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


Zurvanight

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Having nothing else I can actually do, I've been replaying FC lately, and I'm using the Evolution soundtrack mod.

It's hard to find anything but backlash regarding the Evolution arrangements and I myself didn't like it a lot while browsing it at first, but now that I listen to it in-game, I think it's actually way better than the original most of the time. I just played the Madrigal of the White Magnolia part and the soundtrack was breathtaking.

I hope everything continues just as pleasantly surprising.

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The Evolution games got better as they went along, when it came to the rearrangements. Zero for example had some songs that sound really good on their own but just do not fit in context (and a few that make you wonder what they were thinking regardless of context) but they tended to get a lot better about the pieces fitting in over time. From Ao on I definitely have some Evo versions that I vastly prefer to the original arrangements, though I think they didn't quite manage to top some of the most epic songs like The Azure Arbitrator (Ao) and The Merciless Savior (SC) even if they made a game effort at it. Speaking of Evo and arrangements, one thing that consistently amazes me is that Falcom has rearranged Mystic Core from Ao twice now (for the Evo soundtrack and for CS4) and while it was already an awesome song the first time, they managed to top themselves each time they redid it.

Oh, and the PS4 ports just got a teaser of their own:

It's all footage from the original OP but cut differently. Just a little over a month away, assuming nothing happens.

Edited by Weltall
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I do still have some problems with some of the arrangements, for The Azure Arbitrator, the drums and guitar are awesome, but they come at the cost of the organ, which for me was the soul of the song, and then there's Fateful Confrontation, which, is probably better not to talk about...

But as I said, listening to the themes in-game has changed my perspective a lot so who knows, maybe I'll even end up liking that one. And even if I don't, I can always switch soundtracks before certain battles.

Btw, now that you say those things about Mystic Core, I think I won't give it a listen for now. One more thing to look forward to when CS4 finally comes (or when it doesn't and I learn Japanese to play it)

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15 hours ago, Eluvianii said:

I do still have some problems with some of the arrangements, for The Azure Arbitrator, the drums and guitar are awesome, but they come at the cost of the organ, which for me was the soul of the song

Yeah, some arrangements are like that. If you've played the Ys games (can't remember if you've mentioned it?) there's Legend of the Five Great Dragons from Ys VII which has a JDK Band arrangement that's mostly awesome but there's one segment where they added extra buildup and then traded off instruments during the following bit and I thought it hurt some of the intensity the original song had by muting some of the highs and slowing down the pace. That rearrangement wasn't ever meant to be played in-game, mind you.

Edited by Weltall
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7 hours ago, Weltall said:

Yeah, some arrangements are like that. If you've played the Ys games (can't remember if you've mentioned it?) there's Legend of the Five Great Dragons from Ys VII which has a JDK Band arrangement that's mostly awesome but there's one segment where they added extra buildup and then traded off instruments during the following bit and I thought it hurt some of the intensity the original song had by muting some of the highs and slowing down the pace. That rearrangement wasn't ever meant to be played in-game, mind you.

I assume judging by the name that's the final boss theme? I know I've listened to it at some point but I'm avoiding music spoilers as I'm playing it right now (rather slowly but yeah). I'll be sure to check that out when I get to that point though. The thing with Falcom is that they make so many rearrangements of so many songs, not all of them can be perfect. It's kind of impressive they manage to get so much quality out when you think about it that way.

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15 hours ago, Eluvianii said:

I assume judging by the name that's the final boss theme? I know I've listened to it at some point but I'm avoiding music spoilers as I'm playing it right now (rather slowly but yeah). I'll be sure to check that out when I get to that point though

It's more like the Silver Will/Inevitable Struggle of the game, a special boss theme that plays for important fights. But yeah, if you want to avoid musical spoilers you probably want to wait to listen again until you can hear it in context. xD

<gets popcorn ready>

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On 3/20/2020 at 2:29 PM, Weltall said:

Yeah, some arrangements are like that. If you've played the Ys games (can't remember if you've mentioned it?) there's Legend of the Five Great Dragons from Ys VII which has a JDK Band arrangement that's mostly awesome but there's one segment where they added extra buildup and then traded off instruments during the following bit and I thought it hurt some of the intensity the original song had by muting some of the highs and slowing down the pace. That rearrangement wasn't ever meant to be played in-game, mind you.

I assume you mean this one? This is the only arrangement of Legend of the Five Great Dragons by JDK Band I've heard. I like it better than the original though.

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Yeah, that's the version I was thinking of. To each their own on preferences.

There's going to be a Dengeki Live event in about a day and a half including an interview with Kondo so we might get some interesting Hajimari news soon. It's about time for the reveal of the final route, assuming the gap between the Liberator and Hero route reveals is followed.

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1 hour ago, Weltall said:

There's going to be a Dengeki Live event in about a day and a half including an interview with Kondo so we might get some interesting Hajimari news soon. It's about time for the reveal of the final route, assuming the gap between the Liberator and Hero route reveals is followed.

Weren't they all revealed? Or what did I miss?

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Not to the same degrees. We've known the names of the three routes since they revealed the game but over the last month or so they've slowly been giving more details about the specific ones. First we got the Liberator route (formally named The Day of Reindependence) and information on the Crossbell cast, then the Hero route ('Lost Symbol') and the various members of New Class VII with some hints at the members of the original group. Now we're waiting to get a similar infodump on what the Hermit route will focus on and get some details on at least a few of its main characters. While we could guess at the content and main casts of the other two routes, the Hermit route is a big question mark aside from what we can guess from the '3 and 9' novel, and ever since they revealed that the title characters are not based on Enforcers III and IX it's been less useful as a predictive aid, so all we've got there is educated guesses.

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Ok new info! Spoiler tags just in case.

Spoiler

The man in the mask, the Hermit is called 'C'. Yes. Like *that* C. It may or may not be him, but it's implied it's not because he's very different from 'that man'. The doll girl with the heterochromatic eyes is Lapis Rosenburg, like Rosenburg Studio. She is the girl shown on the logo. There is a 'True Dream Corridor' that acts as a hub for the protagonists where you can team up for dungeons. Olivier and Schera seem to be there and Jingo and Cerberos might be playable as well.

 

Edited by Zurvanite
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There have been a lot of teased potential PCs so far and if only half of them turn out to be true I'll still be unbelievably happy. The list so far (some implicit spoilers through CS4)

Spoiler
  • Kirika (probably serving as a lead-in to the Calvard arc)
  • Cassius (no doubt briefly because he'd be like that one penultimate dungeon party of 'three monsters, plus Toval')
  • Thomas (I'm always up for seeing more Dominion in action and his moveset would probably be insane given his demonstrated powers)
  • Bleublanc (think of how fun that would be! Especially if we get to steal stuff with him. :D)
  • Shirley (per my crack theory on Enforcer tarot symbolism and CS4's ending, I really want to see where Falcom goes with her)
  • McBurn (this would be insane, and potentially give us a lot of interesting information to work with for theorycrafting. We know the location he's been seen in is somewhere we can explore as there's a scene with Arios in the same spot. Imagine those two meeting...)
  • KeA (I have no idea how she'd work gameplay-wise, aside from possibly killing enemies with lethal doses of cuteness)
  • Jingo (I imagine she'd be like Tita or Noel, only with even more high-explosives. And I want to see her adorable puppy totally fierce guard dog in action.)

My guess is that our Hermit is not in fact the obvious individual though there is an outside possibility that there's something else at work which we've already seen in footage of the Hero route (CS4 ending spoiler)

Spoiler

If Normal Ending Rean survived in some sense, it's possible that Crow and Millium did as well, with the latter possessing a doll in lieu of having any other body.

For anyone who's played the Crossbell games, Lapis is definitely raising eyebrows and we might possibly get an explanation for what was going on in that one sidequest...

Edited by Weltall
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56 minutes ago, Briar King said:

What is Hajimari?

The next game in the series to come out (later this year). It goes after the 4 Cold Steel games. We surely won't hear about it in the west for a couple years but by then it'll be probably know as Trails of the Beginning.

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4 hours ago, Eluvianii said:

So, I heard something about Hajimari having VR features...?

Yeah, Kondo mentioned it in the Dengeki Live stream. Apparently there will be some scenes that can make use of it (he talked about communicating with characters) and some of the minigames will be PSVR-compatable as well. The only minigame we currently know of is the Magical Alisa one and I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of them since the VR setup would fit really well with a 3d shooter..

1 hour ago, Briar King said:

What is Hajimari?

As mentioned, it's the next game in the franchise. It takes place after Trails of Cold Steel 4 and is set to resolve some unanswered questions from those games, the earlier Crossbell arc and possibly some from the Sky games as well. It's intended to serve as a bridge between the games up until now and the games that will come after, since Cold Steel 4 represents something of a cliimax point in the series.

We know that Falcom has plans for three more story arcs after Hajimari and they're already doing some preliminary work on the first of the three. Presumably Hajimari will be heavily hinting at the direction of the next arc, though by this point we're 99.9% certain it's going to be set in Calvard. :D

Edited by Weltall
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20 minutes ago, Weltall said:

Yeah, Kondo mentioned it in the Dengeki Live stream. Apparently there will be some scenes that can make use of it (he talked about communicating with characters) and some of the minigames will be PSVR-compatable as well. The only minigame we currently know of is the Magical Alisa one and I wouldn't be surprised if that's one of them since the VR setup would fit really well with a 3d shooter..

Oooh, that sound really fun actually. And it's a relief. I learned about this when I saw some people scared that it would be mandatory or at least important to have a VR set.

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Yeah, lots of new info from the update. Some of it's spoileriffic for Cold Steel 4 so I'll tag it. The final route now has a name and it's The Miserable Sinners.

Spoiler

- C's route starts off investigating the situation in Crossbell with the local garrison forces who served under Rufus and are opposing Crossbell's independence in spite of Erebonia's official stance. We know he's going to be in Heimdallr as well. Oh, and the Dengeki interview confirms that C is male, if nothing else.

- C appears to have gotten his hands on some RAMDA orbments in the screenshot but the Dengeki interview says they're actually not the RAMDA so... I dunno.

- The 3 and 9 novel from CS4 is mentioned to have been published anonymously and people suspect that it was intended as a sort of 'wanted poster' for the title characters. Nadia and Swin are still on the run from the mysterious organization that formerly employed them.

- The interview (but not the website update) reveals that the mysterious 'organization' has ties to Ouroboros but it isn't a subordinate group in the same way that the Stahlritter are. The fact that they're described specifically as a new organization (and still active) really kills the theory that it's related to the Moonlight Horse group that Sharon used to work for, since we know that one was thoroughly disbanded.

- Nadia and Swin are employed by C and are implied to have come into possession of a case that contained Lapis prior to the start of the game. A condition of their employment is that C won't ask them to kill anybody.

- Lapis doesn't remember the details of her past and joins C to discover who she is. The interview mentions that for all of Jorg's genius, even his dolls shouldn't possess minds of their own like Lapis does (Mariabell's dolls only act because she's using her alchemical arts, the doll that guides the SSS to Jorg is following an instruction set) so there's something strange at work here. This really sounds like it's gonna tie back to the Rosenberg doll quest from Ao.

- Loading a clear file from CS4 will cause some dialogue changes depending on whose final bonding scene you saw. My guess is they'll eventually make one canon like they're doing with Lloyd and Elie but apparently, not today.

- We're advised to pay attention to Swin's fighting style and Crafts and there's a comment that his weapon is pretty interesting. We already know it's a pair of swords that can combine but it sounds like there's more to the picture. Nadia has a varied arsenal (that teddy bear stores multiple weapons) and may be making use of the Style Change mechanic since the interview mentions 'various battle styles'. Lapis has support abilities (including some form of auto-Analyze) and 'tricky' attacks and they're working on finding the right balance for her. C's gameplay isn't described but his profile mentions using elegant swordplay to dominate the battlefield.

- A couple specific outstanding plot points from Crossbell (aside from the obvious one that's the main focus of the Liberator route) have been mentioned with regard to particular characters. Ilya's recovery and return to the stage and Dieter post-Ao were brought up.

- Estelle and Joshua haven't been seen yet but it's mentioned they'll appear. Early on Estelle was teased as a possible protagonist for the Hero route, but since the Hermit route also teased KeA and the Grandmaster as potential protagonists of the Hermit route, I think we can take those all with a grain of salt. But they'll appear and that means we'll probably see other Sky characters. I really really want to see Erika's reaction to recent events: "You let my precious daughter do what?!" Estelle, Joshua and Agate are so doomed. :D

- It sounds like Combat Links are removed (at least for some characters) because a new system called Valiant Rage is being added which allows all members to attack at once when a gauge fills up. That sounds pretty much like Burst from Cold Steel or the Team Rush turn bonus from Crossbell..

Edited by Weltall
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10 minutes ago, Briar King said:

And these pics y’all posting are from H or CS4?

CS1 better hook me once I finally get to it so I ain’t lost as much on all these post lol. So it has a lot riding on its 1st impression to franchise.

They're from Hajimari, since we're getting increasingly more information as the release date approaches.

I hope it does hook you, it can be slow and anime-tropey at first, but it builds upon that base until events happen too fast for you too process and you realize the characters are not the one-dimensional tropes they seemed to be.

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32 minutes ago, Briar King said:

And these pics y’all posting are from H or CS4?

CS1 better hook me once I finally get to it so I ain’t lost as much on all these post lol. So it has a lot riding on its 1st impression to franchise.

As Eluvianii mentioned it's Hajimari pictures. Mostly of the new characters from one of the routes you can play. 

CS1 hooked me faster than Sky FC did. They throw you into the action pretty fast, but then it slows down considerably, then picks right up again, with the last half being really good. It's like a roller coaster. FC took forever to get good, but the reward was worth it. And yes, there are some pretty cringy eye-rolling anime trope moments, but the humor is actually pretty solid most of the time. 

Edited by Zurvanite
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15 minutes ago, Briar King said:

How is the game, open world or linear? 

Both kinda. You will get sent places in the first game but won't be able to go back after a certain point, but you can explore the city and surrounding areas you are currently at anytime you want. Trista, the main hub town of the game you will be able to explore more often. Second game is more open and you can go back to early areas right up until near the finale. 3rd game repeats the first games formula, and I'm guessing (since I have not played it) 4 repeats 2's formula. 

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