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

Well, if you haven't been keeping up with the drama, Sony fucked up and anyone who pre-ordered the game digitally can't download it. You can buy the game off PSN right now and download it with no problems, but anyone who pre-ordered is still fucked. It's nearly 24 hours since launch and Sony has yet to fix it and NISA has sent out one Tweet telling everyone to be patient.

I'm a colossal faggot who pre-ordered the CE directly from NISA but decided to double dip and pre-order the digital game as well because I know that shipping from NISA's store is a complete crapshoot. As one of the world's biggest Kisekifags I wasn't going to wait a week for the physical game to get to me. Still haven't gotten a shipping notice from NISA. So I've spent like $200 on this game and still haven't played it.

All this on top of the dub being a complete mess, confirmed translation issues (they were already promising multiple patches days before the game even launched), 4 being regarded as a below average entry in the series, and the fact that this is the end of a series I love with all my soul, even I'M starting to not give a fuck about this game and this is my fucking bedroom.

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The dub issues infuriate me. I know that COVID presented issues with in-person recording, but I know for a fact that all of these people have in-home studios and that video conferencing exists to get a director in there with them. The recastings are like someone taking a shit directly on my soul. I just don't get it. At all. Delay the fucking game if you have to, seriously.

(:_(
 
Well, if you haven't been keeping up with the drama, Sony fucked up and anyone who pre-ordered the game digitally can't download it. You can buy the game off PSN right now and download it with no problems, but anyone who pre-ordered is still fucked. It's nearly 24 hours since launch and Sony has yet to fix it and NISA has sent out one Tweet telling everyone to be patient.

I'm a colossal faggot who pre-ordered the CE directly from NISA but decided to double dip and pre-order the digital game as well because I know that shipping from NISA's store is a complete crapshoot. As one of the world's biggest Kisekifags I wasn't going to wait a week for the physical game to get to me. Still haven't gotten a shipping notice from NISA. So I've spent like $200 on this game and still haven't played it.

All this on top of the dub being a complete mess, confirmed translation issues (they were already promising multiple patches days before the game even launched), 4 being regarded as a below average entry in the series, and the fact that this is the end of a series I love with all my soul, even I'M starting to not give a fuck about this game and this is my fucking bedroom.

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The dub issues infuriate me. I know that COVID presented issues with in-person recording, but I know for a fact that all of these people have in-home studios and that video conferencing exists to get a director in there with them. The recastings are like someone taking a shit directly on my soul. I just don't get it. At all. Delay the fucking game if you have to, seriously.

(:_(
The game got to most people on launch day from the NISA store, I've had mine for two days.

The problem with the digital store downloads is that they just redid the Playstation store and NISA didn't bother to change the key system they use. The new storefront has game keys coded differently than before. They're still the same number of digits but how those letters translate into the system are changed.

Also they can't delay the game or they would be cannibalizing sales from YS 9.

This doesn't conclude the series either because fucking Calvard is next.

My main gripe is that now that I have all 4 CE's they now don't match at all. 1 and 2 on the Vita have this Book they go into, 1 and 2 on the PS4 are regular steelbooks, 3 is a fuck huge box, and 4 is not the same dimensions as 1 and 2's CE box. So now everything just looks like it doesn't fit together.
 
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The game got to most people on launch day from the NISA store, I've had mine for two days.

The problem with the digital store downloads is that they just redid the Playstation store and NISA didn't bother to change the key system they use. The new storefront has game keys coded differently than before. They're still the same number of digits but how those letters translate into the system are changed.

Also they can't delay the game or they would be cannibalizing sales from YS 9.

This doesn't conclude the series either because fucking Calvard is next.

My main gripe is that now that I have all 4 CE's they now don't match at all. 1 and 2 on the Vita have this Book they go into, 1 and 2 on the PS4 are regular steelbooks, 3 is a fuck huge box, and 4 is not the same dimensions as 1 and 2's CE box. So now everything just looks like it doesn't fit together.

Just got home, still no package. The CS3 CE took a week after launch to get to my house. I also ordered a shirt from their store that was listed in stock, they emailed me saying that it was backordered, I forgot about it, and six months later it showed up at my house. Like I said, crap shoot for me. I was wrong too about who this digital pre-order debacle is on, You're right, it's 100% NISA. So fuck them.

Fair point about the delay, I get that there's quarterly sales targets and other games to worry about. I'm just pissed.

I know the series isn't over, but this arc is and that fills me with the feels. Don't cry because it's over, cry because it happened, etc. etc. etc., I get it. We're also probably two years out from Hajimari. Maybe I can learn to read runes in that time to put this useless paperweight I bought to use.
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Anyway, I just bought the game for a third time. Fuck waiting on trying to get them to figure it out. I need to see this wretched fairy tale through to the end. I've already dumped probably $3,000 into this series between games and merch, what's another $80?

EDIT: I'm 30 minutes into this thing and the fact that there are people out there unironically playing this game who have never played Sora and Crossbell is equal parts hilarious and depressing. Also, Sully a cute. CUTE.

OH MY GOD ESTELLE'S VOICE WTF DID THEY DO TO MY GIRL?
 
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They've apparently moved on to doing Trails in the Blue/Trails of Azure months ago. I dunno if that affected 4 that much but both of those games have more words than the sky trilogy.
 
Some thoughts after 11 hours in:
  • It's basically CS2 v2.0 at this point, for better or for worse.
  • The witches have become a complete deus ex machina and a vehicle for lazy storytelling.
  • Dub is good overall, much better than people were making it out to be prior to release. Osborne recast isn't as bad as I was anticipating, but Laura is fucking laughably terrible. The new character voices are hit or miss, mostly miss. A lot of them sound like they recorded their shit over $5 USB mics.
  • Editing and writing seem on par with 3 so far, haven't run into any issues the early reviews were talking about.
  • Estelle has a great ass.
 
Some thoughts after 11 hours in:
  • It's basically CS2 v2.0 at this point, for better or for worse.
  • The witches have become a complete deus ex machina and a vehicle for lazy storytelling.
  • Dub is good overall, much better than people were making it out to be prior to release. Osborne recast isn't as bad as I was anticipating, but Laura is fucking laughably terrible. The new character voices are hit or miss, mostly miss. A lot of them sound like they recorded their shit over $5 USB mics.
  • Editing and writing seem on par with 3 so far, haven't run into any issues the early reviews were talking about.
  • Estelle has a great ass.
Well I mean they probably recorded from home so
 
Likely an unpopular opinion, but I didn't think Trails of Cold Steel 3 was as good as the 2nd game. I didn't dislike the new class 7, but the old students got way too little screen time. I also missed the open-world aspects from the 2nd game. I really wanted to see the old characters all grown up, but they got so little screen time it felt like you were only getting a glimpse of this.

Edit:
Rean's role was great in 3, but I felt like if they'd made the game a bit longer, they could have better incorporated the old characters.
 
Hang on hang on hang on....

Agate is 28?!

Uhhh......yeah....isn't he interested in 17/18 year old Tifa?
 
Hang on hang on hang on....

Agate is 28?!

Uhhh......yeah....isn't he interested in 17/18 year old Tifa?

She's 16 in CS4. And yeah, they pretty much go all the way with it. But Rean can also bang his sister, so who even cares at this point.

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Waiting comfortably for the PC port of 4. Not buying a PS5 with how much it costs, and I'm not interested in a PS4 to get a game probably 5 months early.

Had some issues with 3, notably how easy it is to break the game on the normal difficulty, but like every other game in this arc, playing on higher difficulty just makes everything feel like a bullet sponge, and makes random encounters more boring than they already are.

I'm worried that in 4, the cast will be overly bloated to a Chrono Cross level where no particular character gets dialogue.
 
Had some issues with 3, notably how easy it is to break the game on the normal difficulty
4 is actually worse if you can believe it. There's no restrictions on sub-Master Quartz, meaning you can equip multiple people with the same one. The Brave Orders are even worse this time around. Towa's costs 2 BP and gives you 80% damage reduction for 10 turns, and they "fixed it" so the defensive orders don't tick down when you are on offense. Some of the bosses are complete slogs because of this, even on normal. There are a few fights that take legit 20 minutes and you can beat them while taking no damage if you know what you're doing with Arts and Orders.

I was kind of upset when they hinted at the next game having more action-focused combat, but the current system is so fucked beyond repair I'm ready for something new.
I'm worried that in 4, the cast will be overly bloated
I mean, it definitely is, but they do a decent job with it all things considered. You're forced to play with certain characters during different dungeons, and most of the characters who have had story lines spanning the entire arc (Alisa, Fie, Jusis, etc.) have their threads tied up neatly at one point or another. The rigidly linear nature of the game makes it as good as you could hope for.

I will say that bonding events are much more fleshed out and important in 4. A handful of the individual stories are dependent on seeing particular events, and it's irritating that I have to save scum to see them all.
 
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4 is actually worse if you can believe it. There's no restrictions on sub-Master Quartz, meaning you can equip multiple people with the same one. The Brave Orders are even worse this time around. Towa's costs 2 BP and gives you 80% damage reduction for 10 turns, and they "fixed it" so the defensive orders don't tick down when you are on offense. Some of the bosses are complete slogs because of this, even on normal. There are a few fights that take legit 20 minutes and you can beat them while taking no damage if you know what you're doing with Arts and Orders.

I mean, it definitely is, but they do a decent job with it all things considered. You're forced to play with certain characters during different dungeons, and most of the characters who have had story lines spanning the entire arc (Alisa, Fie, Jusis, etc.) have their threads tied up neatly at one point or another. The rigidly linear nature of the game makes it as good as you could hope for.

I will say that bonding events are much more fleshed out and important in 4. A handful of the individual stories are dependent on seeing particular events, and it's irritating that I have to save scum to see them all.
Never been a fan of being forced to have certain characters in my party, they always end up being support characters that I barely ever bring out. Redoing quarts setups is annoying and the inventory management isn't this franchise's best fleshed out element.

Another thing I was never a fan of is forcing you to have two parties like in 2, usually one party sucks dick because they have no good quartz, and you're stuck spending a wallop to equip them.
 
Never been a fan of being forced to have certain characters in my party, they always end up being support characters that I barely ever bring out.
True. It's handled better here than it was in 2. You usually have your choice of 4-5 party members in addition to the mandatory members. Some of the dungeon teams can be 7 or 8 people deep, so it's not like you have Rean and only the three other people forced on you.

Redoing quarts setups is annoying and the inventory management isn't this franchise's best fleshed out element.
Also true, and nothing has changed in that regard.

Another thing I was never a fan of is forcing you to have two parties like in 2, usually one party sucks dick because they have no good quartz, and you're stuck spending a wallop to equip them.
There are a handful of multiple party dungeons in the game, but most of them lean heavily on fan service with guest characters whose equipment you can't even customize. Sepith drop rates are also very generous (especially in the late game), so it's pretty easy to craft multiple high level Quartz. I'm also pretty sure that the characters you never use have their Quartz scale up automatically without you doing anything. Levels scale up too regardless of usage.
 
Hey im gonna start playing trails in the sky and trials in the sky SC but before I start are there any important quests that you can miss? It was that way in Ys 6 and I really regretted missing so much stuff in that game.
 
Hopefully someone who's completed these games more recently can answer in more detail, but I found using this guide on Steam helped me avoid missing anything. From what I recall there's not really any hidden quests that would mean you miss important story stuff other than maybe making sure you visit some ancient towers a second time for reasons I don't want to spoil you on.
 
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To be honest i thought the first game was really boring for a bit and wasn't going to play the series but by the end of that game i keep marathoning the games and now only stopped because i'm waiting for the english translation for ao. this series has taken my soul.
 
Does anyone Have new game+ Save data for Trails in the sky FC evolution or SC Evolution on the Vita? I really want to be able to load my clear data to trails in the sky 3rd when I get around to playing it. I would just play it on PSP but there is no english patch of the PSP version of trails in the sky 3rd and I don want to play FC all over again because I just beat it.
 
Does anyone Have new game+ Save data for Trails in the sky FC evolution or SC Evolution on the Vita? I really want to be able to load my clear data to trails in the sky 3rd when I get around to playing it. I would just play it on PSP but there is no english patch of the PSP version of trails in the sky 3rd and I don want to play FC all over again because I just beat it.
Vita saves might be hard to find. They're not in the typical torrent dump.

Falcom Discord channel might be a good place to check. If anybody would have them it would be them.
 
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