Board 8 > The Legend of MZeroes: Trails of Cold Stingers 2

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFQgn30dhlY

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I vaguely remember that but I had no idea what a Mishy was! It hits different now

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Yeah I guess that's true lol. I had conveniently forgotten that

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Bumpo

I've been playing a bit but 12/5 is really long lol

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Get used to lengthier and lengthier segments the deeper you get into Cold Steel

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Maybe we'll have to change the formats for our writeups...mine are already stupidly long

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I'm on 12/9 and just about to enter Bareahard so I'm a bit further in

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Ok I just hit 12/9. I'll try and write everything up tomorrow

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This is probably going to be like 8 posts long so sorry in advance xd

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12/5

We start off today outside of Rean's house, and I go inside to commune with the help. I learn that their maids name is Purple, which, if that is a small reference to Sharon, I definitely appreciate that. However, her hair is definitely blue, not purple. I'm not sure what kind of sick joke that is.

I head to the shop afterwards and decide to give a elvel2 slot upgrade to Claire, since I feel like I will use her as long as she is available, and her ATS is still really good. I love using mixed attackers in RPGs so I'm glad they are letting her fill that role while Jusis is MIA. After that, not much left to do so I go out to Valimar, where the gang has to choose between Nord and Legram. If Falcom had higher budgets I imagine this would be a real choice, but in lieu of that Rean decides that Nord is slightly closer so we're going there. Kind of rude Rean, he brought it up but then didn't even ask for anyone else's input on where they want to go. But really, we all know the real reason is because he likes Gaius more than Laura. My guesses for who is going to be here are...Gaius, Millium, and Emma. Laura and Alisa I feel like they'll save until the end because they are the main waifus of the series, just like how they made you wait until the end to collect Elie in Azure. Besides that...Gaius is a gimme, and Millium seems like she will be introduced ASAP because they hate me and want me to suffer. Then between Emma and Jusis....they probably won't want to put all 3 girls in the last area, so they'll stick Emma here. That's my prediction and I'm sticking to it.

Oh man, they're only letting me choose one between Claire and Toval?! This is fucked up man. I really wanted to bring both, the others don't really appeal to me as much. Oh well, I settle on Machias as Toval's replacement, and bring him alongside Fie and Claire. Overall a pretty balanced team, though a little light on artes casting, but I don't foresee it being a big issue.

One short glowy hyperspace cutscene later and the gang ends up back at the Nord highlands, on top of the plateau in the south. Sadly no horses are available for us this time, but turbo mode is a suitable replacement. I do remember controlling the horses with turbo active was pretty difficult in CS1 lol. After leaving, Rean gives the player a choice between going to Zender gate or the nomad settlement first. I decide on Zender, since I feel like it's less likely to advance the plot. Gaius has to be with the nomads after all, but I don't see anyone being there. Maybe Millium I guess, but she kind of does her own thing most of the time.

After turning the corner leaving the plateau that we started on however, we get a cutscene that features a battle between some noble mechs and imperial tanks. The tanks pincer them in and force the Noble battalion into retreat, scoring a small victory. The gang then decides that they do need to go to Zender gate first after all, keeping the illusion of player choice alive. At least I made the right choice earlier, though for all the wrong reasons. Moving on...

They make it to the gate, and are immediately questioned at gunpoint by the soldiers there. Machias thinks that's a bit extreme, which is...a little nave, but it is Machias. I have to imagine that line was written for Elliot though lol. Anyway, the general comes down and recognizes Rean and Claire, so all is forgiven and he invites them into the fort to discuss matters. The war effort is the chief topic of discussion of course, where he reveals how the Imperial army is outmatched in terms of equipment and firepower. He reveals that the watchtower they guarded in the first game has fallen into their hands, which seems like a weird place to want to maintain control of, since it's wilderness and enemy territory all around them with no reinforcement potential in sight. But the general has an idea about that, he says - he thinks that the Noble alliance is working together with Calvard! That's some good plot development. I don't remember any mention of this in Crossbell, so maybe things are finally heating up.

They briefly discuss the ramifications if this were true, but quickly move away from speculation and onto other topics. Their next most pressing matter is that all orbal communications are being jammed so they can't call for backup, which is an awful position to be in regardless of the civil war due to their proximity to Calvard's borders. They discuss that they wish they could get in contact with Gwyn, Alisa's grandad, who has a cabin at the lake past the Nord encampment, but haven't been able to make it out there yet. He oh-so-subtly wink wink nudge nudge's over in Rean's direction, saying that this is an Imperial matter and he could never ask Rean to get involved and help them out. I think I know where we are going to be going. To sweeten the pot, he mentions that he has confirmed that Gaius is at the encampment with the rest of his family, and Rean and company are somehow surprised at this shocking revelation. I mean, the robot has literally told you that someone (three people) were in this area, who the fuck else did you think it would be? I don't know how Rean always figures out the most obscure shit that nobody else would notice, but can't figure out things like this. Anime, man.

The gang is of course on board to go take care of the Imperial militaries problems, like good neutral observers should, and they let us know that they can give us horses to get back. That will help speed things along at least, horses + turbo is a good time. I wonder how long it would take to cross these plains without using turbo mode. I'm not willing to find out.

Before we go, I check out the base and the shop has new equipment for everyone (sans Claire, who came decked out), which does go a long way in equalizing everyone's stats to hers. Rean now has the highest strength again, so all things are as they should be. I find Beryl in the mess hall, which is almost as random as Munk at that last military outpost. She is as lovable as ever! Celine does let loose the lore drop that she is in fact, not a witch. Good to have that confirmed! It was definitely an actual question, unlike with Emma.

Not much else to do here, so I go to leave and get a useless how to ride a horse tutorial. It's literally the same as moving your character, I don't know why they felt like they needed a tutorial. On a more important note, Mint is outside, so I guess we're shooting for 2 Thors students at every new area from now on. Works for me! She was a little annoying in 1, but she had a dash of charm on the side, so I don't mind seeing her again. After a trek across the plains in turbo speed, we make it to Gaius' camp and find it abandoned. Some Jaegers jump out and ambush us, and starts a fight with you in disadvantage which was actually pretty tough because of that, Fie almost got one shot. After I could actually play the game though it wasn't too hard to stabilize.

Afterwards, in standard Trails fashion they reveal that they totally weren't even trying bro, and some more jaegers + dogs walk out to finish us off. Why were they just all hiding behind tents watching their teammates possibly die instead of just helping? Don't worry about it! In epic fashion however, Gaius rides in just in the nick of time on a horse and lances a few guys down. That's my boy! I do like Gaius a lot, even if he is a little one dimensional. At least he's the respectable kind of one dimensional, unlike some of the other classmates. One of the jaegers calls Gaius a "horseman" instead of a "horsemen" which is a great mental image. The voice actor clearly says, Horse and Man as well so there's no ambiguity there. Afterwards though, the jaegers back away and run off to the watchtower to recuperate.

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One of the jaegers, while talking to his crew says "Ja" like how Fie always does, which struck me as a bit of a weird idiosyncrasy to give to all jaegers and not just members of one particular branch or whatever. It's not like they are some distinct culture or something (I think), I thought that was just the term for mercenary in this continent. Is there more to it then that? Fast forward to Gaius and the gang having a standard reunion scene that we are going to see even more of in the near future. He talks about the wind, and friendship, blah blah blah. He then lets us know that the camp was abandoned due to the jaegers and his clan moved right off the lake where Alisa's grandpa is! How convenient. He also says that Alisa and Millium are with him up there, so I was half right. I definitely should've thought about the fact that Alisa's grandpa was also on the plains when I was guessing, it completely slipped my mind. Either way, she was definitely the best girl classmate in the last game so it'll be nice to see her again. And Millium can join Elliot watching the camp when we get back! Great news all around.

It fast travels us to the lake instead of letting us walk there, which is a little weird, but okay, time saving is cool. We meet up with some of the local kids and then greet Gaius' parents. I'm just now realizing that their names are Lacan and Fatma, possible Xenogears reference? I hope so! They talk for a bit and let us know that Alisa and Millium left with grandpa to investigate the orbal communication jamming, but we can wait for them to get back in the meantime. Sounds good to me! Gaius joins the party officially, and the game, overstepping its boundaries, removes Claire from the frontline to add him. This offends me. I swap her back in and move Machias to the backline so I can try Gaius out. I didn't really use him last game because he felt really underwhelming, so hopefully they buffed him for this game.

Over at the shop, they have the same weapons as the fort but better armor, making me regret wasting money on armor upgrades at the fort. I'm kind of loaded at this point though and armor is pretty cheap, so I shell out for a few upgrades here anyway. After selling all my leftover crap I've got about 10k to my name which isn't bad at all. I wander around for a bit but can't figure out what to do, so pressing square reveals to me that the game says to go north and meet up with Alisa and them. I could've sworn we all talked about me waiting for them to get back, but I guess I never got the memo. I leave to go find them and get to try Gaius for a few battles, but he feels just as mediocre as the last game unfortunately. I swap Machias back in, him having his AOE status effect application, along with the utility from his heal and petrification crafts is way too valuable to give up for Gaius. Also, one of the enemies on the map here is a wolf called 'White Fang', which is a nice reference. We can say that he's Loewe's spiritual successor.

While exploring the ancient quarry area to the north, there's a mysterious black tent set up there with nobody inside. First guess as to who that is...Millium's weird counterpart that had her own Lammy, since she was all black. That's my entire argument. We'll see how long the reveal will take for the tent subplot. Not much else going on here though, so I go over to the new plains area to find Alisa and Millium. It's a completely linear path, but you end up walking over a Xenoblade, Guar Plains-esque land bridge when a giant dragon attacks! It looks just like the annoying dragon boss from the schoolhouse in CS1, and Alisa makes that same comment. That boss was awful, it was the only time in the game I actually had to go and grind a few levels. Also, before the fight starts we do get to view Alisa and Millium's new designs, which are both a step up from 1. Alisa has a red skirt and cool black and white jacket that looks good, and Millium has some weird sailor uniform that you would never see in real life, but honestly I think she makes it work. It still manages to look a lot more normal than her mess of an outfit from CS1, so I'm more than happy with the change.

The battle starts off with Alisa and Millium already in the party. I'm unwilling to keep Millium in, so I switch her out for Claire right away. A quick glance at her move set appears to be the same as 1 so I don't assume to be missing much. The first thing I do is try Alisa's Flamberge skill, but much to my dismay they hard nerfed the voice line by redoing it. Seriously, if you don't remember go and open CS1 real quick and listen to her voice line when she uses that skill. It sounds hilariously bad. The fight itself is pretty uneventful, I just used Claire's team attack buff and some S crafts and it was dead before he hit the ground. I think he got off 3 attacks the whole fight, without using any of my backup characters S crafts. They only gave him 50k health which is pretty low, the last chapter had two bosses with over 100k at the end. To be fair they did end that fight prematurely, but I'm pretty sure I would've won if they had let me. I do see why people say CS is baby mode in difficulty compared to the older ones, but that's the price you have to pay for mass appeal. At least I get to play on Nightmare again as a benefit, since I did feel a little bitchmade not playing on Nightmare in Crossbell. But we'll see, maybe they'll add some more challenge later. CS1 was by and large an easy game, but there were some challenging fights to be had.

After the fight, Celine teaches the gang about cryptids, which us Crossbell players already know all about. Millium's first voice line after the fight has her introduced as Blue-Haired Girl, which is more frustrating than the last time they did this since we've seen her name at least 20 times on screen already. Claire and Millium have a reunion, I didn't realize they were so close. I notice that their hair colors are identical too, siblings perhaps? I doubt that this game is daring enough to make Claire a mother, since she'll be in Rean's harem soon enough. It does actually warm me up to Millium a bit though, since if Claire likes you you can't be that bad. I think Millium's voice is a liiiiiitle less grating so far, but that could be Stockholm syndrome kicking in, who knows.

Alisa walks up to give Rean a big ol' tight hug, and he just stands there awkwardly hover handing her. C'mon man, just give in and hug her back, none of this awkward-teenage-JRPG shit. If you're going to have a harem, you gotta start acting like it. Reans definitely not as smooth as Lloyd was, though I think Lloyd is a little older to be fair. But those are some tough shoes to fill I have to admit. Though after a bit of heartfelt conversation, he does finally hug her back while easing her conscience over how CS1 ended, with Rean flying away from the gang. He does let out some smooth lines too after that, so I guess he just had to warm up a little bit. Watching this I gotta say that they definitely do play up Alisa and Rean as a couple way more than anyone else, so I'm not sure what people were talking about earlier. I guess there's still quite a lot of Cold Steel to go though, so they have ample time to ruin it.

Millium proceeds to ruin the moment by jumping into Reans arms. She's almost young enough to where it's cute, but she's slightly too old to where it's still creepy. If Rean were like 35 then sure, but man. Rean makes a good point though by saying that she should've been off rendezvousing with the Intelligence division instead of following around Alisa and Gaius, but she waves it off. I'm guessing that she's still on her mission to keep tabs on Class VII, but I thought she kind of already told Rean that she was doing that, so maybe he just forgot? Or maybe it was only alluded to and he still hasn't figured it out, because in standard Schwarzer fashion, the things right in front of him are the only things he'll miss.

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Anyway, the gang finally gets to the point of why they're here, and Gwyn says that they were able to determine that the jammer is at the top of the watchtower. Alright, sounds good to me, watchtower infiltration sequence incoming! Sounds pretty fun, it's time to take the kid gloves off and get some real shit to do, now that we've got a real gang together. We'll just say that it's okay that a bunch of kids are infiltrating a hostile military facility because Claire is there to watch them, just another field trip. Who cares, in JRPG years these kids are basically 30.

Back at camp, the highlanders present come to the conclusion that they've had enough off all this jaeger drama and they need to leave the highlands and find someplace safe. I feel bad for them, but trying to maintain a peaceful, traditional lifestyle in this industrialized era is a luxury that they simply cannot afford. Unfortunately the world is not willing to slow down on their behalf. Rean, ever the idealist however, says that they WILL earn that luxury, and to stop being such bitches and launch an attack on a military facility. Attaboy Rean! The plan to stop the jammer commences. The old adults in the room simply comment on the follies of youth, but make no effort/offer no advice to deter them from the plan. I choose to think it's because they can tell we're all level 58 and know that nobody can fuck with us.

Here, the game opens up and I get to pick my party. Claire's the only one that I know I want, but eventually I settle for Alisa and Machias. Alisa's my other favorite here and she also adds some much needed ATS to my team comp, and Machias is just plain the best unit of everyone I have left, at least for random encounters. I might switch him out for Fie for boss fights, but we'll have to see how it's going.

Alisa has a new outfit that lets her dress up like Estelle, to fit with Rean's Joshua outfit. It looks way better than Rean's Joshua outfit, but I don't really feel like playing through this whole game while thinking of her as Estelle so I opt to leave her on default. Her default outfit is actually sick in this game, and her only other option is the mediocre stage costume and, for some reason, her lacrosse outfit. I don't remember that being an option in CS1 at all so it's a bit weird they added it here, after school life is over. It looks kind of silly though, so default it is. I think at this point I'm still using default costumes on everyone, except for Rean who I'm using his winter clothes. I just hate how edgy the jacket is in his default costume, I know he's an edgy guy and all when he goes all demon anime but it's not my thing. Also I have Elliot in his stage costume but that's just because he deserves to look like an idiot. Gaius actually kind of pulls off the stage outfit, but I don't want Elliot to think he looks cool by proxy and Gaius default outfit works well too so I leave him as-is. I do attach a teddy bear to Millium's arm though because it fits the sailor vibes so well.

Moving on from fashion, I have to go outfit everyone with orbments so I spent a bunch of time at the elder's hut figuring that out. I had a shitton of sepith to work with so I've got everyone pretty strong at this point. I also got some quests from the elder, which are pretty standard. He says after giving me the quests that he never would've guessed that the reason orbal communications were down could've been caused by human activity? What the hell else was going to cause it? Also, one of the quests, to help a girl find a lost horse is called "Foaling Around". They really love their puns in this one.

I leave into the plains to go look for the aforementioned horse and find a trial chest for Alisa and Millium. I got pretty lucky on this one, crit panel turn 1 right off the bat let me use Millium's S craft to take off over half the bosses health right off the bat (and kill all of the little minions). Millium's only purpose for me is her broken S craft, it hits the whole map and is crazy strong. The reward for that fight is a Heatwave R which slots in nicely over top of the Heatwave that Alisa came with. There's also a monster chest nearby that drops a Gladiator Belt, my favorite staple accessory in the franchise. Claire is rocking the Gladiator Belt/Headband combo now, something which I had been sticking on Agate and Randy in the past two games, but Gaius just don't hit the same so Claire is our new recipient. That frost shot craft of hers is insanely broken so getting those off as much as possible will be nice.

I spent way too much time wandering around the plains looking for this stupid horse and find nothing, besides a bunch of treasure chests and 3 monsters you're supposed to kill for the other quest that the Elder gives you. Oh, and a fishing spot that I found a new fish in and got promoted to Gold Angler! Can't wait to see what broken quartz I will get from Annabelle next time she shows up. Anyway, that searching probably took me like 20 minutes and I found nothing about a horse so I tried some other areas and it turns out that he's in the area where you first found Alisa and Millium. I could've sworn they said he was right in the plains outside of the Lake area, but maybe I was misunderstanding. You do get to explore this area further in then the first time you were here though, so I go to do that while I'm here. There was a monster chest with some large stone golems inside and the fight was actually pretty tough. I had a close fight but the reward is worth the effort - another tier 2 quartz, 'Harvest'. It grants Earth Pulse, La Crest, and Grand Press in 1 which is some insane value for this early on. I don't have anyone with me now that can use it sans Claire, who I'd upgraded one of her slots to 2 for the last one I'd found, but that's already being used. I'll need to wait until I return to town to get this equipped it seems.

At the end of this path in this part of the plains, there's another one of those mysterious popup schoolhouse-replacement dungeons. Another sidequest is kind of annoying at this point, because I really want to go raid that tower, but fuck it! We'll get it done. There was an orbment charging station inside so I was able to upgrade one of Claire's slots to 2 and give her that OP orbment. Moving into the dungeon, I find another trial chest inside for Alisa and Gaius. This was possibly the worst fight in the game for me so far, it took me 3 tries to beat and I got lucky. There's a giant blob monster that does about 3k per attack and heals for that same amount. I was only able to win so "easily" because Gaius just happened to dodge him twice in a row, while we were pelting him down, and I had 2 200cp S Crafts ready to go to burst him for about 20k to finish him off afterwards. Bosses healing in RPGs is the worst, man.

The boss at the end is similar to the boss in the first popup dungeon, but probably twice as annoying. The first two times I tried this fight they put half of my teammates to sleep at the start and then used Aerial, which does 5k to everyone and the fight is basically unwinnable at that point. Third time I got lucky, and they put nobody to sleep, so I could play around Aerial and actually get some hits in. Powered my guys up, unleashed some S crafts, easy peasy. Man, S crafts in this game are insanely overtuned compared to how useful they were in the past titles. It feels like some bosses don't even get a chance to play because S crafts just take off so much health and they are all AOE, I don't think I've seen a single single target one yet.

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After the fight, the post-battle lore drop shows the king in the past making friends with the Nord tribespeople, and the dude they show looks a lot like an older Gaius. Definitely starting to think more that I was right and this dude will be Rean's ancestor, so they can show how they were all connected 500 years ago and that's how they ended up together again or some anime shit like that. If that's what they do, hopefully past Elliot looks like a chad so we can make current Elliot feel bad about himself some more. Not much else to that though, so after I leave this dungeon it dawns on me that I still haven't found this damn horse. I just start fast traveling around until I find him, which turns out to be at the old tribe settlement. It does make sense logically that a lost baby horse would go back to where he grew up, so good on Falcom on that touch. After getting him back safe and sound I turn in my quests, and realize I have no idea what I'm supposed to do now. Pressing square shows the helpful hint, "Go to the plateau in the south highlands", so I assume that means where we left Valimar. I go there though and nothing happens, just a conversation about how Millium is jealous that Valimar is stronger than Lammy. Poor girl. Still not sure of where to go though, so I wander around aimlessly until I something happens.

It turns out to be the area where we stopped the jaegers cannon fire up on some random cliff in CS1. I do vaguely remember that they mentioned this area now that I'm here, but the time between then and now was a few days in real time for me so I kind of forgot. Whoops! It goes on to mention that this is a point of no return if I continue though, so thanks again Falcom for including those helpful tidbits and I back off for now so I can go to Zender Gate and see what they've got going on before I move on. One of the soldiers needs some help finding a locket, which he says should be near a destroyed tank somewhere on the plains. At least that's a pretty good hint to go off of. When I go out to search for it, I find some new monster I hadn't seen before which was some sort of giant, floating electric fish thing. It absolutely wrecked my shit. That monster was no joke, I actually almost got a game over because I was stubbornly trying to beat it "normally" instead of just spamming S crafts like I should've. Going to be trying to avoid those from now on...

That did remind me that a lot of this area was blocked off before though, which I had forgotten when originally exploring. This inspired me to explore further, and I found a trial chest for Gaius and Millium. This took me a few tries but it was entirely my own fault. I started the fight without saving beforehand, and I wasn't sure where my last save was so I wasn't willing to reload. On top of that, Gaius had 0 EP and 0 CP so he was pretty useless. I think I ended up winning on something like my 8th attempt, by giving Millium a dish that raised her attack by 50% and then had her use her S Craft on a crit panel, which left the boss <10k HP. After that, I had Gaius use Wild Rage to grant him a bunch of CP, which left him close enough to get his S Craft off after one more attack combined with the CP he'd gotten from being hit. I had just barely enough HP left to survive getting to 100CP, which let me get Gaius' S craft off and win. The boss was killing people in about 3 attacks, so there wasn't much leeway to work with. This definitely could've been a much easier fight because all he did was auto attack, but I made it hard on myself.

After that fight, I was eventually able to find the dude's locket and return it, but besides that there wasn't much else going on so I finally made my way to the watchtower to advance the plot. The gang is up on their plateau plotting, and decide that now is the time to strike, while the Noble Alliance is preparing for an engagement with the Imperial Army, meaning they are distracted and not fully manning the watchtower. They go to rush in, and another dope new song plays. I need to start looking up some song names, but it's hard to do so without inadvertently spoiling myself in the process. Never go on youtube to search for anything related to a game you are currently playing through, I've learned the hard way.

During infiltration, on the first floor there's an air duct that leads to a treasure chest. At the end of an air duct. Just sitting there. Who the hell designed this place?

Infiltration is pretty easy though, just some normal encounters interspersed with some jaeger miniboss fights. At the very top however, you get ambushed and pincered in by some jaegers who get advantage state, and they probably get about 6 turns. I think I had 2 retries where everyone died before I could actually play the game, so I just said screw it and interjected with some S Crafts to get by. I wanted to save them for whatever boss was awaiting me at the top, but in this playthrough Millium and Claire will be having to start the fight without one. To the top!

The boss who is awaiting us turns out to be Bleublanc, who shows up and taunts the party with his standard beauty speech. This is the third group of young heroes who have heard this one man, get some new material! After his speech however, the Millium doppelganger shows up on her black Lammy. Looking like I might have been onto something with my tent analysis earlier! She confirms to us that she is in fact, NOT an Ouroboros member, which definitely is making me wonder her background. She tells us her name is Altina Orion, so she has the same last name as Millium, driving the mysteries deeper. I do like her design as well, it's a little edgy but it works. They're laying it on a bit thick that she's related to Millium somehow. Based on the fact that the two are pretty young, and have an advanced skillset, I really would've figured there would've been some Ouroboros ties, ala Joshua and Renne. If that's off the table...not really sure. Maybe they're on some supernatural shit like KeA. Millium doesn't seem keen to reveal any information to us quite yet however, and the talking ends and the fight begins.

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It's a pretty easy fight overall, compared to some of the bullshit I've been doing today. Bleublanc summons a bunch of robot drones as a special thing, but besides that they're really just putting out standard attacks without too much in the way of gimmicks. I win the fight pretty easily, but upon checking my guide it says that there is a +3 AP bonus for winning within 40 turns, which I definitely did not do. Time to restart and figure that out. I decide to grind for a little bit just go get Millium and Claire back up to 200CP, since 40 turns is pretty quick for all the damage I have to do. The second time around, however, Bleublanc ends up not summoning any of his robot drones, so I don't have them wasting any turns on my turn counter. By doing the standard, buff strength and S craft strategy I was able to finish it pretty quickly and get the bonus AP I was craving.

After the fight, Millium asks Altina if she is "connected", to which Altina responds "...". So that's a yes then. What exactly that means is up to our interpretation at this point, the characters don't seem to react to this at all. Since she's already said, and Bleublanc confirmed, that she's not connected to Ouroboros, I'm really at a loss. I don't think she means connected in the sense of to the imperial spy network, since I have to assume Millium wouldn't need to ask any questions there, and Claire didn't say anything. I'm not really sure what other major players there are at this point, maybe to Calvard? We don't know much about them yet.

Bleublanc gets tired of their banter and reveals that, as we well know, the gang does not have the upper hand in this situation and stuns them with his muscle paralyzing spell he's used in the last games. So we know someone is coming to rescue them soon, the question is who will it be? The game does not waste our time and as soon as you ask, she appears - motha fuckin Sharon! My other girl! Claire and Sharon being part of the game so quickly is all the fanservice I need. I figure they have to be fan favorites, but I haven't actually looked into any popularity polls or whatever to know who's popular in Trails, in my ongoing quest to avoid spoilers. Anyway, I do find it a bit odd that she would directly oppose Bleublanc like this, but it's not without precedent to have some Ouroboros infighting. They have also said over and over that they possess high levels of autonomy in their actions as Enforcers, so it does make sense. Bleublanc then goes on to namedrop Joshua and Renne and asks Sharon if she's going to be following in their footsteps, but she denies that. She does say however that her love for the Reinford family is her top priority, and Ouroboros comes second. So kind of curious how those two alignments will play out as the series progresses, since, at least as far as Alisa is concerned, seem to be in direct opposition, but who knows how Momma Reinford will end up aligning herself.

Eventually, we are reminded that we are discussing all of this on top of an active military facility, and some noble reinforcements come in. They have an airship and some soldats in their retinue, so things aren't looking good! Rean is forced to call for Valimar, and does the most anime thing I've seen in this game yet - when Valimar shows up, Rean jumps off the roof of the tower before turning into a ball of light and teleporting inside. I hate it so much that I love it. Quick sidebar, but what is the range that Rean has to call for Valimar again? Could Rean be off in Liberl and still talk to him? What kind of network are they running on here? I kind of hope this becomes a plot point eventually, since so far Rean's always needed to call him from a relatively short distance away.

Anyway, noble soldier #732 once again refers to Valimar as "the ash-colored knight", so my hopes for awkward translations ending anytime soon are not looking great. Hopefully they get some negative feedback and fix it for CS3! The mech battle starts, and Fie is part of the fight again which is nice. Not going to question how she actually got here, since she was just a few seconds ago on the top of a 200 foot tower, but its okay. She is from Zephyr after all, so we'll just say she can jump down no problem. The fight itself is really straightforward, there's a little more complexity with Fie here but overall still pretty linear. Robot fighting to date has been a huge disappointment in the series.

Afterwards, they all regroup at the lake and say their goodbyes to the Nord tribespeople. Not too much new information here, except maybe confirmation that the nobles are in control of Roer, and are using the institute of technology to develop new weaponry. They were already kind of doing that in CS1, so whatever. Also, Sharon reaffirms to Alisa that her mom does love and care about her, which is cute. After that, they al go back to Ymir to rest. Honestly, they should probably consider building a hangar for Valimar at this point, since they know they'll be coming back here all the time. Leaving him out in the wilderness, in the snow, doesn't seem like a great idea.

They meet up briefly with Rean's father who has regained consciousness, and share some pleasantries. Boring stuff happens, and then out of nowhere the day ends with Sharon joining the party! Man, I love this game. Sharon and Claire are going to be on my team all game so it's going to be hard to make room for anyone else. They also say, with Rean acting as the medium, that Alisa and Sharon are able to use overdrive together. Not sure why Rean needed to be added as a qualifier there, but whatever. Does that mean he gets included if they use Overdrive? I doubt it but it would be cool. Either way, one less trial chest I'll have to worry about! And the day ends there.

Next time on Cold Steel...more bonding events! See you soon.

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_stingers_ posted...

We meet up with some of the local kids and then greet Gaius' parents. I'm just now realizing that their names are Lacan and Fatma, possible Xenogears reference? I hope so!

zemuria is lost jerusulem. ouroboros is running project zohar.

_stingers_ posted...

They go to rush in, and another dope new song plays. I need to start looking up some song names, but it's hard to do so without inadvertently spoiling myself in the process. Never go on youtube to search for anything related to a game you are currently playing through, I've learned the hard way.

Been a while, but IIRC that one is Blitzkrieg.

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oh crap I need to update

tomorrow

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I'm in the process of writing my 12/8 update ya slowpoke

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Which will thankfully be a lot shorter

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12/8

I go to check all of Sharon's stats and the first thing I notice is that they start her at level 69. Nice. She looks pretty broken, as Claire did, with higher attack than Rean but also a respectable ATS, and apparently a default 30% evasion?! Evasion tank Sharon coming through! I also equip her with the kitty ears, because you have to, it's the law. You go downstairs and, speak of the devil, she is there waiting for you with a bonding event. Is there a soul alive who wouldn't spend one of their bonding points on her? I have to think not. Rean jumps in with both feet and asks her to tell him all about Ouroboros, clearly not aware of who he's talking to or what that means. She says nothing for a bit, thinking, then asks Rean to come outside with her and walk along the mountain path. I predict a murder scene followed by game over...if only. No, she does however challenge Rean to a fight, and has one of the coolest lines so far: "Should you choose to define the way you and your classmates fight as good, then the society of Ouroboros is nothing short of evil." I just like the nice touch of moral ambiguity with the qualifiers at the beginning there, it's a very Sharon touch. Shoutouts to Falcom on that one.

I was hoping for a real battle, but instead they have a cutscene of Rean getting his shit kicked in. Rean, understandably, is confused at the events and wonders where her real loyalties lie, to which she responds "Until this war reaches a conclusion, I'll fight alongside you and your classmates." What about after the war, Sharon? It'll be sad to see her go :( But all good things must end.

Next person I run into is Millium, a beneficiary of me having max bonding points if there ever was one. Though, to be honest, I have found her more bearable so far than I ever could in CS1, she was by far my most hated character then. I think they have toned her down slightly enough to where they still keep her characterization intact, but she's mildly less annoying. At least so far, we'll see if they fuck that one up later. Also, I kind of think the reworked outfit helps a lot, because I felt disgusted looking at the one in the last game a lot. Also, it reminds me of the outfit they gave to Momo in Xenosaga 2 which doesn't hurt. Is there some thing in Japan where little girls dress up in sailor uniforms? Mzero, clue us in.

Anyway, as to her actual bonding event, she decides she wants to go snowboarding. In true Millium fashion, she doesn't want to go snowboarding on a snowboard, but instead just sitting on Lammy's arm as he floats down the mountain. Alright then. To my surprise they actually stick you into a snowboarding minigame here. It kind of pisses me off that they could be bothered to do this but couldn't give us a real fight with Sharon. I would've liked that infinitely more, but what can you do. As far as I can tell there's no obstacles or anything to actually do in this "race", so I'm not sure if it's even possible to lose. Do you slow down a lot if you run into walls or something? Anyway, after winning the race, they use this as an opportunity to bring up Altina and Millium reiterates that she knows nothing about her. We know that's definitely not true, what with that bit about Millium talking about her being "connected", but we all know Millium isn't 100% on our side and isn't willing to tell us what she knows quite yet.

When you get back, you can speak with Claire and ask her if she knows anything about Altina, to which she is slightly more forthcoming. She says that what she knows is intelligence division information only, and she can't tell us. Which absolutely confirms that Millium is lying her ass off to us, if there was any doubt. No bonding event with her sadly, so I go to look for someone else. The next person I see is Elliot standing by the hot springs, but thankfully he does not waste our time with any bonding events. He's right by the shop so I go in there, and the shopkeep there has a quest for us to find some beans for her. Sounds like I'm going to be talking to 3 random people around town, one of whom will finally give me some! Outside the shop I see Alisa ready and bondable, so I go to see what she wants. She wants to hang out at the "foot bath", which is that hot spring in the center of town. Is that a thing? I've never heard of a foot bath before, but it looks like just a shallow hot spring that you can just dip your legs into? I mean it seems like a cool thing but I've just never heard of it, so I guess it must be some special Japanese shit. Anyway, they talk about their upbringing and how different things are now compared to back then, and Alisa gets a little down about it. Rean, always playing it cool, whips up a good luck charm out of some nearby materials to give to her and cheer her up. It seems to work and they wonder if they ever ran into each other as children, since Alisa had visited Ymir back then. The answer to that has to be yes, knowing how japan and childhood friendships go, but they aren't sure quite yet. Sidebar, but I never understood the weird obsession that Japan had with the whole, childhood friendship thing in relation to dating. They make it seem like it's such a big deal, but to me it would just make it kind of weird? I don't get this whole trope. Anyway, there's not much else to this bonding event so let's move on.

Next person I find is Toval, who tells Rean that he absolutely trusts Sharon, regardless of her status as an Ouroboros Enforcer. Which seems really odd to me, coming from a Bracer who are basically their sworn enemies at this point, but I know they're really trying to paint Sharon in a good light so whatever, let's roll with it. Maybe in Toval's head he's thinking, well we converted Joshua and kind of Renne, so we should be able to snag her too, right? But she's an adult and is presumably at peace with her decisions so that seems a little wishful to me. Actually, was Joshua technically an enforcer? I don't really remember, it's been too long since I've played Sky.

Anyway, we go to church together to pray and Toval says he's here to pray to Aidios, as well as his "other goddess". Is he about to be on some simp shit? He says that it's the woman who put him on the path of becoming a bracer, and talks about how that helped him straighten out his life. Man, all the people who read Carnelia must like this guy a lot more than I do because all his character has been so far is alluding to things I know nothing about. It'd be nice if they explained a little bit for us normies, but it's okay, I get it.

After that, I hit the nearby slopes for the A2 course, which was just as easy as the first one. Though, to be fair this time I did actually hit an obstacle, but that's really just because I forgot how awful the jumping is in this minigame. I still finished 10 seconds under the target time, so I really don't know what level of play they have balanced these courses around but if anyone knows someone who has lost one of these, please let me know.

Next off is Machias over at the bar, who is absolutely fiending to play some chess with somebody. I feel bad for him, not having the convenience of cell phone chess at his fingertips. Rean agrees to play with Machias, and they head over to the hot springs since there happens to be a chess set there. They talk about how Machias doesn't hate nobles as much as he used to, and that he's grown up a bit. Then Machias wins the chess game, though Rean manages to keep it close. And just like his first bonding event, that's it. I think Falcom really just assumes that nobody is going to spend a point on this guy, lmao. His events are just so much less involved than everyone else's, it's hilarious.

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Also at the hot springs, we have the head chef. Rean asks him about the beans and he says that monkeys broke in and stole them all? And Rean is just like, oh yeah, monkeys, happens chief I get it, nothing weird there. I'm just like ...? The fuck? Does it? What kind of society is this that wild monkeys are breaking into buildings and stealing shit and nobody bats an eye? The culture shock is too real for me right now.

Also, apparently you can go into the hot springs to restore to full health and cp, but more importantly you can see everyone (the girls) with towels on, so shoutouts to Falcom for that feature. Alisa apparently is way more well endowed then they let on because that outline was no joke. The power of anime is always strong.

The last person we hang out with is Gaius, who helps Rean clear out some snow from the pathways around the village. Seems kind of rude to stick the leader's son with the snow shovelling, but I guess that's just how good of a guy Rean Schwarzer is. They go tot he hot springs afterwards and have a generic conversation and that's the end of that. Gaius is a good guy, but man is he boring. He seems like the kind of guy that will get laid a lot but have trouble keeping a girlfriend because he has the personality of a brick wall. Maybe he can find a nice, boring librarian to hook up with and they can talk about the weather all day. Gaius x Emma for sure.

After that I'm left with nothing to do but finish this bean side quest, so I walk around town talking to people. Everyone talks about the monkeys stealing their beans and nobody cares, just another day in Ymir. The magic number of people to finish this sidequest was actually 4, not 3, so shoutouts to Falcom for innovating. After that ends I couldn't find anything else to do, so I went back to sleep to end the day. Ranked up twice, got another gladiator headband and a dragon vein quartz, and an S rank for the act.

Next time on Trails of Cold Steel 2...reuniting with Laura, Jusis, and Emma! See you soon.

Also I almost fit this into one post. Curse my long windedness.

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_stingers_ posted...

Actually, was Joshua technically an enforcer? I don't really remember, it's been too long since I've played Sky.

Yeah. Enforcer XIII, the Black Fang.

_stingers_ posted...

He says that it's the woman who put him on the path of becoming a bracer, and talks about how that helped him straighten out his life. Man, all the people who read Carnelia must like this guy a lot more than I do because all his character has been so far is alluding to things I know nothing about. It'd be nice if they explained a little bit for us normies

If you want a tease, the "other woman" is: The First Dominion of the Gralsritter, who, according to Wazy in Ao is the only person he knows that could maybe match Arianrhod in a fight.

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Nice lore. The trails power levels are above my head for sure, but hopefully I'll get to meet ms. Gralsritter one day

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good news i checked the kiseki wiki and apparently the carnelia series should become available to read in cs2. eventually.

really like at the very end so maybe this isn't good news.

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I hear cs2 is really long so I guess I'll be reading it in 2022

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12/5

Wow these Nord Highlands look beautiful on the PS4. I have options where to go, is it OPEN WORLD time? After descending the hill, theres a battle between gundams and tanks going on. The gang decides to check out Zendar gate first, so there goes my open world adventure. The one-eyed guy I sort of remember from CS1 is still here, and he tells us about how the noble forces took the watchtower and are jamming the signals, so they cant contact Gaius and friends. Taking a look a round the gate, I find a few classmates. I think one was named Mint and the other Berry. Mint Berry crunch. Mint is trying very hard to be useful, good for her. After searching the gate very thoroughly (but somehow missing a book, Id find out later), its time to head for the Nord settlement.

We find the settlement deserted, and get jumped by some SOLDIER wannabes. After an intense battle, they call their battle dogs (this feels awfully familiar), and things look bleak for our party until Gaius shows up on his horse and goes to town. He shares a nice firm handshake with Rean, a little less emotional than some of the other reunions but I dig it. Turns out the Nords moved north (nice) because of the mercenaries, and Alisa and Millium are there too. This place is beautiful and the music is fantastic, why didnt they just live here all along? Alisa and Millum apparently left with Alisas grandpa (I think?) to investigate the communication issues. I talk to all the villagers and do a little fishing and sett off to meet up with the girls. Hopefully Alisa doesnt shove her rack in my face and blame it on me again.

I can see the wind shrine in the distance, but first we have to take care of this beast from another dimension that we fought before I guess. Is the new pattern of reunions just either our party or the character were meeting showing up at just the right time? Im not a big fan but oh well. Anyway, after taking out the boss we get the emotional reunion scenes that kind of lose a little of the impact when we already fought together and its not as much in the moment, but the scene with Alisa and Rean was actually not bad. Pleasantly surprised based on the Fie sce- oh here comes Millium to ruin everything. Ok its really disturbing how shes latched onto Reans face but it actually made me laugh so I guess thats something. The humor quickly turned to disgust though, much like any time Millium is on screen.

So it turns out the nobles are using the tower to block communications, and the party is a little conflicted on what to do next. Rean decides running away sucks and were going to take the tower, now, because we have to. I like it. I like a hero that takes action. Anyway, first we go back to town to prepare and of course get some quests. But first, its time to hit the shrine. A villager mentions that it popped up out of nowhere recently, but I already know where it is because I saw it earlier. Gaius misses twice in a row with the Master Quartz that gives the accuracy buff bruh. This time, the vision is about some Norsemen going off to battle, so I guess these are going to be regionally relevant. Thats pretty cool. The quests include taking out some mercenary dogs running loose and finding a horse calf. Good to see Trails characters suck as much at catching horses as they do at catching people. Also finally got Silver Angler awww yeah.

The time has come to take the tower, and we conveniently found a blind spot when we came here for the field study. Looks like those field trips are coming in handy! Climbing the tower, I have to wonder who put these treasure chests in the air ducts. Not a bad hiding place I suppose. The battles are relatively painless until a forced ambush that forces Millium into my party. Unacceptable Falcom. Dont force me to have Millium in my party, especially when Ive already stole all her orbments and equipment! Forced ambushes in general are pretty whack anyway, but especially so in this case. I came dangerously close to getting wiped, but managed to squeak out a win and continue up the tower.

At the top of the tower, were about to disarm the communications blocker when Bleublanc and the Black Rabbit show up and get in the way. I lost the first battle against them, and on the second attempt it took me 23 minutes to beat them, yeesh. After the battle I remember that Overdrive exists and probably would have really come in handy at some some points, whoops. It wouldnt be a Trails game if the party didnt get frozen in place by an enemy they just beat. Luckily Sharon makes a timely appearance to save the day. Wait, isnt she evil? Isnt she on the same team as them? Well, I guess well just trust her for some reason (I might be forgetting something from CS1).

Anyway, now that thats done, the nobles noticed us and are ready to attack, so its Valimar time. Valimar battles have all been very easy so far, and this is no different. As the nobles retreat, I cant help but wonder why Rean and Valimar dont take out their airship. I mean, its right there basically asking to be destroyed, which I assume would hurt the noble army quite a bit. Oh well. Its time to head back to Ymir, with Sharon in tow because apparently everyone just trusts her, even though shes part of the Society that kidnapped the princess and Reans sister. What could go wrong?

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MZero posted...

Luckily Sharon makes a timely appearance to save the day. Wait, isnt she evil? Isnt she on the same team as them? Well, I guess well just trust her for some reason (I might be forgetting something from CS1).

Sharon describes her status as "on leave" at the end of CS1. FWIW, she joined Sara and the other instructors in defending Trista from the Noble Alliance's invasion at the end of CS1 when she didn't have to so this isn't the first time she's sided with Class VII/Thors against the Noble Alliance.

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_stingers_ posted...

Is there some thing in Japan where little girls dress up in sailor uniforms? Mzero, clue us in.

Well sailor uniforms are common school uniforms for girls in middle/high school
_stingers_ posted...

She wants to hang out at the "foot bath", which is that hot spring in the center of town. Is that a thing? I've never heard of a foot bath before, but it looks like just a shallow hot spring that you can just dip your legs into?

Yeah these are pretty popular in Japan

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Sailors and high school girls are opposite vibes so I'm a little confused but ok Japan you do you

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I'm glad that we both have the same vibes whenever Millium is on screen. I have to wonder why she's in the game at all

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Millium is fine IMO. Altho I do remember not liking her much initially.

Gameplay wise she's pretty much the best Psychical Class VII character. She kinda completely outclasses Laura in pretty much every meaningful way and Gaius's niches are not actually good here.

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Millium's an okay character sometimes, but the games would be better if she didn't exist. She barely contributes anything and the pacing would be better with at least one less major character.
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I'm not a fan of Millium in general but she has a few moments that make her inclusion worthwhile.

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SythaWarrior posted...

Millium is fine IMO. Altho I do remember not liking her much initially.

Gameplay wise she's pretty much the best Psychical Class VII character. She kinda completely outclasses Laura in pretty much every meaningful way and Gaius's niches are not actually good here.

Really? That's interesting, I always thought Laura was the strongest physical attacker. I know Milliums s craft is beyond broken, but what else makes her strong? I guess I never put any work into her to see that she had any potential

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Laura has higher attack than Millium, yes, however:

1. Millium's S-Craft is almost always stronger, and she gets her 2nd (which is 4S- Sara ties it, and Rean goes over it with spirit unification) before Laura gets hers. It's not like putting on S-Craft spamming equipment is exclusive to Laura
2. A more useful set of crafts, thanks to having both delay AND impede. Most of Laura's deal stat-down, which a lot of bosses resist. She does have a self-buff, which is something and the actual main argument for her to be better than Millium due to not needing Jusis's support

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12/8

First thing I do is talk to folks around town before diving into the bonding events. I dont have enough points to do everyone, so I have to make some tough decisions, and tough decisions are always best left for later! Someone gives me Gambler Jack II volume...5!? This is when I realized I missed volume 4 somewhere. Heck. I make my way to the shop, where the lady shopkeeper needs some azuki to make manjuu. First thought that enters my mind is I wonder if they localized this as donuts or something. Shout out to Brock.

I figured if anyone has these beans, it would be the chef. I was right, or at least I would have been but some darn monkeys stole them. Apparently this happens all the time, so no big deal. This must be one of those places riddled with monkey crime that Marshall talks about on How I Met Your Mother. I talk to a few other people who also had their storage raided by monkeys. Youd think if this was a common problem theyd, you know, stop storing food in outside storage units. Or at least beef up security. Anyway we finally get to the beans before the monkeys and finish the quest.

I beat the new snowboard course, get myself a new FISHING POLE, and decided its time to get the bonding events started. My first stop is... wherever Toval was, I forgot. But hes my boy so Im definitely using one of my points on him. He trusts Sharon for some reason even though shes a snake, but alright. We go to church to pray, and learn a little bit about the girl who led him to become a bracer. I wish I read those books, but good to know I can read them later on to fill in the gaps. Next I hang out with Alisa and we take a dip in the foot bath in the center of town. Turns out Alisa came here as a kid and definitely met Rean even though it hasnt been confirmed yet. Rean makes a rabbit out of snow and gives it to her as a good luck charm. Finally, I use my last point to shovel snow with Gaius, who is for some reason impervious to cold. The Nord Highlands dont seem that cold, but whatever. The rest of the conversation is about how he wants to end the war so his family can live peacefully. I think thats what everyone wants!

Theres not much left to do today, so I turn in for the night. I get 28 AP (again), an A rank (again), and a Gladiator Headband and a Luck Quartz.

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We are like the same person

First thought that enters my mind is I wonder if they localized this as donuts or something. Shout out to Brock.

Sadly not, but needing beans to make some donuts would've been the most interesting plot twist this game has had so far.

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Hbthebattle posted...

Laura has higher attack than Millium, yes, however:

1. Millium's S-Craft is almost always stronger, and she gets her 2nd (which is 4S- Sara ties it, and Rean goes over it with spirit unification) before Laura gets hers. It's not like putting on S-Craft spamming equipment is exclusive to Laura
2. A more useful set of crafts, thanks to having both delay AND impede. Most of Laura's deal stat-down, which a lot of bosses resist. She does have a self-buff, which is something and the actual main argument for her to be better than Millium due to not needing Jusis's support

Yea it's basically these reasons. Laura does have another advantage. Firex2, Waterx1 is better than Earthx2, Miragex1 for Physical characters. Gaius, Rean, etc all have even better combos than Laura. Millium just a randomly bad combo for what she does.

Not sure if having Jusis in the party is a downside to anyone either. Like most of the cast enjoys him being in the party for various reasons. He's 2nd best support character and with how speed is in this game, he also ends up being one of the best casters anyway since he's randomly really fast. (Too bad the other one is Alisa and Alisa is OP support. Who am I kidding you just run both of them if you want to cast spells. Poor Emma and Elliot.)

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Jusis and Alisa are both way cooler than Emma and Elliot so I have no problems there.

What makes Gaius good? As far as I can tell he's the worst character in the game lol

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_stingers_ posted...

Jusis and Alisa are both way cooler than Emma and Elliot so I have no problems there.

What makes Gaius good? As far as I can tell he's the worst character in the game lol

he is good iff you like hearing people talk about wind

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yeah i got that part

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_stingers_ posted...

What makes Gaius good? As far as I can tell he's the worst character in the game lol

Wild Rage and its clones are always good even if they're never going to be as busted as Agate's ever again. Eventually, he will have a 90CP Wild Rage, and getting the 10 extra for an S-Craft later on isn't hard. He also has Impede, Delay, high range on his weapon if you want to use those wind slots for dodgetanking, and gets his 2nd s-craft quite early.


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12/9

They're making me pick between Sharon and Claire for who I bring?! I'm going to kill myself, this is the hardest choice I've ever had to make in my life. I like Claire slightly better, but I settle on Sharon. For one, she's the new girl on the block so I want to try her out, and for two, I figure she will have more interesting dialogue than Claire does on average. I also bring along Alisa and Machias for my classmate selection. I like Fie more than Machias, but he's definitely more useful in battle and I need some testosterone in the party. Also, I'm considering the last 3 I'll be meeting up with in Laura, Emma, and Jusis and how they will interact. Alisa and Sharon for starters is a no brainer, Machias and Jusis is another, and Alisa and Laura were pretty good friends from what I remember so they may get some screen time. I'm super bummed out that I have to leave Claire behind though, hopefully that's something they stop doing soon and give us full freedom.

I reequip the master quartz that Sharon comes with to Machias, since it has a 30% chance to inflict (I'm assuming random) status effects by default, and give Sharon Fie's to make her into a speed demon. Also I link up Sharon and Alisa since they start off at level 4 which is insane. That leaves Rean and Machias which is suboptimal, but I figure I'll put in Jusis or Laura instead of him since they're both pretty OP in the last game.

Walking around town to start the day off, the maid Maple says that she's jealous of her coworker maid Purple, because she has bigger boobs. Alright then! She asks if Rean agrees and Alisa gets jealous, while Sharon watches amused. This is the quality content that I play this game for. Nothing else of note happens around town though so I go off to Valimar to get this party started. He lets us know now that only two life forms are detected in Legram and not three as he said before. Drama! I'm predicting those to be Laura and Emma, and Jusis is off doing some royal shit somewhere else. Though to be fair, it could just as easily be Laura and Jusis, while Emma is off doing some witch shit. So I guess I'm not really sure, but I'm leaning towards the former. They also let you repick your teammates again if you're dissatisfied with the decision you had made 5 minutes ago, so thanks for that Falcom. I'll be back for you soon Claire! Unless Sharon is completely broken, I figure I'll end up getting back with Claire after today, assuming that the game will continue to let us gather and choose between teammates in this linear fashion.

After teleporting over, we get to Legram's outskirts and it's pretty foggy. I remember this place being foggy in the last game, but I think it's gotten a little worse. More importantly though, I get to try Sharon out in battle here and here are her starting crafts: A dark matter-esque suction move that does crazy damage in a huge aoe, a move that reduces speed by 50% and movement by 100% (!) and also does crazy damage also in a huge aoe, and a full-team heal that restores 50% of HP, 50Cp and also cures all ailments. Holy shit, this character is broken as hell. I'm not sure how this could be balanced? I guess you could make the argument that she has no strong single target moves for bosses, but all of her attacks do so much damage it doesn't really matter. She has to only be temporary or something because she's so much stronger than any other character it's a little silly. Compare that heal I just mentioned to Alisa's Blessed Arrow - Alisa's does cost 10cp less, but in exchange she does 20% less healing, grants 10 less cp to all other teammates, has no ailment cure whatsoever, and it's in a medium radius instead of full map. It's so much worse than Sharon's it's silly.

Slowly realizing that Sharon may be taking over Claire's spot in my party full time, I explore this area and find some armor that grants 10% evasion. Putting that on Sharon bumps her up to 40% evasion stat with just that one piece of armor due to her natural 30%, which is pretty insane. Evasion tank is beginning to form pretty early here. I also get to try her S craft for the first time, which is a 100% KO chance for all enemies on the map. Now I'm slowly realizing that she is supposed to be a boss character and will not be with me permanently, much to my dismay? Maybe? I'm very conflicted right now. I do appreciate the fanservice of letting her join for a bit though, shoutouts to Ouroboros teammates.

After getting to town, the gang heads to the bracer guild to get the lay of the land. Inside are Klaus, Laura's family butler, and Miles, the new receptionist for this branch. They mention that Laura and Emma are staying in town (+1 prediction point for me), but they just left to go investigate the castle across the lake. They also talk about how strange monsters - presumably cryptids - have been spotted nearby, along with the fog getting worse. Us people that have played Crossbell know that those two things happening at once are no coincidence! The gang decides to go after Laura and Emma to help, but I'm wondering why they decided the castle was the place to investigate in the first place. I guess it's just...generally spooky so you can assume there's some no goodery that will come from there, but I don't know. The real reason has to be asset reuse. Before leaving though, I take some time to explore the town and find a mysterious girl at the inn who has very strong opinions on the swordsmanship and ruling abilities of Viscount Arseid. Spoiler alert, they are not very positive opinions. Rean makes a side comment that he detects a lot of strength coming from this girl, but Sharon gives a little laugh and tells Rean not to worry about it. I have my suspicious that this girl might make a reappearance later! If you talk to her again she complains about "getting paired with HIM", but that she's doing it for her lord so she must bear with it. Mysterious, mysterious...but I will forget about this for now.

Inside the church we find Vivi, the loveable prankster known for messing with her twin sister and hardcore flirting with Rean in CS1. Definitely one of the top tier classmates, so glad to see her safe. She is not her usual self however, and mentions that she lost contact with her twin, and is very worried about her. Hopefully we will see them reunited soon! The other classmate in town is Casper, hanging out at the Arseid training school. I don't remember him at all really, but my best guess is one of the sword club guys? He is here training after all. There's another dude at the school, not a classmate, but his name is Fritz and he has a giant buster sword and spiky blond hair. Cheeky Falcom.

Nothing left here, so I head towards the castle. Celine drops some lore while sailing over the lake: apparently, there used to be a divine knight hiding somewhere in this castle, but it's vanished without a trace. I'm gonna go with it being the one Crow was using since that's the only other one we know of right now, but we'll see. After you get to the island the castle is on, the gang can immediately tell that Emma is fighting someone inside, so they rush up to help. Another Cryptid just like the one we saw in Nord awaits us inside, and Emma and Laura are already fighting it. I prepare for a battle but they take it down on their own in cutscene, without any of our help. I do remember saying the Nord boss was really easy though, so with all the levels we've gotten since then I can see those two being able to take it alone. As soon as that one goes down however, a much more menacing looking Cryptid appears. Not a dragon reskin this time, but some giant lizard looking thing that does look pretty intimidating.


---

Before the fight actually starts though, we get some closeups on our new teammates. First thought is wow, Emma is hot now. They gave her some witchy looking Halloween outfit, but it is a lot more flattering than the school uniform was. If we can get her some contacts next we're in business. Laura, a lot less hot but she is wearing some long blue skirt with a sort of, tribal looking jacket on top. It almost looks like something you'd see a Nord tribesman wearing, or one of the people from Lyn's tribe in FE7. It's a little strange on Laura, but I'm cool with it.

When the fight does finally start however, it's pretty easy when you have Sharon's AOE broken heal to get everyone fixed up whenever someone gets slightly low. The boss didn't have too much bullshit of his own so he goes down without a fight. Afterwards we get a standard reunion scene where Laura and Emma fawn over Rean and ignore the rest of their friends nearby. Eventually Emma notices Celine and goes to pick him up. Celine goes ultra tsundere on Emma while Emma is earnestly happy to be reunited, which is cute. Afterwards the gang immediately heads back to Legram, so I guess we're not exploring this castle today. When everyone is talking on the boat ride back, Emma decides to come clean to everyone about her role and why she was at Thors. Basically, as a member of the Hexen clan of witches, she has a duty to watch over Valimar and observe anyone who gets near him. Emma is laden with guilt from having known about everything all along, but being bound by duty and unable to warn Rean or anyone else over what was happening. She eventually says that she'll leave everyone out of shame. I have a feeling she won't be leaving, but that's just me. Anime hero Rean Schwarzer has my back, and says he has no time for this self pity shit. He gives her a good pep talk and forgives her, and namedrops everyone in Class VII individually saying how they would miss her. He lists Crow's name in there as well, which I find interesting. I kind of hope they don't pull a CT Magus and have him come back to out side, I want just one villain in this series to stay evil dammit.

Emma cries and says how thankful she is to have us (aka Rean) as friends, and takes off her glasses for a bit to wipe away her tears. I feel like I'm in one of those teen movies where the ugly girl takes off her glasses and gets some new clothes and she's just hot all of the sudden. I guess they need to elevate her to main waifu status since Alisa and Laura were the main two in the last one.

Right as the gang is nearing the shores of Legram, some shit starts to go down. An airship descends from the sky, and we get some text that shows it to be the Noble Alliance's chief airship. They ask permission to land here over the loudspeaker, which is a little surprising. I suppose this is supposed to be a neutral territory though so they're playing nice still, even though we know they're going to land regardless of the answer. The head honcho on this ship is someone I don't recognize, though it shows her name as 'Aurelia Le Guin'. Pretty name. She's accompanied by an unnamed pretty boy with a scar across his face, so I'm sure he'll be a boss fight sooner or later. They get into town and it flashes forward a bit to Laura and those two meeting in Laura's castle. They mention that they want an audience with Viscount Arseid, but Laura informs them that he isn't here. Classic blunder! They reveal that they suspected that, and their reason for coming here was merely to confirm it. Laura's many things, but a good liar is not one of them, so she didn't really have any great options there.

The gang is watching all of this go down through a crack in the door in an adjacent room, which is laughable to see. I suspect there will be a scene where they all fall through the door and everyone see's them and they have the teardrop emoticon appear next to their face, but we'll see how silly the game wants to get with it. Sharon informs everyone that the aforementioned pretty boy's name is Wallace Bardias, and that him and Aurelia are the two strongest generals that the Noble Alliance has. Rean remarks that Wallace is from Nord, and I did think he looked a bit like Gaius earlier so I suppose that was intentional. Machias outright says that he looks a lot like Gaius which is funny, while Alisa comments on how that must be why he's so tall, and I notice a hint of thirst in that voice. This is where Rean should slap Alisa in jealousy if gender roles weren't a thing, since we know that's what Alisa would do to him.

Anyway, they go on to say that they have no further business here and prepare to leave. Wallace lets loose that he knows that the Viscount is the one piloting the Courageous, Olivier's ship from CS1, that is also the ship that came to the gangs rescue at the end of the game. Which places Laura in an awkward position, as her supposedly neutral region's leader was actively committing actions that directly impeded the Noble Alliance's goals. Aurelia playfully tells him to back off however, and says that the last thing they need right now is more opponents to deal with. Wallace says that he's disappointed that Laura's friends didn't want to introduce themselves. I like him. Thank god the kids get called out for the peeking through an open door 10 feet away trope. Laura and the gang remain silent at this though, and the two generals leave. Laura literally collapses from exhaustion after they do. I can see how that would be a bit of a stressful situation for a teenager to deal with, yeah.

The gang is ready to move on however and makes a plan to go to Bareahard to try and find Jusis. Emma and Laura officially join our party, and I swap out Machias for Laura. She was pretty OP in CS1, but if she's nerfed in this game Machias might come back in. Emma, though with a buff to attractiveness, still isn't worth putting in over Alisa so she can remain in the backlines. Especially with the Alisa x Sharon level 4 link being active, can't afford to give that up. I swap over Laura to her stage outfit that I imported with my remaining NG+ point, but definitely leave Emma with her default. I've only got one new outfit left to see whenever we find Jusis! I'm kind of sad, seeing the character redesigns has been a good bit of fun.

The game strongly implies that you should head to the bracer guild before leaving, and the new receptionist there gives you some quests. One of them is to head over to the training school for a fight, so I head over to tackle that first. They make you remove Sharon from your party, I suppose realizing how OP she is. Machias gets back in and we start the fight - it's kind of close, but only because I didn't feel like using any S crafts. I'm pretty sure they all would've been one shot if I had. The only other quest is a monster extermination on the highway, so I head out towards Bareahard. As you leave the gang says they should check up on Valimar, so I do so, but they don't really say anything of substance. I have to wonder why they added that. You find the quest monster pretty early on here so I try him out. I lose the first fight, because he was casting some big circle spell so I figured I could swap in Emma to use her magic reflect to counter that, but it doesn't work and everyone dies. Alright then.

---

The second and third attempts go much the same way. That giant circle attack that he has knocks everyone out and almost one shots them. Anyone who doesn't get one shot can't move and then dies shortly after. Somewhere around the...7th attempt, I figure out a working strategy. So, the boss raises all of his stats at the start of the fight. My strategy then is so have Laura and Machias use their defense down crafts, and have both of them actually activate to turn his 25% defense buff, into neutral, into a 25% defense nerf. Having them both actually activate was a little tough since he resists status down, but eventually I can get it. Next, Rean and Alisa have to cast Motivate and La Forte respectively, to get everyone to a 50% strength boost. Then, I can pelt him with everyone's S crafts which leaves him pretty low, but not out. Then I just have to pray that he doesn't use his knockout attack and that I can power up through his move that heals him for 15k and buffs all of his stats that I mentioned previously. I think it took 10 or so tries but eventually with that strategy I won the fight. That was DEFINITELY the hardest fight I've had to do in this game so far, so that's nice. I am glad that they're starting to introduce some real challenges. Those bullshit boss fights in the older trails games could take me a stupid amount of tries, but it's always a great feeling when you finally conquer them. CS1 didn't really have anything to match that, but that fight I just did was on that same level.

Further on down the highway there's another one of those popup mini dungeons. Emma reveals that they are called 'Spirit Shrines' but she doesn't have too much more info on them. Rean asks if she thinks they're connected to the divine knights, and Emma reveals that's very likely, but she doesnt know. After that bit of exposition we head inside - we have a water dungeon! We have to raise and lower the water levels in order to raise platforms and explore new areas! Daring bit of dungeon design here guys. First thing I find is a trial chest for Laura and Emma, and I actually make a save beforehand this time after my experiences on the last one. Turns out that wasn't necessary though because this fight is stupid easy; the boss pretty much only casts magic and you can just use Emma's reflect craft to negate it. As a reward you get 'Shining R', which is a spell you can use to grant insight. To be honest, I have no clue what insight does, but that's okay. The real key is it gives 50% accuracy and 5% evasion as bonus stats, so that goes right onto Sharon to get her evasion tank stats up. 50% and counting!

Monster chest little further on grants Scent, which is a rare quartz that gives Aerial, Grand Press, and Dark Matter at the cost of making enemies more likely to notice you. Saving me some time on whooping ass is hardly a downside and that fits in great on Alisa, who really only had Fire attacks so far. She did have a Dark Matter orbment on there but that just frees up the slot for something else, so its a win-win. The boss fight at the end of the dungeon turns out to be, surprise, the same as the last two dungeons. Hopefully for Falcom's sake these spinning, Spiritomb-looking pallet swaps exist because their design references some weird Japanese symbol that relates to the plot of these dungeons, because otherwise I'm pretty disappointed with how lazy they feel. The last dungeon's version was actually pretty tough too, but for this one it was braindead easy with Sharon here. I beat the entire boss fight without using a single S craft, just to see if I could. Her shadow stitch move (the one that reduces speed by 50% and movement by 100%) is by far the most broken thing I've seen in a trails game yet. I might have to just not use her tomorrow if possible because she makes the game too easy lol. We'll see.

The king flashback this time shows him meeting a girl that says she is in the Eisenritter, and they live at the castle we were at earlier. Does that make this girl Ahrienhod or whatever? I remember her being blonde in Azure so she's probably not Laura's ancestor, so that's a -1 to my earlier theory of them all being related. But to be honest, the whole Eisenritter subplot really hasn't sunk in for me at all. I really don't get what's going on most of the time that any of them appear on screen. Rean finally spills the beans to the gang on the whole flashback thing, and Emma wonder's why only he can see the memories and why they are from the king. Celine hits us with the classic "...", so I take that as a +1 to Rean being related to him at least.

As I leave, I find a fishing spot right outside the door that I definitely missed the first time, so lucky me for finding it now. I caught a first time fish too (an eel) so thank god I didn't miss it again. I'm at 17/24 on the fishes now so pretty close to done, albeit that's with my having cheated the fishing sidequest by being on NG+. Mzero, clue me in on what a normal persons fishing situation looks like around here.

As we make it out to the highway in front of Bareahard, the gang talks about how dangerous it will be if they are careless in the city, and wonder how they will even get inside. Emma is a little coy and says she ahs a plan. Some kind of magic trickery will be afoot soon...my guess is she'll make everyone magic mustaches as a disguise. Side note, apparently it's almost Christmas (12/9) but the trees on this highway are clearly in autumn. What happened to how much you love your four seasons, Japan? Your special fucking four seasons that no other country in the world has? You don't even know how trees are supposed to look in December! Pathetic.

There's a monster chest at the end of the path with a "Tauros", which makes you do 70% more damage at the cost of 1.5x delay. Seems tailor made for Laura, since she barely gets to move anyway, might as well have her hit like a damn truck while she's doing it. Since she's always on the frontline not moving she'll function as a damage sponge in the meantime, so it's a win-win.

Going into town now, Emma hits the guards with the classic Jedi mind trick - "You will let us pass." When she does it though her eyes turn all yellow, which in combination with the cat ears she's wearing made her look extra feline-like which was kind of freaky. Celine does warn us afterwards that that trick loses some effectiveness every time you use it on someone, so to be wary with how you use it. Seems fair, can't have us Jedi mind tricking the war to end or anything like that I suppose. The scene cuts away to Jusis residence, where we get a sneak peak into his daily affairs. It seems like Jusis has grown a pair because it immediately shows him reprimanding his father, the Duke, in regards to his plan to send jaegers to Ymir to capture Princess Alfin and Elise. The Duke is surprised at Jusis' audacity to try and counsel him in any way, and kindly tells Jusis to take his opinion and go fuck himself, which is about the response I'd expect. The Duke has some audacity of his own however, and goes on to think that he needs to reign in Rufus in his war efforts. We all know Rufus is the one calling the shots around here, so it'll be funny to see that backfire eventually.

---

Control returns to the main gang, and we finally get to explore the town. Nearby at the inn, they mention some clumsy new student who's working there, but she's not around at the moment. I'd guess that would be Mint, except we've already met her at Nord. I'm not really sure which of the other students from the original was clumsy. I guess we'll find out soon, since Laura says "We should make a note of this for later." Outside the inn, there's a jeweler nearby where you can buy those broken accessories from all the Crossbell games - the ochre and the evergreen and all that stuff. I forget the exact names but you know what I mean. They only cost 50k Mira which isn't bad, normally in Crossbell I remember waiting forever to actually buy these. I have 65k on me so I buy one of them, I opt for the one that gives +100 strength and give it to Laura to make her OP. Also at this jeweler is Colette, who turns out to be the inn worker they were talking about before. That didn't take long. I genuinely don't remember her at all, and her design is completely generic. I was able to place the student in Legram to the sword club, I think, but this chick I couldn't even guess. She lets us know that Jusis is indeed in town, and that he has been overseeing the provincial army in the area. That's what I was saying before! Why do we need to worry about these army soldiers when we can just have Jusis order them to back off for us? These kids got no strategy man. Anyway, the gang then has to figure out how to actually get in tough with him, but I'm sure they'll figure that out soon. Sewer level in 3...2...1...

In the central area in town, there's an old lady who needs us to find her missing cat. Boring old bracer missions like these are the perfect contrast to the wartime atmosphere that has permeated the rest of the game. There's another quest from a nun at the chapel, who wants us to investigate why the statue in the middle of town is shedding black tears at night. That's...certainly a lot more interesting than finding a cat. At the weapon shop next door, there's another student who I don't recall at all, Theresia. Alisa seems to know her so maybe she was a lacrosse girl? She is having trouble with her dad telling her what to do, poor girl. Not much else to her though, but the gang wants to go into the waterways to investigate the water supply for this black tears on the statue thing. Not why I thought we'd be going into the sewers, but okay. You walk through and get to a boss at the end, who is some gigantic black slime thing. He's pretty tough, he has this huge AOE spell that one shots everyone that it touches, and can sometimes cast it instantly, so you don't get a chance to impede it. Whenever that happens your SOL. I was able to win on my third attempt which isn't too bad, but only after Laura and Sharon had died to that spell so no XP for them.

Luckily, the guide I'm loosely following advises you to go back to that boss after you win, since there is a black record on the ground. For those that forget, that was the weird book you could get in Celdic that has a bunch of censored text, so not much use now but I'm sure it's a missable that I'll need later. I never would've done that on my own, so shoutouts to guides. After getting back from that, I head north on some highway to find the missing kitten. You bring it back and there's a funny scene where Celine forgets him(her? I'm not sure)self and starts talking out loud to the cat's owner, and she blinks a few times and says she must be going senile. Nice. After that I wander around aimlessly until the plot finally advances, which is when you come out into the central area. The gang is out of leads on finding a way to get in contact with Jusis. We're given a message from a mysterious benefactor, telling us to meet them at the restaurant; we go there, but we're told to meet them at the airport. Not sure why Jusis is giving us this runaround, but okay.

Once you get there you board an airship and meet up with him on the third floor. You get to see him face to face for the first time, so let's talk about his design. It's pretty good! He's wearing a green smoking jacket with some standard noble frills underneath. Machias and Jusis have a touching reunion where they shit talk each other for 30 seconds, so that was reason enough to bring him along. Jusis notes that he hasn't the foggiest idea why Sharon is with us. Same, buddy. I have to imagine he'd say the same thing about Claire or Toval, but maybe not.

He goes on to say that he's been keeping tabs on us and is then the 23rd person to call Valimar the "ash-colored knight", which is definitely starting to mildly annoy me. He quickly gets to the real reason why he called us here though; he informs us that he won't be joining us on our mission. First of all, our mission up until now was to find you, so clearly you can't join us for that. We don't really have a clear goal in mind afterwards, but I suppose we'll get to that. Secondly and more importantly, as someone who has played a JRPG before I know he's going to come with us, so cut the bullshit buddy. Anyway, he apologizes for what happened in Ymir and seems very regretful, and says he would've done his best to stop it if he'd been in Bareahard when it all happened. I can definitely see how that would weigh on him and would make him want to stay at home, to at least try and keep a leash on the Duke best he can. I respect the intentions, even if they're a bit nave. The gang is upset with his decision of course, and Rean takes it upon himself once again to give a rousing speech. He basically tells Jusis point blank that he shouldn't consider it his responsibility to try and make amends to him, or feel the need to watch after this father. He then calls him a coward and not a true noble if he refuses to come with them, which is pretty great. To be honest I can see both points of view pretty equally here; Jusis could definitely do a lot of good as a man on the inside. His authority is limited compared to the all reaching powers of his father sure, but it's better than nothing. But I know he wants to hang out with his buds and assist them directly as anyone would, so I wouldn't be mad about either decision if this were a real world situation. If he had more ability to actually control things from the inside then I'd be pissed if he came with us, but in reality it seems like his authority isn't great. Anyway, like I said before it's an RPG so let's get a move on. Jusis agrees but, in a bid to keep some sort of control over the situation and not look like Rean's lapdog, he challenges Rean to a duel. It'd be pretty great if they actually let me 1v1 him, but I'd be kind of surprised.

The scene fades away to reveal someone watching their conversation from a good 50 feet away, outside of the airship. Through anime logic though, she can apparently hear everything that they're saying inside. Sure, whatever. I think it's the same girl we saw hanging out at the bar in Laura's hometown, but I'm not 100% sure. She apparently has a partner though, which the girl at the bar also did, so pretty likely. Her partner turns out to be the blue/pink haired Ouroboros member from the beginning of the game. She says he's the one with a the number, so I suppose that makes him an enforcer and her some sort of lackey. They look into the airship and say there's a familiar face inside while zooming in on Sharon, I guess telling you that these people are all Ouroboros if you weren't paying attention at all. I wonder if there's any kind of scene here if you don't have Sharon with you? Mzero, clue us in! Unless you brought Sharon too, which you probably did because who wouldn't, right? So we'll probably never know.

---

Back to the gang, they leave and go to the highway, but it turns out the duel is a race instead of a fight, which is lame. I'm on a motorcycle and he's on a horse though? That doesn't seem like a very fair race. I guess motorcycles are brand new technology here so we'll just say that they haven't gotten them to go as fast as we're used to IRL, and it's actually an even match. Machias also tells Rean that he needs to "knock Jusis off his high horse"...nice.

The race begins and ends in about 40 seconds, it's pretty easy and I get +2 AP for my efforts. Afterwards apparently they haven't had enough and they actually get to fight?! Hell yeah man! The fight begins, I cast motivate, auto attack, he attacks and misses so I get a counter, I auto attack again and then launch my 200 S craft...and then Jusis dies. Alright, well at least he tried? Rean says Jusis' skills really shone through, clearly because Rean secretly gets off on being a passive aggressive douchebag.

Jusis finally agrees to join the team and Rean says that they've still got to bring Crow back. Is this their new goal now? I can't say I approve, if I were them I'd try and murder him and be done with it. I guess these games are all about friendship and forgiveness though so we don't have much choice. Before the gang can set off however, the girl from before says they shouldn't celebrate so soon. Everyone gets question marks of surprise above their head, except for Sharon, who instead gets exclamation points of surprise above her head. Nice touch for the Ouroboros member to have a different reaction.

The girl is all dressed up in her armor now, which allows me to easily place her as the girl I mistook as Ahrienhod at the start of the game. She introduces herself as Duvalie, and says her group is led by the seventh Anguis. I'm not too familiar with the terms they use to refer to themselves offhand, but was the Anguis their leader? Does that make Ahrienhod the grandmaster I've heard so much about? I kind of hope so because if they do some lame shit like reveal Lechter to be the grandmaster I'm gonna be a little upset.

Duvalie is so earnest and sadistic at the same time it's actually great. I love her personality. My favorite line this chapter is definitely her saying, "Haha! Sucks to be you!" after taunting Laura about Laura not knowing what's going on. Laura plays it off cool though, so props to her. She gets mad at her partner who isn't helping in the fight, and refers to him as Enforcer #1. The gang gets very upset about this! Are they ranked based on skill in combat or something? I honestly hadn't thought about it, but that would make this guy pretty scary. Sharon immediately clears the air and says that the number and their combat skill are completely unrelated; however by sheer coincidence, this guy probably is the strongest Enforcer. I thought XP or someone was saying earlier that Ahrienhod was their strongest, but if she is their leader and not just a normal enforcer I suppose that would make her ineligible for a ranking. He does say however that him and her have never fought (referring to her as 'Steel' to keep those that didn't play Crossbell out-of-the-know) and he's not sure who would win in a fight. So a bit ambiguous as to her status currently. He finally jumps down to introduce himself, and his name is...McBurn.

I liked him before but I hate him now. What a dumb fucking name. That is the dumbest name I have ever seen. Why would you do this to me, Falcom?

The fight against him and Duvalie starts and McBurn has 300k HP, holy shit. Duvalie only has 100k so I guess I'll try and take her down first. That turns out to go pretty quickly, I had Laura use a 200 Scraft with a 50% strength boost on her and it took off 45k damage on its own lmao. Shoutouts to this Tauros master quartz, it's pretty great. As soon as Duvalie dies though, McBurn gets about 6 turns in a row and hits for 15k damage each time he attacks, so I'm guessing we're supposed to lose here. The game gives me +3AP for finishing her off so I guess that counts as a win!

After the fight, she stands back up and is understandably upset, but she mentions that losing to an Arseid is humiliating. So I guess Ahrienhod must have some beef with the Arseid family. McBurn notes that Duvalie couldn't have been trying because he saw her beat Loewe in a fight once, but Duvalie remarks that was a 1W-99L record so it doesn't mean much. Also, this is the first time I heard Loewe pronounced, and that is apparently "Loo Ey Vey". That must be some weird German shit cuz that is definitely not how I was reading that the whole time during Sky lol. McBurn is ready to leave but first asks Rean if he's "mixed", Rean is confused about that for some reason. He forgets about his demon form so quickly I guess. I suppose that means that McBurn also has a demon form or something, so I'm guessing we'll get a cool McBurn vs Rean 1v1 at some point in the series which should be fun.

---

Right as he's about to actually leave, our next hit on the fanservice list shows up - Sara! I love me some Sara, but I'm going to have to put her beneath Claire and Sharon on the priority list to bring with me. Sadly I've learned that they're going to make me take 3 shitty classmates and choose my last slot from all the fun characters, which sucks. Sara gives Sharon some props for helping the kids out during this chapter which is really cute considering how their relationship took a turn at the end of CS1.

With Sara here, McBurn is itching to fight again and says he's about to get serious. Sharon uncharacteristically drops the normal lullaby tone to her voice and tells Sara she needs to stay away from him. Some genuine concern is touching to see! Out of nowhere however, who shows up but Duke Albarea, randomly driving by and noticing his son on the plateau. He gets out of the car and yells at Jusis and tells him to get down here this instant, which is fucking great. Here comes this little guy to show up and stop a fight between all of these God tier killers so he can drag his son home by the ear. I love it. Jusis refuses of course, so Dukey boy gets mad and calls in some soldats nearby to come kill us apparently? He certainly came prepared. McBurn now says he's bored and teleports away and Duvalie follows, so guess it's up to us now. Time to do another rinse-and-repeat unlosable mech fight! Right before the fight starts we get to hear the Duke join the club with "An ash-colored knight?" I really hope some translation staff got fired over this.

Since Fie isn't with me this time, we have Machias join the battle in her stead. His skills are basically the same as Fie's though, just with an Earth attack instead of a Wind attack. I don't think it makes any difference. The fight is as easy as every other one so that ends and we get ready to go home, but the Duke once again tries to forbid Jusis from leaving. Jusis, ever classy gives his father a deep bow and wishes him farewell. I respect it. He also says that his dearest wish to his father is that he doesn't repeat his Ymir mistake a second time, which could definitely be construed as a threat. My boy Jusis is off the chain right now, I love it.

They go back and we get told that Jusis and Sara have joined the party, and that Toval and Sara can use Overdrive, "with Rean as a medium". Still don't get the reason for that qualifier. But what that really means is, if they can use Overdrive then they're going to let me bring two adults with me from now on?! Thank god the game is finally coming to its senses! They also unlock a second overdrive, which makes me remember that I even had a first. Some of those hard fights this chapter might've been a little easier if I ever remembered to use it lol. I can't even remember the last time I have, maybe someone can look through my writeups and figure that out.

Toval tries to hit on Sara back in Ymir and she acts pretty awkward about it. I'm not sure if that means that it's awkward because she's totally uninterested, or if she's feeling actual emotions instead of being able to act like she usually does. The character development is real in Ymir tonight! Rean goes to chill at the hot spring alone, but you're soon presented with a choice of "who left the strongest impression" on you between any of your teammates. I love that the game still refers to Claire as "Captain Claire", who is also now joined by "Instructor Sara". I really don't love it actually, it's annoying me but it adds...some kind of charm, I guess. I'm a stickler for the canon romances in games like this though so my choice is Alisa, even if Claire's my main girl.

So of course she comes out to the hot spring in her towel and Rean gets real awkward, real quick. It's a tiny bit uncharacteristic for him, but he's a teenager and all so I'll allow it. Alisa says she wishes that he wasn't staring so hard, and his comeback is that he's not doing it on purpose. Which is kind of cute, coming from a teenager, but I don't think that line would work well on any adult so it's a good thing I didn't call Claire here after all. They go on to have a nice heartfelt talk about how awesome Rean is and how they will move forward together as a group, which I assume is how the conversations go with everyone else as well. After that, the day ends.

Though I get an itch to see what Sharon's is like because I would imagine it's probably the one that's the most different. When Sharon comes out, Rean gets worried that Alisa will find them out here, which is great because it totally plays in to the order how how I actually played this part. Sharon comes back with "Lady Alisa will be none the wiser about any of this". Sharon planning some dirty little secrets with Rean I see, how very Sharon. She then hits him with, "I will do anything--anything--that you so desire." Very intentional emphasis on the second anything. Seeing all of the adults tease Rean sexually is one of the best parts of the game for me because it's the only time the game seems willing to let Rean be a teenager instead of some know it all, super powerful leader which is much more fun to see. The rest of their conversation flows the same as it did with Alisa though so I guess my earlier guess was correct. I thought that they might've taken this for an opportunity to dive deeper into Sharon's backstory but it's clear they're just using this for some fanservice and to prop up how awesome Rean is to the player so that's fine. I'll say it was worth it just for Sharon's teasing. That's not canon though, I'm sticking with Alisa for my real playthrough.

The day ends after that though, so next time on Cold Steel II...once again, bonding events. This game is pretty formulaic with the layout!

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_stingers_ posted...

Holy shit, this character is broken as hell. I'm not sure how this could be balanced?

she is an enforcer. they're pretty strong.

_stingers_ posted...

I have no clue what insight does, but that's okay. The real key is it gives 50% accuracy and 5% evasion as bonus stats, so that goes right onto Sharon to get her evasion tank stats up. 50% and counting!

It's a broken AF status buff that grants like +50% ACC and EVA. It also lowkey makes Alisa arguably on Jusis's level as a busted support character because of her AoE craft with it. So, like, while you can reach 100% EVA in this game, you could also throw Insight on your Sharon there and she's at 100% while it's up.

_stingers_ posted...

Luckily, the guide I'm loosely following advises you to go back to that boss after you win, since there is a black record on the ground. For those that forget, that was the weird book you could get in Celdic that has a bunch of censored text, so not much use now but I'm sure it's a missable that I'll need later. I never would've done that on my own, so shoutouts to guides.

Ohhhh right, you're on NG+. The Black Records stuff is a NG+ thing (which is really dumb for reasons you'll see at the appropriate time) so MZero if you're seeing this and wondering what this is about don't worry.

_stingers_ posted...

I'm not too familiar with the terms they use to refer to themselves offhand, but was the Anguis their leader? Does that make Ahrienhod the grandmaster I've heard so much about?

Nope. Ouroboros's command structure is pretty nuts (and this is acknowledged in-universe). There's the Grandmaster at the top. Then the Seven Anguis (Weissmann was the 3rd Anguis back in Sky. Vita is the 2nd Anguis.) who appear to actually head up operations (Like Weissmann running the Gospel Plan and Vita running things here.) And then the Enforcers of which there are presumably 21-22 since they're clearly based on the Major Arcana of the Tarot Cards. However, Bleublanc explains to Estelle's party in SC that Enforcers are granted absolute freedom in what they do and are permitted to ignore the Anguis and even the Grandmaster if they want. Finally there's the Stahlritter who are a trio of knights who serve Arianrhod directly.

_stingers_ posted...

Duvalie is so earnest and sadistic at the same time it's actually great. I love her personality.

Duvalie is legit the best.

_stingers_ posted...

I thought XP or someone was saying earlier that Ahrienhod was their strongest, but if she is their leader and not just a normal enforcer I suppose that would make her ineligible for a ranking

Sharon was presumably referring to McBurn's strength amongst the Enforcers (So Loewe, Walter, etc.). Arianrhod is an Anguis and presumably wasn't included in her analysis there. Coincidentally though if you look at Ouroboros as whole they're almost certainly 1a and 1b. Most of the Anguis we've learned about are also no slouches themselves in terms of power levels but then there's Novartis (he's named in SC in optional dialogue and actually seen in Crossbell) who seems to have no real combat skill whatsoever though.

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That's the 13 factories guy you see outside of the puppet shop right?

And thanks for clearing up their command structure. Anguis > Enforcer I kind of understood, but I didn't realize there was 7 of them and the grandmaster was above that. That's all fitting in now. Also didn't realize how important that makes Vita! That makes her showing up at the beginning a lot funnier to me now.

And I guess I'll have to start spamming insight on Sharon, if I keep using her. I was basically planning on having Alisa in my core party throughout the game so it's great to know that insight skill of hers is actually useful, since I haven't used it once yet lol


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_stingers_ posted...

That's the 13 factories guy you see outside of the puppet shop right?

Yeah, that's him.

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