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The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel (PC) |OT| Enter Erebonia

Ok, so I'm really enjoying this game, to the point where I may not have the patience to wait for the sequel's PC port to see the rest of the story-so-far. I'll still buy the 2nd one, I'm sure, as I prefer to play things on my PC when I can, but I do have a friend with a PS Vita...

Google tells me that this series has save imports. My friend has not played the game, so unless there's some clever acrobatics you can do with Vita saves I won't have access to a CS 1 save. My question: what do I miss by starting the game without a save import?

Things I don't care about: bonus items, character levels, outfits, etc.

Things I do care about: character relationships.

Will my hypothetical CS 2 game be disconnected from my CS 1 experience in terms of character relationships because I don't have the import? Or does it play out about the same way no matter what? I'd guess the latter, just because it's way easier to design a game that way, but I wanted to make sure before I splurge on a Vita version.

you get an increase in starting relationship values, and several bonus dialogs and callouts in the first half of the game
 
I'm going through Sky 3rd now, and man I love this system. Mixing and matching shit to try and get Devastation Blast while maintaining cast speed. Its rough but its satisfying in the way that balancing pluses and minuses usually is.

CS just doesnt have that, just stuff all the best shit on.
Yeah, I just wish there was a middle-ground. In Sky, putting all the high-level quartz together just right results in you having like 50 different Arts to cast, and I basically ended up using Earth Wall, Clock EX, Zodiac, and the high-level offensive Time/Space stuff.

Instead of having so many different "spells," I'd prefer the system modified a much smaller list. So there was one single-target fire spell and one multi-target fire spell, but different mix-and-match min-maxing changed damage, burn%, size, EP cost, etc.

So everyone is dealing with a smaller list, but there's still room for nerds to optimize and tune.
 
Yeah, I just wish there was a middle-ground. In Sky, putting all the high-level quartz together just right results in you having like 50 different Arts to cast, and I basically ended up using Earth Wall, Clock EX, Zodiac, and the high-level offensive Time/Space stuff.

Instead of having so many different "spells," I'd prefer the system modified a much smaller list. So there was one single-target fire spell and one multi-target fire spell, but different mix-and-match min-maxing changed damage, burn%, size, EP cost, etc.

So everyone is dealing with a smaller list, but there's still room for nerds to optimize and tune.
idk, I find myself using a lot of my large lists. Maybe if you could just reorder the list to fit most used?

For spells im constantly using different ones for mana and cast speed efficiency. No reason to drop a death scream when there is one enemy left and soul blur will do the job.
 

Ascheroth

Member
Chapter 6 Free Day

OH MY GOD THEY PLAYED CRY FOR ME,
CRY FOR YOU DURING LAST YEAR'S CONCERT, AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
*cough* Ahem.
Nice outfits too, I'm so looking forward to see what class 7 comes up with.

Not so stealth edit: AND ABEND TIME MENTIONED WHEReABOUTS OF LIGHT;
AHHHHHHHHHHH
*cough* Move on, nothing to see here.
 

Durante

Member
<3 Modders:

Drdwety.png
 

Ascheroth

Member
Chapter 6 Field Study
Oh god the music when the Courageous appeared.
Let me guess, Testa-Rossa, the Crimson Demon, will be a boss sometime?Maybe even this chapter? I'm on to you Falcom.
Some speculation containing Trails in the Sky knowledge:
Reading the plates of the little models in the Reinford headquartes stating '3rd factory' and Sharon's mention of how Alisa's mom doesn't even know all the project the company is involved in... my inner conspiracy senses are screaming '13 Factories'.
 

Eternia

Member
Ehm, honestly I'm really not feeling the new Orbment system, for reasons beyond "dumbing down" or a "lack of nuance"

The problem with Arts being tied to Quartz themselves is that it creates stress that wasn't there in Sky - That I find myself consistently mass-dequipping the off-party of all their Quartz and re-allocating loadouts each field study instead of giving everyone a consistent build that I iterate on like in Sky.

I find myself constantly trying to fine-tune specific loadouts of Arts within a small number of slots and never being sure if a character has enough for the job or the right ones, or if I have enough Stat quartz equipped to match. Nevermind that this results in constrained Art pallets compared to Sky and it's titanic lists of Arts casters could have at once. Really preferred the old system of just targeting a specific amount of elements on a Line to get all the Arts a character would need, instead of having to equip Art quartz and balance them against Stat quartz. Phys characters have it so much easier since I can just load them up with Ailment and Stat quartz without worrying about Arts.

Is CS2 better in this regard? Like maybe I'm just stressed right now since I'm slot-constrained like in FC and just going through the motions of having to build characters without a full repertoire of slots to work with.
I went from immediately hating the new Quartz system to kind of ok with since it allows multiple ways to get various stats to finally I rarely use Arts (mostly healing/support) since I just spam Crafts/S-Breaks now anyways. The number of Quartz you can buy is comically long at this point for what little flexibility you get for each character. Having to choose so specifically between single target, AoE, healing and support is extremely frustrating. That doesn't leave room for much else. Constantly shuffling loadouts also wasted far too much time which led to me not even bothering gearing any reserve characters.
 

vkrili

Member
Use magic. Once Rean has learned Motivate, just use that once and your attacks will squash them. Even on Nightmare.

Also, try to get a Triple Advantage on every single enemy you come across (except the ones you can't stun).
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Umm the slugs in the first dungeon are trashing me, I think hard might have been a mistake..

I found the prologue dungeon to be pretty easy on hard, the battles just tended to drag a bit for being the very first dungeon in the game.

Elliot's resounding beat craft or whatever it's called is really good, abuse that. His normal attack is also effective against stuff that Rean and Gaius struggle to damage with normal attacks, so you can attack with Elliot to save EP. It's also a small area attack, so if you can get the enemies close enough together you can attack multiple at once.
 

ResourcefulStar

Neo Member
Finished. What a ride. Heavy spoilers for the Final Chapter from now on.
The ending managed to surprise me, to put it mildly, even though I had been expecting the Crow reveal since Chapter 3 when I had first learned that the masked man was called C. Since the Liberation Front did nothing but job to Class VII, yet C looked pleased with these results, I assumed Crow would turn out to be a double agent for Osborne, tasked with gathering enemies of the state, leading them to their deaths, and providing Class VII with training opportunities in the process. TitS the 3rd seemed to set Osborne up as the principal antagonist of the Erebonia arc, and seeing him eliminated this early in the overall plot was quite a shock. Then there was the one-two punch of Vita being an Anguis and Sharon being an (ex?) Enforcer. Vita must be even better than Irina at multitasking and time management: an opera diva, a radio personality, a witch, and an Anguis? Looking forward to seeing Rean fight the nobility and Ouroboros with the power of a Gundam and a talking cat.

I had my worries about the academy setting, but the game managed to avoid having too much of the related anime cheese.
The concert
was the only scene that really made me cringe.

Put me firmly in the camp that strongly prefers the new quartz system. In the Trails in Sky games, if you wanted a spellcaster like Kloe or Olivier to learn offensive Fire Arts, you had to put an Attack or an ailment quartz on them, the direct effects of which they did not really care for. Conversely, frontline fighters like Agate or Zin would equip Attack and Defense quartz to boost their physical capabilities and in the process develop an ability to cast offensive Fire and Earth Arts that they couldn't make a proper use of because of their prohibitively low ATS. In addition to keeping the Arts list tidy, the new system has the benefit of forcing the player to make a choice between stat boosts and Arts, power and flexibility. Under the old system, each slot would grant you both.

At the same time, I can see why many people are disappointed with the loss of the mini-game appeal that the old system undeniably had. Maybe Falcom could reach a middle ground by implementing a system of bonuses that magnify the effect of the quartz arranged in specific patterns, similar to poker hands?
 
Ok, so I'm really enjoying this game, to the point where I may not have the patience to wait for the sequel's PC port to see the rest of the story-so-far. I'll still buy the 2nd one, I'm sure, as I prefer to play things on my PC when I can, but I do have a friend with a PS Vita...

Google tells me that this series has save imports. My friend has not played the game, so unless there's some clever acrobatics you can do with Vita saves I won't have access to a CS 1 save. My question: what do I miss by starting the game without a save import?

Things I don't care about: bonus items, character levels, outfits, etc.

Things I do care about: character relationships.

Will my hypothetical CS 2 game be disconnected from my CS 1 experience in terms of character relationships because I don't have the import? Or does it play out about the same way no matter what? I'd guess the latter, just because it's way easier to design a game that way, but I wanted to make sure before I splurge on a Vita version.

The second game would read the party members Rean is close with and there'd be some line changes that reflect this.

It also read all the quests you've done and some of NPCs acknowledge that they indeed know and was helped by Rean in the first game.
 

kromeo

Member
I found the prologue dungeon to be pretty easy on hard, the battles just tended to drag a bit for being the very first dungeon in the game.

Elliot's resounding beat craft or whatever it's called is really good, abuse that. His normal attack is also effective against stuff that Rean and Gaius struggle to damage with normal attacks, so you can attack with Elliot to save EP. It's also a small area attack, so if you can get the enemies close enough together you can attack multiple at once.

By first dungeon I meant when you go back there on free day, the battles are taking ages and I'm having to spam tear with Elliot pretty much every turn. I think I'm going to just restart on normal
 

Ascheroth

Member
By first dungeon I meant when you go back there on free day, the battles are taking ages and I'm having to spam tear with Elliot pretty much every turn. I think I'm going to just restart on normal
'Tear' 'Elliot'

This is your problem.
Use his HP-Regen Craft at the beginning of the battle and that's all the healing you'll need 90% of the time.
 

fuzaco

Member
Anyone know how the quartz auto-equip works? Does it equip the quartz that is actually good for the character, or is it random? I don't really enjoy min-maxing, so is it fine if I just use auto-equip?
 

vkrili

Member
By first dungeon I meant when you go back there on free day, the battles are taking ages and I'm having to spam tear with Elliot pretty much every turn. I think I'm going to just restart on normal
By then you absolutely have Motivate. Use buffs, they stack up to 50% and make a huge difference.
 

Ascheroth

Member
I really don't like back-to-back difficult bossfights where the second boss is insanely hard unless you have a specific stat immunity and/or certain arts equipped.
Also wtf are those instant kill S-Breaks. WTF.
Chapter 6 C....
 

lazerfox

Member
I really don't like back-to-back difficult bossfights where the second boss is insanely hard unless you have a specific stat immunity and/or certain arts equipped.
Also wtf are those instant kill S-Breaks. WTF.
Chapter 6 C....

I'm almost finished with the 3rd and I'm planning to play Cold Steel on Hard since that's what you guys recommended.

But after reading this I'm not so sure anymore. I played TiTs 1-3 on normal and most of it was easy with some though fights sprinkled in.
 

Ascheroth

Member
I'm almost finished with the 3rd and I'm planning to play Cold Steel on Hard since that's what you guys recommended.

But after reading this I'm not so sure anymore. I played TiTs 1-3 on normal and most of it was easy with some though fights sprinkled in.
I've played on Hard too because of what I've heard. It's honestly totally fine for 95% of the time, but then the other 5% are blargh.

Also I've just finished chapter 6 and apparently I've missed something because that's my first A Rank... and I even double checked with a guide most the time...
Turns out you get 2 AP when you spot Fie before leaving the Reinford HQ...
God dammit Falcom. Sigh.
 

Capndrake

Member
I'm almost finished with the 3rd and I'm planning to play Cold Steel on Hard since that's what you guys recommended.

But after reading this I'm not so sure anymore. I played TiTs 1-3 on normal and most of it was easy with some though fights sprinkled in.
That's pretty much the only challenging fight in the game, even on nightmare. If you know how the combat system works it's really easy to cheese, too.

Park a high evasion Fie next to C so she'll bait all his attacks which won't ever hit, put Rean and Angelica on opposite ends of the field and have them delay the other enemies into oblivion with their line crafts, and keep Elliot away from everything and have him constantly buff and/or heal the others as needed. If someone gets S-crafted just revive them or put an adamantine shield on everyone so it can never happen in the first place. If he throws out his mines either let Elliot cast an art or use someone's S-craft to destroy all of them.
 

Thud

Member
I really don't like back-to-back difficult bossfights where the second boss is insanely hard unless you have a specific stat immunity and/or certain arts equipped.
Also wtf are those instant kill S-Breaks. WTF.
Chapter 6 C....

You could always use retry offset :p.
 

ResourcefulStar

Neo Member
Also I've just finished chapter 6 and apparently I've missed something because that's my first A Rank... and I even double checked with a guide most the time...
Turns out you get 2 AP when you spot Fie before leaving the Reinford HQ...
God dammit Falcom. Sigh.
You have some wiggle room. I got A ranks in Chapters 3 and 4 and still qualified for the A0 rank at the end.
 

Ascheroth

Member
That's pretty much the only challenging fight in the game, even on nightmare. If you know how the combat system works it's really easy to cheese, too.

Park a high evasion Fie next to C so she'll bait all his attacks which won't ever hit, put Rean and Angelica on opposite ends of the field and have them delay the other enemies into oblivion with their line crafts, and keep Elliot away from everything and have him constantly buff and/or heal the others as needed. If someone gets S-crafted just revive them or put an adamantine shield on everyone so it can never happen in the first place.
oN9jycJ.png

It's pretty manageable once you know what to expect and you're sufficently prepared. In fact it's even pretty awesome when you see your plan come to fruition and everything working like a well-oiled machine.
Gives the same feeling as a Dark Souls boss once you're done.

I also love my current stragegy. Alisa's Heavenly Gift Craft is insanity. Gives Insight (+50% evasion) + CP Regen to all characters in the target area excpet her. Cast Shining on her to get Insight as well, give her the Gladiator Belt for Auto-CP regen and have an unhittable army of Craft spammers.

You could always use retry offset :p.
I managed fine the second try.
You have some wiggle room. I got A ranks in Chapters 3 and 4 and still qualified for the A0 rank at the end.
Whew, good to know. It's just my inner completionist crying, but he'll manage.
 
Umm the slugs in the first dungeon are trashing me, I think hard might have been a mistake..
I think these were the last non-boss enemies I faced that required much thought at all, and that was before I'd realized how good Resounding Beat is. So just stick with it. I'm aware there are spikes later, but right now I'm cruising.
 

demidar

Member
I think these were the last non-boss enemies I faced that required much thought at all, and that was before I'd realized how good Resounding Beat is. So just stick with it. I'm aware there are spikes later, but right now I'm cruising.

Same, in chapter 4 on Hard and pretty much crushing everything.
 

epmode

Member
Hm, autosaves aren't working for me. I have them set to five minutes, wandered around the campus for fifteen minutes 9maybe a little less) and checked the Load screen. None of the eight autosave slots were used.

edit: Fixed by closing the game, disabling autosaves, exiting the config program, and resetting autosaves to five minutes. The first autosave slot is still empty but the second slot is now filled.
 

Ultimadrago

Member
Count Becky as the NPC I slept on my first time playing, but have really taken a liking to now that I've bothered checking up. She gives Hugo a hard time as they are both aspiring entrepreneurs, but they're always cool in the end. Her accent also makes her an easy standout against more of the standard plug-in dialogue found on school grounds. "Yaaaaas."


I'd say she's my favorite background student among the likes of creepy Beryl (Occult Club Head) and sister trickster, Vivi. As for guys, Kenneth is pretty chill and Lambert's obsession with his horse gets the occasional chuckle too. Who are some of your favorite students?
 
Tried playing FFXII again after the past two weeks of Cold Steel at max FOV.

Almost instantly threw up from the low FOV.

Thanks Obama Durante.
 

Eternia

Member
oN9jycJ.png

It's pretty manageable once you know what to expect and you're sufficently prepared. In fact it's even pretty awesome when you see your plan come to fruition and everything working like a well-oiled machine.
Gives the same feeling as a Dark Souls boss once you're done.

I also love my current stragegy. Alisa's Heavenly Gift Craft is insanity. Gives Insight (+50% evasion) + CP Regen to all characters in the target area excpet her. Cast Shining on her to get Insight as well, give her the Gladiator Belt for Auto-CP regen and have an unhittable army of Craft spammers.


I managed fine the second try.

Whew, good to know. It's just my inner completionist crying, but he'll manage.
Took me over 40 minutes to finish that one. Getting flashbacks to my inefficient fights near the end of the first two Sky games.

The time of the day advances as you use
the tickets
, and the dialogue gets updated. YOU'RE HERE FOREVER.
I slowly realized what had happened after the screen faded out. First I noticed a few unfamiliar NPCs in the area, and then saw that a bunch of other people shifted around...all with those sweet new lines. Insanity! <3
 

Durante

Member
Anyone know how/where text strings are stored here?

Really want to get cracking on Duwang subs once I beat this.
The strings are in the various .tbl files in data\US. However, that's a compiled script format, and not really amenable to easy editing (as in, stuff can easily break if you e.g. change the length).
 

ResourcefulStar

Neo Member
The GOG version was updated to 1.0.6430.37816. A standalone patch isn't available yet, so you have to redownload the whole thing for now. No idea what things are like for Galaxy users.
 
Finished it last night. This is my first Trails game, and overall, I really liked it! I liked the large amount of character customization, the strong world building and writing, and the overall pacing of the game (due to the Turbo mode ha ha). There are a few things I thought were weird / bad:

I really don't like the fanservice portions of the game. The game has really strong writing for the most part, but there are times where it goes for the low hanging fruit. I swear, every chapter has at least one person mentioning Emma's rack. Don't even get me started on Millium.

I thought the final encounter was ass.
I'm not a fan of the mech combat. I really hope the sequel doesn't have much of this!

I find it odd that there's not a door opening animation. I get this game was probably made on a lower budget, but I don't get why something that's in a large number of cutscenes doesn't have one versus the animation of
Rufus
getting in his car in two cutscenes.

If I had to give it a rating, I'd give it something of the ballpark of 8 or 9 out of 10. Really good, but some flaws. Can't wait for the sequel!
 
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