The Legend of Heroes Series - Possibly The Most Underrated JRPG Series

[00R-Gundam]

The problem with you plowing so quickly through them all is you are noticing the cracks of later entries so much more clearly. Flopper has already been mentioning it, but my god does Ouroboros make no sense most of the time. The combat system also becomes a "how fast can you break it in half" which I personally don't mind, in Reverie you should be able to be obscenely overpowered in record time since it's clear you understand the mechanics well enough. Kuro does do a hard mechanical reset, so hopefully you can find some challenge and less tedium there (played it in normal and nothing particularly stumped me).

I hope you keep your energy though, me personally, I tapped out after Kuro/Daybreak and am in no hurry to start 2.

Ouroboros feels like a shit post at this point with the wacky shit they do. DG Cult felt more of an evil organization than whatever Ouroboros is trying to do. I dont mind breaking the combat, since it rewards you for it. It makes certain encounters essentially non threating and by proxy said character just cant be taken seriously. Is like if i fight Mcburn after the game hypes him to the moon only to be an underwhelming boss that gets steam rolled by funny brave order with 70% dmg reduction and just spit on his Scraft by having "All Reflect". They should have implemented a system for select boss fights to nerf the brave orders or straight up disable them just to make bosses hard as intended. Playing CS3 on Hard and so far i havent encountered any barriers and mind you im playing with Rean as full evasion instead of its typical MQ build.

 

[Flopper]

I have long since acknowledged that Ouroboros aren't actually evil, but there are certain outliers like Weissmann and Novartis due to their lax hierarchy system and letting their members essentially do whatever they want. First impressions are important, and the Society were introduced as an "organisation who seeks to manipulate the world from the shadows" by Cassius.

Crow died, that i can accept, hell i wanted the game to get more serious with the stakes and consequences. That said Osborne who got shot in the chest just randomly spawned back to life and even Arianrhod which should be dead is still alive. I would lose my fucking shit if they bring back Crow because that would basically null all of his character in the game.

Spoiler: Spoiler

It's like poetry, it rhymes, or some dumb shit.

I fucking love the shit that Trails love doing where characters will be talking to each other, then a third party will interrupt from off-screen as if they've been close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation but simultaneously far away enough to not be seen, especially by sixth sense characters like Rean. Then the camera pans over to an empty space and the character will either walk in, teleport in, join on a video call, or in the case of Chapter 3 of Cold Steel 3, Aurelia will fly in on a fucking airship, having somehow caught the conversation between Rean and his cheerleader squad and Zephyr.

 

[00R-Gundam]

I have long since acknowledged that Ouroboros aren't actually evil, but there are certain outliers like Weissmann and Novartis due to their lax hierarchy system and letting their members essentially do whatever they want. First impressions are important, and the Society were introduced as an "organisation who seeks to manipulate the world from the shadows" by Cassius.

Spoiler: Spoiler

View attachment 7740124
It's like poetry, it rhymes, or some dumb shit.

I fucking love the shit that Trails love doing where characters will be talking to each other, then a third party will interrupt from off-screen as if they've been close enough to eavesdrop on the conversation but simultaneously far away enough to not be seen, especially by sixth sense characters like Rean. Then the camera pans over to an empty space and the character will either walk in, teleport in, join on a video call, or in the case of Chapter 3 of Cold Steel 3, Aurelia will fly in on a fucking airship, having somehow caught the conversation between Rean and his cheerleader squad and Zephyr.

imma level with you when i saw Azure Siegfried for the first time, i was reminded of "Totally not Loewe" in 3rd. Like they think people are dumb enough that they cant see clearly that thats X character. That said this type of narrative only works if said person playing doesnt have previous games knowledge, so on that angle i can kinda understand.

I swear to god it would be so fucking funny is the Grandmaster isnt real and its just Campanella playing recordings and/or pretending to be the grandmaster out of fucking boredom.

 

[00R-Gundam]

Completed Chapter 4 of CS3. Nice to be able to have the ability to acquire multiple bonding lvl cap, will make life easier for 100% the game. Ngl i thought the dragon was the final boss or some shit considering what it is and the significance of such. Seeing Azure call Ordine dispelled any doubts for me. Gaius went awol for months so im curious to know what kept him in the dark. Apparently im now at the end game of CS3. Hopefully it wont there wont be some bullshit boss(Azure Deity) at the end.

 

[Flopper]

Completed Chapter 4 of CS3. Nice to be able to have the ability to acquire multiple bonding lvl cap, will make life easier for 100% the game. Ngl i thought the dragon was the final boss or some shit considering what it is and the significance of such. Seeing Azure call Ordine dispelled any doubts for me. Gaius went awol for months so im curious to know what kept him in the dark. Apparently im now at the end game of CS3. Hopefully it wont there wont be some bullshit boss(Azure Deity) at the end.

Yeah, Siegfried called Ordine back in Ch 2 as well.
But essentially nothing happens in this game until Ch 4, which is arguably the beat chapter in the whole game for me.

 

[00R-Gundam]

Yeah, Siegfried called Ordine back in Ch 2 as well.
But essentially nothing happens in this game until Ch 4, which is arguably the beat chapter in the whole game for me.

True but i was still under the impression that was someone else, mostlh due to me not wanting to accept that they pulled this bullshit. Ill play the finale tomorrow and see how shit concludes.

 

[Golfing on the Moon 1971]

Kurt is a little too strong since i have him pure evade with the Gem that makes counters auto crit, hes pretty busted and alongside the fact that i can have 2 master quartz now makes the game easier to break. I predicti wont get a challenge from the final boss or bosses.

Falcom's designers don't know what they are doing. There is no linear correlation between a craft's CP and delay cost for the damage and effects they deliver. It's all random. And then the evade-counterattack system combined with most melee characters having a range of 1 or 2 incentivizes counterintuitive fantasies and builds where what you actually want to do is not turn your skilled warriors into evasion tanks on the frontlines to counterattack foes, but instead turn your ranged characters who have guns or combat shells into evasion tanks and place them up front. They have enough range to be able to counterattack mobs in almost all situations, whereas a melee character will often dodge but won't be near enough to counterattack. No this has not been fixed. They didn't know what they were doing with the break system either.

I feel like one of the main reasons for the timeskip is just an excuse to catch C7 up in terms of skill because of how shockingly underpowered they were at the end if CS2. In terms of story, C7's arcs and growths is pretty much considered complete. Yes, really.

The primary reason for the timeskip was for the visuals. The PSP was dead and it was time to leave it behind. Historically, the Playstation was the JRPG console ever since the PS1, and XBC2 hadn't released yet on the Switch, so Falcom began developing for the PS4. PSP visual fidelity would have been too lacking for consumers so the old CS1 and CS2 modelled characters and towns couldn't be reused. So Falcom needed to model new characters and towns at higher fidelity. At that point you have to start asking if it is more worthwhile to model brand new character designs and environments rather than just remaking what people had already seen over the prior two games. So we get Western Erebonia and fully 3D Crossbell, and the characters get visual redesigns which also gets people more excited. Making characters look a little older is part of that.

OC7 don't get any real story in the latter CS games because there was no real will or passion on part of the writers. If they wanted they could have easily had an engaging OC7 story about them sticking their necks out by standing against the Imperialists when it would be very politically incorrect to do so, risking being imprisoned or assassinated or their families being taken hostage or dispossessed, etc.

imma level with you when i saw Azure Siegfried for the first time, i was reminded of "Totally not Loewe" in 3rd. Like they think people are dumb enough that they cant see clearly that thats X character. That said this type of narrative only works if said person playing doesnt have previous games knowledge, so on that angle i can kinda understand.

Falcom advertised Crow's return with the very first promotional image for CS3. He was topping the character popularity polls and Falcom wanted to cash in. Same reason for the memberberries parade. Ever since CS3, the monthly Famitsu scans for the year's Trails game are about slowly teasing all of these old characters in the hopes of activating positive memories in fans' brains and getting them excited for the next game and talking about it to their friends.

I believe the first hint of CS3's existence was a teaser in another Falcom game, Tokyo Xanadu.

View attachment 7690188

 

[00R-Gundam]

Damm didnt know that deep lore for the CS games. Aint surprised that Crow is popular since hes Randy CS.

You wont believe how many times rean evades(i have him with a full evasion build) and i think hes gonna counter but sometimes doesnt. Idk if the system is whacked but sometimes i feel hes in range to counter yet he doesnt. I hope the combat for Daybreak isnt as shit.

Have seen that people dont like Daybreak, Personally i havent played it yet but im curious to see what makes it bad. I believe the game takes place in Calvard(basicallly the japan of Trails) so i cant imagine how they will fuck that up. Regardless i intent to play this franchise to the end.

 

[Golfing on the Moon 1971]

Damm didnt know that deep lore for the CS games. Aint surprised that Crow is popular since hes Randy CS.

Crow is more analogous to Loewe who was the prior really popular Trails antagonist character. Young, handsome, white haired warrior with a cool bladed weapon, sad past, competent, presented as "honorable" compared to the other antagonists you are supposed to hate like Weissman or Cayenne. Presented on the box art and in the OP as the rival to the hero. Gets a mech of his own. Gets some light shipteasing with the hot witch in the earlier CS games. Etc etc.

I hope the combat for Daybreak isnt as shit.

No, the experience remains fundamentally the same. Kuro 1 is an even easier curbstomp than CS3 on the highest difficulty. Kuro 2 at least has slightly more threatening numbers but you don't really have to engage during the fights that much beyond the usual Trails battle plan of positioning a guy close to the boss or spread out trying to bait AoEs so that the whole team doesn't get hit, and alternating between spamming your most efficient craft and using heals or refreshing shields/evasion. They made the character building annoying again with the tedium of trying to stack enough quartz into your elementally locked slots to get the mandatory shard skills. The action combat for trash battles is novel but undercooked.

Have seen that people dont like Daybreak, Personally i havent played it yet but im curious to see what makes it bad. I believe the game takes place in Calvard(basicallly the japan of Trails) so i cant imagine how they will fuck that up. Regardless i intent to play this franchise to the end.

The Kuro series aren't bad games. I would rather play them than whatever Western AAA slop is coming out or the new Ateliers or Dragon Quest and so on. But they just don't enrapture you like with CS. CS had a super appealing fantasy setting and very likeable characters, and several different plotlines to get invested in.

Kuro's main issues are:

the boring setting that the devs clearly have no passion for. The disappointment of being promised Calvard only to get boring modern urban cities with chinese mafias and saudi princes as "traditional culture" instead of actual traditional Calvardian culture towns and lore. The aggravating retconning/historical revisionism with Calvard going from being an antagonistic, expansionist power that was just as responsible for the cold war as Erebonia into being this flanderized paragon of democracy that did nothing wrong. And then after 200 hours you are kinda done with Edith, Langport, etc, but you don't get the mercy of a CS3 that introduces half a dozen brand new towns, and when combined with how boring Kuro's setting is it begins to outstay its welcome pretty quickly.

The main party is overall boring and uncool with the exception of Van and Bergard. The side characters are generally okay except for the faggot bartender and the Chinese mafians that Falcom wants to pretend are ackshually necessary for (white) civilization to function. It is also frustrating that many years have passed since Trails in the Sky, but almost no one has gotten married, and people like Zin are starting to get relatively old which is dissatisfying when you want to see your favorite characters get happy endings.

The main story is forgettable as you fight le evil white mafians, and then there is the micro level writing where it's just really boring on a moment to moment basis until chapter 5. If you think CS3 is boring until chapter 4 then that's Kuro 1 but way worse. Kuro 2's story is a little more entertaining on a moment to moment basis but the overall storyline is still uncaptivating.

Lastly, you have overall fandom apathy. Ao/CS3 was when a lot of people began to give up on the Ouroboros storyline, and then CS4 is when people gave up on the geopolitical/cold war story. And then Kuro doesn't rekindle that, so there just isn't any overarching story or credibility for it to keep people invested. A lot of people just decided that CS4 and Reverie was their stopping point, so sales from CS4 to Kuro 1 halved (100k week 1 Japanese sales to 50k) and haven't recovered (50k week 1 for Kuro 2 and then Kai). And this sentiment is global if you visit chinese forums and use google translate or visit English forums. Activity just fell off a cliff after CS4/Reverie and there is nowhere near as much enthusiasm for the series as there once was during the 2000s. A lot of people jumped ship to FF14 but got burned there too after Endwalker happened. Looks like gachas are the thing that people are looking at now for long term videogame storylines.

 

[00R-Gundam]

Well if shit is a bad and i somehow give up on playing daybreak, then ill just shift to start 100% Ao and CS games.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Kuro

It's the devs shooting themselves in the foot with a shotgun repeatedly:
* Can't have anyone marrying since every female has to be shipped with Rean - No one gives a shit about characters.
* Can't have actual edge because the series got a following of Redditors wanting a comfy experience - No one gives a shit about the setting.
* Can't have plot progression since there are layers upon layers of mystery boxes and they want to milk the franchise - No one gives a shit about the plot.

At least with Gacha there is a competitive market so devs actually need to appeal to the average player.

 

[ShitLurker]

Have seen that people dont like Daybreak, Personally i havent played it yet but im curious to see what makes it bad. I believe the game takes place in Calvard(basicallly the japan of Trails) so i cant imagine how they will fuck that up. Regardless i intent to play this franchise to the end.

Be warned, I will sperg in length. Have only played the first one. It was fine, but I don't play trails for fine, I play trails to get sucked into it's world at a nice pace till shit eventually hits the fan and the game leaves you wanting more unless it was a closing chapter. Cold Steel as a whole may be kind of crap, but the ending of CS1, 2 and 3 had me rushing to start the next game. Kuro was kind of a wet fart for me. Combat is going by the motions, I never properly engaged with it, didn't even unlock all orbment slots (remember to check you are actually selling sephit mass kids!) Nor bothered to understand or maximize the shards, would equip whatever I had with optimize and have at it. That spells are now locked to a "drive" instead of orbment really made me not care about spellcasting too much, and in this game, crafts are miles better than arts. The most clever thing I did was get the super healing resurrection spell plug in, give it to everybody and anytime somebody ended in the free spell turn advantage, pop that shit to reset myself. I only bothered to optimize my equipment properly once because I got my ass handed. All this on normal mind you.

Golfing covered perfectly how the setting is surprisingly mundane/derivative but

The main story is forgettable as you fight le evil white mafians

he didn't mention the white calvardian supremacists enough. A big part of the overarching narrative is racial tensions because anynody that pays attention knows that chinks and sandniggers in the same box don't exactly get along. Yes, this is trails where everybody is super nice, but then the game itself tells you there are terrorist cells due to racial and cultural tensions. Yet you never see or interact with it, they only show you the mean ol racists that don't want to get along. Also, not islam basically is the septian church changing hats snd same deal with the taoist one, so no religious tensions to be had, how convenient!

And on a similar note, Ouroboros reaches new unknown levels of "muahaha I'm so evil *saves kitten*" on this one that I'm just kind of done with them, and I love most of the Ouroboros characters (Blueblanc is fucking peak). That there is zero consequences for leaving the club is also incredibly lame. Walter is back and Zin is back but my god is it all so incredibly unsatisfying.

And then the jaegers which also just come up as weirder each game. So you have enough conflict to feed multiple super special soldiers of fortune with their motos and code of honor? I just don't see how you can have so many operating at this point. And like Ouroboros we are expected to forget they are cold hearted killers for coin, with child soldiers in the mix.

It's the devs shooting themselves in the foot with a shotgun repeatedly:
* Can't have anyone marrying since every female has to be shipped with Rean - No one gives a shit about characters.
* Can't have actual edge because the series got a following of Redditors wanting a comfy experience - No one gives a shit about the setting.
* Can't have plot progression since there are layers upon layers of mystery boxes and they want to milk the franchise - No one gives a shit about the plot.

At least with Gacha there is a competitive market so devs actually need to appeal to the average player.

Another good summary. The whole thing is honestly stagnating and Rean's cock ensuring that any female from Cold Steel that wasn't paired already is trapped in limbo for the rest of the series. And we have lost so much damn edge from the days of star door 15. I don't need that level all the time, but Kuro was promised as this dark underbelly game yet it's still mostly sugar and raindrops with a bit more of a charming rogue flair.