Current Events > i just bought Trails in the sky 2 an 3 on STEAM

(+) Yeah! (+)

lmao i bought 1 like a week or so ago, and bought first Cold Steel in like Jan

i better fucking like this series

i was having trouble activating my old STEAM account so i gave up and started a new one. Don't like i ever spent much on any single game
Other two games i have are the first Witcher and The Longest Journey

i played the latter on my old account, and i liked it a lot but never finished.


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best videogame series of all time imo

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Best JRPG series of all time for sure.

i want a series with lots of engaging characters and seems it could be it. I gave up on Xenoblade 2, like 10 hours in because too much cringe, annoying characters.

Three Houses is my favorite game on the switch, and def one of my favs of recent years at the very least largely because i got attached to tons of characters.

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@Leanaunfurled

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i'll probably start the first one after i finally finish reading Monster (5 deluxe edition vols down, 4 to go)

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Paper_Okami posted...

i want a series with lots of engaging characters and seems it could be it. I gave up on Xenoblade 2, like 10 hours in because too much cringe, annoying characters.

Three Houses is my favorite game on the switch, and def one of my favs of recent years at the very least largely because i got attached to tons of characters.

the characters/worldbuilding/story are second to none in the series imo

@Villain

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Agreed.

Also you need to start with FC if you haven't already, and you'll want to play Zero and Azure before starting Cold Steel 3.

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I'm currently playing Azure for the first time too and it doesn't skip a beat.

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Villain posted...

Agreed.

Also you need to start with FC if you haven't already, and you'll want to play Zero and Azure before starting Cold Steel 3.

yeah intend to start with Trails in the Sky

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I'll be honest, FC was a bit of a slow start to me but it really picks up in the 2nd chapter.

You could also consider the entirety of FC as a prologue to the series which is crazy.

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Oh yeah! There are also voice mods for the sky trilogy. They weren't available when I originally played them but I'd suggest looking into it if you're interested in playing the games with voice over.

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Welcome to Trails friend, enjoy the ride

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I'm on chapter 2 of the first Trails in the Sky game, it's really good. Not played in a week though as I've been movie obsessed, good reminder to get back to it tomorrow.

I bought SC on gog as it was cheaper than steam at the time, great thing is I've tested out adding it to Steam and it works with steam link and a controller so I can play on my TV.

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Welcome to the series! Everyone else has already given you decent info on what to expect in the games and advice. I'll throw my vote into getting voice mods for them, too.

And yeah, expect FC to have a slow start. it's the slowest of any of them in my opinion and it took me three attempts before I finally stuck with it long enough to get hooked. It was still pretty early on when it happens.

sky fc was the first in the series i played and it is super great tbh

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hows the gameplay in this series? nobody ever seems to bring it up when they talk about how good the games are.

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Frogles posted...

hows the gameplay in this series? nobody ever seems to bring it up when they talk about how good the games are.

I don't know about the other 2 games, but Skies 1 is brutally hard on its hard difficulty. The enemies get weaker the more you die, but dear lord there were points where I would die 6 or 7 times before progressing with the story. It's not like you can overlevel areas either, once you reach the xp cap for that area every enemy gives 1 xp. It sucks because there are definitely times I wish I could get that extra 1 or 2 levels to make it easier.

Sadly my data didn't transfer over to the 2nd game. Can't remember the reason why, its been a while since I've played it.

No random battles, and the battles are a hybrid of turn based and strategy RPGs. Not overly complex but your spell sets are customizable

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Frogles posted...

hows the gameplay in this series? nobody ever seems to bring it up when they talk about how good the games are.

I like the combat a lot. Like someone else it's kind of a hybrid, but don't expect a lot of the strategy. I'd say 90% turn-based, 10% strategy, which is just placement of your abilities and avoiding enemy abilities. You can see the turn order in combat on the screen and every so often random affects will show up that you'll either want or don't want, so there's also some decision making at times in trying to make sure you get or avoid those.

Example:
Current Turn - Me
Next Turn - Me
Turn After That - Enemy, and a Critical Hit bonus

You don't want that enemy to get the critical hit of course, so maybe you choose to use a move that delays the enemy's turn by a little bit.

It's basically the FFX combat system. It's conditional turn based. It's also on a grid but that has little functional impact the majority of the time. The exceptions are AOE attacks and enemies that are far away form you

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I feel bad that for how great all the Falcom games' soundtracks are, I haven't played any of them.

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Good spoiler free video on the entire series and the recommended play order

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkSIxrYmnBI

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I just finished FC a few weeks ago. It was good, but i do feel like this series is over hyped quite a bit.

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You'll change your mind :)

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solosnake posted...

I just finished FC a few weeks ago. It was good, but i do feel like this series is over hyped quite a bit.

You literally have 8 more games.

Super Slash posted...

You literally have 8 more games.

I know, thats actually demotivating.

I finished the prologue of SC, but havent played it in a week or so.

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With Dawn (presuming that'll be the translation) coming out in Japan this year, 10 main games in 16 years is a pretty good release schedule.

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solosnake posted...

I know, thats actually demotivating.

I finished the prologue of SC, but havent played it in a week or so.

I can't blame you. To me, FC is the weakest entry in the entire franchise (though that isn't to say I don't love it, too). Would you be willing to put some more time into SC? It's the entry that introduces the overarching story throughout the entire series, and I think the best indicator of how you'd feel about the writing elements and whether it's your cup of tea or not.

Frogles posted...

hows the gameplay in this series? nobody ever seems to bring it up when they talk about how good the games are.

Think the materia system from FFVII but on steroids when customizing your characters.

solosnake posted...

I just finished FC a few weeks ago. It was good, but i do feel like this series is over hyped quite a bit.

As good as FC is, it's not a really good indicator of what the series is in terms of the narrative. You need to play SC if you played FC.

So far I'd argue CS1 isn't a good indicator either, it really takes a step back from how pogged out things got in Ao.

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Cold Steel is a slow burn.

CS3 is fucking amazing though, I loved it so much...and that was before I played the Crossbell duology. Definitely replaying it after I finish Ao. It's one of the best JRPGs I've ever played, possibly even surpassing Persona 4 Golden for me.

Super Slash posted...

Best JRPG series of all time for sure.

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FC on hardmode was fucking brutal and made me quit playing the game

I'll return to it.. at some point.

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Nightmare_Luna posted...

FC on hardmode was fucking brutal and made me quit playing the game

I'll return to it.. at some point.

Hard isnt that bad, but nightmare will give u trouble probably.

The thing is with the old meta you have to pump out high level arts as soon as possible. In the old games mostly Arts>crafts.

Try to understand which element value produce what arts and learn to exploit enemies elemental weaknesses.

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I played FC on hard and switched to normal for the rest of the series lol. At least until I started CS1 and switched back to hard.

I can't even imagine some of the more difficult fights of the series on anything other than normal. I had to retry them several times as it is. In particular that one in the Third, at least most of the others are only optional if you want max points.

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Leanaunfurled posted...

I can't blame you. To me, FC is the weakest entry in the entire franchise (though that isn't to say I don't love it, too). Would you be willing to put some more time into SC? It's the entry that introduces the overarching story throughout the entire series, and I think the best indicator of how you'd feel about the writing elements and whether it's your cup of tea or not.

I am certainly going to try. I just havent really been in the mood for gaming the last week or so :/

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I couldnt imagine playing these games wihtout that turbo speed button lol.

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solosnake posted...

I am certainly going to try. I just havent really been in the mood for gaming the last week or so :/

since like idk late summer i've been gaming more during that timeframe during the last 6-7 years

but now i feel super burnt out, just doing daily animal crossing shit for the last month

tried Diablo 3 but got bored before i completed act 1. And i wasn't feeling the story of especially the characters in xenoblade 2, so i gave up pretty quickly

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I love the piss out of those games. I still haven't played Cold Steel 3 yet, as I'm waiting for CS4 to come out. Hoping to play Ao and Zero before Hajimari eventually makes its way over here.

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You're not playing Zero/Ao before CSIII?

Leanaunfurled posted...

You're not playing Zero/Ao before CSIII?

No legit way to play them, and I can't be arsed to finagle around with all the backend shit to play them.

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TBH there's nothing to finagle around with as of now.

There was locale stuff you had to mess with, but that's not the case now with the most recent builds of the 2. Literally just click the icon and you're good to go.

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Furthermore you can emulate Zero and Azure's PSP version.

You're still stuck with the first draft for Zero, but there are a lot of options out there. Just saying.

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why don't they just pay the people who fan translated it, and fix up shit that needs to be fixed


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Since Zero and Azure are getting official PS4 releases in Japan, there's a chance we could finally get an official English release.

However, these ports are using the PSP version and aren't even upscaling them. They look terrible.

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I highly doubt the games will get localized. The PSP and PC versions of the games were never translated; I don't see why they would bother translating the remastered PS4 titles. You're better off playing the fan translation version.

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Kondo did say now that they're on PS4, a system that's modern as opposed to PSP/Vita, he wants to look into wester localization options. My only concern is any setbacks that would do to the current entries localizations (namely Hajimari right now). But both Crossbell games are still high quality and pretty much necessary before digging into Cold Steel III.

I don't know how profitable the Crossbell games would be to localize. That's a shit ton of work for games that plenty of people are already playing/have already played with the fan translations

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I mean, it looks bad

https://twitter.com/supremezerker/status/1253424348746018819?s=20

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@Alucard188 you still can buy zero legally from DLsite

as for Ao, it's a necessary sacrifice, and just buy the KAI version whenever they are out

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