Falcom OTP Logic

[butterbattle22]

One subject I've been thinking about again in the past week is why Falcom chose the specific romantic pairing that they chose over other options in each arc. For Trails in the Sky, there isn't a viable alternative for Estelle and Joshua. Or, at least none that any reasonable person would make an argument for. While we could still analyze that relationship, for this thread, I would like to focus on Cold Steel, so Rean and Alisa. And, if y'all are willing, I want to talk about Crossbell too. To be honest, I'm more interested in the Crossbell part of this because Falcom struck a direction that I didn't expect.

In previous posts, I was a bit hesitant to talk about Crossbell, but it seems like most people that care have already played it, and most people that haven't played it don't care, so.....whatever. I'm not going to include spoiler tags every time. You've been warned. Naturally, don't spoil CS III or IV in this thread though, for anyone that's seen those.

Rean x Alisa

Let me start by saying that bashing Alisa is irrelevant to the subject of this thread. Even if you don't like her, she is a good fit for Rean and their relationship has a number of positives going for it. If you can't acknowledge that much, you're just living in denial.

And for the record, my favorites are Laura, then Towa, so I am not biased towards Alisa.

At the same time, I am also netting for good arguments about why another girl might be a better fit. As I see it, the only other real contenders are Laura, Emma, Fie, and Towa. Of course, let me know if you disagree. ;-)

I believe that the best written pairings are not necessarily the most similar characters, but the most complementary pairings. Now, you could argue that's almost a tautology, but it does result in your two characters potentially being opposites in some aspects. Originally, one of the implied reasons for Rean being at the center of class VII is not only due to his personality and..."chosen-one-ness," but also his regular circumstances. You probably see what I'm getting at. Erebonia is suffering from the antipathy between commoners and nobles, and, to some extent, class VII is an experiment in mending that divide. So, Rean is an important bridge here. Well, okay, he's Osborne's son, and he's probably Emperor Dreichel's direct descendent or something, but nobody knows that. The perception here is what matters. And without going into spoilers, he technically has a noble's name, but he's adopted, and he lived a pretty normal life (the relevant part we're discussing at least) with friends and family and without any of the lavishness and pomp typically associated with nobles. He's a noble in name only.

At the other end, we've got Alisa Reinford. Her family is insanely wealthy. Within the Trails universe, the Reinford Company can be seen as one of its first modern companies, evolving into a conglomerate with multiple subsidiaries, branching into multiple industries. Her home was effectively two of the top floors of the tallest building in her city, and her family owned that entire building, not to mention lots of other things around the continent. While this came with a lot of perks, it also isolated her socially, especially after her dad died, and was.....a pretty good excuse to make her a tsundere. Well, the point is if you think about it, that part of her personality leans her closer to the Machias stereotype of a noble e.g. stuck-up and faux refined. Despite all of those things, Alisa's family is newly rich, so she is still not a noble because nobles are only established through lineage. Therefore, she is a noble in all BUT name, the opposite of Rean.

After this, I have a hard time explaining why Alisa is the best choice, which is partly why I started this thread. Rean is rather thick-headed sometimes (CS I), and I could argue that Alisa's fiery nature is good for plowing through that. When Rean was being an oblivious ♥♥♥♥ to his sister Elise, Alisa's thorny anger was actually rather refreshing. But, that feels like a relatively shallow analysis. As an aside, I wish Alisa had shown more of that sassy nature in CS II, as she was sometimes in danger of turning into a Mary Sue without it. Although, that might be Falcom not writing more interactions condusive to interesting characterization in CS II more than anything else. ...........now I'm way off topic.

It'd be easy to reference some of their scenes together. The Nord scene in CS I is still a personal favorite of mine, not just of their relationship, but of Trails as a whole. However, these scenes exist in the first place because Falcom ships Rean x Alisa. Similar to an argument I made in a different thread concerning harems, I can't effectively use those as arguments because I'd have to compare to them to what other scenes might exist if Falcom had shipped a different couple.

On the quartz side of things, we can see that Rean is red and black while Alisa is red and yellow. This is actually kind of cool. We can see that they both have red, the tsundere color, passionate, particularly capable of intense love and intense anger to the point of obsession. However, Rean has more of a dark past while Alisa is the yellow angel coming down from above. So, there's a compare and a contrast. You could interpret some meaning to making Rean wear Joshua clothes and Alisa wearing Estelle clothes beyond them being the boy and girl.

Thoughts?

This is already a large post, so I might discuss Crossbell in the next one.

[Kyle G]

I agree wtih Rean x Alisa for the most part. But the story is written in such a way that Rean has decent chemistry with almost any of the girls. Even older women like Sara and Claire. None of the other male characters get to have that sadly. Maybe except for Anton at the final chapter of Cold Steel 2. Though that isn't fully confirmed yet since he got gently turned down. It's sad when a side character has more game than the Class 7 guys besides Rean though.

[butterbattle22]

Some of the side couples are pretty cute. Hugo and Becky make me smile every time I see them. But yeah, sadly all the main guys other than Rean have to be celibate. Crow actually appreciated that kind of stuff. He was probably the biggest threat to Rean's harem. That's why he had to be eliminated. Lol.

[Oguzhan]

I assume no one will make a CS 3 and 4 reference since spoilers (and I haven't played those yet)

Well I am more of a one cannon love relationship kinda guy. I wish that it was more like the sky games where Olivier and Scherezard slowly became a thing. Tita and Agate while not sure on they are lovers or have a sibling relationship is still there and heart warming. We also had Zin and Kalinka and Kloe does have admirers. Like I would LOVE to see Gaius and Laura together. They just fit so well together and Millium and Jusis would make a great goofball couple. I mean Anton gets more love than the other guys in Class 7. Not to mention other students who either start dating eachother or are clearly becoming a thing in the future. I guess you can say Clara has an eye on Gaius but I am only saying this because of one of her lines while on the ship.

Anyway , I actually do think that Alisa is the perfect fit for Rean. Everything you mentioned are pretty on point. Emma is also a good ship due to her witch origin and they seem to have a little knowledge on Rean's power , or at least McBurns. So who knows she might become his savior one day.

Finally I think that CS games kinda added the relationship thing because it was popular which is understandable. But the Crossbell games (especially Ao no Kiseki) did this so much better. Especially Ao no Kiseki with all the optional events that it has (CS 2 has an impressive amount too but not as much as Ao no Kiseki). I also think that the relationships in Ao are just better when it comes to final events. I absolutely adore the one with Randy , that is just precious.

[butterbattle22]

I have a lot of spare time this week lol.

*sigh* Count me as someone that has never been able to enjoy harems in the way that they are intended. Even if I like the male lead, I don't get off on pretending I'm him.

If the main girls are taken, would it have been so threatening for one or two of the other guys to have another potential romantic interest? As few as they are, every interaction between Randy and Mireille was just......gaaahhh, so great.

Yes, I also ship Laura x Gaius. I wouldn't mind Machias x Emma either. Millium x Jusis is hilarious. Jusis x Paula also has plenty of merit.

Anyways, what I wanted to talk about in Crossbell is actually...

*MASSIVE CROSSBELL SPOILERS*

Lloyd x Rixia

Make no mistake. The canon Crossbell pairing that Falcom wanted from the beginning seems to be Lloyd x Rixia, not Lloyd x Elie. If their scenes together, Divertisement, and the way they hold hands and fight in their combo craft wasn't enough to convince you, I've read that part of the name in that is borrowed from this:

https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/比翼の鳥

It's a mythical bird that's basically a siamese twin bird. So in it, Lloyd and Rixia each represent one head and one wing, unable to fly without the other.

Having said that......why isn't Twin Dragon Strike in CS II? Well, yeah, combo crafts don't exist in CS II, so they'd have to add the mechanic, but I bet many of the people who played Crossbell first were hoping to see that. Of course, seeing Rixia in 3D at all is amazing; the design of that outfit is just....hnnngg *cough* I digress yet again.

This is an extremely unorthodox setup for several reasons. Well, one reason in particular. Falcom has been playing a longer game than most studios (or most works of fiction for that matter) would even dream of doing, and this is an interesting sample of it. Lloyd is the protagonist and while his primary love interest exists as a character in the first game, she's not introduced as such. While other games have done limited character interactions between primary couples like this, it's always destined/foreshadowed to death, and you know without a shadow of a doubt that they'll be together before they explicitly get together at the end. Lloyd and Rixia don't get together in the first game at all. It's not even revealed that she's Yin until halfway through the game! I mean, if you played Divertisement first, it's obvious, but if you'd played Zero first, that could've been a legitimate "Falcom you f***** my brain again" moment. This pairing is gradually implied more and more through Azure. But even now, it's ambiguous enough that I felt compelled to make an argument for it. I mean, we're talking game FOUR after Lloyd was introduced as a main protagonist. In terms of marketing and "how to tell a story to sell a product," this is beyond retarded.

And you know, that means Falcom is banking on developing them further in subsequent games. In the first place, their interactions were so limited that Divertisement by itself offers some new insight on their relationship. And god, I love this couple to death. I bet if they were more developed, I'd enjoy them even more than Estelle and Joshua. Estelle and Alisa are light while Joshua and Rean are dark. This Crossbell pair looks like the reverse of the other two as Lloyd is more light while Rixia is more dark. And look at the weapons they wield as well. Estelle wields a bo staff because Cassius switched to a staff as symbol to protect people. It's easier to disable someone with it without seriously wounding them when compared to say, oh I don't know, twin assassin blades. See where I'm going with this? Lloyd wields tonfas, blunt police weapons that you use to, hopefully, knock sense into criminals without killing them. Rixia wields.......uuuhhh.......a giant demon cleaver, chains with hooks on the end, and talismans that make her disappear or kill you when she sticks them on you. Not terrifying at all, nope.

I have some bias in this case as after playing 1000 hours of Trails, it seems that I like girls with honest personalities and swords. Kloe and Laura are my favorites in their respectives arcs. Originally, I thought Tio would be my favorite through Crossbell, but as Rixia became more developed, I find her to be really magnetic. Her personality and specialty are almost like opposites.

Now, let's look at their quartz colors. Since Lloyd is colorless in CS2, I want to talk about their colors in Divertisement instead because, hoooo boy, they are frickin great. Lloyd is Earth and Fire. Rixia is Wind and Mirage. To begin with, it's pretty awesome characterization that Falcom made her mirage instead of time, but then they add wind? You could view that as character development. Through the end of Azure, Rixia is able to strike a new purpose in life. While she still honors her occupation and ancestors, she also pursues a direction free from them. That's just lovely. Lloyd's assignment probably is less development and more "welp, we should give him colors too." I did think he's a bit earthy when playing Crossbell, but I don't know if I would've predicted red. Earth, fire, wind, and mirage. Man, I'm not sure how to unpackage this. Maybe on my next post.

I wonder what two colors Estelle would be. Fire and........hmmmm, not blue, white or black. So, we've got wind, earth or space. Well, Lloyd is fire and earth, so I don't want Estelle to be fire and earth too. Fire and wind feels pretty good, the same colors as Sara. Fire and space wouldn't be too bad either, but that's the same as Alisa, so I guess it'd be fire and wind? That'd be pretty awesome.

[Oguzhan]

I don't know dude I think Loyd and Ellie is the cannon one. They have the most romantic scenes and Rixia is someone who became part of the group at the end of Ao so she doesn't even have the developement that Loyd and Ellie had.

[butterbattle22]

Ah.....welp......that's why I made this thread.

They have the most romantic scenes and Rixia is someone who became part of the group at the end of Ao so she doesn't even have the developement that Loyd and Ellie had.

That is all true. They have the most romantic scenes or otherwise, including canon scenes, and good chemistry.

Heck, forget Elie and Tio. You could easily argue that Noel has more development with Lloyd than Rixia. That wouldn't be a bad pairing either.

And yet......I feel like Falcom intends for Lloyd x Rixia to be the canon pairing. As I've explained, unlike with CS, I might be biased here as Rixia is my girl this time, but I don't think that's the issue. Beyond the reasons I've already cited (Divertisement, Twin Dragon Strike, etc.), there's just something about the way their interactions are written that convinces me. There's a deeper, natural flow to them, like their souls are aligned. *sigh* That's a rather unhelpful non sequitur for anyone not already convinced, but I'm honestly not sure how to take the analysis from here.

It would really help if I could get another opinion.

[Bravozuluf]

No matter how logical it may seem to other fans, my heart will still long for the fineness that is Laura. Truly, a Pygmalion against the other characters rivaled only by the fineness that is Kloe from the first series. And, that's how love works: irrationally. No rational argument "proving" that Alisa is actually the better fit would work on me because love ignores all logic (like voters!).

Part of my disappointment with Alisa is that from the very get-go, I saw her as a discount Estelle, or an Estelle wannabe. Estelle's shoes are incredibly big to fill, since she is such a legendary character that any character taking cues from her is almost a "knockoff" of the phenomenal original. This is not helped by the claim that the original Cold Steel starred a "girl with blond pigtails" instead of Rean. Falcom switched their protagonist roster because their roster in drafting looked too similar to the Sky roster. So, Alisa may actually have been a bona-fide discount Estelle character. Of course, the glitchy DLC from CS II where you could dress up Rean and Alisa like Josh and Estelle made the connection even more obvious, for those who didn't catch it the first game (120 hours into the game).

I cannot really name a tsundere character I ended up liking, mostly because the tsundere trope itself is not so subtle a characterization and overused to the point of being unoriginal. If one is into the subtler characterizations, slapping 'tsundere' quality on a character doesn't do the trick for me. Additionally, I do not like the masculine equivalent quality, where a male character is "a jerk whose still waters run deep" (or something on those lines). I'm not much sold in the "will he/ won't he?" antics of any character. Instead, I'd rather subtler characterization such as what I saw in both Estelle and Kloe, where Estelle in her youth is building up her courage to ask Josh out on a date, and Kloe is trying to find the confidence to become the royalty she is born to be.

Sure, I'd buy that if I chose a different romance option, Alisa is still a compelling character, and a Platonic interest; she's a very interesting and fleshed out girl. Despite being based off of Estelle, Alisa is not a cardboard cut-out. So, I'd totally buy that she'd remain lifelong friends with Rean along with the rest of Class VII but not sublime enough to be an appropriate partner. On top of that, I concede that she is also the sexiest girl Rean's age (as her shots in CS IV have titilated) in the series, followed secondly by Sara (who is not even Rean's appropriate age). Physical attraction, yes, perhaps Alisa beats out everyone else, but not by a HUGE margin; just beats out by a little bit.

However, depending on what one values in a partner in addition to a voluptuous figure, yet more can be said about other "candidates" for Rean. Jeez, no matter how you dice it, he's got the pick of the litter! Lucky bastard! For what I valued also in characters were their presence, which I thought Laura had much more sublime presence. Alisa is definitely the louder and more talkative of the two, but Laura is the way more regal, composed, with a refined focused aura moulded by working with her father (whom I too have a man-crush on). Laura's modesty in character frankly makes me more curioius of her (a real case of still-waters-run-deep character). Even as superficial a detail as pointing out their voice actresses where Alisa's is a higher pitched woman versus Laura alto (I don't recognize either actress from previous works), frankly the lower, quieter voice is more alluring. The Japanese actress for Laura happens to be Mariya Ise, whom I recognize as Killua or from Made in Abyss and a number of other works and is one of my favorite voice actresses. A simple detail as voicing added a lot to how I imagined the characters and what direction I saw them going in the story. Indeed, their final bonding moment in CS II is on my list of absolute favorite scenes from the entire Trails universe for touching and surprisingly intimate the two were together. So sublime Laura was in that scene.

On top of Laura's presence, I'm enamored by her power. Her amount of power is attractive in of itself. When it would come to Rean + "Class VII partner", the only person in the entire class his age that could give him a run for his money would be Laura (or Crow (I've kinda pondered the homoerotic partnership between those two as well, being sooo damn fine of foils)). I'm confident that if I threw Rean + Laura into any random situation, they'd do fine (and fare way better than Rean with any other classmate). This is partly why I almost always had them tied on arcus. In the fun side duels against Patrick and then the Principle, it was Laura, then followed by Alisa whom I summoned to team with me. Their sword specialty is a foil to each other way more intuitively than sword + bow. Sword on sword, despite being lopsided in melee, is akin to apples to apples.

Though this is by no means an objective thread, I still do not buy any argument that Alisa is "objectively" better as it is as difficult for me to persuade the reader that Laura is actually the "more objectively" better matched. Readers and players of the games have the stars line up for one character or the other, or any match for that matter. In my humble experience, the stars simply lined up for Rean and Laura. That kind of alignment you cannot fake with a different character, even if I tried to.

And don't even dare to rebutt this by claiming that "Gaius + My girl Laura" would fit better than Rean + Laura. This is a straw man, I'm telling you! They DON'T fit together!

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by butterbattle22:

Ah.....welp......that's why I made this thread.

They have the most romantic scenes and Rixia is someone who became part of the group at the end of Ao so she doesn't even have the developement that Loyd and Ellie had.

That is all true. They have the most romantic scenes or otherwise, including canon scenes, and good chemistry.

Heck, forget Elie and Tio. You could easily argue that Noel has more development with Lloyd than Rixia. That wouldn't be a bad pairing either.

And yet......I feel like Falcom intends for Lloyd x Rixia to be the canon pairing. As I've explained, unlike with CS, I might be biased here as Rixia is my girl this time, but I don't think that's the issue. Beyond the reasons I've already cited (Divertisement, Twin Dragon Strike, etc.), there's just something about the way their interactions are written that convinces me. There's a deeper, natural flow to them, like their souls are aligned. *sigh* That's a rather unhelpful non sequitur for anyone not already convinced, but I'm honestly not sure how to take the analysis from here.

It would really help if I could get another opinion.

I think that is because of fan service honestly. They put Rixia there because plot (in both ways).
And since she is there they might as well add in a few fan service with RixiaXLoyd pairing.

I still think that Loyd and Ellie are the cannon though. With Tio , Loyd usually considers her as a little sister and it is not until her final bonding event that Loyd admits love. Meanwhile with Ellie they always look at eachother forgetting others are there. Hell the first time Loyd sees Ellie in Ao no Kiseki they pretty much lose themselves and forget the others are there.

And again I wanna stress, LOYD loses himself while looking at Ellie , it's not just Ellie. With every other girl , its just them while Loyd is being the dense goofball that he is, meanwhile Randy is dying out of jealousy.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by Bravozuluf:

No matter how logical it may seem to other fans, my heart will still long for the fineness that is Laura. Truly, a Pygmalion against the other characters rivaled only by the fineness that is Kloe from the first series. And, that's how love works: irrationally. No rational argument "proving" that Alisa is actually the better fit would work on me because love ignores all logic (like voters!).

Part of my disappointment with Alisa is that from the very get-go, I saw her as a discount Estelle, or an Estelle wannabe. Estelle's shoes are incredibly big to fill, since she is such a legendary character that any character taking cues from her is almost a "knockoff" of the phenomenal original. This is not helped by the claim that the original Cold Steel starred a "girl with blond pigtails" instead of Rean. Falcom switched their protagonist roster because their roster in drafting looked too similar to the Sky roster. So, Alisa may actually have been a bona-fide discount Estelle character. Of course, the glitchy DLC from CS II where you could dress up Rean and Alisa like Josh and Estelle made the connection even more obvious, for those who didn't catch it the first game (120 hours into the game).

I cannot really name a tsundere character I ended up liking, mostly because the tsundere trope itself is not so subtle a characterization and overused to the point of being unoriginal. If one is into the subtler characterizations, slapping 'tsundere' quality on a character doesn't do the trick for me. Additionally, I do not like the masculine equivalent quality, where a male character is "a jerk whose still waters run deep" (or something on those lines). I'm not much sold in the "will he/ won't he?" antics of any character. Instead, I'd rather subtler characterization such as what I saw in both Estelle and Kloe, where Estelle in her youth is building up her courage to ask Josh out on a date, and Kloe is trying to find the confidence to become the royalty she is born to be.

Sure, I'd buy that if I chose a different romance option, Alisa is still a compelling character, and a Platonic interest; she's a very interesting and fleshed out girl. Despite being based off of Estelle, Alisa is not a cardboard cut-out. So, I'd totally buy that she'd remain lifelong friends with Rean along with the rest of Class VII but not sublime enough to be an appropriate partner. On top of that, I concede that she is also the sexiest girl Rean's age (as her shots in CS IV have titilated) in the series, followed secondly by Sara (who is not even Rean's appropriate age). Physical attraction, yes, perhaps Alisa beats out everyone else, but not by a HUGE margin; just beats out by a little bit.

However, depending on what one values in a partner in addition to a voluptuous figure, yet more can be said about other "candidates" for Rean. Jeez, no matter how you dice it, he's got the pick of the litter! Lucky bastard! For what I valued also in characters were their presence, which I thought Laura had much more sublime presence. Alisa is definitely the louder and more talkative of the two, but Laura is the way more regal, composed, with a refined focused aura moulded by working with her father (whom I too have a man-crush on). Laura's modesty in character frankly makes me more curioius of her (a real case of still-waters-run-deep character). Even as superficial a detail as pointing out their voice actresses where Alisa's is a higher pitched woman versus Laura alto (I don't recognize either actress from previous works), frankly the lower, quieter voice is more alluring. The Japanese actress for Laura happens to be Mariya Ise, whom I recognize as Killua or from Made in Abyss and a number of other works and is one of my favorite voice actresses. A simple detail as voicing added a lot to how I imagined the characters and what direction I saw them going in the story.

On top of Laura's presence, I'm enamored by her power. Her amount of power is attractive in of itself. When it would come to Rean + "Class VII partner", the only person in the entire class his age that could give him a run for his money would be Laura (or Crow (I've kinda pondered the homoerotic partnership between those two as well, being sooo damn fine of foils)). I'm confident that if I threw Rean + Laura into any random situation, they'd do fine (and fare way better than Rean with any other classmate). This is partly why I almost always had them tied on arcus. In the fun side duels against Patrick and then the Principle, it was Laura, then followed by Alisa whom I summoned to team with me. Their sword specialty is a foil to each other way more intuitively than sword + bow. Sword on sword, despite being lopsided in melee, is akin to apples to apples.

Though this is by no means an objective thread, I still do not buy any argument that Alisa is "objectively" better as it is as difficult for me to persuade the reader that Laura is actually the "more objectively" better matched. Readers and players of the games have the stars line up for one character or the other, or any match for that matter. In my humble experience, the stars simply lined up for Rean and Laura. That kind of alignment you cannot fake with a different character, even if I tried to.

And don't even dare to rebutt this by claiming that "Gaius + My girl Laura" would fit better than Rean + Laura. This is a straw man, I'm telling you! They DON'T fit together!

Both Laura and Gaius come from VERY different places, cultures BUT both of them have an affinity with a melee weapon. Both of them have connections to the war of the lions (lance maiden for Laura and the Spear men for Gaius). Both of them are very collected and open to the opinions of others BUT if they get angry, well you don't want that. Both of them are trying to learn different things while treasuring and respecting their origins.

They also have the whole wild boy meets the elegant lady thing with them. How do they not work again?

Meanwhile Rean and Laura has.......the way of the sword........ That is literally it. I mean you could say that Rean represents Emperor Dreichels and Laura does the same for the Lance Maiden but Gaius also represents the spear men on top of everything else that they have.

[Ronahn]

I've only played Sky 1 & 2 and Cold Steel 1 & 2, so I'm woefully out of my depth with this discussion but just to throw my take in...

I personally like Laura the most, I've always been a sucker for the warrior ladies, but to try and take a slightly more balanced stance I'd say the one thing Laura has over any of the other girls is simply that hers is the only relationship that has relatively little active romance in it (at least compared to Alisa). It simply feels like Laura and Rean were friends first, which makes the growth of the relationship much more powerful for me.
While I can absolutely see why people like Alisa, and I can see how she could arguably be the 'best' partner for Rean the problem with her as I see it is that she's rarely given an oppourtunity as a character to be more that the designated love interest. That's not to say she has no character, but my favorite bits of hers were always the parts where she just got to be Alisa, rather than Rean's girlfriend. Basically it seemed to me that Alisa was a character that started as a love interest, then had her characterisation built off that, and the effect is just lacking something that characters like Laura and Towa did have.

As for the Laura Gaius thing... I can certainly see the logic but Gaius is... just so BORING. Maybe he gets better in CS3 & 4 but in 1 & 2 he just gets nothing. The closest we get to seeing what feels like a genuine, raw emotion from him is on his desire to protect his homeland; out of all the class Gaius is the only one I feel I don't understand. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but I have a hard time picturing Gaius with anyone simply because he hasn't even had enough development on his relationship with Rean, let alone the rest of the class.

Whew... that went on longer than I expected, sorry that I can't provide anything more concrete, I just feel that AlisaxRean just... lacks something, a soul almost; it ticks all the boxes, and makes sense on paper, I just don't feel it.
Hopefully that wasn't too confusing.

Of course that's probably to be expected from trying to apply rational reasoning to an emotional decision.

[jclosed]

Hmm... Well - I can certainly see why Laura is a great girl for Rean. Their "moment of confession" is one of the best bonding scenes - If not the best.

However - It's certain that the developers have put Alisa in the number one spot as Rean's love interest. They make it even more obvious in one of the "departing" scenes. If you choose an girl, any of the remaining girls just say "see you" in a warm tone. The only one that actually is tearing up in that scene, when not coosen as love interest, is Alisa. It's only a short moment, but it's unmistakable. She's the only one in that circumstance that's really heartbroken, while the others are only just a bit sad.

Anyway - It remains to be seen if the choices have any weight in Cold Steel 3 and 4. I think that we only really can tell how that will turn out once the English translations for those games will be released. I am afraid that will not be done in the nearby future (more likely end 2019 or 2020). So - In the end the only thing we can do to give that final answer is simply waiting for those releases.

[butterbattle22]

Originally posted by oguz.gungor96:

Meanwhile with Ellie they always look at eachother forgetting others are there. Hell the first time Loyd sees Ellie in Ao no Kiseki they pretty much lose themselves and forget the others are there.

And again I wanna stress, LOYD loses himself while looking at Ellie , it's not just Ellie. With every other girl , its just them while Loyd is being the dense goofball that he is, meanwhile Randy is dying out of jealousy.

That is.....a very good point. I don't have a counter-argument for that, lol.

Well....okay, if I were forced to say something, I'd offer that the fanservice argument also works in reverse. If I wasn't going to canonically pair up the protagonist until the end of Ao, then I might as well ship what's the available in the meantime. I know that's not going to sound convincing, but that's all I got right now.

Man, I was really hoping for additional Crossbell input instead of just the flood gates of Laura. Is she more popular than I remember? I seem to recall more Towa and Sara comments the last time I was in a thread like this. Not to mention the immortal, "Fie is best girl. Prove me wrong. You can't."

Don't get me wrong, Laura is my favorite too. But, as I've already explained, the quality of the waifu is not synonymous with their compatability with the main character. If wearing the pants of the male mc is your shake, that's fine, but it's irrelevant to what I'm trying to discuss. Some of y'all are confusing the two. And by some of y'all, I mean Bravozuluf. Lol. Dude, pretty much your entire essay is just bashing Alisa (but in a relatively fair way I guess) and praising Laura. This is exactly what I was talking about in my OP. Your only real comment on why they're a good pairing is that she's strong and they use swords.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by butterbattle22:

Originally posted by oguz.gungor96:

Meanwhile with Ellie they always look at eachother forgetting others are there. Hell the first time Loyd sees Ellie in Ao no Kiseki they pretty much lose themselves and forget the others are there.

And again I wanna stress, LOYD loses himself while looking at Ellie , it's not just Ellie. With every other girl , its just them while Loyd is being the dense goofball that he is, meanwhile Randy is dying out of jealousy.

That is.....a very good point. I don't have a counter-argument for that, lol.

Well....okay, if I were forced to say something, I'd offer that the fanservice argument also works in reverse. If I wasn't going to canonically pair up the protagonist until the end of Ao, then I might as well ship what's the available in the meantime. I know that's not going to sound convincing, but that's all I got right now.

Man, I was really hoping for additional Crossbell input instead of just the flood gates of Laura. Is she more popular than I remember? I seem to recall more Towa and Sara comments the last time I was in a thread like this. Not to mention the immortal, "Fie is best girl. Prove me wrong. You can't."

Don't get me wrong, Laura is my favorite too. But, as I've already explained, the quality of the waifu is not synonymous with their compatability with the main character. If wearing the pants of the male mc is your shake, that's fine, but it's irrelevant to what I'm trying to discuss. Some of y'all are confusing the two. And by some of y'all, I mean Bravozuluf. Lol. Dude, pretty much your entire essay is just bashing Alisa (but in a relatively fair way I guess) and praising Laura. Your only real comment on why they're a good pairing is that she's strong and they use swords.

Sorry for taking a dump on your Crossbell pairing :D but I had to. Who knows though falcom might change their mind one day but like I said, if we look at the interactions in the Crossbell games then Loyd and Ellie is most likely the cannon one. Rixia was probably in divertissement because she is the sneaky fighter and not to mention the story of the trails universe is very detailed. They even tell what everyone is doing during that cutscene. So Rixia was probably the only one available. Also again , cough plot cough (that is some good rendering).

I might as well give my opinion on other relationships in the Crossbell games.

Tio: She is the sister. Its not until the final bonding event in Ao , that Loyd shows any interest in her as a lover. Even the final event in Zero is just him making a promise with an innocent idea of "oh she wanna go there and have fun :D"

Noel: I don't see it. Sure we have the whole Loyd saying "you will be mine" but that is more of him being a dense harem protaganist.

Wazy: I wish but Loyd is not gay and we can't force him to be gay.

Randy: He is the bro and his final event is my favorite in the whole game. Even if I had to compare it to the ones in CS 1 and 2 , his final bonding event is still my favorite.

Ellie: I already talked about her. I can give more examples but it won't add anything at this point probably.

Cecil: She is his big sister , sure he admires her beauty but thats just it. I admire the beauty of a lot people but that doesn't mean I love them.

KeA: For some reason they add in a few dialouges in Ao no Kiseki where KeA shows interest in Loyd as a lover but I don't like it at all. In Zero No Kiseki we had a scene where she gets confused and asks Loyd whether he is her father or not. Please falcom , keep it like a parental relationship. It is adorable and amazing , lets not go the route that one manga did with a similar relationship. Loyd is KeA's father , leave it at that please Falcom......

The other girls and boys: They are people he likes , cares about , friends.

[butterbattle22]

Originally posted by oguz.gungor96:

Sorry for taking a dump on your Crossbell pairing :D but I had to.

Haha, you should say 'you're welcome' instead of 'sorry.' This is like the main thing I was fishing for with this thread. In fact, now I'm doubting myself but I'm not convinced either. D***, I might have to wait in limbo until CS IV now. No spoilers, everyone.

Unless....someone else writes a better argument and convinces me one way or the other. I'm all ears.

Wazy: I wish but Loyd is not gay and we can't force him to be gay.

Oh snap, almost forgot. This was the canon pairing all along, duh. XD

KeA: For some reason they add in a few dialouges in Ao no Kiseki where KeA shows interest in Loyd as a lover but I don't like it at all. In Zero No Kiseki we had a scene where she gets confused and asks Loyd whether he is her father or not. Please falcom , keep it like a parental relationship. It is adorable and amazing , lets not go the route that one manga did with a similar relationship. Loyd is KeA's father , leave it at that please Falcom......

I completely agree with that sentiment.

Oh s***, are you talking about Usagi Drop? Ugh...

In that case, what do you think about Agate / Tita? Falcom seems to be implying it.

[Oguzhan]

Originally posted by butterbattle22:

Originally posted by oguz.gungor96:

Sorry for taking a dump on your Crossbell pairing :D but I had to.

Haha, you should say 'you're welcome' instead of 'sorry.' This is like the main thing I was fishing for with this thread. In fact, now I'm doubting myself but I'm not convinced either. D***, I might have to wait in limbo until CS IV now. No spoilers, everyone.

Unless....someone else writes a better argument and convinces me one way or the other. I'm all ears.

Wazy: I wish but Loyd is not gay and we can't force him to be gay.

Oh snap, almost forgot. This was the canon pairing all along, duh. XD

KeA: For some reason they add in a few dialouges in Ao no Kiseki where KeA shows interest in Loyd as a lover but I don't like it at all. In Zero No Kiseki we had a scene where she gets confused and asks Loyd whether he is her father or not. Please falcom , keep it like a parental relationship. It is adorable and amazing , lets not go the route that one manga did with a similar relationship. Loyd is KeA's father , leave it at that please Falcom......

I completely agree with that sentiment.

Oh s***, are you talking about Usagi Drop? Ugh...

In that case, what do you think about Agate / Tita? Falcom seems to be implying it.

We don't know what their relationship is like.

The next sentence has spoilers , not major:


I have asked people who have played CS3 and it seems like it still them teasing us and not sure. Apperantly every other character still tease Agate about it and he constantly shuts them up.


Anyway my opinions on it:

If they are a couple: Agate is 12 years older than Tita. And I honestly think if this is a thing , right now its probably just one sided from Tita. HOWEVER that being said I have seen people getting married to someone that is like 10 years older than them (both are adults but still the age gap is there). So I guess if they wait for her to be an adult I can't really argue about it but still. Something tells me this is the relationship that they have though considering how focused Tita is on the matter. Like if you have seen the wedding event in SC , Tita is damn dedicated to get that thing (was it broom? I am foreign so not sure anyway its the flower thing). Not to mention in one of the audio drama CD's after hearing Agate is in danger Tita loses her ♥♥♥♥! Like she takes the Orbal Gear and RUSHES there!

If they have a bro-sis relationship : I would prefer this one. Perhaps Tita , one day, grows out of it (I mean lets face it children falling in love with an older person that they trust is not something new , of course older person better stay out of it...) and they become like a true bro-sis.


Soooo yeah that is my opinion on the matter. In the end its a game universe and as long as they don't make it too weird I am fine with either. Because they have had a lot of developement you know. Its not something there just to make a perverted relationship for more attention. If it was real life I would be 100% against it though. I didn't say anything for those marriges that I saw but in those both sides were adults and loved eachother. If one is an adult and the other is not , no amount of love would make me accept it , I am calling the cops.