Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

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The game is awesome (dunno about the PC version, I played it in my PS4). The original voice is Japanese as this is a JRPG.

My early impression (cca 30 hours in, just finished chapter 3, dunno how many there are).

PC version is superior to consoles version - at least that's what people who played it on garbage and now bought the Steam version say. Performance wise.

Voiceover in PC version is English, if you want the original you can mod it. Usually I'd do this myself right away, but in all honesty english VO is really good. Unlike Berseria and Valkyria Chronicles eyerolling english dub.

The game is not awesome. IMO.

I don't "feel" it. Or better to say, I don't care about anything and anyone in the game. The story is okay, but honestly so far there is nothing I'd describe as OMG you have to buy this game. It's not all bad, dialogues have their moments, but I've expected much more.

Orb system is a bit different than the one in TitS. It's dumbed down! There is no "tetris" with crystals and on top of it they added something called master quartz, a thing that levels up. Yea, these special crystals you equip on your party gather their own XP.

Then there is some link system. Your active party is 4 people and you can link 'em in two pairs. These links also have levels and depending on link level, there are different effects that can happen during fights. Every battle victory earns you crewmember XP, master quartz XP and link XP.
There are 9 people and there is only one way to max link level between each of them. No, not with the main protagonist only, but among themselves too:

Grinding. Unlike TitS which discourages grinding, ToCS encourages it!
If you won't grind you'll have the money problem too. No money, no better equipment, no pots, no anyhing.

A few minigames so far:
Fishing - very easy and can net you nice rewards
Swimming pool races - the worst QTE version possible, it's designer should be shot
Cards on train - luckbased and fun, win or lose doesn't matter as it's ment for strenghtening relationships

I'm playing the game on normal, avoiding grinding like crazy (basically I kill each trashmob once on a map and do not touch it again when it respawns as you can outrun them all except bosses) and because I cannot afford every piece of equipment for everyone, some bosses are highly challenging. Not impossible ofc, just make sure you always have about a dozen of revival pots on you in case you prefer combat quartz instead of support ones on all your characters.

Finally, developer kept the hidden quests design from TitS. To find a hidden quest you need to reexplore already explored area and talk to everyone again on each main story progression.
This is horrible. It was understandable for the ancient TitS to have such system, but in a game 2 years old, cmon, we know better than waste time on unnecessary walking around. At least we on PC. I guess timewaste is still a thing on Nintendo crap or wherever this game originally appeared on.

ToCS does look better than TitS. Yet TitS was a much better game. ToCS is a good game, but awsome it is not.
Just my impression based on earlygame 30ish hours. It's still possible the game gets better later, I mean, I still didn't unlock S-breaks on all crewmembers for example.
 
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There are 9 people and there is only one way to max link level between each of them. No, not with the main protagonist only, but among themselves too:

Grinding. Unlike TitS which discourages grinding, ToCS encourages it!
If you won't grind you'll have the money problem too. No money, no better equipment, no pots, no anyhing.
Well, again, that's where our definition of grinding differs. To you, anything that has a level number attached must be maxed and to max you have to grind. To me, grinding is when you have to fight for no other reason than to be high enough level to finish the game. I don't feel the need to max everything that has a label 'Level:' in the game. As for your example of links, I didn't feel I had to max links between each pair of characters. I would pick the most tactically beneficial links for each character and they would fight together when paired… simple.

As for the mechanic for hidden quests, I agree if you want to do them, you have to talk to everybody in each chapter just to see if they have a quest. In all fairness, when you do that you get to see the storylines for every NPC in the game (and each NPC has his/her own personal storyline, which adds lots of flavor to the game). I wouldn't remove that aspect as I ended up liking it, but I would love if they add some marker on NPCs to show they have something new to say to you (quest or not), not necessarily like a quest marker above their heads, something subtle I've seen before like dimming the name if they don't have anything new to say.
 
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If anyone doubted the second ToCS game is coming to PC, here's a proper confirmation it's already being worked on:
https://twitter.com/Hatsuu/status/899712834195513344
Taking time off my current project to work on PC voices for Cold Steel II… Finally…

When exactly will it appear on Steam, so far there is no official word.
 
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I started in on this series.

It's definitely got a really old look with the gigantic, stark rooms and hallways so it feels a bit like I'm playing a JRPG from the early 2000's - except with a good save system instead of the dreaded save points of old. You do have to deal with another old problem, though: are you done talking??

Some NPCs only have one line to say. Others will continue talking if you keep clicking on them. There's NO way to tell one from another. So, if you want to hear what everyone has to say, you've got to keep clicking until they repeat themselves. It's an annoyance in a lot of JRPGs.

The opening was sure a shock! The game drops you right on in to high level gameplay with nary a tutorial! I hadn't read anything going into the game so I was surprised to see everyone just short of 50th level. What's an art?? Oh - some sort of spells. What's a craft? Some other kind of spell!? Hey, there's a bunch of other people in the cutscenes, can I use them in these fights? Then whammo! Back to 1st level, along with some tutorials to let me know wtf I'm doing.

I'm definitely having fun with the game despite the old graphics and some pretty weak fetch quests. The turn-based battles have been fun! The story is all right, too, though I'm only about 15 hours in so it's just getting started. (Oh, and I don't think joxer mentioned it, but the simple fact that he got several hours into the game tells you that the mouse/keyboard controls work just fine.)
 
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It's an awesome series, man. I started playing the third one maybe a month ago or more, and I'm still not finished. I think I've got about one hundred fifty hours in it so far, and no idea if I'm near the end or not! I simply adore games like this, mission after mission to do, lots of hidden quests and details that you can easily miss if you're not paying attention, and tons of different characters to try out. This company gives serious bang for your dollar, right up there with Spiderweb.
 
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Just started chapter 4.

I've never seen a game so stuck in a formula before! Once the prolog is done, you're put on a hamster wheel.

1. Get some time to talk with most anyone you want.
2. "Free Day" where you get a couple of optional fetch quests and a quest to deal with the old school building.
3. The old school building is a big dungeon that has a new floor open up every month. You can go to old floors if you want to grind but typically you're going to go to the new floor, beat some new monsters, beat the boss (which you'll know is coming because there will be a rest station the room before), then teleport back to the start of the floor.
4. Free day night time. Might be a hidden quest but its mostly just time to talk again.
5. "Practical exam" meaning a boss fight.
6. Travel to field day - you can play cards and talk with your classmates. Then explore a little in one of the towns and talk with the folks there.
7. Field Day 1: two fetch quests and a boss monster.
8. Field Day 2: a fetch quest, maybe a hidden quest, a boss monster, and.. something else! This is where the story seems to be taking place.
9. Chapter's End: a multi-boss fight. Wrap up the field day story and get your overall grades.

Go back to step 1.

There's a HUGE pile of chatting. The majority of students at your school all have their own stories to tell if you find them and chat with them. It won't really matter if you miss them but they are interesting enough to see most of the time. There's also a level of politeness that's actually starting to get annoying. Everyone has to thank everyone for everything and do so at length! Nice job with the role modelling thing but jeez, I'm getting pretty tired of spending a few minutes after every meal going on about how wonderful it was and how it was so kind of whoever to make it for them, and oh it was the least whoever could do for such fine students blah blah blah!!

The optional quests do truly seem to be optional. Doing them gives you more academic points which translate to some rewards but not rewards that are critical to winning. Hidden quests have so far just given more academic points.

The game's economy has been a surprise. By this time in most games, the economy has started breaking as I've got more cash than I know what to do with. Not in this one. A new round of gear shows up every cycle but I typically don't have the cash to buy new defensive/offensive items for everyone in my party before the cycle ends. It's been good having to actually think about who should get what instead of just buying it all in one trip.
 
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There is a lot of chatting, yeah, sometimes too much. Often you can get items for updating people's profiles, or doing quests for them. I make certain that when I start a session I've plenty of time to play because often you cannot save for quite some time, and I'm a person that often want to stop and do something else. Every once and a while the dialogues will go on to the point where you'll just smack buttons to progress them, lol.
 
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Dialogues are a selling point for me, but they quickly just became irritating in TOCS. Every character has one and only one thing that defines their character, and every chat will be repetitive riffs on that theme. And yes, TOCS is egregiously relentless with the "let's all do our best" and politeness stuff.
 
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Luckily, the battles are pretty fun. There's a bunch of nice buffs that do an area around a character but enemies have area attacks that hurt a lot more if you're close together. Makes for a nice battle choice! The special buffs that go to turn slots are interesting, too.
 
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Aye, the combat is what keeps bringing me back to the games in this series. I'm close to two hundred hours in Cold Steel three right now. Usually one of my very first moves in most battles is to immediately scatter my team, lol!
 
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Just one quick strength buff... and a quick speed buff... oh and Elliot's regen buff is really helpful... BBBOOOOOOOOOOMMMMM
 
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I love the series, but can't go 10/10 because each game has something that prevents it from being top. No it's not outdated Nintendo visuals.
The first game for example had silly impossible to socialize with everyone system so you had to go newgameplus or cheat for it. This was fixed in sequels.
The second game finale was dragging for too long. Dunno why is that, this again was fixed in the third game.
The third game completely messed the romance stuff and continued to drop the irritating Alicia on your head while turning everyone else's hearts cold - don't get me wrong in combat she's fantastic, but… Oh and of course there had to be a new obscene character because the beloved old one is presumed dead, cmon, that's cheap.

That aside, these games are unbelievably fun.
I have no idea what the fourth game brings. Even if it's not as good as the first three, it's an instabuy for me.
 
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The first game for example had silly impossible to socialize with everyone system so you had to go newgameplus or cheat for it.
Eh? You mean the linking? I'm not sure why you would try to max all of them out. Pick your favorites and get those up to three.

edit: or up to five, actually
 
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Because I do.
All are my favorites. Except Alisa.
 
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Because regardless of your bonding choice in the first game, she's later forced onto Rean.
 
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