LogFAQs > #957848525

The boss itself was actually pretty tough. I had to use some revive items since he had some like, 9 hit combo move that he would use occasionally that seemed to one shot whoever it hit. Luckily for me, I think he only did it twice. Besides that one move, there wasn't too much trickery in what he did in terms of status effects or bullshit like that, he just hits like a truck. Staying on top of healing and keeping your teammates apart so as to not get both of them hit when he would swipe at you was my strategy and I did manage to take him down first try, though it was a really, really close call. Toval had just run out of mana with his last spark arrow right as Rean hit 100 CP, which let me input my S craft right before the boss went, which BARELY did enough damage to finish him off. I think it was actually like 50 damage overkill or something stupidly close like that. BTW Mzero, Toval was 48 and Rean was 46 at the time for me, how hard was that for you?

You leave the nature park and get out onto the highway, and there's another cool new song. It's kind of foreboding but also hopeful at the same time, I really like it. Once again wishing that this game showed you the names of songs as you encountered them :(

I have a note here - one of the enemies on the highway is named "Evil Crow". Nice symbolism guys.

Anyway, on the way to Celdic they decide that they want to see how things are in Trista first. My first thought - isn't that a big of a walk? With how much of a big deal they made of taking the train everywhere in the first game I'm surprised to hear that, but okay. Let's go on an adventure. When you actually make it out to the Trista highway, Rean does make a remark that it's his first time actually being on it. My thoughts exactly. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do though, wanted criminal Rean Schwarzer has gotta do what wanted criminal Rean Schwarzer has gotta do. Got silver angler rank while walking down it, aww yeah. Hopefully Annabelle has conveniently made her way to Trista and is awaiting my arrival. Or I'll get to see Lakelord again, but I'm sure he's got way better shit to do then hang out there.

On that tangent, I do really like how off-rails this game seems so far. Being tied down to the whole structure of school life / field study / rinse and repeat did serve a purpose in the first game. It was a convenient mechanism to introduce the land of Erebonia but not overload a first time player too much, but at the same time, it really limited how connected you felt with the land as a whole. In Sky, you really felt like you were a citizen of Liberl, and same with Zero and Crossbell (though that was a little different). But CS1 really just felt like you were in Trista, and were only a visitor to the rest of the country. They did a poor job and making you feel connected to the places you visit and the people you met. I hope that with this stylistic change, that they can improve in that regard.

After a ways down the highway, unfortunately you find out that there's a army checkpoint blocking further travel. I have to wonder what the point of this whole highway section was as a player, but the tone of the conversation between Rean and Toval seems to be saying that the Noble army is incredibly brazen for setting up shop and regulating travel in this area. Personally I'd disagree there. They're in the middle of a civil war, which is absolutely the main type of war where you'd want to focus heavily on regulating travel within your territory. And it's absolutely what I would consider their territory, since they made a big point of the Noble army being there in Celdic in the first game. Them wanting to regulate who is coming from Trista, a place that seems pretty divided between Noble and Imperial sentiment, seems like a wise decision.

Regardless, backtrack back to Celdic and the first place you get to go is Becky's house. Glad that ol' lass is doing okay. By the way, Mzero, 80% of Becky's characterization in the English version is that she was given a heavy, almost indecipherable Scottish accent. I'm assuming they do something similar with her in japanese if they translated it like this for us?

Exploring the rest of the town though, it seems like the general vibe of the townspeople is that they're very upset about the war (not surprising) as it increased their tax bill and made it difficult for people to come visit the town and their grand market. One lady in the center of town specifically up and calls out the Noble alliance and blames them for everything, which is not the reaction I was expecting. Like I said earlier, this is kind of a noble-focused town in my mind. The provincial army is set up running the shots here and had a big presence in the first game, they have a giant guardhouse in the middle of town and basically act like they own the place. The only other person of authority in this town is the market manager who had to play by their rules before. Sure, on one hand, having soldiers running around your town seems like it might make more enemies than friends over time, but just hearing someone openly siding with the enemy in the middle of town square seems like she is really the brazen one here.

What else...the drunk from the first game got his life back together! Got his park ranger job back and is happy as a clam. Getting to experience little things like this is really why I love trails. Also, Anton is upstairs at the inn! That is truly the only plotline that matters at this point. I'm also able to go to the shop and, for the first time in my life in a trails game, fully upgrade everyones equipment. Mainly because 'everyone' consists of two people, but still, normally Trails games are good about making you actually manage your economy and pick and choose who you want to upgrade. At the very least, CS1 was very stingy with income. I was only ever upgrading the people I was going to use in the next section, and even then maybe half of the things for half of the people. Elliot gets a new pair of shoes, Laura gets a new sword type situation. But the game itself wasn't too hard outside of a few challenging fights, so it's not the worst that they make you play like that. The joys of only having two people to upgrade will be good while it lasts though.


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Congrats Black Turtle!