Falcom Games (Legend Of Heroes/Ys/Xanadu etc.)

[Raylen Cypher]

Just started the Final Chapter of Trails in the Sky, they really know how to do hooks well and keep you playing until you fall asleep. One of the great things this did for me though, was adding more info to my understanding of the background in Erebonia for the Bracer Guild's branch nullification.

Also, I finally searched enough to have a visual idea of Zemuria's Continent Map. It seems all this stuff happens in the West and we haven't even fully explored beyond the Holy Nation of Alteria (center of Zemuria).

[Raylen Cypher]

Late, but...

http://www.esterior.net/2017/01/joyo...am-greenlight/

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfile...711/1483686765

P-Please... don't let this be just a dream.

[Akyuu]

Holy shit, if Ao is on PC then it really isn't a dream anymore. IIRC that really was the only big hurdle (aside from actually translating the damn games) for the Crossbell duology to be brought over.

It's (not quite yet) happening!

[Raylen Cypher]

They uploaded a gameplay video on the Steam page.

[Mattias]

I'm on the Final Chapter of Cold Steel now, and I face a dilemma. Should I move right on to CSII, or sate my OCD and rerun the game overpowered in order to 100% the social links and everything?

[Raylen Cypher]

I'm on the Final Chapter of Cold Steel now, and I face a dilemma. Should I move right on to CSII, or sate my OCD and rerun the game overpowered in order to 100% the social links and everything?

That's up to you, but I bet you'll continue on to Cold Steel II immediately after finishing the game. Falcom has this certain notoriety with the first games' endings' of every Trails arc to the frustration of players, lol.

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Even if you don't replay the first game to see all Bond Events, someone already played and uploaded all Bond Events on YouTube I'm sure. I know one guy uploaded all Dance Events and Max Bond Events for Cold Steel 2.

[Mattias]

Just finished Cold Steel I. Now that's a cliffhanger. Even knowing what was coming, it was still great to see, even if it did turn from Attack on Titan to Code Geass levels of tech in that last chapter. Or would that just be Escaflowne? Anyways, I'm going back and running through all the other choices for the final dance to get their scenes and then I guess on to the sequel. The only characters I ended up not maxing out S-Link were the ones who annoyed me most or joined late, so Machias, Jusis, Crow, and Millium.

[Akyuu]

Since I'm making fairly slow progress on the sequel so far myself, I'll warn you: I don't think CSII so far is quite as fun. Maybe it gets really good by near the end, but even from the beginning, CS 1 at least had me charmed, whereas outside of some moments CS 2 has generally felt a bit more subpar. It's a Trails game so I'll definitely finish it and you should too but depending on your tastes CSII might be kinda unbearable for a while.

[Raylen Cypher]

Just in case for IRUn's protection.

Cold Steel II

[The definite highlights for me was Act 1, Intermission, Act 3, Divertissement, and of course Epilogue. It followed the 3 Act formula which is fine and common in the majority of stories.

Act 1: I liked this especially after the heartfelt separation of Class VII at the end of Cold Steel. Rean searching and regathering his friends/classmates was really rewarding in itself naturally. (All the reunions touched me in some way.)

Intermission: I loved the opportunity to get to know the antagonists. Rean's ultimate epiphany and gaining Spirit Unification. And of course, that awesome stalemate between everyone aboard the Pantagruel.

Act 2: Aside from the Shrine Dungeon Crawls, it was fine. The Rising Action part did it's job showing the escalating confrontations between the Erebonian Army and the Noble Alliance.]

even if it did turn from Attack on Titan to Code Geass levels

Remember, the Orbal Revolution saw breakthrough in technology in just 50 Years.

[Laserman]

Action RPG Tokyo Xanadu Coming to PS4 and PS Vita This Year

[Akyuu]

Cold Steel II

[The definite highlights for me was Act 1, Intermission, Act 3, Divertissement, and of course Epilogue. It followed the 3 Act formula which is fine and common in the majority of stories.

Act 1: I liked this especially after the heartfelt separation of Class VII at the end of Cold Steel. Rean searching and regathering his friends/classmates was really rewarding in itself naturally. (All the reunions touched me in some way.)

Intermission: I loved the opportunity to get to know the antagonists. Rean's ultimate epiphany and gaining Spirit Unification. And of course, that awesome stalemate between everyone aboard the Pantagruel.

Act 2: Aside from the Shrine Dungeon Crawls, it was fine. The Rising Action part did it's job showing the escalating confrontations between the Erebonian Army and the Noble Alliance.]

CSII

I'm only up to the end of Act 2 myself(finished it yesterday night). I vehemently disagree about Act 1, which I feel was handled horribly. I wish it didn't rush through reuniting Class VII back together as quickly as it did. The reunion with Machias felt truly touching, but I feel there wasn't enough buildup between that and the next reunion and so on and by the time I got to Jusis it felt rather lackluster. I wish there was more challenge to finding each Class VII member. Like if Jusis was a lot more serious about not joining them again at first, that would've been nice or if they didn't all reunite by the end of Act 1. Another thing is that for Act I, the hub town is Ymir and its NPCs feel a lot less interesting than Trista's, most likely partially because it's only the hub town for Act 1.

Intermission was fine, no real problem with that. Interesting insight on some of the villain characters(Phantom Thief in particular).

Act 2 feels almost criminal in some aspects. Because your party choices are so flexible, each optional party member's lines feel a lot more generic which makes sense because they can't plan minor events around any particular character since they might not be on the player's party at any given moment. Some characters are locked on to the party for specific parts but that's mainly to remedy the problem for more major scenes and plot points. The really minor scenes (the heart and soul of Trails games) feel less charming like there was less effort put into each line.

Act 2 did some things great though. Getting on the Courageous for the first time felt absolutely amazing. Finding your non-Class VII classmates at first felt absolutely amazing too, and the game becoming a lot more open-world than before felt like the world really had expanded. Then the repetitiveness of each cycle starts to wear down. Also the story sections (seizing each new city you previously went to in the previous game) after you complete all the side quests feel poorly developed and went by a bit too quickly, especially the Trista one. And the Shrine temple marathon near the end was atrocious. It was much worse than Sky SC's temple runs.

I think, if I hadn't heard about how CSII was supposedly so much better than CSI or something I'd feel a bit better about the game(although the problems I have with it so far wouldn't change). But honestly so far this is the weakest Trails game yet. I like CS. It may feel really anime-trope-y but I felt a certain charm to its high school setting that made me love it as much as the Sky games even during its earlier hours.

But then again I haven't finished it and now that I'm done with Act 2 I might make progress a lot more quickly.

[Mattias]

Action RPG Tokyo Xanadu Coming to PS4 and PS Vita This Year

Well that's a surprise. I'd heard that there was a close to zero chance of that series getting localized.



The again, I'd also heard the same thing about Yakuza in the past, but here they are.

[Mellon]

Tokyo Xanadu localization (for the PC at least) was already announced last year. The "new" news here is that the PS4 (and PC version, I think) is the EX+ version, an enhanced port with updates like 60fps and more story content/sidestories.

[Raylen Cypher]

Late, but...

I might replay JPCC if there's Laura or Sara Arcana, lol.

CSII

I'm only up to the end of Act 2 myself(finished it yesterday night). I vehemently disagree about Act 1, which I feel was handled horribly. I wish it didn't rush through reuniting Class VII back together as quickly as it did. The reunion with Machias felt truly touching, but I feel there wasn't enough buildup between that and the next reunion and so on and by the time I got to Jusis it felt rather lackluster. I wish there was more challenge to finding each Class VII member. Like if Jusis was a lot more serious about not joining them again at first, that would've been nice or if they didn't all reunite by the end of Act 1. Another thing is that for Act I, the hub town is Ymir and its NPCs feel a lot less interesting than Trista's, most likely partially because it's only the hub town for Act 1.

Intermission was fine, no real problem with that. Interesting insight on some of the villain characters(Phantom Thief in particular).

Act 2 feels almost criminal in some aspects. Because your party choices are so flexible, each optional party member's lines feel a lot more generic which makes sense because they can't plan minor events around any particular character since they might not be on the player's party at any given moment. Some characters are locked on to the party for specific parts but that's mainly to remedy the problem for more major scenes and plot points. The really minor scenes (the heart and soul of Trails games) feel less charming like there was less effort put into each line.

Act 2 did some things great though. Getting on the Courageous for the first time felt absolutely amazing. Finding your non-Class VII classmates at first felt absolutely amazing too, and the game becoming a lot more open-world than before felt like the world really had expanded. Then the repetitiveness of each cycle starts to wear down. Also the story sections (seizing each new city you previously went to in the previous game) after you complete all the side quests feel poorly developed and went by a bit too quickly, especially the Trista one. And the Shrine temple marathon near the end was atrocious. It was much worse than Sky SC's temple runs.

I think, if I hadn't heard about how CSII was supposedly so much better than CSI or something I'd feel a bit better about the game(although the problems I have with it so far wouldn't change). But honestly so far this is the weakest Trails game yet. I like CS. It may feel really anime-trope-y but I felt a certain charm to its high school setting that made me love it as much as the Sky games even during its earlier hours.

But then again I haven't finished it and now that I'm done with Act 2 I might make progress a lot more quickly.

I would actually agree about ACT 1 but...

>rushed
>Trails game

Sorry, but I laughed at this. Rushed would entail the elimination of the time it took searching, the reunions, INCLUDING (this is the important part) the reactions they had with each other. And that makes all the difference in not just character writing, but even for this series which it's known for!

I don't know who told you CSII was better or whatever, but I wouldn't invest in what others say about your personal entertainment since it's exclusionary. You're the judge of whatever standards you set forth in how you enjoy things.

[Akyuu]

I guess this is where our disagreement won't disappear away. Now that I finished the game, I'm even more convinced CSII was rushed.

Not only was there not a satisfactory amount of buildup towards each reunion since Valimar made it much less of a hassle to find their locations, but aside from Machias (on virtue of being the very first guy), Alisa (for being the main girl and thus gets more screentime in their reunion) and Jusis (who actually got some development), I'm not satisfied with the rest. Elliot and Gaius in particular were shafted hard, but overall it still feeds back into the problem of Class VII having too many characters, and having their 'development' happen behind social link events. Even if they wanted to spread out all of Class VII and give each character a unique reunion scene, Falcom probably couldn't because of how long it'd take due to the size of the cast, and that's a damn shame.

I remember reading somewhere that Cold Steel was meant to be one game but the sheer size made them split it into two (which also apparently happened when they were making Sky FC and SC), which explains a fair amount. This time, where CS1 ended didn't feel like the halfway point. There wasn't enough story after that to make a full game. It had a strong start due to how CS1 ended but as I kept playing it kept dragging longer and longer to the point where I barely cared. Instead they could've not had a reunion of all the characters in Act I and put some of them in Act II, that could've filled some time, and they could've cut down on the amount of dungeoning we had to go through. They could've also made the city operations more interesting. Usually, after doing all the NPC missions and commencing, it'd take an hour or two tops to finish, and a significant chunk of that is dungeons.

In the end my assessment of CSII remains the same. It's by far the weakest Trails game I've played, which I suppose still means it's a Trails game I enjoyed, but the issues in this one are far more crippling than the other three translated titles.

Also McBurn is dumb.

[Mattias]

Not only was there not a satisfactory amount of buildup towards each reunion since Valimar made it much less of a hassle to find their locations, but aside from Machias (on virtue of being the very first guy), Alisa (for being the main girl and thus gets more screentime in their reunion) and Jusis (who actually got some development), I'm not satisfied with the rest. Elliot and Gaius in particular were shafted hard, but overall it still feeds back into the problem of Class VII having too many characters, and having their 'development' happen behind social link events. Even if they wanted to spread out all of Class VII and give each character a unique reunion scene, Falcom probably couldn't because of how long it'd take due to the size of the cast, and that's a damn shame.

I'm still on the Jusis retrieval mission right now, but I thought most of the reunions were pretty well done. The only one's I though were lackluster were Alisa and Millium, and even Millium was at least fun to have her back. Or maybe it was just because I had Claire in my party.

[PheonixKing]

Ahh... this franchise hold some fond and bad memories for me. Their really great games. But everytime I start playing one of them, the god damn system I'm playing on breaks while I'm halfway through the games. My old PC for trails in the sky and my vita for trails of cold steel. Wonder if I'm cursed to never complete any of the games.

The last time I stopped was when oliver joined the party for the competition in the last chapter of the first game of trails in the sky. How long left till I finish the game? I might either just watch a playthrough of the rest of the game or get back into it... hoping my pc does break again.

[Raylen Cypher]

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[Raylen Cypher]

New info incoming, and a new project?

[Raylen Cypher]

Interview with Falcom's President, Toshihiro Kondo. The short URL Link is to the English Article.

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Welp, I should look before posting, because the interview is a year old. I just assumed it was new because the official Falcom twitter tweeted it. My bad.