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So I played Cold Steel 3 in Japanese and just wanted to mention that it's dramatically better than 1 and 2. The biggest thing that stood out to me is that the new characters are significantly more interesting than most of the main cast of 1/2, and it really helps having them limited to a smaller, more manageable group. A big issue I had with CS1/2 is that the group was too big to really give the same "tight knit" feeling as either Estelle/Joshua or the SSS from Zero/Ao. I'm really excited about 4 coming out later this year. By the way, I would strongly recommend avoiding any information about CS4, since you'll probably end up getting spoiled on some important events from CS3 in the process.
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Jun 20, 2018 18:25
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The n00b Avenger posted:They actually separated arcus link level and relationship level in 3 but yeah. The only ones that really have a romantic option in their final max affection scenes are Alisa, Emma, and Laura though. Also you can technically see like 8 scenes in one playthrough if you want to lol. It feels less 'significant' than in 1 or 2 Also, the only scene that is unambiguously romantic from Rean's end is (kinda predictable minor spoilers) Alisa's. He just shows sorta ambiguous affection towards Laura/Emma (Laura gets a hug IIRC, Alisa is the only one who gets a kiss). In my opinion the best older-Rean love interest is Claire. I just feel like they fit together the best for some reason. One thing I really liked (again minor CS3 spoilers unrelated to plot but just referring to character relationships) is how Rean's students are constantly giving him the side eye every time they encounter another woman from Rean's past who is obviously in love with him. Speaking of the students, I kinda hope they make Yuna x Kurt into a thing in CS4 (just to give someone not-Rean a romance), though I'm kinda doubting it since they didn't seem to be pushing that angle in CS3. The n00b Avenger posted:Boo at talking like Altina's the weakest link. She felt like the main heroine in a sense(more so than Juna), she was great. Despite being the closest thing to a main heroine, (CS3 spoilers) Juna is actually the only one who doesn't seem to really have some major plot thread leading into CS3. Kurt has his rivalry of sorts with one of the major antagonists (Cedric), Ash is obviously involved due to being influenced by the curse plus his connection to Hamel, Altina will be dealing with the loss of Millium and Rean, and Musee has whatever crazy stuff she's up to. Oh, while I have access to other people who have played the game I have one question - (CS3 spoiler)Why was the "bird cage" in Crossbell opened after the events of Chapter 2? I thought the Empire put all the Crossbell heroes in Michelam Park in order to eliminate Crossbell's sense of patriotic pride so they'd more easily assimilate with the Empire, and I'm not sure how that goal would change after the events of the chapter. edit: Other general comments (again CS3 spoiler warning): I was very happy to learn that Lloyd will apparently feature in CS4 and be playable. I was really annoyed by his relative absence in CS3 and the whole "passing things off to Rean" situation, largely because I like Lloyd a lot more than Rean and was worried that was the game's way of saying "Lloyd's story is over." It's nice to know that The Better Trails Male Protagonist still has a role to play. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:55 on Jun 21, 2018 |
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Jun 21, 2018 20:50
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Lord Koth posted:Also major spoilers for Ao in the latest art release (not these specific pictures) so, uh, watch out for that if you want to be unspoiled for that game, even aside from Cold Steel spoilers. Yeah, CS3 itself also spoils that (at one point I think they list the current Anguises IIRC), and it's probably the only Ao spoiler I kinda regret encountering. I've held off on playing Ao in Japanese because my Japanese isn't entirely fluent (I have to use my phone a bunch to translate kanji* and some vocabulary) and it's supposed to have a fan translation released soonish (though it's been soonish for like 4 months now, so not sure what's going on there). I went ahead and did CS3 in JP just because I knew it would be at least 1-2 years until it was translated. * The process of playing CS3 dramatically increased the number of kanji I can read. It was actually a pretty good learning experience, since it's the first time I've bothered translating a really long piece of Japanese media.
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Jun 23, 2018 03:00
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Trails of Zero kicks rear end (I find the setting and plot to be better than Sky's, even if I might give Sky's characters the edge). Tio is cool and good, and I kept thinking "low rent Tio" about Altina in CS3.
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Jun 30, 2018 04:15
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Mr. Fortitude posted:Both Tio and Altina are really really good though. That and Altina is more analogous to KeA than Tio if you ask me. Very different personalities sure, with a similar arc for both of them. Altina becomes good throughout the game, yeah, but earlier on she's very much a "deadpan little girl who doesn't show much emotion" sort of stereotype. The thing I like about Tio is that she is sorta like that, but is also friendly from the very beginning; I initially assumed that there would be some "is standoffish until gradually growing closer to the party" character arc. Terper posted:Yo, Guren's released the Ao patch. Once the Geofront is done with Zero they'll move on to clean this up, but if you were fine with the current Zero patch, well now there's an Ao patch that isn't machine translated. Yeah, I just noticed, though Guren mentioned it wasn't actually him who posted the patch. Someone else did (under his name for some reason?) and then he contacted the person or something; he posted a comment about it on his blog. The translation seems considerably higher quality than the Zero one, even without editing, so far, though he mentioned something about the earlier parts of the game being translated by someone different, so who knows how it'll be later.
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Jul 8, 2018 01:34
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I just noticed that the release date for CSIV apparently was decided quite a while back; Septermber 27, which isn't that long! I knew it was supposed to be Fall, but I had assumed it would be November or something.havenwaters posted:The translation apparently gets worse when you get far into the game so that's a drag Maybe the edited version (which is supposedly still be worked on) will be done by the time I reach that point, though I won't exactly be holding my breath since it's already been like 4+ months. This time around I remembered to apply the HD patch, which is nice and makes a bunch of things + character portraits HD. I wish I had done that for Zero as well.
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Jul 8, 2018 06:50
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I think the biggest thing I feel the Crossbell games do better than both the Sky and Cold Steel games is create a sense of "cohesion" between the whole cast (not just the SSS, but all the various Crossbell supporting characters as well). Sky's characters are individually really good and sometimes more memorable than those in the Crossbell games, but it feels like the Crossbell folks add up to a greater whole. Everyone bounces off of each other really well, and there are a lot of fun and unique personalities in general.
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Jul 10, 2018 06:38
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Cake Attack posted:This is a common take and as much as I loved the games I honestly don't fully agree. Given the potential of the small cast size it felt overly focused on just Lloyd's relationships with party members and didn't really develop any others much. Sorta telling of this is how Lloyd gets his combo craft in Zero with each party member following a meaningful scene and then every one else gets theirs through an item even though it would have been just 3 more scenes at that point. Oh, for sure, but I'm just comparing it with the other Trails games. And I'm not just referring to the party, but also the general supporting cast of characters from Crossbell (chief, Fran, bracer guild guy, etc). Like I mentioned, this is largely just the result of the games being centered on a single city, and it would be difficult to accomplish the same thing in the Sky or Cold Steel games since you're traveling to various places more often (though I feel CS3 does a a pretty good job with its main "hub" area). Regarding the actual main party of the Crossbell games, I'd say that Ellie is kind of the weak link. The other characters left a much bigger impact on me.
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Jul 10, 2018 16:57
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leather fedora posted:Yeah, I finished Zero but I honestly thought they might have tried to get her to make up with her real family since she found out they didn't intentionally abandon her. In a way I feel like it would be the most cruel to let them know everything that happened; from what I recall they aren't aware that she ended up in hellish sex slavery, and they would probably never be able to recover from the knowledge that they contributed to that situation arising.
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Jul 13, 2018 02:30
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BrightWing posted:Dang, still looking forward to seeing what their deal is. The one thing I'll say is that Millium/Altina's deal is certainly A Thing. CS3 in general has a lot of pretty great reveals about various things and characters, some of which caught me off guard (CS3 spoilers) (namely Alisa's dad being one of the Big Bads, especially after the whole sidequest with fixing the watch he gave her in CS1 or 2). The funniest CS3 reveal was (CS3 spoilers)George Nome being a gnome, which I somehow never noticed despite the gnomes being mentioned in CS2.
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Jul 17, 2018 18:13
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Ries likes eating. That is her Personality Trait. She is "the character who likes eating, which is funny for some reason."
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Aug 7, 2018 17:52
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I'm playing Trails of Azure, and they really thought this series through, huh? It's mentioning details from the Cold Steel series that don't come up until Cold Steel 2 (and like relatively specific details, not big picture stuff). edit: Well, may have been late CS1, can't remember Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 08:16 on Aug 26, 2018 |
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Aug 26, 2018 08:08
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Tae posted:-“There are some characters yet to be introduced in order to avoid spoilers.” If my interpretation of this is correct, it's almost a spoiler in and of itself.
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Aug 27, 2018 21:08
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Erpy posted:Well, there's that but then again, he might have been similar to Aina. Unless… OMFG, Aina is a Dominion!!! Aina is the Grandmaster. edit: The Phantasmal Flame plan is just some convoluted scheme to create infinite alcohol.
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Aug 30, 2018 02:26
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Logicblade posted:As an aside, can I vote to change the Phantasmal Blaze plan to the Spicy Ghost plan, sounds much more ominous that way. "Phantasmal Blaze" sounds like some sort of weed product.
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Aug 30, 2018 23:03
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Really Pants posted:Azure Siegfried The first and last sound like nicknames for sex toys.
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Aug 31, 2018 02:37
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Charlie Bobson posted:plus trails is generally shonen anime as hell The thing I like about Lloyd in Zero/Ao more than Rean in CS is that, while he is definitely a shounen protagonist, all the other characters recognize it and dunk on him constantly for it. CS plays it straight with Rean, which doesn't work nearly as well.
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Sep 2, 2018 17:45
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lol I love the recurring joke in Zero/Ao about Lloyd's magical ability to be an oblivious ladies' man. Cold Steel unfortunately plays it straight in CS1/CS2, though some people give Rean poo poo for it in CS3.
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Sep 24, 2018 05:04
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edit: My CS4 came today (it was expected to arrive here Monday, so I guess I got lucky)! So excited to spend like 2-3 months slowly translating my way through this game (since that's about how long CS3 took). The last divine knight will be piloted by Tio and it will be shaped like a giant golden Michey. edit: Lloyd is a really good guy. There are little things he does that stand out; like the part where (mild Ao Intermission spoilers) KeA mentions feeling kind of lonely and Lloyd asks if it's about her origins, she says yeah, and Lloyd says that that's why he and the others are there, and to feel free to talk to them about it. It seems like a small thing, but I feel like most similar protagonists in that situation would just say something like "don't worry, we're here now" instead of actually acknowledging her feelings and letting her know it's okay if she wants to talk about it. The same goes for the situation with Randy's family, where Lloyd just pulls him aside and is like "if you want to talk about it, I'll listen." Or when he mentions being concerned about Rixia because he can tell that she's unhappy about something. There's just a sort of "sincerity" there, where it feels like his actions aren't just a means to the end of "being the hero/protagonist" (which is honestly an impression I get from CS1/2 Rean). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Sep 29, 2018 |
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Sep 25, 2018 02:25
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Terper posted:Rean spends a great amount of conversations not prodding and only wanting people to talk about things when they feel ready (Alisa, Jusis, *Emma*, Millium, Crow, etc.), what are you talking about Rean is obviously nice by virtue of being protagonist, but his is usually more the passive "not mean in any way, and beloved by virtue of being the protagonist who everyone can rely on, so people open up to him" type. More importantly, though, Lloyd's character doesn't hit as many "cool guy LN protagonist" beats as Rean does. He's the "heart of the group" in the same way Rean is, but his relationships with his party members vary more. Seriously, if you think about Rean's relationships with every other member of Class 7, nearly every one can be described as "good friend who looks up to (or is in love with) Rean because of his bravery and kindness." While this is also the case to some extent with Lloyd and the SSS, you at least have stuff like Lloyd viewing Randy as an older brother figure (which has significance due to his own brother being dead), whatever one would call his relationship with (Ao party member spoiled just in case)Wazy, and the stuff with all party members, including the main two love interests, making fun of him constantly for obviously saying/doing romantic things. There isn't the same sort of "adoration." His harem is also a lot smaller than Rean's (doesn't seem to exceed 3 people, as opposed to Rean's 5+). He also isn't martially very strong (Randy is explicitly considerably stronger, as are a couple other party members). The main thing is that the game just doesn't spend nearly as much time stroking the ego of Lloyd-as-PC as it does Rean-as-PC. Rean is a cool looking dude with a katana, mecha, and a special power; Lloyd has a police jacket and tonfas. I mean, Estelle is still a better protagonist than Lloyd, but Lloyd is a much better take on the "male protagonist with some level of harem" idea than Rean is (largely because the latter plays it straight, while the former acknowledges and jokes about it).
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Sep 30, 2018 05:55
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Trails of Azure question (very vague spoilers that only really spoil some of CS1): Do we know which of the terrorists during the attack at the Trade Conference is glasses dude from the ILF? IIRC they were all faceless.CharlestheHammer posted:Crow is a weird character because his arc is basically over in one and then he just spends the second game just being there. The thing that bugs me about Crow is that his backstory is not nearly tragic enough to justify his actions. Like, being mad at Osbourne for causing his grandfather to die (he committed suicide IIRC?) makes sense, but it's not a "therefore I'm willing to murder countless people to get my revenge"-quality tragedy. I could see that making sense if Osbourne directly caused his family to be murdered by jaegers or something, but as is his motive is pretty weak. Like, that one jaeger dude whose entire platoon (or whatever) was killed has a better motive than he does. More broadly speaking, both CS1 and CS2 are awkward as full games in the greater context of "the Erebonian arc." I feel like they had a difficult situation where they needed to both establish Class 7 and the events with the civil war, so they couldn't just make the civil war part of the backstory, and they also needed actual gameplay time to establish Rean and his relationship with his classmates (plus the whole Erebonian supporting cast). And it was difficult to fit all that stuff into one game*. CS1 and CS2 could almost make sense as some sort of prequel set after the release of CS3/CS4, if not for the fact that Rean's the protagonist (so you need to see his whole story first-hand). * I feel like they could have possibly accomplished this if, instead of students at a military school, Rean and his friends were instead direct soldier recruits and fought the civil war during the first game, though in order for this to work they would have needed to plan it out since at least prior to the Crossbell games.
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Oct 2, 2018 20:51
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Stabbey_the_Clown posted:Yeah, although V wasn't that far behind with "Me and my whole crew tried to set up to assassinate Chancellor Osborne. It was just a 20 vs 1 fight, there was no need for him to kill us all. How were we supposed to know he'd take that personally?" In V's defense, I believe he flat-out said "yeah, I can't really blame him for killing us in defense and woulda done the same thing, but they were still my buddies so I want to get revenge for them.
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Oct 4, 2018 23:02
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Some Numbers posted:Of the final bonding events in CS2, Alisa, Emma and Laura are the only explicitly romantic ones, but you're still right. Tbh, Laura (and I think Emma) could even be interpreted as platonic from Rean's POV (he just hugs Laura, for example). Alisa I think is the only one Rean is directly romantic towards. My opinion is that older CS3/4 Rean actually matches best with Claire for reasons I can't really articulate; just seems to fit best. Edit: Laura in particular gave me a strong "this poor girls knows she stands no chance and has convinced herself she is okay with being Rean's platonic sword friend." Kinda reminds me of Meiya from Muc-Luv Alternative. vv I'm talking about CS3 Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 19:26 on Oct 11, 2018 |
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Oct 11, 2018 19:21
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Really Pants posted:
I like this girl Rean. Rean is easily my least favorite of the main character designs (between Estelle/Kevin/Lloyd/Rean). Imagining his harem gender-swapped is also pretty great (Laura and Fie would be great like this; Alisa is a bit harder to imagine), though I've also always liked "reverse harems" more than "regular" ones. Some Numbers posted:For one, most of us haven't played CS3 and for another, I was specifically responding to someone saying "most of the final CS2 girl events are romantic," which is decidedly not the case. Ah, I was responding as part of what you were talking about with Lord Koth (who mentioned CS3 in the context of blowback for CS3 not giving them much). Prior to that, yeah, you can definitely be directly romantic with most of the characters in CS2. Tbh I kinda liked them toning down that aspect in CS3*, though based on what Lord Koth said they brought it back in 4 (which I haven't played much yet since I've been distracted by other things). * It's also more self-aware about it; 1/2 played the harem relatively straight, while 3 at least has people noticing that everyone loves Rean and side-eyeing him (which is also the way Zero/Ao did it).
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Oct 12, 2018 03:28
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Re: Rean discussion, Rean improves significantly in CS3 and then becomes kinda lame against in CS4*. While being very general and avoiding spoilers, CS3 gave me a lot of false hope that the series was going to improve many of the things I didn't like about CS1/CS2, and then betrayed it in CS4 (there's one particular thing that I really hated, to the point that it retroactively soured me on parts of CS3). It's still a really good game, though; it's just that I feel like it could have been much better. Lloyd is way better than Rean (though Estelle is better than both), and the person who said Lloyd is worse is crazy and dumb. Rean is far more of a cliche "anime/manga harem protagonist" type character, and a lot of his character design and circumstances are clearly aimed at making him seem cool in a kind of lame way (clothes, katana, mech, white hair/red eye mode, etc). I like Lloyd because he's pretty goofy and his dynamic with the rest of the party is far better than Rean's. He has his (relatively modest, compared with Rean - there are only really two serious members) harem, but people give him poo poo about it and turn it into a joke, as opposed to the CS games that play Rean's harem almost completely straight. Lloyd's chemistry with the supporting cast is also much better, compared with Rean's which is pretty much just "everyone likes and looks up to Rean." All in all, the Trails arc that had the best overall impression on me was Zero/Ao. It had the best combination of good characters/chemistry and good setting. There are certain aspects to the Sky games that I liked more, so it's kind of close between them and Zero/Ao, but the latter just come out a bit better in my estimation (largely due to having better party chemistry and a neater setting). The Cold Steel games were still entertaining, but something about them felt a lot less inspired and it felt like a lot of stuff was thrown in as fan service. * just decided to add a spoiler here just in case
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Jan 26, 2019 03:11
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The Doomhammer posted:I feel Juna gets the worst of it, feels wrong to see her fawning over Rean the way she does in 4, and Rean seems far too receptive to the advances of his female students for my comfort (they don't seem to do anything stupid with Altina, at least.) Yeah, the thing you mention first in this post is the thing I was referring to as retroactively souring me on stuff. I was really pleased when it seemed that (vague/general comments about the CS3/CS4 romance situation) new class 7 wouldn't be in Rean's harem (aside from Musee as a sort of joke), and they even frequently make fun of Rean for having a harem with all the female members of old class 7 (it was funny seeing Juna/Kurt/etc repeatedly side-eye Rean each time they encountered yet another member of his extended harem). So completely undoing that in CS4 really, really sucked, and it was especially bizarre for Juna's character. The CS games just take the harem thing too drat far, to the point where it's almost comical. I literally have trouble thinking of any remotely prominent female characters who are not in love with Rean. Off the top of my head....uh, Millium, Duvalie, and Angie? I guess you can also count Vita. I think that might be the full list of non-harem prominent women. The Zero/Ao games also just deal with it differently. Everyone is aware of Lloyd's appeal with women and jokes about it, and even the love interests (of which there really aren't that many) are mutually aware of it and get exasperated when Lloyd says embarrassing things with a straight face. If you absolutely have to have a "choose among multiple love interests" mechanic, the way Zero/Ao does it is probably the best way. To be completely honest, I can't say I'm optimistic about future games avoiding the issues the CS games had, particular given the way CS4 seemed to fully embrace the various problems CS1 and CS2 had (which seems to imply that those things are unfortunately quite popular with the player base). I will be pleasantly surprised if the Calvard arc doesn't also involve 95% of the female characters within 10 years of the protagonist's age being in love with him. I'm sure they'll still be a lot of fun to play, but it's a shame that we probably won't get something else similar to the Sky/Crossbell games.
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Feb 5, 2019 06:52
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Hwurmp posted:Millium cannot be the worst while Elise exists Millium gains points for being, I believe, the only female class member who is not in love with Rean. Elise is definitely bad. One of the reasons Lloyd is better than Rean is that Lloyd has an older sister who is a normal person who is not in love with her brother.
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May 5, 2019 00:38
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IceBorg posted:Ah yes Rean as a teacher and also still being the protagonist means that he will be holding back 75% of the game. A bold move being able to let your students all die painful deaths to the first hard boss because you held back. The impression I got from CS3 with regards to Rean is that he was actually relying almost entirely on his oni strength power to fight at the level of his stronger classmates (like Laura or Fie) and that without the ability to freely use it he's actually legitimately struggling with his opponents (the scene where him and new Class VII are struggling with some mechs and then Laura appears and instantly wipes them all out comes to mind). Though the series in general has an issue where it's often not clear how strong characters are "canonically." Like, it's obvious that someone like Machias, Elliot, or Alisa is not actually a huge badass on a similar level to that of an Ouroboros enforcer, whereas someone like Laura or Fie (or CS3 Gaius) probably is. U-DO Burger posted:Elise (bad character): has a crush on her step-brother but knows better than to pursue it My issue with Elise is less the "sister" thing (though that's still pretty bad, and is also an issue with Estelle/Joshua), and more her whole fawning attitude towards Rean, where she basically worships the guy. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 20:23 on May 10, 2019 |
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May 10, 2019 20:13
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mistaya posted:Estelle and Joshua wouldn't be weird if Josh moved in next door instead of being picked up by Cassius, they were old enough when they met that it doesn't really bother me. Elise only ever knew Rean as her brother from the time she was in diapers and he clearly just thinks of her as his sister so that one's uh, real creepy. I think the main thing that makes Estelle/Joshua feel less weird is that they don't have a strong sibling-specific dynamic. There aren't a lot (or even any, I don't think?) of "nii-san/nee-san"'s going around. As opposed to Elise/Rean, where they very clearly act like siblings, and Elise throws out "nii-sama" like it's going out of style. Joshua and Estelle's dynamic is more like just "two people who were raised together." Like, they could have had a similar dynamic if Joshua were just some kid who lived next-door while they were growing up (though obviously that wouldn't make sense for other elements of Joshua's character).
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May 23, 2019 02:33
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Oxxidation posted:who are the obligatory Siblings Who Want to gently caress in ao/zero One of the reasons Zero/Ao are the best is that Lloyd has an older step-sister who was married to his dead brother and - notably - does not want to gently caress him. They even had the whole "not blood related" angle to use an excuse, and they still restrained themselves. The other reasons are that 1. Zero/Ao have by far the best team dynamic and 2. the Crossbell setting is unique and interesting. The characters aren't necessarily better than the ones in Sky (though I like them a bit more overall), but they work much better as a group (and a zillion times better than the abomination that is the group dynamic of Class 7 in the CS series). The biggest thing that stands out, that you can't really say about Class 7 (or even the Sky cast, really) is that all 4 of the main cast have some sort of dynamic with one another, rather than everyone just revolving around the protagonist as a nexus. And I've mentioned before why Lloyd manages to work in a way Rean doesn't, despite technically having some of the same characteristics (as a male protagonist with a harem of sorts).
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Jun 8, 2019 02:29
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U-DO Burger posted:seeing as Calvard's big issue is immigration, I'm assuming a good chunk of that darkened area is a bunch of other countries My guess is that in the Eastern part of that landmass is fantasy-China and the island east of that is fantasy-Japan, since a lot of Japanese fantasy IPs do that sort of thing (like FF14). The story has implied a bunch of Important poo poo going down in The East (to the extent where it seems implied that it's tied into the purpose of Ouroboros existing as an organization), so I get the impression that's also the cause of the immigration. So I guess something is wrecking fantasy-Japan/China, resulting in heavy immigration to Calvard.
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Jun 27, 2019 21:03
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Some Numbers posted:It's a lot easier to sympathize with Claire and Carl serving the government and Osbourne when you find out how awful the Erebonian nobility is. Claire's motive for being an ironblood is honestly one of the stranger ones, as far as "reasons to have absolute loyalty to this guy who you obviously realize is evil by this point" go. Lechter's is a bit easier to understand (though still doesn't quite justify serving Osbourne IMO, especially in light of CS3 events). IIRC both are revealed in CS3, though, so I'll avoid elaborating. Logicblade posted:So the things I liked about Crossbell were: I agree about all of this, to the extent that I consider Zero/Ao to be unquestionably better than Cold Steel and even better than Sky in most ways (though Sky has some very strong high points). During CS3 I briefly got optimistic than CS would end up returning to Zero/Ao quality, but ended up being disappointed (though CS3 and 4 are still fun games). Despite superficially having some of Rean's characteristics, I also thought Lloyd is a much better protagonist for reasons I've mentioned before in this thread. Tales of Woe posted:i dunno, I think Cold Steel retains the improvements in character writing from Crossbell, they just increased the cast size too much so everyone's character moments are spread thin other than Alisa The issue with Cold Steel is that it limits its character writing almost entirely to the first game. The characters don't really grow any (or have any meaningful interaction with one another) beyond that point.
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Aug 30, 2019 22:34
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ChiTownEddie posted:I experienced this exact scene about.....30mins ago hahaha. I'm loooving Zero so far, it just feels like the right amount of chill jrpg I need right now. I got TOCS2 queued up next if I'm not feeling any burnout after finishing. Zero is probably my favorite of the games in the series. I agree with all of this; New Class 7 being good and interesting just makes things even worse (I like Ashe a lot in particular). And Cold Steel in general goes way too far with the harem stuff. Zero/Ao have a male protagonist with some love interests, but it's within reason and doesn't reach the completely ludicrous levels of the CS games (and Randy, the other male party member, has his own love interest). I'm pretty sure that the number women in love with Rean is in the double digits and encompasses quite possibly literally every prominent female character under the age of 30 who isn't one of the members of the Sky/Crossbell parties. I'm struggling to think of a single exception to this. In general I feel like the CS games started to lean heavily into fan-service, and because it likely improved their sales numbers I really doubt the trend is going to stop. CS4 is considerably worse in the ways you mention - CS3 at least gives a pretty decent amount of focus to the new class 7 folks, and I really liked Yuna as a new second protagonist. I also really liked Randy having a somewhat prominent supporting role. These good elements kind of make the bad stuff feel even worse, because you can easily imagine how the game could be much better.
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Jul 12, 2020 05:51
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So I just noticed that apparently the next Trails game came out in Japan some time back. From what I read (which wasn't much) it seems sorta like a Sky 3rd-ish interim game? I also just noticed that apparently CS4 is coming out in NA in like a week or something? That's cool, since I never completely finished JP CS4. I got maybe 3/4 through it, if I had to guess, but I ended up getting lazy with translating everything and figured I'd just wait for the NA one to finish it. As much as I dislike a lot about the direction the series has taken, the gameplay and certain aspects of the setting are still fun.
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Sep 21, 2020 04:19
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King of Solomon posted:CS4 is releasing in NA in mid-October, so it's closer to a month off at this point. Oh, I was actually looking at the JP release date, missed the "2018." Though apparently I still wasn't too far off. The one minor shame is that I won't have an NA CS3 save file due to having played the JP version of that (I doubt they'll let you carry over from the JP version to the NA version).
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Sep 21, 2020 05:25
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Saoshyant posted:Also, wasn't joking about that part above about the NPC's, tiny minor characters in such vast games, making so much a difference to the whole setting. This is like what Shenmue sort of tried to do. Like, in CS3 chapter 5, you find this postman dude who was just an rear end in a top hat to you if you ever talked with him at any time in the city, and you now sort of feel bad for him while also going "see, you rear end in a top hat, this is what you get for being such a hardass about your job that you couldn't even greet someone properly". The one thing that's particularly a shame IMO about where the CS series went (and the overall Trails series is likely to continue) is that it still retains a lot of the reasons it's good - the detail involved in the setting and NPCs is still great, even if some core plot and character beats are bad. Regarding the plot, I think the broadest plot beats are fine (like "what is happens at the macro-level in each game"), but the individual things that happen along the way can be pretty bad and predictable. infraboy posted:Theres a pretty good translation sheet from Kitsune on CSIV, been out for a while if you wanted to finish IV, i've played through it about 3 times and really love it, it's a great conclusion to Erebonia, still leaves some mystery for the future titles. I still have the NA version on pre-order This new-fangled technology confuses me. It mentions using a controller, but the game is on PS4 and the app is on PC. Back in my day we read translations on blog posts while playing Fate/Extra CCC and liked it I'm thinking I might actually just play through the NA CS3 in the meanwhile. I definitely got lazy about a lot of side-conversations when playing through the Japanese version (my Japanese is at a level where a combination of voiced lines and Japanese text is fairly easy for me to understand, but with text alone I often just end up getting "the gist" of what's being said, so it'd be nice to be able to freely read it without getting a headache). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Sep 21, 2020 |
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Sep 21, 2020 22:17
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So after starting the NA CS3 I'm realizing that I actually forgot a lot about these games (which isn't surprising since it's been a couple years since I played any). Is there anything that's good to know gameplay-wise? I'm trying to play on hard difficulty, since I did it in normal on my JP playthrough. From what I can recall, fights in this game are often the sort of thing where you either wreck the enemy or get wrecked yourself. I know the basic mechanics fine, but I'm thinking more in terms of useful quartz set-ups and crafts (like how Rean had that one totally broken ability in CS2).
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Sep 22, 2020 08:26
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Saoshyant posted:Okay, I'm pissed off, for a number of reasons. I have reached the end of CS3, so don't hover the spoilers below if you haven't. My interpretation is that it's completely impossible to avoid the whole "Erebonian curse" or whatever, so Osbourne is trying to sort of "ride" the curse in what he perceives as the least harmful way. I forget the rationale of why this would be the "harm reduction" option, though.
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Sep 23, 2020 20:09
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I'm enjoying playing the NA CS3 a whole lot. Translating my way through the JP one was kind of rewarding in its own way, but it's definitely more fun to just be able to kick back and relax and comfortably read all the NPC dialogue without it being like some sort of homework assignment. It's a lot of fun to mess with the various elements of the battle system. Also Vantage Masters is a lot more fun than Blade. One question - should I be using temporary party members linked to Rean for support points or something? I forget how that works. The whole party gets XP even if someone isn't in the active team, right? Hocus Pocus posted:But I found that I had to either completely crush bosses, or I quickly got stomped. This was my experience as well, and it seems like one of the most important things is going into a boss fight with maxed out CP so you can exploit breaking the boss early (I'm playing on Hard and had a really tough time with the early boss fight with Millum and Altina because I got off to a bad start with low CP; I ended up needing to split my characters up so his attacks would only hit one at a time, and even then had to use a lot of healing and resurrection items). If I let the boss get many attacks off, I quickly end up in a chain of constantly trying to heal (and if someone is knocked out they lose all their CP, which in turn makes it even harder to defeat the boss). The common "get a huge buff and heal when low on health" mechanic also punishes you for not killing the boss quickly. IIRC late game ends up a bit different, with you having more tools to defend against enemies and more EP to use them. I also agree about the CS3 students being better. Being much fewer in number definitely helped, but (spoiling all of this just in case)I also like the main party and supporting cast more (having Randy there as an "older male peer" helped a ton IMO - having him as part of the main party in the Crossbell games also played a big role in making Lloyd feel less like some sort of self-insert badass character, and I really liked the dynamic he had with Lloyd). Original class 7 was mostly pretty lame in comparison IMO, except for Jusis and maybe Gaius (who isn't interesting but is a cool guy), and CS3/CS4 seem to struggle to give most of them relevance. Off the top of my head, the only ones with a remotely strong personal connection to events are Jusis (which is one of the reasons I like him) and Fie (Alisa/Laura have some connections, but not ones I think are very interesting). Gaius's development is also pretty cool, so I'll include him.
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Sep 25, 2020 19:51
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King of Solomon posted:I'd say that Emma also has a fairly strong personal connection to the events, especially in CS3. Not only is her hunt for Vita obviously personal, but because of Vita's connection to everything, that directly connects her to everything. What's more, as a member of the Hexen clan and granddaughter to Roselia, she has a lot of connection to the history of Erebonia that's so critical to what's been happening in the country over the course of the games. It's just a completely different sort of connection than a Machias or Jusis, who are directly involved in the governing of Erebonia. She has a strong connection, but not in the sort of way where I'm curious about what will happen to her over the course of the rest of the series. The thing that makes someone like Jusis interesting is that he has a very close connection to a major antagonist. Same sort of situation with Fie. They basically have plot threads to resolve through their relationships with said major Divine Knight-wielding antagonists, which keeps them engaged with the plot. Alisa has the thing with her mother, but her mother isn't as "high profile" as Rufus or Jaeger dude I forget the name of. Laura's dad is maybe-killed (this isn't resolved yet at the point I got to in CS4), but that doesn't really give her an interesting ongoing motivation. New Class 7 also mostly benefits from having better connections to events. Kurt has a close connection to Olivert's shithead brother, Altina has her connection to Black Workshop + Millium's fate in CS3, Ash is affected by the curse to shoot the Emperor, and Musse retains a level of mystery going into CS4. Death Priest posted:Will no one else champion Machias ? I mean, it's great that Machias is doing that just like it's great that Elliot is doing his music thing, but that doesn't make it very compelling in a "I'm curious what will happen with this character" sort of way. They're nice guys who are enjoyable in terms of the way they interact with other members of the cast, but they don't have much to do in the plot (which Gaius sort of averts by becoming relevant simply by virtue of being a Dominion).
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Sep 25, 2020 22:24
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