Val the Moofia Boss

For regular battle themes: CS1 > CS4 (great but a little too short) >>> CS3 (great first 10 seconds, rest of the song is meh and too short) > CS2 > FC = SC >>> 3rd > Zero >>> Ao.

Yes. I played the first few hours on normal and thought it was too easy, so I restarted on hard. Only had trouble with the last bosses of chapters 5, 6, and the last boss.

I remember being rather irritated when I first beat CS1 because the last fight was RNG based. It doesn't matter if you hit the right body part every single turn; if RNG is in the boss' favor and they crit/link attack too often you will lose. Took me about half an hour before the RNG let me win. Fortunately that is the only time that happens and fights in the sequels are better designed.

Most of Sky's and Crossbell's soundtracks are meh, with a few notable tracks. Tokyo Xanadu and the CS1+2 soundtrack is great. A lot of CS3's tracks are great too. I'm not a Singa hater. I think he is underrated. His ability is misused, though, and it's clear that whoever orders the composers to make tracks and determines how they are used in the game dropped the ball during CS4 and Hajimari. A lot of tracks are inappropriately used, and there are tracks that simply shouldn't have been ordered to be that way in the first place.

Ao spoils way too much of the Eastern Erebonia arc. I would never advise playing Ao before CS1+2.

Historically it takes 2 years for a Trails game to come to the West after release in Japan. Cold Steel 1: Japan September 2013, NA December 2015 localized by XSEED Cold Steel 2: Japan September 2014, NA September 2016 localized by XSEED Cold Steel 3: Japan September 2017, NA October 2019 localized by NISA Cold Steel 4: Japan September 2018, NA October 2020 localized by NISA Hajimari came out in September 2020 so it probably won't come here until Fall 2022. Kuro won't be here until 2023.

You want to have a character set aside for casting support buffs, like casting Crescent Mirror to reflect arts back at the big floating Archaisims, and casting Adamantine Shield to negate damage from the mines. Also, reminder you can double stack buffs, like casting Chrono Drive on your party twice to get their speed up to 50% speed increase (as opposed to just 25% speed increase from one stack), and double cast Motivate to increase attack power by 50% and give some CP to the rest of the crew. 50% defense up will help you survive the S-crafts. Having the support character use the Angel master quartz is real nice because it means if they do get one shotted by the boss' S-craft, they can just pop right back up and you don't need to waste turns rezzing and healing them.

more kuro stuff

This is very worrying to me. This series is in dire need of an editor. Or better writers who don't pad out every scene to being 10x as long as it needs to be.

The only real difference between Katsumi's art for Zero and the art for Kuro is that Katsumi's Kuro art seems to have more more than 2 layers of shading, plus also rim lighting. The Kuro art "pops" more, whereas the Zero art is more flat and dull.

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.

CS3 is bizzare in that it less of a continuation of CS1+2 and more of a soft reboot that does its own thing. Most of the plot threads in CS1+2 are dropped. The only characters/subplots from CS1+2 who are relevant in CS3 are the Ironbloods and a couple other characters. Old Class VII are pretty much just like Zin from Trails in the Sky FC: they went on prior adventures with a character (Zin adventuring with Cassius in Calvard, in this case old Class VII adventuring with Rean in the year 1204) but that's not important to the current story. I think the only thing you really miss by skipping CS1+2 is the stuff surrounding Osborne and his Ironbloods, as they are major characters in CS3+4 and their backstory and motivations get focus. EDIT: Then again, I suppose that if someone started with CS3, they might be liable to drop it about 30-40 hours in as it is very slow. Having prior attachment to the characters does make the game more tolerable. It would be nice if CS1+2 got a Switch port in the West for those Switch players.

Any man who can casually swing a 100+ pound greatsword with one arm... I don't know whether or not I should admire or fear him. Perhaps both? Either way, I want to be on whichever side that guy is on *shivers*

The pony tail looks good on Kurt, helps make his character design not look bland. The tuft of hair also looks good on Rean and Ash.

I'm nervous about Kuro's gameplay. The devs are effectively designing two different gameplay modes at once: turn based, and action. Falcom has a team of 50 people and they have an annual release deadline. Inevitably, one gameplay mode isn't going to be as fine tuned as the other. So far, Falcom has been focusing on hyping up the action gameplay, so it seems that is what will receive the most attention. I don't really find action games to be that fun, nor have I really liked any of Falcom's action gameplay. So it seems like when it comes out, the choice will be between action gameplay I dislike, or neglected turn based gameplay.

I was leaning towards Laura and Emma during CS1, but became a diehard Rean x Towa shipper after CS2 and have remained that way since.

Osborne (CS3 ending spoilers) CS4 ending

5.5 MSQ thoughts Werlyt/Weapon storyline

Also, Rean's ingame eye color was shifted from being silver/grey/slightly blue in CS1+2 to being purple in CS3. Interestingly, Rean's 2D art on the party screen, and promotional art for CS1+2 depicted him with a purple eye color, so it may be that for CS3 they decided to have his ingame eye color be consistent with the 2D art.

Kinda disappointed that we won't get another solo duty with the G-Warrior in this patch. I wonder how Valens will be dealt with. Is he piloting the Diamond Weapon? Thus, when we blow it up, he will die too? Or the Diamond Weapon only the first half of the trial, and after we beat it up and convince Alfonse to join our side, Valens shows up in a secret 6th weapon and we fight against him with Alfonse? Or do we just defeat Alfonse/Diamond Weapon in the trial, go to Werlyt, and then Valens is dealt with in a cutscene afterwards? Garlemald is deploying forces to their towers? Really? Garlemald still having installations throughout Eorzea after 2.0 was already ridiculous, but come on. Garlemald's infrastructure is in tatters. It's in no position to launch invasions anymore. And how would they even manage to get past the Alliance's army at the Ghimlyt Dark anyway? Interesting that Zenos is sifting through a bunch of weapons in the Imperial Palace. Did a group of adventurers or resistance members come to try to kill him? If they all died, that makes even more impressive that Estinien and Gaius didn't immediately die to Zenos in 5.1. I'm guessing that the figure in white that the WoL sees @2:21 is a vision of Azem? It can't be Venat because Venat wasn't a member of the Convocation, and that figure in white is wearing the distinctive Ascian/Convocation robes. Still wondering what is going to be done with the Azem soul/job crystal that the WoL got in 5.3. Still holding out for a secret third job with it.

Sounds like he went to the roof.