Lurker > _stingers_

none of the Cold Steel games are good

I just beat CS4 and I'm contemplating quitting the series forever because I hated it so much

It's dawning on me that the entire plot of Zero exists to justify the villains' goal in Azure.

Like, in Zero everything is bad because of the Republic and the Empire. There's Elie's backstory. Everything sucks. The quests show people being sad about their country's status. Ravache and Harttmann and the others are powerful because of the Empire. The SSS exists to try and find some gap in that lockdown, to make a difference.

And then Azure comes and goes "you know, what if we fought back? What if we gained independence? That Osborne fella is such a jerk, and that Rocksmith guy sucks too, screw those losers, let's make a referendum. Like, Kloe and Olivier support us, right?"

But then it flips the whole thing on its head.

And the bad guys are the ones who want independence, and the goal of the game is to stop them.

And it's not like Osborne and the rest are suddenly good, they still suck. The game is just telling you that freedom has a cost, and that cost is KeA. And fuck if we are going to pay that. So figure out another way. In a different game. Sometimes you just don't take down the evil empire, you gotta wait and prepare.

Zero is such a perfect set up and I'm realizing this is the second time the series does it, cuz FC was a perfect setup too. But that game was more about building the Estelle/Joshua ship so it could break it and start the chase in SC. Zero is about showing a problem so that Azure can give the solution, then pull the rug from the player and create so much conflict in the story that way.

Who writes this stuff what did I do to deserve storytelling this good I can't even

Interesting. I kind of feel like this kind of lore shouldn't be gated behind an optional victory. But thanks!

His scraft is literally summoning a salt pale. You can't be more broken than that.

Speaking of which, the pink haired girl you met in the police academy did not originally exist there before the rerelease. Hmmmm mysterious I wonder why~

Also KeA continues her peferct streak at making every character love her, even that arrogant mafia heir kid

ok hear me out, I have a good canon reason for this pronunciation

ffvii spoilers: Cait Sith is a robot. The guy who made this robot is dumb and doesnt know how Gaelic words are pronounced. Its Reevess fault.

later in the game the party will meet a dude with a Scottish accent whos like hey why are you pronouncing this cats name wrong?

if the Irish didnt want their language homogenized they should have made it less weird

I don't know, I've been fooled by fake screeshots on the internet, I'm going to need a direct link to an original S-E source on this lol

(but assuming true, this is really fantastic news!)

The Fisherman Guild members have disappeared. Clearly they are going to return a few chapters from now with an entire navy, ready to annex Crossbell to the Fishing Empire

I think 3rd is by far the weakest game in the series I have played, but I've noticed I'm the minority opinion.

i have no idea why you would think i am being ironic

hype level maximum

I tend to agree that the ghosts are stupid but the overall good in the game greatly outweighs the stupidity, imo

She glows. The bad guys may have a point

You know a team up is powerful by the hair color variety

https://x.com/finalizer14/status/1702464830018596909?s=46&t=F948ZqZ1Fth38HL1s84rtg

That's just the Wii