The Legend of Heroes Thread - Trails of Cold Steel in the Sky

[Arthandas]

Nooo my moneyyyy

there, there...

 

[Abu Antar]

Finished kuro, took 50 hours. Translation is very playable seems like everything is translated but most of dialogues with random ppl who are not related to main/side quests.

Some thoughts & smallish review without spoilers:

not rly spoilers

• Better than any CS game or Hajimari
• Main char is a lot better than Rean / Lloyd and might be my second favorite after Estelle
• A lot darker game than other trails games and people actually die
• Harder than CS 3-4 or Hajimari but I still had to reset 0 times (char died around 6-10 times). Turn-based combat is little bit worse than in CS 3-4 and there are no obvious cheese methods. Cant even spam s-crafts nonstop. Real time combat is whatever I mostly skipped it. The benefit of real time combat is that you can skip all random encounters very easily. Orbment system is very good and might be the best in the series. On the other hand quartz and "master" quartz are mostly boring
• No hidden quests so no need to use walkthrough if you want to get max rank
• Shitload of fanservice
• No mini games
• Story and cast are good better than any CS game. Some retard stuff at the end which is quite typical for trails games

For reference, approximately how long did it take you to beat the Cold Steel games?

I have rached chapter 6 in the first one, and the clock shows ~60 hours.

 

[Jermu]

First playthrough of Cold Steel 1 was close to 10 years ago so I dont remb but I have a feeling that CS 1-2 were shorter than games after those. I would say that CS 3 and Kuro took about same time to complete with all the quests done.

Also Kuro does not have random npcs dialogues translated so that would have bought around 3-5 hours more playtime.

I play quite fast skip pretty much all random encounters + combat animations after seeing em once.

 

[Ramnozack]

Is the twilight rebalance mod for cs4 any good? CS3 has been so piss easy even on the supposed nightmare difficulty it's ridiculous. Was looking for some way to make the game play actually somewhat worthwhile, the mod I mentioned before looked good but some of the changes looked a bit iffy.

 

[Arthandas]

I have rached chapter 6 in the first one, and the clock shows ~60 hours.

Are you speedrunning it or something? I clocked around 150h in CS1, but that's after exploring everything, doing all quests and talking to all npcs each time I pushed the story forward (not to mention modded difficulty)...

 

[Abu Antar]

I have rached chapter 6 in the first one, and the clock shows ~60 hours.

Are you speedrunning it or something? I clocked around 150h in CS1, but that's after exploring everything, doing all quests and talking to all npcs each time I pushed the story forward (not to mention modded difficulty)...

Not speedrunning, but only fighting encountered enemies once. I don't grind fights, and I only talk to some NPCs. I cheat somewhat by having a hidden quest guide.

 

[Sarathiour]

I have rached chapter 6 in the first one, and the clock shows ~60 hours.

Are you speedrunning it or something? I clocked around 150h in CS1, but that's after exploring everything, doing all quests and talking to all npcs each time I pushed the story forward (not to mention modded difficulty)...

In never went over 100 hours for a playthrough, and I'm doing all of that + some autistic shit.

 

[Endemic]

Just noticed that Kuro has 63 dlcs for sale (+3 free)
With Kuro 2 maybe we can break 100

It's just the individual pieces of clothing and items becoming separate DLCs that's inflating the number. Plus a few new ideas like voice packs.

 

[Sarathiour]

Is the twilight rebalance mod for cs4 any good? CS3 has been so piss easy even on the supposed nightmare difficulty it's ridiculous. Was looking for some way to make the game play actually somewhat worthwhile, the mod I mentioned before looked good but some of the changes looked a bit iffy.

I played the guy's mod for CS3, it was decent and made the combat more challenging.

I followed a bit the mod development for CS4 (I'm waiting for an hajimari announcement to replay CS4 with it), they at least tried to make sure even the worst team at any given time could clear it. It's probably still a bit autistic from time to time, because, the game get a bit ridiculous at high speed level.

 

[Abu Antar]

I beat chapter 6, and I only just dabbled in the start of chapter 7. I got the last fish, and I underestimated the amount of effort it would take to catch it! I think that I have all recipes and chests, so far. I don't have all the books.

But what I really wanted to talk about isn't that, but the bullshit final bossfight(s) of chapter 6. Do not read if you have not beaten chapter 6 of Cold Steel.
The fight with V was pretty cool, and I had to revive a few of my characters. Got it on my first try. It's less difficult, and more of an endurance test. But the fight with C directly after is just lolworty. I legit thought I was going to redo the previous fights. The game should have let you change gear between fights. Most of my characters were not immune to the status ailment most used by the enemies. On top of that, those mines were a pain in the ass. It took me six tries to get him, and that was thanks to his mines being clumped together on my last try. Rean could use Gale to get rid of them. As its own fight, it was cool, but it was crazy to have that as two back-to-back fights, because who the hell knows that you will be inflicted with faint every other turn. In the end, Angelica was the one who won me the fight.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The first two Cold Steel games can be pretty tough at certain points.

 

[Abu Antar]

The first two Cold Steel games can be pretty tough at certain points.

I like tough, to be honest. I was just hoping for the ability to re-gear between fights.

The game has been rather easy overall. Good old speed and evasion doing the work.

I hope I can wrap the game up this weekend.

Cold Steel 2 is up after that, then I will take a break from the series for a few months. After that, go through the Crossbell duology, before Cold Steel 3&4.

 

[Sarathiour]

Yeah, you should be able able to wrap this up this weekend, the next combat segment after roer is the final dungeon. Keep a save just before the "final" boss, because what come next work a bit differently, and you might have to gridn a level or two in nightmare difficulty.

Angelica is quite good against C because she stun and push him back a lot, giving you a lot of breathing room if you don't rely on some cheese.

 

[Rean]

Angelica is quite good against C because she stun and push him back a lot, giving you a lot of breathing room if you don't rely on some cheese.

I refuse to use that dyke on principle!

 

[Arthandas]

I refuse to use that dyke on principle!

Come on, she's the most relatable character in the entire series - she also craves loli pussy.

 

[Rean]

I refuse to use that dyke on principle!

Come on, she's the most relatable character in the entire series - she also craves loli pussy.

She's one-dimensional, ugly, sounds disgusting and behaves obnoxious. Not my idea of hawt yuri. In fact, I'd say she's the worst character in the series, bar none.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The worst character is either Musse or Juna.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Alisa is the worst. Musse and Juna have more going on alone each than the blond tech baby. Only thing that makes her mildly interesting is

Spoiler

who her father is.

 

[Sarathiour]

Apologize to my waifu or else

 

[Valestein]

The waifu most deserving of the title is Sara, fact.

 

[Rean]

The worst character is either Musse or Juna.

Are you being contrarian for the sake of it (again) or do you actually not like those characters?

Alisa is the worst. Musse and Juna have more going on alone each than the blond tech baby. Only thing that makes her mildly interesting is

I can agree with this. Alisa is really underwritten, for some reason.

 

[Lyre Mors]

Are you being contrarian for the sake of it (again) or do you actually not like those characters?

Remember, you're talking to the guy who supposedly doesn't recognize the significant overarching plot elements of the 9+ entry series he's put hundreds of hours into. He'll say nothing in the world of Zemuria has significantly changed since the start of the series, but what he really means is it hasn't changed in the way  he would have liked it to. He's either being contrarian for the sake of it, or we're working with a very special breed of autism here. Either way, generally seems wise to not engage with it.

 

[Sarathiour]

Alisa

Is hot and loves mecha, that's really all a man can wish in a woman.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

EDIT: spoiler tagging the whole post. Cold Steel spoilers galore!

Juna and Musse

For Juna, I had multiple issues with her. First, she was terribly shoehorned into the story. I played the Crossbell games and she never appeared there, nor was her existence hinted at. If the devs wanted a fan of the SSS then they should have picked one of those kids from the street to the West of the SSS' building. When I first saw Juna in a Famitsu scan, I actually thought she was Tyzel, from Trista.

My next issue with her is how she makes the SSS look untrustworthy, as they apparently told a fangirl top secret information that they promised to keep secret. It also makes everyone who trusted them with that information look like fools.

Thirdly, you have Juna repeatedly being an apologist for Crossbell and completely whitewashing them and framing the Empire as being the unreasonable aggressor, which is not true and she would know just how much, much worse Crossbell actually was than the average person since that info is not public. Falcom's writers could have leaned into this and have done something like the young attorney from Judgement at Nuremberg where she knows how bad things are and is being willfully ignorant, grasping at straws, trying to distort the narrative to mitigate the damage however she can to save her childhood heroes in the eyes of others (and thus becomes a tragic figure), but the game presents her as being correct.

Juna CS3

Juna, he enabled Crossbell's occupation in the first place by refusing to reverse the timeline. That's entirely on the SSS you idolize.

Arios was a fugitive for damn good reason: he let mass murderers walk free and he passed up an opportunity to reverse all the damage done by himself and Dieter. He could have reversed the deaths of thousands of people. He is a mass murderer by inaction, along with the rest of the SSS.

*laughing*

The real heroes were Kevin, Ries, and the Brights, for destroying the Aions they were assigned to, while the SSS let their assigned Aion go free (along with all of the mass murderers who perpetrated the mess).

Oh, the horror of retaliation after your country incited a war. Oh, the horror of history's least oppressive occupation! Oh, the horrroooooorr!!!

Juna: Waaaaggghh! Waaggggh! The big bad Erebonian's are building fortifications to defend themselves from their enemies. Oh, the horror!

Who is trying to take away your pride? The people of Crossbell haven't been made into slaves or had their culture demolished. Hell, it's your pride and your arrogance that created this mess in the first place.

No lady. YOUR CROSSBELL started this. YOUR CROSSBELL choose the path of a destructive shortcut to independence, destroyed the security of it's surrounding nations, held weapons of mass destruction over the continent. Crossbell started this fight, and they lost. Fortunately for you, this is the least oppressive "occupation" (if you could even call it that) of a country I've seen.

Juna, what do you think will happen if Erebonia just ups and leave? Do you really think Crossbell is going to return to being an independent state, with everything returning to the way it was before you guys pulled your stunt? Hell no! Calvard's desperate, and they were made even more desperate after the IBC shut off their funds. They're in a cold war against Erebonia. President Rocksmith is just as pragmatic as Chancellor Osborne. Calvard is going to grab ANYTHING they can get their hands on. If we leave, you'll remain under occupation, under a different flag. And, oh, a Calvardian occupation isn't going to be anywhere near as luxuries as the status quo. Calvard doesn't have the resources to invest in Crossbell. They don't have the resources or the technology to build up a massive military fortress to defend Crossbell and deter an invasion. When a world war breaks out between Erebonia and Calvard, Crossbell is going to become a battlefield (whereas under the Empire, the war may very well never even come to Crossbell, and it won't be in ruins). Crossbell under Calvard won't have the excellent leadership of Osborne's administration. You'll be dealing with a government already stretched thin enough as is, with rampant corruption, scant resources, and massive civil unrest. There is no situation in which everything goes back the way it was. If you want to keep believing in that fantasy of yours, you are more than welcome to take off your uniform and go join your great SSS down in Mishelam, and protest in silence.

Musse also has multiple problems with her. Like Juna she is flagrantly retconned into the story (did not appear at Saint Astria's in CS1, nor was Duke Cayenne having a daughter ever mentioned), though this as detrimental as Juna retroactively making the SSS look bad.

CS3 chapter 3, which makes Musse look like a selfish b. She just found out that the man she supposedly "loves" - a man who has gone out of his way to try to be kind to her and support her in school - is under immense pressure from a government he dislikes, and chose this job as an escape. Rather than contemplating that or leaving him alone, she just immediately ignores what he just said and attempts seduce him for funsies.

And then we find out that Musse the traitor. She did nothing about the Civil War, but then decided to arrange an international coalition against her own country. For a mastermind, she failed to set out to accomplish everything she set out to do. Turning the world against Erebonia only made Erebonians more defensive and amplified the curse she was ostensibly trying to undo. Rean? He did what he wanted instead of following Musse's plans. Undoing the curse? That was all on Osborne and Rean. Her coalition only caused misery for Erebonia, undoing the sacrifices of their soldiers by losing Crossbell, making them pay reparations, creativing civil unrest, and making them the pariah of the world.

Lastly, there is Musse the mary sue. She convinces several of the most powerful people in the world and nation leaders and the other superpower to go along with her plan. And she does this as a teenage highschool girl belonging to a family with a ruined reputation.

 

[Sarathiour]

Regarding Musse

She's former Duke Cayenne daughter, not the one from civil war, but the brother of that one who was the original duke, before he got assassinated with his whole family. It would still be pretty obvious that some "musse" exactly the same age than the daughter of cayenne show up as a distant cousin or something and go to St Astria, but hey Cayenne was always described as a retard, and she allegedly left St Astria before the story get too fishy.
Otherwise, it's unfortunately those kind of character that always go "just as planned".