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

[cruel]

I'm 32h in (ToCS) and I'm surprised how good the game is. I will repeat myself here - I have more fun playing this than Persona 5, by a wide margin. All the characters are authentic, combat is evolving, environments are changing, enemy variety is fantastic, music is nice, plus the game mixes your team to spice things up. And most important of all - somebody really put a lot of effort to make sure that the game does not bore you and keeps you surprised. Really good work there.

Also, I'm surprised that playing on normal forces you to think every now and then - the fight with Pit Demons, when wrong positioning means instant K.O. in the first turn, or fighting nobility without touching any arts. Nice, both fights made me happy.

The only important thing you have to know is that Olivier is the best character from Tits.

I played TitS long enough to get him - I stopped playing right after Shera got him drunk or something. I liked the characters, combat was also OK, but the core gameplay loop was annoying - combination of expiring quests (hate those) with constant backtracking through same environments. West Highway 2 - Highway 1 - Hub - East Highway 1 - Highway 2. And just keep running around between all of those, forced to follow quest timers, only to backtrack everything when new quests arrive. Cold Steel does it much better in that regard, zero waste of players time.

Still, maybe I will go back to TitS one day, we'll see. The only reference I saw for now in Cold Steel was mentioning Bracers Guild twice - I really don't get why so many people make the impression like you absolutely need to play previous ones that much.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

A new improvements mod was released today for Trails to Azure.

https://imgur.com/a/bQOs4kX

 

[Slaver1]

I'm 32h in (ToCS) and I'm surprised how good the game is. I will repeat myself here - I have more fun playing this than Persona 5, by a wide margin. All the characters are authentic, combat is evolving, environments are changing, enemy variety is fantastic, music is nice, plus the game mixes your team to spice things up. And most important of all - somebody really put a lot of effort to make sure that the game does not bore you and keeps you surprised. Really good work there.

Also, I'm surprised that playing on normal forces you to think every now and then - the fight with Pit Demons, when wrong positioning means instant K.O. in the first turn, or fighting nobility without touching any arts. Nice, both fights made me happy.

The only important thing you have to know is that Olivier is the best character from Tits.

I played TitS long enough to get him - I stopped playing right after Shera got him drunk or something. I liked the characters, combat was also OK, but the core gameplay loop was annoying - combination of expiring quests (hate those) with constant backtracking through same environments. West Highway 2 - Highway 1 - Hub - East Highway 1 - Highway 2. And just keep running around between all of those, forced to follow quest timers, only to backtrack everything when new quests arrive. Cold Steel does it much better in that regard, zero waste of players time.

Still, maybe I will go back to TitS one day, we'll see. The only reference I saw for now in Cold Steel was mentioning Bracers Guild twice - I really don't get why so many people make the impression like you absolutely need to play previous ones that much.

I can see that. For all its style it doesn't have the heart and soul poured into any title in the TOCS series. Then when you get to TOCS3 there's a jump in production values and, with exhaustive world-building of previous games elevating everything else, you hit peak JRPG.

 

[Cat Dude]

Kiseki games in general have more dialogues than Planescape Torment.

 

[Cat Dude]

I can say persona series is seriously overrated after I enjoyed playing kiseki games. They also have better side quests than most wrpg.

 

[Endemic]

Geofront have announced they're (re)translating Trails to Azure.



Going to take a while I'd imagine, given that Azure's script rivals CS3's in length (~1 million words).

 

[HoboForEternity]

bruh

 

[Gearmos]

Geofront have announced they're (re)translating Trails to Azure.

Going to take a while I'd imagine, given that Azure's script rivals CS3's in length (~1 million words).

I don't think it'll take that long. The retranslation is already finished and the first pass of editing has reached 75%. At Zero's speed it would take be more or less a year, but this time they have more people working on it and it will be faster.

On another note:



Zero and Ao?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Geofront have announced they're (re)translating Trails to Azure.

Going to take a while I'd imagine, given that Azure's script rivals CS3's in length (~1 million words).

I don't think it'll take that long. The retranslation is already finished and the first pass of editing has reached 75%. At Zero's speed it would take be more or less a year, but this time they have more people working on it and it will be faster.

On another note:



Zero and Ao?

I thought NISA had the licences for Trails games now?

 

[Gearmos]

I thought NISA had the licences for Trails games now?

I was kidding. It is probably Sakuna, Rune Factory o Story of Seasons.

And you may be right, but NISA will be busy enough with CS4, YS IX and Hajimari. Falcom will have to find another company (other than XSEED) in the meantime if they want Zero and Ao in the West.

 

[HoboForEternity]

best timeline: Zero and Azure

nice timeline: Rune Factory

 

[Valestein]

Maybe Falcom's "Dinosaur" will finally be localized.

 

[Ysaye]

Maybe Falcom's "Dinosaur" will finally be localized.

You mean Dinosaur Resurrection? It would be good for that to translated; they translated Xanadu Next (2005) - D: R was 2002 I think so still around that time? Also being a blobber maybe there is less text that a LoH game?

 

[urmom]

Any good Trails in the Sky mods? Where's the best place to look for this game's mods? Nexus or Moddb?

 

[Sarathiour]

I started third cold steel last week. My impression so far:
-I will some time getting used to the new UI, i think previous one was better, especially regarding current hp of the partry, and the feedback from attack. The fact thant it's now closer from tokyo xanadu than the previous trail also make it felle a bit "off"
-Game seems just a bit little harder than previous one. The removal of overdrive, and nerf of craft is probably a good thing, bit why the fuck are they trying to rebalance the whole mess when they also add some OP shit order. I'm just in the begining of chapter 1, but for exemple ebony crest (altina's first brave order) complety trivialise the first rough encounter (the giant spider).
-Character and world building seems on the same level as the previous entry.
-Few akward thing on the pc port, it might be because i'm playing on a toaster, but i sometimes have slight desycch on voir, few freeze, and no audio for the intro cinematic. Seems like nisan work is a bit inferior to Xseed one.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Good god, I'm just getting to the end of Trails to Azure, and goddamn. It's thematically perfect.

Spoiler

The idea of Crossbell and everything that has happened there being center to pretty much everything in Zemuria based on the concept of negation is SUPERB! Not to mention how all the characters come together at the point. Wazy, Kevin, Ries, Abbas, Kea, Arios, Crois, etc. And if there was any doubt before, there isn't now. A god exists, and deal with that as you see fit.

It's not "stumble upon an answer/deus ex machina" writing. It's superbly thought-out and very impressive. I love this series so much. It has so many faults, but in the end, between the gameplay and the ultimate slow-burn overarching story, it has to be one of my favorite game series in existence. I'm constantly surprised by it, not to mentioned absolutely addicted.

 

[Jermu]

 

[Deleted member 7219]

It's going to be great.

 

[Mark.L.Joy]

2021 for pc I'll be dead by then REEEEEE.

 

[Valestein]

2021 for pc I'll be dead by then REEEEEE.

On the upside of things, this is the closest we've gotten to the PC and console version releasing at the same time.

 

[rashiakas]

So I started playing ZERO. Reached chapter 4. Not sure if I want to continue.

The maincast, while somewhat allright, is incredibly dull, compared to TiTS its hard to beleive its from the same creators. The Story is nonexistent. The Quests are banal, shit, boring. Its like they only took the worst shit from TiTS and repeated it over and over again in ZERO. Oh, lets call the police to bring back some books to the Library. Oh, sorry I dont have the book anymore, but I can tell you where it it. Oh, sorry its not there, please backtrack AGAIN to another location. Do some more FEDEX shit. Isnt this why you joined the SSS? Absolutely fucking horrible.

The worst fucking thing however is that there is no fucking Haze Quatz. Now you can repeatedly grind the same shitty encounter over and over again while doing FEDEX shit. Disgusting.

Theres are some good scenes here and there, but overall its a terribly bland and mediocre game.

 

[Cat Dude]

So I started playing ZERO. Reached chapter 4. Not sure if I want to continue.

The maincast, while somewhat allright, is incredibly dull, compared to TiTS its hard to beleive its from the same creators. The Story is nonexistent. The Quests are banal, shit, boring. Its like they only took the worst shit from TiTS and repeated it over and over again in ZERO. Oh, lets call the police to bring back some books to the Library. Oh, sorry I dont have the book anymore, but I can tell you where it it. Oh, sorry its not there, please backtrack AGAIN to another location. Do some more FEDEX shit. Isnt this why you joined the SSS? Absolutely fucking horrible.

The worst fucking thing however is that there is no fucking Haze Quatz. Now you can repeatedly grind the same shitty encounter over and over again while doing FEDEX shit. Disgusting.

Theres are some good scenes here and there, but overall its a terribly bland and mediocre game.

I wish they made the Library side quests fit in with their job as policemen for example trailing footsteps of book theft instead of collecting borrowed books

 

[Arthandas]

What's the difference between Steam version of ToCS and Kai -Thors Military Academy?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

What's the difference between Steam version of ToCS and Kai -Thors Military Academy?

Well there’s the extensive configuration for resolution, shadows, antialiasing and more, support for modded textures, and of course mouse and keyboard support. And loads more.

 

[Arthandas]

Well there’s the extensive configuration for resolution, shadows, antialiasing and more, support for modded textures, and of course mouse and keyboard support. And loads more.

So unlike Trails in the Sky FC Evolution there are no content changes?