Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel

Well, Rean kinda forced himself onto her in the early parts of the first game… <ahem>

The budding romance is really pretty obvious, though. JRPGs back then weren't the type of games where you got to control the story.

Originally Posted by Zloth
Well, Rean kinda forced himself onto her in the early parts of the first game… <ahem>

The budding romance is really pretty obvious, though. JRPGs back then weren't the type of games where you got to control the story.

"Back then". Or ever.

I think the modern games let you "pick the waifu," don't they? Or should that be in the plural?

Originally Posted by joxer
Because regardless of your bonding choice in the first game, she's later forced onto Rean.

Oh.

Well that kinda really sucks.

Yeah…that sucks.

I only played the first two games so far and I remember you could pick other interests to interact with in the endings. Guess the next three games change that.

Then again most JRPGs used to force a romance on you with a set character.

I'm not playing the bloody game for some teenage angsty reasons, I play for the story and combat. If the girl isn't real and available to dine for lunch/supper, it means nothing to me!!

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
TOCS is egregiously relentless with the "let's all do our best" and politeness stuff.

haha - that is SO true! I was working between free day and missions last couple of days and not sure how many times I heard variants of that, but it made me chuckle based on the intense earnestness!

Loving ToCS III …

I probably missed most of the text because I was simply mashing buttons fast so I could get back to killing stuff. I followed the story intensely for the first week or two while I was playing, but came to realize that if I stopped to read every single word, I'd be another full month or two playing the game.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I probably missed most of the text because I was simply mashing buttons fast so I could get back to killing stuff. I followed the story intensely for the first week or two while I was playing, but came to realize that if I stopped to read every single word, I'd be another full month or two playing the game.

I have also been doing 'auto battle' on some of the obvious trash mobs, which typically resolve in <10 seconds, then skip the 'battle stats' and get back to life quickly. Big time saver!

An RPG where I care about the story so little that I want to mash buttons to progress it is an RPG I don't care about.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
An RPG where I care about the story so little that I want to mash buttons to progress it is an RPG I don't care about.

As opposed to what? Baldur's Gate? Gothic? Skyrim? Fallout? Do you not quick-page through filler dialogue in pretty much every game? I know I sure do … and this is no different. There are important moments, and there is filler.

Originally Posted by txa1265
As opposed to what? Baldur's Gate? Gothic? Skyrim? Fallout? Do you not quick-page through filler dialogue in pretty much every game? I know I sure do … and this is no different. There are important moments, and there is filler.

No, I don't. So for me, it is different. That's not to say that all the dialogue in those games is riveting, but I read (or listen to) it all. And any game where that's not tolerable to do so, I won't keep playing.

Originally Posted by JFarrell71
No, I don't. So for me, it is different. That's not to say that all the dialogue in those games is riveting, but I read (or listen to) it all. And any game where that's not tolerable to do so, I won't keep playing.

Cool - I think that is an important distinction. I typically quick-skim the text as I can read faster than the spoken words, so I am always pushing ahead. Everyone is different.

Same, I read the story important context, but the nattering between the characters, well, I just blow through that. Kinda like the way I'd chase some damn dirty hippy off my yard. =p

Other than the extensive thankyou/yourewelcome bits, I'm liking the stories now. Even the tiny little side stories all over the campus. The early bit where you get to play as a level 50 also got used as some really effective foreshadowing. Even the politeness is fairly realistic for polite society - it's just tedious.

I didn't even know there was an auto mode for the battles! I think I'll probably play them out anyway, though, so I can get my CP maximized and such.

Yeah the main stories are quite important to read, in my opinion. They often give straight up blatant hints as to where to go to resolve quests, or find often hidden quest givers/secret stuff. Also, I was aware of the auto-battle feature but never used it myself, I just don't trust robots. Unless they are named Data.

Originally Posted by Zloth
Even the politeness is fairly realistic for polite society - it's just tedious.

Exactly - these kids ARE students at the imperial military academy after all, being drilled about being good model citizens and helping keep peace and order throughout the land. All of the politeness, manners, and ‘let’s do our best’ stuff makes sense.

Originally Posted by Carnifex
Also, I was aware of the auto-battle feature but never used it myself, I just don't trust robots.

You really have to manage things - there are some that resolve almost instantly, whereas one last night I thought I could trust but my whole party lost nearly 50% health due to mismanagement of what to use (attack/arts/crafts/etc.). Live and learn

Almost rage quit the game.

I finally got to the point where the initial preview ended and:

So I was in a pretty bad mood already when I went up against S and her two big robots (after getting softened up a bit by some guards). Tough battle but I was able to zap down the robots and start working on S herself. Then, all of the sudden, she pops off her S-craft! Boom. I don't know how much damage she did but it killed everyone despite being spread out.

Ugh. So now I need to go through all that, including the soldiers, all over again? And how am I supposed to beat this S-craft of hers!? There was no obvious signal of when it was going to fire off. Maybe x turns after the last robot goes down? I'm going to be repeating this whole battle a lot, aren't I?

So I quit for a week. Went back in today and went into full overdrive. Lara <ahem> Laura already had the crystal that made her attacks do more damage at the cost of speed. I gave her the crystal that made her first attack do double damage, too. When the battle against the soldiers started, I had Rean and the Spear Guy do their S's on them, followed by Emma pulling them together with Dark Matter. I was going to use Noble Guy's S to finish them off but there wasn't much left anyway so I just used normal attacks to finish them while switching Rean and Spear Guy out for Teacher and Millium. When the real boss battle started, Teacher, Laura, Emma, and Millium all unleashed their S bombs. That wasted the robots before they could even attack and left S with barely anything left. She did manage one attack but it was just a normal one. On to chapter 6.

I always make sure I have at least two folk in my crew that can inflict significant delays on opponents. I find those to be more valuable than just about any other debuff, and the other two on my squad are people with high speed that can interrupt. A few nasty S-crafts at the wrong moment can really wreak havoc on your squad, and sometimes no matter what you do, the game just gets lucky. And like your own squad, the opposition can critical hit also, so yeah, a good challenge keeps one frosty! Nothing wrong with taking a step back and reevaluating things also, you must find the crew that works best for you.