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AS THE CROSSBELL GAMES ARE NOT OFFICIALLY AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH, PLEASE PUT DISCUSSIONS ABOUT THOSE IN SPOILERTAGS FOR NOW. SKY AND CS1+2 SPOILERS ARE FREE REIN. IF YOU HAVEN'T DONE THE NG+ SIDEQUEST IN CS2, WATCH THESE VIDEOS.  Trails of Cold Steel 3 is the third game in the Trails of Cold Steel series, and the eight game in the encompassing Trails series, following the Trails in the Sky arc and the Crossbell arc. Although you *could* start the series here, I would strongly recommend playing both Cold Steel 1 and 2 first (available on PS3, Vita, PC and PS4). Additionally, knowledge of the two previous arcs (Sky, available on PC, and Zero/Azure, currently fan translations only) is strongly recommended. As this is the third Cold Steel game, I won't fill the OP with series terminology, standard battle mechanics and ~lore~. If you want to get into the series or are curious enough to want to know more about that stuff, please use the main Falcom games thread (usually no spoiler tags for the three Sky games and Cold Steel 1+2), or read the OP of this thread for the PC release of Cold Steel 1. Story  A year and a half has passed since the resolution of the Civil War in Erebonia in the winter of year 1204, and about a year since the dissolution of Class VII in 1205. Chancellor Osborne, who somehow managed to cheat death following Crow's attempt on his life, has tightened his grip on the nation, and following the annexation of Crossbell in January of 1205 he launched the Northern War into North Ambria in October 1205, annexing the nation into the Empire as well. It is now Spring 1206 and Rean Schwarzer, the Ashen Chevalier, has finally graduated from Thors and immediately takes up position as instructor in the newly built Thors Branch Campus in the city of Leeves, west of Heimdallr. Rean is put in charge of Class VII: Special Operations, a task force for completing missions across Erebonia. Rean, alongside Juna Crawford, Kurt Vander, and Altina Orion, will travel through Erebonia with the rest of the Branch Campus in order to complete missions on behalf of Erebonia's government, uncover the mysteries and secrets hiding in the shadows of the Empire, and do battle against Ouroboros who have stayed silent ever since Osborne interrupted their plans. Combat https://i.imgur.com/9Tj2ssI.gifv Combat is mostly the same as before. Quartz, S-Breaks, Arts&Crafts. Wow, Persona 5 UI tho!! There are three main new mechanics added to normal combat. A new bar has been added below enemy HP, called a break gauge. Attacks now deal additional Break damage to this bar (some Crafts etc. do more Break damage), and once broken, the enemy will drop their item, be delayed, have their next turn interrupted, and all physical attacks will automatically unbalance the enemy (leading to link attacks and adding BP). Enhanced is a new state bosses can enter into, usually (but not always) at 50% HP. This state will automatically restore their break gauge to full, recover from all status ailments, buff their attack and defenses, and add additional effects depending on the boss. Additionally, the next attack the enemy will perform after enhancing will almost always be an S-Craft, so if you time yourself correctly you can avoid the brunt of the damage.  The final noteworthy addition to fights is Brave Orders. By hitting up on the D-pad, you can spend BP to issue commands to your party (new commands are unlocked as part of the story, and which ones are available to you depend on who's in your party). Rean, for example, can spend 1 BP to buff everyone's damage dealt by 20% and give 10 CP to the party. Altina, on the other hand, can spend 3 BP to give Absolute Reflect to your entire party for 4 turns. These buffs last a set amount of the player's turns. So if you have a bunch of turns for your party members first, it's best to save something like Altina's Order until just before the enemy's turn, so as to not waste turns of the buff when you're not taking damage anyway. You can only have one Order active at a time, but you can activate any Order or anyone's turn - it doesn't need to be Rean's turn for you to activate any of his Orders. Q&A So what's this I hear about having to play those two games that aren't officially available in English yet? Trails of Cold Steel 3 is not only the sequel to Cold Steel 2, but in many ways a sequel to the Sky arc and the Crossbell arc. Events, stories and important macguffins brought up in those two arcs such as Hamel, the Zero Child, and Pleroma are brought up and expanded upon. I'm not going to tell you you can't play this game without having played (or know what happens in) those games, but I will say you will get a more complete emotional experience if you do. How would I go about playing the two Crossbell games? Are the fan translations good? This requires  , although if you want to take the moral high ground you can buy them here (don't bother applying the patches to these though, just find a pre-applied version). A very high-quality version of Trails from Zero is in the final stages of work, and should be available in the coming months. The currently available patch is a pre-edited early leak of that patch and is of very substandard quality, but it's workable. The patch for Trails to Azure is of higher quality, though still pretty lacking. It's the best you're going to get for quite a while, though. If neither sound enticing and you just want to get the necessary info, either find a Let's Play/walkthrough on youtube, or watch Lady Virgilia's story recaps for the games.How is the game structured? Like CS1. You have a main base, the school, that you return to at the start of every chapter. You do some sidequests and chat with NPCs, you go through a dungeon (Einhell Keep), and you're then sent out to a new region and run around with your students until you run into some bad guys, at which point you run around with your old classmates and fight the bad guys. Rinse and repeat. How do I break the combat/avoid breaking the combat? Brave Orders. If you want to break poo poo, go hog wild. If you don't, stick to mainly using Rean's stuff. Will there be a PC release? How do I transfer over my save data? No confirmed PC release, but I imagine it will happen some day. There is no data transfer from CS2 to 3, so the game kinda glosses over who you danced with/who you went to the dorm with. Gomen. Is the game good? I played it in Japanese, and yeah, it's really good. It was my Game of the Yay 2018 and it threatens to do the same in '19. 
Terper fucked around with this message at 22:38 on Oct 18, 2019 |
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Oct 18, 2019 20:36
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Oh right, something I forgot to mention. In Cold Steel 2, there is a NG+ sidequest that contains information that CS3 will expect you to have seen. If you haven't done or seen this quest, please watch the two videos in this playlist.
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Oct 18, 2019 22:37
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 Living the good life. (I'm gonna wait with playing until someone has uploaded a clear data savefile so I can access all the Bonding Events)
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Oct 21, 2019 13:56
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I had assumed you could, but a quick googling reveals that you cannot. Alas! The programmers at Sony are jerks!
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Oct 21, 2019 20:53
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Sure, it's just a pain.
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Oct 21, 2019 21:06
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Ohtsam posted:I'm not even completely through the first free day and it's just so good so far. I have this constant goofy smile on my face when I play. It feels so good to be back in Zemuria.
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Oct 22, 2019 13:50
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Additionally, more content is voiced (in English).
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Oct 22, 2019 18:20
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https://twitter.com/Hatsuu/status/1186824433375174656
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Oct 23, 2019 05:26
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VM Protip: Buy and use Medic as your Master ASAP: She doesn't heal 2 HP, she gives +2 HP. This allows you to get better trades and churn down your opponents' board while you set up. Usually finishing by giving your fire archer those +3 attack buffs.
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Oct 24, 2019 07:10
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'Cause sometimes they're all at the bottom of your deck and you need some time to prep.
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Oct 24, 2019 07:43
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Also making some +1000 HP accessories with the poison prevention + U-mats helps a lot, in addition to the HP quartz.
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Oct 24, 2019 09:12
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Once you've actually gotten into some dungeons and amassed some sepith masses your bank will look better. If you want some early equipment, then you have some items in your inventory (should be one that sells for 5k and one that sells for 10k) that while they might find use in a pinch someday, getting your early cash in would be better, imo. Septium Vein and Kaleido MQ is also really good for getting your slots unlocked early, which then snowballs into more money later.
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Oct 25, 2019 10:00
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Rabbi Raccoon posted:Not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous about heading to the end of Chapter 1. I'm having trouble with battles. I get that you're supposed to pretty much use Brave Orders constantly, but I'm having difficulty keeping up the BP to do so Terper fucked around with this message at 19:00 on Oct 26, 2019 |
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Oct 26, 2019 18:54
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Never been a fan in any CS game since they can't link attack and Crafts usually have more immediate effect. Brionac does magical damage anyway.
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Oct 27, 2019 20:12
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https://twitter.com/pwc_tem/status/1188677015819309057
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Oct 29, 2019 18:40
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Veryslightlymad posted:No, before that. Unless I misread and he was talking about the people who were killed during the disaster. Kind of annoying that I can back track thru the "Oh, look! A treasure chest" dialogue, but not the, you know, plot. Uh, you can. There is both the voiced field dialogue rollback and all other conversation rollback. Press up on the dpad. As for who he's talking about, he's referring to a single idiot who got himself killed.
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Oct 29, 2019 21:27
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I'm player inserting as Rean's daughter https://twitter.com/pwc_tem/status/1189962097121095680
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Nov 2, 2019 18:23
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Michael holding a conversation of "No you shouldn't do this" only for Aurelia to walk in and say "Lol sounds cool, do it" and all Michael can do is  is funny
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Nov 2, 2019 19:04
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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.
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Sep 10, 2020 04:26
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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.
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Sep 10, 2020 04:49
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