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

ShitLurker said:
Hell, I'd say Reverie closed it off in that Lloyd is all about Ellie's milkers and birthing hips so he managed to escape the spiral of never having a conclusion to his romantic arc. Rean is fucked though, outside of scenarios that could NEVER work like being hooked up with Alfin, almost everything else could be "canon" and it's obvious they won't commit to any, waaaaaay too many waifus, if they had just stuck with the core 3 of Emma, Alisa and Laura it could still be a "yeah, it was Alisa all along and you knew it" but after killing any development from anything with a vagina for 2-3 games in a row? Hard sell and if there is ever a 5 year timeskip or whatever, he will be eternally single and lusted over I'd imagine. I always found it funny how all the dudes from original class 7 got themselves girlfriends from outside of class (except Jusis and Millium), same deal with new class 7, but all the ladies are shackled to the Rean cock.
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Rean is either Alisa or Altina. The former is the one most featured in the first two games and has a bit more going on in her daydream with him, while the latter seemed to actually interact with him and has an actual arc that ran more than a single game. I don't remember Laura having anything at this game, if anything Duvalie has more interaction in her daydream, while Emma is just for plot convenience magic.

Though Rean being with Alfin will add to his mary sue list for being a prince. Kinda ironic is arc is all about not hurting others by sacrificing himself, yet he never commits to one person despite being aware of multiple girls having expectations they'll end up with him.
 
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wtfNeedSignUp said:
Rean is either Alisa or Altina. The former is the one most featured in the first two games and has a bit more going on in her daydream with him, while the latter seemed to actually interact with him and has an actual arc that ran more than a single game. I don't remember Laura having anything at this game, if anything Duvalie has more interaction in her daydream, while Emma is just for plot convenience magic.

Though Rean being with Alfin will add to his mary sue list for being a prince. Kinda ironic is arc is all about not hurting others by sacrificing himself, yet he never commits to one person despite being aware of multiple girls having expectations they'll end up with him.
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Alisa certainly seemed the intent at first, she had some extra scenes in the earlier games and any sort of intimate event is a bit more nudge nudge wink wink, they also would kiss in the first game where the rest would get hugs at most. Altina I pray to no since I see her purely as a daughter figure.

I'm still firmly in the Emma train in my deranged mind purely on how much more relevant she was in game 1 compared to the rest and if a fucking cat hadn't stolen all of her character arc (and later became ANOTHER part of the harem) it would just have been obvious due to how involved she was plus also mirror with Vita and Crow that have a bit of an implied something, I also liked how in CS4 she went the extra mile going into forbidden magics to attempt to free Rean from the curse, none of the others came close to going that far but I know it's never happening.

Laura was just cursed by being bland from the getgo, in the first game she was direct competition with Alisa and Emma with stuff like Magical Alisa kind of alluding them being the og harem (and Fie was sort of there as well, but had more of a little sister vibe) but as the games advanced, she was still there out of legacy, not because she did anything to warrant it. She had a nice little moment when they trained in the island for a bit, but that's all she ever got outside of "swords" and "chichi ue!"

Alfin would definitely be the capstone of his Mary sueness though, "now you are king again, son of the reincarnated besterest king!" and a part of me almost wants them to go there just for the hell of it. That or elope with Duvalie and vanish forever because why the fuck not.
 
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Okay, I'm at the very last boss in the school.

I've checked online after getting my ass kicked and one suggestion I keep seeing over and over is to use the Shining Poms to level up.

Okay fine but I'm at the last boss in the school, I can't go out of town, I can only go into the Realm of the Great Shadow.

Here's the issue I'm having.

I've tried using the bait, multiple times, and Poms always appear, but I literally cannot find them anywhere.

I've tried using them in Realm 3 because it's basically a straight line, but they are nowhere to be found.

I've also checked the minimap, and the Pom location is not marked on the map.

What the hell am I doing wrong?

Where are the Poms? Is there something I'm doing wrong?

I just don't understand.
 
ShitLurker said:
Sorry dude, going to ask for some more context. Is this Cold Steel 1? Are you unable to take down the final boss? What is your main team?
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Sorry, I didn't even realise I didn't specify Cold Steel 1.

I was using the Pom bait but I couldn't find where the Poms were, so I went back up to floor 1 of the school and used them there. Got everybody up quite a few levels.
 
IDanceonTrannyGraves said:
Sorry, I didn't even realise I didn't specify Cold Steel 1.

I was using the Pom bait but I couldn't find where the Poms were, so I went back up to floor 1 of the school and used them there. Got everybody up quite a few levels.
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Oh, ok. I don't remember ever needing to farm levels, my usual setup was Emma with the biggest nukes orbments I could muster, Rean and Fie as evasion tanks and I imagine somebody like Elliot or Jusis to support with heals and shields. Have you managed to get any character to evasion close to 100%? One of those tends to trivialize a lot of shit in the cold steel games outside of predicting when an SCraft is coming and shielding up for it.

EDIT: Also, abuse the ever living fuck of the Insight status, it gives 50% evasion on top, so even if you can't reach 100% evasion between equipment and orbments, hitting 50 and slapping insight on somebody makes them untouchable by melee.
 
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ShitLurker said:
Oh, ok. I don't remember ever needing to farm levels, my usual setup was Emma with the biggest nukes orbments I could muster, Rean and Fie as evasion tanks and I imagine somebody like Elliot or Jusis to support with heals and shields. Have you managed to get any character to evasion close to 100%? One of those tends to trivialize a lot of shit in the cold steel games outside of predicting when an SCraft is coming and shielding up for it.
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I'm not sure what my evasion is. I did a bunch of grinding with Poms tonight and now everyone is mid 80s or hgher, so I'm hoping to finish off the final boss later today.
 
IDanceonTrannyGraves said:
I'm not sure what my evasion is. I did a bunch of grinding with Poms tonight and now everyone is mid 80s or hgher, so I'm hoping to finish off the final boss later today.
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OK, good luck with fucking it's shit up then. But if possible and going deeper into Cold Steel, try and bump this stat as much as you can

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Bump up EVA+ as much as you can, Fie has native Evasion I believe and Rean has access in his higher tier swords to some as well. There are wind orbments which increase it further as well as accesories (evergreen is a stupid good accesory due to how much it bumps up your evasion). Like I mentioned in my edit, the Insight status adds another 50% on top. The moment you hit 100% on EVA+, the only thing that can touch you is SCraft and spells and most big boy bosses never use spells. So for example, you manage to get Rean and Fie high enough, set insight on them with your other 2 characters, jam Fie and Rean into the boss's face, spread out to avoid AOE and make them evasion tank most of everything while they stab it and your resident nuker drops high power spells on top.

I've coasted through all of Cold steel with variants of this, at least 1 evasion tank will always be useful is what I'm getting it. Rest is up to what you like.
 
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Notes from the shareholders' Q&A (based off Twitter MTL and then filtered through me, so don't take this as gospel):
  • Company is sitting on ~10B yen ($70 million USD) in liquid assets
  • Handful of people brought up how shitty Ys X looks. It was explained that graphics are expensive and Falcom is a small company with 65 employees. They argued that few companies release games on a yearly schedule and lower quality graphics are a tradeoff for this.
  • No platforms were announced for the new Kiseki game, which is notably uncharacteristic. Autistic speculation that it could be because they are releasing it for Switch 2 and/or mulling dropping the PS4 version.
  • Falcom is interested in using AI to handle development tasks during the pre-production stage and for stuff like generating background objects and scenery in development versions.
  • Ys X sales figures were not announced (which probably means they were bad). PS5 accounted for 50% of sales while the Switch version counted for 30% (interesting given that the Switch is basically the entire Japanese gaming market at this point) and PS4 accounted for only 20%. Kondo notes that digital sales were significant. Physical outnumbered digital sales 3:2 but that gap is closing quickly.
  • A couple shareholders took a shit on the Kiseki mobile gacha that was just released, noting that it all around sucks ass and is doing shitty from a business standpoint. They seemed to deflect blame completely to the third-party mobile developer and noted that they (Falcom) were just the licenser. There are no other mobile games in the pipeline based on Falcom IPs other than the one based off the Gagharv trilogy that is releasing in Korea.
  • They are desperately trying to hire more people (they say this every year).
  • No plans for a Sky trilogy release on modern consoles as of now, but it's something they want to do (they say this every year).
  • There were rumors of a new IP being announced today but it didn't happen. They "hope" they can announce something regarding that later in the year.
  • STILL NO TOYKO XANADU 2 WHAT THE FUCK
 
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IDanceonTrannyGraves said:
Turns out the school house boss is the *second* to last boss. I'm almost done!
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Yeah, get a bit used to that, some of the Cold Steel games have a horrible time just "ending".
Scarlett Johansson said:

UM
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Oh, ok, sounds neat I guess. Though without the context from Kuro 1 and 2 this just flies over my head.
ForgedBlades said:
  • Handful of people brought up how shitty Ys X looks. It was explained that graphics are expensive and Falcom is a small company with 65 employees. They argued that few companies release games on a yearly schedule and lower quality graphics are a tradeoff for this.
  • Ys X sales figures were not announced (which probably means they were bad). PS5 accounted for 50% of sales while the Switch version counted for 30% (interesting given that the Switch is basically the entire Japanese gaming market at this point) and PS4 accounted for only 20%. Kondo notes that digital sales were significant. Physical outnumbered digital sales 3:2 but that gap is closing quickly.
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I know dick about Ys, graphics seemed alright to me, but I don't tend to give that much of a shit at this point. Is there anything in particular from the new Ys that may have rubbed the fandom the wrong way? A strong drop from a "strong series" tends to either be due to getting punished by a prior entry or because the series has gone stagnant and apathy has set in. Anyone in the know have any takes on what is the case?
 
ForgedBlades said:
Ys X sales figures were not announced (which probably means they were bad). PS5 accounted for 50% of sales while the Switch version counted for 30% (interesting given that the Switch is basically the entire Japanese gaming market at this point) and PS4 accounted for only 20%. Kondo notes that digital sales were significant. Physical outnumbered digital sales 3:2 but that gap is closing quickly.
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You have to bear in mind that Falcom supported the Switch super late in the Japanese market. Prior to the first in-house Switch port of Nayuta in 2022, everything was handled either by Clouded Leopard Entertainment or NISA, Switch ports like the Crossbell games were released in Japan only in summer 2023 despite they existed in the chinese/korean markets since February 2021. Ys X Nordics is the first in-house title that used the Switch console as the main platform for development btw.

There is currently a demo of Kuro no Kiseki 1 available in the Japanese eshop that I'd like to try out this weekend so I may give my input later.
 
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Scarlett Johansson said:

UM
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So is it the ending of the series or just a spinoff like Reverie? I remember the lore saying that Zemuria is a closed space that you can't escape from, and in Reverie corrupted Rean going to the stratosphere warped him into a different timeline. So the likely solution is that it's all a simulation/dream, which is shit and a good way to piss off fans.

ForgedBlades said:
No platforms were announced for the new Kiseki game, which is notably uncharacteristic. Autistic speculation that it could be because they are releasing it for Switch 2 and/or mulling dropping the PS4 version.
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I can't say for certain, but Ys seems to be more of a title for higher end consoles than handheld since you'd want to see the action and waifus in higher definition. Dropping the Playstation version is a mistake, even if they put a Steam version instead (which will face tougher markets).

ForgedBlades said:
Falcom is interested in using AI to handle development tasks during the pre-production stage and for stuff like generating background objects and scenery in development versions.
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It's a cool idea, but will probably be a money sink.

ShitLurker said:
the series has gone stagnant and apathy has set in
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This 100%. Falcom is the anti Square Enix in that, they really don't experiment or subvert expectations and while they got a devoted fanbase from it, people will eventually get bored of nothing major happening. Like throughout the 10 games released in the west, I think 3 characters died, all villains.
 
wtfNeedSignUp said:
So is it the ending of the series or just a spinoff like Reverie? I remember the lore saying that Zemuria is a closed space that you can't escape from, and in Reverie corrupted Rean going to the stratosphere warped him into a different timeline. So the likely solution is that it's all a simulation/dream, which is shit and a good way to piss off fans.
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No idea, I don't think it's the end yet since there where claims of like a third left of the narrative without the Calvard games last time I checked. I also heard that kuro one was good, but kuro 2 was meandering. Would be surprised if they just yeeted everyone into space and "Bam, final game". I also hope it's not some isekai or "it's an mmo" bullshit ending.
wtfNeedSignUp said:
This 100%. Falcom is the anti Square Enix in that, they really don't experiment or subvert expectations and while they got a devoted fanbase from it, people will eventually get bored of nothing major happening. Like throughout the 10 games released in the west, I think 3 characters died, all villains.
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I just hope I get an ending to Trails that is decent before it all implodes.
 
Shit's lookin' rough for us boys. Maybe it's a chance to swap out management and entice some of the old talent back. Or maybe this whole thing is about to go belly up.
 
It seems like Falcom doesn't have what it takes to climb and the higherups know it. According to the history documented in the Falcom music spreadsheet, Falcom is a "black company" nobody wants to work at. Most of the staff quite Falcom during Ys III's development. Chairman Kato then instituted a no talking and no crediting policy for fear of employees gaining a reputation and thus leverage. People don't want to invest a lot of time and effort into work that isn't going to be credited or work that they can't talk about, so they don't apply to Falcom and Falcom struggles to acquire good talent. So what you're left with is a dwindling pool of talent. (Talent retention is a general industry issue, Square Enix suffers from it, but here it's especially bad). Falcom used to have a large, talented music team, but now almost everyone is gone and they're just down to two people now.

Without good talent, Falcom struggles to make good games that can be lauded and become hits on their own merits. But the higherups don't want Falcom to die like all of the other mid sized Japanese game devs that perished during the 2000s and 2010s, so they're playing it safe by milking franchises with long tails like Trails and Ys. If one person buys a Trails game and likes it, then they might buy the back catalog of Trails games (which is... what? 12 or 13 games now?), which gives Falcom a lot of money ($540 in games). So its in Falcom's financial interests to keep dragging out the Trails series as long as possible to inflate the back catalog of sales they can make money off of. Which is why we have a 1,000+ hour long series where the plot hasn't progressed in years, hardly anyone has died, and nothing has really happened.
 
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