My advice would be to get used to saving 200 CP S-Crafts for just the right moment in such fights. You'll know when.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Delaying turns really is essential with these bosses. I played on Hard and you can really break the game with Rean and Fie and not let many bosses even get a turn.
You really aren't getting me excited about CS3 at all right now...
CS games (and Trails games in general, but CS have more tools and cutomization options to play with) are not well balanced at all, so you always have plenty of options to overpower your enemies depending on playstyle, regardless of difficulty settings.
These two strategies are effortles to pull off:
Complete brute strength: Put characters like Laura and Millium Master quartz that enhance their damage on crafts/attacks alongside strength enhancing quartz and the quartz Domination to one of them, buff them, and hit an S Craft on a Critical turn. You can almost one shot bosses, including endgame ones, that way. Emma also can do the same thing but with Arts.
Delay enemies and leave them without turns: Focus on building Rean (and maybe Fie as well) with delaying properties, to the point where you will be able to delay them and leave enemies without ways to retaliate. I don't have much experience with this sort of build, as I only focused on delaying on my first CS1 playthrough, but there are several walkthroughs with information of this build if you need them.
I'm personally more fond of using Rean's newfound abilities in CS2. Giving him a ton of status effect quartz (freeze, petrify, nightmare, seal, faint... all the turn skipping ones) and CP regeneration accessories, alongside his craft Arcane Gale and with a good use of overdrive he can almost singlehandedly destroy everything, and you can easily combine it with Laura's/Millium's super strength build if you prefer. Put a character like Alisa to work as a CP battery for bosses maybe (I don't think it's needed but it might help) and you're pretty much set for every encounter in the game.
As long as you build your characters for something in Cold Steel, the game kinda breaks difficulty wise. So if you're struggling with the bosses self buffs, try building your characters differently, and try to go for their strengths. Another good example would be making Fieinto an evasion tank. She is super quick, so you can build her with Speed enhancing quartz and Evasion enhancing quartz and equipment to make her pretty much unkillable as she will be able to evade almost everything and have a ridiculous amount of turns. There's also a quartz that give an automatic critical on counterattack that seems created entirely for said build.
To be fair, standard battles end up fairly manageable before long even on a fresh Hard playthrough, but boss battles can be a pain thanks to very much needing to use the new Break system and failing to shut them down when they use that Enhanced state crap typically meaning a party wipe (they break faster when they do, hence the advice on saving 200 CP S-Crafts, but how quickly bosses tend to recover from break status is no less annoying when they go right back into Enhanced state). Mecha combat is also something of a slog when going with a higher difficulty before getting to make and set EX Orbs. While the game at least manages to be more of a challenge than starting CS2 on Hard was for me, the uneven balance can be fairly annoying at times. Fair warning, AP bonuses for doing well in certain battles come back too.
Ultimately it's still more good than bad, and I would still rank this above the first two CS games overall. Much better pacing, and focusing on a smaller central cast works to its benefit.
Last edited:
God damn my keyboard is a mess and keep posting before I've ever written anything... ugh
Anyway, good use of defensive oriented brave orders should prevent most party wipes from the enhanced state of bosses. Although by the halfway point it's just easier to just pummel bosses when broken with Kurt's brave order (or Sara's when available, that one is an automatic win almost)
I'm a big fan of how the brave orders and break system interact with the core mechanics of the Trails series, but I would be lying if it doesn't highlight even more how better it would be if they could give more effort into balancing the games
Yeah, very much need to focus on brute force and spamming the right Orders to deal with that. How quickly they tend to get turns and either not having access to enough S-Crafts early in the game or just being too low on CP to interrupt with full-power S-Breaks though, bad times.
Having the best equipment and accessories/Quartz that boost HP is also important.
Having the best equipment and accessories/Quartz that boost HP is also important.
O_O!!!! mind giving us westeners a translation?Those sons of bitches, they did it.
The more interesting thing here is just portrait additions as well more unique models to previously no name characters to connect crossbell more to sen.
The lines aren't that interesting here like the first one is just "Why is the red constellations here?"
I say no name characters more in reference to when people played these games back on the psp but stuff like the first picture was confirmed for a long time being Gideon from cold steel 1.
The lines aren't that interesting here like the first one is just "Why is the red constellations here?"
I say no name characters more in reference to when people played these games back on the psp but stuff like the first picture was confirmed for a long time being Gideon from cold steel 1.
In chapter 2 of Zero now and I definitley wish I played Zero before I play the Cold 2 at the least but it's okay because the Cold Steel saga got me back into the series. Just met
Cao Lee from Heiyue and already knew who he was from "that" chapter in CS2. It did get me a little hyped seeing him but I can expect his role is pretty major in this duology.
Man some of these bosses are just getting on my nerves in CS2 now. Chain stuns and the like with no warning, and if I want to reload and change my gear I gotta tap through the ten minute cut-scene right before the fight....
I never felt any of the boss fights in CS1 were cheap, some were hard and took me a few tries but I always felt like I had a solid chance.
Some of these late game boss fights in CS2 just feel like cheap bullshit. Chain stuns, full heals, super charges with heals, bosses one shotting half my team. Just a bunch of cheap stuff man. It's a real bummer and it's dragging my enthusiasm for the franchise down significantly at the moment.
I never felt any of the boss fights in CS1 were cheap, some were hard and took me a few tries but I always felt like I had a solid chance.
Some of these late game boss fights in CS2 just feel like cheap bullshit. Chain stuns, full heals, super charges with heals, bosses one shotting half my team. Just a bunch of cheap stuff man. It's a real bummer and it's dragging my enthusiasm for the franchise down significantly at the moment.
You can hold down the cancel button to skip through cutscenes faster in Kiseki games.
CS2 is balanced around you breaking the game wide open, bosses are not balanced around playing "fairly", so to speak. Open Wound in the post above laid it out quite nicely.
That's the thing I'm not interested in cheap mechanics that break the game. It's not fun for me to just tap X while my team perma delays a boss etc.
That's not the way a game should be enjoyed imo.
Also the entire first game didn't require me to use cheap mechanics. The fights were fun and challenging. So there is no excuse.
The thing is you can't play fairly. CS2 (and CS1 to a lesser extent, mostly because you're restricted on party members for most of the game and the progression is slower) is broken by default, and most "game breaking" builds are simply logical ways to build those characters up, which is why there are so many broken builds for so many characters. You don't need to change Laura's Master Quartz from her default nor she requires the Domination quartz to do monstruous damage, same with Millium and Sara. As long as you build the characters to their strengths (nothing crazy, just don't put arts related quartz onto physically oriented characters or viceversa for the most part, and avoid the more situatonal or downright useless quartz), most of them should be more than powerful enough to deal with everything. The mechanics are overwhelmingly stacked on the player's favor. Sure, you won't be one shotting everything, but you should be crazy powerful still.
Like I said, my favorite way to play the game is simply to take advantage of Rean's amazing crafts, so my build is entirely build on him getting back as much CP as possible each turn (something, once again, that he already does by default with his Force Master Quartz) and taking advantage of his large AOE crafts to put him status effects quartz. I don't do super duper crazy damage with that, but I get to use Rean's crazy crafts constantly, and land some status effects semi consistently.
If you are struggling that much with the encounters, if you show some screenshots or describe your quartz and equipment set up for your usual characters, we might be able to help you better.
Another thing to take into account is that, regardless of how broken the CS games are, they're not Final Fantasy VIII, you can't just build broken characters, press attack and call it a day. Regardless of how broken the game is you still need to utilize the game's mechanics effectively (buffs, debuffs, take advantage of playing with the turn order, utilize various crafts and arts, use link attacks and overdrive, etc).
You don't necessarily have to switch MQs for Laura... but personally, I would recommend giving her Tauros and never looking back, along with slotting Domination and giving her a large strength buff before using a 200 CP S-Craft. Rebellion always got the best results for me with Sara.
Yeah I used Tauros for Laura until I got Vermillion. Also never thought about using Rebellion on Sara as I used it on Jusis. It was pretty hard to drop him once I gave him this MQ.
While I found Vermillion useful in CS1, I didn't really bother with it outside of maxing it for the sake of doing so in the final dungeon. I made more use of Murakumo and Orochi by comparison, alternating between the two for Rean. Sara's base speed and power (along with her crafts) combined with the auto buffs for both from Rebellion along its two free turns of Stealth led to steamrolling battles more often than not. I stuck Wing on Jusis.
Well, that way Laura cleans house by herself if you slot the S Craft on a critical turn, so yeah, pretty damn effective lol. I don't remember if the master quartz that improved the critical damage (Murakumo, was it?) has higher damage output, but Tauros is the best choice for me as it works well even when you're not going for the S Craft tactic.
Still, I imagine Arcade55 would consider that cheesing the game, which is why I want to know about their build so we can help in a more useful matter.
Murakumo ups both the chances of and damage done by criticals, yeah. Tauros is better for consistency, though.
That's fair. It would be something I'd need to give more thought to, as the Sara recommendation I made definitely falls under cheesing too.
That's kinda going to be a recurrent problem as CS2 breaks at the slightest opportunity.
There comes a point where you have to accept you either play the fan translation or never play the game at all lol
Mostly every time I come upon a boss that's being ridiculous I end up doing the exact thing you are describing. I stack so much damage that I can essentially kill the boss with 4 S-Crafts (And maybe Lost Art or Valimar)
I'm not saying I don't understand how to do those things, it's pretty effortless to cheese the bosses with broken builds.
I'm saying I wish it wasn't how the game was designed. I've played dozens and dozens of JRPGs and I very rarely feel like I need to cheese combat in them to enjoy myself. I want the fun battle where I have to utilize all my skills and plan strategically (and maybe get a little lucky) to beat the hard bosses. And up until this point in Cold Steel I had mostly been able to do that and I loved it.
I just don't find it enjoyable is all to hit S-Craft 4 times and hope the boss dies before it can chain faint my entire team.
I could maybe take some joy out of cheesing those fights if making the perfect build was a challenge, but as so many of you have mentioned it takes almost no work to make Rean, Fie and Laura OP as fuck.
I'm not saying I don't understand how to do those things, it's pretty effortless to cheese the bosses with broken builds.
I'm saying I wish it wasn't how the game was designed. I've played dozens and dozens of JRPGs and I very rarely feel like I need to cheese combat in them to enjoy myself. I want the fun battle where I have to utilize all my skills and plan strategically (and maybe get a little lucky) to beat the hard bosses. And up until this point in Cold Steel I had mostly been able to do that and I loved it.
I just don't find it enjoyable is all to hit S-Craft 4 times and hope the boss dies before it can chain faint my entire team.
I could maybe take some joy out of cheesing those fights if making the perfect build was a challenge, but as so many of you have mentioned it takes almost no work to make Rean, Fie and Laura OP as fuck.
And if you are at that point, I understand. I, therefore, am not. I haven't even finished FC yet so I am a long ways until I need to worry about playing the Crossbell games. I have time to wait.
I am hopeful with the upcoming PS4 Zero/Ao releases in Japan those will be the ones that make it here.
For me, it's pretty easy to wait for Geofront to finish both Zero and Azure at this point. If there's still no sign of anything official by that point, hooray, it's time for a Trails binge, but realistically the ps4 version of the crossbell games feels like it was made for the west in some respects. Some of the additions feel very "Hey, have you played Trails of Cold Steel?" from what I've seen.
I wish I could wait but I can't as I have the time to play these games (Zero and Ao) now, that time isn't guaranteed in the future and the tranlastion out now is rough at times but serviceable.
I think for me when it comes to Zero/Azure I'll be waiting to see if there's any news on the Kai versions before I decide whether or not to jump in to the Geofront stuff.
I'm definitely glad that will be coming out soon though for all the folks who've been into this series way longer than I have (so longer than like 6 weeks)
I'm definitely glad that will be coming out soon though for all the folks who've been into this series way longer than I have (so longer than like 6 weeks)
The only thing a bit off about the Kai versions and a western release is that Falcom is releasing PS4 ports on the eve of the PS5 launch. I guess there is still some window of relevance, especially if the PS5 proves to be pricey which is entirely possible.
And even if we do get an official release I'd expect Geofront's version of Zero to be definitive. Even assuming NISA doesn't rush the localization (which I feel is a very realistic possibility given the likely low sales of Crossbell) I don't think they would match Geofront's PC version on features.
And even if we do get an official release I'd expect Geofront's version of Zero to be definitive. Even assuming NISA doesn't rush the localization (which I feel is a very realistic possibility given the likely low sales of Crossbell) I don't think they would match Geofront's PC version on features.
Is it outside of the realm of possibility that they could purchase the Geofront translation? I don't know how these things work. But it seems like they could buy their work and just finish it up in house no?
Unfortunately so, since that translation is the work of several people over the years, not all of whom are still around and purchasing a translation requires all contributors to sign a contract transferring ownership of their work to Falcom/NISA. So yeah, it's unfortunately not an option.
But you don't need to rely on S Crafts at all. That's kinda the beauty of ToCSII broken difficulty, you can use almost any strategy or gameplay style and it will almost certainly be either OP or more than powerful enough.
Which is why I wanted to see your builds. You shouldn't have to rely on cheese that you don't find enjoyable to defeat certain bosses, you should have more than enough tools to deal with whatever the enemy throws at you. There are a lot of ways to play that are still powerful and not rely on S Crafts. I myself only use S Crafts to finish battles in style most of the time.
As an example:
This is a video I've made defeating one of the most powerful enemies of the Finale chapter (there are no story spoilers nor cutscenes, only the fight of a powerful character that you know already) without using neither S Crafts nor Lost Arts on nightmare. I removed the ice crown accessory from Rean as it's NG+ exclusive and replace it with a true gladiator belt. This is far from playing perfectly as I went with builds that have no defensive means whatsoever (and I even put Rean in front of the Boss' S Craft by mistake when I had him already positioned to avoid it), but it should show that it's not necessary to rely on S Crafts to deal with bosses, so you can use other methods that are more fun for you.
Actually, I believe that particular S-craft hits everything on the field, no matter where they are. Surviving it on higher difficulties either requires the Artemis Tears Lost Art, a certain MQ/quartz combination, Proxy puppets/Angel MQ or having people with the Cover-ability out there and praying to the RNG that it kicks in.
Well then, thank god for the cover ability because I had no defensive means whatsoever on my PS4 playthrough, and I didn't adjust my quartz.
Reached AO's epilogue. Still trying to process everything that's going on.
Some people say that CS2 spoils Crossbell but I think it's a great tease that really makes you look forward to seeing what actually happened. And man, a lot of shit happens...
Some people say that CS2 spoils Crossbell but I think it's a great tease that really makes you look forward to seeing what actually happened. And man, a lot of shit happens...
Each Chapter in CS1 takes longer than the one before it haha. The ending has a way of going a lot longer than you are probably expecting it too. I thought I was almost done only to find out I had about 4 hours to go lol.
I meant that final battle, good lord, white knuckle city.
Is the final chapter's anywhere near as nasty?
What I really dislike is both
bosses getting their asses handed to them then somehow making the party look like idiots by running away, or worse, them dying in anticlimactic ways afterward, like G and the damn aircraft getting sniped out of the sky.
I found the final two "boss fights" in the game to be two of the most challenging. Although I did handle both of them pretty handily if I don't say so myself!
But you are in a for a wild ride my friend. Enjoy!
With Trails games I need to stop assuming that reaching the epilogue means I'm close to the end. AO's epilogue is huge.
Yeah I'm in the "Finale" chapter of CS2 and I learned my lesson from the first game. I assume I still have a long time to go haha.
that ones especially weird
there's like 3 different spots where it feels like it's just about over only for it to continue on for hours more
CS2 is just crazy, that's like the biggest epilogue ever. Just assume epilogues are like normal chapters in terms of lenght, because they usually are.