Weltall

Yeah, I just wanted to emphasize that it isn't just a CS thing but a franchise-wide fact of life. My reaction

Technically Trails in the Sky The 3rd cuts down on it, but that's only because of things going on in the game itself which you won't see anywhere else. NPC dialogue makes up a substantial chunk of text and has since the franchise began. This is a very wordy series.

The game had legit issues in certain areas on its original (PS3) release, which was Falcom's first game using the engine you're currently playing and the first made for that console. Just because you're playing the game on a PS4 doesn't guarantee that you won't have any issues. A new console generation is not 'the old generation but better' in terms of physical architecture and programming; they tend to be different enough that a lot of work has to be done to make ports function properly. If you're familiar with Kingdom Hearts at all, I'd point you to the HD port collections which introduced glitches not in the original games and slowdown in some instances despite being on newer hardware, much newer in the case of the PS4 ports that were running PS2/PSP games. Or Final Fantasy Tactics' PSP port which featured godawful slowdown when using most abilities. It had nothing to do with the hardware the game was being run on and everything to do with a mistake made in the porting process that wasn't properly addressed. So yeah, this sort of thing happens.

The self-Awakening that Vasher knows how to perform to alter memories (which we see him teach the priest's daughter and he offers to Denth) presumably has some cost since Vivenna thinks she saw a flicker in the girl's aura when she did it, but one that must be a tiny fraction of a Breath. Regarding the original question, we know that the Breaths held by living beings return to Endowment when the people die so there's presumably a similar mechanism at work for Breath in an Awakened object to return once the object is damaged enough. We see an example of how this would probably work with the Lifeless, since they need to remain in good condition for the Breath to sustain them (otherwise they lose the resemblance to a living thing) and we know their bodies eventually decay past the point the Breath can keep them alive, even with ichor-alcohol helping prolong their existence.

Nope, something's definitely weird with your setup or you're fighting enemies that give so little EXP that the scaling reduces everyone to essentially the same amount. There's no main character perk or endgame perk that would account for that. As for the encounters, there are two possible factors in play that are resulting in what you're seeing. First, enemies have always run away if you're significantly higher-leveled than they are, so if Rean is seriously ahead, his level will override Scent's effect. The other possibility is that Rean has Intimidation equipped, which makes enemies more likely to run from the party and overrides Scent if it's equipped to the lead character.

If you think that now...

It says that about the story, but really there's nothing in the drama cd transcription that will spoil you since it's literally meant to happen right at the point you were at before. Anyhow, check it out afterwards if you prefer but definitely do so before playing CS2. It's actually surprisingly relevant to stuff that happens in that game. Yeah, if you don't have a full set of items there's no real reason to trade her because benefiting from the reward requires it. Colette will trade you for full sets of the Mishy accessories, the straps and the badges you get from fishing, and if you don't have all nine items on your first run there's not much point in trading. On NG+ it's different. It's one of those things where on your first run you either need a guide or you need to be obsessive; I missed it as well my first run so you shouldn't feel bad. It's not something unique you're losing though, just more of something you can get via other means. Also, popcorn intensifies! Oh, and unrelated to that, there was another update to the official website for Hajimari earlier this week. Mostly it's clarifying mechanics that they've previously talked about but there's one new detail the screenshots added, and one thing I hadn't seen before (minor Crossbell spoiler involved, plus Cold Steel 4)

Like I said, that's one example. I could throw more out there with inconsistencies, confusing translations or just plan weird grammar. It does the job insofar as you'll get what's going on (and it's better than the pre-Geofront Zero translation that was floating around) but it's nowhere near as good as the Geofront translation of Zero or the official localizations of the rest of the series.

Oh, missed this earlier. Having seen it and having played the entire series in both languages, I think we're gonna have to agree to disagree here. It's got inconsistencies with the official localizations (and where different, Falcom's own romanizations) for some proper terminology and typos and lines that are translated very literally, which don't flow like natural English and don't do a great job of conveying the intended meaning. But one example of a less-than-great decision, from the end of the Prologue:

I think that if you want to keep as much of the plot as possible, it would be hard to remove the mistaken identity element without also having to rewrite Alean. Her main role is to be a huge thorn in Raeth's side by holding the 'I know that you're not Hern and if you don't pick me, everyone else will know it too' sword of Damocles over his head, thus adding a complication to that side of the plot. While I'd anticipate a rewrite to how that plot thread is ended (see a couple other topics on the question of rewriting the book) I don't think removing it entirely would be the best approach. As it stands the senators really didn't care about the mixup but as long as Raeth thinks there's a threat, it works narratively. Mind you, if there was some sort of plausible secret Alean learned from Hern that she could use as blackmail material unrelated to the mixup, her plot thread could still work while eliminating the mixup angle, I'm just not sure what Hern could possibly know that could reasonably fit that requirement.

That reveal gets even better when you have the full context for it. Oh, since you've finished Chapter 6 it's now safe for you to check out the supplemental story that Falcom released with the original game, containing an episode that was planned but cut for time and turned into a drama cd instead. It covers the event mentioned in the transition between chapters and XSEED translated it in full. Heads-up that it's on the CS2 site so you probably don't want to go browsing to any other pages after finishing it. Returning Home <makes sure my popcorn supply is adequate. For Reasons>

I didn't watch the stream because I had real-world commitments while it was going on but I did record it so I could watch it later. I saw a few other Sharders were there while I was setting things up. So if none of them recorded it, I can share what I've got with the Arcanists.

No official Crossbell localization but there's a very good fan translation for the first of the duology and a... serviceable one for the second. There's also a chance that one of these days they'll get an official port since Falcom just ported both titles to PS4 (one of the reasons given was to put them on a platform that was viable for overseas releases), so maybe in the future that'll change. Ooh, enjoy it! You've got a long but hopefully very rewarding trip ahead of you.

Since I forgot to mention it earlier, welcome to the Shard! On what happens to the Investiture consumed by Nightblood, this WoB suggests that it's not destroyed. The general consensus seems to be that whatever Nightblood eats will eventually get leaked back out as the the black 'smoke' we sometimes see and that will return back to the Shard(s) it came from, but by the time that happens the Investiture has been so changed that what it once was has been effectively 'destroyed' even if the Investiture itself hasn't been annihilated. Kinda like the Cosmere equivalent to Hawking radiation for black holes.

There are some practical limits on how far you can take Forgery. Setting aside some of your specific ideas (which have problems associated with them) Brandon has told us that there's a general limitation on using Forgery with things that would require large amounts of Investiture. So it really doesn't matter how little Investiture a stamp is using relative to the total power of a Shard, if you're trying to use too much of it, you're simply going to break your soulstamp. So for some of your specific ideas, let's start with Awakened weapons. I think it's safe to say that even if you had a sword that could plausibly have been Awakened a la Nightblood and you could use Forgery on it to rewrite its history so it was picked instead (and bear in mind that something else happened with Nightblood so it's not just 'a sword with a thousand Breaths') the amount of Investiture that you'd need to make that kind of Forgery work would be far in excess of the stamp's ability to channel it. We know you can't Soulcast atium and lerasium so it's vanishingly unlikely that you could cheat your way into more by stamping an atium geode, even assuming you could learn enough of the mechanics of how atium was produced to make a stamp with the right 'programming'. Trying to create a Lifeless via soulstamp would require the plausibility that someone made that corpse a Lifeless, which would be really hard unless you had a source of Breath on hand to actually make one properly, in which case why wouldn't you just do that and not worry about a stamp that can fade? And stamps on living people don't last long and a Lifeless is (despite the name) probably 'alive' enough that a stamp can't hold to them forever; we know they're more aware than most people in Hallandren think and Brandon has said that what we'd learn in the Warbreaker sequel about the Returned and Lifeless would help us understand Ashravan's stuation in The Emperor's Soul; he needed to restamp himself daily.

Technically this got started in the Crossbell games, not Cold Steel. And speaking of running, I wish they'd bring back the idea from The 3rd (which probably got it from Final Fantasy V originally) of rewarding you for either running away a lot or for never running; those two quartz were so much fun and I'm sure they could find something equally nice to give us in a future game. Eh, unless you really care about the challenge of it I imagine you'll be able to live with yourself. Though I'd suggest that if you're having trouble in general you should take a careful look at the mechanics and how you can manipulate them, because there's a lot of things you can do with these games that you won't be told about and have to experiment with in terms of Orbment and gear setups, particular Arts/Crafts being really useful in certain circumstances etc. Once you get a feel for the tricks you can play, it'll help a lot with every game in the series.

In Chapter 4 it's unbeatable (it'll time out after a few turns no matter what you do) but the later fight is required. @Briar King If you want a tip that can help a lot with the fights

First off, welcome to the Shard! Second, each Order has an associated eye color, corresponding to the gemstone linked to that Order. Every Radiant we've seen who wasn't a lighteyes to begin with exhibits an eye color change matching their Order's linked gemstone and the ones seen in visions of the past follow the same pattern. It's something that we've known for quite some time.

Assuming this happens (and it's a popular theory I kinda like too) she'd still need to retrieve her original Honorblade to have that combination; Heralds separated from their blades can't Surgebind, aside from Nale. But yes, being able to disguise yourself, use Abrasion to climb or skate and Division to wreck things would make for a terrifying combo. Not quite Elsecaller with Division scary, but still pretty storming scary.

IIRC, Brandon had a comment in the Mistborn Adventure Game's manual about the potential of roleplaying with A-Gold but I don't recall right now and it would be of only semi-relevancy due to the non-canon nature of the game. I know the game rules do allow for an Augur to attempt to see a particular version of themselves but I'd have to pull out my copy to see if Brandon confirmed that's something you could do. The one official WoB I could find (albeit a paraphrase) says that what you see with A-Gold changes depending on your current situation, which doesn't exactly resolve the matter one way or the other.

Brandon has already got this covered. If an Edgedancer can conceive of the Journey as one of the entire species, then Hoid with his grasp of the Big Picture can probably work his way around that part of the First Ideal quite easily so long as he and his spren can agree that his interpretation of the Journey as something far bigger than Roshar is valid. Here's the question this was following up on for added emphasis:

I think that anyone who already has the (s)DNA for Radiant eye colors through heredity won't undergo a change if they become a Radiant themselves (Brandon's 'they were already light' comment) and they'd pass on whatever eye color they were born with to their children. The caveat to this is that we know that eye color genetics are really funky on Roshar and a child can inherit either parent's eye color or get one of each. So based on that, if a 'natural' lighteyes and someone who became a lighteyes through the Nahel Bond had children, there's a chance that those kids could have either Parent A's 'natural' eyes or Parent B's 'Radiant' eyes. The former would be permanent, the latter might not be. Brandon mentions that people like Shallan are the product of a long line of people who had the changes and eventually the alteration stuck, so someone who inherited 'Radiant eyes' from a parent rather than 'natural' light eyes would probably still have sDNA that's malleable enough to undergo a color change if they themselves became a Radiant. Likewise let's say Kaladin and a darkeyes have a child. That kid might inherit Kaladin's Radiant eyes instead of their mother's dark eyes but would probably still be able to change to something else if they became Radiant themselves. For someone who's already a lighteyes and becomes a Radiant, since they already have the sDNA for one eye color, they'd pass on whatever color they were born with, in the same way that their eyes don't change. Whatever part of the spiritweb controls eye color on Roshar has already been altered so the changes that the Nahel Bond would normally impose wouldn't have anywhere to stick, and thus wouldn't be passed on to the next generation.

Apparently this is only mostly true as other places in the Cognitive Realm don't follow that inversion. But that was in the context of a RAFO Plus, so we don't know much more than that.

Enjoy getting to use Angelica, she's a very good party member while you've got her. Fun factoid: her fighting style is one that's been a part of the series since the beginning. If you think Angie's fun and like monk-type characters in RPGs you'll love the series' first Taito practitioner Zin. xD <starts getting popcorn ready for... Reasons>

So Falcom's own upload of the trailer dropped late yesterday and with the higher resolution there's a few more things that could be spotted (or made more obvious). Spoil-tagged again because this involves some CS4 ending stuff (and the ending of the Crossbell games by reference).