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Trails of Cold Steel (Sen no Kiseki) coming to PS3, Vita in North America, Fall 2015
- Thread starter Nyoro SF
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Mauricio_Magus
Banned
PS3 from what others have said.
Just in general because I keep seeing the comments: the "PACKAGE ART NOT FINAL" at the bottom of the box is a real thing. Nothing about that is official or final, there's no reason to judge it at this point. I don't like the Japanese box art (which this packaging is based off of), so this is purely a quick mockup for websites while we still put together the actual packaging. Remember, it's still spring and we don't plan for this title to come out until fall. Everything is still "in progress," so no need to freak out about stuff as soon as it pops up in its early stages, haha.
But this is NeoGAF.
From what I understand, both versions perform perfectly fine but PS3 obviously has an edge.
Jarod McChicken
Member
Benzychenz
Member
encephalon
Member
Looks like Project EGG doesn't actually have the full trilogy. It has up to IV.
Nightengale
Member
Put Emma in or else!!!
I'm just joking
But I do hope the trophy is separate from Japanese/Asian release, one of the reason I only bought Shinovi Versus and Bon Appetit but never played it.
Remember that Project EGG is for *emulated* old games. LoH V is a Windows game.
Looks you can purchase it digitally from this page?
kama
Member
You can also get it from amisoft. They pretty much have Falcom's entire windows back catalogue available as digital versions, with the exception of Rinne and the windows ports of Revival Xanadu and Romancia that Unbalance released in the 90s. They're all pretty cheap and I found it very painless to register and purchase there from outside Japan.
The same goes for EGG, you don't even need any fake Japanese residency info.
As far as Sen is concerned, I'm glad they're coming but I wish we knew definitely if there'll be a limited edition or not. I'm gonna wait with my preorder until then.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
The blonde dude in the plaid pants has bad fashion sense. And I'm not sure why the Amazon of the group's wearing those high-heels, but maybe that'll be explained.
JoeyJungle
Banned
I was wondering if the voiced Trails games have an option to turn off voices, or have a slider for voices? I don't know the quality of the dub without listening to it, but I always appreciate having the option to turn them off if I don't like the VA.
They do.
JoeyJungle
Banned
Plaid pants are all the rage in jrpgs nowadays.
GloriousBagel
Banned
Will there be some gameplay footage at XESSD booth? Is there some video on Yt? I can't find anything
Edit: nevermind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA_rlrhGg5E
Edit: nevermind https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jA_rlrhGg5E
BassForever
Member
No voices is super weird even if you despise dubs not even having grunts when the characters attack or take damage is just so bizarre for this style of rpg.
English dubbing probably isn't ready yet, and if they left the japanese dubbing in there'd probably be people thinking it was proof of dual audio or something. But yeah, super weird.
What's up with 'black-haired boy', 'female instructor', etc.? All these characters in the thick of things and not one of them has had the time to introduce themselves?
Pellegri Testament
Member
The dub hasn't been started yet and Xseed made it known that they could not use the Japanese voices when it came to showing off the game (for the same reason why they can't use the JP voices at all in the final game).
BassForever
Member
Oh I totally get why there is no audio in this e3 demo, that wasn't the point I was making. A few pages ago people were freaking out about how the game was being dubbed meaning they wouldn't buy it at all unless they could turn the voices off... but watching this footage I don't get how that would be enjoyable as it looks so awkward. Even a super awful dub would still feel more natural then all that silence.
Oh. Right, of course. In that case, good point.
The part of the game being shown is the game's prologue, which begins in media res. The characters all know each others' names, but the player does not, as none of these characters have been properly introduced yet -- they aren't until the game properly begins at chapter 1, jumping back in the story to the beginning.
When the events from the prologue are encountered in the game proper, the characters' names are all displayed, and a few additional details are added as well.
-Tom
Firestorm ZERO
Member
Still not on Amazon.ca so it won't make it time for the E3 deal 
I now expect Amazon to send me emails about axes and knives.
I now expect Amazon to send me emails about axes and knives.BassForever
Member
GOTY material.
SatelliteOfLove
Member
What's that thing up above the award there?
Ah, so a bit of that Persona 3/4 "short-haired girl -> Chie" thing. Gotcha.
Ah, so a bit of that Persona 3/4 "short-haired girl -> Chie" thing. Gotcha.
Another award (by Worth Playing).
inanutshell
Member
So I got a chance to play the game at E3. Originally I was going to aim for a completely blind playthrough, but I thought... XSEED went to all this trouble to make a great booth and bring a playable copy of the game, might as well give it a shot and get an impression. XSEED had people manning every station, which was seriously great, and in addition had Onechanbara Z2, Senran Kagura EV, Senran Kagura 2, Nitroplus Blasters, Corpse Party Vita, the Popolocrois Farm RPG title for 3DS, and two crazy looking Earth Defense Force titles. Great lineup, especially Onechanbara Z2, which is amazing purely on how ridiculous it is.
My first impression; Trails of Cold Steel is anime. VERY anime, SUPER anime. Keep in mind I was still coming off being shell-shocked by the horrors of Valkyria Chronicles 2, so the torture and pain of that game's story and art direction was fresh in my mind after SEGA went to all the trouble of trampling over VC1's legacy in a desperate bid for more sales. If we were to set up an anime rating scale with Baccano being a 1 and Senran Kagura being a 10, this game is about an 8 with Trails in the Sky being a solid 4. There's nothing wrong with a game being anime per se (I do, after all, enjoy Senran Kagura quite a lot) but when the series has a reputation from the Sora series to not be about *that anime life* it is honestly jarring and a downer.
And I'm not just talking about the way the game looks, though it's the prelude of things to come. We have a serious case of anime tropes. Lots of em! Uh oh. I guess I probably should've recognized that it was going in that direction from the super-anime box art and character design I saw on Amazon. We have klutz side girl, serious straight-backed rich girl, standoff guy who can't be bothered to listen to anything anyone says, Shounen Jump Lead Character (He even has the trademark shounen hairstyle), Girl-Who-Is-Obviously-Not-An-Actual-Student, Overpowered Sexy Teacher, unreasonable shouting dude and so forth. And of course, it takes place in a (military) school, cause you gotta have that school setting to achieve the true anime effect.
Even the plot of the game moves forward on the complete ineptitude and "childlike ignorance" of the main characters. Seriously,
On a side note, me and the XSEED rep (who I believe was the editor for the game) were having a ton of fun joking about this at the booth since we're familiar with all of this stuff. Especially at the one scene near the end of the Prologue
In regards to the battle system, it retains the turn-based battle system which is also spacing-based which I certainly hope is a LoH signature at this point. But when I battled, it seemed like spacing didn't matter at all. Regardless of how far I was from an enemy, I was always in range to do a physical attack. With four party members on screen and the ridiculous amount of crafts everyone has at their disposal I am seriously worried that this game will provide no challenge, unlike in my blind run of TiTS where I had to fight extremely carefully in a lot of battles even on Normal difficulty
Also the aliasing on the game is seriously out of control. I've played plenty of fuzzy games in my life on every console I've owned no problem but this game in particular has some of the worst aliasing I've ever seen on a PS3 title. Such a game that's so simple artistically (without many things on screen either) shouldn't have trouble rendering at a better internal resolution on the PS3 so I'm really flabbergasted at Falcom at the moment. If you're not sensitive to that thing like I am it's probably nothing to worry about. I've lived through the PS2's fuzzies, so I can deal with this, but I think someone at Falcom forgot the PS3 game was running at Vita resolution or something.
That's my 2 cents. I'm honestly really sad that the style of the Legend of Heroes had changed to this but I'm still going to buy the game day one. You never know, I could get seriously proven wrong as the game progresses. Despite how terrible some "anime games" I've played in my life are, there's some enjoyment to be found in even the worst of them. It's even possible that this game may require some alcohol to bring out the enjoyment which wouldn't be the first time I've had to resort to something like that, though it's been a while. It's just that I never expected to have to do something like that for this series after coming off such an excellent game like TiTS; I don't turn on a game called "Legend of Heroes" so I can watch a Tokimeki Memorial episode. But we'll see.
(Keep in mind I'm not a Kiseki fanboy by any means, that Trails in the Sky PC was my first LoH title, and I'm just calling what I see. I have no idea if historically I should have known all of this all along)
My first impression; Trails of Cold Steel is anime. VERY anime, SUPER anime. Keep in mind I was still coming off being shell-shocked by the horrors of Valkyria Chronicles 2, so the torture and pain of that game's story and art direction was fresh in my mind after SEGA went to all the trouble of trampling over VC1's legacy in a desperate bid for more sales. If we were to set up an anime rating scale with Baccano being a 1 and Senran Kagura being a 10, this game is about an 8 with Trails in the Sky being a solid 4. There's nothing wrong with a game being anime per se (I do, after all, enjoy Senran Kagura quite a lot) but when the series has a reputation from the Sora series to not be about *that anime life* it is honestly jarring and a downer.
And I'm not just talking about the way the game looks, though it's the prelude of things to come. We have a serious case of anime tropes. Lots of em! Uh oh. I guess I probably should've recognized that it was going in that direction from the super-anime box art and character design I saw on Amazon. We have klutz side girl, serious straight-backed rich girl, standoff guy who can't be bothered to listen to anything anyone says, Shounen Jump Lead Character (He even has the trademark shounen hairstyle), Girl-Who-Is-Obviously-Not-An-Actual-Student, Overpowered Sexy Teacher, unreasonable shouting dude and so forth. And of course, it takes place in a (military) school, cause you gotta have that school setting to achieve the true anime effect.
Even the plot of the game moves forward on the complete ineptitude and "childlike ignorance" of the main characters. Seriously,
who the hell hands over their precious weapons obliviously to a maintenance worker and a random girl on school grounds? How do you not see about three dozen red flags from being labeled "special students" and brought to a special area? If Joshua acted like this much of an idiot in TiTS I would be a lot less appreciative of the game. I haven't even cited other obvious anime nonsense like klutz girl falling on brotagonist's face with her boobs.
In regards to the battle system, it retains the turn-based battle system which is also spacing-based which I certainly hope is a LoH signature at this point. But when I battled, it seemed like spacing didn't matter at all. Regardless of how far I was from an enemy, I was always in range to do a physical attack. With four party members on screen and the ridiculous amount of crafts everyone has at their disposal I am seriously worried that this game will provide no challenge, unlike in my blind run of TiTS where I had to fight extremely carefully in a lot of battles even on Normal difficulty
like the kidnappers on the tower roof, or grancel castle tower offensive, or battle arena, sidequest monsters that can fuck you up hard, etc.
Also the aliasing on the game is seriously out of control. I've played plenty of fuzzy games in my life on every console I've owned no problem but this game in particular has some of the worst aliasing I've ever seen on a PS3 title. Such a game that's so simple artistically (without many things on screen either) shouldn't have trouble rendering at a better internal resolution on the PS3 so I'm really flabbergasted at Falcom at the moment. If you're not sensitive to that thing like I am it's probably nothing to worry about. I've lived through the PS2's fuzzies, so I can deal with this, but I think someone at Falcom forgot the PS3 game was running at Vita resolution or something.
That's my 2 cents. I'm honestly really sad that the style of the Legend of Heroes had changed to this but I'm still going to buy the game day one. You never know, I could get seriously proven wrong as the game progresses. Despite how terrible some "anime games" I've played in my life are, there's some enjoyment to be found in even the worst of them. It's even possible that this game may require some alcohol to bring out the enjoyment which wouldn't be the first time I've had to resort to something like that, though it's been a while. It's just that I never expected to have to do something like that for this series after coming off such an excellent game like TiTS; I don't turn on a game called "Legend of Heroes" so I can watch a Tokimeki Memorial episode. But we'll see.
(Keep in mind I'm not a Kiseki fanboy by any means, that Trails in the Sky PC was my first LoH title, and I'm just calling what I see. I have no idea if historically I should have known all of this all along)
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Cool impressions. Re: battles, I had occasional challenging moments in TitS (mainly no-death battles with Insectoids early on, Limestone Cave with just Estelle/Joshua, and the last castle boss), but it was a mildly easy game overall, and that's hopefully what I'll get from Sen once I play it. Real problem will be going from an installment that's most likely harder (Ao no Kiseki) to a more sedate one like Sen.
In other news, XSEED's registered web domains for Trails to Zero and Trails to Azure. Hatsuu gettin' cocky here.
In other news, XSEED's registered web domains for Trails to Zero and Trails to Azure. Hatsuu gettin' cocky here.
itshappening.gif
Most likely just a precaution but it's nice to see nonetheless. Does that mean those would likely be the official titles should they ever get released over here?
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
At this point, I'd guess they are just securing the domains. Not so much a leak of things to come like Cold Steel.
Probably, they are the same titles used to refer to the games in the blog post.
Still, it's the best sign we've seen so far that XSEED intends to bring the whole recent Legend of Heroes batch to the West.
man i can just imagine them letting hatsuu register the domains just to shut her up for a while
Probably not a bad idea to trademark too just to make sure no one causes problems for them in the future. So long as it's not cost prohibitive anyway or a problem otherwise.
And I'm glad this at least gives Siliconera something official to use. It annoyed the hell out of me that not only did they insist on using their translation of the names when they weren't THAT much of a pain to remember, but that they seemingly missed the intent with the names in the process. Going by what I saw people say of Ao being sort of ambiguous to applying to blue or green (and the heavy green push on the covers) I figured something like Azure would make more sense, and that's before getting to that Flash nonsense.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
The meaning of these localized titles remains beyond me, but I do like how romantic and ambiguous they sound. As for the domain registration, it's likely XSEED's forward-thinking and their way of preventing any squatting by trolls.
RyougaSaotome
Member
I love how this post reads as someone with context for the Cold Steel narrative. XD It's great.
Mauricio_Magus
Banned
BELIEVE!
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
Since we're talking futures, how about a release of the 1997 Legend of Heroes I Windows remake?
I just want to know why it and II are dubbed the "British Legend Series" overseas.
I just want to know why it and II are dubbed the "British Legend Series" overseas.
This better be one hell of a narrative to offset Shounen Jump: Trails of Moe Steel Darkness that I reviewed. If I hadn't played Trails in the Sky I would have written the game off completely on the spot.
...In before a game called Moe Steel actually gets made.
Yeah, I remember but I kinda figured they were quickly translated placeholder titles something. I feel like I keep seeing comments to the effect that Zero should translate to "Void". Does that mean that's about as valid a translation as that whole Flash nonsense for Sen?
I mean, I admittedly know basically nothing of the plot beyond what happened in FC, but Trails to Zero just sounds kinda weird to me. They both sound kinda vague compared to Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel.
Shouta
Member
Yeah, it's interesting reading first impressions from folks who are are going to get to experience it soon, lol
The other Trails games are pretty anime though. It's just a different set of tropes and accompanying aesthetic. The school setting is seen pretty often so a lot people are more sensitive to it when they see it. Somewhat understandable but Falcom is definitely the developer to keep that initial reaction in check.
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