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

(+) Yeah! (+)

NFUN posted...

the real wild thing is that falcom told XSEED to skip Crossbell to catch up on the series faster

Is there a source for that?

Mac Arrowny posted...

Is there a source for that?

probably

But crossbell is the best one :(

At this point my only thought was "the credits rolled ten hours ago why isn't this game over"

Mac Arrowny posted...

Is there a source for that?

I don't have one on me but I do recall XSEED stating at some point that Falcom approached them and wanted them to localize Cold Steel.

This was at the point where we only had FC and SC was in its eternal limbo even.

sorry stingers I got in a groove and ended up beating the game lol

I'll post my thoughts on things as you progress

How much further do I have to go? I just finished 12/22 last night

Good luck

*loads save data from 12/23*

oh dear

if you play at the same pace as me... about 35 more hours

Oh man I'll finish in 2024 lol

12/21
The day only moved forward by 1, so apparently at some point yesterday it turned from 12/19 to 12/20 though I never noticed it. Whatever! The new day starts off with the gang talking to Gwyn, Alisa's granddad. He lets us know a secret way into Roer, by sailing in through a stream that starts in Ymir. Sounds risky to me but I'm sure things will be fine. It has me pick a party, Alisa is the required one this time so I get to pick my full team of people I actually want to use for once. The game starts you off on the byroad right by Roer, so I guess we don't get a cutscene of them sailing the boat down the rapids. Lame!

Trial chest for Alisa and Emma is the first thing I find. It makes sense that Emma was the top scorer on the Thors entrance exam. After all, she really knows how to spell! Nice. Unfortunately though, I don't have Emma with me, and there's no quick travel menu to get back to the ship to change teammates, so I guess this one will have to wait until later.

Upon arriving to Roer, the guards at the gate outside think they recognize us, but then say that all kids look the same and that they're just faces you'd see at the bar. First, these kids have pretty wild and wacky appearances, so cut that shit right out I'm pretty sure you'd recognize Alisa anywhere. Second off, why are you seeing kids at the bar? Mysterious shit man! The gang then ponders why it was so easy for them to get in, so I'm guessing they're setting up for a man on the inside who was helping them gain access. Since it's Roer, maybe Sharon's pulling some strings for us? We'll see!

I speak with Jackass, the crafting shop owner and he lets us know that Schmidt is working with the nobles to develop weapons. I forget who Schmidt is to be perfectly honest but I'm sure he'll show up soon! Hugo is in the shop downstairs and tells us he'll let us know anything he finds out but doesn't join the Courageous yet. In the general store we find Linde, Vivi's sister. Glad to see she's okay! I can't believe that they made us wait this long to reunite the two. She then says if we need anything to come and find her because she won't be going anywhere. Not what I expected? I guess they're gonna make us wait until the end of this section to formally recruit her or something. I could see them holding off on Hugo but Linde doesn't have much else to do but join us now lol. She's working part time at a grocery store for God sake, that's like, the lowest of the low...

Anyway after that I try to go to the Reinford hq but we aren't able to go inside yet. Apparently Angelica's uncle is evil (who wouldve guessed) And is taking over the Reinford company while Alisa's mom is imprisoned. And he's even using the top floor where their home was as his own personal office. How uncouth! We must stop this man immediately.

Instructor mary is chilling in a random house, she asks how Mint is doing and tells us to be careful but doesn't have much info for us. I head over to the bar but there's no Claire in a sexy dress so not much to see here. Over at the church there's some new sister that nobody recognizes, 0% chance that becomes a plot point later.

Last but not least I head over to the Roer technology school, but to my surprise there's nothing there. Except a receptionist who refers to Schmidt as a dick, which was funny for it's unexpectedness. But I thought there'd be some plot advancement. Not sure where else to look now! Eventually while aimlessly walking around the gang has a cutscene where they talk about being out of leads and Alisa gets a call from her buddy at the diner. I feel like the diner being in the last game and Alisa going to talk to that chick was literally only put in the game so they could have this scene here. But it's okay, I respect that.

Over at the diner the ~mysterious~ sister from before is revealed to be none other than Angelica! I don't really care for her much, she's okay but kind of one note? But I do like her rebellious plot against her family so I'm glad to see her out of prison. She goes into detail about how her father isn't as on board with the Noble alliances actions and occupation of Heimdallr as the rest of the leaders. She also says that she plans on using her few allies she has in the alliance to lead an insurgency against her father's army. I have to admit that's pretty damn badass, so she's growing on me a bit here.

She reveals she's uncovered the location of Alisa's mom, which is on some cold steel tracks in the iron mine outside of town. See what I did there? These really have been the Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country, haven't they? ...Anyway, we decide to set off on a 3 part adventure, first to the mine to rescue Mom, then with her in tow we come back to Roer to reclaim Reinford HQ, then finally with his hostages gone, we head off to the Schwarz Drache Barrier to finish things off with Angelica's dad. Seems like a pretty sensible plan to me! They mention that we're gonna need to bang out all 3 operations back to back in order to give our enemies as little time to react as possible, also smart. I'm liking the way their planning is going.

Angelica joins my party and it tells me that setting her as my party leader is highly recommended since her quartz will give us triple advantages randomly. Unfortunately for this game I've mastered the art of getting triple advantages every fight and I'm burned out on temp characters after they took my Claire from me. Sorry Angelica, you're staying in the back. You, Sara and Machias will be there for me when I need you. Angelica's stats are pretty nutty though, she almost had as much attack as Laura and that's with only one moderately good accessory equipped.

The game let's you explore out on the highway going to the Barrier instead of going immediately to the mine so I do that for fun. I find a trial chest for Elliot, Emma, Millium, and Sara out here. Keep in mind you can't switch your party for this section, and Alisa and Rean are required. Is there any chance on earth that a single human being would ever have picked those four people to join them to get that chest the first time around? I absolutely refuse to believe anybody would pick those four characters. That is such a joke. I think they really just wanted to make sure they were able to show off at least one chest quote this game, to make sure everyone knew they existed. That's the only rational explanation. "Have you heard Elliot's father published a best selling book on the Imperial forces? They don't call him 'Craig the Read' for nothing!" That doesn't even make sense bro that'd be like if he was a writer not a publisher but whatever I'm not even mad.

Lmao I walked up to a chest and Angelica chimed in, "Always happy to lay my hands on another chest." Okay she's growing on me still that was pretty funny. There's another shrine here, but Angelica says we don't have time to worry about it because we have important things to do today. Nice avoidance of ludonarrative dissonance, game designers! Eventually I get up to to the Barrier and Angelica puts her veil on and says that we should do some investigating since we're here and I get +2 AP. That's pretty neat! Margarita is here, the fat chick from the first one, but besides that there's nothing here. At least I got some AP out of it, the best reward you can truly get. After that Alisa suggests we head back to Roer to restock, but nothing actually happens when you get there so off to the mine!

After a battle my Alisa hits level 90 and gets an upgraded S craft which has a Class SSS+ ranking. Alisa's S craft sucked before so hopefully this one's actually useful. It does say it has a 200% chance to mute so that seems promising if it can actually mute bosses. Also Angelica got her s craft upgraded, which is pretty funny since I just got her. Why not just start her off level 90 bro c'mon.

At the end of the path before the mine I find another trial chest, this time for Elliot and Gaius........ Okay I was kidding before but now I know they really are trying to make sure you can't open any of these. "How can you tell that Gaius grew up in a pretty extreme environment? His whole family is IN TENTS!" Okay that one was actually pretty good lol. I am now 0/3 on trial chests in Roer though so I'm not looking forward to backtracking for these later.

In the mine we kill some jaegers until we end up finding the train they're hiding Mom on, but the train starts to leave the mine to get away from us. Summoning his inner Lloyd, Rean instructs everyone to jump on top of the train and they all manage to flawlessly land on top of a moving train and get inside. Something which seemed so silly in Zero(Azure?) seems so quaint here now. The series really likes to mess with your emotions. I think it's just because Lloyd felt like so much more grounded of a character whereas you kind of just expect Rean to do whatever the hell the writers think he needs to be able to do at the time. What's the male version of a Mary Sue?

They have you do a pretty fun mini boss rush through some jaegers in the cars that ends with a pincer battle where you get attacked by 8 of them in a row, which is basically just the game saying if you weren't saving your CP, reload and try again. I appreciate that bit of game design though because it at least forces you to meter your resources properly.

No boss at the end of that, just Sharon showing up and then we go to bust into the Reinford building. Just gotta go up a few flights of stairs, nothing too interesting happens. One of the enemies here is a Zephyanthes though, wasn't that a boss once? So that's kinda cool.

When you get to the top Angelica talks shit at her uncle for being a little bitch and taking over the Reinford company so underhandedly lol. Basically what you'd expect from her. And he summons some robots to fight us, which is what you'd expect from him too, knowing nothing about him at all. These Noble villains are all the same right? The boss fight is pretty easy, he has a move that heals him for 30k occasionally but you're able to out-dps that without much effort, and he summons some robots across the map but any full map s craft like Alisa's new upgraded one or Sara's takes them out instantly. Not really in any danger this whole fight.

After the fight he says that Arios' combat data was installed on the machine so it shouldn't have been able to lose. I don't remember Arios summoning a bunch of little robots so you might wanna check your notes there buddy. Eventually Sharon and the Chairman walk in and Alisa's mom just whoops uncle's ass lol. Legit 2 slaps and a punch and knocks him on the ground. Let's go chairman! Then we go outside and the Courageous is here to pick us up, presumably to start part 3 of our 3 phase plan. This has been a long day @@

The game warns you that the next part will be a gear battle and let's you switch out your orbs if you want lol. I can't imagine that will start being necessary now so I'll pass. We resume onboard the Courageous, Angelica is planning on going into battle with her dad to settle shit once and for all. She gives a roaring speech where she says she'll crawl out of hell to return if she has to, which would be pretty badass if she didn't follow up with "so I can see these beautiful ladies again." Way to ruin it! She gets in a purple gear and goes off with some soldiers, and then it switches to dad's POV. He is informed that Angelica is on the way with some gears and he says that he will handle it. One of the main terrorist dudes who's name I forget, the big burly guy, offers to go help but Marquis says that this isn't a noble alliance matter, just a father disciplining his daughter. That's cute lol, I have a feeling it won't quite work out like that...

They get to fighting and Fie sums it up perfectly..."This is more like watching a family feud than an all out war. But with robots." At least the game has some self awareness about how stupid this is lol, it makes me appreciate it more.

Angelica wins the fight obviously, but then Vulcan (that's his name!) comes out and knocks her gear out of commission then challenges Rean to a duel. They had to find a way to include him in Angelica's special moment I guess, I mean we are playing as him after all so I guess we need something to do. Once Rean shows up we get an obligatory, "It's the ash-colored knight" from the crowd. Man I really never thought when I said how awkward that line was that it would end up getting repeated 50 more times throughout the game. How in the hell did the translators approve that lol

The mech fight with Vulcan is the same as every other, spam counter while healing and charging. If mech fights are in 3 and the whole system is revamped I pray to God they remove this counter move because there's never a reason to use anything else, it just makes you invincible.

Class VII in the cutscene congratulates Rean on his impressive achievement, clearly not realizing how braindead of a fight it was. After that Vulcans gear starts to blow up, but he just decides that this is his crowning life achievement and going out like this is a-okay, and refuses to abort ship as it explodes. Okay then. Kind of a random death but he was kind of a whatever character so I guess that's one less thing to worry about.

After that...event, they talk about the aftermath - Marquis Rogner surrenders and swears fealty to Alfin, and we dock in Roer to have the Reinford company do repairs for us. Think they could get us some professionals to man the ship instead of a bunch of random students? Somehow I doubt it. This, however, ends our day, so we'll have to see how things pan out tomorrow.

12/22
Looks like I was right, but they call it a "Stopover day" instead of a bonding day like normal which is cuddly. I walk around almost every area outdoors on the topside as well as the bar and the church without running into any events. I do see my boy Andre again which is nice. Finally on the other side of the top floor I finally find someone, my main man Machias. He wants to go check out the Technology Institute so away we go, and he gets startled by an RC car driving by. To be fair seeing a tiny car in their world would be kinda crazy lol. They get roped into racing them and invite Jusis out to join them, but then Jusis and Machias get too into it and crash into each other while Rean coasts to victory. Another day, another instance of Rean being the best at something.

I head over to the Reinford building that I neglected earlier and just have hordes of people inside thanking me for saving the day. Just an average Wednesday for ol' Rean Schwarzer. On the top floor I find Alisa in her penthouse suite, she wants to examine everything to make sure that the interloper didn't steal anything. While searching her mom's room she finds an unframed photo of their family together hidden away in a book and remarks how important it must be to her, but also that she kept it hidden. Lol Alisa slowly recognizing her mother as a human being is one of the more interesting/relatable subplots of this game so I have been enjoying that one.

I find Sharon in the house, no event with her but I like what she says to Rean: "Some may see your ability to mourn your enemies as weakness, and understandably so, but I see it as you and your classmates strength." I just like when the game talks about how not everyone sees the world as moralistically as they portray these kids because it keeps it from getting too preachy. Though I wish it happened more often, it's still nice when it does.

Alfin is in the library with an event for us, while perusing the library she is dismayed at the lack of romance novels. Wasn't this the grandpa's library? I guess there's a thin line between romance and smut, though we all know where the grandpa falls there. They then play blade and talk about Crow, and Alfin wishes she could be Crow so that her and Rean would be bound by fate together. That would be pretty romantic if it weren't coming from a child, but what can you do...

Walking around looking for more events I find Anton in the hotel who's listening to the radio, which says "Breaking news, an airship has just been hijacked..." Before trailing off. Is this a reference to something in Crossbell? I don't remember anything off the top of my head.

Next I find Gaius by the highway, he wants to go fishing. Finally something not related to the wind! They go and get attacked by monsters, and then fend them off and go home. I wish something else happened that I could talk about, but no. I like how they finally gave Machias a more interesting event but still couldn't come up with shit for Gaius lol.

Towa and Angie are in the diner, but only Towa has a scene. Honestly thinking about Rean and Angie alone seems like kind of a weird vibe so hopefully they don't get any scenes together lol. Everyone has that friend in a friend group they don't really know that well and it gets awkward if you're alone together. That's them.

Once you get into towas event Angie is there too, so I guess it's a package deal. Angelica leaves for a bit to get some ribbons to decorate towas hair with though, and then the two get their heart to heart over their place in society after the war ends. It has her link XP go up at the end and shows some battle traits there, but there's still no Towa portrait for Rean on the links section. I guess they want to wait until they officially unveil her or whatever. Angelica is there however, so I'm assuming she'll be a permanent option from now on, which makes sense.

Milliums chilling on a bench, she needs to go back on the Eisengraf to get something we left behind. We get permission from the railway police and get back onboard, and she's looking for a teddy bear. I randomly had a teddy bear attachment on her arm beforehand so now she is just carrying two bears around and it looks kinda funny lol. Perfect timing! Millium talks a bit about the Chancellor and Rean let's her know she doesn't have to hold it all in and she can cry about his "death" if she wants to, but she seems confused. She reveals that she's never cried before and doesn't understand why someone would! She's either a robot or a fucked up sociopath so I guess we'll have to see what direction the game wants to go. We already have Renne in the latter category though so I'm still gearing towards former. Altina and Millium robot sisters will add some spice to the game after all.

Emma is next, it's her first time in Roer so she asks Rean to show her around. She gets to ride the escalator and see the orbal generator. They sit down and talk about how crazy of a town it is, and Emma legit says, reminds me of something I read in a book, "Technology beyond the comprehension of the observer is indistinguishable from magic." So I guess Arthur C. Clarke is canon in Zemuria? That's the biggest plot twist of the game so far, lol. But they gave another scene where Rean tells Emma she should follow her dreams and not let her duties get her down, you've heard it all before.

Vivi and Linde are reunited in the grocery store, and they both join us onboard the ship this time. Vivi says she will be our chief sexiness officer, which was a vacancy we desperately needed filled.

Jusis is chilling against the wall acting nonchalant, he asks Rean to join him on a shopping trip. He has Rean carry all his shit he buys around and Rean complains that he shouldn't be doing this, but then Jusis claps back with the, just imagine I was Towa, you wouldn't complain then would you? Which is actually a pretty damn good point lmao. Sorry Rean you have to hold the L this time.

Next is Sara who's in Jackass' shop, she wants to take Rean out to the highway for another training session. She gives him a nice speech about how the world isn't fair and people aren't gonna slow down for You, so if you want a place in this world you're gonna have to take it. And then says she's not holding back and will kick his ass, which seems to come true though they agree to call it a draw. Sara always the real one, shoutouts to her. The writing in CS has always felt weird to me but they just moved all the real shit solely to the adults, and the adults just don't get enough screen time. It is what it is, I guess...but I miss Crossbell. All real shit all the time. They were the best.

Next I go downstairs and into the shop and find Laura who also wants to do some shopping. They go around the store looking at all the appliances while Laura is simultaneously fascinated and incompetent at the sight of technology. She can't figure out how to turn off a vacuum and breaks a washing machine. Rean pokes fun at her by saying she was certainly born for the way of the sword, and Laura says that her lack of domestic skills should not be a winning quality. This was a pretty cute scene lol it made me like Laura a little more so props for that.

Next to the shop is Elliot on a bench. Argh! One off from my last but least joke again! How does this always happen :( who even is the last person I haven't talked to yet? I feel like I've been everywhere. Process of elimination says...Fie. Damn. Wonder where she's hiding. Anyway he wants to play some music, real exciting stuff. Let's move on.

I eventually find Fie, she was hiding at the airport which I probably should've remembered existed. I mean I feel like you're always going to check there last to be fair since everything else is in one large area. Anyway, she just wants to chat with Rean in general. Shes the only one besides Rean who had any kind of connection with Vulcan, since he gave his condolences over her former boss dying. That's kinda sweet. They end up finding a lost kitten and reuiniting it with its mother, and then Fie remarks that she's glad that the kitten wasn't abandoned. Parallel time! She talks about how the night her leader died when fighting the red constellation, a girl about her age from the constellation visited their camp. SHIRLEY MOTHERFUCKER! Can't believe they didn't want to hit us with the name-drop. She says she showed at their camp, the enemy, because she was chasing a stray cat. That certainly is in character for ol' Shirley.

Can't find anything else to do after that, so I go back to the Courageous to advance the plot. Another S rank awww yeah. Rean talks to Valimar and Valimar sounds more human than usual, so Rean asks him about it. Apparently he had almost no memories so he had to use bare built in English (Japanese sorry Mzero) to talk to us, but over the course of our journey he's relearned things and can now communicate more naturally. Cool! I kinda liked him as an edgy stereotype robot but this will work I guess.

Rean gets a call from George, apparently the technology institute has been talking and they want to modify our robot. Please make battles more interesting please make battles more interesting. The professor there (who's a huge douche BTW) says that if we can get him a lot of zemurian ore then he'll make us a giant robot sword. That's pretty cool but probably won't make battles any more interesting so that's lame. One big problem though is uh, zemurian ore is pretty rare. Generally you can only get enough of it to make 2-3 weapons for your party, how the hell are we going to find enough of it to make a giant robot sword? A question for another day, as we move forward in time...

Next time on Cold Steel, trying to locate mass amounts of Zemurian Ore? That'll be an interesting topic. See you guys then!

_stingers_ posted...

The day only moved forward by 1, so apparently at some point yesterday it turned from 12/19 to 12/20 though I never noticed it.

i noticed this too (didn't notice?), glad it wasn't just me!

_stingers_ posted...

Not what I expected? I guess they're gonna make us wait until the end of this section to formally recruit her or something. I could see them holding off on Hugo but Linde doesn't have much else to do but join us now lol. She's working part time at a grocery store for God sake, that's like, the lowest of the low...

you don't have access to the Courageous right now. You came by boat, remember?

_stingers_ posted...

The professor there (who's a huge douche BTW)

I went with prick in my notes but close enough

MZero posted...

i noticed this too (didn't notice?), glad it wasn't just me!

you don't have access to the Courageous right now. You came by boat, remember?

That's true technically but iirc she didn't even have intent to join at that point, she was just saying she was busy in Roer

I'm up to 12/23 on NG+

I've been busy with holiday stuff. I'll be back in North Carolina tomorrow night so I'll try to resume playing either Wednesday or Thursday

I have been playing. I'll try and post an update tomorrow.

Did you beat it again already? Lol

_stingers_ posted...

I have been playing. I'll try and post an update tomorrow.

Did you beat it again already? Lol

Technically no, I didn't need to actually finish it again for the platinum! But I got all the way to the last dungeon lol

Ok I did like 80% of my writeup at work today then I got sidetracked and forgot to finish it. I'll complete it tomorrow

I'm on 12/26 now I feel the walls closing in

I'm working on platting the first Cold Steel now, and it's amazing how little I did in my first playthrough (luckily I still had the data). I scanned almost no enemies, skipped optional quests that weren't even hidden, and I had literally 3 recipes lol

I didn't even catch all the fish. For shame

3 recipes o.O how in the world. Do you just not talk to the NPCs? I think I've only actually needed my guide for one or two of the recipes I've gotten so far because I always go out of my way to talk to people

It was basically the first one I played (I did like the prologue of FC and got distracted, then played CS1 like a year later) so I had no idea what I was doing really lol I don't usually go out of my way to talk to NPCs in other games, although I do in Trails to some extent now. I did manage to get all the recipes without a guide in CS2!

Oh yeah that's right, I forgot you played CS1 first. That makes more sense then. And yeah, this is the only franchise I'll ever go out of my way to talk to people in so I get it

12/23

We start today off with Angelica at the helm of the ship, she walks up to Alan and kicks him off and says that she's the chief helmsman now. Lmao I was literally saying how that was too important of a job for that nobody NPC before so I guess the developers agreed with me this time. Anyway, they don't linger on that long and change topics over to the Zemurian ore they need to get, and ask resident loremaster Emma if she has any ideas. She doesn't, but mentions a clan of craftsmen called 'gnomes' that are rumored to have made the divine knights to begin with. Interesting! Getting a hint as to their origins finally. True Omega Loremaster Celine then chimes in and says she knows where we can find the ore...the spirit shrines. Of course those would have a purpose, what with the mysterious locked doors at the end of every one. Apparently, they were only created in order to grow Zemurian Ore to begin with. Well I'll be a monkey's uncle, that sure is convenient. But at least we have somewhere to look now.

It makes us include Fie in the party, which is a bit weird because I definitely would've assumed this would be an Emma chapter. Did we already have an Emma day? I forget. I like Fie though, so I'm cool with it. Not upgrading her shit this time though, this games too easy I won't need it. I get started making my rounds around the ship. We still have Vivi as our chief sexiness officer, thank you Vivi. I beat the 2nd levels for the ranged/melee training, which were pretty easy at this point in the game. I can't be bothered to do level 3 now though, we'll come back to you.

There's a letter in the study from Phantom Thief B! He has a challenge for us, he says he kidnapped one of our teammates and we need to figure out which one it is. The lights suddenly go out, and we all meet up in the conference room to discuss the incident. Everyone appears to be accounted for, but apparently Bleublanc is impersonating one of us! Spicy. I like this quest already. We have to figure out who it is by quizzing our teammates on what they did today and looking for any inconsistencies. I was wondering when Phoenix Wright: Erebonia would be released. One thing that was pretty funny happened to me when Millium talks about needing to find her lost teddy bear, but I had a teddy bear attachment on her arm so it just made that scene hit different.

My gut said it was Machias, but I looked up the answer to be sure and turns out I was right. For correctly guessing you get the Phantom Thief's Cape as an accessory, which gives 10% evasion and some drop rate increases. I don't have a real evasion tank but I'll put it on Fie, she can do in a pinch I suppose. Maybe there will be a real challenge that actually requires one at some point? Probably not. Also, just like how everyone's S Craft is an AOE in this game, most bosses also have giant AOE attacks unlike the old games so evasion tanks kind of lose some of their appeal in this series as well.

I check out the list of students to recruit on the computer on the bridge, seems like it will be a busy day because there's a lot here. No time like the present, so I set out and when you open the flight menu, there's a ton of new places to go to. Well, "new" since it's all places we've already been, but now I have the quick travel option so that's nice. It says the story advances as soon as you complete one shrine, so we'll save those for the end. First place I go to is Roer to check back in on them, and look into this airship hijacking quest we've got. At least, I thought this was where it was but after walking around town I didn't find anything to do with that. However, there was a student here - Hugo, Becky's friend/rival. He wants me to settle some of his business contracts for him, then he says he'll join us. There's also some random quest here to find some kid out on the highway. I think this was a hidden quest? I don't remember seeing anything about this. At the very least, there were things to do in Roer, even if this hijacked airship is mysteriously missing.

When I go out onto the highway to look for this kid I find another cryptid boss fight. He's got 360k health and an ultimate that one shots everyone in an AOE, so that's fun. I manage to take him out on my third attempt which isn't too bad, compared to the first one that I did that took me 10+ retries and an hour and a half. I had to tech in Emma for god sakes, that's a real tough fight. These cryptids do redeem the game's battle system for me though since I do actually have to retry and think about things. The reward for this one is a Searing Sun Gem, which is a huge map-wide fire attack that seems like it'll instantly win me fights on free arte turns but doubt it'll get too much use in boss battles (besides those free arte turns). But if you ask me, the real reward was overcoming the fight to begin with.

That student is also nearby, getting attacked by some monsters. After you rescue him he says he'll give you battle data, which could be fun to read up on. After that, Kenneth is just further down the byroad, you only have to catch a fish for him and he joins the ship. I'm not sure what else I can do here so I tackle the sidequest Hugo gave me, to deliver some contracts for him. Pretty straightforward A->B thing so that takes a minute and then Hugo joins the ship. I'm sure he'll have a nice shop for us to look through! Looking through the sidequests again now, it says that my missing airship is in Eisengard Range. Not sure why I thought it was Roer but alright, to the range we go!

The Courageous lets you fast travel straight there, but it gives you a warning that says you can't come back until you're done. I'm pretty sure earlier it said you have to do a shrine for the plot to progress, so I'm assuming I'll still be able to do more sidequests after this. When you arrive and board the airship, there's a treasure chest that's already been opened, so I guess we've been here before? The ship does look familiar but I can't place when exactly we were here. Was it when Mick showed up outside looking all edgy? I vaguely remember that. Anyway, the sidequest here is really easy, just beat some standard jaeger fights. The last fight is an ambush but they all get one shot by Sara's S craft, which wasn't even 200 cp lol.

After ending that event you can find Ricky and Anton outside, finally reunited! But tragedy strikes when Ricky's amnesia prevents him from remembering Anton. Oh, the humanity! Also, Norton (the journalist from last game) gives you another black record book, so hopefully we can get those fully decoded soon. If it's really plot heavy stuff maybe it will have to wait for the final dungeon? We also recruit two more students during that sidequest, leaving only one left - the lovely Margarita. She's at the Schwarz Drache Barrier so I head over there to see what she needs us to do. Turns out not much, just have Millium in your party and she joins after Millium gives her a pep talk. They seem like they'd get along well. I was kind of hoping there was something funny we'd have to do for her, but oh well. I blame budget cuts.

No students left to recruit now, and only one quest left which is a monster quest on the Kreuzen highway. The fight goes down easily, compared to the Cryptids we've been killing it wasn't even a challenge. Speaking of which, there are apparently two new Cryptid fights that have opened up as well. The Eisengard Range, where we just were, has one to tackle at the top of the mountain. It's always fun coming back to the starting area in RPGs late game. There's even some new standard enemies here so you don't get bored killing rabbits or whatever. Though they start you off this game at level 60 or something so they'd still be some pretty strong rabbits at this point. Anyway, there's a random trial chest here that wasn't here originally, between Laura and Fie. "Laura may usually win against Fie in a swimming race, but it's no contest when they're racing on land. After all, Fie's always been fast on her Fiet." I swear they're getting worse lol. Anyway, the actual fight is pretty easy. And by that I mean, Laura's 110cp s craft one shot it. I know this wasn't here originally because you only had Rean, but was I supposed to come back here at some other point to do this? I can't imagine this was balanced for this point of the game, even with how generally unchallenging the game is.

At the top of the mountain is the next cryptid fight, a cool looking white dragon thing. He doesn't have any crazy gimmicks in this fight, just does a bunch of damage randomly and can poison you, but it turns out to not be too tough of a fight. He did get one retry out of me so I'll give him some credit. You get some dragon gem for winning which when used gives your entire team +100 CP, as well as 30cp/turn for 3 turns. A utility one like this I doubt I'll get much use out of, but I'll give it to Laura so she can have something to do if she rolls a free arte turn. Maybe I can use it before a boss fight to get everyone to 200cp quickly? That sounds fun. I don't think it'll get used too much in battle proper though, but we'll see.

The other cryptid for us to fight is at the top of that mountain that Beryl was chilling at before. This one was actually disgustingly easy unfortunately, not only did he have no real gimmicks he also has some stupidly low accuracy for some reason. He missed probably half of his attacks on me. No other boss has had this happen so I feel like they did this intentionally for some reason. Were you supposed to fight this thing a long time ago or something? I feel like the difficulty curve of these has been backwards, the hardest one was by far the first one and they've gotten easier since then. I didn't even have a single character die, let alone a retry. Anyway, the reward for this is the Grail Burst spell, which casts instantly and lets you attack twice in a row while moving the rest of your party up in the turn order. So you're spending all of your EP for one additional attack and potentially your teammates moving up? That seems...pretty bad. Rean never uses his EP at all so I'll give it to him, but really it's just a way worse version of Machias' skill. To be fair, that skill is OP as hell and is really the only reason I bring him around with me most places, but still. Maybe a worse version of that will still be worthwhile.

I take some time to explore the ship to examine the fruits of my labor for the day and see what all my new kids will do for me. Klein (Laura's swimming coach) is our new navigation officer. Alfin randomly gives me a Medal of Strength for beating up so many cryptids, which gives 100 Str and 10 spd. My Sara, with that equipped, now has more strength than Laura (1890 vs 1868) while also having almost double her speed (125 vs. 71). So I think she's officially broken.

We find our third trainer in Hibelle, he's in charge of artes training. I take care of all 3 levels pretty quick, they're not too hard. I decided to finish up ranged and melee 3 since I'm here, and man those were annoying. Not because the fights actually tough, but because they make you dodge and counterattack 3 times to count as a win. I guess they realized how easy their game was and needed to add some arbitrary "challenge" to these but really it just made me waste a bunch of time waiting for my guys to dodge. I could've probably set up Fie as an actual evasion tank and had her do it for me...whatever. Live and learn. The melee one was especially a pain because getting those guys to counterattack also requires them to be right next to the robots, I ended up just getting down to 1, cornering him and then skipping my turn over and over and over. But you can't use artes, so I had to use balms to heal when people got low, and my supply started getting kind of low actually lol. I guess it's good to finally get some use out of them, I almost never use items in this game.

Exploring the rest of the ship, Hugo does indeed have a nice shop for us, a high quality item shop with lots of expensive shit, but nothing I really need too much. There is a +20 spd accessory for 75k, but I have a bunch of money in the form of loose sepith so I can afford it if I want it. I decide to give it to Sara, she has a weaker +10 spd accessory on now and I think I want to make her Sara the hedgehog. Actually fuck it, lets just make her as fast as physically possible to see how hard we can push this. After some optimization with R orbments that give speed and changing around her equipment, I finally get her up to 155, now well over double Laura's measly 71. I did have to lose some strength in the process so now Laura is beating her by a massive gap of Laura's 1898 to Sara's 1890. Would you ever trade 8 strength for 80 speed? Laura says hell no.

Margarita is in the kitchen (of course) and wants peculiar dishes, which I have none of since I never cook. Without that jinzo shrine to give things too I've lost interest in cooking in cold steel, I know I made every dish at the very end of the game last time and I'll probably do the same thing here. I've got 4 recipes left to find so whenever I find those I'll go through and make everything. There's also Stefan in the computer room, who said he would give us battle stats but really just does a Noel and gives you U materials for however many unique monsters you've killed. Lame, I wanted to see cool data on how much overall damage I've done and things like that. It's weird they'd introduce Noel's role so late into the second game, but what can you do.

With all that done I believe I'm officially out of stuff to do so I head out to tackle one of these shrines. I'll just go from top down, so first one is the Nord shrine. They say that I need Emma if I'm going to explore, so I'm just like ??? Yeah? Like I said at the beginning? So I'm just required to use Fie and Emma I guess, which is a little lame but I doubt it will matter. But now my team is currently Alisa, Laura, Sara, Fie and Emma - girl power! Rean probably gets a +20% boost for harem buff.

My first battle in, my Sara attacked 4 times I believe before Laura attacked once, so I'm glad this speed optimization is working out lol. That trend didn't repeat itself in the other battles though, it's usually just 1 or 2 so not sure why the first one was so weird. She still attacks a shitton though but I think they must've rebalanced their speed algorithm between Sky and here. I remember Joshua or Richard getting like 8 turns in a row in those games when you'd cap their speed out lol.

There's a monster chest in here which gives the Zeus gem, which is 90% impede chance, as well as 15 strength. It also happens to be a wind orbment, and wouldn't you know it, the only somewhat useless orbment in Sara's arsenal was on a wind required slot, so that fits in perfectly. So not only am I now permanently impeding on a character who attacks all the time, I've also got her above Laura in the strength totals again! It's a good day to be Sara.

There's also two trial chests here, one for Jusis/Sara and one for Fie/Millium. First one, "Fie and Millium are on a waiting list for a new product that will help them grow taller, but it's very in demand. Hopefully they'll get it sometime in the next Millennium." OK I actually liked that one. And then, "When Jusis and Rufus decide who will inherit the Albarea lands, will they have to DUKE it out?" That's the worst one yet omg. Also, unfortunately I don't have either Millium or Jusis in my party, so backtracking time...yay...good thing they stick this at the end of the dungeon.

The first trial chest was super easy, but the one with Fie and Millium was a bit of a pain. For one, I don't use either of them so their equipment and setups aren't great. Their autos were only doing 1 damage. The boss would cast earth pulse, which would heal him for 10k each turn, easily out-sustaining whatever pitiful damage I could put out with them. I ended up turning them both into casters, since the boss is 180% weak to earth. Pelting them with earth spells, even with their lackluster equipment still put out solid damage (about 5k for each cast), and Fie is really fast so she was able to put them out a good bit. I just had to do that about 6 times until I could get him down to 25k, while praying he didn't cast Earth Pulse. Then both of their 200cp s crafts would knock off the remaining HP to win the fight. That strategy ultimately worked out for me, but it was a pain just praying he wouldn't earth pulse himself to victory.

This dungeon is also another one where the "big" enemies you encounter sometimes are old bosses. This time it's the Spiritomb looking guys that were the end bosses of the shrines before. Nice touch! On one hand they save resources on not making more enemies, and on the other hand it's a nice bit of environmental storytelling. Win/win.

At the end you get a boss fight with another magic knight. So let me just tell you, I got my Laura to 50% boosted strength, then used her S craft, which crit...for 140,000 damage. The boss has 180,000 health. I think he got to move once maybe? They really needed to balance this game lol. And of course, of all the people, leave it to Laura to hit us with the, "That one certainly didn't go down without a fight." in the post battle cutscene. Ludonarrative dissonance is great guys. I wonder if the designers knew how bad she broke boss fights?

You get the ore and, surprisingly, you're able to make it back to the Courageous without some random bad guy stopping you and stealing the ore from you. When you do get back it says that George will need help to set up his workshop and begin processing it, which will end the day. I thought I was supposed to go to all 4 shrines? When I go to talk to Towa and look at the map I can't travel to the other shrines anymore, so...I guess we'll do that tomorrow? I can't find anything else to do, so I talk to George to end the day.

12/24

It's Christmas Eve! The day starts without any acknowledgement of this, as the gang gathers around the sword that George whipped up. They say it's barely better than a normal weapon, which makes me wonder, why are we wasting the ore we got into making it? Shouldn't we have gathered all of it first so we could make the super, Zemurian ore-only weapon we originally discussed? When did this new plan come into fruition? Maybe he can just melt this one down to reclaim the ore somehow...whatever. I'm not going to worry about it. Take me on your wild ride, Falcom.

Towa walks in in a hurry and interrupts us to give an emergency report - apparently, Celdic was lit aflame. Guess I was right about us getting sidetracked. Are we finally getting to the end bit of a trails game, when the real things with actual consequences start happening? Sign me up! The gang arrives in Celdic to check the damage and they decide to meet up with Otto the market manager.

The mood in town is solemn, and the map has changed considerably with destroyed buildings and flame scorched ground. I stop by the church first and there's a mini scene there with Rosine. She is upset how powerless she was to stop the attack despite the months she spent in the military academy with us. I get it but you know, it's one girl vs an army, that's a tough one. It hits me here though, for all the complaints I have about this game, one thing I think Cold Steel as a series has excelled at over the others is in how it makes you care about the NPCs. I know Trails is notorious for their NPCs in general, but I think Cold Steel is a notch above the rest in this department. And I also know that it's a little easier when you're forced to interact with the same bunch of them a lot of the time since half of the first game took place in one location, I know that made their job easier. But they really took it and ran with it. The way they've been able to intersperse them all throughout the continent, and give them all stories and motivations is something you really don't see in any other franchises. So props to Falcom on that.

When you get to the market managers house, you learn that he's been injured in the attack and has passed away. And not in the trails way where they're totally fine after 30 minutes, apparently he's actually gone for good. RIP Otto, you were a brief part of this game but we will honor your memory real soon and fuck up some Alliance soldiers on your behalf. Neithardt, Craig, and Claire are off in the corner surveying the damage in town. When you speak with them they confirm that it was the Albarean forces who razed the town, despite it being their own territory. Dark stuff. They also repeat that line from earlier that I liked, about the psychological impact of the Soldats and how it's affecting the villagers. That's all they say though, and unfortunately Claire does not rejoin our team here now.

The gang gets ready to go back to the Courageous, but Becky and Hugo come down from the ship to investigate the damage. You'd think Becky would have come down with them originally, this being her hometown and all, but if you ain't Class VII you don't get to leave the ship I guess. Sorry, I don't make the rules. If you're not with us you're against us. Maybe the Courageous is secretly a prison ship for all Thors students that weren't in Class VII? Anyway, Becky is distraught over the occurrences of course but Hugo says he'll watch after her and make sure she makes it back to the ship. Good guy prison warden Hugo here to help.

You get back to the ship and they talk about the consequences of what happened, and prepare to make their formal foray into the war (because we TOTALLY haven't been huge players until now, and DEFINITELY haven't only supported the Imperial army, with the princess we rescued and use as a figurehead of morality for our actions, we've been 100% neutral until now. Wink wink). Suddenly we receive a radio call, and Rufus appears on the monitor. I didn't know you could transmit video with a Radio message. Erebonian technology really is advanced! Anyway, he says he's got a super confidential message for us. He let's us know that Duke Albarea carried out this attack on his own, and the rest of the noble alliance does not condone his actions. He also says he will not interfere with whatever we're planning to do. Millium, surprisingly the voice of reason, points out that he's clearly just using us to take his father out on his behalf so he can consolidate power. I guess she is a high ranking spy and all, but I'm not used to seeing that side of her so it's refreshing. Maybe Millium will grow on me more as the stakes ramp up and she gets more time to play that role, instead of annoying child.

Rufus shrugs off the accusation though, then calls out Jusis saying he's curious how Jusis will play this, it being such a family-centric affair. Jusis stammers and says nothing at this prodding. It's always fun to see how Jusis' confidence just shatters completely before his brother. Rufus does seem pretty capable so I can't blame Jusis too much, but it's still funny.

The call hangs up and then Laura, another voice of reason, points out that this could obviously be a trap. Rean puts on his monocle and top hat and says, "now we know the alliance wants something done about Duke Albarea as much as we do", as if to immediately make sure that you, the player, discounts any possibility that what Laura just said is true, and that we need to take Rufus at his word. Now, it's pretty obvious that Millium was right and that this is all a ploy by Rufus to consolidate power - well played to him - but from Rean's perspective, completely discounting Laura's idea that it's a trap does not make much sense. Rufus and the duke are still family after all, and ostensibly allied in this war effort. They could very well be lying to us and planning a joint ambush when we rush their fortress. It's very odd that Rean would ignore that possibility, even if in our world it's obvious that he's right and the Duke is being set up to fall.

Anyway, they finalize their plans to attack the fortress, and the day skips ahead...short day today!

12/25

Christmas time! I wonder what Christmas festivities they will get up to today. Launching mortars instead of fireworks? Setting Christmas trees on fire as we destroy Duke Albarea's fortress? I can't wait! They let us bring 7 party members instead of 6, and make Jusis and Sara required. I would normally bring them anyway so I have 1 extra slot to play with. I decide on Millium because I don't think I'll need any extra firepower, and she seems like she has potential for interesting things to say since the political intrigue is ramping up.

No new quests today, looks like we're all main plot, all the way. Works for me! A quick lap around the ship results in nothing new to see, so lets attack this damn fort. After setting off we get a scene where McBurn and Duvalie are talking. It's been so long I almost forgot about them! Duvalie lectures Mick on how they aren't supposed to fight in this war, because they're supposed to be "in the shadows". I guess dealing with Trails protagonists doesn't count as being in the war for whatever reason. Mick says that she should be glad to relax since she just got back form Crossbell. At least they're consistent! And they have a good reason why Ouroboros hasn't been part of the plot for awhile lol.

Fast forward to Rean and co arriving at the fort, Scarlet shows up in her gear to stop us. She says that she doesn't care about life anymore since she has no reason to live past Crow "killing" Chancellor Osborne. Hopefully she does die here, like Vulcan, so she never has to learn the truth about that. I'm sure it would crush her. But really, I think the developers just had no clue what to do with the terrorists after CS1 lol. They could've just written them out and nobody would've been bothered by it I think, but no big deal.

After a robot fight which was somehow easier than the rest of them, she attempts to suicide herself but Rean rushes in and saves her. I guess the writers didn't want her to die yet since she has more "appeal". She's honestly ugly af because they just comically oversized her tits and it looks stupid, and I say that as a confessed tits > ass kinda guy. Anime can be silly as fuck sometimes lol. Anyway, Crow shows up to check on his girl and Angelica gives him shit for caring about Scarlet so much. Jealous? Crow reveals that he knows what we're doing with the ore and the sword, and says that we should keep doing the shrines if we're gonna take him on. Does anyone question how this kid our age knows all this shit? It's a little disconcerting.

The rest of the gang rushes inside while Rean's preoccupied out there. Some jaegers are inside ready to greet us, but Sara walks up to confront them first. Apparently, she's originally from North Ambria and was a part of this jaeger clan in her past. She says her loyalty now lies with Erebonia and her students however, and she challenges the jaegers to a duel. It starts a solo battle of her vs them and she immediately unlocks a new S craft that has 4S as its rank, which is the first time I've seen that I think. Naturally you use it right away but it doesn't even one shot their entire board, which kind of surprises me because the stragglers get pretty close to killing me on their turn. If your Sara wasn't as cracked as mine wouldn't this fight just be impossible? Like if she were 10 levels lower and not equipped I don't see how I would've won that ever.

After the fight ends they all kinda act like Sara lost though, so maybe you are supposed to lose it? Not sure why they'd make it winnable at all then. Or are they just doing that trails thing where they require you to win a fight but then act like you lost in the cutscene after anyway? I didn't get any bonus AP for winning it, so I'm guessing it's that. Anyway, the jaegers basically just look at her pitifully and say they don't get paid enough for this shit and walk out the door. The gang talks a bit about Sara's jaeger past and basically are just like, yeah whatever homie you're our teacher lets go. I guess that does explain the bit of a soft spot she's had for Fie all this time so that's a nice touch.

After this fight, Sara is just totally too injured to go on and is kicked out of your party. Super lame. I guess Millium might see some use after all then? Probably not. At least it explains the whole 7 party member thing. I guess we'll just tackle this dungeon without her, I decide on Machias to fill her spot but I'll probably switch in Jusis for the boss battle at the end.

The journey through the dungeon is pretty uneventful, mostly just grinding. There's another ex-boss for a random enemy which is cool. I also had to retry some fight against one of those and some soldiers, twice, because the solider would cast grim butterfly which would one shot my entire board. Thank god for retry. I'm playing SMT5 now and dying in that is always very frustrating.

Once you get to the top of the fortress, the gang of course tries to arrest ol' Duke Albarea, but Duvalie steps in "from the shadows" to prevent us. She gives a rousing speech about how we will go no further because Ouroboros will fulfill their mission...it's very beautiful...but Mick is just like "Nah I'm good" and teleports out. Ahhh...Mick is great lmao. I guess they need to save him for CS3 or 4 when we're level 250 and he would just shit on us now. In general though, Trails is at its best when Ouroboros is involved and I have felt their lack of presence over the last few war heavy chapters.

The fight itself vs. Duvalie begins and ends pretty quickly. She did get a full map S craft off which would normally be scary, but it was literally the turn after I casted the double your HP arte with Alisa, so it didn't really do anything...so sadly Duvalie wasn't able to KO even a single unit. I'm rooting for you next time though Duvalie, if anyone beats me I want it to be you. Laura mentions after the fight that she (Duvalie) seemed unusually tired, and then Duvalie mentions how she has now disgraced herself here and in Crossbell. Beautiful. This is all happening in a pretty short timespan after all! We are fast approaching Zero's epilogue...now I'm wondering how KeA and Millium will get along lol. They don't seem like a good fit.

Duvalie leaves though and Jusis formally arrests his father, as the scene fades to black. We resume showing the Imperial forces occupying Bareahard. I have to wonder why the Noble alliance gave up the Duke if it meant also surrendering Bareahard? I thought that was basically their HQ. I know Rufus said the bulk of their army is with him, wherever they are, but where the hell is that? Further out west in some town we haven't been to, I guess...but they need a lot of infrastructure to support their war effort, I can't imagine there's very many places they could be. Whatever, another thing we shouldn't worry about, I suppose.

After that though, we get a transition to the next day and it says Bareahard stopover day. I suppose we'll get some bonding events in tomorrow! I think it's a little weird nobody mentioned Christmas this entire time, but I suppose they were a little preoccupied. Perhaps tomorrow we'll get some festivities. See you guys then!

12/26

Stopover day in Bareahard today. The first person I see is Machias, who buys some flowers to dedicate to his cousin (who I genuinely don't remember) and the market manager who just passed away. They have a custom in Nord to toss a bouquet of flowers into a river to honor their memory, and they do so for our fallen brethren while swearing to change Erebonia for the better. A nice scene to show Machias' more sentimental side.

Millium's in the bookstore upstairs, looking for a recipe to make a desert, in the hopes that it will cheer everyone up. That's oddly thoughtful for ol' Millium. After some coaching from chef Rean, they're able to complete it, and Millium talks about her (first time having) emotions. She's definitely the bubbliest emotionless character I've ever seen lol.

Laura's leaving town outside the shop, but when you approach her she seems to leave without noticing you. Rean follows her out of town and sees her in her swimsuit, about to jump off a bridge into the river below. Keep in mind, it's the day after Christmas, so Rean is concerned for her wellbeing. He gets her a towel and a warm drink and engage in some innocent PG flirtation for a bit...end scene.

Towa is chilling on a bench feeling down about herself, so Rean tries to cheer her up. She says she has doubts about her capabilities as captain, and her captains hat dramatically flies off her head. Rean catches it and puts it back on her head, saying that she's doing great and there's nobody that would do it better. That's enough to cheer her up - Towa is a simple girl to please.

I head over to the airport to find Alfin, staring out into space. She wants to go tot he Bareahard cathedral to offer prayers for the fallen, but something else seems to be weighing on her as well. During the mass, the priest says to have a moment to honor the fallen in Celdic, but we hear the nobles in the audience muttering about how they deserved what they get for fighting the alliance. Alfin has no patience for this, and stands up to shame them all with an impassioned speech. The crowd is silent at her remarks, and Rean escorts her out of the church to prevent any type of retaliation. As they leave, Rean comforts Alfin, and says that her speech hit home for him and he's sure that it did for some of the nobles there as well. He goes on to say that she made him proud to be a citizen of the empire. This was a damn well done scene, if only all the bonding events could be this high quality. Well done to Falcom.

Elliot is at the end of the road nearby, feeling down about himself like always. Rean takes him to the nearby caf to cheer up, and naturally there's a pianist playing a melody on the top floor. She sounds like she's playing the main theme from Trails in the Sky, so that's a nice touch. This inspires Elliot to go and play a song as well, though his wasn't as good. Rean, for some reason, doesn't tell him that.

Gaius is next, he's in church praying. Rean asks how they pray in Nord, and Gaius shows him - they kneel on the ground. Original. They have the most generic conversation of all time after that, you already know what it was you don't need to hear it from me.

Alisa is on a bench outside the church, she wants to go and see Valimar. For some reason, this scene is 100% voice acted which is a first for bonding events. Sure, why not? We arrive at the hangar and she says she wants to get inside Valimar to see what it's like. When Rean is figuring out if this is even possible, they use that 'secondary contractors' line again, so I guess that awkward translation is another that's gonna stick. Valimar answers in the affirmative, so Alisa and Rean are teleported inside. When they get in Alisa, naturally, is seated on Rean's lap. Valimar, you sly dog...robot is man's best friend after all. They call him out on the positioning and Valimar says it was the best he can do with the space available, to which Rean calls him a liar. Lmao, when even Rean knows what's going on then you know something is wrong. Respect to Valimar the homie though. Alisa and Rean have a nice conversation about how Rean fights all of his robot battles alone, but Rean's all like, I'm never alone Alisa, I got you. They get all close and start blushing and are basically about to start tearing each other's clothes off, but the T for teen interrupts them with Valimar saying he detects abnormal heart rates and inquires about their health. The classic robot cockblock, anime trope #7. They awkwardly brush that encounter off as the scene ends.

I have to wonder why that was the only voice acted scene...it was a pretty good scene as they go, but it wasn't particularly important. If they had actually kissed I could see the value there but it seems a little weird.

Emma has a scene where Rean gets sleepy and passes out on a bench, so Emma lays him on her lap. He wakes up and freaks out and they just kinda end the scene lol. It was funny to watch this right after Alisa's well done 'romantic' scene. But Rean should really learn to take a hint. Emma's definitely the thirstiest of the harem girls, besides the actual adults who are "totally just pranking you bro, haha" when they flirt. Because that's definitely a thing that happens outside of anime.

Fie is sitting on a railing; apparently, one of her shoes broke so she's just sitting there with a foot out. Papa Rean says that this won't do, and gives her a piggyback ride to a clothing shop. Good guy Rean, always looking out for this squad. I think of all people though that Fie wouldn't have any problems walking barefoot lol. They end up getting her some new shoes though, and all is well.

Sara is at the bar as always. Rean talks to her about her past and she finally opens up a bit and talks about being in the jaeger corps. Doesn't really go into too much detail but it ends in her and Rean toasting each other which was cute to see.

I get a recipe in this bar as well which means I only need 3 more, but looking at it in the recipe list, there's one above it still with question marks so hopefully I didn't miss one. If I can't 100% this game I'll be a little sad cuz I've been trying to do everything.

Last but not least, I head over to Jusis' mansion to talk to him and see what all he's got going on. I'm sure this will be a good one. This one is also voice acted, which makes more sense because this should be required. Does that mean Alisa's scene was required too? Kind of a weird choice. Anyway, you get in the mansion and the RMP are inside. Jusis explains that they'll be watching over the mansion and keeping Duke Albarea under house arrest. Jusis leaves and, surprisingly, it's not just a scene; the game opens up and let's you explore around the mansion.

It looks like a big area, but the game pretty much blocks you from going anywhere except Jusis or Scarlets rooms. If you go to Jusus' you get a bonding scene where there's no voice acting, making my earlier point moot. I guess Alisa is just special today (and every day). Jusis takes Rean out horseback riding, but after you set out he ends up just immediately challenging Rean to a duel. Unfortunately you don't get a real fight, but a cutscene where they scrap for a bit and end in a draw, laying on a field out of breath. When you get back to Jusis' room the scene ends, but there's a magazine there that gives you a new color for the bike. I think that's the first one I've found all game, so I have to assume I've been missing these for awhile. I felt like I'd been exploring a lot but I suppose not lol.

I visit Scarlet's room after that, she's of course lying in bed, recovering. She talks about her past in the church and mentions that she was in the congregation for the sacraments. Wasn't that Kevin's schtick too? They handled the collection of all the sacred relics or whatever name they had for them? I don't know, it's been too long I don't remember a lot of this church stuff. Anyway, she ends up getting too sick to talk, and says we'll have to come and get the rest of the story from her some other time.

I do another lap around town but I don't find anything else to do so I head back tot he ship. When I do, Angie and Towa run up saying that we need to gather everyone because there's reports about something weird going on in Crossbell! Shit motherfucker is it giant tree time?! Let's start getting some action!

They give me some AP real quick, I get another S rank and only have 2 more ranks to go to max out. The next rank is a lot of points away though so it will be a bit of work it seems. The scene resumes, the gang is flying off to Crossbell to see what's going on. Navigation officer Vivi says she's getting some strange readings ahead, though our vision is blocked by clouds. Oh Vivi, you have no idea baby. Our gang is all on the deck of the ship eagerly awaiting a visual, when suddenly they burst through the cloud cover. Rean exclaims - What in the world is that? As we pan out to see that giant mothafuckin tree, glowing in the distance. Man, everyone who started with Cold Steel is definitely damn confused right now lol.

Even Celine is stumped, who says that she's never seen or heard of anything like it. We switch over to the Ouroboros ship and the evil gang is gathered staring at the tree as well, though since they're in the know they're throwing out terms like Phantasmal Blaze Plan (I still don't know what that is, should I?), Azure-Zero project (I got that one though) and Zero Child willy-nilly. The CS only kids are definitely confused now, there's been so little Ouroboros in these games so far compared to the past series. Vita let's loose a new lore nugget that they're planning on summoning the same tree over in Erebonia as well, but I can't think of any KeA analogues they could use on this side of the border. Is Millium that special? I really hope not.

The scene switches over to Rufus, who's meeting with generals Le Guin and Bardias. Haven't seen them in awhile! I thought they were going to be a much bigger part of this game when they were first introduced. I guess that's the downside of having such a big ensemble cast, it's tough to get to everyone. I guess they'll be more important next game. They came in to ask Rufus about the tree, and Rufus says that Duke Cayenne told him it's appearance was planned. I suppose that means Cayenne is actually in the know, which means he's way more connected then I originally thought. I thought he was going to be some crappy midboss for us to take down, but it turns out that was Jusis' father instead lol.

Rufus says that the imperial forces are going to be collapsing on Heimdallr in the next few days. I forgot about Heimdallr! Of course that's where their HQ is, I was thinking that it was the imperial town but they took it over and forced the imperials out, right. Kind of a weird strategy, but okay.

We get a scene change over to Cayenne and Altina, who are descending a massive elevator with Cedric, Olivier's younger brother. They're apparently underneath the Imperial castle...reminds me of Liberl! They eventually get to the bottom after Cedric finishes shitting his pants wondering where they're taking him, and Vita is there in the flesh for once. Cedric is like, Vita Clotilde, the famous opera singer? What are you doing here? Oh, my sweet summer child...

They pan the camera and reveal what looks to be a very impressive looking mech, encased in some red energy in a demonic looking tree thing. It's pretty badass looking. Cedric gets one of those weird, heartbeat noise gray screen feelings when he looks at it that Rean gets sometimes. He keels over at this, but Cayenne looks at it and laughs maniacally, calling it a 'fragment of the great power' and gives it a name - Tessa Rosta. I think that was the name at least, it left the screen pretty quickly. It sounds nice though.

After that scene though, the day ends...next time on Cold Steel, figuring out what's going on with this tree, I guess? I don't remember Rean showing up at the end of Azure so I suppose we're not going to fly over there to investigate, but I suppose they'll do something related to it. It reminds me of when you learned that the only reason Crossbell wasn't destroyed halfway through the game was because Rean and co. stopped the terrorists from shooting the railgun at it. It's nice because they also hyped up and teased those railguns so often throughout Zero and Azure, so it didn't feel like it was written in for dramatic purposes but that it was properly foreshadowed, which was nice. So maybe they can find another fun way to tie the two games together here. Anyway we'll find out soon, so see you guys then!

_stingers_ posted...

She talks about her past in the church and mentions that she was in the congregation for the sacraments. Wasn't that Kevin's schtick too?

Yeah, the Gralsritter are under that department.

Im halfway through the 27th. I wonder if I can beat it this week @@

_stingers_ posted...

I did have to lose some strength in the process so now Laura is beating her by a massive gap of Laura's 1898 to Sara's 1890. Would you ever trade 8 strength for 80 speed? Laura says hell no.

I always had Laura on the bench with tons of strength and nothing else to switch in at any time for a 100k+ damage S-Craft nuke

speed didn't matter cause i pretty much only switched her in when victory was in my grasp

I just started 12/31

I have so many notes. Sorry in advance

12/27
The gang gathers around to discuss the tree situation, but basically decide that it's out of their zone of expertise, and that they should keep doing what they've been doing. Gathering students, doing quests for Olivier, getting more ore. Lame! I was ready for some main main plot stuff to start happening, but I suppose we'll have to wait for CS3. Sara pokes fun at Toval over the radio about the Carnelia books, and also says that they're certainly available in stores everywhere. Is that a hint and I'll actually get to read it now? Probably not, but we'll see.

Walking around the ship, I go out onto the deck to see if they added the Azure tree to the map, but sadly they did not. Missed opportunity, Falcom!

There's new weapons to buy, but I'm completely broke after upgrading everyone's armor in Bareahard. I guess I'll go sell some more sepith in a bit. Dorothee has a book for a curry recipe that fills in the slot above the Parfait that I was worried about earlier, so I'm down to only two recipes to go!

Sara in the kitchen is talking about Crossbell and says that they should be fine, since they have high ranking guild members plus an unusually talented police force :). She says there's a group of police officers there that have been working closely with the guild that have made a real name for themselves :):). Rean has a thought to himself where he thinks that they sound interesting, and he would love to meet them someday :):):). Thanks for that scene, game.

Nothing else on the ship that I find, so it's time to go out into the world and see what awaits. The first place I go is Ymir, because I skipped snowboarding last time and I want to check on that. There's a green checkmark on the Ymir map in Ymir Valley, so I guess there's some sort of sidequest here? I go up to it and it triggers a scene of Beryl (best student) walking and giggling to herself, so we chase after her. When you finally catch up to her, she just literally..vanishes into thin air right before your eyes. Mysterious! You end up climbing to the top and find her again, and the gang is all like wtf was that about, but she just brushes it off and joins you aboard the Courageous. I'm guessing she's some kind of...ghost student? Who knows lol.

I tackle the snowboarding as well, but don't find anything else to do there so I head out. Legram is next because I know there's a mission for us there. When you get in the fog is thicker than usual, and the guild wants us to investigate the cause. They say they heard a bell going off too, so it's like what was happening here before. Intriguing! They require us to use Emma here so I swap her in. While exploring the town I found another recipe in Laura's home, so now I'm down to only 1 remaining. Nothing else of note in town, so castle time it is.

In the castle there's a black record on the ground right when you enter. The boss at the end is super braindead, S Crafts from everyone kill it before it gets a chance to move. Nightmare difficulty indeed. Unfortunately for me, I stumbled upon the boss the first hallway I went down and it teleports you away with no option to return...no exploring for me. Thankfully I found that Black Record right away since those are important, but hopefully there's nothing else that I missed here that's too big of a deal.

Next up I go over to Celdic. Rosine is in the church of course, and she has an idea to throw a concert for the townspeople, to revitalize their spirits after everything that happened. Apparently this is a fetch quest of sorts, we need to go around Erebonia and recruit musicians for the concert. They give you a list of some people you'll want to find as well. I guess this is this games version of "getting the band back together for one last show". I'll tackle this one as I go I suppose.

I remembered that that traveling musician was in Bareahard yesterday, and I need to go there anyway so away we go. He agrees to join our band without complaint, so that's one down. I also remembered there were a few kids here that wouldn't join us yet, so I go to recruit all of them. There's also a trial chest on the highway outside of Bareahard. "Class VII's been working tirelessly to find a way to stop the civil war, but it's Claire that they're Tovally at a loss on how to do it. Care to Sharon idea or two?" 10/10 best one yet unironically I love it

Actual chest fight is for Alisa, Elliot, Laura, and Jusis. I already use 3/4 of those guys, so I'll let you guess how easy that fight was...

There's also a whole 'new' path that's opened up, Aurochs Canyon Path. New for this game, it was in CS1. There's another trial chest here for Machias and Jusis! They had to wait until the end of the game to unlock that one lol. "Have you seen Dorothee's book about Jusis and Machias? It started with a Noble Command, a Treasure Sword was brandished, and it ended with a shotgun wedding." LMAO okay this one actually made me laugh out loud so 11/10 that's fucking great. Shoutouts to Falcom for even including that. If what someone said earlier about these only being in the English translation is true though I guess it's not Falcom who's been writing these. Also MZero has been missing out.

During the fight I learned if Machias does a link effect with Jusis, Jusis says, "I don't need YOUR help." just like that lol. That's pretty great. Fight's pretty easy, but the first turn was Jusis getting a Zero Art turn, so he got to cast his lost art for free. Pretty hard to have a hard fight after that.

There's also a quest monster to kill here, which Laura damn near one shots, in stereotypical fashion. Challenge, please return to me soon. When you get to the end of this path there's the fort where you first saw Altina in the last game. Rex is there to recruit onboard the ship, and he joins without a fight, though not without a throwaway line of comparing the breast size of all the girls on the ship.

Over in Roer there's a hidden quest. Jackass, the repair shop owner wants us to repair a stopwatch. Well, he has the stopwatch, Alisa is actually the one that wants to repair it because it's her mothers. We have to also travel around Erebonia to find some very rare parts that this stopwatch will require. Also, instructor Mary is here to join our merry little band for Celdic.

Fast forward, ended up fetching all the goods for the watch. You bring them back to Jackass, but he says that Alisa can fix it herself, so we return to her house so she can try. Apparently the watch was a memento from her dad that he gave to their mom. She's able to fix it, and lo and behold it opens up and starts playing a song as well. Musical stopwatch! Erebonia doesn't stop with the hits. There's also a picture of Alisa's mom and dad inside on what looks to be a wedding day, so that's cute. Alisa and her mom have another one of their scenes between them, you know how this goes by now. Alisa shows some backbone though and says that she'll be there to pick up the things that her mother cares for, but has no time to handle. That's pretty great. Also, as the gang walks away, it's revealed that there's a hidden picture of Momma holding baby Alisa which makes me wanna tear up. Well done sidequest there, I can't believe they'd hide this one and leave most of the generic crap they do in like normal.

Onto a sure to be more boring sidequest, you have to go to Garelia to recruit Fiona for the band, then off to Celdic to play some tunes. They reveal that Claire comes from a family of famous instrument makers, so that's a nice fun fact for you. Of course the rich girl is also high up in the military...the rich get richer. The concert however goes off without a hitch, and of course through the power of music the unconscious people in the chapel reawaken to enjoy the song. All in all it's worth it, because Rosine joins us onboard the ship, and I like her. We've got our own personal nun!

I go to explore the ship again after recruiting everyone to see what they'll be doing for us. Theresia's on board in the ranged training area, offering a new, higher level ranged training 4. Oh god, please no more of those bullshit dodge challenges.......nope, the challenge is just no artes or items. No problem. S crafts win everything. Level 5 is win without artes or anyone reaching low HP...no problem. S crafts win everything. They reward you with a master quartz for clearing that out, a speed focused one that has slightly better stats for Sara over the one she has now. But, her current one gives bonus crit chance and a higher crit multiplier, which I think should do more damage on average than slightly higher stats. I stick the new one on Fie in case she ever sees the light of day again.

No other new trainings so I suppose there's some more kids to recruit another day in the near future. Colette started a shop, she had two new colors for my bike but nothing else. I'm able to get a new orbment for Sara so she officially has 161 speed to Laura's 61. Amazing lol. Laura has by this point far surpassed her in str though, 2163 to 2081 so at least her dignity remains somewhat intact.

Rosine is in the infirmary, unfortunately habit free. I guess we just have our own personal ex-nun now, which is almost as good. She is our doctor from now on and sells some pretty good cooked food items for battle. I buy some even though I doubt I'll have to use them, partly as a safety net and partly to support Rosine. Instructor Thomas is nearby, when I give him that black record from the castle he says I've found all 5 of them and gives me a Zeram Capsule. Kind of surprised that was so easy to finish since this is NG+ exclusive, but I haven't been able to see the rewards of my labor yet. Hopefully he can fully decode them soon but I suspect he'll like run up to us right before we finish the last boss or something like that.

Bridget is our designated unique dish recipient, so we've got all 3 types of recipes ready to go. I'll get to cooking those when I find the last recipe. Beryl has her own room with a compatibility reading station. She tells me that I'm maxed out with everyone except for Millium. Not sure how she's not but Elliot snuck in there, but okay. She also says you can only have a "fateful moment" with one of them though. I already know I'm gonna pick Alisa but I'm curious if they'd let Rean and Sara kiss so I think I want to watch that one too.

I think that's everything on board the ship, and I got all my quests done, so now the only thing left to do is collect some Zemurian Ore! I set off for the northernmost one, the Ignis Shrine. This is the one that you weren't allowed to enter originally. There's no beginning part to it to explore, they just stick you right in front of that locked door. Cut content alert? The enemies here are a little tough for random encounters, but nothing we can't handle.

Two trial chests here. Emma and Machias - "Whatever happens, Emma and Machias can always fall back on their bartending skills. You seldom see them without their glasses!" Hahahahahahahaahahahaha if only they knew the pain I went through so that I could. And then one for Alisa and Sara - "Word has it that the Imperial Army has weaponized the karaoke performances of Class VII's instructor into a new type of munition - the Sara-nade." 4/10

The monster chest in-between the two trial chests has an orbment inside that gives +150 str and -150 def o.O. That's a fun one. I'll give it to Laura so she can reign supreme over Sara once and for all.

The boss at the end of the dungeon has 250k hp, has a move heals for 56k pretty often that also raises his str by 50%, and also generally hits like a truck while lowering all of your stats when he attacks. Sounds like a hard fight, right? Well to be honest it was as they go, but not hard enough to cause a retry. Rean and Sara did die as I was winning the fight so no XP for them, but I think it will be okay. We got shrines to take people, we don't have time to redo any boss fights gotta get a move on. It was at least considerably harder than the shrine from a few days ago, I literally almost one shot that lol.

Next up is the Terra shrine, two more trial chests here. Machias and Millium - "Millium tried to run after Machias caught her sneaking food, but she stopped dead in her tracks when he shouted, Don't you move one more milliumeter!" Okay Machias would never disgrace himself by saying that, 0/10 utterly unbelievable. And then Alisa and Fie - "It's whispered among jaegers that Class VII will take out anyone...if the price is right. They'll just charge you a little Fie." OK it should've been Small Fie, or Tiny Fie, right? Little Fie just sounds kinda weird. But still as they go pretty good 7/10. Also an alternate universe where Class VII are all assassins sounds amazing.

Unfortunately, for these trial chests, Machias and Millium/Alisa and Fie are required to open those. However, Rean, Laura, and Emma are required 100% of the time for these shrines, so...that's 7 people. I'm forced to backtrack twice in order to open both chests and see all the quotes. They stick these chests at the end of the dungeon, too! Yikes. You're lucky I like you, game.

After all that boring backtracking ends, you get to the end and sadly, the boss is pretty easy this time around. Goes down in one S craft rotation since he doesn't heal himself at all, so let's move on.

Last but not least today is the Aqua shrine in the south, next to Legram. Our two chests here - you know the drill - are for Laura/Millium and Alisa/Machias. "Millium was called into Captain Arundel's office after spilling a few secrets. With a frown, he said, It's about time someone around here gave you a stern Lechter!" OK once again very out of character but it's a little better so 1/10. And "Alisa asked Machias if he'd like to ride in an Achtzen straight off the Reinford assembly lines, but he shook his head saying, No tanks!" Ehhh....it sucked in a charming way so we'll go 5/10.

OK this one was also a pain in the ass, first off I set up my party to include everyone I needed in one go but none of them could activate the damn levers to get to the end of the dungeon. So I had to go back, put Sara in, complete the entire dungeon, teleport out, put them in, get back to the chests, teleport out again to fix my party, then go and fight the boss. They really want you to work for it if you want to read the chest quotes. But I love the chest quotes more than anything else so I will handle it.

Once you get to the end of this dungeon, the boss spawns only for Vita to teleport in and one shot the thing. Finally, Laura has a real challenger! She only almost one shots the bosses. Vita starts swinging her metaphorical dick around and starts lore dumping on us. She talks about how the war of the lions was just one iteration of an underlying system that forces fragments of the "great power" to fight each other. Manipulative! We heard that "great power" term from Cayenne earlier, so I suppose this is another one that we'll have to be on the lookout for. On top of that, she tells Emma that their witch clan is an important part of this system, and complicit in it's continuation. Part of this system is also that the truth of it will will be erased from the collective memory, which is pretty bonkers. I like when trails gets interesting like this. Like with the Aureole in Sky, when they start getting into these grand mystical plots is when Trails is at its best.

Anyway, Rean turns to Emma and is like, who cares if you're being manipulated for a purpose you don't understand Emma, all that matters is that we're friends. Sure, Rean, sure. His words seem to convince Emma that there's some actual meaning behind them somehow, and she's like, Yeah Vita, I'm not a pawn of the witches anymore, I'm a Person with Feelings and I want to hang out with my classmates some more, so take that!

Vita then responds with 2/10 self actualization speech kid you can do better, and turns her bird into a giant dragon to fight us. Boss time! Emma of course gets her new mystic arte so we gotta try that first thing...it does 20k damage. It looks really epic though. Maybe if I upgraded her starter staff it'd do more, but...back to the backline you go Emma. Laura proceeds to power up and do half the bosses health in one attack, showing Emma how a real lady behaves. You know how this goes by now though, easy fight.

Vita departs, saying that she'll see us at the ~Infernal Rite~. How dramatic. I'd have to assume that's the thing we saw beneath the Heimdallr castle, so the last chapter will be us fighting the Alliance there and then descending underground the castle to that? Reminds me of Sky :3 cozy. CS1 and CS2 are kind of their own duology right, with CS3 and CS4 being their own thing as well? That's what I've heard before at least. My point being that ending CS2 like Sky 1 and then CS4 like sky2 with some real big epic shit would be in the cards and pretty cool. And very self referential to repeat the overlying plot beats of their stories when they are, within this story, repeating the plot beats of the war of the lions and the Erebonian civil war. How cool is that? Falcom writers man.

Anyway, you make it back to the ship and George needs help to set up a workshop again, this time to bring professor Schmidt on board. Lmao Sara says he's got dashing good looks and Fie is like, it doesn't take much to impress you does it? That got a chuckle out of me.

While they're figuring that out, Claire gives us a call to let us know that the nobles are abandoning Trista to shore up their defenses in Heimdallr, so it's prime for the taking. She says the RMP is going to launch an attack to take back the town, but Rean says nah let us do it instead cuz we went to school there and that's very important. This being a JRPG, Claire cannot find any flaw in this logic and agrees. Also, Vivi Linde get voice actors during this scene when they're making their appeal as a class which I appreciated.

Claire's basically just like, y'all are fucking weird but whatever, I'll give you two days until we attack if y'all wanna give it a shot first. Any good army general would do the same thing. I mean if she can get some kids to sacrifice themselves to weaken their defenses first, I guess that's not a bad plan. Actually that would be a pretty fitting end, if we attacked and Patrick is just some level 150 badass and we just can't win against him and die, then we just get a cutscene of Claire coming in with tanks and razing the whole school. I would enjoy that.

Anyway, the day skips ahead...3 days? To 12/30. Rean clearly doesn't understand anything because Claire said 2 days earlier, but whatever we'll roll with it. I guess we'll get there and the town will already be taken over and Rean will be like aw man, I overslept...probably not.

Next time on Cold Steel, the moment almost nobody has been waiting for! 'Liberating' Trista. Hopefully this is a short day cuz I just want to get to Heimdallr. Anyway, see you guys then.

_stingers_ posted...

They reveal that Claire comes from a family of famous instrument makers, so that's a nice fun fact for you.

This is actually discernible as soon as you learn Claire's last name in CS1. Rieveldt is the company that made Joshua's harmonica (I believe in the SC Chapter 4 dream when you show it to Cassius he even remarks that it's an Erebonian company) so the name has been around since all the way back then.

IIRC during the lead up to CS1's release, Falcom trolled by being cagey about Claire's last name leading to fan speculation it would be some major reveal and then it was like "nope lol they make musical instruments"

I failed so hard on my first playthrough of CS1 that I need to do a third playthrough cause I didn't get either master quartz for getting all the medals lol

Do you need that for some reason

_stingers_ posted...

Do you need that for some reason

there's a trophy for getting all master quartz!