|
I've just finished Cold Steel 2 (not NG+, just regular) and I have a question - why'd they all leave? They've still got a year left. I feel like I just missed it and they never explained it again after whenever they first said it. Also I've loved 1/2 but christ the Epilogue and the....bit with the characters from Crossbell was a bit much. I'm also going to say I felt Gaius was a bit wasted. After you get him in Chapter 1 he barely does anything later.
|
# ? Dec 27, 2019 03:06 |
|
|
# ? Jun 8, 2024 09:22 |
|
I feel like they left just to give the game a sense of finality, of graduating and saying goodbye to all your friends. Although I'm not sure why they couldn't have just timeskipped a year.
|
# ? Dec 27, 2019 03:19 |
|
Taear posted:I've just finished Cold Steel 2 (not NG+, just regular) and I have a question - why'd they all leave? They've still got a year left. I feel like I just missed it and they never explained it again after whenever they first said it. The general idea is that they each feel they're going to be more use in their relevant areas as far as researching what the gently caress is going on in the country. But it's also an excuse for a graduation.
|
# ? Dec 27, 2019 03:24 |
|
Stelas posted:The general idea is that they each feel they're going to be more use in their relevant areas as far as researching what the gently caress is going on in the country. But it's also an excuse for a graduation. Clarste posted:I feel like they left just to give the game a sense of finality, of graduating and saying goodbye to all your friends. I GUESS I got that? I dunno, it felt really weird. I suppose timeskipping a year would have made people wonder what happened and what field trips and etc went on - although it's not THAT different from the bizarre trip to Ymir they took in the epilogue of the first game. The way they talk about being a third faction is pretty funny too. I'm not sure why the game doesn't just admit you're part of the Imperial Army. Taear fucked around with this message at 03:40 on Dec 27, 2019 |
# ? Dec 27, 2019 03:37 |
|
Taear posted:I GUESS I got that? I dunno, it felt really weird. I too thought I'd missed something when I finished CS2 but nope everybody just independently decides they have something better to do than finish school. Apart from Rean.
|
# ? Dec 27, 2019 03:39 |
|
'cause the series likes to see Rean suffer?
|
# ? Dec 27, 2019 03:45 |
|
Sakurazuka posted:I too thought I'd missed something when I finished CS2 but nope everybody just independently decides they have something better to do than finish school. Apart from Rean. Well, thanks to nepotism they can all get important jobs without a high school degree so it's okay.
|
# ? Dec 27, 2019 04:14 |
|
Clarste posted:Well, thanks to nepotism they can all get important jobs without a high school degree so it's okay. Several of them are just going to different schools, though. The only ones jumping straight to work are Jusis, who, well, there isn't really an alternative at the moment (and it's not like "Being Duke" demands intelligence, otherwise his father wouldn't have had the job), and Alisa, who's been interacting on at least some level with the company for most of her life. Machias goes to politics school or whatever, Elliot goes to Music school, Laura goes to train with her father, which is basically sword school, Millium goes back to the job she already had, and the rest just... basically go back to their normal lives, which don't really require a high school education.
|
# ? Dec 27, 2019 05:44 |
|
Rabbi Raccoon posted:And I will NEVER use Ash. Or Machias. What in the gently caress, Ash is one of the best characters in the game (in terms of his character, not gameplay). One of the only characters in both the old and new class 7 that I gave a poo poo about. Edit: The kind of depressing thing about the Cold Steel series is that it basically proved that this series' writers are frankly bad at actual plot-writing (which itself has consequences for the characters). It's a huge shame because the Trails series is extremely strong about creating an impactful "feeling" of sorts with the combination of its music and general setting and aesthetic (Sky, Zero/Ao, and even Cold Steel to a far more limited extent all managed to evoke a similar feeling to how I felt playing games as a teenager). But in retrospect both Sky and Zero/Ao succeeded in spite of their actual plot beats and benefited almost entirely from the setting, music, and likeable cast members (CS was a big step back with the third thing, with a few exceptions). Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Dec 27, 2019 |
# ? Dec 27, 2019 10:21 |
|
Sakurazuka posted:I too thought I'd missed something when I finished CS2 but nope everybody just independently decides they have something better to do than finish school. Apart from Rean. I think I remember them taking extra lessons so they can graduate after only one year. Rean is left out as he is running around the continent invading city states and stuff. In other news: Durante has a AMA on Reddit on the day of NISAs pax panel. So maybe we need "The best PC port of a JRPG of all time." Vol. 2, in the near future. lagidnam fucked around with this message at 16:00 on Dec 27, 2019 |
# ? Dec 27, 2019 15:42 |
|
lagidnam posted:I think I remember them taking extra lessons so they can graduate after only one year. Rean is left out as he is running around the continent invading city states and stuff. They do but like....in two months It seems insane
|
# ? Dec 28, 2019 12:03 |
|
They clearly just have a very slow paced curriculum at Thors.
|
# ? Dec 28, 2019 13:46 |
|
Finally was able to make some time to play this and just finished it. Going in I knew it was going to end on a massive cliffhanger, but that ending was something... On a whole I enjoyed it, but I definitely agree with all the comments on the pacing. Biggest complaint would just be that the giant cast of bad guys got almost no development at all. The sequence of boss fights with ouroboros/ironbloods/etc in the final chapter would have been a lot better if the game had actually presented a single motivation for any one of them to be fighting you at all? Character-wise, I really liked Altina and Juna, the other new class 7 members were just ok. I thought the treatment all of the old class 7 members and the other CS1/2 Thors students got was good. Guess it's going to be a long wait for CS4
|
# ? Jan 7, 2020 08:54 |
|
So I'm near the end of Chapter 4 and I have to rant a bit about the localization here. So honestly, for the most part, I've been totally fine with the localization. Yeah there's the occasional weird phrasing and it's pretty obvious they had no context at all for when NPC conversations started and ended so they had to guess and messed up at times, but really, I was expecting so much worse from NISA. All the voiced stuff in particular is very good and pretty close to XSeed's CS1/2 work. But I'm not even halfway through the first day of the Summer Festival and sheesh, what happened here? I feel like I've run into more issues here already than I saw in the entire rest of the chapter. This feels like it hasn't even gotten a single editing pass at times. I hope this is just a byproduct of the complexity and sheer volume of this event and doesn't hold true for the rest of the game... As a sidenote, I don't understand how this was localized in 2019 and has 'where does this conversation start/end' issues. I feel like I can't even blame NISA here. Why is it not an industry standard yet to provide detailed notes along with the script, considering those notes *have to exist already* for the programmers to implement? Truly baffling.
|
# ? Jan 8, 2020 04:46 |
|
Okay, I am a translator and one time last year they sent me a spreadsheet full of lines that were sorted by character, rather than chronologically. IE: it listed all of A's lines in a row and then all of B's lines, etc etc. It was a loving nightmare trying to figure out who was responding to what. The point being that I am honestly amazed that anything ever gets translated at all, let alone so smoothly.
|
# ? Jan 8, 2020 11:35 |
|
Now that I've finished the game, here are some random thoughts I have about it, in no particular order. -Shirley said she works under the Third Anguis, right? So I guess they got a replacement for Weissman then? Is this something I should know from the Crossbell games or is this new? -lol that Vita got voted out of Ouroboros like she was on Survivor or something -What the hell was Ouroboros's plan and how did Osborne actually steal it? Like, it's clear in CSII that Vita was not happy with the Vermillion Apocalypse getting woken up, so I guess that was where things started going awry for their plan, but hell if I know how that actually negatively impacted their plan. Nothing in this game adequately explained that either. I guess annexing Crossbell and North Ambria are part of how Osborne is "taking over" their plan? Or something? I hope we get more context in CSIV because I'm starting to worry that there is no explanation and everyone's just talking out of their asses. -It's kind of ridiculous how many times someone says "yeah sure ask away I'll explain everything" and then leaves without explaining anything. -Based on the Black Records, the last remaining mech must be the gold knight. Not a complaint, but it's really weird that there are seven knights and only five of them conform to the seven elements color scheme. -there is approximately a 0% chance Olivier is actually dead -no Mueller made me very sad
|
# ? Jan 14, 2020 22:38 |
|
U-DO Burger posted:Now that I've finished the game, here are some random thoughts I have about it, in no particular order. Yes, this is shown in the Crossbell Games. She did mention the name of that Anguis in CS3 though. U-DO Burger posted:-lol that Vita got voted out of Ouroboros like she was on Survivor or something U-DO Burger posted:
I'm glad we had a chance to ta- U-DO Burger posted:
Oh, so you noticed. U-DO Burger posted:-there is approximately a 0% chance Olivier is actually dead And here's a thought of my own: Rean: Crow shot you in the heart. Why did you not die ? Osborne: You see, I ripped my heart out of my chest years ago to give it to you. Rean: THAT ONLY RAISES MORE QUESTIONS !
|
# ? Jan 14, 2020 23:59 |
|
U-DO Burger posted:-What the hell was Ouroboros's plan and how did Osborne actually steal it? Like, it's clear in CSII that Vita was not happy with the Vermillion Apocalypse getting woken up, so I guess that was where things started going awry for their plan, but hell if I know how that actually negatively impacted their plan. Nothing in this game adequately explained that either. I guess annexing Crossbell and North Ambria are part of how Osborne is "taking over" their plan? Or something? I hope we get more context in CSIV because I'm starting to worry that there is no explanation and everyone's just talking out of their asses. My working assumption is that it's a slightly clunky way to refer to directing the Great Twilight's effects, rather than causing the Great Twilight itself. Ouroboros presumably wanted widescale confusion and chaos so they could work around Osborne and pit the Divine Knights against each other. With Osborne in charge and prepared, you've got an angry and more-or-less united Erebonia ready to go invade a whole bunch of places. Death Priest posted:
Enough people mention how Osborne changed after the night he left Rean that it's not hard to imagine he's just Powered By Curse now. Either he's sparking conflict as a tithe to the curse or he's just a literal embodiment of it right up until Falcom try to give him a redeeming final moment because I bet they won't be able to resist doing so. Stelas fucked around with this message at 00:11 on Jan 15, 2020 |
# ? Jan 15, 2020 00:04 |
|
Death Priest posted:They only voted against her suggestion to maybe not bring about the end of the world. She left of her own volition. Did she leave? She says she's still loyal to the Grandmaster. And Blueblanc doesn't appear because he's on Vita's side apparently. I feel they're really setting up an Ouroboros civil war either for CS4 or the next arc.
|
# ? Jan 15, 2020 01:14 |
|
CottonWolf posted:Did she leave? She says she's still loyal to the Grandmaster. And Blueblanc doesn't appear because he's on Vita's side apparently. I feel they're really setting up an Ouroboros civil war either for CS4 or the next arc. Left temporarily I should have said. She is still loyal to the GM but she's definitely not helping with the Phantasmal Blaze plan.
|
# ? Jan 15, 2020 02:04 |
|
The PC version is being released on Steam in an hour (GoG is "Coming Soon"). There's a demo of the prologue up on Steam right now if you want to see if it works. Durante, the one who polished the ports of CS 1 and CS 2 also worked on this one. Looking at the date the PC announcement trailer was released, it looks like this thread didn't update at all with the information of a PC port.
|
# ? Mar 23, 2020 17:19 |
|
Okay, so I know I'm very, VERY late here, but I'm just about wrapping up CS2 after burning out on the PS3 version and restarting on PC after it's release.The ~10 hour epilogue is brutal but I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. My main question is, how are the battle mechanics in CS3 compared to the feast-or-famine mechanics in CS2? I literally spent the latter 60% of CS2 stacking speed and delay on Rean and trying my absolute damndest to make sure that enemies never, ever got a turn. For the most part it worked fine until a few situations like (Divertissement) fighting Rean and Altina with Lloyd and Rixia. I ended up just grinding sepith to get Action and Delay quartz so that I could do the same strategy. I've played all the Sky and Cold Steel games on hard, but CS2 just really, really started to grate on me because every boss fight felt like it boiled down to "delay the bosses until they never get a turn, cause if they do it's gonna be an S-Craft that will one shot the entire party" and I hope that CS3 feels more balanced.
|
# ? Sep 9, 2020 23:41 |
|
III is far less balanced, but in your favor due to a new mechanic. After the first chapter, 95% of fights become a cakewalk. Until then, only the final fight of Chapter 1 is a challenge, but it's the good kind. Juuuuuuuust enough to make you feel good about winning instead of "loving FINALLY"
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 01:19 |
|
Rabbi Raccoon posted:III is far less balanced, but in your favor due to a new mechanic. After the first chapter, 95% of fights become a cakewalk. Until then, only the final fight of Chapter 1 is a challenge, but it's the good kind. Juuuuuuuust enough to make you feel good about winning instead of "loving FINALLY" Breaking is more interesting than Delay, imo. At the very least, it looks cooler.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 01:43 |
|
Actually the coolest dumb thing to do is have minimum cast delay, use the order that reduces cast time to zero, and spam magic until you win before the enemy gets an action.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 02:37 |
|
The only reason people feel that CS has feast or famine combat is because they make it true. Instead of just stacking up a bunch of Strength and Delay and turning your characters into glass cannons, try equipping some of your defensive options. Yes, HP and Defense quartz are actually helpful. You can stack stat down chances just as you can Delay, making it pretty reliable. Iron, Machias' starting MQ in 2, is really really good. And Angel is of course the ultimate comeback MQ.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 04:26 |
|
Terper posted:The only reason people feel that CS has feast or famine combat is because they make it true. Instead of just stacking up a bunch of Strength and Delay and turning your characters into glass cannons, try equipping some of your defensive options. Yes, HP and Defense quartz are actually helpful. You can stack stat down chances just as you can Delay, making it pretty reliable. Iron, Machias' starting MQ in 2, is really really good. And Angel is of course the ultimate comeback MQ. This. Iron is terrible in CS1, but in CS2, it's bonkers. Cast the forgotten art that doubles your HP total, and you're basically invincible. McBurn hit me with his S-craft, wiped the rest of my party, and Machias is still standing there, with more than his max HP, like it wasn't a big deal. Good god. There being so many options for breaking the game just means you can use all of them or none of them, or just... goof off in fights. Once you have a general sense of how the game plays, you can have fun with it. The CS battle system is seriously good. .....that said, I miss overdrives.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 04:28 |
|
Overdrive was pretty hype button to push and I enjoyed using it lots for Big Numbers.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 04:36 |
|
Veryslightlymad posted:This. Iron is terrible in CS1, but in CS2, it's bonkers. Cast the forgotten art that doubles your HP total, and you're basically invincible. McBurn hit me with his S-craft, wiped the rest of my party, and Machias is still standing there, with more than his max HP, like it wasn't a big deal. Good god. https://youtube.com/watch?v=vb5qMhnDnWE This is the most beautiful footage I've captured and nothing will ever come close to it. On Nightmare for extra spice.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 04:49 |
|
There's also the fact that most enemy S-crafts are physicals that you can block with Adamantium Shield or Jusis' Platinum Shield while the ones that can't be blocked that way (and all cancel it) are magical and can be absorbed or dodged outright with master quartz that gives you magic evasion or absorbs magic.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 05:59 |
|
hamburgers in pockets posted:CS2 just really, really started to grate on me because every boss fight felt like it boiled down to "delay the bosses until they never get a turn hamburgers in pockets posted:I literally spent the latter 60% of CS2 stacking speed and delay on Rean and trying my absolute damndest to make sure that enemies never, ever got a turn. Maybe if using the same strategy over and over again is grating on you, you could try not using the same strategy over and over again? I constantly mixed things up in CS 1 and CS 2, and it was not unusual for me to sit Rean out of the active battle party for multiple fights in a row. Experiment, play around, don't be afraid to take risks and try different things.
|
# ? Sep 10, 2020 22:23 |
|
If you don't use Rean, how do you use Gale?
|
# ? Sep 11, 2020 00:02 |
|
|
# ? Jun 8, 2024 09:22 |
|
Rabbi Raccoon posted:If you don't use Rean, how do you use Gale? I guess don’t use it? Idk, I don’t understand how that works, feels like there’s be something fundamentally missing without watching Rean shout “Second Form: GALE” and warp slash a bunch of mooks every battle...
|
# ? Sep 11, 2020 06:22 |