So that ending... <spoilers>

[DEATH]

Obviously spoilers. If you haven't finished the game yet, turn back now!

...


Okay so I just finished the game for the first time and... am I the only one who was seriously ticked off by the how the ending was handled? I don't necessarily mean storywise, though I got some issues with that too, I mean how the designers thought it was appropriate to force the player to fight the "fake" final boss twice to get the true ending. What kind of disrespectful horse $H!T is that?

Completely ruined the experience of the ending for me. All so they could pull some stupid "fake" normal ending that makes it seem like a bad ending, when it's so damn predictable you knew it wasn't going to be the real end. They didn't even have the full staff in the fake credits sequence.

Anyway yeah, I'm just pretty frustrated with having to fight the boss twice for no good reason. Falcom... never do something like that again. 16 years of building up to this finale, and you botch it this badly? Seriously, I just don't get what the hell they were thinking.

Yeah it didn't take that long to go through the process, but watching a lot of the cutscenes again and just fighting the boss twice, it certainly didn't add anything to my experience other than frustration and disbelief at how anyone could think it was a good idea.

The fights themselves were also the easiest final battles of the entire series. And I played on Hard which the game claims "will take everything you have." For the true final battle, they give you full CP for every character, just buffing once, than unleashing everyone's S-Craft was enough to defeat the first 2 phases, so I never even got to see what it's attacks were haha. I suppose they cared more about the cinematic experience than gameplay?

Was it supposed to feel like a scripted battle or something? Honestly, none of the bosses put up much of a fight in this game. So on that front, very disappointing. Anyone else whose been playing this series from the beginning remembers how tough Enforcer battles used to be and how bad@$$ they were because of it.

So when this game hypes up it's final battles to ludicrous proportions and it doesn't deliver at all, it's really really disappointing. Though... After playing through Cold Steel 1, 2 and 3, I expected that. The series has gotten ridiculously easy to the point where I just skip battles now by running from 90% of encounters and fast forward through bosses as you don't have to put much thought into them at all.

...

Now, in terms of story. I don't have much to say other than it was a very predictable ending. I don't mind happy endings but jeez, there's never any consequences are there? Only one bad guy gets arrested, some do die at least, and all the heroes live hahaha. Definitely no rules to the logic of Zemuria though. Just revive people because magic? Whatever though, it wasn't the worst ending i've ever seen, just not an epic conclusion for this grand-scale war story.

Overall, it was a mildly fun time for a veteran of the series. But I do feel like the ending really dropped the ball pretty hard in terms of gameplay. The conclusion storywise was typical but passable, I get that most people would want to see their favorite characters live and all that so I'm not bothered by it, but it definitely could've been better.

That's my two cents.

[Koby]

Originally posted by DEATH:

I mean how the designers thought it was appropriate to force the player to fight the "fake" final boss twice to get the true ending.

Since I had done the required sidequest before heading to the final dungeon, I didn't have to fight that fight twice. I saved and it asked me if I wanted to see the true ending or something... I forget how it worded it, but it basically just continued the game and put me instantly in the fight with the "true" final boss. Reading a guide also suggested that the fight happened twice due to having to load the save to pick it back up and go do that missing quest.

[DEATH]

Originally posted by Koby:

Originally posted by DEATH:

I mean how the designers thought it was appropriate to force the player to fight the "fake" final boss twice to get the true ending.

Oddly, I didn't have to fight that fight twice. I saved and it asked me if I wanted to see the true ending or something... I forget how it worded it, but it basically just continued the game and put me instantly in the fight with the "true" final boss. Reading a guide also suggested that the fight happened twice due to having to load the save to pick it back up, but I didn't have to load my save or anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That's... weird. Not sure how that's even possible since you have to go back to a point before the fake final boss and do some weird side-quest that takes place in the past... either way the whole thing is just bizarre.

[Koby]

Originally posted by DEATH:

That's... weird. Not sure how that's even possible since you have to go back to a point before the fake final boss and do some weird side-quest that takes place in the past... either way the whole thing is just bizarre.

You can actually do that side-quest (and get 5 AP for doing it) prior to entering the final dungeon.

Apparently by doing it then, you don't have to fight the fake boss twice as you don't need to go back to do the quest.

On the final day before you go to the final dungeon, visit the computer room on 2F for an optional scene. Then quick travel to Auros Coastal Road 2 to meet up with Toval. This allows you to fight the Holy Beast of Earth and therefore not need to do it after beating the fake final boss.

So you only have to repeat the fight and go back in the past because you missed doing the quest when it was available.

[DEATH]

Originally posted by Koby:

Originally posted by DEATH:

That's... weird. Not sure how that's even possible since you have to go back to a point before the fake final boss and do some weird side-quest that takes place in the past... either way the whole thing is just bizarre.

You can actually do that side-quest (and get 5 AP for doing it) prior to entering the final dungeon.

Apparently by doing it then, you don't have to fight the fake boss twice as you don't need to go back to do the quest.

On the final day before you go to the final dungeon, visit the computer room on 2F for an optional scene. Then quick travel to Auros Coastal Road 2 to meet up with Toval. This allows you to fight the Holy Beast of Earth and therefore not need to do it after beating the fake final boss.

So you only have to repeat the fight and go back in the past because you missed doing the quest when it was available.

Still extremely bizarre handling of the ending. I checked everything before starting the final operation, I thought I talked to everyone, but I suppose one is still likely to miss something. Really dumb to make that so easily missable, and than they programmed in a way to redo the final fights and cram the side-quest in that way!? How about just making that a mandatory quest before going to the final mission? Problem solved, seriously haha.

I actually like multiple endings in some games, but the important thing is that for a multiple ending design to work, it needs to be in a game with no future sequels. Trails is a massive franchise at this point, with continuity spanning 10+ games now. This is NOT the type of series you want to work in poorly thought out multiple endings that require hidden side-quests to gain. It's not like the endings are based on player choices or anything, just a hidden quest they KNEW most people would miss and have to redo things to get the true ending.

This is something Falcom did in Ys 8 as well, though it was handled much better in that game and the two endings in the game don't really change the continuity of the series, plus there isn't much of an overarching story in that series so it's slightly more appropriate.

[Koby]

I agree it's odd implementation and obviously easily missable.

Though I think letting you go back and do the quest at the cost of repeating a boss battle is better than Cold Steel 2's handling of the Black Books and Thomas' involvement revealing requiring an entire full playthrough of NG+ to get to.

[Dr. Rudolf von Richten]

From what I understand, there is an actual reason why you have to see the 'normal' ending before you can see the 'true' ending. Apparently, this will become clear in the next game, Trails into Reverie.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

From what I understand, there is an actual reason why you have to see the 'normal' ending before you can see the 'true' ending. Apparently, this will become clear in the next game, Trails into Reverie.

^ This.

To say it with the least amount of spoilers, both endings "happened" and are canon for the greater Trails universe storyline.

Bigger spoiler:
The two Reans from both endings actually meet in the next game

[Aza]

To bad we wont see an official english translation for that next game for 2 years.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by Aza:

To bad we wont see an official english translation for that next game for 2 years.

Yeah this will be a long wait. Ah well.

[DEATH]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Originally posted by Aza:

To bad we wont see an official english translation for that next game for 2 years.

Yeah this will be a long wait. Ah well.

After having spent around 370 hours on the Cold Steel series in just the past 2-3 months, I'm actually happy to have a year or two break from it haha. The time investment for these games is getting out of hand. Mostly the 3rd and 4th were nearly double the length of the average Trails game.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by DEATH:

After having spent around 370 hours on the Cold Steel series in just the past 2-3 months, I'm actually happy to have a year or two break from it haha. The time investment for these games is getting out of hand. Mostly the 3rd and 4th were nearly double the length of the average Trails game.

I actually did the same, started playing Cold Steel 1 on June 22nd and finished Cold Steel 4 yesterday.
But i still want more.

I am seriously considering grabbing the Japanese PC release of Reverie that comes out in two weeks on Steam.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1562940/THE_LEGEND_OF_HEROES_HAJIMARI_NO_KISEKI/

And then use a overlay program with fan translation files like many people did for the PS4 version.
The game is 100% fan translated at this point.
Voices would not be a problem, i played CS 1-4 with the Japanese dub anyway.
So kind of tempted.

[xHardcore CKYx]

Wait it has Japanese sub? Thought that was just a Chinese release with no other languages.

Nice, not sure if the port will be as advanced as what NISA will put out, but my whole reason for waiting and not importing is because I want my games on PC. I think I'm going to consider this option as Japanese isn't an issue for me.

Thanks for the heads up.

[Ogami]

Originally posted by xHardcore CKYx:

Wait it has Japanese sub? Thought that was just a Chinese release with no other languages.

According to the Steam page it has full Japanese text, interface and audio.
Have to wait to release day to see if its really included outside of Steam Japan.
Some games say they have the Japanese text and then its excluded if you buy outside of Japan.
The other Kiseki releases had no Japanese text/interface according to Steam though, while this one does.

We will see in 12 days.

[DEATH]

Originally posted by Ogami:

Originally posted by DEATH:

<snip>

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1562940/THE_LEGEND_OF_HEROES_HAJIMARI_NO_KISEKI/

And then use a overlay program with fan translation files like many people did for the PS4 version.
The game is 100% fan translated at this point.
Voices would not be a problem, i played CS 1-4 with the Japanese dub anyway.
So kind of tempted.

:lunar2019laughingpig:

Wait, it's been translated already? You sure about that? What kind of translation we talking about? Machine translation or fully edited? It took years to get the other games translated, both officially and unofficially, so I find it hard to believe that it would be fan translated so quickly.

A bad translation completely ruins the experience for me. Anyone here play the Bandai Gagharv remakes? Man those things were atrocious. Decent games but the awful machine translation made the stories impossible to follow.

[stm8022]

Originally posted by DEATH:

Wait, it's been translated already? You sure about that? What kind of translation we talking about? Machine translation or fully edited? It took years to get the other games translated, both officially and unofficially, so I find it hard to believe that it would be fan translated so quickly.

Hajimari was released a year ago, which was more than enough time for a fan translation to be done. Mind you, this is just a translation of the story dialogues and such, plus a program which overlays it on your screen and expects you to manually match displayed text to what's being said. It's nowhere near the amount of work involved in fully patching game's executable and data, the way the previous installments were fan-translated.