Romance?

[Shadowblade]

I'm a sucker for anything with good story and romance. I heard this has a great story, but are there any romantic options or anything of the sort?

[infernoosef]

Hi everyone, i prefer to post here to avoid any repetition, i would like to know how deep is the romance system/bonding system. I read that there is a kind of harem thing going on, but i would like to know if there is a real romance thing or just some teasing. I mean by that, does the MC get in couple during the game ? Do we have cuddle/kiss scene/confession ? And i would love to know if all the games of the franchise got some romance and to what scale ?

[Citronvand]

infernoosef님이 먼저 게시:

Hi everyone, i prefer to post here to avoid any repetition, i would like to know how deep is the romance system/bonding system. I read that there is a kind of harem thing going on, but i would like to know if there is a real romance thing or just some teasing. I mean by that, does the MC get in couple during the game ? Do we have cuddle/kiss scene/confession ? And i would love to know if all the games of the franchise got some romance and to what scale ?

It's not a harem because you cannot get all the girls at the same time, which you could in Persona. You have to pick one. Secondly, the games in Legend of Heroes are not stand-alone, they are very much continuation of previous games, especially when we're talking about games in the same arc such as Cold Steel 1, 2, 3 e.t.c.

So there is not much romance in Cold Steel 1 because the story and the relationships between characters continues in Cold Steel 2. You do get to select a girl to dance with at the end of Cold Steel 1 if your bond is high enough and this will transfer over to Cold Steel 2. I haven't played the latter Cold Steel games, but I imagine that you get more conclusive romance in them such as confessions. We don't even have the final part (4) of the Cold Steel arc, it gets a English release next year.

There's also Trails in the Sky which is the first arc in the series. It's a great romance story but you don't have any choice, the couple is set in stone.

The crossbell games (Zero no Kiseki & Ao no Kiseki) is the second arc and has limited romance. It depends on who you pick, but I know that if you pick a certain girl Ellie they do kiss at the end.

Finally, and this is not about romance. But be aware that if you start with Cold Steel you will spoil things in Trails in the Sky and there will be things that will go over your head because you haven't played the previous games. This is because the games share a overarching story, characters and events. Once you reach Cold Steel 3 you *really* have to play the previous games, so you might as well start with them in my opinion. I don't want to go too much off-topic so if you want to know more about the order and which games there are, where to get them I've written all about it in my review: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198033602078/recommended/538680/

[infernoosef]

Citronvand님이 먼저 게시:

infernoosef님이 먼저 게시:

Hi everyone, i prefer to post here to avoid any repetition, i would like to know how deep is the romance system/bonding system. I read that there is a kind of harem thing going on, but i would like to know if there is a real romance thing or just some teasing. I mean by that, does the MC get in couple during the game ? Do we have cuddle/kiss scene/confession ? And i would love to know if all the games of the franchise got some romance and to what scale ?

It's not a harem because you cannot get all the girls at the same time, which you could in Persona. You have to pick one. Secondly, the games in Legend of Heroes are not stand-alone, they are very much continuation of previous games, especially when we're talking about games in the same arc such as Cold Steel 1, 2, 3 e.t.c.

So there is not much romance in Cold Steel 1 because the story and the relationships between characters continues in Cold Steel 2. You do get to select a girl to dance with at the end of Cold Steel 1 if your bond is high enough and this will transfer over to Cold Steel 2. I haven't played the latter Cold Steel games, but I imagine that you get more conclusive romance in them such as confessions. We don't even have the final part (4) of the Cold Steel arc, it gets a English release next year.

There's also Trails in the Sky which is the first arc in the series. It's a great romance story but you don't have any choice, the couple is set in stone.

The crossbell games (Zero no Kiseki & Ao no Kiseki) is the second arc and has limited romance. It depends on who you pick, but I know that if you pick a certain girl Ellie they do kiss at the end.

Finally, and this is not about romance. But be aware that if you start with Cold Steel you will spoil things in Trails in the Sky and there will be things that will go over your head because you haven't played the previous games. This is because the games share a overarching story, characters and events. Once you reach Cold Steel 3 you *really* have to play the previous games, so you might as well start with them in my opinion. I don't want to go too much off-topic so if you want to know more about the order and which games there are, where to get them I've written all about it in my review: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198033602078/recommended/538680/

Ok thanks a lot

[Stabbey]

infernoosef님이 먼저 게시:

Hi everyone, i prefer to post here to avoid any repetition, i would like to know how deep is the romance system/bonding system. I read that there is a kind of harem thing going on, but i would like to know if there is a real romance thing or just some teasing. I mean by that, does the MC get in couple during the game ? Do we have cuddle/kiss scene/confession ? And i would love to know if all the games of the franchise got some romance and to what scale ?

Because the MC has multiple different options, and the series has four games in it, any relationship between the MC and someone else is left as ambiguous until a point towards the end of the games, and in the next game, the relationship is somewhat reset because you can choose a different person in that game. You aren't locked into a relationship with one person for all four games based on a choice in the first game.

Falcom prefers the Rean/Alisa pairing, and so they get the most moments together in Cold Steel 1, and if you choose to pair Rean with Alisa, their relationship is a couple steps farther along than Rean's relationship with anyone else, and Rean seems more oblivious to the feelings of girls other than Alisa (in fairness, Alisa is really, really bad at hiding them).

The two other main pairings who get the strongest romance treatment are Laura and Emma.

From what I've heard, Alisa is the only girl who gets a kiss until CS 4 (which opens that up to a lot of people), and there is kiss and a love confession in CS 2. I think it's a decent romance, and a good arc given the limitations that unfortunately undercut it somewhat by the need to reset the relationships in each game.

Trails in the Sky does not have "choose your own romance", but a canon pairing, and so the romance arc gets time to breathe and develop a strong arc.

[Dragon]

infernoosef님이 먼저 게시:

i prefer to post here to avoid any repetition, i would like to know how deep is the romance system/bonding system. I read that there is a kind of harem thing going on, but i would like to know if there is a real romance thing or just some teasing. I mean by that, does the MC get in couple during the game ? Do we have cuddle/kiss scene/confession ? And i would love to know if all the games of the franchise got some romance and to what scale ?

The romance in Cold Steel games is not that deep. You get some flirtations and dancing and things like that, but the hero never actually becomes the boyfriend of any of his love interests. And no, he doesn't confess his love for them either, although there are scenes where there are implicit connotations of love.

If you are looking for a game that offers deep romantic connections, then this game doesn't provide that. The romance stuff is more of a tacked-on afterthought kind of thing, rather than a core feature of the game.

And "bonding" does not necessarily equate to "romance" either. The bonding events are usually just about getting to know the person better, but usually that doesn't mean "becoming romantically closer" to the person (with a couple of exceptions of romantic bonding events, but they are far fewer than the much higher number of 100% platonic/absolutely-not-romantic bonding events)...although you do have to have a high bond link with the particular people who you want to romance at the romantic event at the end of the game.

In other words, while "bonding events" are a core feature of the game, they are mostly not "romance events." So one must not conflate "bonding" with "romance" as if they mean the same thing, which they don't in these games.

[Shadow]

Val the Moofia Boss님이 먼저 게시:

There is no romance in the CS or Crossbell games, only a few teasing scenes.

The 'Sky games have romance.

Thank you for lying.

[Legendary Mr. Tiddles]

Shadow님이 먼저 게시:

Val the Moofia Boss님이 먼저 게시:

There is no romance in the CS or Crossbell games, only a few teasing scenes.

The 'Sky games have romance.

Thank you for lying.

The lie may have been problematic back in the day, but it would be done causing harm at this point if you hadn't shoved it right back into the spotlight 5 years later.