Board 8 > I'm about to actually finish Trails in the Sky [trails] [scplaythroughtopic?]

(+) Yeah! (+)

After a long grueling journey (would have been a lot shorter if I didn't drop it so many times), I think I'm pretty close to the end! I just won the Tournament of Power in the final chapter, and am about to go party with the Queen (sorry Olivier). I will be jumping into SC immediately afterward, so if the demand is there for a playthrough topic it will happen. There are already a couple up, but if I know anything about board 8, it's that there's never too many Trails playthrough topics... I will also be playing 3rd, the Crossbell games, and Cold Steel 2-4, all of which I've owned for like two years and haven't played because my TitS playthroughs kept fizzling out. BUT I am hooked now!

Ask me anything! (but no spoilers past where I'm at plz)

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Tag! The final segments of Trails FC is where it really started coming together for me.

Party member ranking?

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MZero posted...

there's never too many Trails playthrough topics...

yes this is true
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Solfadore posted...

Tag! The final segments of Trails FC is where it really started coming together for me.

Party member ranking?

Same! Couldn't really get into it at first but the latter half has been good stuff

Agate > Olivier > Estelle > Zin > Joshua > Kloe > Scherazard > Tita

A lot of them don't really have much time to make an impression though. Agate has really made the most of his limited screen time. Olivier too but I know more about him because I already played Cold Steel

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MZero posted...

Agate > Olivier > Estelle > Zin > Joshua > Kloe > Scherazard > Tita

Good stuff. Agate is a good foil, and Olivier & Estelle are great.

Any thoughts on where the story might be headed? I'm curious as to how playing Cold Steel first might have affected your impressions, theories, etc.

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Solfadore posted...

Good stuff. Agate is a good foil, and Olivier & Estelle are great.

Any thoughts on where the story might be headed? I'm curious as to how playing Cold Steel first might have affected your impressions, theories, etc.

Not really, I'm trying not to get ahead of the story and just take it as it comes!

I did the whole banquet thing last night and now I'm off to complete the Queen's request! I assume I'll be finishing up over the weekend, if not tonight.

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I can understand Tita at the back, but I actually abused the hell out of Tita in SC. I didn't use her in FC but I found her OP in the second one, but I doubt she was actually different. I think she's just busted and I didn't notice to begin with, lol

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*SPOILERS*

I did not see Kloe as the princess coming at all! Kind of disappointed in myself for that one.

Why is it that every time there's a mission in which stealth and/or time is an issue, characters kind of just stand around and talk? It almost always leads to trouble, too! I remember this happening in Cold Steel a fair amount too...

Luckily Olivier came to save the day in awesome fashion (and Scherazard too but more importantly Olivier)

I'm now heading down to the sewers with THE BROS

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Aw yeah THE BROS. Best FC party.

I don't know how recently you played chapter 2 of FC, but I felt like some stuff in that teases the Kloe plot twist pretty hard?

At least it was clear she was nobility or something like that at any rate, I'm not sure that I immediately said "yep she'd def the princess!" or anything though.
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So what happens if you actually beat Lorence? Is it possible? Does the same cutscene still happen? If so that's really unsatisfying (and one of my gaming pet peeves, both unwinnable battles and beating a boss but your characters get rekt anyway). Also I didn't really get why he just peaced out after the fight and told us how to stop Richard.

Ok I'm in what looks like a final dungeon and I get to choose my party! Agate and Olivier no questions asked.

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You can beat Lorence. You need to for max BP. The cutscene is slightly different but the thing you complain about basically still occurs, I think.

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Yeah, you get bonus BP for beating Lorence and the cutscene changes and he congratulates the party and says he underestimated them and then rekts the party and the rest plays out similarly from there.

Beating him can be tough, especially going in blind. Kloe's craft with Sieg is godly in FC because the debuffs it inflicts are way OP to both enemy offense and defense. And with Faint/Confuse protection on the party a large part of the headache is removed but you can't really know that blind and if Joshua's Team had that stuff welp.

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Ah, I missed several side quests so Max BP wasn't in play anyway, so I guess I didn't miss out on much. I figured he could be beaten with the right accessories but I didn't have them, and I didn't know if it was possible to win so I didn't reload my save (and I think I saved over it now). I still don't get why he just bailed though. Did I miss something or is that supposed to be a mystery? Other than that, the castle siege section was pretty rad.

The ambush chests in the underground place are rough. Not hard, but they take a lot of time to clear out

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MZero posted...

Did I miss something or is that supposed to be a mystery?

Mystery for now.

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you have 1000 save slots available and you should take advantage of them

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This place needs a map >_>

I got all the equipment except for Agate's sword :( assuming there was one in here

Just got to Richard

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Yeah, everyone has a weapon down in that dungeon. I'm pretty good at navigating that place with my standard JRPG-honed navigation skills but one of the floors tries to throw a wrench in it by having a loop in it that if you don't catch can make you overlook a few rooms.

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Getting almost all of the equipment there is pretty good

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Off the top of your head- favorite jrpgs of the past 15 years?

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It wasn't terribly hard to navigate, but it all looked really similar so there weren't many landmarks so I ended up going to rooms I'd already been to quite a few times

I got weapons for everyone except Agate, two pairs of each of the boots and two of each of the armors. I tried going back and looking for Agate's sword but I couldn't find it :/ not sure if there's anything else I missed. I felt trolled at first because I got weapons for everyone I wasn't using first, so for most of the dungeon I only had Olivier's. I understand Estelle and Joshua's being near the end though

banananor posted...

Off the top of your head- favorite jrpgs of the past 15 years?

Persona 5
Dragon Quest XI (and VIII but that might more than 15 years old)
Final Fantasy XV
Trails of Cold Steel

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Beated game! The Richard fight was the hardest of the last sequence. Cassius smacking him upside the face while he was whining was so good.

I can't say I thought Professor Alba would turn out to be a fiend! It was kind of convenient how he always happened to be around. I knew for sure Joshua was going to take off after that scene, but I was expecting him to just be gone when Estelle got back with the ice cream. In the last scene, I was expecting him to go Lorence style and just jump off the castle. That would have been cooler, but I guess Joshua can't pull that off (understandable, it's not an easy move!)

Joshua and Estelle romance thing is kinda weird but eh. They're not really related, so it's fine I guess.

Second half of the game was really good. I really regret not finishing it years ago. I'm pretty stoked to jump into SC next!

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FC's ending is so good. And yeah, the game in general really picks up around Zeiss, IMO.

Fun Fact: If you play very intentionally bad and have an atrocious Bracer Rank (like close to the minimum possible BP in the game, think it has to be Rank 6 or worse) the ending is altered and you don't get the final S-Craft festival "battle" against the half-dead Reverie. Cassius just beats the shit out of it and destroys it himself.

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I played SC for about an hour and the intro still isn't over! I hope I get to bust up some baddies soon

xp1337 posted...

FC's ending is so good. And yeah, the game in general really picks up around Zeiss, IMO.

Fun Fact: If you play very intentionally bad and have an atrocious Bracer Rank (like close to the minimum possible BP in the game, think it has to be Rank 6 or worse) the ending is altered and you don't get the final S-Craft festival "battle" against the half-dead Reverie. Cassius just beats the shit out of it and destroys it himself.

Lol, that's pretty funny actually. I ended up at Rank 2, so not bad I guess? I assume 1 is the highest

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I started the game on Hard and kind of instantly regretted it when I opened my first ambush chest and got rocked. But I also don't want to restart on Normal because 1) I don't want to do all that again and 2) I still have my pride

I have heard that it gets easier after the prologue. Is this true? Also are normal attacks supposed to be useless? Estelle does like 1 damage! Used up basically all my EP killing those frog things in the sewers. Kurt wasn't too hard to beat because he just kept spamming his DEF UP move.


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SC does get easier after the Prologue but the Prologue on non-Normal difficulties is some bullshit tbqh. >_>

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normal attacks are kind of garbage on not-Normal in FC and SC but they do get better past the Prologue with better builds and are actually good in 3rd

There is a way to get a +50 STR item in the first chapter that I can tell you if you really find yourself needing it

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You can definitely do SC blind on Hard but it will be quite tough in a few spots. And yes the prologue is one of the hardest parts of the game on Hard or Nightmare.

Also I think "everyone not Estelle and Joshua not getting enough character development" was my number one complaint about FC and thankfully the next two games fix that in spades!

In Grimsel Fortress and there's a forced battle against two bugs and two rabbit things that kill Estelle from full HP before I get a turn >_>

Yeahhhhhh I'm restarting on Normal before I end up hating this game!

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yeah I remember being surprised at how hard the beginning of SC was

the rest of the game certainly was not

These monsters do like 1/8 the damage on Normal and now it's so easy. There needs to be something in between!

I've basically caught up to where I was now, so no harm done I guess. Skipping through the dialogue makes it a lot faster!

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The hardest of FC and SC were definitely the beginnings. I beat them both Hard. Iit was a real challenge early but it got easier as you got your quartz in place

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MZero posted...

Agate > ... Tita

>:\

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_stingers_ posted...

The hardest of FC and SC were definitely the beginnings. I beat them both Hard. Iit was a real challenge early but it got easier as you got your quartz in place

It seems like less of a "challenge" and more of bull stuff to me, but I'm certainly no expert. I may go back and try hard again someday

Tom Bombadil posted...

>:\

Agate smacking Tita great scene

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Sky's difficulty is a little wonky because Hard and Nightmare are technically balanced assuming you're on NG+ in FC and SC. Apparently they did this because the games didn't originally have the higher difficulties on their original PC releases and they added them in for the PSP ports.

From 3rd on this isn't the case however, and in fact I'd recommend playing on at least Hard for 3rd (and for all of Crossbell and Cold Steel though I know you already played CS).

Nightmare (clean save) on FC was hell.

Nightmare (clean save) on 3rd was sometimes complete bullshit and sometimes the best moments I've ever had in a JRPG

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tcaz2 posted...

From 3rd on this isn't the case however, and in fact I'd recommend playing on at least Hard for 3rd (and for all of Crossbell and Cold Steel though I know you already played CS).

Challenge Accepted!

I have finished the prologue. I totally called the attack being an act btw. I wish I posted it in here but I was positive it was all part of the training.

Joshua has gone full Sasuke and is hanging out with the Sky Pirates.

The bad guys discuss The Plan. We see Lorence, Weismann, and weird face tattoo guy (forgot his name, whoops)

Back to Estelle and friends! When given choice, I of course instantly selected Agate with zero hesitation. If you choose Scherazard do you go to Rolent instead or do you go to Ruan either way?

Estelle should have chose Anelace over Joshua imo that romance would have been top shelf

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You go to Ruan regardless of who you pick. But Agate is absolutely the right choice ^5.

As is Anelace.

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I chose Agate too because I thought it would be more fun, but I wish I chose Scherazard now after beating it. But you seem like a big Agate fan so I doubt you will have that regret

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I picked Agate for s craft spam.

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Heck yeah got a FISHING POLE

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estelle's true adventure begins now

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Why does every japanese game have a fishing minigame

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Like seriously I just played Nier automata for the first time and when that robot asked me if I wanted to fish in a post apocalyptic hellscape for robot fish I wanted to tear my hair out

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fishing is the path to enlightenment

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_stingers_ posted...

Why does every japanese game have a fishing minigame

Fishing is ingrained in Japanese culture! Plus it's a fun, easy to integrate mini-game that anyone can enjoy! Automata's fishing wasn't that great though

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I'm chasing a ghost now. Met Kevin again, he's pretty cool but his accent is crazy thick

Olivier's entrance was top-notch as expected

Had to wait until the very end of FC to get Olivier and Agate in my party at the same time but SC wasted no time aww yeah

I decided to do an extermination quest before going to Jenis and Dorothy died a couple times :I but I got it done!

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I feel like Kloe's craft got super nerfed (the one that lowers the enemy's strength and defense). Didn't it use to do damage?

I'm exploring the old schoolhouse. This reminds me of Cold Steel! (yes I know this game came first). I'm pretty sure this ghost guy is Blueblanc or whatever his name his from Cold Steel

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MZero posted...

I feel like Kloe's craft got super nerfed (the one that lowers the enemy's strength and defense). Didn't it use to do damage?

Yeah but like a negligible amount of damage. Its buff was removed from like -50% STR and DEF to -10% which is much more important

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Yeah, the real nerf was to the debuff.

FC: -50% STR/DEF
SC: -10% STR/-15% DEF

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