some comments and questions after finishing the game (spoilers)

[Madscientist]

I have finished the 3 Trails in the Sky games and today I have finished Trails of cold Steel. I will get Trails of cold Steel 2+3 and also Trails of Azure/Zero when they are translated for PC, so please no spoilers for them, I like to find out things myself.
and now some comments:

- The game is one of the best JRPGs I have ever played. I think the main reason is, that the game sems to be about presenting a country and its people and not mainly about saving the world from an ancient evil.
- The game felt more "realistic" than the trails in the Sky (TitS). In TitS the only ways to travel were using an airship or walking and the only thing that moved on the ground was a haulage vehicle. In TocS most people travel by train, rich people have a car or bike and only very rich people can afford to use or even own an airship. That sounds much better.
- I am sure that erebonia is based on germany before the first world war. Just looking at the helmets of the provincial army is enough. Chancellor Osborne is Bismark, of course. Reinford would be Krupp then.I don´t know if there was conflict between nobles and commoners at that time and if nobles hired terrorists to cause trouble though, I am not a history expert.
- After realizing that, I thought that maybe Liberl is based on england and the queen of Liberl is queen Victoria of england.
- The term "archaism" for robot feels a bit strange. I think archaic means that something is really old or outdated. So maybe it is archaic to attack a giant robot with a sword, but the robot itself is not.
- The difficulty level of the game is a bit strange. I played TitS on normal, and it felt just right most of the time. TocS was mostly super easy and the reason has a name: AoE delay effects. Also most bosses are not immune against hard CC effects and even if they last only 1 turn on bosses, this is very powerful. I played it on hard.
- There was one kind of bosses that I really hate: Those who have a random "instant AoE overkill" attack. In TitS it was only the bladelord at the end of the second game that drove me insane. In my first try everything went fine until he used his ultimate attack. My chars had full health, but he killed 2 of them and the other 2 were frozen with close to zero health, so game over. In the second try I could beat him rather easy and the only reason was that he did not use this attack. In TocS is was C at the end of chapter 6 and the final boss in the old school house. C is perfectly fine, except when he uses his "kill them all" attack. It took 3 tries to kill C. The fact that S-Crafts ignore armor does not make it better. Protection buffs are useless unless they give full immunity. In the old schoolhouse on my first try, the boss used his first attack to kill my entire party. Looks like the only way to beat them is to spam AoE physical immunity spell (adamant shield?) all the time while drinking tons of EP potions. I used the same tactic against the next boss where my party fights a giant robot.
The final boss in Tits3 had also a super powerful attack that can kill the entire party, but it was not random. You know when it comes and can prepare for it.
- The final fight felt bad. You introduce a completely new game mechanic (robot combat) in the last moment of the game. And this is very different from normal combat. When I tried it the first time, my party was level 67. I could beat the first 2 robots first try, but I had no chance against the final one, even though I always attacked the correct body part and stacked the buff. I returned to the schoolhouse, but enemies gave so little exp that leveling would have taken hours. So I used the 5 shining pom items that came together with the game to reach lv 72. This time I killed all 3 bosses first try without problems, but it almost feels like cheating.
I am not against robot battles. I have played xenogears and the xenosaga trilogy. But there robot combat was introduced early in the game.
- I was a little bit disappointed about the concert. I wanted to see/hear the operetta and all songs. Even Final Fantasy 6 had a full opera.

questions:
- So Crow is one of the bad guys. How does he do this? He is a student at the academy so he has lessons all day long. How can he travel around and do some terrorist stuff while nobody misses him in the academy? Also C is a super powerfull fighter with the dual sword while Crow is a normal student with pistols. People keep telling Rean all the time that he is holding back. It seem strange that Crow can hide his combat skill from all others.
- When Towa shows us her concert from last year, they sing the title song from TitS3. Does it mean the voice actor of Towa is the singer of the song of TitS3?.
- In TitS you could watch all videos after beating the game. I hoped TocS does the same. I want the video from the start of the game, where all chars and their names are presented. When starting the game I was completely overwhelmed with that much information. Can you unlock the videos or do you have to use youtube?

A bit off topic, because this is about TitS:
After playing the trilogy most questions where answered, but one thing bothered me:
- How could Cloe ever live in an orphenage? She is a member of the royal family and her granmother (the queen) and her uncle (Duke Dunan) are still alive. Even if her parents died shortly after her birth, it makes no sense that she is send to an orphanage in the middle of nowhere.

[Madscientist]

OMG, just to be sure, the hearts stand for the shortcut of "Trails in the sky". Sometimes this word is followed by a 2 or 3 to show what part of the series I mean. I hope you understand what I want to say. I hate this XXX censorship. (the XXX was written by myself, insert whatever word you like ;-))

[ZWabbit]

1) Crow was literally failing due to cutting classes and the like. Sarah wasn't joking about why he got stuck into Class VII.
2) Don't know, but they might well have been using it as an insert that was convenient considering what they did for the actual concert.
3) No video/cutscene replay archive, though the bonding events are viewable again in CS2. Can't remember if they are in CS1. Youtube is your best bet.
4) Kloe didn't live at the orphanage per se, she was however taken care of for a time by Theresa and her husband.

[Ronahn]

They do make it pretty clear that Crow is out of class a lot - which cerrtainly looks pretty suspicious in hindsight. That said there were still one or two parts during my second playthrough when it seemed pretty unrealistic that he would have time to change into his C outfit, and get somewhere in time, before changing back to Crow and showing up somewhere else.
Maybe he nicked Sharons magical maid teleporting powers?

On the subject of people noticing Rean 'holding back' the only people I remember spotting that were Laura, Klaus and Viscount Arseid - all of whom are exceptionally skilled sword fighters, like Rean. In that context it makes sense that they could spot something off in Rean's style. Crow by contrast uses pistols, which is a radically different weapon from a double saber - and a weapon Laura had no experience with and so couldn't be expected to notice an inconsistency with.
Personally I always assumed that Crow really wasn't holding back when using pistols - he was just neglecting to mention that there was another weapon he was far more lethal with.

Also I think Archaisms are called that because the technology the Society used to make them is actually very old (or at least developed from old tech).

I'm right there with you on the instant aoe "SCREWYOUNOWDIE!" attacks. My horror story with that was S in chapter 5 - kicked her ass for the entire fight until she got one turn with only 500 health left and S-Crafted my entire party. Game over.

The robot fighting was out of the blue - I feel like everyone must lose that first fight against Ordine, especially since the game doesn't tell you about spotting which areas are vulnerable until after you die. Rean's level increases his health for the robot fights, so leveling up with shining poms in the final dungeon is pretty much essential on harder difficulties.
Power through by imagining how cool that's going to be in the sequel.

[Vladislak]

On the topic of realistic transportation, remember that Liberl is one of the leading nations when it comes to airship technology, they're certainly ahead of Erebonia on that front and it gave them a serious edge during the war. So it's not unreasonable that Liberl would have airship travel much more readily available than Erebonia.

On the other hand, Erebonia is much larger than Liberl, so they needed SOMETHING other than walking, and since their airship technology wasn't up to the task like Liberls was it makes sense that they'd go for trains and (to a lesser extent) cars.


As someone already pointed out, Archaism refers to the fact that it's technically ancient technology that's being repurposed or reverse engineered. That was established in the Sky games.

Kloe basically just spent the duration of the 100 days war with Matron Theresa. According to the Kiseki wiki she was seperated from her escort during the war and taken care of by the orphanage when that happened.

And I totally agree that the mechs could have been handled better (and hey, it's nice to meet someone else who played Xenogears/Saga).

[gpradheka]

Well, for the Mech, it's actually for hyping up the second game, and one of cliffhanger device, so it's understandable.

[Monterossa]

You don't have to be rich to travel by an airship though. There's an airport in big cities. You just didn't get to use them in CS1.

[Gambio]

Your comment about realism gives me an excuse to talk about my favorite subject: Transportation on Zemuria!

While it may seem strange that there are no Cars in Liberl, a mere two years later Heimdallr is teeming with them after all, this does indeed make sense ingame if we take a couple of facts into account.

As already mentioned it is indeed so that Airships where pushed tremendously in Liberl in favor of Trains and Cars but why so?

The answer lies in Liberls Topography. Lets adress the elephant in the Room first. Lake Valeria sits smack dab in the center of Liberl and ensures you always have to go the long way around. But even that long way is further sectioned off by the Krone Mountain Range and the Kaldia Hills which pretty much isolates the Ruan Region.

So to ensure safe and swift transportation going be Air seems to be the most logical decision-with regular Ships a close second. Given Lake Valerias Proximity and access to the Sea naturally Maritime trade and transportation is also quite important in LIberl.

Naturally when this decision was made it was really a competition between Airships and Trains. Cars in their limited passenger capacity right at the Dawn of the Orbal Revolution where needlessly to say way too expensive to even consider on a large scale.

Still Cars have become more and more frequent in the last Decade or so, so why is Liberl still seemingly lagging behind? Even if we disregard Ruan, surely a Road suitable for Cars between say Rolent and Bose would be to the benefit of its citizens regardless?

I actually think that this is intentional and a direct consequence of the 100 Days War. LIberl managed to edge out a victory by using its newly devloped Airships and cutting the Imperial Army into small indvidual units defeating them piece by piece.

This was only possible because of Liberls unique Terrain that made it impossible for any large Army to move at a fast pace Since Liberl is a small country with a small army centralised around Airships to begin with this is works completly to their advantage and turns Liberl itself into a Fortress.

Finally and lastly, the 100 Days War also had an economically effect on Liberl. The People where focused on rebuilding their nation and didn't have the time and resources to spend on fancy Cars

[Madscientist]

Thanks so far for yours answers.
some more things:

- The final fight makes no sense at all for me.
You beat the first robot, fine.
You beat the second robot: Introducing a new mechanic at the end of the game is dump, but story wise it is OK.
But the last fight: First you have to beat him in a fight that is either impossible to win (when you don´t know what to do and no grinding) or super easy (if you know what to do and have a high level). After beating him he beats you and you have to escape. So what is bad about losing the final battle in the first place?

- With the exception of bosses who have an instant AoE overkill attack (see above), one of the hardest fights was the very first battle of the game (your party against a group of robots). I have played Trails in the sky before. And now I start the game with a high level party. But I did not know about link attacks or the delay effect. I also did not know that offensive and defensive arts are now in different tabs, so my only source of healing was Emmas craft and items.

- Chars in JRPGs should really learn how to arrest people. Especially when they are bracers or students at a military academy. After beating the enemy, first disarm them and tie them up, then you can talk as much as you want. Else they run away after talking and you have to fight them again.

- I have read that Trails in the Sky is the 6th part of the Legend of heroes series. Can you get the earlier parts in english for PC and are they as good as Sky/Cold Steel?

[ZWabbit]

The previous Heroes games are not part of the same storyline and might well not take place in the same world. Sky is the first part of the Zemurian storyline.

[Madscientist]

I know, but just because they have a different setting does not mean they are bad. All Final Fantasy games have no connection between them (except X and X2), but some of them are very good games.
I just want to know if you can get the earlier game in english for PC and If they are also good.

[Erpy]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- The game felt more "realistic" than the trails in the Sky ♥♥♥♥♥♥. In♥♥♥♥♥♥the only ways to travel were using an airship or walking and the only thing that moved on the ground was a haulage vehicle. In TocS most people travel by train, rich people have a car or bike and only very rich people can afford to use or even own an airship. That sounds much better.

Like somebody else already mentioned, Liberl's topography doesn't accomodate orbal cars very well. The "main road" in several places is a winding mountain path, a narrow path along cliffs, a patch that literally runs alongside the beach and thus would flood in case of high tide and a tunnel through a hill that leads into the basement of a factory. Only Ruan and Grancel are close to the lake too. The reason citizens use airships is partially out of necessity. You can see this at the state of the roads too. The only roads that are actively maintained are the roads in the Grancel region, which citizens use for strolls along the scenic route. All the other roads in the kingdom have holes in them, are partially overgrown, have tiles missing and sometimes parts of the road are just gone.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- After realizing that, I thought that maybe Liberl is based on england and the queen of Liberl is queen Victoria of england.

Apparantly, it's based on Thailand.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- The term "archaism" for robot feels a bit strange. I think archaic means that something is really old or outdated. So maybe it is archaic to attack a giant robot with a sword, but the robot itself is not.

They actually address this in the Sky games. The ORIGINAL archaisms were only found in ancient ruins like the sealed area underneath Grancel. That's where we were first introduced to the term. Those mechanisms were centuries old, hence the name. When you first meet archaisms in SC, one of your party members points out that unlike the ones in the Sealed Area, which were old and showed wear and tear, these ones were made with modern materials and looked brand new. People in the games use the term for both the ancient originals and the modern variety that was modelled after the original things, because there wasn't much of a point in creating an additional term for the same kind of thing.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- There was one kind of bosses that I really hate: Those who have a random "instant AoE overkill" attack. In♥♥♥♥♥♥it was only the bladelord at the end of the second game that drove me insane. In my first try everything went fine until he used his ultimate attack. My chars had full health, but he killed 2 of them and the other 2 were frozen with close to zero health, so game over. In the second try I could beat him rather easy and the only reason was that he did not use this attack. In TocS is was C at the end of chapter 6 and the final boss in the old school house. C is perfectly fine, except when he uses his "kill them all" attack. It took 3 tries to kill C. The fact that S-Crafts ignore armor does not make it better. Protection buffs are useless unless they give full immunity.

S-crafts have been boosted in this arc, for both players and enemies. If it helps, you don't really need full immunity for any of the S-crafting enemies. Scarlet has no resistence against Seal, so using Sara you can keep her sealed the entire battle and you'll never even see her S-craft. Vulcan's and C's S-crafts are line attacks, so if you position your characters on both sides of them, they'll never be able to wipe out your entire team.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- So Crow is one of the bad guys. How does he do this? He is a student at the academy so he has lessons all day long. How can he travel around and do some terrorist stuff while nobody misses him in the academy? Also C is a super powerfull fighter with the dual sword while Crow is a normal student with pistols. People keep telling Rean all the time that he is holding back. It seem strange that Crow can hide his combat skill from all others.

Skilled sword users can usually tell when Rean is holding back, probably because of the way he uses his sword. Crow evaded that issue by switching from using a blade weapon with his left hand (making people look for left-handed suspects) to dual pistols, which obfuscated his melee combat skills.

People already mentioned that Crow skipped class A LOT. As for how he got around, the ILF had at least two airships and stealth technology was already a thing in Trails in the Sky SC. Crow also has a Divine Knight and 3 years worth of experience with it. You'll learn in Cold Steel 2 that Divine Knights can get around in rather unconventional ways and a skilled user can even use spacial translocation to summon them, similar to how Millium pops out Airgetlam from thin air.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- How could Cloe ever live in an orphenage? She is a member of the royal family and her granmother (the queen) and her uncle (Duke Dunan) are still alive. Even if her parents died shortly after her birth, it makes no sense that she is send to an orphanage in the middle of nowhere.

She normally didn't live at Mercia. She was away from Grancel when the 100 Days War broke out (if you read a book about it in FC, you'll find that it broke out extremely unexpectedly giving Liberl no time to prepare or react) and was separated from her caretakers in the chaos. That's when Joseph and Theresa found her and took her in. After the war ended, the royal guard started looking for the missing princess and they eventually found her and took her back to Grancel.

[Gambio]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

I know, but just because they have a different setting does not mean they are bad. All Final Fantasy games have no connection between them (except X and X2), but some of them are very good games.
I just want to know if you can get the earlier game in english for PC and If they are also good.

The Ghagarv trilogy is technically translated and they are what pretty much inspired the Trails series, you will even find some people who prefer those games

Unfortunately the translation is very subpar and for some bizarre reason they even changed the battle system in the english release...not for the better as most would agree

[dean.dip]

I've watched a Let's Play of 2 of the 3 games in the Ghagarv trilogy and I found them to be pretty nice overall, story wise, despite the poor translation; a decent translation would definitely make it more enjoyable, though I can imagine some still not liking the game even with a good translation.

[Firehawk]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- The game is one of the best JRPGs I have ever played. I think the main reason is, that the game sems to be about presenting a country and its people and not mainly about saving the world from an ancient evil.

You must not have played many then, because it's by FAR not the best in any way. Full of plotholes, blatant deus ex machina that often borders on as spull and ripping of Fate/stay night and Neon Genesis Evangelion with their monochrome UBW and the EVA units. And let's not get into the flaws in the cast, that would fill a phone book too.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- The game felt more "realistic" than the trails in the Sky ♥♥♥♥♥♥. In♥♥♥♥♥♥the only ways to travel were using an airship or walking and the only thing that moved on the ground was a haulage vehicle. In TocS most people travel by train, rich people have a car or bike and only very rich people can afford to use or even own an airship. That sounds much better.

While I see you put it in quotation marks it's still far from realism. For one thing, those are not airships but airCRAFT with the traits of a V/STOL unit like the British made Harrier. That's much more advanced technology as a real airship like the Hindenburg was, so we have localization or plot design fault there from the get go. Airships were obviously also much slower since they wer propeller driven and prone to accidents, so people need to learn the difference between them first.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Madscientist:

- I am sure that erebonia is based on germany before the first world war. Just looking at the helmets of the provincial army is enough. Chancellor Osborne is Bismark, of course. Reinford would be Krupp then.I don´t know if there was conflict between nobles and commoners at that time and if nobles hired terrorists to cause trouble though, I am not a history expert.

Bismarck had his share of problems and made mistakes sometime, most relevant being the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine which France hated and helped leading to WW1, though he also had internal political enemies too. You can see something similar happening in CS1 too.
Even with all that though Osbourne is explicitly shown deliberately picking fights while Bismarck was an excellent diplomat who favored nobility in governing over parliamentary legislature. So while the character itself was based on him, it's also very different.

[autoraso]

On the subject of travel they do make a big point in Sky that Liberl’s airship travel is abnormal. Zin even brings up how it basically does not exist in Calvard, the only civilian airship dock is in the capital and if you dig you will find that Calvard is famous for its busses.

So Liberl has airships, Erobonia has trains and Calvard has busses.