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The Kiseki / Trails (of the Sky/Zero/Ao/Sen/Etc) Community Thread: SPOILERTAGS OR DIE

L

Loz246789

Member
Sinh_Magnus said:
Well I remember that 3rd was at 7000 copies not so long ago so I'm happy that the number has been doubled.
Will be really interesting to see Cold Steel numbers. I feel a lot of the future chance for Zero/Ao will depend on this.
Click to expand...

Cold Steep is interesting, because I'm not sure how well it needs to do in order to do well. On one hand, it's a port of a game that APPARENTLY a lot of people have already played, and it didn't really get much of a marketing push? (Don't get me wrong, the blog posts were great, but stuff like chairs casting more shadows and anti aliasing isn't going to attract a more mainstream market. And the launch trailer was... fine, but it was pretty much just "look at our review scores and attack animations". Not really fun conveying, more of a PSA to previous fans and those who happened to click on the steam page by accident.) On the other hand, it's a port with a lot of care and attention put into it.

I think word of mouth will matter a lot here. If a relatively big youtuber covers the game, or (and I'm entirely serious here) a bunch of trails memes/funny pictures start becoming popular, the game will be set next time it's on sale. If not, we enter the long game until cold steel 2 comes out, and hope that something happens then.

EDIT: The steamspy numbers are at about 10000, but it's only a few days from launch, so it doesn't mean much. Come back in a week. Yesterday it was 7000, the day before 5000, it's in flux for a while.
 
M

Mivey

Member
Since Zero and Ao will likely be as expensive to translate as SC alone, it would just not be feasible to go forward. At best they could be certain of 10K for each, which is enough for the porting to PC and consoles, but doesn't come close to covering a few translators, editors full time for a year or two.
The most realistic option, seems to me anyway, is that XSeed licenses the fan translation that is still in the works, for cheap. Happened with Oath in Felghana too.
 
S

sorathecrow

Neo Member
SC, regardless of the fact that it was the first time it was never released in the west, was overpriced. That's the best explanation for the gigantic drop off between games. Some drop off was to be expected, of course, but their first week was an absolute disaster, and it's only been with multiple sales that SC's numbers have managed to creep up. I bought day one, but clearly they did not have as many superfans as they thought that would buy a ten year old game at a frankly premium price.
 
K

Kalor

Member
Squire said:
Wait, do Zero/Ao have more text than the others? Not that it wouldn't be a lot of work either way, just curious.
Click to expand...

I don't remember the exact numbers but Zero/Ao are meant to be larger than SC which is around 3 million characters. It's largely due to the fact that you have access to a lot of the npcs during the whole game so there's a lot of updating dialogue.
 
G

godisntheradio

Neo Member
i just finished 3rd, all the emotional baggage man, after door 15, the
farewell with renne
almost made me cry, holy this fucking series
 
A

Ascheroth

Member
Oreiller said:
If I remember correctly, SC sold around 3000 copies in its first week. It took a few months for it to sell 20 000 copies. I think The Third sold about 5000 copies in its first week.
Of course, Steamspy is not reliable at all for such low numbers and there are a lot of other factors to consider, but they both started really low and have grown quite a bit since then.

As a comparison, Steamspy currently puts Cold Steel at 9,785 ± 3,685 copies. Don't really know what to make of it though.
Click to expand...
Nothing, because it will take a few more days at least before SteamSpy produces somewhat accurate numbers.
sorathecrow said:
SC, regardless of the fact that it was the first time it was never released in the west, was overpriced. That's the best explanation for the gigantic drop off between games. Some drop off was to be expected, of course, but their first week was an absolute disaster, and it's only been with multiple sales that SC's numbers have managed to creep up. I bought day one, but clearly they did not have as many superfans as they thought that would buy a ten year old game at a frankly premium price.
Click to expand...
Nah, achievement stats show that nearly everyone that finishes FC buys SC and without completing FC there's little reason to buy SC beyond supporting the devs.
Which is why I've been saying from the beginning that Xseed not bundling FC+SC together was a missed opportunity. It is fact that such bundling will get people buying SC without having finished FC. Wether they do or do not complete FC at that point isn't even relevant anymore.
It didn't help either that it was a 30$ game that looks (and is) very old and there wasn't much marketing.
 
L

Loz246789

Member
Realistically, there are four possible ways for xseed to make more money from non-fans:
Sell more copies of trails in the sky.
Make more people buy the trilogy as a set.
Get more people to finish trails in the sky, so they're available to buy the two sequels, since it has the largest install base by FAR.
Get people to buy trails of cold steel.

Currently, they're doing the latter, and they're poised to do the first and third options with the turbo update.
Those who are invested will EVENTUALLY get SC, the third, and cold steel 2. That's just how the series is set up.

godisntheradio said:
i just finished 3rd, all the emotional baggage man, after door 15, the
farewell with renne
almost made me cry, holy this fucking series
Click to expand...

Congrats on finishing the trilogy!
Welcome to post-trails suffering.
Some of the stuff in third is pretty emotional, but I have to say, if that's it for the sky cast as a whole, it's a pretty great sendoff. I didn't realise how attached I was to the cast until the third came around.
 
J

Jiraiza

Member
Squire said:
Wait, do Zero/Ao have more text than the others? Not that it wouldn't be a lot of work either way, just curious.
Click to expand...

The amount of NPC dialogue in Zero is absolutely insane. It takes me an hour or two just to speak to every single one of them after a story event. Gets even worse once you have access to the surrounding locations outside of the city.

I'm currently in the middle of chapter 2 of Zero, and I think Tiosuke may be favorite loli of the franchise so far (but only very slightly above Tita). Her VA deadpan is on point, and her interactions with Randy are super adorable. I'm glad I'm playing the Crossbell games before CS3, because I don't think I'd be able to appreciate Randy and Tio as much if I didn't.
 
S

Sinh_Magnus

Member
Jiraiza said:
The amount of NPC dialogue in Zero is absolutely insane. It takes me an hour or two just to speak to every single one of them after a story event. Gets even worse once you have access to the surrounding locations outside of the city.

I'm currently in the middle of chapter 2 of Zero, and I think Tiosuke may be favorite loli of the franchise so far (but only very slightly above Tita). Her VA deadpan is on point, and her interactions with Randy are super adorable. I'm glad I'm playing the Crossbell games before CS3, because I don't think I'd be able to appreciate Randy and Tio as much if I didn't.
Click to expand...

Wait untill the second half, that's where the SSS will grow a lot for you. Specially those two you mention.

I personally love Zero for being a slow burn during its first half at then throw some heart-wrenching moments and epicness in its later half. I prefer it to Ao's pacing, which was a crazy ride with highs and downs. An unforgettable ride nontheless, mind you.

As for npc dialogue, everytime the story advances in some way, every npc will see their dialogue changed, and you usually have almost the entire state to explore at all times in both games, so it's crazy. A titanic effort to translate and localize.
 
C

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Kalor said:
I don't remember the exact numbers but Zero/Ao are meant to be larger than SC which is around 3 million characters. It's largely due to the fact that you have access to a lot of the npcs during the whole game so there's a lot of updating dialogue.
Click to expand...

Kind of.

SC has two separate figures for script size, XSEED and Falcom's 3m+ and the script dump's 1.5m-ish. And it's the only one that script dumps and "official" script figures are significantly different for.

Both XSEED/Falcom and the script dumps pin Zero and Ao around 1.6-1.8m characters each. Based on the script dumps they are the largest in the series.
 
R

Rhapsody

Banned
Jiraiza said:
The amount of NPC dialogue in Zero is absolutely insane. It takes me an hour or two just to speak to every single one of them after a story event. Gets even worse once you have access to the surrounding locations outside of the city.

I'm currently in the middle of chapter 2 of Zero, and I think Tiosuke may be favorite loli of the franchise so far (but only very slightly above Tita). Her VA deadpan is on point, and her interactions with Randy are super adorable. I'm glad I'm playing the Crossbell games before CS3, because I don't think I'd be able to appreciate Randy and Tio as much if I didn't.
Click to expand...

Tio's one of my favorite characters in all of Trails. So good lol
 
C

CielTynave

Member
So how much time could I shave off if I restarted Cold Steel on easy? I bought both games back in June and only put about 14 hours into the first one before stopping. I've really fallen out of love with turn based games in the last decade, but I was really loving the characters and world building that was going on from what I played. I'd like to keep going but the combat is really just a chore for me to get through, so I want to just change the difficulty to easy and hopefully breeze through, but since I don't seem to be able to change it after starting the play through that's keeping me from starting again since I also don't want to have to redo those 14 hours if it doesn't make that much of a difference...
 
J

Jolkien

Member
CielTynave said:
So how much time could I shave off if I restarted Cold Steel on easy? I bought both games back in June and only put about 14 hours into the first one before stopping. I've really fallen out of love with turn based games in the last decade, but I was really loving the characters and world building that was going on from what I played. I'd like to keep going but the combat is really just a chore for me to get through, so I want to just change the difficulty to easy and hopefully breeze through, but since I don't seem to be able to change it after starting the play through that's keeping me from starting again since I also don't want to have to redo those 14 hours if it doesn't make that much of a difference...
Click to expand...

Never played on easy but I doubt you'd save that much more time compared to normal. Cold Steel battle system is already easy to abuse I'm not sure what to tell you. Battle are not long but if you don't like them maybe you can watch a full playthrough that skips fights ? I don't know never had a problem with real time or turn based combat if it's good it's good. At least you bought the game to encourage Xseed :p

You could save a lot of time on the PC version playing on easy and with turbo mode but that'd require you to buy the game again (nothing wrong with that in my book) but you'd still have to replay those 14 hours.
 
L

Loz246789

Member
CielTynave said:
So how much time could I shave off if I restarted Cold Steel on easy? I bought both games back in June and only put about 14 hours into the first one before stopping. I've really fallen out of love with turn based games in the last decade, but I was really loving the characters and world building that was going on from what I played. I'd like to keep going but the combat is really just a chore for me to get through, so I want to just change the difficulty to easy and hopefully breeze through, but since I don't seem to be able to change it after starting the play through that's keeping me from starting again since I also don't want to have to redo those 14 hours if it doesn't make that much of a difference...
Click to expand...
I haven't played easy, but I doubt that it would make 14 hours worth of difference. I think your time would be better spent breaking the game on your current file by any means necessary.
I forget what you have access to early on in the game, but speed is a super important stat, since it allows you get more turns in. Prioritise the action quartz, and also the cast quartz for spells.
Rean (for example) has several crafts that have a chance of turn delay for opponents - this can be abused for bosses in particular. In extreme cases, they don't get a turn in if you play your cards right.
Finally, if you're struggling with anything, try when you have max cp on characters with S-crafts. (Some healing places in towns can give you cp, but you can also just go into a random battle and spam attack until you get a bunch of cp, then either finish the fight or run away.) Fights typically are balanced with you not having max cp in mind, so you can breeze through a lot of bosses and chest encounters. (cp accessories are obviously very useful, as is Rean's default master quartz)

There's some more stuff you can do, but it depends who and what you have access to. Some characters are pretty op (Laura and Fie for example), and some cooking combinations can be pretty powerful, although I forget the details.
Hopefully this helps a little?
 
S

Sinh_Magnus

Member
CielTynave said:
So how much time could I shave off if I restarted Cold Steel on easy? I bought both games back in June and only put about 14 hours into the first one before stopping. I've really fallen out of love with turn based games in the last decade, but I was really loving the characters and world building that was going on from what I played. I'd like to keep going but the combat is really just a chore for me to get through, so I want to just change the difficulty to easy and hopefully breeze through, but since I don't seem to be able to change it after starting the play through that's keeping me from starting again since I also don't want to have to redo those 14 hours if it doesn't make that much of a difference...
Click to expand...

I don't know if this would help you since they are different cases, but when I started Cold Steel 2 on normal I put around 15 hours before restarting on hard. With the ability to speed up events and knowing before hand what I need to do, in 6 hours I was by the point I had left it before restarting the game.
I imagine if you restart in easy, you could do those 14 hours in 5 or less.
 
S

Sinh_Magnus

Member
Thoraxes said:
Been playing Ao. She's so good during the intermission lol
Click to expand...

I loved how she
hurries back from the foundation after hearing that things are getting worse before the conference and with Randy starting to lose it because of his "family"
. Felt like good character development, specially after everything that happens in Zero.
 
E

Erheller

Member
CielTynave said:
So how much time could I shave off if I restarted Cold Steel on easy? I bought both games back in June and only put about 14 hours into the first one before stopping. I've really fallen out of love with turn based games in the last decade, but I was really loving the characters and world building that was going on from what I played. I'd like to keep going but the combat is really just a chore for me to get through, so I want to just change the difficulty to easy and hopefully breeze through, but since I don't seem to be able to change it after starting the play through that's keeping me from starting again since I also don't want to have to redo those 14 hours if it doesn't make that much of a difference...
Click to expand...

You probably wouldn't save 14 hours, but you can use Cheat Engine if you want.

There's a table here:

http://fearlessrevolution.com/viewtopic.php?t=4467

Edit:

Jolkien said:
He's playing the PS3 or Vita version, since he mentioned having picked up both games in June so no cheat engine.
Click to expand...

Nevermind, I thought I was in the CS PC thread
 
M

Mivey

Member
Dragon1893 said:
Do you have to hold alt for turbo mode? Isn't there a toggle?
Click to expand...
This is how it looks like it in the 3rd beta right now.
DXhIwMa.png
Click to expand...
So you can rebind. As for toggle, this isn't something that is meant to run constantly. In battle you still want to actually make your turn in normal time. It would be useful outside maps perhaps, but none of them is big enough for this to really matter. You could probably speed through most regions in half a minute (if you could avoid running into monsters for that long).
 
D

Dragon1893

Member
Mivey said:
This is how it looks like it in the 3rd beta right now.

So you can rebind. As for toggle, this isn't something that is meant to run constantly. In battle you still want to actually make your turn in normal time. It would be useful outside maps perhaps, but none of them is big enough for this to really matter. You could probably speed through most regions in half a minute (if you could avoid running into monsters for that long).
Click to expand...

I don't follow, of course it should run constantly, that's how it is with cheat engine. Why would you want to turn it off?
 
J

JoeyJungle

Banned
Okay, so this has bothered me for forever, but does anyone have a larger image of the Trails in the Sky cover used for Steam in List View?

wGJQ69u.png


Who the fuck is the blonde girl with goggles (I just started Chapter 2)? What the hell is on her head? It looks like she's wearing a ladybug. I've had the game installed for forever, and every couple months I'll be like "What the hell is that image?" and then switch to Grid View to see it blown up, but Grid View has a completely different cover image for the game.
 
D

Dragon1893

Member
JoeyJungle said:
Okay, so this has bothered me for forever, but does anyone have a larger image of the Trails in the Sky cover used for Steam in List View?

wGJQ69u.png


Who the fuck is the blonde girl with goggles (I just started Chapter 2)? What the hell is on her head? It looks like she's wearing a ladybug. I've had the game installed for forever, and every couple months I'll be like "What the hell is that image?" and then switch to Grid View to see it blown up, but Grid View has a completely different cover image for the game.
Click to expand...

That's Tita...
 
S

Squire

Banned
JoeyJungle said:
Okay, so this has bothered me for forever, but does anyone have a larger image of the Trails in the Sky cover used for Steam in List View?

wGJQ69u.png


Who the fuck is the blonde girl with goggles (I just started Chapter 2)? What the hell is on her head? It looks like she's wearing a ladybug. I've had the game installed for forever, and every couple months I'll be like "What the hell is that image?" and then switch to Grid View to see it blown up, but Grid View has a completely different cover image for the game.
Click to expand...

That's Tita Russell and she's an awesome character. You'll meet her in the game soon enough.
 
S

sorathecrow

Neo Member
JoeyJungle said:
Okay, so this has bothered me for forever, but does anyone have a larger image of the Trails in the Sky cover used for Steam in List View?

wGJQ69u.png


Who the fuck is the blonde girl with goggles (I just started Chapter 2)? What the hell is on her head? It looks like she's wearing a ladybug. I've had the game installed for forever, and every couple months I'll be like "What the hell is that image?" and then switch to Grid View to see it blown up, but Grid View has a completely different cover image for the game.
Click to expand...

She's only the most precious little ball of perfect in the series.
 
T

ThatChairMan

Member
Seeing some leaked magazine images for CS3 that seem to confirm (CS2/3 spoiler)
Crow is alive and hanging out with Vita. Or at least someone who looks exactly like him, except wearing a mask.
 
D

Dragoon En Regalia

Member
Falcom just tweeted a big new spoiler for Sen III, straight from the next Falmag issue. Some higher-res scans have just arrived, too. Don't say I didn't warn you.

Leaked pics from that issue regarding titles and wherabouts. Ninja'd of course A Falcom Discord mod's translated the "Infiltrators" box comment:
"Mysterious individuals that frequently appear in front of Rean and co. Their movements can be spotted all across the empire, will they be enemies or allies?"
. Basically, what the hell Falcom, you do this and still no trailer?
 
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