Shake Appeal
Member
This is kinda sad to me.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (PC) |OT| Enter Erebonia
- Thread starter jj984jj
- Start date
As someone who just bought this (I played through the prologue last night) but hasn't played the game before, I'm suddenly torn between continuing and restarting with these "infinite bonding points." I assume the developers included the system for a reason - can anyone give me a good reason *not* to use the super-save?
Will I start overleveled, or screw up the natural flow of character development, or anything like that?
BTW, seems like a nice port.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
me too man...I put TitS system right up there with FFVII materia when it comes to best systems for building characters. Finding just the right combination of spells and stats was super satisfying.This is kinda sad to me.
You will not actually mess anything up. New Game + works like tales of games (if you ever played those). You get X number of points to import things into new game +. This includes costumes, cheats, your items and stats etc. Choose to only import max bonding points when you start new game + and boom, you are essentially playing a standard playthrough, except you wont miss any bonding scenes.
EDIT: Though I'm pretty sure you will get the filled out notebook imported no matter what though...so dont read through it if you havent already played the game because itll be full of spoilers.
Now to try and turn that NG+ save into NG+++ so I can import all the costumes and max bonding points.
ooh shit I take my edit back
And someone already beat out the point usage maximum. Fucking perfect.
Though I remember from doing something similar for my friend on PS3, the playtime carried over regardless. Looked like he had played 87 hours when he played 1 lol
Basileus777
Member
it was neat when you had a small party, not so good when juggling huge teams of people swapping in and out, which the CS games have a ton of.
Ultimadrago
Member
Yep. I'm starting out with all of the outfits too for sure!
Great, thanks. I think I'll restart, then. I generally try to play games in their "original" state my first time through, but trying to figure out whose scenes I want to see sounds stressful.
Just to confirm, though - is there any argument at all that the game works better when you can't "bond" with everyone? I'm not going to start the game being superfriends with everyone in a way that doesn't make narrative sense, right? Or miss an approach to the narrative that some people prefer (getting closer to only a few of your companions)?
These are probably silly questions, as I haven't gotten far enough into the game to really understand how that system works.
That shot comes from someone else who hacked using Cheat Engine. The real save file only has 5 points because it's a first-run completion (it was speed-runned, not a converted PS3 save). I think that should be made apparent. Also, if you only carry over costumes and unlimited Bond points the only two stats that carry over in the notebook are Interrupted Arts and Playtime hours (according to that save file thread). Both are well below what's necessary to trigger achievements (if this port is the same as PS3/VITA's handing of trophies it's going to be tied to the notebook, if the quota is already met the achievement won't pop).
MarmiteBadger
Member
I recently bought this game for my PS3 but a month ago my PS3 and all of my games were stolen. I was so mad because I didn't get far into this game. Now I'm gonna have to grab it from GOG. I hope the second game comes out on PC.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
As someone who has played and beaten all this. The bonding points feels like a painful limitation to being able to see everything in 1 run. I would actually recommend bypassing it for a first playthrough unless you had every intention of playing twice.
Yea I knew all that, I'm just rush posting at work. I'll probably make a tutorial for cheat engine when I get home for this hack. Its very easy to do.
Nope.
If you spend all your time hanging out with Sara, you won't have to waste as much time bonding with the inferior options.
No, the bond points system is dumb
Ultimadrago
Member
Pssh, that just racks up community service hours for the old folks' home!
Really? Wow, I'll keep that in mind.
I only played TiTS FC and chose Hard(or the difficulty above default) and felt it was a mistake the more I played. Thankfully retrying battles when defeated would lower the difficulty down a notch(just that fight). Thus I spent so many encounters clearly disadvantaged until retry when the balance suddenly felt fair and appreciable, and it was pretty irritating.
Really need extra clarification if Cold Steel is really too braindead or easy on anything but Nightmare here. I prefer highest difficulty normally but FC is one exclusion.
Sorry, just seemed like people might have conflated the two if no one said anything.
Also, still can't find that damn save folder. I don't even have a User folder in my User folder.
Basileus777
Member
It's not called user, it's whatever username you are using on that PC. ie user/psxphile
JoeyJungle
Banned
Took me a second too, it's in Users -> [Windows user name] -> Saved Games (appears below Pictures, doesn't have a normal folder icon for me in Win10)
I figured that, but was thrown off by the save game folder having an icon other than the standard folder. Thought it was some kind of executable. :x
Just finished the prologue. Mixed feelings so far.
- I don't really like the 3D graphics, especially the portraits in the chatboxes. Takes away a lot of personality from the characters.
- Talking about characters, they all seem pretty cliche so far (same with the setting). I'm sure this will change, but they haven't captured me yet (unlike Estelle and Joshua, who I loved from the first moment).
- Most of the voices are good, but there are a few who sound bad. Every time Alisa speaks, I just want to mute the voices.
- I don't mind the quartz system being simplified, because I never put too much time into it anyway (always played on normal), but I can see why it bothers others.
- I was surprised to see
- The PC port is great.
- Battle system is great, I like most of the changes they made compared to TitS. Preferred the isometric view though, it was easier to see stuff.
- Music is good as well.
Overall I like it, the prologue went by really fast, but it didn't really catch me yet. But I'm sure that will change fast as I play the game.
- I don't really like the 3D graphics, especially the portraits in the chatboxes. Takes away a lot of personality from the characters.
- Talking about characters, they all seem pretty cliche so far (same with the setting). I'm sure this will change, but they haven't captured me yet (unlike Estelle and Joshua, who I loved from the first moment).
- Most of the voices are good, but there are a few who sound bad. Every time Alisa speaks, I just want to mute the voices.
- I don't mind the quartz system being simplified, because I never put too much time into it anyway (always played on normal), but I can see why it bothers others.
- I was surprised to see
Oliver appear so early. It's so weird to hear his voice after 3 other games. Not really what I imagined.
- Battle system is great, I like most of the changes they made compared to TitS. Preferred the isometric view though, it was easier to see stuff.
- Music is good as well.
Overall I like it, the prologue went by really fast, but it didn't really catch me yet. But I'm sure that will change fast as I play the game.
I'm not a weeb, I'm an european who prefer dual audio choice because it's normal in Europe to have that choice to have different languages in our games in general. Never hurt to have lot of options just like the ones Durante made for the port.
Pancakes
hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
Unpopular opinion maybe but I hated the quartz system in FC and SC. I would just trial and error the higher level gems to get the spells I wanted and it was always kinda tedious. Granted I played on easy so it wasn't that big of a deal.
Novel Mike
Member
Honestly same, I still haven't finished FC because of how slow the general gameplay is and the needless complexity of the quartz system.
Complexity...? It is quite literally just stacking numbers. Let's not make things up.
The bracer notebook tells you the needed elememts for every spell. Each quartz has some elements it adds. The slots are divided into lines. I don't see how thats "trial and error"
A good caster has just one line, so everything stacks up.
Especially FC is really tame about this, imo. I am playing SC right now and that one is way more demanding, not that I am complaining.
Basileus777
Member
With a modern interface and some quality of life improvements it could be better, but yeah it was really tedious any time you were changing party members or doing a lot of changes at once. And most of the minutiae you were dealing with had little practical importance, it needed some streamlining. Cold Steel's solution has its own flaws, but I didn't miss the old system.
DangerMouse
Member
Nice. I missed this bit of news, looks I'll be double dipping when I can so that I've got it for whenever I decide to do another playthrough.
Agreed, I really like the dub.
There's no reason for it to have been trial and error... Did you not know about the lists in the bracer notebook? That part wasn't tutorialized very well, unfortunately.
As far as I'm concerned the TitS magic system is the only good system of its kind because it's the only one that actually forces you to make non-trivial decisions. Though, yeah, changing parties was a nightmare.
Normal is a bit sleepwalk territory. If you want some challenge, Hard is the way to go. Nightmare is a grindfest where you basically have to make sure you've hit the area's level cap and that your gear and quartz are all very much properly assigned.
Generally how I play Trails games is that I minimize the amount of regular battles I do and do low level boss attempts on Normal. I find this to be the most fun and efficient way for me to play since the Trails games offer me the freedom of fighting when I choose.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, it definitely isn't needlessly complex, all the information is laid out for you, it's just a matter of taking advantage of it. I appreciated having a system that wasn't dumbed down to the point of basically being "put the square peg in the square hole."
Copper
Member
If anyone's interested I made a reshade preset
Novel Mike
Member
Complexity is a poor choice of words on my part. My point was that having to check another separate menu sheet to see exactly what magic I'm trying to give my characters is annoying and is a massively outdated system that is much more annoying if your like me and have a hard time sitting down to put a lot of time in FC since the combat is so slow and visually uninteresting.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
But that's purely a QoL issue, doesn't really have anything to do with the system itself...
Basileus777
Member
UI and quality of life are a huge part of how a system functions.
The quartz system in previous games didn't give any notable benefits to line separation. Someone like Agate was locked out of higher level spells because he had too many lines. In Cold Steel each separated line allows you to add a status quartz, so someone like Emma could only have one status quartz (because she has a single line) while someone like Fie could have several(because she has mutiple lines). I wouldn't call this system simplified because it adds true diversity to the different arcus units that benefit physically based characters.
Maybe we're using a different definition of "system", but I'm referring to the rules defining the choices the player can make, and the consequences those choices have for gameplay. The complaint regarding having to flip back and forth between orbment equipment screens and the bracer notebook isn't about the system in that sense.
Obviously I'm not saying that UI does not impact how people interact with systems, because that would be like tautologically false. My point was that the previous poster's complaint could have been addressed via UI changes without changing what I am referring to as "the system", and that might have both satisfied him and those of us who prefer TitS's orbment system to CS's.
That's an interesting point, but I don't see how it adds diversity. It simply changes having multiple lines from a negative trait to a positive trait. In other words, it increases build possibilities for characters with more lines and reduces them for those with less.
The characters were specifically designed around those line limitations in mind. Agate and Zin had trash lines, but top class crafts and dealt huge damage. Olivier's crafts were niche, but he had one line, etc.
It's actually something I think the earlier games did better; the orbment setups made the characters feel more unique.
Found a very minor visual bug.
Don't know if this is 144 Hz related, but in my game when Emma attacks the orbs from her staff go upwards and explode, instead of hitting the enemy and exploding.
Picture:
https://my.mixtape.moe/okmhhv.jpg
Config:
https://my.mixtape.moe/ukvpng.png
Don't know if this is 144 Hz related, but in my game when Emma attacks the orbs from her staff go upwards and explode, instead of hitting the enemy and exploding.
Picture:
https://my.mixtape.moe/okmhhv.jpg
Config:
https://my.mixtape.moe/ukvpng.png
The characterization definitely carried over from the story into a characters actual kit. I do think CS2 does a bit of this too though, with
the adult characters
The accessibility and speed of CS combat are worth the traid for me though.
And as an aside, I think delay/impede is a smart thing for any turn-based game to lean into.
I definitely prefer CS's set up from a gameplay perspective. Nothing quite matches the feeling of excitement you get when discovering a powerful quartz, and CS2 has bit of this too with the
legendary quartz.
Pancakes
hot, steaming, as melted butter slips into the cracks, drizzled with sticky sweet syrup OH GOD
"Estelle, you didn't even crack open your Bracer Notebook, did you?"
Played through the first game a while back and might've learned the system then but a couple years gap made me forget. Started up SC and figured I recalled it all, eh w/e.
Evasion Princess, etc.
It's much more fun to hone in on the key strength of a character and use the right quartz to jack it up as far as possible in CS.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
oooh I like this. Will probably use
StereoVsn
Gold Member
How does the NG+ save actually load? I placed the file(s) in the ED8 directory under users\name\saved games\falcom\ed8, but the game does not detect that anything is there. I must be missing something fairly simple. Never tried NG+ on my OG Vita playthrough, but isnt it supposed to load from cleared save?
Edit: NM, save file was missing the pic.
Edit: NM, save file was missing the pic.
this also happened to me with 60Hz display
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Played through the prologue and messed around the school afterwards. Mixed feelings so far. I find the game to be kind of "uninviting," for lack of a better term. The setting and poor first impression of the characters is probably the main reason for that.
CertifiedFP
Member
God, this "why no Japanese audio XGREED?!!!!!11!!11!!!" bitchmoaning I keep seeing sums up why I will never be able to take anti-dub people seriously. So bloody obnoxious and incapable of comprehending facts. Special shoutout to the bullshitter spreading fake-news that the 50% new dubbed lines were already voiced in Japanese and that XSEED was cutting corners on PS3.
While we're at it, we should be playing the game with Japanese text. Original creator's vision and intent, after all.
While we're at it, we should be playing the game with Japanese text. Original creator's vision and intent, after all.