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

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Flopper said:
So, I can finally talk about why Azure's final act felt so disappointing to me;
Mariabell. I just don't give a shit about her at all - she's a terrible character. I was ready for Dieter and Ian to be the final villains of the story, only for Ian to be not-one-shotted by Mariabell. It felt like a "mastermind behind the mastermind" twist just for the sake of having one, at the expense of much more interesting characters.
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They wanted to do yet another 11th hour villain twist but it felt half baked and undeserved with how ridiculously powerful she became. I don't think she even had a good motivation besides being evil.
 
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Flopper said:
So, I can finally talk about why Azure's final act felt so disappointing to me;
Mariabell. I just don't give a shit about her at all - she's a terrible character. I was ready for Dieter and Ian to be the final villains of the story, only for Ian to be not-one-shotted by Mariabell. It felt like a "mastermind behind the mastermind" twist just for the sake of having one, at the expense of much more interesting characters.

Illya should have died, or at least received some form of permanent damage to her body, you know, to feel like the story did indeed have stakes.

Going around the country with your church bros in a Merkabah, hanging out with Wazy and Zeit was so fucking good, though.
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i feel she was just shoehorned in at the last minute. personally liked her more when she was the overprotective friend of Elie. I don't know which of you said it but Ouroboros and most of the villains don't feel like villains but more like parody of what a villain should be. Even in azure they say the feel more like a band of mischievous people brought together by someone. i wish villains in the series would get more serious. This is why i consider DG as more villainous than Ouroboros and they feel like they should be the actual antagonist of the story. Wish Wald while rampaging, would've killed his gang members just to add more stake and substance to the character. In my mind i though she would never walk again and i was envisioning Yin going apeshit and hunting B.S for revenge. like everytime they get close to do something serious, they just backtrack. What finally solidify this notion was the whole Grimwoood at the end. Wouldnt mind the series taking a darker tone.
 
I'm finishing up Trails in the Sky the 3rd tonight but that end game star door with Renne is like wtf? Getting pimped out and having multiple personalities wasn't on my bingo card. Is that explained more in Zero or Azure? All I know is one of them is about some cult. I'm trying to avoid the wiki as to not spoil the whole story.
 
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Bloodfeast Island Man said:
I'm finishing up Trails in the Sky the 3rd tonight but that end game star door with Renne is like wtf? Getting pimped out and having multiple personalities wasn't on my bingo card. Is that explained more in Zero or Azure? All I know is one of them is about some cult. I'm trying to avoid the wiki as to not spoil the whole story.
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yes it will be explore in one of those, play to find out!
 
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Flopper said:
So, I can finally talk about why Azure's final act felt so disappointing to me;
Mariabell. I just don't give a shit about her at all - she's a terrible character. I was ready for Dieter and Ian to be the final villains of the story, only for Ian to be not-one-shotted by Mariabell. It felt like a "mastermind behind the mastermind" twist just for the sake of having one, at the expense of much more interesting characters.

Illya should have died, or at least received some form of permanent damage to her body, you know, to feel like the story did indeed have stakes.

Going around the country with your church bros in a Merkabah, hanging out with Wazy and Zeit was so fucking good, though.
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The fact that Lloyd is able to talk Ian down after how far he has gone is absurd, but yet still believable because the game does a good job at setting this up as something only Lloyd could have done. It honestly makes Ian more interesting. Such a pragmatic, brilliant and committed man talked down by an idealist. I think it makes events in a certain later game more rewarding.

Mariabell being the villain is not really an asspull. Even when they first KeA she is abit anxious and unsure around her. She is setup goal obsessed person, so her just fucking off kinda once her plan has a 0% chance kinda works.

All things considered, this is probably the bloodiest Trails game and honestly you kinda go into the next games with a skewed view of how the rest of the series will be. Erebonia is to be a land where life is cheap under an Iron Chancellor and Calvard an unstable land of constant race wars. Does that really pan out? eh...
 
Bloodfeast Island Man said:
I'm finishing up Trails in the Sky the 3rd tonight but that end game star door with Renne is like wtf? Getting pimped out and having multiple personalities wasn't on my bingo card. Is that explained more in Zero or Azure? All I know is one of them is about some cult. I'm trying to avoid the wiki as to not spoil the whole story.
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It broke me
 
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Bracer Guild Shop backstory.
 
Im twitching, i said i would take a break but Cold Steel 1 is calling to me. God the transition to full 3d is gonna be wild.
 
Imam Shamil said:
This thread let me down a rabbit hole. Definitely going to start playing this. It better be good you mother fuckers!
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Overall enjoyable enough that despite how shit much of the series is, I am still looking forward to Kai no Kiseki. Would rather play that than stooping to playing ATLUS schlock or Western AAA games or indie shit.
 
Imam Shamil said:
Are you referring to the spinoffs or are some of the main entry games shit?
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There are no spinoffs. Only 13 mainline games.

I don't want to thoroughly relitigate all of the issues and disappointments with the series for the umpteenth time, so I will just give you the quick rundown to temper your expectations. This series has an extremely fervent cultdom that overhypes it has this masterpiece, mainly praising how every NPC's dialogue updates after every plot advance, and how the story spans 1,000+ hours and 13+ games. Outside of a handful of games, there are often far too many NPCs available to too talk and they update far too often, and most NPCs are forgettable. So it kills the pacing and overall enjoyment of the game as whenever time advances, you have to stop the plot and spend at least a couple hours tracking everyone down to talk to them, when only a handful of the stories are good. This bloat also extends to main story dialogue and pacing, as characters beat around the bush and take at least 5x as long to get to the point. The padding is tremendous. Then you have the actual payoffs of these long narratives, which is mostly nonexistent. Most of the bad guys escape to continue haunting the franchise. There is a huge roster of villains but most of them do not get a satisfying comeuppance. There are also two major overarching storylines, that being an escalating cold war between two superpowers, and the shounen anime supervillain organization. The war after 9 games and 1,000+ hours of buildup amounted to a wet fart with zero consequences (also every protagonist is backstabbing traitor to their own country), and then the supervillain stuff has gone absolutely nowhere (the characters are even lampshading it in the latest game, which is frustrating) and will almost certainly amount to wet fart too. Also, this series has 60 or 70+ playable characters, and several years have passed, but only two people have gotten married and had children, so it is dissatisfying if you want to see your favorite characters get happy endings.

So write off the overarching storyline and enjoy the games for their own individual merits, though a lot of the individual games have severe problems such as aforementioned padding and villains escaping. Also most of the games are extremely low energy for many, many hours until stuff finally begins happening and we have some urgency and excitement. But there is also stuff to like, namely the grounded and relatively tighter plots of Trails in the Sky FC and the first two Cold Steel games, and the setting and aesthetics and music of the Cold Steel games, and the battle system of the Cold Steel and Daybreak games.
 
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00R-Gundam said:
Im twitching, i said i would take a break but Cold Steel 1 is calling to me. God the transition to full 3d is gonna be wild.
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Fucking love CS 1 and 2. Also I love talking to the NPC's. A lot of the dialogue not only gives character to each person but sometimes they get arcs (the rich family having to downgrade, the two gossiping girls in crossbell, all of the thors students, paitry and her fuck shit you asshole arc, etc). You'd think Persona would be good at that shit but alas Falcom beat them too it.
 
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Okay so i had to scratch the itch and play CS1. Gotta say the whole school angle feels weird. Also I like that the game starts, i think, when they are about to invade a very funny city. Combat feels weird but ill attribute that to the 3d transition.
 
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00R-Gundam said:
Okay so i had to scratch the itch and play CS1. Gotta say the whole school angle feels weird. Also I like that the game starts, i think, when they are about to invade a very funny city. Combat feels weird but ill attribute that to the 3d transition.
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One of the criticisms is that the story is slow but tbh idgaf. Gives ample time and characterization to each member.
 
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Women bully Gaymer into deleting opinion.

00R-Gundam said:
Who? What? Can you give more context?
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They were able to get permission to make and sell Falcom stuff.

Scarlett Johansson said:
One of the criticisms is that the story is slow but tbh idgaf. Gives ample time and characterization to each member.
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Cold Steel takes the concept of a slow burn to the extreme. My biggest gripe is honestly just the bonding system.
In Daybreak its harmless, but in CS it feels like it just hurts the story.
 
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