Yeah I felt the same about the ending but even with it I still feel like I enjoyed CS2 a bit more than 1.
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Yeah I felt the same about the ending but even with it I still feel like I enjoyed CS2 a bit more than 1.
Just finished CS3 and OH WHAT THE FUCK!!!!!!!! Man i knew people were talking about the ending and I still wasn't fuckiing ready for it!!!! even worse than FC/CS1!!!!
UGH!!!! So much to digest and thus the painful wait for CS4 commences....NISA save from this madness with swift release(date)
EDIT: Already sligtly spoiled myself by watching the Japanese trailer of CS4...gosh I shouldn't have done that...just made the wait even more agonzing!!! but O_O!!
FIRST: MILLLUIM!!!!! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!! Just what the fuck man!!! I can't believe she dies and FUCKING OLIVERT TOO!!!! along with Arsied and Toval!!! fucking hell!!!! that was so messed up....Fuck you George/Osborne/Franz!!! couldn't take them all like a real man!!!!! Damn Schera might feel like an ass for negating Olivert....fuck man I was rooting for them!!! and shame on them(Devs) for teasing her so much and she doesn't even make an apparence!!!! But then again....not one really tends to stay dead in Trails....but damn they all looked convincing....
And Rean you fuckng idoit!!! I knew his "orgre power" was going to fuck things up sooner or later...I get it because Milllium died right in front of his eyes but fuck!!! You did the one thing you were told not to do! But even if he didn't kill the beast one of the other divine knights would have And of-fucking-course Osborne has a divine knight!!!! Is there no end to this mans power!?!?!? is he even human giving that he actually has no fucking heart!!?!?!
I don't know how Class VII can even look at Claire/Lecter/Sharon/Cedric/Main Thors...but it being Rean and co. they will be forgiven at some point....
This twilight/phantasmal blaze plan sounds stupid as fuck too! so your drown the whole continent in despair to fight Calvard and thus destroying the world for what??? I'm assuming there's more to the plan as the grandmaster would've made and apparence.
and that ending...I wonder who will be the 7th Divine knight...I hope its someone we know....I kinda hope it's either Llyod/Estelle
And what on earth can Musse be planning!?!?!?! add Vita was working for Le Guin/Musse all along too!?!?! if Musse wasn't such a cringey flirt she'd be the most interesting character in the game!!!
I wonder if this alliance between Osborne/Gnomes/Ouroboros will reamain...
And Rean you fuckng idoit!!! I knew his "orgre power" was going to fuck things up sooner or later...I get it because Milllium died right in front of his eyes but fuck!!! You did the one thing you were told not to do! But even if he didn't kill the beast one of the other divine knights would have And of-fucking-course Osborne has a divine knight!!!! Is there no end to this mans power!?!?!? is he even human giving that he actually has no fucking heart!!?!?!
I don't know how Class VII can even look at Claire/Lecter/Sharon/Cedric/Main Thors...but it being Rean and co. they will be forgiven at some point....
This twilight/phantasmal blaze plan sounds stupid as fuck too! so your drown the whole continent in despair to fight Calvard and thus destroying the world for what??? I'm assuming there's more to the plan as the grandmaster would've made and apparence.
and that ending...I wonder who will be the 7th Divine knight...I hope its someone we know....I kinda hope it's either Llyod/Estelle
And what on earth can Musse be planning!?!?!?! add Vita was working for Le Guin/Musse all along too!?!?! if Musse wasn't such a cringey flirt she'd be the most interesting character in the game!!!
I wonder if this alliance between Osborne/Gnomes/Ouroboros will reamain...
UGH!!!! So much to digest and thus the painful wait for CS4 commences....NISA save from this madness with swift release(date)
EDIT: Already sligtly spoiled myself by watching the Japanese trailer of CS4...gosh I shouldn't have done that...just made the wait even more agonzing!!! but O_O!!
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If you do do a NG+ run for CS2, there's a canon and super important scene they hide in NG+ that they don't tell you about, you need to collect a new book series that has 5 entries, present it to a character, then once the book series gets translated read it and the new scene unlocks.
i've been slowly playing through the sky series a second time so it's fresh on my mind for the Crossbell games(about halfway through 3rd right now)and it's a bit disappointing how poorly SC holds up compared to the other ones
It was pretty comfortably my favorite in the series but it feels like so much more of a slog when the events aren't completely new to you,FC and 3rd meanwhile actually feel if anything better now with more familiarity with the series/characters
It was pretty comfortably my favorite in the series but it feels like so much more of a slog when the events aren't completely new to you,FC and 3rd meanwhile actually feel if anything better now with more familiarity with the series/characters
SC was always the weakest in the trilogy purely from a gameplay standpoint
Lackluster pacing + very little changes to the core gameplay makes it feel pretty samey, without FC'Ss tight pacing or 3rd's... Everything.
It's honestly my 2nd least favorite game in the series and people think it's some contrarian take
I dunno about that. You spend most of FC with a party of either 2 or 3 characters and rather limited options since most characters are still learning their moves. The fact that you get access to all characters' crafts right off the bat and have a party of 4 (that you can switch around pretty much whenever you want) for almost the entire game made me think SC was better than FC from a gameplay perspective, even if the pacing was more uneven than FC.
Because I played them back to back cold steel 2 almost felt more like disc 2 of the same game, but I think I'd agree. I definitely found myself going out of my way more to find hidden quests and the like in 2
I'm really regretting going right from CS1 to CS2. About 25 hours in, and I'm getting some massive burnout on the series since they are basically the same game. I may have to set the game aside for a bit.
That's literally the standard JRPG experience though. Slowly unlocking skill as you progress was what made FC fun, since you never knew what you's get next.
Meanwhile what does SC do to change things up? A barebones chain attack system and upgraded versions of their original attacks. Except the balance is fucked so characters like Estelle barely feel changed and she even gets nerfed!
Thankfully they fixed this issue in 3rd but SC didn't really do its characters justice imo
The only reason Sky SC isn't the worst Kiseki game is because the gacha games exist.
...Is what I'd say with confidence if I had played the gacha games, and tbh half the main series at this point.
That said, of the five games I've played (Sky and CS1 and 2), it's the worst imo. I'm not going to do a "why CS2 is everything Sky SC wants to be" post, because I've already done that ages ago. But even in the context of the Sky trilogy, Sky SC is made redundant by the other two games, gameplay wise.
Like having to work within limitations, and having set party members to ensure high quality dialogue? Sky FC has you covered. Wanna build the characters from the ground up? Sky FC fam. Like unlocking new Crafts? The crafts in FC are obviously new in FC, and there's a lot less "you unlocked *true* hurricane spin, it's very different".
Meanwhile, like having as many party members as possible? 3rd has all the party members of SC, and more. Want challenging gameplay? The difficulty options in 3rd are actually well balanced rather than "what if we just bumped up the stats and called it a day".
Now obviously to claim SC has nothing unique to offer is ridiculous (it has some bosses and locations that you don't see in either game for example), and I think there's something to be said for "I want both FC and 3rd's best qualities in one game", but I don't really get the same inclination to replay the game I get with FC and 3rd.
...Is what I'd say with confidence if I had played the gacha games, and tbh half the main series at this point.
That said, of the five games I've played (Sky and CS1 and 2), it's the worst imo. I'm not going to do a "why CS2 is everything Sky SC wants to be" post, because I've already done that ages ago. But even in the context of the Sky trilogy, Sky SC is made redundant by the other two games, gameplay wise.
Like having to work within limitations, and having set party members to ensure high quality dialogue? Sky FC has you covered. Wanna build the characters from the ground up? Sky FC fam. Like unlocking new Crafts? The crafts in FC are obviously new in FC, and there's a lot less "you unlocked *true* hurricane spin, it's very different".
Meanwhile, like having as many party members as possible? 3rd has all the party members of SC, and more. Want challenging gameplay? The difficulty options in 3rd are actually well balanced rather than "what if we just bumped up the stats and called it a day".
Now obviously to claim SC has nothing unique to offer is ridiculous (it has some bosses and locations that you don't see in either game for example), and I think there's something to be said for "I want both FC and 3rd's best qualities in one game", but I don't really get the same inclination to replay the game I get with FC and 3rd.
3rd was way too easy, and I didnt even use spoiler character, SC's final dungeon is the best balanced challenge in the series
I recently replayed FC and SC, and I'm currently replaying the moon and sun doors from 3rd to get ready for that Geofront translation. God I love these games.
When the Trails of Zero translation is finally released, I hope we have a max BP + all books guide ready from day one. Can't play without it!
That Giliath Osborne appearance in that star door is hype as fuck.
When the Trails of Zero translation is finally released, I hope we have a max BP + all books guide ready from day one. Can't play without it!
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I don't really separate FC and SC in my mind, at the end of the day it's one big game. Never even entertained the thought of trying to figure out which one is better, couldn't care less. It's one of my favorite games that just happens to be split into 2 parts.
A lot of people are hard at work on Zero, I have a lot more respect for official localizers that have to deal with not only wonk code but also Falcom's inconsistencies. Hope we can get the translation in your hands soon.
3rd beats it, but only because it stands on the shoulders of SC.
3rd remains my least favorite, but im still only on chapter 2 of CS3
Wait, pacing for SC is worse than FC? Don't get me wrong, I enjoy FC, but it certainly has had it slow moments, but I know it picks up like a freight train towards the end of the game.
I plan to get back to FC soon enough, but hearing SC has worse pacing is a bit disconcerting.
I plan to get back to FC soon enough, but hearing SC has worse pacing is a bit disconcerting.
SC is just really slow to start. Slower than FC, because the first half is formulaic and feels a bit like a retread of FC.
SC second half, if it were a game by itself, would be the best Trails game I've played IMO.
SC second half, if it were a game by itself, would be the best Trails game I've played IMO.
You will get a ton of disparity regarding opinions about pacing. Regardless, all of them are slow, meaning don't expect for the sequels to pick up the pace, they all follow a similar formula.
Ok to address pacing concerns: when you reach the end of a Trails game, it often recontextualises slower moments to have greater meaning, and to show that they are in fact building towards the ending.
When you know how Trails operates, it's much easier to spot what a Trails game is doing, so future games seem less slow.
If someone were to *replay* Sky FC, I'd actually say it's one of the faster paced games in the series (it kind of has to be - it's the shortest), but since it's the first one you have no context as to what's going on and what's important.
For future games, expect to have that context, so you'll have a better time.
When you know how Trails operates, it's much easier to spot what a Trails game is doing, so future games seem less slow.
If someone were to *replay* Sky FC, I'd actually say it's one of the faster paced games in the series (it kind of has to be - it's the shortest), but since it's the first one you have no context as to what's going on and what's important.
For future games, expect to have that context, so you'll have a better time.
SC has a lot of great Kloe scenes, so it's the second best game. 3rd is the best Trails game because it has the best Kloe scenes.
It's really all about the math.
It's really all about the math.
I agree with this
SC also has some (many?) of the best scenes from the entire series, even if as a game and pacing wise it has issues
I think you meant Hajimari. Nayuta is the PSP game from 2012.
Yeah, I'm firmly in this camp regarding the comparisons between the first and second Sky games. Mind you, I rate the first Trails in the Sky fairly poorly as an RPG when it comes to gameplay, as I did not have fun with its actual game stuff.
It doesn't do much to change up the gameplay, although I think the option to choose one of two buddies for the first half is fairly notable, as is the ability to choose party members for most of the game.
However, where Sky SC excels is in expanding upon the first game. It's possible to actually choose combat different strategies, due to the greater party customization, additional quartz options, and the far greater variety of accessories. Technically, Agate still uses the same crafts, but his Wild Rage upgrade suddenly makes S-Craft spamming possible (not that it'll necessarily work that well against the final bosses). Mages, meanwhile, get massive benefits from the higher-level quartz and additional slot. Having Schera available for most of the game enables Heaven's Kiss craziness in SC, whereas Schera is locked out of the party for the majority of the previous game. The first game has Joshua and Estelle alone much of the time, so the strategy is often "Have Joshua use Dual Strike while Estelle attacks or casts a heal spell."
The other difference in the gameplay is that Sky SC has more challenging bosses than the first game, so it doesn't just provide the player with more customization options and ways to get strong; Sky SC also demands a higher level of mastery from the player to encourage some customization (I think the third game does even better, in this regard).
I should also mention that I dislike the beginning sections of RPGs, for the most part, when the player's characters are weak and there aren't many options. It shouldn't be a surprise that the original Trails in the Sky isn't that much fun for me, since the entire game feels like the first half of an RPG where the player is weaker and options are limited.
Right now I would say my only disappointment with Cold Steel 2 is I was hoping to go to new locations. I hear about all these places that my classmates got to go on during Field Studies in the first game that we never got to visit and yet....here I am 45 hours into CS2 and I have visited all of 1 new city (Ymir).
I know they've added in new road segments and new dungeons and all of that along with the military bases and such. But man. I was hoping to get to see Saint Ankh and the island the class goes to while you go to Nord etc.
I know they've added in new road segments and new dungeons and all of that along with the military bases and such. But man. I was hoping to get to see Saint Ankh and the island the class goes to while you go to Nord etc.
Asset reuse!
Cold Steel I/II would have been better if Falcom had condensed them into a single game instead of letting them balloon outwards.
It's a shame the second drama CD story wasn't actually in CS2, I would have loved to visit that town.
Falcom has said they want future arcs to stick to two games. Hopefully they follow through with that, because I agree about CS1 and 2. Considering the CS4 and CS2 seem to share criticisms about padding, maybe that was a factor.
Cold Steel 1 had a lot of development issues which kinda affected the entire arc.
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Same with the first cd . I kept getting confused about references about a trip early on in CS2, thinking I must've just missed a massive side thing in the first game, only to find it was the first drama cd where it happened
Funny enough around 20 hours in I felt the same way but I just gave the game a break and eventually came back to it and ended up really enjoying it.
There's a handful of missable quests/bonus point conditions that are easy to overlook, but it depends on how badly you want to 100% the game. It's still possible to get the highest ranking without those, as long as you do all quests on the board, don't get caught during "stealth" sections and win a certain tough battle. And don't have Estelle act like a bonehead no matter how in-character it may seem at first. ;) Most of it is common sense.
If you insist on getting an ultimate weapon for one of the two protagonist, you probably WILL need a guide in order to get all the hidden books.
Aside from that, don't get discouraged by your lack of options at the start, make use of an early Impede2 quartz to get a good AOE spell early on, put Eagle Eye quartz on your character once you get it to avoid headaches with random monsters, open the orbment slots on your two main characters before worrying about other party members and take a while to try and grasp the slightly more complex quartz/art system. Your notebook's a big help in that regard.
Oh and ANY battle where the run-button is not greyed out has a 100% escape chance, so make use of that if you need to and if you die to a certain impossible-seeming monster chest early on, come back once you have a bigger party and remember that that particular chest is the only time the game is that spiteful towards you.
Use a spoiler free guide, make sure you equip quartz in the orbment to complete Schera's tutorial, ensure that Turbo is assigned to a button/key, and that's about it. Have fun.
Oh, and there's this weird vine-y monster early on in the game that self-destructs when you kill it, watch out for them and kill them with arts from a distance lol.
I'd recommend trying to get the book series in FC, but definitely follow a guide for that. Though if you don't want to, SC and 3rd make the book series available in a certain spot in each game, though you collect another book series in SC that I'd also recommend getting, though it's also available in 3rd if you'd prefer to wait until then. They're basically slightly fictitious books that are still somewhat canon to the actual story, details might be slightly different than what happens in reality, though since you played CS1 and 2, you'll get some pretty cool references out of the books.
The game has sidequests, which are usually only available in a limited time in the game. Most of them are hard to miss, there's a whole system that informs you about them. Some of them are also hidden, in the sense that you need to do a specific thing to activate them (it's nothing cryptic, if you just explore everything, you will probably find everything, but at least in FC there's nothing major that's missable, unless I'm forgetting something. Just fairly small stuff.
Thanks for the tips.
I'm definitely not planning on 100%ing the game nor have I ever really gone after the ultimate weapon type sidequests in games so it sounds like as long as I don't barrel through and deliberately ignore things I'll get what I want from the game - which is basically to learn more about this world all the games are set in, and to understand why people rate this mini series so highly
I'm definitely not planning on 100%ing the game nor have I ever really gone after the ultimate weapon type sidequests in games so it sounds like as long as I don't barrel through and deliberately ignore things I'll get what I want from the game - which is basically to learn more about this world all the games are set in, and to understand why people rate this mini series so highly
The amount of dialogue changes the NPCs go through in FC is truly insane. I gave up trying to talk to everyone every time long before the end but I still really enjoyed the game with no guide.
If you don't want to miss Bracer missions than use a guide because there are a handful that you might not even realize are only available from an NPC for a short window in each area.
If you don't want to miss Bracer missions than use a guide because there are a handful that you might not even realize are only available from an NPC for a short window in each area.
The hidden book series in FC and SC are Carnelia and Gambler Jack, both of which were available for very low prices in bookstores in CS1 and CS2, so chances are he's already read them if he was rather thorough in his playthrough of those games.
First games in the arcs are laying the foundations and ending on a high note (cliffhanger warnings).
Direct usually start off high then dive off to snails pace and rethread common ground to get an even more insane finale while leaving some wiggle room.
In a sense it's become very predictable what to expect of a Falcom game, but that can also be a comfortable experience.
Direct usually start off high then dive off to snails pace and rethread common ground to get an even more insane finale while leaving some wiggle room.
In a sense it's become very predictable what to expect of a Falcom game, but that can also be a comfortable experience.
I've been playing Ys 1 and 2 and I just remember how amazing falcom games are.
So it's been almost a month since geofront's last Zero update. Anybody got some insider info on how the beta is going? I'm dying to finally get my hands on it.
So it's been almost a month since geofront's last Zero update. Anybody got some insider info on how the beta is going? I'm dying to finally get my hands on it.