Jump to content

General Trails thread (Trails of Cold Steel 4 (PS4) out now).


Armagon
 Share

Recommended Posts

Hi, it’s me Armagon and I finally played The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky. I’ve heard many good things about this series (mainly that it’s good, I hadn’t really heard anything specific prior other than that they must be played in order) so I decided to check it out. This game not only served as my introduction into the series but also Falcom in general, as I’ve never played any of their games before and I must say, It’s good. I really liked the game so I’m here to share my thoughts, listing them in bullet points that i've broken up so it's easy to read.

What I liked

  • The characters. Characters are always more important than the story itself in my opinion and this game manages to avoid the problem that most JRPGs have, that is, you have characters that are relevant and characters that aren’t. Keep in mind that I’m specifically talking about party members (so obviously people like Mayor Klaus aren’t really gonna be relevant). Having party members come and go was a smart decision both gameplay-wise and story-wise.
  •  
  • The story was also good. It’s not a super amazing story but I also know that this is just Part 1 of a much grander story. This isn’t an issue, but the story was somewhat predictable. While the events themselves weren’t predictable, every chapter aside from the prologue basically went like this: Estelle and Joshua go to a new region > They meet the party member(s) of that chapter > something big happens > the heroes save the day > Estelle and Joshua get a recommendation from the Guild > they go to a new region > repeat. Even the final chapter was mostly this, aside from the big plot twists revealed at it’s end. The reason I say this isn’t an issue is because I don’t really care that the story was somewhat predictable. The story was still good and that’s what matters.
  •  
  • Chaos Brand is busted in this game and my favorite Art in the entire game. Who knew inflicting confusion would be so much fun? I basically cheesed the tournament in Grancel with this method because Chaos Brand works on literally everything except the final two fights in the game.
  •  
  • Tita’s adorable
  • Zane is best boy
  • Kloe is best girl 
  • Shoutout to the fact that the name of the Goddess in Trails is literally just the Spanish word for “goodbye”. I mean, they added an extra “i” but I find it hilarious that it’s just the Spanish word for goodbye (Adios) and I’ve totally be pronouncing her name wrong, haven’t i?
  •  
  • ·Music was pretty decent, especially the boss themes. And of the songs (the one that plays in the path that leads to the Royal Academy and also the one that plays in the path to the Royal Villa) reminded me a lot of the song that plays in Route 10 in Pokemon Black/White and that’s a good thing. Can I have a link to that please?
  • The worldbuilding in this game is pretty good. I loved how after each chapter, you could buy a newspaper basically summarizing what had just happened, as well as details on the Hundred-Days War (which I kept misreading as the Hundred-Years War for the longest time).
  • Speaking of the world, I love how….familiar it feels. Yeah, you’ve got magic and monsters and other fantasy stuff but other than that, it’s a pretty modern world. Just replace airplanes with airships. I wouldn’t say it’s my favorite game world but it’s definitely up there.
  •  
  • The combat is pretty good. It’s kinda like Fire Emblem but on a much smaller scale and it reminds me of another game I played with a similar with a similar combat system called Lord of Magna: Maiden Heaven, a game that’s been on my backlog for a year because the Switch has taken over. The use of combining crystals in the Orbments to use Arts was pretty fun and it allows for variety in future playthroughs.
  • I really appreciate that Falcom didn’t put random encounters in this game. They could’ve, but they didn’t. I don’t hate random encounters, I just prefer not having them. Getting those preemptive strikes is so good.
  •  
  • The little bits of dialogue when you check a chest that’s already been opened. “You already took everything from the chest, what more do you want?” “Nothing but disappointment.” I love those.
  • The final boss was a mecha. Can I expect more mechas in this series? I like mechas (the actual fight though…..well, I’ll get into that)
  • That option where if you lose a fight, you can try it again and the enemies would be weaker each time. I had to swallow my pride and use it on some fights but hey, it works.

What I didn’t like

  • Everything’s too damn expensive in this game. It’s pretty hard investing in equipment for Estelle and Joshua (and not anyone else because investing in anyone else really isn’t worth it since they leave at the end of the chapter and when they come back, they're better equipped) because any money you earn from quests is spent so quickly just buying one or two pieces of gear, because the money you get from quests isn’t a lot. You don’t get any money from killing monsters. Instead, you get the crystals that you can use for you Orbments. Which is good on paper. In actuality, you can also trade those crystals for money but the game wants you to use them on your Orbments instead, since more Orb slots=more Arts and more EP to use. Until you’ve opened up all of the slots on your Orbments, there is no reason for you to ever trade in the crystals for money. I didn’t really have a whole lot of money until after I won the tournament.
  •  
  • So there are two types of chests in this game: brown ones and colored ones (usually gold or blue). The colored ones have good stuff in them, usually powerful weapons or strong equipment. Here’s the catch: opening a colored chest initiates an optional boss battle (I can tell because of the music). You get whatever is inside afterward. I thought it was just something that occasionally happened but no, this was intentional. Every colored chest has a boss inside that you have to fight before getting the item inside. It reminded me of Xenogears where the random encounters were weird as fuck, as you’d could get them by opening chests. Except in Trails’ case, that’s intentional and it’s not random and it's actually a boss fight instead of a normal battle. All that did is make me not wanna open colored chests because I was just gonna be ambushed every time I did.
  •  
  • I mentioned quests. The quests themselves are fine. I was actually reminded of the Pokemon Mystery Dungeon series (particularly Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky) with the way quests were handled. The problem is that if you as so much progress five minutes into the story, like half of the quests you’ve accepted (or haven’t) expire. The prologue gave me the impression that you’d have to do a certain amount of quests to progress the story (like in Pokemon Mystery Dungeon), since you had to do those three quests before chasing the Sky Bandits to get the crystal back. That’s not how it works at all though. It’s just for the prologue. I remember I accepted a quest in Rolent that involved searching for a cat. I thought I would save it for later and did a bit of the story stuff. Haha nope, when I tried doing the quest, I checked my notebook only to find that the quest had expired. I didn’t even progress the story that much. I pretty much gave up on quests upon reaching Ziess because even though I wanted to do them all, the fact that they expire so quickly means that doing them all would cause the story to progress at a snail’s pace. That in turn, had the effect of me getting even less money and possibly being underleveld? Whenever new characters would join, Estelle and Joshua would always be the lowest leveled of the group.
  •  
  • So while the combat itself is fine, I didn’t really like the bonus system. There’d be times where I lost battles because the enemy got a free, guaranteed critical hit. I feel like Falcom wanted you to strategize with those bonuses but like, you can’t really do much about those bonus placements. The most you could do is delay the enemy’s attack with Joshua’s Flicker Craft or something with that effect (and that’s just a maybe) but other than that, what you see is what you get. It’s good when you get those bonuses but the bonus system added an element of randomness that I didn’t really like. This appears to be a staple of the series though so I’m just gonna have to deal with it. Also, escort missions sucked because sometimes the NPCs would use up bonuses that you could've used instead. Better than the enemy getting it at least.
  •  
  • Another part of the combat that I didn’t like was the way S-Crafts were used. 100 CP to use an S-Craft, that’s straight-forward. It works. The part I didn’t like was that it drained your CP meter completely. Even if you had more than 100 CP when using an S-Craft, it still drains all of it. You could have 200 CP (the max) and use an S-Craft and it’d still go down to zero. And the only S-Craft that has an additional effect with 200 CP is Kloe’s. But like, I feel that if I was able to save up 200 CP, I should be rewarded by being able to use S-Crafts twice (because 200-100=100). The only reason I can think of why they did that is to balance S-Crafts but like, Chaos Brand is more broken than any S-Craft in the game and I don’t see any restrictions on that.
  •  
  • This is more of an issue I have with the JRPG genre itself and it’s not exclusive to Trails in the Sky but there were no maps in dungeons (most of the time). Like, c’mon. I never got lost but I would love to know where I’m going. Not having maps in dungeons is one of my issues with the genre.
  • Another general issue with the genre that Trails in the Sky just so happens to have is fallen allies not reviving after each battle. There were a few times in the beginning where I ran out of reviving balms, so I had to run out of the dungeon and go all the way back to an inn just to revive fallen party members. Having those restore stations helped but those things just don’t exist apparently. I was under the impression that they’d be in every dungeon but I was wrong.
  •  
  • Camera angle is kinda bad actually. Mainly in cities where there’s a lot of big things. The camera angle just kinda blocks your view.
  • While the music is good, the regular battle theme isn’t. It’s not bad, it’s just forgettable compared to the rest of the songs in the game.
  • That King Penguin boss fight can go die in a massive fire. That thing was way too tanky. Even Zane, who was 10 levels higher than everyone else, struggled to take it down.
  • ·        
  • The final boss, specifically the second phase, was one of the worst final bosses I’ve ever fought. Tons of HP. Reinforcement spam. Sometimes, the final boss gets to act again after calling his buddies. Multiple times. Can cancel your Arts. Reinforcements can heal and place barriers on the final boss. Reinforcements blow up, hurting anyone (and by anyone, I mean specifically the player) nearby so you have to take them out from afar using Arts or Crafts (have fun using Arts when the final boss can just cancel them though). Massive AoE attacks that you can literally do nothing about because the final boss and his buddies are immune to every form of status effect, even simple things like lowering Strength. That Craft that Kloe and Schera have that can nullify Arts and Crafts? Yeah, that doesn’t work here. I know final bosses aren’t meant to be easy but this was just tedious. The only good part about the fight was that as you dealt damage, the final boss would lose ability to do things (like that damn Art canceler).

So yeah, those were my thoughts. I really did enjoy the game and I’m gonna keep going. I just started Trails in the Sky Stardust Crusaders SC and once I’m done with that, provided SC doesn’t end on an immediate cliff-hanger like the first game did, I’ll dive into the Ys series before going back to finish Trails in the Sky 3. Gotta figure out what I’m gonna do with Cold Steel though cuz uh, I really hope my PC can run those games when I get to them (and yes I know I should technically do Crossbell before Cold Steel but only the first Crossbell game has a fan-translation, which isn’t even complete as far as I’m aware).

Edited by Armagon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 742
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Would you recommend this game? I've had it on my wishlist for a while and it's always looked good from what I've seen. I appreciate the in-depth pros and cons.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

17 minutes ago, Logjam said:

Would you recommend this game? I've had it on my wishlist for a while and it's always looked good from what I've seen. I appreciate the in-depth pros and cons.

Oh definitely. It's pretty easy to get into gameplay-wise and as i mentioned before, there's an option that weakens the enemy every time you lose a fight so it's helpful for beginners. The game also isn't that long, it's like, 25-ish hours. So if you get the chance, definitely pick it up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Welcome to the Club :D

Glad to have another Fan on board :D

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

Chaos Brand is busted in this game and my favorite Art in the entire game.

enjoy it while it lasts xD
It got nerfed to the ground in SC (40 EP, 8 x Mirage requirement iirc, and everyone and their Mother resists it)

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

and I’ve totally be pronouncing her name wrong, haven’t i?

XD
You'll hear her name pronounced in SC.

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

plays in the path to the Royal Villa

this one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnlX39kvWwg or

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

Can I expect more mechas in this series?

yes. Especially in Cold Steel.

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

Everything’s too damn expensive in this game

couldn't you just sell the old equipment? + End game you get alooooooot of Mira.

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

I mentioned quests

Didn't the Bracer Notebook usually give you a time term? Short Term -> Finish asap. It's usually a good idea to do side quests before main anyway. I also see now why you had Money troubles.

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

bonus system

S-breaks ;)

2 hours ago, Armagon said:

And the only S-Craft that has an additional effect with 200 CP is Kloe’s.

wrong actullay. 200 CP S-craft deals 1.5 x Damage 100 CP S-craft

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

The final boss

yeah, that's something i am not a big fan of as well. Sadly, it's a series thing with the Ton of HP final boss...

 

3 hours ago, Armagon said:

I just started Trails in the Sky Stardust Crusaders SC and once I’m done with that, provided SC doesn’t end on an immediate cliff-hanger like the first game did, I’ll dive into the Ys series before going back to finish Trails in the Sky 3rd

Unless you are burned out, i recommend finishing 3rd after SC.

Glad you liked FC and Welcome to the Series :D

Btw, which Ys game do you plan to start with?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

enjoy it while it lasts xD
It got nerfed to the ground in SC (40 EP, 8 x Mirage requirement iirc, and everyone and their Mother resists it)

Nooooooo, why? So basically, Chaos Brand is the series equivalent of the Fire Emblem's Luna tome where it's absolutely broken in it's first appearance but gets nerfed to hell after that.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Yes, thank you.

 

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

yes. Especially in Cold Steel.

Good.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

couldn't you just sell the old equipment? + End game you get alooooooot of Mira.

I tried that at first but for a good while, your old equipment doesn't sell for much. And yeah, endgame, i did have a ton of mira but again, that was because of the tournament.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Didn't the Bracer Notebook usually give you a time term? Short Term -> Finish asap. It's usually a good idea to do side quests before main anyway. I also see now why you had Money troubles.

Did it? I don't remember seeing anything about a time term. I remember that it tells you about the type of quest that it is, the difficulty of it, how much mira you get from it, etc. If there was mention of a time term, then it's completely my fault for letting it expire but at the same time, i do think most quests shouldn't expire that quickly.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

wrong actullay. 200 CP S-craft deals 1.5 x Damage 100 CP S-craft

Oh ok, that makes sense. So 200 CP S-Crafts depleting the whole bar makes sense. But, at the very least, using an S-Craft with 150 CP for example shouldn't deplete the entire bar in my opinion. Especially since building up CP takes a bit and aside from Agate, who i think has a Craft that gives him more CP in exchange for HP, there isn't any ways to speed up CP rate.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

S-breaks ;)

Which one was this? If i recall correctly, the bonuses that were available were:

  • HP restore
  • EP restore
  • CP restore
  • Strength up
  • Sepith up
  • Critical

Or is S-break a bonus that isn't in the first game but is in other games?

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

yeah, that's something i am not a big fan of as well. Sadly, it's a series thing with the Ton of HP final boss...

Oh, there are more final bosses like this? Oh jooooooooooy. Thanks for letting me know in advance. My strategy for them now is gonna be to just overlevel myself before taking them on. Final boss can't kill me if i'm too strong.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Unless you are burned out, i recommend finishing 3rd after SC.

Glad you liked FC and Welcome to the Series :D

Btw, which Ys game do you plan to start with?

Well, i doubt that i'll get burned out because FC wasn't that long and i imagine that SC and 3rd are at similar lengths. But if SC does end on an immediate cliff-hanger like FC, then yeah, i'll continue with 3rd. If not, i'll take a break so i can try out Ys. As for which Ys game i plan to start with, i don't know. The announcement of Ys 8 on the Switch is what ignited my interest in the series so Ys 8 was set to be my entry point but i don't feel like waiting until June so i'll be playing a different Ys game before it (good thing it comes out in June because there's not much else that month). And unlike Trails, i know that Ys can be played in pretty much any order, aside from Ys 1&2 and Origins, of which it's recommended to play Origins after 1&2. I'll probably do those first. Ys 1&2 are on the PlayStore so it's pretty accessible. Don't know if those are the best versions though. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

27 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Nooooooo, why?

because it was OP xD
I cleared the Penguin dungeon before even going to Zeiss thx to Chaos brand xD

27 minutes ago, Armagon said:

I don't remember seeing anything about a time term.

I just checked, while i didn't say in the Notebook, it did say on the Guild Board

Pme5S7f.jpg

you see here Long and short Term quests. Short term should be finished asap! it's the same in SC.

29 minutes ago, Armagon said:

using an S-Craft with 150 CP for example shouldn't deplete the entire bar in my opinion.

Thing is, you can use S-craft anytime and break the turn order/steal bonus from enemy, that's why it costs extra. To balance it.

30 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Or is S-break a bonus that isn't in the first game but is in other games?

No no. S-break isn't a bonus xD. S-break = using S-craft when it's not your turn. You can use S-breaks for example to steal an enemy Crit or something. 

32 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Oh, there are more final bosses like this?

Yes. The battles are usually pretty easy, but they take alot of time because the Boss has too much HP. Also, i see you didn't use Earth Guard, if i have to guess xD

33 minutes ago, Armagon said:

But if SC does end on an immediate cliff-hanger like FC

It doesn't ;)

34 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Don't know if those are the best versions though. 

you can also get em on Steam. You don't need a Powerful PC for them since the games are pretty old. Also, Ys 1&2 are quite different, as they use the bump System. While i love them (especially 2), i know it's not to everyone's tastes.

Still, you gotta try em to know if you like em or not ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

I just checked, while i didn't say in the Notebook, it did say on the Guild Board

Pme5S7f.jpg

you see here Long and short Term quests. Short term should be finished asap! it's the same in SC.

 

Ok, i think i see what the problem was. Is that screenshot from the PC version of the game? Because i was playing the PSP version (i was emulating it which is why i was able to reload a save) and this is what i saw

7GKg2g0.png

I'm guessing that "(S)" stands for short-term, "(M) stand for mid-term and "(L)" stands for long-term. But i didn't know that. I assumed that it was just an indicator of the difficulty. I'm guessing the PC version is an enhanced version of the PSP version, because not only is the term length more clear in the former, the text is also cleaner.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Thing is, you can use S-craft anytime and break the turn order/steal bonus from enemy, that's why it costs extra. To balance it.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

No no. S-break isn't a bonus xD. S-break = using S-craft when it's not your turn. You can use S-breaks for example to steal an enemy Crit or something. 

.....confession time: I legitimately didn't know that. It was probably mentioned in the tutorial, i just completely forgot and there's no way to review. That's why i kept getting confused as to what "set S-break" meant. I thought S-Crafts could only be used during your turn. I was playing on unintentional hard mode this entire time. Well now i know and this will make my playthrough of SC easier now.

I'm not too bothered by S-Craft costs now. Everything makes sense now. Though i still don't really like the bonus system itself. Even now that i know that S-Breaks can be used to steal bonuses, that only works if you have 100 CP or higher.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Also, i see you didn't use Earth Guard, if i have to guess xD

I didn't use any Guard, tbh. Probably should've, looking back.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

It doesn't ;)

Alright then yeah, once i finish SC, i'll take a break and dive into Ys.

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

Also, Ys 1&2 are quite different, as they use the bump System. While i love them (especially 2), i know it's not to everyone's tastes.

Still, you gotta try em to know if you like em or not ;)

Yeah, the bump system has me interested. From what i gather, it's basically if the Pegasus Boots from 2D Zelda games was your main form of attack, right?

Edited by Armagon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Glad to see someone else taking the leap, FC is a bit basic but really nice at introducing everything, SC and onward is when they hit the strides hard.

SC and 3rd are two of my favorite games of all time and the Cold steel games are up there as well, still waiting on the Zero No Kiseki fanpatch but from what I hear from people who've played Zero and AO those are fantastic too.

Edited by Jedi
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

Is that screenshot from the PC version of the game?

yup.

And wow, the psp version looks awful. No wonder you were confused with the S/M/L thing.

Also, the PC is the original Version. Falcom used to be a PC developer back then.

1 hour ago, Armagon said:

i just completely forgot and there's no way to review.

Actually...

It was mentioned in the Bracer Notebook xD. Iirc The whole Tutorial is also in the Bracer Notebook if you need to refresh the basics ;)

Re turn Bonuses: In later games you will get more tools to manipulate the Turn order. so it develops nicely then

 

Edited by Shrimperor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Knowing when to S-Break makes the higher difficulties a lot easier!

There are bonuses to the S-Craft meter, but they're boss battles only.

And speaking of, the overflow is good.  That way, you can use a Craft or two (JOSHUA I'M LOOKING AT YOU), then S-Break when the enemy's about to crit your sorry rear.

Now, for Cold Steel (mechanics spoiler):

Spoiler

Knowing when to S-Break will spell the difference between getting a Game Over screen or not.  Some of the effects are brutal.

I don't know how much you've experimented with Arts, but they're damn useful for turn manipulation.  It's why everyone knows Tear (a.k.a. Best Art), regardless of whether or not they're a mage.

Anyway, welcome to the club~!  If you want another downside, it's that you'll need a guide to get every last Bracer point, because some of the opportunities are exceedingly short windows.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As mentioned, using S-Crafts to interrupt and cut in is known as S-Breaking, and you can use that to "steal" turn bonuses from enemies. It's mentioned in the battle tutorial.

My main complaint regarding FC was how the final dungeon was designed; full of damage-sponge enemies, and the chests containing the end-game equipment were trapped with said enemies, so opening a chest meant being in a battle for 10-15 minutes, thankfully the current Steam version allows you to fast-forward.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I played through FC and SC both over a winter break during college a few years ago. 

The fact that I crammed them both into a month and a half-long period should say how much I liked them. 

Probably my favorite JRPG cast since Dragon Quest 8. I wasn't the biggest fan of the battle system, since it just made the fights go on forever a lot of the time, but it was solid. 

Tried to play through Coldsteel shortly after. It didn't grab me in the same ways, unfortunately. It felt like a cross between Persona and Trails in the Sky, only never reaching the highs of either. I got a dozen or so hours in and quit. Haven't really tried to go back to it, but maybe I'll get back to it some day. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Slumber

While i understand where you come from in regards to Cold Steel (because i do have quite a few problems with it myself, especially CS2), did you play Trails in the Sky the 3rd? It does build up the conflict & ''the behind the scenes''-stuff in CS quite well (especially in regards to a certain Troll.)

Edited by Shrimperor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Jedi said:

still waiting on the Zero No Kiseki fanpatch but from what I hear from people who've played Zero and AO those are fantastic too.

I heard that the fan-translation is 60% complete. Any word on when it might be done or is just "wait"?

48 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

It was mentioned in the Bracer Notebook xD. Iirc The whole Tutorial is also in the Bracer Notebook if you need to refresh the basics ;)

Ahhhh, why didn't i check there? I'm starting to realize that i actually kinda sucked in my first playthrough (but like, that's me with every JRPG).

51 minutes ago, Shrimperor said:

Re turn Bonuses: In later games you will get more tools to manipulate the Turn order. so it develops nicely then

Alright, that's reassuring. I'll gladly welcome anything that makes the bonus system better.

44 minutes ago, eclipse said:

I don't know how much you've experimented with Arts, but they're damn useful for turn manipulation.  It's why everyone knows Tear (a.k.a. Best Art), regardless of whether or not they're a mage.

I didn't experiment with it that much (mainly because i didn't know which crystal combinations allowed for which Art, i'd appreciate some sort of guide for that) but everyone did at least have Tear. Except i hardly used it that much late game because 200 HP isn't that much when some of the enemies hit pretty hard. For example, during the rescue mission at the villa, the Special Ops enemies, specifically the ones with guns and knives (and also the dogs) didn't hurt that much but the ones with the mega-lances hit like trucks.

 

54 minutes ago, OuendanCyrus said:

My main complaint regarding FC was how the final dungeon was designed; full of damage-sponge enemies, and the chests containing the end-game equipment were trapped with said enemies, so opening a chest meant being in a battle for 10-15 minutes, thankfully the current Steam version allows you to fast-forward

The final dungeon is actually where my "no maps" complaint applies the most. I liked it aesthetically since i'm a big fan of ancient civilizations (bonus points if it's a post-apocalyptic Earth) but the place is a labyrinth and while i didn't get lost, it also wasn't easy to navigate. I didn't bother with the chests though. Once i knew that those chests are just ambush spawns, i skipped all of them. And from the little i've played from SC, trap chests are back. Is it like this for the entire series?

39 minutes ago, Slumber said:

I wasn't the biggest fan of the battle system, since it just made the fights go on forever a lot of the time, but it was solid.

I actually felt that most regular fights went by pretty quickly, especially if there was an elemental weakness that you could exploit (and this applies to some boss fights too) but i will agree that it can go on forever if an enemy starts calling reinforcements. I made a big complaint about that with the final boss but reinforcements in general just suck in this game. Because one reinforcement will lead to another which lead to another and it just never ends. When an enemy starts calling it's buddies, just run away from the fight cuz it's never gonna end otherwise. Unless it's a mandatory boss fight, in which case, have fun.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

i'd appreciate some sort of guide for that

Bracer Notebook xD

 

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

Except i hardly used it that much late game because 200 HP isn't that much when some of the enemies hit pretty hard.

it isn't about the heal here, but about turn order Manipulation. Tear has a pretty low Cast Delay, allowing you take a turn from the enemy if you don't want him to take it and you don't have S-Break ready.

Each Attack and Craft has a different After Delay. Each Art also has a different Cast Delay and a different After Delay. You have to experiment a bit. For Example, S-crafts have pretty huge after delay, while heal Arts have a low Cast Delay. Some Crafts will even have a lower After Delay then normal Attack (example: Estelle's True Hard Break)

6 minutes ago, Armagon said:

reinforcement

Area ALL arts will help with this SC onwards.

Edited by Shrimperor
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trap chests continue to exist throughout the entire series, you can identify them before they look different. I don't mind them too much, what I do mind, however, are when minibosses/bosses in Trails of Cold Steel 2 and 3 start healing and buffing themselves.

The final dungeon of FC is pretty much as confusing as dungeons in Trails get, thankfully, and from Cold Steel onwards, you have a minimap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

@Slumber

While i understand where you come from in regards to Cold Steel (because i do have quite a few problems with it myself, especially CS2), did you play Trails in the Sky the 3rd? It does build up the conflict & ''the behind the scenes''-stuff in CS quite well (especially in regards to a certain Troll.)

I've still been meaning to get around to the 3rd game. Might be a game I commit to this summer. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Shrimperor said:

it isn't about the heal here, but about turn order Manipulation. Tear has a pretty low Cast Delay, allowing you take a turn from the enemy if you don't want him to take it and you don't have S-Break ready.

Ah alright. I'll keep that in mind during my SC playthrough. Because like, i was more concerned about not dying that i didn't think that Tear could be used to delay the enemy.

1 hour ago, OuendanCyrus said:

Trap chests continue to exist throughout the entire series, you can identify them before they look different. I don't mind them too much, what I do mind, however, are when minibosses/bosses in Trails of Cold Steel 2 and 3 start healing and buffing themselves.

Yeah, i know that you can identify which chest is a trap, i just wish that it wasn't every gold or blue chest. Because again, that just makes me not want to open them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Slumber said:

I've still been meaning to get around to the 3rd game. Might be a game I commit to this summer. 

I'd highly recommend it and for you to try Cold Steel again, CS1 has the FC issue of starts a tad slow but I loved the cast and how much CS improves on the combat system so much, although I think Sky 3 has the most engaging combat, I've heard good things about CSIIIs combat but alas I'm not allowed to touch my copy until I play Zero and AO according to a few friends :p, it'll probably get localized by the time i can touch it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Pro Tip: play Cold Steel on PC if you can. The additional voice acting makes certain scenes much better because CS has an issue where characters will randomly not be voice acted. If you're like me, you get taken out of the moment pretty easily with that. Also insert comment about how Rean sucks here. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, familyplayer said:

Pro Tip: play Cold Steel on PC if you can. The additional voice acting makes certain scenes much better because CS has an issue where characters will randomly not be voice acted. If you're like me, you get taken out of the moment pretty easily with that. Also insert comment about how Rean sucks here. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series!

It also runs way better than it does on PS3 & Vita, which have noticable lag spikes in places like Legram.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, familyplayer said:

Pro Tip: play Cold Steel on PC if you can.

How demanding is it on the system? Cuz like, my current PC isn't that great. 

zHx9UKq.png

If it's not that demanding, then yeah, playing the PC version of Cold Steel shouldn't be that much of an issue.

 

Edited by Armagon
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Armagon said:

How demanding is it on the system? Cuz like, my current PC isn't that great. 

zHx9UKq.png

If it's not that demanding, then yeah, playing the PC version of Cold Steel shouldn't be that much of an issue.

 

I'm no pro, so I'm not one to ask, but I would guess it wouldn't be that demanding if I go off from what I think of the graphics and how little I know, it probably would run fine. Here's the details if you want to check for sure though.

 image.png.192c5aab91acf646fe47a5484c3771c1.pngimage.png.f54af47cbe91f1f532e3b4de046b9088.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, familyplayer said:

I'm no pro, so I'm not one to ask, but I would guess it wouldn't be that demanding if I go off from what I think of the graphics and how little I know, it probably would run fine. Here's the details if you want to check for sure though.

 image.png.192c5aab91acf646fe47a5484c3771c1.pngimage.png.f54af47cbe91f1f532e3b4de046b9088.png

I could probably make it work. I definitely got the ram for it. But geez, you need 17 GB of free space? How big is this game? Even Xenoblade 1 and 2 aren't that big. Unless that's referring to a PC's overall storage capacity and in my case, that's "29 GB" and i put that in air quotes because of the 29 GB it has, 18 GBs are used for all the files that the PC needs to work in the first place.

But yeah, if i really need 17 GB of free space, then i'm in trouble because that means i won't be able to run it off my 64 GB USB since it can't support files that are bigger than 4 GB, as stupid as that is.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 hours ago, Armagon said:

I could probably make it work. I definitely got the ram for it. But geez, you need 17 GB of free space? How big is this game? Even Xenoblade 1 and 2 aren't that big. Unless that's referring to a PC's overall storage capacity and in my case, that's "29 GB" and i put that in air quotes because of the 29 GB it has, 18 GBs are used for all the files that the PC needs to work in the first place.

But yeah, if i really need 17 GB of free space, then i'm in trouble because that means i won't be able to run it off my 64 GB USB since it can't support files that are bigger than 4 GB, as stupid as that is.

Try this:

https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri

It might seem a little sketch, but it's legit. And you'll need the 17 gigs, unfortunately.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...