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

[duanth123]

that's a good write-up. it's been a loong loong time since i've played a good jrpg. the last one was ni no kuni and more recently been playing DQ9 but i don't think dq9 counts as a straight jrpg; it's more western-influenced in its systems, and always has been since day 1. it's ironic because dq1 is probably considered THE "original jrpg". the series focus has never been on dramatic anime-ish story telling either, or even non-anime story-telling, further distancing it from what's considered a straight jrpg.

so yeah, last one was ni no kuni which i enjoyed but was far too eas and before that i think it was... ff12 on ps2? i think? i have no recollection of anything japanese in-between those two. i'll try out this one. for whatever reason the screenshots give me a suikoden 1/2 vibe though it probably won't reach those heights.

Trails games are basically a gateway drug to slice-of-life fiction - at least, the FC and Trails of Cold Steel.

Certainly it's what I blame for wasting my life on Atelier games.

 

[aweigh]

ok i gave it an honest to god try, but i don't think i'll be picking it up again until a rainy day. the game itself is not bad at all it's just... too slow. i feel like i've tread the grounds of the story and its characters a million times before and my jrpg headcannon of around 30 years of playing them since the NES (omg so hardcore) is definitely working against me here.

for anyone who enjoyed this game i heavily recommend suikoden 1 and suikoden 2 for the ps1. from everything i've read about TitS in this thread and from my very brief playtime with the game just now it seems that suikoden 1 and 2 are basically TiTS done better in every single way. yes, even the brother/sister stuff is done MUUUCH better. (i.e. romance never enters the equation. EVER.)

the game's battle system would've benefitted immensely from removing the laughably limited positional/movement grid and it would've sped up battles by 500%. i'm not against non-abstracted positioning in rpg battle systems in any way unless they're done as poorly as they are in this game. if the battle grids were much bigger and the enemy parties and PC parties were also much bigger then sure; as it is it's simply a waste of time that could've been directed towards adding additional options during turns. the older i get and the more games i play the more i prioritize speed during combat and i think it's probably by now my #1 priority. the only time i don't want fast combat resolution mechanics (no animations please...) is if its a strategy rpg of some sort.

like i said i enjoyed my 3-4 hour initial time-sink, but i can't fathom playing this all the way through to the end. there are better jrpgs out there IMO.

 

[Siveon]

I don't really see the similarities between Suikoden and this, personally. Besides the whole war plot, which both have their fair share of differences. I like the combat more in TiTS (heh) because of the positioning (I found myself bashing A for a majority of Suikoden fights) though I never found it more slow or tedious than say - Dragon Quest. Maybe it's because I don't play regular JRPGs often, as I prefer SRPGs/Dungeon Crawls, that I still found it compelling despite the fact that a lot of portions are fairly generic.

But that's cool man, I never said it was the best thing that ever was. I just like how Falcom handles things. Except incest, really could do without that.

 

[aweigh]

i dunno; i think the quality and maturity of the storytelling in these jrpgs has gone way downhill. "we're studying to be junior bracers! our final is today!" versus suikoden's opening scene of main and jowy whispering to each other inside their war tent about how scared they are of dying in the coming battle and reminiscing about the past.

the overuse of anime tropes as character templates wasn't gelling with me in TITS.

 

[Siveon]

Opening in Suikoden 2, right? I only played 1, and that started with you and your Dad talking to nobles, and then receiving your first assignment. Besides, Suikoden had anime tropes for certain characters as well. Just different, older ones. Same could be said about some of the games you mentioned like Persona.

Like I said, though, apples and oranges.

EDIT: Suikoden definitely has a better story/setting though, objectively. Not disputing that.

 

[Crooked Bee]

The slowness of FC's plot is a feature, not a bug. I found it well-done and unique, but if you dislike it, fair enough.

 

[aweigh]

you guys played mother 3 by any chance? just wondering

 

[Meaning of Karma]

I actually went back and finished FC after getting about 80% in to Cold Steel, and I came to the realisation that JRPGs, at their best, are Star Wars, and at their worst they're shitty YA fiction.

The best parts of FC are when you're on swashbuckling adventures with debauched bards and irresponsible mentors. Or it's when you're solving mysteries with the rough and tumble reporter always on the lookout for the next scoop. It's when you're sneaking into bases and getting into boat chases with corrupt mayors. It's when you're making a daring plan and storming the castle and saving the princess and stopping the coup and blowing up the deathstar. It's when there's a sense of constant forward motion, of always being on the verge of leaping into the next derring-do. It's also when your characters themselves are clear-cut and decisive. The worst parts are when it gets bogged down in meaningless character drama that's impossible to care about on an intimate level. When it drags it feet with the convoluted romance or has a painfully contrived inclusion of a wacky "going to anime high school" segment for pandering purposes.

Let's look at the lake side inn scene and compare it to the hot springs scene for an example. They're both meant to serve the same sort of purpose: giving downtime for the pacing, and letting you get to know the characters more intimately. But they're completely different in their execution and quality.

In the first scene, why are they there? They've got a lead on catching the sky pirates. Why are they staying? To stake out and catch the Sky pirates. Will doing this help accomplish their goals? Yes. Will this advance the plot? Yes. Now look at the hot springs scene. Why are they there? Because a stove was acting up. Is fixing the stove going to get them closer to their objective? No. Will it advance the plot in any way? No. The former scene has an engine and a direction; the latter is just spinning its wheels in an attempt to pander by getting a hot springs scene in.

What are the characters doing? In the lake scene, Olivier and Schera are having a drinking contest. Estelle is fishing. Joshua is reading on the porch, then playing his harmonica. In the hot springs scene they are.... bathing. In the former scene, each character is doing something unique that fits them. In the latter there's just nothing.

How are the characters interacting? In the lake scene Schera and Olivier, two sides of the same coin, bond over their shared interests (drinking). Joshua is melancholic/contemplative, and Estelle cheers him up with solid support. In the hot springs scene, Estelle and Tita sit and talk about stuff. Tita misses her parents. Tita gets happy because she has Dr Russel. Tita confuses Estelle and Joshua for spouses. Estelle is embarrassed. Estelle and Joshua make Tita happy by making her a part of the family.

In the former scene, It illustrates characters by playing them off each other in sensical ways. Schera and Olivier are debauched and behave debauchedly together. Joshua is melancholic and brings Estelle down, while Estelle is bright and brings Joshua up. In the latter, who knows what the fuck. Tita is sad about her family, but she has Dr Russel and Mrs Mao, so she gets better on her own. Estelle is embarrassed and unsure about her romantic feelings for Joshua, which Tita bring up with a contrived aside, but then shelves them and is not embarrassed anymore. Joshua cracks sardonic jokes, and is oblivious to Estelle's feelings. Both Estelle and Joshua then cheer up a character who didn't need to be cheered up and adopt her as a surrogate sister/daughter/child pet character.

Anyways, the moment it tries to delve beneath the surface it falls to complete shit. Yes, maybe the bright and happy child is deep down not very happy. Maybe the platonic sister actually deep down harbours romantic feelings for her brother. But these are things that you can explore in a different story, because in a world populated with those simple, clean, universal archetypes that everyone knows, trying to force deeper meaning on it is cliché and sentimental, rather than compelling or interesting. Equally, while you should tread the well worn path in regards to stories like this, you also shouldn't try to insert stuff that doesn't fit just because you think you have to have it. A square and a circle are both simple, familiar shapes, but you can't jam a square peg into a round hole.

 

[Valestein]

Update on Cold Steel II's localization

https://www.facebook.com/XSEEDTrails/posts/1304114426280634:0

 

[Siveon]

I do hope they go back when they have the time. It looks like these newer ones might take a little less time than the: "I almost killed myself before finishing this" ones.

you guys played mother 3 by any chance? just wondering

Yeah, sure.

 

[Meaning of Karma]

How hard is SC's hard mode after the prologue boss? Are there any other bosses this poorly designed? I crushed the first three, but this dumb shit is making me consider restarting and going down to normal.

Despite only being separated by two or three levels, he has double the health of a previous boss, hits just as hard, is faster, and can heal more damage than is physically possible to dish out at this point, with a free turn no less. I could handle the first four things, but his healing shit is donkey fuck insane. It means that during some periods he's just straight up invincible if the RNG/AI decides he wants to spam it.

I don't like annihilating JRPGs, but I'm also not a fan of fights that you literally can't win without luck/the AI doing something stupid. It just irritates me, and makes me think the designers didn't even bother checking if this shit was workable. It's the same thing with Cold Steel's final boss on hard/nightmare.

I could probably revert to a previous save and flatten him by spamming cookies, but I want to make sure that I won't do that and then find out that there's other dumb shit further down the road, except this time I'm eight hours in instead of only two.

 

[SCO]

It's hard until you get out of the dungeon prologue where it's still hard (actually, i find satisfying, until the story nonsense starts to overtake the combat, which caused me to quit).

Then you find out about the OP that is the combat recipes and get dat farming done for the actual difficult fights. It's still a resource management thing even with that (until you find out how to farm those high xp monsters anyway).
The initial and final part of the prologue especially are nightmares if you don't prepare/farm well (you can get out of the dungeon in the start to buy stuff in the cabin again).

But i wouldn't feel guilty about playing SC in normal or easy if you just want to go on. There is some good content in the secondary quests until INCESTINCESTINCEST npcs and plot intrude anyway.

 

[Elel]

I normally don’t post here, just lurking in a JRPG forum, but I couldn’t help posting now. You guys are getting so hung up on the romance it’s unbelievable! As if it’s important to the overall story. To be honest, I barely paid attention to it. It was kinda cute, but that’s it. Dropping the game for (not even blood-related) “siblings”? You’re shooting yourself in the foot. Your loss. The game is one of very few who has a plot that doesn’t insult your intelligence. And since there’s so much world-building and side-content and the villains operate behind the scenes, the game is slow-paced. It works well, otherwise you’d be too hasty to get to the ending to enjoy all the game has to offer.

So basically, if you love stories and\or characters in your games, ignore whatever political convictions you’ve got, b/c this is one of the best games that exists where both shine! It’s worth seeing. And if you play for something else, then don’t bother to continue…

On a side note, the whole situation in the thread with incest reminds me of how “SJWs” get attacked for not being able to “just enjoy the game as it is”. So if any of you guys dislike SJWs, you’re welcome to discover how ridiculous it is to tell them to “just relax and enjoy”. I’m most likely a SJW in your terms, and I often drop games or cringe while playing them and get irritated precisely like you do now. So I admit watching you do that is highly amusing. I often have to tolerate playing as a male and even tolerate obnoxious harems forced on me, you know? To me, all such things feel like “pandering” and “tucked on”. It’s amusing that you describe incest plot in FC using the same words. So welcome to the club of those who’re told to “stop caring for your agenda” Yeah guys, just stop caring for your agenda and enjoy the game… (As if that's possible to enjoy what makes you cringe, right?)

As for SC, it’s different from this game in terms of story. Still slow-paced, but villains operate publically this time, and at some point a sense of urgency appears. Trails of Cold Steel? It’s set at school and unfortunately characters are bland, and the game feels like a copy of Persona 3. I'm not crazy about it, it's far from Trails in the Sky duology in terms of entertainment.

P.S. Logging in here after like a year or more of not logging in, I got a trophy "Conductor we're having a problem." What the hell does that even mean? Codex is mysterious.

 

[Celerity]

Everyone got that? This board's attempted trolling of me knows no bounds.

 

[Valestein]

As for SC, it’s different from this game in terms of story. Still slow-paced, but villains operate publically this time, and at some point a sense of urgency appears. Trails of Cold Steel? It’s set at school and unfortunately characters are bland, and the game feels like a copy of Persona 3. I'm not crazy about it, it's far from Trails in the Sky duology in terms of entertainment.

I'm a ways into Chapter 3 and i must say that thus far, Rean sadly doesn't live up to the win that was our beloved hot headed impulsive ditz Estelle Bright, nor do any of the companions reach the level of Olivier(then again very few do) or Scherazard*. That said. the better companions (Laura,Jusis,Machias and Alisa) are better than the weaker ones from the duology(most notably Tita).

*Instructor Sara(my waifu in this game) IS comparable to her, but sadly she's just an NPC and only a temp companion. She's my top priority(along with Alisa and Laura) for getting the specific bond chievo...

 

[Atlantico]

I normally don’t post here, just lurking in a JRPG forum, but I couldn’t help posting now. You guys are getting so hung up on the romance it’s unbelievable! As if it’s important to the overall story. To be honest, I barely paid attention to it. It was kinda cute, but that’s it.

Just go back to lurking, if you thought it was "kinda cute", well you're the demographic for this ... stuff. Incest all you want. Don't care. Don't want to know.

Though your whole point is based on a very porous argument, namely that a "small" thing can't ruin something good. It can and it frequently does. One false note in an otherwise superb work of music.

Don't be so indignant about it, you even raise the point you "hardly noticed it", well that's kinda the point also: namely, if the whole incest plot had never been there, nothing would have been lost. Not for those who didn't like it, not for those who didn't mind it, not for those who hardly noticed it ... it isn't even a SJW thing, have as many incest games as you like, I don't give a fuck. I just rather not play those games myself.

The game is good, it's fun, the world is detailed and interesting. Then incest. It's a false note in an otherwise fine piece of music.

 

[SCO]

I was enjoying both games fine - i actually started SC in the vain hope (headcanon) that the writers got a pair and told the producers to fuck off for at least a single game - they're fine jrpgs, if with too much padding near the end due to moving around quests.

But that pandering is unforgivable, like a tiny splatter of shit on a 3-star meal. I also don't like harems, if you haven't noticed, but shit, that doesn't mean that i'm ready to replace a harem for another stereotype and not complain. Even Grownlanser that IS a harem didn't trigger me this bad with the dissonance of the main character being absolutely selectively idiotic (probably because it was the girls non-MC behaving like morons, not the MC itself).

 

[lefthandblack]

I jump into this thread to see if anybody else was going OMGWTFBBQ about the huge difficulty spike at the end of SC with it's whole boss-parade (specifically a certain pink-haired girl wielding a scythe) and find a bunch of people getting triggered like a bunch of tumblerinas about !ncest. No shared DNA? It's not incest you babies.

 

[Celerity]

I jump into this thread to see if anybody else was going OMGWTFBBQ about the huge difficulty spike at the end of SC with it's whole boss-parade (specifically a certain pink-haired girl wielding a scythe) and find a bunch of people getting triggered like a bunch of tumblerinas about !ncest. No shared DNA? It's not incest you babies.

This is the Codex, not a haven for logic.

 

[Meaning of Karma]

You guys are getting so hung up on the romance it’s unbelievable! As if it’s important to the overall story.

I'm having a hard time trying to wrap my head around how someone could think it isn't. Estelle's whole arc in the second half of the first game is admitting she loves Joshua, and the entire driving plot point for the second game is Estelle looking for her dopey edgelord boyfriend. Do you straight up just not examine characters in a character driven story?

The game is one of very few who has a plot that doesn’t insult your intelligence.

Given that it expects me to buy its poorly constructed pandering nonsense, then yes, it does. There are scenes where Cassius Bright literally calls Joshua his son/his child, and is then undercut several minutes later by other characters and even NPCs pressuring a romance.

"They're not even blood related!" is missing the point to an almost comical degree.

And since there’s so much world-building and side-content and the villains operate behind the scenes, the game is slow-paced. It works well, otherwise you’d be too hasty to get to the ending to enjoy all the game has to offer.

This has nothing to do with who you're talking to. No one has said otherwise.

So basically, if you love stories and\or characters in your games, ignore whatever political convictions you’ve got, b/c this is one of the best games that exists where both shine! It’s worth seeing. And if you play for something else, then don’t bother to continue…

What exactly are you even saying here? First of all, not liking contrived incest plots has nothing to do with political convictions. Second of all, if someone is criticising a character and a character relationship in a game, how do you then come to the conclusion that these people must not be enjoying the game because they're not playing it for the characters?

On a side note, the whole situation in the thread with incest reminds me of how “SJWs” get attacked for not being able to “just enjoy the game as it is”. So if any of you guys dislike SJWs, you’re welcome to discover how ridiculous it is to tell them to “just relax and enjoy”. I’m most likely a SJW in your terms, and I often drop games or cringe while playing them and get irritated precisely like you do now. So I admit watching you do that is highly amusing. I often have to tolerate playing as a male and even tolerate obnoxious harems forced on me, you know? To me, all such things feel like “pandering” and “tucked on”. It’s amusing that you describe incest plot in FC using the same words. So welcome to the club of those who’re told to “stop caring for your agenda” Yeah guys, just stop caring for your agenda and enjoy the game… (As if that's possible to enjoy what makes you cringe, right?)

Did it ever for even a second occur to you that the people you're addressing might not be the ones who say those things? Or were you too busy typing out this drivel with the righteous fury of a defensive fan eager to stick it to the haters who "just don't get it"? The line of thought that anyone who doesn't like what you like must be a reactionary anti-sjw bigot or subscribes to that rhetoric is childish and embarrassing. Come off it.

 

[Somberlain]

I jump into this thread to see if anybody else was going OMGWTFBBQ about the huge difficulty spike at the end of SC with it's whole boss-parade (specifically a certain pink-haired girl wielding a scythe)

You mean the towers chapter or the actual finale? I didn't feel any real difficulty spike other than

Spoiler

Loewe/Leonhardt, who was noticeably harder than the other bosses and had an S-craft that dealt like 8000 damage to my whole party.

I was playing on normal though, I don't know how hard or nightmare change things.

 

[Meaning of Karma]

Is the combat at least more difficult and demanding then the trails in the sky series?
And how is the npc dialogue?(I mean is it plagued by the obvious personafication of the game or is on the same level as the previous entries?)
Been wondering about getting the game for the ps3 and i can handle stupid plot but boring combat is a big problem for me(especially in a jrpg).

I'm really sorry I forgot to reply to this.

Cold Steel is a pretty simple and easy to abuse game. It's definitely harder than FC, but only really until you get to the broken stuff. To give an example, by the end of the game you can start a battle equipped with a quartz that gives you a 50% strength buff right off the bat, and pair it with another quartz that doubles the damage done by your first attack. Enter a battle with a full S break bar and you can two-shot the final dungeon's boss. Avoiding that, the party config is your basic healer/DPS/impeder/buffer/debuffer, although you can mix and match a lot of builds. So it's got more going on than FC, but not by an incredible margin.

As for the second question, I think the dialogue in it is a lot blander than in Trails. There's not very much vibrancy in it; a lot of it reminds of stuff you'd see in a Tales of game, or like you said, Persona. There are still bits here and there that I liked, but as a whole it's just quite rote. The quests, too, are mostly rehashes of things in Trails (and I'm assuming the Crossbell series).

I've heard that both the dialogue and combat are much improved in the sequel, however.

 

[Valestein]

I jump into this thread to see if anybody else was going OMGWTFBBQ about the huge difficulty spike at the end of SC with it's whole boss-parade (specifically a certain pink-haired girl wielding a scythe)

You mean the towers chapter or the actual finale? I didn't feel any real difficulty spike other than

Spoiler

Loewe/Leonhardt, who was noticeably harder than the other bosses and had an S-craft that dealt like 8000 damage to my whole party.

I was playing on normal though, I don't know how hard or nightmare change things.

Likewise, I didn't have any real trouble with the four enforcers, but "that" boss was practically the game's superboss, i died quite a few times on him. The final boss and his three forms are quite easy in comparison to him.

 

[lefthandblack]

The last tower mission is what I was talking about. I found a thread on another forum that said that you should be at around level 84 to win that particular fight without extreme difficulty. My party are all around level 75 so I guess that i'm going to have to go back to an earlier save and grind. I just recently started playing jrpg's again due to GOG's releases, I had forgotten all the grinding these games require.

The Skank starts the fight with a surprise attack, has 8 party members to my four, all of whom can move AND attack in a single turn; as a result half my party is usually wiped or hanging on by a thread before I've even gotten a chance to move.
She also adapts to your equipment, first time I was getting poisoned, so I swapped for anti-poison eq, then I was getting petrified and one-shotted.

 

[Somberlain]

You are playing on hard, I take it? I was around level 85 in the final dungeon.

While the battle starts with a cheesy surprise attack, you can always intercept their turns with an S-craft. Kloe can heal your party that way if you are going to die before getting a chance to get a real turn. Also, a convenient way to get rid of bosses' minions quickly is to spam Joshua's Black Fang or Phantom Raid. You can just have other characters feed him Zeram Powder to keep his CP up and when all the annoying minions are dead, you can start fighting "normally". Zeram Powder is somewhat rare, of course, but it can be used on those few tricky fights.