Playing this right now and i love it.
Can't believe i was sleeping on this for so long.
Playing this right now and i love it
Henry Turner
Hudson Sanchez
Hope you enjoy it, OP. Sky FC is some comfy shit.
Wyatt Smith
Estelle's games are some kino, they are underrated and slept on.
Leo Watson
I finally gave the series a fair shake a month and a half ago and now I'm up to Cold Steel 2.
Really enjoy the series but I can't tell if there's been a small resurgence of interest in it or I'm just noticing posts. I started playing cause I got a Steam deck but I don't know why anyone else would start now.
I mean yeah, long overdue games are finally going to get a localization but there's a massive drought until the next new game.
Nolan Collins
Based
Carter Baker
When COVID started I started to play them all and just burned out after Cold Steel 2. I pushed myself to play CS3 and lost all intrest in it. I'll probably pick the games back up in quite a while. I really, really hate Lloyd.
Lincoln Garcia
How is cold steel compared to in the sky?
Xavier Cook
Good series.
Been making my way through it on and off for the last three years.
Almost done with 3rd Chapter
Hudson Richardson
I'm 20 hours into Cold Steel 2 and it's still quite good but I don't enjoy it as much as Sky.
The school setting sort of narrows the scope of your party members and the NPCs you can talk to. CS1 is also pretty rigid in the way the plot goes but it's becoming more flexible than even SC in CS2.
I still really enjoy the world building and seeing characters return is really fun. I can't imagine playing CS1 without knowing the cameo characters. It would feel a lot more hollow.
Connor Anderson
It's like comparing Dante's Inferno to 7 shades of grey.
Hunter Smith
Joshua's theme is peak comfy
Hudson Butler
Yeah it's pretty good. Though I've lost my motivation to keep playing Cold Steel, but someday I will finish this series.
Liam Robinson
Cold Steel was the weakest arc in the series, imo. But it does do a lot to setup mysteries to be unraveled for the next arc, as they typically do. Some people seemed to absolutely love it though, so you might end up enjoying it. I liked the 2nd half of the Erebonia arc better than the 1st half of it.
pretty accurate
Joshua White
FUGG YEA!
I got to CH2 then lost my save/PC.
Restarted this week as well. It is so fucking good and comfy. It's quickly becoming one of favorites.
Dominic Bell
Only have the battle theme in my head right now. The soundtrack overall is pretty good
Adrian Young
This game and the OG Runescape music are like forever in my head.
Gavin Williams
Professor Alba is the evil guy and he brainwashes Joshua into leaving Estelle at the end
Jayden Lopez
I've only played the first few hours of Zero but Lloyd doesn't seem too bad. Not great but I've spent a lot of time so far with Rean and I think I'd prefer somebody a bit more lighthearted.
Rean just seems like he's trying so hard to be edgy sometimes and I fully agree with Crow every time he says to get the stick out of his ass. Also the fucking headpats are getting out of control.
Estelle and Kevin are just straight based.
Joseph Peterson
Where do I start in this series?
Jeremiah Turner
Lloyd has this problem of being so smart he ends up spouting bullshit explanations that are a bit of a reach.
Camden Baker
Trails in the Sky Chapter 1. The actual beginning.
It's well worth it, user. Very good story/dialogue and great gameplay as far as a JRPG goes.
Ryder Evans
Thank you. Been dying to play a new JRPG. I don't play many of them, but some of my favorites are FF4, 6, XII, Star Occean 3 and Nier.
Sebastian Gonzalez
the series is deeply flawed but i love it to bits anyway
enjoy the ride op, those 2 months i spent playing everything from fc > cs3 (newest at the time) was some of the most fun ive had in years
Nicholas Rodriguez
>CS
>fun
Benjamin Torres
Those are some good games. I think you'll like the series.
For reference some of my favorites are Chrono Trigger, FF5, FF9, DQ5, SMT1, SMTIV, and Persona 4.
I started to get into Trails about a month and a half ago and I haven't really played anything else for that period.
Aaron Mitchell
Played through FC in 2020 and resumed playing SC after starting it earlier in the year but then getting distracted by work and other games. Really comfy and fun
>Tfw no real life Estelle gf
Charles Adams
It captures the "feel" of a ps1 jrpg pretty damn well. Shame about Cold Steel though
Elijah Martin
it is fun despite the flaws, the gameplay in cs is a lot faster and more fun than the gameplay in sky is as much as people don't want to admit it
William Ortiz
begin at the beginning is the best advice, if you don't mind the graphics/no voice acting the Liberl arc is an amazing series of games. Not to mention the storylines all build on eachother and plotlines/characters pop up later in the series, so best not to miss out on that stuff. Also read the ingame books, I feel like a lot of people miss out on that.
Sebastian Lopez
>Ywn have a girl who loves you as much as Estelle loves Joshua
why live
Easton Cox
>I DON'T KEEP IT LOADED, SON
Nathaniel Jackson
honestly one of the few times i really gave a shit about a romance in a jrpg
i want an estelle gf
Jack Martinez
Too bad Cold Steel made their relationship ambiguous.
Adrian Nelson
I couldn't care less what that shit said.
Kayden Mitchell
Fucking based.
Colton Hughes
Where does it do that? Pretty sure there's nothing ambiguous about them being romantically involved in CS
Austin Miller
they don't fuck on screen therefore retarded anons think they aren't together anymore
Colton Smith
They just don't do anything romantic in CS.
Christian Phillips
They made ESTEL hot in CS damn
Isaac Collins
Don't skip Zero and Azure before moving to Cold Steel, OP. Zero and Azure have the best arc in a JRPG I've ever played, and one of the best paced stories in gaming. Absolute ludokino from start to finish
Elijah Martin
I think you can safely play cs1/2 without playing the crossbell arc, but I do agree now that the fan translations are done and the official releases aren't far off.
Zachary Smith
CS2 has a crosbell epilogue though
Kayden Richardson
Definitely don't do this. CS1/2 are much more enjoyable (they're not very enjoyable to begin with, but they're a little more enjoyable) if you played Crossbell arc. Also, Crossbell is the best arc in the series so far, so there's absolutely no reason to skip it, with Azure having one of the best villains in vidya period. Not to mention CS2's epilogue to the epilogue that takes place in Crossbell after Azure.
Jacob Parker
True, but it's not as if it spoils anything with that little jaunt in the geofront.
Luke Peterson
That's kinda why i started now.
Heard they were Japan only PSP titles that are finally coming to the West.
Charles Morales
Yeah it's CS3 that spoils shit about the SSS.
Luis Jones
Of course, cs3 is the point where you HAVE to play the crossbell arc.
I played cs1 and 2 without the crossbell stuff because at that point none of the translations were very good. Not really an issue several years later..
Hudson Davis
Yeah on September we're getting the definitive edition of the first Crosbell game on steam/PS4/switch.
Sebastian Baker
I love every game in the series and it's definitely been a fun ride, but you should make sure not to rush the games either to try and catch up. These games are hard to recommend in the first place because it's an entire connected series/universe with 11 games and telling someone to play 11 JRPGs is a tough fucking sell.
That said, take breaks between games. Don't attempt to jump immediately into the next game in the series when you're done with one of them. Take a break and take a breather with at least one other game from a different series in between the games otherwise you're going to burn yourself out trying to get through these games. They're all fun, but it's better to take your time.
Jonathan Foster
They've had a fan translation that's literally gonna be 1-to-1 for the official release. You can still download the fan translation on nyaa.si, that's where I got it from. You can play them on an absolute toaster PC
Adrian Gutierrez
Hopefully some of the translation changes, I don't really want to see the bruh moment text ever again.
Dominic Lee
it's not 1:1 they already showed changes in the zero nisa trailer
Samuel Morris
I started CS1 after 3rd cause I had it installed. I'm now halfway into CS2.
I do have Zero set up now but I kind of want to get to the end of CS2 and take a break before doing Crossbell.
How bad is the epilogue spoiler for Crossbell at the end of CS2. Is it just "now you know your team wins by the end" or is it "this re-contextualizes two games and you aren't going to be able to play them right".
I don't know if I have the self control to get right to the end of CS2 and then shut it off as soon as the epilogue starts. Am I fucked?
Henry King
It's more of a follow-up to Azure than a ''you now know who wins'' type thing. Anyway the ends of CS2 kinda spoils the fate of Crossbell too, but these games are more about the character interactions than overarching lore and shit so these spoilers will not take away your enjoyment from playing older arcs imo.
Carter Foster
There's some stupid meme shit in there, but the serious stuff is translated normally. I'd really recommend just playing it with the fan translation instead of waiting forever for the official release. They took too long at this point.
You can finish CS2 and then go back and play the Crossbell games just fine. They both take place around the same time, but you'll still get slightly spoiled because there's a Crossbell focused part in CS2's epilogue that shows a certain party member with Lloyd. Not only that, but they also just straight up tell you one of the key events in Ao no Kiseki. Not the most spoilery event of course, but they do tell you something that's kind of a big deal when you actually play Ao no Kiseki.
You can finish CS2 and be just fine, because when you go back and play Zero/Ao no Kiseki, you'll be able to have some context about what was going on with the Erebonia side from the perspective of the Crossbell cast.
Isaac Bell
Why did it take so long to get those two games to the West if they get spoiled in CS2?
David Evans
Because Falcom and XSNEED/NiSA are incompetent pieces of shit.
Hudson Hernandez
It's a tad dramatic to say that the epilogue of cs2 spoils anything at all.
Nicholas Gomez
It spoils a key event from Ao no Kiseki.
Jace Clark
xseed skipped 3rd/zero/azure in favor of getting cs1 and 2 out quicker because they were more modern but then went back and did 3rd out of obligation
the only reason zero and azure are even getting releases is because hajimari heavily relies on you having playing crossbell, even more than cs3 and 4 d
Logan Anderson
Okay, thanks for the context. I think both your posts get to the heart of what I like about the series and I should be fine finishing CS2. While the major events are good, the more interesting part of me is how the main characters and npcs react to them or the series of events that lead to them.
Like thanks to CS1 I assume Crossbell gets some Sept Terrion super weapon that deletes Gurelia and sets up a forcefield. But I don't have any answers to the why or how, or what any characters think about it and that's what actually intrigues me.
Based on what you said, that's probably the right mindset to have. I'm definitely doing Crossbell before CS3 though.
Thanks again for the advice!
Thomas Cooper
I'm happy you're happy playing Estelle's game.