|
Junpei posted:It helps that really, nobody in Kuro is 'normal' unlike, say, Elliot or Machias who kinda gets shafted as a result of being The Grounded Normal Ones. You forgot about poor ol' Barkhorn joining the party too, who somehow managed to pass his Stigma onto Gaius without dying and is now hanging out with his old pupil Van. Granted, he's conspicuously missing in Kuro 2. Some Numbers posted:also the whole "he's literally Dreichels reincarnated" was a hot pile of BS and did nothing to advance the story. Cold Steel I think made Ouroboros look extremely incompetent outside of maybe McBurn. It certainly doesn't make Vita and Arianrhod look good and lessens Ouroboros as a threat. Which is why it's funny how Ouroboros are kinda sort of not antagonistic towards the party in both Kuro games and yet its main Anguis Elroy Harwood is one of the most intimidating and dangerous characters we've seen in the series. Saoshyant posted:Can't wait for Kuro. Yeah, the PS4 version doesn't look as nice, same deal with Zero. It still has all of the same content it just looks graphically worse.
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2023 23:38
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 23:37 |
|
|
SgtSteel91 posted:The more time passes the more I like all the Cold Steel games so I get the best of all worlds where Trails has been peak nonstop and I’m excited for Reverie and Kuro This
|
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2023 23:39
|
|
|
(Major spoilers for CS 4)Endorph posted:Oh, I 100% agree, I just think it's not series ruining. like the curse is largely a conceit to allow for all of erebonia to be in favor of the war with calvard without having to hold them morally accountable for it, and likewise to allow for ash to shoot the emperor without having to hold him accountable for it. it's an extremely stupid conceit Right, it's an extremely stupid conceit. But I see people here trying to have it both ways. The ideas that: (a) the curse is only giving people a slight nudge, but not magically compelling people them, and (b) they're not responsible for their actions because of the curse so should face no lasting consequences... are contradictory. It's either one or the other. In any case, the people claiming (a) are flat out wrong, because among many other examples, it's explicitly said in CS 4 that it is magical compulsion with *gag* Exhibit A: Curse-Compelled Victor Arseid. He hasn't lost his memories. He knows who he is. He is doing a thing he would otherwise not be doing (attempting to for-real kill his daughter) because The Curse Makes Him Do It. And so this is the problem a lot of people have with The Curse. It's not an organic conflict between conflicting ideals (Sky FC, Sky SC, Zero, Azure, CS 1), or an internal conflict (Sky the Third), it's an artificially-imposed conflict coming from the outside which otherwise wouldn't be happening at all. It's also incredibly convenient how selective it is too, given how it affects just about no one the main characters personally know.. Some Numbers posted:also the whole "he's literally Dreichels reincarnated" was a hot pile of BS and did nothing to advance the story. Yeah this was downright awful. It was entirely unnecessary, it was not foreshadowed as a real thing which existed, it adds nothing, it doesn't get explored, no questions were asked, especially the highly pertinent one "What does that even MEAN?" Everyone just shrugs, nods, and moves on. Awful. Some Numbers posted:One thing that hasn't been mentioned is that I think CS4 completely ruined Arianrhod too. Azure built her up as this immensely powerful literal living legend that the SSS had to struggle immensely against and then she just...loses pretty unceremoniously to Rean and his buddies (twice) and if that weren't enough, Rufus manages to surprise her and actually kill her? Complete waste. I think I've mentioned this before, but that person had much of a character to ruin in the first place. She's supposed to be this shining, principled character with a strong moral code, and she works for a group which takes horribly traumatized children and uses them to murder and assassinate. In some cases, they even cause the events which turned them into horribly traumatized children. Truly, a shining beacon of principle. She doesn't get to pretend like those things aren't being done by her allies with the blessing of her boss. Add in the fact that you learn just about nothing about her character until the start of CS 4, Act 3 doesn't help. As for the other part, about being an immensely powerful living legend, that is in fact nothing special. You bump into a half-dozen of them when you go to the corner store for groceries. One of them killed her in fact. Each game introduces or reveals a whole new set of immensely powerful living legends. Power doesn't matter because no matter how hard you beat down even relatively "weak" characters, they can just teleport at will anyway. By the time of CS 4, even the main cast is calling out their schtick of "they're just going to taunt us, fight, say something cryptic and leave" and doesn't pretend like is remotely possible to capture them. Some Numbers posted:CS4 I'm probably just bitter because Crow got to live and Arianrhod didn't and I got really sick of all the Crow drama. * (No, he didn't die in the explosion which people thought he died in, they never found a body, and it's established that Immortals do leave bodies, they just get better after a while.) EDIT: Well, okay "done dirty" isn't quite the right way to put it I just wanted to point out how arbitrary it seemed (CS 4 end) that with the literal infinite power of two Sept-Terrions, for that one guy who never even died to be unable to come back. Stabbey_the_Clown fucked around with this message at 00:16 on Mar 23, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 22, 2023 23:57
|
|
|
Victor got that mind control mask on. That's some powerful Gnome science not entirely related to the curse right there. Also, really don't see how Alisa's dad dying means she gets done dirty. She, Emma and Jusis are probably the og CS party members best utilised throughout CS3 and 4.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:00
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Right, it's an extremely stupid conceit. But I see people here trying to have it both ways. The ideas that: And as pointed out above, victor had the mind control mask on
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:10
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:I think I've mentioned this before, but that person had much of a character to ruin in the first place. She's supposed to be this shining, principled character with a strong moral code, and she works for a group which takes horribly traumatized children and uses them to murder and assassinate. In some cases, they even cause the events which turned them into horribly traumatized children. Truly, a shining beacon of principle. She doesn't get to pretend like those things aren't being done by her allies with the blessing of her boss. Add in the fact that you learn just about nothing about her character until the start of CS 4, Act 3 doesn't help. See, I find this makes that character more interesting, not less. Literally a knight of legend, moral to a fault and yet, she works with Ouroboros, who employs so many morally corrupt people. There has to be something in the Grandmaster's vision that resonated with Arianrhod and I was super curious about it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:12
|
|
|
Some Numbers posted:See, I find this makes that character more interesting, not less. Literally a knight of legend, moral to a fault and yet, she works with Ouroboros, who employs so many morally corrupt people. There has to be something in the Grandmaster's vision that resonated with Arianrhod and I was super curious about it. Not wanting to spoil anything but have you played Reverie?
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:17
|
|
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:Victor got that mind control mask on. That's some powerful Gnome science not entirely related to the curse right there. Fair enough about your second point, I was trying to make a segue from what SN was talking about, and I said it wrong. About the first point, though, that's explicitly wrong. The game specifically says the exact opposite. The suggestion from the other times the mask is used is that it suppresses the host's memories, which is explicitly denied by Victor. When they see him with the mask, Angelica says that "they even turned the Radiant Blademaster into one of your puppets." and V says "That would be wrong, for I am no puppet. ... I have lost neither my memories nor my sense of self." Cassius then spells out that this must be the curse compelling Victor against his own will. KeA and Vita concur with this.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:25
|
|
|
Saoshyant posted:Can't wait for Kuro. I don’t think either is missing content but they’re missing tons of QoL and graphics updates.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:26
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Fair enough about your second point, I was trying to make a segue from what SN was talking about, and I said it wrong. then, again, that would be the game being extremely contradictory, not the posters in this thread. there's several other points in the game where the characters talk about how the curse only encourages your base desires.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:35
|
|
|
Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Fair enough about your second point, I was trying to make a segue from what SN was talking about, and I said it wrong. Yeah its some bullshit "he is being forced to follow fate's proper course!" or something else dumb but uh, that's not how the curse works for anyone else and he's got the the freaking mind control mask on and once you beat him up he got the mask off and he's normal. It's a dumb plot point that doesn't matter but like y'know I feel like there's enough there to say "there's more than your average Curse going on here". It's like that one time the curse turned a horse into a demon, you just gotta nod and go "yep, guess something unique is happening because this is not how this thing usually works"
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:37
|
|
|
I'm arguing that (b) they're not responsible for their actions because of the curse so should face no lasting consequences doesn't happen. Characters try to assuage guilt with that, but they get refuted. And, again, CS4 points out multiple times that the Curse isn't the end all be all cause. Why Ash isn't thrown in jail after the events of 4 is because this is an RPG, and Ash already feeling immense guilt and wanting to do right by stopping Osborne and the Great Twilight is good enough for the Emperor to overlook the whole 'getting shot.'
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:41
|
|
|
I thought it would feel jarring having played CSIII and going back to Zero, but i enjoyed not having to deal with BREAK mechanics and the crazy hp sponges that CSIII and IV was filled with
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 00:43
|
|
|
my prediction for what's going to happen at the beginning of Trails to Reverie "oh look, we have the new upgraded Quartz device, all of our old ones just don't work anymore"
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 02:15
|
|
|
GateOfD posted:my prediction for what's going to happen at the beginning of Trails to Reverie Rean lost them all on Tuatha De Danann, but atleast this time he remembered his levels and isnt level 5 again. I'm so excited for Reverie and hitting levels well past 100 again.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 03:54
|
|
|
GateOfD posted:"oh look, we have the new upgraded Quartz device, all of our old ones just don't work anymore"
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 04:07
|
|
|
No matter what, I'm just glad Cold Steel is going to be in the rear view. Not sure what happened while writing it, but the way people talk about the next couple games coming out makes me think lessons were learned. That's a relief. I can still enjoy Saturday morning cartoon RPG adventure. I just...need some restraint moving forward on the story.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 04:24
|
|
|
Yeah I'm pretty willing to give Kuro a fair shot now. I'm probably still always going to be grumpy about how bad CS4 fumbled the ball on so many things, Osborne most especially, but Kuro seems like a nice step in the direction I want. I was pretty worried we were never ever going to stop mega bloating the cast at this point but Kuro 2 not doing so apparently is a huge point in its favor.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 04:33
|
|
|
RevolverDivider posted:Yeah I'm pretty willing to give Kuro a fair shot now. I'm probably still always going to be grumpy about how bad CS4 fumbled the ball on so many things, Osborne most especially, but Kuro seems like a nice step in the direction I want. I was pretty worried we were never ever going to stop mega bloating the cast at this point but Kuro 2 not doing so apparently is a huge point in its favor. the parties are still large by jrpg standards but for reference (no actual plotspoilers, just counting characters) kuro 1 has about a dozen playable characters, of which about 8 are the main party and the others are guests. as stated, it also seeds these characters in over the course of the plot. kuro 2 adds like 5 or 6, all of whom get a significant amount of screentime, and cuts a couple of the kuro 1 characters who arent that important to the plot anymore, or relegates them to only being playable in the bonus dungeon. its still a large amount of characters but its a manageable kind of large. it also leans way less on bringing back old characters than cold steel did. you get some occasional cameos where it makes sense but of the returning characters that are actually playable id say only one of them feels like they're just there to be there, which is pretty acceptable. hajimari/cs4 were fun in their excess but i really wouldnt want that to be the series going forward.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 04:50
|
|
|
Yeah in terms of previous characters I think it's just the Heiyue guys with Rixia, Fie, Zin, Walter, Swin and Nadia?
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 04:55
|
|
|
Endorph posted:the parties are still large by jrpg standards but for reference (no actual plotspoilers, just counting characters) kuro 1 has about a dozen playable characters, of which about 8 are the main party and the others are guests. as stated, it also seeds these characters in over the course of the plot. kuro 2 adds like 5 or 6, all of whom get a significant amount of screentime, and cuts a couple of the kuro 1 characters who arent that important to the plot anymore, or relegates them to only being playable in the bonus dungeon. Awesome, this is basically perfect for what I want. Being willing to cut characters who aren't important anymore is a huge good sign. I appreciate the info.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 04:57
|
|
|
So re: the Literal One Singular (CS4) Mind Control Example Victor Arseid, Cassius specifically said it was akin to Phantasma and the dopplegangers. I really didn't get how, and was hoping someone understood it. I'm also trying to put together the pieces on how the Sept-Terrions being almost explicitly Divergent things actually affects anything.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 05:00
|
|
|
Junpei posted:Yeah in terms of previous characters I think it's just the Heiyue guys with Rixia, Fie, Zin, Walter, Swin and Nadia?
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 05:07
|
|
|
finished the prologue in Azure. picked hard difficulty, hope I don't regret it.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 05:10
|
|
|
I will say on a personal note out of every single Trails game, no one has annoyed me and actively made me drop the game than Aaron Wei. It's a very personal thing but he has an actively annoying gimmick in a way that's new to trails that's absurdly stupid and it keeps going.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 05:14
|
|
|
Using Aaron as a character or fighting against him? He is okay in Kuro 1, never really used him in 2 since you get the awesome girls to use most of the time. Shizuna, Agnes, and Risette are all you really need.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 06:58
|
|
|
Yeah I saw a lot of lategame Kuro 2 gameplay that had the Leet Strategy boil down to "Van holds aggro with Coin Bullet on one side of the battlefield, Risette keeps the HP barrier on everyone in case of a big AOE, Renne buffs everyone's stats and then SPOILER and Agnes spam the Water/Mirage art with the all-stat debuff".
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 07:08
|
|
|
Didn't use Renne as much as I liked, Shizuna hits like a truck and has big AOE skills like Rean, and can cancel buffs with her cheapest CP craft. I kinda want the CLE version to go on sale on Steam already, there is a bootleg out there but you can't change the language to Korean to use the fan translations.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 07:57
|
|
|
Endorph posted:there's renne, too, but otherwise yeah. id call fie the character whos just there to be there but it makes sense for another bracer to be there besides just zin and i guess having One cold steel character is fine. Kuro and Crossbell spoilers: Funnily enough it does mean (Fie) has the most playable appearances out of any character in the series. Also as of Kuro 2, I'm going to go out on a limb and say (Renne) is the most important character in the series too. Not only does a significant chunk of the plot of the Crossbell and Calvard games center around her, but she's also the driving force that leads the arcs to happen they way they did anyway. No Renne means a dead SSS at the hands of Joachim which is why KeA rewrote causality so she'd save the party and no Renne also means Agnes would never have met Van as she's the one who told her to seek him for help during Kuro's prologue and told her how to get in contact with him to begin with, without Renne doing any of this then Agnes wouldn't have gotten anywhere with the search for the Oct-Genesis devices. The other only candidate for most important character I think would be Olivier but he's kind of superfluous in the Crossbell arc, much like Renne is in the Cold Steel games and he's completely absent from Kuro entirely outside of a few brief mentions. Selenephos fucked around with this message at 08:40 on Mar 23, 2023 |
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 08:32
|
|
|
SyntheticPolygon posted:Not wanting to spoil anything but have you played Reverie? I have played the first chapter of each route.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 15:53
|
|
|
Mr. Fortitude posted:Kuro and Crossbell spoilers: Funnily enough it does mean (Fie) has the most playable appearances out of any character in the series. Also as of Kuro 2, I'm going to go out on a limb and say (Renne) is the most important character in the series too. She's cool, and if I said I like or dislike her plot, it's still like, but it's one of my least favorite parts of the series, so I get disappointed every time she comes back over a better character. I'm already missing him and he's not gone yet lol.
|
|
#
?
Mar 23, 2023 22:38
|
|
|
enjoying Noel addition to the cast in Azure. Love her spunk. Wazy is just ok.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2023 18:17
|
|
|
Wazy owns, Noel owns. Elie is the least good part of the SSS because she's merely okay instead of awesome. Wazy and Randy should never be left alone together.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2023 18:25
|
|
|
Finished Azure, good game, excited for Reverie in four months.
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2023 19:29
|
|
|
Been keeping up with the Northern War anime, and saw the last episode. It’s… alright, and kind of rushes things at the end, and it lines up with what we already know and heard before so yay for keeping continuity Still excited for Reverie in June
|
|
#
?
Mar 24, 2023 19:34
|
|
|
i freaking hate the monster fight where its like 10 wurms that counterattack aoe you
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2023 16:47
|
|
|
That fight is basically luck, on normal you can just blast it with four 200CP S-crafts from the start though.
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2023 17:23
|
|
|
GateOfD posted:i freaking hate the monster fight where its like 10 wurms that counterattack aoe you Oh god and it's the Zero/Azure version where they can just choose to Earth Shaker. Why did they need an upgrade, again
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2023 18:55
|
|
|
Did they change some boss fights in the new version of Azure, there were a few times when the guide I was using was like 'when they drop to less than 25% health they'll start using their s-craft' and the boss just opened up with it when I got there lol
|
|
#
?
Mar 25, 2023 18:58
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 12, 2024 23:37 |
|
|
GateOfD posted:i freaking hate the monster fight where its like 10 wurms that counterattack aoe you Hahaha I just shuddered reading this. Those fights are burned into my brain.
|
|
#
?
Mar 26, 2023 01:04
|
|