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

Fair enough.

Just witnessed Moon Door 1, and that was indeed a lengthy little scene. The fights acting as tests of the characters abilities are fun, and the reward was definitely nice, especially if this replaces sidequests as the source of Mira in the game.

So someone made a 17 minute overview of the Trails series up to this point for anyone looking to get into it. It's pretty nifty.

I just finished First Chapter now. Reverie had some annoying moments (like sheculding its Annihilation attack for a Critical Hit turn when I had no way of halting/shielding it), but went down without too much difficulty. My final party featured Kloe and Olivier. We were a very Arts-oriented party, which made Reverie's AA Cancel attack cumbersome until it got disabled.

Then Professor Alba showed up and, kind fellow that he is, cured Joshua of his amnesia.

(He's pretty good at curing things in general, I must say.)

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Nov 27th 2018 at 10:54:00 AM

I was thinking about picking up 3rd in the sales now, but since I've still got 20+ hours left of Persona 3, I'm definitely not finishing SC before the Christmas sales. I almost certainly will be a decent way into it though.

So on the chance of a higher than 25% sale I'll wait until then.

Might pick up CS 1 too depending on if I buy anything else in the sales.

CS 1 is currently a historical low of 60%, but that probably won't reach 75% from what I've seen before.

So I've done more of The 3rd, getting up to unsealing Joshua, and I have a quick question about Star Door 1. The boss fight in there I couldn't figure out the trick to, so after two attempts I still lost, is there anything gained from winning that boss fight?

That's Julia vs. Mueller, right? No I don't believe there is any reward for winning.

For the record, I somehow managed to win it without a retry/reset. Though I'm still not really sure how.

Though this also brings up something that's been bugging me for a while now. It's not as bad in Sky, but time and again in this franchise, the game has you beating the boss only for the story to pull a psyche and tell you that, no, you didn't really beat them. Case in point, if you do manage to beat the boss of that door, it's implied that they still let you win. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't happen so often, though SC offsets this by letting our heroes win fair and square in the end. (Mostly.) But since then, that hasn't happened as much. Is it too much to ask to let our heroes have an honest win?

That's a JRPG thing in general. Heck I think Final Fantasy makes a point to always have one in every game.

It doesn't bother me as much because the heroes always win when it matters most (like Rean vs. Crow in CS2 and Arios, Shirley, Sigmund, and Wald at the end of Azure).

Edited by LordVatek on Nov 29th 2018 at 1:45:27 PM

Also quite a few times in 3rd, really. Even if it's Phantasma, it's highly implied the versions you fight are very close to the real thing. Also a certain Door in chapter 4 is a clear victory for one of the least likely characters with a Game-Breaker to go with it.

The 3rd is probably one of the most satisfying games in the franchise in terms of fights simply because you genuinely win most of them. Which is a far cry from, say, the Infernal Castle in CSII.

I will say that while it was a little lame to just sorta be allowed to survive a lot in the early sections of SC, it did a decent job of establishing the villains at the very least and only really happened twice. As for the battles in the towers, those kinda came across as draws; the villains were stronger than you in the end and could safely make their escape once their job was done, but you had gotten strong enough that they couldn't curb stomp you either, so it worked to establish growth while letting the final battles with them still be more conclusive than the prior ones.

I will say I think part of the reason for that in The 3rd is because you're essentially some of the strongest people around at the moment since this is the end of the story, so the characters can win against the main villains more conclusively.

Edited by Alfric on Nov 29th 2018 at 6:24:58 AM

Now I'm curious which characters in the series have a perfect win record (as in, never actually losing a proper fight when using 100% of their power).

I know there's at least McBurn and Arianrhod.

Edited by LordVatek on Nov 29th 2018 at 11:45:23 AM

Julia vs. Mueller is mathematically impossible on nightmare but you do not get anything from it no. The other one on one door however you can win and you do get something out of it and somehow affects the plot and other boss fights... which is weird.

It's kind of a bummer the Doors themselves are disconnected from the rest of the game. It really feels like nobody's aware of them, aside from Tita's first. In that sense, I can see why some fans criticize them as infodumps, but there's some excellent material in there, and the implications and connections have been so important I see why it was needed.

I like 'em for the info they provide and the fun character stuff. It's all so far been the sorta stuff that'd be hard to fit into the game proper without completely fucking the pacing, but by making it into side content the player can tackle it at their leisure if they want, and are rewarded nicely for it.

Also, just a quick question; the Abyss Fiends mentioned in a trophy, are those the same creatures as the bosses I've fought like Bennu and Rostrum (just beat chapter 2), or are they a different kind of creature mentioned later that I just haven't gotten to yet? Because if there are 77 of them like Ries keeps mentioning, that's a lot of boss fights, side quest or otherwise.

I personally don't mind the doors. Aside from setting things up for future games, they also flesh out the rest of the cast a bit more, and make the game feel more like an ensemble piece.

For the record, most of those don't actually show up. Because it would be a really long-ass game if they did.

Edited by kkhohoho on Nov 30th 2018 at 10:12:31 AM

I figured as much, since 77 bosses is kinda a lot, even counting mini-bosses like the Bracer Hunt Quest monsters.

Thankfully it's a lot quicker to kill bosses because of how ridiculously fast the CP fountain recharges and that resources aren't a problem when you can just warp anywhere to heal. EP becomes a complete nonissue.

Just met Kea. She's so CUTE!

Also, plot! Took them long enough.

Played through up to completing Santa-Croix Forest in the Fourth Plane in The Third, having done all of the doors now available to me including Schera's, which was my personal favorite gameplay wise and also had a strong story to boot! Also, does Kloe's Moon Door with Lechter get a continuation in this game? It ends with her talking about how he showed up at the end of the year after disappearing to mess up the play that year, and then she goes on to talk about how she met him two years later after his following disappearance or whatever. Am I supposed to recognize him or something and I just somehow forgot him, or does he show up in a later game and this is just setup for him?

Also, apparently you can farm Fool's Emblems from the boss of the Normal challenge in Sun Door 3? Those items have weird stats, but they give 25 speed so they're really good, and I'm probably gonna get some more since their debuffs are pretty small and they kinda do alright on anyone. Mostly just to fill empty slots until I get more focused items for certain characters.

Lechter does show up in another door but its all setup for crossbell and cold steel.

Yeah it's pretty heavily signposted he'll be a reoccurring character.

Just beat Zero no Kiseki. For the first game in the CS dulology, it's pretty darn good. The characters are likeable, the gameplay's solid as ever, the music's fantastic, and the setting is a unique hodgepodge of 1930's New York, cyberpunk, and standard fantasy tropes. That said, like with Trails FC and Cold Steel 1, it's largely all set up for Ao no Kiseki, which is the real story. Still a fun game though.

Just met Sigmund Orlando. Hell of an introduction. What really sells it is seeing the remains of the monsters he slaughters, as well as having your active sidequest canceled on the spot after Sigmund made it moot. Really helps get across that this isn't any ordinary mofo.

Among other companies, Falcom teased new Trails announcements for its 15th anniversary next year.

Calvard ho?