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Trails of Cold Steel (and the Kiseki series in general)


Zurvanight

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Not only it's good, it kinda grows on you. The first time I played FC and Sophisticated Fight started playing I was like "Ok, it's good but not a big deal." By the time I started a second run I was like "Am I witnessing one of the best battle themes ever made?"

Furthermore, I think the soundtrack gets better with every arc, while still managing to be unique and stand on its own in every individual game. The people at jdk are geniuses.

Besides, how many game developers do you know with their own rock band and their own idol group?

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12 hours ago, Eluvianii said:

Besides, how many game developers do you know with their own rock band and their own idol group?

I know a few but JDK is best.

 

Also thought I'd mention this since someone did earlier but the most accurate fan translation of Zero no Kiseki, The Geofront is 100% completed. It looks like they just have to run some player tests and debug and it will be hopefully ready in a few months.

https://geofront.esterior.net/2019/09/21/trails-from-zero-100/

 

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8 hours ago, Zurvanite said:

Also thought I'd mention this since someone did earlier but the most accurate fan translation of Zero no Kiseki, The Geofront is 100% completed. It looks like they just have to run some player tests and debug and it will be hopefully ready in a few months.

https://geofront.esterior.net/2019/09/21/trails-from-zero-100/

 

Guess it's time for a second playthrough.

 

 

Edit: On the soundtrack topic, I think the first time a song from these games blew my mind was this:

 

Edited by Eluvianii
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

"We don’t make products that have the same universality of something like One Piece, for example. What we make isn’t going to be accepted by everybody, like something like that. But by the same token, the people that it does resonate with, it resonates with very, very deeply. And those are the kind of people who are with us for the long term."

"The thing about game development right now is that it seems to necessarily require more people than it used to. In the past we could get away with making a game with maybe four or five people, but those days are over. And so now we need more people, but we’re not going to grow the company just to be able to do that because what happens when you do that is rather than making games, suddenly you’re managing people. And I don’t want to manage people. I want to make games."

I'm more convinced every time that Toshihiro Kondo is the kind of example I want to follow.

 

Here's the full interview if anyone's interested

https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/02/toshihiro-kondo-trails-of-cold-steel-3-falcom-interview-who-we-are-are-people-who-love-to-make-video-games-10847026/

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 29/11/2019 at 9:46 PM, Ookla the Silent said:

Is it ok if I revive this thread? I’ve been looking into getting into the Trails series but I don’t know where to start. I’ve heard that there is a continuous story from game to game, and that Trails in the Sky is first?

Yes there is and yes it is.

The series is divided into arcs which consist of several games (so far the shortest being 2 games long and the longest 4), which are set in different contries with different protagonists. At first when starting the second or third arc it might seem there's no relation with the earlier entries aside from the world but as you advance you start seeing recurring characters and in the background the overarching plot that got introduced in the first one.

This has been running for 15 years and apparently there are at least another 3 arcs left so as you can imagine, the scope is huge. Because of this, the first game can feel somewhat slow. In fact, I'm not gonna lie to you, it's the slowest paced game I've ever played. You only see information about the country you are in in that game and only get bits and pieces about anything that isn't directly related to the protagonists, and the story takes about 40 hours to take off, but once you finish that first game, you'll be addicted.

You probably already know about this but Trails in the Sky is 3 games and the first is called Trails in the Sky FC (stands for First Chapter), so you can start from there if you don't mind the gamplay and graphics being a bit old school, the story, characters and world definitely make up for it.

It can be daunting at first but I hope that doesn't stop you, it's a great series.

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@Ookla the Evil Penguin thanks so much for your help!

Honestly the scope sounds pretty exciting. I love when books/movies/games are interconnected (Exhibit A: the Cosmere) so this sounds like something I'd be into. Older graphics and gameplay don't really bother me too much in an rpg if the story makes up for it. From what game footage I've seen I think I'd enjoy it, so I'll probably check it out once I'm finished playing everything else I'm playing at the moment. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Ookla the Silent said:

@Ookla the Evil Penguin thanks so much for your help!

Honestly the scope sounds pretty exciting. I love when books/movies/games are interconnected (Exhibit A: the Cosmere) so this sounds like something I'd be into. Older graphics and gameplay don't really bother me too much in an rpg if the story makes up for it. From what game footage I've seen I think I'd enjoy it, so I'll probably check it out once I'm finished playing everything else I'm playing at the moment. 

 

Always happy to help a new potential fan (seriously, we need more fans. The series is so niche right now we're constantly wondering if the next game will be localized.)

And yeah, the "everything is connected" factor was a huge reason for me to get invested into this series, and it just keeps increasing. As I played through the series (and I'm not even done yet) I remember going from "This is a good RPG but meh." to "Hey, this is actually pretty cool." to "I've found my favorite game." to "Will there ever be a series that surpasses this one?". I may be over exaggerating but it's what it felt like to me. The world is huge, detailed and shrouded in mystery, the music is masterful, the characters start as walking tropes and grow to be practically living people, it's great.

About the gameplay, as I said it's a bit old school but the combat system, though it's kinda simple at first, has a really interesting magic system which is really fun to mess with. You can go the easy route just learning the bare minimum, or you can try to master it and end up with really broken characters, which may sound bad but it's really satisfying because you know it's thanks to your inventiveness.

And, when the time comes remember this. Choose a few NPCs you like and talk to them on every opportunity you have. NPCs are actually the selling point of the series for many people and, well, for something that simple to enchant that many people it has to be good, right?

And I'm already rambling. Sorry, I tend to get a little too excited when it comes to this subject. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it when the time comes.

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27 minutes ago, Ookla the Evil Penguin said:

And I'm already rambling. Sorry, I tend to get a little too excited when it comes to this subject. Anyways, I hope you enjoy it when the time comes.

No it's fine! Hearing someone speak so passionately a game or book they love is probably the easiest way to convince me to try it.

27 minutes ago, Ookla the Evil Penguin said:

the music is masterful

All right, say no more, one day or another, I will play these games. Honestly, you could've just replied with a bunch of links to the ost and I would've been sold. As soon as I read that I started checking out some of the themes posted above and they are glorious

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18 hours ago, Ookla the Silent said:

No it's fine! Hearing someone speak so passionately a game or book they love is probably the easiest way to convince me to try it.

All right, say no more, one day or another, I will play these games. Honestly, you could've just replied with a bunch of links to the ost and I would've been sold. As soon as I read that I started checking out some of the themes posted above and they are glorious

Glad to read it, then the fandom will wait for you. This thread doesn't see much activity but if you have anything to say, here it is.

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On 12/5/2019 at 0:34 AM, Ookla the Silent said:

No it's fine! Hearing someone speak so passionately a game or book they love is probably the easiest way to convince me to try it.

All right, say no more, one day or another, I will play these games. Honestly, you could've just replied with a bunch of links to the ost and I would've been sold. As soon as I read that I started checking out some of the themes posted above and they are glorious

If you like those check out Zanmai. It has my favorite versions of Silver Will and Sophisticated Fight (both from Sky) 

The Super Arrange of 'A Light Illuminating the Depths' is also god-tier

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  • 2 weeks later...

Sorry gotta bump because the newest Legend of Heroes game has been announced. Hajimari no Kiseki, which features 3 protagonists: Rean Schwarzer from Cold Steel, Lloyd Bannings from Zero/Ao, and The Hermit, a new character. You can switch between them at anytime during the game, and there are over 50 playable characters! Here's the article I found:

https://www.rpgsite.net/news/9300-falcom-reveals-the-legend-of-heroes-hajimari-no-kiseki-coming-to-playstation-4-in-japan-in-summer-2020

the-legend-of-heroes-hajimari-no-kiseki_2019-12-18_001.thumb.jpg.29049fa27e1a2aca9f1df49d4a473022.jpg

The Grandmaster is shown in the promo images meaning we will most likely FINALLY get to learn more about the Orpheus Final Plan and Ouroboros goal.

5dfb7f9d7a1db_maxresdefault(21).thumb.jpg.43dcd8b0c1ebd4b7355ec856a9373e88.jpg

The guy who Rean is facing might be Thousand Oathbreaker.

Hajimari-no-Kiseki-Ann_12-18-19_003.jpg.b28f32e56ac5be230df9fea88bc39079.jpg

The Hermit and his partner I guess.

Hajimari-no-Kiseki-Ann_12-18-19_002.jpg.92300b2e9ea7e8fb8e4963f28ec859c6.jpg

Lloyd Bannings and Noel Seeker

Hajimari-no-Kiseki-Ann_12-18-19_005.jpg.cc33f7016b6976ef667e1846adc54797.jpg

Rixia Mao is back as well 

Edited by Zurvanite
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  • 2 weeks later...

Since Hajimari has come up, I'll just drop a little something I did here for people who are interested to check out, it's a translation of the teaser website:

http://www.falcomromancia.com/hajimari-no-kiseki-teaser-site-translation/

As you can probably tell, I'm a huge fan of this series. xD

On 12/18/2019 at 3:14 PM, Zurvanite said:

The Grandmaster is shown in the promo images meaning we will most likely FINALLY get to learn more about the Orpheus Final Plan and Ouroboros goal.

The guy who Rean is facing might be Thousand Oathbreaker.

The Hermit and his partner I guess.

There's a conversation in CS4 that actually gives us some hints about Orpheus and Ouroboros' goal and since Hajimari is only moving us towards the ending, I doubt we'll get anything like the full picture but we might get some juicy hints. (CS4)

Spoiler

The next phase of Orpheus (the Eternal Recurrence Plan) doesn't start until after the events of Hajimari, since the game seemingly takes place between Finale (when Crossbell hasn't been liberated) and the stinger (when it has). But what the Grandmaster says in that stinger is very interesting...

The person Rean's facing is almost certainly Matteus Vander, he hasn't appeared yet but he has artwork (see here) which tells us that Falcom intended him to appear somewhere and which looks spot-on for our mystery figure. As for the 'Hermit', we actually have some reason to think that's the Oathbreaker because we know that characters from CS4's in-universe novel 'Three and Nine' are appearing (they're the pair confronting Rixia) and there was another character from the novel that those two nicknamed 'The Hermit' who went about in a mask. Due to circumstances, there's some suspicion that this character was based on the Thousand Oathbreaker.

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  • 2 weeks later...

So storming excited for that, and also so storming frustrated because:

a) I'm still stuck in Sen I (the pc I have doesn't actually run the game, as it needs 4GB of RAM where I have 2, making loading screens span anywhere from 2 seconds to 20 minutes so, it's a little hard to even want to play, but I'll get there.)

b ) I don't own a PS4 for III, IV, and Hajimari (getting one would actually solve 'a' too, so that's my main objective this year.)

On 18/12/2019 at 4:14 PM, Zurvanite said:

The Grandmaster is shown in the promo images meaning we will most likely FINALLY get to learn more about the Orpheus Final Plan and Ouroboros goal.

Wait, that's the Grandmaster? as in, we have a picture of her? Does that mean we get some info in III and IV or something? Argh!!! Can't wait to get there.

On 30/12/2019 at 5:21 PM, Weltall said:

There's a conversation in CS4 that actually gives us some hints about Orpheus and Ouroboros' goal and since Hajimari is only moving us towards the ending, I doubt we'll get anything like the full picture but we might get some juicy hints. (CS4)

But what has me interested/worried is that they're announcing this as the beginning of the end when a few months ago they said there were three arcs left.

Does that mean they decided that would take too much time and decided to make it shorter or it's just that Orpheus-Plan-Final-Showdown Arc is so storming huge they have to drop big hints three arcs before the end?

Edited by Eluvianii
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2 hours ago, Eluvianii said:

So storming excited for that, and also so storming frustrated because:

a) I'm still stuck in Sen I (the pc I have doesn't actually run the game, as it needs 4GB of RAM where I have 2, making loading screens span anywhere from 2 seconds to 20 minutes so, it's a little hard to even want to play, but I'll get there.)

b ) I don't own a PS4 for III, IV, and Hajimari (getting one would actually solve 'a' too, so that's my main objective this year.)

Ouch! Yeah, I bought the Steam versions of CS1/2 when they came out to support XSEED (having already played the PS3 releases) because all the work they put into it made it a 'I must get this' option but my machine at the time just couldn't handle it. I upgraded to a new machine last year which could, totally worth it. As an added incentive to pick up a PS4, since Falcom is releasing the Crossbell games on the platform and there's a very good chance they'll be picked up for localization, a PS4 will eventually (fingers crossed!) let you play official releases of those too.

Quote

Wait, that's the Grandmaster? as in, we have a picture of her? Does that mean we get some info in III and IV or something? Argh!!! Can't wait to get there.

If you want an answer to that question:

Spoiler

Yes, the stinger after the credits of CS4 showed the Grandmaster discussing the events of the arc. Actually seeing the Grandmaster was a huge shock, since all previous appearances by her in the Celestial Globe (The 3rd and the Tale of Loewe manga) saw her represented as a glowing ball of light rather than as a corporeal entity.

Quote

But what has me interested/worried is that they're announcing this as the beginning of the end when a few months ago they said there were three arcs left.

Does that mean they decided that would take too much time and decided to make it shorter or it's just that Orpheus-Plan-Final-Showdown Arc is so storming huge they have to drop big hints three arcs before the end?

I suspect it's mainly the 'so storming huge' option. :D Actually, my guess is that we'll only get some really juicy hints at the big picture and Ouroboros' ultimate goals to preserve most of the big surprises for those three future arcs, especially since the last two Cold Steel games already gave us some good stuff to think about. The most recent update we got in a Dengeki PS special feature gives us a couple ideas what we might be in for, but it involves material from the ending of CS4.

As for the three arcs and without spoilers for things you haven't seen yet, here are my guesses for what Falcom has in mind:

Spoiler

The next arc is almost certainly Calvard. We've been teased about potential plot threads in the Republic since The 3rd, we think we've got a good guess who our protagonists would be (Gambler Jack II from CS2 emphasizes the point) and elements in the back half of the Cold Steel games only make it more likely that we're going there next and that our protagonist guess is right. The most recent info also teases the possibility of playable Calvardians in Hajimari.

Next I think Falcom is going to take us to... well, everything east of Calvard. We know that Yun Ka-fai has been there and he wrote a letter to Rean discussing that part of the continent. It would also be a natural next step after the Republic which has a heavy eastern influence. Lastly, Falcom released a map of the entire Zemurian continent after CS4 came out, which strongly suggests they have plans for the east as a whole if they bothered to map it out.

And to wrap up the series I think the final arc is going to take us to Leman and Arteria. The former is the headquarters of several major international organizations and the latter is the home of the Septian Church, who've been important since the beginning and who clearly know more about the big picture than most people. As a guess, I'd imagine the first game in the arc establishes the setting and new characters, then the next game serves as the big finale where characters from all the prior arcs come together in an insanely awesome ending.

Oh, speaking of that Dengeki reveal, a couple of fun factoids came out of it. I still need to read the full interview though so there might be other neat stuff there I haven't caught yet:

- At least two new gameplay mechanics have been strongly implied: A new-model tactical orbment which at least some characters will use (actually, one that's been seen in CS3/4 but unavailable to the player previously) and cooperative S-Crafts, like the Combo Crafts from the Crossbell games except moreso. Which would be amazing.

- They dropped hints about some characters who might become playable, any one of whom would be awesome.

- While they didn't give mechanics, a good look at the screenshot for the minigame reveals that they're using more details from the Magical Alisa alternate continuity (as seen in Tokyo Xanadu and some side material) and incorporating it into the main setting. I have no idea how the minigame will integrate into the actual story but the idea of the characters' reaction to their fictionalized counterparts is too good to pass up, so I hope Falcom has some fun with that. For example, I can only imagine Laura's reaction to seeing her 'Princess Knight Laura' persona and wondering who thought it would make sense for her to fight in what looks like a wedding dress. xD

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  • 3 weeks later...

So, Trails of Cold Steel III has just been announced for a Switch port- and since that's my only console, I was wondering whether it is game-ruining if I were to start on that game. 

(honestly partially interested because Joe Zieja, the voice of Claude von Riegan in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is in it, but also heard some really good things about it)

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6 minutes ago, Wyndlerunner said:

So, Trails of Cold Steel III has just been announced for a Switch port- and since that's my only console, I was wondering whether it is game-ruining if I were to start on that game. 

(honestly partially interested because Joe Zieja, the voice of Claude von Riegan in Fire Emblem: Three Houses is in it, but also heard some really good things about it)

I've read about the director saying it is a good starting point but, that might have been to increase sales. It is the second half of an arc after all, with the same protagonist as the 2 previous games, and the 8th game in the series (some people get confused with that).

I can't say for sure since I'm still not that far in the series but, from what I know that's where it starts throwing at you characters from previous arcs and it assumes that you know them and all they did in the past so...

From what you said, I assume you don't have a pc? Or if you do maybe it's just not very potent? If possible and if you're interested enough I would suggest starting with the first Cold Steel (Ideally with Trails in the Sky but playing all games in a series of 9 can be a pretty big commitment.) since none of the games are too demanding in terms of specs but if that's not an option, I'm not really sure what to tell you.

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10 hours ago, Eluvianii said:

I've read about the director saying it is a good starting point but, that might have been to increase sales. It is the second half of an arc after all, with the same protagonist as the 2 previous games, and the 8th game in the series (some people get confused with that).

I can't say for sure since I'm still not that far in the series but, from what I know that's where it starts throwing at you characters from previous arcs and it assumes that you know them and all they did in the past so...

From what you said, I assume you don't have a pc? Or if you do maybe it's just not very potent? If possible and if you're interested enough I would suggest starting with the first Cold Steel (Ideally with Trails in the Sky but playing all games in a series of 9 can be a pretty big commitment.) since none of the games are too demanding in terms of specs but if that's not an option, I'm not really sure what to tell you.

I actually didn't know they were on pc- I might be able to make that work

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2 hours ago, Wyndlerunner said:

I actually didn't know they were on pc- I might be able to make that work

Yeah, the company was centered on pc until a few years ago when they started launching stuff in consoles, but now they want both and there's been a flood of releases of all their games from the past 15 years for pc

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@Wyndlerunner Yeah, if you can play CS1 and 2 on PC first, it's a really really good idea to do so. There have been a couple streamers I've watched who started with 3 and enjoyed it but they got the definite impression that they were missing out on a lot of context. Since CS3 is a continuation of the first two games, the bulk of the core cast (ie, everyone but Juna, Kurt, Ash and Musse) are people who have already had two games worth of development and pretty much all of the key plot points from those games are treated as something the player should already know. This is especially true concerning the protagonist, who has a couple of really important things happen to him over the first two games which are better experienced firsthand than having them all thrown at you in a whirl. If nothing else, it'll make you much more invested in the worldbuilding and the characters.

There are also five games that are part of the same franchise from before the Cold Steel games, but those aren't required to play CS. From the perspective of someone who's played the whole series and knows what the references are, CS1/2's callbacks are interesting and help place some things in context but they work fine in retrospect, so if you get into the games with Cold Steel and go back to the older games later, you'll be in good shape. CS3 has deeper ties to past arcs but does a good job of explaining all the stuff from those older games that's immediately relevant to its own story (thanks to a couple of characters who help fill in the blanks) so the references you won't catch aren't plot-critical and still work fine in retrospect. The fourth and final Cold Steel game now... well, that one's not even announced for localization so it's a non-issue for the time being.

Good luck trying out the series and I hope you enjoy it! I'll never tire of telling people who like Brandon's writing to give it a go and vice versa. If you've got any questions, feel free to ask away. xD

@Eluvianii Yeah, Falcom spent a lot of time as a PC developer until the unexpectedly poor performance of Zwei II caused their distributor to drop them, then they shifted to Sony consoles which are the only platforms they develop for directly. It's a shame because the game was amazing and didn't deserve that reception (not to mention it killed what could have been another full franchise) but them's the breaks. Falcom also licensed their games out to other companies, which is why you can find their oldest titles on pretty much everything that could run games in Japan in the 80's and 90's, then a slightly reduced list of platforms from the turn of the century onward.

EDIT: We've just gotten release dates on the PS4 ports of the Crossbell games and with them, confirmation of a very cool little tweak to the games: They're including relevant characters from the later Cold Steel games as cameos. This means Gideon from CS1 (who was already there, they've just given him unique art so we know it's him) and Juna from CS3/4 (who 'would' have been there but we didn't see her). There's a good chance for some more cameos as well but none confirmed yet. Fingers crossed that they're picked up for localization so more people can experience how great they are; I still consider them among the best in the series.

Edited by Weltall
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  • 4 weeks later...
On 21/2/2020 at 7:18 PM, Briar King said:

Big in Japan sale started today through 3/5 and 1-3 are on list. Will probably get atleast 1.

 

Would be a longgggg time before I got round to starting.

Hey, as long as you try it, any time is perfect.

Just bear in mind though, that 1-3 are just a small part of something way bigger ;)

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