Butter's Cold Steel IV Playthrough Thread

[butterbattle22]

Hey guys! Since CS IV is about to release on PS4, I'm starting this thread to talk about my thoughts. I already pre-ordered it a while ago, and I never pre-order things. Like....I don't believe in pre-ordering. Literally, CS III is the first game I've ever pre-ordered. So, this is the second game I've ever pre-ordered. If you've been here a while, you might recall that I did the same thing for previous games. Although, when I played CS III, I immediately got addicted to the game, started binging it, and sorta stopped posting for the most part. Eehh, I'm gonna try to be more disciplined this time because there were a lot of things I wanted to talk about, but didn't even cover in the end.

If you're waiting for the game to be released on Steam.......I am sorry. Naturally, there will be spoilers in this thread. When I run into something in the story that could be considered a major spoiler, I will tag it specifically, but for the most part, I'm just going to leave it open. Otherwise, this entire thread will be spoiler-tagged, which is pointless.

I've played all the previous games in the Trails series. I will be playing on nightmare completely blind. Well okay, I did watch a couple of trailers and accidentally spoiled myself on one or two plot points (which I figured would be the case anyways), but other than that, I'm going in blind, which is how I play all story-centric games. I'm not really boasting when I say I'll be playing on nightmare because I consider these games to be fairly easy. I do expect it to be a tad harder than CS III, but as long as it's easier than the harder parts of Sky and Crossbell, I don't expect to run into any issues.

If I were to rank all the Trails games so far, here's how I would rank them today based on how much I enjoyed them.

Sky FC > SC > Zero > Ao > CS I > Sky 3rd > CS III > CS II

Keep in mind that even the worst Trails entries have a place in my heart <3
As brain dead as CS II was, it's still far better than your average RPG, and I would never say that it wasn't worth the money spent. I tend to like the first entry in each arc because I like exploring new areas and characters. While subsequent games are considered the "payoff," the initial entries are the ones doing the heavy lifting on both character development and world building.

While I do love the amount of material covered and the combat in Sky the 3rd, I still can't help but feel like the whole thing was a gimmick for a giant dungeon pack.

Cold Steel games are also rated lower because I feel they have lower quality writing overall, partly due to Rean's gravity-warping harem, but also for a number of other reasons. I've already butchered this horse in other threads. The game-play is also not as tightly balanced.

I am most excited to see Estelle again, of course. Because Estelle is Bestelle. I am also excited to see what the writing in Cold Steel looks like when Rean is not hogging the screen. (maybe the other characters will interact with each other? *gasp*) Falcom already had the opportunity to do that in CS II, but sadly, it's a fact that pushing player-centered harems is an effective way of selling a Japanese product. Welp.

Stay tuned.

[butterbattle22]

Yep.

I hate Laura's new voice. I hate it beyond all reason.

I like a lot of the English voice work in this series, but even out of those, Marisha Ray's voice for Laura was by far one of my favorites and potentially part of the reason why Laura was my favorite character in this arc. And it was one of only a couple voices that I thought were far better than the Japanese voice. To me, that was Laura's voice. And the voice was always supposed to be slightly more, for lack of a better word, masculine. But I always loved it the most when she wasn't trying to yell or be aggressive, when it was just warm and friendly and amused and relaxed like a cozy fireplace at night in December. That was kinda where she settled into by CS III. There was still a strength behind that voice, but it was a very natural feeling strength, like a deep well.

Heather Gonzalez's voice sounds....hoarse. Like, she was losing her voice during her recording session. When she's speaking longer lines, it sounds better, but also worse. Better because it doesn't sound so strained, but worse because it's dull. Very little of Laura's warmth remains. The fireplace has gone out, the well is dry, and the cabin is freezing under the cold winter.

She's coming in on the 4th game of a series when most of the other voice actors have been doing it from the beginning, so that's a disadvantage. But it's not like the actors for Estelle, Joshua, Renne, Lloyd, and Ellie have had a ton of practice, and they all sound pretty good. The worst part is I decided to listen to a little bit of her other work for reference, and some of it sounds quite good. It makes me want to blame NISA more than anything else. I suspect they provided little to no direction to VAs and rushed them. It's not like Heather Gonzalez will ever read this, but if I could've given her advice, she should've relaxed more. Don't try to sound like a soldier and don't try to sound like Marisha Ray either. Just use something close to your normal voice and put some warmth into it. I'm sure that would've produced a better result than this.

She still hasn't really had a chance to act yet, so we will see what it sounds like when/if Laura gets more lines.

[butterbattle22]

Progress: The Black Workshop

I am binging pretty hard now and making a lot of progress.

I absolutely loved the recreation of St. Ursula medical college. One thing that struck me was the artistic emphasis on it being next to the lake. I mean, it was always next to the lake, but in the Crossbell arc, the camera is stuck with the hospital at the top, and you don't actually see a lot of the water, mostly just that corner when you walk down to the bottom right to fish. Now, you can finally experience it as a waterfront hospital, with expansive scenery porn on that side of the map and the light flooding in from over the surface. Beautiful.

Mishelam was cool too, but not as cool. The coolest thing there was a nice scene of Beryl AKA Grandmaster of Ouroboros. (one of my pet theories) And I guess any scene of Juna with her family is nice.

Ooohh, I did love that the kid that used to selflessly clean the downtown area got hired to maintain the beachfront at Michelam. That's an amazing easter egg; stuff like that is one of the main reasons I love this series so much.

That spider fight in phase 4 was pretty annoying. I legit almost died because I was careless and nobody in the front 4 had confuse resist. Literally everyone was confused at the same time. I just sat here and watched like 15 continuous turns of the spider trolling and my characters hacking each other over and over and somehow two of my characters were still alive by the end. Why give me Renne as a guest, and she doesn't have confuse resist in her accessories that I can't edit? Falcom, you did that on purpose. Lol.

Congratulations to Celine for finally becoming a cat waifu. We all knew this day might come. Congratulations to Rean for being his edgiest self yet. I'm sure many will agree that uncaged rage Rean is best Rean. Congratulations to Duvalie, who was already a high tier waifu, for becoming a protagonist. I definitely need a magical girl custume for Duvalie. Thanks Falcom.

Jusis and Machias interactions are still entertaining.

Based on how the story is going, there's going to be a lot more spoilers from this point forward. You've been warned.

[butterbattle22]

- Animation of Sully dancing was slightly better than I would've expected. Okay, next we'll have a recreation of Rixia's Moon Princess dance. Let's goooo Fallcooommmm.

- Why does the game keep taunting me with Estelle appearances but I don't actually get to play her?

- I did notice that we were one divine knight short at the end of the last game. Welp, now we know about the last one obviously. Will Rufus ever betray Osborne? It's hard to tell. He certainly would as long as he has a prime opportunity; they said as much themselves.

- Duvalie seems to work independently from the other two Stahlritter quite a bit. I don't think we've ever seen the Stout and the Sharp separate from each other. Perhaps Duvalie was always a bit too sentimental to buy into big Ouroboros plans. She was always a pawn; she didn't care as long as she could serve Arianrhod. But now she's starting to care too much.

- Does Ouroboros ever really care about anything? As far as anyone can tell, their one and only goal is to play games with humanity and have fun in the process. Any other actual goal at this point is just bad writing. Lol.

- Making artificial humanoids in giant test vats. Look at how evil scientist....we are.

- Clearly, the trick to making archaisms stronger was to make them look more like lolis.

- I guess events had reached the point where they were.......not beautiful, according to Phantom Thief B. Hmmm, but he thought defiling the Norse highlands with war and destruction would be breathtaking. Doesn't something like blowing up the Courageous offer a similar aesthetic? Lmao.

[butterbattle22]

Progress: Act 2, Touring Erebonia Part 2

*sigh* These bonding events are pretty forced. Gaius' Merkaba is not very big, and they're all packed inside. Back in school, most events were centered around clubs and hobbies, but activities here are limited. This is so gimmicky; I hate Rean's harem. More character development needs to occur as part of the actual story in this setting, instead of in these bonding micro-universes that basically aren't even canon.

Also, I fought against Rean as Fie and then as Sara, dying both times. However, it didn't seem to affect the event? I legitimately can't tell if these are scripted losses or not. I'm still trying to keep a blind run as best I can, so I'll look this one up afterwards. In the Fie fight, my Fie is very min-maxed on evasion, so she was evading every Rean attack (or are those scripted dodges?). I got him down to about two-thirds health before he finally hit me and killed me. In the Sara fight, I'm not able to evade his attacks, but his weaker crafts don't even do half my health, so I ended up using quite a few items. I tend to hoard healing items because I don't use them much, so that's not a big deal. However, if a fight is supposed to be a loss, the enemy shouldn't be so weak that I can continue fighting him. If so, it should be an optional win fight. Perhaps I hit some sort of flag in both fights that caused him to kill me, but I didn't see an indication of this. There should be something obvious, like when Victor Arseid used his s-craft against Rean in CS I. These definitely left a bad taste in my mouth.

Together, Laura and Fie ____________

..............school girl Duvalie

Okay, after playing the game longer, I've gotten somewhat used to Laura's new voice. Obviously, I still like the old voice better; this is still a downgrade, but I don't hate it as much as I did.

In contrast, I'm enjoying Fie's voice as it becomes increasingly more confident and passionate. Cassandra Lee Morris is the voice of Morgana in Persona 5, after all, which is downright iconic. Perhaps the quiet and inexpressive Fie of earlier games never gave her enough to work with.

[butterbattle22]

I would like it better if enemy 'Dis'-Orders happened concurrently with Orders rather than one blocking the other.

The primary reason is that once I start the fight and activate it, I'll never even let any enemies take a turn without an active brave order. I mean, not everyone will be able to manage their BP as effectively, but it still doesn't seem right that I can completely prevent these from occurring so easily. It would be cooler if Claire's order came up regardless, but doesn't block mine; rather, both will be in effect. If hers is 200% delay while mine has 50% delay, they can cancel each other out. It's more interesting this way.

Also, it's just......weird for immersion. I get that it's just gameplay, but brave orders are an additional way for linked party members to receive benefits when fighting with advanced combat orbments. Members get a boost from the psychological leadership of an individual within that group. I don't see why an order from one party would cancel out the order from the other party. Also, why do enemies never have brave orders that boost their performance, only "dis"-orders that mess me up? If we're looking at the in-game lore of what a "brave order' is, it doesn't make sense. If dis-orders are a thing, why don't I have any characters that can do that? You're telling me Renne, the Angel of Slaughter, can't figure out how to do a dis-order?

I thought we would have more Sky and Crossbell characters by now.

I mean, I ain't complaining about school girl Duvalie, but it's not Estelle.

[butterbattle22]

*sigh* Guess I'm not gonna get much of Estelle and Co. until Act III

It struck me once again that to enjoy the fights in this series now, you can't treat them like serious fights.

Actually think of them like Touhou fights. Everyone's just super strong and wants to show off all their danmaku and have fun. Nobody ever gets hurt, so what's the harm? If you get shot, stabbed, blown up enough times, you eventually become unconscious for a little bit at worst. Unless it happens in a cut-scene. Or happens off screen before player characters get there. Or, worst case scenario, happens in a flashback.

Red Constellation slaughtering those terorists in Ao is still the deadliest scene in Trails so far. We're......never gonna see a scene like that ever again, are we?

[butterbattle22]

Oh crap. I got so absorbed in the game, I stopped posting again.

Progress: Draco Shrine before second rivalry

Crescent mirror - Adamantine shield only shields a small area and is a block, not a reflect. Crescent mirror not only reflects magic, but also increases defense and adf. Whyyyyy???? Not only is that absurd, it also makes la crest completely pointless. To counter that, enemy magic attacks are crazy strong. Except it's not a counter, just a self-own. Because that just means all of my casters are going to have crescent mirror and even people that aren't dedicated casters because it starts showing up on mirage master quartz. And with silver bell and cast quartz, no enemy in the games uses field wide magic attacks faster than Altina or Emma is going to cast crescent mirror. Many enemies use primarily magic attacks, so as long as your using crescent mirror, they basically can't even hurt you. The game balance around crescent mirror is completely broken.

Delay - Now that I'm getting later in the game, I once again have Fie with well over 200 speed, multiple delay quartz, and zephyr. Any enemy with at least 10% chance of delay can be almost permanently delayed with the right party. Their base speed doesn't even matter much because that only determines the delay on their own actions. Delay amount is determined by the attacker. Just as in previous games, this mechanic is hard to balance and becomes broken late game.

Evasion - I'll let Fie explain this one. Fie: "Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak. Weak."

After the Mille MIrage meeting, I was hoping we'd get Estelle for the rest of the game, but they all ran off again, leaving just Tita and Randy. *sigh* Not nearly enough.

Some great scenes in that chapter though. I feel like those were some of the first real conversations in the game so far. Kek.

Guess who's alive? Trick question. It's everyone. Except the market manager in CS II. And the guard that was at that tower in Nord. That's all I can think of.

[butterbattle22]

You know what I think. I think there's almost no "real bad guys" in the story. I mean, that's sorta been obvious since the beginning, but the picture is a lot clearer now. Other than the Ebon knight perhaps. You could view him as the most evil part of the Great One, while Valimar is the good part or something. Many of the "antagonists" actually just want to settle the rivalry with the Ashen Knight beating the Ebon Knight so they can get rid of him for the next 2000 years or something.

Osborne himself is actually the most sappy of all. From the beginning, his machinations have encompassed the world, but none of that mattered, it was all the Ebon Knight and side-effects. All he cared about was his son. He sacrificed his soul to save his son, and now he's controlled by the Ebon Knight. But while he's forced to carry out the rivalries, he's still hoping his son is going to beat him at the end. Perhaps at the very end, he's going to force the Ebon Knight to lower his guard for a split second so that Rean can kill him. Ah yes, that would be a meaningful ending. If there's one character in this story that should die and stay dead, it's Osborne. It just feels right. If Falcom doesn't even have the ball to do that, then they're completely hopeless.

[butterbattle22]

I love Three and Nine already just from reading the book. I can't wait to play them.

[butterbattle22]

Progress: End of Act 3

Oh crap, I actually did not see that coming. You win this time Falcom. And I actually teared up a little bit.

But people better actually stay dead this time or I'm gonna be even more pissed. And whoever wins in the end is basically god, right? Well, there's your mechanism for deux ex machina reviving everyone right there.

Rufus, you mother****er. I've suspected it for a while, but you were secretly one of the most evil characters all along. Props to my man Rufus.

If your flying fortress looks like that.......you might be a bad guy.