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

[HoboForEternity]

How true is this opinion regarding the games before Sky?

This is what people don't understand, the people who made the fantastic Sky trilogy are gone, Falcom as a company is a hollow shell of what it once was, and you're not really playing a true continuation of what got people interested in the series to begin with, just the dregs left aping what came before them as the series and characters degrade further and further with every installation. For fucks sake look at the tech progression in the series, we went from the Industrial Revolution in Sky to basically modern day Japan by Cold Steel, complete with cell phones and internet access. It's mind boggling how badly they fucked it all up.

dude sounds butthurt. every arc has its weaknesses and strengths. with the modern japan setting, crossbell is pretty much already have that and the cold steel locations still have the pastoral villages.

 

[Thorakitai]

How true is this opinion regarding the games before Sky?

This is what people don't understand, the people who made the fantastic Sky trilogy are gone, Falcom as a company is a hollow shell of what it once was, and you're not really playing a true continuation of what got people interested in the series to begin with, just the dregs left aping what came before them as the series and characters degrade further and further with every installation. For fucks sake look at the tech progression in the series, we went from the Industrial Revolution in Sky to basically modern day Japan by Cold Steel, complete with cell phones and internet access. It's mind boggling how badly they fucked it all up.

I don't think Sky is fantastic. The first game is overall good but still has pacing problems (first 20 hours are boring and it's a 40 hour long game), writing problems (fakeout deaths, the antagonist is objectively and morally right on all counts and the protagonists have no valid motivations to oppose him). The second game is where all of the problems common to all Trails games begin (filler chapters about chasing after Ouroboros villains with zero plot progression, mass murderers getting off scott free to continue haunting the series in future installments and general lack of accountability, lack of stakes and consequences). The shitty writing was there from the get go, it's just that it becomes tiresome after 1,000+ hours of it, especially as the storylines set up from the beginning like the looming world war are thrown away, and for many people that's the breaking point when they realize nothing bad will ever happen and they're going to continue chasing Ouroboros in circles for another decade.

Unfortunately, I agree your opinions on all counts, especially regarding the repeated fights against the Ouroboros members that definately felt like padding since it begs the question on why aren't they teaming up to pummel you if they shown to be so powerful and giving the "they aren't motivated" as an excuse.

The first time I finished the first Sky game, I was hyped with the twist and how it evil the antagonist group is. The first half of SC further cements how Ouroboros is very different from Estelle's usual foes

Ouroboros members

The slow reveal of Renne, Walter describing how in detail how the earthquake device will graphically kill innocent civilians and scaring Tita on question how her pretty head would be pulped and even Mountblanc creepying on Kloe while the party is helpless.

You also forgot another critical reccuring problem that Trails series has: the reliance of shocking twists.

Event spoilers

The reveal of Weismann in the First is excellent and is also properly forshadowed.The reveal that he is responsible for the Hamel Incident is not. And the series is graced with gems like the Time rewriting retcon in Azure and how Erebonia's villainy is revealed to be as a result of Ishmelga's influence which also includes the Hamel Incident again.

 

[Valestein]

The series definitely has some weirdness with its tones, like compare how dark Renne's backstory in Trails the 3rd is versus how little bloodshed there is in the "civil war" in cold steel 2.

I enjoy the series more for the characters and the general setting and gamespace than for the main plots.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I definitely agree with some of the criticims, yet they are still enjoyable and have moments of smart and excellent writing. A series running this long is bound to have their issues here and there but overall the narrative framework still stand good. I did wrote several paragraphs back in my geofront discord day of the cold steel series, yet i still adore it. As for direction it's heading, kuro seems to be moving back towards the crossbell-style tight narrative and people who have played it tend to agree so i wouldn't be too worried.

Even as i adore the crossbell games, the post in the previous pages raise a valid criticism point regarding to how small the scope of the locale itself aka by chapter 2 you have seen most of crossbell.

But i don't think the series overall has jumped the shark yet at least. I am still looking forward to future titles especually kuro.

 

[Reinhardt]

rean is still shit tho

 

[Thorakitai]

>Find out that Trails in Sky actually bombed in terms of sales in it's home country.

How true is this?

 

[HoboForEternity]

>Find out that Trails in Sky actually bombed in terms of sales in it's home country.

How true is this?

i mean if tits bombed we wouldn't have gotten like 10 games of follow up right?

as for the overall series. falcom's profit is steadily increasing so no. it still could be the profits from various gacha tie-ins but i doubt it.

people see the sales number of physical release of kuro that's been decreasing that some 'smart' people deduct the series bombed. they are publicly traded company too, they wouldnt have kept making these games for almost 20 years. not saying the company's not without problems, and they did lose some talent like unisuga.

i investigated a bit, here is what info i can get on TITS scenarion writers:
https://nihon-falcom.fandom.com/wik...dits#Scenario_Writers/_Event_Script_Editors_2

Scenario Writers/ Event Script Editors​

• Hisayoshi Takeiri, Yoshihiro Konda, Syuuji Nishitani, Homare Karusawa

and here is cold steel 4:
https://kiseki.fandom.com/wiki/The_...Cold_Steel_IV/Credits#Scenario_/_Event_Script

Scenario / Event Script​

• Hisayoshi Takeiri（竹入久喜）
• Yoshihiro Konda（根田祥弘）
• Syunsei Shikata（四方俊成）
• Yuuta Miyazaki（宮崎勇太）
• Kotaro Takai（高井孝太郎）
• Daiki Noda（野田大貴）
• Sumire Abe（阿部菫）
• Shizuki Imai（今井静月）
• ???（矢口皓之）
• ???（栗原雅俊）
• ???（李嵐峰）

the 2 original writers of TITS are still working up to CS4, so it's not wholly different team, just extensively expanded. and the series is still very much under the direction of the company's current president. creative vision changes, story get revised, no author is free of this no matter how extensively they plan. some of these brought bad changes (aka cold steel reliant too much on dating sim mechanic and probably some of the ishmelga retcons ) or necessary.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

>Find out that Trails in Sky actually bombed in terms of sales in it's home country.

How true is this?

I have only seen sales figures for the 3rd sky game, not the first two.

 

[Endemic]

>Find out that Trails in Sky actually bombed in terms of sales in it's home country.

How true is this?

If you mean the 2004/2006 PC releases, nobody has those figures to hand. I'm not sure if the PSP numbers are available.

 

[Thorakitai]

>Find out that Trails in Sky actually bombed in terms of sales in it's home country.

How true is this?

I have only seen sales figures for the 3rd sky game, not the first two.

From the same forum that I copypasta that comment from, supposedly Trails in the sky bombed in japan and in the west, almost bankrupt Falcom as a result, and on how both Azure and Cold Steel saved them. Also how Sky doesn't have PS4 ports yet the rest of the Kiseki games are ported or how the sales of 3rd's psp port are rather low in comparison to Azure.

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

supposedly Trails in the sky bombed in japan

The story I was told when I was in the Geofront Discord years ago was that Falcom was in the PC gaming market during the 90s and early 2000s. Then PC sales began to decline. Market shrinkage may have been possible. Perhaps more and more gamers were buying consoles rather than PCs, perhaps declining birthrates meant fewer and fewer teenagers interested in JRPGs were being born, ie potential customers. Perhaps there was also mismanaged marketing on Falcom's part, IDK. This culminated in Zwei 2 bombing on PC, which led to Falcom focusing on consoles over PC.

 

[flyingjohn]

Should have released trail eroge edition, would have helped with the pc sales tremendously.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Hello,
I've finished the 3 Trails in the Sky games. How do I proceed frrom this point on? As I see Trails from Zero is the next one in order of release, and usually it's the best order to tackle such long-running series. Is that the case here? There are also the Trails of Cold Steel games. As I understand it, Trails from Zero takes place in Crossbell and Trails of Cold Steel is set up in Erebonia, but both series take it from the events of the Trails in the Sky trilogy.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

At this point I'd say play the Crossbell duology and then move on to Cold Steel. The main reason people skipped forward was because the Crossbell games hadn't been localized to the West, but that's no longer true. (The other reason is that the Cold Steel games are more technologically advanced, but if you played the Sky trilogy that shouldn't be an issue for you.)

 

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I've finished the 3 Trails in the Sky games. How do I proceed frrom this point on?

Play whichever games interest you. If Crossbell looks appealing to you then play Crossbell. If Cold Steel looks appealing to you then play Cold Steel. Don't be a stickler for story order. The story doesn't have a satisfying payoff.

Cold Steel has fun combat and character building.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

All right, I decided to go with Trails from Zero.

Am I missing something or there's still no ability to save during dialogues/cutscenes? Also can you skip them entirely, not just fast-forward like in the Trails in the Sky games?

Also I'm playing this on PC/KBM. Is there a way to bind to the Enter key to [Use], [Open] and [Talk] actions (like it was in the Sky trilogy)? Currently I have to use the right mouse button for that.

 

[Maxie]

skip cold steel bro

 

[Derringer]

The Kuro no Kiseki games got translated by someone from /vg/ a year ago apparently, someone said they were less shitty than the Cold Steel games but still kind of bad, that's what it looks like to me from gameplay footage.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Can't help but lament how some of the QoL shortcomings of the Sky trilogy that irritated me the most end are still present in Zero.
- can't save during dialogues
- can't skip dialogues altogether
- can't retry a battle without also lowering the difficulty
- can't open the system menu during battles

In some other aspects it's become worse.
- I couldn't find a way to rotate the camera when in the field
- orbment-related menus now don't allow you to immediately see what arts you will have after equipping a specific quartz gem
- only 200 savegame slots, instead of giving even more slots than in previous games.

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

I'd be happy if devs somehow improved physical melee this time, so it wouldn't suck so much in terms of efficiency, compared to arts. As of I see no signs of that - currently my characters haven't got much EP, so I do have to rely on melee more, but it's only the beginning of the game. Also maybe devs could have increased the speed of CP accumulation a little, so that physmelee-oriented characters could use their crafts as a more or less equivalent substitute for arts.

 

[Maxie]

I'd be happy if devs somehow improved physical melee this time, so it wouldn't suck so much in terms of efficiency, compared to arts. As of I see no signs of that - currently my characters haven't got much EP, so I do have to rely on melee more, but it's only the beginning of the game. Also maybe devs could have increased the speed of CP accumulation a little.

I'd argue Randy especially becomes a primary CP caster towards the end of the game, and Lloyd is optimal as an evasion tank (you'll want to put some on-hits in his setup)

That's because Zero introduced melee counter

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

More than anything I hated when the Sky games pushed orbally-impaired characters (Tita, Agate, Zin etc) onto me due to plot reasons, who had to be constantly babysat by the rest of the team since melee is barely viable in these games (I played on Hard though - perhaps on Normal it's not as bad). I hope Zero will avoid that.

 

[Maxie]

More than anything I hated when the Sky games pushed orbally-impaired characters (Tita, Agate, Zin etc) onto me due to plot reasons, who had to be constantly babysat by the rest of the team since melee is barely viable in these games (I played on Hard though - perhaps on Normal it's not as bad). I hope Zero will avoid that.

Playing Zero and Ao both on Hard I can tell you that it isn't as strictly orbment-oriented
Estelle's games kinda fall short in this regard because she's a good Earth Wall bot and not much else

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

Shouldn't you " ALWAYS PLAY HARD!" With these games, anyway? Use 1 save. Blaze through go to next. Screw that 100% completion billboard ratings.

 

[Rean]

More than anything I hated when the Sky games pushed orbally-impaired characters (Tita, Agate, Zin etc) onto me due to plot reasons, who had to be constantly babysat by the rest of the team since melee is barely viable in these games (I played on Hard though - perhaps on Normal it's not as bad). I hope Zero will avoid that.

It will happen.