Board 8 > Trails from MZero

(+) Yeah! (+)

MZero posted...

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this, but the part where everyone died and KeA reversed history to save them felt so unnecessary and kinda dumb. I don't like time travel though so I have some inherent bias there

it's not actually time travel though

also wow time travel is awesome

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LeonhartFour posted...

it's not actually time travel though

also wow time travel is awesome

true, but the principle is the same!

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Ehhhh, the end result might be similar, but the principle isn't the same.

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_stingers_ posted...

that was the biggest plot twist and gave meaning to the prologue of zero! i loved that.

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MZero posted...

I still like the game overall but it dropped from possibly being the best in the series to competing [...] with... well, 3rd.

well competing with the GOAT isn't such a bad place to be

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Leonhart4 posted...

Ehhhh, the end result might be similar, but the principle isn't the same.

What I mean is, it undermines like 90% of the story because if they ever screwed up they had a "get out of jail free" card

Also why didn't she just delete Joachim from the universe with her reality altering powers or make him get hit by a bus or something

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because she was explictly torn between wanting to be rescued and wanting to fulfill her perceived duty. she couldn't justify explictly altering the world to save herself, just doing enough to save her family, and it was their own efforts that led them to succeed

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Also Joachim was already gone at the time that happened.

Or are you proposing that an instinctual release of her incomplete powers derived from a primal emotional response should also have the ability to pinpoint control what she changes whenever she wants because I don't think it works that way

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MZero posted...

What I mean is, it undermines like 90% of the story because if they ever screwed up they had a "get out of jail free" card

What a weird take because it is never presented that way and it's not the point of why it happened. It frames the entirety of KeA's character and the weight of the burden her power exacts on her.

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NFUN posted...

because she was explictly torn between wanting to be rescued and wanting to fulfill her perceived duty. she couldn't justify explictly altering the world to save herself, just doing enough to save her family, and it was their own efforts that led them to succeed

But Joachim is the one that killed them, so if she wanted to save them she should have just got rid of him instead of having them get closer with the Brights and Renne so that she'd save them at the last second

Then00bAvenger posted...

Also Joachim was already gone at the time that happened.

Or are you proposing that an instinctual release of her incomplete powers derived from a primal emotional response should also have the ability to pinpoint control what she changes whenever she wants because I don't think it works that way

imo it makes more sense for an "instinctual release" to be the simplest solution, which was getting rid of Joachim. What she actually did sounds more deliberate and thought out

Leonhart4 posted...

What a weird take because it is never presented that way and it's not the point of why it happened. It frames the entirety of KeA's character and the weight of the burden her power exacts on her.

It's not the point of why it happened, but I can't help thinking about it that way. And I think they did a fine job of presenting that KeA's struggle with her power without needing to drop that in there

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The problem is that both KeA and Demiourgos don't actually want to kill anyone, not even the bad guys. That's why they ultimately choose to erase themselves. And that's why it's important to know KeA actually did use it without the party ever becoming aware of it until the very end. She fully understands the burden of power because she's actually made the choice to use it.

"it was so stupid that they actually showed KeA using this amazing power how utterly unnecessary" is such a bizarre take

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MZero posted...

But Joachim is the one that killed them, so if she wanted to save them she should have just got rid of him instead of having them get closer with the Brights and Renne so that she'd save them at the last second

imo it makes more sense for an "instinctual release" to be the simplest solution, which was getting rid of Joachim. What she actually did sounds more deliberate and thought out

It's not the point of why it happened, but I can't help thinking about it that way. And I think they did a fine job of presenting that KeA's struggle with her power without needing to drop that in there

Why would instincts demand the most simple and expedient solution? That's purely a mindset of rational, precautionary thinking. She wants to protect her family--she values her family, she's 100% motivated by her love for her family--so her instinctive method of accomplishing this goal is to create more bonds of love, to inspire others to protect that which she cares for.

Remember, she's basically omniscient at this point. She could rationally identify trillions ways of solving this issue; if she were so inclined, Joachim could die by a comically inefficient Rube Goldberg machine involving Tita, an acerbic tomato, three creepy sheep and a very large stick, and it'd be just as trivial to arrange as Joachim choking on a bruhfish and dying an ignominious death. She has an infinite solution set open to her, so the one that will be chosen will be the one her instinct and emotions resonate with.

And as I've said, she's torn about this whole issue. She's not going to use her powers, at least in significant and overt ways, to help her family much outside of averting their deaths. I'd imagine Lloyd would treat a failure to save KeA as equal to dying, so the "get out of jail free card" of him being in a sense immortal isn't terribly relevant

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Regardless of the fact that she obviously wouldn't just want to straight up kill someone, I think there's the issue of if she'd even be capable of something like that at that point.

The game conveniently never tells or shows us what exactly it is that she changed to cause this difference but my favorite theory is that all she did was make a butterfly go into Colin's path causing him to chase it thus causing a chain reaction that led to all the differences. A literal "butterfly effect". A change on that scale would be a lot minor than say, erasing someone so it's plausible that in an incomplete state she would be able to still do something like that.

(On that note, I've seen a lot of people be under the impression that she made this change retroactively after the ceremony that turned her blue and powered her up, but I think it's pretty clear from the text that this is a change she made before any of that actually happened. Just in case this talk of "incomplete" is confusing someone.)

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Yeah, my view is that KeA is very End of Eternity, which is a book I was not expecting to be able to reference twice today

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Oh yeah, and how did they even find KeA in the first place if they never befriended Renne, thus never got the invite to the Auction in the first place?

and also you guys say she didn't want to kill Joachim but he still died anyway. So she did kill him just not very efficiently, as in she could have chose a way he didn't die or prevented his death if she wanted to

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MZero posted...

she could have chose a way he didn't die or prevented his death if she wanted to

First, you don't know that.

Second, are you seriously saying that not saving someone is the same as killing them or was that just a weird attempt at a joke

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Then00bAvenger posted...

First, you don't know that.

Second, are you seriously saying that not saving someone is the same as killing them or was that just a weird attempt at a joke

i don't see why she wouldn't be able to, unless you think it was just a fluke and couldn't actually control her powers but it didn't sound that way to me

And I mean, in the same way she "saved" the main party she "killed" Joachim, yes. I was never talking about literally killing him herself, just altering events in a way that he's removed from the picture

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It's not about controlling them or not, it's about whether that would be possible without changing reality. The entire point of the Azure Tree was upgrading her so that she has the ability to straight out rewrite reality which would allow her to do things that would otherwise not be originally possible.

Without it, the only thing she can do is operate within cause-and-effect that already exists. It's quite possible that the 'result' of Joachim living does not actually exist period in the current cause-and-effect possibilities without first having to rewrite reality in some way.

In fact, the entire point of joining Maribel's plan in the first place was because out of all the possible realities that she read, it was apparently the only one with a decent future. That entire act itself should show you how limited she was in what she could do without first getting Maribel's assistance. That's actually an interesting scene(where it shows her right before she calls Maribel at the start of chapter 4) because your first time through you're like ??? since it's kind of cryptic but if you go back to it with the full story in mind it's like "ohhh, so that's what she was talking about."

After becoming the tree she most likely was going to rewrite reality into one where not only Joachim was alive, but also a bunch of other people. Like, that was the point

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Honestly, I hate reality altering powers in fiction in general so I can't really discuss this from an unbiased point of view, and I don't think this is really going anywhere so I'll just drop it. I shouldn't have called it dumb, I should have just said I didn't like it.

I do think I found a plot hole with the auction ticket though!

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In the sense that it's not explained in the story, yeah. You have to fill in the blank yourself

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Bell wanted them to find KeA, so she'd have probably made sure they got a ticket if Renne wasn't there to get one for them.

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Leonhart4 posted...

Bell wanted them to find KeA, so she'd have probably made sure they got a ticket if Renne wasn't there to get one for them.

Interesting, I remember Arios saying she wasn't expecting the SSS to take her but kind of just let it happen

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Well, I doubt Arios knew everything Bell was plotting.

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True, he even says as much. I suppose she might have taken her from the auction and made a request to the SSS to look after her later

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I'm back to that cursed beach scene and just realized I don't have the thing to give the cat for the book and I don't have ingredients to cook anything so I have to re-do most of chapter 2 again heck

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KeA's power not seeming so dumb after all now, huh?

she could have helped with this if you were nicer

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This Sully dancing mini-game is straight out of heck

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Yes I can't imagine having to do without a retry option. It took me like 15 tries

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god DAMN it I forgot to feed the cat

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This is when I'm glad I'm not a completionist

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Leonhart4 posted...

This is when I'm glad I'm not a completionist

Trophies ruined me

I was never a completionist before. I didn't even know there were hidden quests until almost the end of SC!

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Which is a shame because the hidden quests tend to be great!

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I just realized it's been about 3 years since I beat Cold Steel. I'm thinking about replaying it before moving on to CS2 as a refresher

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i'm at the last chapter of cs, but i havent played in like 2 weeks. it was good but crossbell saga was definitely better. they upped the generic anime vibes a lot more in this one unfortunately. but its still solid

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hopefully the ending is really good, whenever i get around to playing it again

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The ending is the best part of CS1 imo.

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If you don't remember CS1's ending, you should probably get a refresher on it regardless because the beginning of CS2 will be confusing otherwise.

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Leonhart4 posted...

If you don't remember CS1's ending, you should probably get a refresher on it regardless because the beginning of CS2 will be confusing otherwise.

I do remember the ending at least!

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I got all the trophies except for Win 1000 battles

I only have 820 :/

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The grind begins (again)...

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Platinum trophy GET

I kind of don't want to start CS2 and lose stingers :(

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I'll try and catch up soon. My lifes been a bit of a mess recently

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_stingers_ posted...

I'll try and catch up soon. My lifes been a bit of a mess recently

yeah I definitely don't blame you for that. Hope you can get back on track soon man

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I need to think of a good topic title for my CS2 and beyond playhtrough

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Trails to GB

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2 Cold 2 Furious
Cold Steel, Hot Takes

or the classic Cold Steel the Hedgehog 2 & Crow

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I played some more CS today. Giant mech at the bottom of the old schoolhouse...nice. it's not a good game without some giant robots getting involved.

Also this better be the best damn concert of all time

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Trails meets Gundam

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