Board 8 > SaveEstelle/LeonhartFour in Different Houses: Trails of ColDexit Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah, there are hidden quests in every chapter, so it rewards you for being thorough. I try not to use guides on my initial playthrough of any game, but I came fairly close to getting the top rank in the first two games on my own.
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Took a Death Stranding break to work on my CS3 NG+ Nightmare speed run

Up to Chapter 3!
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Man, Avasaralas wardrobe is so good.

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Is there a way to disable notifications for these silly GameFAQs trophies

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Rean sure has that Harem Protagonist Rank EX working overtime in Chapter 3

Lololol Sara gets annoyed when you talk to her after Claire during the night portion. Wonder what happens if you talk to Sara before Claire.
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SaveEstelle posted...

Is there a way to disable notifications for these silly GameFAQs trophies

Yep
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There's... there's a fish that coughs up Action 3? This is dangerous information! I might spend way too much time fishing now! >_>
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Started watching Hunter x Hunter (2011); just finished episode 20.

Wtf they killed cool old dude Bodoro and nobody seems to care except to the extent that it affects Killua

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Watched the first few minutes of Trails in the Sky.

"Why is my present a BOY?"

Lmao. Gotta say that game seems to have a lot more charm than Cold Steel. Or maybe it's just Estelle.
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Not gonna keep watching past the opening but man, so much personality injected in that one scene. And I don't know if it's lack of voice acting and my imagination filling in, or just damn good writing. Like how FF6-8 seem so goofy and charming compared to 10 and after.
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Yeah, Sky has a different kind of charm to it. I generally like its cast better, and give me Liberl over Erebonia any day.
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did my first ring fit adventure this morning. only spent like 15 minutes but it felt like a pretty decent workout
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The beginning of Cold Steel 1 is particularly bad on that front, though even as the game continues and gets better I don't think it ever reaches the levels that the Sky arc maintains throughout.

Sky arc the strongest arc of the Trails series imo, though I'm not sure the fanbase would agree on that. Mostly for that reason to be honest--the characters just feel much more alive to me. Also I find the story a lot more heartfelt and emotional than the other games.
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Cold Steel 3 has been making it interesting, though it might be due to the fact that it's building off of every game before it rather than being good in a vacuum.

Rean is way better in CS3 than he was in CS1 or 2, but still not as good as SC Estelle.
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Estelle one of the neatest Trails features, yeah. There aren't many protagonists like her.

conversely, there are a billion protagonists like Rean...
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Estelle is fantastic, yes. She encapsulates Sky's charm so well.

I just hope the next Trails subseries doesn't have an incest plotline this time.
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HxH hype. Top 5 anime for sure. Beginning can be a bit rough but you're through most of what I'd consider the slower parts!

best to just operate under the assumption that the hunter association is comprised of sociopaths given that they must be sending dozens to their deaths every year because the hunter exam is a series of deathtraps and that's just how you join. >_>

~~~

Estelle is the best.
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BK_Sheikah00 posted...

Watched the first few minutes of Trails in the Sky.

"Why is my present a BOY?"

Lmao. Gotta say that game seems to have a lot more charm than Cold Steel. Or maybe it's just Estelle.

:)

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Estelle probably my favorite Trails character but it's very close between her and Renne.
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Renne is good but definitely nowhere remotely close with Estelle for me (though I haven't played The 3rd, obviously).

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I think Renne was my 5th or 6th favorite when I'd only played FC and SC, but something like 2/3 or more of her good content comes later on.
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that's okay I'll always be here to back my boi Rean
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Renne more like 'meh'ne
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pyresword posted...

I think Renne was my 5th or 6th favorite when I'd only played FC and SC, but something like 2/3 or more of her good content comes later on.

Yeah. It's crazy how much better she is in the games after SC.
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I'm actually really excited to experience Renne's growth in The 3rd when I play the game in 2023

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She's definitely better in the 3rd, but she just moved up from bottom tier to middle of the pack for me.
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I kind of want to do a Kiseki character ranking thread or something, but I'd feel bad about being unfair to the CS3 characters whose arcs haven't finished yet. Guess I'll wait until after Cold Steel 4, or something
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Leonhart4 posted...

She's definitely better in the 3rd, but she just moved up from bottom tier to middle of the pack for me.

Yeah, this is why I expect I'll like her better than you did, since I already had her around mid-tier in SC!

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Also, my girlfriend is a huge LSU fan, and she is very happy with how this game is going so far.
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Larg Seifer Umaro

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SaveEstelle posted...

Larg Seifer Umaro

Lightning Setzer Ungermax
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I'm interested

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My lightning is a chip in your pile

Ungermax up
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One year until Im 30 and have to get my shit together

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As a 33 year old I wish you luck
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Im 14

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oh I was supposed to have my shit together by 30?

whoops
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Whew, she had to sweat it out at the end, but that was a big win for LSU.
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Cold Steel 1 update: Made it to Chapter 2 Field Day. While the game's structure is almost the same as TX, which isn't what I expected, still having a lot of fun.

Shoutouts to the Practical Exam boss theme btw. My favorite song so far .
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https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/8-gamefaqs-contests/78148141

I do it
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CS1: Which one? The "normal" one or the one when Sara decides to put you scrubs in your place? The normal one is "Don't Be Defeated by a Friend" IIRC and the Sara one (the superior one IMO) is "Belief"

Yeah, I'm not kidding around when I tell people that Tokyo Xanadu is Cold Steel 1 transplanted into a more Persona 3-like setting. Falcom went hard into re-using assets and gameplay flow lol.
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Time for Episode III

Wish us luck
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You already survived rewatching the worst two so you should be fine unless you didn't get those wounds checked out

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III is fine

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As I watch Episode III, my primary takeaway is how completely badly the Jedi Council handled pretty much everything here, including Yoda.
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Yeah, I think Lucas and McCallum sort of eleventh-houred the whole, "Maybe the Jedi Council is actually not the best at things" shtick. The Republic in general, too. Of course, in order for almost any of that to be felt, you need to delve into The Clone Wars TV series and some of the newer books.

Because lol the prequel scripts.

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xp1337 posted...

CS1: Which one? The "normal" one or the one when Sara decides to put you scrubs in your place? The normal one is "Don't Be Defeated by a Friend" IIRC and the Sara one (the superior one IMO) is "Belief"

I meant the normal one. Sara fight was too short
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All right, Episode III beated and prequel trilogy complete! The plot has all the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face and the dialogue can still be pretty corny, but it definitely avoids the pitfalls of the first two prequels, which were mainly long, boring stretches where virtually nothing happens. There's no shortage of action here, so for a popcorn flick type of movie, it's entertaining enough.

My girlfriend enjoyed it, too. She said it was definitely better than the other two, and she thought the acting and the dialogue were improved. She did say that there was a bit of drama taken out of it when you already know that some of these characters can't die, but she did enjoy putting two and two together and making some connections with the OT.

Maybe my subject for this topic will be Star Wars. We're going to try to squeeze in Episode VII and VIII before she leaves on Monday, so if we can manage that, I suppose I could rank or discuss the mainline entries. We'll try to fit Rogue One in at some point before Episode IX drops. Who knows about Solo.
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Star Wars Episode III is probably one of my favorite Star Wars movies (behind 5 and...maybe 8?). The Anakin/Padme stuff is not great sometimes, but I liked pretty much everything else about the movie. Very fun to watch at least for me.

I will say I'm not a huge Star Wars fan in general though, and I wouldn't really say any of the movies are all-time greats for me personally.

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In other news, Trails of Cold Steel III beated.

Overall a fantastic game, but I would be lying if I said I didn't have somewhat mixed feelings about the ending. I already kind of said this in the Discord, but my issue stems from the fact they introduce tons of exciting plot elements in the final chapter (which is a good thing, to be clear), but then they just...don't resolve any of them? I suppose that what this can mean is that one just has to treat Cold Steel 3 and 4 as a single story, which in principle is fine. However the other side of this is that I think ending CS3 in this way is most likely setting up the story content of CS4 to be less impactful than it otherwise would have been, since starting a new game means they're basically going to have to reset the pacing/tension before they've really resolved anything. Would love to be proven wrong here, but it also wouldn't be the first time the Trails series has misstepped in exactly this manner. (See: final chapter of Ao, all of Cold Steel 2)

Anyway enough about that. As I said it was overall a phenomenal experience. It's just in my nature that when something is almost perfect I will tend to focus on discussing the reasons why it wasn't perfect. Characters were outstanding as usual and the cast has wonderful chemistry. Very high stakes story that only ups the stakes and the tension further as the story goes on. (This aspect and the ensuing hype it creates is probably this game's strongest point relative to the other games in the Trails series.) Also man...I do really wanna know how this all gets resolved. Can't wait for the next game.

Combat is an absolutely broken mess (in terms of balancing) and it is glorious.

Best characters: Juna, Altina, Musse (Holy moly if there is one character I am hyped for in CS4 it is Musse...)

Tentative game ranking for the series: Sky SC > Sky The 3rd > Azure > Cold Steel 3 > Zero > Sky FC > Cold Steel 1 > Cold Steel 2

Worth mentioning that even Sky FC is like...a 9.5/10 for me. Competition is fierce in this series. And to be honest a more informative ranking might be just to say that the top 6 are all basically equal, while I find CS1 and CS2 to be notably worse but still great games
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Not a Musse fan but I don't enjoy her archetype to begin with. She pointlessly derails every conversation with the same bad jokes.
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