Board 8 > SaveEstelle & LeonhartFour in New Houses: Next-Gen Edition [SELF]

(+) Yeah! (+)

The Mana Sword posted...

falcouner music doesnt exist anymore, its only on the older DVD/VHS releases. the funimation streaming options use the JP music.

ffffffffuuuuuuu
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man I don't know why I didn't make that "The Sign of the Four" connection in DGS2

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I finished the Random Numbers short story in The Intuition of Haruhi Suzumiya. It feels like Takumi did a lot more Kyon/Koizumi stories/segments in the later books, which I'm fine with because they have solid chemistry. This particular story isn't anything special, but it's fun for what it is.

also whoever translated this book is far more willing to use more vulgar language than whoever translated the others

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LeonhartFour posted...

also whoever translated this book is far more willing to use more vulgar language than whoever translated the others

That really stuck out to me as well.
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CS4 Act 2 complete.

uh a lot of stuff just happened.

This is going to be a very abbreviated set of thoughts because there's just too much to cover. And I feel like my general impression/view of it all went through some shifts as it all unfolded too. Going around talking to everyone on the Pantagruel was great. This was basically the EVERYONE IS HERE moment with Kloe, Cassius, Prince Albert, President Rocksmith joining up with the majority of the FC Party, Josette, the OG SSS, KeA, Rosine, Lucy, Kaela, Aurelia, Bardias like it was nuts. Some real fun and cool interactions like Joshua talking about Hamel, Kloe and Lucy reminiscing on the old Jenis Student Council Days, and Duvalie declaring Anelace her rival just off Rean's hearsay (make this happen falcom. MAKE. IT. HAPPEN.)

Ouroboros crashing the party with the Glorious was also hype though I wish the "dungeon" part of this was a lot longer. We get all these guest characters and then it's basically a short hallway to the boss fight. lmao Estelle, Renne, and Duvalie reacting to Gilbert. Altina mentions the "Court of Shadows" as when Gilbert teamed up with Estelle and unless I'm blanking on 3rd stuff did she mean the Castle of Illusions (or do I only think of it by that name because of the OST?) Or just Phantasma in general? I mean either way I knew what she was talking about but I don't remember that specific term.

Boss banter and fights were cool too except you gotta let me equip accessories to guest characters if you're gonna force everyone to fight and then toss out deathblow and petrify like candy. Only Renne came to this thinking like I do!

Things turning bad after this was also really well done though I've got questions about those Aions. Musse revealing her plan to ram the Glorious and Aurelia ordering everyone to evacuate or else she'd cut them down was also powerful... and then this all took quite the turn. On the balance I'm not all that happy with how things proceeded from here. Like obviously I knew that they weren't really going to have Musse sacrifice herself like this, and because this is Trails you just always knew actually everyone survived the Courageous explosion but ugh it's like they literally came back from the dead to ensure that no one dies in Trails period. And after a bunch of realist talk where you got even Cassius Bright and Kloe resigned to Mille Mirage and that sometimes things are just bad and ugly but you have to do what you can... I'm not really up for Olivier coming in with "I'm here just to give Class VII a ride. Legit no plans beyond that." I was fine with Estelle, the SSS, and Class VII rejecting the idea of officially joining the plan but it started to get to be a bit too much of vague unspecified hope talk at this point.

Cedric unraveling is always... a sight to watch and Osborne skyping into the meeting was a mixed bag. Alberich's VA is just amazing at the role and gives a great performance but I'm not feeling this Victor plotline. The whole thing behind them all surviving CS3 was already a bit much but then throwing on, "actually the curse can also just force people to act how it wants a la Phantasma... only in the real world and not inside the Recluse Cube's very unique situation" is like "really now?" Also major props to Lloyd's VA for the delivery on his parting shot to Rufus. Might be the best delivered line in the game so far, the emotion and anger rising through it was pitch perfect.

Anyway we're in Act 3 now and I guess Roselia is like "Shit, maybe I shouldn't just sit on this information any longer" so it sounds like we're heading to the Luna Shrine next.

...god and that is genuinely the short version. I skipped over so many things and really went light on my own thoughts/reactions too.

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About to take on the final boss as soon as I get home from work

The hot plot reveals on the boss right before that has me looking forward to what it means for the entire series going forward

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Almost 10 hours into 13 Sentinels now

Stuff's still being set up, but I can tell it's going to get very crazy...!

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Trails of Cold Steel has now reached its conclusion. Thank you for journeying with us until the saga's very end. See you again. Someday. Somewhere.

if only, time to replay on NG+ to finish off the platinum

also heads up after you get the true ending reload your save file and skip the ending to get an extra bonus cutscene

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F/GO: I have learned the source of all strife and suffering in the world - poems.

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LotM already passing me in 13 sentinels~
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I finished the DGS2 LP. The last case reminded me a lot of 1-5. I think this game was a step down from the original. You could tell it was rushed, but I still enjoyed it.

Now I'll be looking forward to a proper localization!

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I'm getting that urge to do a board project again. I either need to pick something easy or resist.

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I think I'm closing in on the end of Trails From Zero Chapter 3.

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Leonhart4 posted...

I'm getting that urge to do a board project again. I either need to pick something easy or resist.

Challenge yourself and do something hard

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I did that last time!

Although whatever it is probably won't be as time consuming as that Smash thing was regardless

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https://board8.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Series_Polls

Actually I was thinking of doing a third iteration of these polls. I think the last time I did this was shortly after FFXIII came out, so it's been a while!

These were fun and they're low maintenance with no real drama involved, so I might go for it.

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10 year anniversary too

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F/GO: Think I'm closing in on the end of Lostbelt 3. Chapter I'm on shows a red treasure chest as the reward and storywise we should be at the climax. Getting all those EXP cards during Gilfest which let me raise a bunch of Servants up has given me a lot more flexibility and some unexpected stars and I feel like Sieg has been this one's so far. Not that I couldn't manage without him but with so many Assassin enemies around I've had him fielded a few times to back up Anastasia with even more AoE firepower and he's done well. They basically blew up any chance Yu and Xiang Yu had in their dual fight which is where I stopped because my AP ran down. Ana charges up to 100% with Waver + her 3rd Skill and blew up Yu's first HP bar. Sieg (who reached 100% with Kaleidoscope and Waver's first turn buffs) took nearly all of her last bar off. And then Turn 3 had Ana back at 100% because of great card luck those first two turns and she finished her off. Add in Gandr and Xiang Yu barely go to do anything before his Neutral Damage buff expired and we could lay on the pain. Lobo also did some work in the Old Li Shuwen fight with his buff removal skill making things a lot better and to a lesser extent the Han Xin mook rush which was probably the trickiest fight so far for me. I got wasted pretty hard the first time but got some fortunate luck on the second attempt where I was more prepared and got him - it got close though because at the very end Card Luck tried to balance the scales for the rest of the fight going well by backstabbing me. Void Shiki hard carried me in that fight LOL.

Fun Lostbelt so far but it feels shorter than the first two. Not that that's a problem but it definitely feels like it's paced a lot faster than the others.

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Trails From Zero Chapter 3 complete!

Oh hey, there's KeA. I brought Elie with me to the auction. Felt like the natural choice. I enjoyed the Kilika and Lechter cameos. Also, we finally get the Randy backstory I already knew about...! Next we get an intermission focused on KeA, looks like. I wonder how much we actually learn about her in this game. I'm guessing we at least learn she's the "Zero Child" since this is Trails From Zero and all, but we'll see.

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Another Trails from Zero chapter another time Zeit proves he's the real hero by bailing out the SSS.

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LeonhartFour posted...

Trails From Zero Chapter 3 complete!

Oh hey, there's KeA. I brought Elie with me to the auction. Felt like the natural choice. I enjoyed the Kilika and Lechter cameos. Also, we finally get the Randy backstory I already knew about...! Next we get an intermission focused on KeA, looks like. I wonder how much we actually learn about her in this game. I'm guessing we at least learn she's the "Zero Child" since this is Trails From Zero and all, but we'll see.

leave my daughter alone

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xp1337 posted...

Another Trails from Zero chapter another time Zeit proves he's the real hero by bailing out the SSS.

I think my favorite part of chapter 3 was completely screwing up a sidequest only for Zeit to solve it instead

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Aw yeah Titans/Colts is on locally so I'll be playing some more Trails From Zero this afternoon.

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F/GO: Lostbelt 3 beated. Fun Lostbelt. QSH was the only tricky fight of the three I had left. He got me the first time but left me convinced that it would be a sleepwalk with Command Seals but since I was still waiting on the last one to regen (more on that later) I decided to give it another shot with a most aggressive set-up and got him on the runback. Fujino/Waver/Lobo were my frontline. The plan was to have Fujino and Lobo NP him Turn 1 to stick him with Null Buff for his auto-NP Charge from the first break. And then try to quickly regroup and take his second bar off with Lobo alive still to remove his buffs from that bar breaking... but that last bar is an adventure lol. He just critted down that entire frontline the turn that bar broke. They were a bit beat up by that point, sure, but I don't think it really would have mattered. Mash/NPC Mordred/Jeanne Alter Berserker came in for the save. Mash tanked while I desperately prayed for the cards to cooperate and let me get Jeanne the bit of NP gain I needed to fire off her NP. Came down to some luck where I wanted him to target Mordred but he instead hit Jeanne who thankfully held on with a sliver of health and she blew him up the following turn.

I heard SIN was one of the tougher Lostbelts so I was braced for adversity but thankfully I got through without too much trouble. A few wipes but all ones where I was able to figure out how to better approach the fight and readjust. I did use CS Revive on... 9-3 I think it was (The Xiang Lu/Lan Ling team fight where you actually have to beat Xiang Lu for real. I shouldn't have had to though. It was the last node I had AP for at the time and I was real-life exhausted and distracted and completely blanked on using Fujino's Sure Hit and blew a turn where he had Evade up that would have finished off the current bar. Completely unraveled the fight beyond my ability to recover though I got close anyway. The way the cards went in the following turns were practically ideal if I had remembered to play correctly too so I'm sure it would have gone just fine so I just popped the revive in frustration. Only place I used Seals in the Lostbelt.) I feel like the enemy rush fight was the toughest fight still in that had Saber Shiki not carried me with Instant Death spam I feel like I'd be at something of a loss there... but she did so I didn't have to give that fight much thought for what I'd do if that plan failed.

As for the story in the Lostbelt it was fairly good. Better than LB2 but not quite as good as LB1 I guess? The concept was definitely interesting and almost felt like a better take on Lostbelt 2's idea to me. Cast was phenomenal for the most part though. Spartacus was amazing here and went from a gag character in my mind to legitimately great. Jing Ke had some great scenes here, especially her last one. Mordred was A+. Qin Shi Huang was an excellent antagonist as well all throughout. Music for the Lostbelt was good too, especially liked QSH's "theme" that played a lot in the beginning in the scenes with him.

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Whew, big win for the Titans today. Now we're in the driver's seat for the division.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Whew, big win for the Titans today. Now we're in the driver's seat for the division.

Congrats!

jets maintaining their iron grip on the trevor lawrence decides he'd rather stay at clemson another year now sweepstakes today as well

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...but this game is quickly reminding me that probably the best I can hope for is a repeat of last year where we lost to the Chiefs in the AFC title game

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Well, yes. The Chiefs are going to 10-peat.

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Maybe we can have a game where Henry runs for 500 yards and Hill has 500 yards receiving

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CS4 Act 3 beated

3-1:

Well that sure was a lot better than Act 2! 3-1 was probably the most consistently good chapter in the game so far, though it was also insanely looooong. Thankfully all the content was good at least! The side quests were great (this is something the game has excelled at so far - almost every side quest has been excellent, and I think the average side quest quality has probably been better than any other Trails game), and the main story parts were real good too! Actually getting some answers was nice (though the cause of the curse being lol evil divine knight is... not exciting. Finally beating Sharon and co. and getting her/Schmidt/Irina/George back on your side was all good. I still feel like them becoming evil is a storyline that shouldn't have existed though. Honestly you could delete all the Black Workshop parts from the Cold Steel games and lose nothing of value. Alberich is not an interesting villain either. Taking down Rutger was good and emotional. Liked it very much! It's silly that the third path is just "defeat Erebonia before the war starts" as if Musse couldn't possibly have come up with that idea, though.

3-2:

This was mostly good too! I liked exploring Crossbell, the confrontation with Victor was cool (gimme all the Aurier), the performance was a bit cheesy but fun with how literally everyone joined in (too bad they didn't have Osborne watching from the rafters or something), Orchis Tower music rocked (did they use this music in the prologue?). The ending was lame though. Am I really supposed to believe Rufus could take Lianne by surprise after all of 2 weeks with his Divine Knight? And all the things appearing in the sky was lame too, especially since we're obviously going to need all of two days to take down every single one of them. Narrating everything with their appearance sucked, too. Oh well.

Finally, is it just me or are the bond events better in this game better than the previous CSs? I remember 1 and 2's bond events were mostly kinda trash, but here (and maybe in 3?) they're on another level. Lots of them have interesting story beats, and even tie into the main plot in cool ways. I'm mostly sad when I can't pick one (except the crappy romance ones).

Man this is gonna be the longest Trails game by a lot (my playtime is already several hours above CS3, which was the previous longest).
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Bond Events have been pretty good so far, yeah.

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I feel like CS3 had really good bonding events after they were pretty simplistic in the first two. Glad to hear CS4 is continuing that trend.

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CS4 3-1:

To be honest 3-1 was probably my least favorite part of the game so far and kind of killed a lot of motivation going forward. Alberich sucks, and the plotline with Sharon/Irina/Schmidt was just stupid. You can make your characters resolute villains or resolute heroes, but don't have them firmly in their allegiance to one side only to have them do a complete face-turn once Class VII shows up because ???. I will say George was somewhat decent since he'd been a bit indecisive from the beginning, but yeah. I will say this isn't a problem that's new to Kiseki and I remember in particular a somewhat bad case from Azure, but it bothered me more here for some reason.

Also it's kind of weird to me that the entire history of Erebonia boils down to "there's this one really evil dude with mind powers", but whatever. It led to some good scenes, and while I'm not thrilled by it I wouldn't exactly say I'm opposed to it either. If anything I just don't really like what it does to Osborne's character. The stuff with Rutger was pretty solid though yeah.
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Wouldn't disagree with any of that! Them being evil to begin with was dumb and bad. Fits into your idea of merging CS3 and CS4 - you wouldn't have Sharon/Irina/Schmidt/George join the bad guys to begin with. I thought them turning back to the good side was inevitable though, so I was just glad to have it finally happen. It's nice to have parts where things happen after that not really being the case with the first half of the game.

And yeah evil mind power dude is a bad explanation but the curse is a bad idea to begin with so whatever.
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The Mandalorian Season 2 Episode 5 complete!

I feel like this is the episode every Star Wars fan was waiting for.

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My strongest thought on Act 3 in general is that everything feels too hopeful. The continent is about to break out into total war, everything is on fire, the whole world is against us, curse gonna curse, the sword of Damocles is hanging over half the party, we don't have a plan, and everyone's just like "no worries we got this ps I love you Rean."
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Now that the family is gone I should be able to get back to CS4 tonight

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dowolf: wouldn't disagree with that either, but it's obvious the war isn't going to happen and no one dies in Trails anyway so I don't really care about that part lol. It'd be better if people actually died and bad things happened for real, but it is what it is.
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The Office Season 7 Episode 11 complete!

Wow, it's rare for Jim to be on the losing end quite this thoroughly


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The Office Season 7 Episode 12 complete!

I'm really starting to like Erin. I like how she's looking out for Michael when it comes to Holly.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

dowolf: wouldn't disagree with that either, but it's obvious the war isn't going to happen and no one dies in Trails anyway so I don't really care about that part lol. It'd be better if people actually died and bad things happened for real, but it is what it is.

When I read your response, I feel like I'm asking "Why is there bad writing in Trails" and your response is basically "Why do you expect the writing to be good?" Which is a shame, because I will defend the writing in Sky to my last breath, but maybe that's where we are, as a series.
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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Episode 8 complete!

Ed vs. The Slicer and Al vs. The Chopper were both really good fights.

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FMA: Brotherhood has a lot of good fights in general, I think.

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Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood Episode 9 complete!

It was nice to see Al work to overcome his doubts about himself.

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Okay, let's finally get back to Cold Steel IV Fragments!

Oh right, it's a Free Day where I'm controlling Altina. I'm excited about this. We can observe Kurt and Ash playing a chess match while Jusis and Machias reminisce about a nobles/commoners chess tournament from CS1 (one of the few Machias Bond Events I actually did in that game, in fact!), and Altina says that Jusis and Machias together remind her of Kurt and Ash together. I don't really see it because neither Kurt nor Ash really gets under the other's skin in any real way. Plus, Kurt certainly isn't smug like Jusis, and Ash isn't really a hothead like Machias is. I get the fact that they're basically foils for each other, personality-wise, and they manage to get along in spite of it, but I feel like that's where the similarities end. I'm honestly loving the Altina inner monologue as she interacts with people and tries to gauge their intentions though.

Musse and Sara are discussing what traits they look for in a man, and they're both suckers for older men, unsurprisingly. We get a sick burn when Sara says she's still a spring chicken, and Altina responses with, "And a headless one, at that." We get our first Zeo appearance (unless you took Gaius along to Crossbell, I guess), and we learn he's named after a legendary Nord warrior who fought alongside Emperor Dreichels. I trigger a sidequest where we learn Altina has the pendant Emma made for Rean to help him control his ogre power, but it's broken and needs to be repaired.

We get a cutscene with Juna and KeA, the latter of whom mentions talking to Shizuku recently, which is ironic because when I left off in Trails From Zero, they had just met for the first time! Apparently, Shizuku is in Remiferia now, so that's cool. Then Altina asks KeA if they were created in a similar way, and she confirms it. It seems like the Gnomes and the Crois family steal each other's tech pretty regularly! I guess I sort of suspected KeA might have been created based on her "amnesia" in Zero, but I get that confirmation here first! We get another cutscene with Renne and Alisa discussing the former's mad hacking skills as Kitty, ending with Altina determining Renne's greatest weapon is her puppy dog eyes.

Eventually, it's time to tackle the next phase of the labyrinth. This one is meant to be confusing by having false paths and everything, but I actually luck into the right path to the end without screwing up, which was nice! The boss was a little annoying because it can cause confuse and impede any spells you attempt to cast, but it wasn't too hard overall. Also, it feels like I struggle with cash in Cold Steel way more than I ever struggled in Sky and more than I've struggled in Zero. Even just trying to keep New Class VII up to date is more than I can afford!

With all that out of the way, it's time to pinpoint the Black Workshop's location at last. The Hexen Clan has been searching for the Gnomes HQ for the last 800 years, it seems. While the witches hid within the forest, the gnomes burrowed deep underground, as one might expect, considering the name. Apparently, it's outside of Lamare near Milsante in a deep trench within a mountain range. It's about 1000 meters below ground, and we need a teleport gate to reach it.

Roselia plans to use our Panzer Soldats as beacons to reach the Black Workshop because they still have some of Valimar's power in them. Then literally everyone in the village enters the room to help cast the traditional teleportation spell. The entire town of Eryn itself has to become the portal. However, it's a one-way trip. Roselia won't be able to extract us once we're inside. This spell is powered by determination and any doubt will cause the portal to become unstable, so we've entered into some sort of Final Fantasy VIII/Gurren Lagann hybrid, apparently!

Oh hey, it's Towa and the Empress suddenly, and then Alfin and Tita dressed like royalty for some reason. Then it's Elise and Tio. Like, if all these people are okay, why hasn't anyone been able to find them? Well, whatever. Looks like Randy caught up to Thomas and Agate, nice. And Crow's been expecting us, it seems like, although Georg and Duvalie seem surprised. Well, it's the first time anyone's ever been able to find the place, I guess. Oh hey, there's Angelica, wearing some sort of Bleublanc-esque mask and speaking in a weird way. I guess she was brainwashed at like Crow after Georg ambushed her in CS3. Duvalie seems conflicted by all that's going on, so maybe she'll defect to our party at some point...! The presence of Class VII seems to be having a negative effect on Rean though. Celine calls him a Sacrifice, whatever that means. He's able to break free from his shackles, saying he won't forgive them for what they did to Millium, although apparently no one can actually say her name or Rean's without sounding like they're underwater. Then Celine transforms into a catgirl to stop him, I guess!

Roselia says the path splits so we have to split into two groups. Sara suggests dividing up the boys and girls, although she volunteers to go with the boys. Oh bummer, Renne and KeA aren't going with us. FIrst we take control of Rean and catgirl Celine. That DISAPPEAR Rean shouts for a follow-up attack is fantastic. I've always kinda felt Rean had one of the weaker VAs for a major character in Cold Steel, but he's killing it here. I love the vacant stare Rean has on the victory screen, too.

Looks like we can freely change between all three parties during this dungeon, so that's nice. I figured we'd need a checkpoint or something like in CS3 when we had split party dungeons. As we move through, we find the incubation tanks where they create the homunculi. Also, the battle screen transitions are cool here. Turns out we don't really need to switch because the girls' route ends when they run into a couple of girls who look like Altina in her Gear Mode. The guys come across a combat shell research lab, and at the end, more girls like Altina in Gear Mode. Gaius says that he can't sense any sort of life in them at all, so Sara concludes they aren't homunculi but archaisms instead. They actually make us fight them this time, and beating them triggers the girls' fight. This leaves just Rean's route.

But that'll have to wait until tomorrow.

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The ol FF6 split dungeon

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Black Workshop hype.

Totally agree with Punished Rean being incredible in his voicing, lines, and general animations.

LeonhartFour posted...

We get our first Zeo appearance (unless you took Gaius along to Crossbell, I guess)

I took Gaius to Crossbell and IIRC Zeo doesn't show until where he did for you. the disloyalty.

LeonhartFour posted...

Even just trying to keep New Class VII up to date is more than I can afford!

I was doing okay with that... right until Fragments where I pretty much just gave up lol.

LeonhartFour posted...

This one is meant to be confusing by having false paths and everything, but I actually luck into the right path to the end without screwing up, which was nice!

Dunno if you have, but next time you can head there, there's a treasure chest on a "wrong" path. It's... the left one when you first enter the level. That's the only one like that there though AFAIK. Also if you mess up two or three times the Active Voice Events basically tell you what to look for to know what exits are correct.

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Yeah, I figured that out when I went back to check out the other paths. I always keep the quartz equipped that marks treasure chests on the map.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Finally, is it just me or are the bond events better in this game better than the previous CSs? I remember 1 and 2's bond events were mostly kinda trash, but here (and maybe in 3?) they're on another level. Lots of them have interesting story beats, and even tie into the main plot in cool ways. I'm mostly sad when I can't pick one (except the crappy romance ones).

Agreed, they've been great outside of some really bad "Gotta confess to Rean" moments. Every bonding event with the guys has been incredible.

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everyone should confess to rean

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