There's two uses for them, one technical and the other practical. The technical one is AT order management. Just like you can use quick-to-cast arts like Tear to "add" turns to the turn order, you can use chain crafts to subtract turns from the turn order if you want to deny a strong enemy a strong turn bonus without sacrificing an S-craft to steal it.
It's also a good way to take advantage of critical hit turns (especially if the one getting the critical is a low-strength character like Kloe or Olivier) since all characters participating in the chain take advantage of the turn bonus, which very quickly adds up, especially if you use Mueller or Julia, since their chain attacks hit twice. (Julia's hits everyone twice while Mueller only does two hits on the primary target)
Oh really? I didn't know chain did that. Ugh, getting a critical hit on everyone in the chain would've been useful too. Probably should've used it way more often during that one moon door. I usually just used an s-craft to steal a crit.....something to remember for a new game + run. Thanks.
TBH I can't imagine kondo-san throwing xseed under the bus like that.... So, maybe something was mistranslated... Or assumptions were made by the author??
I'd go with him half forgetting and wanting to praise NISA. At the same time, it does seem like he never wants to work with XSEED again, because even if all he said was true, you don't call out a business partner like that, you're always diplomatic, unless you very much assume you won't ever talk to them again.
All kondo says Is useless.
Zero and Ao talk Is something i read from a while. Late localization they do nothing like always.
The stadia hint from interview made me laught, that is the same company happy with the sales on ps4 who forgets the lost psp/vita sales before...
Short answers: do not expect anything different from them for years lol
Do you have suggestions on difficulty? Is Nightmare ballpark close enough to CS2? I did CS1 on Hard and CS2 on Nightmare, and thoroughly enjoyed both, having a way above average number of great and interesting boss fights and minibosses. The series is so erratic with difficulty levels, though, and the series is pretty stupid about not being able to change difficulty levels midgame. I'd hate to get stuck like is genuinely possible against CS1's final boss fight on Nightmare.
I'm not really interested in difficulty myself but i think you'll enjoy CS3 more on nightmare, the game has a lot of new additions that can break the game easily. And you ca change your difficulty now if i rcall, never really paid attention to it personally. If you're curious you can just install the demo that has been online for a few weeks now and see youself :)
So, I finally finished the third. Despite my comments earlier, I did enjoy it a lot. I spent about 55 hours in it, but a lot of that was grinding at the end. The lore in the star and moon doors was great. I could take or leave the sun doors, tho some of them were kind of fun. I especially like Star 14 and 15. 15 because of what it reveals, and 14 because of how it's basically the epiloge to SC. I tend to agree with others that the third is great, if only because of what it sets up for future games.
It's a bit surprising that door 15 revealed so much about Renne, and set up Zero, since I heard that Zero and Ao weren't originally part of the plan, and that FalcomZ had meant to go straight to cold steel. I do feel that door 15 completely redeemed Renne, and I wish I had played the third before Zero, since I didn't think Renne deserved the happy ending she got in that game, having only ever seen her in Zero. It seemed inexplicable that Estelle and Joshua could care so much about her, but after playing SC and more so The Third, I completely understand. I can't wait to see her in CS3, and see how far she's come since Ao.
I like how much backstory we get on Kevin and Reis, especially since she's introduced in this game. I remember when I first started playing SC many many years ago, I was wondering who the hell Kevin was. Now I know. They're both pretty awesome. I did like learning more about nearly all of the FC/SC people, tho I admit my favorites was probably Mueller and Olivert's door (tho I admittedly adore Olivert, and he's probably my favorite character from the trilogy)
I thought the gameplay was good. It's strange that I *think* Zero/Ao take a step back in terms of orbment, since Trails tells you what spells you'll get when you insert an orbment, versus Zero/Ao's lack of information. Towards the end, I had ground so much that all of my characters had the top quartz (gold, topaz, silver, etc) Strangely, I almost never used chain throughout SC and the Third. I just never found a use for it. I did mess up on the last boss of the third, when it did it's instant kill attack, I thought I had more time, so didn't use Kevin's sc. Luckily, one of my characters barely surived, and I had most of my zerum capsules left (that's why you save them for the last boss! Reminds me of how I saved all my burst orbs for the last boss in Ao.) I beat it on normal, so I was happy.
So, over the past 3 months, I've played ~300 hours of trails games, starting with Zero, and Ao, because I wanted to be ready for CS3.and then SC and the Third because I was jazzed from playing Z/A and I wanted to keep playing Trails games. As I've said before, I looooove the world building in these games. I loved going back and seeing characters in CS1/2 being introduced, seeing stuff mentioned that would be followed up in Z/A or how Z/A take place concurrently with CS1/2 and there's stuff that's shown in CS2 that's explained in Ao. Ao chapter 4 is my absolute favorite chapter in all of trails. It hits you like a ton of bricks, and completely changes the game, taking it from ho hum to holy shit.
I went back, and looked, and I've spent about 570 hours playing trails game since I got CS1 on the vita (and beat it) back in feb of 2016. I love this series. No one else is trying anything this ambitious, and I'm so glad CS3 and almost certainly 4, are coming out in the west. I'm eagerly awaiting 3. A little over two weeks to go.
I want to go back and play CS 1 and 2, but I think that might burn me out. Maybe I'll do a new game + run through before 4. Play the finished Geofront translation for Zero, too.
>since I heard that Zero and Ao weren't originally part of the plan, and that FalcomZ had meant to go straight to cold steel.
it's a bit of a mess, 3rd is a direct result of them starting development of Zero and realising they needed a bigger framework for the player to jump to the games. It is because of this the structure of 3rd is the way it is.
TBH I can't imagine kondo-san throwing xseed under the bus like that.... So, maybe something was mistranslated... Or assumptions were made by the author??
After sitting on Azure for about a month now, I think I've settled some of my more negative thoughts on it.
I have quite a lot of problems with it, my most minor gripe is with Lloyd, not Lloyd himself, he's honestly a pretty good character and honestly has me impressed with how smart he is, don't think I've ever seen a protagonist in a video game that smart. My problem is more so how dumb he becomes the moment a woman shows any sign of romantic interest in him, this honestly wouldn't be a problem for me if he was a character that wasn't emotionally intelligent, but he demonstrates a few times that he's very perceptive on that sort of stuff so it irks me a bit especially when I'm otherwise really impressed with him. As I said, not a big gripe, but kind of distracting.
My second gripe is how disappointing the mystery of who killed Guy is, I was pretty excited when I finished Zero that the question still hadn't been answered, so I thought it'd get more focused in Azure, and it didn't really, it just happened to tie into the main plot with the most disappointing antagonist I've seen in any video game, it was basically like the recent trend of twist villains in animated movies, it's the character with barely any screentime but a weird background prominence, the most obvious suspect in the mystery and by the time they're revealed there's no time to develop them or their dynamic with the main character. Though, honestly, they're made even worse by the fact that Lloyd does a sidequest in Zero where the gravekeeper points to several graves and says they were all drinking buddies with Guy, and Lloyd just decides not to ask who the grave that's so faded you can't read belongs to... until near the end of Azure in an optional scene, which infuriates me to no end especially with how smart Lloyd usually is. It's like Falcom wanted to have the foreshadowing to the twist... but didn't want anyone to have the evidence for the twist until a dungeon before they're ready to reveal it and so had Lloyd not ask, it's just dumb.
My third and probably biggest gripe is how awful the villains in Azure are, they're just not interesting. The best of them are the Ouroborus members, but they don't have much screentime that I can't really count them as being part of the main villain cast, especially Novartis who doesn't really do much, Ari is interesting and Campy continues to be good, though. As for the proper villain cast, Mariabell is supposed to be our main antagonist and... she's so poorly integrated and explained it's infuriating, she's best friends with Elie, but their relationship means nothing at all in the story that it's just wasted. She does countless bad things and when she peaces out to become an Anguis the characters act... so friendly about her? What the shit is that about? She orchestrated the attack on Crossbell that got members of the CGF and regular citizens killed, why are they talking so nice about her? Why is Randy calling her cute? Literally nothing justifies this. But hey, the villain cast isn't just the main one, the cast acts so nicely to the others as well, I get it if they're personally connected to them, but guys, people died. Starting with Wald, and honestly, I fucking hated the direction his character took as soon as I saw the shadowy figure at the start of chapter 3. This did not feel natural and the explanation they give near the end is so bare bones that it insults me, making matters worse is that the epilogue shows that he's joined the church... I get Wazy could pull strings but... this is just, really jarring to show since he's never shown owning up to his actions or trying to make things right, it just rings hollow. Moving on to Shirley and Sigmund, they're... fine. Standard bloodthirsty mercenary characters, but not exactly compelling or interesting, especially since they don't really bounce off the other characters in interesting ways. Shirley became an enforcer at the end... for some reason. Not much else to say about them. Arios is sadly probably the best out of them, and I still have problems on how his character is handled, but less than anyone else, my gripe being that the game never really sold me to that he'd go this far for his goal. As for Dieter, he was fine, but much like Shirley and Sigmund, not that interesting, which is a shame since I liked him coming off Zero. Now, as for the worst antagonist in Azure, and probably one of the worst in a video game I've probably seen, the mastermind. They're handled so atrosciously it's sad, just there to be a twist and be the one who actually killed Guy. They're supposed to have the most convictions about the whole plan, and yet, one anime speech from Lloyd, at the fucking end of the game mere moments from realizing their ambition and... they immediately give up? The fuck? Then boom, they're blasted by Mariabell and replaced... the Hell was the point of this waste of a character? This is made worse by how their presence just ruins the mystery plot of Crossbell, and as someone who really likes mysteries, it blows hard.
Overall that while I like Azure, it probably has more problems to me than any other Trails game, and that just really disappoints me in a lot of ways, especially seeing so many people say it's the best/their favorite in the series, I sadly can't get onboard that. The lack of an epilogue or at least one more walk around Crossbell really makes my gripes worse because they could have honestly at least alleviated a bit of my disappointment in regards to how some things were handled.
Finally playing the 3rd in anticipation for Zero. I'll buy Cold Steel 3 when it hits, but I'll wait until after playing Ao to play it. Assuming Geofront do Ao also.
Finally playing the 3rd in anticipation for Zero. I'll buy Cold Steel 3 when it hits, but I'll wait until after playing Ao to play it. Assuming Geofront do Ao also.
The current Ao translation is actually really good. I found there was a couple of stilted lines, but it's fine, and I think waiting for geofront to do a translation (when they haven't even started) would be a mistake.
The current Ao translation is actually really good. I found there was a couple of stilted lines, but it's fine, and I think waiting for geofront to do a translation (when they haven't even started) would be a mistake.
I think it would be a mistake not to wait until you can experience a great game in its best possible form. Especially a story-heavy game will shine even better when you know that each and every line is as good and natural as it can be.
Of course, I also recognise that not everyone might be as patient as me, or have as high standards on the writing in their Kiseki games, and that's okay too. I just feel that your phrasing is a disservice to the great work of the Geofront team.
From what I've heard I hope we get a QOL patch for Ao with the improvements from Zero soonish, then maybe a full edit later if Zerker and the others are still up for it. No idea how hard it will be to transfer the changes over but hopefully the games are as similar as they seem, so the experience from Zero makes it easier.
I remember one of the programmers/hackers mentioned it's something they were interested in, but they wouldn't even start until Zero was entirely finished.
I think it would be a mistake not to wait until you can experience a great game in its best possible form. Especially a story-heavy game will shine even better when you know that each and every line is as good and natural as it can be.
Of course, I also recognise that not everyone might be as patient as me, or have as high standards on the writing in their Kiseki games, and that's okay too. I just feel that your phrasing is a disservice to the great work of the Geofront team.
I don't think I was saying they wouldn't do a good job, but I do think that waiting 3+ years to play translation that wouldn't be that much better than the rather good one we have now would be a mistake. Has geofront even announced that they're going to do Ao? You'd be waiting for something they haven't even said they're going to do.
I still have to get through SC, 3rd, Zero, and Ao before CS3 but I'm pretty comfortable with where I'm at because I'd rather wait and see what people I trust have to say on the quality of both. Obviously these games are a huge undertaking localization wise, but if there are some glaring flaws with Zero or CS3 I'd like to know from people who played the Japanese versions who went through them before going in to expect that so I can have them clarified as I'm playing.
Zerker at one point said he wanted to work on Ao, but he also got burned out on Zero twice. I also know the people who originally took up the project like Floofy and Gu4n mentioned they weren't going to do Ao after Zero proved to be so difficult. So I wouldn't be surprised if we never see an Ao edit, it's a huge undertaking. It's kind of a miracle we're getting Zero soon.
After sitting on Azure for about a month now, I think I've settled some of my more negative thoughts on it.
I have quite a lot of problems with it, my most minor gripe is with Lloyd, not Lloyd himself, he's honestly a pretty good character and honestly has me impressed with how smart he is, don't think I've ever seen a protagonist in a video game that smart. My problem is more so how dumb he becomes the moment a woman shows any sign of romantic interest in him, this honestly wouldn't be a problem for me if he was a character that wasn't emotionally intelligent, but he demonstrates a few times that he's very perceptive on that sort of stuff so it irks me a bit especially when I'm otherwise really impressed with him. As I said, not a big gripe, but kind of distracting.
My second gripe is how disappointing the mystery of who killed Guy is, I was pretty excited when I finished Zero that the question still hadn't been answered, so I thought it'd get more focused in Azure, and it didn't really, it just happened to tie into the main plot with the most disappointing antagonist I've seen in any video game, it was basically like the recent trend of twist villains in animated movies, it's the character with barely any screentime but a weird background prominence, the most obvious suspect in the mystery and by the time they're revealed there's no time to develop them or their dynamic with the main character. Though, honestly, they're made even worse by the fact that Lloyd does a sidequest in Zero where the gravekeeper points to several graves and says they were all drinking buddies with Guy, and Lloyd just decides not to ask who the grave that's so faded you can't read belongs to... until near the end of Azure in an optional scene, which infuriates me to no end especially with how smart Lloyd usually is. It's like Falcom wanted to have the foreshadowing to the twist... but didn't want anyone to have the evidence for the twist until a dungeon before they're ready to reveal it and so had Lloyd not ask, it's just dumb.
My third and probably biggest gripe is how awful the villains in Azure are, they're just not interesting. The best of them are the Ouroborus members, but they don't have much screentime that I can't really count them as being part of the main villain cast, especially Novartis who doesn't really do much, Ari is interesting and Campy continues to be good, though. As for the proper villain cast, Mariabell is supposed to be our main antagonist and... she's so poorly integrated and explained it's infuriating, she's best friends with Elie, but their relationship means nothing at all in the story that it's just wasted. She does countless bad things and when she peaces out to become an Anguis the characters act... so friendly about her? What the shit is that about? She orchestrated the attack on Crossbell that got members of the CGF and regular citizens killed, why are they talking so nice about her? Why is Randy calling her cute? Literally nothing justifies this. But hey, the villain cast isn't just the main one, the cast acts so nicely to the others as well, I get it if they're personally connected to them, but guys, people died. Starting with Wald, and honestly, I fucking hated the direction his character took as soon as I saw the shadowy figure at the start of chapter 3. This did not feel natural and the explanation they give near the end is so bare bones that it insults me, making matters worse is that the epilogue shows that he's joined the church... I get Wazy could pull strings but... this is just, really jarring to show since he's never shown owning up to his actions or trying to make things right, it just rings hollow. Moving on to Shirley and Sigmund, they're... fine. Standard bloodthirsty mercenary characters, but not exactly compelling or interesting, especially since they don't really bounce off the other characters in interesting ways. Shirley became an enforcer at the end... for some reason. Not much else to say about them. Arios is sadly probably the best out of them, and I still have problems on how his character is handled, but less than anyone else, my gripe being that the game never really sold me to that he'd go this far for his goal. As for Dieter, he was fine, but much like Shirley and Sigmund, not that interesting, which is a shame since I liked him coming off Zero. Now, as for the worst antagonist in Azure, and probably one of the worst in a video game I've probably seen, the mastermind. They're handled so atrosciously it's sad, just there to be a twist and be the one who actually killed Guy. They're supposed to have the most convictions about the whole plan, and yet, one anime speech from Lloyd, at the fucking end of the game mere moments from realizing their ambition and... they immediately give up? The fuck? Then boom, they're blasted by Mariabell and replaced... the Hell was the point of this waste of a character? This is made worse by how their presence just ruins the mystery plot of Crossbell, and as someone who really likes mysteries, it blows hard.
Overall that while I like Azure, it probably has more problems to me than any other Trails game, and that just really disappoints me in a lot of ways, especially seeing so many people say it's the best/their favorite in the series, I sadly can't get onboard that. The lack of an epilogue or at least one more walk around Crossbell really makes my gripes worse because they could have honestly at least alleviated a bit of my disappointment in regards to how some things were handled.
I could see how my minor gripe might be attributed, though I had less trouble with Rean because he never came across as incredibly smart to me, so he never really regressed when women showed interest in him. There isn't really a big mystery that needs to be solved from my memory. As for the villains, Duke Cayenne's definitely in a similar vein to Mariabell, but he doesn't get much screentime and even the characters don't really treat him as a serious threat, so it was easier to swallow him, helps that he also wasn't meant to be a surprise villain. As for the other villains, I loved them a lot, that scene in CS2 where you're forced to sit down and just talk to them really elevated them a lot for me, especially since I felt a few of them had been mostly "okay" after CS1, getting to hear them just calmly talk to Rean with no threat of violence and explain their motivations was just a really good series of scenes.
I could see how my minor gripe might be attributed, though I had less trouble with Rean because he never came across as incredibly smart to me, so he never really regressed when women showed interest in him. There isn't really a big mystery that needs to be solved from my memory. As for the villains, Duke Cayenne's definitely in a similar vein to Mariabell, but he doesn't get much screentime and even the characters don't really treat him as a serious threat, so it was easier to swallow him, helps that he also wasn't meant to be a surprise villain. As for the other villains, I loved them a lot, that scene in CS2 where you're forced to sit down and just talk to them really elevated them a lot for me, especially since I felt a few of them had been mostly "okay" after CS1, getting to hear them just calmly talk to Rean with no threat of violence and explain their motivations was just a really good series of scenes.
how they kept insisting that things could ever return to the way they were by getting Crow back, as though all would be forgiven by having him do some janitorial duty and he would get to graduate with everyone in spite of being a terrorist who helped spark a civil war. They also really glossed over the fact that Towa and Olivier would've been killed if the Imperial Liberation Front's attack on Crossbell from Garrelia Fortress in CSI had succeeded, the latter being something that would've contradicted Crow's claim as C that they had no intention of harming anyone from the royal family. Going back to matters related to CSII specifically, I found it rather strange how much sadness Vulcan's death brought about when it really only made sense for Rean and Fie to be down about it, the former because no one he had fought before ended up dying (even though it wasn't his fault) and the latter since he too was a Jaeger and had respect for her father. Speaking of death, there was surprisingly little of it for a country mired in civil war, even though it was established that their part of Erebonia wasn't where the worst of it was occurring, and even the attack Duke Albarea ordered on Celdic somehow only resulted in one person dying. Then there's the whole third faction thing that Class VII and the Thors students were said to represent, as while they were granted the autonomy to determine how they would do things during the war, they were ultimately on the same side and were working toward the same goal as the Imperial Army. Though the Big Damn Heroes moments involving other characters showing up to save the party were fun for a while, they did start to overdo it with those as the game progressed. The final boss in the "final dungeon for real this time" admitting that there was no point in defeating it was also a letdown.
how they kept insisting that things could ever return to the way they were by getting Crow back, as though all would be forgiven by having him do some janitorial duty and he would get to graduate with everyone in spite of being a terrorist who helped spark a civil war. They also really glossed over the fact that Towa and Olivier would've been killed if the Imperial Liberation Front's attack on Crossbell from Garrelia Fortress in CSI had succeeded, the latter being something that would've contradicted Crow's claim as C that they had no intention of harming anyone from the royal family. Going back to matters related to CSII specifically, I found it rather strange how much sadness Vulcan's death brought about when it really only made sense for Rean and Fie to be down about it, the former because no one he had fought before ended up dying (even though it wasn't his fault) and the latter since he too was a Jaeger and had respect for her father. Speaking of death, there was surprisingly little of it for a country mired in civil war, even though it was established that their part of Erebonia wasn't where the worst of it was occurring, and even the attack Duke Albarea ordered on Celdic somehow only resulted in one person dying. Then there's the whole third faction thing that Class VII and the Thors students were said to represent, as while they were granted the autonomy to determine how they would do things during the war, they were ultimately on the same side and were working toward the same goal as the Imperial Army. Though the Big Damn Heroes moments involving other characters showing up to save the party were fun for a while, they did start to overdo it with those as the game progressed. The final boss in the "final dungeon for real this time" admitting that there was no point in defeating it was also a letdown.
It is actually mentioned by Scarlet in Cold Steel 1 that Crow fully expected the railway guns to be stopped, but you don't need to take her word for it, as Crow made a prerecorded speech for "C" to give.
The lack of death during the war didn't bother me too much since I assume like the attack on Crossbell, it happened to some offscreen citizens. Yeah, others being sad about Vulcan's death that didn't know him is a bit odd, same disconnect I had with Azure. I actually believed Class VII being a neutral third party, but yeah, they were a lot more biased to the Imperial Army side. Also, yeah... the real final dungeon (I refuse to acknowledge the old schoolhouse as the final dungeon) really pushed how many times the characters can be saved by other people in a row. As for the shadow of Loa, yeah, I did not like that old schoolhouse boss saying that, kind of makes me wish the characters just talked to it instead of going to kill it. Come on, Rean, you give so many anime speeches for every mundane thing, but when someone's telling you their life is worthless it's time to kill it? Shame on you, smh.
Geofront has yet to start ao so the wait will be great. But if someone wants to wait for an ao almost professional translation It Is ok, It Is their time: It means their children will be able to play ao, cs3+4 and probably a new whole arc meanwhile lol. If new console will let them play them because falcom will move to ps5....
Geofront has yet to start ao so the wait will be great. But if someone wants to wait for an ao almost professional translation It Is ok, It Is their time: It means their children will be able to play ao, cs3+4 and probably a new whole arc meanwhile lol. If new console will let them play them because falcom will move to ps5....
If someone wants to wait for geofront's Ao translation, that's fine. But I'm going to tell people that the Ao translation we have now is fine, and that I think it'd be a mistake to wait for something that hasn't even been announced, let alone started. I just don't want someone to think the Ao translation is as bad as the beta Zero translation.
If someone wants to wait for geofront's Ao translation, that's fine. But I'm going to tell people that the Ao translation we have now is fine, and that I think it'd be a mistake to wait for something that hasn't even been announced, let alone started. I just don't want someone to think the Ao translation is as bad as the beta Zero translation.
I agree with that. I can't see them going right from Zero to Ao, especially since it seems like it's a miracle we're getting Zero, after being on hiatus for over a year.
After sitting on Azure for about a month now, I think I've settled some of my more negative thoughts on it.
I have quite a lot of problems with it, my most minor gripe is with Lloyd, not Lloyd himself, he's honestly a pretty good character and honestly has me impressed with how smart he is, don't think I've ever seen a protagonist in a video game that smart. My problem is more so how dumb he becomes the moment a woman shows any sign of romantic interest in him, this honestly wouldn't be a problem for me if he was a character that wasn't emotionally intelligent, but he demonstrates a few times that he's very perceptive on that sort of stuff so it irks me a bit especially when I'm otherwise really impressed with him. As I said, not a big gripe, but kind of distracting.
My second gripe is how disappointing the mystery of who killed Guy is, I was pretty excited when I finished Zero that the question still hadn't been answered, so I thought it'd get more focused in Azure, and it didn't really, it just happened to tie into the main plot with the most disappointing antagonist I've seen in any video game, it was basically like the recent trend of twist villains in animated movies, it's the character with barely any screentime but a weird background prominence, the most obvious suspect in the mystery and by the time they're revealed there's no time to develop them or their dynamic with the main character. Though, honestly, they're made even worse by the fact that Lloyd does a sidequest in Zero where the gravekeeper points to several graves and says they were all drinking buddies with Guy, and Lloyd just decides not to ask who the grave that's so faded you can't read belongs to... until near the end of Azure in an optional scene, which infuriates me to no end especially with how smart Lloyd usually is. It's like Falcom wanted to have the foreshadowing to the twist... but didn't want anyone to have the evidence for the twist until a dungeon before they're ready to reveal it and so had Lloyd not ask, it's just dumb.
My third and probably biggest gripe is how awful the villains in Azure are, they're just not interesting. The best of them are the Ouroborus members, but they don't have much screentime that I can't really count them as being part of the main villain cast, especially Novartis who doesn't really do much, Ari is interesting and Campy continues to be good, though. As for the proper villain cast, Mariabell is supposed to be our main antagonist and... she's so poorly integrated and explained it's infuriating, she's best friends with Elie, but their relationship means nothing at all in the story that it's just wasted. She does countless bad things and when she peaces out to become an Anguis the characters act... so friendly about her? What the shit is that about? She orchestrated the attack on Crossbell that got members of the CGF and regular citizens killed, why are they talking so nice about her? Why is Randy calling her cute? Literally nothing justifies this. But hey, the villain cast isn't just the main one, the cast acts so nicely to the others as well, I get it if they're personally connected to them, but guys, people died. Starting with Wald, and honestly, I fucking hated the direction his character took as soon as I saw the shadowy figure at the start of chapter 3. This did not feel natural and the explanation they give near the end is so bare bones that it insults me, making matters worse is that the epilogue shows that he's joined the church... I get Wazy could pull strings but... this is just, really jarring to show since he's never shown owning up to his actions or trying to make things right, it just rings hollow. Moving on to Shirley and Sigmund, they're... fine. Standard bloodthirsty mercenary characters, but not exactly compelling or interesting, especially since they don't really bounce off the other characters in interesting ways. Shirley became an enforcer at the end... for some reason. Not much else to say about them. Arios is sadly probably the best out of them, and I still have problems on how his character is handled, but less than anyone else, my gripe being that the game never really sold me to that he'd go this far for his goal. As for Dieter, he was fine, but much like Shirley and Sigmund, not that interesting, which is a shame since I liked him coming off Zero. Now, as for the worst antagonist in Azure, and probably one of the worst in a video game I've probably seen, the mastermind. They're handled so atrosciously it's sad, just there to be a twist and be the one who actually killed Guy. They're supposed to have the most convictions about the whole plan, and yet, one anime speech from Lloyd, at the fucking end of the game mere moments from realizing their ambition and... they immediately give up? The fuck? Then boom, they're blasted by Mariabell and replaced... the Hell was the point of this waste of a character? This is made worse by how their presence just ruins the mystery plot of Crossbell, and as someone who really likes mysteries, it blows hard.
Overall that while I like Azure, it probably has more problems to me than any other Trails game, and that just really disappoints me in a lot of ways, especially seeing so many people say it's the best/their favorite in the series, I sadly can't get onboard that. The lack of an epilogue or at least one more walk around Crossbell really makes my gripes worse because they could have honestly at least alleviated a bit of my disappointment in regards to how some things were handled.
Well, you can focus on the negatives or the positives of the game, but I prefer to think about what I liked about it:
Still, I generally agree about Lloyd. I don't view it necessarily so much as a flaw with the character as much as it is a flaw of the narrative giving the player the choice of who Lloyd likes best. If Lloyd showed special interest in one lady, or if only one lady actually liked him, the choice near the end of the game of whom to bond with would not be possible. Even so, Lloyd is incredibly stupid about women, and I find it highly unrealistic that he'd have zero clue about their interest. If anything, I find guys (myself included) are more likely to incorrectly assume a woman is interested in them, rather than incorrectly assume that the woman is not interested (and Lloyd does the latter). Rean is similar, as you mention, but I find Rean's stupidity about girls a lot less intrusive in Cold Steel's main plot, since Rean's interactions with women are shifted from the main narrative to the bonding events, and the player can then skip many of the scenes of Rean acting like a romance doofus.
As for the mystery of Guy's killer, I'd agree that it's disappointing, but I can't say it disappointed me much since I didn't really care about who did it. I kind of wish the mystery remained a mystery, although that case would result in people complaining about the murderer's identity remaining unsolved. Personally, my only gripe with Guy's killer (aside from how stupidly hard it is to gather clues prior to the main reveal) is that it adds one too many twists. Arios being the killer would've made more sense, but the writers knew that Arios being guilty would've messed with that character's redemption, so they picked an unlikely killer. Unfortunately, Lawyer Ian is a decent side character but a crappy villain, which leads to your third point...
Complaints about Ian aside, I think you give many of the villains perhaps a bit less credit than they deserve. The only villain who I think Falcom really blundered with in Azure is Mariabell, who sucks hard for reasons you mention and more. I too was annoyed by how poorly resolved her arc was and how forgiving the characters are of her, yet I always think of how much potential Falcom missed with the opportunity Mariabell's heel turn presented for Elie's character development. Perhaps if Elie were Lloyd's primary love interest, instead of only possibly his love interest, the writers would have done more with Elie and Mariabell, but, regardless, Falcom doesn't have a good excuse for not using Mariabell to develop Elie's character further. Mariabell's lameness further stings, in my view, since she's essentially the main villain of the game, and I think Falcom has done a better job with their primary villains in every other Trails game I've played. On the other hand, I really like what Azure does with Shirley and Sigmund. The two Jaegers are not especially interesting on their own (Shirley is simply crazy, for instance), but both of them are used very well to further Randy's character, and Sigmund at least provides one of the most memorable boss fights in the entire series. I'm somewhat indifferent about Wald, since he doesn't have much to do with Wazy's character development, but Wald's fall felt natural enough to me. Arios, meanwhile, is one of my favourite villains in the series; I basically view him as Cassius done right, since these type of overpowered characters make a lot more sense to me as adversaries (if they're heroes, it seriously makes me question why they're not just solving the problems themselves, assuming they're not in the player's party). Arios's villainous turn to cure his daughter works quite well, especially since his actions actually lead to her being cured; what's most questionable about Arios is that he stays on the villains' side even after his daughter's eyesight is restored, although I think staying on the wrong side goes a long way to explaining why Lloyd and gang are able to finally beat him (in the final dungeon, he doesn't have a good reason to fight any more and lacks conviction). But Ian, yeah, he's quite lame. He's like Weissman but without any intimidation or force of will. I don't really mind that Ian turned out to be Guy's killer, but I am annoyed that Falcom didn't have the nerve to just let Ian die at the end of the game (would anyone playing the game have really cared if he died?).
Personally, I finished Azure about a year ago, and I remain uncertain how I feel about it. The translation wasn't that great (especially since I played the pre-Flame edit version), so I feel like the dialogue is actually better than what I saw, but mostly I don't like how unresolved the ending is, so I understand where you're coming from about the game having more issues for you than the other Trails games. I'm not fond of how Falcom delayed some resolutions and has apparently put some of them in the Cold Steel games. I don't think I'll know for sure how much I like Azure until I have a chance of playing Cold Steel 3 and 4.
The process should be faster, since the existing translation doesn't need as much editing, and the Geofront people should perhaps have an easier time adding the quality of life features to Azure (or not, as I've heard the Chinese PC version of Azure has a ton of problems of its own). Still, I wouldn't be surprised if a new edit is never made for Azure, as I could easily see a scenario where official localizations of the Crossbell games are announced before Geofront finishes editing Azure, thus ending the project (assuming Falcom bothers to port the games to newer systems).
Well, you can focus on the negatives or the positives of the game, but I prefer to think about what I liked about it:
Still, I generally agree about Lloyd. I don't view it necessarily so much as a flaw with the character as much as it is a flaw of the narrative giving the player the choice of who Lloyd likes best. If Lloyd showed special interest in one lady, or if only one lady actually liked him, the choice near the end of the game of whom to bond with would not be possible. Even so, Lloyd is incredibly stupid about women, and I find it highly unrealistic that he'd have zero clue about their interest. If anything, I find guys (myself included) are more likely to incorrectly assume a woman is interested in them, rather than incorrectly assume that the woman is not interested (and Lloyd does the latter). Rean is similar, as you mention, but I find Rean's stupidity about girls a lot less intrusive in Cold Steel's main plot, since Rean's interactions with women are shifted from the main narrative to the bonding events, and the player can then skip many of the scenes of Rean acting like a romance doofus.
As for the mystery of Guy's killer, I'd agree that it's disappointing, but I can't say it disappointed me much since I didn't really care about who did it. I kind of wish the mystery remained a mystery, although that case would result in people complaining about the murderer's identity remaining unsolved. Personally, my only gripe with Guy's killer (aside from how stupidly hard it is to gather clues prior to the main reveal) is that it adds one too many twists. Arios being the killer would've made more sense, but the writers knew that Arios being guilty would've messed with that character's redemption, so they picked an unlikely killer. Unfortunately, Lawyer Ian is a decent side character but a crappy villain, which leads to your third point...
Complaints about Ian aside, I think you give many of the villains perhaps a bit less credit than they deserve. The only villain who I think Falcom really blundered with in Azure is Mariabell, who sucks hard for reasons you mention and more. I too was annoyed by how poorly resolved her arc was and how forgiving the characters are of her, yet I always think of how much potential Falcom missed with the opportunity Mariabell's heel turn presented for Elie's character development. Perhaps if Elie were Lloyd's primary love interest, instead of only possibly his love interest, the writers would have done more with Elie and Mariabell, but, regardless, Falcom doesn't have a good excuse for not using Mariabell to develop Elie's character further. Mariabell's lameness further stings, in my view, since she's essentially the main villain of the game, and I think Falcom has done a better job with their primary villains in every other Trails game I've played. On the other hand, I really like what Azure does with Shirley and Sigmund. The two Jaegers are not especially interesting on their own (Shirley is simply crazy, for instance), but both of them are used very well to further Randy's character, and Sigmund at least provides one of the most memorable boss fights in the entire series. I'm somewhat indifferent about Wald, since he doesn't have much to do with Wazy's character development, but Wald's fall felt natural enough to me. Arios, meanwhile, is one of my favourite villains in the series; I basically view him as Cassius done right, since these type of overpowered characters make a lot more sense to me as adversaries (if they're heroes, it seriously makes me question why they're not just solving the problems themselves, assuming they're not in the player's party). Arios's villainous turn to cure his daughter works quite well, especially since his actions actually lead to her being cured; what's most questionable about Arios is that he stays on the villains' side even after his daughter's eyesight is restored, although I think staying on the wrong side goes a long way to explaining why Lloyd and gang are able to finally beat him (in the final dungeon, he doesn't have a good reason to fight any more and lacks conviction). But Ian, yeah, he's quite lame. He's like Weissman but without any intimidation or force of will. I don't really mind that Ian turned out to be Guy's killer, but I am annoyed that Falcom didn't have the nerve to just let Ian die at the end of the game (would anyone playing the game have really cared if he died?).
Personally, I finished Azure about a year ago, and I remain uncertain how I feel about it. The translation wasn't that great (especially since I played the pre-Flame edit version), so I feel like the dialogue is actually better than what I saw, but mostly I don't like how unresolved the ending is, so I understand where you're coming from about the game having more issues for you than the other Trails games. I'm not fond of how Falcom delayed some resolutions and has apparently put some of them in the Cold Steel games. I don't think I'll know for sure how much I like Azure until I have a chance of playing Cold Steel 3 and 4.
how they kept insisting that things could ever return to the way they were by getting Crow back, as though all would be forgiven by having him do some janitorial duty and he would get to graduate with everyone in spite of being a terrorist who helped spark a civil war. They also really glossed over the fact that Towa and Olivier would've been killed if the Imperial Liberation Front's attack on Crossbell from Garrelia Fortress in CSI had succeeded, the latter being something that would've contradicted Crow's claim as C that they had no intention of harming anyone from the royal family. Going back to matters related to CSII specifically, I found it rather strange how much sadness Vulcan's death brought about when it really only made sense for Rean and Fie to be down about it, the former because no one he had fought before ended up dying (even though it wasn't his fault) and the latter since he too was a Jaeger and had respect for her father. Speaking of death, there was surprisingly little of it for a country mired in civil war, even though it was established that their part of Erebonia wasn't where the worst of it was occurring, and even the attack Duke Albarea ordered on Celdic somehow only resulted in one person dying. Then there's the whole third faction thing that Class VII and the Thors students were said to represent, as while they were granted the autonomy to determine how they would do things during the war, they were ultimately on the same side and were working toward the same goal as the Imperial Army. Though the Big Damn Heroes moments involving other characters showing up to save the party were fun for a while, they did start to overdo it with those as the game progressed. The final boss in the "final dungeon for real this time" admitting that there was no point in defeating it was also a letdown.
They're not Nobility Alliance, they're not Ironbloods (except for Millium and Claire sorta), and the military isnt taking orders from them, nor are they barking orders at the military.
Well, you can focus on the negatives or the positives of the game, but I prefer to think about what I liked about it:
Still, I generally agree about Lloyd. I don't view it necessarily so much as a flaw with the character as much as it is a flaw of the narrative giving the player the choice of who Lloyd likes best. If Lloyd showed special interest in one lady, or if only one lady actually liked him, the choice near the end of the game of whom to bond with would not be possible. Even so, Lloyd is incredibly stupid about women, and I find it highly unrealistic that he'd have zero clue about their interest. If anything, I find guys (myself included) are more likely to incorrectly assume a woman is interested in them, rather than incorrectly assume that the woman is not interested (and Lloyd does the latter). Rean is similar, as you mention, but I find Rean's stupidity about girls a lot less intrusive in Cold Steel's main plot, since Rean's interactions with women are shifted from the main narrative to the bonding events, and the player can then skip many of the scenes of Rean acting like a romance doofus.
As for the mystery of Guy's killer, I'd agree that it's disappointing, but I can't say it disappointed me much since I didn't really care about who did it. I kind of wish the mystery remained a mystery, although that case would result in people complaining about the murderer's identity remaining unsolved. Personally, my only gripe with Guy's killer (aside from how stupidly hard it is to gather clues prior to the main reveal) is that it adds one too many twists. Arios being the killer would've made more sense, but the writers knew that Arios being guilty would've messed with that character's redemption, so they picked an unlikely killer. Unfortunately, Lawyer Ian is a decent side character but a crappy villain, which leads to your third point...
Complaints about Ian aside, I think you give many of the villains perhaps a bit less credit than they deserve. The only villain who I think Falcom really blundered with in Azure is Mariabell, who sucks hard for reasons you mention and more. I too was annoyed by how poorly resolved her arc was and how forgiving the characters are of her, yet I always think of how much potential Falcom missed with the opportunity Mariabell's heel turn presented for Elie's character development. Perhaps if Elie were Lloyd's primary love interest, instead of only possibly his love interest, the writers would have done more with Elie and Mariabell, but, regardless, Falcom doesn't have a good excuse for not using Mariabell to develop Elie's character further. Mariabell's lameness further stings, in my view, since she's essentially the main villain of the game, and I think Falcom has done a better job with their primary villains in every other Trails game I've played. On the other hand, I really like what Azure does with Shirley and Sigmund. The two Jaegers are not especially interesting on their own (Shirley is simply crazy, for instance), but both of them are used very well to further Randy's character, and Sigmund at least provides one of the most memorable boss fights in the entire series. I'm somewhat indifferent about Wald, since he doesn't have much to do with Wazy's character development, but Wald's fall felt natural enough to me. Arios, meanwhile, is one of my favourite villains in the series; I basically view him as Cassius done right, since these type of overpowered characters make a lot more sense to me as adversaries (if they're heroes, it seriously makes me question why they're not just solving the problems themselves, assuming they're not in the player's party). Arios's villainous turn to cure his daughter works quite well, especially since his actions actually lead to her being cured; what's most questionable about Arios is that he stays on the villains' side even after his daughter's eyesight is restored, although I think staying on the wrong side goes a long way to explaining why Lloyd and gang are able to finally beat him (in the final dungeon, he doesn't have a good reason to fight any more and lacks conviction). But Ian, yeah, he's quite lame. He's like Weissman but without any intimidation or force of will. I don't really mind that Ian turned out to be Guy's killer, but I am annoyed that Falcom didn't have the nerve to just let Ian die at the end of the game (would anyone playing the game have really cared if he died?).
Personally, I finished Azure about a year ago, and I remain uncertain how I feel about it. The translation wasn't that great (especially since I played the pre-Flame edit version), so I feel like the dialogue is actually better than what I saw, but mostly I don't like how unresolved the ending is, so I understand where you're coming from about the game having more issues for you than the other Trails games. I'm not fond of how Falcom delayed some resolutions and has apparently put some of them in the Cold Steel games. I don't think I'll know for sure how much I like Azure until I have a chance of playing Cold Steel 3 and 4.
I'm just a huge fan of murder mysteries, so having one in a Trails game got me really excited with the possibilities, especially when they carried it from Zero to Azure. I'd have loved it if it were actually Arios, but even from his "confession" it was pretty clear it wouldn't be him just by how they framed the scene (and, you know, the whole gunshot to the back thing). It was honestly a bit painfully obvious it was going to be Ian from chapter 3 of Azure onwards, that I was really hoping he was either a red herring or they'd make it more interesting later on. As you mentioned, the clues to him being the killer are just unfair, they aren't spaced out throughout the game, literally all evidence is in 3 optional scenes right before they reveal he's the "mastermind", despite setting up one of those pieces of evidence in a sidequest back in Zero, it just made Lloyd look dumb by not looking into it.
I do think I'm only a bit unfair on Arios, since my reasons for not finding him that great are just personal to me, I understand if someone says he's one of their favorite, I can see it, I just wasn't sold. But yeah, the lack of an epilogue is what really hurts a lot of this stuff, since I did like Azure up to this, but the complaints I have are just so huge to the ending that it kind of sours things, one more walk around Crossbell could have honestly solved a few of my gripes. It probably didn't help that I just was not invested in the cast at all during Zero due to how distracting the translation was, so I wasn't as easily able to forgive stuff in Azure as I could have been if I was just as invested in the Crossbell cast as a lot of people seem to be. Still a good game, but I kind of wish I'd waited for the Geofront Zero translation before diving in, because I feel that really hampered my experience.
So is "Tales of Azure" the confirmed name? I could see the translation team going simply for "Tales of Blue", say if the overall plot is overly sorrowful and gloomy.
So is "Tales of Azure" the confirmed name? I could see the translation team going simply for "Tales of Blue", say if the overall plot is overly sorrowful and gloomy.
I imagine it'd be quicker actually. The leaked Zero translation was a deliberately bungled script (the original project lead asked the translator to translate as literally as possible so he could add his own personal flavor to the script during the editing process) while this didn't happen with Ao, meaning they don't have to untangle a deliberate mangling effort before they can start finetuning things.
It'd still be quite an undertaking though, but not in the same league as Zero.
So is "Tales of Azure" the confirmed name? I could see the translation team going simply for "Tales of Blue", say if the overall plot is overly sorrowful and gloomy.
Does Japanese also use a veritable sea of various prepositions to make nouns stick to each other? If not, then the question is just what that expression is meant to be as a whole, not how you translate the particle no.
Does Japanese also use a veritable sea of various prepositions to make nouns stick to each other? If not, then the question is just what that expression is meant to be as a whole, not how you translate the particle no.
considering the most english friendly translation would be "Azure Trails" since using a possessive preposition with a color doesn't really work...Just simply looking at how "no" translates isn't a good idea here.
Grammatically, Trails of Azure comes off the most naturally, as it asks as describing the trails similarly to "Azure Trails"
I still think trails from zero sounds pretty poor, but its certainly better than trails of zero
Right. I made that same argument when Zerker was soliciting ideas for Zero's English title back in 2017 (I think?). Ao's japanese trailer had that tagline, and it just makes sense to label them as a journey from one game to the next thematically. But grammar-wise I guess it doesn't quite sound right. In this case "Azure" isn't just a color but a state of being.
And I suppose one need not try to translate literally, Trails of Cold Steel isn't a direct translation of Sen no Kiseki. It's more like a workaround to get to the similar meaning of expression.
After all, Falcom has always been known for their cutting edge graphics, always chasing the very zenith of modern computer graphics. No idea how this small team keeps pulling of such marvels of photorealism with a complete shoestring budget, you'd reasonable expect that their games would look one or two generations behind modern AAA games.
