Board 8 > The Legend of Heroes: Trails into Reverie Review Zone

(+) Yeah! (+)

My only problem with Cold Steel is the harem bullshit. Especially when it gets wierd in CS3 and 4.

UshiromiyaEva posted...

My only problem with Cold Steel is the harem bullshit. Especially when it gets wierd in CS3 and 4.

This. I couldn't care less about the pick a girl thing just have a canon girl or don't do it at all.

It's pretty clear who they wanted the canon girl to be

(Laura forever)

Speak the truth.

Fie > Laura, but literally anyone is better than Alisa tbqh

I dont mind pick a girl stuff because the default main girl is almost always the worst one. Alisa sucks so basically any option is preferable. Personally Fie is my favorite, but Im still 2 CS games behind

I worded that poorly. They should just have one set in stone and not have any romance stuff whatsoever with anyone else.

Being stuck with Alisa would've been terrible though

Leonhart4 posted...

Being stuck with Alisa would've been terrible though

Would it have been terrible if the game had actually been able to properly write it into the narrative?

Games that have an actual main character rather than an Avatar shouldn't have romance paths IMHO.

Yeah, Id rather have a choice thats ignored by the plot than have a terrible canon one 100% of the time

I don't think the writing would fix Alisa's personality though

Listen you're not gonna get to say anything pro Alisa here, she's near last place for the options you have.

But I think as a GENERAL rule of thumb my point still stands, Rean being able to mack on like a dozen girls does nothing but make all of those options pointless.

Any game that has a harem needs to let you bang all the harem members like Persona and Mass Effect do. Those games also know how to keep the romance restricted to the one-on-one scenes, while Crossbell and Cold Steel fail at this utterly.

Also having zero romance whatsoever would've been a much better option than having the harem.

I agree, but sometimes the end justifies the means.

To me that sounds more like the issue is the game not acknowledging the options which is definitely a problem I have with them. Your romantic options in 99% of the games with them dont really matter at all and arent considered canon, but Ill still take the option to pick who I want over being forced to be with the almost always worst option in the main girl. Ideally theyd all have the VN approach where your choice does matter, but realistically I cant expect game devs to make 5+ different scenes everywhere for whoever you pick.

The key to success here is roleplay. Pick the pair you're most interested in, go with that, and don't pick the romantic options with other people. Don't spend time thinking about "what if the scenes with another pair were better." Accept what the game gives you for the choices you make. You don't have to see everything!

catesdb posted...

The key to success here is roleplay. Pick the pair you're most interested in, go with that, and don't pick the romantic options with other people. Don't spend time thinking about "what if the scenes with another pair were better." Accept what the game gives you for the choices you make. You don't have to see everything!

Eh, that's not the issue. The real problem is that the games act like every girl's in love with Rean in regular story scenes. I think people get extra annoyed by his sister being so down bad for him.

Elise is the worst

If Elise wasnt like the second worst girl I wouldnt really mind that aspect

Trails loves it some step-sibling subtext

Honestly fair enough, Elise is the worst

Ended up getting the game anyways even though I won't be able to play through nearly as quickly as some of the last few games when I was just able to play for hours at a time several days in a row (CS4 releasing mid-pandemic helped I guess...)

Got the Switch version which already seems a bit subpar performance-wise, but for me personally it's worth it because being able to play handheld is a very real game changer.

Game seems solid so far and it was one of the better intro sequences for the series, though it's also not like the bar is super high in that regard.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/9/8/AAB6RfAAEp5m.jpg

They shipped the C plush in a yellow spoiler bag because you can remove the mask to see who it is XD

I haven't played much yet. Enjoyed the opening act but the walking around the city bit at the start is a bit frustrating. I get that they're trying to fill you in on events but having to tour a city i've already done to death in 2 full games prior and seen again in the 2 games directly before this has kinda burned me out a bit. Liberl got 2 games and that was perfect and Cold Steel was clever enough to split the empire into 2 halves with 2 games each. To me Crossbell has been overdone a bit.

currently in a battle against Melphegor Nix and Cubelion Telos

not sure if enemy names in this game are good or bad

I've just started exploring the corridor. I can already tell this is gonna be a headache trying to give everyone the right MQ and quartz. Hopefully i can just pick my favourite team, kit them out and ignore everyone else.

You can, though some of the missions require doing things with certain characters.

Been having a bit of trouble trying to beat Garcia and Cau in 40 turns in act 2. Probably my own fault for not really preparing properly beforehand but it's still annoying when they give you a few fights back to back and then throw in a requirement for the latter.

Finished.

Top 2 Trails game.

I made a little review, if anyone cares to read it:

They did it! They made a Trails game without the dumb stuff that hampers most games in the series from being true classics! Or without most of that stuff, at least. There's still some silly harem antics, and a few parts of the story are nonsensical, but the pacing and high points are good enough that none of that matters. Reverie adopts a different format form previous games. Rather than following one protagonist, there are three routes, focusing on Rean, Lloyd, and the mysterious C. Each of them has their own party of characters, preventing party sprawl from being quite as much of an issue as it is in some of the later Cold Steel games. Swapping between these groups at regular intervals keeps the pacing feeling brisk, since they always have something new and interesting going on. Oddly enough, despite this game being a sort of culmination of the previous 6 games' stories, it's the new crew headed by C that's the best. They're less of a goody two shoes group than Lloyd and Rean have. Lapis and C are both mysterious, while Swin and Nadia have a fun vibe with each other. The old Trails characters who get added to their group are among the best in the series too, so their advantage only grows as the game progresses. Everything comes together for a suitably epic conclusion, too. I enjoyed the story to the end.

Gameplay-wise, they've continued to refine the system they've been using for the series. The difficulty's a bit higher - it's still easy enough to become totally broken, but the enemies have a few more ways to counter you. Areas and dungeons are well-designed, with plenty of quality of life bonuses to make the experience more smooth. The big cast still feels unique, too. A large chunk of the gameplay is taken up by the Reverie Corridor, where the party comes together to take on a bigger dungeon, and for whatever reason, it's an enjoyable experience. Maybe the biggest thing I have against the game is that it basically doesn't have any real side quests, since I love Trails side quests, but there are mini quests you get in the Reverie Corridor that are gameplay related, and fulfilling those is pretty enjoyable. It's where you can play the card game and the Puyo Puyo ripoff too, both of which are super fun, along with some other minigames I don't care about.

Reverie also delivers some story through its Daydreams, which are similar to the Doors in Trails the 3rd. You get little vignettes in the characters' lives, most of which take place between CS4 and Reverie, though some of them are from further back (and a couple are in the future). These are generally awesome, since most of them don't focus as much on the main character of each series. They get better as they go along, too - the last few are particularly amazing. One of them focusing on a loser character is unnecessary, but I can't complain too much about there being a couple duds.

I do have a few other problems with the game. The lack of new environments to explore is a bit lame, going back to Crossbell for the fifth time is a bit much, Rean and Lloyd's power of friendship antics are pretty old at this point, the post-game goes on a little longer than I would've liked, etc. Overall, though, this is still a heck of a game. Its best moments are awesome, and even its worst moments are still fine. If the Darkness games can keep this quality going forward, the series has a bright future ahead of it.

that sounds appealing

all the "minor complaints" in mac's review feel like they would be major ones for me.

They're minor because of their prevalence compared to the other Trails games. Not to say those things wouldn't bother people here, of course.

I'm still working through the postgame (which has some relevant story content), but I generally agree with mac's review. I don't think I quite liked it as much, but it's a very good game. Probably a mid-tier Trails game overall for me--I don't think it ever reaches as high of emotional peaks as the strongest games in the series, but it's very consistent and is the first Trails game in a long time I don't really have anything major to complain about (since...Zero? Hell maybe even Sky FC). There's also a sense of thematic identity to the game which is something I always loved about the earlier games and never really felt present in the Erebonia arc (this might be because some of it just didn't resonate with me as much idk)

I was a downer on the Daydreams at first despite liking the doors from Sky The 3rd a lot, but they have really gotten a lot better further in to the game. They're still worse than the Sky Doors on average, but definitely a good experience either way.

Also from a pure gameplay perspective this is the #1 game in the series so far and it's not especially close.

I've only played the first Cold Steel so far but I liked Alisa well enough, kinda surprised to see so much hate for her here.

Alisa is great I never got the haters either.

I don't think she makes it through the Cold Steel 1/2-->3/4 transition especially well, but her content in the first 2 games is great.

Most of class 7 suffers a bit from the 1/2 -> 3/4 transition I think. Emma being the obvious exception.

And yeah I like Alisa quite a bit too.

Alisa is fine, but she's one of the weaker Class VII members, so it's more like I resent the games for trying to present her as the canon option.

Would you still resent the game if the ladies of class 7 were all shipped with other guys? Say, if we had Rean x Alisa, Laura x Gaius, Fie x Elliot, Jusis x Millium, and Emma x Machias, or something of that nature.

I'd still resent the game for setting up Rean with the lamest girl, yes, but maybe less so since you wouldn't have a choice

it's like how Tales of Symphonia is clearly shipping Lloyd/Colette, it'd still be lame even if you didn't have the option to ship him with someone else

So it'd still be lame if we got Rean x Laura and Gaius x Alisa, since they're setting up Gaius with the lamest girl?

Nah, because the main character should get the best girl if that's who I'm going to play as most of the time

I refuse to accept any allotment of ships amongst the class VII members that does not include Laura x Fie

I just vomited thinking about Fie x Elliot

I'm slowly working my way through chapter 3 still. It's up there as one of the better games so far.

Elliot shouldn't even be here still. He didn't even wanna fight to begin with and now he's got his music he should've been left out. Plus he always has the worst master quartz by default.

This game is triggering me. I'm attempting to get the Emblem quartz and the game refuses to give me Angelica from this stupid gacha system. What makes it even worse is i have to keep fighting the same mini boss for 5 minutes to reset the seed. According to a guide, i seem to have pulled literally every other person i can at this point but her.

Guess I can say here that I finished everything in the game now. The postgame stuff was all very good and might even be the highlight of the game.

I am very excited for Kuro no Kiseki now, which is a refreshing change after Cold Steel 3 and 4 ended on a bit of a whimper for me. (In fairness, at least the former of those is probably not a widely shared opinion)