I need to read Gambler Jack, I skipped it in SC because I missed the first chapter but in 3rd they're all readily available in the hub.
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Fishing against the Baron is the real final boss of the game.
I have never hated a game character that strongly.
I have never hated a game character that strongly.
I beat the Baron after a few tries but was kind of underwhelmed by the reward.
Just wrapping up 3rd before I go for the final boss - doing the nightmare tournament, upgrading all slots and quartzes, etc.
Just wrapping up 3rd before I go for the final boss - doing the nightmare tournament, upgrading all slots and quartzes, etc.
After figuring out what to do after a few tries, I played perfectly for the first stage of 3rd's fishing minigame.
So does the Baron.
He still beat me, due to having better luck with the random number ranges.
I never forgave him that day.
(The other stages were easier because the chances of the AI playing perfectly were much lower)
So does the Baron.
He still beat me, due to having better luck with the random number ranges.
I never forgave him that day.
(The other stages were easier because the chances of the AI playing perfectly were much lower)
I beat the Baron and kind of wish I hadn't bothered, even though I think I managed the final round on my first try (instead, it was the second round that gave me the most grief).
I don't remember my exact experience with the fishing minigame, but I know I found it easier as I got further for the most part. The baron was the only one I beat on the first try (or even close to it). The first guy destroyed me, repeatedly. By far the hardest one, just bad luck I guess.
I actually did manage to beat the whole thing on my first try, I quickly applied the whole catching bait to catch bigger fish cycle.
I think me actually screwing up majorly in the beginning caused the rng to go wonky against me on the first opponent and give me the win.
I think me actually screwing up majorly in the beginning caused the rng to go wonky against me on the first opponent and give me the win.
Just tried playing Zero with the translation patch. I wanted to wait for the Geofront translation to be completed, but I also want to play Zero and Ao before CS3, and I want to play CS3 as soon as it's released. At this point, I judge the chances of the Geofront translation being released before CS3 are just about zero. So a couple weeks ago I ordered a copy of the PSP version, and just now I ripped the ISO and patched it.
So far a lot of the lines sound really awkward, but at least it's not completely incomprehensible. In the past I've generally dropped games that I felt had bad fan translations, but this is a game I really want to play, so we'll see if I can stick with it until the end.
So far a lot of the lines sound really awkward, but at least it's not completely incomprehensible. In the past I've generally dropped games that I felt had bad fan translations, but this is a game I really want to play, so we'll see if I can stick with it until the end.
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Yeah, I dunno if Geofront will finish before Cold Steel 3 or not. They've been fairly quiet for almost half a year now, which could mean they've made a surprising amount of progress or hardly any. It'd be great if they release their translation soon, but it's hard to say when it'll happen since they're just a bunch of people working on it in their free time.
The Zero leak translation does not get better, although you might adjust to its low quality. The translation of its sequel is better, at least.
Yeah, I just finished the Prologue. It definitely hasn't gotten better. The NPC dialogue in particular can be pretty terrible.
Ah, well. Guess that's what I get for playing a translation that was never meant to be released this way. I'm still enjoying the game despite the translation, so I'll probably continue for now.
Ah, well. Guess that's what I get for playing a translation that was never meant to be released this way. I'm still enjoying the game despite the translation, so I'll probably continue for now.
Zerker's comment about working two jobs is probably the closest thing we've gotten to a Zero update for a while. Sounds like progress has been slow, might not hit their goal of finishing before CS3.
Yeah no way the Zero fan translation is out before CSIII. Seems like I will have to play with current one soon.
I think I overprepared for the final boss of the 3rd given that I beat it without taking damage?
Now to decide whether to dive into the CS duo or wait on the Zero translation.
Now to decide whether to dive into the CS duo or wait on the Zero translation.
I'm in the middle of a Cold Steel replay on PC, and gave it a try running it at 144 fps as I have a monitor and PC that finally support it, and the game can't handle it.
I knew Durante said that certain things might not work properly at higher framerates (I mostly just knew about a certain train sequence not working as intended), but while the problems are just on ocassion, they have proved to be severe, to the point where cutscenes can get completely out of sync, and in one case (Ellise and Alfin introduction) it got to the point that the sequence couldn't continue as the high framerate borched the cutscene triggers.
However, more concerning, I have experienced two OS crashes while playing Cold Steel this time. This never had happened me before with the game (regular crashes, once or twice, but not a OS crash), and while the crashes could have been caused by other unrelated issues, no other game, or any other sort of activity, caused such crashes before.
Anyway, lesson learned, I'll keep my Cold Steel experience at 60fps.
I knew Durante said that certain things might not work properly at higher framerates (I mostly just knew about a certain train sequence not working as intended), but while the problems are just on ocassion, they have proved to be severe, to the point where cutscenes can get completely out of sync, and in one case (Ellise and Alfin introduction) it got to the point that the sequence couldn't continue as the high framerate borched the cutscene triggers.
However, more concerning, I have experienced two OS crashes while playing Cold Steel this time. This never had happened me before with the game (regular crashes, once or twice, but not a OS crash), and while the crashes could have been caused by other unrelated issues, no other game, or any other sort of activity, caused such crashes before.
Anyway, lesson learned, I'll keep my Cold Steel experience at 60fps.
That's weird, I played with the framerate unlocked and only ever had issues with the train scene. No crashes or sync issues.
It may be caused by other issues (corrupted saves, maybe?), but it's wierd as all the problems regarding sync issues with the cutscenes were solved by capping the framerate to 60, which makes me think it has to be the framerate.
A game can't actually do that. There may be a bug with newer drivers or some other software (like hardware monitoring stuff) you're running that conflicts with the game.
IIRC, Durante tested up to 120 fps (though maybe not for the first one?). The math may start to fall off above that, but that shouldn't impact stability.
I finished CS2 some weeks ago but haven't found time to write something about it until now thanks to university.
Though I enjoyed CS2 a lot and don't regret playing at all, it's because of my grievances with it that it's my least liked in the series. It's also because of that that I'm not in a hurry to play CS3 and will comfortably wait for the release of the Zero fantranslation (I mean, it's also because university is kicking my ass and I don't have time). Thank you for all the headpats and all the songs in this soundtrack that reused segments of The Final Choice, a personal favorite.
(because someone would ask, the ranking is: 3rd > FC > | barrier that games will only pass if they do something special to me | > CS1 > SC > CS2)
After CS1's incredibly overwhelming ending, I was very pumped up to immediately start the sequel and see what happened to everyone, and Act 1 was great at following up on that while also setting up all the many different factions working together as the antagonists with their own agendas, which I felt was an improvement to any other localized Trails game where you mostly have easily defined groups of good and bad guys.
Though, speaking of characters, something I don't think either game sold me on was Rean and Crow's relationship. I never understood why Rean, à la Naruto, was so willing to go to the ends of the earth to bring him back to his side. And I know that he'd do that to any of his classmates since a lot of these games is about keeping Class VII together, but in some occasions it seemed that it was a personal mission for him and those wouldn't work for me when I never saw those two being close friends, or closer than Rean would be with any other male classmate.
Then Act 2 started, we gained the Courageous from Olivert and started travelling around the country, checking in on our families and hometowns and indirectly hurting the Noble Alliance (I wish they would hurt the Alliance more in this section; they wanted to be a neutral force in the conflict but there was clearly a bad side and a good one. Though by the finale, neither side was purely good...).
I liked all the set pieces in this act, and my only problem with it is that by 2-3 I wanted to be done with it but still had some fetch quests to do, not only the dungeons but recruiting students as well; I only cared about a handful of those kids.
One of my low-key favorite moments in this game was seeing Celdic ravaged by the noble army. It was important to get off the airship where everything is crystal clean and everyone is untouchable, and see the effects of the conflict. RIP Manager Otto.
And because of it, my favorite student recruiting, by far, was setting up the concert proposed by Rosine, with the help of Fiona, Andre, and that Thors student whose name I already forget. It was a very touching scene and I was happy to see the music literally revitalizing the spirits of the citizens.
The Finale was considerably shorter than the deluge of endings in CS1. I had called out that Osborne was Rean's dad in the first game and I was laughing when that turned out to be true. But I was also mad by the fact that he cheated death. My theory is that the dude doesn't have anything in his chest, and he gave his heart to bby Rean. It's why Rean has the scar and it's how he has the skullgreymon powers (was Bleublanc calling it "ogre power" because that's the real name of that thing, or was him playing with concepts of beauty?).
It was hilarious to see him treating a damn Anguis like shit, and making everyone else in the room feel like they have been pawns in his game. I am glad the game is finally admitting that Osborne is a bastard and needs to die.
And then... the actual ending. I already spoke a lot on this on the Discord so I won't repeat myself a lot, but this is the only ending in a Trails game that I actively disliked. The game did not do any of the Class VII students justice and pushed them off the plot in a rushed way, while also putting the player through a 2-hour dungeon that unabashedly admits it's irrelevant and pointless. That time could have been used to give the main characters a proper farewell.
Though, speaking of characters, something I don't think either game sold me on was Rean and Crow's relationship. I never understood why Rean, à la Naruto, was so willing to go to the ends of the earth to bring him back to his side. And I know that he'd do that to any of his classmates since a lot of these games is about keeping Class VII together, but in some occasions it seemed that it was a personal mission for him and those wouldn't work for me when I never saw those two being close friends, or closer than Rean would be with any other male classmate.
Then Act 2 started, we gained the Courageous from Olivert and started travelling around the country, checking in on our families and hometowns and indirectly hurting the Noble Alliance (I wish they would hurt the Alliance more in this section; they wanted to be a neutral force in the conflict but there was clearly a bad side and a good one. Though by the finale, neither side was purely good...).
I liked all the set pieces in this act, and my only problem with it is that by 2-3 I wanted to be done with it but still had some fetch quests to do, not only the dungeons but recruiting students as well; I only cared about a handful of those kids.
One of my low-key favorite moments in this game was seeing Celdic ravaged by the noble army. It was important to get off the airship where everything is crystal clean and everyone is untouchable, and see the effects of the conflict. RIP Manager Otto.
And because of it, my favorite student recruiting, by far, was setting up the concert proposed by Rosine, with the help of Fiona, Andre, and that Thors student whose name I already forget. It was a very touching scene and I was happy to see the music literally revitalizing the spirits of the citizens.
The Finale was considerably shorter than the deluge of endings in CS1. I had called out that Osborne was Rean's dad in the first game and I was laughing when that turned out to be true. But I was also mad by the fact that he cheated death. My theory is that the dude doesn't have anything in his chest, and he gave his heart to bby Rean. It's why Rean has the scar and it's how he has the skullgreymon powers (was Bleublanc calling it "ogre power" because that's the real name of that thing, or was him playing with concepts of beauty?).
It was hilarious to see him treating a damn Anguis like shit, and making everyone else in the room feel like they have been pawns in his game. I am glad the game is finally admitting that Osborne is a bastard and needs to die.
And then... the actual ending. I already spoke a lot on this on the Discord so I won't repeat myself a lot, but this is the only ending in a Trails game that I actively disliked. The game did not do any of the Class VII students justice and pushed them off the plot in a rushed way, while also putting the player through a 2-hour dungeon that unabashedly admits it's irrelevant and pointless. That time could have been used to give the main characters a proper farewell.
Though I enjoyed CS2 a lot and don't regret playing at all, it's because of my grievances with it that it's my least liked in the series. It's also because of that that I'm not in a hurry to play CS3 and will comfortably wait for the release of the Zero fantranslation (I mean, it's also because university is kicking my ass and I don't have time). Thank you for all the headpats and all the songs in this soundtrack that reused segments of The Final Choice, a personal favorite.
(because someone would ask, the ranking is: 3rd > FC > | barrier that games will only pass if they do something special to me | > CS1 > SC > CS2)
Lol at Lloyd's
purely innocent concern for Renne, who is a murderer and enforcer. I love this kid, he's so pure.
Just finished Chapter 1 of Zero.
Ahaha... I expected Estelle, Joshua, and Renne to show up at some point in the Crossbell arc, since that's where they said they'd be in 3rd, but I wasn't quite expecting it to be this early. I didn't think they'd directly continue a story thread from the Sky games this early on. It's definitely a big contrast to CS1, where the ties to the Sky games were much smaller.
Also met Harold Hayworth...whom I immediately recognized as Renne's father. I expect I'll be seeing more of him before the end of the game.
Otherwise, the story has been fairly slow, which is what I've come to expect from Trails games, but I'm still having fun. The translation still isn't great, but it's easy enough to understand, and I still feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the characters' personalities.
Also met Harold Hayworth...whom I immediately recognized as Renne's father. I expect I'll be seeing more of him before the end of the game.
Otherwise, the story has been fairly slow, which is what I've come to expect from Trails games, but I'm still having fun. The translation still isn't great, but it's easy enough to understand, and I still feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the characters' personalities.
I'm getting through it with the current translation and I'm enjoying it a lot.
Just got past a point in chapter 3 that will tie up what you just mentioned, and very well at that.
I just finished Zero! I liked quite a few things about it and it tied up with Sky very nicely. However...
I feel like people undersell just how poor the current translation is. It's only readable, and at times almost completely incomprehensible. You end up with more a vague impression of scenes, emotions, characters and plot than a full, satisfying feeling. Which, for a series which is rooted in details and minutia, is kind of a problem.
I feel like people undersell just how poor the current translation is. It's only readable, and at times almost completely incomprehensible. You end up with more a vague impression of scenes, emotions, characters and plot than a full, satisfying feeling. Which, for a series which is rooted in details and minutia, is kind of a problem.
Can you believe people actually attacked Geofront early on for having the nerve to edit it? Because the current translation is "good enough."
Yeah, tell it like it is! I describe the translation as "playable," in that it makes it possible to play the game, but it's easily the worst fan translation I've ever seen, probably because it was never actually finished. It contains basically every type of possible error (garbled sentences, awkward sentences, missing words, misspellings, wrong words, punctuation mistakes, inconsistent word choices, text that runs out of boxes, text that isn't translated, and more), and I don't even know how much text is incorrectly translated, as I can't really judge that without knowing Japanese and comparing the translation to the original text. There are hardly any text boxes that contain zero mistakes, and the ones without mistakes typically only have very basic dialogue (like "Hey?" or "How are you feeling?"). The only area of the game that isn't really weakened by the poor translation is the battle system...which isn't saying much. Personally, I think a lot of people just have really low standards.
That's the thing, the fact the translation is so fundamentally warped and broken makes me almost paranoid when it comes to inaccuracies, intent or even crucial plot and character details. Trails games love their foreshadowing, sometimes a little too much, and there was absolutely no way in hell I was pulling any foreshadowing or plot teasing reliably from Zero. It is just enough to be functional, and absolutely nothing else.
I appreciate and am thankful people took the time to get it into even this state, but it's not surprising the Geofront team are still going at it, because beyond life getting in the way, the current status of Zero requires serious, serious time and energy dedicated to it to get it even close to the quality of Sky and Cold Steel's localisations. And given they probably won't be done by the time Cold Steel 3 hits, I can't help but feel NISA and Falcom have something of a problem on their hands with Crossbell currently out there in a badly translated limbo and 3 apparently requiring knowledge from Zero and Azure.
Still, I'm going to start Azure tomorrow and I've heard that will at least be better. Which wouldn't be difficult, at all.
Yeah. I probably sounded a little kinder to the translation in my last post than I meant to. I feel like I should probably clarify: though I have a pretty good general idea of what's going on in the story, and I feel like I know what the main characters' personalities are supposed to be like, there are definitely a few lines here and there that I either can't understand at all or that I feel like I need some extra clarification on. The translation being in this state can also sometimes make the characters difficult to relate to. What you said in this post is spot-on.
I fully intend to replay the game with the Geofront translation whenever it comes out.
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The reason the Zero translation is as messed up as it is was because the project founder, ZeroMonkey, had a rather... insane special vision for the project where he requested the translator to translate the lines as literally as possible at which point he planned to go and edit the lines himself applying his own personal flavor and presumably giving the game something akin to the Samurai Pizza Cats treatment. I have no idea why the translator decided to go along with that instead of telling the project lead to go screw himself and peace out, but said project lead ended up dropping out of the project eventually and the fan patch was leaked before any major editing was done, leaving people with a translation that was deliberately bad.
I suspect a lot of the people who played the Zero patch and said it was "just fine" grew up binging on fan-subs and scanlations which allowed them to tune out script's wonkiness because that kind of English was the standard in half the Japanese media they consumed up to that point and most really just wanted to get a grip on the main storyline without the desire to explore every world-building nook and crannie Falcom put in the game.
The reason the Ao patch is of better quality is because the translator just went for a straight translation from the get-go.
I suspect a lot of the people who played the Zero patch and said it was "just fine" grew up binging on fan-subs and scanlations which allowed them to tune out script's wonkiness because that kind of English was the standard in half the Japanese media they consumed up to that point and most really just wanted to get a grip on the main storyline without the desire to explore every world-building nook and crannie Falcom put in the game.
The reason the Ao patch is of better quality is because the translator just went for a straight translation from the get-go.
I think we all need to understand that this is a case of "we should be so lucky to even be playing this considering it's likely never going to be localized here.
Beggars can't be choosers. Love what I got, rough translation and all. Zero is great.
Beggars can't be choosers. Love what I got, rough translation and all. Zero is great.
People are used to reading their machine translated manga and light novels so they have no standards and accept anything as long as they can understand the basic plot.
I hope I didn't sound like I was being a dick specifically to those who worked on the Zero translation as it's far better than Falcom's effort, in that it exists.
It's still very poor though and not an ideal way to play the game at all.
I've started Azure with the Flame edit and while still a little dry it's vastly improved. Does the quality generally hold up through the game?
It's still very poor though and not an ideal way to play the game at all.
I've started Azure with the Flame edit and while still a little dry it's vastly improved. Does the quality generally hold up through the game?
I like how most people used "you can understand it" to vouch for its viability. Like "Hey, it meets the bare minimum for what you can even call a translation that's cool right." "Is he a good swimmer?" "Well, he can hold his breath underwater."
Granted I guess my standards are higher than most since I can't stomach the Ao translation either. Tried watching people stream it now and then but every time I see sentences that are just identical 1-1 literal constructions of the original line with no regard to the personality or nuance of the line itself I just can't watch anymore. Also all the translation flubs on some cool lines/scenes and even the uhuhu laughs. I just can't do it.
I mean if you forego accuracy to add personality, fine. If you want to forego personality to stick to accuracy. whatever. It's better to have both but if you can at least do one I won't complain. If you can't do accuracy or personality, why are you even translating? I know I sound harsh but it annoys me
Granted I guess my standards are higher than most since I can't stomach the Ao translation either. Tried watching people stream it now and then but every time I see sentences that are just identical 1-1 literal constructions of the original line with no regard to the personality or nuance of the line itself I just can't watch anymore. Also all the translation flubs on some cool lines/scenes and even the uhuhu laughs. I just can't do it.
I mean if you forego accuracy to add personality, fine. If you want to forego personality to stick to accuracy. whatever. It's better to have both but if you can at least do one I won't complain. If you can't do accuracy or personality, why are you even translating? I know I sound harsh but it annoys me
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The odd translation elitism in this thread is wowing me.
It's better than nothing. Considering the amount of time and effort it takes to translate text on the level of zero and Ao (again, as both titles are voluminous in content, characters, etc.), it's a wonder it even got a fan rough translation.
It's better than nothing. Considering the amount of time and effort it takes to translate text on the level of zero and Ao (again, as both titles are voluminous in content, characters, etc.), it's a wonder it even got a fan rough translation.
Finished Ao earlier today.
It's the best Trails game I've ever played yet. SC doesn't even come close.
It's the best Trails game I've ever played yet. SC doesn't even come close.
The localization quality was a big part of why I fell in love with the series to begin with. I don't think losing interest in a work as it loses something I deem important is quite "elitism". I just value different things than you.
It's not really a "beggars can't be choosers" situation anyway, considering that there is actually the choice to wait for the edited version.
Maybe not implied elitism from all, but the recent posts have an air of users looking down on those who are enjoying the game with the rough translation, when in fact it's not that serious.
And until that Geofront patch hits, it's a case of Beggars/Choosers.
Shxt like this makes me want to go for a user requested ban. This forum sometimes.
I am officially done with the Sky trilogy!
Thank you folks for joining me in my adventures through the original trilogy, I had a great time posting my thoughts here and there and I intend to do the same with Cold Steel II, Zero and Ao.
Last time I played I was about to head to the final dungeon after clearing what was left, including the optional bosses in the Abyss. I'm actually happy for how they approached the last dungeon, 4 groups of 4 and putting everyone to use. I had already taken care of some leveling in the Abyss but the dungeon helped push that further, maybe close to 140ish! My parties were:
Estelle, Joshua, Agate, Olivier (my FC final party!)
Zin, Tita, Josette, Kloe (that orbal robot is so gooood)
Mueller, Anelace, Scherazard, Julia
Kevin, Ries, Richard, Renne (my main party)
The boss gauntlet was pretty fun, none of them really stood out as tricky and that includes the final boss. The final boss itself was simple, couple of S-break to get rid of the pillars with Richard and Ries taking away what was left HP wise and then full focus on boss. Renne could easily one shot the smaller enemies that appeared with a simple Death Scream. Earth Wall was pretty handy for when the boss does his HUGE move but thankfully you can impede that!
The ending...man it got me teary eyed, although my time with everyone was short I loved those adventures and seeing them say goodbye to each others was touching but sad. ESPECIALLY the dialogue between Estelle, Joshua and Renne. That was the highlight of that sequence.I'll miss those characters but i'm hoping to see some of them again in the Cold Steel serie <3
Estelle, Joshua, Agate, Olivier (my FC final party!)
Zin, Tita, Josette, Kloe (that orbal robot is so gooood)
Mueller, Anelace, Scherazard, Julia
Kevin, Ries, Richard, Renne (my main party)
The boss gauntlet was pretty fun, none of them really stood out as tricky and that includes the final boss. The final boss itself was simple, couple of S-break to get rid of the pillars with Richard and Ries taking away what was left HP wise and then full focus on boss. Renne could easily one shot the smaller enemies that appeared with a simple Death Scream. Earth Wall was pretty handy for when the boss does his HUGE move but thankfully you can impede that!
The ending...man it got me teary eyed, although my time with everyone was short I loved those adventures and seeing them say goodbye to each others was touching but sad. ESPECIALLY the dialogue between Estelle, Joshua and Renne. That was the highlight of that sequence.I'll miss those characters but i'm hoping to see some of them again in the Cold Steel serie <3
Thank you folks for joining me in my adventures through the original trilogy, I had a great time posting my thoughts here and there and I intend to do the same with Cold Steel II, Zero and Ao.
Self-Reminder that I have to actually finish CS2 before CS3 comes out 0_0
Binged it to the last-chapter on the month the PC release came out, and then suddenly dropped it for reasons I can't recall. Don't even think I intentionally dropped it either, just went to play other stuff and never got around to getting back to it.
Binged it to the last-chapter on the month the PC release came out, and then suddenly dropped it for reasons I can't recall. Don't even think I intentionally dropped it either, just went to play other stuff and never got around to getting back to it.
The Zero translation was a case of something that was translated by a non-native English speaker and was bad by design for the reason I mentioned earlier. It also wasn't supposed to be viewed by the public at that stage since it received no editing. I'm not saying you're wrong to enjoy it, but when you take something that would make the average grade school teacher give you a stern lecture and say that it's fine, it's not wrong to say you're applying some very low quality standards to it. And I say that as someone who's worked on fan projects for years and who's familiar with the old "Come on, release it already. I don't mind bugs."-refrain.
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But that's the thing, for a Falcom game, anything below a very high standard is not good enough for me. It's like if you take a great wine, something that's been preserved in pristine state for decades, and then decide to mix it with cheap soda and drink that instead. Sure, I guess you'll be able to get an idea how the wine tasted on its own, but I'd rather just go for something as high quality as possible.
I don't care if I have to wait forever for that. I'll replay the Trails games (with proper translation) in the mean time.
On the other hand, I also don't "judge" anyone who can't wait and just wants to get up to speed quickly. That's okay (as long as you know what you are getting into *fap fap*). But in no way is it "elitist" to expect and want more from a Falcom game.
I think you're taking this far more personally than you should be.
You're right. But for me I'll take what I can get. Can't wait for Geofront, Xseed, or the company that's doing Cold Steel III because CS III is coming this fall and I need have caught up with everything by then. So it's more like I'm on a schedule. Do I wish the translation was stronger? of Course. Game is still great either way, and I'm content with it for rn. Might go back and play it again in the future with the Geofront patch.
I started my Kiseki marathon a week ago and currently replaying Trails in the Sky FC, it's good to be back in Zemuria, specially Liberl.