TheKinkyFinn said:
Okay, so just so we're clear, I'm not trying to be mean to Cold Steel here, or cherry pick the worst examples to support my case. It's not that previous Trails games are completely without flaws or anything, but Cold Steel really does drop the ball on some notable occasions, often in small but significant ways. As JRPGs go, it's still very much up there, but like I said in my previous post, it's a great drop from what we've had before in a series famous for some subtle, intelligent writing and dialogue.
For instance, the portrayal of the nobles in 1-2 was just so one-sided it bordered on painful. Either they're pompous twats who rule their lands with an iron fist and have made it their life's calling to fuck the plebs, or they're the well-meaning good guys who live 'among the people' as it were, lacking the pride and respect you'd expect from products of the long and storied history of the Empire. It felt like a real lost opportunity for Cayenne, the main villain of 2, to all but dismiss the changing times and the common folk's increasing political power offhand. Turns out, he's motivated by simple greed and a sense of entitlement, instead of something like believing himself to be a bastion of tradition or fulfilling the duty of leadership invested to him by his station. I'm not asking for too much if I wish there was a little more to the blue blooded than fancy outfits and titles when the series decides to tackle class conflict in a setting inspired by the industrial revolution, am I?
This is the series where comprehensive villains like Colonel Richard and President Crois have been driven to drastic totalitarian action by their patriotic mindsets, and even complete monsters like Weissman and Gunther have some kind of philosophical or spiritual backbone. Often in writing, both the villain and the hero reflect one another and the core themes in meaningful ways, such as how Richard's worship of heroic figures, believing that normal humans are unable to rise to such levels, reflects Estelle's reliance on Joshua and others to do the hard thinking and technical stuff that she's not good at in FC, and Weissman's vision of humanity as superhuman individuals with no need for such weaknesses as emotional bonds, the very thing Estelle effortlessly creates through her radiant personality. It's these sorts of things that seem lacking in the writing of Cold Steel, and suggests a lack in direction and theme for the story.
Another example of things that bother me is the mechs. The basic soldat designs are obviously inspired by IPs like Gundam or Code Geass, and the Valimar summoning sequence they do every single time is almost certainly taken shot for shot from some mecha animu or another. It's like if you initially had one of those lengthy Sailor Moon transformations thrown in once as a tongue-in-cheek reference when a character powers up, but then decided it was actually cool and kept it in full for every subsequent case they happen. Now, in TV that was basically a cost-cutting measure since it took up expensive-to-animate screen time with a copypasted sequence, but in an already long game it's just padding.
But besides the meta stuff, I just can't get over how it all devalues the pre-existing mechs in the series. We've had manufactured archaisms like the Phalanx, Sleipnir and Apache introduced since Sky SC, so robots are certainly nothing new, but the really big ones were always treated as endgame encounters. Reverie served as the final boss of FC, and the penultimate miniboss between the Loewe and Weismann fights, and the Goliath (Gorias?) class alongside Renne essentially served as the last warmup act for Loewe's fight, the hardest in the entire game. Then there's the Aions from Azure. The thing is, the writers understood to use their godmachines sparingly, material in 3rd notes how even the Society with all their knowledge was at their wit's end on how to actually operate the Goliath before Renne showed up, and you don't get much more special than Renne. Likewise, the Aions could only function once they had a reality warping demigod to funnel energy into them. Now the soldats are basically tanks on legs with primarily melee armaments, mass produced and operable by any muggle who reads the manual. Why, then, couldn't the ending of CS1 feature an army of Noble faction tanks flooding the streets, or even straight up Reveries, since we know Ouroboros already had working models, kind of gets my noggin joggin'.
It may seem like I'm making a mountain out of a molehill by going on about a relatively small overall issue like this, but a new and clearly 'outsider' mech design for a series with previous material to reference just seems pretty jarring. Even more so when you beat one mech, and the next one is literally said to be immune to all puny human damage, so you need to bring in your own mech to defeat it. This impervious shield technology doesn't get mentioned again in the following games, let alone do we see it applied anywhere else, it's like it's there purely to tell you 'no, you may not fight the mech with mortal arms, ever'. In other words, it feels like the soldats were introduced to justify adding the Divine Knights into the narrative, because someone in the writing team really loves Macross, and what's a third superpower for our protagonist, I guess. The first power is the presence sensing thing by the way, it's pretty much canon Rean can just sense people through doors, corners and long distances whenever he feels like it, except when the plot requires him not to.
It's a pet peeve of mine in the Crossbell games as well, but man did Trails technology shoot up in no time. We went from a fiftiesesque clockwork meets steampunk aesthetic in the Sky trilogy to cell phones, orbal laptops and early internet mid-nineties in Crossbell, to phones with video calls and apps, self-driving tanks and downright battletech levels of orbal fiction in Erebonia, all in the span of just a couple of years in the Trails timeline. It's one thing for a mysterious evil organization like Ouroboros to have some of this stuff, it kind of comes as par for the course when you're the bad guys, but the tech available to the good guys sure is expanding fast, innit? I thought it was really endearing in Sky to get a sense of the technological advancement in the world through a brief summary of airship development, and the acknowledgment that things like gunpowder weapons, steam power and the combustion engine actually exist in the world, but largely fell off the wayside as the orbal revolution took off. Now it just kind of feels like new and vastly imaginative technology pops in with little testing and never seems to malfunction. For reference, it took, what, 26(?) attempts to create a functioning airship, with the lead of one of the brightest minds of mankind at the time. Even the orbal gear malfunctioned pretty damn severely during its initial testing in 3rd.
On the more specific end of things there are certain frustrating scenes, number one among them being the final fight of the Infernal Castle in CS2. So, a quick reminder of the situation: Rean just beat Crow in a one-on-one mech battle, duke Cayenne is still holding prince Cedric captive and trying to resurrect the evil red mech right beside them. Once the fight concludes, the only thing that could hamper our heroes from reaching the prince and the duke are the already beaten Vita and Crow. Do the 11 good guys present:
A) All make a break for the duke and rugby tackle him to the ground with extreme prejudice?
B) Split their forces, leaving Rean and Emma to counter any last ditch shenanigans Crow or Vita might have up their sleeves while sending speedsters like Fie or Sara to subdue Cayenne?
C) Stand around flapping their gums for a good minute or two, completely ignoring the hostage situation to pat themselves on the back about how everything turned out well and let Cayenne unleash Big Red unopposed?
You know how these things go, there's an obvious right answer that I wish I was making up.
And finally something from CS3 chapter 1:
Two dozen students are rushed into Hamel, a place you need permission from the ruling noble and highest-ranking military officer assigned to the region to enter, and later told the entire story of the national secret with an imperial gag order forced upon it by the notoriously ruthless Blood and Iron Chancellor himself. That's just asking for trouble, no matter how you look at it.
And on the topic of the new class VII, I certainly agree they're better than the old one. It's almost like a smaller main cast allows for more defined characters or something. I'd really hesitate putting them anywhere near the SSS however, I just find that there's a whole different level of character depth to Tio and Randy in particular.
- Kurt's reveal is that his family were relieved of their bodyguard status to the imperial family, and his flaw is that he doesn't possess the physique of his father or brother, so he needs to use the family's twin sword techniques instead of getting to swing around a buster sword like a real man. As a Vander, personally knows prince Cedric, and is troubled by his sudden shift from a good boy to a bit of a cunt. Not exactly harrowing stuff, but there's something there if the Cedric stuff pays off.
- Juna's semi-reveal is that she's a fan of the SSS, and her big secret is that she and her siblings were saved by Rean during the fighting following Crossbell's annexation and doesn't actually hate him or anything (b-baka), she's just extremely reluctant to admit that she admires an Erebonian national hero. Her flaw is how powerless she felt at the time of her rescue, and how she can't bear the sight of the Empire trampling on the pride of Crossbell's people and robbing them of their symbols and heroes. Has a brief episode of shut-in related to this, and needs to be talked out of it by Rean, Kurt and Altina. This one I actually like a fair bit, for a while it was quite ambiguous if she resented Rean for hurting her family or something.
- As a returning character, Altina doesn't have a major reveal besides essentially confirming casually that she's a homunculus made by the Black Workshop. Not a big leap of logic to have seen coming if you've been paying attention to her and Millium's words in the past two games. Her flaw is her inability to think and act as an individual, but not to the extent where it's hampering her ability to carry out orders on the field or support her allies.
- Musse and Ash I can't get heavily into, but they're obviously the duo with the big secrets, the game really doesn't try to hide it. What we do know by the end of chapter 2 is that Ash has some kind of personal connection to Hamel, and Musse both knows the truth of the erased town and is hiding her real identity from the class, revealed through her interactions with Elise and Alfin, who studied with her at St. Astraia before her transfer to Thorst branch campus. Personality-wise, Ash is quite similar to Agate from FC, a foul-mouthed and thuggish guy with a hidden softer side to himself, and possesses a keen intellect that Heavy Blade didn't. Musse in turn is Olivier with the comedic sex pest lines aimed solely at Rean, versus the spoony bard's "hunt for love" on just about anyone he feels like teasing. Both are obviously suspicious as hell, but Musse makes a point to light a neon sign over her head about it for the audience (and Tita) soon before turning out to be playable whereas Olivier at least attempts to come off as a zany but harmless character until the Bose chapter stinger.
All in all, they're a pretty solid if somewhat unremarkable group in my opinion. It certainly does beat the old class VII, where the most normal members were Gaius, the sole everyman without direct linkage to some major players in Erebonia (though people familiar with 3rd or Azure can puzzle out from a certain quest in CS2 that his mentor is almost certainly a Dominion), followed by Elliot, the son of a 'mere' famous brigadier general, whose dream is to become a musician instead of a military man, contrary to his father's wishes.
So, let's compare to Tio and Randy for a bit. It's a little unfair, but I'll bring up some stuff from Azure instead of limiting myself to Zero, but the implications were already there for the most part, we just had to wait for confirmation. Likewise, the prose summaries are a little cheating, but it's to demonstrate how connected the various elements of their pasts are to their characterization and role in the SSS.
Starting with Tio, she's the emotionally distant Altina equivalent and token loli of the SSS (well, one of two). At introduction, she's a member on loan from the Epstein foundation (I know it's immature, but boy, a little girl with ties to something with that name never fails to put my poker face to the test in Trails), and is quickly noted to possess a sharp intellect, an affinity with orbal computers (a role she makes use of in the SSS on several occasions), sharp senses and can even talk to animals (not an unique ability in Trails, but a rare one). At first she attempts to play the latter two off as part of her Aeon system, experimental tech she has access to as a Foundation member, but a few early tells suggest that might not be entirely the case. Later, we find out that these powers are a result of being a test subject for Gnosis, going through painful experiments at the hands of the horrifying cult that left deep mental scars that still linger after several years of freedom. When the plot reveals remnants of the cult to be involved, she tries bottling up her growing stress until she literally collapses during an investigation, and finally comes clean about her past, revealing that she was afraid the others would shun her if they discovered her abnormal powers, as her own mother had done previously.
Onto Randy, a character somewhat reminiscent of the mature and friendly Zin, with some Agate mixed in. He's the muscle of the group, and occasionally offers insight to the less-than-legal people of Crossbell once his past is brought to light. Initially, he's a guy who got kicked out of the pseudo-military Crossbell Guardian Force, the CGF. His womanizing ways and free spirit suggest a reason for his career change, but members of the CGF who know him seem confused by such statements. We eventually learn him to be a former mercenary lieutenant, child soldier and son of the old boss of the infamous Red Constellation, one of the two mightiest jaeger corps in all of Western Zemuria. He deflects such remarks from people in the know early on, even in private conversations, and his mood tends to darken at mentions of his past in general. Eventually admits to his past and stops holding back in fights, revealing he's downright uncomfortable with extreme violence and the real reason he left the CGF was his refusal to train with a rifle, favoring the stun halberd instead. This is revealed in Azure to be because as part of a mission back in the corps, his strategies led to the death of several civilians caught in the crossfire, a friend of his among the casualties. He had later found out the mission had all been a test to see if he was fit to inherit his father's title and leadership of the Constellation, and that he had passed. Disenfranchised, Randy ran away from the corps and wandered the land until settling in Crossbell, never wanting another's blood on his hands again.
It's all pretty heavy stuff, as is fitting since Zero and Azure feature some of the darkest themes of the entire series, right up there with 3rd. The thing is that the characters of yesteryear in Trails tend to obfuscate their true colours effectively at first, be it Agate's caring nature and self-hatred under the rough, thuggish exterior, or Kevin's everything, or Tio or Randy's insecurities. Even things that never quite get explicitly stated like Estelle's reliance on Joshua in FC are there if you know what to look for. These days, it just seems like the characters are worse liars, or falling into typical anime personalities and speech patterns with less care put into makign the delivery come off as natural or witty, or convey something about the character without needing to come out and outright say it.
Seriously, some of the old dialogue is just hilarious, take this exchange in SC:
I'm honestly struggling to come up with any instances that come even close in Cold Steel. It's not uncommon for the peanut gallery to snipe comments in a conversation, or for certain characters to tease others, but there's rarely an exchange where a character's personality comes through so clearly, even in just text.
I feel bad for not responding as much for the story but I honestly after reading it over more then once I basically agree with all this. Pretty much highlight what I think the key differences are as well. All I can really say is, when I meant comparable to the SSS I did mean new class 7 is much closer the SSS then old class 7. Like id give the scores if the SSS was a 10 then new class 7 would be like a 7.5-8 and old class 7 would be like a 6 although with the some stand out moments and characters *cough* Alisa and Rean *cough*.
Id like to add for Juna that I find her jealous and insecurities towards Rean the person she looks up to are very relatable to someone who has felt very similar to the people I look up to.
And a quick touch on the tech, I totally get that as a pet peeve it does bother me at times as well. But I really like how the incorporate this into the lore, so many people in crossbell call liberl a backwater country that is so pathetically behind the times. And also how things like the reasons for librels lack of cars and trains is do to its geography among other things.
And as iv said I think CS3 is making very good use so far of all the pervious arcs together, rewarding long time players with tons of references and pay off for lots of events. Plus the world building just keeps being excellent with how much personality and culture all the citys and NPCs have even if once again its less then Sky or Xbell although chapter 2 of CS3 is cheating.
