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

[Lyre Mors]

I took my time and finished SC in 149 hours in hard difficulty...I didn't like the final boss fight though, enjoyed Lowe's a lot more (it's probably the hardest in the game apart from the one in prologue lol) and I even made a video for the fight. Don't regret spending so much time on it and I do hope trails of cold steel comes to pc someday.

Video has spoilers (obvously). The fight probably would've been easier if I used Kevin and his S-Craft but I find him annoying and never used him unless I had to for story reasons.

How did you find the difficulty in SC? And did you play the first one on hard as well? If so how did that difficulty treat you? I've been wanting to start this series, but everyone says it's way too easy and that Hard mode is just HP bloat and no real added challenge beyond that.

 

[Nomad_Blizz]

I finished the first one on nightmare and the 2nd one on hard. Apart from the boss fight in prologue, SC isn't really that difficult. However, it's definitely harder than FC. What happens at higher difficulties, is that the enemy does more damage while you do less. The AI doesn't improve as far as I know. Really, if you are looking for a game for good combat, this isn't the series to play. The combat gets the job done, nothing more.

You should play it for the story, the world building, and the characters- all of whom are very likeable. Sometimes the best parts of the game isn't even the main story but the little character interactions on your journey. Every NPC has something interesting to say and did I mention that there is a book in the first game that teaches you cat dialect? Play the game, explore every corner, talk to everyone, do every little side quest, and I can guarantee you'll have one of the best gaming experiences of your life.

 

[Arkeus]

woohooo

 

[Somberlain]

 

[Lhynn]

Any of you assholes can confirm this?

 

[4249]

Way better music than most games - Yes
A lot of games set in the same world around the same time frame - Yes
Most if not all NPC's in the game world are named, have their own backstories and have something to say which change/progress based on your progress in the main quest - Yes

 

[Arkeus]

Any of you assholes can confirm this?

Yes.

One thing we pretty much all agree on is gushing on how freaking great the random passerbyes in the streets in the series are done.

 

[Somberlain]

Just got home and saw Trails of Cold Steel 2 in my mailbox.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Just got home and saw Trails of Cold Steel 2 in my mailbox.

Mine won't come until November...



Which is fine, because I still need to finish TOCS 1. If only it had come out on the PC I'd have finished it already!

 

[Deflowerer]

So what's the best game to start with and get into series plot wise?

 

[an Administrator]

Start from the beginning.

 

[Deflowerer]

Start from the beginning.

What is the beginning? Besides, weren't there bunch of abortions translation wise on PSP that are not really worth playing?

 

[Valestein]

Start from the beginning.

What is the beginning? Besides, weren't there bunch of abortions translation wise on PSP that are not really worth playing?

Trails in the Sky FC, and those PSP games aren't related to the trails (sub)series plot-wise(despite being "Legend of Heroes" games).

 

[Somberlain]

Only games that have been translated into English are Trails in the Sky 1 & 2 and Trails of Cold Steel 1 & 2. Both are self-contained series so you can start with either one, but if you plan on playing them all, play TiTS games first and then ToCS. All have excellent translations so you are probably confusing these games with something else.

 

[Valestein]

Only games that have been translated into English are Trails in the Sky 1 & 2 and Trails of Cold Steel 1 & 2. Both are self-contained series so you can start with either one, but if you plan on playing them all, play TiTS games first and then ToCS. All have excellent translations so you are probably confusing these games with something else.

Here's referring to the previous LOH games before Trails: The Gagharv Trilogy. Bandai Namco translated these to english but apparently didn't do that great of a job.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

As others have said, the old Legends of Heroes games have nothing to do with the latest games in the series, which exist in a shared universe.

Start with Trails in the Sky: First Chapter, then Second Chapter. You can get both on Steam. Don't play Trails of Cold Steel first as it has spoilers on what happens in Trails in the Sky. Trails in the Sky comes first chronologically.

There are games released between TitS and ToCS which haven't been released in English yet, but those take place at the same time as ToCS so you won't get spoiled on anything.

 

[Somberlain]

All right. I took a week off of work, did the whole week's school related stuff in advance, finished my NG+ playthrough of ToCS1 and now Trails of Cold Steel 2 is installing on my PS3 hard drive.

My body is ready.

 

[4249]

Wait. What. ToCS is for the PS3 as well? I thought it was a Vita/PSP/whatever exclusive. If I've understood correctly, Falcom isn't going to port the Cold Steel games to the PC in any foreseeable future, right? Shiiieeet, haven't bought games for my PS3 in a long time but seems it might be time to do so again.

 

[Somberlain]

Cold Steel games are for both PS3 and Vita, with cross-save functionality.

 

[Somberlain]

What a week. I spent almost the whole time on ToCS2 and just saw the end credits. Total playtime 68 hours, so it's a bit longer than the first one. I'm going to be suffering from withdrawals

Overall, it was an awesome experience with a lot of small game play improvements, new playable characters and all kinds of other new features. As a sequel it was very similar to TiTS SC and also includes quite a few references and parallels to it. I loved 99% of my time with the game but I'm not really sure how I feel about the finale. It had some really unexpected, weird and unsettling twists and also left plenty of stuff ambiguous and unexplained. In fact, it reminded me a lot of MGS2. While some of it felt totally intentional, I feel like the game completely forgot to provide closure to some quite important characters and events. It's like the game just skips the immediate aftermath of the Final Operation and jumps straight to the epilogue few months later. It was also pretty surprising that the ending is actually as much sad as it's happy.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is the best game I've played this year. I don't understand how Falcom does it over and over again, Trails games are pretty much the only games I can think of that manage to lure my inner storyfag out. Clearly I have to remain ever vigilant, for heresy grows from idleness.

And the soundtrack is as awesome as always:

Spoiler

 

[tet666]

Wait. What. ToCS is for the PS3 as well? I thought it was a Vita/PSP/whatever exclusive. If I've understood correctly, Falcom isn't going to port the Cold Steel games to the PC in any foreseeable future, right? Shiiieeet, haven't bought games for my PS3 in a long time but seems it might be time to do so again.

Pretty much everything Falcom does these days is planned for PC/PS4 i think it's very likely we will see pc ports at some point.

 

[4249]

Wait. What. ToCS is for the PS3 as well? I thought it was a Vita/PSP/whatever exclusive. If I've understood correctly, Falcom isn't going to port the Cold Steel games to the PC in any foreseeable future, right? Shiiieeet, haven't bought games for my PS3 in a long time but seems it might be time to do so again.

Pretty much everything Falcom does these days is planned for PC/PS4 i think it's very likely we will see pc ports at some point.

Huh, I thought they had pretty much abandoned the PC as a platform and moved to Vita and PS3/4 exclusives.

The list of their releases in Wikipedia looks pretty grim on that front as well. Not sure how accurate it is though.

 

[an Administrator]

Yeah we won't see any of their titles on PC any time soon.

 

[tet666]

Wait. What. ToCS is for the PS3 as well? I thought it was a Vita/PSP/whatever exclusive. If I've understood correctly, Falcom isn't going to port the Cold Steel games to the PC in any foreseeable future, right? Shiiieeet, haven't bought games for my PS3 in a long time but seems it might be time to do so again.

Pretty much everything Falcom does these days is planned for PC/PS4 i think it's very likely we will see pc ports at some point.

Huh, I thought they had pretty much abandoned the PC as a platform and moved to Vita and PS3/4 exclusives.

The list of their releases in Wikipedia looks pretty grim on that front as well. Not sure how accurate it is though.

That was way before the steam boom and vita and ps3 are dead in the west:
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-09-09-no-fan-left-behind

"We were probably one of the first publishers focusing on Japanese games to start publishing regularly on Steam, but now pretty much every single Japanese publisher is onboard, and it's fantastic for gamers because they are no longer limited by the console or country they're living in to be able to play the game they want," Berry said.

Bandai Namco, NIS America, Spike Chunsoft, Aksys Games, Idea Factory, and other companies specializing in JRPGs and other traditionally console-bound offerings have been bringing more and more niche content to Western audiences on Steam. Berry said that most of the titles XSEED winds up publishing are being developed now with a PC release in mind, even if they aren't (yet) planned for simultaneous launches with their console counterparts.

Falcom also started working with Aksys Games who will port Tokyo Xanadu to pc releasing next year.

 

[tet666]

inb4 the inevitable comparison of Tokyo Xanadu PC and Ex+. Aksys will then know what xseed feels like.

Well it comes out next year so who knows they might port the updated stuff over as well i don't see why not.