Board 8 > The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV Review Zone

(+) Yeah! (+)

colliding posted...

CS1 is just such a slooowwwww game

I think probably a significant portion of the Trails fanbase in particular doesn't view this as a problem.

Maybe this is just projection though idk.
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CS1 also felt fast to me since it was the first Trails I played with Turbo mode. Huge game changer there. Makes the gameplay wayyyy less boring.
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The one thing i really didn't like about CS3 is how it basically felt like CS1 again. Sure it gets into the action a bit faster but those Leeves sections really were crap.

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pyresword posted...

I think probably a significant portion of the Trails fanbase in particular doesn't view this as a problem.

Maybe this is just projection though idk.

yeah I feel like the deliberate pacing of Trails is one of the appeals for a lot of people

CS1 and CS2 are basically a push to me. CS1 is a more even experience overall, but CS2 has higher highs. I feel like CS2 would be easily ahead of CS1 for me if the game didn't continue for another 10 hours after the ending. It just overstayed its welcome.

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Lloyd Bannings still #1 in my heart

too bad for those who haven't played the Crossbell games that one of those games biggest plot twists is spoiled fairly quickly into the prologue

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ninkendo posted...

Lloyd Bannings still #1 in my heart

too bad for those who haven't played the Crossbell games that one of those games biggest plot twists is spoiled fairly quickly into the prologue

Maybe if they cared about me getting spoiled they'd have released the games over here

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as the best games in the series clearly you should just want to naturally seek them out

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Maybe if they released them over here I might have learned they're the best games

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all I'm saying is I played both in full english last year and it wasn't a problem

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(and then I bought the japanese versions on PS4 just to get trophies)

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I'm playing Trails From Zero right now, but I'm not too worried about CSIV spoiling stuff anyway.

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"Just go pirate them" is never an excuse for a publishers failure to release games in a wide spanning franchise properly.

If Endgame came out and Infinity War had been exclusively put out on Canadian Netflix with no theatrical release, the response wouldn't be that I should have just gone and found it somewhere.

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I don't think it's fair to compare a 3 hour movie to an 80 hour JRPG

especially one that has led translators to almost commit suicide in the past with how much there is to translate.

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but also I dont' really get that argument either as someone who's sought out and played many fan translations over the decades. It's just something that's unique to video games and what helps separate them from other forms of media

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ninkendo posted...

but also I dont' really get that argument either as someone who's sought out and played many fan translations over the decades. It's just something that's unique to video games and what helps separate them from other forms of media

Not everyone enjoys seeking out and/or waiting for fan translations

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ninkendo posted...

but also I dont' really get that argument either as someone who's sought out and played many fan translations over the decades. It's just something that's unique to video games and what helps separate them from other forms of media

Uh, no it's not? Movies, anime, manga, comics, books, etc. all get fan translations too.
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luckily I'm still....85% certain those PS4 ports are still gonna make it here.

Every time I hear on the 8-4 Play podcast they're localizing something with 10s of thousands of lines of dialogue I keep hoping its those.

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Uh, no it's not? Movies, anime, manga, comics, books, etc. all get fan translations too.

I was talking more about the hacking aspect of it and feeling like you're involved in the process, but yes technically correct.

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ninkendo posted...

especially one that has led translators to almost commit suicide in the past with how much there is to translate.

Maybe they shouldn't have been put into that position to begin with??

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speaking of which oh ya prologue beated

of the 3.5 or so hours I spent on that, maybe only 45 of that was gameplay. The rest was all cutscenes.

I can see how the reviewers consider this to be a slow start, but I'd not have it any other way.

Also yeah Laura is clearly different, but it's close enough that's it's not too big of a deal.

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what's important is Duvalie is still the same


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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Not once in the entirety of Cold Steel 1-3 have I ever spoken to a single NPC that I wasn't specifically directed to, lol.

...this is the worst thing Ive ever read. You basically skipped the games

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Don't see how!

Maybe I should clarify, I completely filled out the characters books to max for what you can do in a single playthrough. When I say I didn't talk to any NPCs, I mean the Joe Schmo nobodies.

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Falcom certainly puts a lot of time into the NPC dialogue but I don't think it's the best thing about the games nor do I think it's essential at all.
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The ball/party later in CS3 is basically what I always wanted out of the "talking to NPCs" thing. You get refreshed on dialogue every time, everyone has something interesting to say, and almost all of the NPCs are important characters to the series' plot. It's much better than the usual "talk to all the nobodies in town" stuff (I do all that stuff and quite enjoy some of it, but there are definitely characters who aren't that interesting).
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UshiromiyaEva posted...

Don't see how!

Maybe I should clarify, I completely filled out the characters books to max for what you can do in a single playthrough. When I say I didn't talk to any NPCs, I mean the Joe Schmo nobodies.

But even those people end up having stories that carry through the game. The attention to detail for even the smallest things is what makes the series great.

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But that's not stuff that interests me at all.

Like, this is a personal problem, but I cannot stress enough how much I want games to be a straight line. I'm the "all open world games are bad" guy. I have very, very little tolerance for exploration, and want everything given very clear instruction, with as little down time as possible to get from point A to point B. "You can go anywhere" to me means "Guess I'm going nowhere". It's really no surprise that a majority of my top 10 games of all time have needed up being VNs or VN adjacent, now that I think about it.

No matter what they have to say, talking to completely unimportant NPCs who aren't connected in any way to game progression or hitting ticks on a checklist....was simply never in the cards for me.

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UshiromiyaEva posted...

But that's not stuff that interests me at all.

Like, this is a personal problem, but I cannot stress enough how much I want games to be a straight line. I'm the "all open world games are bad" guy. I have very, very little tolerance for exploration, and want everything given very clear instruction, with as little down time as possible to get from point A to point B. "You can go anywhere" to me means "Guess I'm going nowhere". It's really no surprise that a majority of my top 10 games of all time have needed up being VNs or VN adjacent, now that I think about it.

No matter what they have to say, talking to completely unimportant NPCs who aren't connected in any way to game progression or hitting ticks on a checklist....was simply never in the cards for me.

don't you do every side quest in Tales games
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Mac Arrowny posted...

don't you do every side quest in Tales games

With a guide telling me exactly what to do, yes.

As long as I have step by step instructions to minimalize wasted time, I've got no problem.

Tales is actually a good example. When I played Abyss the first time through I missed basically every sidequest. Of course when I replayed I used a guide and got them all. Had I replayed without a guide, likely would have yet again done no sidequests.

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Just following a step by step guide for everything feels like the opposite of fun

I follow guides to do stuff I don't want to do

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For me it's the opposite! If I don't have the guide I get super stressed.

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Luckily all Cold Steel games are the same. If you did everything in one you know how to get everything in all of them.

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And they've streamlined the process more and more with each game

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Cold Steel IV get

the Limited Edition is so hype that one of the items comes with a spoiler warning

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LeonhartFour posted...

the Limited Edition is so hype that one of the items comes with a spoiler warning

This was the first thing I opened lmao

It was actually a real spoiler, though it was one I already knew which I was relatively confident was going to be the case.
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I will not open it until I finish the game

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I think I know what it is, but just to be safe I won't open it. I've come to absorb things about this game and Hajimari by accident

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I have less spoilers for this game than I did for CS3 at least.

Same thing for Hajimari although I am upset about getting spoiled on a major thing by clicking on a reddit thread I thought was promo material. (Many spoilers I don't really care and am accepting some risk when wiki-browsing or whatever but this one was totally accidental and also a very big spoiler :(
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the masked man's identity, right. We both clicked on the same reddit thread

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Is it a spoiler for CS3 or for CS4?

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ninkendo posted...

the masked man's identity, right. We both clicked on the same reddit thread

Yes.

colliding posted...

Is it a spoiler for CS3 or for CS4?

Cold Steel 4
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pyresword posted...

Yes.

Cold Steel 4

I guess this post in itself is kind of a spoiler, assuming that this means that who we thought the masked man at the end of CS3 is actually not who it is.

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This is a different masked man who I think only appears in Hajimari
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Oh I guess maybe I should clarify

The artwork thing that comes with a spoiler warning in the CS4 Limited Edition contains a spoiler for Cold Steel 4.

The masked man-related thing that I was complaining about getting spoiled by a reddit thread is a spoiler for Hajimari no Kiseki
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I like how I'm calling out things that happened previously and then the characters say it when I walk by

Me: "this is where that train got derailed in CS3"

Kurt: This is where that train got dereailed last time we were here!

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But do characters still awkwardly comment on how beautiful treasure chests are? Do they complain about climbing ladders and crawling through ducts? Do they do that annoying "wave nonchalantly while walking away thing"? These are the important questions.

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colliding posted...

But do characters still awkwardly comment on how beautiful treasure chests are?

Duh

colliding posted...

Do they complain about climbing ladders and crawling through ducts?

It feels like even more of a running gag than it used to be

colliding posted...

Do they do that annoying "wave nonchalantly while walking away thing"?

I haven't had anyone really leave like that yet so I will report back

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colliding posted...

Do they complain about climbing ladders and crawling through ducts?

Yes and the first instance was something like (spoilers just in case) "I can't believe we still have to waste time climbing these in this day and age". You and me both buddy.

colliding posted...

Do they do that annoying "wave nonchalantly while walking away thing

This one irritates me so much and yes, though I think it's only happened once.
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Digital Deluxe pre-orders are still borked FYI. Best bet if you want to play it right away is to request a refund due to download error and buy the standard edition.

Though at this point the obvious solution is for NISA to just give everyone who pre-ordered a game code.

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