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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel |OT| Class Warfare

Loving this game so far, just starting on Chapter 2 now. Came into some extra Christmas money today, think I'm gonna have to pick up the Vita version as well, I want those Crossplay features :D. How does the Vita version run the game? Also Towa is great :3
Pretty good IMO. Load times are not bad, there are fps drops in major areas such as the chapter 4. But I think I heard it's the same with the PS3 version.
 

jackdoe

Member
Laura is such a broken character. With the Domination quartz and boosted strength, her S-Craft one hit killed the Chapter 6 practical boss (on Hard difficulty). It's ridiculous.
 
Laura is such a broken character. With the Domination quartz and boosted strength, her S-Craft one hit killed the Chapter 6 practical boss (on Hard difficulty). It's ridiculous.

Yeah man

If you stack bonuses and max characters out the results get nuts

Probably one of the few rpgs that you should avoid grinding and set the difficulty to hard lol
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
jdfhksjdfhsdjfh

Very minor Chapter 5 spoilers

I caught the Golden Salmon but forgot to hand it in. There goes completing every quest in the game. Ugggggggghh

Slightly heavier spoilers

Off to Garrelia now. I have a feeling it's about to get real.

The Trade Conference is a major part of Ao no Kiseki.

To clarify a little more on that image that was posted:
Trails of Cold Steel runs along almost the ENTIRE span of the Crossbell duology. Cold Steel II is probably the 'shortest' in terms of time passing of any of the Kiseki games. (Not meaning game length itself, as a heads up.)

The time frame of Cold Steel II.
About 75-80% of the game takes place in the span of 3-4 weeks.
Interesting. I still think it's such a neat idea to tell both stories concurrently like that. Not only does it make it easy to jump in with either story arc, it offers a unique way of offering that "I understood that reference" appeal. I can only imagine what playing Zero/Ao before this is like. Like, the
Trade Conference - I'm about to get there in Cold Steel, but I haven't played the Crossbell games, so I have no idea what to expect. I'm assuming something big happens during it, but anyone who's played those games first is going to have an entirely different sort of anticipation towards it.
 
I just came here to say that the
Chapter 5 Old Schoolhouse boss is probably some of the most overtuned garbage ever. No statuses stick, attacks multiple times in a turn (even when my characters have speed up), absurdly high physical defense, every attack he did hit at least two people.

Not having Elliott probably hurt me, but goddamnit, I don't want to take him with me all the time! Resounding Beat is so broken it almost seems unfair!

*grumble grumble*
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
I'm guessing we never get to go to the places Group B is assigned to. Do we visit them in Cold Steel II?
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
No. While you visit a couple of new areas, none of those are in West Erebonia.
:(

Maybe in the third game.
 

omgfloofy

Banned
Oh, no doubt about it.
Ruins on Bryonia Island? The 'Old Capital' Saint-Arkh? Sign me up so hard.

Saint-Arkh Commentary:
The biggest damn tease in the world was letting us hear the damn bells from the Imperial Cathedral, but never seeing the damn thing.
 
When Falcom is able to get the sequel out in a roughly a year or so, chances aren't high that it opens up too many new places. It relies a lot on what was already built for the first game in the series.
 

mattiewheels

And then the LORD David Bowie saith to his Son, Jonny Depp: 'Go, and spread my image amongst the cosmos. For every living thing is in anguish and only the LIGHT shall give them reprieve.'
I'm stuck trying to decide between getting this and Xenoblade. The first thing I noticed with this was how trope-y it looked, like it was another Tales game or something, but now I hear the writing makes up for it?
 

SolVanderlyn

Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
When Falcom is able to get the sequel out in a roughly a year or so, chances aren't high that it opens up too many new places. It relies a lot on what was already built for the first game in the series.
Cold Steel I/II was conceptually designed to be one game though, wasn't it? Like FC/SC. I recall hearing that East/West Erebonia were going to be separate games from the beginning, but East got split into two games. Then again, I also heard they wanted to move on to Calvard after CSII. I don't know. This is probably pretty tough to talk about without delving into spoiler territory.

I'm stuck trying to decide between getting this and Xenoblade. The first thing I noticed with this was how trope-y it looked, like it was another Tales game or something, but now I hear the writing makes up for it?
The writing does make up for it. It has tropes, but the characters and plot have so much more depth than your typical anime game. Xenoblade, on the other hand, doesn't have much writing at all for an RPG, haha. It's a decent game, but the story is lacking in several respects - the appeal is in its huge explorable world. Trails sets out to tell a story and immerse you in the game that way, while Xenoblade sets out to immerse you in its world through gameplay.
 
I'm stuck trying to decide between getting this and Xenoblade. The first thing I noticed with this was how trope-y it looked, like it was another Tales game or something, but now I hear the writing makes up for it?

Let me put it this way.

If you're expecting this game to be some sort of non-trope revelation of a writing masterpiece, it's absolutely not.

Falcom games, be it Trails or Ys are still plenty "anime" for the lack of a better word. Slice it whatever you want, everything that happens in Sky all the way till Cold Steel has elements of what a lot of people would describe as being pretty anime-ish, and honestly, Falcom doesn't shy away from that.

But despite that, Trails manages to have its own identity. Character conflicts, reasons, motivations are by and large rather well-written, and even when they're tropey, doesn't feel like they're gutter trash. People feel... more believable, even within the context of their tropes.

And it has an extremely rich world that is built through extensive history, multi-country economic & socio-politic outlook that despite being extremely wordy, are largely told from the perspective of the characters that inhibit the world, making it feel very realised and strong.

In terms of writing, storytelling and world-building, Trails easily blow most Tales out of the water. With that being said, whether or not you'll like the writing still has a degree of trope-tolerance needed. And not everything is superb either. The pros far outweigh the cons imo, but it's really up to the individual.

Cold Steel I/II was conceptually designed to be one game though, wasn't it? Like FC/SC. I recall hearing that East/West Erebonia were going to be separate games from the beginning, but East got split into two games. Then again, I also heard they wanted to move on to Calvard after CSII. I don't know. This is probably pretty tough to talk about without delving into spoiler territory.

I don't really put too much faith in Kondo/Falcom's "we're 60% done with Trails talk"

I'm sure they have a relative outline and broad plot points of the entire saga mapped out, but I can also see them continue be overambitious and have to either split up games... again, or somehow add in more stories to tell in the Zemuria saga.
 
When Falcom is able to get the sequel out in a roughly a year or so, chances aren't high that it opens up too many new places. It relies a lot on what was already built for the first game in the series.

I'd honestly hope we're not retreading much of the same territory, when by the time CS3 comes out in Japan, it will have been over a 2 year break for the series. Surely some new areas, that aren't just branching paths off current places we've been, have been thought of in that amount of time.
 

Psxphile

Member
Dunno if anyone knew this, but if you hit start on the main camp menu you can save the game without having to go the system menu

It's a nice time-saver. It tells you right on the camp screen, but the screen is so busy w/ slick design and misc. info it's not surprising if people missed the icon.
 

Alucrid

Banned
well, gonna start this today after finishing ayesha plus...and i need to beat it before all the february big hitters start to release
 

Luke_Wal

Member
So... I might regret this, but I'm thinking about diving in to this series with this game, mostly because I've heard it's VERY similar to Persona 4 Golden? Is that true? Are the characters as memorable?

I've really never gotten too deep into JRPGs other than Pokemon, TWEWY, and P4G, just because the whole anime artstyle thing doesn't do much for me. Will I be okay with this game?

Do I need to play any of the other games in the series?

How long is it?

How's the Vita version? If I end up getting this, I'll definitely get that one over the PS3, so if it doesn't run well on Vita, it's probably a no for me.
 
So... I might regret this, but I'm thinking about diving in to this series with this game, mostly because I've heard it's VERY similar to Persona 4 Golden? Is that true? Are the characters as memorable?

I've really never gotten too deep into JRPGs other than Pokemon, TWEWY, and P4G, just because the whole anime artstyle thing doesn't do much for me. Will I be okay with this game?

Do I need to play any of the other games in the series?

How long is it?

How's the Vita version? If I end up getting this, I'll definitely get that one over the PS3, so if it doesn't run well on Vita, it's probably a no for me.

I mean it has a school setting like p4g and you get chances to spend time with friends like in p4g and the cast is really well written and memorable like p4g so if those are the elements of p4g you enjoyed you should dig trails.

Game has 4 difficulties so even if you're bad at jrpgs you'll be able to finish it. Vita version runs well the frame rate can dip a bit more compared to the ps3 version but its still a solid way to play the game. It does eat the battery a tad faster as a warning.
 
So... I might regret this, but I'm thinking about diving in to this series with this game, mostly because I've heard it's VERY similar to Persona 4 Golden? Is that true? Are the characters as memorable?

I've really never gotten too deep into JRPGs other than Pokemon, TWEWY, and P4G, just because the whole anime artstyle thing doesn't do much for me. Will I be okay with this game?

Do I need to play any of the other games in the series?

How long is it?

How's the Vita version? If I end up getting this, I'll definitely get that one over the PS3, so if it doesn't run well on Vita, it's probably a no for me.
You won't have any regrets!

I wouldn't call it very similar, but there are definitely some similarities. Yes, the characters become quite memorable as they grow throughout the game.

If you end up liking Cold Steel, i'd recommend that you check out Trails in the Sky and Trails in the Sky SC. The Trails series has an overarching plot that has been built up from the TitS series. There are references and appearances by certain characters from the Trails in the Sky series in Cold Steel.

Having played the Trails in the Sky series prior to Cold Steel, there are some interesting and subtle pieces of information which I feel people with no experience of the Trails series would miss out on.

It's fairly long. At least 70 hours+ (If you do everything and talk to every NPC!)

By the way, talking to every NPC is a must! They're all quite fleshed out and have different dialogues. (Even during day and night or after certain quests!) :D

I'd recommend the PS3 version since you want optimal performance.
 
Finished with Chapter 2.

Jusis definitely got some great development there, and Machias to a lesser extent. It's nice to see them both moving forward. And Fie's reveal of having been a jaeger was very surprising for me, and opens up a lot of questions. The jaegers were kind of a mystery during the previous two games, so I'll be interested to see if Fie's presence here will lead to us finding out a lot more about them.

And Emma seems to have all sorts of stuff going on. I have so many questions there.

The story has definitely been offering plenty of points of intrigue, and it's fun to see all the little ways it connects with the Sky games.
 
I love this game btw. The streamlined gameplay coming from SC is a huge welcome. The setup is intriguing enough. Just finished chapter 1. Every time it mentions something from other trails titles I get giddy for some reason.
 

Lindsay

Dot Hacked
By the way, talking to every NPC is a must! They're all quite fleshed out and have different dialogues. (Even during day and night or after certain quests!) :D
I've lonnnng since given up talking to every npc even one time. The size of Heimdallr just made me nope outta that. Gotta keep that plot moving an rush along ta battles!

I'd recommend the PS3 version since you want optimal performance.
Is the Vita version that much worse? Cause in Chapters 3 & 4 on PS3 I've been encountering a large deal of super noticeable slowdown. Its kinda bad when even the text scroll will start ta crawl.
 
Is the Vita version that much worse? Cause in Chapters 3 & 4 on PS3 I've been encountering a large deal of super noticeable slowdown. Its kinda bad when even the text scroll will start ta crawl.

No, it's not that much worse.

Vita is a fine way to play the game.

Yes, PS3 runs slightly better, but if you've never played the PS3 version and only have experienced the Vita version you'll be none the wiser and only wasted a few minutes total of your life and experienced a couple more framerate drops.
 
I've lonnnng since given up talking to every npc even one time. The size of Heimdallr just made me nope outta that. Gotta keep that plot moving an rush along ta battles!


Is the Vita version that much worse? Cause in Chapters 3 & 4 on PS3 I've been encountering a large deal of super noticeable slowdown. Its kinda bad when even the text scroll will start ta crawl.

If you have no issues with a small text/HUD (it was an issue for some folks here) and don't mind the FPS tanking at certain places then it's fine.

It runs quite well on it.
 
OK, now I find out Aidios is pronounced "Aye-dee-ose" rather than "Eye-dee-ose".

Trails: they're full of surprises.

I'm stuck trying to decide between getting this and Xenoblade. The first thing I noticed with this was how trope-y it looked, like it was another Tales game or something, but now I hear the writing makes up for it?

The first four hours or so are...not really above this (others here have called it bait), but after that the game stops acting like it's being used by tropes and goes back to Top-Tier Falcom Goodness where they use tropes in clever, broad-minded, well-themed ways. The looks are another "bait" as is the school setting.
 

Shouta

Member
I'm stuck trying to decide between getting this and Xenoblade. The first thing I noticed with this was how trope-y it looked, like it was another Tales game or something, but now I hear the writing makes up for it?

You really shouldn't be worried about whether or not it has tropes as much as whether or not it does something with it all. Tropes are bad only when they fail use it as a point of departure and spin their wheels in place. That's not really the case with the Trails games at all.

Even the stuff that doesn't seem like it's trope-y will have tropes honestly. It actually grinds my gears even more when they start off with a twist on a trope but still manage to not do anything with it or go backwards lol.
 

omgfloofy

Banned
When Falcom is able to get the sequel out in a roughly a year or so, chances aren't high that it opens up too many new places. It relies a lot on what was already built for the first game in the series.

What SolVanderlyn is saying is right. Kondo had mentioned in an interview that they had originally planned to have more locations and events in Sen II, but something hardware related ended up requiring them to cut it from the game.

There's apparently a lot of stuff designed and even developed for use in the game that didn't get used. So we'll probably see some new locations in Sen III.
 

Xenoflare

Member
What SolVanderlyn is saying is right. Kondo had mentioned in an interview that they had originally planned to have more locations and events in Sen II, but something hardware related ended up requiring them to cut it from the game.

There's apparently a lot of stuff designed and even developed for use in the game that didn't get used. So we'll probably see some new locations in Sen III.

I wonder what could it be.... the PS3 cannot be a limiting factor, if the Vita is but it's still getting the releases.
 

Jiraiza

Member
What SolVanderlyn is saying is right. Kondo had mentioned in an interview that they had originally planned to have more locations and events in Sen II, but something hardware related ended up requiring them to cut it from the game.

There's apparently a lot of stuff designed and even developed for use in the game that didn't get used. So we'll probably see some new locations in Sen III.

Can I hope for faster loading times (in battles and other things)? If Falcom could somehow do seamless battle transitions like Star Ocean 5, I would... do unspeakable things in celebration.
 

omgfloofy

Banned
I wonder what could it be.... the PS3 cannot be a limiting factor, if the Vita is but it's still getting the releases.

In the SC Evolution interview that was up on gamewatch recently, Kondo said that they develop for the stronger system first (PS3 in this case) then scale down to the Vita if it's going to be a multiplatform title.

Can I hope for faster loading times (in battles and other things)? If Falcom could somehow do seamless battle transitions like Star Ocean 5, I would... do unspeakable things in celebration.

I'm not personally far into Tokyo Xanadu, but it's clearly built on a lot of the systems for Sen no Kiseki/Sen no Kiseki II, and from what I've seen so far and heard, the game performs way better than either of the Kiseki titles with that graphical look. So if they improve on that, I think we're going to see something pretty great from them using that engine. Falcom is really good at doing that. Look at Napishtim --> Felghana --> Origin.
 
Chapter 5

After the Nosferatu battle...was that the Lance Maiden...?

EDIT:
Okay...so Celine said something interesting. Steel maiden...huh.
 

Xenoflare

Member
In the SC Evolution interview that was up on gamewatch recently, Kondo said that they develop for the stronger system first (PS3 in this case) then scale down to the Vita if it's going to be a multiplatform title.


I'm not personally far into Tokyo Xanadu, but it's clearly built on a lot of the systems for Sen no Kiseki/Sen no Kiseki II, and from what I've seen so far and heard, the game performs way better than either of the Kiseki titles with that graphical look. So if they improve on that, I think we're going to see something pretty great from them using that engine. Falcom is really good at doing that. Look at Napishtim --> Felghana --> Origin.

That explains the shitty hud in cold steel. The screen to hud ratio is asinine
 

Busaiku

Member
Ugh, Laura was basically easy mode, these other guys don't even compare.
Now I have to actually wait for enemies to turn around...
 

omgfloofy

Banned
In the SC Evolution interview that was up on gamewatch recently, Kondo said that they develop for the stronger system first (PS3 in this case) then scale down to the Vita if it's going to be a multiplatform title.

I'm suddenly having to correct myself on the source too: it wasn't that gamewatch interview, it was at the shareholder meeting.
 
Can anything beat the Rean/Laura/Fie/Elliot combo? That party just seems broken as fuck. It's kinda a shame, because by this point, Elliot is so much better than anyone else as a healer, Laura deals more damage than god. Fie is great for speed debuffs and the like, and Rean just kills stuff almost as well as Laura. I had to fight
the Ice Dragon
without that team (I wanted to switch stuff up in Chapter 5) and the fight was much harder than it needed to be as a result.
 

Abdiel

Member
I just finished my first run through of the game. Damn, that ending. Fuuuuuuuuck, please give me CS II right now! Argh!

This game has totally sucked me in. I got it on day of release, and I've put 65 hours into it! Haha. I'm even considering going for the platinum.

Endgame Spoiler stuff/General Spoiler Stuff: Do Not click if you haven't finished, please!

I honestly love how much of a role Oliver ended up having in the game, and how much he is just the same as he was from TitS FC/SC. Also, the Encore song being Whereabouts of Light made me choke up a bit. If it had had a harmonica accompaniment I probably would have gotten misty-eyed. But damn on the Divine Knights. That last battle was probably the only really frustrating thing for me, just because of the timing/mechanics being so new in terms of format. It really makes me curious about how significant of a role that will be in CS II, but when Rean said "Valimar, the Ashen Knight!" I was just like fuck yeah! Seriously. What a way to close it. Argh. Great fucking game. I love the cast, the progression, the development of each of their dynamics amidst each other. I'm not 'surprised', per say, because TitS gave me that expectation, but they really sold it fantastically well here.

Spoilers over. Dammit. I want the rest of the games in this series in my Vita. Or PS4, whichever.
 
Can anything beat the Rean/Laura/Fie/Elliot combo? That party just seems broken as fuck. It's kinda a shame, because by this point, Elliot is so much better than anyone else as a healer, Laura deals more damage than god. Fie is great for speed debuffs and the like, and Rean just kills stuff almost as well as Laura. I had to fight
the Ice Dragon
without that team (I wanted to switch stuff up in Chapter 5) and the fight was much harder than it needed to be as a result.

I use Emma over Elliot, but pretty much the same team.
 
The Sara/Neidhart banter is so much fun, I wished Neidhart could've been a bigger part of Class VII... Actually the same is true for the entire faculty. It's a pretty likable crew of teachers, even that up-his-arse Vice Principal.
 

Xeteh

Member
Just beat the game, it went places I had no idea it was going and I loved it. What a fantastic game.

Can anything beat the Rean/Laura/Fie/Elliot combo? That party just seems broken as fuck. It's kinda a shame, because by this point, Elliot is so much better than anyone else as a healer, Laura deals more damage than god. Fie is great for speed debuffs and the like, and Rean just kills stuff almost as well as Laura. I had to fight
the Ice Dragon
without that team (I wanted to switch stuff up in Chapter 5) and the fight was much harder than it needed to be as a result.

Emma (probably Jusis too) become so insanely strong as casters. Emma was using the Criminal Master Quartz which at max level gave her a 90% chance to crit with Arts. It gives a ton of fire Arts and matched with a Fire Bell quartz she could cast Fire Ball on a delay of 3 which meant she could sometime cast 3-4 in a row.

Alisa works well as a healer that way you can use her crafts to pump CP in to people. I liked Fie a lot but she effectively became my #5.
 
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