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Calvard feels unpleasant compared to the other countries. In the prior games, you can talk to every NPC and there is a sense of community. The family unit was still intact. Across 10 games and 1,000+ hours, Ellie's family was the only one that was divorced. Gordon family in Trista was the only example of marital disharmony, and it never got real bad. You didn't see anyone struggling to afford things or pay the bills or worry about losing their house. The worst you saw was the occasional casino, but you didn't hear about people losing their entire life savings to gambling. The Trails world was idylic.
Then you get to Kuro no Kiseki, and Calvard seems spiritually ruined. Lots of divorcees. Abusive alcoholic fathers and wives sick of their husband and fights breaking out within the home. Widespread drunkeness. Drunks puking on the street in Tyrell District. Men on the streets at night soliciting prostitution services. Calvard has a big movie industry and apparently R-17 stuff is very popular. A police officer flips through girlfriends like the phone book. We see people losing a considerable portion of their savings to gambling and lying to their wives about it. We see insane consumerism, with people taking out 15 year loans to buy the latest cool car, people just having to buy the latest laptop, etc. We also see people having spent their whole lives as unhappy wage slaves, but having never managed to save up enough money to start their own business or build a big family. An unmarried middle-aged man is fired from his job and tries to commit suicide by jumping in front of a subway train. Also, you can't talk to all of the NPCs. You run past hundreds of nameless NPCs, so it feels there isn't a tight knit community.
And that's before getting to the widespread corruption, with foreign crime syndicates like Heiyue controlling the second largest city in Calvard and the government does nothing about it. The newspapers and governments tell straight up lies. We see some police officers so demoralized with the system that they resign to become bracers.
Kuro isn't aesthetically dreary. At a first glance it doesn't look like Shadowrun, for instance. But it doesn't feel like a place I want to spend 3 games and 300+ hours in unlike Liberl, Erebonia, or even Crossbell.
Aesthetically, Calvard looks boring. So I haven't seen any native Calvardian architecture. All I see is either boring, brutalist modern architecture or Chinatowns. Also, the steampunk and cassette futurism tech aesthetics of prior games are gone. Instead you just have modern looking technology. Slim laptops, slidephone orbments with LED screens, modern looking trucks, etc. Apple stores instead of the old timey shops. Even that cool looking half-dome orbment machine of the last 10 games has been replaced by a boring ATM looking orbment machine. People wear modern clothing like hoodies. Also, the journey feel of prior games is gone. Rather than hiking through a vast wilderness to the next town, or riding an old steam train, or riding an airship, the heroes instead drive a modern looking truck along the freeway and get stuck in traffic jams (yes, that happens in chapter 2). It doesn't feel like a romantic, wide open fantasy world I want to explore like in the prior games. It just looks like the boring one I already live in, along with the same destitution of society.
Those gripes aside, I am overall enjoying the game. Combat is fun as usual, sadly this is the easiest Trails game yet. There is not Abyss difficulty, only Nightmare. In prior Trails games, I would struggle on the first couple chapters on Nightmare, but in this game it has so far been a walk in the park. Haven't gameovered yet, though it could be that the game allows you to build Van as a beefy tank who can draw aggro and position him away from your casters from the get go, and Agnes' S-craft is a raid-wide heal to full that can also rez.
So far the turn based gameplay feels almost the same as Reverie. Key differences are:
You can move around and position your character during your turn AND do something, whereas in prior games you had to pick between moving or using an action.
To activate link abilities (now called shard skills), characters usually have to be standing right next to each other. There is only one link ability that can be activated with two characters standing on opposite sides of the map (the shield shard skill).
United Front and Team Burst is gone.
Orders are gone.
You can no longer steal turn order bonuses. They are attached to the character/mob. Even if you manage to delay a mob, the mob's turn order bonus is delayed with them. You can now only steal turn order bonuses from a mob if you break (now called stun) them, which is hard and you might only do it once per boss fight.
S-crafts no longer deal more damage at 200 CP.
To use an S-craft, the character must have 2 stacks of Boost activated. Boost only lasts 3 turns. The boost gauge is only built up by physically attacking enemies, so if your team is spamming arts then you won't be able to build up the boost gauge to S-craft spam. In past games you could have a mixed team of S-craft and arts spammers, but in Kuro you are heavily incentivized to pick one or the other.
I've noticed that some bosses will immediately pop their S-craft on their next turn if you pop yours. Fortunately these boss S-crafts don't seem to be raid wide so you can move the rest of your team far away from your tank and they won't get clipped by the S-craft if your tank is S-craft spamming.
Abyss difficulty is gone. Nightmare is once again the hardest difficulty but it very easy. Haven't gameovered once so far.
To activate link abilities (now called shard skills), characters usually have to be standing right next to each other. There is only one link ability that can be activated with two characters standing on opposite sides of the map (the shield shard skill).
United Front and Team Burst is gone.
Orders are gone.
You can no longer steal turn order bonuses. They are attached to the character/mob. Even if you manage to delay a mob, the mob's turn order bonus is delayed with them. You can now only steal turn order bonuses from a mob if you break (now called stun) them, which is hard and you might only do it once per boss fight.
S-crafts no longer deal more damage at 200 CP.
To use an S-craft, the character must have 2 stacks of Boost activated. Boost only lasts 3 turns. The boost gauge is only built up by physically attacking enemies, so if your team is spamming arts then you won't be able to build up the boost gauge to S-craft spam. In past games you could have a mixed team of S-craft and arts spammers, but in Kuro you are heavily incentivized to pick one or the other.
I've noticed that some bosses will immediately pop their S-craft on their next turn if you pop yours. Fortunately these boss S-crafts don't seem to be raid wide so you can move the rest of your team far away from your tank and they won't get clipped by the S-craft if your tank is S-craft spamming.
Abyss difficulty is gone. Nightmare is once again the hardest difficulty but it very easy. Haven't gameovered once so far.
I'll remain cautiously optimistic for now.
The difficulty is an issue that has traditionally concerned me, but it's not like Falcom has ever put out games that are too difficult aside from early Ys, Sky III, Cold Steel I and Reverie on Abyss.
A bit into Nayuta.
This is an old game that came after Azure, finally ported and officially localized.
The setting and atmosphere is fairly Final Fantasy-typical mixed with Ys. The gameplay is 100% Ys (and a lesser-known Falcom title called Zwei), it's all running and jumping around town and during battle. The lore is built around familiar Trails terms, such as 'arge', 'mira', an actual live Mishy even makes an appearance! Characters seem to have some quality traditional Trails development going for them: I'm really liking Nayuta thus far as a character, he seems much more interested in just pure knowledge than other Trails MCs. Yet, in general, despite the presence of various recognizable motifs, nothing feels quite as mature as the usual Trails -- this is fairly traditional fantasy. I'm not sure if it even goes as deep as Ys VIII, we'll see.
Despite having the option to go up to 144hz, FPS doesn't move past 60 no matter whether Vsync is on or off. On the GOG version, we're still waiting for the 1.0.8 update to drop on the offline installer, this might address the refresh rate issue, hoping it does.
Durante mentioned 'improved assets' back in December 2021, but all the textures are nothing more than AI upscaled. They're definitely not redone. New Azure looks better, both due to the variety of assets, as well as attention paid to them.
Coming off the conveniences of Cold Steel and Reverie, you'll immediately notice the lack of being able to fast-forward dialogue and scenes. I advise using High-speed mode (Turbo) at 2x to go through dialogue. There isn't as nearly as much animation or voiceacting as mainline Trails, even from main characters, so it might get a bit frustrating having to wait at times.
Extra: I've seen that Nayuta's sister was originally called 'Asa', but now it's changed to 'Eartha'. I'm not sure how accurate that is, I think they were originally going for 'Ursa' based off the constellation, rather than Eartha (アーサ・ハーシェル). I don't really like Eartha for a name, but whatever. I got off the Falcom drama train when Xseed took down their forums so I can't confirm these things anymore.
I am using the Zerofield/4chan fan translation on the NISA version of the game. It's better than the official translation of Reverie. No typos and craft/item information is actually correct. Only the occasional issue where text extends outside a textbox.
4chan just finished their fan translation of Kuro 2, so I will be playing that once NISA released their PC port of Kuro 2. CLE has a PC port of Kuro 2 available but apparently it is poorly optimized.
This could be a retcon, but I'm thinking that these VNs just had different writers. The VNs' style doesn't quite fit the ingame writing.
They wrote themselves into a corner with the Bracer ranks back in the Sky days, it's obvious they didn't anticipate how power levels in the presented universe would significantly rise since (although they attempted multiple weird U-turns in Reverie).
Not that I care a ton about them retconning the Bracer Guild in the first place, it's one of the series' least interesting factions -- not quite 'Adventurers' Guild in WRPG' tier, but close.
Not that I care a ton about them retconning the Bracer Guild in the first place, it's one of the series' least interesting factions -- not quite 'Adventurers' Guild in WRPG' tier, but close.
I thought that the Bracer Guild was a little more interesting in Sky, when it was the only organization that was helping people and doing oddjobs. But since then we've had the SSS, Class VII, and now Arkride Solutions Office where they do the exact same thing: taking requests from people to find their lost cats, killing monsters in the sewers, doing investigations, testing new orbments, etc. Those new organizations do not come with the caveat of being hamstrung by international charters or not being supposed to intervene in politics and so on, so they make the Bracer Guild feel redundant.
After 111 hours, I have finished Kuro no Kiseki on nightmare difficulty.
Thoughts as I played through the game:
It is disappointing that we don't get 3D main menu screens anymore like CS1 and CS2.
No abyss difficulty? Aw.
lmao at the historical revisionism. Completely ignores Crossbell's and Calvard's aggression.
We lost North Ambria? Goodness gracious did Regnitz throw away all of the gains Osborne made over the past 16 years?
lmao we are 1,000+ hours in this franchise and still don't know what the bad guys' objectives, plans, or backstory.
The underside of his arm looks bizarre.
Not a fan of the slightly offset camera while indoors. Can't find an option to center the character in the middle of the camera. (EDIT: I came to be okay with this later on).
I do like being able to rotate the camera while talking to an NPC. Now I can get a better look at people's faces.
We are 1,000+ hours into this franchise and you're just now introducing the country of Elsaim? Why hadn't we heard about this before?
One issue is that NPC's faces are too small to read when talking to them. In the Cold Steel games, the camera zoomed in the lower you pitched the camera, but that is not the case here.
The battles have taken another step towards moving closer to Sakura Wars/Valkyria Chronicles design in how you move during turn based combat. I could easily see the devs implementing stuff like interception fire or objectives on the battlefield.
The characters' weapons appearing stowed on them outside of combat is a nice touch.
He looks like Idris Elba.
Lying through his teeth. Pretending that Calvard isn't an expansionist superpower that had been encroaching upon Erebonia for years prior to 1206. Pretending the Calvard didn't invade through the Crossbell valley, pushing westward towards Erebonia after Garrelia Fortress had been wiped out by a rebel territory. Pretending that Calvard didn't aid in the Noble Alliance in prolonging the Erebonia Civil War as Calvardian forces made their way Westward towards Erebonia. Pretending that Calvard didn't indiscriminately attack Nord and Crossbell civilians, nearly killing Gaius' and Juna's families. Pretending that Calvard didn't send 100 troopers in body armor with assault weapons to Heimdallr and building a stockpile of heavy weapons clearly intended for a preemptive strike upon the capital.
I want to punch him.
Who keeps these candles lit?
I'm not fond of the new menu aesthetic, replacing the timeliness colored elemental quartz of prior games with a "W" for wind or a "T" for time.
Lol the Calvardian engineers couldn't come up with anything original on their own and instead just ripped off the Erebonians.
They're even copying some of the narrative beats too, with the blond haired schoolgirl heroine turning out to be related to a prestigious engineer.
The Grendel transformation is underwhelming. Rather than being the climax of dozens of hours of build up like Valimar was in CS1, Grendel just... happens 2 hours into Kuro, and then goes away as quickly as it came and goes unremarked.
Gameplay wise, the prologue was underwhelming. I am playing on the highest difficulty available, nightmare, but didn't gameover once on any of these fights, when usually in a Trails game the difficulty is frontloaded and the early boss fights take several attempts.
So far the combat system isn't significantly different from Cold Steel. Only real changes are:
1. the dragon assault gauge has been renamed the boost gauge. The boost gauge builds up a lot faster, and you need two use two charges of boost on a character before they can use an S-craft. I believe the intention of this is to prevent your whole team from S-craft spamming.
2. Calvardian engineers did a crappy job ripping off the ARCUS' link functionality. Now, in order for two characters to use links, they must be standing next to each other. I think the intent is to incentivize players to position their characters in such a way that they will be more likely to be hit by the AoEs of mobs (since an attack against one character will likely clip another), rather than spreading your characters out across the battlefield to minimize damage taken.
What are these little spheres called? What are they for?
I'm not a fan of how that fantastical, half dome quartz machine from every game up until now has been replaced by this mundane ATM looking machine. (Old machine for reference)
Also, what are these cylinder things?
Oh wow, I didn't know Britain existed in Zemuria!
Is this a Bracer?
Uh oh. There is a mosque inside the Vatican city? I hope this isn't some "Aslan = Tash" nonsense. Maybe there is nothing sinister here and it's just like a Chinese Christian's depiction of Jesus, but if this is "Christians and Muslisms both worship the same God!" then this is gonna be a fart. Also, why haven't we heard of "Alusha" before over the last 1,000+ hours of Trails? Literally never once mentioned, not by an NPC from a foreign country or as trivia in a book or by Father or a Sister.
I'm not a fan of how the world turns smoggy when you're indoors. It's pretty conspicuous whenever you go in and out of buildings.
Dude, have you been standing here with this old man pointing the entire day?
OH! Is this the clerk from the Calvardian Embassy in Heimdallr in Cold Steel 3? Let me boot that up and check.
Yup!
"The Flame"... so we have another religion? Given that we had almost 600 hours of Cold Steel and "The Wind" that the people of Nord worshipped was never elaborated upon, I have little hope for "the Flame" to be fleshed out either.
Why are there a mix of three different ethnicities in this tiny village? After a few generations, there would have been enough intermixing that there would be no distinct, separate races, only one.
We'll see if he makes it out alive. Maybe he will be visiting the Bracer Branch in the capital when the village blows up.
After hours of extensive testing, I have determined that the cause of my stutters (ocassionally while running around or watching a cutscene, or always when I cast an art or pop Van's S-craft or use the Fatal Lancer shard skill) is v-sync. Without v-sync enabled, my FPS hovers around 80 and I get no stutters at all during gameplay or during Van's S-craft/casting an art/fatal lancer shard skill, but when I turn v-sync on I get the stutters. Unfortunately I get screentearing without v-sync. If leave v-sync enabled and lower my graphics settings a little, I can raise my FPS to 97 that reduces the stuttering a little, but it's still noticeable.
No mention of a teenage boy and girl? I thought the Imperial Picnic Squad were going to stay together?
Finally. I'm glad we have a Trails protagonist who actually remembers that Ouroboros are mass murderers again and should be shot.
Where does the Esptein Foundation get their money from? Rich people donating money? Or is the Epstein Foundation getting a share of licensing fees from all of the orbal tech partnerships they're involved with?
Would've been neat if Alvis had been a guest party member.
It's disappointing that you can't steal turn order bonuses.
It's annoying how short the leash range of the mobs are. Makes it difficult to mass pull mobs. Mass pulling 30 mobs into a single battle was really fun in The Last Remnant.
Feri was my MVP? What? But I spent the whole chapter spamming Van's S-craft! Unless Van as a CEO can't get the company's MVP employee award?
Welp, I am 15 hours into Kuro no Kiseki, and thus far there has been no protagonist hook to get me invested. 3rd started off with Kevin trying to dodge a childhood friend who loved him, and then had the flashbacks teasing his dramatic backstory and hangups. Zero's prologue and chapters ended with a flashback teasing the loss of his family and his quest to avenge his brother. Cold Steel's prologue and first chapter ended with the mystery of why Rean was so aimless and why he was trying to hide his noble heritage or why he was adopted. C's route in Reverie had the mystery of why the character you are playing as - C - is antagonizing the other characters by claiming credit for things he didn't do. But here in Kuro, there is no such protagonist hook. Nothing has been teased about Van, he has no interesting quest. He's just an everyman doing oddjobs. EDIT: I completely forgot about Van being able to turn into Grendel. Goes to show just how little the narrative cares about that. Don't care about hunting for grandpa's 8 mcguffins either.
I'm surprised at the amount of single parents and divorce in Kuro. Feels like I'm playing a different franchise.
Goodness gracious it's been two weeks and this bracer is still pointing for this old man!
Is Yume Paulette's daughter? Or her little sister? The age gap is tremendous (if they're sisters then did Viktor and his wife go 15+ years in between having children?), but I haven't seen or heard of Paulette having a husband. Also, what happened to Paulette's mother/Viktor's wife?
There is no way NISA keeps this.
Aw, your time on boss battles is no longer reported.
Huh? For the past 1,000 hours of Trails, we've seen hundreds of Bracers, SSS, Jaegers, students (both Jenis and Thors), Church members, and so on carry weapons around towns and cities. Why is it suddenly a problem now? Also, nobody had an issue with children like Tita, Tio, Millium, or Altina fighting.
How does the chief of police not know that Agnes is the President's daughter?
Wow. Calvard seems like a pretty degenerate place if they're showing sex scenes to the masses. The most degenerate thing that happened in Erebonia was Crow putting Towa in a titillating outfit for a one off school concert.
Fuck you Cao and your blatant lies. Mobsters aren't need to "maintain society". The only reason why the mob lasted so long in the US was because they were agents of the government. The only reason why the Yakuza were able to get away with crime for decades in Japan was because they were bribing politicians. Mafias only exist due to corrupt governments. Purge the corruption in the government and the mafias die. If this was Erebonia, then the Intelligence Division/Ironbloods/Railway Military Police/heroes like Victor or the Vanders would have cleaned these scum up in no time. What on earth is Calvard's leadership doing?
"Illegally imported"? Again, no other country in Trails has cared about people having weapons, but Calvard has gun control?
Do these Bracers not realize they are eating at a front for a crime syndicate?
"The mafia won't mess with us, so we will give them money and encourage other people to do the same by publicly eating here!" excuse me?
Calvard feels bleaks:
Consumerism.
NPCs complaining about not being able to afford things. One NPC in Riverside has to take out a loan to buy a car. Another NPC in Langport laments that he spent all his life working at a mine but never really climbed out of being low class.
At least three single parents, two of which are confirmed to be from divorce.
A broken home where the father is an alcoholic and doesn't mentor his son, mom hates the dad.
Widespread drunkeness. Drunks puking on the street in Tyrell District.
Popular movies with sex scenes.
Men on the streets at night soliciting prostitution services.
A police officer who flips through girlfriends like a phonebook.
An unmarried middle-aged man who was just fired from his job tries to commit suicide by jumping in front of a train out of despair.
Crime syndicates control entire cities like Langport. The chiefs of police and politicians are in bed with Heiyue. Cops are growing frustrated and resigning and joining the Bracers.
*Man about to commit suicide by jumping in front of a train.*
This is not the same romantic escapist fantasy world of Sky and Cold Steel.
Hm...
Behind him, is that supposed to be the tabernacle, but styled as a Butudan?
After having to put up with Grace for 7 games, I am glad to meet a likeable news reporter again.
This would have been cool if you could actually practice the moves like in Shenmue.
I think it's a little disappointing the Van primarily uses his sword, given that we already had an arc about a sword protagonist and his sword techniques.
Goodness gracious the consumerism in Calvard is mind boggling.
Goodness gracious we're now easing women into gambling their money away.
Darn you woman!
Duels between men were never ostracized in prior games, lady.
Goodness gracious the government allows the second largest city in the country to be run by a foreign criminal syndicate.
Not caring about a foreign food makes you an asshole?
That is sad.
Are you kidding? You live in a town owned by a criminal syndicate. They whack people on the street all the time.
But Heiyue's actions aren't?
In chapter 2, there are far too many NPC updates in Langport. It slows down what should be an urgent and exciting story to a tedious slog. There is also too much going back to the Gambit Bar.
This modern architecture was built 80 years ago? That was before orbments were invented, let alone proliferated.
How were Alexandre and Viola able to identify some teenager in the Eastern Quarter as the reincarnation of the Tycoon?
Hold up. An Eastern crime syndicate is openly working in Erebonia? What on earth are Regnitz, the RMP, and the Intelligence Division doing? Certainly not doing their jobs that's for sure!
Holy crap he said that out loud. But she is divorced? Husband didn't die in the 2 day war everyone is traumatized over?
Wow, this guy has ambition. Bold enough to say this 20 feet away from Viktor no less.
Who is this girl in the picture in Aaron's room?
Is this guy seriously looking at softcore porn in my office while on the clock? With young maidens around? At least Randy, Crow, and Ash read their contraband in their rooms with the door closed.
Only being able to bring one party member around with me at a time makes checking up on NPCs even more tedious, as now I have to first talk to an NPC, and then if I suspect they have alternate dialogue, I have to save/reload, then swap party members, then travel to that NPC and talk to them again to see if they have different dialogue.
Here we go again with the cartoon caricatures.
"Chocolate tacos" *blinks*
You've been dating this guy for 4 years. You're not married yet. And he's a gangster. Goodness gracious, are you blind?
Van is 24. That is not late into the 20s.
That's not Hubert. Hubert had green eyes, not brown. Unless he's wearing colored contact lenses but those have never been acknowledged to exist in the setting.
Not sure how to feel about Falcom listing the names of the voice actors during a character introduction. Feels immersion breaking.
Father not participating in his daughter's life. Oof.
Van does not have an umbrella? Rean had one in Cold Steel.
No it's not you bald faced liar!
I want to punch him.
Van knows too many key players and is involved in too many things. He knows Renne AND he participated in Mille Mirage AND he knows about Ouroboros AND he met Walter AND he knows the Firebird AND he knows Joerg AND he knows Cao AND he knows Yin AND he knows Jack and Halle AND he is involved with Marduk or MTSC and is a tester for them. If this had been built up over several games, then sure, but right from the get go in his first game? It's way too much.
Now that I think about it, why did we take an 8 hour car drive to Tharbad? Wasn't airship transportation easily affordable in Sky? I've been on arduously long car drives. Taking a quick, comfortable, and cheap airship would be preferable.
No, that is famously not known after 10 games and 1,000+ hours and the Middle-East has never once been brought up before Kuro. The only time Hamilton was talked about was in CS3 and Reverie and her race was never brought up then either.
This might not have happened if you two hadn't dressed so promisculously, advertising your body to all like a prostitute.
Nord was more interesting. Here's the problem: this desert is just a boring, flat plane. WoW environment designer's quickly realized that huge, flat planes are boring to traverse, and that to make huge zones interesting they have to spruce them up with inclines. Contrast Vol'dun with this place. Notice it's made up of rolling hills which makes it more interesting. Even the desert zone from the 2008 game The Last Remnant was more interesting than this place due to the hills.
That includes Heiyue, I trust?
Are these civilian, non-combat Xipha models being sold to the public? The ones aforementioned in the newspaper previously?
Nobles from where? The aristocracy in Liberl was abolished, wasn't it? That just leaves Erebonia and Remiferia?
*blinks*
Olivier rehash? But with a genderflipped bodyguard?
Goodness gracious what has Zemuria come to
WTF
The curtains being closed at night is a nice touch, though it is strange that when standing outside the Bracer guild, you can still see light coming through the windows (even though the curtains are closed inside and should be preventing inside light from being seen outside).
Didn't you JUST get divorced? How could you be going after another woman right now?
Why can't I intervene in this?
How can he even hear what they're saying inside? I've ridden in the bed of a truck in the desert (not on a paved road but on a bumpy dirt road) and you can't hear anything being said inside (combination of the loudness outside as well as the muffled interior) unless there is a rear window you can open.
That's the second time this game a woman has intruded upon a duel.
Why are we now introducing a blimp shaped airship? Airships in Trails use orbal technology to create a levitation field around the ship. There is no need for big gasbags of hydrogen or helium to lift a ship through buoyancy.
This is presumptuous.
Darn, the Bracer logo on Fie's Xipha looks shoddily printed on.
This guy must be one of the coolest background NPCs in the series. He's selling popcorn while strumming a guitar half naked, and his name is Sparks.
Wait a minute, is this Gerard? He has the same build, facial structure, and hair color, and seems to even have similar bangs. And Falcom has occasionally placed villains as innocuous NPCs, such as Professor Alba, or Dr. Joachim, or Ian, or Professor Lughman.
Is Harwood voiced by Takaya Kuroda, Kiryu's voice actor? EDIT: looked it up. Yup!
Welp. Here we go again with yet another mindcontrol mask story.
We're introducing anime adventurer's guild powerlevel tiering this late into the series? And how do they even know he's an "SS" tier threat if people hardly knew anything about Almata before now? Did he publicly duel a legendary swordsman or kill a huge cryptid or something?
Now this is getting silly.
If Xiphas have automatic shields that can deflect gatling gun fire, then wouldn't it be in the best interest's of civilization if everyone has a Xipha? Not the civilian variant with the battle orbment ripped out like mentioned earlier, but just regular Xiphas? Mass shootings like Shirley at the Arc en Ciel theater in Ao, the ILF at Garellia Fortress, Ouroboros at Juno in CS3, etc, would have a lot less casualties if everyone had personal shields.
Stealth airships? Really? When the ILF escaped onboard their airship in CS1, there was cleverness to the writing with how they were being covered by the Noble Alliance and Osborne's manipulation of the Imperial Army's defences and how they used the mountains to obscure the airship, but now the writers don't care anymore. An airship flies off in the middle of the desert, able to be seen for miles around, but no one can track it for... reasons. And what happened to that radar technology that could detect Merkabahs in CS4 and Reverie? Did that suddenly stop existing?
Yeah, splitting a 3,500 mira contract five ways for 700 mira per contract isn't very profitable. Hopefully Risette is still being paid by Marduck and Van only has to split contracts four ways... then again there are three more party members to recruit so he's probably screwed. He's gonna have to jack up his rates at this point. He'll have to be charging 7,000 mira per contract if he wants to be making as much money as he did before Agnes came along.
This chapter kinda sucked. Glad it's over. It took waaaay too long. Far too many NPC updates. Only visited one town and it was boring. The desert was boring. Wasn't really into the episodic characters. Too many pointless fights.
I like his face. Too bad he's probably not playable.
Your weapon requires software to work?
No children should be allowed unrestricted, unsupervised internet access. We don't want to repeat the tragedy of porn addicted millennials and zoomers here in Zemuria.
Couldn't this technology be used offensively? Ie, the bad guys rig one of these machines inside their base. The heroes barge in. The machine automatically interfaces with the heroes' Xipha units and brings the heroes into a virtual reality where they think they are still raiding the bad guy's base, but in reality they're still at the entrance with their minds trapped in the machine. The bad guys can either flee, or kill the heroes while they're vulnerable. Like the holodeck trick in Star Trek Insurrection.
She needs a father.
Lady, it's been three months. You're always free to call and ask to go on a date rather than continuing to get mad whenever I get a new employee. Or move on.
How many divorces are we up to now?
This doesn't make sense. If Aidios is universally accepted (as has been the case for the past 10 games), then why are people even considering this heresy?
Given that the Church of Aidios is modeled after Christianity, then wouldn't they be teaching salvation by faith in Sunday School? How would anyone be falling for someone teaching salvation by works? People should be immediately calling out this group for heresy.
We're damned. There is nothing you can do to get into Heaven. Thankfully you don't have to, because by the grace of God will those who choose to follow him be saved. You should do good deeds not because you will be saved, but because it is the right thing to do.
It's also weird that this cult seems to have been going on for some time. The Gralsritter should have shut this down by now, given their vast intelligence network.
It also feels weird that none of the heroes call out the heresy. They take issue at it being a pyramid scheme, but not the implications of their eternal souls. Doesn't everyone in this world attend Sunday School when they are a kid? They should know.
Another of Gideon's artifact flutes that could summon beasts? How many were made?
That's the Church's job.
I hope Falcom isn't passing off this nun fantasizing about lesbians off as a joke...
A ransom note for a mere 10,000,000 mira? For the biggest bank of the ostensibly most powerful economy in the world? Feels at least a couple digits short there.
Why is the Calvardian government allowing this black market full of smugglers and other unsavories operate freely down here? You wouldn't see Crossbell or Erebonia tolerate that crap happening in the Geofront or the catacombs.
We're halfway through this game and I haven't seen any martial arts schools open. Nothing like the Arseid or Vander halls. Well, I guess there was that old man in Langport who was doing impromptu lessons, but it seemed more like exercise for geriatrics than serious training.
This is the third time a woman has interrupted a duel in this game.
I don't get why after 10 games of fun shounen battles, duels are suddenly a no-no. Aside from Victor's lungs being seared in his fight with McBurn atop the Infernal Tower in CS2 (and then the lung damage being forgotten after CS3), nobody gets hurt in these fights.
It seems that the shelf with the wine glasses is attached to the door of the limousine. Wouldn't the glasses go flying and break on the floor whenever the door was opened? Also, isn't the shelf rather wide? It would be difficult to squeeze past it into the limo.
Sheesh. What wasn't Van involved in?
If Xipha's aren't on sale to the public yet, then what were those xipha-looking orbments being sold at the orbal store in Tharbad a couple weeks prior?
It's disappointing that during the segment where you play as Agnes, that the camera height in NPC dialogue cutscenes wasn't adjusted. Agnes is shorter than Albert, yet here I am looking down at him as if I was Van. As Agnes, I should be looking up at him.
Blatant lies. If Calvard wanted peace then you wouldn't have sent 100 assault troops to Heimdallr stockpiling heavy weapons underneath the city for an obvious preemptive strike. Calvard wouldn't have threatened yet another unprovoked war in Reverie.
Ah, so now Calvard is the best at everything huh? I hope they get the kick in the teeth that's coming to them.
I wish Alvis was playable. He has a neat character design, and I am interested in seeing C ranked "normal" Bracers again rather than having to set yet another prodigy.
Why do they keep calling the battle in CS4 "the Great War" and act as if it was this huge, monumental event that devestated civilization if it only lasted one day and nobody died? Let alone any cities captured or bombed into oblivion. Comparing it to the real life Great War, the "War to End All Wars" in which lasted several years and tens of millions of people died, not just on the battlefield but from sickness and famines is a hilarious.
Didn't know Calvard had brutal Japanese work culture.
Auge Canyon road is thus far the only time I've felt like I was trekking across a vast world like in prior games.
I like we have an NPC who dislikes one of the Trails heroes and isn't vilified for it. Everybody liking each other even when they should have reason to dislike each other, like people being fine with Crow or Crossbellians being fine with Rean was obnoxious. Hopefully James doesn't forgive Renne and become friends with her.
Hold up. We have SATELITES now? As in machines in orbit around the planet? Well then, why don't you just tell us what the world outside Zemuria is like then? Surely it'd be easy to just strap a camera with a telescopic lens to a satelite and then get a wireless signal and share the results! Are there any other continents? Are they nuclear wastelands?
Aw it's just a low altitude drone.
*Son of Erebonia considering buying weapons of the enemy*
Traitor.
Oh, so did he make an actual nuke for Almata? I thought the nuke was just pejorative for like a laser or something, not an actual bomb.
Darn. Victor is going to get his arm back, and anyone who loses a limb from now on is going to get it replaced, further erasing any semblance of consequences.
You're telling me, that before this spy entered Basel, she set up these jaeger dogs here? Did she have them driven in by a truck? And they were waiting at this exact spot overnight? And she came back and pulled over to talk on the phone for a couple minutes here, thinking that she would have a battle here? What if she was intercepted before or after she got to this spot, without the aid of these dogs?
I just unlocked Quatre's robot dog craft. It's disappointing that the dog only exists in the craft animation and isn't by Quatre's side at all times. I'd like to use the dog, but it costs freaking 70 CP, only deals A damage, and has a tiny radius, whereas if I stuck my gladiator items on Aaron I could spam his SS S-craft anytime and it has a huge radius and will make the CP back every time.
*sigh* more mary sue Renne...
Why is she wearing bandages as underwear?
Well that was anti-climatic. I had Aaron pop his S-craft 3 times in a row and that was it. 20 second boss fight.
Is this a computer copy of him and the original Callaghan is dead? Or did he actually manage to transfer his soul from his body into a computer?
RIP
Awwww come on!
Shut up Renne.
So now Van ALSO trained under one of the greatest jaegers ever?
The battleship would look better if it was circling the area rather than just statically hovering in place. Also, how is this new battleship going to remain secret if the people of this town can just whip out their cameras and tank pictures? Those pictures will be circulating around on the internet and in magazines long before the ships are officially unveiled.
Why does the Bracer guild building in Basel have windows facing a stone wall? There isn't enough room between the building and the stone wall for a person to squeeze through and clean the outside of the window.
What? Gramhardt trusts a mercenary corporation more than his own intelligence agency/special ops forces? Something's not right here. Is Marduk his secret enforcers? Are the CID not suspicious of this? Shouldn't they be investigating this dubious connection, seeing what Gramhardt is trying to do behind their back?
Huh? But he didn't do anything remarkable. He just aimed a laser gun at a giant mech while it was distracted and pulled a trigger.
Oh gosh wolverine bears?
*sigh* deus ex Renne.
That Soldat looks hideous! Verne engineers have poor aesthetic tastes. No one is buying model kits of that... well maybe as fodder for the Tyrfing model (when Falcom releases it in 2030).
*sigh* here we go again. You can't. Fight. Soldats. On. Foot. It's as if Falcom's writers forgot CS1's ending. A supernatural power like Grendel is the only hope.
Arrogant prick. I want to wipe that smug look off his face.
I guess his plan is to threaten to drop ICBMs on anyone who doesn't bow down to Calvard. Or maybe the space base is a bridge into the Outside and he's going to try to retrieve artifacts or useful materials from there? Anyone I hope we blow it up in Kuro 3.
Hold up. How can she be a "secret disciple" if one minute prior, the jaeger said that she was a renowned divine blade?
Darn it. Why is there amazon drone delivery service in my fantasy game?
We got our first verse from the Septian Church's testaments. So was this letter written by the apostle Schact, writing to a Church in Iokan? Was Schact the Paul of Zemuria?
Global warming is suddenly now a thing. How? Zemurian civilization is built on orbal energy, which is clean and infinite.
Consumerism is not culture.
In Kuro 1, we see several middle-aged Bracers (three we can talk to: Hornet, Ishmael, and Hazel, as well as more unnamed middle-aged Bracer NPCs hanging around in towns who you can't talk to). Given that we've seen several Bracers in their teens or early 20s who became A-ranked (as well as half a dozen teenagers or early 20s becoming B-ranked in Kuro 1: Yuan, Alvis, La'Ahad, etc)... then how can there only be 20 A-ranked Bracers, period? Going by the huge number of Bracers in Calvard (I think I've seen 30-40 so far), there should be at least a hundred A-ranked Bracers worldwide.
So teenagers like Alvis, Yuan, Regina, Bianca, Anelace, etc, sign up to become Bracers, go from being a junior Bracer to a C ranked senior Bracer to a B rank within five years, and then get stuck at B rank until they are middle aged men or have graying hair like Hornet, Ishmael, and Hazel, unless they get lucky enough to be the hero of a national crisis? That seems like strange career progression. Were those B ranked middle aged men at least getting raises? Or were they being paid the same as middle-aged B rank Bracers as they were when they got promoted to B rank as a teenager/young 20s decades before?
Aren't you guys supposed to be a SECRET organization? Why are you wearing your uniforms, chalice medallions, and talking about Church secrets in public?
Oh no... the Septian Church issues homework? That is terrible. If kids need more practice, then class should be longer so that the kids have an instructor who can help them. Grading on homework punishes kids who don't have active parents who force them to do their homework. It's a grade for the parents, not the kid. But really, there is nothing that a general ed or Sunday school should be teaching that should require this much time to memorize.
An 18th Class VII member? Julian had better get a new outfit and he better be playable. Also looking forward to him piloting a Soldat. Julian and Rean are going to have a back-to-back badasses moment in Kuro 3.
What are you doing Police? CID? The mob is growing! Shut. Them. Down!
Sounds a lot like when Shrek came out and parents thought it was clean like Pixar movies.
People died in Basel? I didn't see any bodies.
Good grief. I can't believe I just read this in a Trails game. It boggles my mind that there is apparently widespread porn addiction, when personal computers weren't even being sold to the public until just two years ago. Also boggles my mind that at least one of our heroes has just admitted to being a hardcore porn addict, and Agnes doesn't even balk.
Good grief. Children out of wedlock. In Trails.
Or he has realized his son needs a father figure in his life, and letting him be raised by a single mother would be to consign him to ruin.
Black name. Definitely connected to a Divine Beast.
Darn. This isn't what I wanted. I wanted to escape from crappy reality and immerse myself in a romantic fantasy world, not this depressing story.
I'm right with you pal.
What can't shards do?
The noodle and carrot dishes look suspiciously photorealistic...
What is the significance of these Chinese lion-dog statues outside of a Church?
That's awful!
Given that at this point we're probably never going to get an Atelier Dusk 4 that finishes the story, it will be nice if Trails takes that story idea (protagonist trying to find a cure for a dying land) and actually finishes it.
How is this Van's fault?
WTF
What's his problem?
I'm guessing most people who wanted to migrate from the East have done so, leaving only the bitterenders left there.
Say "yes" Van!
Coward
Huh? It was Crossbell illegally declaring independence, attacking its neighbors with weapons of mass destruction, declaring a one world order and lording said weapons of mass destruction over everyone's heads, and the IBC freezing everyone's assets that caused the economic crisis.
what
"Combat suit"... does it boost her strength? But Shizuna looks like she's wearing normal clothes. If normal clothes can be armored/strength enhancing, then why aren't we buying some?
If Ikaruga are an SSS ranked jaeger corps, why haven't we heard of them before from the many jaegers we've interacted with over the past 10 games? "Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the top Jaeger corps aren't just Zephyr and the Red Constellation. Ikaruga is also on their level or higher!".
Words fail me.
His mask looks like the Kugai from Gasaraki.
The scene where they are stuck in traffic and listen to the radio is good at building tension. First time the game had me on the edge of my seat, more tense than any of the pointless battles over the past 75 hours thus far, though it does end up feeling like a rehash of CS1.
Awww, Lakshar's girl wasn't away when it happened.
Wait a minute, the chronology doesn't make sense. It was sunset in Edith when Van was stuck in traffic and was listening to the radio. Clearly the bombing had happened by then. But in this scene we are shown that it was nighttime in Creil when the bombing happened. How? It can't be timezone stuff since the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, and Creil was North-East of Edith, so the sun should set in Edith first and then in Creil.
Don't pretend this was unprecedented. Crossbell wiped out two places in Erebonia within the last four years and threatened to wipe out another in Calvard.
Renne could bring her scythe but Julian couldn't bring his sword?
How they holding a conversation when they are driving along the highway at 50 MPH, she's riding a loud motorcycle, she has a thick helmet on, his car window is up, and it's raining?
How are there giant monsters down in these cramped subway tunnels? They can barely squeeze through the entrance to this room, and for what? The other mobs down here are too small to feed a monster of this bodysize, let alone two.
I just noticed that this guy is wearing those stupid jean rips. -20 fashion points.
If he's "the strongest jaeger in history" then why was he never once brought up during the prior 10 games and 1,000+ hours of Trails?
I don't mind Kuro introducing new minor factions, like these Zecht weapon manufacturers or sea jaegers or this middle-eastern assassin called the Scorpion. That does make the world feel bigger and it's nice for the world to feel wide open and big. But when it comes to figures that are supposedly "continent renowned" or "the highest ranked/tiered" and they were never brought up before like Kasim or Shizuna/Ikaruga, it feels dumb and unbelievable, especially when we've spent hundreds of hours with other characters or factions that are in the same field (martial artists and jaeger corps).
You seem to be several decades too late. The Republic is pretty terminally divided into at least four different identifiable groups (old Calvardians in Oracion, nu-Calvardians in the rest of the country, land Easterners, sea Easterners, and the Middle-East, and some NPCs have implied that there might be more subdivision amongst Easterners given that they come from different tribes). The best you can hope for is that Oracion can be spun off into its own independent country, but given that Calvard is an empire and this franchise is pro-establishment, that is not going to happen. RIP. Your country is screwed on the national level. Best thing you can do is to just pay attention to the local things in your life that you can change.
It is disappointing how the Oracion NPCs are cartoon caricatures, imaginary strawmen set up to be mocked and knocked down, rather than real people with legitimate grievances. Even the nobles in Erebonia felt more real.
You have it backwards. Degenerate entertainment is the product of an already ailing society.
I might have picked the Bracers if Alvis was playable, but apparently he got benched at base so they're out. I hate Cao and Rixia so nope. That just leaves Ikaruga and Ouroboros. Hm...
I get SIX party members on the battlefield at once? Cool!
Aw, so it does appear that they're polytheists.
Her country became socialist?
Hercules jobs again. The special ops unit of the world's leading superpower is pathetic.
So far this battle royale/"death game" has been disappointing. None of the contestants have killed each other.
The writer has never experienced firsthand the consequences of mass immigration in his country. Our local communities certainly didn't consent to have their communities ripped apart by an influx of foreign immigrants, who don't worship the same God as us or share or values, or don't even speak the same language as you. Working with immigrant contractors is a pain. They mock your wife while standing right in front of you, lie through their teeth and try to rip you off. They work off-the-books jobs for cash, don't declare their income on paper (aka they don't pay taxes and aren't contributing), and receive massive government benefits (subsidized by your tax dollars) as if they don't make any money. Housing stipend, food stamps, etc. They get the equivalent of $2,500 a month of wellfare while they are working for cash and driving wages down. Illegal immigrants tend to do pretty well as a result, way better than people realize. There is this narrative floating around that illegal immigrants are doing really badly. The truth is they're doing better than a lot of native born Americans are economically. And the drug problem is very concentrated immigrant communities, which in turn leads to a rise in crime as drug addicts steal stuff from stores which in turn causes those shops to pull out of the community, causing the houses to lose value and those places to become ghettos. Immigration causes us native citizens to lose wealth and become minorities in our own countries.
This narrative that "elites hate immigrants" is backwards. Elites LOVE immigrants! Immigrants from poor countries are willing to work for next to nothing, driving wages down and increasing the elites' profit margins. Chattel slavery is the final form of that ("we don't even have to pay wages"!). Now nationalism is a populist, working class idea. The rich and powerful can always move to one of their other chateaus. Nationalists who love their country are going to advocate against immigration because ofcourse, they're looking out for the wellbeing of their brothers and want their culture to endure and their descendants to thrive.
This is especially bullshit in the context of European style nobility that Calvard is supposed to have. The people of Oracion would have more loyalty and common feeling with the Arnors and Ausleses than they would John Q. Calvard.
Then go back. Sorry, but when in Rome you need to get with the program and do as Romans do. If you want to do as Middle-Easterners do then go there.
It's also strange that this very young Middle-Eastern woman is living in Oracion all by herself, as if she has bought into the globalist idea of moving out of your house and living on your own to go to a college and work a job, which is at odds with what we had heard about Middle-Easterners earlier in the game where they appeared to be very conservative and live in tight knit villages. Why isn't this girl living with her family in a village, preparing to become a mother?
What does Van mean? Is he implying that the nobles sleep around with prostitutes?
RIP.
I killed Viola and Alexandre. While I thought that Alexandre might have been capable of repentance and would have preferred that he lived, I was RPing as Van as making a split second decision. Alexandre is a huge 250+ pound man juiced up on drugs about to slam a rocket gauntlet into my comrade. In that moment, plunging an electrified sword deep into his chest is the only real option. Similarly with Viola, though I found her detestable, the fact that she was trying to kill us forced my hand.
Why are you calling this a "death game"? No contestants have died so far. Bracer Yuan and Hercules team were killed but they weren't participating in the actual game.
Oh gosh, armored wolverine bears
Crushed these two. Kurogane didn't even get a chance to do anything. I'll have to look up an S-craft exhibition later to find out what he even does.
Goodness gracious not more "actually I was holding back!" nonsense
If Kasim is literally the strongest man alive, then why has he never been mentioned before now? You'd think Rean would have brought him up when naming the strongest warriors during the latter Cold Steel games along with Victor, Matteus, Aurelia, and Arios. Randy, Fie, or Sara would have also brought up Kasim when they said Rutger and Baldur were the strongest jaegers. Or McBurn would have brought him up since he's an adrenaline junkie who only wants to fight the strongest.
Sure would have been nice if you could visit the car factory or the candy factory or one of the academies in the city. It's also disappointing that there is supposed to be an Oracion newspaper, but you can't buy one or visit their headquarters. It's also disappointing that you can't go inside the opera house or the cathedral.
Didn't I already kill this demon lord twice in the last game?
What makes Edmond a heretic? Being a conspirator with a mafia makes him a civil criminal, which is not the same as being a religious heretic.
And where were these guys for the past 10 games? They didn't show up when Mayor Dalmore was keeping an artifact in FC. They didn't show up when Weissman was running around brainwashing kids and trying to create artificial stigmas. They didn't show up when a demon worshipping cult was kidnapping and experimenting upon children and making demon demons drugs in Zero. They didn't show up to arrest Dieter despite him doing everything Edmond did (conspiring to blow places up, consorting with terrorists, funding weapons of mass destruction, etc). They didn't show up when Gideon was running around with an artifact flute raising zombie dragons.
Are they investigating Gramhardt to see if he has enslaved a Divine Beast and shoved it into a hollow core (Mare)?
It's strange that the writers remembered that there was an immigration crisis after pretending it didn't exist for the past 80 hours.
Finally, the first Trails protagonist to just straight up kill the bad guy (in his own game, Kevin wasn't the protagonist of SC). Well, I guess Rean did kill Osborne at the end, but he was coerced into doing it by curse shenagains.
Why would the revelation that the heads of corporations were funding a dangerous organization come as a shock? Does nobody remember than the president of the International Bank of Crossbell was overseeing a demon worshipping cult that experimented upon children? Does nobody remember that nobles were funding the Imperial Liberation Front?
Wait, Risette was just a brain connected to a computer without a body before chapter 3?
I think is the fourth time NPCs have talked about "that S-rank Bracer from Leman" thus far. It feels stilted that they aren't calling him by his name.
Bracer. Me and Agnes saw you pointing for this old man at this exact spot three months ago on September 6th. It is now December. You've been pointing for this guy every day for three months. Give it up and stop blocking the sidewalk.
Nationalism is a crime?
Really makes you wonder what happened to the Anti-Immigration League given that they were presented as the counterpart to the Imperial Liberation Front. The AIL has got to have a lot of supporters and should have been able to endure the crackdowns of 1204.
We already did that plot in the last game. The cannon was going to keep firing until the spirit veins had dried up.
Calvard is doomed.
"Rene was a big brother to me!"
He's gonna be a villain. Gotta have that juicy brother vs brother drama.
Seriously? The fucking crime lord and his assassin were invited to the party?
I think this is the first time in the series a Trails protagonist has even talked about praying.
Is Cassius no longer considered a friend of Calvard? Didn't he just lead their armies against Erebonia as supreme commander only a couple years prior?
Seriously. Is Quatre actually a girl? Don't tell me he's actually a guy getting flustered over Van...
I am impressed how many character models Falcom have shoved into this shot.
Can't wait for Rean to cleave these tincans!
Darn. That's rough.
That seems like a terrible design philosophy. Tanks are heavy. All that pressure on wheels would cause a wheeled tank to get stuck in the mud, not to mention the traction issues. Good luck getting over rough terrain. Wheels only make sense if you're "tanks" are never supposed to go off the freeway, in which case that would be a huge limiting factor.
Goodness gracious
One of the esteemed 3rd disciples designed these ugly grey blocks?
No sane man would say that those two blocks look "remarkable".
It's disappointing that you don't actually get to see Edith from above, unlike seeing Heimdallr or Crossbell from above in the Cold Steel games.
What sword will Rean come back with? Is he just going to buy another cheap, mass produced tachi? Is he going to switch to a longsword or some orbal sword?:Is he going to get a magic sword?
This "retaking each district of a modern urban city as it is cordoned off by purple shields during an apoclaypse spawning black monsters" feels like a Tokyo Xanadu rehash.
There is a mexican standoff going on. Is Cronkite deliberately trying to set off the powder keg? He's coming off as the villain here.
You could climb up onto the roof with binoculars and keep a look out for any signs of movement.
Are we really retreading Renne's childhood trauma a third time?
Kuro 2 spoiler
If Nina is "revealed" to be the new head of the Papal Guard in Kuro 2, then why is she standing in this building exhausted, rather than out there fighting monsters or leading her sect? There has only been one scene in the whole game thus far suggesting that there might be more to her than a meek girl but nothing to suggest that she's actually the leader of an organization of warriors.
If all of the unfrozen people are people Van has talked to before, then how does that explain the Marduk soldiers or the Heiyue men you can't talk to?
I'm rather tired of this franchise (and JRPGs in general but Trails especially) religiously pushing this idea that bonds/power of friendship is the end-all-be-all. Empty platitudes.
Lmao cloud computing increases your powerlevel.
Now that I think about it, given that most computers in the city aren't working, there really shouldn't be much cloud computing power for Renne to draw upon to channel into Kasim's laser gun, given that almost all machines/orbments/computers in Edith aren't working, only the handful owned by people Van has talked to.
He's just aiming a laser gun, Celis.
This is just a rehash of the scene from Tokyo Xanadu where they're driving the car through the shield towards the final dungeon.
Falcom didn't model a cockpit interior for the Zyklas?
This is a pretty good looking final dungeon. Sadly it doesn't feel climatic like the Liber Ark or the Cold Steel final dungeons.
The hexagons remind me of The Last Remnant's final dungeon.
Now that I think about it, why have are we 11 games, 1,000+ hours, and several hundred music tracks into this series and we haven't heard any anthems? Except for maybe Liberl's but that one doesn't have lyrics.
Protagonist has a dark power hidden within himself. Narrative paints him as bad for not depending upon his friends and trying to be a loner. After the final boss battle in the final dungeon over the superpower's capital city, he absorbs a demon. To protect his friends, he flies off out of the world. Then the protagonist is seperated from the demon and we kill him in the true final boss battle. This is feeling like a rehash of Cold Steel.
Lmao the fucking crime lord made it into the happy ending montage. Again!
Finished at 111 hours.
It was overall lackluster. One of the worst Trails games. Not an overall bad game; I enjoyed it enough to finish it and I would rather play this over Western AAA slop (I will be playing Kuro 2 for sure), but Kuro doesn't have the appeal of the Trails franchise.
Gameplay
Aside from the true final boss' second phase, nothing posed a threat to me. I was waiting for that moment when the game would force me to buckle up and get into the nitty gritty of character building and turn based combat, but that didn't happen until the last 15 minutes. That was the only time I had to reload an earlier save and change my build. The gameplay was pretty braindead. For trash you either you run past them to the boss, or you dodge-roll around them, strike twice, dodge roll around, use your stun ability, then press X to enter turn based mode. And then in turn based mode you just pop Aaron's S-craft and that one shots the trash, with the CP charger shard skill Aaron will regen back to 100 CP so he can S-craft the next trash pack. For bosses you just buff up and have Aaron kick the boss.
The boss fights were really uninspired. Cold Steel had a few bosses that could jail party members, or the mirrors that were immune to physical or magic damage, or Gareth sniping you from off the battle field. Well, I guess the devs copy-pasted comrade C's mines from CS1 chapter 6 for Melchior, but unlike C the mines aren't a problem at all. You just pop Aaron's S-craft to get rid of them, or you can just ignore them since they do so little damage. The only time I was in danger of dying was during a dual boss fight, if I lowered both bosses below 50% HP, which meant that I would get hit with two S-breaks in a row, but the solution is just to kill one boss first. There were several endgame boss fights where I killed a boss before they even got a turn.
Another issue is the new boost system. Using boost on a character buffs them up, and a character needs two stacks of boost to use an S-craft. Boost only lasts 2 turns at 1 stack, 3 turns at 2 stacks, and regens slowly from dealing damage or being hit. It's basically a second CP bar that fills way slower than CP. Due to this system, you're incentivized not to have a tank who draws enemy AoE attacks away from the group, but instead to have everyone stack together in front of a boss to maximize the number of party members hit by AoEs, and thus fill the boost gauge faster so you can boost your party members and use S-crafts.
Since turn order bonuses are attached to characters and not to turns, and since there are no negative turn order bonuses you need to dodge, there is no turn order manipulation gameplay, which makes the combat feel more shallow.
In chapter 5, you can get two guest party members for a grand total of six characters on the battlefield at once. That was pretty fun, though sadly you could not control the guest party members. I think this highlights that the normal party cap of 4 characters on the battlefield is too restrictive, especially in this Suikoden-esque franchise in which part of the appeal is the huge roster of characters, but you can only control 4 at any given time. I would like to be able to fully control six party members at once in future games.
Another issue is that while the combat was fun enough, there was very little of it. The vast majority of my playtime was spent reading text, whereas in prior Trails game there was actually quite a lot of combat to do outside of story.
The only moment in the game where I felt like I could identify where I was in this fantasy world.
The lack of interconnected roads to walk on (you instead just drive to these abstract locations) makes Calvard feel less like a realized fantasy world with a grounding in geography compared to prior Trails games. Even in Cold Steel, when you took train rides to places, there were still routes and you could pick out "okay, if I were to just walk a few miles further down that road, I would reach this location from earlier". Calvard doesn't have that.
Plot
Kuro's plot is devoid of tension for most of the game. Early on there is the tension of Agnes coming to Van and the flashback CG of her shocked face reading grandma's diary and not wanting to turn to the police, and Giacomo being killed. It felt like we were uncovering a conspiracy and were at risk of beong killed for it, but then that danger dissipates. The story then becomes about lackadaisically talking to NPCs and doing your usual chores of finding people's lost cats, clearing out sewers, testing orbments, etc.
The game suffers from a lot of the same writing issues that plagued prior arcs. Each chapter the villains cause a needless catastrophe and antagonize people for no apparent reason, all in the name of an "experiment" that they could almost certainly do more discreetly without incurring the wrath of every faction in the setting. No, Gerard's "I want to instill fear!" isn't a convincing motivation. You fight the mafia lieutenants or a proxy at the end of a chapter but they escape, so I've accomplished nothing over the first 70 hours. I didn't feel like there was danger or that I was making plot progress until chapter 5, when a town is nuked, another city might be nuked, we're in a battle royale fighting other factions, and we are now finally taking out the mafia lieutenants. But even the battle royale loses steam as it becomes clear nobody is killing each other in this supposed "death game". The story should have been engaging throughout.
The final chapter was another slog and unexciting. It's a rehash of Tokyo Xanadu's finale, except dragged out for thrice as long. The guys you killed at the end of chapter 5 come back. Killing them a second time isn't interesting. The story really should have stopped at the final boss. I didn't care for him. He was another nothing villain like Joachim, but once he died I thought it was time for the game to pack up. The true final boss nonsense embodied the worst of bargain bin JRPGs. I guess I've always disliked Falcom true final boss storylines, but this was Tokyo Xanadu levels of "I don't care" and was a low note to end the game on.
There are pacing issues on the micro level. There is so much talking that it deflates tension within the scene. I killed two bad guys... and then I get a two minute scene of every party member saying "oh we will bear this burden with you Van". Undercuts the moment.
There is a lot of sloppy writing. There are lots of pointless fights against friendly characters, be they wanting a duel with you for flimsy reasons or being mindcontrolled into fighting you. Lots of having to be saved by an old franchise character like Renne or Fie. Shards can apparently do anything, and the writers forget or remember what Shards are capable of whenever it is convenient. Van can use shards to stealth? Why weren't characters using shards to stealth in this other situation? Shards can block a barrage from a gatling gun? Why weren't characters using shards to protect themselves in this other situation? Etc. They introduce a new character who is the strongest jaeger in history (despite having never been mentioned before by the many jaegers and martial artists we've interacted with over the past 10 games and 1,000+ hours). He aims a laser gun and pulls the trigger and characters praise him for his "strength". Cloud computing can apparently increase your powerlevel now (lol). Shizuna can successfully copy Rean's spirit unification ability on her first try just by looking at him for 5 seconds. Gramhardt - a normal guy with no superpowers - can intimidate a powerful Anguis to back down with the story having done nothing to justify it (what was stopping Harwood from just dissolving Gramhardt into black goo on the spot?). Etc. It's hard to take anything seriously.
Characters
Aside from Bergard, I didn't really like any of the main party. They're not unlikeable like most of the SSS but they just weren't captivating like the Sky cast or old Class VII. Several of the characters also felt very derivative of older Trails characters. We have yet another delinquent bad boy. We have yet another little jaeger girl who was disowned by her corps. We have yet another ninja maid working for a big weapons manufacturer with a mysterious backstory. We have yet another teenage tech prodigy (though fortunately Quatre isn't anywhere near as obnoxious sueish as Renne or Tio... yet. Fingers crossed for his backstory reveal in Kuro 2). We yet another demure daughter of the country's democratically elected executive. We have yet another famous female performer who has a secret identity as a masked criminal. Even Van becomes a rehash of Rean towards the end of the game as well. Bergard was the only one who didn't feel derivative, and he was pretty interesting in of himself, being a retired 69 year old man who is trying to take it easy and is touring the world while he still can.
Kuro suffers from FF12 syndrome where I found the secondary cast like Dingo, Marielle, Alvis, Maxim, Daswani, etc, to be more interesting, and I wish the game had been about them. Van/Dingo/Marielle had more chemistry than the main party members of Van/Agnes/Aaron. It's really disappointing that Alvis was never playable. There were several moments where I thought "Yes! Alvis is finally going to fight with us!" and then it didn't happen.
Of the three disciples, Hamilton is disappointingly boring. Albert had the classic kooky mad scientist with the sideways hair look, Schimdt had that old professor look and was interesting due to his curt and amoral nature, but Hamilton is just... a kindly old lady? Huh?
Aesthetics
Your average Calvardian town.
If only the rest of Calvard was beautiful like Oracion.
The models and lighting look nice. The character cut-ins are now 3D. Character designs are generally good or okay. Sadly every town except for Oracion (and to a lesser extent, Longlai) looks like ugly modernist architecture.
Music
Most lackluster Trails OST thus far. Nothing eargratingly bad, but I only found a smallhandful oftracks worthadding tomy favorite'splaylist. I also wasn't a fan of the anime pop song that was used for the true final boss. A far cry from CS1 and CS2 where most of the OST was really good.
Setting
Calvard feels small, despite being touted as "the biggest country in Zemuria" (a lie easily disproven by looking at the map). In CS1 and CS2, you only explored the Eastern half of the Empire, and you heard about these places in the West that you didn't get to visit. Saint-Arkh, Jurai, Parm, Hamel, Ordis, etc. It made the Empire feel vast. But in Calvard, I've been to the four corners of Calvard in just one game. The only places left to go are the trading port of Messeldorm, the village of Anchorage, and the airbase mentioned in Reverie. The writers will have to will have to pull suddenly never before mentioned important cities or bases out of thin air in the sequels.
Lorewise, Calvard is undercooked. In this game, I have learned more about the new, foreign countries of Elsaim, Valis, the Holy Isca Empire, the Khurga village, etc, than I learned about the actual country this game is set in. Comparing Kuro 1 to CS1 is an embarrassment. We knew way more about Erebonia in the 90 hours of CS1 than about Calvard in the 110 hours of Kuro 1. We knew about different emperors and what their rules were like, about different ancient heroes like the Eisenritter or Roland, ancient catastrophes such as the Dark Dragon. But in Kuro we only know about the revolution (which we already heard of in Crossbell and Cold Steel) and that's it. Kuro 1 is setting up another Calvard vs Erebonia war arc, yet after 110 hours I still can't tell you who Calvard's military leadership is. In CS1 we had Generals Vandyck, Zechs, Craig, as well as Victor and provincial army leaders such as Rufus and Albarea. Who does Calvard's army have? No one. We know Gramhardt has hired foreign mercenaries like Marduk and Ikaruga, but we don't know of any actual Calvardian warriors (who are loyal to the state. Zin certainly isn't loyal) or generals. Three new pieces of military equipment are introduced (fodders for Rean to carve up in Kuro 3) but we don't even know how many armored divisions Calvard has, or if they even have armored divisions. We don't know how many military installations Calvard has either, as we don't visit any and none are named.
I like they're going to do the Erebonia vs Calvard war arc again, though it is hard to get excited for Gramhardt as the villain. We've already had two warmongering demagogues, and Gramhardt isn't very charismatic or intimidating compared to Osborne or even Dieter. He hardly any groundwork laid for him. Dieter was a successful businessman with lots of connections and lots of money to throw around, and Osborne had 14 years of governorship under his belt, but after 110 hours of Kuro the writers haven't really justified Gramhardt's power and supposed hypercompetence. I don't buy that this guy who was a soldier in the army and just got elected this year holds this much influence over all of these underworld organizations. Still, I do hope we finally get the war arc that CS4 botched. Rean's Tyrfing wielding a sword vs Gramhardt's Zyklas using a hybrid of fist weapons and arts should be a fun fight.
Miscellaneous
I'm glad the writers introduced a new character to do the riddle puzzles instead of bringing back Bleublanc for the Nth time. I thought Percy's puzzles were fun. I just wish you could prevent the sidequest objective markers from appearing on the map, since they spoil the experience.
Master quartz (now called Hollow Cores) having voice AIs is a nice touch.
I like how my party members follow me around in the overworld outside of battle, though I wish NPC guests like Marielle also did that.
It's nice that I can do all bonding events (now called Connect Events) in a single playthrough.
It is disappointing that you can no longer scan enemies and spin their models, nor is there lore on them you can read.
I miss the post fight skits. Really gave a sense of camaraderie between the characters and some of them were really funny.
PC port
Overall great, except that for some reason the game stutters during some S-craft animations (namely Van's, Feri's, and Aarons, and maybe a few other's I'm forgetting) when v-sync is turned on. With v-sync turned off I get no stutters but I do get screentearing which looks bad. I do not have a Nvidia gsync compatible monitor so no idea if that could have fixed the problem. I have a Nvidia 3070 Ti. Kuro got a patch yesterday so this might still get fixed.
TL;DR
+ Good visual fidelity, nicer presentation
+ Combat is serviceable enough
+ Chapter 5 was overall entertaining
+ Secondary characters were good
+ Comedy, might have the most gags of any Trails game I can think of and most of them landed for me
+ Voice acting
+ Overall good PC port (except for the S-craft stutters)
+/- Main party is inoffensive but not interesting (except for Bergard)
+/- Lackluster soundtrack for a Falcom game
- Boring boss battles
- Visually every location except Oracion and Longlai was ugly. Not a fan of the modern art direction
- 110 hour long game but only the 20 hour long chapter 5 was engaging.
- Meh villains
- Sloppy writing
- Too many NPCs and they update too frequently, really slows down the game
- Calvard is spiritually bankrupt and unlikeable compared to prior countries
- Woke
4chan has finished their fan translation of Kuro 2, so I will be playing that once Durante releases his PC port (probably next year I'm guessing). But I am not invested in this arc like I was in Sky or Cold Steel. Hopefully arc 5 will course correct. The setting of warring villages in the dying East will certainly be more interesting, though that won't matter if we're saddled by the same fundamental writing issues that are plaguing this series. The decline of the gameplay and the music is also worrying.
The game suffers from a lot of the same writing issues that plagued prior arcs. Each chapter the villains cause a needless catastrophe and antagonize people for no apparent reason, all in the name of an "experiment" that they could almost certainly do more discreetly without incurring the wrath of every faction in the setting. No, Gerard's "I want to instill fear!" isn't a convincing motivation. You fight the mafia lieutenants or a proxy at the end of a chapter but they escape, so I've accomplished nothing over the first 70 hours. I didn't feel like there was danger or that I was making plot progress until chapter 5, when a town is nuked, another city might be nuked, we're in a battle royale fighting other factions, and we are now finally taking out the mafia lieutenants. But even the battle royale loses steam as it becomes clear nobody is killing each other in this supposed "death game". The story should have been engaging throughout.
One of my least favorite recurring themes from the Cold Steel games. Hey, let's never kill anyone so we can fight them a dozen more times over the course of the series because the writers seem more interested in their villains than the actual protagonists.
