3rd is canon and arguably the most important game in the series in terms of lore.
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3rd is effectively one of the most important games in the series within the context of future arcs.
The game has a very awesome story and it's an incredible send off for the Sky arc, but it's also extremely important. Some of the lore introduced in 3rd is some of the most important in the series even now. Also many of the doors in 3rd forshadow future arcs including Cold Steel.
It would be a crime not to play 3rd.
I know people really enjoyed that actor hamming it up, but I hated it. Particularly in Cold Steel 2, where the tone gets completely butchered in Act 2 part 1 because they decided to keep with that nonesense and still hamming it up further, regardless of how inapropiate it is in that particular scene.
When you're competing alongside Duvalie, you work extra hard.
So I've been playing Trails in the Sky SC; My plan was to play FC & SC before Trails of Cold Steel II was released way back on the Vita; for some backstory; Trails of Cold Steel is what got me onto this franchise so I beat FC but slacked off on SC and it fell into my backlog until a month ago when I picked it up again from scrath as a combination of pre-ordering Trails of Cold Steel III and getting a psp emulator on my tablet to play those translations of Ao/Zero reignited my passion to jump back in!
So just beat chapter 3 of SC and man was that last gaunlet of bosses tough clearly through a curveball with
Anyway chapter 4 is off to an intersting start!! can't wait to see where this takes me!!!
So just beat chapter 3 of SC and man was that last gaunlet of bosses tough clearly through a curveball with
your main party being unavailable for the fight and Keven, Scherzard, and Julia switching in instead...FUCKING KNEW RENEE WAS APART FOR OUROBOROS! It was so fucking obvious.
Anyway chapter 4 is off to an intersting start!! can't wait to see where this takes me!!!
I played zero before SC, and I was just as shocked at the revelation.
So since CS3 is just around the corner i thought I better finish 3rd and play Zero/Ao! A shame the geofront translation isn't finished but I can't bare to play CS3 without playing Crossbell so needs must! Just finished the
moon door, what a great door. No gameplay but it was awesome seeing
Estelle and Joshua
Joshua slowly develop, also fun seeing Estelle as a child, she really did not change at all haha[\spoiler]
That door is so incredibly wholesome, and the ending CG is just the cutest shit i've ever seen
Of all the highs that there are in the 3rd this one is definitely one of my favorite moments in the game.
Of all the highs that there are in the 3rd this one is definitely one of my favorite moments in the game.
I have hit Crossbell burnout.
3rd chapter of Ao and I just feel like I'm dragging my feet with it. Great game though.
3rd chapter of Ao and I just feel like I'm dragging my feet with it. Great game though.
If you've been playing both games back to back, I can see how you'd feel that way tbh. The whole thing is massive, and at some point, you could walk to Tangram Gate in your sleep.
Still, I know it's obvious, but it's really worth soldiering on. Chapter 4 is better than 3, and the next one is probably my favorite Kiseki chapter.
No need to rush (unless you haven't played Cold Steel 1 and 2)! Trails of Cold Steel 3 doesn't come out for another three months.
Yeah. At this rate, I won't be doing a replay of cs I and II. That's alright.
Yeah I'm going to skip some requests. I just don't want to hit the same spots over again. Falcom likes to recycle their assets, and generally while I'm fine with that, I need to finish up YS 8.
The Crossbell games, due to its structure, can get too repetitive with how much you are seeing the same assets over and over again, specially if you binge both games. From chapter 2 onwards in Zero you have the whole map of the game available to you at all times, and outside some very small portion of the game at the begginning of Ao and certain story moments, it's fully open almost all the time in the sequel. If you talk to NPCs it can be easy to get tired of it, or feeling fatigued of it all.
This is why I am a bigger fan of the HUB structure of the Cold Steel games. You get a recurring place where you can consistently interact with the same people and grow attached, while allowing to have new places to visit periodically and limit the scope of the place you will be constantly revisiting. It makes the pacing and flow of the experience better, for me at least. However, it didn't stop me from enjoying the crap out of the Crossbell games, particularly Ao .
This is why I am a bigger fan of the HUB structure of the Cold Steel games. You get a recurring place where you can consistently interact with the same people and grow attached, while allowing to have new places to visit periodically and limit the scope of the place you will be constantly revisiting. It makes the pacing and flow of the experience better, for me at least. However, it didn't stop me from enjoying the crap out of the Crossbell games, particularly Ao .
I don't think it's as badly translated as people make it out to be. It's not xseed quality, but it's better in most respects than NSIA's first Ys 8 translation. I could follow what was going on the whole time, tho I will say that sometimes things didn't make the most sense, grammatically. If I were forced to.....I think you could skip Zero, and just play Ao. I know some people will tell you that you can't, and even I'd say you really should, but I don't think you miss out on much, plot wise, if you don't play it. (yes, yes, I know about her, but I just don't think you necessarily need to know how she came to be in the game to understand her plot arc in Ao).
You probably wouldn't be completely lost, if you've played the previous Cold Steel games and the Sky trilogy, at least. As far as I know, the focus in Cold Steel 3 is on the new students and other characters returning from the other Cold Steel games. I believe that Cold Steel 3 also comes with some summaries of the Crossbell duology, although I don't know if it'd be worth it to read them. You'd definitely miss references and have some plot points from Crossbell revealed to you, if you're okay with that; there is a reason why playing all the games prior to Cold Steel 3 is recommended.
Yeah, don't listen to this guy. Zero is a fantastic game that shouldn't be skipped. Azure's plot could probably be followed without playing the first game, sure, but Zero does a lot of work to establish the characters so that you care about them by the time you get to Azure (there's also a big plot twist late in Azure which won't make as much sense without playing Zero).
I've heard mixed things regarding the significance of Crossbell to CS3 specifically. Ideally you'd want to play everything before CS3, but I have heard that Sky is much more prevalent in CS3 and that CS4 is a 50/50 split between Sky and Crossbell. Perhaps someone who has played CS3 in this thread can clarify more and give you better advice. Of course, I say this but as you probably already know some Crossbell characters seem to be pretty prevalent in CS3 so at the very least you could expect to not understand any references to Crossbell or the significance of these characters and their presence in CS3/4.
if it's any consultation Ao's translation is in a better state than Zero's but you'd still have to play Zero's very rough translation. I absolutely would not recommend skipping Zero and going straight to Ao. Zero is a great game in it's own right, but Zero also ties heavily into Ao.
I didn't say you *should* I said you could. And that was only if I was forced to say if you could or not. I say, in the post you're replying to, that you should really play Zero.
I was disagreeing entirely with the notion that Zero is a game that "could" be skipped before Azure, which is why I recommending against listening to your advice there.
I think it's possible to skip it. I think it's an incredibly bad idea, but I don't think you'd be that lost if you only played Ao. If someone wants to play the crossbell arc, but doesn't want to read zero's bad translation, wouldn't it be better to play Ao without playing zero, then not playing either of them?
Yeah, I never felt this fatigue when playing cs 1&2 back to back.
No, that would still be terrible, especially since the Azure translation is also subpar and well below professional standards. If someone refuses to play Zero because of the leak's poor quality, that person likely wouldn't enjoy the Azure translation, either (and that's without the added problem of missing out on the first half of the story). It's just a bad idea all around. If quality is what someone really wants, the best option right now is to be patient and wait for either GeoFront or a mythical official localization.
Then they could play the subpar Azure translation you just bad mouthed?
No, you won't be completely lost. You should wait for the Geofront edit if you can't get into the current translation.
Could always read summaries for Zero and Ao, but playing them is really preferred. Especially since many, myself included, consider the Crossbell arc as the best arc in the series.
They're games that are very much worth your time, it's just really unfortunate what the situation with these games in the west is.
They're games that are very much worth your time, it's just really unfortunate what the situation with these games in the west is.
Speaking personally, I plan to skip Crossbell for now and just play CS3 and maybe CS4, until geofront do their thing or otherwise Crossbell ends up in a good state.
I'm sure that ideally, I should have played Crossbell, and there will be character arcs that continue in CS3 and 4, and that maybe some Crossbell lore will be relevant, and all that jazz. But equally, I personally think I'm capable of getting the gist even if it's not the full emotional context. It's not like Rean has played Zero off screen or anything, there will for the most part be context clues I can work with. And heck, if I misunderstand something that isn't relevant to CS, that could make Crossbell more interesting.
But basically, I'd rather mostly enjoy the CS games now and fully appreciate them later after playing Crossbell properly, than completely ruin the Crossbell games just so I can understand what a Crossbell character means when they say "Oh that reminds me of this thing that happened in another game".
I'm sure that ideally, I should have played Crossbell, and there will be character arcs that continue in CS3 and 4, and that maybe some Crossbell lore will be relevant, and all that jazz. But equally, I personally think I'm capable of getting the gist even if it's not the full emotional context. It's not like Rean has played Zero off screen or anything, there will for the most part be context clues I can work with. And heck, if I misunderstand something that isn't relevant to CS, that could make Crossbell more interesting.
But basically, I'd rather mostly enjoy the CS games now and fully appreciate them later after playing Crossbell properly, than completely ruin the Crossbell games just so I can understand what a Crossbell character means when they say "Oh that reminds me of this thing that happened in another game".
This series really plays it safe in a lot of ways.
I wish the writers would take more chances with character deaths and play with the formula of narrative more (structure).
I get that it's traditional for there to be lots of down time in these titles (the ultimate example of this is Second Chapter), and recycled assets, but after awhile it becomes the sort of predictable that's never good.
If CS III and IV do the same thing pacing wise, that's fine, bc I want to see how this story culminates, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my interest for the series has waned because I feel conditioned to Kiseki.
I wish the writers would take more chances with character deaths and play with the formula of narrative more (structure).
I get that it's traditional for there to be lots of down time in these titles (the ultimate example of this is Second Chapter), and recycled assets, but after awhile it becomes the sort of predictable that's never good.
If CS III and IV do the same thing pacing wise, that's fine, bc I want to see how this story culminates, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that my interest for the series has waned because I feel conditioned to Kiseki.
Idk how people play Kiseki games back to back. They're some of my favorite games of all time and I love replaying them when the urge hits, but playing more than one Kiseki game without putting at least like 3-4 months between them just turns my brain to mush.
I know people that started with FC after CS3 announced and are now already caught up with the series, including Crossbell.
I am mildly guilty of this.
The ending to FC is so amazing, that I immediately bought SC at full price to continue with the world and series.
And after finishing Zero, I immediately jumped into Ao because of all the mysteries in Zero that remained were like an extremely alluring mystery cocktail that I had to sample at all costs.
And after finishing CS1 in English I immediately imported CS2 in Japanese because I couldn't wait to see what happened after that ending.
tl;dr I like cliffhangers and mysteries.
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After awhile it gets pretty lame. Feels like the writers wanted to keep major antagonists around for latter games to keep it interesting. But then when characters don't die where they could or should, it feels like the stakes are so low. Initially, this wasn't an issue for me when I fnished CS II and Crow dies. When I found out he returns in CS III, I just decided that this series isn't committed to killing their darlings. Loewe is the one exception to all of this.
Agreed - I just finished CS1 and 2 back-to-back and I'm honestly glad there's a gap before CS3, because I wouldn't want to play it for several months regardless.
By the time we get the PC port I'll probably be ready for it.
I've never played, or replayed the Trails games just one at the time, although that's not unique for Trails for me, I like to binge series of games (of course, sometimes I get burned out, like when I tried to binge the Yakuza series, only finishing 0 and Kiwami, but I never get burned by Trails).
Hell, I just finished my replay of ToCSII this morning and I would give anything to just go and play 3 right away instead of waiting 3 months.
I really hope falcom will not develop a plot twist like star ocean 3 lol
I just want the writers to make the stakes feel high. Hopefully that feels that way in CS IV.
Wait? What are you talking about, there's no Star Ocean 3. Everyone knows they jumped from 2 to 4.
Having a great time playing Zero, not having any issues following the story whatsoever and the voices help getting the character's intended tone across. Should've started this a long time ago instead of sitting on the game.
It's obviously the other way around (CS expands on elements and concepts introduced in Crossbell) but yeah, playing the Crossbell duology made me realize that all these things I thought were made up for CS were actually coming from Crossbell. It does bridge a lot between Sky and CS.
Not that I mind, I liked how CS was wildly different from the world I remembered from Sky SC, but that wasn't necessarily a design choice. The three games I hadn't played between the two made the transition much more gradual.
Well, yeah, but I played CS first, so Azure is expanding on it, for me at least. I can't wait to see if Azure explains what happened to Garellia fortress. (I have a theory, we'll see if it's true). I...actually like playing the crossbell arc after CS. It's possible that's because I played CS first, but I'm glad I'm able to play both games now.
I'm really not sure which way to play Crossbell/Cold Steel before CS3. Do I play Crossbell first, or replay CS 1/2 and then experience Zero/Ao for the first time before diving into CS3? This would be so much easier if I had any idea when the Geofront patch comes out, but I can't see it happening before September. Decisions decisions...
Both arcs spoil eachother, so in the end it's up to you. Lots of others here would recommend release order if you don't mind the current translation as it is.
I completed CS 1/2 back when they were first released, so I know what happens in them, but I don't want to burn myself out on CS before 3 which is the problem. Although I assume we go to all new places in 3 so maybe that won't be an issue.
If you've played CS 1/2 and you don't mind the current translations, I would play zero and ao first.