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I ... er. respect your opinion, though I find it rather hard to comprehend. She might as well be the best character I have ever seen in any video game, but hey, if you still liked the game on any level that just goes to show how great SC really is, after all, the whole game might as well be thought of as Estelle's coming of age story.
I ... er. respect your opinion, though I find it rather hard to comprehend. She might as well be the best character I have ever seen in any video game, but hey, if you still liked the game on any level that just goes to show how great SC really is, after all, the whole game might as well be thought of as Estelle's coming of age story.
I don't like characters who act like idiots in the face of all reason, and only win because the story says they have to. I mean, when
Josette's talking about losing her family, and Estelle's off going "eyes. on you." because she hugged Joshua in a moment of grief and relief, and I'm just going "you fucking bitch."
Well, yes, it's supposed to show that she's insecure and jealous, it's not meant to make her look good. And just going off banter between the three of them, it does seem like Josette is still very much interested in Joshua, so it's not like Estelle is entirely misreading the situation, despite inappropriate comments in that situation
Well, yeah, but given that everything Joshua's done is to show that he's interested in Estelle, and not Josette,
maybe she should fuckin' lay off the girl who had her family stolen from her, and has been trying to survive on strange floating city by herself.
Or like when Cassius and Olivert come up with the plan to stop the erebonian army, she gets mad at Cassius, because god forbid, anyone do anything without briefing her in full on every detail of the plan. Speaking of "Oh, they're holding a high level talk between representatives of their respective countries? Time to butt in. I'm 16, and I know how everything works!"
I really like her flaws, because I feel the game is about how she grows as a person to overcome them. You see how she grows from a little girl that can't believe that someone she loves just up and left, to someone who has full confidence in her own abilities, who understands her own feeling and feels more secure in her relationships with others. It's real character growth.
Incidentally, that's why I'm very much interested in how she's portrayed in Trails from Zero, to see her after some time has passed since the Sky games.
I don't honestly see that growth. Maybe it's because of the gap between 1 and 2, but she seems much the same at the start of 2 as she does by the end of it.
I love Estelle personally, she's one of my favourite characters ever and easily my favourite protagonist just due to there not being too much competition. She makes Sky SC for me, which is good because otherwise it being my least favourite Trails game wouldn't be the only bad thing I'd be saying about it. But I'll agree on one thing: she's not particularly deep. That being said, I'd argue this is by design.
She's written to be immediately understandable, because the Sky arc is written to be an introduction to the setting where Estelle has been super sheltered from the way the world works, and thus she asks questions that the player that the player will likely want to know the answer to. It's not like Cold Steel where the game basically goes "hey uh there's a bunch of books in the library if you want to catch up on the lore, because Rean is vaguely aware of a lot of it". In the opening of FC you get a pretty good idea of what she's about:
-Bug catching is cool, because I'M NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS.
-"Daddy I love you but why are you so useless smh".
-Why is my present a boy, and will jumping on him when clearly injured solve our problems?
All of this is the essence of Estelle until the end. She's always a bit of a tomboy (although if you read the art book, she intentionally makes her outfit slightly more feminine in SC in an attempt to appear more attractive. It's super subtle though). She's still beating up people, now with her stick. She's still like "Well sure dad is really talented, but is he really *that* great", even if her understanding has greatly developed and it's said with a bit more nuance. And Joshua is an important part of Estelle's life, if in a different way from before.
So the character is overall pretty open about who she is. Why should we care about her? Well honestly the primary reason for me is that she's a rare female power fantasy who gets a canon love interest (try naming someone else, it's not impossible, but it's much harder than you'd think). But ignoring that, there are three things that stand out to me:
-what Estelle doesn't a big deal out of, aka her mother.
-her relationship with Joshua and eventually Renne.
-her development of her ass kicking ability
In contrast to everything else, Estelle's mother is the one thing Estelle isn't willing to directly talk to the player about. And I find that really relatable and interesting! She's so happy and upbeat most of the time, but there's this one part of her life that she hasn't fully moved on from, and she's trying not to let it show. If I were to go deeper here, I'd argue that she's trying to be strong for Cassius? But regardless, in this specific aspect Estelle has to enter a magical dream for us to get any detailed info about her mother, and when we finally do it's a super emotional scene and everything clicks about their relationship.
Renne I won't go into too much detail because future games are more relevant to her, but a lot of what I'm going to say about Joshua broadly applies to her too. Estelle doesn't really have a major character flaw herself. She needs to grow up and treat her work more seriously, yes, but she's working on that from day 1 and it's never really a big problem. The flaw that Estelle works on instead is really Joshua's. By the end, Estelle is shown to be understanding, empathetic, and generally listens to what Joshua has to say, whilst also occasionally chiming in to say that he's wrong about his own self worth, because that's who she needs to be if she wants to save Joshua. That's what's really being tested throughout the narrative: is she capable of understanding something that's well outside of her world view (Joshua's tragic backstory), and can she bring Joshua back. This is where Estelle's development gets a lot more obvious in SC: at the end of FC, she confronts Joshua about his backstory, and fails to convince him not to run off because she doesn't really understand. At the end of SC chapter 6, there's a similar scene, and she's able to get through to him. That Joshua then fights back against Weissman at the end is the payoff to all this to show how far Joshua has come, and thus how much Estelle has changed his life.
As for Estelle's asskicking ability, I don't have too much to say here really. But remember when she dropkicked someone through a window? BAD ASS. FC Estelle would not do that, and honestly I think "a few scenes before that" Estelle wouldn't do that either. It's something she resolved to do in that moment, and it's such a great contrast to say, the beginning of FC, when she and Joshua save some kids, but a monster creeps up behind her and she has to be saved by Cassius. It's just done very well tbh.
-Bug catching is cool, because I'M NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS.
-"Daddy I love you but why are you so useless smh".
-Why is my present a boy, and will jumping on him when clearly injured solve our problems?
All of this is the essence of Estelle until the end. She's always a bit of a tomboy (although if you read the art book, she intentionally makes her outfit slightly more feminine in SC in an attempt to appear more attractive. It's super subtle though). She's still beating up people, now with her stick. She's still like "Well sure dad is really talented, but is he really *that* great", even if her understanding has greatly developed and it's said with a bit more nuance. And Joshua is an important part of Estelle's life, if in a different way from before.
So the character is overall pretty open about who she is. Why should we care about her? Well honestly the primary reason for me is that she's a rare female power fantasy who gets a canon love interest (try naming someone else, it's not impossible, but it's much harder than you'd think). But ignoring that, there are three things that stand out to me:
-what Estelle doesn't a big deal out of, aka her mother.
-her relationship with Joshua and eventually Renne.
-her development of her ass kicking ability
In contrast to everything else, Estelle's mother is the one thing Estelle isn't willing to directly talk to the player about. And I find that really relatable and interesting! She's so happy and upbeat most of the time, but there's this one part of her life that she hasn't fully moved on from, and she's trying not to let it show. If I were to go deeper here, I'd argue that she's trying to be strong for Cassius? But regardless, in this specific aspect Estelle has to enter a magical dream for us to get any detailed info about her mother, and when we finally do it's a super emotional scene and everything clicks about their relationship.
Renne I won't go into too much detail because future games are more relevant to her, but a lot of what I'm going to say about Joshua broadly applies to her too. Estelle doesn't really have a major character flaw herself. She needs to grow up and treat her work more seriously, yes, but she's working on that from day 1 and it's never really a big problem. The flaw that Estelle works on instead is really Joshua's. By the end, Estelle is shown to be understanding, empathetic, and generally listens to what Joshua has to say, whilst also occasionally chiming in to say that he's wrong about his own self worth, because that's who she needs to be if she wants to save Joshua. That's what's really being tested throughout the narrative: is she capable of understanding something that's well outside of her world view (Joshua's tragic backstory), and can she bring Joshua back. This is where Estelle's development gets a lot more obvious in SC: at the end of FC, she confronts Joshua about his backstory, and fails to convince him not to run off because she doesn't really understand. At the end of SC chapter 6, there's a similar scene, and she's able to get through to him. That Joshua then fights back against Weissman at the end is the payoff to all this to show how far Joshua has come, and thus how much Estelle has changed his life.
As for Estelle's asskicking ability, I don't have too much to say here really. But remember when she dropkicked someone through a window? BAD ASS. FC Estelle would not do that, and honestly I think "a few scenes before that" Estelle wouldn't do that either. It's something she resolved to do in that moment, and it's such a great contrast to say, the beginning of FC, when she and Joshua save some kids, but a monster creeps up behind her and she has to be saved by Cassius. It's just done very well tbh.
What's also refreshing about Estelle is that even regarding the part of her past she hasn't completely moved on from, she's just generally sad about it instead of turning it into something she blames and comes to loathe herself for, despite her being a JRPG protagonist and the circumstances being almost perfect for it. This is in sheer contrast with another character in the same game who goes through almost the exact same situation, but deals with it in a decidedly less healthy manner.
Finally burned through the last three chapters in SC:
I'll definitely be getting around to 3rd as soon as possible to get that wrapped up before CS3.
That being said, is there any sort of decent summary of the Crossbell games? There's no chance of me playing them before CS3 and I'd like to have at least a basic understanding of those games before CS3.
Sadly I think the game ended on a pretty weak note, especially coming off of Chapters 5 & 6.
The reveal of Weissmann's plan didn't live up to all of the buildup, I also found him to be the weakest character in the whole game. Part of the reason I liked Ouroborus in this game was because it felt like the majority of the members that we encountered had a surprising amount of depth to them, they were more than just secretive evil people. Though with Weissmann that's all he is, to an almost comical level, as a result I just didn't care about him or his plan.
I also think the game dropped the ball with the other Ouroborus members in this final chunk. When you fight each of the enforcers at the towers during Chapter 7 the game did the smart thing of making sure you had the relevant party members with you, this meant that you get some extra development of the relationships between the party members and enforcers and made me actually care about the fights.
Then when you fight them again in the final dungeon the game doesn't switch members and it's a really tedious slog to do so manually, as a result I went into those fights with none of the relevant party members and they just felt like filler with no satisfying conclusion to each of the stories tied to them. The only member who avoids this is Renne, who does actually get further development of her story and as a result I enjoyed her fight a lot more. Maybe the fault here lies with me for not switching and if I had switched members the scenes would've played out very differently, but that just begs the question of why they wouldn't force a switch again.
My final main complaint is that the game also throws aside the majority of the cast at the end. You could remove everybody that isn't Estelle and Joshua from the final chapter of the game and it would have no noticeable impact. This was a huge disappointment given that one of my favourite things about the game until this point was that the game spent so much time developing each party member and making you get attached to them. To not even get a brief update on what everybody is doing at the very end was a shame, especially when they did give an update on Joshua and Estelle.
That aside I did still like bits and pieces of those final chapters. I liked all of the world building that came from the final dungeon, the reveal with Kevin was really interesting and has me excited to jump into 3rd as soon as possible. The interactions with Loewe were a standout that provided a satisfying conclusion to his character and also some closure for Joshua's past .
Also coming to the Sky games after having played through CS1/2 had me on edge waiting for the Olivert reveal and the game couldn't have handled it better, that entire sequence was a joy to watch and I doubt I would've had as much fun with it if I hadn't played the CS games first. I also wasn't expecting so much direct setup for the CS games so that was really cool to see, alongside just getting to see how Erebonia is viewed from the outside.
Overall, while the last 3 chapters were definitely disappointing I'd say that everything before it was strong enough to make the game one of my favourite RPGs that I've played recently, possibly ever. I'm still not the biggest fan of the gameplay and I think the pacing is kind of messy, but few RPGs have managed to make me care about a cast this much and get me this invested in their world.
TLDR: Agate is the best character in the whole series and this is just a scientific fact.
The reveal of Weissmann's plan didn't live up to all of the buildup, I also found him to be the weakest character in the whole game. Part of the reason I liked Ouroborus in this game was because it felt like the majority of the members that we encountered had a surprising amount of depth to them, they were more than just secretive evil people. Though with Weissmann that's all he is, to an almost comical level, as a result I just didn't care about him or his plan.
I also think the game dropped the ball with the other Ouroborus members in this final chunk. When you fight each of the enforcers at the towers during Chapter 7 the game did the smart thing of making sure you had the relevant party members with you, this meant that you get some extra development of the relationships between the party members and enforcers and made me actually care about the fights.
Then when you fight them again in the final dungeon the game doesn't switch members and it's a really tedious slog to do so manually, as a result I went into those fights with none of the relevant party members and they just felt like filler with no satisfying conclusion to each of the stories tied to them. The only member who avoids this is Renne, who does actually get further development of her story and as a result I enjoyed her fight a lot more. Maybe the fault here lies with me for not switching and if I had switched members the scenes would've played out very differently, but that just begs the question of why they wouldn't force a switch again.
My final main complaint is that the game also throws aside the majority of the cast at the end. You could remove everybody that isn't Estelle and Joshua from the final chapter of the game and it would have no noticeable impact. This was a huge disappointment given that one of my favourite things about the game until this point was that the game spent so much time developing each party member and making you get attached to them. To not even get a brief update on what everybody is doing at the very end was a shame, especially when they did give an update on Joshua and Estelle.
That aside I did still like bits and pieces of those final chapters. I liked all of the world building that came from the final dungeon, the reveal with Kevin was really interesting and has me excited to jump into 3rd as soon as possible. The interactions with Loewe were a standout that provided a satisfying conclusion to his character and also some closure for Joshua's past .
Also coming to the Sky games after having played through CS1/2 had me on edge waiting for the Olivert reveal and the game couldn't have handled it better, that entire sequence was a joy to watch and I doubt I would've had as much fun with it if I hadn't played the CS games first. I also wasn't expecting so much direct setup for the CS games so that was really cool to see, alongside just getting to see how Erebonia is viewed from the outside.
Overall, while the last 3 chapters were definitely disappointing I'd say that everything before it was strong enough to make the game one of my favourite RPGs that I've played recently, possibly ever. I'm still not the biggest fan of the gameplay and I think the pacing is kind of messy, but few RPGs have managed to make me care about a cast this much and get me this invested in their world.
TLDR: Agate is the best character in the whole series and this is just a scientific fact.
That being said, is there any sort of decent summary of the Crossbell games? There's no chance of me playing them before CS3 and I'd like to have at least a basic understanding of those games before CS3.
Yeah it really has to be said that the final fights of SC really benefit from having the correct party members in your party. Less so
but I'd highly recommend youtubing the scenes with the relevant characters if you didn't see them in your playthrough.
Renne, where having Tita results in a line extra, if that
Now imagine going back to switch characters for the relevant final fights in SC... without Turbo. Definitely part of the game that hasn't aged well, but with Turbo at the command, I think it's mostly mildly annoying.
EDIT: Regarding your comment about the ending only focusing on Joshua and Estelle. I really liked that actually, the laser focus on two characters to me is a vast improvement on other RPGs that try to bundle all character wrap-ups at the same time.
Also if you wanted more conclusions or "what are they doing now that SC is over" for the other characters, the 3rd will be the game you want to play, ASAP.
EDIT: Regarding your comment about the ending only focusing on Joshua and Estelle. I really liked that actually, the laser focus on two characters to me is a vast improvement on other RPGs that try to bundle all character wrap-ups at the same time.
Also if you wanted more conclusions or "what are they doing now that SC is over" for the other characters, the 3rd will be the game you want to play, ASAP.
Yikes, yeah, you DEFINITELY want to YouTube those scenes with the Direwolf and the Bewitching Bell because they're not minor dialogue, but rather resolution of their respective conflicts. By not heeding their words in Chapter 7 (both did promise to tell "the whole story the next time we meet" back then), you're essentially aborting two characters' plot arcs.
Oh, and 3rd has a part that's essentially to SC what the birthday celebration festival was to FC, so they haven't deprived you of that, they're merely holding out.
And yup, Weissmann's alignment is comically evil, which makes him rather unique. What Estelle sarcastically says about him being a real hit at parties turns out to be really close on the mark. XD
Oh, and 3rd has a part that's essentially to SC what the birthday celebration festival was to FC, so they haven't deprived you of that, they're merely holding out.
And yup, Weissmann's alignment is comically evil, which makes him rather unique. What Estelle sarcastically says about him being a real hit at parties turns out to be really close on the mark. XD
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It's miles better than Zero's current translation, though it's still riddled with quite a lot of misspellings.
Play the 3rd. It has answers for why the ending is like that you will get to piece together in that Trails Way).
Agate deseves to be getting some love before the pain sets in soon...
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What do you mean BEFORE the pain sets in? As the Sky arc's chew toy, Agate's been having near-death experiences at least once a game in all three games. XD
Oh wow. Y'all weren't kidding about those scenes, those are dramatically different and provide closure that I didn't get at all. It's wild that those are missable.
Glad that those conflicts actually saw a resolution though and I'm very happy with how they both ended.
One thing is for certain. I was going to wait a couple weeks to start 3rd so that I could roll right into CS3, after what I've read here though I think I'll start it this week.
Glad that those conflicts actually saw a resolution though and I'm very happy with how they both ended.
Seeing as 3rd seems to have what I'm looking for I'm certainly less bothered about the ending only focusing on Joshua and Estelle. If they show up in 3rd then it makes more sense that the others are passed over for now. I also kind of built myself up for disappointment by just assuming there would be a sequence like the festival in FC.
One thing is for certain. I was going to wait a couple weeks to start 3rd so that I could roll right into CS3, after what I've read here though I think I'll start it this week.
No, you definitely want to start 3rd now. For one, that New Game+ scene you saw in Cold Steel II will have a lot more context after playing 3rd and Cold Steel III assumes you've seen it and get what it signified. Second, 3rd pretty much has "where are they now"-sections for all characters in the SC cast, as well as some others.
Not to mention 3rd is a lot more streamlined, so it's not that hard to go through relatively quickly.
As for why those rival scenes in SC were missable, I imagine that while Falcom strongly encouraged players to bring the right characters along (those two enforcers literally said "next time I'll tell the whole story"), they didn't want to FORCE people to walk back and potentially level-grind two characters they might have neglected for the last two chapters. (though that would have involved using Tita in Chapter 8)
Not to mention 3rd is a lot more streamlined, so it's not that hard to go through relatively quickly.
As for why those rival scenes in SC were missable, I imagine that while Falcom strongly encouraged players to bring the right characters along (those two enforcers literally said "next time I'll tell the whole story"), they didn't want to FORCE people to walk back and potentially level-grind two characters they might have neglected for the last two chapters. (though that would have involved using Tita in Chapter 8)
Juna's voice isn't doing it for me. It's rare for me to have this type of complaint but it really sticks out for me, it doesn't fit the character at all. I really dislike it.
As for the fight with the 2
it was painfully obvious that it was going to be one of those unwinnable fights where your ass gets saved in the end before it even started. They really run this gimmick into the ground.
Other than that I liked the demo, not much to say really, it's Cold Steel.
As for the fight with the 2
stahlritters
Other than that I liked the demo, not much to say really, it's Cold Steel.
Supposedly, Cold Steel 3 has summaries of the Crossbell games. Alternatively, you can delay playing Cold Steel 3 and play Zero and Azure before it (that will lessen the gap between Cold Steel 3 and 4).
The execution is still quite flawed, and some basic adjustments would've easily eliminated the issue (like allowing for more than 4 characters in a party group (like in the Crossbell and Cold Steel games) or adding more spots where the player can change the party in the final dungeon (like in Cold Steel 2). Sky 3 uses the same engine but fixes the issue by making fast travel to the hub instant from almost anywhere in the game. I think Falcom recognized changing party members at the end of Sky 2 as a problem, since none of the games since then have had that issue.
From what I saw of the Cold Steel 3 demo, the "Backstory" page was very bare bones, with only a full summary for Cold Steel 1 and 2, the rest was mostly explaining other concepts of the world and not summarizing the other games.
Just finished Ao and man, what a great game. Getting ready for CS3 so I wanted to do a full run of all the games up to this point and I"m glad I did. I plan on starting up CS1 again this weekend(already played the CS games when they came out on PS3) and I can already feel playing the previous games will really help my enjoyment of playing through it again. Picked up the PS4 copies of Cold Steel so I can import my PS3 save but trying to figure out what I want to import heh; do I make this my Nightmare run or play on a lower difficulty and just enjoy the story.
Finished the CS3 demo
Started on Nightmare difficulty, because it seems like the way to go if you're remotely familiar with the systems in the game. Did not disappoint
Quick thoughts:
+The localization is functional. Pretty good even, i'd argue, which is great because the #1 fear i'm sure everyone had going into the game. It doesn't have Xseed's effortless quality, but the dialogue mostly sounds pretty natural. Of course, we'll see how it holds up (it could fall apart later on), but it's a wonderful start
+Voice acting is great, which shouldn't be a surprise given how they got Valerie Arem on board. Juna is perfectly cast imo; Erika Harlarcher gives the character an attitude the character is clearly trying to convey. Meanwhile Joe Zieja is hot right now, especially after killing it in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. His take on Kurt is completely different from Claude, but no less good
+The character models are fantastic this time around. No more awkwardly sticking out
+The game is instantly gratifying if you're a longtime fan. Cold Steel was pretty conservative with its references (until CS2's epilogue anyhow), but is already intent on selling you the idea that you're a part of the universe you fell in love with from the beginning. Shoutouts to Tita and Agate
+Rean as a teacher is pretty much a match made in heaven. His characterization didn't make him that interesting as a protagonist, but he worked best when he was guiding others towards a common goal, and CS3 makes full use of it. And well, teachers are hot right now whereas students are played out
+The New Class VII is already operating on a higher power level than OG class VII. Less is more, so each individual character is given more time to develop and shine, but there's a lot more under the hood too.
+The battle system is fun as hell, and Nightmare actually pushes you (instead of being unreasonably difficult). There's a good back and forth here (so far anyway)
-Animations outside of battle are still pretty poor lol
-The music isn't grabbing me as much (it gets way better)
-The demo will make you feel really bad
Started on Nightmare difficulty, because it seems like the way to go if you're remotely familiar with the systems in the game. Did not disappoint
Quick thoughts:
+The localization is functional. Pretty good even, i'd argue, which is great because the #1 fear i'm sure everyone had going into the game. It doesn't have Xseed's effortless quality, but the dialogue mostly sounds pretty natural. Of course, we'll see how it holds up (it could fall apart later on), but it's a wonderful start
+Voice acting is great, which shouldn't be a surprise given how they got Valerie Arem on board. Juna is perfectly cast imo; Erika Harlarcher gives the character an attitude the character is clearly trying to convey. Meanwhile Joe Zieja is hot right now, especially after killing it in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. His take on Kurt is completely different from Claude, but no less good
+The character models are fantastic this time around. No more awkwardly sticking out
+The game is instantly gratifying if you're a longtime fan. Cold Steel was pretty conservative with its references (until CS2's epilogue anyhow), but is already intent on selling you the idea that you're a part of the universe you fell in love with from the beginning. Shoutouts to Tita and Agate
+Rean as a teacher is pretty much a match made in heaven. His characterization didn't make him that interesting as a protagonist, but he worked best when he was guiding others towards a common goal, and CS3 makes full use of it. And well, teachers are hot right now whereas students are played out
+The New Class VII is already operating on a higher power level than OG class VII. Less is more, so each individual character is given more time to develop and shine, but there's a lot more under the hood too.
+The battle system is fun as hell, and Nightmare actually pushes you (instead of being unreasonably difficult). There's a good back and forth here (so far anyway)
-Animations outside of battle are still pretty poor lol
-The music isn't grabbing me as much (it gets way better)
-The demo will make you feel really bad
I wouldn't call it barebones, took me better part of an hour to read through it all. It's the same breakdown of CS1 we got in 2 (word for word I think, meaning it's XSEED's translation I'm reading) which was already quite exhaustive, followed by 2's which is just as wordy. And then character bios of all the major players that were updated to include events from CS2. Then world terminology, locations and major events, basically the same stuff you'd read in the Thors/Courageous library in previous games but including new developments.
But you're not wrong that it fails to discuss at length the characters, settings and events of the previous games. At least Lloyd gets his own bio but that's pretty much it for Crossbell.
My thoughts on the demo
- Animations (particularly walking) in scenes are a laugh. Some cuts are weird (Patrick hand shake and Sara jumping) Falcom needs to improve this asap.
- The music is pretty weak by Falcom standards so far.
- Audio mixing seemed kinda weird for me? Voices were pretty loud, and music pretty soft.
+ Really like Junas and Orlandos va. Spot on. Russels seem a bit annoying. I expected Tita to sound a little more childish but its fine,
+ Towa is still cute a can be.
+ Sean Chiplock still does a wonderful Rean.
+ Graphics and attacks look great in general, nice to see a Trails game in "proper" HD
++ Agreed, the game feels instantly gratifying to long time fans. Found myself nodding and grinning at all the name drops and references.
+/- A couple of instances I thought "this is going to go over someones head if they didn't played crossbell" ex: Arios was mentioned.
All in all, it seems NISA is doing a good job with the game, and I cant wait to continue playing next month.
- Animations (particularly walking) in scenes are a laugh. Some cuts are weird (Patrick hand shake and Sara jumping) Falcom needs to improve this asap.
- The music is pretty weak by Falcom standards so far.
- Audio mixing seemed kinda weird for me? Voices were pretty loud, and music pretty soft.
+ Really like Junas and Orlandos va. Spot on. Russels seem a bit annoying. I expected Tita to sound a little more childish but its fine,
+ Towa is still cute a can be.
+ Sean Chiplock still does a wonderful Rean.
+ Graphics and attacks look great in general, nice to see a Trails game in "proper" HD
++ Agreed, the game feels instantly gratifying to long time fans. Found myself nodding and grinning at all the name drops and references.
+/- A couple of instances I thought "this is going to go over someones head if they didn't played crossbell" ex: Arios was mentioned.
All in all, it seems NISA is doing a good job with the game, and I cant wait to continue playing next month.
I just played about an hour of the demo for CS3, and ah, god, it is making the wait for October even harder. It almost got me choked up seeing Tita and Agate there, alongside of Rean at the campus.
Man, I just can't fuckin' wait to dive in head first and platinum the hell out of that game. Argh.
I saw comments in the thread about Estelle? She's a great character, in a ton of ways, for her steadfast nature and earnest development through her smaller flaws and failings. Watching her overcome her deeper insecurities, and becoming more honest about the things she really needs from those around her - and also seeing her continued progression in Crossbell, was wonderful. I will readily admit to tearing up during a certain scene in the Crossbell games, when all that tension finally paid off.
Man, I just can't fuckin' wait to dive in head first and platinum the hell out of that game. Argh.
I saw comments in the thread about Estelle? She's a great character, in a ton of ways, for her steadfast nature and earnest development through her smaller flaws and failings. Watching her overcome her deeper insecurities, and becoming more honest about the things she really needs from those around her - and also seeing her continued progression in Crossbell, was wonderful. I will readily admit to tearing up during a certain scene in the Crossbell games, when all that tension finally paid off.
Is it possible to beat Ines and Innea at the beginning of the demo? Tried a couple of times in nightmare and it just cut to the cutscene with Duvalie.
Also Falcon surely loves starting their games in media res.
I wonder if they are trying to pull the good old KeA twist once again.
Also one question regarding the first scene (Ao's spoilers included(
Also Falcon surely loves starting their games in media res.
I wonder if they are trying to pull the good old KeA twist once again.
Also one question regarding the first scene (Ao's spoilers included(
How are the powering up the Aions? I thought KeA was the source of their power
Presumably, ouroborus figured out how to replace KeA's power with standard orbal energy. Didn't they build the originals? Presumably, they could just power simpler ones with orbal energy. You should probably spoiler tag the KeA twist part, too
No. The fight uses a mechanic that you have to deplete their health to a certain threshold to proceed. It's probably their way of handling the "win the battle but lose the cutscene" issue that plagued CS2.
Kiseki fam, this is not port begging per se, but does anyone plugged in to the community know if there is even a glimmer of hope for the Cold Steel games to come to Switch? Family obligations have limited my PS4 time and I absolutely adore the Cold Steel games.
Falcom currently isn't really interested in doing ports internally, so any switch ports would need to be done by someone else (for example, NISA).
Long term, I wouldn't rule the idea out? It sounds like Falcom are asking around to get previous Trails games available to a modern audience in some capacity. But I wouldn't expect it at all any time soon, especially when CS1 and 2 are available on pc and ps4.
Thanks! Looks like I'll have to find more PS4 time to enjoy this incredible series.
I gotta admit, I'm getting a kick out of people busting out the paragraphs to defend Estelle from criticism (feels like a nice change of pace) though I feel it's fair, given how the criticism leveled towards her character has been incredibly superficial (no offense).
Like, Estelle is demonstrably good. She has every element that makes a protagonist a strong character; her character is well-realized, she has discernible wants and goals, a consistent and strong character arc, fleshed-out character relationships and so on. All of her major and minor moments in her story are hitters, and she's able to flawlessly work as a leading character and a supporting protagonist. But Estelle wouldn't be that special if she didn't stand out in a market oversaturated with male protagonists.
She isn't my favorite Kiseki protagonist, but Estelle rules. You can dislike her personality but trying to make the argument that she's a poor character isn't going to work, lmao
Like, Estelle is demonstrably good. She has every element that makes a protagonist a strong character; her character is well-realized, she has discernible wants and goals, a consistent and strong character arc, fleshed-out character relationships and so on. All of her major and minor moments in her story are hitters, and she's able to flawlessly work as a leading character and a supporting protagonist. But Estelle wouldn't be that special if she didn't stand out in a market oversaturated with male protagonists.
She isn't my favorite Kiseki protagonist, but Estelle rules. You can dislike her personality but trying to make the argument that she's a poor character isn't going to work, lmao
I don't think I said she's a poor character. I said I disliked her, and thought the Josette was better. Her personality sucks, but that's not the same thing as being a bad character.
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God no. It's bad enough you feel the need to constantly mention that "you think Josette is better" on multiple occasions (as if that's an argument in and of itself lmao), but your justification for disliking Estelle ("she has plot armor" and "she acts like an idiot all of the time") are tedious, lazy talking points.
No, my post was mainly directed at the people arguing against the points you made. Like I said before, it's a nice change of pace.
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Ah, right. I'll get to work on those paragraphs about why I dislike Estelle then.
That I can agree with.
Not even the Japanese fanbase likes her... How the fuck does a garbage character like Alisa get over 500 votes
Wow, Jusis beat out Juna? Talk about a nothing character.
The thing I dislike about Juna is how she reacts to what happened at the start of the test. It's clearly not his fault, and while it mirrors Alisa and Rean, Juna went to the fuckin' police academy. She should be better behaved then Alisa, a civilian.
Crow might actually be the only reason I stuck with CS1 and finished it. Which in turn means that he's the reason for me playing the other Kiseki games.
I imagine most of the people that hate on Estelle, are the same ones that will turn around to hug their Alisa dakimakura.
Amazing dialogue snapshot. lmao
Not the kind of post I was expecting from someone called Rean, but Cold Steel is nothing without Crow to tie it all together
I imagine most of the people that hate on Estelle, are the same ones that will turn around to hug their Alisa dakimakura.
I don't see Alisa fans being normie fans with bad takes because literally everyone gives them shit for liking that character who was obnoxious during the first 5% of the game and they're always on the defense.
Fortunately (or unfortunately?) Kiseki doesn't have that one character that people throw themselves to defend.
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Alisa was insufferable in CS1 because she never let that stuff from the beginning of the game go. She manages to bring it up again even after she agrees to drop it. Then she was unremarkable in CS2 once she finally did drop it entirely.