Well after finishing Cold Steel 3 I had to to scream into a pillow for like 10 minutes straight because of what is probably the biggest middle finger cliffhanger ending I have ever seen in gaming.
Cold Steel 3 didn't feel like a long game since it only has 4 Chapters and you only go to 4 locations for the Field Studies, but it took me like 80 hours to get through. I really loved the game outside of one fucking YIKES scene in the first chapter that made me *very* uncomfortable.
But Reans characterization in this game is great. He has a lot of really good conversations with his students where it shows his experience coming through. The new smaller cast works great and they all get good character moments and my god this game made me actually like Altina.
I can't decide if I like it more than Cold Steel 2 or not. I definitely like it as much as Cold Steel 2 and I really like Cold Steel 2. I think the character moments may push 3 ahead and it also has one quest near the end that is basically Guest Character Funtime Bonanza where its just Rean and all the fancy Guest characters that you briefly get throughout the other chapters.
So...what was the yikes scene? I don't remember anything all that bad in Chapter 1, but I also have a lot of blind spots in media, so when I read/hear someone say something like that, I like to get details so I can see what I missed and try to improve my game comprehension.
So...what was the yikes scene? I don't remember anything all that bad in Chapter 1, but I also have a lot of blind spots in media, so when I read/hear someone say something like that, I like to get details so I can see what I missed and try to improve my game comprehension.
Undoubtedly the introduction of Shirley, who immediately sexually assaults Duvalie. This is not only problematic because it is clearly portrayed in a titillating manner, but underscores the way in which the sexual orientation of Shirley and Angelica is seemingly only something the devs could think to convey as deviant.
Okay, yeah, that was totally problematic to the point where I had completely blocked it from my memory, it seems, because I 100% remembered none of it until you mentioned it, and now I'm all creeped out by it again.
Can we take a moment to discuss an endgame "twist" that really annoyed me?
What the fuck is Musse's deal? She's apparently not only the rightful "heir" to the Western Erebonian Duchy, but also an apprentice of the Azure Abyss and in control of a new military force lead by Aurelia & BG Wallace? A brief wiki-search seemed to indicate Weissman (the new military alliance's affiliation) was the name of a Big Bad in Trails in the Sky?
If it turns out she's actually a child in which the soul of Ouroboros' Grandmaster was implanted, I will not be happy. It was bad enough to suffer through her incessant sexual entendre, but knowing that's she's likely a significant player in the ToCS4 plot is seriously worrisome.
Can we take a moment to discuss an endgame "twist" that really annoyed me?
What the fuck is Musse's deal? She's apparently not only the rightful "heir" to the Western Erebonian Duchy, but also an apprentice of the Azure Abyss and in control of a new military force lead by Aurelia & BG Wallace? A brief wiki-search seemed to indicate Weissman (the new military alliance's affiliation) was the name of a Big Bad in Trails in the Sky?
If it turns out she's actually a child in which the soul of Ouroboros' Grandmaster was implanted, I will not be happy. It was bad enough to suffer through her incessant sexual entendre, but knowing that's she's likely a significant player in the ToCS4 plot is seriously worrisome.
Well...
It's Wiessland Army not Wiessman Army. And she knows Vita from when Vita worked for the Noble Alliance during the Civil War. She's just a really smart person that predicted what would happen with Osborn and used her influence, status, and money to prepare a new Noble Alliance of sorts that will fight against Osborn specifically for the good of all Erebonia.
Can we take a moment to discuss an endgame "twist" that really annoyed me?
What the fuck is Musse's deal? She's apparently not only the rightful "heir" to the Western Erebonian Duchy, but also an apprentice of the Azure Abyss and in control of a new military force lead by Aurelia & BG Wallace? A brief wiki-search seemed to indicate Weissman (the new military alliance's affiliation) was the name of a Big Bad in Trails in the Sky?
If it turns out she's actually a child in which the soul of Ouroboros' Grandmaster was implanted, I will not be happy. It was bad enough to suffer through her incessant sexual entendre, but knowing that's she's likely a significant player in the ToCS4 plot is seriously worrisome.
Well...
It's Wiessland Army not Wiessman Army. And she knows Vita from when Vita worked for the Noble Alliance during the Civil War. She's just a really smart person that predicted what would happen with Osborn and used her influence, status, and money to prepare a new Noble Alliance of sorts that will fight against Osborn specifically for the good of all Erebonia.
Hmmmmmm.
Ignoring the Wiessland/Wiessman correction (oh, derp) — how do you know any of that? Like, I get that we're dealing with the exaggerated storytelling behaviors of Anime, but reducing it down to "oh, she's just really smart and clearly doing things for good" feels contextually unlikely.
Are you positing that Vita sought her out at St. Astraia and just gave her tips on picking up cute teachers? Do you not think Vita might have pushed Musse in the direction of Villainy? Do you not think Musse's willingness to attempt hypnotizing Rean suggests a willingness to perhaps hypnotize other people?
Can we take a moment to discuss an endgame "twist" that really annoyed me?
What the fuck is Musse's deal? She's apparently not only the rightful "heir" to the Western Erebonian Duchy, but also an apprentice of the Azure Abyss and in control of a new military force lead by Aurelia & BG Wallace? A brief wiki-search seemed to indicate Weissman (the new military alliance's affiliation) was the name of a Big Bad in Trails in the Sky?
If it turns out she's actually a child in which the soul of Ouroboros' Grandmaster was implanted, I will not be happy. It was bad enough to suffer through her incessant sexual entendre, but knowing that's she's likely a significant player in the ToCS4 plot is seriously worrisome.
Well...
It's Wiessland Army not Wiessman Army. And she knows Vita from when Vita worked for the Noble Alliance during the Civil War. She's just a really smart person that predicted what would happen with Osborn and used her influence, status, and money to prepare a new Noble Alliance of sorts that will fight against Osborn specifically for the good of all Erebonia.
Hmmmmmm.
Ignoring the Wiessland/Wiessman correction (oh, derp) — how do you know any of that? Like, I get that we're dealing with the exaggerated storytelling behaviors of Anime, but reducing it down to "oh, she's just really smart and clearly doing things for good" feels contextually unlikely.
Are you positing that Vita sought her out at St. Astraia and just gave her tips on picking up cute teachers? Do you not think Vita might have pushed Musse in the direction of Villainy? Do you not think Musse's willingness to attempt hypnotizing Rean suggests a willingness to perhaps hypnotize other people?
She was just joking. Her entire facade personality is about frustrating, disarming, and confusing. But she really is just working on a coalition to counter Osborn and Cedric.
Can we take a moment to discuss an endgame "twist" that really annoyed me?
What the fuck is Musse's deal? She's apparently not only the rightful "heir" to the Western Erebonian Duchy, but also an apprentice of the Azure Abyss and in control of a new military force lead by Aurelia & BG Wallace? A brief wiki-search seemed to indicate Weissman (the new military alliance's affiliation) was the name of a Big Bad in Trails in the Sky?
If it turns out she's actually a child in which the soul of Ouroboros' Grandmaster was implanted, I will not be happy. It was bad enough to suffer through her incessant sexual entendre, but knowing that's she's likely a significant player in the ToCS4 plot is seriously worrisome.
Well...
It's Wiessland Army not Wiessman Army. And she knows Vita from when Vita worked for the Noble Alliance during the Civil War. She's just a really smart person that predicted what would happen with Osborn and used her influence, status, and money to prepare a new Noble Alliance of sorts that will fight against Osborn specifically for the good of all Erebonia.
Hmmmmmm.
Ignoring the Wiessland/Wiessman correction (oh, derp) — how do you know any of that? Like, I get that we're dealing with the exaggerated storytelling behaviors of Anime, but reducing it down to "oh, she's just really smart and clearly doing things for good" feels contextually unlikely.
Are you positing that Vita sought her out at St. Astraia and just gave her tips on picking up cute teachers? Do you not think Vita might have pushed Musse in the direction of Villainy? Do you not think Musse's willingness to attempt hypnotizing Rean suggests a willingness to perhaps hypnotize other people?
She was just joking. Her entire facade personality is about frustrating, disarming, and confusing. But she really is just working on a coalition to counter Osborn and Cedric.
Now that I am not at work, I can get in on this.
I read Musse sort of along the same line as Viskod when I was playing the game. In specific notes...
* I do think that as the niece of the former Duke Cayenne I figured she had contact with Vita. Her reference to needing the proper perfume when she tried to seduce Rean is the key to that, I think. However, I don't thinks she was an apprentice or anything. I just totally buy Vita finding this girl who tosses entendre around amusing and try to teach her a trick or two, just like she said. I also don't think Vita is a complete villain, but that's another topic.
* I think Musse was setup to be a political genius the way some of the characters like Aurellia are geniuses in battle. I don't think there's any super ulterior motive that we haven't seen from her. I think she's truly on Rean's side. I also think that the team up of Musse and Aurellia was carefully done in a way to say "These two are equals, just one is of battle and the other politics."
* I just can't see her being revealed to suddenly be a villain. The Georg reveal just hit home so hard in III that doing something similar again in IV would be yawn inducing. Maybe I'm just reading into the parallels between ToCS and ToCSIII too much, though.
* I think Musse just has a really bad crush on Rean, probably from a combination of stories she heard about him while at St Astria, stories she heard about him from occasionally being around the Noble Alliance, Rean being a massive big hero in her country who's close to her own age, and probably most importantly the kind of political power she'd get by getting the Ashen Chevalier romantically involved with her. In conclusion, I don't think her willingness to try to hypnotize her politically useful crush into kissing her necessarily means a willingness to control the minds of everyone around her.
We learn from Crow in Cold Steel 2 when he's talking about his backstory that he met Vita before he even enrolled at Thors because Vita used to visit Duke Cayenne in Ordis often. So there would have been plenty of opportunities for Vita and Musse to meet over the years before the civil war even started
While I genuinely enjoyed the foundation of Musse's arc, a lot of my dissatisfaction is that her arc/her character is in no way hinted at in the preceding games, so a lot of my comments are poking fun at how this very very important special person has suddenly materialized. That is to say, never was there mention of the regional turmoil surrounding Cayenne's rise to power and this displaced teenage heiress who was apparently good friends with Alfin & Elise; that they have the foresight to plot out the conflict between Becky and Hugo (an archfiend in the image of Jeff Bezos) but not sketch out something to prepare us for Musse's many achievements has me expecting the hyperbolic worst for future Musse-related narrative twists and turns.
That said, I certainly don't think it's reasonable to say she was merely "joking" when she attempts magical control over Rean, as that scene is used to definitively reveal that much of Rean's casual & effective insights into human behavior (etc...) is a consequence of his 8 Leaves training and developing mastery of his non-judgmental inner eye, which in turn allows him to resist Musse's efforts. That Rean nevertheless expresses a willingness to accept her support can be construed as indication of her "goodness", but Rean is not perfect in his evaluation of those he interacts with (certainly Rufus & Vita are able to evade his inner sight), and Musse may very well have intentions that are not antagonistic towards Rean but nevertheless "not good". And just so we're extra clear: attempting to exert magical control over anyone is NOT GOOD.
As to repetition, I don't think anything is out of bounds; whether by virtue of a plot about cycles/rebirth, or just because the games abide by certain formula for quick development, there's no sense that they're especially ashamed of regurgitating plot or characters.
I get where you are coming from, but my thoughts on it tie into my thoughts about another character.
The big thing is that at this point I do not think Vita is evil. Yeah she was a villain who worked against the heroes, but I think that's different from being evil. A few things that lead me to that line of thinking are...
1) she tries to stop the Phantasmal Blaze plan in ToCS2 (specifically when she turns on Cayenne when he unseals Testa-Rosa) when she realizes that its going to actually hurt a lot of people
2) in ToCS3, she talks about how she failed to stop fate (that fate referring to the curse of Erebonia and the chaos it brings)
3) in ToCS3, we hear how the Anguis voted in favor of moving forward with the Phantasmal Blaze Plan and siding with Osborne, and nothing about the Grandmaster.
Its almost like Ouroboros has started moving without the Grandmaster, and Vita is the only one among them who's stayed loyal given how she talks about being loyal to the Grandmaster and now being against the Phantasmal Blaze Plan. I'm not going to argue that Vita is actually a hero/good person, but I just don't see her as being evil in the way characters like Osborne or McBurn are. Like if evil was a scale, she'd be a little bit evil, but not like burn the world down evil, you know?
I see Musse the same way. She does what she feels she needs to, she's kind of selfish in her desires, and is like a little bit evil in doing what she can to get what she wants, but I don't think she's malicious about it or out to cause people to suffer. She's kind of just a selfish teenager in some things.
PSN|AspectVoid
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DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
edited November 2019
Yeah not gonna lie I found her annoying for the same reason. Mysterious character who is just sprung on you and is always being mysterious and no one ever says anything about it is a very annoying trope to me.
As for the game itself its cool.
My only real complaint is that outside of the break system the game doesn't feel like that much of a progression.
It feels more like a really big expansion to ToCS 2 which also feels weird cause there are actually some things missing from the previous game.
My only real complaint is that outside of the break system the game doesn't feel like that much of a progression.
It feels more like a really big expansion to ToCS 2 which also feels weird cause there are actually some things missing from the previous game.
I'm not sure "substantial redesign of gameplay systems" is in the cards here. ToCS2's biggest achievement was fully implementing the Mech fights and making them not totally suck. Beyond that, you had extra busywork with Orbments due to slot-leveling, the uhhhh... Three-Turn Tag-Team system, and... I think that's it?
ToCS3 further refined Mech-fights so that they aren't so heavily prescribed, removed slot-levels and added a second Master-slot for more "Class-creation" funtimes, and rebalanced the Delay/Impede/Faint mechanics around the introduction of Break. Mostly seems like they were reacting to complaints about ToCS2 and trying to build a better mechanical foundation to support a fun "Nightmare" mode.
DragkoniasThat Guy Who Does StuffYou Know, There. Registered Userregular
Well, tbh I had just started playing the game with ToCS1&2 and I was thinking with the new core cast and PS4 shift there might be a bit more meat to updates.
But yeah I do have a better understand of what kind of series it is now for the future.
Well, tbh I had just started playing the game with ToCS1&2 and I was thinking with the new core cast and PS4 shift there might be a bit more meat to updates.
But yeah I do have a better understand of what kind of series it is now for the future.
I guess the other way to look at it is that ToCS3 was a big platform shift, and one that I think took a couple years to complete, so they may have felt a need to assure their fans that "hey, don't worry, this is still the ToCS you know and love!"
I for one wish they would introduce Chrono Trigger-style Combination Crafts. And I'm a bit surprised that with all the emphasis on various masters of this or that technique that there isn't a sub-game of sorts that involves searching out those masters and have different characters learn new crafts/s-crafts.
They may have rebalanced delay a bit, but CS3 is utterly broken.
Most of that is bugs, but still.
2 broken ass broken builds:
Divine Song + a character with 3-4 tier 2 bell quartz (steel bell, pyre bell, ocean bell etc. the ones that give -30% delay after casting).
These tier 2 bells give their -delay to ALL spells, not just their element. You can get 0 delay after using spells as a result. I don't think I need to elaborate further.
Also, Calvary Edge is broken. It's coded with a different spell formula, so it does WAY more damage than anything else.
The other broken build is just the counter attack damage quartz + rage quartz + as much evasion gear as you can stack. You can add Minotaurus for more damage.
You should be doing 20k-40k counters 80+% of the time as a result.
I'm going to second all the Musse complaints as well. She was my least favorite part of the game.
League of Legends: Sorakanmyworld
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
It’s pretty wild that Divine Song is acquired in Ch. 1, especially when there are more expensive Magic-oriented Orders acquired later that pale in comparison. Just casually doing infinite Soul Punches without build-thought was a delight.
That said, if you were responding to my comment in some way, I was mostly trying to relate how I find the mechanics of ToCS3 to be more satisfying than the preceding titles, especially for Nightmare. Just thinking about the final (non-mech) boss in ToCS1 is infuriating.
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
Falcom's shareholder meeting just occurred. Translations are still coming out, but we have Zero and Ao (Crossbell arc) set for PS4 release in Spring 2020 and Hajimari no Kiseki (CS 4.5/5/???) for Summer 2020.
Apparently this "Trails of the Beginning" that will be out next year will feature three different story routes (Estelle, Rean, and Lloyd I'd imagine) and feature over 50 playable characters.
Apparently this "Trails of the Beginning" that will be out next year will feature three different story routes (Estelle, Rean, and Lloyd I'd imagine) and feature over 50 playable characters.
Apparently this "Trails of the Beginning" that will be out next year will feature three different story routes (Estelle, Rean, and Lloyd I'd imagine) and feature over 50 playable characters.
Jesus that's a lot of characters.
I assume no dates were given for any of the localizations.
League of Legends: Sorakanmyworld
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
Apparently this "Trails of the Beginning" that will be out next year will feature three different story routes (Estelle, Rean, and Lloyd I'd imagine) and feature over 50 playable characters.
Jesus that's a lot of characters.
I assume no dates were given for any of the localizations.
Assume at minimum two years from the Japanese release date for any of them.
Apparently this "Trails of the Beginning" that will be out next year will feature three different story routes (Estelle, Rean, and Lloyd I'd imagine) and feature over 50 playable characters.
Jesus that's a lot of characters.
I assume no dates were given for any of the localizations.
Assume at minimum two years from the Japanese release date for any of them.
Yeah, we still don't even know when we get Steel 4.
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BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
Dengeki interview today states that "Hajimari" is a reference to "the beginning of the end" and is a bridge between CS and the next arc. Expected to be 70%-80% main gain with the remainder similar to Sky the 3rd including minigames supported by screenshots from the shareholders meeting showing magical girl-esqe gameplay image. Also contained the usual teasers of the Crossbell arc coming to the west from Kondo.
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
The Geofront years-in-the-making community effort to not just produce a high-quality text localization of Trails to Zero, but to also implement QoL programming changes found in the recent localization of other Trails games (Turbo mode, etc.) is dropping March 14!
BaidolI will hold him offEscape while you canRegistered Userregular
No public plans. I'm hoping there's an official localization in the not-to-far future since Kai version of Zero and Ao are coming out this year in Japan.
You will, of course, have to provide your own Japanese PC copy. It's available digitally.
Personally, I won't be digging into it for another month or so, after I'm done with the torrent of new releases in the near future. Then Zero/Ao/CS3 back to back.
This team isn't, but there is an existing translation that's supposedly decent. Much better than the previous Zero translation. There's been no work to add turbo mode and some of the other technical features that Geofront added to Zero, though.
As of now, it's possible to play the entire series in English, except for CS4.
You will, of course, have to provide your own Japanese PC copy. It's available digitally.
Personally, I won't be digging into it for another month or so, after I'm done with the torrent of new releases in the near future. Then Zero/Ao/CS3 back to back.
This team isn't, but there is an existing translation that's supposedly decent. Much better than the previous Zero translation. There's been no work to add turbo mode and some of the other technical features that Geofront added to Zero, though.
As of now, it's possible to play the entire series in English, except for CS4.
Now to figure out if I wanna play those or finish up Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ first.
Just saw on Steam, Trails of Cold Steel III, coming out March 23! How did this sneak by?!
I immediately logged into Steam to check and you're right. Why didn't it show up in my recommendations or discovery queue, Steam? It's not like Steam doesn't have access to my library with time played (500 hours over 5 games).
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While it absolutely makes ToCS3 feel easier than the preceding games, that rush of power whenever the party flips is a great feeling.
Cold Steel 3 didn't feel like a long game since it only has 4 Chapters and you only go to 4 locations for the Field Studies, but it took me like 80 hours to get through. I really loved the game outside of one fucking YIKES scene in the first chapter that made me *very* uncomfortable.
But Reans characterization in this game is great. He has a lot of really good conversations with his students where it shows his experience coming through. The new smaller cast works great and they all get good character moments and my god this game made me actually like Altina.
I can't decide if I like it more than Cold Steel 2 or not. I definitely like it as much as Cold Steel 2 and I really like Cold Steel 2. I think the character moments may push 3 ahead and it also has one quest near the end that is basically Guest Character Funtime Bonanza where its just Rean and all the fancy Guest characters that you briefly get throughout the other chapters.
If it turns out she's actually a child in which the soul of Ouroboros' Grandmaster was implanted, I will not be happy. It was bad enough to suffer through her incessant sexual entendre, but knowing that's she's likely a significant player in the ToCS4 plot is seriously worrisome.
Well...
Hmmmmmm.
Are you positing that Vita sought her out at St. Astraia and just gave her tips on picking up cute teachers? Do you not think Vita might have pushed Musse in the direction of Villainy? Do you not think Musse's willingness to attempt hypnotizing Rean suggests a willingness to perhaps hypnotize other people?
Now that I am not at work, I can get in on this.
* I do think that as the niece of the former Duke Cayenne I figured she had contact with Vita. Her reference to needing the proper perfume when she tried to seduce Rean is the key to that, I think. However, I don't thinks she was an apprentice or anything. I just totally buy Vita finding this girl who tosses entendre around amusing and try to teach her a trick or two, just like she said. I also don't think Vita is a complete villain, but that's another topic.
* I think Musse was setup to be a political genius the way some of the characters like Aurellia are geniuses in battle. I don't think there's any super ulterior motive that we haven't seen from her. I think she's truly on Rean's side. I also think that the team up of Musse and Aurellia was carefully done in a way to say "These two are equals, just one is of battle and the other politics."
* I just can't see her being revealed to suddenly be a villain. The Georg reveal just hit home so hard in III that doing something similar again in IV would be yawn inducing. Maybe I'm just reading into the parallels between ToCS and ToCSIII too much, though.
* I think Musse just has a really bad crush on Rean, probably from a combination of stories she heard about him while at St Astria, stories she heard about him from occasionally being around the Noble Alliance, Rean being a massive big hero in her country who's close to her own age, and probably most importantly the kind of political power she'd get by getting the Ashen Chevalier romantically involved with her. In conclusion, I don't think her willingness to try to hypnotize her politically useful crush into kissing her necessarily means a willingness to control the minds of everyone around her.
That said, I certainly don't think it's reasonable to say she was merely "joking" when she attempts magical control over Rean, as that scene is used to definitively reveal that much of Rean's casual & effective insights into human behavior (etc...) is a consequence of his 8 Leaves training and developing mastery of his non-judgmental inner eye, which in turn allows him to resist Musse's efforts. That Rean nevertheless expresses a willingness to accept her support can be construed as indication of her "goodness", but Rean is not perfect in his evaluation of those he interacts with (certainly Rufus & Vita are able to evade his inner sight), and Musse may very well have intentions that are not antagonistic towards Rean but nevertheless "not good". And just so we're extra clear: attempting to exert magical control over anyone is NOT GOOD.
As to repetition, I don't think anything is out of bounds; whether by virtue of a plot about cycles/rebirth, or just because the games abide by certain formula for quick development, there's no sense that they're especially ashamed of regurgitating plot or characters.
1) she tries to stop the Phantasmal Blaze plan in ToCS2 (specifically when she turns on Cayenne when he unseals Testa-Rosa) when she realizes that its going to actually hurt a lot of people
2) in ToCS3, she talks about how she failed to stop fate (that fate referring to the curse of Erebonia and the chaos it brings)
3) in ToCS3, we hear how the Anguis voted in favor of moving forward with the Phantasmal Blaze Plan and siding with Osborne, and nothing about the Grandmaster.
Its almost like Ouroboros has started moving without the Grandmaster, and Vita is the only one among them who's stayed loyal given how she talks about being loyal to the Grandmaster and now being against the Phantasmal Blaze Plan. I'm not going to argue that Vita is actually a hero/good person, but I just don't see her as being evil in the way characters like Osborne or McBurn are. Like if evil was a scale, she'd be a little bit evil, but not like burn the world down evil, you know?
I see Musse the same way. She does what she feels she needs to, she's kind of selfish in her desires, and is like a little bit evil in doing what she can to get what she wants, but I don't think she's malicious about it or out to cause people to suffer. She's kind of just a selfish teenager in some things.
As for the game itself its cool.
My only real complaint is that outside of the break system the game doesn't feel like that much of a progression.
It feels more like a really big expansion to ToCS 2 which also feels weird cause there are actually some things missing from the previous game.
I'm not sure "substantial redesign of gameplay systems" is in the cards here. ToCS2's biggest achievement was fully implementing the Mech fights and making them not totally suck. Beyond that, you had extra busywork with Orbments due to slot-leveling, the uhhhh... Three-Turn Tag-Team system, and... I think that's it?
ToCS3 further refined Mech-fights so that they aren't so heavily prescribed, removed slot-levels and added a second Master-slot for more "Class-creation" funtimes, and rebalanced the Delay/Impede/Faint mechanics around the introduction of Break. Mostly seems like they were reacting to complaints about ToCS2 and trying to build a better mechanical foundation to support a fun "Nightmare" mode.
But yeah I do have a better understand of what kind of series it is now for the future.
I guess the other way to look at it is that ToCS3 was a big platform shift, and one that I think took a couple years to complete, so they may have felt a need to assure their fans that "hey, don't worry, this is still the ToCS you know and love!"
I for one wish they would introduce Chrono Trigger-style Combination Crafts. And I'm a bit surprised that with all the emphasis on various masters of this or that technique that there isn't a sub-game of sorts that involves searching out those masters and have different characters learn new crafts/s-crafts.
I guess NISA is putting it together, not Falcom.
Most of that is bugs, but still.
2 broken ass broken builds:
Divine Song + a character with 3-4 tier 2 bell quartz (steel bell, pyre bell, ocean bell etc. the ones that give -30% delay after casting).
These tier 2 bells give their -delay to ALL spells, not just their element. You can get 0 delay after using spells as a result. I don't think I need to elaborate further.
Also, Calvary Edge is broken. It's coded with a different spell formula, so it does WAY more damage than anything else.
The other broken build is just the counter attack damage quartz + rage quartz + as much evasion gear as you can stack. You can add Minotaurus for more damage.
You should be doing 20k-40k counters 80+% of the time as a result.
I'm going to second all the Musse complaints as well. She was my least favorite part of the game.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
That said, if you were responding to my comment in some way, I was mostly trying to relate how I find the mechanics of ToCS3 to be more satisfying than the preceding titles, especially for Nightmare. Just thinking about the final (non-mech) boss in ToCS1 is infuriating.
That
is a lot.
But! I'll assume that means their games have been successful to such an extent that they can frivolously blow some cash on a bad idea.
I am curious when they will translate YS IX so we can get our hands on it. YS VIII was a lot better than I thought it would be.
Jesus that's a lot of characters.
I assume no dates were given for any of the localizations.
FFXIV: Tchel Fay
Nintendo ID: Tortalius
Steam: Tortalius
Stream: twitch.tv/tortalius
Assume at minimum two years from the Japanese release date for any of them.
Yeah, we still don't even know when we get Steel 4.
You will, of course, have to provide your own Japanese PC copy. It's available digitally.
Personally, I won't be digging into it for another month or so, after I'm done with the torrent of new releases in the near future. Then Zero/Ao/CS3 back to back.
This team isn't, but there is an existing translation that's supposedly decent. Much better than the previous Zero translation. There's been no work to add turbo mode and some of the other technical features that Geofront added to Zero, though.
As of now, it's possible to play the entire series in English, except for CS4.
All right, people. It is not a gerbil. It is not a hamster. It is not a guinea pig. It is a death rabbit. Death. Rabbit. Say it with me, now.
Now to figure out if I wanna play those or finish up Tokyo Xanadu Ex+ first.
I immediately logged into Steam to check and you're right. Why didn't it show up in my recommendations or discovery queue, Steam? It's not like Steam doesn't have access to my library with time played (500 hours over 5 games).
Thanks for the headsup, Akilae.
That'll give me like 2 1/2 weeks to play it before FF7 Remake! Hell yeah!