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

(+) Yeah! (+)

I like to consider myself a completionist in some aspects but I never cared about getting trophies. Those just seemed arbitrary to me. But getting all master quartz would fall under that I guess.

12/30

The day starts off with Sara telling us she won't be taking part today! I hate how arbitrary they've been with taking her out of the party -_- the game also lets you know that you'll have to use everyone today, so be sure to upgrade everyone's equipment if you haven't used them in awhile. Half of the class still has their starter equipment lol. I wonder if Elliot and Gaius are ever back on the ship, bored out of their minds, complaining about how Alisa and Jusis always have the latest gear but they're stuck with scraps not doing anything. I'd like to imagine they are. I'll try to upgrade people's equipment today but no promises, we'll have to see if the finances are in order enough for that.

Walking around the ship today, I check my bank account out and I do have enough to upgrade everyone's weapons, but not enough for armor. Ah what the hell, money exists to spend it and this game is almost done so let's upgrade some crap for the little guy. They deserve it for wasting countless days having nothing to do on the ship while we adventure and save the world. Gaius and Elliot seem like they're fine with cleaning duty though so I don't know, maybe it's okay. This can be their yearly bonus.

There's a special event where you can play Blade with someone and it triggers the final bonding event for them, even if you hadn't talked to them in Bareahard. I did talk to everyone in Bareahard so it shouldn't matter, but I'll do Millium since Beryl earlier said she was the only one without enough compatibility. Beryl does confirm for me after the fact that she's primed and ready to go now, so I suppose I could watch all the bonding events if I wanted to. Not sure how completionist I'm feeling or how annoying it will be to go and try them all out, but we'll see as we go.

Commencing the operation for the day, you have to set up two groups. Group A is required to have Rean and Towa, who's finally joining the fray. She's already level 114! Rean and a few others are tied at 112, how the hell is Towa out leveling us? What has she been doing on the ship? Maybe her, Elliot and Gaius all set up a training regiment while we've been away, and Towa has been beating ass this whole time. That's what I'll go with.

My party assignments are Rean/Towa/Alisa/Machias/Elliot/Gaius, and then Laura/Jusis/Sara/Fie are left over for their own group. I figure Laura is a one man army and Jusis is a great support/arte user so they should be fine, plus they have less people so their role probably won't be too tough. And then Rean and Alisa should be able to murder everything and Elliot and Gaius should once again never have to see the light of day.

It also has me choose a bonding partner for Valimar, once again saying to pick someone you didn't hang out with in Bareahard. I have everyone available for bonding now so I'll just go with Alisa since we're tried and true together. With that, we're off to reclaim Trista! OK I said I wasn't excited about this yesterday but I'm getting kind of excited now. The energy is high onboard the Courageous and I'm vibing.

As per tradition we're starting off with another thrilling mech battle, though not before we get a cinematic close-up of our spicy new sword. As you can imagine though the fight itself is very easy. The post battle cutscene has the Professor watching from the deck of the Courageous saying, Not bad for a prototype, too bad HE'S not here...who's he? Tita's granddad? That would be a fun rivalry.

When the gang gathers in Trista you get a cutscene where they reminisce for a bit and all the townspeople come out to wish us luck reclaiming the area. Cuddly! They have a voice actor for Micht, the pawn shop guy for the first time I believe. His voice actor sounds like he's a young guy trying way too hard to sound older lol. They also have some rando say, 'Show us some real Thors spirit!' and Towa gets all pumped up and shouts You know we will! It's so cute lol.

It doesn't let you enter any of the buildings, but there's a mini scene outside the radio station where they say that they're gonna do a surprise show on the liberation of Trista. Better hope we don't lose this fight or you guys are all getting the guillotine. Also on the way to the school you can talk to the high class dorm maid, who says we need to take care of those kids and wishes us good luck. Someone really doesn't like her job lol. In general though it's weird how every NPC supports us/the imperials. Are there no conservatives in Erebonia? There's some nobles in Bareahard but that's it really. You'd think it wouldn't be so one sided. I guess it just makes Falcom's NPC writing job easier this way.

They begin to go into Thors, and Rean remarks that it's only been 2 months since they were last here. Wasn't Rean asleep for a month at the start of the game? So this entire game has taken place over a one month's span then? I guess I could always go look back and doublecheck but I never thought about it. That's pretty nutty. I've been playing this game for at least 3 lol. Though I probably took at least a month off to play TFT when the new set launched so we'll say 2.

Anyway, Class VII gets ready to fight the noble kids, and Ferris and Alisa start beefing. Oh man imagine not bringing Alisa with Rean you would've missed this scene, that's deplorable. Of course Ferris pulls out a bow lol. These guys have combat links too, which is a cool difference from normal battles. I suppose breaking up the pairings first would be the optimal strategy, if there were a nightmare+ mode that required that. Since in this mode, Laura's S craft one shot their team. NIGHTMARE DIFFICULTY INDEED

The fight with Rean's team goes much the same, and the kids take back their school. Of course, the nobles reveal that they had already freed all of the staff and they just wanted to fight for fun or something, I don't know. Can't have any real villains here since we're all school buddies and get along. Everyone celebrates, and the day comes to a close. I got another S rank, only 1 left to go. It seems like the final rank is in my sights, it says only 20 AP is needed for it.

Though the chapter is over, the day is not. The next chapter begins with a starlit sky, showing the citizens of Trista celebrating their newfound freedom. Rean watches from afar, standing on the deck of the Courageous watching the celebration while leaning on the rail. He's reminiscing on how far they've come, as he has a flashback to a conversation that took place 5 short hours ago. After everything in Trista, the gang went back to the ship and had a conversation with Claire and the Imperial army. They request our assistance with the planned invasion of Heimdallr, because of course any general would. Let's get these kids in the mix!! Of course they use the word 'liberate' and not 'invade', because you gotta propagandize the kids while they're young.

Rean immediately gets back on his bullshit though and says, ACTUALLY, we're TOTALLY not taking part in this war, XD! Can't help sorry. Claire knows how to play him though and is like, but Rean I only need you to do one teeny tiny little thing so it's totally okay, don't worry. This piques his interest and he asks what she wants, and as he does so, Lechter appears on screen! About time, I missed that little rascal. He says that the Azure Tree is gone now so he's back in Erebonia. I guess that means that the kids are definitely not getting involved after all :(. But I suppose Lloyd and co. did have it under control, so no reason they should be.

Lechter says they want us to invade the Karel Imperial Villa, saying that the imperial royalty are being imprisoned there. Doesn't that seem like a pretty important job for some kids not legally associated with any acting army? But sure, we'll roll with it. Plus it helps keep the parallels with Sky's situation going, since Trails plot is one giant meta fuck fest. Invading Kloe's villa was fun though so we can do it again.

Apparently, Rean's sister as well as Machias' dad are also there, just to sweeten the pot for us. Rean eventually agrees, as we flash forward back to Rean out on the deck. Celine walks out and basically tells Rean he needs to go out into town and get laid. Sounds like a plan to me.

You can walk around nighttime Trista now, and Jusis is nearby with a flag over his head. If you talk to him he says he wants to meet up with you at the dorm to discuss something, but saying yes just says to meet him at the end of the night. I'm guessing this is that final event then? I'll go ahead and say no to everyone so me and Alisa can make out tonight.

The professor is chilling nearby on a bench, saying he's enlisted the help of an assistant to get the sword ready by tomorrow. I guess it's not Tita's granddad then, so...no idea. Someone who was stuck in Trista presumably? Not sure if any of those noble students really fit the bill, so I'm not sure. I guess we'll find out soon enough.

The scene where Instructor Mary and Professor Makarov get reunited was actually a bit emotional. It's cute when the couple acts distant but they still wanna be together. Alfin is nearby and gives me the Medal of Love, which gives +1500hp and +150def/adf. It would be good if defense were a necessary trait in this game, but oh well. I guess it's nice to have. She also gives the Vermillion master quartz, which is much better than the starter Force quartz that I still have on Rean even in the endgame. I just like it because it gives a bunch of CP, and I also equipped him with the true gladiator belt/headband combo so he was just constantly throwing out crafts like nobody's business. The stat boosts from this new one probably outweigh it though. I can always switch back if I miss the CP generation later.

Millium's way of asking you on her final event is to see if you want to go on a "dorm adventure" which just feels...so wrong. The upper class maid is nearby and gives us our final recipe! I can't do the cooking yet since Rean is alone in the party, so we'll tackle that one tomorrow.

That annoying Vice Principal is interested in the complete Gambler Jack collection, and references Rixia saying that "Rixia Mao gave it a good review in an interview." I forgot he had a crush on her lol, that was a nice tidbit last game. Once we start getting the Elie simps in we're in business. I don't know how people call CS a waifu game when Elie and Rixia are superior to every girl in this by a considerable margin. I guess nobody played Crossbell :(.

Valimar and Rean have a chat outside of town, and he has a banger line for Rean: "Take pride in those who will become your sword, for not even kings can buy the loyalty you have earned." Poetic. That's some deep shit. Rean also appreciated it. He also had another good line about how Rean shouldn't try to live up to Dreichels legacy and should just do his own thing, but I forgot to write it down. It was very poetic as well.

After that I think I'm done here, so the last bit is just to watch your grand finale scene with your lover girl...ahhhh fuck it, I'll watch them all. Why not, I've already come this far writing all this crap, might as well go the extra mile. And they make it really easy for you to do so since you can save right before you view it and reload. We'll start with the shitty ones and work our way up to the good ones.

First but least we've got Elliot. I wonder if anyone chose this guy unironically as their final bonding event? I sincerely mean that. I genuinely doubt anyone has viewed this as their only final bonding event in a genuine, non-completionist playthrough of this game. If it's happened I don't even want to know. Anyway, he walks in crushing hardcore on Rean, saying shit like how he wanted to be friends as soon as he saw Rean in the gymnasium on day 1 because he looked so cool and confident and brave. This is why nobody likes you, Elliot. Rean honestly sounds uncomfortable during all this, so that is some amazing voice work from whoever his voice actor is. The incredulousness we're all feeling right now as Elliot bears his soul to us could not have been better portrayed. Whoever was directing this scene knew, deep down, that nobody likes Elliot.

After that trainwreck ends so does 12/30, so I guess I'll have to fast forward through some cutscenes a few times so actually redo this all 12 times...hopefully it's short. It looks like there's going to be some quests to do tomorrow so that's nice. And a big crowd is going to gather to wish us off. Nice. I don't know I'm turboing through it all but I should probably just exit the game and reload next time, it has to save time over this.

Second and second least I'm going with Gaius. Let's see how boring they can possibly make this. Not that I actually don't like him, like, I would be friends with him and all, but I'm trying to enjoy a piece of media that he's in and he's just too damn boring. At least Millium is interesting even if she can be insufferable. Anyway, the scene starts and Gaius unironically says this:

"I found myself thinking, if I had all the strength of a tempest, all the dignity of a hawk, then I could blow away all the obstacles which threaten us."

Which is the perfect summation of his character. Upon testing, alt F4 is definitely faster so we'll go with that from now on. Next up on my inverse list we'll spring for Millium. The save I'm reloading for this, I'd agreed to meet Alisa, so it's funny when you agree to go with someone else Rean calls Alisa to cancel. For this one it says "and he had to make a dreaded ARCUS call to cancel their plans together" which I don't think it said last time. Imagine being Alisa and you get a call from lover boy and he's like, "Sorry, I can't hang out tonight. I'm having a dormitory adventure with Millium instead. *click*" I would just drop out of Class VII and become a janitor at the Reinford company.

Anyway, they talk about how weird it was to add Crow and Millium to their class on the same day, given how weird they both are. And Millium's just like, at least we made things more fun! At least she knows how to roll with the punches lol. Rean has to explain emotions to her, and why it hurts to fight Crow when he's their friend that they care about. As someone who recently went through a divorce it kinda hit me harder then I was expecting. She then explains how she shouldn't be feeling this way because she needs to be a sociopath to become a better intelligence agent, which is always a weird thing to hear coming out of someone who looks like that's mouth lol. Rean gives her a speech and she's all like, I don't know how you don't laugh at yourself when you talk like that. Then says we're classmates and all, but you really don't know anything about me. Man, Millium gives more real talk than any of the kids in this game, she's actually on the adult level there. Now that I think about it, Millium has definitely been the breakout star of this game for me. Compared to 1, it's night and day. In retrospect I should've done her after my next character, but here we are...

I'm literally the exact opposite! Never cared about completing games until trophies came along, I always just bee-lined through the main quest and moved on. But something about that platinum trophy makes it irresistible

...that next character being Laura. I know she's a fan favorite but sorry, I don't see it. She's like the female Gaius, she'd be fine in real life but she's too boring for this game. She walks in and, though Rean has said it every other time, saying he wants to 'check out the upstairs with you' hits different when Laura is the one here lol. Also hearing her ask Rean, 'Do you like the path of the sword?' made me giggle. I'm a simple man.

She says she puts her pride, soul, and very being on her blade, which answers my question from before on whether or not she would trade 8 strength for 80 speed. It answers it definitively. Thank you, game. She quickly blurts out that she isn't sure how she feels about it and that she thinks she loves Rean...ahh youth. I think I texted my high school girlfriend that I loved her too after we talked for a few weeks. I think we had a lot less adventuring going on than these two to be fair, but still. Life was simpler then. I wonder if there's a more nuanced word you can use in Japanese here, since love in English has such strong connotations. It does make sense for awkward teenagers to talk like that and all, like I was just saying, but it's still funny.

Rean, from my perspective, goes "...Yeah, I love you too, babe (shit what was her name again)" though Laura fans might have a different outlook on it. It's just so jarring because all of their bonding events have like, the lightest possible touch of something considered flirtation, and then they just say they love each other. They end up hugging, but no kiss? C'mon Falcom, Square was putting out full FMV make out scenes with an orchestrated soundtrack in 2001, you can let them kiss here it's fine. I'm also now realizing FFX is 20 years old now. Damn. We're all old guys.

The steam achievement for this scene is called 'The Arseid School of Courtsmanship', which they could both use some lessons at. Cuddly name though. Next on my list we're going for Alfin. I actually kind of like her in general but she falls lower here because whatever weird, creepy romance-adjacent thing they have going on with Rean disturbs me. I actually should've put her beneath Millium and Laura, but hindsight is 20/20. I kind of forgot she was an option.

She talks about how guilty she feels that she's getting closer to Rean and how happy it makes her, while Elise is imprisoned somewhere else. It would be kind of sentimental if they didn't frame it in such a weird way. It's like she doesn't actually care about Elise's wellbeing, just that she knows Elise has some weird, Japanese RPG thing for Rean, which makes it really pathetic. Under her breath she says her and Elise working together as a team here might not be such a bad idea, which, in context, is disgusting. Thankfully the scene ends after that. That was actually worse than Elliot's so thanks for that, Falcom. I guess they had to pander to the audience that might pick Alfin unironically though which is a scary thought.

Next up for me we've got Emma. She might be the hottest one with the contacts in, but she's also kind of boring so you land in the middle. I've also got a thing for blondes, so......anyway, she immediately starts blushing as soon as she walks through the door, without speaking a single word. Emma's definitely the horniest on main throughout the game I gotta say. Angelica and Vivi don't count. She is the first person he DOESN'T mention checking the bedroom's out with, nice subversive move, Falcom. I like to think he already knows the deal with her so it goes without saying. Rean's a smart guy man, he picks things up. They have a pretty boring conversation but then Rean just goes, I love you, out of nowhere. I was once a teenager so if I saw a girl that looked like Emma I would understand where he was coming from. Emma leans in for a hug and says, this isn't a respectable path for a witch to take. It's just a hug Emma, calm down. I think she has high hopes at least. The scene ends afterwards though, so they get points for getting less sappy with the confessions then they did for Laura's scene.

Next up I'm going Towa. She's apparently in the library, according to the map, but I can't find her. Some genius deduction has me check the student union room next door and I find her in there. They need to fix the map though is all I'm saying. Anyway, Towa has the responsibility of being the most mature of the kids (ignoring, ironically, Millium depending on the context she's in) so she comes out swinging at Rean right away. She's like, yeah Rean I know people look up to you, but you're only human so don't get a big head and think you're hot shit, cuz there's no natural born heroes, certainly not you. Yikes. Towa's got some fight in her. Everyone else can't wait to sing Rean's praises constantly, but not her. That makes me like her a bit more, probably should've put her next...but I suppose that's not fair, is it. Rean responds with a, you give me a sense of ease that nobody else can. Rean needs his dommy mommy Towa to come ease his fears~

Lmao holy shit so Towa asks Rean to kneel down, so he's like uhhh okay sure. Towa walks over and gives him a hug, then gives HIM head pats and tells him everything will be okay. The mommy vibes are certainly getting stronger, the dommy part will have to come later. This is the kind of support you can't get in therapy, kids. And the achievement at the end of the scene for her is "You're Atowable" which was definitely written by whoever is in charge of the chest quotes.

Next on my list is Machias, who I feel like I definitely like more than most people? Yeah he can be insufferable at times and gratingly stubborn, but I feel like that all just makes him more relatable. We're all nerds here we've been like that before. I think they had to make a character that hits too close to home for us nerds, but I appreciate that.

With Machias, Rean remarks how clean the bedrooms are even though they've been abandoned. Great point Rean, why is it only hitting you just now? You've done a few of these scenes at this point. Machias thinks that the upper class students must've been keeping things clean, but I'm going a different route. I think Sharon has been coming out here in secret to tidy up and make sure it's ready for our inevitable return. Doesn't that seem like something she would do?

Machias says that even Millium is more dignified than how he used to act when they all met. See, look, he's got self awareness and a full character growth arc to boot. What's not to love? And goes on to say that while the things he says and does have changed, in his heart he still feels hateful and immature. And that while he's always known that, it used to frustrate him and cause self loathing, but he's accepted himself for who he is and is happy to keep trying to better himself. See he embraces his innate hypocrisy and works towards changing it, that's a better guy than 99% of humanity. "What's better, to be born good or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?" Machias out here styling on Rean's 'natural born heroism' right now. Anyway, he's easily the most self aware character in Class VII, and I really do appreciate that. I feel like a lot of people can identify with the things he's put out here tonight.

Rean laughs at him, saying that Machias giving a serious speech is amusing, clearly because his ego took a hit at Machias getting self actualization instead of him. He says you should know that if you give me a serious speech, I'll give you one right back. Like okay can you imagine a person in real life ever saying that lol. Who even is Rean Schwarzer? But Machias, on the other hand, seems much more realistic. Okay I don't know why I've been defending him so much but idk I just get the vibe that he's not appreciated much.

Anyway, it's top 4 time! It's Jusis' turn for me right now. He's cool and collected, but just the right amount of insecure that it doesn't come off the wrong way. For their scene they talk about how they can plan to convince Crow to return. Jusis being the first and only person to talk logistics with Rean is another reason I like him. He goes onto wonder on how he can do the same to convince Rufus, and Rean's like, uhhh, I didn't really think that was on the table. Same, buddy. That's why Jusis is better than you or me, he's just built different. Not much more to this one though. House of al-bro-ea is the achievement this time...definitely the same writer.

Coming up on our top 3, for #3 I'm going with Fie. I probably like her a little more than Sara overall but similar to Alfin, I'm a little worried where they're going to go with this. I picture them as more of a Lloyd/Tio father/daughter type vibe.

With Fie, for the first time in what is now the 10th conversation, Rean says that he doesn't actually think that Crow is going to come back to us, because Crow is so certain of his convictions. But then two sentences later says we'll get Crow back no matter what happens, so that's kind of a cruel fakeout. I was hoping we could get some insight into some self-doubt in Rean Schwarzer's mind, but he's too anime for that. I guess we can always just tie Crow up and drag him around with us against his will. He can be our Stockholm friend. We'll make you have fun, dammit!

Anyway, they go on to talk about Zephyr and all that, and she's like, you are all my family now, Alisa and Laura are sisters and Machias and Jusis are brothers, but you Rean...you're different. Oh god. Well it doesn't get too weird but they do hug and say they care about each other. They keep it ambiguous at least. Gotta play the loli pedo and the normal people crowds at the same time, I guess. What can you do...

Her achievement is 'Jaeger Mister' which is definitely the winner of the bunch. Next up will be Sara, which I'm sure one way or another will be interesting. We'll have to see how they want to play it. Sara talks about being unsure of her future after the war ends, in terms of continuing being a teacher, or going back to being a bracer, or something else. She definitely strikes me as much more of a bracer than a teacher, but I suppose that's the point. Wasn't she hired as a 'teacher' by Olivier to basically turn these kids into bracers-in-training? That's how I remember it.

Rean starts us off on the right foot with, I want to think of each other as peers. As more than just a teacher and student. Let's go Mack daddy. Sara is too shocked to respond. Rean follows up with, when I head out into the world as a real man, I want to be there for you as your equal. Yo Rean's got game, I'm actually kinda feeling it rn. Sara hits us with the, "Oh my, you're just full of surprises tonight" while blushing. Nice.

Sara says she goes more for a classy gentleman than a student, but Rean's like nah, Students grow up, boys become men. One day I'll be a dashing gent who can turn even your head. YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Sara goes ! on us and is like, all right then...close your eyes. Rean's surprised that his charm worked and Sara says, in the sultriest voice that Falcom let them get away with, 'Good students listen to their teachers.' Nice. She leans in and gives him a kiss and says think of that as an appetizer. In a couple of years, if you still want the main course, come and find me. I'll make it worth the chase.

Okay Misato, I see you. Ahhhh shit I'm an adult and I don't even know how I'd respond to that now. I don't have enough game for Sara lmao. "Don't worry...I'll be hungry." That's the best I got and I had to think about it. I'm not suave. Poor Rean is on the spot. But Sara knows Rean isn't ready either and follows up with "No rush..." to which Rean is finally able to clear the lump in his throat and respond with a "Thanks." We get our achievement which is, 'Worth the Wait'. Oh that's good.

Lmao, that was all good. I think they handled that one about as well as they could have....unlike the Fie and Alfin scenes. Maybe it's just a cultural bias towards the age gap of a younger man vs a younger woman. I don't know. Rean's 17 right, he's basically an adult, it's cool with me. The Alfin scene was actively bad though, the Fie one was a bit ambiguous. Before I had planned on doing them all I had decided I was going to do Sara and Alisa, so I'm glad that choice seems like the correct one. The one I wasn't expecting at all was Millium, that one hit me good. Anyway it's main course time for Rean, let's see what Alisa wants to do tonight.

Alisa comes in swinging; Rean asks what she was doing and she says that Ferris was giving her advice, blushing while saying it. Ahhhh youth. They go upstairs and Alisa asks if Rean remembers their first day here. Oh man they're gonna talk about this awkward tit grabbing scene they brought up 15 times last game. I was hoping we'd finally be over that. Alisa says that she kept thinking about that over and over again and eventually she couldn't get Rean out of her head. She likes a man that takes what he wants, huh? Oh no she says it was him risking himself to protect her when the floor fell out even though they'd just met...that's more romantic and not at all rapey so I am glad they clarified. But Rean follows up with, 'All the time you say you were thinking about me, I was probably thinking about you, too.' Oh, that's suave. I'll have to remember that one. If I ever use it though no girl can ever find out where I got it from.

He says that through all the long talks they've had about what they want to do with their lives, he was always thinking that no matter where their paths took them, he was hoping they'd combine. Oh man, Rean might have more game than Lloyd, actually. Whoever writes these scenes has a future in romance novels if Falcom goes under. "And even if our paths do end up parting and we go our separate ways, my feelings for you will never change." I will study these scenes, I stg Rean knows just what to say. He's just that dude.

They exchange the only I love you's that have felt properly believable with emotional buildup, and also have the only kiss not counting Sara's appetizer. It's clear who the designers thought you should be with, not that there was really any doubt there. I do wish they could just skip all this harem crap and just write stuff like this into the game proper. Like this is good stuff, Lloyd/Elie was good stuff but they really feel the need to give players choice so they can present us with that half assed Emma scene? Like, what's the point?

I guess that would've meant missing that Sara scene which was pretty great but they can still work those in and have canon romances I'm sure. I don't expect them to the way that jrpgs are going, these days...everyone wants to copy Persona 5. I don't blame them because that game is amazing, but at the same time not every game has to be Persona, you know? Personally I'm in the camp that prefers a strong narrative over everything else so things that get into the way of that like half baked relationship mechanics do get in the way. Illusion of freedom or too much choice or something, I don't know. But it's always different strokes I suppose, and these games are very successful (relatively) so I doubt they'll be switching up the formula much at this point.

Anyway, that scene comes to a close, and they definitely did save the best for last so that was nice. Alisa > Sara > Millium > Machias >> Jusis > Towa >>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Emma > Laura > Gaius > Fie > Elliot >>>>>> Alfin. Pretty clear divide in quality IMO.

With that, the day finally comes to a close, so after a few hours of watching and writing about those, I finally get to see what all those scenes I skipped were about. Can't wait! Next time on trails...hopefully 'liberating' Heimdallr. See you guys then!

I've never had a post interrupt my wall of text before. How exciting

_stingers_ posted...

how the hell is Towa out leveling us? What has she been doing on the ship?

carrying all of thors on her back

_stingers_ posted...

Alisa comes in swinging; Rean asks what she was doing and she says that Ferris was giving her advice, blushing while saying it. Ahhhh youth.

Not sure what order you talked to everyone, but Ferris's dialogue at Thors actually changes if you tell Alisa you'll meet with her to the final bonding event (but before you activate it obviously) to basically give Rean the "I swear to god if you hurt her..." trope, which is a nice touch.

That's pretty great, no I missed that. What did you think of the final bonding event scenes? Did you do them all?

Yeah, I've seen them all too. I share a lot of your thoughts on them, actually: Alisa's is very obviously the "canon" one Falcom is pushing but doesn't commit to by giving you choices, Millium has some very interesting and good scenes which can be a bit surprising after her initial impressions, Jusis is best boy, Laura and Emma overrated. >_>

They're all right, I guess, but the game's writing would probably be better off if it just declared Alisa canon and didn't make it Persona lite.

I'm just really impressed what they did with Milliums character in this game. Part of me just thinks they got lucky and she will revert to being annoying in CS3 but I have hope

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/6/4/AAUYpeAAC1BY.png

I ran a word count on all this bullshit I've typed up while bored at work today. So thanks for anyone who's read this since you've apparently sat through a whole novel lol

_stingers_ posted...

I've never had a post interrupt my wall of text before. How exciting

Happy to help!

You're a braver man then I. I did all the bonding scenes for trophies but fast forwarded through some of the ones I didn't want to watch (Millium, Alfin, Fie)

Ahhh Milliums was so good. That's why you've gotta watch, you never know what might surprise you

Bump

I'm almost done I swear

that's what you think lawl

I havent played in a week but thats because I'm savoring the finale

ok I beat it

Longest writeup yet incoming tomorrow oh boy

The Neverending Epilogue

The writeup is coming but man theres so much.
Hopefully I can finish this tomorrow

12/31

New Years Eve, seems like the perfect day for a big showdown. It seems like Professor Schmidt's hidden assistant he mentioned previously is none other than Instructor Makarov, for a very undramatic reveal. I was hoping for Tita or something. Oh well. Valimar pulls out that big ol' sword and looks pretty cool while doing so. Sara says that we all need to gather at 0730 to commence the mission, and says we should all be wearing what she gave us...does that mean it's time for new uniforms? That would be cool.

The time comes around and everyone is wearing the same shit they had on before so idk what Sara was on about. Makarov is coming with us for some reason, so that's cool. I like to think they were gonna make everyone new outfits but then they decided Makarov was coming along and didn't have time to make him one so they scrapped the whole thing. Always the bridesmaid. Rean unlocks his new S craft for some reason here, I thought there'd be something more...personally fulfilling to trigger it, but I guess this works. I think he should've gotten it after his final scene with bae, but that's just me.

Olivier has 4 monster quests for us to take on before we go, each with some pretty funny notes to accompany them but I don't feel like typing them out. Today's gonna be a long day since it seems like the last chance to finish up all of the sidequests in the game. I have two trial chests I never got from way back when when you weren't able to change your party out, I have to make every recipe, get all the fish, do these monster quests for Olivier, find all the students, presumably finish up melee/artes training 4 and 5 when I find those students and...that's probably it? Seems like a good bit. Well, no time like the present so let's get started!

It took me probably about 20 minutes of cooking to make all the recipes but there's 3 unique dishes I can't seem to make, even after trying it with everyone. Not sure what I need to do for that because I checked and nobody has any weird orbments that would prevent me from making any dishes, so I'm a bit stumped. While pondering that I take a break to explore the ship. Apparently I do have all the students recruited so we can check that one off the list, cuz my artes/melee 4 and 5 are here. The artes 5 was actually really frustrating because they disable S crafts, AND you can't let anyone hit low HP at any point. I ended up beating it on my like 12th try or something after coming up with a strategy where Sara (my fastest unit) would double HP lost arte to give me some breathing room. Then I had Alisa and Jusis overdrive to use two offensive lost artes to get everyone low, then I had everyone else clean up afterwards and pray I had enough time before they whittled me down enough. When I finally beat it Sara was still down to about 4k HP which was probably dangerously close to red.

Also onboard the ship I ran into Bridget who is receiving those unique dishes I failed to make, so I just caved and looked up a guide. It worked after doing what the guide said but I swear that I tried every combination before so I have no clue what was different. Maybe I just had to change rooms, Elliot clearly wasn't feeling inspired enough on the bridge. Bridget gives you an orbment that gives 10% bonus damage for each level the enemy is higher than you, so that would be useful if this game had any tough super bosses, unfortunately it does not. Margarita gives an orbment that makes ailments last two more turns, which is perfect for Machias. And Monica gives an orbment that gives Crescent Mirror/Adamantine Shield, which would've been broken in Sky but I almost never have to use either in this game. I can swap in Jusis to use his craft if there's ever any need but most of the time you can just blitz enemies down. Sometimes you need to double HP to buy some more time but almost never do you have long fights like you used to. I'll let Laura hold it I guess in case I ever need the utility and her orbments are pretty much whatever at this point. It gives 50def/adf as well so that could get some use on her. Finally for the recipes, Ferris gives you a master quartz for finding every single one. It has really good Stats and synergizes with Sara well. She loses 3 speed but it's a good enough tradeoff.

George is down in the basement and can make us some ultimate weapons if you have Zemurian Ore. It takes 4 shards to make a full piece of ore, and I only have 2 right now. You can craft them for 50 u materials, and I'm at 99 and probably have been for a long time so I've probably been wasting lots of potential ore shards since 99 is the cap. Oh well. I'm able to use those 99 and 1 more I got from somewhere to get 4 shards so I make Sara's weapon, since she's my strongest unit right now.

If you ask Beryl for another compatibility reading, she says there's no point because we already share a strong bond with someone, then says to give her regards to Alisa. That's cute lol. Ghost student is best student.

I think I've done everything aboard the ship for now so it's time to tackle these quests and max out my AP. First place I go today is Trista because I can. There's a cool inspirational scene by the radio station where they swear to do their best to broadcast the truth of the events occurring today to the world regardless of consequences. I'm not sure how they're gonna do that from Trista when everything is going down in Heimdallr, but I respect the spirit. Real strong punk energy from them. The father at the church has a hidden quest where he wants us to check on a traveling priest that is apparently worrying him. He says he's in Celdic but I have a feeling that I'm going to be fetch questing all over Erebonia for this one.

Before I head out to Celdic, I walk down the East Trista Highway since it's the first time it's been available to us in this game. While fighting out here, I get Alisa's Criminal master quartz maxed out which basically gives the fire bell orbment for free. Would the half delay stack if I had both of them on at once? Some quick testing seems to indicate no, but the delay is so low I'm not sure if I would've noticed. At least that frees up an orbment slot for me, then. Fire mage Alisa is looking better than ever, watch out Yennefer! There's also a monster chest on this route which gives a 'First spell cast does 2x damage' which fits perfectly in the Fire Bell slot that just opened up for Alisa, so she's a serious monster now. Not much else on this path besides some random fodder chests though.

When you get to Celdic things are starting to look a little better. They've got some new framing up on some of the burnt houses and things just look overall more presentable. That's a nice touch for the developers to add in, we know the people of Celdic are hard workers. Trails is usually pretty good about that kind of attention to detail I'd say. Which is why it bothered me that you couldn't see the Azure Tree on the deck of the Courageous when all that was going on, because that would've been a real nice touch. Oh well. The priest in Celdic says the traveling priest has traveled to Bareahard, so that's our next destination.

I ended up getting sidetracked though and took the time to clear out the two trial chests I wasn't able to do before. The one for Eliot and Gaius was tough because they're my two least used characters, but when I thought I was going to lose Elliot's quartz apparently gives him a free proxy puppet and he revived to full HP and gave me enough CP to use his ult and revive Gaius to win the fight. Even Elliot ends up having a purpose, who knew? Good for you buddy. How fitting that Elliot and Gaius was my last trial chest to do though. The useless duo. At least while making my way to their chest, I stumbled upon one of the quest monsters for Olivier, so that's one of those down.

I decide to just take some time to kill all of those instead of going after the traveling priest. The quest monster out on the Nord Highlands, for one is a pain in the ass to get to because of how much empty space there is out here and they stick him as far out as possible, but for two, is actually pretty tough. He has a huge AOE attack that almost one shots while inflicting seal. I'm still able to beat it with some good ol' fashioned S craft spam but its harder then I was expecting.

I head to Ymir to find another quest monster but remembered to do some snowboarding when I was here. The final day! The last course is actually pretty difficult, it took me 3 tries to beat it. You get an orbment that gives +15spd and all the Chrono Spells for your last reward, so you already know who's getting that. It's Sara. She craves the speed. With that equipped she's also at 169 speed...nice.

If you stop by Rean's parents house, you get a random voice acted cutscene which was unexpected. Rean's dad says that he'll tell Rean everything he knows about his biological parents whenever he returns from Heimdallr, so that'll be something nice to look forward to. About time we find out some more about ol' Rean's backstory. It also pops up with a message saying that a shrine has opened up in Ymir Valley, so let's check that out! Optional bonus dungeon time? I was just complaining about this game's lack of super bosses.

When you first enter Ymir Valley you see Annabelle, who tells you that you can catch the final fish here. Once doing so she grants you the title of Platinum Angler, and let's you buy some broken orbment in her shop. Gives hit%, eva%, move and some strength as well as the best wind spell, which is a lot of value for one orbment. Sara can use that well.

Before I tackle this dungeon, I decide to head back to the ship since I can make another ultimate weapon where I'm at now. I choose Laura to make her as strong as possible for some real old fashioned one shot potential. She's up to 2600 str now which is insane, lol. After that I get back to this glacial shrine, let's see how tough this optional dungeon is.

Turns out there is no dungeon, just a big ass room with a magic knight in it. Standing there, ominously. Holy shit he's got 669k hp lol. Maybe this will actually be tough!

Holy shit he can use lost artes, he used one that one shot my entire team AFTER Alisa had used her double HP arte. Okay...this is it. This is the challenge I crave. I fear it might be impossible without grinding, I'm level 115 right now. But I'll try this for a bit and see if I can come up with something.

Okay it actually didn't take as long as I thought to come up with a strategy. He's mostly physical damage, so swapping in Jusis over Alisa so he could use his adamantine shield craft made the fight pretty easy. I beat it 3rd try, but it was my first try after swapping Jusis for Alisa. I never get rid of her so it hurt a bit to send her away lol. As far as optional fights go it was cool and I had to think about it but for Trails it was still too easy! You get 99999 XP for winning so everyone went up ~5 levels. You're also given the Ice Crown, which gives 10 cp every turn as well as 50% crit chance. That is insane lol. Sara can take that, sorry you're losing the +20spd but with the bonus crit damage master quartz you are going to be a monster. The extra speed should be superfluous. I was hoping I would get some Zemurian Ore here to make some more weapons, but I suppose I can make do with what we got instead.

At the top of Ymir Valley is the last quest monster, which you can imagine was a bit trifling after dealing with that magic knight. With those four quests done I go back to the ship to turn everything in, expecting to get max rank...but I'm 4 AP short. Did I miss something? Oh wait, that secret quest with that traveling priest, duh...let's get back to that.

...and done. They really did make you go to every single town in Erebonia lol. A fitting end to sidequests I suppose. They never actually show you the travelling priest either, so I'm guessing it's some kind of foreshadowing for a future game. I've now done every quest so I report that to get my A0 rank and my broken accessory. +100 to every stat (except speed RIP) and blocks all status effects...not bad. I'll give this to Sara too, she doesn't need speed anymore she just needs to be a beast. From 169 to 144 SPD...how the mighty have fallen. She lost 30 spd in accessories but I guess she went up 5 from all the levels she got from killing that knight. I'll take it. You're still fast enough for me, Sara.

I believe I've now done everything there is to do in this game. The only thing left...is to beat it. Let's get a move on and get this final mission started!
(Editors note: Oh god I was so wrong)

We set out with Machias as a required teammate. I bet there's a lot of people that weren't using him that are upset about having to bring him along for the finale. You get a cutscene of the war starting outside the gates of Heimdallr. Bardias and Le Guin are fighting on the front line in their soldats, kinda wrecking the Imperials. Bardias has a throwaway line about the winds deciding something, so I guess you can take a man out of Nord but you can't take the Nord out of a man. Amen.

Eventually you get control outside the Imperial Villa, as the noises of battle rage on around you. You have to make your way up to the top floor, beating up imperial soldiers and some robots and dogs they brought with them, but nothing too hard. Eventually you reach the top to find Elise and Machias' dad waiting for us, along with the Emperor and Empress. What a weird group of people to be together lol. I guess Machias' dad is pretty important, but Elise is just a daughter of some C tier nobles, right? Seems a little too unimportant to be here ostensibly, but I guess Rean is Jesus so it makes sense in that regard.

Now it's time to figure out which villain of the day will show up to fight us...it's Altina. She says Millium is her older sister, "in a sense". Sara's all like HMMM while the rest of the gang don't react. Right before the fight starts, she's like "I'm Altina the Black Rabbit, model number 0z74" which basically confirms the whole robot theory. Or some kind of lab baby at least. But once again nobody reacts to this, so I have to assume they're all suffering from temporary deafness? I don't know if they think they're being subtle or something but the Falcom writers need some lessons in how to foreshadow lol. I feel like they either beat you over the head with it or it comes completely out of left field, no in-between. But if Millium is the older one, how did she get developed with an actual personality but this one didn't? Maybe Millium wore the creators patience down too quickly so they flattened Altina a bit lol. Wouldn't blame him.

Altina managed to get 2 attacks out before dying, so a slightly above average difficulty battle. I feel like after beating that super boss the rest of the game will be disappointing, but what can you do. Hopefully the plot will make up for it!

Elise and Rean have a touching reunion that goes on for awhile while Machias and his dad get one sentence together lol. The reject gang who was out fighting the war walk through the door so we can speak with the emperor as a group. They thank Class VII for their service to the country and Rean's like nah fam we just did our duty as Erebonian citizens. Damn there's a few million guys outside not doing their duty at all right now if that's everyone's duty huh.

They end up getting around to the fact that Cedric is missing, to which Altina reveals that he was taken to the palace. While anyone with half a brain should be able to tell she's only revealing this because it's some sort of trap to get them to go there, nobody seems to mind. Sara kind of says something like, you've certainly got a lot of information for us, but doesn't call her out directly. Altina also reveals that there's some ritual that they're using him for, and that everyone here is too late to stop it. As soon as she says that, some mysterious chanting picks up in the background and slowly gets louder and louder...

Emma says this is a ritual to summon a demon, Lucifer Lied. Cool name. The emperor says that they must be trying to recreate the events from the War of the Lions, just to make sure that the player doesn't miss that plot thread one final time. We get a scene change to the basement of the castle, where Cedric is tied to a chair, screaming, while some weird magical stuff goes on around him. All the main villains are present and make some remark about one thing or another, but Crow is the only one who apologizes to Cedric, and asks him to bear with it a little longer. Of course Crow would be the villain with a heart of gold, how touching.

It zooms out to a view outside of the castle, as some demonic tentacles start taking it over as the castle grows in size and becomes much more...villainous looking. Not very nuanced. Rufus calls it the Black Castle, and says it's just as the black records described it. How'd he get that shit decoded when we can't man, this is a ripoff! Plus they're scattered all over the country. Now I'm picturing Rufus crossing things out with a Sharpie and tossing them out of his airship at a random point in Erebonia as he finishes each one. He does say this time it was only the Ashen that awoke to fight the Azure, which is different. So I guess there's some more robots out there somewhere waiting to go. There is that big black one beneath the castle they seem eager to use, but I'm guessing he's more of a final boss type deal.

Vita says the noble alliance's victory is all but assured, though I have to wonder if she really thinks that or if she's just talking pretty for Rufus. She leaves and Rufus also wonders to her true motivations, but says that it doesn't matter because he has his own problems to worry about. He tells his crew aboard his airship to begin for combat with the Courageous~

We get back to Class VII, as Altina leaves by busting through a glass window saying she's got better shit to do. I guess now that she told Rean and Co. where to go she's got no purpose left. Claire runs through the door of the villa and says that she'll escort the emperor and empress to safety, and will also help Machias' dad get back to Heimdallr so he can lead evacuation efforts. So selfless! The gang talks about helping evacuate Heimdallr but Rean's like nah, we're going to that castle, because I can tell some shit's going down and we ALL know I'm the main character up in this bitch. Then they all *sigh* like yeah we know Rean, let's go...

The emperor gives us some accessory, the Grand Cordon, but we don't have a chance to check what it does since we're still in cutscene mode. The gang is aboard the Courageous again, preparing to infiltrate Heimdallr airspace. They give Rean shit about being overprotective of his sister now that she's on board. The only time anyone is allowed to insult Rean is about how he is too caring~ what a guy. Man I really hope this game pulls an Azure and says that everyone only loves Rean so much because he is magically bending spacetime to make people like him. That would go a long ways towards explaining everything.

We eventually get to Heimdallr, as Rufus' ship appears and begins to fire on us. Towa orders evasive maneuvers and to descend into town to disembark Class VII. It's kind of hard to take her seriously in this tense situation lol, hopefully she's not captain next game if they keep up with this civil war shit lol. I'm sure she will be though.

They have a scene where the nobles and Makarov/Thomas disembark to fight some magic knights outside of the castle. There's a part where Makarov is smoking and complains because a knight teleports in behind him and makes him put out his cig lol, that was kind of funny. Eventually we make it to the castle as Rean busts down the gate with Valimar, however, as soon as he does a mysterious ~spiritual~ barrier appears in its stead. Nobody can figure out how to get past it, but Rean has an idea to channel the power of the Zemurian Ore into one giant blow in order to break it down. That's just nonsensical enough to work!

It does work for plot reasons and the gang heads inside, as we get a jump cut to the Courageous, still in combat with Rufus. Vivi is doing her scouting thing though and says that Class VII has made it inside the castle, but that the barrier reappeared behind them as they went in preventing them from providing any backup. It's okay, we're not stuck in there in them, they're stuck in there with us, you know? That's just the way I like it.

As soon as you get inside the castle and take in the oppressive architecture, Millium chimes in saying, now THIS is a final dungeon! Nice lol. Valimar is out of commission because he channeled too much power to break down that barrier. I'm sure he'll recharge just in the knick of time for some lame ass final fight with Crow though. Lmao ok Valimar literally says, "By my calculations, I should return to peak condition just in time for the battle against the Azure Awakener." I'll give them credit for playing it straight.

The gang prepares for the boss rush that is going to be coming, which at this point is definitely a Trails tradition. The final dungeon boss rush is the best part, I'm down. They let you pick your party with 7 members again, do I go with Emma, or Millium...I'm kind of becoming a Millium fan so I'll go with her. Fie is cool but she probably won't really add much to the cutscenes. Millium always has some spice. Emma might have something interesting to say lore wise...but nah, fuck it. Millium all the way, right? But hopefully it lets me switch my party easily throughout so I can switch Fie in before I fight Xeno and Leo, but otherwise...nah. I'm sure they will, the games have gotten a lot better about that compared to Sky. I remember missing Zin's cutscene with Walter because I couldn't be assed to put his bitch ass in. Plus I probably would never have been able to beat the fight because I never used him.

There's new equipment here for everyone who wasn't able to get a Zemurian ore weapon, so I shell out some cash to upgrade everyone since money is meaningless at this point. Plus it was funny to see Elliot's armor go up by like, 700 for 4000 gold lol. There's some pots you can break at the front of the room that drop shit which can include U materials, giving you a farming spot if you're dedicated enough to reload a bunch and you want to get everyone's Zemurian ore weapons before the final dungeon. I definitely cannot be bothered to do that for a game this stupidly easy but it's some good game design I suppose.

The way through is pretty boring, in standard trails dungeon design fashion, but it does look nice. Trails really needs to work on their dungeon design though. I guess nobody's perfect. At the end of the first section there is a teleporter that takes you back to the beginning, so it will be easy to match characters for their respective bosses at least. Thank you, Falcom. No more, "Too bad ZIN isn't here to take you on, Walter! *wink wink*" for me!

Our first bosses are Duvalie and Bleublanc. Laura and Duvalie have a catty (for Laura's standards) conversation so I suppose Laura is Duvalie's special somebody? I guess Duvalie hates the Arseid's and the lance maiden is linked to Legram with that castle, so there's probably some deep lore there.

The fight was surprisingly tough as they go, but that's only because I entered with 0 cp on Laura so she was unable to one shot everything. But Duvalie and Bleublanc both use a lot of status effects and are generally pretty powerful. I was in a spot where everyone but Sara was dead and she literally only had 200 hp left, which normally would prompt a retry but I ain't no bitch so I used Grail Burst to give her 3 turns in a row, revived everyone with items then had Rean use Seraphic Ring to get everyone back to full and was able to win the fight from there. That was pretty neat! Too bad moments like that are normally ruined by Laura dealing 200k at the start of the fight and winning it for free. I really hope CS3 is balanced better.

In the post battle cutscene, Duvalie has a minor breakdown and goes super Saiyan and starts fucking us up, but Olivier and Toval come out of the woodwork to rescue us and fight them off so we can continue up the tower. Duvalie gets mad and says that Vander should be here to present a real threat if they wanted to fight, so Olivier's like, yea we brought him but we can take you without him so we left him outside. Lmao some great trash talk. It flashes outside to show Vander out there fighting the magic knights and Neithardt shows up as well. That's a good dynamic duo. Too bad his friend isn't someone from Sky, but what can you do. Sky is criminally underused throughout CS so far I would say. Crossbell had Estelle and Joshua showing up somewhat prominently, but in this series there's very little out of Liberl. At least we've got Ricky and Anton. I'm not really sure who they could've brought in though, Zin would be unlikely since he's in Calvard with Kilika, right? And Estelle or Joshua coming back here would require too much fanfare. Maybe Agate would've been good, but then they would've had to bring Tita too so that'd be weird. Actually Schera would've been perfect here. Oh well. Maybe they didn't want to confuse the newbies.

Anyway, Vander and Neithardt have a bro scene where they make a bet on who can kill more magic knights. Nice lol. Vander sucked in 3 so my money's on Neithardt.

As we proceed up to the second stratum, Duvalie has another mental breakdown at us getting past her. I love her.

The second stratum is designed a bit more interestingly than the first, there's even a hidden interaction you can hit towards the end to get an extra treasure chest with a Zeram powder. It's a shiny thing hidden on a statue you have to angle the camera weird to see. It's like I'm playing Resident Evil! Beautiful. At the end there's a giant Zephyr logo painted on the door and Celine's like, I think I've seen that logo in the files! REALLY trying to hint to the player that it's time to put Fie in. I'll take the hint. I'll just take Laura out, fuck it. The last boss fight was interesting when she's not there to one shot everything so lets try that again and see how this goes.

Xeno and Leo reveal to Fie that the reason she was abandoned was because their boss asked them to do so if he ever died. That if he weren't there to protect her, he wanted Fie out of the corps. That hits hard man. Poor girl. Millium says that fits what she knows of him based on his file, and Sara is upset that she got played by him, since her finding Fie on the battlefield was then part of his plan to have her watched after. What a guy.

Fie has a cool speech about how she's tired of relying on others and wants to get stronger for her own sake. It was a pretty good speech. Machias quips that despite all that she just said, she's still the girl who naps on benches out of sheer boredom. Lmao I wish that they had Fie respond to that because that's pretty good. I guess they assumed nobody would include Machias in their party. RIP

Anyway the battle starts and, unfortunately, my wish was not granted because the fight was stupidly easy. They don't do any status effects like BB/Duvalie did, they were vulnerable to random status effects that I threw out with my orbments on a 20% chance, barely did any damage and had no tricks up their sleeves whatsoever. If Laura were here, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't have had more than two turns between them. Oh well, I tried.

In the post battle cutscene Millium's all, 'Wow, I can see why they're rated as a threat level 5 now!' which I personally choose to interpret as lying on an out of 100 scale. They also "power up" as Duvalie did though in a much less believable fashion, as Claire and Sharon this time show up to 'rescue' us. Ostensibly it's to rescue us, but in my head it's because Claire and Sharon are still 60 levels beneath us from when they left the party in act 1, which puts them on an even playing field with Xeno and Leo. Gotta let the fodder fight our battles for us. (I don't mean it, I'll use you next game Claire and Sharon, I promise. If you're in it. Which you better be.) Man I really hope they get past all this Class VII shit next game, all the supporting cast is better in general, it'd be better to not have to drag Elliot and Gaius around, you know?

Anyway I just so happened to have the perfect cast for Claire/Sharon showing up lol. Alisa gets shocked and starts stuttering about why Sharon is here, Millium gets super excited to see Claire, and Sara says, 'Oh look, it's my two FAVORITE people.' which got a chuckle out of me. As we run up the stairs, Xeno and Leo yell out to Fie that the rest of Zephyr isn't here because they're figuring out how they're going to bring back their boss, which is ? what? A bit of a last minute twist. So he's not actually dead? Is he fake dead like Osbourne or are they trying to get some zombie revival black magic going? The second would be a lot cooler but I have a feeling it's the first. Nobody ever dies in trails.

Anyway moving on to the third stratum, standard stuff. At the top of this one, not really sure who's left...Mick wasn't accounted for yet so I guess it's him, though I was hoping he'd be saved for later games to make clear a gigantic difference in their current power level. He's the only one I can think of though. Let's see...

Turns out that's it. Rean calls him out by his full name, McBurn the Almighty Conflagration. That's a mouthful. Sara gives a sigh right before he appears, so she's not feeling too good about this one. If this were Crossbell this would be their chance to make a really cool, 95% unwinnable fight that you get bonus AP for beating...but we're not in Crossbell anymore. Lol right before the fight starts everyone gives their one line in standard JRPG fashion and Mick says, let's knock it off with the tired one liners and get down to business. Dammit Falcom why you gotta make Mick so likable?

He has a paltry 500k HP, so he shouldn't be much of a problem. Lol when he casts his mystic arte he says, 'This ones a scorcher!' Definitely a reference to that Sears commercial. It does like 20k to everyone, but luckily I had Alisa's double HP lost arte so it wasn't able to get any kills. Another easy fight for the history books.

After the fight he name drops Loewe and says that we might be worth something after all, then unleashes his demon form that was 'hinted at' earlier. His name finally appears on screen in white text for the first time as McBurn, Enforcer I. He transforms and gets white/blonde looking hair, and some edgy tattoos. Why doesn't Rean look this cool? Maybe he has to progress his demon powers some more. But the name appearing on screen like that as he transforms for the first time is pretty badass, not gonna lie. I said it before and I'll say it again, Falcom has a gift at using their text boxes to great effect.

He unleashes some fire on them and Rean's ready to give up and call Valimar, but Laura's dad appears out of nowhere to save us this time. He was hyped up to be Cassius level, so I guess he should be able to put up a fight with Mick. I'd guess Mick's a bit stronger, especially with his demon form but I guess we'll see.

I'm just realizing that I didn't bring any characters along to have a showdown with Mick, but I also think nobody really fits the bill. It's probably just Rean since they're demon buddies so I'm sure it's okay.

The two powerhouses get to fighting though, so Class VII ascends the elevator. There's only one final stratum, which is a simple spiral staircase all the way to the top. Interspersed with some decently tough fights, for random encounters, since you want to conserve your resources for the boss fight at the end. There's a Zemurian Ore shard on the way up which just happens to be my 4th, so I go and get the ultimate weapon for Rean as well.

Eventually you reach the top and in true JRPG fashion Rean says that we must gather everyone before proceeding to the end. What if there was no teleporter here Rean, were you going to just walk all the way downstairs to get everyone? Say hi to Mick and Duvalie and everyone on your way down and hope they don't mind? This guy...why the hell weren't they all with us to begin with anyway? RPG logic man. At least, with everyone being here the conversation will flow more naturally since they don't have to write in a bunch of optional dialogue. That's always nice.

The finale begins and they start off with the unavoidable Crow/ClassVII reunite scene, bullshit nobody cares. I have to imagine Vita and the rest are just falling asleep while these kids chat away about friendship for 5 minutes. Eventually Duke Cayenne is like ? Guys? We have shit to do? And starts monologuing about how he's descended from the old emperor that Dreichels overthrew, and wants to restore their family's former glory...right. History has you as a second place loser buddy, you think it's going to go your way now? This whole game and Erebonia arc has been hinting at some Nietzschean eternal recurrence shit going on with the War of the Lions, but you think that's all just gonna stop now so you can win, right? Some people don't have a lick of sense man. Read the writing on the wall.

Eventually we get bored of talking and Crow and Vita challenge us to a fight. Okay so I have to win this, then an easy mech fight with Crow, then probably have to take on the black gear in the back. Hopefully on foot because hopefully the designers realize that nobody likes their mech battles. Let's see if I'm right!

Vita and Crow have a combat link which is cute. They also have a status effect that disables your combat links, which is pretty interesting. Seems like a fitting thing to introduce for a final fight. However it's not enough to save them, and unfortunately I kill them both before I'm able to see any mystic artes from them which is disappointing, but what can you do. Part 2 starts and yep it's robot time. Rean calls for Valimar and we get a cutscene of him just flying up to the top of the castle. OKAY if you could do that then why didn't we just chill at the bottom, wait for him to recharge, and just fly our asses up here instead of doing all that fighting? Would've avoided a lot of bullshit and potential death. Stupid Rean.

After the robot fight hits a halfway point they get a cutscene where everyone starts glowing and Crow's HP is restored to full. UGH do you have to prolong this robot fight, ffs. This shit takes forever, and I never upgraded shit so Rean does no damage lol. Crow actually managed to get my HP into the red once for probably the first time all game, so this can take the mantle as hardest robot fight. Woo. Man, that first robot fight in the series at the end of CS1 was so bullshit I had to retry at least 50 times before I finally managed to beat it. I know someone back then said it was tied to your character level and I guess mine was too low so the fight was almost impossible. How far we have come since then...I guess I used up every robot fight retry I'll ever need in that one battle.

In the post battle cutscene, Rean talks about how he felt like he was dreaming and was just acting without thinking. My boy was able to reach Flow state, what a beast. Rean says he thinks he could never act like that again, clearly not knowing that flow state can be achieved by anyone who is under intense concentration while also having mastery of their craft. I'm sure the ending of CS3 will be able to push you there buddy. Who knows. Maybe he'll just die and CS3 and 4 can be the story of how Millium and Altina learned to be human. I'm sure that would be just as good. No spoilers please.

Crow apologizes to Vita for letting her down, but Vita laughs and says that she's okay with happy endings. I guess Ouroboros really doesn't care about any of this crap going on lol. Their master plan is so weird and far removed from the events that seem to happen in every game that I really don't know what they're up to. I guess we'll find out at some point...probably not. They will just dangle it in front of our faces for 50 years until all the writers die and they end the series on arc 17.

Rean gets surprised at Vita's nonchalance, clearly slow on the uptake. And Duke Cayenne is understandably upset, since he's probably assuming they're actual allies and not partners of convenience. Cayenne ends up summoning that black gear for good by forcing Cedric to go inside and pilot it, which paves the way for part 3 of our final boss fight. We get some pretty epic cutscenes of it siphoning mana from people all over Heimdallr by unleashing some ghost tentacles and absorbing their life out of their bodies, so that's pretty cool. When we get back to the castle Vita screams at Cayenne saying that she forbade him from doing this. I suppose this must not have happened 250 years ago? But I mean, you basically left him out to dry so why would he listen to you now? Rare circumstance of Vita not thinking things through. Gotta plan ahead mate.

The fight here starts off with my entire backup team of Elliot, Emma, Millium, and Gaius on the front line. Oh man, I didn't realize it was going down like this. I'm probably going to have to reload and split the strength between the two parties but I'll try it out and see how far I can make it with these useless fucks. It's only got 300k hp so it can't be that bad?

OK I did manage to finally beat it on my third try. Elliot, Emma, and Millium are nobody's idea of a dream team but they were able to pull it off with some clever reflect usage and some clutch healing from Emma and Elliot's crafts. It's a good thing I had upgraded everyone's equipment earlier or this probably would've been impossible. They were all running some bare bones, throwaway orbments and half of them didn't have accessories. The ones that did were ancient ones from act 1 lol. But nothing is impossible with friendship and strategy~

Part 2, I just powered my main team to 50% str and almost one shot the thing lol. 450k HP gone in an instant. Final boss defeated!

Crow and Rean summon their divine knights to deal a final blow. You get to hear Crow's gear talk for the first time and it sounds...weird. Like some kind of raspy pedophile voice. Not a fan.

You then have to fight it with Rean and Crow together in mech mode so I guess the final boss is not yet defeated, they had to ruin it again. Oh well. At least Crow being here makes things a LITTLE more interesting. But then a little over halfway through the fight I realized...they removed your option to heal. Oh crap. I was able to get him down to about 80k HP but he knocked me out...my first mech fight retry. Without having healing as an option it takes some actual thought, so time to strategize for a bit.

Second try around with some careful usage of the guard option for the first time in my life I'm able to take him down without too much trouble. If I realized they removed the healing sooner I probably would've beaten it first try, but that's life for you. Rean gets an epic omnislash moment in the post battle cutscene and rips the core out of Testa Rossa's chest, Eva style. Badass, Rean. Too bad these robots don't spurt out blood when you tear them apart but that's not very T for Teen of them so I understand.

Vita seems a little worried, saying that her Grandmaster will chew her out for this when she gets back. The gangs ears perk up at the mention of the grandmaster, mine included. She says they serve him and she was here only to carry out the second part of his Phantasmal Blaze Plan. Am I ever going to get an explanation for what that damn thing is? She says, "A plan to use the hollow phantasm in Crossbell to awaken the Blaze in the empire." The hollow phantasm I'd guess would be KeA, but what is the blaze in Erebonia? I just hope it's not fucking Rean lol that's all I have to say. Nothing's really been awoken, unless they were referring to the castle? It did have some pretty powerful magic going on, but I'm not sure what the end goal of resurrecting it would be. I guess we'll see.

Crow gets out of his robot with a gaping hole in his chest, shooting blood everywhere. OH man that's not what I meant when I said that earlier...sorry Crow, this one's on me. Man are they actually gonna kill him off? I did like Crow as a character even if I thought everyone's motivations on returning this wanted terrorist to go to high school with them were a tad nave. I'd be kinda down for him to die though since nobody ever does so I'm sure something will deus ex machina his ass here. He says, at least he has time to say his goodbyes and leads off with him turning to Elliot saying that the concert was really fun. Lmao imagine your last words on earth being to Elliot, please just shoot me now and get it over with.

He does his rounds around the room and then falls to the ground, apparently dead. I'll believe it when he's buried. Cayenne clearly can't read the room at all and shouts over at us, he's got a dagger on Cedric's throat and is threatening to kill the boy. Vita has had enough of this shit and threatens Cayenne that if he doesn't unhand him things will get much worse for him, a threat he seems to take seriously as he appears willing to relent. Suddenly however, out of nowhere...Rufus appears, sword in hand and knocks Vita aside. Noble Boyz gotta stay together I suppose. I didn't think Rufus would be that kinda guy but I guess he's gotta commit to the nobles here. Mariabell would be proud.

He goes up to Cayenne and Cayenne is in disbelief, asking if Rufus is really here to save him? And Rufus is like, "Not in your dreams" as Altina swoops in and knocks Cedric away. Okay lmao I'm not sure what he's up to now, he's not with Vita or the nobles at this point so who's he with? Vita and Millium both realize something before I do as they have some knowing 'aha' moments, and not a second afterwards we see Claire and Lechter walk in the room. Oh...OH okay yeah now realization dawns on me too, Rufus was working for the Ironbloods the whole time! Ah that's good, I didn't see that coming not gonna lie. For a reveal like that though, it's only a matter of time before you know who shows up, right?

Lechter and Claire apparently had no idea that Rufus was on their side the entire time, they were just told they had a 'primary ally' who was helping them out but not who it was. So who told those two that? HMMM! I find it a bit hard to believe that Lechter wouldn't have been able to sniff that out though. I guess we can go with it for now.

Cayenne asks what Rufus stands to game from pledging his allegiance to a dead man....hahahahahaha okay here it comes. YEP The man, the myth, the forgotten legend Osborne walks on screen, for the first time all game. About time! He teases Cayenne a bit, and Vita says that she had a feeling he wasn't really dead. Not even Vita knew for sure? So that means that only Rufus was aware the entire time he was alive and hiding somewhere? Interesting. Vita also says that she learned how formidable Osborne was when they worked together in Liberl...huh? Is this in relation to the war that was happening where Erebonia invaded before Sky, or did they have a part to play during Sky as well? I'd assume the former, but the latter would be pretty interesting.

Oh shit, lmao Osborne then straight up says he's now taking over this Phantasmal Blaze plan, and says Vita can go back to her master and let him know that if they get in Osborne's way that he will crush them all. Okay, that's badass as hell. Since when does anyone knowingly stand up to Ouroboros? Osborne certainly aint noone to fuck with.

Millium rushes over to Osborne's side, and says that she doesn't know what to do anymore. None of the other Ironbloods seem to have any doubt in that department, but Millium's been brainwashed by Rean so you know she'll be coming back at some point. Or maybe they'll just kill her instead, who knows. Probably not that.

Osborne then orders Rufus to proceed with the occupation of Crossbell. Osborne really doesn't waste any time, huh. I guess he's been out of the picture for a year so he's got a lot of work to do. We get a little flashback of Crow talking about his beef with Osborne, but it doesn't last long as Rean rushes up and grabs Osborne by the chest, and says that Crow died for nothing if he's still alive. Lmao Jesus that's heartless as fuck, like if Osborne had died then Rean would be cool with everything? What a brat. Actually really just think about how weird it is that they were so desperate to be friends with Crow, just cuz they spent a few months together in the same class. He was a literal terrorist who assassinated the standing Chancellor of Erebonia with a sniper rifle. Like if some kid in your class shot Hillary Clinton, would you be all like, damn he was such a cool guy I really need to break him out of jail and be friends with him again. Rean is a sociopath.

Also, the fact that none of the Ironbloods rushed over to protect Osborne when Rean rushed over and basically threatened him just shows how harmless they think he is lol. Or that they really think Osborne is cracked. He doesn't seem like he'd be a great fighter but he's pretty bulky so idk. I mean Rean's able to go toe to toe with some pretty strong guys, his power level has to be pretty up there at this point. But sure, you guys do you, don't listen to me. Rufus walks up to Rean finally and goes, please calm down buddy, he's got good reasons and you know he cares about you, right? And Rean goes all...huh? And then has a flashback...to Osborne dropping him off on that mountaintop. Okay lmao oh shit I really didn't ever think that Osborne would be his dad even though it's kind of the obvious trope. It just never clicked with me. It's like how I never realized Wazy was in the church even though they made it as obvious as they could, I just skip the obvious answers I suppose.

I thought Osborne was some commoner who rose through the ranks though? Because I thought Rean was descended from Dreichels, which would also mean Osborne was as well? That's not quite the image I had of him the entire time. Or maybe I'm missing something. I don't know, it will all be explained at some point I'm sure.

After that we get an anime ending song, so I guess that wraps this up! So Osborne just really wanted Rean out of his life so he could do some grand scheming for a decade or so, then reclaim Rean when it was convenient for his plots? Someone's been taking lessons from the school of Gendo Ikari, I see. Osborne seems a lot more imposing than Gendo did but they do have similar vibes besides that.

Holy shit ok there's an ending song and after that ended, it has you save the game and says during your second playthrough of this portion, you can raise Lloyd and Rixia's levels by 15. First off I thought I was done, second off, Lloyd and Rixia?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?! 95% of people that played this game are like who the fuck is that, meanwhile I'm over here having a heart attack.

It gives you an option to start normally, raise levels by 15 or just view the cutscenes. I mean, in for a penny in for a pound so let's do this bitch normally. I don't mind spending more time with Lloyd and Rixia if I have to. Man, there's a whole bonus chapter I'm so excited what's Rixia gonna look like in 3D oh man where's Elie ahhhh fuck okay let's do this.

OK so we start off with a battle scene, looks like Erebonia's proceeding with their invasion of Crossbell. They're all evenly matched for a bit but then there's a sparkle in the distance and fucking Valimar bursts in and fucks them up. Wait Rean is a bad guy now oh god oh no he's Osborne's fucking lapdog? Oh shit oh god Rean no. At least CS3 might be interesting plotwise because I didn't see that coming.

We get a voiceover narration from Lloyd, who sounds about how you'd expect from the Japanese version. A little deeper voice than in japan but that's usually what happens from the sub to the dub. Lloyd talks about how the war wasn't much of a fight, as we knew, and we fast-forward to Osborne giving a speech to his newfound subjects in Crossbell. He does a fakeout where he introduces the man responsible for ending the war and you think he's hyping up Rean, but Rufus walks out instead. Rufus is now the governor of Crossbell, which seems like a good position for him. Only sociopaths are allowed to rule Crossbell these days, RIP Grandpa McDowell.

We switch over to the office of the Crossbell Times, as Grace is mulling over how suspicious the circumstances are that Rufus and Osborne are so close all of the sudden, especially when everyone thought he was dead. At least we know she's still sharp as a tack :) and keeps abreast on foreign affairs. Also, I just want to say how well they handled the transition to 3D for Crossbell, everything looks just like you'd picture it. They didn't miss any details.

It then moves scenes to Lloyd and Rixia, talking business with Cao from Heiyue. Didn't realize they'd become so chummy. I guess times are tough in Crossbell, gotta make friends where you can. They also gotta start building these guys up, doesn't the Calvard arc start after CS4?

Rixia looks even better in 3D then I imagined <3 waifu material. Her outfit got sluttier I think but you know what, we take those. They talk about how they can't trust Cao for a bit, then walk out into the Geofront as they formally introduce Lloyd and Rixia with the white text fade over. Lloyd says that Crossbell's future rests in their hands...oh man. How are these two gonna deal with the Erebonian occupation? I can't wait for Rean to get called out on being a bootlicker by true main character Lloyd. Hopefully, CS3 and 4 just let me play as Lloyd the whole time and we can forget Rean exists. I somehow doubt it...but it would be nice. It would be very nice.

We get to explore the Geofront now and that familiar Geofront music starts up again. It's only been a few months to a year since I played Crossbell and it already feels nostalgic. Man I love those games.

If you go back into the room they were talking to Cao in you can get a special edition of the Crossbell Times, which is fun to read. It's a lot less propagandized than the Erebonian Times newspaper was. Free Crossbell, the revolution of our times!

Going through it, this is unironically the best designed dungeon in the entire game. There's lots of vertical design, which makes the map much more interesting. Some backtracking, puzzle solving with the platforms, etc. It's so wild that they would make this the first good dungeon in the game...and it's a bonus epilogue chapter. Falcom, man...

Lloyd and Rixia, over the course of a few cutscenes going through this dungeon talk about the rest of the Crossbell gang, including mentioning that the Imperial's are now watching the SSS and monitoring their activities now. Osborne knows that the SSS ain't noone to fuck with, that's a smart cookie. He did get a bit familiar with them during Zero, after all. I wonder if Osborne was over in Crossbell during his hiding when everyone thought he was dead. I choose to believe so.

Eventually you make it to the end and they reveal their purpose for coming here: to backup all the data on the central computer stored down here that has detailed information on all Crossbell citizens, then wipe it, so Erebonia can't get their hands on it. Good thinking guys. I mean they could still get their hands on that backup if you don't keep it safe, but I trust Lloyd and co with it more than anyone else. Unfortunately, bitch ass supervillain Rean Schwarzer comes out of the woodwork now and demands that we stop. Was he just following us that entire time? It was a pretty long dungeon, especially for trails standards. Derpy ass Rean. Altina's with him now as well, just to make it clear if you're not paying attention that Rean is a bad guy now. He also has his default outfit on, when I played the entire game with him in his winter sweater, so that's jarring to see lol.

Rean's introduced as the Black Haired Boy, which really makes me question the logic they use for character names. I guess it's just from Lloyd's POV and he doesn't know Rean, so it does make some sense. It's still funny though.

When the battle starts, if you analyze Rean, his description is a young main with an air of sadness about him. Yeah, I bet he's sad being a bitch ass imperial boot licker. Daddy came home so he has to be his little lap dog now...pathetic. Rean's 100% bitch.

The fight did take me two tries here, but I was able to beat it pretty cleanly on the second try. Doing a two on two fight when they both have 250k HP and you only have 15k isn't very fair! But we made it work. If they could use Overdrive like we could this fight would've been impossible lol.

After the cutscene, Rean, for the first time in his life finally gets to be the one that "stops holding back" after losing a fight and begins activating his demon mode. The joys of being the bad guy. However, Tio's program finishes running at the same time and this means Rean's mission was a failure, so he quits demon mode before Lloyd or Rixia get a chance to see it. He says that Lechter gave them a backup plan to carry out in case their primary mission failed, as he calls Valimar out of nowhere. It legit just teleports into the Geofront lol. They had this whole big deal of him flying to the top of the castle before but apparently he could just teleport the whole time? Weird. But then Valimar just goes berserk and destroys the whole computer lol. Rough break. Rean then says that arrest warrants have not been issued for either of them, YET, and says that they're free to go. You'd think after having a crazy fight like that over what they were doing that would give him carte blanche here but it's more important that Lloyd gets out of here to do important shit so I guess we can let it slide.

I missed if Lloyd was able to grab the backup data to bring with him but I would have to assume that he was? I didn't see Rean making a big deal out of reclaiming it at least. Oh well, it's probably not important.

Lloyd asks Rean who he is, and Rean starts off by saying that he's a Thors student in Class VII, but then cuts himself off and changes it to a Crossbell Military Officer. Okay yeah I figured Rean was stationed here but does that mean that games 3 and 4 will take place in Crossbell? Man I hope so. I need more Crossbell in my life.

Lloyd and Rixia run away and manage to name-drop every single person in Crossbell, and Lloyd ends by saying that there are many barriers in their way, but they can get over them together. I'm not crying, you're crying.

The scene switches back to Rean talking to Lechter on the phone about the mission. Lechter doesn't say much, but Rean does some more friendly shit with Altina then sighs and says he's jealous of Lloyd. Yeah, you should be. Bootlicker.

The ends the day though, and it skips ahead to March.

3/9

We're back in Erebonia. Rean and Claire are chatting after Rean's arrival back in the country. Rean is basically as angry as the writers allow him to get, which is mild annoyance. What upsets Rean is that Claire didn't tell him that Osborne was his dad. She says she didn't have any actual evidence, but she suspected it a bit because they seemed similar. That seems like a bit of a jump but okay. Not sure how Rean could expect her to know anyway, she's clearly not his closest confidant since she didn't even know that Rufus was working with him. Rean just goes "I see" and walks away. So edgy man. I don't think she was lying so why you gotta be so rude Schwarz?

As soon as he gets outside he thinks to himself that he's behaving like a child, so at least he caught that lol. It's revealed that you're in Trista, and everyone in Class VII walks out to greet him. They have their cuddly reunion and there's even a bit where everyone else walks away, but Rean and Alisa get a private flirty 'Nice to see you' as well. I wonder if it matches it to who you picked for your final event. I choose to believe it's always Alisa because it's obviously supposed to be Alisa.

It fades to black and has Rean give a voiceover of some of the events that led to him becoming a dog of the military, I won't bore you with it. But he says that the days he spent with his classmates were the best he ever had, and the day skips ahead again...

3/12

Today starts off with a black screen and the history teacher saying, "...and that brings us up to the modern era." which is the most meta that this franchise has ever gotten lmao. That's definitely intentional, right? It did take them two games to catch up with the Crossbell epilogue, but by god they did it. They show a day in the life of the kids at school, a glimpse of what they fought so hard to achieve - normalcy. To me it looks hellish. I'm glad I'm done with that shit, working is so much better. School is basically like going to work except you don't get paid. Not a hard choice.

They end the day with Sara telling us that we have a free day and to use it wisely. There's a cute scene of Alisa and Rean meeting up and hugging and blushing and acting cute together before the game lets you free. Since they can't write in a real romance I guess they have to use times like this to fill that gap. Unfortunate, but what can you do...

Exploring the campus, talking to Makarov on the rooftop shows a new building being made that's supposed to house Valimar and some soldats, so they can begin training the cadets in Soldat warfare. Makes sense to me. Ugh, does this mean that CS3 is going to be in Trista again then? If they're hyping this up it would suggest that. I was hoping we were getting away from this damn school man. I want to go back to Crossbell.

When you talk to Thomas he gives you the fully decoded black records...oh man! Forgot about those. Let's see what we have here...

They're still censored in the book tab, and when you look at the item in your inventory it says 'best to read these in the evening'. Man they REALLY want to make you wait for these lol. I want my lore dump already!

As you go around talking to all the students, a bunch of the second years talk about the jobs they'll be getting once they graduate, but it's all normal stuff like chef, writer, etc. Aren't they in a military academy? Why is nobody joining the fucking military lol.

When you try to go to Beryl's club the door is locked and Rean's like, there's no record of anyone using this room...spooky. Ghost student Beryl better come back next game or I boycott. Angie and George get a scene in the engineering room where they talk about their plans. They're both going to travel around the continent, Angie on her bike just going wherever she fancies and George going to prestigious factories around the continent to learn. He says Liberl is his first stop, nice. Gotta check in with Tita!

I finally found one person saying that they were joining the army, the weird noble that's obsessed with his horse. He says he's joining the imperial cavalry...ok. Makes sense, but I can't imagine that's a very useful position now that they've got tanks and giant armored robots, but maybe you can find something to do with your horse, buddy. I believe in you.

There's also a scene with Towa where she tells Rean to stop holding it all in, and he breaks down and cries about not being able to save Crow. Damn. Towa is that dude for sure, nobody else would tell Rean he can cry but Towa has that real strong mom energy. That catharsis ends and Rean meets up with the gang to go back to the dorm. They talk about what they're gonna do for dinner and then Sharon rolls up and is like nah kids I got you, go relax. Alisa gets mad and is all what reason could you POSSIBLY have for showing up this time? Which actually made me laugh lol. She's the master of timing for sure. Sharon says that Gwyn is back at Reinford helping run the company again, so glad to see that mother and grandfather have reunited.

Elliot and Rean sidebar about how weird it is that Sharon's able to go around in public doing whatever she wants, and Rean's just like nah I'm sure the government is cool with it. You think they know? I mean Ouroboros is kinda low key, I really doubt anyone knows that Sharon is some crazy enforcer. You know I mean Osborne, and the really high ups in the military have to know, sure, but I don't think that information is just...freely shared. I thought only the highest level people even knew Ouroboros existed to begin with. I don't get why the kids think that she would be harassed over it. I mean maybe I could see the top level government officials taking offense to a known Ouroboros member being so closely associated with the Reinford company. Maybe that's on Osborne's list for later, but he's probably got more important shit to worry about.

At the dorms we get some epilogue scenes to see what everyone's gonna be getting into. When you go to Crow's door, Rean says he's not ready for that one yet. I feel ya buddy. Machias is studying hard to enter a prestigious political academy. Elliot's going to a music academy. Gaius just wants to paint or something. Jusis is becoming the next Duke Albarea, since his dad is imprisoned and his brother is the mayor of Crossbell. Damn Jusis is doing all that while Gaius is just fucking off to go paint lmao. That's some juxtaposition. Everyone keeps referencing their plans in a six month time period, so maybe that means CS3 will be set six months from now? We'll see!

Upstairs with the ladies, Sara is going back to the bracer guild, as expected. Millium's going to do missions in Liberl and Remeferia. I guess she's allowed to tell Rean now that he's a military dog, not that it would've stopped her in the past anyway. Her convo starts off with her being curious as to why everyone's mood is so down, in reference to Crow dying I suppose, but they just kinda drop it and don't go anywhere with it. Aww, I was looking forward to more Millium character building. Also, I never mentioned this but Millium's voice actress actually does such a good job of a sad young girl trying her best to sound happy...it's very impressive.

Fie is going to look for the other Zephyr members to see what they're up to...that's a dangerous job. Emma is going to look for Vita...also a dangerous job. Laura's going off to train in the wilderness with her dad for a few months. Probably pretty dangerous? Alisa's of course going back to the Reinford company to assist. They have a cute I'll miss you scene, where Alisa says she'd rather be there with him but Rean says she has to go advance her life and can't wait around just to be with him. And Rean says not a single day will pass where I won't be thinking about that sweet, hardworking girl I feel in love with. Nice. They lean in for a kiss but the scene fades to black right as they do...and then immediately fades back in. Okay if you're going to end it there sure that's okay, but if you're going to just cut back 3 seconds later that's super cheap. Is kissing to risque for good boys and girls or something? Implied pedophilia is a-ok with Falcom though, man. This company.

Finally, there are these black records to read. When you look at the decoding report it gives you a menu where you can look at them all 1 by 1. It doesn't let you skip ahead, you have to start with the first one and progress through in order. That's how you know it's serious. They also got some real epic chanting song in the background.

Black Record 1 - Before the calendar. Two gods fought for a long time, and both ended in mutual defeat. The 'Great Power' was what was left over from this. That's a term that's been thrown around a bit now...what is it?
Black Record 2 - Year 371. There was once a very powerful dragon that could raise the dead. He used his power to take over and control the area that was to become Heimdallr, and ruled over it for over 100 years. One day Hector Arnor, emperor of Saint-Arkh forged a pact with Testa-Rossa to defeat it. The dragon corrupted Testa-Rossa in the process, which is why it became evil and had to be sealed beneath Heimdallr. The Arnor dynasty has ruled over the area ever since.
Black Record 3 - Year 947. The war of the lions begins. 6 princes and their noble cohorts compete for control of Erebonia. One of the princes, Orthros, revived Testa Rossa and used that to amass power. He was able to kill one of the other princes, dropping the count to 5. Another prince, Lucius, awakened a different knight. the Palatinate knight, to challenge Orthros. Two other unnamed princes weren't able to get any knights, but they grouped up so their knightless armies could stand a chance.
Black Record 4 - Year 949. Dreichels is chilling out in Nord, but one day a (human) knight came to find him to get him in on this warring action. He is the 6th and final prince. Him, that knight, and 15 warriors from Nord form his entire retinue. He sets off to do what he can in Erebonia.
Black Record 5 - Year 952. Dreichels was able to amass power by being a generally good guy and because Lianne Sandlot liked him a lot. A witch showed them where to find and how to awaken the Azure knight. They used that to defeat Testa Rossa. Basically, everything that happened on 12/31 also happened in the year 952.

No mention of the Ashen Knight anywhere. There was that new knight, the Palatinate Knight, so I guess he'll come up next game somehow. Not as much in there as I was hoping, I was hoping there'd be some deep lore and church shit, but it was mostly war of the lions stuff. Kinda disappointing but I'll take it.

Rean talks to Elise on the phone for a bit about nothing in particular, and the day ends.

3/13
Is this finally my true final day? I didn't realize how much longer this game was going to go on lol. Free day, so time to walk around and talk to everyone and get some quests done. No bonding points this time though, just some good old fashioned communication. There's a quest where you have to settle a fishing duel, so that Annabelle can call off her arranged marriage to Lakelord. He actually shows up, so that's another Crossbell cameo for the list. You end up saving the day and it appears that Kenneth and Annabelle are slowly falling for one another. Fishing subplot is best subplot, no doubt.

You have to do a quest where you fight Patrick and his butler, which is braindead easy. Ferris and her maid come out next and demand a fight, and her maid just whips out two pistols out of nowhere lmao. These people sure do live in a society. That fight is also braindead easy, but then the fucking principal and nurse walk out and say we're not done here yet, and the nurse pulls out a fucking sniper rifle LMAO. This game is too much sometimes. That battle was a little tougher but still easy and that finishes that quest.

There's another quest to gather items for the flea market going on in the auditorium. One of the miscellaneous items you collect is the Carnelia collection, from Sara. However, they don't actually show up in the books tab, just as an event item. You can't actually read them :(. I know someone thought you could get Carnelia in this game a few months ago when this topic was started, turns out you can...but not really. Good memory though, whoever you were!

There's another swimming quest with Neithardt that they repeated from the first game. The girls come out at some point and you have the option to pick a girl to 'admire'. I chose Sara as any man would and you get a good 10 second closeup of her in the swimsuit. Nice. Rean says if fabric had feelings then that would be the happiest fabric in the world. He's a modern day Lord Byron, I tell you what. No wonder everyone falls for him, I don't know how you couldn't.

Eventually I finish up all the quests, and you get an event at the old schoolhouse where Valimar senses a disturbance. It's about time we get back there! Couldn't be a CS game without some schoolhouse adventures. Toval shows up and has a convo with Rean where he asks if Rean wants to become a bracer. Please say yes get me out of this school ffs he said no god dammit. You're basically a bracer already buddy, cut the bullcrap and let's go meet up with Estelle! Toval says he's not giving up yet though, so we've got hope. CS3 Bracer Rean please, anything but Thors Rean.

Claire also shows up with Alfin and Elise in tow, and her and Rean have a nice heart to heart where they both apologize for what they did and they make up. Claire is best girl so let's get her in the harem already :)

We go inside the schoolhouse to investigate and it's very trippy and magical looking. Definitely not a schoolhouse anymore. Nobody knows anything about what's going on, so Rean calls Valimar and Toval goes, 'You can do phase space translocation with that thing'? Those seem like some fancy seems for ol' Toval. Is there more to him than meets the eye? I guess I'd know if they let me read Carnelia :( Kind of mean that they don't in the game he's finally introduced. Damn so they set this shit up since Trails 1, huh? That's crazy. Hopefully he's not the next Ouroboros member or something silly like that lol.

Speak of the devil, Sharon shows up behind us as we make our plans to head further in to investigate. I think that is possibly every party member we've had gathered here for the epilogue. Falcom knows how to do fanservice if nothing else. This is pretty great, NGL.

For my party I settle on Claire, Alisa, Sara, Laura, Jusis, and Elise because I'm curious what she will do in battle. The other 6 are there for functional purposes though. I would normally bring Sharon as my 7th, but the guide says do not bring Sharon for some reason so maybe she pulls a heel turn or something.

Oh nevermind, I see now. There's a hidden quest outside where Anton has fallen in love with Sharon, and wants our help to win her affections. The annual Anton love quests never fail to make me smile. I believe in you, buddy. I can see why Sharon needed to be out of the party now, lol. I kind of wish I had her in so I could've seen his reaction to her being there, but whatever. At least this means I can switch her in after I do this quest. I'll try Elise out for one battle to see what she's like at least.

That quest was fun but not very involved, just found some items for him to give to Sharon and she turns him down in the most Sharon way possible. I get to exploring after that and holy shit okay you go up on the roof and Thomas is there, standing with Rosine. He asks what we thought of the black records, and Rean doesn't respond right away but Thomas starts smirking and then snaps his fingers. Him, Rosine, and Rean are all teleported into some weird glowing black void thing. Thomas says that while they're here, everyone else in our party that was standing around is oblivious to what was going on, they just see everyone standing there normally while those 3 are inside here. They can have a conversation in complete secrecy. Thomas is a secret beast, what the fuck? Rean's just naturally like...what the fuck is this who the fuck even are you? And Thomas is like I'm a member of the Gralsritter bro, church official. Lmao okay I didn't see it coming with Wazy because I'm an idiot but I feel like this one was super left field.

He says he's second in command of the Gralsritter and is known as the Partitioner. I wonder if that name has come up in the franchise before this? Also, his stupid sing song voice he normally has on is gone while he's talking now, he just sounds like a normal guy. Important note. Also, this kind of clues in the secrecy of him watching us before in Act 1, but it's still a little weird.

Rosine chimes in and says that she is also with the church and is his squire here to assist him at Thors. At least she's been faithful to her church duties this whole time lol, Thomas has been off fucking around and drinking with Sara. Not a very holy man. Man, Thors really has a colorful cast of people here though, huh.

He basically asks Rean to forward any more artifacts he finds his way, and he'll help decipher anything he can and let us know. He also wants to make sure that we'll be useful to the church, as someone who holds a fragment of the great power. I guess that would be Valimar. So the knights = parts of the great power, got it. Are there more to it then just the knights or is it just them? Man I hope they get more into this church shit and Ouroboros in CS3 and 4 because it's so much more exciting.

Lol when the cutscene ends he snaps his fingers gain and the whole gang is all like ?? Huh? Did something happen I can't tell. And then Thomas instantly puts sing song voice back on and says "I'll be praying for you." Lmao. Okay I love this guy now he shot way up the list. And I always liked Rosine but she's still up there.

As you leave the rooftop you're privy to an additional conversation between Rosine and Thomas, where she asks him if he really thought it was a good idea to reveal himself like that, since Rean will be much more wary of them now. Thomas responds by saying that was the point, because Rean lacks critical awareness of what is going on around him in the world and he needs to start waking up that bigger things are happening then what he sees on the surface. I respect it. He also says they'll need Rean's help to uncover the mysterious of those two gods (he calls them Sept-terrions) that Black Record 1 talked about, as well as the 7 divine knights that the witches and gnomes made.

Okay so the great power was left over from the sept-terrion battle, and the witches and gnomes used the great power to make the knights. Presumably this means there could be other portions of the great power out there that weren't used to make the knights, but there's no confirmation of that. We also know now that there are exactly 7 knights which is more then we know about now. We've got Testa Rossa, Azure, Ashen, and the weird one from the Black Record, so there has to be 3 more hidden out there somewhere.

Okay well that's done...I reported all the quests so I finished at 329 AP. From what google tells me that is the most you can get in this game, so I did manage to get a perfect AP run! That's exciting, it might be a first for me in trails games but not 100% sure. But I tried extra hard to do more this game then usual. I tried to do everything in the Crossbell games too but iirc I had always missed something.

Time to get started with this dungeon...Elise is very boring, only two moves and she's very weak. Claire is also very weak unfortunately, she has almost no str compared to Laura/Rean/Sara even though her level is the same. I suppose time has passed her by...we can revisit you in CS3 Claire, don't worry. The great rebalancing is upon us.

I go back to the main area so I can switch in Sharon for Elise and I see the orbment station has a thing called purchase Phantasmal Mirror. They cost 200k each and there's 5 of them, holy shit lol. It says they will let you borrow power in battle. Sounds interesting, but a million mira...ok, let's see. I sold every sepith I had which brought me to 850k, sold every unused equipment which got me to 900k, and sold every normal (not rare or super rare) orbment which got me to 997k. Then sold some random food items for 1 mil. Let's see what we get! I even got an achievement for hitting 1 million mira so that's nice, lol. Didn't expect that. These mirrors are accessories you can equip, what do they do exactly? Lets see...

Holy shit I put the witch one on Claire and when the battle starts you just have Vita on your team instead lmao. Okay that is so fucking cool wow. Hopefully Vita is more useful than Claire, let's see....holy shit she's fucking BROKEN. What is this? She has so much mana and lost artes and good stats and just Jesus Christ. When I'm walking around though Claire's still the one on screen, so it's just an overwrite for when you're in battle. But interestingly, if you get near a treasure chest it's Vita's voice that says "That's quite a fine chest." Huh. She has her own stats and moves, and her EP seems to recharge between battles. CP doesn't, I used her S craft and her CP was empty next round. I'm not really 100% sure how it works but its cool as fuck, that's all I can tell you. The other mirrors are for Crow, Lloyd, Rixia, and Altina. I'm 100% down to replace Rean with Lloyd, Claire with Vita and Sharon with Rixia. Altina and Crow I don't give a shit about, so I'll just leave Alisa in the main party because she's probably my most broken unit. At least for mobs, maybe I'll switch Laura in for her for the final boss if I need it. Oh man this dungeon is so cool I love it!

It's a little weird seeing Alisa as the only normal teammate with Lloyd, Rixia, and Vita, but fuck it I'm cool with it lol. This is the way the game was meant to be played. I wish I could use Claire but she's just...so bad. Oh well. Vita is a good replacement.

They all seem to automatically have that +10 cp per turn accessory you got from beating that Ymir super boss, so they must have their own equipment. They're completely independent stock characters that overwrite the ones you have in your party, so if you wanted to you could bring your Elise and Alfin to grind them up while using better characters? Or are the stats tied to the level of who they're equipped on, I wonder. My Rixia is strong AF and she's on Sharon who isn't so I don't quite think that's the case. I don't know, fuck it, I'm just gonna use them and vibe.

Also, shoutouts to randomized dungeons. They're so great, in moderation. They would suck if it was every dungeon lol. But for something like this for a final epilogue chapter I think it works really well. You make it up 16 of those randomized floors, fighting a braindead boss every 4, until you get to a big glowing door of light that screams final boss for real this time. Sara says that is the kind of door that you will find something truly nuts on the other side, lol. Let's see.

You get through and some big white shadow thing is there and he's like yeah I'm basically a trial they made but forgot about, I have no purpose and nothing you do here matters at all, there's no reward or point to killing me. And Rean's like but we're here, so...we kinda have to kill you, I don't make the rules buddy sorry. And trial just goes lol k. He starts the fight by putting everyone at 1HP, which is a small threat in this game since there's so much easy healing. Also Rixia just outright dodged it because she's a beast. He's got 800k HP which is the most in the game AFAIK but he doesn't really have any tricks, so the fight goes pretty easily. I'd say it's because Rixia and Vita are broken, but I'm pretty sure Sara and Laura honestly would've killed him faster so we'll just go with the true reason - this game is balanced for shit.

Class VII goes whelp, that was easy, guess we're all done as a class now there is nothing left for us to do. Millium starts crying at their breakup, and is moved/shaken by the fact that she cares so much about them now. That's cute. Alisa hugs her and cries as well, and all the girls join in on crying. C'mon girls you can still hangout lol, lighten up it will be okay. Elliot also joins on the crying because the developers agree that he is a woman. They have a bit where Crow's ghost appears and sees this and chuckles, which is pretty great. That's a nice touch. After that there's a fade and a white screen where Vita, Lloyd, and Rixia give quotes too, presumably because I used them for the mirrors. I didn't write down the quotes but they were nice. I kinda wish I had Altina and Crow in the party now but what can you do.

3/14

We skip ahead a day and get a scene of everyone saying their goodbyes. Alisa has a new outfit here which looks nice, I would've had it equipped for sure if it was an option throughout the game. It's weird they made it just for this scene and gave none of the other characters new outfits lol. I guess they wanted to show the pretty girl off at the end. Okay, that's not quite true because they also gave Elliot a new outfit but it looks so fucking stupid I CAN'T MAKE THIS UP Okay you need to see a pic, here.

*attach pic*

Like why in the world lol. I made sure to get Alisa in there so you can see her nice outfit. Anyway they all turn to Sara, bow, and say thanks for everything, in unison, which actually made me tear up that was adorable. Sara also cries...who wouldn't at that. These kids man. After that, they say their final goodbyes and the credits roll...

"Thank you for playing Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel 2. But while the game may be over, Erebonia's story is only just beginning..."

Beautiful.

As this ending song is playing in the background I'm collecting my thoughts about the game...I don't really know where to begin. I've been playing for 5 months now so it has been a strange journey. I started playing this to get my head off my divorce and give me something to occupy my time with with these writeups. I'm in a better place now and started seeing a new girl, so that's nice. This games been a big part of my life through a rough time though so I'm not sure how exactly that taints my memories of it. I know I've been unnecessarily critical of it at points. Most jrpgs are pretty tropey so I think I ripped on the ones here harder than they deserved at times. My main complaint would really just be the balancing, there's no excuse there. It was just way too easy at times. I never tried to break the game, I didn't do any evasion tanking or the delay cheesing strategies that people talk about, but I was still able to just mash my way through because it's way too easy to do stupidly high amounts of damage. I really hope CS3 is better balanced. Even CS1 had more challenge than this, and people talk about how easy that was. I did really like the very first Cryptid battle, that one took some real thought and strategizing but there just hit a point in the game where the challenge evaporated and the rest was just playing out the motions. I like video games because of the challenge, so that being taken away did partially ruin the experience for me.

I've talked a good bit about what I've liked, but most of the characters are well written, even the ones I don't exactly like. The plot was pretty good, but still beneath Crossbell or Sky. But we've still got 2 more games so go so I don't think it's fair to write that off just yet. I like the exploration a bit more than the past games. The NPC writing is still great. I think that the systems and everything are still good for the fighting, I just wish they'd balance the numbers better. Overall it's still fun. Maybe 7.5 or 8? I do think I liked it more than CS1.

My new list would probably be Azure > Zero > SC > CS2 = FC > Third > CS1. That feels right. I wasn't big on FC when I played it, but it grows fonder for me over time. I think Third was pretty not great, but there were some real highs that it hit with just all the fanservice of having everyone together, as well as some of the door storylines. CS1 was just...largely uneventful. Probably a big reason of why it took me so long to beat CS2. CS2 was also a tad uneventful but it picked up. It made me more excited to play CS3 then I thought I was going to be, so I'm probably going to just start that next and beat it and 4 in a row. I wanted to take a break to play Tales of Arise and Yakuza Like a Dragon, but...I'm in too deep with trails, might as well see it through and work on other stuff after. I don't think I'm going to do these long writeups again for CS3 but I might do another thread with smaller, shorter quips if anyone is interested. This was fun in it's own way but it was more work then I expected. I know nobody asked for me to write a full novel about this game and it was entirely of my own doing, but it's what I felt like doing. I just don't feel that way anymore lol.

Anyway, to anyone who read through this thanks for going through this journey with me. I love you all and I love trails and I can't wait to catch up so I can finally join the Falcom subreddit and hate my life over having to wait for 2 year translation times like everybody else :)

_stingers_ posted...

The time comes around and everyone is wearing the same shit they had on before so idk what Sara was on about. Makarov is coming with us for some reason, so that's cool. I like to think they were gonna make everyone new outfits but then they decided Makarov was coming along and didn't have time to make him one so they scrapped the whole thing.

excuse me class vii gets armbands

_stingers_ posted...

Also onboard the ship I ran into Bridget who is receiving those unique dishes I failed to make, so I just caved and looked up a guide. It worked after doing what the guide said but I swear that I tried every combination before so I have no clue what was different. Maybe I just had to change rooms, Elliot clearly wasn't feeling inspired enough on the bridge.

Just bad luck I suppose. A character who can make a unique dish isn't guaranteed to. It's a % chance. A pretty high one, hence "bad luck" but it can miss.

_stingers_ posted...

It also pops up with a message saying that a shrine has opened up in Ymir Valley, so let's check that out! Optional bonus dungeon time? I was just complaining about this game's lack of super bosses.

That is a NG+ exclusive boss in fact. A few other details you've mention have been, like the ability to exchange U-Material for Zemurian Ore Shards at all. What's weird though was that on NG+ I could have sworn that remained an option all-game so you wouldn't "waste" them at cap as you say. Maybe it's a quirk of how the NG+ file was made? idk.

_stingers_ posted...

I'm just realizing that I didn't bring any characters along to have a showdown with Mick, but I also think nobody really fits the bill. It's probably just Rean since they're demon buddies so I'm sure it's okay.

Emma gets some extra dialogue where she starts speculating on his demon powers and wonders out loud if it's connected to Ouroboros's Divergent Laws (previously referred to in regard to Loewe's sword when he used it to bust Weissmann's Aureole barrier) which prompts McBurn to immediately tell her to stop talking.

_stingers_ posted...

Vita also says that she learned how formidable Osborne was when they worked together in Liberl...huh? Is this in relation to the war that was happening where Erebonia invaded before Sky, or did they have a part to play during Sky as well? I'd assume the former, but the latter would be pretty interesting.

Back when Liber Ark appeared and the Orbal Shutdown Phenomenon shut orbments down in Liberl, Erebonia immediately rolled up to the border with a division of steam-powered tanks to offer "assistance" in resolving the situation on the pretext that the Shutdown was spilling over into the very southern reaches of Erebonia too.

Olivier defuses it because he makes his "I'm da prince" reveal there but more importantly because the guy heading the division there was Zechs who's legit and agrees with Olivier's plan to buy a few days for the SC crew to handle it. Afterwards, once he rejoins the party, he explains that the fact that Osborne had a steamtank division just sitting there ready to mobilize was the final proof he needed that Osborne was working with Ouroboros in some capacity because there was literally no reason to have such technologically inferior tanks laying around in great enough number unless you "knew" orbments would suddenly just stopped working in an entire country so he had to have inside info from them.

I always assumed Vita was referring to that. But yes, it also opens up questions on how long he may have been working with them and on what other projects.

_stingers_ posted...

Osborne really doesn't waste any time, huh. I guess he's been out of the picture for a year so he's got a lot of work to do.

like two months actually

All of CS2 has been taking place during Ao's Final Chapter lol.

_stingers_ posted...

They have their cuddly reunion and there's even a bit where everyone else walks away, but Rean and Alisa get a private flirty 'Nice to see you' as well. I wonder if it matches it to who you picked for your final event.

They do. There's a few scenes that reflect your choice there in the Epilogue.

_stingers_ posted...

After that there's a fade and a white screen where Vita, Lloyd, and Rixia give quotes too, presumably because I used them for the mirrors.

Yeah, you get those scenes for having used the Mirrors. The Mirrors themselves were free DLC in Japan that got added after release but was just included natively in NA.

Also you have now seen why the Black Records being NG+ only is such BS. That whole scene with Thomas is locked behind NG+. which is some real bs.

xp1337 posted...

Emma gets some extra dialogue where she starts speculating on his demon powers and wonders out loud if it's connected to Ouroboros's Divergent Laws (previously referred to in regard to Loewe's sword when he used it to bust Weissmann's Aureole barrier) which prompts McBurn to immediately tell her to stop talking.

https://youtu.be/y3LiNK0WaUA?t=145

I went and found it after you said that! Cool catch. I'm glad you mentioned that, your encyclopedic knowledge of this franchise is always very impressive. Thanks for adding so much to my playthrough :)

Also yeah I did notice those armbands at some point, didn't realize that's where those came from lol. And yeah that Sky recap is ringing a bell now, it's been so long since I've played I forgot bits of it.

xp1337 posted...

Yeah, you get those scenes for having used the Mirrors. The Mirrors themselves were free DLC in Japan that got added after release but was just included natively in NA.

Also you have now seen why the Black Records being NG+ only is such BS. That whole scene with Thomas is locked behind NG+. which is some real bs.

Yeah that scene seems pretty important. Was there a long delay between CS2 and CS3 coming out? Having a secret like that for the community to discover and spread around over time isn't so bad if there's years between releases.

It goes through all the Black Records stuff again in CS3 anyway. I checked them out in a YT video after beating CS2, and felt like I wasted my time when I got to the recap in CS3.

I did play the first hour of CS3 last night, which upset me deeply.

_stingers_ posted...

CS3 Bracer Rean please, anything but Thors Rean.

The changes to the structure interest me still though.

_stingers_ posted...

Yeah that scene seems pretty important. Was there a long delay between CS2 and CS3 coming out? Having a secret like that for the community to discover and spread around over time isn't so bad if there's years between releases.

3 years, which i guess is a long time by falcom standards

I'm almost at the point with the series where I have to start paying attention to new releases but I figured their business model was quantity over quality. So they generally want quick turnaround times. But when they upgrade to a new console like they did from 2 to 3 there's always gonna be a delay

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/7/4/AAUYpeAAC6iq.png

My final word count