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

[Lyre Mors]

Between seeing some screenshots the other day on zchan where Estelle was saying some pretty based things to/about a faggot and seeing this comment I guess I'm finally going to have to give this series a shot. I'm installing Tails in the Sky now.

Damn, you're going to LOVE Olivier.

 

[Maxie]

Imagine my shock and dismay when I decided to finally beat the 3rd after finishing Zero
Jesus Christ the jank
I'm halfway through the labyrinth of light and shadow getting whooped by archdevils and simping for Richards moveset
Also the fishing minigame broke me

 

[Lyre Mors]

Jesus Christ the jank
I'm halfway through the labyrinth of light and shadow getting whooped by archdevils and simping for Richards moveset

What's the jank?

Also, what difficulty?

 

[Maxie]

Jesus Christ the jank
I'm halfway through the labyrinth of light and shadow getting whooped by archdevils and simping for Richards moveset

What's the jank?

Also, what difficulty?

Compared to the buttery smoothness of Zero, the 3rd has some old ass stuff - food healing you flat, can't look up the resistances, there's no counterattack, scrafts are mostly simple beatdowns without any effect attacks, etc etc

I'm playing on Hard

 

[Lyre Mors]

Compared to the buttery smoothness of Zero, the 3rd has some old ass stuff - food healing you flat, can't look up the resistances, there's no counterattack, scrafts are mostly simple beatdowns without any effect attacks, etc etc

I'm playing on Hard

Haha, looks like you're truly ready for Cold Steel then. Enjoy!

 

[Maxie]

Compared to the buttery smoothness of Zero, the 3rd has some old ass stuff - food healing you flat, can't look up the resistances, there's no counterattack, scrafts are mostly simple beatdowns without any effect attacks, etc etc

I'm playing on Hard

Haha, looks like you're truly ready for Cold Steel then. Enjoy!

I actually downloaded CS the other day in order to see whether it will run on my rig, and it does, surprisingly well at that
I'm going to buy it eventually, but what's with the Persona aesthetic

 

[Lyre Mors]

:Not Sure if Serious:
I actually downloaded CS the other day in order to see whether it will run on my rig, and it does, surprisingly well at that
I'm going to buy it eventually, but what's with the Persona aesthetic

If those mechanics from 3rd annoy you, you're absolutely ready for Cold Steel, is what I mean. Dumbing down of mechanics, lack of challenge on Hard, all of the above is going to please you. It's still a great game, and can be challenging to a degree. But 3rd is the pinnacle of gameplayfag Trails.

 

[Maxie]

:Not Sure if Serious:
I actually downloaded CS the other day in order to see whether it will run on my rig, and it does, surprisingly well at that
I'm going to buy it eventually, but what's with the Persona aesthetic

If those mechanics from 3rd annoy you, you're absolutely ready for Cold Steel, is what I mean. Dumbing down of mechanics, lack of challenge on Hard, all of the above is going to please you. It's still a great game, and can be challenging to a degree. But 3rd is the pinnacle of gameplayfag Trails.

Food healing you flat means that grabbing a potent dish earlier far outperforms arts or crafts based healing, reducing complexity, since you can make do without a dedicated healer if you've farmed enough to buy food
No counterattack means that agility is not that relevant, in zero this stat is able to get you hits and on-hit effects, instead of being a legal cheat (not to mention that in the 3rd monsters like poltergeist would be harder with counterattack)
The inability to look up resistances through skill or item mean that you can't plan ahead until you beat the monsters ineffectively waiting for the notebook to fill
S-crafts being simple nukes without any secondary effects make you hoard SP, rather than allow flexibility

I believe you either misunderstood or misjudged my point about jank - the Sky trilogy is less complex systems-wise

 

[Lyre Mors]

I believe you either misunderstood or misjudged my point about jank - the Sky trilogy is less complex systems-wise

I think I did misunderstand what you were saying. However, Sky 3rd on Hard is absolutely more of a challenge than Zero on Hard. I think this might have been where the confusion occurred.

 

[Maxie]

I believe you either misunderstood or misjudged my point about jank - the Sky trilogy is less complex systems-wise

I think I did misunderstand what you were saying. However, Sky 3rd on Hard is absolutely more of a challenge than Zero on Hard. I think this might have been where the confusion occurred.

It is, sure
For all the complexity right before you, waiting to be used, Zero plays it way too safe with actual design - wasteful really

 

[Maxie]

 

[cruel]

Finally finished Cold Steel 2. I'm so happy to confirm that the game indeed gets much better after first boring 20h - I really had fun for almost rest of the game. Not sure if I liked it more than the first one, both qualify as 'must play' to be honest.

Hardest boss was probably first encounter with Xeno and Leo (if you want to bring them to low HP). Other than that, final boss was pretty though - I think I got lucky. Had a good fight, was nicely prepared, then he reached 10% HP and started spamming Megido-something, without any break in between and chance for me to act. It looked like this:
- Rean dies
- Laura dies
- Alisa dies, resurrected by Angel
- Fie dies, resurrected by Auto-Thelas from Alisa's combat link
- Fie dies once again, once again resurrected by Alisa's Auto-Thelas
- Fie gets one turn; luckily, has 200CP accumulated and critical turn; S-Craft and the boss is dead

I guess this is a VERY fun fight on Nightmare.

On the other hand, the game starts to throw more and more characters from other games, and I'm having second thoughts if missing Crossbel arc and second TitS will be a big deal here :/ And I see even more related characters in the beginning of Cold Steel 3.

 

[Cat Dude]

Finally finished Cold Steel 2. I'm so happy to confirm that the game indeed gets much better after first boring 20h - I really had fun for almost rest of the game. Not sure if I liked it more than the first one, both qualify as 'must play' to be honest.

Hardest boss was probably first encounter with Xeno and Leo (if you want to bring them to low HP). Other than that, final boss was pretty though - I think I got lucky. Had a good fight, was nicely prepared, then he reached 10% HP and started spamming Megido-something, without any break in between and chance for me to act. It looked like this:
- Rean dies
- Laura dies
- Alisa dies, resurrected by Angel
- Fie dies, resurrected by Auto-Thelas from Alisa's combat link
- Fie dies once again, once again resurrected by Alisa's Auto-Thelas
- Fie gets one turn; luckily, has 200CP accumulated and critical turn; S-Craft and the boss is dead

I guess this is a VERY fun fight on Nightmare.

On the other hand, the game starts to throw more and more characters from other games, and I'm having second thoughts if missing Crossbel arc and second TitS will be a big deal here :/ And I see even more related characters in the beginning of Cold Steel 3.

I survived the battle by rotating characters especially between Laura and Jusis, Alisa and Elliot. Emma stayed in the battle. She is very crucial to revive KO'ed character.

 

[Sarathiour]

Finally finished Cold Steel 2. I'm so happy to confirm that the game indeed gets much better after first boring 20h - I really had fun for almost rest of the game. Not sure if I liked it more than the first one, both qualify as 'must play' to be honest.

Hardest boss was probably first encounter with Xeno and Leo (if you want to bring them to low HP). Other than that, final boss was pretty though - I think I got lucky. Had a good fight, was nicely prepared, then he reached 10% HP and started spamming Megido-something, without any break in between and chance for me to act. It looked like this:
- Rean dies
- Laura dies
- Alisa dies, resurrected by Angel
- Fie dies, resurrected by Auto-Thelas from Alisa's combat link
- Fie dies once again, once again resurrected by Alisa's Auto-Thelas
- Fie gets one turn; luckily, has 200CP accumulated and critical turn; S-Craft and the boss is dead

I guess this is a VERY fun fight on Nightmare.

On the other hand, the game starts to throw more and more characters from other games, and I'm having second thoughts if missing Crossbel arc and second TitS will be a big deal here :/ And I see even more related characters in the beginning of Cold Steel 3.

Xeno and Leo wiped my team on my first time on hard, i thought at first i was supposed to lose the battle.

Cold Steel got a very breakable comabt system, two of the most infamous cheese tactics includ :
- One-Shoting anything in one S-craft by acummulating overdrive,oni-power ,domination, tauros and full STR build on rean ( yes, you can even OS final boss on a critical turn)
-Delay calcuation is broken : in short, game roll each instance of AT delay apart, but if one of them bypass resistance, then all of them are applied.
-Chrono burst abuse, lot of way to get infinite turn.

I did not use those tactics, found them too retarded. Apart from that :
-Speed is a crucial stat in hard and nightmare
-Bell quartz and MQ lvl 5 stack, add some cast quartz to the mix and caster are fucking broken in endgame.
-Main drawback of S-craft is the huge delay following it, which can be entirely nullified either by overdriving, or accelerate craft (that is the only redeeming quality of machias, and why claire is such a broken character).

Having a dedicated spell caster with angle lvl 5 gold bell and seraphic ring helped a lot in any fight,but i did some test, and even the boss who got an all cancel debuff on his s-craft can be easely tanked on N3 run.

 

[Jermu]

I guess this is a VERY fun fight on Nightmare.

You can pretty much cheese all battles in CS 1-2 with that time magic which gives extra turn. Getting plenty of MP items is not a problem. Hardest fight in CS 1-3 nightmare was optional solo fight in CS3 with Rean against

Spoiler

principal took around 5 tries for me

 

[Sarathiour]

You can pretty much cheese all battles in CS 1-2 with that time magic which gives extra turn. Getting plenty of MP items is not a problem. Hardest fight in CS 1-3 nightmare was optional solo fight in CS3 with Rean against

Spoiler

principal took around 5 tries for me

I think i abused insight to win this fight.
Going full evasion is probably the way to go for those 1v1 fight, they don't use offensive art.

 

[Jermu]

You can pretty much cheese all battles in CS 1-2 with that time magic which gives extra turn. Getting plenty of MP items is not a problem. Hardest fight in CS 1-3 nightmare was optional solo fight in CS3 with Rean against

Spoiler

principal took around 5 tries for me

I think i abused insight to win this fight.
Going full evasion is probably the way to go for those 1v1 fight, they don't use offensive art.

Yeah I think I had around 60-70% with evergreens + dodge gear and gems. First I tried def buffs and gear but since he/she gets nearly twice as many turns dodging seems to be only way to go

 

[MpuMngwana]

https://www.gematsu.com/2020/08/nex...elements-largely-different-cast-of-characters

So apparently the next Trails game is going to have "action elements"

 

[Somberlain]

Akshun

 

[Shadenuat]

just let me play one more time as team from Ao/Zero and then you can do whatever with the series and characters.

 

[Sarathiour]

https://www.gematsu.com/2020/08/nex...elements-largely-different-cast-of-characters

So apparently the next Trails game is going to have "action elements"

Did i get it wrong, or are they implying a real time combat system ?

 

[Ysaye]

Who knows?

I am not sure I understand what is meant by "action time battles" and maybe this is not being translated correctly, but according to the translation they apparently are a thing that exist in the series now (Maybe he means the the turn order?) but won't exist in future games after Hajimari? Given "greater real time elements" for mine suggests that it will still be be turn based but the order will be determined in some fashion in a real time sense? I wonder instead of whether we will see a turn order generated something more like the FF4 active time battle system where you have a gauge filler or something, although apparently this new form will be a "type of battle never seen" ;whether that means never in Kiseki or just generally it is not clear. The opposite (instead of charging) would be to provide some benefit for making choices quickly; you could give order increases for some characters depending on how quickly the choice is made? Or a more simple change would be to give a benefit for making a choice at some point in a real time cycle (similar to the turn bonus/traps that exist now particularly in "Higher element" battles) or like the fishing baiting in CS3)? Anyway this is all speculation....

The reality is that there exists "real time elements" right now; you can (if you have one available) call an S-break at almost any time and disrupt the order. I suppose there are additional elements with that concept right there that could be extended into other things? The changes that they have made in the kiseki games have generally all been positive in terms of their contribution to a smoother game with more strategy but less war of attrition, but we will just have to wait and see I guess.

 

[Doktor Best]

Maybe they're talking about some sort of ATP system like in FF? It would actually fit the combo system if well implemented.

 

[Sarathiour]

I am not sure I understand what is meant by "action time battles"

I am pretty sure it refers to the current battle system, , where each action take a certain time, divided by the speed of character. Like in you know the "AT delay" you see on craft or quartz probably mean "Action Time delay".

we will just have to wait and see I guess.

 

[cruel]

I think I've hit some sort of crisis regarding Cold Steel 3. Maybe playing two 100h+ games in a row was not such a good idea, or maybe I just got burned out. I played CS3 for few hours, and so far - it's boring, I don't like the the new interface, I don't like the music, I don't like new class VII. Basically, all the changes I see seem to be for the worse :/ But maybe it's just some sort of nostalgia after playing two other ones for so long?

I really don't know why all modern games have such a shitty interface though. Everybody tries to do something blueish, modern, everything looks the same, screen is not utilized properly - horrible.