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[duckroll]

Is Normal really too easy? I'm in chapter 4 now and it certainly doesn't feel that way. It has never been a cakewalk for me. Even regular enemy encounters take a couple of turns more than they did in FC, and some enemies have Arts which can really mess you up if you're not careful. I find myself using a lot more support stuff compared to SC, and for tougher battles paying attention to when to best use Chain attacks, buffs, debuffs, and S-Breaks is key to not just victory but survival. I mean, it's not like I've been retrying battles or anything, but you definitely have to pay attention while fighting. I consider RPG battles to be a "cakewalk" when I can just spam a single command over and over and not have to worry.

 

[krYlon]

Normal is just right I think. I wouldn't want it any harder. I quite like having easyish normal battles and then spikes with bosses/quest&chest monsters.

Any harder and it would ruin the flow of the game and make it even longer than it already is.

It's certainly harder than FC

 

[YianGaruga]

I'm very happy with normal. I can win most normal encounters with back attacks before the enemy can act which cuts down on the grind, because that's what normal encounters are most of the time, and scripted encounters/bosses are difficult enough to not allow playng on autopilot but easy enough not to crush you.

I'm very impressed by the balance and the way experience works helps a lot. I wouldn't mind if every JRPG had a similar system, because I usually end up overlevelled through sidequests and stuff and everything becomes trivial.

 

[max_505]

Normal on FC was too easy for me. The only items that I used there were the EP charge ones and only a couple of healing items for the last boss. I like the slightly ramped up Normal difficulty on SC better.

 

[Nyoro SF]

The Normal difficulty in this game is extremely good, especially against mid bosses / boss monsters. There's just a few egregious strategies which can break the balance too hard (as opposed to the first game where power creep got out of hand too fast) You can tell Falcom really tried to balance it properly however using FC data and experience, but there are some mistakes.

I think the best fights are the ones that start you off in disadvantageous positions or with bad starts or with monsters that are immune to cheese strats like the road monster fight against the Worms or Cactuses. Then you have to do as duckroll described and keep a careful eye on the character queue, character position, your own character health bars and the speed at which Arts are deployed, not just to win but to survive. Which makes the game a lot of fun.

 

[duckroll]

Another weird text bug spotted! Sorry! T_T

 

[YianGaruga]

nyaaa~go

I really liked the missing cat quest. It's cute

 

[Se7enSword]

nyaaa~go

I really liked the missing cat quest. It's cute

Spoiler

Olivier's envy is fathomless~

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

The cat quest is fun, but it's frankly ridiculous.

Spoiler

How the hell is Aryll's litter so well-developed right after birth? Kittens ain't foals, they don't exit ready to move and with fur even

. Maybe I'm overthinking this and cats in Zemuria are special.

Re: Normal difficulty, I definitely think SC is harder than FC, though not in a revolutionary way. On Normal you have to manipulate turn order constantly, spend extra time keeping buffs/debuffs in play so you don't miscalculate your attacks/moves, use food items more often to stack buffs atop health, plain in advance for deathblows and other nasty afflictions, &c. Most characters in your party, by end-game, are useful for the final bosses if you know how best to equip them. You also use the Move command way more often, both for turn order and to avoid arts/crafts you can't even cancel. Building up CP during critical battles is more important now (and demands that you know character's CP gains based on enemy level). All I regret is not using Chains often enough, perhaps because I was unsure of how turn order would be affected. The game teaches you not to be reliant on turn bonuses, but that making the best of them can turn around bad situations.

 

[ShadowgeistX]

Another weird text bug spotted! Sorry! T_T

http://i.imgur.com/2hWlQ0c.jpg

Clearly that last statement was transcribed from a two-way radio conversation lol.

But yeah, I'm getting my ass beaten (sort of) in normal so I couldn't imagine doing it on hard without being completely on point and with some grinding involved. Meanwhile normal is still fairly challenging and I'm not grinding at all, in fact I have haze or a related quartz in my orbment setup at all times possible and choose to fight only a handful of battles.

 

[SoraanTribal]

So I'm usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, but I'm stumped.

So I bought SC (via Steam) while I was on an extended trip and downloaded/played it for a bit on my laptop. I got home yesterday and copied over the supposed Save files (User/name/Saved Games/FALCON/) onto my Desktop after downloading/installing it on there, but no saved files show up when I go to load it in the game. I went back to my laptop and I still have my save files on there and can resume where I was just fine.

Is there some other location where SC has your save files? Thanks for any help.

 

[chaosblade]

So I'm usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, but I'm stumped.

So I bought SC (via Steam) while I was on an extended trip and downloaded/played it for a bit on my laptop. I got home yesterday and copied over the supposed Save files (User/name/Saved Games/FALCON/) onto my Desktop after downloading/installing it on there, but no saved files show up when I go to load it in the game. I went back to my laptop and I still have my save files on there and can resume where I was just fine.

Is there some other location where SC has your save files? Thanks for any help.

You can try Steam\userdata\[numbers]\251150

That has the save data for FC and SC if you have Steam Cloud enabled.

 

[Finalow]

normal got too easy for me when I got some decent quartz (and slots unlocked) on Olivier and/or Kloe. I have Olivier with 600+ ATS in chapter 5 and he's just an insane killing machine.
Zane got a craft that buffs him for +60% in STR and DEF, which is pretty huge. so he's no longer shit-Tita-tier. Agate with a free S-craft every turn is probably more useful though.

and about arts, I feel like they didn't balance some of them at all. Zodiac 300 EP, Gaia Shield (a bigger Earth Wall) 200 EP etc. the EP cost of some of them is just too stupidly high, especially if you consider how small the EP pool is to begin with. Olivier with EP4 and all slots unlocked barely hits 400 EP.

 

[BassForever]

How exactly does Agate become an sbreak machine? I get that his one move gives him 150 cp for 70% of his health is their some kind of accessory that negates the health loss or what?

 

[YianGaruga]

How exactly does Agate become an sbreak machine? I get that his one move gives him 150 cp for 70% of his health is their some kind of accessory that negates the health loss or what?

Just have someone feed him every other turn

Spoiler

preferably Tita

 

[chaosblade]

normal got too easy for me when I got some decent quartz (and slots unlocked) on Olivier and/or Kloe. I have Olivier with 600+ ATS in chapter 5 and he's just an insane killing machine.
Zane got a craft that buffs him for +60% in STR and DEF, which is pretty huge. so he's no longer shit-Tita-tier. Agate with a free S-craft every turn is probably more useful though.

and about arts, I feel like they didn't balance some of them at all. Zodiac 300 EP, Gaia Shield (a bigger Earth Wall) 200 EP etc. the EP cost of some of them is just too stupidly high, especially if you consider how small the EP pool is to begin with. Olivier with EP4 and all slots unlocked barely hits 400 EP.

EP pool can get pretty big late in the game, and you can cut EP cost in half with the best EP Cut quartz (EP Cut is way better than EP quartz). Still, things like Gaia Shield are probably more for desperate situations and not typical ones.

I don't disagree though, EP costs and general usefulness for arts is completely out of whack. In terms of offensive arts, I use Aqua Bleed and Air Strike for single target and Aerial for multitarget. Only stray from those if I need to hit a weakness or avoid a resistance. More powerful/expensive arts just aren't worth the EP cost - for 3x the EP cost you might get 300 more damage. If your base attack does 2000 why bother with that 300 more for such a high EP cost?


If anything, the stronger arts are most useful at the very beginning of the game where 200 or 300 more damage is significant. But the EP cost at that point is so high you can't afford to use them (assuming you have them available in the first place), so they are useless for the entire game.

 

[SpaceDrake]

Must've been one that fell through the cracks. Legion was Falcom's official reading for 執行者, so that's how that ended up there, but then CF went for Enforcer for it in SC and that Legion mentioned in FC got missed. Will get it fixed, thanks for noticing.

Just to note, there was a decent bit of back-and-forth about what exactly 執行者 (shikkousha) should be; the only thing I, personally, was fairly adamant on was that it shouldn't be "Legion", because while I know Falcom originally chose it, in English it just doesn't convey any of the actual meaning behind shikkousha at all, and the real emphasis in the Japanese script is on the kanji term, not the katakana, so the meaning had to get across.

 

[BassForever]

Just have someone feed him every other turn

Spoiler

preferably Tita

See I don't get the Tita hate her smoke shot craft is a really good instant and being able to hit multiple targets from a distance without using ep/cp or wait for casting time is really useful. She's obviously inferior in battles with a single really powerful foe but those aren't really common in Trails most battles have quiet a number of foes running around.

 

[YianGaruga]

See I don't get the Tita hate her smoke shot craft is a really good instant and being able to hit multiple targets from a distance without using ep/cp or wait for casting time is really useful. She's obviously inferior in battles with a single really powerful foe but those aren't really common in Trails most battles have quiet a number of foes running around.

Oh I'm not hating on her, she just seems to like Agate a bit which is cute.

Her AOE attacks (and heals) are quite useful and powerful in many battles

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Maybe what happens is players use end-game fight potential as the basis for what makes one character better or worse than another. In this case Tita is low-tier because she can get one-shotted by certain S-Crafts and Crafts at that point, and her crowd-oriented attacks don't have much use on the low number of enemies you fight per battle. But for most of the game Tita can be more than useful, and not just for crowd control. I think

Spoiler

Josette'

s by far the worst member you could bring along into the

Spoiler

Axis Pillar

—character's so underpowered and devoid of useful Crafts that people whining about Tita must be forgetting this one because who even cares. I don't think Tita is a great optional party member compared to beasts like Kloe and Agate, but she's closer to middle-tier.

Re: EP/Arts balance, it's nice having more expensive single-target offense just in case you need to finish an enemy off quickly and know you aren't using too much EP in the process. There's usually more benefit in the long run to abusing the lowest- and highest-potential offensive Arts throughout, though. EP costs for Arts are well-balanced; you should be using the best EP Cut Quartz on casters as much as possible. What Falcom should have done is provide EP-regenerating food items, whether as sit-down meals or to-go or both. Inns are somewhat more useful than they ought to be thanks to cooking being underpowered in this one sense, but I'd rather have another reason to cook.

Also, Zane or Agate w/Gladiator Belt can be dangerously OP. Zane's still better against mobs than Agate is against bosses, though.

 

[Nyoro SF]

See I don't get the Tita hate her smoke shot craft is a really good instant and being able to hit multiple targets from a distance without using ep/cp or wait for casting time is really useful. She's obviously inferior in battles with a single really powerful foe but those aren't really common in Trails most battles have quiet a number of foes running around.

I mean, I spelled it out pretty clearly why she sucks so I'm not going to type it all out again. Suffice to say dude, she is really awful. In a game full of very strong characters and in a game where Kloe and Agate both got buffed from FC, it feels really weird that Tita never got a helping hand.

I guess it's Falcom's way of saying if you want to run an all-girl squad then you better be ready to work for it. The real Nightmare Mode comes from using a girl with a toy gun.

I haven't tried using (character spoiler)

Spoiler

Kevin enough to say whether or not he's worth using or not. Anelace I only have had a chance to use once, and she has incredibly good crafts and movement, so I don't see how she could be bad.

Regarding EP, I think the cost of almost every art in the game should be DOUBLED. I have way too much EP pool to work with, and the best arts barely put a dent in my pool. The game throws EP Charges at me like it's going out of style but the only times I ever ran out of EP were the early chapters where unlocking lots of slots wasn't an option. EP Cut 3 & 4 are ridiculously good and probably should be removed from the game in a hypothetical rebalance. I also agree about high EP moves being desperation moves and not usual arts.

 

[YianGaruga]

Tita is a good support character. Now if you need one is another question, but she has an instant AOE heal, AOE blind and can often clean up 2 or even 3 damaged enemies in one shot without worrying about casting time, EP or CP. All while sitting faar away from the action with a long barrel or two. You don't really need to super optimize for most of the game so she can be perfectly viable.

Also she's cute and has the best win quote with "... scary".

 

[SoraanTribal]

You can try Steam\userdata\[numbers]\251150

That has the save data for FC and SC if you have Steam Cloud enabled.

Thanks, I'll give this a try!

 

[Nyoro SF]

Tita is a good support character. Now if you need one is another question, but she has an instant AOE heal, AOE blind and can often clean up 2 or even 3 damaged enemies in one shot without worrying about casting time, EP or CP. All while sitting faar away from the action with a long barrel or two. You don't really need to super optimize for most of the game so she can be perfectly viable.

Also she's cute and has the best win quote with "... scary".

Oh, I agree she is cute and in a funny way, especially when reacting to anything Olivier or Estelle says. I have her voice on Japanese and the way she yells I-IKIMASU before firing off her machine gun is just amazing. Excellent dialogue too... usually kids are annoying in games or throwaway characters.

But in regards to healing; healing arts have the fastest cast time in Trails games. Unless you are fighting a supremely fast enemy, you will 99% of the time will be able to fire off a healing art to save someone's hide before an attack from an opponent. It just kind of boggles me that they never gave her any other crafts to work with, meanwhile Zane, Joshua and Olivier have fantastic lineup of crafts.

I don't really care for maximum optimization, which is why I ran Estelle / Schera / Kloe / Tita for nearly the entire game, I'm just playing for fun here, but I won't deny that if you were to actually construct a tier list, she'd be at the bottom without doubt. Everyone in the game is still viable, but compared to everyone else, boy she's pretty bad. They should've given her more speed or anti-status craft to differ her from Olivier more.

 

[chaosblade]

Re: EP/Arts balance, it's nice having more expensive single-target offense just in case you need to finish an enemy off quickly and know you aren't using too much EP in the process. There's usually more benefit in the long run to abusing the lowest- and highest-potential offensive Arts throughout, though. EP costs for Arts are well-balanced;

I'm not really seeing it, or maybe the much higher level arts are more worthwhile since I haven't even bothered trying them due to the "mid level" arts being so terrible. I'm near the end of the game, but the damage difference between mid and low level arts is so small that it's actually smaller than the damage range for the arts. That shouldn't happen in a well-balanced game, the damage difference should have been based on a percent rather than a hard number.

I also don't see how EP costs make sense when you compare attacks from different elements. Stone Impact, Fire Bolt Ex, and Aerial are basically the same attack, doing the base damage as Stone Hammer/Fire Bolt/Air Strike, they all just have medium areas. But the EP cost and (and maybe casting times?) for all of them are different.


http://www.gamefaqs.com/boards/979866-the-legend-of-heroes-trails-in-the-sky/70794825

That's from FC, but SC seems to use the same balance. Would be interesting to see the details from post 6 updated for SC's additional arts.

 

[Palette Swap]

Nice, Apple Music has a crapload of Falcom OSTs, I assume Spotify or equivalent services would too.

Of course, I noticed that after buying the OSTs for FC and SC on iTunes.

 

[YianGaruga]

different elements having different EP costs is okay imo

Wind is focused on AOE so AOE is cheaper
Water is mostly healing so any AOE is really expensive
Earth is mostly single target attacks so AOE is also more expensive

It just adds a bit of variance and makes the elements feel less samey

but overall the magic system is the weakest part of the game. once I realized that I decided to focus more on the quartz effect instead if the elemental value.

 

[Dragon1893]

So I'm usually pretty good at figuring this stuff out, but I'm stumped.

So I bought SC (via Steam) while I was on an extended trip and downloaded/played it for a bit on my laptop. I got home yesterday and copied over the supposed Save files (User/name/Saved Games/FALCON/) onto my Desktop after downloading/installing it on there, but no saved files show up when I go to load it in the game. I went back to my laptop and I still have my save files on there and can resume where I was just fine.

Is there some other location where SC has your save files? Thanks for any help.

Why aren't you using the cloud? I'm playing the game on 3 different PCs and the latest save file is always readily available.

 

[chaosblade]

Speaking of quartz and magic, am I correct in assuming that the action quartz/speed have no impact on cast time? Kloe has cast 2 and can get arts off quickly enough, but even with Clock Up Ex she's still a little on the slow side (and without it she's really slow). I don't know if replacing that with an action quartz would really help in the long run, depends on how much time she loses on casting without cast 2.

Might just have to experiment.

 

[Zephyx]

Thanks for the difficulty impressions. I'll start on Normal, hopefully by this weekend. Still going through Chapter 3 atm.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Finished up Chapter 6.

Spoiler

It was great to see Estelle and Joshua finally reunite. The whole second half of the chapter was pretty intense and emotional. Estell got all the right stuff in, and they really managed to settle things really well. Poor Josette, though.

Joshua/Loewe's backstory was pretty obvious in the broader details, but some of the specifics were still interesting, especially finding out about how the Empire had orchestrated the slaughter themselves as a pretense to war. That goes a way towards explaining things. The Society's motivations are becoming slightly more clear, although Loewe and Campanella both seem to have their own ideas in mind.

I've also started up on Chapter 7 and gone through the first major area.

Spoiler

Sad to see Olivier go, although I'm curious as to what exactly he's up to. Hopefully that will all become clear soon. It doesn't seem like good news. The first tower was interesting to go through, and the crystals you find have some interesting backstory from long ago.

The fight with Bleublanc was long, but pretty good overall.

 

[ULTROS!]

In Chapter 6 and 34 hours in. How many more hours till I finish the game?

Spoiler

starting to miss the game already

 

[Nyoro SF]

Regarding the Chapter 7

Spoiler

data crystals, I had a lot of fun trying to decipher the words past the blocks. I was able to read around 60% of the content and I think I have a general idea of what happened with the Aureole, that being said still in the dark on a few more items.

I'm on Chapter 9 right now where

Spoiler

I'm forced to bring along Josette, but thankfully she has good defense, so I don't have to worry about her being 100% dead weight.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Update from Tom on sales expectations for SC:

With a "long-con" game like SC, I don't think the time it drops matters nearly as much as it just... being out there. We know not to approximate the success of this game on first-week sales alone as game companies (sometimes ourselves included) are often wont to do, since SC is a special case in pretty much every way -- so I wouldn't worry about sales figures just yet. I think we're all pretty confident that SC will do just fine in the end, and none of us are naive enough to make future decisions about the series based on anything frivolous.

This has me feeling more hopeful now.

Re: lore,

Spoiler

the data crystals are fun to read and I was able to guess some of the contents just reading them in Chapter 7. I wonder if, assuming you don't read all the way through, you get different text right before

Spoiler

the Weissmann fight

. Viewing the analyzed data via the Capel in Finale seems important anyway

.

 

[SoraanTribal]

Why aren't you using the cloud? I'm playing the game on 3 different PCs and the latest save file is always readily available.

I was letting one of my friends use my Steam account to play a game a long time ago, so I turned off the syncing stuff so it wouldn't copy over my saves onto his computer (since he wanted to start fresh).. or something. I forget the exact circumstances. You just reminded me to turn it back on though lol

 

[Hours Left]

Update from Tom on sales expectations for SC:

Nice to hear.

Everyone buy this game in bulk.

 

[Ramzastrife]

I found a bug in the final chapter when using a controller,

Spoiler

some of the menus in the computer when you access them do not have a cursor when using a controller. The most troublesome one is when getting the original gospel. After selecting Kloe, then Celeste, there is no cursor on the A B C D E section.

I eventually figured out I could use the mouse, but it was very frustrating.

 

[chaosblade]

Pretty bad when you kill yourself during a boss fight.

Spoiler

Joshua's S-break against Luciola on a crit was a really, really bad idea.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Chapter 9:

Spoiler

Getting DAMN tempted to have Olivier and Josette in my party for maximum Estelle Snark.

Also liking the completely mid-20th Century sci-fi Aureole backstory.

 

[duckroll]

Speaking of quartz and magic, am I correct in assuming that the action quartz/speed have no impact on cast time? Kloe has cast 2 and can get arts off quickly enough, but even with Clock Up Ex she's still a little on the slow side (and without it she's really slow). I don't know if replacing that with an action quartz would really help in the long run, depends on how much time she loses on casting without cast 2.

Might just have to experiment.

Spd affects when your next turn is, Dex affects your hit rate for physical attacks, Agl affects your dodge rate for physical attacks. Based on my experience, none of these affect casting speed, which is only influenced by the Cast quartz. If you give her an Action quartz, she will simply get her next turn faster after completing a cast, but it won't affect how much faster she casts. Same with Clock Up buffs.

But keep in mind, Speed -is- important too, because if your next turn come immediately after you complete a cast, it means you can start the next action even sooner. The biggest advantage in the game comes from being able to slot character turns inbetween enemy turns as often as possible, especially when you need to impede them from casting deadly Arts.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Pretty bad when you kill yourself during a boss fight.

Spoiler

Joshua's S-break against Luciola on a crit was a really, really bad idea.

Spoiler

I didn't see her copy defense counter-attack coming the first time I struck one of the copies. She takes a bit after Bleublanc, but he doesn't retaliate if you attack one of his copies

.

 

[chaosblade]

Spd affects when your next turn is, Dex affects your hit rate for physical attacks, Agl affects your dodge rate for physical attacks. Based on my experience, none of these affect casting speed, which is only influenced by the Cast quartz. If you give her an Action quartz, she will simply get her next turn faster after completing a cast, but it won't affect how much faster she casts. Same with Clock Up buffs.

But keep in mind, Speed -is- important too, because if your next turn come immediately after you complete a cast, it means you can start the next action even sooner. The biggest advantage in the game comes from being able to slot character turns inbetween enemy turns as often as possible, especially when you need to impede them from casting deadly Arts.

That's how I figured it worked. I ended up just trading off her defense quartz in favor of action, so she has action and cast for optimal speed all around.

She loses earth magic, but it's not a big deal. She's so ridiculously powerful at this point hitting weaknesses is merely a nice bonus, and when water or wind doesn't cut it she has time magic. Poor Olivier feels gimped comparison, his S-Craft isn't nearly as good and men don't get the quality casting equipment that women do.

Biggest problem is her defense is pretty low without it, but she's managing. Low defense is better than low speed.

 

[KuwabaraTheMan]

Okay, the way you acquire Volume 10 of Gambler Jack is just hilarious and bizarre.

Spoiler

I love the idea of a cat just wandering around holding a book. Like, what?

 

[Taruranto]

This chapter 4 is dragging on.

 

[DrunkShogun]

Not going to have a chance to play it anytime soon but I have purchased already to support the game. Here's hoping we get the full trilogy.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Not going to have a chance to play it anytime soon but I have purchased already to support the game. Here's hoping we get the full trilogy.

Excellent!

Also, I know a full English dub will never happen, but damn if some of the dialogue in this game isn't full of potential. Fan-dubbing select moments would be a compromise worth pursuing, though I haven't listened to any really good English fan-dub of scenes from FC/SC.

 

[chaosblade]

Finished.

Spoiler

Kevin killing off Weissman like that was sort of anticlimactic. And there are definitely a lot of questions remaining, the biggest probably being what happened to the Aureole. It doesn't seem like something that would have simply been destroyed, and the characters specifically said it "disappeared."

Among other things related to the society. What was the significance of Weissman's spear? Campanella made sure to take it, but left Weissman's remains behind.

Regarding the final boss,

Spoiler

I found it to be easy, but that's probably because I randomly decided to take Kevin along. I think I might have lost a character once. His S-Craft is extremely useful in that fight since all the bosses best attacks have a charge up time, including the CP absorption one. So you get an opportunity to either use that and block all damage, or for some of them simply move out of the way. I quickly realized what those mob enemies he summoned were doing so I made killing those a priority. Their defense was low so it wasn't hard to keep them off the field. Kloe being my primary damage dealer helped too, since I was still able to deal solid damage to the boss even while he had his defense buff up.

Possible bug?

Spoiler

My characters were able to be confused despite using Grail Lockets. Maybe that's intentional and the final boss can deal status effects that override your accessories, but if so that's kind of dumb.

Actually found the prior boss to be harder.

Spoiler

Loewe was difficult because his body splits along with the archaisms allowed the fight to get out of hand very quickly. With three of him casting was almost never safe due to his counter to it, and attack blocking was ineffective due to the number of enemies and area attacks. And once it got out of hand there wasn't much chance to turn it back around.

Finally, the biggest question of all, just who is this Tim guy?


Also, actual bug in the final dungeon.

Spoiler

That mini status effect sometimes doesn't work. It looks like it is supposed to lower physical damage and reduce area attack/art ranges. Sometimes it just distorts the sprite and makes it "fat" looking, and physical damage doesn't get reduced. Don't remember if it didn't impact area attacks correctly but it probably didn't.

 

[Dragon1893]

Finished chapter 3, ending was great.

 

[Dragoon En Regalia]

Spoiler

Kevin killing off Weissman like that was sort of anticlimactic. And there are definitely a lot of questions remaining, the biggest probably being what happened to the Aureole. It doesn't seem like something that would have simply been destroyed, and the characters specifically said it "disappeared."

Among other things related to the society. What was the significance of Weissman's spear? Campanella made sure to take it, but left Weissman's remains behind.

Actually found the prior boss to be harder.

Spoiler

Loewe was difficult because his body splits along with the archaisms allowed the fight to get out of hand very quickly. With three of him casting was almost never safe due to his counter to it, and attack blocking was ineffective due to the number of enemies and area attacks. And once it got out of hand there wasn't much chance to turn it back around.

Spoiler

Weissmann's death being anticlimactic is part of the point: he never got his glorious moment using the Aureole, and his death is both horrible and perfectly suited for someone as close-minded (and ungrateful to the Grandmaster) as he is now. Furthermore it reveals a side of Kevin seeking atonement for how alike and/or unlike he is to Weissmann, having manipulated Estelle and Joshua in order to serve the Gralsritter. The Aureole probably escaped back into the dimension Celeste D. Auslese and company sealed it within centuries prior, but we might get clarification in 3rd on that + Campanella's role here

.

Spoiler

Loewe wasn't too rough. I made sure to kill the clones and archaisms swiftly, and my guys survived the first S-Craft just fine. Clock Down, Morale, and then Clock UP EX on my party led to a quicker victory than I expected, disregarding occasional Arts countering. Maybe I just got lucky with my first run against him, lol

.

 

[chaosblade]

Spoiler

Loewe wasn't too rough. I made sure to kill the clones and archaisms swiftly, and my guys survived the first S-Craft just fine. Clock Down, Morale, and then Clock UP EX on my party led to a quicker victory than I expected, disregarding occasional Arts countering. Maybe I just got lucky with my first run against him, lol

.

Spoiler

The first two tries actually had him summoning his body doubles on his first two turns. I thought the fight was designed that way but my third try went a lot smoother when he waited a few turns before the first one, and a few more before the second. I was able to get some Clock up/down in and some area casting in to deal damage to him and his archaisms, then clean those up with physicals when I couldn't get casting turns in.