FALCOM Thread

[Sumez]

Finished Trails in the Sky (first) a few days ago.
The ending was pretty meh, and I don't feel for the "cliffhanger", but I loved the journey. Can't wait to play the sequels, not to resolve the story, but to see more of the same character development, preferably building on things this game already established. Too bad the other games aren't available physically on PSP in English. 3rd being PC only especially sucks

Would people recommend breaking things up and play the first Cold Steel inbetween, or should I move straight through Skies first?

[Durandal]

https://twitter.com/NISAinEurope/status ... 9616930816
Starring the young protagonist, Adol the Young.

[FinalBaton]

So so young. Impressive...

[soprano1]

Because Japan, he will be FOREVER YOUNG!

[KAI]

Would people recommend breaking things up and play the first Cold Steel inbetween, or should I move straight through Skies first?

Play the rest of the Sky series first, Cold Steel is full of spoilers.
If you liked the character development and want more of that kind of stuff, don't waste more time and play SC right now!

[Sumez]

Thanks KAI. Should have picked up SC last time I was on offer in the PSN store.
Already got Cold Steel 1 lying around...

[KAI]

http://store.steampowered.com/app/53868 ... old_Steel/
Release Date: Jul 2017

[KAI]

Falcom President Wants to Release Missing "The Legend of Heroes" Games in The West
Oh Kondo, u da best <3

Just when the machine translated patch of Zero no Kiseki has been leaked...

[gameoverDude]

Got Tokyo Xanadu LE on Vita a few days ago. It's good. The VOs are all in Japanese (I don't mind... and in fact it's appropriate IMO, with this being set in Japan). I've seen a rare typo or two but that's something Aksys could fix given a little time.

With the LE you get a Blade card game deck, a JDK soundtrack CD, an artbook, and a Morimaru plush.

I'm going to double dip... I want the Vita one for a portable version, and the PC one for the best version. The PC/PS4 ones are to offer an extra Calamity difficulty level that's not on Vita.

That Kondo wants to get the missing TLOH titles westbound is awesome. With the step-up on Falcom games coming out here (3rd, Cold Steel I & II PC, Zwei II+, Tokyo Xanadu on Vita/PC/PS4, and likewise for Ys VIII), I believe this news. I'd almost bet the modified Trails in the Sky engine from XSEED could be used for porting over Ao & Zero.

[KAI]

Ys Seven coming to Steam
Meh.

I'm playing Zero no Kiseki right now and I'm loving it, almost as much as Sora FC and SC. Xseed please give us AO localized before 2020.

[FinalBaton]

Ys Seven is also nothing exciting to me

[soprano1]

Ys Seven coming to Steam
Meh.

I'm playing Zero no Kiseki right now and I'm loving it, almost as much as Sora FC and SC. Xseed please give us AO localized before 2020.

It's not the Chinese port with the translation added on top, that's a bonus for me.

[soprano1]

https://youtu.be/EXU43zhZc6A
Ys Seven PC trailer.

[gameoverDude]

I'm fairly glad about Ys Seven. I see 60 FPS in the trailer, NOT 30. Some parts of it have been touched up a bit. This is being done de novo, and not from Joyoland's PC port.
All it needs is a high res texture pack, which the modder community could take care of.

[soprano1]

This is being done de novo, and not from Joyoland's PC port.

Yep, they confirmed it when it was announced.

[gameoverDude]

Trails of Cold Steel for PC is a lot better than the PS3 one. Uncompressed textures, 60 FPS, and no-limit draw distance do a lot along with the other graphics settings.

The maximum preset takes a decent amount of VRAM. Running at 1440p using a GeForce 1080, my VRAM usage went to almost 3.5 GB in Celdic. I'm guessing for 4K or 5K resolutions, it's best to use the 1080 Ti or higher.

Kaldaien at Steam forums has said that the HQ DOF gets expensive when you're cranking the resolution up to 4K.

[gameoverDude]

One thing to look out for in Trails of Cold Steel III: Certain enemies will be able to use S-Break against you. To do so, they must have gone into an Enhanced state. That also causes them to take less damage, get Criticals on all landed hits, etc.

Enemies have another gauge that causes Break status when depleted. Do that, then they'll drop items at the time of entering Break, take extra damage, have their current buffs canceled, and a 100% chance of "losing their posture" (unbalance... I guess?). There's a good chance of rare items being dropped. "Breaking" an enemy causes them to lose Enhanced state as well.

Using high Break rate Crafts and Arts that target an enemy's weakness help lower the Break gauge quicker.

[BulletMagnet]

So after a lengthy cool-down period I had another shot at the Cold Steel boss I was griping about, just to say I gave the game a fair shake (y'know, after several dozen hours to even get to this point)...yeah, I'm done. The bugger would be difficult even without the status effect tidal wave, but if you don't load up on the necessary accessories in advance (which you'd have no inclination to do without consulting a guide) he's nearly impossible, and since you can't leave the dungeon he's in you can't even backtrack to fix your "mistake". Sorry Falcom, you're supposed to be better than this, and despite its promising qualities Cold Steel is officially off my radar.

[Mero]

Don't you have anything in your inventory that can help you?

[BulletMagnet]

I had 2 accessories that null sleep and nightmare, and one other that just nulls sleep; unfortunately, since the boss's endless-spawn (and seemingly dodge-happy, unless that was just my awful luck) lackeys can also inflict Confuse (didn't bother to check what I had to resist that), not to mention the whole "remove a character from battle for several turns, steal all their HP and drop their now CP-less corpse onto the ground before moving on to the next character" maneuver, they weren't anywhere near enough, I was totally destroyed just as bad as the last time around. Theoretically I could grind away and come up with some combination of characters/equipment to squeak past the bugger, but I'm honestly too disappointed in the game to even want to try; I've got plenty of other games in my backlog, no need to force myself to finish this one "just because".

[KAI]

LoH Cold Steel 3 trailer
So much hype!

I'm about to finish Trails The 3rd and I can't wait to get into Zero/Ao and Sen without spoiling anything.

[gameoverDude]

So after a lengthy cool-down period I had another shot at the Cold Steel boss I was griping about, just to say I gave the game a fair shake (y'know, after several dozen hours to even get to this point)...yeah, I'm done. The bugger would be difficult even without the status effect tidal wave, but if you don't load up on the necessary accessories in advance (which you'd have no inclination to do without consulting a guide) he's nearly impossible, and since you can't leave the dungeon he's in you can't even backtrack to fix your "mistake". Sorry Falcom, you're supposed to be better than this, and despite its promising qualities Cold Steel is officially off my radar.

I'll save before entering a dungeon, and make sure not to overwrite it. Especially in this case.

Spoiler

I've seen some interesting items available at a shop in Chapter 4 that can resist several statuses. I want these SO bad. They're not cheap, but affordable with a good bit of Sepith Mass farming.

ToCS III looks good, and I'm sure XSEED will get this done. I'd guess by late 2019, but if they can do it sooner (Q4 2018), great. It wouldn't be a shock to see XSEED get PS4 & PC versions of CS III out together, similarly to what NISA is doing with Ys VIII.

[Sumez]

I'm just over here waiting for SC to go on sale.

[CIT]

So what do people think of Tokyo Xanadu? I'm about 7h in, and I LOVE the dungeons and the combat, but the social sim part really isn't grabbing me. The plot just seems really run-of-the-mill anime cliché, while also being extremely long winded. I was super hype for the game's action segments, but unfortunately they seem to only make up about 30% of overall playtime.

[gameoverDude]

So what do people think of Tokyo Xanadu? I'm about 7h in, and I LOVE the dungeons and the combat, but the social sim part really isn't grabbing me. The plot just seems really run-of-the-mill anime cliché, while also being extremely long winded. I was super hype for the game's action segments, but unfortunately they seem to only make up about 30% of overall playtime.

I like it. With it taking place in Tokyo, keeping the Japanese voiceovers for TX does kind of add to the atmosphere. Though no Ys, it's still darn good and JDK delivers as always.

[soprano1]

Is it necessary to play the Trails in the Sky trilogy to understand the story in Trails of Cold Steel?

[Sumez]

I was asking something similar earlier. Supposedly Cold Steel kinda spoils a few things from Sky, since they take place in the same universe, but AFAIK the stories are quite separate and don't require knowledge of the previous. I know a lot of people who enjoyed Cold Steel without ever having played Sky.

[soprano1]

I was asking something similar earlier. Supposedly Cold Steel kinda spoils a few things from Sky, since they take place in the same universe, but AFAIK the stories are quite separate and don't require knowledge of the previous. I know a lot of people who enjoyed Cold Steel without ever having played Sky.

OK, thanks. I finished FC, but never started SC or Third.

[CIT]

Is it necessary to play the Trails in the Sky trilogy to understand the story in Trails of Cold Steel?

No, like Sumez said there are some cross-references, but nothing major.

This is the way the LoH series is split up:

Original Series:
Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes — Actually part VI of the Dragon Slayer series. Also released for TurboGrafx-CD in USA.
Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes II — Never localized. Sequel, but can be played without having played the first.

Gagharv Trilogy:
The Legend of Heroes III: Shiroki Majo (= The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch)
The Legend of Heroes IV: Akai Shizuku (= The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion)
The Legend of Heroes V: Umi no Oriuta (= The Legend of Heroes III: Song of the Ocean)
The Gagharv games can be played in any order, although they cross-reference each other as they're set in the same world. For some reason the US release switched parts III and IV around. LoH III also got a remake on Sega Saturn by Hudson Soft.

At this point Legend of Heroes became better known as the Kiseki series. All mainline Kiseki games are set in different countries in the world Zemuria.

Kiseki/Trails Series: Trails in the Sky Trilogy:
The Legend of Heroes VI: Sora No Kiseki (= The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky)
The Legend of Heroes VI: Sora No Kiseki Second Chapter (= The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC)
The Legend of Heroes VI: Sora No Kiseki The 3rd (= The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky The Third)
Need to be played in order.

Kiseki/Trails Series: Crossbell Duology:
The Legend of Heroes VII: Zero No Kiseki
The Legend of Heroes VII: Ao No Kiseki
Never officially localized. Need to be played in order.

Kiseki/Trails Series: Erebonia Trilogy:
The Legend of Heroes: Sen No Kiseki (= The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel)
The Legend of Heroes: Sen No Kiseki II (= The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel II)
The Legend of Heroes: Sen No Kiseki III (= The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III)
Need to be played in order.

The Legend of Heroes: Akatsuki no Kiseki (MMO not developed by Falcom)

Spinoffs:

Nayuta No Kiseki — Despite the title, has nothing to do with the other Kiseki games, neither in story nor gameplay. Great title though!
Ys vs. Sora no Kiseki: Alternative Saga — Fighting game similar to Power Stone. It just mashes up characters from the two series.

[Sumez]

At this point Legend of Heroes became better known as the Kiseki series. All mainline Kiseki games are set in different countries in the world Zemuria.

I'd say they are separate series, as Legend of Heroes is a much more broad term covering several different "subseries", and starting with the sixth(!) Dragon Slayer game in '89.
Honestly, there's no real reason for the Kiseki series to be a part of LoH, but I guess it's a sort of umbrella term for Falcom's turn based RPGs