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

I just brute forced it with Death Scream myself.

I thought it was a pain too, I ended up grinding 5 sets of Shining Poms before it to make it easier.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Jan 24th 2019 at 10:53:41 PM

I was spamming Titanic Roar, but damaging my own allies in the process.

Just fought Leonhardt. Got him down to a sliver of health only for him to pull an S-Craft out of his ass and wipe me. Next time went better, but I feel like it's a very RNG-dependant fight with how quickly he clones himself and how the lion archaisms spend their turns.

Well, I beat the game. Please bear witness to me in my moment of glory as I do something I've wanted to do ever since I learned you can use some food items as weapons.

The best part is that I got the Doom Baker achievement during his death throes, but it seems OBS didn't capture the Steam overlay.

Glorious.

So sugar kills him just as assuredly as salt does.

Hmm, anyone well-versed in tarot cards know how Leonhardt relates to his tarot number, the High Priestess?

The four members of the Dweeb Squad are easy enough to figure out, if superficial (Blueblanc's a flippant wildcard, Walter's strength-obsessed, Renne's a demonic little gremlin, and Luciola dresses provokatively and was spurned by her love), but I'm not sure on Loewe.

Trails 3rd spoilers

Okay, Renne's backstory may be the most messed up thing I've ever seen portrayed in a video game. Its not just the facts of the matter, but the way its conveyed. There is a good reason the door is at the bottom of Gehenna!!!

Also doing all the doors was 100% the correct decision. The final door was really interesting, as its supposed to be. So I'm guessing the other Anguis are all super important. Number 6 is the Professor of the Thirteen Factories. I wonder if any of the others have been on screen already. It would not surprise me.

The plan, at least at its surface level seems to be trying to collect the Sept-Terrions I think? Unless the Aureole's abilities are specifically what they needed. Its funny, in a way its a cliched collect the 7 Things Plan, but it doesn't feel that way because of the 140 hours of densely packed world building leading to this.

That fourth wall break was way creepier than it would be normally because I'm playing in the dark on a monitor at 1 AM.

Now that all the doors are done I think I'm ready to move on to the endgame!

...Or I would be if it wasn't really late since I expect the Final Chapter to take bare minimum 2+ hours.

Almost forgot. Cassius + Lowee was a huge pain. Got close on my first attempt, with Cassius at 20Kish HP, before he buffed than used his AOE when Kloe had been pushed to the back of the screen.

I cheated a bit and looked up helpful strategies. Went back in with Kitty Suits + Slippers on all four members and the fight was much more manageable. I also initially had fairly poor Quartz setup's (some 3's and a lack of Onyx Gems) on everyone aside from Kloe

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Jan 29th 2019 at 1:15:55 AM

Fought Campanella and Arianrhod in Ao. Campanella's a joke if you know what you're doing. Just cast A-Reflect on everyone, wait for him to cast a spell, and he's down before you know it. Arianrhod on the other hand is just as insane as she was hyped up to be. I was able to break her mask before she powered up and murdered the entire party. Also, their theme's amazeballs.

Edited by kkhohoho on Jan 28th 2019 at 8:30:51 AM

"It would be my pleasure."

I really like how both the "collect the 7 artifacts" and "fight your way through the quirky admins of an evil organization" RPG cliches are made interesting and refreshingly different simply by virtue of taking place over multiple games instead of being condensed into a single one.

Like, we spend three whole games focused on just the Aureole, and only meet 1/7 Anguis and 7/22 Enforcers during that time. And it works.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jan 28th 2019 at 2:10:04 PM

Heck even three arcs later, *Minor Crossbell and Cold Steel Spoilers* there are still three Anguis and at least eight enforcers we haven't even seen.

Edited by LordVatek on Jan 28th 2019 at 7:17:56 AM

That puts the scale into proper context. A lot of RPG plots have these world-spanning adventures to recover ancient artifacts, but what would be most games a 5 minute trip in an airship isn't even on the same game's world map. Liberl in other games would be 2 villages, a town, and maybe 3 NPC people to talk to.

There's also the twist that it's the evil organization that's collecting the artifacts and succeeding. I know there isn't any concrete proof, but it seems like there could be an even worse threat than Ouroboros lurking beyond the fringes of reality, and it probably has something to do with whatever lays outside Zemuria.

McBurn's friends and family?

*Cold Steel 4 spoilers* I think that the denizens of the Outside will eventually end up as allies to Zemuria. The Grandmaster strikes me as a danger to them as well.

I think it might be the other way around, with Ouroboros in an Evil Versus Oblivion conflict against whatever is out there.

(Assorted) Now those look like spoilers I should certainly avoid.

All done with Liberl now!

3rd was the shortest game at 33 hours, but not by a lot (38 for FC and 53 for SC).

The final boss was fairly easy. Only got a bit worried at the start when the pillars wouldn't go down, but Kevin's Grail Sphere took the worry away while Joshua whittled away the HP with True Phantom Raid.

I don't think I actually have a clear favorite among the three games. Each does things a little differently, so each one has its good points.

For instance, 3rd is pretty linear and side-quest heavy with the doors. But I find that's just what is needed after playing though FC and SC.

While I also really really really like the fact FC rarely has you choosing party members, which I much prefer. Because that means you're forced to figure out how to use each new character, rather than just dumping them back at the Guild.

SC might have my favorite plot though, just by a little bit.

I'll probably take another break from Falcom games for a little bit. After all, I have to decide if I'll play Zero or Cold Steel next...

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Jan 29th 2019 at 3:43:45 AM

Glad you liked them. If you want a fun, easy going game by Falcom, I'd recommend Gurumin. It's a 3d linear platformer with an adorable player character.

Funnily enough I own that already from an old Humble Bundle. I might give it a look.

So, in trying to decide if I should play the Crossbell or Erebonia games next I was doing some research.

From my understanding, the current Zero translation is pretty poor, but the soon to be finished Geofront release is shaping up to be excellent. But that won't release for at least a few months I think they said they were aiming for summer.

While the translation for Ao is pretty good quality already.

That's pretty annoying actually, since the optimal route is probably to wait until the Zero patch is released and then play release order.

I suppose I could also just play the substandard translation.

The current Zero translation is fine. It's not fantastic but it's perfectly coherent.

Edited by LordVatek on Jan 29th 2019 at 8:44:21 AM

Ao isn't perfect. There are still some awkwardly worded lines and missed hyphens, and you can tell it's a fan translation. But for a fan translation, it's pretty damn good. Just make you sure get the edit. The original's even worse than the current one for Zero.

I might just go for the current Zero patch then.

As long as its just grammar and awkward wordings.

If it were a case of making important plot or character details incorrect that would be another story.

Out of curiosity, has anyone here gone for the route Sky > Cold Steel I & II > Crossbell?

Yes, but only because I had to. It still works, but if you have the chance to play them in order, you should probably do it.

I did it that way too.

It works fine aside from one very specific part as the games take place concurrently. But release order is definitely the preferred option.

The only thing I absolutely recommend is playing the Crossbell games before Cold Steel III.

Edited by LordVatek on Jan 29th 2019 at 9:48:36 AM

Hell yes. Haven't played it yet, but from how I understand it, CSIII is basically the Infinity War of the franchise with IV being Endgame. Just about every major player and plot point comes back at some point, so if you haven't played all the previous games, you'll be lost. It's essentially what all the games up until now have been leading up to.

Edited by kkhohoho on Jan 29th 2019 at 8:53:27 AM

Geofront's up to 80% as of last week. Can't freaking wait, especially since I finished 3rd a few months ago.

It's funny, as much as CS 2 would throw players for a loop who don't know about Crossbell, first-time Japanese players got it much worse. Given as I understand it, the particular plot thread from Liberl takes over the narrative for a bit, so if you don't know who those three characters were, you'd be really confused.