@Tyranexx Oops, so I did! Good catch, I wish that when you hit the reply button it would just insert the @ into the part of the message you currently had selected instead of throwing it at the start no matter what.
@Antraxx777 I have no idea. It's probably not cost-related since one of the two VAs that is being retained is Takehito Koyasu and he's a huge name, so he can't be cheap. Maybe the voices were starting to sound too old for their roles?
@Tyranexx It's definitely one of the most unique series in gaming because of the extent to which it's all connected, the more games you play in order the more you'll get out of it. With every arc in the series being set in different countries on the same continent it means that some characters may disappear from the series for several games in a row only to suddenly reappear sometime later. One of the main characters from Sky (Zin, shown in this trailer) was gone after Sky the 3rd and then came back in Daybreak 1, SEVEN games later. And they'll frequently bring up past events without really going into detail, so if you skipped games you might feel like you're missing something.
This even extends to minor NPCs, for example there's a sidequest very early in the first Sky game where you're helping a guy get the chance to sample a particular type of food and he randomly reappears in Cold Steel III since he's going on a food tour of the whole continent (IIRC).
@Tyranexx I wouldn't recommend it since they continue some of the plot threads from Sky. Zero in particular has some extreme emotional payoff if you've played the entire series up to that point which will be completely lost on you if you didn't.
If anyone's going to wait for this remake to start the series do be aware that you're, uhh... probably going to want to play the sequel immediately after the credits roll. And while I do think it's pretty certain the second game will get a remake also, you might be waiting a year or more.
The 3rd (which imo is the best game in the entire series) is the one that's still up in the air right now.
Also, some clarification on the voices:
Estelle, Joshua, Scherazard and Kloe have their original English voices from all the way back in the original Trails in the Sky.
Olivier, Agate, Tita and Zin were recast in later games (Cold Steel 3, 4, Reverie, Daybreak) and those VAs are now resuming their roles in this.
With the Japanese cast Olivier and Zin retain their original voices, but everyone else has been recast despite portraying these characters for over 20 years.
@TomSupreme There's much more than just Cold Steel and Reverie. Daybreak 1 and 2 are the 11th and 12th games in the series.
It's never outright "necessary" to play every prior game in the series, but think of it like this: all of them are great games, most fans agree the earlier games are some of the best entries, and things will quickly compound, with you getting more out of each game the more prior entries you've played.
These games absolutely love to regularly bring back characters and plot points from prior entries, wouldn't you rather keep going "oh my god he's/she's back" instead of "who the heck is this"? Or get emotional at the mere mention of a town or event instead of just being left puzzled for the duration of a 10 minute conversation?
FOMO is a big thing these days, and people want to play the newest entries ASAP so they can feel included. But I don't think that's the right move for Trails. Just try the first game (Trails in the Sky) and see if it's for you, it's usually on sale for around 7 bucks. If it's not for you then, well, you only wasted 7 bucks instead of 60 on a newer game. If you get it on Steam you can even refund it if you play less than 2 hours.
@EarthboundBenjy I did! It kind of just feels like a weird multiplayer versus game built on the Ys Seven engine. Not bad but pretty unremarkable overall. A while back somebody found an entry for it on the Epic Games Store backend so there are signs that it might be getting a port + localization (no doubt using Geofront's fan translation as base).
Having played every game in the series including multiple versions of some, I'd say:
1. Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys - Easily the best bump combat game, and it looks/sounds absolutely immaculate when you take into account when it was released (1993). Love everything about this game and Memories of Celceta is so disappointing in comparison.
2. Ys VIII - Improves on all the bad parts of Seven and Celceta, bringing back platforming and making combat much more fluid. Also has a really interesting setting and incredible soundtrack. Just hits all the right notes.
3. Ys: The Oath in Felghana - Best of the Napishtim engine games. Excellent remake of Ys III with some of the coolest (and hardest) boss fights in the series. The elemental bracelets are a fun evolution of the swords from VI.
4. Ys VI - It's kind of short and simplistic but this game is still a blast to play. The elemental swords are great (love the charge attack on the fire sword). One of the most interesting soundtracks.
5. Ys Origin - Having multiple playable characters with major gameplay differences is a cool idea, but if you want to see all the game has to offer you need to essentially slog through 80% of the same content 3 times. Still, it feels really good to play, though maybe Hugo a bit less so.
6. Ys Book I & II - I think the PCE/TGCD version of these is the best since it combines them into one game, with the DS version being the worst. I & II Chronicles is a solid second place though.
7. Ys IX - It's a less interesting version of Ys VIII, overall. You don't get to see ANY kind of environment that isn't made up of grey bricks until over halfway through the game which is insane.
8. Ys X - This just feels like a big step down from VIII and IX. All the sea stuff is cool on paper but just ends up being slow and repetitive. I do appreciate it cutting down on the amount of playable characters because that allows them to be fleshed out more. Soundtrack is kind of forgettable which is a cardinal sin for an Ys game.
9. Ys III - Amazing OST and while the gameplay is oddly different it is still fun - but it's kind of short and easy. I'd say the PC Engine/TGCD version is the best overall, with the Nintendo ports being the worst.
10. Ys: Memories of Celceta - A decent remake of Ys IV that adds new characters for no reason, removes half the soundtrack for no reason and plays just like the fairly dull Ys Seven.
11. Ys Seven - The first game to use the party system, and... eh. See what I said for VIII. Good music though, and the story does have some cool moments.
12. Ys V - It's not necessarily bad? It's just offensively mediocre, not really doing anything well or poorly. A remake should expand on its interesting magic system.
13. Ys IV : Mask of the Sun - Take Dawn of Ys, make it worse in every single imaginable way and add terrible hitboxes and you get this.
14. The PS2 remakes of Ys IV and V - These two have irritatingly slow, clunky combat and huge, maze-like dungeons that are the opposite of fun.
15. Ys Strategy - This is not an Ys game.
The only thing I still need to really play is Ys II Special, I keep hoping for a fan translation but so far no dice.
Kiwami's definitely not one of the best games in the series but a 6/10 is far too low imo. And complaining about cutscenes in a story-heavy series is just weird.
Generally I only see people struggle with fights if they don't bother doing any side content - which makes up pretty much half the game. Did the reviewer not do any substories or play any minigames at all?
@Darkcaptain3 It was not in the original PC/PSP releases, it was added into the Vita remakes that were only released in Japan. In the original games you could only initiate encounters by walking into enemies or having them walk into you (getting an advantage/disadvantage if you touched them from behind or they touched you from behind).
@ everyone who's saying this uses Daybreak's battle system: it does seem to use Daybreak's take on turn-based combat (where characters can freely move around before selecting an action) but it does not contain any sort of real-time combat like Daybreak does.
If you look closely you'll see that the moment Estelle attacks any enemy it instantly switches to turn-based combat, which essentially means they added Zero/Azure/Cold Steel's field attacks to Sky. Land a hit to initiate an advantage encounter, get hit to start a disadvantage encounter.
@JokerCK Fair warning, while this specific game is fairly standalone (just like the first game of every arc) it still has multiple returning characters, and the direct sequel (which we'll likely get next year) is very much not standalone. So once that releases you are once again expected to have played every game in the series because yes, it includes characters, locations, concepts, terms and lore you should already know about from all the way back in Trails in the Sky.
There's really just no way around it, this series was created with the idea of making one massive continuous storyline so if people want to get into it they need to play everything at some point. That's not going to change until the series is over.
@Ocaz It's actually because she played some of the developer's other games, enjoyed them a lot and they happened to be massive fans of hers so they proposed working on a game together, but go off. They made another game with a different VTuber for much the same reason.
@Ocaz How is it not? Sounded to me like you were hating on VTubers and I explained how if anything she's more interesting/fun to watch than most regular streamers? "I don't like this thing and others are weird for doing so" really doesn't add much to a discussion.
@Ocaz She shows genuine enjoyment and love for videogames on a consistent basis and never actually asks for donations (or even has annoying on-stream popups/sounds), something I can't say for most of the popular streamers out there. Genuinely one of the most high-energy, positive and wholesome streamers there is. Not to mention she's effortlessly funny and has excellent taste in games both old and new.
Not being able to see a streamer's real face is a weird reason to dislike them.
This game isn't particularly special (or long, it's like 30 minutes) but it's nice to see it on Switch nonetheless, Korone is easily one of the most entertaining people on the internet and she deserves all the success and then some.
The original's a 10 to me, the remake's a 9. I think almost everything was remade perfectly, but the soundtrack isn't improved as much as I was expecting (I actually prefer a lot of the original songs) and the new combat mechanics make the game way, way too easy. It desperately needs a patch that adds a hard mode.
Still tied with TTYD as the best Mario RPG imo. None of the Mario & Luigi games ever really came close.
Not sure why so many people are guessing English-speaking YouTubers when it's very likely to end up being someone from Japan. Sakurai can't exactly speak English.
I'd most love to see GameCenter CX or Korone but it could also just as well be someone like Hikakin.
@Serpenterror They can't. XSEED localized the Sky games and Cold Steel 1 and 2 and hold exclusive publishing rights in the west. NISA now publishes the series in the west instead and because of that, XSEED has no interest in rereleasing them.
Your only options are to play them elsewhere, play the Japanese Switch ports or hope someone patches the English text into those Switch ports somehow.
@DemonKow Unlikely to happen. XSEED has full publishing rights for the Sky games and CS1-2 in the west and they no longer seem to be interested in releasing more Falcom titles. No official word why but I would imagine they're not too keen on rereleasing older titles primarily to get a rival company more sales.
Anyone who wants to play the whole series should really just play them (or at least the "missing" games) on PC. They're incredibly well optimized and run on 20 year old toasters with no issues whatsoever.
@steely_pete Yes, this would be insane, you'd be completely lost. Just take your time and (re)start at the beginning, this game isn't going anywhere.
Trails in the Sky the 3rd's my favourite game in the series so this being "filler" totally works for me! Heard very good things when it released in Japan years ago.
@emj2010 Sky the 3rd is, imo, the best game in the series and has several things which not only tie into Zero (especially the conclusion of a certain character's arc) but also set up the rest of the series, including Cold Steel and beyond.
@Lyricana I think most Sky fans will agree the Evolution versions are a downgrade - the art is a lot more generic (and half of the characters' facial expressions are straight up missing) and the redone music is... questionable, at best. Voiceover is nice but it can be patched into the PC releases too if you really want it.
If you literally have no other way to play the games it's a serviceable way to experience them but if you have to choose between getting a Vita for three games or a brand-new Steam Deck that'll be relevant for a while yet (and which could let you play the best version of every game in the series) the choice should be obvious.
@eltomo Release order remains the best. So:
Trails in the Sky
Trails in the Sky SC
Trails in the Sky the 3rd
Trails from Zero
Trails to Azure
Trails of Cold Steel I, II, III, IV
Trails into Reverie
Kuro no Kiseki 1 and 2 (Not localized yet)
Nayuta: Endless Trails is a spinoff that does not (currently) have any obvious link to the main series and can be played whenever.
Been playing it since release and it's absolutely incredible. I'd honestly dare to say it's better than the series it's clearly inspired by and will end up being one of the best indie games released this year. It plays like a dream, Peppino has so many more moves and movement options than Wario and they all come together flawlessly.
While it shares a lot of the same DNA with Wario Land it's a pretty different kind of game though. This has a super heavy focus on speedrunning, every level is designed for you to keep going as fast as possible and string together combos to try and get a high score/best time after replaying it a bunch of times and figuring out all the optimal routes and moves to use. If you're just going to try and clear each level once I don't think it'll be particularly interesting. Powerups/transformations also tend to be limited to a single level which means every level has its own exclusive gimmick.
The only big franchises (let's say 5+ games) I can think of where you absolutely should/need to start at the beginning are Trails, Suikoden and Yakuza, for having mostly continuous stories instead of standalone adventures.
I'm an advocate of playing the Ys games in release order as well since it went through so many different types of gameplay and seeing how it evolved over time makes it less jarring than jumping from game to game with wildly different playstyles.
Big disagree there - Estelle's one of the best female protagonists in all of gaming, the development she goes through over the course of FC and SC is awesome. Joshua's pretty boring, yes, but the rest of the supporting cast (like Olivier and Tita) are all great. Kevin is incredible as well, but that mostly comes from the 3rd.
Cold Steel's cast suffers immensely from being way, way too big. Sky and Crossbell have fairly small casts so everyone gets their time to shine (plus in Sky, characters get rotated in and out so the game can focus on a few at a time). In Cold Steel everyone gets introduced right at the start and in every game after the first, every single party member you have feels the need to chime in on every single conversation even when they've got nothing interesting to add, just to make you remember they're even there. Over the course of all three Sky games there's about 16 playable characters - by the end of Cold Steel 4 you've got nearly FOURTY. And over half of their arcs were essentially already concluded in CS1 and 2 so they've got barely any reason to be there.
The plot also gets way too convoluted and out there by the third and fourth games, I personally was incredibly glad it was over just so we could hopefully move on to a better arc (and from the sound of it, Kuro is much better).
What I will gladly say is that the combat in CS feels the best of all arcs (even if it's incredibly easy to break to pieces with overpowered moves), and it has some of the best random town NPCs to talk to. But most of its important story characters are incredibly one note and pale in comparison to those in Sky and Crossbell. Rean himself is such an incredibly Marty Stu-esque character, it gets really tiresome.
@Benjinat If people are "leaving" you might be ending up in games with bots - bots are only coded to work on a few of the rounds, so if one comes up that they can't complete, they will automatically disconnect. I had a game earlier where the player count was at 31 after round 2 but 16 at the start of round 3.
@Arseneal It very much is the case. You will still get fame in order to level up after every game, but once you hit the max level playing games will get you absolutely nothing unless you win (in which case you still get no kudos). There are daily/weekly/seasonal challenges you can do on the side that give kudos but those are finished pretty quickly.
I was playing the PC and Switch version side by side for a few hours earlier and yeah, uhh... the Switch version is not good. Feels like it's running at 15 fps and there's horrible input lag on everything, even menus.
@FishyS While I don't know how things will change in the future, right now it seems like the season pass (which existing players will get for free) will reward you with paid currency, which you can then use to get some of the paid costumes or the following season pass for free. Of course people who only start playing once the game goes F2P will have to pay up for that first season pass, but I think that's only fair, it's likely to cost far less than the game itself does right now ($20).
@FishyS There is literally nothing in the game that grants you any sort of advantage over others other than time invested and the (hopefully) resulting skill. Every single item available is cosmetic only.
All of the stuff that will be in this presentation has been leaked for months, because Mediatonic isn't exactly the greatest at hiding content updates:
-Season 7 release (some footage of it was already posted on their Twitter)
-Xbox and Switch releases (obvious)
-The game will be going F2P but will add microtransactions and battle passes at the same time. People who already bought it get some additional perks like exclusive cosmetics and at least the first battle pass for free.
Great game, and it's only gotten better with updates - though the current season has been going for far too long (nearly half a year) which has made it a bit stale. Still play it pretty regularly, the new season will be a good incentive for me to finally get to the highest crown rank.
@Zyph Cheaters were dealt with a month after release with the implementation of anti-cheat. I've put over 500 hours in and have not seen a single one since early September last year.
There's no middle ground with this one, you either think it's the best game in the series or the worst.
For me it's the latter. Loved the first case but every single one afterward was a letdown, with more missed opportunities and stupid/predictable twists than all games (UDG included) before it.
Honestly don't even know why NISA decided it would be a good idea to port this to Switch to begin with (oh wait, money). Falcom's old engine is horribly unoptimized, even the original PS4 release couldn't keep a steady 30 fps.
Meanwhile, I've been playing for over 20 hours on PC and haven't had a single frame drop, every area runs flawlessly and load times are almost instant. It can even run at over 120 fps with no issues if you want.
@Slowdive All of those, as well as Trails in the Sky FC, SC and the 3rd and Cold Steel 1 and 2, were published by XSEED (Tokyo Xanadu by Aksys). If you want to see them on Switch, you should ask XSEED.
However, since Falcom seems to have cut ties with them and isn't letting them localize any new games anymore, I don't think they'd be interested in putting any more work into their older titles.
I had no idea people hated VNs so much until this comment section, holy moly. If you dislike them so much, go do something more productive with your time instead of letting others know exactly how much you can't stand them.
As for those arguing it's not a game, it is marketed as a game and sold on platforms specifically for the sale of games. It might not have much interaction besides advancing dialogue and some dialogue choices, but it has save slots like any other game. It's a game.
Steins;Gate has minimal player input and it's another one of the best games of its kind, do you people blindly hate that just because it's a VN too?
Played it on PC a few years ago and I'll echo the sentiments of those Metacritic reviews - easily the best VN I've ever played. Somehow instead of losing its luster as it goes on it just manages to get better and better.
@1ofUs I can literally boot the game up right now and get into a game with 59 others in less than 10 seconds.
The trend of saying that a game is "dead" as soon as it's no longer constantly in the public spotlight is one of the most annoying things I've seen in the past few years. Mediatonic releases a big update every 1-2 months with plenty of new, quality content.
@Heavyarms55 I'd say a good 30% of the game (same goes for CS3) will lose any sort of significance if you're not familiar with what happens in the 5 games before CS1 and will just leave you scratching your head. This goes for the main story, sidequests, optional NPC dialogue and even the motivations of certain main characters (heroes and villains alike). Heck, the main antagonist for the Cold Steel games (as well as their primary goal) was already introduced in the third Sky game.
CS4 should basically be considered the culmination of the entire Trails series thus far, and playing it without playing through every other entry would be like skipping to the final season of Game of Thrones or watching Avengers Endgame without seeing more than 2 or 3 other Marvel films. One of the greatest selling points of the series IS the fact that everything is so interconnected, so only playing Cold Steel would mean you're already missing out on a huge chunk of what makes Trails great in the first place. Ask yourself this: do you really want to go "I guess this is something I'm supposed to know, but instead I have no idea what this implies" every 5-10 minutes in a game that can be over 100 hours long?
Also, it's not exactly an uncommon opinion among fans that Cold Steel is the weakest arc of the three - so why not start with the ones everyone loves instead? You've got nothing to lose but everything to gain. They're shorter (40-60 hours each instead of 100+) and cost less as well.
@Heavyarms55 Each arc begins as its own story with a new cast and new locations, but then brings in more and more characters and plot elements from the previous games until they're basically essential. So if you were to play CS1 first you'd be able to get by perfectly fine, in CS2 there'd be a decent amount of stuff you wouldn't understand and in CS3 and especially 4 you'd be confused very frequently.
Characters have a tendency to namedrop events and people from other games without giving you any explanation as to who/what they are. You're simply expected to know.
@Avol Simple solution: play on PC. All 9 games are available (7 on Steam, 2 through other means since they haven't been localized officially) and all of them are optimized in such a way that they'll run on toasters. They're also the optimal way to play each, especially for the Sky games since they have a turbo mode which every other port lacks.
It blows my mind that NISA continues to claim that starting with CS3 is totally fine. As someone who's played all 8 other games there are SO many callbacks and connections to the others (including musical references!) in CS4 that will have zero impact if you haven't played them. The game really doesn't explain - it just expects you to know. I wouldn't be enjoying this half as much if I'd only played CS3, I'd just be super confused.
CS4's pretty good but it's also incredibly bloated, as a fan I'm eating up all the callbacks but CS4's own overly convoluted story (and the continued embarrassing anime tropes) just makes me wish Falcom would go back to the simplicity of stories from previous arcs. Pretty tired of Rean, also.
Sky the 3rd and both Crossbell games are still the cream of the crop imo.
@JaxonH The thing is though, if you haven't played the other entries you can't possibly know exactly HOW MUCH you're missing out on. CS3 only contains summaries for CS1 and 2, so that already means it's missing summaries for FIVE other games that are also important to its plot. Having just finished the game, the entire first two chapters are going to be completely meaningless to anybody who isn't familiar with the series outside of the Cold Steel games.
I feel especially sorry for anybody who's going to play Cold Steel IV without playing anything prior to Cold Steel because that one ramps it up to eleven, there's a good 12+ additional Trails in the Sky and Trails from Zero/Trails to Azure characters (compared to CS3) with major roles that get no proper reintroduction because you're simply supposed to know them already.
@Dualmask: Honestly, they really don't. The summaries are intended to be refreshers for people who've played the rest of the games already and leave out a ton of details. Any claims from NISA that "it's totally fine to start with CS3" are marketing talk, since they didn't publish any of the other games and don't want to lose sales by recommending people to buy a competitor's games.
On top of that, CS3 only contains summaries for Cold Steel I and II... but it also assumes you've played Trails in the Sky FC, SC and the 3rd as well as Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure, even though it doesn't contain any summaries for them. Hell, it doesn't even have character profiles for them.
I'm going through CS3 right now and I honestly can't imagine playing it without playing through the rest of the series (not just CS1 and 2). Chapter 1 ends with a crazy event that'd probably be enough to make anyone who's played the Sky games shed a tear, while it's going to mean literally nothing to anyone who hasn't. Chapter 2 meanwhile has almost non-stop references and mentions of characters and events from Zero and Azure without any real explanation of any of them...
The game also REALLY loves showing images of characters and events from previous games whenever things in the past are mentioned without actually saying who or what is being shown. Anyone who's played them will know immediately... anyone who hasn't will just be even more confused.
It's nice that CS3 and 4 will be available in a portable format for those who have played the others, but I seriously cannot recommend anyone to actually make this their starting point. This series is truly one of a kind, you're doing yourself a major disservice if you make one of these your first Trails game.
There will undoubtedly be people who say they don't have any other systems to play the others on, but honestly, ALL of them are available on PC, and all of them will run on 20 year old toasters. They're not graphically intensive games.
A lot of people are gonna overlook this just because of the art style, but they should really give it a chance. Easily one of the best Metroidvania games there is, I'd put it in my top 3 (La-Mulana and Hollow Knight being the other two).
There's so much replay value in this, from achievements (which I believe even the Switch version has) to different difficulties, other modes (boss rushes, alternate characters) and taking different routes through the game. Almost any boss can be fought first or last depending on your preference, you can do a 0% run with (intended) sequence breaks, there's post-game DLC areas and bonus bosses and so much more.
I would sincerely hope that if Trails ever comes to Switch they don't simply port the latest game. Cold Steel III alone requires having played 7 other games to have any idea what's going on.
She was in charge of the entire localization for the original (simultaneous) Vita/PS3 release so she was naturally listed in the credits there.
The game was later ported to PC with some more additional work by her, she was still credited there.
She left XSEED about half a year ago before this port was released and is now not credited in this version, even though this particular release had no new work done on it whatsoever and as such uses all of her previous writing.
Very unfortunate on XSEED and I hope they change their policy, this is personally one of my favourite series of all time and I'd hate for it to become more well-known for this incident than for Brittany's phenomenal writing.
It is far, far too early for the Switch to be anywhere near the top five, especially after the lackluster year it just had. Seriously, was there anything notable besides Smash, a handful of (late) 3rd party ports, and maybe Octopath? Let's not forget the myriad of other issues it still has, like its ridiculous methods of playing online, lack of VC and the fact it still doesn't even have a browser and other system features which the Wii and Wii U had almost instantly.
I'd also rank the N64 the lowest out of the home consoles, outside of the obvious stuff a lot of games haven't aged particularly well (See Goldeneye and its sub 10 fps) or have been improved upon several times.
If there's no way to legally buy a game whatsoever I'm absolutely 100% fine with pirating. Some of my absolute favourite games have never been rereleased since their original release over 20 years ago, what else am I supposed to do? Terranigma's one of my favourite games ever made but a cartridge alone can go for over 100 bucks. The original developers/publishers wouldn't even get any money from second-hand sales so it's hardly stealing from them.
Of course there's also games that were never even localized, I played the fan translation of Mother 3 close to 10 years ago and Nintendo still stubbornly refuses to release the game outside Japan. They clearly don't want my money, so I'll just take the easy route instead of praying that they'll just randomly decide to release it over a decade late. And no, Reggie acknowledging the fact people want it about once a year is hardly proof that it'll come eventually.
Comments 991
Re: Poll: So, How Would You Rate The Nintendo Switch 2 Direct?
Meh. Some cool games but game prices absolutely kill it for me. €90 if I want to own a physical copy of Mario Kart?? No way.
Re: Meet The Stellar Cast Of Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter
@Tyranexx Oops, so I did! Good catch, I wish that when you hit the reply button it would just insert the @ into the part of the message you currently had selected instead of throwing it at the start no matter what.
Re: Meet The Stellar Cast Of Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter
@Antraxx777 I have no idea. It's probably not cost-related since one of the two VAs that is being retained is Takehito Koyasu and he's a huge name, so he can't be cheap. Maybe the voices were starting to sound too old for their roles?
@Tyranexx It's definitely one of the most unique series in gaming because of the extent to which it's all connected, the more games you play in order the more you'll get out of it. With every arc in the series being set in different countries on the same continent it means that some characters may disappear from the series for several games in a row only to suddenly reappear sometime later. One of the main characters from Sky (Zin, shown in this trailer) was gone after Sky the 3rd and then came back in Daybreak 1, SEVEN games later. And they'll frequently bring up past events without really going into detail, so if you skipped games you might feel like you're missing something.
This even extends to minor NPCs, for example there's a sidequest very early in the first Sky game where you're helping a guy get the chance to sample a particular type of food and he randomly reappears in Cold Steel III since he's going on a food tour of the whole continent (IIRC).
Re: Meet The Stellar Cast Of Trails In The Sky 1st Chapter
@Tyranexx I wouldn't recommend it since they continue some of the plot threads from Sky. Zero in particular has some extreme emotional payoff if you've played the entire series up to that point which will be completely lost on you if you didn't.
If anyone's going to wait for this remake to start the series do be aware that you're, uhh... probably going to want to play the sequel immediately after the credits roll. And while I do think it's pretty certain the second game will get a remake also, you might be waiting a year or more.
The 3rd (which imo is the best game in the entire series) is the one that's still up in the air right now.
Also, some clarification on the voices:
Estelle, Joshua, Scherazard and Kloe have their original English voices from all the way back in the original Trails in the Sky.
Olivier, Agate, Tita and Zin were recast in later games (Cold Steel 3, 4, Reverie, Daybreak) and those VAs are now resuming their roles in this.
With the Japanese cast Olivier and Zin retain their original voices, but everyone else has been recast despite portraying these characters for over 20 years.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak II (Switch) - Does The Job, But Not A Series High
@TomSupreme There's much more than just Cold Steel and Reverie. Daybreak 1 and 2 are the 11th and 12th games in the series.
It's never outright "necessary" to play every prior game in the series, but think of it like this: all of them are great games, most fans agree the earlier games are some of the best entries, and things will quickly compound, with you getting more out of each game the more prior entries you've played.
These games absolutely love to regularly bring back characters and plot points from prior entries, wouldn't you rather keep going "oh my god he's/she's back" instead of "who the heck is this"? Or get emotional at the mere mention of a town or event instead of just being left puzzled for the duration of a 10 minute conversation?
FOMO is a big thing these days, and people want to play the newest entries ASAP so they can feel included. But I don't think that's the right move for Trails. Just try the first game (Trails in the Sky) and see if it's for you, it's usually on sale for around 7 bucks. If it's not for you then, well, you only wasted 7 bucks instead of 60 on a newer game. If you get it on Steam you can even refund it if you play less than 2 hours.
Re: Poll: What's The Best Ys Game? Rate Your Favourites For Our Upcoming Ranking
@EarthboundBenjy I did! It kind of just feels like a weird multiplayer versus game built on the Ys Seven engine. Not bad but pretty unremarkable overall. A while back somebody found an entry for it on the Epic Games Store backend so there are signs that it might be getting a port + localization (no doubt using Geofront's fan translation as base).
Re: Poll: What's The Best Ys Game? Rate Your Favourites For Our Upcoming Ranking
Having played every game in the series including multiple versions of some, I'd say:
1. Ys IV: The Dawn of Ys - Easily the best bump combat game, and it looks/sounds absolutely immaculate when you take into account when it was released (1993). Love everything about this game and Memories of Celceta is so disappointing in comparison.
2. Ys VIII - Improves on all the bad parts of Seven and Celceta, bringing back platforming and making combat much more fluid. Also has a really interesting setting and incredible soundtrack. Just hits all the right notes.
3. Ys: The Oath in Felghana - Best of the Napishtim engine games. Excellent remake of Ys III with some of the coolest (and hardest) boss fights in the series. The elemental bracelets are a fun evolution of the swords from VI.
4. Ys VI - It's kind of short and simplistic but this game is still a blast to play. The elemental swords are great (love the charge attack on the fire sword). One of the most interesting soundtracks.
5. Ys Origin - Having multiple playable characters with major gameplay differences is a cool idea, but if you want to see all the game has to offer you need to essentially slog through 80% of the same content 3 times. Still, it feels really good to play, though maybe Hugo a bit less so.
6. Ys Book I & II - I think the PCE/TGCD version of these is the best since it combines them into one game, with the DS version being the worst. I & II Chronicles is a solid second place though.
7. Ys IX - It's a less interesting version of Ys VIII, overall. You don't get to see ANY kind of environment that isn't made up of grey bricks until over halfway through the game which is insane.
8. Ys X - This just feels like a big step down from VIII and IX. All the sea stuff is cool on paper but just ends up being slow and repetitive. I do appreciate it cutting down on the amount of playable characters because that allows them to be fleshed out more. Soundtrack is kind of forgettable which is a cardinal sin for an Ys game.
9. Ys III - Amazing OST and while the gameplay is oddly different it is still fun - but it's kind of short and easy. I'd say the PC Engine/TGCD version is the best overall, with the Nintendo ports being the worst.
10. Ys: Memories of Celceta - A decent remake of Ys IV that adds new characters for no reason, removes half the soundtrack for no reason and plays just like the fairly dull Ys Seven.
11. Ys Seven - The first game to use the party system, and... eh. See what I said for VIII. Good music though, and the story does have some cool moments.
12. Ys V - It's not necessarily bad? It's just offensively mediocre, not really doing anything well or poorly. A remake should expand on its interesting magic system.
13. Ys IV : Mask of the Sun - Take Dawn of Ys, make it worse in every single imaginable way and add terrible hitboxes and you get this.
14. The PS2 remakes of Ys IV and V - These two have irritatingly slow, clunky combat and huge, maze-like dungeons that are the opposite of fun.
15. Ys Strategy - This is not an Ys game.
The only thing I still need to really play is Ys II Special, I keep hoping for a fan translation but so far no dice.
Re: Review: Yakuza Kiwami (Switch) - A Decent Port Of An Ambitious, Frustrating Game
Kiwami's definitely not one of the best games in the series but a 6/10 is far too low imo. And complaining about cutscenes in a story-heavy series is just weird.
Generally I only see people struggle with fights if they don't bother doing any side content - which makes up pretty much half the game. Did the reviewer not do any substories or play any minigames at all?
Re: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails In The Sky Remake Is Real, And It Looks Amazing
@Darkcaptain3 It was not in the original PC/PSP releases, it was added into the Vita remakes that were only released in Japan. In the original games you could only initiate encounters by walking into enemies or having them walk into you (getting an advantage/disadvantage if you touched them from behind or they touched you from behind).
Re: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails In The Sky Remake Is Real, And It Looks Amazing
@ everyone who's saying this uses Daybreak's battle system: it does seem to use Daybreak's take on turn-based combat (where characters can freely move around before selecting an action) but it does not contain any sort of real-time combat like Daybreak does.
If you look closely you'll see that the moment Estelle attacks any enemy it instantly switches to turn-based combat, which essentially means they added Zero/Azure/Cold Steel's field attacks to Sky. Land a hit to initiate an advantage encounter, get hit to start a disadvantage encounter.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak (Switch) - A Strong Entry With Some Confusing Quirks
@JokerCK Fair warning, while this specific game is fairly standalone (just like the first game of every arc) it still has multiple returning characters, and the direct sequel (which we'll likely get next year) is very much not standalone. So once that releases you are once again expected to have played every game in the series because yes, it includes characters, locations, concepts, terms and lore you should already know about from all the way back in Trails in the Sky.
There's really just no way around it, this series was created with the idea of making one massive continuous storyline so if people want to get into it they need to play everything at some point. That's not going to change until the series is over.
Re: VTuber Horror Game 'Evil God Korone' Gets A Surprise Release On Switch eShop
@Ocaz It's actually because she played some of the developer's other games, enjoyed them a lot and they happened to be massive fans of hers so they proposed working on a game together, but go off. They made another game with a different VTuber for much the same reason.
I should post an actual example of how funny/endearing she can be: http://youtu.be/yk2kdHkzI48?t=423
Re: VTuber Horror Game 'Evil God Korone' Gets A Surprise Release On Switch eShop
@Ocaz How is it not? Sounded to me like you were hating on VTubers and I explained how if anything she's more interesting/fun to watch than most regular streamers? "I don't like this thing and others are weird for doing so" really doesn't add much to a discussion.
Re: VTuber Horror Game 'Evil God Korone' Gets A Surprise Release On Switch eShop
@Ocaz She shows genuine enjoyment and love for videogames on a consistent basis and never actually asks for donations (or even has annoying on-stream popups/sounds), something I can't say for most of the popular streamers out there. Genuinely one of the most high-energy, positive and wholesome streamers there is. Not to mention she's effortlessly funny and has excellent taste in games both old and new.
Not being able to see a streamer's real face is a weird reason to dislike them.
Re: VTuber Horror Game 'Evil God Korone' Gets A Surprise Release On Switch eShop
This game isn't particularly special (or long, it's like 30 minutes) but it's nice to see it on Switch nonetheless, Korone is easily one of the most entertaining people on the internet and she deserves all the success and then some.
Re: Poll: What Review Score Would You Give Super Mario RPG?
The original's a 10 to me, the remake's a 9. I think almost everything was remade perfectly, but the soundtrack isn't improved as much as I was expecting (I actually prefer a lot of the original songs) and the new combat mechanics make the game way, way too easy. It desperately needs a patch that adds a hard mode.
Still tied with TTYD as the best Mario RPG imo. None of the Mario & Luigi games ever really came close.
Re: Masahiro Sakurai Is Planning A Crossover With 'Well-Known' YouTube Channel
Not sure why so many people are guessing English-speaking YouTubers when it's very likely to end up being someone from Japan. Sakurai can't exactly speak English.
I'd most love to see GameCenter CX or Korone but it could also just as well be someone like Hikakin.
Re: Kuro no Kiseki Coming West As 'Trails Through Daybreak', Out 2024 On Switch
@Serpenterror They can't. XSEED localized the Sky games and Cold Steel 1 and 2 and hold exclusive publishing rights in the west. NISA now publishes the series in the west instead and because of that, XSEED has no interest in rereleasing them.
Your only options are to play them elsewhere, play the Japanese Switch ports or hope someone patches the English text into those Switch ports somehow.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie - A Refreshing Entry In The Kiseki Series
@DemonKow Unlikely to happen. XSEED has full publishing rights for the Sky games and CS1-2 in the west and they no longer seem to be interested in releasing more Falcom titles. No official word why but I would imagine they're not too keen on rereleasing older titles primarily to get a rival company more sales.
Anyone who wants to play the whole series should really just play them (or at least the "missing" games) on PC. They're incredibly well optimized and run on 20 year old toasters with no issues whatsoever.
@steely_pete Yes, this would be insane, you'd be completely lost. Just take your time and (re)start at the beginning, this game isn't going anywhere.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails Into Reverie - A Refreshing Entry In The Kiseki Series
Trails in the Sky the 3rd's my favourite game in the series so this being "filler" totally works for me! Heard very good things when it released in Japan years ago.
Will be playing on Steam though.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails To Azure - Crossbell's Conclusion Is A Cracking RPG
@emj2010 Sky the 3rd is, imo, the best game in the series and has several things which not only tie into Zero (especially the conclusion of a certain character's arc) but also set up the rest of the series, including Cold Steel and beyond.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails To Azure - Crossbell's Conclusion Is A Cracking RPG
@Lyricana I think most Sky fans will agree the Evolution versions are a downgrade - the art is a lot more generic (and half of the characters' facial expressions are straight up missing) and the redone music is... questionable, at best. Voiceover is nice but it can be patched into the PC releases too if you really want it.
If you literally have no other way to play the games it's a serviceable way to experience them but if you have to choose between getting a Vita for three games or a brand-new Steam Deck that'll be relevant for a while yet (and which could let you play the best version of every game in the series) the choice should be obvious.
@eltomo Release order remains the best. So:
Trails in the Sky
Trails in the Sky SC
Trails in the Sky the 3rd
Trails from Zero
Trails to Azure
Trails of Cold Steel I, II, III, IV
Trails into Reverie
Kuro no Kiseki 1 and 2 (Not localized yet)
Nayuta: Endless Trails is a spinoff that does not (currently) have any obvious link to the main series and can be played whenever.
Re: Pizza Tower Is Giving Us Serious Wario Land Vibes On PC And Now We Knead It On Switch
Been playing it since release and it's absolutely incredible. I'd honestly dare to say it's better than the series it's clearly inspired by and will end up being one of the best indie games released this year. It plays like a dream, Peppino has so many more moves and movement options than Wario and they all come together flawlessly.
While it shares a lot of the same DNA with Wario Land it's a pretty different kind of game though. This has a super heavy focus on speedrunning, every level is designed for you to keep going as fast as possible and string together combos to try and get a high score/best time after replaying it a bunch of times and figuring out all the optimal routes and moves to use. If you're just going to try and clear each level once I don't think it'll be particularly interesting. Powerups/transformations also tend to be limited to a single level which means every level has its own exclusive gimmick.
Oh and also, the soundtrack is fantastic.
Re: Best Of 2022: Is It Ever A Good Idea To Start At 'The Beginning' Of Series Like Zelda Or Dragon Quest?
It can be a good idea, but it's never a bad idea.
The only big franchises (let's say 5+ games) I can think of where you absolutely should/need to start at the beginning are Trails, Suikoden and Yakuza, for having mostly continuous stories instead of standalone adventures.
I'm an advocate of playing the Ys games in release order as well since it went through so many different types of gameplay and seeing how it evolved over time makes it less jarring than jumping from game to game with wildly different playstyles.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails From Zero - A Stellar RPG And A Stand-Out In Falcom's Storied Saga
@Mauzuri
Big disagree there - Estelle's one of the best female protagonists in all of gaming, the development she goes through over the course of FC and SC is awesome. Joshua's pretty boring, yes, but the rest of the supporting cast (like Olivier and Tita) are all great. Kevin is incredible as well, but that mostly comes from the 3rd.
Cold Steel's cast suffers immensely from being way, way too big. Sky and Crossbell have fairly small casts so everyone gets their time to shine (plus in Sky, characters get rotated in and out so the game can focus on a few at a time). In Cold Steel everyone gets introduced right at the start and in every game after the first, every single party member you have feels the need to chime in on every single conversation even when they've got nothing interesting to add, just to make you remember they're even there. Over the course of all three Sky games there's about 16 playable characters - by the end of Cold Steel 4 you've got nearly FOURTY. And over half of their arcs were essentially already concluded in CS1 and 2 so they've got barely any reason to be there.
The plot also gets way too convoluted and out there by the third and fourth games, I personally was incredibly glad it was over just so we could hopefully move on to a better arc (and from the sound of it, Kuro is much better).
What I will gladly say is that the combat in CS feels the best of all arcs (even if it's incredibly easy to break to pieces with overpowered moves), and it has some of the best random town NPCs to talk to. But most of its important story characters are incredibly one note and pale in comparison to those in Sky and Crossbell. Rean himself is such an incredibly Marty Stu-esque character, it gets really tiresome.
Re: Review: Fall Guys - The World’s Most Chaotic Game Show Lands On Switch, Now F2P
@Benjinat If people are "leaving" you might be ending up in games with bots - bots are only coded to work on a few of the rounds, so if one comes up that they can't complete, they will automatically disconnect. I had a game earlier where the player count was at 31 after round 2 but 16 at the start of round 3.
Re: Review: Fall Guys - The World’s Most Chaotic Game Show Lands On Switch, Now F2P
@Arseneal It very much is the case. You will still get fame in order to level up after every game, but once you hit the max level playing games will get you absolutely nothing unless you win (in which case you still get no kudos). There are daily/weekly/seasonal challenges you can do on the side that give kudos but those are finished pretty quickly.
I was playing the PC and Switch version side by side for a few hours earlier and yeah, uhh... the Switch version is not good. Feels like it's running at 15 fps and there's horrible input lag on everything, even menus.
Re: Fall Guys Is Going Free-To-Play, Comes To Switch This Summer With Cross-Play And A Huge Update
@FishyS While I don't know how things will change in the future, right now it seems like the season pass (which existing players will get for free) will reward you with paid currency, which you can then use to get some of the paid costumes or the following season pass for free. Of course people who only start playing once the game goes F2P will have to pay up for that first season pass, but I think that's only fair, it's likely to cost far less than the game itself does right now ($20).
Re: Fall Guys Is Going Free-To-Play, Comes To Switch This Summer With Cross-Play And A Huge Update
@FishyS There is literally nothing in the game that grants you any sort of advantage over others other than time invested and the (hopefully) resulting skill. Every single item available is cosmetic only.
Re: Fall Guys Teasing "Big Announcement" For Next Week
All of the stuff that will be in this presentation has been leaked for months, because Mediatonic isn't exactly the greatest at hiding content updates:
-Season 7 release (some footage of it was already posted on their Twitter)
-Xbox and Switch releases (obvious)
-The game will be going F2P but will add microtransactions and battle passes at the same time. People who already bought it get some additional perks like exclusive cosmetics and at least the first battle pass for free.
Great game, and it's only gotten better with updates - though the current season has been going for far too long (nearly half a year) which has made it a bit stale. Still play it pretty regularly, the new season will be a good incentive for me to finally get to the highest crown rank.
Re: Sorry Folks, Fall Guys For Nintendo Switch Won't Be Released This Year
@Zyph Cheaters were dealt with a month after release with the implementation of anti-cheat. I've put over 500 hours in and have not seen a single one since early September last year.
Re: Review: Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony Anniversary Edition - Spectacular, Daring, And The Best In Class
There's no middle ground with this one, you either think it's the best game in the series or the worst.
For me it's the latter. Loved the first case but every single one afterward was a letdown, with more missed opportunities and stupid/predictable twists than all games (UDG included) before it.
At least the trial minigames were a bit better.
Re: Review: Ys IX: Monstrum Nox - A Fine Action-RPG With Performance Issues On Switch
Honestly don't even know why NISA decided it would be a good idea to port this to Switch to begin with (oh wait, money). Falcom's old engine is horribly unoptimized, even the original PS4 release couldn't keep a steady 30 fps.
Meanwhile, I've been playing for over 20 hours on PC and haven't had a single frame drop, every area runs flawlessly and load times are almost instant. It can even run at over 120 fps with no issues if you want.
Re: Nihon Falcom Announce Four More 'Trails' Games Coming To Switch In The West
@Slowdive All of those, as well as Trails in the Sky FC, SC and the 3rd and Cold Steel 1 and 2, were published by XSEED (Tokyo Xanadu by Aksys). If you want to see them on Switch, you should ask XSEED.
However, since Falcom seems to have cut ties with them and isn't letting them localize any new games anymore, I don't think they'd be interested in putting any more work into their older titles.
Re: Feature: Diving Deeper Into The Switch Game With A Perfect Metascore
@Mips I'm one of them. I don't like open world games in the slightest so BotW going that route was a huge disappointment to me.
Re: Feature: A Perfect Metascore? We Play The Switch Game "Better Than Zelda: Breath Of The Wild"
I had no idea people hated VNs so much until this comment section, holy moly. If you dislike them so much, go do something more productive with your time instead of letting others know exactly how much you can't stand them.
As for those arguing it's not a game, it is marketed as a game and sold on platforms specifically for the sale of games. It might not have much interaction besides advancing dialogue and some dialogue choices, but it has save slots like any other game. It's a game.
Steins;Gate has minimal player input and it's another one of the best games of its kind, do you people blindly hate that just because it's a VN too?
Re: Feature: A Perfect Metascore? We Play The Switch Game "Better Than Zelda: Breath Of The Wild"
@Chamver I enjoyed Fata Morgana far more than BotW. 🤷
Re: Feature: A Perfect Metascore? We Play The Switch Game "Better Than Zelda: Breath Of The Wild"
Played it on PC a few years ago and I'll echo the sentiments of those Metacritic reviews - easily the best VN I've ever played. Somehow instead of losing its luster as it goes on it just manages to get better and better.
Re: Fall Guys' Switch Release Has Been Delayed, But Crossplay Is In The Works
@1ofUs I can literally boot the game up right now and get into a game with 59 others in less than 10 seconds.
The trend of saying that a game is "dead" as soon as it's no longer constantly in the public spotlight is one of the most annoying things I've seen in the past few years. Mediatonic releases a big update every 1-2 months with plenty of new, quality content.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - Impenetrable To Newcomers, But A Gripping Finale
@Heavyarms55 I'd say a good 30% of the game (same goes for CS3) will lose any sort of significance if you're not familiar with what happens in the 5 games before CS1 and will just leave you scratching your head. This goes for the main story, sidequests, optional NPC dialogue and even the motivations of certain main characters (heroes and villains alike). Heck, the main antagonist for the Cold Steel games (as well as their primary goal) was already introduced in the third Sky game.
CS4 should basically be considered the culmination of the entire Trails series thus far, and playing it without playing through every other entry would be like skipping to the final season of Game of Thrones or watching Avengers Endgame without seeing more than 2 or 3 other Marvel films. One of the greatest selling points of the series IS the fact that everything is so interconnected, so only playing Cold Steel would mean you're already missing out on a huge chunk of what makes Trails great in the first place. Ask yourself this: do you really want to go "I guess this is something I'm supposed to know, but instead I have no idea what this implies" every 5-10 minutes in a game that can be over 100 hours long?
Also, it's not exactly an uncommon opinion among fans that Cold Steel is the weakest arc of the three - so why not start with the ones everyone loves instead? You've got nothing to lose but everything to gain. They're shorter (40-60 hours each instead of 100+) and cost less as well.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - Impenetrable To Newcomers, But A Gripping Finale
@Heavyarms55 Each arc begins as its own story with a new cast and new locations, but then brings in more and more characters and plot elements from the previous games until they're basically essential. So if you were to play CS1 first you'd be able to get by perfectly fine, in CS2 there'd be a decent amount of stuff you wouldn't understand and in CS3 and especially 4 you'd be confused very frequently.
Characters have a tendency to namedrop events and people from other games without giving you any explanation as to who/what they are. You're simply expected to know.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - Impenetrable To Newcomers, But A Gripping Finale
@Avol Simple solution: play on PC. All 9 games are available (7 on Steam, 2 through other means since they haven't been localized officially) and all of them are optimized in such a way that they'll run on toasters. They're also the optimal way to play each, especially for the Sky games since they have a turbo mode which every other port lacks.
Re: Review: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV - Impenetrable To Newcomers, But A Gripping Finale
It blows my mind that NISA continues to claim that starting with CS3 is totally fine. As someone who's played all 8 other games there are SO many callbacks and connections to the others (including musical references!) in CS4 that will have zero impact if you haven't played them. The game really doesn't explain - it just expects you to know. I wouldn't be enjoying this half as much if I'd only played CS3, I'd just be super confused.
CS4's pretty good but it's also incredibly bloated, as a fan I'm eating up all the callbacks but CS4's own overly convoluted story (and the continued embarrassing anime tropes) just makes me wish Falcom would go back to the simplicity of stories from previous arcs. Pretty tired of Rean, also.
Sky the 3rd and both Crossbell games are still the cream of the crop imo.
Re: Feature: Nihon Falcom President On Trails Of Cold Steel III And Bringing The Long-Running JRPG Series To Switch
@JaxonH The thing is though, if you haven't played the other entries you can't possibly know exactly HOW MUCH you're missing out on. CS3 only contains summaries for CS1 and 2, so that already means it's missing summaries for FIVE other games that are also important to its plot. Having just finished the game, the entire first two chapters are going to be completely meaningless to anybody who isn't familiar with the series outside of the Cold Steel games.
I feel especially sorry for anybody who's going to play Cold Steel IV without playing anything prior to Cold Steel because that one ramps it up to eleven, there's a good 12+ additional Trails in the Sky and Trails from Zero/Trails to Azure characters (compared to CS3) with major roles that get no proper reintroduction because you're simply supposed to know them already.
Re: The Legend Of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV Announced For Nintendo Switch
@Dualmask: Honestly, they really don't. The summaries are intended to be refreshers for people who've played the rest of the games already and leave out a ton of details. Any claims from NISA that "it's totally fine to start with CS3" are marketing talk, since they didn't publish any of the other games and don't want to lose sales by recommending people to buy a competitor's games.
On top of that, CS3 only contains summaries for Cold Steel I and II... but it also assumes you've played Trails in the Sky FC, SC and the 3rd as well as Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure, even though it doesn't contain any summaries for them. Hell, it doesn't even have character profiles for them.
I'm going through CS3 right now and I honestly can't imagine playing it without playing through the rest of the series (not just CS1 and 2). Chapter 1 ends with a crazy event that'd probably be enough to make anyone who's played the Sky games shed a tear, while it's going to mean literally nothing to anyone who hasn't. Chapter 2 meanwhile has almost non-stop references and mentions of characters and events from Zero and Azure without any real explanation of any of them...
The game also REALLY loves showing images of characters and events from previous games whenever things in the past are mentioned without actually saying who or what is being shown. Anyone who's played them will know immediately... anyone who hasn't will just be even more confused.
It's nice that CS3 and 4 will be available in a portable format for those who have played the others, but I seriously cannot recommend anyone to actually make this their starting point. This series is truly one of a kind, you're doing yourself a major disservice if you make one of these your first Trails game.
There will undoubtedly be people who say they don't have any other systems to play the others on, but honestly, ALL of them are available on PC, and all of them will run on 20 year old toasters. They're not graphically intensive games.
Re: Review: Rabi-Ribi - A Merry Mix Of Metroidvania And Bullet-Hell
A lot of people are gonna overlook this just because of the art style, but they should really give it a chance. Easily one of the best Metroidvania games there is, I'd put it in my top 3 (La-Mulana and Hollow Knight being the other two).
There's so much replay value in this, from achievements (which I believe even the Switch version has) to different difficulties, other modes (boss rushes, alternate characters) and taking different routes through the game. Almost any boss can be fought first or last depending on your preference, you can do a 0% run with (intended) sequence breaks, there's post-game DLC areas and bonus bosses and so much more.
Re: Nihon Falcom Lacks The Ability To Release More Games On Switch, Says President
I would sincerely hope that if Trails ever comes to Switch they don't simply port the latest game. Cold Steel III alone requires having played 7 other games to have any idea what's going on.
Re: XSEED Games Cops Backlash Online For Not Crediting Former Employee
To make it a bit more clear:
She was in charge of the entire localization for the original (simultaneous) Vita/PS3 release so she was naturally listed in the credits there.
The game was later ported to PC with some more additional work by her, she was still credited there.
She left XSEED about half a year ago before this port was released and is now not credited in this version, even though this particular release had no new work done on it whatsoever and as such uses all of her previous writing.
Very unfortunate on XSEED and I hope they change their policy, this is personally one of my favourite series of all time and I'd hate for it to become more well-known for this incident than for Brittany's phenomenal writing.
Re: Guide: Every Nintendo Console Ranked From Worst To Best
It is far, far too early for the Switch to be anywhere near the top five, especially after the lackluster year it just had. Seriously, was there anything notable besides Smash, a handful of (late) 3rd party ports, and maybe Octopath? Let's not forget the myriad of other issues it still has, like its ridiculous methods of playing online, lack of VC and the fact it still doesn't even have a browser and other system features which the Wii and Wii U had almost instantly.
I'd also rank the N64 the lowest out of the home consoles, outside of the obvious stuff a lot of games haven't aged particularly well (See Goldeneye and its sub 10 fps) or have been improved upon several times.
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo's Maddening Stance On Retro Gaming Is Driving Me To Piracy
If there's no way to legally buy a game whatsoever I'm absolutely 100% fine with pirating. Some of my absolute favourite games have never been rereleased since their original release over 20 years ago, what else am I supposed to do? Terranigma's one of my favourite games ever made but a cartridge alone can go for over 100 bucks. The original developers/publishers wouldn't even get any money from second-hand sales so it's hardly stealing from them.
Of course there's also games that were never even localized, I played the fan translation of Mother 3 close to 10 years ago and Nintendo still stubbornly refuses to release the game outside Japan. They clearly don't want my money, so I'll just take the easy route instead of praying that they'll just randomly decide to release it over a decade late. And no, Reggie acknowledging the fact people want it about once a year is hardly proof that it'll come eventually.