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


Zurvanight

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So, apparently the Kai version of Zero is patcheable, and I think that's the one that's coming to Steam, so I checked it because I would kind of want to play that one, but it seems it will need 25gb of space and 8gb of RAM at minimum. 

H-how?

*sigh* I guess this version is a no for me at the moment. I'll look into buying the normal one. 

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I'm going to guess the answer ends up being 'it's not a particularly optimized port'. If you're looking at it because it's on Steam, there's not too much benefit to playing it versus the Geofront-patched release (which looks better, also has the option to turn on the full plot voicework, and has all sorts of extras) while Azure Kai at the very least has Towa and the Crawfords added in as a selling point the Geofront patch isn't able to do anything about. Though everything else about Zero Kai would apply to Azure Kai too.

Edited by Weltall
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Well, if that's the case it doesn't sound bad. Seeing the CS references would definitely be nice, but that can wait. I played that arc with the previous translation for the psp versions on my overheating phone. Just playing the pc version should already feel like a different game.

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New famitsu scans for Kuro no Kiseki (Trails to Black). Introduces the 5th and 6th party members. Pet class with robot dog looks cool. The maid outfit isn't very good. Also a better look at what the Xipha orbment looks like.

 

Katoru Salicion

15 years old, researcher. Looks like a girl but is actually a boy. Loves LaToya Haimlton like a grandmother (Hamilton is one of the three disciples of Professor Epstein, so this guy is probably in on the Verne Company). His robot dog looks like Cassian's (not sure who this is).

 

Rizet Twining

Age 20. Conservator for Inspector Merdic's company, cool beauty in maid's outfit. Superhumanly strong. Has a pistol and blade.

 

That's 6 out of 8 party members revealed. All that's left is the 22 year old character and the 69 year old one.

 

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Edited by Val the Moofia Boss
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Ch 3 is my least favorite. I’m not burning out with my lack of updates I’m just making progress like a rusting snail and several days I’ve only played for a min or so before turning off to watch more STARZ or Netflix.

I just got Minotauros MQ and it looks very interesting! I just gotta figure out who I’m a put it on.

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On 5/12/2021 at 1:18 PM, Eluvianii said:

On that topic, one of the screenshots seems to suggest that the element counter for orbments is back. I really hope that's the case. 

They are, but it works differently. Since nobody has provided the details from the big update yet, I might as well do so.

- Risette Twinings works as a concierge for the Marduk Total Security Company, a PMC based in Ored (rather than Calvard) which is involved with the development of the XIPHA. Her job is to help clients test technology that the company provides. Basically, they're sort of like if the Epstein Foundation and a jaeger group had a baby. Risette is described as mainly businesslike but she has a playful sense of humor that occasionally peeks through. She's said to be extremely strong and fast, exceeding the abilities of top-class jaegers. She's using Van as an (unpaid) outside tester for the XIPHA and his Stun Calibur was also made by MTSC, Risette checks in with him on occasion to get reports. She fights with a pistol and a 'Blade Gear'.

- Quatre Salision is a student at the University of Sciences in Basel, pursuing a master-level course despite his age. He has feminine features, doesn't like it when people mistake him for a girl and generally has an air of aloofness. His specialty is the research and development of advanced drones which can interface with the XIPHA and he works as an assistant in the physical sciences and bionics laboratory. Due to circumstances when he was young, he was taken in by Latoya Hamilton, sees her as a grandmother and chose to become a researcher to follow in her footsteps..He fights with a 'Pulse Gun' and a pair of orbal drones named FIO and XEROS.

- While Hajimari already revealed (by implication) that Epstein's final disciple 'L. Hamilton' was female we now have that definitely confirmed and have a name to go with the initial.

- Basel is known as the 'Engineering City' and is located in southwest Calvard. Similarly to its Liberlian equivalent of Zeiss, there was a pre-Orbal Revolution artisans guild and a university which both became the seed that the Republic's own revolution sprouted from. This guild and the University jointly founded the Verne Industrial Company with Hamilton acting in an advisory capacity. The University is noted to have an astronomical observatory and Quatre seems to have an attachment to the place.

- Langport is a city on Calvard's southern coast with a heavy Eastern influence and which prospers through trade. The western and eastern halves of the city are very different from each other as a result of this and the city is said to have a red glow at night from its distinctive lighting. Aaron lives in the Eastern Quarter.

- XIPHA is like the ARCUS before it an acronym, standing for eXternal Interface (for) Post Human Activation. No, we don't know what that means. It's a 6th-generation orbment, as compared to the ARCUS and RAMDA models which were 5th-gen. It makes use of something called Shards (no, not that kind) which can be dispersed into the space around the user for various effects. They're also described as 'ether fragments'. As with the last few generations, it doubles as a flip-open communication device and it has a slider that opens up to access the internals.

- As a combat orbment, the XIPHA consists of three main parts: The Hollow Core that controls basic functions, the Arts Driver which determines which spells you can use and the Quartz slots which are arrayed into four Lines. Basically it seems like the Master Quartz of previous games have had their functions split between the Hollow Core (status boosting/special effects) and the Arts Driver (available magic) instead of having both functions integrated.

- We've seen two Cores so far which affect your ATS and EP and have different abilities upon activating S-Boost. Aim has an A ranking for ATS and a B ranking for EP, increases the effectiveness of healing Arts and Crafts and its S-Boost power is Remedy Breath which increases healing even further and raises Arts damage and range. Mare has a B ranking for ATS and an A for EP,, does not have any listed special effects and its S-Boost power is Multiple Works which raises all the user's stats. Mare is noted to be provided by the Marduk Company and is only usable by Van.

Hollow Cores also have an onboard AI which help the user (ie the player) know the optimal times to switch between Action and Command Battle. Hollow Cores gain experience like Master Quartz and can level up.

- We've seen one Arts Driver named Nebulous, which is noted to grant 'mid-level Fire and Time Arts'. Arts granted are unlocked progressively based on the level of the Hollow Core. Arts Drivers also come with Custom Slots that can be equipped with whatever Arts the player wants; presumably they have to be acquired in some way first.

Known Arts include the return of Chrono Drive/Break, Shadow Spear from the Sky games and some new offensive Arts named Abyss Flame (B rating, fan targeting) and Obsidia(n) Ray (B+ rating, line targeting). One of the Custom Slots is seen with an Earth-based offensive Art called Stone Crack (D rating, fan targeting) along with the single-targeting Tear.

- Quartz can be set on four different Lines, each of which affects different parameters. These are Weapon, Shield, Drive and Extra. Quartz don't grant Arts but they do have elemental points similar to the Sky/Crossbell games. The points in each Line get added up to unlock Shard Skills.

We've seen examples of several Shard Skills so far; the Weapon Line grants skills that alter attacks (Earth/Flare Impact add additional elemental damage to your attacks with a 40% chance of triggering, Shield Breaker has a 20% chance to trigger and break an enemy's guard), the Shield Line grants defensive abilities (Flare Resist has a 50% chance to activate a shield that prevents the Burning ailment, Rise Guard has a 50% chance to activate a CP-restoring field while blocking), the Drive Line's skills affect Arts (Chrono Boost has a 50% chance to trigger and increase the casting speed of Time Arts) and we don't have any examples of the Extra Line's skills yet but we're told they can activate outside of combat.

We've seen some Quartz, enough to know that they function pretty much the same as before aside from being divorced from the direct granting of Arts. The Slots they're equipped to need to be unlocked as in previous games. EP has gone from Mirage to Earth of all elements, Strike is now Wind-based and Fortune/Luck has gone back to Time after being Space for the duration of Cold Steel. We also see a few new names in the screenshots but we have no idea what they do yet.

The following stuff is spoil-tagged because it involves Hajimari material and speculation involving other games as well.

Spoiler

- Risette's employer is the mysterious 'MTSC' that appeared in the postgame Episode 'Beyond the Beginning', who Ouroboros appears to consider worthy of mentioning in the same breath as Epstein and the Church when it comes to major players who can interfere with their plans. I suppose this nixes any theory that they and the 'Garden' are the same group.

- Quatre is almost certainly the same individual who appeared as one of Renne's personas in Star Door 15 from The 3rd. He's the right age, his situation sounds very similar to hers and Tio's with regard to an affinity for man-machine interfaces and his description all but screams 'Hamilton took him in after he was rescued from DG'.

 

Edited by Weltall
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1 hour ago, Weltall said:

The following stuff is spoil-tagged because it involves Hajimari material and speculation involving other games as well.

  Reveal hidden contents

- Risette's employer is the mysterious 'MTSC' that appeared in the postgame Episode 'Beyond the Beginning', who Ouroboros appears to consider worthy of mentioning in the same breath as Epstein and the Church when it comes to major players who can interfere with their plans. I suppose this nixes any theory that they and the 'Garden' are the same group.

- Quatre is almost certainly the same individual who appeared as one of Renne's personas in Star Door 15 from The 3rd. He's the right age, his situation sounds very similar to hers and Tio's with regard to an affinity for man-machine interfaces and his description all but screams 'Hamilton took him in after he was rescued from DG'.

 

Spoiler

Quatre being another person from Paradise/Gnosis lodges (Zero made Renne's backstory unnecessarily convoluted) would make the world feel even smaller. It's already rather annoying that they tried shoehorning one of the other Stahlritter girls into it, so we have... Renne, Tio, other Stahlritter girl, and Quatre who are all connected to each other and come from the same origin event. Uh huh.

I'd rather Quatre just be a completely different unrelated character, like how there are multiple characters named Kurt or Tio, but the time frame lines up and this is congruent with the original Cassius backstory (according to Sky, Cassius was awarded S-rank for resolving a crisis in Calvard. Zero retcons this to be an international operation that included taking out lodges in Crossbell), and the time frame lines up, so it's probably him. Is also somewhat of a retcon of 3rd since the door implied that all of the other kids there were long since dead and that Renne was the only kid who survived (otherwise Loewe would've taken them with him too).

 

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That sounds like the most customizable system so far to be honest. Probably the most fun too. Also, the idea that having two combat systems is not due to different player preferences, but that you're meant to strategically change between both makes it all feel a lot more interesting. 

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38 minutes ago, Val the Moofia Boss said:
  Reveal hidden contents

Quatre being another person from Paradise/Gnosis lodges (Zero made Renne's backstory unnecessarily convoluted) would make the world feel even smaller. It's already rather annoying that they tried shoehorning one of the other Stahlritter girls into it, so we have... Renne, Tio, other Stahlritter girl, and Quatre who are all connected to each other and come from the same origin event. Uh huh.

I'd rather Quatre just be a completely different unrelated character, like how there are multiple characters named Kurt or Tio, but the time frame lines up and this is congruent with the original Cassius backstory (according to Sky, Cassius was awarded S-rank for resolving a crisis in Calvard. Zero retcons this to be an international operation that included taking out lodges in Crossbell), and the time frame lines up, so it's probably him. Is also somewhat of a retcon of 3rd since the door implied that all of the other kids there were long since dead and that Renne was the only kid who survived (otherwise Loewe would've taken them with him too).

 

That's not really a contradiction though: (SC/Zero)

Spoiler

Renne says very clearly in SC that most of the other children died, not all of them. That leaves room for Quatre to have been taken away before Ouroboros attacked the Lodge for whatever reason, while not contradicting the fact that Renne was the only survivor that Loewe and Joshua found. Meanwhile the combination of what we've been told by Kondo vis a vis Ouroboros in Kuro and the lingering question about why Ouroboros attacked Paradise at all (which Zero and Azure both raise but do not definitively answer) makes the Calvard arc a good place to resolve that matter.

As for why it makes the world seem small, consider what the Cult was doing. They kidnapped  a lot of children for their experiments and the survivors are all, by definition, exceptional individuals. They're going to be prominent in some way due to what they went through.

 

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I agree with Weltall. 

Spoiler

It would be silly if Renne and Tio were the only survivors. Quite frankly I wouldn't be shocked if we get no less than three survivors in Calvard. The cult had a LOT of lodges, so there has to be at least one survivor in every one, otherwise those lodges wouldn't be active, and since they're based in Calvard it stands to reason that the most survivors will be in Calvard

 

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CS3 ch 3 stuff

made some progress today and finished Bryonia Island.

There are starting to be to many hints that someone I now like very much as Rean’s future baby mama is playing two roles and I really don’t want this to be so. Shhh I ll find out myself next year when I finally finish the game.

have 155 hrs clocked so far. That’s because of rusting fishing... had 172 hrs on 1&2..


 

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Really taking my time to stop and smell the roses in Trails to Azure.  Still in Chapter 1.  It's been fun going around Crossbell and "catching up" with all the NPCs from Trails to Zero.

 

Here's some screenshots I took tonight:

 

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I really dig this art style. I'm going to miss it when I get to the Cold Steel arc.

Edited by NattyBo
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Yeah, Crossbell's designs are easily my favorite. Even Joshua's, which seems to be fairly unpopular. Though, Kuro's art style seems to be even better, which is logical, considering it's the same artist, but with 10 more years of experience.

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WELL THEN, I'm feeling especially vindicated this morning. We just got another round of Kuro no Kiseki info with two new character reveals:

Quote

- Judith Ranster is an up and coming actress with a straightforward personality and a strong sense of justice. She's hinted to have a secret 'underground' job as well, which sometimes gets her into trouble. She fights with a 'Stella Bute' whip.

- Bergard Zeman is a major martial artist from Calvard, has disciples throughout the Republic and a benefactor to Van. He was rumored to have died in an incident in Erebonia but is alive. He fights with gauntleted fists and is the master of Kunlun Liu (Style).

- We get some Craft screenshots for all the characters. I'm waiting until we get clean scans to try working out specific effects. Van's is the already seen Coin Bullet, Agnes' is Glow Hammer, Feri's is Rapid Burst, Aaron's is 'Eagle Claw Kick' (in kanji), Risette's is Sonic Chaser, Quatre's is Laplace Code (some form of shielding effect), Judith's is Criminal Bute (ie Whip) and Bergard's is Howling Boost.

- All the playable characters but Bergard have VA's revealed now:

Van: Ono Daisuke
Agnes: Itou Miku
Feri: Ogura Yui
Aaron: Uchida Yuma
Risette: Ishikawa Yui
Quatre: Tamura Mutsumi
Judith: Hikasa Youko

- There are also some location shots and margin notes. The Entertainment City of Tharbad is located in an oasis region in southeast Calvard and is presumably the same place we've seen in a few previous shots. It's expanded greatly in recent years and the contrast between the old and new cities is stark.

Orbal cinema is apparently almost thirty years old as of 1208 but its popularity has only recently eclipsed that of more traditional theatre.

Now, there are some major doozies in this batch of reveals, involving spoilers for the back half of Cold Steel:

Spoiler

- There is about a 99.99% chance that Judith is the basis for the character of Nike from Gambler Jack II, making her a member of the Rocksmith Agency/CID and the actress that Swin mentions in Hajimari.

- Yeah, Falcom isn't even pretending that Bergard's identity is a secret. Mentor figure to a major character, looks like a previously-seen mentor, allusions to a supposed death and he has a 'Howling Boost' Craft which has a lion motif. He's Barkhorn, which means we have a playable Dominion from the go, albeit an undercover one.

Oh, and since I missed seeing this a couple weeks back:

On 5/12/2021 at 10:06 AM, Val the Moofia Boss said:

His robot dog looks like Cassian's (not sure who this is).

This was a comment by the person who first talked about the reveals, it's not something from the article itself. Specifically it means they think that one of Quatre's drones resembles Friender from the Casshern franchise.

EDIT: Corrected a few errors/omissions thanks to clearer scans

Edited by Weltall
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3 hours ago, Weltall said:

Now, there are some major doozies in this batch of reveals, involving spoilers for the back half of Cold Steel:

  Hide contents

- Yeah, Falcom isn't even pretending that Bergard's identity is a secret. Mentor figure to a major character, looks like a previously-seen mentor, allusions to a supposed death and he has a 'Howling Boost' Craft which has a lion motif. He's Barkhorn, which means we have a playable Dominion from the go, albeit an undercover one.

 

Spoiler

8rIrO2I.png

Barkhorn must've become a hard drinker because he went from being fit and form like the above to being fat

TBabyKM.jpg

 

 

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I suppose I'll need to get more popcorn ready then...

Oh, and since we have clean Japanese versions of the new info, there's some new Kuro tidbits, again I'll tag the stuff that contains spoilers for previous games (mainly the back half of Cold Steel)

- Judith's 'sense of justice' gets clarification as she hates seeing people pick on the disadvantaged and will step in if she sees it happening, she's consummately professional while on-camera and the trouble her 'other' work gets her into is related to something lacking in her nature.

- Bergard is noted to be proficient in many styles of martial arts, with Kunlun being the most significant of them and it's noted to be a specifically Eastern style, so it's not one of Calvard's three signature schools (Taito, Eight Leaves and Aaron's Gekka/Moonflower), which also tells us there's two more famous styles out there in parts further east. He taught Van how to fight 'properly' and didn't object to his becoming a Spriggan.

- The Craft descriptions provide some more details and I'm tagging this just for length:

Spoiler

- Coin Bullet is fan-targeting, inflicts STR Down and has low Delay.

- Glow Hammer restores EP in proportion to damage dealt.

- Rapid Burst is a wide fan-targeting attack and also inflicts STR Down

- Falcon Claw Kick is single-targeting but does heavy damage.

- Sonic Chaser is also a high-damage single-targeting attack which also grants Risette SPD Up.

- Laplace Code grants STR Up to Quatre and provides a still-unspecified shield effect.

- Criminal Bute is centered on Judith and draws enemies towards her before striking in a wide sweep. It's described as doing moderate damage.

- Howling Boost damages enemies (targeting unspecified), raises Bergard's stats (which ones unspecified), Impedes and cancels enemy stat-ups, though not all buffs as it seemed before.

And now, the spoilery bit:

Spoiler

The full description continues to make it blatantly obvious that Bergard is Barkhorn, since it states very clearly that 'Bergard Zeman' isn't his real name and that he previously worked in a certain capacity around Zemuria.

 

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Getting very little game time at present due to some funky thing we can’t figure out when I’m on the PS5 and my son gets on PS4 we suspend each other so I just let him play. We didn’t have this issue with PS3/4 duo play.

This may turn into a long summer if this can’t be fixed.

I was able to start ch 3 day 3 in the 20 whole minutes I’ve been able to play at the start of my 4PM session today.

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