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

CSIV: Damn near everything online translates the form he mastered as Void.

Edited by burnpsy on Oct 10th 2018 at 1:08:34 PM

C Siv. Holy fuck... excuse me while I try to pick my jaw from off the floor.

I beat Zero. Joachim may in fact be the most hateable character in the series and I'm surprised that there was no cliffhanger aside from just unsolved mysteries.

On to Ao. Now I know that there's more than one fan translation but which one is the best?

Edited by LordVatek on Oct 12th 2018 at 5:37:13 AM

Flame's edit to Guren's translation. The original was done as a spreadsheet with machine-translated quests, and the later one by Guren from wat I understand is still rough in spots. You can get it here.

I'm still gonna wait for Geofront.

Thanks. I got it set up.

Having played completely through Azure with Flame's editing, there's no point waiting for Geofront for Azure unless you want treasure chest lines or turbo mode like they're adding to Zero. The translation is completely fine, maybe one or two lines that could have used another editing pass. It's too bad the final cutscene is bugged so it doesn't play on PC though.

Completely unlike the current state of Zero on every platform other than Vita.

Also, Vatek, your opinion on Joachim will be completely replaced by someone else in Azure after some reveals, but that all I'm saying.

Edited by burnpsy on Oct 12th 2018 at 8:10:06 AM

That someone is the new Third Anguis, right?

Yup.

Say, would anyone be able to provide the rough console availability of the series and all it's games, as well as which ones are Japan only and such? I'm honestly considering buying a PSP or Vita to play these games, but I dunno which ones are on which system and what games are available in English besides the ones on PC, which while I enjoy playing them on I find my progress slow due to not being able to play it on my commute (I'm still playing Trails in the Sky SC for the record, though I'm part way through chapter 8).

The short version is that officially the PSP only has Sky 1 and 2 in English. Sky 3 is PC only in English.

The Zero/Ao duo are fan translated and you'll need a hacked PSP to play them.

Cold Steel 1 and 2 are available in English on the Vita, but we're not sure whether CS 3 and 4 come out on the Vita overseas. It probably will since XSEED is good about that, but Vita support from Sony is winding down so... Either way it'll be six months to a year before we know.

To maximize your Trails-on-commute chances I suggest a Vita.

(To actually play all the Trails games stick with the PC)

I would be extremely sceptical of CS3/4 being able to run on a Vita they weren't released for it in Japan with the stated reason being that they didn't want to hold the game back due to the Vita's hardware limitations.

Experientially some of the field areas in 3/4 are massive enough that it takes a while to load on a PS4 Pro running off an SSD I don't see a Vita managing that; I think these two are going to be PS4/PC exclusive unless Sony makes a new handheld capable of running it.

Yeah I don't get where you'd think the Vita could run these games. Support for the console is nearly done, even in Japan, and CS 2's release hit the data cap for how large they could make the game. Heck that's why CS 1 and 2 exist to begin with, Falcom have been public about the fact that working with the Vita in mind made what was supposed to be 1 game 2.

But they also said that about 3, so yeah, Falcom tends to underestimate their projects sometimes.

Either PS 4 or PC, Xseed's publishing the PS 4 ports of the first two CS games, there's no reason to assume they won't for 3 and 4.

I mean, Nippon Ichi publishing Ys VIII is something to consider.

Also I hadn't realized CS 3 and 4 didn't get Vita releases, I thought they got split for the Vita as well. Whoops.

So am I the only one who thinks that the play order should be Sky trilogy-> Cold Steel I and II-> Zero and Azure-> Cold Steel III and IV? Cause I feel the events of the Crossbell duology overshadow the events of the first two Cold Steel games by way too much.

That may be the case, but considering how the plot of the Erebonia games have many references to the plot of the Crossbell games - including featuring and being able to play as characters from those games - I think that would be a somewhat awkward placement.

Most of the big stuff seems to be from Azure anyway, from what I can tell.

Edited by KarkatTheDalek on Oct 14th 2018 at 7:01:32 AM

I don't agree with that. Mostly because of Estelle and Joshua's search for Renne getting wrapped up in Zero and how a good deal of Azure's events are outright spoiled by Cold Steel. Not even to mention Divertissement.

Edited by LordVatek on Oct 14th 2018 at 7:11:24 AM

It only spoils some of the general events. Azure straight up spoils damn near everything including the entire ending of CS 2.

True but Cold Steel 2 was meant to be played with that knowledge. Azure was not.

Also, and this is I think the important bit, Cold Steel II shows you Crossbell and even lets you play as some of those characters after the events of Azure - lack of an offfical English localization aside, that is explicitly meant to be played after Azure.

Well on top of all that, there's the fact that Erebonia was planned first, but they made Crossbell instead with the current technology they had for the PSP.

On an unrelated note, I learned that Elie had her Holy Bullet nerfed in Azure at the worst possible moment.

Edited by LordVatek on Oct 14th 2018 at 11:40:11 AM

Beat CS4. Overall I'd say it's one of the best games in the series, not quite as good as SC but up there (Much better midgame, much weaker ending).

(Major endgame and ending spoilers) Campanella has a discussion after you beat him that was unfortunately beyond my ability to understand; it sounds like we get a solid info dump on Orouborous's overall goal.

Remember Mac Burn's line in CS2 about all of him being like Rean's heart? He meant it literally. He's apparently a Divergent Being from "the other side" something from outside Aidios's creation (He's repeatedly and explicitly likened to a Salt Pile, except sentient and mobile) that was brought over by Campanella; his true form is a 10ft tall Oni and is absolutely brutal to fight (Take Loewe's fight from SC and give him Renne's S-craft that hits everyone for a ~90% chance of instant death in place of the clones). It seems like after you beat him he regained his memories of his true self and possibly leaves Orouborous (He seemed really ticked with Campanella and said something to the effect of he was going to be working towards his own end from now on).

After beating Osbourne and Ishmelga, you get an ending where Rean, Crow, Millium, Valimar, and Ordine sacrifice themselves to seal Ishmelga's curse. Then after the credits you're prompted to reload the save and you go through the true end (Provided you cleared the bonus boss.)

The true end plays out similarly but diverges when rather than staying Albericht, Franz Reinford regains control and uses his knowledge to link Rean to everyone and force Ishmelga to manifest it's true form that Rean then uses Millium's Sword to kill permanently destroying the curse in the process and as a result reverts to his original form and severing the Divie Knights' links with their awakeners. Franz and Rozelia then activate the Divine Knights as Septerions in order to stabilize Crow and Millium who (along with Franz) had been fading away with the curse gone. Franz dies and the Knights depart.

The war predictably ends as soon as Osbourne's gone; unfortunately we only get a still shot of Cassius and Vandike shaking hands with Rean's narration saying that the conflict was brought to a close so it's left feeling really weird with the the scenes showing it starting feeling like the opening stages of a world war, nothing on it after that, then in the ending narration "Oh hey; everyone's fine now, back to the status quo." After Rean's narration we're show class seven in the black workshop where they retrieve a "backup body" that was made for Millium and transfer her consciousness from the sword to the new body.

The credits run over a panning shot of Olivert and Shera's wedding with prettymuch every major character in the series in attendance (including 5 Dominions). Millium catches the bouquet.

Going through the the previous spoilerd discussions I didn't see the Grandmaster so I'm guessing that's like Thomas' reveal in CS2 and is only in an NG+ run, that said what we see of her in the previously linked image looks a lot like Kurt's mom (who you only see once each in 3 and 4). I'm not saying it's definately her but they look similar enough that I'm suspicious there's some kind of connection.

A correction to Watashiwa's statement about the Crossbell games:

You do not need a hacked PSP. Not only are there PSP emulators, but there are existing PC versions that have the PSP fan translations and Evolution voice acting applied to them (you can find them on certain sites, pre-patched and DRM stripped out, with the only real issue being that Azure's final cutscene is bugged and doesn't play), and for Zero the current best translation until Geofront finishes their version is actually the Vita release.

PSP official versions of Sky and Sky SC also have outdated translations. They fixed several parts on PC.

To play Trails on a commute, get a GPD Win 2 or something I guess. A hacked Vita or PSP will play most entries in the series, but you have no access to Sky the 3rd and you'd have to stop after Cold Steel 2 unless you Remote Play with the Vita, plus I doubt you want to burn through your mobile data to do so.

Edited by burnpsy on Oct 14th 2018 at 2:24:31 PM

I just looked up the GPD Win 2, and it is $800 on Amazon so that's a no from me dawg. Ah well, I was hoping, but I'll just stick to playing at home since it seems PC just does the other games better. The games that haven't been released in English on Steam are Azure, Zero, and CS 4 (which just came out) correct? All other games are available on Steam?

Is every game in the series roughly the same length as the Sky Chapters? So about a 40-60ish hour runtime when taking into account sidequests and all that? And I know Cold Steel is a four part game, but are Zero and Azure solo? I haven't ever seen an Azure or Zero 2 being mentioned, which at least makes those seem less tricky to get into, especially if it may be recommended to play those first before getting into the entire Erebonia series of games.

Regarding two of your questions: Cold Steel 3 is not yet available in English (and when it is, it will likely be on PS4 first) and Azure is Zero's sequel.

Edited by LordVatek on Oct 15th 2018 at 5:56:40 AM