Current Events > Lets Marathon the entire Trails series, starting with TITS

(+) Yeah! (+)

I actually have in the sky 2 sitting on my gog. Should really get to it.

Super_Slash posted...

I just want to say I'm trudging through Kuro 2 and if we're talking sheer length, this game seems long as shit. I thought Reverie was long, but I'm almost certain I'll eclipse 100 hours in this game.

Kuro 2 isn't gonna be out in English for a long time so I'm not worried about it.

Holy_Cloud105 posted...

I believe TC also said he's not doing everything and talking to all the NPCs every time. Most of the density in these games comes from NPC dialogue that changes after every single story beat for extra world building.

When I'm done with it all I'll post screencaps of my achievement progress so you can kind of get an idea of how much I'm doing.

im still chugging through reverie myself
i just finished the game last night and im doing some of the post-game stuff but theres a lot more than i thought there'd be. was planning to do it all today but i might take another break and then finish it over a week or so

i'll say this much tho keep in mind CS 3 and 4 were published by NIS while 1&2 were xseed so the latter 2 are kinda uh.....sporadic w/ voice acting like scenes having 2 voiced lines rest unvoiced or major NPCs voiced and ur party isn't or repeatedly switching between voice and not... in english anyway

feels like NIS was lazy as hell.. mind i'm aware the original versions of 1&2 had alot less voice acting too especially for rean

Oh hi! It's me!!!! I'd rate CS 2>1>=3 or 4. If I did that right, 3 Was fun. But 2 was my favorite. Well 3 and 4 are interchangable. It was so long.

Divinehero posted...

i'll say this much tho keep in mind CS 3 and 4 were published by NIS while 1&2 were xseed so the latter 2 are kinda uh.....sporadic w/ voice acting like scenes having 2 voiced lines rest unvoiced or major NPCs voiced and ur party isn't or repeatedly switching between voice and not... in english anyway

feels like NIS was lazy as hell.. mind i'm aware the original versions of 1&2 had alot less voice acting too especially for rean

NIS was lazy. There's a lot of typos, syntax errors and just plain wrong skill translations that they won't fix. The music in CS3 is also very quiet for some reason. I'm glad they brought the games over since XSeed just gave up but still.

Divinehero posted...

i'll say this much tho keep in mind CS 3 and 4 were published by NIS while 1&2 were xseed so the latter 2 are kinda uh.....sporadic w/ voice acting like scenes having 2 voiced lines rest unvoiced or major NPCs voiced and ur party isn't or repeatedly switching between voice and not... in english anyway

feels like NIS was lazy as hell.. mind i'm aware the original versions of 1&2 had alot less voice acting too especially for rean

I don't believe NISA had anything to do with the random sporadic voiced lines. Those were all in the Japanese originals iirc, including in CS1 and 2.

I remember hearing the reason for that is because the JP voice actor for Cold Steel's MC was expensive (maybe not expensive as an actor but expensive for Falcom as a company)

Not sure how true this is, but with the English Dub of Cold Steel allegedly having well over a few thousand more voiced lines than the JP dub, it wouldn't be hard to believe

ChrisTaka posted...

I remember hearing the reason for that is because the JP voice actor for Cold Steel's MC was expensive (maybe not expensive as an actor but expensive for Falcom as a company)

Not sure how true this is, but with the English Dub of Cold Steel allegedly having well over a few thousand more voiced lines than the JP dub, it wouldn't be hard to believe

I think it's more that Rean just has so many lines that having him voice everything would get expensive because the other characters are voiced by pretty high profile people too.

UUURRRGGHHHHHHH There's no way to toggle the turbo in Cold Steel. You have to hold the button down the entire time! This sucks!

there's alot of typos too yea.. like a piece of gear or quartz in reverie (which is also NIS) that has a character's skil description as a description.. or saying it gives 1600 str insteadof the 160 it actually gives.. or says it gives 100 but actually gives 200.. NIS was insanely lazy

on a side note there's somethin called senpatcher which lets u tweak/fix a few things for all 4 CS games assuming ur on pc

Divinehero posted...

there's alot of typos too yea.. like a piece of gear or quartz in reverie (which is also NIS) that has a character's skil description as a description.. or saying it gives 1600 str insteadof the 160 it actually gives.. or says it gives 100 but actually gives 200.. NIS was insanely lazy

on a side note there's somethin called senpatcher which lets u tweak/fix a few things for all 4 CS games assuming ur on pc

Yeah I was looking at that kind of stuff. I was also considering downloading saves so I could start on NG+

ChrisTaka posted...

I remember hearing the reason for that is because the JP voice actor for Cold Steel's MC was expensive (maybe not expensive as an actor but expensive for Falcom as a company)

Not sure how true this is, but with the English Dub of Cold Steel allegedly having well over a few thousand more voiced lines than the JP dub, it wouldn't be hard to believe

Cold Steel 1 and 2.. as well as Reverie from what i understand have more voiced lines then the Original JP version. heck the re-released PS4 Remasters of Cold Steel 1 and 2 actually added even more voiced lines to the game,

Tyranthraxus posted...

UUURRRGGHHHHHHH There's no way to toggle the turbo in Cold Steel. You have to hold the button down the entire time! This sucks!

There has to be a way. There definitely is in CS3 onward.

Super_Slash posted...

There has to be a way. There definitely is in CS3 onward.

There isn't because XSeed was in charge of CS1 and 2 and that wasn't an option they added. It's also why we'll probably never see a re-release of those games on PS5 like CS3 and 4 are getting.

Divinehero posted...

i'll say this much tho keep in mind CS 3 and 4 were published by NIS while 1&2 were xseed so the latter 2 are kinda uh.....sporadic w/ voice acting like scenes having 2 voiced lines rest unvoiced or major NPCs voiced and ur party isn't or repeatedly switching between voice and not... in english anyway

feels like NIS was lazy as hell.. mind i'm aware the original versions of 1&2 had alot less voice acting too especially for rean

The original games had weird VA, only major events and new character introductions mainly got VAed for some stupid reason. XSEED thought that was stupid and put as much VA as they could. So for the games they localized with VA CS1 and 2, most of the scenes are VAed. I get not wanting to pay money to fully VA everything, cause that is expensive, but the stupid ass decision to make it so that some people got lines in a scene and the MAIN fucking cast didnt get any is pretty stupid. If someone has a line in a scene, everyone participating in that scene should have a line if they say anything.

LightHawKnight posted...

The original games had weird VA, only major events and new character introductions mainly got VAed for some stupid reason. XSEED thought that was stupid and put as much VA as they could. So for the games they localized with VA CS1 and 2, most of the scenes are VAed. I get not wanting to pay money to fully VA everything, cause that is expensive, but the stupid ass decision to make it so that some people got lines in a scene and the MAIN fucking cast didnt get any is pretty stupid. If someone has a line in a scene, everyone participating in that scene should have a line if they say anything.

Which is weird because that's what azure/zero did, just in Japanese. Even literal nameless goons got lines in scenes where other people got lines.

Ok got a level 99 NG+ file loaded. Time to destroy everything.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Ok got a level 99 NG+ file loaded. Time to destroy everything.

Wait, what?

Super_Slash posted...

Wait, what?

I found some maxed out save game for CS1 and downloaded it so I don't have to do any bullshit grinding lol

Looks like in Cold Steel the Arts come affixed to the quartz? What's the purpose of the lines then?

Tyranthraxus posted...

Looks like in Cold Steel the Arts come affixed to the quartz? What's the purpose of the lines then?

Honestly.. i dont think there are any real purposes to the lines anymore

In Cold Steel certain effect quartz can only stack if they are in different lines, like quartz that have a chance to reduce an enemy's stat if you hit them.

I also think that line lengths determine how much EP a character has:

Longer line = more EP

So a trend you might see is that casters might just have 1 big line, or a large line followed by a second smaller line, and physical attackers will have either 2 line that are basically the same or 3 lines with the 3rd line basically being non existent

(There are characters with 4 lines in the series but I'm not sure if they existed yet in CS1)

This means that ideally you'd want stat reducing quartz on physical attackers based on the first part that I mentioned

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/53f6bbdf.jpg

Final Fantasy Type-0 totally ripped this game off lmao

While i have issues with quite a bit of CS, one area it knocks it out of the park in is the addition of much needed QoL. Like being able to buy missed items later, and marking side quests on the map.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Looks like in Cold Steel the Arts come affixed to the quartz? What's the purpose of the lines then?

the lines increase the cost of upgrading the slots. And the higher the cost the higher the max MP you get from upgrading them. Some characters have 3 lines and end up with cheap slot upgrades and low max mp. Casters generally have 1 large line and cost more total to upgrade and end up with more max MP.

theres also different types of quartz. Some will give your attacks passive effects. Like freeze on attack or lower def on attack. These are grouped into two types (status ailments I.e. freeze and poison) and stat-down. Only one of these quartz from each type can exist on a line. So characters with more lines can generally do better with physical damage

chris1001_the_sequel posted...

While i have issues with quite a bit of CS, one area it knocks it out of the park in is the addition of much needed QoL. Like being able to buy missed items later, and marking side quests on the map.

CS is feeling pretty sluggish so far. It's not so bad with turbo but I can't toggle the turbo. This is really annoying. I'm wondering if I can mess with steam settings to act like I'm holding the button down. Or maybe something in accessibility options somewhere.

Tyranthraxus posted...

I found some maxed out save game for CS1 and downloaded it so I don't have to do any bullshit grinding lol

You don't really have to do that in CS that much. They rebalanced things a bit and you are given some OP nonsense that lets you ignore grinding. And that's ignoring how CS2 and 4 make you into OP nonsense that literally cannot lose if you play correctly.

Grinding isn't necessary in any of the games, not even in Hard mode. I've never played above Hard but from my experience, your gear and orbment setups matter WAY more than levels do.

And yes, the CS arc is very slow starting off.

Also unless I'm missing something, there doesn't appear to be a way to even check empty chests so RIP Chest Messages for real this time.

Tyranthraxus posted...

Also unless I'm missing something, there doesn't appear to be a way to even check empty chests so RIP Chest Messages for real this time.

Yeah chests no longer have message strings attached to them.

CS2 *sort of* brings them back with their special monster chests though.

Super_Slash posted...

Grinding isn't necessary in any of the games, not even in Hard mode. I've never played above Hard but from my experience, your gear and orbment setups matter WAY more than levels do.

And yes, the CS arc is very slow starting off.

Grinding isn't needed in Nightmare for any of the Trails games that aren't Sky 1 and 2 since they weren't balanced for anything other than normal. Reverie you would have to do some grinding for Abyss though since it's just straight up BS on a fresh file.

ellis123 posted...

And that's ignoring how CS2 and 4 make you into OP nonsense that literally cannot lose if you play correctly.

No mention of CS3? I just finished that one on Nightmare and it was pretty easy.

MajorGamer posted...

No mention of CS3? I just finished that one on Nightmare and it was pretty easy.

I mean, CS3 was pretty easy but that was more because it was easy rather than because you could delay everything into oblivion, never letting any enemy (until the post-game superbosses) have a single turn, like in CS2 or removing all of the turn delay off of the Rean's spells, meaning that no enemy got to ever take a single turn, like in CS4. Like, you are strong in CS3 but CS2/4 had you playing with some of the strongest characters across all of JRPGs in terms of just how badly they utterly ruined their respective game difficulty-wise. CS3 just doesn't quite hit that level of absolute destruction as at bare minimum you have to consider the boss as an actual thing in the battle.

the first time i felt mega OP was in CS1 actually with arts. getting like 10 turns for every 1 turn an enemy got. giant laser beams of death that 1HKO regular mobs or 2HKO strong ones, and you can get 10+ of those in before an enemy attacks. Way faster than even Fie built full-speed. It feels like arts never got weaker over time either

Ye, magic in CS is stupid good. Outside of cheesy nonsense mages are almost universally the best thing you can be doing. Definitely a big improvement to the largely not so good magic from the previous games.

ellis123 posted...

I mean, CS3 was pretty easy but that was more because it was easy rather than because you could delay everything into oblivion, never letting any enemy (until the post-game superbosses) have a single turn, like in CS2 or removing all of the turn delay off of the Rean's spells, meaning that no enemy got to ever take a single turn, like in CS4. Like, you are strong in CS3 but CS2/4 had you playing with some of the strongest characters across all of JRPGs in terms of just how badly they utterly ruined their respective game difficulty-wise. CS3 just doesn't quite hit that level of absolute destruction as at bare minimum you have to consider the boss as an actual thing in the battle.

Rean is busted in CS3 and easily negates bosses since his crafts are super strong in that game and CP regen is absurd from CS3 and on.

ellis123 posted... Ye, magic in CS is stupid good. Outside of cheesy nonsense mages are almost universally the best thing you can be doing. Definitely a big improvement to the largely not so good magic from the previous games.

What do you mean? Arts are better in Sky 1 and 2 and the Crossbell games. Sky 3 is the one of the few games where crafts can keep up. They need to do a much better job at making crafts useful because outside of Richard in Sky 3, Rean delay tactics in CS1/2 and Rean again in CS3 and 4, crafts don't really ever manage to keep up with arts. Even then arts Rean is stronger than crafts Rean in CS4. Reverie hit crafts really hard again for no reason and arts are just straight up better.

Personally I found only Joshua, Richard, Mueller, Agate, and Kevin to be the only people who's crafts were good in Sky 3 for damage purposes.

The support type crafts were always good.

Holy_Cloud105 posted...

What do you mean? Arts are better in Sky 1 and 2 and the Crossbell games. Sky 3 is the one of the few games where crafts can keep up. They need to do a much better job at making crafts useful because outside of Richard in Sky 3, Rean delay tactics in CS1/2 and Rean again in CS3 and 4, crafts don't really ever manage to keep up with arts. Even then arts Rean is stronger than crafts Rean in CS4. Reverie hit crafts really hard again for no reason and arts are just straight up better.

Understanding that I haven't played the Crossbell games (I forgot to make that clear with my other post, my bad): I generally never felt that the Arts were powerful enough in the Sky games. Crafts weren't lighting the world on fire, for the most part, but I found that it was kind of trivial to buff/debuff -> spank in Sky, and the fact that Crafts as a whole really wasn't a big deal for me as I either did S. Crafts or ran out the characters who did have good Crafts (like, there is no way you can convince me that Joshua didn't have good Crafts). Certainly I used Arts, but I don't really view support/healing in the same way and those really didn't change a whole lot over the series (Clock Up, for instance, was always kind of busted). By comparison you pretty much start out of the gate in CS being able to one shot essentially every normal enemy in AoE. On top of that even the powerful support stuffs got better with the addition of arguably the most busted nonsense in the series: Chrono Burst. Infinite turns on anyone with no real drawbacks beyond "it's kind of annoying to do the menuing" basically renders all difficulty moot if you want to use it.

Arts are infinitely better in Coldsteel 3 and 4. The Witch lol I forget her name, damn. But arts in Coldsteel 1 and 2 seemed pointless because skills were so much faster.

This topic is super hard core fans hehe but Elliott was really good in Cold Steel 1 and uhh that was about it. His rebound healing wasn't useful anymore imo. I like music themed party members but after that game he basically got benched permanently :/

ellis123 posted...

Ye, magic in CS is stupid good. Outside of cheesy nonsense mages are almost universally the best thing you can be doing. Definitely a big improvement to the largely not so good magic from the previous games.

Evasion tank is also stupid OP

chris1001_the_sequel posted...

Evasion tank is also stupid OP

Ye, I was actually thinking about that in particular when I typed up "cheesy nonsense." Fie is just way too consistent at getting 100% without you having to bother to get anything rare.

Fie and well Kurt are great at evasion. It was a lot of fun having both in the party.

Kamil posted...

Fie and well Kurt are great at evasion. It was a lot of fun having both in the party.

How is Kurt a good e tank? Doesn't he only have a range of 1 with his swords? The great thing about Fie (and Sara) is that their weapon doubles as melee and ranged so they can counter from anywhere on the map.

chris1001_the_sequel posted...

How is Kurt a good e tank? Doesn't he only have a range of 1 with his swords? The great thing about Fie (and Sara) is that their weapon doubles as melee and ranged so they can counter from anywhere on the map.

Some characters have high natural evasion and Kurt is one of them. But I agree I only use evasion tanks when they can perform ranged counters like Fie

Ye, Kurt is good if you are only going for the evasion and can act as a "budget Fie" for large swaths of the later CS' where Fie isn't necessarily an option. He also works better as a bit of a "bulky DPS" in that you can throw on a couple of evasion bits and then just go all in on damage otherwise. Because of his strong Crafts he can push great damage and even if you aren't dodging everything having a pretty easy 50%+ dodge means that bosses largely can't take him down.

I always preferred Ash for E Tank from the new class 7. doesn't have the native evasion boost, but at least he gets decent range with his weapon. And really, with how many ways there are to boost evasion, losing the native boost isn't THAT big of a deal.

chris1001_the_sequel posted...

I always preferred Ash for E Tank from the new class 7. doesn't have the native evasion boost, but at least he gets decent range with his weapon. And really, with how many ways there are to boost evasion, losing the native boost isn't THAT big of a deal.

Juna can switch to ranged so shes better I think. But I just didnt use evasion tanks in 3 onwards TBH. I preferred to use Juna as a debuffer and occasionally to break enemies. I preferred to build Rean as a tank/support. He never needed to dodge but enemies dealt almost no damage to him, and hed buff his party