Trails franchise (Trails In The Sky, Trails Of Cold Steel etc)

I would not want a continuity reset. The whole appeal of this series is how interconnected and built-upon everything is. There are countless other franchises out there that are easier to jump into in the middle if somebody wants to do that, it's fine for Trails to not be one of them.

Anyway, bought and downloaded Reverie. Won't get to play it for a while, but I'm more excited for this than any of the previous releases. I actually loved the sandbox concept behind the Reverie Corridor back in Cold Steel II, so having a much more robust version of that is a huge draw for me. And with 51 playable characters to use in it!

Wow they even ported over the VR support

Ok... my copy of Reverie came today. Wtf... Fedex don't say its going to be late when its on gd time.

Mine was via Steam, so thankfully I could start playing in the morning once the download finished. I've just finished the prologue.

I had two clear data saves for CS IV. They were made half an hour apart, so I hope I didn't mess up with which one I choose, since I have no idea why I made the two.

So I booted up Reverie just to set up the controls and other settings, and while looking at the difficulties I noticed Abyss says "nothing can be carried over". What does it mean by this? No New Game Plus carryover data?

I heard that the DLC costumes is locked behind a paywall for all consoles and PC. That kinda sucks cause like that most of the costumes are there right from the get go (note that this is coming from someone who played the console versions of the Cold Steel series, which had those costumes from the get go). But its just costumes and Im mostly for glasses and plushies, so I’m not gonna get too salty about it

Only SSS's Swimsuits and the Eastern Wear are paid DLC.

There are plenty that are not, including most if not all the previous Paid DLC costumes. Like as soon as I got Randy, Tio and Elie I got Randy's CSIII Teacher's outfit, Tio's old Crossbell arc outfit and Elie's Crossbell Cheer outfits right off the bat.

Abyss is harder than Nightmare and must be a fresh save to start, yes. However there is no achievement for it in the game, Nightmare and up only.

Edited by Memers on Jul 7th 2023 at 10:27:44 AM

I see. I guess I was just focusing on the Premium Cosmetic set .

I saw somebody on Youtube start an Abyss run with NG+ and all its perks, though?

That's what's confusing me, the game menu says "no carryover" but insofar as I can tell that's not true. Unless they modded the game or something.

Edit: Apparently somebody from NISA confirmed it's just a textual mistake, and nothing more. Carryover works just fine in Abyss difficulty.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jul 8th 2023 at 4:46:02 AM

Okay, so while I know a decent bit about Reverie’s plot already (waiting years for a localization will erode your will power when it comes to spoilers), I don’t really want to discuss its plot in detail now—while I think it introduces something that could be relevant here, I’m mostly going off of what we see in the prior games with this one.

I’ve been looking at some Trails theories, and have come across two related ones: that Zemuria as a whole is in some sort of time loop (I think this is decently likely, given some stuff about the Grandmaster and certain scenes in Cold Steel), and Zemuria being a part of some kind of simulation (I’m not sure how I feel about this one, but it does kind of make sense when you take into account the revelations surrounding Mc Burn in CSIV. I’ll note that if this IS the case, it doesn’t necessarily mean that’s it’s virtual reality, nor do I expect a series as idealistic as Trails to write the whole story off as “fake”.).

Anyway, while reading speculation about these, I stumbled across a book from the Sky trilogy that when read in this light, is very…suggestive:

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jul 9th 2023 at 5:22:46 AM

I seriously doubt that we are in for a Star Ocean: Till the End of Time situation with it being an actual simulation. I think its more like Honkai and its Imaginary Tree, a 'nayuta' of branches each leaf contains a bubble universe.

I think that’s a good idea, but I do wonder how no one being able to leave Zemuria fits into that. That suggests that the continent was in some way artificially created.

I understand that (Kuro spoilers) Calvard’s putting together a space program, so maybe that will shed some light on things.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jul 9th 2023 at 1:43:54 PM

The longer this series goes on, the less it feels like fantasy and more like science fiction.

Edited by kkhohoho on Jul 9th 2023 at 6:13:33 AM

That's the intention. Its an outright plot point they drill into your head from Sky FC on how technology is steamrolling at such a rapid pace that no one is really able to keep up. So much so that even with the church limiting certain things with the foundation its going crazy.

Edited by Memers on Jul 9th 2023 at 4:28:42 AM

It's been a bit of a weird journey with this series. It feels like the technology evolves too fast.

In the early games I could buy that this was a society where the industrial revolution was within living memory, despite some of the anachronisms. It's part of why I like the first two Cold Steel games better than the second two. You had all this emerging technology, but Thors was this old-fashioned building that was made from stone and brick; but then Cold Steel III rolls around and the branch campus is made from concrete and glass, with tarmacked grounds. To me it genuinely felt like the technology within the Empire had skipped forward a hundred years or so.

Then we get more and more modern conveniences, like turning orbments into mobile phones, complete with cameras and video calls. We went from landline phones being the latest in communications technology, to mobile phones and internet within the span of five years.

It’s only a matter of time till we get video games and Falcom shamelessly self-promoting themselves.

Jokes aside, its is impressive that technology is evolving this fast. The fantasy elements really start feeling far away, and I’m curios how Kuro would be affected this, especially considering this is the start of the second half of the series.

Well, the Branch Campus was brand new, that probably factors into it. And of course, we already saw a very modern looking building with Orchis Tower. All the other buildings we see seem to be considerably older.

Edit: Going back a bit:

I’m not familiar with Honkai; could you go into a bit more detail?

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jul 9th 2023 at 2:05:11 PM

Double-post, but I had a question:

Currently, there’s a bug preventing combat link bonuses for characters who weren’t playable in IV from working properly, which can cause some inconvenience. I understand there’s a fix PC users can apply, involving replacing one of the game files with something from the unofficial English patch, but would using it cause more problems in the event of an official patch?

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Jul 10th 2023 at 6:09:05 AM

It's a simple replacement of a DAT file. I'm keeping the original backed up just in case, but I doubt it would cause problems.

Alright. Just to make sure we’re on the same page, how should that be backed up?

Make a new folder outside of your game files and copy the file that is being replaced to that folder.

Gotcha. Thanks!

I think I might hold off on playing Reverie for a few days and see if they fix a few of these issues.

This bug was in the original 1.0 Japanese version too. Which seems to be what NISA used as a base for their ports.

The PC version is fine with the fix, there is just no fix for the Switch or PS 4 version.

I've only just done the first part of C's route and I can already tell it's gonna be my favorite of the three.

[1]

With the current rate of rapid technological advancement in Zemuria going from steampunk to diesel punk to modern conventional technology resembling ours in RL in such a relative short in-universe timeframe, I wouldn't be surprised if future nations after Calvard go full-on cyberpunk with a lot of futuristic tech, possibly going Type 1 on the Kardashev Scale, which is just insane.