Oh gosh, that one. I think I spent like 3 hours trying to figure from where it came from, I thought my PS3 was breaking down.
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The Kiseki / Trails (of the Sky/Zero/Ao/Sen/Etc) Community Thread: SPOILERTAGS OR DIE
- Thread starter Bebpo
- Start date
Oh gosh, that one. I think I spent like 3 hours trying to figure from where it came from, I thought my PS3 was breaking down.
klabautermann
Member
Also wanna add in my personal opinion, I think DQIX and SMTIV are some of the lesser entries of both series.
Barrylocke
Member
I enjoy both, but for the other poster whose loving this game and didn't care for those, it makes sense that since those are very light with story and especially characters.
whatever6352
Member
Currently playing Trails In the Sky, 1st ever game in the series and I have a question. How's the grinding compared to other JRPG's? I don't mind grinding as I've done it in most JRPG's that I've played, but I would like to know if I'm going to need to carve out some time exclusively for grinding.
Dragoon En Regalia
Member
The only real grind in FC is when you want to defeat Shining Poms. You either have to get your CP back up to 200 for your most powerful S-Craft users in order to take a group of Poms out in one cycle, or spam Shadow Spear and hope you can kill them via a 20% deathblows chance. And this can take a bit, but the EXP and sepith you earn from Shining Poms can give a significant boost in both quartz economy and levels.
Just be careful not to overdo this or you'll end up breaking FC at some point, since Shining Pom EXP stagnates just a bit beyond where you should be at the end of each chapter you can find them in. There's also some non-linearity in exploring dungeons early, meaning you can visit Nebel Valley, Limestone Cave, and Erbe Royal Villa before you even reach their neighboring towns. I tend to clear those places as soon as possible, but mainly for challenge...and I end up grinding there anyway, so not the best choice for a first run. SC's got much the same opportunity to do this, but you'll have different priorities in that game.
Also, there's a lot of monster chests in FC's final dungeon. Don't feel compelled to do them before finding the very last save point, as they're full of great gear but each fight's the same, and they start off more challenging than the rest of the monsters there.
Having had experience with every Trails game on Normal:
Generally it takes around 5-8 battles per "major area" to reach a decent level to engage bosses. If you fight more than that you can reach the "level cap", which is as high as the game allows you to go for that area, and where you start to see heavily diminishing returns, and the battles start becoming wastes of investment.
Different enemies give different EXP, so if you aim for the biggier, nastier enemies, you'll get a higher reward for beating them.
It's an extremely friendly series for those who don't want to waste time grinding, across every game. My style of play is to play on Normal but not to level up much and then reap a huge reward from tough boss fights.
BassForever
Member
Exp scales so if you're under leveled the game will quickly catch you up to stuff, you should never have to grind.
chaosblade
Unconfirmed Member
Grinding in 3rd as we speak. 400 battles to open that star door. Was around 100 short.
That amounts to about 300 battles over the course of a 40-50 hour game. And that included a little sepith grinding early on.
That amounts to about 300 battles over the course of a 40-50 hour game. And that included a little sepith grinding early on.
whatever6352
Member
Thanks all! Last night I was getting a bunch of encounters granting very little xp so your explanations make a lot of sense.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Yeah, that's the game's way of telling you that you're overleveled compared to the enemies in that area.
That's quite true. I've played and enjoyed several other SMT games including Nocturne, but I think by now I've just seen the demons and spells and the press-turn system so many times, it's much harder for it to surprise or excite. Similar issue with DQIX. So if the combat isn't enticing in those games... well, there's not much else other than atmosphere, and it's hard for atmosphere to sustain a 50+ hour game.
Part of it is that I've been playing a lot of older style CRPGs where the combat is much more dynamic and challenging, and the combat in most JRPGs just feels so rote now. There's so few interesting decisions to make during battles.
BassForever
Member
Morrigan Stark
Arrogant Smirk
It's honestly ridiculous how often they resort to these clichés. Undermines the otherwise (mostly) good writing of the games.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
Well, it's a way to provide boss battles in confrontations without resorting to making them impossible to win.
In fairness, CS1 and especially FC were pretty good at avoiding that trope. And in the CS2/SC's defense, some of those confrontations were legitimately exciting. It's just, experiencing the same sort of thing over and over again starts to wear thin.
It doesn't help that Bleublanc is such a fuckboi, my God.
I imagine if the Divine Blade himself is playable in one of the games, and then Falcom pull that stuff above, I'll chuck my Kiseki collection in the rubbish bin.
Scrooge McDuck
Member
You'd get that sooner than you think in Cold Steel III after Rean becomes a Divine Blade.
Rather than staying in the vicious circle of complaints how that plot mechanic is overused, I'd like to hear some suggestions how you think Falcom could improve the formula. What other ways exist to learns about Enforcers and their powers?
The games have always been good at the 'show, don't tell' principle, regardless of the outcome of the fight. Even if you don't win, you learn a lot through the conversation before and after the battle, and of course the battle itself.
The games have always been good at the 'show, don't tell' principle, regardless of the outcome of the fight. Even if you don't win, you learn a lot through the conversation before and after the battle, and of course the battle itself.
Keep in mind, I was just messing around with my original post. I don't think they need to change too much. Just hold back on having the protagonists fight each individual member of Ouroboros. You could definitely cut out several of the Ouroborus fights in CS2 for example.
He'll always be a Divine Headpatter to me
I know we can't exactly expect a certain finality in Kiseki games, well, apart from the fate of (SC)
W and Bladelord
Alternatively, have a boss call reinforcements in Phase 3 of the fight and have our team fight the reinforcement instead of the boss.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
SC wasnt even bad. By the end of the game you have epic climax fights where the party triumphs one way or another. CS2 is where its shit.
But is it? In Cold Steel II you get either interrupted because there is something else going on or you're just not too strong enough.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
Well obviously you twist the trope a bit. Like you guys are so puny to the enforcer he chops off 1 arm and 1 leg to make the fight "fair". Then if you beat him he praises you for beating his 1 armed 1 legged form before jumping away on one leg in his smug escape.
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More seriously I think what you actually do is to mix it up a bit you try to find gameplay scenarios that have a different victory conditions rather than only depleting the enemies hp.
The most obvious stuff is twist the gameplay in where the victory condition becomes survive x rounds(but actually make it somewhat hard Kiseki got the basis with all the ways you can manipulate rounds and dodge dmg etc when you bring in special boss fight turn bonuses you can play around even more). If you're fancy you can have stuff like 2 people try to withstand the boss attacks while the other 2 try to accomplish a side objective like preparing some environmental trap to put you into a better position.
And I'm not saying you make every situation into a gimmick fight just that mixing it up in that way once in a while would be good.
Basically you just frame some fights differently.
----------------------
More seriously I think what you actually do is to mix it up a bit you try to find gameplay scenarios that have a different victory conditions rather than only depleting the enemies hp.
The most obvious stuff is twist the gameplay in where the victory condition becomes survive x rounds(but actually make it somewhat hard Kiseki got the basis with all the ways you can manipulate rounds and dodge dmg etc when you bring in special boss fight turn bonuses you can play around even more). If you're fancy you can have stuff like 2 people try to withstand the boss attacks while the other 2 try to accomplish a side objective like preparing some environmental trap to put you into a better position.
And I'm not saying you make every situation into a gimmick fight just that mixing it up in that way once in a while would be good.
Basically you just frame some fights differently.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
Finished CSII about a week ago and the most egregious example that's sticking out is, I think, is the
'Oh wow there's a lot of powerful dudes in Erebonia' has adequately been served by the 9000 other people who have saved you and your mates; and you actually do win fights against something similar a single chapter later anyway. It just feels like undermining the player satisfaction for no apparent reason?
Nord Magic Knight. You 'beat it' which momentarily shows you how far you've come as a group as last time Rean had to VALIMAR THE ASHEN KNIGHT one of them- then it gets up, undermining everything, and Gaius' dad wanders by and one shots it. It's not an Enforcer, and is now destroyed anyway, so it's not building a future threat. Gaius' dad isn't a character that really felt like he needed building up.
Kain-Nosgoth
Member
i dunno, the fact that your party is FAR from being the most powerful, that even minor character like [CS2 spoiler] :
are better than you, is actually pretty fun to me!
Sure there's a lot of tropes in these games, but not being the best out there is quite nice, maybe i'm in the minority! If i want to feel powerfull there's enough games to feel that
gaius' dad
Sure there's a lot of tropes in these games, but not being the best out there is quite nice, maybe i'm in the minority! If i want to feel powerfull there's enough games to feel that
Learning that said character is actually much more powerful than I anticipated is more valuable for me than fighting a boss through it Aidios-knows-how-many-forms, especially since you already fought it before.
Holundrian
Unconfirmed Member
I think the criticism pertains more towards how less powerful characters clashing against more powerful characters is generally resolved to the point it becomes repetitive rather than the fact that you're characterized as weaker in the grand scale of things. I actually think most enjoy the greater than life characters and meeting living legends of incredible skill and combat prowess compared to your own still growing self.
hosannainexcelsis
Member
I like that concept as well, but I think it's a reasonable complaint that if you fight through hard battles yourself and then keep getting the victory stolen away from you after you finish, it can become tiresome. You could establish the same sort of power dynamics without having a number of playable boss battles that end up being narratively meaningless.
ShadowSoldier89
Member
it is, the entire finale dungeon was awful
ShadowSoldier89
Member
I didnt mean the epilogue dungeon though...
Oh, but I wanted to mention that too. Because the same thing happened there!
ShadowSoldier89
Member
that is true
Kain-Nosgoth
Member
we all agree that the power of friendship and tears is really bad in CS, can't deny that
Guess I played a different game then.
Scrooge McDuck
Member
This would probably be an unpopular opinion, but I say the need to constantly have boss fights is what limits the narrative.
I recently read My Hero Academia which has a similar setup about rookie superhero students who get tangled in a conflict of superpeople way out of their league. At one point, they're trapped and need to get through one such group of supervillains. Instead of fighting them head on, the students execute a high risk, tricky maneuver (that could only be pulled off thanks to the power of trust and friendship) that catches the villains off guard and thus they manage to bypass fights altogether.
I keep thinking on how much less repetitive the scenes in the [CS2]
I recently read My Hero Academia which has a similar setup about rookie superhero students who get tangled in a conflict of superpeople way out of their league. At one point, they're trapped and need to get through one such group of supervillains. Instead of fighting them head on, the students execute a high risk, tricky maneuver (that could only be pulled off thanks to the power of trust and friendship) that catches the villains off guard and thus they manage to bypass fights altogether.
I keep thinking on how much less repetitive the scenes in the [CS2]
Infernal Castle would be if Class VII could do something like that in the earlier encounters only to hit a wall with McBurn, thus the "getting-saved" scenario could be delayed for maximum impact with the arrival of the Viscount.
The power of friendship thing could be overbearing at times, but [CS2]
Millium's tears got me, dagnabbit.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
But why have the multi-phase fight in the first place? Why not just... let them have the win in that case? Like at that point it feels less like 'bigging up' what is basically a very minor character (worldbuilding, I know, but worldbuilding shouldn't really feel at the cost of the main cast's development) and more like you're playing a team of losers, which can't be the intent. Sky, I think was much better at matching the scale of the game- (FC/SC/CSl/II spoilers)
the first's games smaller stakes and removal from the plot of Cassius meant, sure, you're not even in Loroewndhart's league, but you still beat the villain of the story even with the set-up for next time. SC you get your arse handed to you repeatedly, but you beat the robots and at the end get a victory over pretty much everyone even if it's 4 v 1 (though the Loewe fight is little more complex than that). CS1 is mostly the same- the terrorists are beatable by you over the course of the game save for Crow taking on the Loewe-esque role and the game overall is written with the scale your party could believably (...well, for anime secondary school students) interact with. In Cold Steel II, you're losing against pretty much everyone all the way through the game like SC (other than a victory against a tired Duvalie, which seems... out of place pacing wise but I assume it was just supposed to be a cute reference to what she's doing in Crossbell or something) and don't even really get a victory at the end save with the final boss(es)- if the threat of McBurn, the Jaegars etc is so out of your league even at the end it feels weird that you're the protagonists in this tale- and then there's a goddamn machine, albeit a very powerful machine that manages to chump you twice during the game (which feels especially odd when Laura is one shotting it with Domination but eh, gameplay mechanics) at which point it feels like someone's taking the piss a bit. I don't necessarily have problems with the logic in particular of those parts- of course Ouroborous would be involved, of course McBurn is so far out of your league it's not even funny, Gaius' dad being strong is perfectly beliavable- just as a package it's emotionally unfulfilling?
Part of this is the game's apparently a middle chapter, and maybe the build up will be so worth it in CSIII that all my complaints will look really silly looking back, but for now this part of the game left me very cold.
Also Falcom remove Domination from CSIII, Domination is strong enough to be a sept-terrion, please nerf.
Kain-Nosgoth
Member
didn't do much for me, but it was nice i agree
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
My favourite part of that was [CS2]
Jusis trying to play it off while Gaius refused to have any of his shit. Didn't really like Millium very much but otherwise was a nice moment
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
The easiest way to circumvent the
would be to
.
boss fights you win but don't actually win
just put us in control of the stronger characters that can actually win. It would be an awesome way to show just how much more powerful these people are, and a glimpse at the ceiling the main group has to reach or even surpass. It would make for really cool one-off moments featuring a "guest party" you can play as and remove the feeling of the player having accomplished nothing
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
It would also feel like it would do a number on the budget though- [CS2]
like CS2 already has 19 people playable, adding in Victor etc for one scene seems a little of a waste? Also I kind of like that the games mostly focuses on the perspective of your party outside of stuff like the 3rd and chapter end teases.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
It's absolutely not "shit" in CS2, and I don't think it's even that different between the two. (SC/CS2)
In SC's final dungeon you beat Luciola 4 on 1 and you manage to take down Weissman 4 on 1, although you need help from Loewe. Bleublanc just decides to leave and Renne runs off. Neither really seem "beaten" anymore than most of the ones people complain about in CS2. If you take Zin to the Walter fight (which is clearly the canon version), then he's just fine after the fight and has to be taken down by Zin. Loewe is completely fine after the toughest fight in the game and just fights Joshua on his own. The only real difference is that in SC most of the Enforcers weren't really that attached to the plan, so once the fight was over they were kind of just like "whatever, I'm out of here". But in CS2, everyone was really determined to actually keep the main characters from advancing, so they weren't just going to step down. CS2 finale gives you the important victories at the end of the dungeon against Crow, Vita and the final boss, just like SC did.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
[SC]
Bleaublanc gets his mask smashed in and runs off after straight up saying 'you bested me; Patermater gets smashed so hard it can't move for a good while. Like I can't see how those aren't anything but straight victories. Walter/Zin and Loewe/Joshua also involve members of your party, and while even the Loewe/Joshua fight feels more like an emotional victory than a physical one, Walter straight up gets his shit finally pushed in by Zin at the end. There's a pretty big difference I feel in how things go down, even I don't think CS2 is 'shit'.
KuwabaraTheMan
Banned
Sure, there's a bit more of a sense of victory, but for the most part everyone is still fine after their fights. The characters achieve a victory, but their opponents still seem to be on a level above them. The only main difference is that in SC none of them really cared about pushing things any further. It's different, sure, but my point is more that even in SC, the characters only actually triumph in a few real situations, and it's mainly just in the ones that felt truly important.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
Well, the opponents feel a level above them more due to being 4-1 fights mostly, but that applies in CS as well. As for investment... sure, Renne's just fucking around due to Joshua and Loewe, but Walter, Bleublanc, and Lucciola feel invested in the fights even if it's for reasons that have nothing to do with Weissman's plan. Like... Walter is unconcious at the end, Lucciola has to fake her own death andBleublanc at the very least seems to care more in his SC fight- he doesn't give a flying shit about what's happening in CS other than trolling high school students until his true love/rival pops back up. I didn't get the feeling that the SC guys are 'heh I was just holding back!!' any more than the Cold Steel fights- Trails just doesn't like killing off people when 'ah, he is unconcious!!' or running away works just as well.
creid
Member
For some reason this made me picture an Ys-like game where you play as Cassius instead of Adol, and now I really want to play that game.
EndcatOmega
Unconfirmed Member
Only if Dogi replaces Cassius in the Trails series.
CS2's "win but lose" fights have some key problems, when combined, make it into a bigger problem where even the casual gamer who likely doesn't care about that sort of thing notices the issue.
1) They happen way too often, immersion breaking to the point where you enter battles expecting to lose.
2) They use it as a tool to dramatically introduce characters too often, immersion breaking to the point where you enter every battle expecting to be saved.
3) Class 7 is spec'd way higher than any previous Trails protagonists. Comparing Class 7 to the SSS is like comparing a bazooka to a pistol. Add in Sara or that Enforcer and you suddenly have firepower which is unbelievably higher than any Trails game to date. This creates a bizarre scenario where you feel like a cranked up Class 7 is losing to nobodies.
4) Enforcer and boss strength isn't demonstrated nearly well enough to explain why we should be losing. I blame this on most bosses not being threatening enough outside of battle or having devastating-looking S-Crafts. Why do you think almost everyone is in consensus that McBurn is extremely strong and that losing to him makes sense? Because they did a good job selling his power level, both in-battle and outside of it.
You're not selling me a convincing reason why they should lose other than saying they should lose. I definitely feel like the power gap was sold to me way better in SC than in CS2, whether it was with cutscenes, dialogue, or battle attacks. Whether you have Walter shattering a wall with his fist, Luciola lulling people into hallucinatory "eternal" sleep, Spoiler deathblow-ing people on turn 1 or summoning Megas XLR, etc. Plus the unified Enforcer attack on Spoiler Location which was a grand spectacle.
I don't think they'll make that mistake with CS3. I just think they didn't structure their story properly (and didn't balance out character firepower story-wise at all) and laid a very poor foundation in CS1 so they rushed to make sure you would lose every battle to try to sell to me that Class 7 is still maturing and learning in CS2. But I'll be damned, they didn't sell me! I have no problems losing if you sell it to me properly.
Anyway, Zanmai version of Overdosing Heavenly Bliss, have a listen.
1) They happen way too often, immersion breaking to the point where you enter battles expecting to lose.
2) They use it as a tool to dramatically introduce characters too often, immersion breaking to the point where you enter every battle expecting to be saved.
3) Class 7 is spec'd way higher than any previous Trails protagonists. Comparing Class 7 to the SSS is like comparing a bazooka to a pistol. Add in Sara or that Enforcer and you suddenly have firepower which is unbelievably higher than any Trails game to date. This creates a bizarre scenario where you feel like a cranked up Class 7 is losing to nobodies.
4) Enforcer and boss strength isn't demonstrated nearly well enough to explain why we should be losing. I blame this on most bosses not being threatening enough outside of battle or having devastating-looking S-Crafts. Why do you think almost everyone is in consensus that McBurn is extremely strong and that losing to him makes sense? Because they did a good job selling his power level, both in-battle and outside of it.
You're not selling me a convincing reason why they should lose other than saying they should lose. I definitely feel like the power gap was sold to me way better in SC than in CS2, whether it was with cutscenes, dialogue, or battle attacks. Whether you have Walter shattering a wall with his fist, Luciola lulling people into hallucinatory "eternal" sleep, Spoiler deathblow-ing people on turn 1 or summoning Megas XLR, etc. Plus the unified Enforcer attack on Spoiler Location which was a grand spectacle.
I don't think they'll make that mistake with CS3. I just think they didn't structure their story properly (and didn't balance out character firepower story-wise at all) and laid a very poor foundation in CS1 so they rushed to make sure you would lose every battle to try to sell to me that Class 7 is still maturing and learning in CS2. But I'll be damned, they didn't sell me! I have no problems losing if you sell it to me properly.
Anyway, Zanmai version of Overdosing Heavenly Bliss, have a listen.
