Board 8 > The Legend of MZeroes: Trails of Cold Stingers 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

In case the title wasn't clear, this is a combined playhtrough topic of stingers and myself playing The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2. Discussion is welcomed and encouraged but please avoid spoilers or mark them as we are both playing for the first time.

Three years have passed since I finished Cold Steel 1, so I was very grateful to see a pre-story option on the title screen. Good thing I checked those out because I literally didnt remember the cat at all. Anyway, after successfully completing the Crossbell saga on Nightmare, Im feeling pretty confident so I once again choose the hardest difficulty for this installment. The game starts and Rean is ded. Game over thanks for reading.

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Just kidding Rean was just out cold (pun intended). I cant believe they gave my guy the Boy with Black Hair treatment. Imagine playing this game without even knowing who Rean is. Anyway, Celine (how is this cat not jogging my memory at all) explains the situation and what happened after they escaped from Crow at the end of CS1. Rean is kind of a butt in the opening section and not how I remember him in the first one. The poor cat doesnt deserve this treatment! All my items and equipment are gone so I assume someone looted Reans body while he was out. Apparently he was unconcious for a month, which I should have noticed as the last game ended in October and its November now, and that sounds like plenty of time to get looted. In my notes I wrote battle theme slaps which I think speaks for itself.

As the pair travel down the mountain, they encounter a Magic Golem. Im not sure if this is one of those die and advance anyway battles but after awhile of fighting the battle ends while we both still have HP left. I didnt die at least so Ill take the small victory. Storywise, Rean is at his limit and things are not looking good. Of course, Toval shows up with perfect timing and drops him off a cliff. You love to see the Trails classic within the first 30 minutes or so! Rean passes out from exertion.

He wakes up in his parents house in Ymir and learned more about what happened in the month that Rean missed. Now its time to go around town and talk to people, and most importantly get a FISHING POLE aww yeah. After doing the rounds around town, its time to take a dip in the hot springs. I was triggered when Rean went in there with swimming trunks until his sister walked in, which would have been even more awkward than it was. What should have been a touching moment between Rean and Elise was instead kind of awkward because of their ambiguous romantic thing. Whats with Falcom and these adopted siblings romance angles? Also why does Rean pet all the girls? (Lloyd did that a lot too) I lold when the flashback of all the Class VII friends happened and everyone was smiling, but then it cut to Machias and he had a stink face like usual. Perfection.

Hot spring fun times are interrupted by the Magic Golem coming back towards the village. Rean and Toval the Bracer take off to take him down again, and Elise just has to come along because every game needs a good Let me come with you! No its too dangerous! exchange. Of course, our party is not powerful enough to destroy it, and we have to call on Valimar, who makes easy work of him. After the battles, a bird shows up carrying a Playstation Vita. I mean it's Vita's familiar. It was a trap! The village is being attacked! We have to hurry, but we also have to stop halfway there and chat for some reason! RIP Dad. Ultra Instinct Rean absolutely bodies the mercenaries before being stopped. Should have just slaughtered them tbh heck anyone who takes kids as hostages and shoots dad. Vita shows up again and hypnotizes the mercenaries, then a mysterious girl kidnaps Elise and the princess. Im not sure if shes working with the nobles or against them. After that, we get a villain ensemble introduction.

Thats all for the prologue!

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For me it has been a lot less than 3 years, so I skipped out on that pre-story option. I can't imagine playing a game like Trails that far apart from each other. They're literally sequential, so I know that would trip me up a lot as the game itself sort of expects you to know everything. Besides 'Black Haired Boy', lol. I always thought his hair was blue too so that was weird to see. Anyway, hopefully the pre-story option did a good job of filling you back in.

I'm also playing on Nightmare pursuant to my, long awaited, return to the mode on CS1. Sky nightmare was a hell I took years to recover from. But, if you beat Azure Nightmare then I'm sure CS is a walk in the park for you. Still bitched out vs Arios and Sigmund though cough cough.

That aside, the only other thing I'm doing is starting off with a New Game + save from someone else, because I really like having max bonding points. I'm not a second playthrough kind of guy but I still want to see all of the scenes. With the max bonding points option enabled, I had exactly 1 point left which I chose to use to get the Stage costumes added as well. They were awful for the men, but pretty decent for the women. The only other options were for Swimsuits which, normally I'd be all for, but I'm pretty sure the swimsuits were all ugly one pieces in CS1 so I wasn't too interested in that. And then bath outfits, which I'm not exactly sure what that meant so I just skipped it.

After making that very important choice, I started the game. Importing CS1 save data granted me 300 of all sepith, and a Golden Bracelet accessory which grants 1000HP and 10 of every stat, which is pretty damn good at the start of the game. I'll happily accept.

My first note is that the robot landed in a battle pose, kneeling on the ground looking down. Edgy. Is that programmed into his operations to land in that pose? Shoutouts to those ancient robot programmers for that one, gotta be stylish. And speaking of, I get the opportunity to examine Rean's equipment and select his Winter costume, which looks a lot different then it did in CS1. It's like a brown hoodie which looks a lot better than any of his other outfits. Weird that they changed that one completely, but left all of his other outfits alone.

Apparently, like you said he has been in the robot for over a month. Sure he may have gotten looted, but I'm more concerned that he was in there for a month and somehow didn't die of dehydration? That's some kind of plothole. Plus I hope that robot has some kind of great passive ventilation system because he should've also died of carbon monoxide poisoning in there for that long too. Falcom is already starting me off on the wrong foot with this one. /s

I have in my notes here "Celine is kind of annoying". True shit. Rean was also being pretty mean towards her, but like cmon man you don't just tell the guy he's been in a coma for a month and expect him to not be freaking out internally. Who knows what could've happened to everyone since then. Along those lines, they finally reveal the "plot twist" that Emma is a witch, with a flashback to her bonding scene in the last game where she starts waving her magic wand around. Nice. Who could have ever seen this one coming.

OK, later on I get to that magic knight fight and I got robbed. It was easy as hell, I was about to win he had like 4k left and it just ended the fight. Is it timed or something? I feel absolutely betrayed. I hate when games do that shit. Toval shows up, but I was more surprised to see Elise here. I can't exactly her being part of an adventuring party to go find her brother, 14 or however year old girls school attendant probably shouldn't be roaming through the woods with bracers, and the goddamn princess of the entire country casually.

After that we get a nice anime intro cutscene introducing a bunch of characters. I have written down, Claire is next to Sara, which makes me assume that they are elevating her to main character status. I absolutely need some of that in my life. I'm down to rock the Claire/Sharon party all game, don't let me down Falcom.

When we finally arrive to Ymir, I really enjoy the look of the town aesthetically. Something about the winter mountain town secluded in the wilderness really does it for me. Some exposition happens, Toval reveals that he didn't find Rean on his own, and that someone called and told him where to find Rean. He said it was someone's voice that sounds familiar, but that he couldn't recognize. I know Vita Clotilde has the power to make people not recognize her voice from the Misty thing last game, so I'm going with her and Ourobourous getting up to some shit.

Also around town, I find Annabelle on the outskirts, which was a nice surprise. It's a little weird that they're turning her from runaway noble girl sideplot to fishing enthusiast, Lakelord replacement. A bit of a 180. But you know what, fuck it, I'm about it. You do you little Annabelle.

The princess implying that Rean's sister wants to fuck him is pissing me off too. Why do animes have to do this shit? Japan has some stuff they gotta work through man. Regardless, Rean makes his way to the hot spring. I do enjoy this setting too. Before I die, I need to find a nice snowy hot spring to spend the night at. That sounds like a great time.

God fucking dammit his sister is really coming to join him. I hate this game. Aren't there supposed to be like, gendered baths or something? Why is this allowed to happen? Well as it progresses they ignore the creepiness of it and just share a genuine heart to heart about their SIBLING relationship, which is fine, despite the setting adding some weird undertones. It's a lot better than the alternative way they could've shared this moment at least. If I had to watch some awkward anime boy-and-girl-at-the-hot-spring scene I might have quit playing. But then Alfin shows up and makes everything terrible again. God dammit. I hate her so much.

OK, thankfully for my brain that scene ends and we go to adventure out and check on the robot. Oh cool, Elise and Toval are now joining the party? Didn't see Elise coming for sure. Toval makes sense, but Elise? Yeah our parents are just going, "Oh you crazy kids, go have fun, risking your lives in combat. Not like we are the rulers of this region and could send some guards with you, you guys got it, have fun!" The anime rating went up another level here. But actually looking at them, it doesn't let me reequip them, so I guess they are only temporary. Oh well.

As we set off into Ymir Valley, there's an active voice scene where Rean says that him and his classmates came here before and fought Bleublanc? I'm completely missing something here, because I remember nothing like that. I don't remember Ymir being part of the first game, at all. Was it somewhere that your other party members were sent to on a field mission, while Rean and co. went somewhere else? But Bleublanc was involved? I'm very confused. As far as I can tell, this is never brought up again either.

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In combat, Elise's healing craft is fucking broken. Puts Elies in Zero to shame on its own. I can get used to this. Also, her and Rean have a post battle scene where he gives her a headpat and she says thank you in the most heartfelt voice I've ever heard. Good voice work, but man. I don't even fucking know what their vibe is anymore. Like you said, Rean definitely has a propensity towards the headpats. I know it's an anime thing, but it does feel weird.

We make our way to the Magic Knight part 2, and it's a little tougher. I actually just end letting Elise die in battle. Normally I never do that, but I figured she's temporary anyway so it doesn't really matter if she misses out on some XP here. If she ever comes back I doubt it will factor in. As the battle ends, an absolutely sick song starts playing. I wish there was a way to see the music titles because I'd listen to that track again. It's definitely unique to this game. That was one of the best features of Azure when I was playing the geofront patch, by the way. They added an overlay that displayed the name of the song whenever a new track started playing. An amazing QOL feature that I hope becomes more standard in games in the future.

Valimar is apparently recharging energy just by standing - sorry, epic kneeling posing - there, but he's not connected to any kind of power source or anything. Seems a little dubious to me, but okay. I guess he just gets his energy from the ether. Robot combat begins with Valimar vs the magic knight, and it is just as boring and straightforward as it was in the last game, which is disappointing. Nothing has yet to top Xenosaga 3's robot combat for me, and it looks like CS2 isn't trying to change my mind in that department.

After your robot fight ends, Vita Clotilde shows up, which makes me assume that my earlier assumption was right. +1 on the scoreboard for me. Some exposition and we make our way back to the village due to the attack, but I had the opposite reaction you did it seems. Anime demon Rean coming out right at the start of the game is a disappointment to me. Worst part of his character, IMO. Hopefully we can move past that soon but I somehow doubt it.

Regardless, his father ends up getting shot, point blank, by machine gun fire, so he's obviously dead. Rean goes to bury him and there is a funeral scene, they discuss how the village will proceed without their Elder and Rean agrees to stay and assume control of the village. Oh, no wait sorry, none of that happened because they can immediately tell he's alive because of fucking course he is. In reality, Vita pulls off a pretty sick plan where she convinces Rean that she will help him and then immediately double crosses him and kidnaps the princess. But also, she kidnaps Elise, who they specifically mention was target #2. The princess makes sense as to why you'd kidnap her, of course, but I have to wonder how Elise factors into their plans at this point.

The black-clad Millium doppelganger, after 3 lines of dialogue, already seems infinitely cooler than Millium. God willing, Millium will die and get replaced with this chick and I will never have to think about her again. Somehow I doubt this will occur.

Now, for something entirely different. They cut away to an airship where the big bads of the story appear to be plotting some nefarious deeds. Rufus still seems like that dude, and the villain who is actually on top of things. Duke Cayenne reminds me of a Trump supporter that bought into the Kool Aid a little too hard. He seems to be setting himself up as a good midboss figure, so hopefully I get to kill him later. If they drag it out and make Cayenne the final boss of CS3 or something I'll be pretty disappointed because he's pretty one note at this point.

Ourobouros also joins along and shows up to hang out with them, along with Crow. I do have to wonder, is that armored knight standing next to Bleublanc the one from Crossbell? Ahrienrod or something like that? She sounds like she's 18 lol, which is not at all what my image of her was. So pretty disappointed with the VA casting there, if that is the case. Definitely expected something more gruff. On the other hand though, I don't think she was a brunette in Crossbell, IIRC she was a blonde. So maybe it's just a different woman entirely. No monopoly on armored knights in Ourobouros I suppose. There's also a completely new character standing behind Bleublanc, some freaky blue/pink spiky haired guy. I like the design, so hopefully he ends up being cool.

After that ends I think there's going to be a third anime cutscene within the first hour and a half, but it turns out they're just replaying the opening so I safely skip past that. This marks the end of the prologue, but I did walk around a little bit around town just to explore. I really like that it shows the shop icons on the map now, and when you go to the shop to look at the quartz, it shows the rare versions with the name "Tear R" for example, instead of them just being called Tear but having a different icon. I enjoy that as a QOL change.

Anyway, it seems like the vibe from this point will be that I'm going to roam across the country and find all of my classmates. To be honest, that's a trope that I can 100% get behind. The 'getting the gang back for one last job' trope is honestly badass and I'm about it. It was really fun in Azure too. So I am excited to see where this goes!

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_stingers_ posted... For me it has been a lot less than 3 years, so I skipped out on that pre-story option. I can't imagine playing a game like Trails that far apart from each other. They're literally sequential, so I know that would trip me up a lot as the game itself sort of expects you to know everything. Besides 'Black Haired Boy', lol. I always thought his hair was blue too so that was weird to see. Anyway, hopefully the pre-story option did a good job of filling you back in.

I'm also playing on Nightmare pursuant to my, long awaited, return to the mode on CS1. Sky nightmare was a hell I took years to recover from. But, if you beat Azure Nightmare then I'm sure CS is a walk in the park for you. Still bitched out vs Arios and Sigmund though cough cough.

That aside, the only other thing I'm doing is starting off with a New Game + save from someone else, because I really like having max bonding points. I'm not a second playthrough kind of guy but I still want to see all of the scenes. With the max bonding points option enabled, I had exactly 1 point left which I chose to use to get the Stage costumes added as well. They were awful for the men, but pretty decent for the women. The only other options were for Swimsuits which, normally I'd be all for, but I'm pretty sure the swimsuits were all ugly one pieces in CS1 so I wasn't too interested in that. And then bath outfits, which I'm not exactly sure what that meant so I just skipped it.

Yeah that's what I get for playing CS1 before the Sky trilogy and Crossbell >_> and I beat Arios and Sigmund on New Game Plus! lol

I didn't know if there was any way to get my save data from my Vita to the PS4 so I didn't bother. I was also asked if I wanted to load CS3 data, and I'm curious what that does!

_stingers_ posted...

As we set off into Ymir Valley, there's an active voice scene where Rean says that him and his classmates came here before and fought Bleublanc? I'm completely missing something here, because I remember nothing like that. I don't remember Ymir being part of the first game, at all. Was it somewhere that your other party members were sent to on a field mission, while Rean and co. went somewhere else? But Bleublanc was involved? I'm very confused. As far as I can tell, this is never brought up again either.

oh good I don't remember this either

_stingers_ posted...

I do have to wonder, is that armored knight standing next to Bleublanc the one from Crossbell? Ahrienrod or something like that?

I think it's one of her underlings. You fight three of them in Azure in that tower before you fight her

Also it's not that I like demon Rean, just his sister hugging him and being like "stop don't kill these guys that tried to kill our dad" just made it worse!

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Did you also get that active voice scene? I was worried that it was bugging out since I had a new game plus save, and it references something that comes later

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Yup, and several other mentions of Rean coming home 2 months ago

So I checked it out in pre-story (I must have missed it before) and it's from the drama CD apparently. It should be right before the finale if your game has it

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MZero posted...

Anyway, Celine (how is this cat not jogging my memory at all)

Celine was mostly just that suspicious cat that Emma hangs around with until the very end of CS1 when she starts talking and barking orders at Rean over how to pilot Valimar to the shock of the entire cast. (Machias: YOU CAN TALK!?) A few scenes show her talking with Emma, and she lures Elise into the Old Schoolhouse in Chapter 4 to trigger the first fight where Rean shows off his chunni form.

_stingers_ posted...

As we set off into Ymir Valley, there's an active voice scene where Rean says that him and his classmates came here before and fought Bleublanc? I'm completely missing something here, because I remember nothing like that. I don't remember Ymir being part of the first game, at all. Was it somewhere that your other party members were sent to on a field mission, while Rean and co. went somewhere else? But Bleublanc was involved? I'm very confused. As far as I can tell, this is never brought up again either.

Drama CD exclusive LOL.

Really dumb move by Falcom. It appears they intended it to be in CS1 but ran out of time or something so it got cut because I think data miners found incomplete unused assets for Ymir in CS1. It's fairly significant too and as you can see, obviously canon, so yeah. You can get a short synopsis from the pre-story thing on the menu I believe. Or read the official translation by XSEED of it here:

www.trailsofcoldsteel.com/cs2/memoirs1.html

Same link has the translation of the Cold Steel II Drama CD if you click on "Story II" but it's less important (though still canon and will be referred to in future games because of course it is.)

CS1's Drama CD takes place between Chapter 6 and Final Chapter. CS2's takes place at some point after the Intermission Chapter so hold off on reading that for now if you plan to.

_stingers_ posted...

I do have to wonder, is that armored knight standing next to Bleublanc the one from Crossbell? Ahrienrod or something like that?

Azure: No. She is one of her subordinates you fight in Azure though. Arianrhod actually does make a split second cameo in CS1 however though no one in Class VII would be able to recognize her even if they had time. Or what MZero said.

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xp1337 posted...

www.trailsofcoldsteel.com/cs2/memoirs1.html

Lady Schwarzer: It would certainly be a lot for any young lady to take in at once... If only the two of them would get married! Then we wouldn't need to worry about any of this.

Baron Schwarzer: I'm not so sure I agree. He's a good son, yes, but he'll need to be more than that if he wants my daughter's hand.

bruh

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It's the worst

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Might be the single worst thing about any of these games so far tbh

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xp1337 posted...

Azure: No. She is one of her subordinates you fight in Azure though. Arianrhod actually does make a split second cameo in CS1 however though no one in Class VII would be able to recognize her even if they had time. Or what MZero said.

Okay, I do remember the cameo. I'm just making sure that they didn't retcon her appearance or something, since you couldn't really get a good look at her then

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Spoilers

tag

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Rean and Lloyd get the girls because Zero was when Falcom started dumbing the games down and went for a wish-fulfiment harem fantasy protagonist

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Lloyd and Elie is the only relationship in that game tbh

Like yeah the game let's you pursue your technically spoiler 'other female teammates' in Azure but, like, does anyone actually do that? It seems like there's a pretty clear cut of what they want you to do

But CS is definitely 100% on the harem train and I do hate it

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_stingers_ posted...

Lloyd and Elie is the only relationship in that game tbh

Like yeah the game let's you pursue your technically spoiler 'other female teammates' in Azure but, like, does anyone actually do that? It seems like there's a pretty clear cut of what they want you to do

But CS is definitely 100% on the harem train and I do hate it

did you block the beach scene out of your head already

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_stingers_ posted...

but, like, does anyone actually do that?

unpopular opinion but i kinda ship Lloyd/Noel they're just such dorks

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The beach scene is a drug fueled dream state that has no bearing on the rest of the game


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Lloyd/Rixia forever

Also Cold Steel has a very clear "canon" couple and I avoided it completely just like how I avoided Lloyd/Elie (and Lloyd/Collette for that matter).

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Rixia is the hot one but you can't act like that's a real couple >>

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_stingers_ posted...

Rixia is the hot one but you can't act like that's a real couple >>

I can and I do.

Noel was my backup.

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NFUN posted...

did you block the beach scene out of your head already

we don't talk about that

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Harem of Cold Steel is fine in 1 & 2 (it would be even better if it limited you to just the Class 7 squadmates).

it only gets truly problematic/gross in 3 & 4

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Oh that's not at all what I want to hear

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_stingers_ posted...

Oh that's not at all what I want to hear

it's so awful in hajimari you should genuinely boycott the game. genuinely, objectively detestable

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Well that's okay if my porn games have some plot

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_stingers_ posted...

Well that's okay if my porn games have some plot

your porn games hopefully don't involve 11 year olds

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See that's what I was bitching about in my last writeup. I don't know what it is about japanese culture that lets them get away with shit like that. It's honestly disgusting, seeing this princess hitting on Rean is already bad enough. I can't imagine if Tio or Millium were honestly sexualized. I really enjoy the game but it is a huge black mark on it for me

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OK, so now I get to explore Ymir for a bit before heading out to talk to my robot again. Taking a look at the party, it looks like Toval is an actual member now, since I'm able to mess with his orbments and equipment. The only thing it doesn't let me do is unequip his only accessory, which cuts casting time in half. I guess they figured it'd be too OP on Rean right now? Not sure but it is a bit weird.

Either way we head out to hang out with Valimar, and after some dialogue he reveals that he can sense the waveforms of all of the classmates that were with me when we awakened him! Very convenient power, very cool. It will certainly help narrow down our search points to find everyone, so thanks for that, ancient robot programmers. He determines all vital signs are normal for these people hundreds of miles away, which is some very powerful radar. Still a bit unfortunate that they haven't killed Millium offscreen yet, but sadly that's not how things work. Also, he refers to my classmates as "secondary contractors" to his awakening, which reads a bit awkward for me...probably some quirk of localization. Mzero, do you remember what term he used to refer to everyone?

Also, when he's doing all this, he says something like, "Classmates? Do you mean the lifeforms with you at the time?" or some weird crap like that, and I was just dumbfounded that he doesn't know what "classmates" means. That's a pretty general word. You have to assume that the concept of schooling existed when these ancient engineers were designing powerful robots with advanced AI. You'd think that would be the last word he wouldn't know, but then 3 seconds later, he proceeds to list the modern names of various geographic areas where Rean's classmates are. Yeah, god forbid an area gets a new name in 1000 years but 'classmates' is too advanced. Okay Falcom.

Tangent aside, at this point the cat casually introduces in-universe fast travel as a concept. Okay, now I'm starting to get a little worried about the plot devices piling on top of each other. You'd think that, in-universe, if what amounts to teleportation was a thing that was possible, it'd be a much bigger deal. This continent has had so much drama about the orbal revolution and how it revolutionzed transportation, so many segments where they discuss the airships and how they impacted society, and the railroads, orbal cars, all of this is brought up over and over again. But apparently there's some hidden art of teleportation that a special few are aware of? I mean if it was some ancient shit that NOBODY knew about, that Valimar had to teach us about, that's one thing. But the cat just brought it up like it was a well known fact to his group, so at that point you'd think that Emma could let it slip, or you'd think they would have taken advantage of this at some point.

They do go on to say that only faithful believers of Shinto - sorry, Animism are knowledgeable on it and allowed to use it. Okay, if that's the case and this ancient religion had teleportation powers, I'm really curious how they let themselves get outmatched and driven out by the Church. I mean we know they have some crazy powers too, but you'd think with everything that the Animists got going on they'd put up more of a fight and wouldn't have been reduced to whatever state they are in now. That would be an interesting thing, if the game goes into detail about how animism died out on the continent. Hopefully we get there at some point. But in this era of rapid commercialization and industrialization that is destroying traditional values, it does make sense that only a noble few, which may or may not include our entire party, are capable of taking advantage.

Okay, tangent over. We get a glowy, hyperspace cutscene where Rean tries Icy-Hot for the first time, and we end up back in the Lunaria Nature Reserve. We get to revisit the first real dungeon in the original, nice touch! And it is nice to see how coming back here has more meaning after what we just learned, since your first time here you are wondering what all those stone monuments lining the walls are about and if we'll ever learn anything on that. You kind of forget about it since it happens so early on, but now there's some payoff to it in the next game. That's a nice use of worldbuilding if I've ever seen it.

Actually getting through the nature park was a little challenging actually. With only me and Toval in the party, you're not able to output too much damage. They did slow the enemies down a bit, if you're able to get your triple advantage hits off then you should be getting 2-3 turns before they act which helps a lot, but if you ever miss one then the fights can get pretty rough. Especially against those baboon monsters, I had to use quite a few S crafts to make my way through the forest, and actually had to do a retry on the very last fight before the boss, looking at the orbment charging station in the distance. Rough life.

Past that fight though, we do encounter a boss which - much like the nature park we are in - is a reused asset, the original boss of the area in the first game. It's poetic that it took our entire team to take him down last time, but this time I'm doing it with only Rean and Toval. They go on to introduce a brand new, never before seen mechanic - Overdrive. I do have to wonder why they introduced it in Azure but didn't implement it in CS1. That's the only thing I can really think of that the series took away from a sequel, so seeing it come back is nice. Not that I ever really used it outside of boss fights and I doubt it'll be any different here, but still. We'll see how it goes.

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The boss itself was actually pretty tough. I had to use some revive items since he had some like, 9 hit combo move that he would use occasionally that seemed to one shot whoever it hit. Luckily for me, I think he only did it twice. Besides that one move, there wasn't too much trickery in what he did in terms of status effects or bullshit like that, he just hits like a truck. Staying on top of healing and keeping your teammates apart so as to not get both of them hit when he would swipe at you was my strategy and I did manage to take him down first try, though it was a really, really close call. Toval had just run out of mana with his last spark arrow right as Rean hit 100 CP, which let me input my S craft right before the boss went, which BARELY did enough damage to finish him off. I think it was actually like 50 damage overkill or something stupidly close like that. BTW Mzero, Toval was 48 and Rean was 46 at the time for me, how hard was that for you?

You leave the nature park and get out onto the highway, and there's another cool new song. It's kind of foreboding but also hopeful at the same time, I really like it. Once again wishing that this game showed you the names of songs as you encountered them :(

I have a note here - one of the enemies on the highway is named "Evil Crow". Nice symbolism guys.

Anyway, on the way to Celdic they decide that they want to see how things are in Trista first. My first thought - isn't that a big of a walk? With how much of a big deal they made of taking the train everywhere in the first game I'm surprised to hear that, but okay. Let's go on an adventure. When you actually make it out to the Trista highway, Rean does make a remark that it's his first time actually being on it. My thoughts exactly. I guess you gotta do what you gotta do though, wanted criminal Rean Schwarzer has gotta do what wanted criminal Rean Schwarzer has gotta do. Got silver angler rank while walking down it, aww yeah. Hopefully Annabelle has conveniently made her way to Trista and is awaiting my arrival. Or I'll get to see Lakelord again, but I'm sure he's got way better shit to do then hang out there.

On that tangent, I do really like how off-rails this game seems so far. Being tied down to the whole structure of school life / field study / rinse and repeat did serve a purpose in the first game. It was a convenient mechanism to introduce the land of Erebonia but not overload a first time player too much, but at the same time, it really limited how connected you felt with the land as a whole. In Sky, you really felt like you were a citizen of Liberl, and same with Zero and Crossbell (though that was a little different). But CS1 really just felt like you were in Trista, and were only a visitor to the rest of the country. They did a poor job and making you feel connected to the places you visit and the people you met. I hope that with this stylistic change, that they can improve in that regard.

After a ways down the highway, unfortunately you find out that there's a army checkpoint blocking further travel. I have to wonder what the point of this whole highway section was as a player, but the tone of the conversation between Rean and Toval seems to be saying that the Noble army is incredibly brazen for setting up shop and regulating travel in this area. Personally I'd disagree there. They're in the middle of a civil war, which is absolutely the main type of war where you'd want to focus heavily on regulating travel within your territory. And it's absolutely what I would consider their territory, since they made a big point of the Noble army being there in Celdic in the first game. Them wanting to regulate who is coming from Trista, a place that seems pretty divided between Noble and Imperial sentiment, seems like a wise decision.

Regardless, backtrack back to Celdic and the first place you get to go is Becky's house. Glad that ol' lass is doing okay. By the way, Mzero, 80% of Becky's characterization in the English version is that she was given a heavy, almost indecipherable Scottish accent. I'm assuming they do something similar with her in japanese if they translated it like this for us?

Exploring the rest of the town though, it seems like the general vibe of the townspeople is that they're very upset about the war (not surprising) as it increased their tax bill and made it difficult for people to come visit the town and their grand market. One lady in the center of town specifically up and calls out the Noble alliance and blames them for everything, which is not the reaction I was expecting. Like I said earlier, this is kind of a noble-focused town in my mind. The provincial army is set up running the shots here and had a big presence in the first game, they have a giant guardhouse in the middle of town and basically act like they own the place. The only other person of authority in this town is the market manager who had to play by their rules before. Sure, on one hand, having soldiers running around your town seems like it might make more enemies than friends over time, but just hearing someone openly siding with the enemy in the middle of town square seems like she is really the brazen one here.

What else...the drunk from the first game got his life back together! Got his park ranger job back and is happy as a clam. Getting to experience little things like this is really why I love trails. Also, Anton is upstairs at the inn! That is truly the only plotline that matters at this point. I'm also able to go to the shop and, for the first time in my life in a trails game, fully upgrade everyones equipment. Mainly because 'everyone' consists of two people, but still, normally Trails games are good about making you actually manage your economy and pick and choose who you want to upgrade. At the very least, CS1 was very stingy with income. I was only ever upgrading the people I was going to use in the next section, and even then maybe half of the things for half of the people. Elliot gets a new pair of shoes, Laura gets a new sword type situation. But the game itself wasn't too hard outside of a few challenging fights, so it's not the worst that they make you play like that. The joys of only having two people to upgrade will be good while it lasts though.


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At this point they make you go and get info from some of the people you met here in CS1, but everyone I talk to about this seems to know that the army is after me and I should be hiding. Am I wrong in thinking that's a bit weird? The innkeeper, and Becky's dad at the vegetable stand both remakred how dangerous it was for me to be out. I mean, afaik I'm wanted because of the whole thing with the robot and the threat that possesses to them, and I feel like that shouldn't exactly be knowledge that people like Becky's dad possess. Is there some more obvious reason I'm missing why Rean is wanted?

While talking to Becky's dad and exploring the grand market though, one of the merchants there had a book called a 'Black Record', which nobody, not even Celine is able to decipher. But when you open the book in your inventory and go to read it, you can clearly make out english words, so clearly everybody in Erebonia is a fucking idiot. A lot of it is blanked out however, so I guess this lore dump will have to wait for later.

The last person I find to talk to is Rosine, who is at the market getting hit on by some soldiers. She mentions being underrage to them but, in standard Trails fashion, the guard doesn't seem bothered. Alfin, as well as Rean's parents are I'm sure cheering for the soldier to get it in right now from afar. Some clever work from Toval tricking the guards resolves the situation easily though. Shoutouts to competent bracers man, that is another thing you grow to miss dealing with the school children for an entire game.

After all of that ends though, a little boy, newspaper salesman walks up to us and heavily implies that we should strongly consider buying this one particular newspaper from him, wink wink. Rean, eternally oblivious to everything around him EXCEPT for incredibly minute details that nobody else would ever pick up on, struggles to determine if this is a good idea. Eventually relenting, you're forced to read the newspaper where you learn two main things: One, Machias' father was arrested, and two, travel for members of the non-nobility is being heavily restricted. Two good things to learn, and when that finishes, surprise! A hidden slip of paper falls onto Rean's lap with a coded message, and some kind of map. Will this possibly lead to some sort of Imperial resistance base? Maybe one that contains Machias, the first classmate to be directly referenced by an event that occurred in the plot? Who's to say! The chess related puzzle on the back of the note provides no hints towards this.

Afterwards, I decided that I needed a few hours to ponder those mysteries. I'll try and finish up the rest of this later today or tomorrow, most likely

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_stingers_ posted...

The only thing it doesn't let me do is unequip his only accessory, which cuts casting time in half. I guess they figured it'd be too OP on Rean right now? Not sure but it is a bit weird.

Toval's "thing" in-universe is that he is a very fast arts caster. That's probably why.

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Okay. I don't think they ever went into that in the first game, but I like it

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I forget if he states it directly in CS1 but the pieces are there by then regardless: The Carnelia book series is a novelized version of an event in his life and is largely a true story masked as fiction. This is confirmed as early as 3rd, but by the time of CS1 you can catch a couple people in the know like Sara ribbing him about it and at the festival you can even catch Micht, Toval, and Sara referencing it. Micht is the author (and killed off his "character" in the story despite being very obviously alive in real life) and Toval complains that he's profiting off his life story. >_>

But anyway, in the story Toval (as Toby) is stated to be fast at arts casting.

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_stingers_ posted...

Maybe one that contains Machias, the first classmate to be directly referenced by an event that occurred in the plot? Who's to say! The chess related puzzle on the back of the note provides no hints towards this.

hmm

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_stingers_ posted... Also, he refers to my classmates as "secondary contractors" to his awakening, which reads a bit awkward for me...probably some quirk of localization. Mzero, do you remember what term he used to refer to everyone?

that sounds about right. The Japanese word used wasn't a word I've ever heard before. I tried googling it and all the results are pages about Cold Steel and Valimar lol so I think Falcom just made it up. The individual parts of the word directly translated would be basically secondary contractor though

_stingers_ posted...

Regardless, backtrack back to Celdic and the first place you get to go is Becky's house. Glad that ol' lass is doing okay. By the way, Mzero, 80% of Becky's characterization in the English version is that she was given a heavy, almost indecipherable Scottish accent. I'm assuming they do something similar with her in japanese if they translated it like this for us?

yeah she speaks a very heavy Kansai dialect. I had to read a couple of her lines twice to parse it lmao

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Ymir was literally on fire and papa got lit up with a machine gun but somehow everything is mostly fine the next day save for some broken barrels. It looked a lot worse than it was, much like when the dragon landed on Bose in SC. I can now buy and upgrade weapons, exchange items, make quartz, and enhance my slots. This is a good time to mention I dont really like what they did separating attributes and arts but Ill get used to it I guess. It didnt bother me in CS1, but I hadnt played the earlier games yet. Also you can upgrade equipped weapons bless. Toval is cool so Im glad hes sticking around.

As we set off on our adventure, Rean asks the question thats been on my mind: What are Vitas motives? Celine doesnt know either, so I feel vindicated. To be honest after 6 games I still dont know what the Society is going for. Anyway, Valimar knows my friends are not ded (yay!) and roughly where they are, so thats convenient. Apparently since they helped with the trials they are kind of involved in the contract somehow? I was all ready for an epic adventure walking around the empire, getting the band back together but we can just teleport instead. Whatever happened to the journey being more important than the destination, the joy of adventure!? Its kind of weird that this teleporting thing has never been mentioned before, but what can you do? At this point, Im wondering how they will incorporate Bracer-esque missions with this structure, cause you know they will find a way.

We land in a Nature Preserve I have hardly any memory of. Note to self: dont wait three years to play CS3. Didnt have much trouble getting through the park but there were some tough enemies near the end. I never really used the Quartz to raise accuracy but good lord my characters are missing a lot. Im not sure if I need to be scanning enemies or if the info fills in as you kill more of each enemy, but I am conditioned to analyze everything thanks to Crossbell. When we get to the boss, Rean and Toval start glowing and a brand new mechanic called Overrise is introduced, AKA definitely not Overdrive. Its like Overdrive from Azure but only for the characters that are linked. It was kind of whack that it made me use it at the beginning when I was at full health, and I ended up dying on the first attempt because he hits hard and can heal himself, so its hard to keep up with healing and ding enough damage. On retry, it lets you save Overrise which actually came in clutch, as it let me finish him off before he could heal again.

After exiting the park, we find a house and pose as merchants to get some info. Celdic isnt too bad at the moment, so thats a relief. Toval is a bro and encourages Rean to check out Trista as its clearly distracting him. Of course, its not that easy and there is a checkpoint in the way, with tanks and magic golems so we better bail. Toval said it takes about 3 hours to get to Trista from Celdic, so I wonder how much time they wasted going out there!

Side note: I like the fishing mechanics way better than the single button press version, but I wish the bait system was the same. It would be a good combination of both.

Anyway, we finally proceed to Celdic and start looking for clues. Immediately we find a fellow student, Becky, who may as well be speaking another language. But I managed to find out that Hugo Tubman secured an evacuation route to help student get out, but she doesnt know where he is now. She also tells me another Thors student is at the church, which I promptly checked out and found no one. So I went to the market and found a nun getting hit on by the guards, one of whom is clearly drunk. She tells him she is underage which is obviously futile in the great land of Erebonia, but luckily theres a Bracer to defuse the situation. Turns out these guards are pretty scummy and just get wasted during the day and break stuff.

After talking to everyone around town, a pushy boy selling newspapers starts shoving it in Reans face. Rean is a pushover and instantly succumbs to the pressure, but it can help them get an idea of the current situation so why not? The Nobles are clearly in control of the paper, but there is still some useful information in here, namely that Machiass dad was arrested and that transportation is being highly restricted (too real btw). Before finishing up with the paper, the gang notices a note which is actually a map of the East Celdic Highway with some letters and a riddle on the back side. It seems to be a grid with the letters Q, P, B, R, and N.

...N!?

It took me a second to process that this was a chessboard and the N was for Knight (whoops). I assume they fixed that in the localization but it got a good chuckle out of me. Toval remarks that its Bleublanc-esque, which was my thoughts too, but Rean makes a good point that nothing was stolen (although the key could have been stolen). After all that, I exited town and theres a mark on my mini-map exactly where Im supposed to go! Um thanks? That kind of defeats the point of the riddle! After I find the key, theres another riddle for where to use it once again marked on the map. For shame...

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This could just as easily have been an accident but typical chess notation does use "N" for knight, presumably because "K" is already taken by the king. Like, the common abbreviation describing a move where the knight lands on the f3-square is "Nf3"
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...well that's embarrassing >_>

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This is a good time to mention I dont really like what they did separating attributes and arts but Ill get used to it I guess. It didnt bother me in CS1, but I hadnt played the earlier games yet

Yeah I remember making that complaint in CS1. Also that there isn't any actual reason that I can determine to have different lines in the grid. Since they aren't used to determine arts anymore they are just...there

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They're there because they've always been there

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It was kind of whack that it made me use it at the beginning when I was at full health, and I ended up dying on the first attempt because he hits hard and can heal himself, so its hard to keep up with healing and ding enough damage. On retry, it lets you save Overrise which actually came in clutch, as it let me finish him off before he could heal again.

I'm pretty sure it let's you save it the entire time. I beat the fight first try and I used the overdrive in the middle of the fight

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MZero posted...

...well that's embarrassing >_>

I mean the only reason I know this is because I've actively played chess for years; I don't really think it's common knowledge.
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_stingers_ posted...

I'm pretty sure it let's you save it the entire time. I beat the fight first try and I used the overdrive in the middle of the fight

Interesting, I tried to attack and it gave me the buzzer noise. I didn't try crafts or anything though

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I wonder if it's different in the US release then? I wouldn't be surprised because that seems like a pretty dumb thing to force you to use it

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MZero posted...

After all that, I exited town and theres a mark on my mini-map exactly where Im supposed to go! Um thanks? That kind of defeats the point of the riddle!

This actually was fixed in the localization.

Falcom just gave up and put markers for these but XSEED lobbied to remove them on some quests like this where it defeats the point because... yeah.

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Nice. Guess I have some puzzle solving to do tonight

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_stingers_ posted...

Yeah I remember making that complaint in CS1. Also that there isn't any actual reason that I can determine to have different lines in the grid. Since they aren't used to determine arts anymore they are just...there

Oh, missed this at first glance.

While they're less obviously important than they were previously because of this they do still serve two functions.

First, the amount of EP the character gains from unlocking/upgrading a slot increases the further it is from the center on a line. So a character with a single straight line will be getting more EP added to their total than someone with three shorter lines. (This is why Emma will have a higher total EP than Machias even after factoring out MQ bonuses and the like)

Second, status effect quartz. They're limited to one per line which means a character with a single line could only equip a single one. Meanwhile, a character who has three or four shorter lines could load up on say, Deathblow, Petrify, Faint, and Freeze so each attack/craft has a chance of triggering any of those.

So it's somewhat of an inversion of Sky where having a single line was just pretty much always superior, in Cold Steel there is something of a tradeoff where a Caster still wants that for the increased EP gains, a physical type generally benefits more from multiple lines if they want to stack up quartz like that.

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Second, status effect quartz. They're limited to one per line which means a character with a single line could only equip a single one. Meanwhile, a character who has three or four shorter lines could load up on say, Deathblow, Petrify, Faint, and Freeze so each attack/craft has a chance of triggering any of those.

Oh wow, I never knew this. I'll have to start taking advantage, I always thought you were limited to one no matter what. I don't think it worked like this in the 2D games, because I remember always having to find what status effect quartz was equipped when the new one I wanted gave me an error

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xp1337 posted...

Second, status effect quartz. They're limited to one per line which means a character with a single line could only equip a single one. Meanwhile, a character who has three or four shorter lines could load up on say, Deathblow, Petrify, Faint, and Freeze so each attack/craft has a chance of triggering any of those.

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