Board 8 > Trails from MZero

(+) Yeah! (+)

Randy > Tio > Lloyd > Elie for me (note that I had to settle for a LP)

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xp1337 posted...

Randy > Tio > Lloyd > Elie

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What is with all this Elie hate

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Tio > Randy > Elie > Lloyd

Elie could've done better if she had more screentime! She gets wayyy less focus on the others.
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Yeah, it's less Elie hate and more "Elie is just kinda there." Randy and Tio are both top-tier Trails characters imhotbqh and about tied through Zero. Lloyd is... all right, but still way behind Estelle and Kevin as a lead but he's still got more there than Elie.

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I felt like Tio was just there and Elie was the main focus. It's weird how it seems like most people feel differently I guess Elie just didn't have as much of a backstory to go into as the other two but nothing wrong with that to me

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Elie was there to have shiptease moments with Lloyd and to somehow know everyone, including people from the other subseries. She's likable and provides important exposition, but the others just had more.

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that's a lot of trails

probably gonna start Azure soon! I was going to take a break but I'm feeling the itch already

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Azure is so good. It's my favorite trails game (but I haven't played any cold steel yet). Hope you love it

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i wonder if Azure will make you retroactively like cold steel less when you realize how much of the first two are obviously recycling ideas and content from it

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At least personally I knew to expect that going in so I don't expect it to damper the experience too much. Hopefully I still enjoy the games but at least personally I won't be starting the CS franchise until after I beat Intergrade hard mode and the yuffie DLC so it'll be a bit for me

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I played the Trails games in release order and like CS more than Azure.
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I enjoy being able to experience the same events from different perspectives between Azure and Cold Steel.

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Started up Azure on Nightmare and loaded my Zero data, so well see what that does! I thought it was starting in media res again, but apparently not! An interesting ensemble of characters here as Lloyd, Noel, Dudley, and Arios arrive at Altair in Calvard to investigate the lodge Tio was held captive in. The game wastes no time getting to some fighting and wastes no time hitting me with an absolute banger of a battle theme. I dont know how Falcom consistently makes such great tracks. Anyway, when did Dudley get so strong? He was weaker than Lloyd and friends when we investigated the mafia headquarters! Did he get his hands on some of that good stuff?

Turns out Ernest and Hartmann escaped (shocking) and have fled to this lodge. We got a new and improved Enigma II and now we can use master quartz. I think master quartz were in Cold Steel but I completely forgot about them until now! We find Ernest but he gets away again. A boulder falls and breaks the bridge and now we are separated from Arios and Dudley. Suddenly, this isnt a cake walk anymore.

We find Ernest again and mess him up, but then he turns into a big demon like Joachim at the end of Zero. At this point, Im tired of Ernest and worried that hes going to be like the big bad or something. Luckily, Arios and Dudley show up in the nick of time and be wreck him. On that note, I dont really understand why Lloyd is so beat up about Joahim dying, and why hes so desperate to keep Ernest alive. I mean, sure youd rather arrest them alive dont but they were trying to kill you >_> (also you kind of suck at arresting people and they always get away)

KEVIN HYPE. When I heard his voice from off screen I darn near squealed. I hope to see more of him but by the sounds of it hes not heading to Crosbell anytime soon. But someone else is. RIES HYPE.

On the train we find out more about where Randy, Tio, and Elie are and what theyre doing. Noel is apparently joining The Squad along with mystery guy who was obviously Wazy. Since I loaded my Zero data, I chose that I bonded with Elie in the IBC tower near the end cause that scene was my favorite. At the station, Kia and Fran show up with near identical greetings for Lloyd and Noel, respectively. Appropriate for someone Kias age, at least Elie and the Chief also show up, along with Wazy who gets uncomfortably close to Lloyd. Everyone wants Lloyd.

Im a sucker for a good anime style opening. I like anime openings more than I like anime.

Prologue beated!

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Yeah, Lloyd's guilty conscience over Joachim is weird. The dude was a bigger loser than Weissman.

And every Trails protagonist doesn't want to kill people but is also really bad at capturing them alive

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Killing people is wrong

*kills hundreds if not thousands of people during battle*

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Leonhart4 posted...

And every Trails protagonist doesn't want to kill people but is also really bad at capturing them alive

the disrespect to my boy kevin here

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_stingers_ posted...

Killing people is wrong

*kills hundreds if not thousands of people during battle*

They make it pretty clear they don't actually kill humans!

xp1337 posted...

the disrespect to my boy kevin here

He wasn't the protagonist when he killed Weissman...!

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Yeah the anti-killing people stuff is one of the silliest parts of Trails and definitely holds it back at some points.

Also Kevin and Ries don't get nearly as much screentime as Estelle and Joshua did, sadly.
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I wish you didn't have to unequip weapons to upgrade them. It's a very minor inconvenience but still!

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i just dont equip them when I buy them since I know Im about to go to the factory anyway

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_stingers_ posted...

i just dont equip them when I buy them since I know Im about to go to the factory anyway

I've been playing jRPGs for over 20 years and never have I selected "no" when asked if I want to equip the thing I just bought, so it's hard to go against my natural instinct! It's funny cause in Sky it doesn't ask and there were several occasions I bought new stuff and forgot to equip it, so I was pretty stoked when Zero introduced that feature... but now it's working against me!

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Yeah I definitely had to teach myself to not auto equip haha. Old habits die hard

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but what if you don't have the U-Materials at the time to upgrade

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wtf Shirley

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LeonhartFour posted...

but what if you don't have the U-Materials at the time to upgrade

I didn't know that was possible

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oh ya got some wheels

also big red hair guy obviously related to Randy somehow. The resemblance is obvious, but I assume his asking me how many people were on the train, followed by Randy noticing Lloyd and Elie in the car was supposed to be a hint. The red-headed groper probably is too if I had to guess.

Kia is apparently a genius, and Crosbell now has FaceTime. What a time to be alive.


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Red haired groper pretty much sums her up

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Some JERK has taken over the fishing guild and I'm not happy about it. I actually don't remember if it's the same guy from Cold Steel but the name is familiar. But more importantly I got a FISHING POLE and immediately dropped everything to catch me some fish.

Turns out those speeding buttholes from earlier are spoiled rich kids. Side tangent: Crossbell law sucks. These guys shouldn't be allowed to drive again already!

Video games being explained within a video game was pretty funny. The game developer being bad at his own game is... surprisingly realistic?

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I had more fun then I should've with pom pom party. Proud of getting the trophy for beating everyone


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It's not the same guy from Cold Steel but they are related

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I love how they just changed Pulitzer Prize to Fulitzer Prize

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do these dang worms need to be in every game :I

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Apparently

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I wish they only showed up once, but...

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Wazy can apparently go Super Saiyan. Completely wiped the floor with his goofy mohawk-bearing rival.

Ran into Campanella and finally heard his (?) voice. Thats not what I was expecting! I always thought Campanella was a guy but that voice is clearly a girls voice! The again, I guess so is Gokus. Anyway, there was also a suspicious mad scientist looking guy. Noel thinks they arent suspicious lol. Wazy has a thought here like o rly? or something that makes it seem like he knows something.

Someone completely destroyed the gate to the old mine and now its all purple and theres giant mushrooms everywhere. After we walk in oops the entrance gets blocked off by an explosion. A dragon-esque monster almost rekt us but Randy came in with perfect timing to save the day. Normally, I would make a snarky comment about perfect timing being way too common but Randy hype so Ill let it go.

As expected, Randy knows the red haired groper and the one-eyed guy. Turns out they sniped the old mafia building from Heiyue and Lecter/the empire is involved as well. The Crimson & Co. company is a dummy company for the Red Constellation mercenary group. RIP Papa Orlando. That's all for Chapter 1!

P.S. Elies Holy Bullet craft was nerfed and Im sad. Understandable but sad.

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Yeah, it's fairly common for women to voice young boy characters (not that Campanella is necessarily young but he appears young)

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yeah, I am familiar with that. Joshua is voiced by a woman, too. But Campanella sounds like... a woman trying to voice a girl character. I don't know how to explain it but it was very different from how I imagined him to sound!

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Does the JP dialogue ever state that Campanella is male?
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For what it's worth, Campanella is voiced by a guy in English, but I think there's meant to be a deliberate ambiguity about all aspects of the character.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Does the JP dialogue ever state that Campanella is male?

Not that I remember so far. Campanella uses boku, but then again so does Josette

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Does the JP dialogue ever state that Campanella is male?

his generic description before you get his name in Azure is gender-neutral, at least

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Holy bullet is still fine in this game but the CP cost prevents it from being spammable. I think that tios heal is superior now though

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Elie was the least useful party member in Zero anyway so this doesn't change much

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Oh heck yes OLIVIER HYPE

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oh ya SIEG HYPE

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Sieg hype was real af for me too

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And I hear Julia hype was quite hype for some people, but I was never the biggest Julia fan

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Julia is like the definition of average for me

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Thank you . My wife is playing through the series now and Julia is one of her favorite characters. I don't get it!

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