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

[Deleted member 7219]

rean u hav come of age and are on the ball
will you choose a beautiful princ--

rean: hey it's trails series (takes his sister for a spin)

The writers are real incestuous perverts, this is true. This incest shit is in every Trails game. But it was only Joshua who actually hooked up with his sister. Lloyd and Cecile, Rean and Elise - everyone wants to see them bang, it seems, and in Elise's case she really fancies Rean, but the feelings aren't reciprocated.

 

[Shadenuat]

wat in the bloody hell did i just play

can't games just have endings??

 

[Ysaye]

wat in the bloody hell did i just play

can't games just have endings??

You played

Spoiler

Osborne 4D Chess Version 2.0

.

 

[StaticSpine]

The writers are real incestuous perverts, this is true. This incest shit is in every Trails game. But it was only Joshua who actually hooked up with his sister. Lloyd and Cecile, Rean and Elise - everyone wants to see them bang, it seems, and in Elise's case she really fancies Rean, but the feelings aren't reciprocated.

At least they're all step brothers/sisters.

I enjoyed Estelle/Joshua relationships develop through the first games, though. This was a well-presented love story of two teens who can hardly understand and cope with their feelings.

 

[Shadenuat]

wat in the bloody hell did i just play

can't games just have endings??

You played

Spoiler

Osborne 4D Chess Version 2.0

.

but Osborne fucking sucks, they completely ruined his character. he was taff political politics leader and now he anime.

what a waste. worst trails game ever.

enough of this 3d shit with mouse support, ima going to play policeman now. isometry and subtitles only, the real way to play jrpgs

 

[Endemic]

and in Elise's case she really fancies Rean, but the feelings aren't reciprocated.

Don't worry, CS4 fixes that.

 

[Shadenuat]

(closes his arcus unit with chibi Fie on cover with a stoic look)

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

Best girl is all that matters in the end.

 

[Endemic]

Spoiler

No, really, Falcom went there:

 

[Shadenuat]

WELL THEYR NOT REL SIBLINGS

 

[Deleted member 7219]

WELL THEYR NOT REL SIBLINGS

They share the same surname, the same parents, and probably saw each other’s genitals as children.

They are siblings in every sense but a genetic one and it’s disgusting.

However, there seems to be a market for this. Stepsister is a high ranking search result on Pornhub. But it is there to mask sister, which they can’t do because it is illegal.

It seems there are people who have incest fantasies. That’s fine I guess but in the Trails world characters actively encourage Rean, Lloyd and Estelle to fuck their siblings.

 

[4249]

Goddamnit, I missed 100% in a single playthrough by a single character profile. Fuck you Gaius

What a ride once again, easily the longest Trails so far as well. Loved most of it, but getting a bit tired of the anime. And hopefully ToCS4 will tie everything up properly. My balls are already blue.

 

[Endemic]

Fortunately you can pick 10 other options in CS4

That’s fine I guess but in the Trails world characters actively encourage Rean, Lloyd and Estelle to fuck their siblings.

At least in Joshua's case, the two of them weren't 5 years old when he was adopted. Though SC kinda destroys any charm their relationship might have had. Falcom cannot into subtlety I guess.

 

[Valestein]

Fortunately Sara isn't Rean's sister....

 

[HoboForEternity]

i don't mind some of the plot element in CS3. vampires, gnomes, etc all are foreshadowed since the beginning (at this point you know trails books are foreshadowing something. red moon rose is obviously real) and crosbell games already have exposition of certain clans of supernatural powers guarding sept -terrion.

my only worry is (ending spoiler)

Spoiler

the curse thing. i am afraid they will make the curse central and blame it for every shitty things the antagonists did. it takes characters agency out. don't say osborne, the guy whoi they have been hyping for more than 10 years act like that because of a curse.

overall CS3 did something right, something wrong.

good stuff:

-i like new class vii better
-the new thors faculty is also great
-golden raksasha makes pp hard. great character
-unfathomable force when fighting ari
-sidequests are mostly great
-they toned down the romance stuff (too bad cs4 went back and doubled down on this shit)
-gameplay is fucking broken af due to sub quartz and BO, but there are tons of options and breaking the game is fun. the final boss didn't even got a turn lol.
-music and voice acting especially are solid
-rean became truly great character as he matures

bad stuff:

-pacing. after Ao, this is the worst downgrade so far. Ao was superbly paced. every chapter reveal major information while keeping mystery and tension on until the end. in CS 3 all the exposition are clumped in the end while ch.1-3 feel so formulaic.
-in some instance the appearance of old class vii feel forced. in the end of each chapter they just straight replace new class vii, imo they should appear 1 or 2 at most at the time and act like the high rank bracers in sky games instead of replacing your whole party each chapter climax.
-NPC texts seems dryer than xseed's / geofront's. it's not that bad, but some lines feels like they are translated literally from japanese without context. but major NPCs are fun and there are great NPCs
-that one plot point that nags me.

 

[4249]

Probably my favorite new song from the CS3 soundtrack. Takes me back to Sophisticated Fight, Pinch!, To Be Suggestive etc

And the scene related to it was one of the best.

gameplay is fucking broken af due to sub quartz and BO

Yeah, kind of. I liked the new options the sub quartz and BO's brought initially. But playing on nightmare from the get-go this felt like the easiest of the Cold Steel arc so far, probably because of those. Accelerate, delay reductions and break damage boosting just completely destroys fights. The hardest fight in the final dungeon was when they took Sara away from the party. The final boss itself was pretty much a joke though. But the game was still surprisingly fun to play through combat-wise, even though they gave you a really stacked deck.

at this point you know trails books are foreshadowing something

Trails of Tomatonio pls.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

To each his own, HoboForEternity. I like Juna and Altina no doubt, but Kurt is a waste of space and Ash is a piece of fucking shit.

Old Class VII, meanwhile, has Sara. Fie. Laura. Emma. Alisa. Gaius. Jusis. Millium. Machias. Elliott. I loved seeing them all again (well, I can take or leave Machias and Elliott, they're pretty dull).

I agree with pretty much everything else you said besides that, but liking different characters is definitely fine so it isn't really a criticism on my part.

 

[Shadenuat]

stay sharp Millium

 

[Shadenuat]

police trails gives me everything I wanted from trails but steel has not

nice party of nice people who are instantly likeable
compact nice little world
down to earth story
cool yellow buses.

even side quests do not feel like a chore.

 

[Jinn]

police trails gives me everything I wanted from trails but steel has not

nice party of nice people who are instantly likeable
compact nice little world
down to earth story
cool yellow buses.

even side quests do not feel like a chore.

Yeah, I've been meaning to do a little lengthier post on my feeling on Trails from Zero, as I feel like a couple of the above posts on it were a little more negative than it deserves. In no way would I rate Trails in the Sky FC above Zero, and would almost certainly rate Zero above SC as well (though it's close), for example. 3rd still holds a place above Zero in my eyes, though.

I don't have the time to devote a long enough post to the subject, but I think a lot of the problems above posters might have had with it could have had more to do with their expectations than the quality of the game itself.

For early entry Trails games, I'd go 3rd>Zero>SC>FC.

 

[HoboForEternity]

some QoL patches for Ao (60 FPS PATCH!!!! WHERE WAS THIS WHEN I PLAYED??!)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/g5y7ni/trails_to_azure_collective_improvements_other/

 

[Deleted member 7219]

some QoL patches for Ao (60 FPS PATCH!!!! WHERE WAS THIS WHEN I PLAYED??!)

https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/g5y7ni/trails_to_azure_collective_improvements_other/

Yes, I also recommend following the information in this Google Doc on how to get everything you need and how to install it all:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1wUvhhYkMEt-uO1llbENccE7xYxdc0TGglryP-lyWMcw/edit

 

[Shackleton]

So finally, after 84 hours, finished ToCS. I know I'm about 7 years behind most of you, but putting down some thoughts on it in the immediate aftermath of finishing.

Spoiler

Literally, (or is that LITTERALLY) unplayable.

But what a great game that was. I'm totally gutted I never got to find out what the deal was with my waifu Emma though and that last mech battle was absolute bullshit on Hard. It almost left a bad taste in my mouth right at the end but just as I was getting frustrated I got lucky and did it with one hit left. Really didn't see the development of

Spoiler

Crow

as the baddie, thought it was going to be

Spoiler

Duke Cayenne

but I guess that was the trap they set for the player. Can't say I was emotionally invested as it's still a game when all's said and done, but I liked they caught me out with it. Really appreciated some of the comments that the chars made that played up to the corny tropes of JRPG's, like when Crow commented about Elliott and Rean having a competition about who could make him cringe the most when they were being all heroic and noble. Despite not having played TitS I followed everything ok, but right at the end when Misty turned into a super-witch and Baron Bleublanc/Phantom Thief turned out to be something vaguely god-like I did go a bit wtf?!

Loved the combat right to the end, although Chrono Burst pretty much broke it, not to mention the Quartz that made every item affect the whole group. Didn't have too many problems with anything after Scarlet in Ch5, and I might well Rule 34 Scarlet now I think about it.

Didn't 100% it, but did get all Recipes and Red Moon Rose books thanks to the pawnshop. Should have realised that when things said 'part of a set' I should buy them but thought that too late. Got a bit fed up of the backtracking in the final third and rushed everything after the festival a bit, that was the only thing I found a bit tiresome. Yes, I know it's optional, but using a guide first time spoils everything and knowing there were hidden quests and items meant I felt too obligated to miss talking to everyone. Liked all the characters by the end and tended to go with Rean/Emma/Millium/Jusis team which was probably not optimal but cleared everything in front of it, thanks mainly to Jusis being fast and having Chrono Burst. Will definitely be getting ToCS2 after a bit of a break to play something a bit different.

Very charming game with good combat, likeable characters and not a bad story. Sad I didn't play it sooner.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

So finally, after 84 hours, finished ToCS. I know I'm about 7 years behind most of you, but putting down some thoughts on it in the immediate aftermath of finishing.

Very charming game with good combat, likeable characters and not a bad story. Sad I didn't play it sooner.

You get the benefit of being able to play the sequels right away, by leaving it this late.

Trails has pretty much taken over my gaming life now. It is the series to which all other JRPGs must be compared.

 

[Slaver1]

So finally, after 84 hours, finished ToCS. I know I'm about 7 years behind most of you, but putting down some thoughts on it in the immediate aftermath of finishing.

Very charming game with good combat, likeable characters and not a bad story. Sad I didn't play it sooner.

You get the benefit of being able to play the sequels right away, by leaving it this late.

Trails has pretty much taken over my gaming life now. It is the series to which all other JRPGs must be compared.

I can say the same about Cold Steel alone. TOCS3 really put things over the top for me. Just about my favorite series of games ever at this point.