This is some convoluted anime nonsense plot

[stenzel2729]

I love these games and I played them all in a row - 1, 2, and then 3, and it felt great and the plot made sense right up until about halfway through this game. It felt like we were really building to something good and it felt like I was finally going to get some answers in this 3rd installment. Unfortunately the answers I got were nonsense - as were the plans of the villains and the motivations behind them (at least the ones whose motivations are actually explained). Most of the answers you get only give you more questions. Characters that should be dead aren't and characters end up dead for seemingly nonsensical reasons. At this point it feels like they're totally going off the rails and don't know how to conclude things properly. It's like they're more concerned with looking cool than making sense. This game is still great, but the writing, especially the nonsense ending, has really soured the next game for me. I'm too invested not to get the next one, but I'm really disappointed with the direction they went in.

[Mistfox]

Join the queue, it's a pretty long one.
And just as a slight spoiler No one really dies.
It is starting to look like it's a deus ex machina ending where everyone lives happily ever after is in the works. Or at least for those girls that manage to get into Rean's pants. The others just have to watch jealously by the side. It's getting to such a point that I won't even dare to introduce Rean to a kitten if it is female. It's like the entire female population of Zemuria is in heat....

[Koby]

I agree that the story has ended up very poorly. Falcom is too terrified to kill off any character fans might like so they pull off deus ex machina one after the other telling you a character died only to immediately show they're not dead in the next installment. We have a full blown war and absolutely no one actually dies aside from some no-named NPCs. We have an entire airship explode and apparently no one on it died despite it being blasted into tiny smithereens and there being no way out of it. We see multiple characters pierced through the heart and die only to be alive like nothing ever happened. We see a character literally die and turn into a sword only to be alive and well later. The story turned into some craptastic light-hearted kids dream before our eyes. Despite the games being extremely fun gameplay-wise, despite the characters being extremely developed and likeable, we get a pretty crap story. It's still a fun series to play, and it's still something I recommend to people who love turn-based jrpg's, but the story is such a joke that the series has fallen so low that it wouldn't even make a top 20 cut in my opinion for jrpg stories.

[RapidFirE]

There has been a huge drop off in writing quality since the Crossbell games. I think war was too complex of a theme for Falcom to pull off and as a result, the story and world in the CS games are very unbelievable. I haven't played CS4 since I don't know Japanese, but from the impressions of people who have played it, it sounds like most of the problems with the writing persist.

I'm hoping the next arc will be better, but a lot of people seem to like these sappy light hearted stories involving checkbox protagonists and main characters with massive plot armor that pretty much never have to deal with anything negative long term.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by RapidFirE:

There has been a huge drop off in writing quality since the Crossbell games.

I think CS 1 and 2 would have been ok as a story, except for 2 things. 1- The absolute ridiculousness of you needing to be saved non-stop, it gets old and 2- If they had the damn common sense to leave a certain character alone after people had a cry over the person's death. Bringing that person back with a "he wasn't really dead" cheapens the emotional investment people have to the story. With too many people coming back from the dead, I bet the next time Falcom really offs someone, no one will believe it and what might have been a real sad scene would end up being ignored because they cried wolf too often.

And a slight correction. Lots of fans are not fond of this new direction in story telling. While "a lot of people" may like it, there is an even larger chunk of people that are shaking their heads over the mess.

[Reeno]

I think the direction of this franchise will be to never really end the main plot, and just keep releasing kiseki games milking the core weeb whale fanbase over and over. Their DLC policy seems to suggest this as well. Sales numbers are very low for a big title like this, and their discounts never go below 20-30% which could mean they're not interested in expanding the playerbase.
Oh and didn't one of the devs confirm that they have cliffhangers on purpose so people are more likely to buy the next game?
Also expect a gacha game out of this sometime in the future. There are already playable kiseki characters in at least one of them. The ♥♥♥♥ know that gacha is where the real money is right now, so I wouldnt put it past falcom to jump on the bandwagon.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by DiddleMeTimbers:

The ♥♥♥♥ know that gacha is where the real money is right now

The ♥♥♥♥ have always known that gacha games is where the money is, ever since the gacha ball machines where you put money in and get a "ball" with an unknown toy out. lol. That was since the 80s so "right now" is a bit old. More like it's always been the gambling cash cow.

[Evil Gambio]

Originally posted by DiddleMeTimbers:

I think the direction of this franchise will be to never really end the main plot, and just keep releasing kiseki games milking the core weeb whale fanbase over and over. Their DLC policy seems to suggest this as well. Sales numbers are very low for a big title like this, and their discounts never go below 20-30% which could mean they're not interested in expanding the playerbase.
Oh and didn't one of the devs confirm that they have cliffhangers on purpose so people are more likely to buy the next game?
Also expect a gacha game out of this sometime in the future. There are already playable kiseki characters in at least one of them. The ♥♥♥♥ know that gacha is where the real money is right now, so I wouldnt put it past falcom to jump on the bandwagon.

That game is called Akatsuki no Kiseki. It is however a japanese exclusive.

[RDG]

Originally posted by stenzel2729:

I love these games and I played them all in a row - 1, 2, and then 3, and it felt great and the plot made sense right up until about halfway through this game. It felt like we were really building to something good and it felt like I was finally going to get some answers in this 3rd installment. Unfortunately the answers I got were nonsense - as were the plans of the villains and the motivations behind them (at least the ones whose motivations are actually explained). Most of the answers you get only give you more questions. Characters that should be dead aren't and characters end up dead for seemingly nonsensical reasons. At this point it feels like they're totally going off the rails and don't know how to conclude things properly. It's like they're more concerned with looking cool than making sense. This game is still great, but the writing, especially the nonsense ending, has really soured the next game for me. I'm too invested not to get the next one, but I'm really disappointed with the direction they went in.

You should try the actual Zero/Ao no Kiseki (Crossbell games) fan translations, I had a very good time with both of them.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by RDG:

Originally posted by stenzel2729:

I love these games and I played them all in a row - 1, 2, and then 3, and it felt great and the plot made sense right up until about halfway through this game. It felt like we were really building to something good and it felt like I was finally going to get some answers in this 3rd installment. Unfortunately the answers I got were nonsense - as were the plans of the villains and the motivations behind them (at least the ones whose motivations are actually explained). Most of the answers you get only give you more questions. Characters that should be dead aren't and characters end up dead for seemingly nonsensical reasons. At this point it feels like they're totally going off the rails and don't know how to conclude things properly. It's like they're more concerned with looking cool than making sense. This game is still great, but the writing, especially the nonsense ending, has really soured the next game for me. I'm too invested not to get the next one, but I'm really disappointed with the direction they went in.

You should try the actual Zero/Ao no Kiseki (Crossbell games) fan translations, I had a very good time with both of them.

That's not the point. The point is where the story is going. Sky, Zero, CS 1 was all ok because they dared to take on the hard edgy topics of murder, realpolitics and child prostitution and double dealing but CS2 and 3 onwards they seem to have lost the courage to take extreme stands and backtracked on a lot of the emotional moments that got us invested in the story in the first place. "Well played Ambrust" was emotional. Then wasted. Then C, then the reverse in CS3. All the emotional investment was sort of spat on and discarded. You do not get players invested in an emotional scene with a character then later go "Psych! Joke's on you! We were just faking!".

It's about as funny as having a fake funeral. Which is only funny to people not involved.

[RapidFirE]

I would argue that the lack of emotional investment extends to the fights as well. At least in Sky and Crossbell games, it seemed like the bosses were legitimately dangerous and out to kill you; the stakes seemed high in most fights. In CS, it's usually some variation of someone else saving you, the boss dusting themselves off after the fight and declaring that they are "out of time" and have to leave, or the boss just give ups and lets you go even though they don't appear to be harmed by your efforts. It just never feels like any of the fights have any gravity to them.

It's also pretty jarring to see students outside of C7 face off against Ourbouros, jaegers etc. Barely a few months of training and they can go toe to toe with the most dangerous foes the game world has to offer and then somehow walk away completely unharmed. I know these games aren't meant to be super serious war dramas with lots of violence, killing and death. Nevertheless, fighting is the focal point of these games, and the lack of any consequences from all this fighting really hurts the narrative.

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by RapidFirE:

I would argue that the lack of emotional investment extends to the fights as well. At least in Sky and Crossbell games, it seemed like the bosses were legitimately dangerous and out to kill you; the stakes seemed high in most fights. In CS, it's usually some variation of someone else saving you, the boss dusting themselves off after the fight and declaring that they are "out of time" and have to leave, or the boss just give ups and lets you go even though they don't appear to be harmed by your efforts. It just never feels like any of the fights have any gravity to them.

It's also pretty jarring to see students outside of C7 face off against Ourbouros, jaegers etc. Barely a few months of training and they can go toe to toe with the most dangerous foes the game world has to offer and then somehow walk away completely unharmed. I know these games aren't meant to be super serious war dramas with lots of violence, killing and death. Nevertheless, fighting is the focal point of these games, and the lack of any consequences from all this fighting really hurts the narrative.

So totally agree on this, it's like you swagger around because you "know" the enemy won't kill you. CS1 and 2 had the suspense of living on the edge until the Palace then it all went to pieces there. I mean, against C, you did get the feeling he was trying to kill you or at least has something up his sleeve that you don't want to happen and the Civil War did have its moments of drama. Sure, I mean Xeno and Leo did let you off but that's because Fie is family and they were hired to do a job they detested, but once you hit the Vermilion Castle level, they don't even bother with reasons any more, the enemy just does it.

And when you "win"? Well, surprise, you didn't "win". /facepalm.

They should have given it the Sara/Viscount Victor treatment from CS1 if they wanted you to lose, hit a point and they uncorks their killer skills. At least this way, you won't think you won only to go to a losing cutscene.

[Histidine]

Yeah, watching the (Chapter 1) branch campus fend off dozens of archaisms (in a nighttime surprise attack!) without any losses makes you wonder why Ouroboros bothers making those things.

For battles you're clearly not supposed to win in story: I find that CS3's "reduce enemy to X% HP" goal system works fairly well at tying it to gameplay. It sets expectations ("we don't think you're going to actually defeat them") and implies the enemy still has plenty of strength left in reserve, though it doesn't fix the in-story annoyance of why people like the Enforcers keep going easy on Rean & friends.

[Rimentez]

I still enjoy the story a lot, but could have been better. The core story and the world itself is absolutely wonderful. I do agree that "danger" and "death" can be hypocritical many times in CS series.

Whether this is relevant to the story or not, there are some things that sort of bothers me:

1) This probably applies to all legend of heroes games. Where do they hide their weapons? I find it funny people pulls out their big giant weapons out of no where and then sheath it back while the weapons are not visible anywhere on them.

I am also wondering how Kurt get to use his Panzer Soldat twin sword instead of Ash's scythe pole-arm weapon during the first Aion fight to assist Rean.

2) Rean's attracting many females are getting outrageous lol. We have Lloyd for that. I get Rean is this celebrity hero guy attracting all kind of people around the country but these girls specifically, Laura, Emma, Towa, Alfin, Duvalie maybe, Sara, Claire, Musse, and Alisa all seems to have crush on him. But Rean is not the only guy acquainted with these girls. We have Gaius, Elliot, Jusis, Machias, maybe Randy, Crow, maybe George?, Lechter?, Toval and more. You get the idea. Rean should learn from Joshua, pick one girl and that is that.

Edit: Nonetheless, I can't wait to play the 4th CS game :)

[Mistfox]

Originally posted by Altair Arcturus:

Where do they hide their weapons? I find it funny people pulls out their big giant weapons out of no where and then sheath it back while the weapons are not visible anywhere on them.

Handbags. The girls carry them in very big space folding handbags.

Some of their weapons are even bigger than the people carrying them lol.

If you want to think of the ridiculousness of it all, remember that they let people carrying swords, guns and even a mortar (Tita) into the presence of VIPs. It's like they're not worried about someone just pulling out a shotgun and blasting the VIP into the next life.

[RapidFirE]

Originally posted by Altair Arcturus:

2) Rean's attracting many females are getting outrageous lol. We have Lloyd for that. I get Rean is this celebrity hero guy attracting all kind of people around the country but these girls specifically, Laura, Emma, Towa, Alfin, Duvalie maybe, Sara, Claire, Musse, and Alisa all seems to have crush on him. But Rean is not the only guy acquainted with these girls. We have Gaius, Elliot, Jusis, Machias, maybe Randy, Crow, maybe George?, Lechter?, Toval and more. You get the idea. Rean should learn from Joshua, pick one girl and that is that.

Yeah, I feel bad for all the rest of the male characters. They all have good qualities, but the rules of Zemuria dictate that all girls must love Rean lol. Toval, Randy and maybe Lechter are taken though and can consider themselves lucky that they were introduced to the series before Rean entered the picture. Honestly, it seems like the whole world revolves around Rean too much. I guess it's because Falcom wants players to feel like the ultimate alpha male in these games or something. The main male characters, Joshua, Lloyd, and Rean, are attractive to every female character they meet (and probably some of the guys as well) and excel at pretty much everything they do. Estelle was the protagonist that felt most real to me; Kevin was also good, but 3rd wasn't a typical Trails game. Even though it seems very unlikely to happen, I wouldn't mind another female protagonist in the next arc.