they present themselves in the game, except dodge-tanking with certain characters.

Man, I need some Hajimari in my life now. Can't believe we still have to wait until 2023. Not to mention Kuro II is pretty much already out in Japan. I've probably said something similar earlier in the thread: I'm happy the Crossbell duology is getting the localization it deserves finally, but I think it kinda fucked those of us who've already played them and beyond in the series. I have no doubt Hajimari's release was unnecessarily staggered as a result.
 
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somerandomdude

Learned
Joined
May 26, 2022
Messages
650
I just fight every encounter I see once and avoid them if I have to back-track or something. That usually lands me right where I need to be in terms of experience and sepith gathering. Since Sky, the series has been pretty actively anti-grind, with experience gain dropping drastically once you match the levels of the monsters in a given area.

Still don't agree with people who say the Cold Steel series is super easy on Nightmare, but I tend to avoid any overly OP cheese tactics when they present themselves in the game, except dodge-tanking with certain characters.

Man, I need some Hajimari in my life now. Can't believe we still have to wait until 2023. Not to mention Kuro II is pretty much already out in Japan. I've probably said something similar earlier in the thread: I'm happy the Crossbell duology is getting the localization it deserves finally, but I think it kinda fucked those of us who've already played them and beyond in the series. I have no doubt Hajimari's release was unnecessarily staggered as a result.
Hajimari has a fan translation patch available. It's not the overlay, it actually patches the game. It's not a flawless translation, but it's decent enough.

I saved the link to the patch files from a youtube video that got pulled, if anyone is interested. Yeah, you all heard it right, you can play Hajimari right now in English, if you copy over the patch files. Grab the jap version off steam, or wherever else you might get it.
https://mega.nz/folder/FVQglRyZ#Ko2ORdPVz6MEXx_hx3aKFQ

They're working on one for Kuro as well, which is releasing tomorrow on steam. Probably within a month Kuro will be patched as well.

What I will say about Hajimari, is the game is super easy, for the same reasons the cold steel games were. Arts users in particular are just busted in this game. Chain no-delay casts back to back until whenever you're fighting is deleted before it gets a turn, even works against post game bosses. They don't get a turn. And then the same gimmicks with chrono burst, and absolute delay (Gaius S craft), combine that with low delay arts and you break the game. Not only that, but even the weaker arts can do 200CP S-craft level damage, even the C tier damage arts with the correct setup. And then you got lost arts that's up to 6S damage, you can setup a character to get that off for max damage and typically oneshot a boss. Soo many ways to break Hajimari.
 
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Jinn

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2007
Messages
4,930
Yeah, as much as the wait is difficult, I won't be starting down the fan translation route. If every one was of the same quality as the Zero and Azure Geofront projects, that'd be one thing, but I'd rather hold on, get the quality stuff, and not derail myself even further from the English release schedule going further. Trust me, I've eyed up that patch before. Thanks for the suggestion though.
 

Arthandas

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 21, 2015
Messages
1,371
Still don't agree with people who say the Cold Steel series is super easy on Nightmare
It is, even without using cheap stuff like Insight, Chrono Burst, Invigorate/Megalith quartzes or approaching enemies from behind (which completely trivializes any non-boss encounter). S-Crafts are too good and default enemy stats on nightmare (especially speed) are just too low to be threatening. Thankfully, you can make it as hard as you want by editing the T_Status.tbl file (at least in part I and II) which I strongly encourage (even if only to bump the speed multiplier).

CS2 is generally harder as
a) they nerfed the burn status to cap at only 3k dmg so that's one source of big damage on bosses out of the window
b) more enemies and bosses are resistant to slowdown so no more stunlocks
 

Jermu

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Cold steel 1-2 are very easy unless you consider using S-crafts cheese tactics. Might also require advanced tactics such as buffing str before spam.

If you are curious here are nightmare speedruns for cs1-2:





For me it is pretty clear that best combat from all trails games on nightmare are Zero and Ao. Most balanced experience overall without being too easy / require using bs tactics such as earth wall spam.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2022
Messages
944
I found CS1 and CS2 to be the most challenging (in a fun way) Trails games. The earlygames on higher difficulties can be pretty tough. The final gauntlet of battles in CS2 are also pretty hard. Be you have a lot a leeway in what kind of builds you want to use. Sky and Crossbell can be "harder", but they're not fun. You can't really customize your crew in those games because spamming earth wall and White Gehenna or Lord Inferno is the only way to win.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,514
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'm playing more CS1, and it's jarring to me, when in the same cut scene, some characters have VA, while others do not.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2022
Messages
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I'm playing more CS1, and it's jarring to me, when in the same cut scene, some characters have VA, while others do not.

Are you playing the Vita/PS3 versions? XSEED added 5,000 new voicelines to the PC version (which carried over into the PS4 port) and all scenes are consistently voiced acted.
 

Sarathiour

Cipher
Joined
Jun 7, 2020
Messages
3,262
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?
As Val pointed out, most MQ get a tremendous boost upon reaching level 5, and some broken ability, especially the one that give "bell effect", because it stack with bell quartz for stupidly broken shit.
So it's more rewarding to have a few at max level than a bunch sitting at level 4.

The game is not really hard anyway, the only thing that could be difficult in the first is the special thing at the end of the game (litteraly the last fight before cliffhanger)
 
Self-Ejected

Alphard

Self-Ejected
Joined
Jul 18, 2019
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1,487
Location
Draghistan ( former Italy)
so i have restarted CS 1 and i'm at the first field study ( iirc last time i dropped the game at second one). now i remember why i must have stopped playing: music is fantastic, art style for character is good, character themselves have enough charisma , overall setting is is quite well built, combat and gear system is also well articulated and decently deep. BUT the greatest flaw imo manage to somewhat compensate all pros of the game: the amount of dialogue. Every second someone of the cast of the character has to comment on the smallest thing happening, and then all others reply in a never ending amount of chit chatting. You must read all anyway because in the middle of 100 sentences about the weather they casually drop some lore. Really i think the ratio of combat:dialogue must be sonething like 1/10 or less. as result everything moves at snail pace
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
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Nov 14, 2020
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1,910
Strap Yourselves In
What do you mean Kuro 2? I'm still waiting for Kuro 1. :negative:
 

Rean

Head Codexian Weeb
Patron
Joined
Nov 14, 2020
Messages
1,910
Strap Yourselves In
so i have restarted CS 1 and i'm at the first field study ( iirc last time i dropped the game at second one). now i remember why i must have stopped playing: music is fantastic, art style for character is good, character themselves have enough charisma , overall setting is is quite well built, combat and gear system is also well articulated and decently deep. BUT the greatest flaw imo manage to somewhat compensate all pros of the game: the amount of dialogue. Every second someone of the cast of the character has to comment on the smallest thing happening, and then all others reply in a never ending amount of chit chatting. You must read all anyway because in the middle of 100 sentences about the weather they casually drop some lore. Really i think the ratio of combat:dialogue must be sonething like 1/10 or less. as result everything moves at snail pace

What we have here is a typical issue of expectations versus reality.
The series would not be where it is without the deep lore and massive exposition. You either learn to love it or don't.
I, personally, am a sucker for all the cutscenes and development because they represent the moving parts of the game; moving the storyline forward, often without the main group or hero even being involved.

Try Ys if you want another Falcom series that would be more to your liking.
 
Joined
Feb 3, 2022
Messages
944
I don't think Trails has "deep lore". The setting isn't particularly interesting, IMO. Probably the most unique part of Trails' lore was the Divine Knight stuff from the Cold Steel games.
 

Sarathiour

Cipher
Joined
Jun 7, 2020
Messages
3,262
The setting put a lot of emphasis on geopolitical incident and the inner working of the nation social order, at the very least way more than you average jrpg. The lenght of the game unfortunatly come with quite a bit of repetition, because they are not excepting the average player to remember what has happened two chapter ago.
 

Maxie

Wholesome Chungus
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Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 13, 2021
Messages
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Location
Grantham, UK
geopolitical stuff in Trails is never interesting and I'm hard pressed to think of anyone non-demented to regard it highly
 

Sarathiour

Cipher
Joined
Jun 7, 2020
Messages
3,262
geopolitical stuff in Trails is never interesting and I'm hard pressed to think of anyone non-demented to regard it highly

Well, as far as I remember, you don't even like trail past the sky trilogy.
It serves as a canvas to ground the story, and contrary to a lot of shit you usually see in modern media, try to keep it somewhat nuanced.
 

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