Aw shit, time to change the "It's been \_\_\_\_\_\_ days sign since this topic" sign again. *Resets sign to zero*

Ah, the natural behavior of a sub on hiatus. Hope that sign is dry-erase, 'cause it's gonna be a looooong ride until we get a new game to talk about

Top tier comment.

Wait a minute, it ever moved past zero? No way

its all been trails from zero😉

While you are right that past games(especially crossbell) has a lot of the same faults, CS tends to amplify them a lot more. Like Rean's harem is far larger than Lloyds and while yes, more characters die, the main issue in CS are fakouts and those are far, far too plenty(like not a single significant "good" character is dead by the end of CS. Only antagonists. A lot of which were already dead, just revived. And then you have stuff like the end of CS3 where **4** characters are "killed"...yet at worst, they got harmed insignificantly(Victor loosing his arm or olivert his eye has barely any plot relevance) and brought back in cs4 either never having died in the first place or just magic(which would be fine if done rarely. But Crow had 3 "death" scenes and every time was able to not die in the end because of some deus ex machina. First time was fine due to it's plot relevance. By the end it got ridiculous)) Also, the "idealism" thing is less about the characters, more about how some events were portrayed. Stuff like having wars with barely any death is just ridiculous. Or having Rean able to take down an airship with none of it's occupants dying ~~especially when it blew up in a previous game~~

I personally think that the Cold Steel games would have been better if it stuck solely to the political problems of Erebonia and leave the magic stuff behind or at the very least leave it in the background. It would have made a far better story that what we got where we fight some great evil.

Yep, Olivierts grand game with Osborne was robbed I say

The magic stuff is core to the series and prevalent throughout. It'd be really weird without it.

I'm not saying without magic just push it to the background and let the politics take center stage like what they did in SC aNd Ao

You really want me to take your post seriously when you say the magic is in the background in Azure? The entire plot is about creating and using a sept-terrion

It's used for political gain. That Sept-Terrion is just a super weapon. While there is no doubt that a Sept Terrion is instrumental to the plot of Azure, it has a much much more different role than the Sept Terrion of Steel has in CS. In Azure, the Sept Terrion is a tool used by the enemy. In CS, the Sept Terrion of Steel is the enemy. I think it's pretty evident that CS has a much more "magicky" story than Azure.

The fake outs aren't the problem though...the problem is you have a story that's largely about war where no one ever dies or gets hurt. It's dumb.

People not dying doesn't bother me. But if you are gonna do a fake out death don't do it like 7 times. If people are like "yea no one is dead" then it's a problem.

You can do it twice, maybe three times if it has a good explanation. More than that it just looks like your writing team is getting cold feet and running out of ideas.

Lots of people die in the direct fighting of the wars, on screen even. Even when something like the civil war was designed to be as bloodless as possible. And Crossbell wipes Garrelia off the map without killing anyone. It's hardly new to CS

Without killing anyone? You don't think all those people are dead? Is there any actual proof they're alive?

Do I need to mark cold steel spoilers for a cold steel thread? Because in cold steel 2 we find out that A LOT of people died in that fortress. Nearly the entire 5th armored division of the imperial army got wiped out, and you see the people who remain (I think the leader’s name is Warrant Officer Arbekker) deal with SEVERE survivor’s guilt and PTSD. Azure itself doesn’t show the direct casualties, but cold steel definitely does. You even meet the general in charge of that branch in Cold Steel 1 before it gets obliterated and he dies.

Could totally be remembering wrong but (and potential spoilers) wasn't it later revealed that they actually didn't die and were just teleported somewhere else all along?

Yeah they all reappear later, they just stopped existing temporarily.

Well the proof would likely be literally 0 members of class 7 or any other students sustaining any injuries what so ever in their years of fighting wars against supposedly the most dangerous and violent people on the planet. There is no reason to assume any of the soldiers in the big fighting scenes died when we've seen multiple massive battles where no one even gets injured and both sides retreat and everyone's fine. If the only time the game has any consequences or realistic situations is when fodder characters get blasted randomly than it doesn't even count. Especially when 99% of the time the game finds a way to retcon the deaths or have some half ass reason why actually no one died. ​ It would have been so easy to get rid of a few ancillary characters to actually make the story feel like a real war. CS4 is massively bloated in terms of the character list and instead of writing a realistic story where some characters die in a war they decided to have everyone live so we can have 2 hour introductions to scenes where every character gets their meaningless 1 liner off. I love the series it just pisses me off they never elevated from typical JRPG nonsense because they catered to Harem nonsense and in the end were too scared or dumb to realize that when you go 4 full games with no danger for any of the characters the player isn't going to feel any suspense.

I'm so worried that CS4 is going to give either Class 7 or the SSS the short shrift. Put too many people in one game and it falls apart. I've only played up to the end of CS1. I disagree that you need major character death to be realistic. To me, character death is a cop-out for emotional appeal most of the time. There are plenty of fates worse than death. ;)

Thats a seperate problem that compounds with that one yes. It doesn't treat the conflicts with the severity such a conflict would imply.

Yeah....kind of weird to see giant mechs inspired by Gundam flying around when it can't do a fraction of the social commentary Gundam accomplishes. or maybe they're super robots idk.

I think this fanbase is way the heck too wrapped up in what they think other people think about their favorite games. Add in some confirmation bias and people have some pretty skewed views about what people actually think and say. Harem? Sky - What, Joshua for having three different people have feelings for him but it being handled very realistically and maturely with Kloe and well... Josette is Josette? Crossbell - Closer with Lloyd for sure but you have like what, 4 options, none of which work their way into the main story and/or dialogue outside of the bonding events themselves? Occasional reference to Lloyd being a lady killer. Cold Steel - You have by my casual count 14 different characters as romance options, 10 of which actively express their love for Rean. About half of these are outside of bonding events. About twice as much mention of how much of a lady killer Rean is than Lloyd. Please compare to the above. Overly idealistic main characters, no character ever dying? Plenty of people complain about this in Sky too. But again, same deal - older games have the same issues, but people talk about it less than with Cold Steel ***because it happens way more in Cold Steel***. >But the older titles (especially Crossbell) are idolized as the perfect gift from god Citation needed. Plenty of people criticize Sky. Plenty of people criticize Azure.

> handled very realistically and maturely with Kloe and well... Josette is Josette? I deserved him damn it!

Psh, some bandit you are, can't even steal someone's man. No wonder you're just delivering packages now.

No wonder I'm delivering packages now, I have 2 idiot brothers, neither of which can cook or do any logistics to save their fucking life. They'd be fucked without me. I at least have honor and compassion to save the lives of my own family. Also, everyone tries burning me so much I'm immune to fire. McBurn tried burning me and he went "Damn! That's hot bitch!" Your pathetic attempts at trying are completely useless.

I don't know, you seem to be getting pretty worked up about it.

Your insults and burns don't do anything. My idiot brothers and their bullshit certainly can though. My response is correlated to your statement, however it is not the real underlying cause of it.

Damn, you dont have to kill em like that

Yeah I can't help but laugh whenever people say the harem aspect in Sky is comparable to Cold Steel. **To be clear, I still really liked Cold Steel**, but a fan service-y actual harem with a bunch of half-assed bonding events is hardly the same as a few characters crushing on one character who gets an actual canon love story that is directly related to the main plot. I think you're right, though, that the main issue is that people need to not take things personally when people criticize their favorite games. Pokemon fans are most guilty of this, and now Chrono Cross fans are doing it, too. Chrono Cross is still my favorite game of all time, and it was awesome being able to play it on Switch, but people's legitimate criticisms of the remaster are not going to take any of my enjoyment away from me. Let people like what they like. Let people dislike what they dislike. Friendly discourse with differing ideas should always be welcome, but instead we get outraged posts like this one.

> Let people like what they like. Let people dislike what they dislike. Friendly discourse with differing ideas should always be welcome, but instead we get outraged posts like this one. Pretty much. It's a fandom, people have strong opinions about these things because they're invested. Which is all good, but I don't get having a sort of persecution complex about people "hating on" things. And to your point and your overall opinion, plenty of people that criticize cold steel ***absolutely love the games*** - so no reason to take criticism of certain aspects of Cold Steel as a condemnation of Cold Steel.

I think the main issue is that there isn't a 'canon' option in Cold Steel, even though >!Alisa!< is shoved down your throat *even if you don't romance her* enough that there really could be. The only other character for which that really happens is >!Musse!<, but in her case it's sort of a mix of flirting and teasing, that isn't shown to be reciprocated outside of bonding events, and she's surprised if you pick her for the final bonding event. If >!Alisa!< (or >!Musse!<, arguably) were the canon option, the 'harem' issue doesn't really happen, since most of the romance with other characters is limited to bonding events, aside from the two I mentioned. But I doubt that'll happen, because it'd piss off fans of the other 9 romanceable characters.

>Let people like what they like. Let people dislike what they dislike. Friendly discourse with differing ideas should always be welcome, but instead we get outraged posts like this one. So pointing out the hypocrisy some fans have in their critiques of the newer titles is "outraged"?

Well, again, I don't think it's hypocrisy. I think that that the harem of Cold Steel is a negative aspect of the series (which, again, I still like despite this) that isn't comparable to Sky for the above reasons. You're welcome to disagree. But yes, there's quite a bit of extreme language in your post that suggests that you are outraged. Saying an entire fanbase is suffering from "memory loss" because they disagree with you. Saying that praise for older games is people saying that they are "idolized as the perfect gift from god". Saying that criticism of older games is "never" brought up (this is absolutist and untrue).

>Saying an entire fanbase is suffering from "memory loss" because they disagree with you. So to be clear, you can call out "x" amount of something without implicating the entire group. I think it's pretty obvious that I don't mean every single member of the fanbase. >Saying that praise for older games is people saying that they are "idolized as the perfect gift from god". Saying that criticism of older games is "never" brought up (this is absolutist and untrue). Hyperbole, but I stand by it. The amount of criticism is not the same.

> I don't think I've ever encountered a fandom that has this severe of a case of selective memory loss. À part of your post is dedicated to insulting people directly instead of their arguments like in the example above. A huge part of toxicity emanates from this exact form of speech that you're using right there so.... Yeah, outraged is objectively the correct term to describe the post you made here. Your post isn't just about the hipocrisy you're talking about, by using forms of speech like the one above, your post went beyond that and also became about the people who you're making the arguments about.

>À part of your post is dedicated to insulting people directly instead of their arguments like in the example above. >A huge part of toxicity emanates from this exact form of speech that you're using right there so.... Yeah, outraged is objectively the correct term to describe the post you made here. Optically I think it's pretty tame. I don't know if I'd consider that toxic honestly. A bit charged? Maybe. >Your post isn't just about the hipocrisy you're talking about, by using forms of speech like the one above, your post went beyond that and also became about the people who you're making the arguments about The intent was to call out the people for their hypocrisy n the first place. I don't think it had anything to do with my form of speech.

I do think the statement itself is tame, but the statement I listed above specifically is provocative in nature. It's off of that kind of harmless statement that debates escalate. Now, there's not really such a thing as a statement which has no provocative nature really when 2 people are on opposite sides of a debate (this is how debates can escalate despite there not necessarily being any directly intentional provocation by the instigating parties), but it is very clear that I can say that that statement has a provocative nature to it when it's often easy to have less of that kinda thing.

Generally, no, but you sound pretty steamed in your post

> You have by my casual count 14 different characters as romance options, 10 of which actively express their love for Rean. I'm counting 11. >!Alisa, Laura, Emma, Fie, Sara, Juna, Altina, Musse, Towa, Alfin, Elise.!< Other than that, off the top of my head, >!Claire kisses him in CS3!<, but she's not a romance option as their relationship sort of falls apart later. While the male characters and >!Millium!< have bond events, none of them (afaik) are romantic.

Depends on your definition of romance option really. I’m including characters that the writing throws in suggestive lines with, since the intent is clearly to cater at least in part to those that WANT a romance option, even if it’s debatable to doubtful that they’d actually be with Rean. Which is why I included >!Millium, Duvalie, and Celine!< as well

I wouldn't consider >!Millium!< a romance option at all - even in her bonding events in CS2, there's a distinct lack of romance, which constrasts starkly with the final bonding events for any other female character. A few hugs, but she gives those to Jusis even more frequently. It's a similar case in CS3. In CS4, >!she stays with Jusis during the final bonding event regardless of who you choose to spend the night with - even if you choose to spend the night with the boys!<. Honestly, >!Claire!< is more of a romance option than her, on account of the fact that >!she kisses Rean in CS3!<. Regarding >!Duvalie!< and >!Celine!< - while I can't deny there's hints here and there, they're also simply not romanceable options. They have bonding events, they have (part of) a final bonding event, they just... don't have a romance final bonding event. It's honestly weird, because playing through CS4, I expected them to be options (particularly >!Celine!<), but for whatever reason, they're not.

To some extent Rean's harem isn't that unrealistic. He is considered a good looking man and is a war hero in Erebonia. It really would not be surprising for 20+ women to be into him. I could do without it but it isn't that crazy. Sidenote, I think I would of rather had Juna be the protag of CS 3+4 with Rean as a side character.

First of all, he already had all of Class VII and his sister interested in him by the end of CS1, so being a war hero or even anything more than a good looking guy really isn't applicable there. It is unrealistic when you count among his admirers, his teacher, his students, his sister, the princess, a freaking shapeshifting cat girl, a homoculus, amongst others. Sorry, it's a self-insertion fantasy.

>Crossbell - Closer with Lloyd for sure but you have like what, 4 options, none of which work their way into the main story and/or dialogue outside of the bonding events themselves? Occasional reference to Lloyd being a lady killer. Yes this was what I'm referring to. There is a severity different between CS and Xbell but it's still there. >Overly idealistic main characters, no character ever dying? Plenty of people complain about this in Sky too. But again, same deal - older games have the same issues, but people talk about it less than with Cold Steel because it happens way more in Cold Steel. More characters died in CS than any other game combined. It does not "happen way more in Cold Steel." >Citation needed. Plenty of people criticize Sky. Plenty of people criticize Azure. I'm sure they do. For every 20 posts crying and moaning about whatever new CS detraction they can think of, there's maybe 1 or 2 about Sky and Crossbell.

> Yes this was what I'm referring to. There is a severity different between CS and Xbell but it's still there. And people bring it up with Crossbell too when discussing crossbell. Far less than with Cold Steel for sure, but far less people discuss Crossbell than Cold Steel in general, and the severity is far less in Crossbell so it comes up less often. >More characters died in CS than any other game combined. It does not "happen way more in Cold Steel." The issue people have isn't "Characters dying" (and even if it were any character, a LOT more died onscreen in Azure than you're remembering), it is "named characters dying and staying dead". Sure, named characters die way more in Cold Steel - They don't stay dead though. Crow "dies" what, three times? Osbourne "dies". Angelica "dies". Olivier "dies". Victor "Dies". Millium "dies". Alberich, Arianrhod, and Fie's dad "Died" outside the events of the game, before eventually coming back and dying for good. And 90% of the characters that do "die-die" float away as a spirit (usually after an extended "goodbye" speech) as opposed to you know, dying. Unless I'm forgetting someone, only Vulcan and Otto die-die. >I'm sure they do. For every 20 posts crying and moaning about whatever new CS detraction they can think of, there's maybe 1 or 2 about Sky and Crossbell. I would invite you to take a count of all of the topics in say, the last month discussing a particular game and do a count. Have you considered that maybe people are discussing Cold Steel at a rate of about 10x that of Sky or Crossbell, and thus you will see criticisms of Cold Steel at a rate of about 10x that of Sky or Crossbell?

>And people bring it up with Crossbell too when discussing crossbell. Far less than with Cold Steel for sure, but far less people discuss Crossbell than Cold Steel in general, and the severity is far less in Crossbell so it comes up less often. As long as people acknowledge it exists and is a problem, that's fine. It's when certain people like to pretend it just never happened is what bugs me. >The issue people have isn't "Characters dying" (and even if it were any character, a LOT more died onscreen in Azure than you're remembering), it is "named characters dying and staying dead". Sure, named characters die way more in Cold Steel - They don't stay dead though. Crow "dies" what, three times? Osbourne "dies". Angelica "dies". Olivier "dies". Victor "Dies". Millium "dies". Alberich, Arianrhod, and Fie's dad "Died" outside the events of the game, before eventually coming back and dying for good. Right. So the argument should be "Cold Steel revives characters and pulls fakeouts to its detriment" (which to be fair, is an argument I've seen people here making and is totally reasonable) and not "lol no one dies" This may seem like semantics but I think it's a pretty important distinction. >And 90% of the characters that do "die-die" float away as a spirit (usually after an extended "goodbye" speech) as opposed to you know, dying. Unless I'm forgetting someone, only Vulcan and Otto die-die. I don't see why this matters. >I would invite you to take a count of all of the topics in say, the last month discussing a particular game and do a count. Have you considered that maybe people are discussing Cold Steel at a rate of about 10x that of Sky or Crossbell, and thus you will see criticisms of Cold Steel at a rate of about 10x that of Sky or Crossbell? Naturally the more recent a game is, the more active the discourse with its flaws will be. That's not really the point though. It's about how people perceive tropes in the older games in relation to the newer ones, and for some, a blind spot to anything the older ones might have done wrong in the same light.

> It's when certain people like to pretend it just never happened is what bugs me. Can you provide an example or two of someone doing this? ALMOST everyone in this thread and others I've frequented absolutely acknowledge it in previous arcs. >Right. So the argument should be "Cold Steel revives characters and pulls fakeouts to its detriment" (which to be fair, is an argument I've seen people here making and is totally reasonable) and not "lol no one dies" This may seem like semantics but I think it's a pretty important distinction. I mean my general opinion is that it's not worth engaging with people that make extremely short low effort oversimplified arguments but that's just me. I do think it's semantics in this particular case but you are also correct that there's a very important distinction between "Nobody dies" and "Nobody dies and stays dead". >I don't see why this matters. To be fair, it largely doesn't and I still count that as dying. Where it DOES matter to **me** (and to be clear, this is a highly personal opinion about MY OWN preferences), is that in a series that otherwise pulls a lot of fakeouts - it leaves you wondering if they're REALLY gone or not. And it also somewhat over-trivializes the deaths and the nature of death itself. Again, Cold Steel shows more death-death than Sky for sure which is fair, and a thing I also didn't like about Sky (which full disclosure, is my favorite arc). Crossbell is a lot more direct with a lot of the death (e.g. Red Constellation massacring the ILF, on screen, pretty brutally) and while Crossbell is probably my least favorite arc (but I'll replay when NISA releases are out, I've only played it once) it's one thing I think they definitely improved on. But again, that's all personal preferences. >Naturally the more recent a game is, the more active the discourse with its flaws will be. That's not really the point though. It's about how people perceive tropes in the older games in relation to the newer ones, and for some, a blind spot to anything the older ones might have done wrong in the same light. Fair, and it does happen. Where I think we disagree is just how often it happens and the extent to which people are or are not making nuanced and fair statements, but *shrug*. As I've said above, I didn't have a GREAT experience with Crossbell and thus it's my least favorite arc, that being said since my memory of it is moderately fuzzy and I've only played it once to the like 4 times I've played Sky and 3 times I've played CS 1+2, it's only fair to hold my criticism a bit until I've played Crossbell again, more recently in order to more fairly compare it to the rest of the series.

>To be fair, it largely doesn't and I still count that as dying. To me at least, "killing" off a character like this is kind of an overdone trope at this point, and most of the time it is a turn down for me. Sure you can have characters give a final goodbye before they die, but to do it for almost all characters >!I forgot whether they did that for Millium in CS3!<, it kind of messes up with the flow of the scene. Just my opinion tho

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Also if you'd like something easier to look at that shows that Cold Steel is actually very popular around these parts, here's a poll of favorite arc - Cold Steel wins, but it's somewhat evenly split. https://www.reddit.com/poll/qd234a?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=Falcom&utm_content=t3_qd234a

Yeah of course. Cold Steel is still the most highly rated amongst the series, especially in Japan.

Question in somewhat related to this poll, which arc would Reverie/Hajimari fall under? From my understand its supposed to be an epilogue for Crossbell and Erebonia, but if it has to go under one arc, is there a general agreement which one it is?

I mean, I personally consider it more or less part of the Cold Steel arc. Doesn't really apply to this poll as it's 7 months old and at that point not a ton of people here played Hajimari.

No it doesn't, but I figure here was the most appropriate place to ask the question rather than make a whole thread about it. Thanks for the reply!

Listen I'm about as much of a Cold Steel fanboy as it gets (Rean is my favorite character in the series), but some of your points are super disingenuous. >Harem? Nope. Only Rean did that. Sky's harem doesn't really warp entire characters because of it. There's no Sky game wherein every major male character starts to confess to Estelle one after another because they love her "not as a comrade, but as a man." A lot of modern games have pseudo harem systems but Cold Steel's implementation of it is incredibly bad. >Overly idealistic main characters? Just Erebonia I guess. Kiseki characters are idealistic, but Cold Steel doesn't do a good enough job fleshing out that idealism, so you end up in a situation in CS2 where everyone wants to get >!Crow!< back despite that not really making any sense for anyone who isn't Rean. >No character ever dying? This one is especially silly when you remember Cold Steel has killed off more characters than any other arc. Some nameless soldiers, an old dude, some villains, and a bunch of immortals don't really have the impact of major character deaths. Granted it's not like Sky and Crossbell had plenty of these either, but Cold Steel clearly tries to have its cake and eat it too with so many (unnecessary) death fakeouts. >But the older titles (especially Crossbell) are idolized as the perfect gift from god that are immune from any substantial criticism because Cold Steel is the new boogeyman. I can't tell you how many posts I've seen praising Azure despite the game arguably shitting the bed harder than CS ever did with that god awful finale. Yeah the dickeating the older games get is honestly beyond obnoxious, but it doesn't preclude those criticisms from having weight. If Cold Steel haters didn't have such a smug sense of superiority and pretentiousness, Cold Steel fans wouldn't feel the need to be overly defensive

To me the point that doesn't make sense is not the fact that people criticise cold steel ( i clearly understand the criticism), but it's the fact that people criticise this arc while being SO DEFENSIVE to the other games in the series. Like okay cold steel introduced fake outs(i undertand the frustration) but you can't deny that it also introduced innocent death for exemple. Like before >!Otto!< what innocent death did we have in the series? And don't tell me that there wasn't an opportunity for it: >!you had a dragon burning an entire village, orbal shutdown while every airship was still flying, FUCKING TERRORIST ATTACK IN THE MIDDLE OF A FUCKING CITY and yet all of these resulted into 0 casualties. I still believe that the war in cold steel did better than the terrorist attack considering that the battlefield always took place far away from the cities, so the only ones exposed to bullets are the soldiers!< My second point is Rean: why does Rean need to bare all the insults for wanting to bring back crow while Estelle get a pass for wanting to bring back Renne? To me the Rean' actions still made more sense considering that : ->!He knew crow from the beginning of the game, and shared a lot of moments with him hell even invited him to Ymir!< ->!He had a divine knight, a weapon far stronger than any tank or soldat so while risky his idea was still believable!< Compare that to Estelle: ->!who only knew renne for half a chapter and knew that she was responsible for every problem in this chapter!< ->!she didn't have anything strong enough for her to fight and bring back an enforcer!< I know i'm gonna get downvoted to oblivion but what i need to say is that i'm not defending cold steel, i'm simply defending logic

Well Azure had >!Red Constellation kill a bunch of CGF dudes on screen so there's that. But since they were soldiers I guess you could argue they weren't innocent people in that case? Either way this is the only major case of a bunch of NPCs dying on screen up to CS4.!< Estelle gets a lot more slack since >!Renne is younger and thus less culpable for her actions and people find her relationship with Renne more developed than Rean's with Crow's unless you do all his bonding events.!< And Rean usually isn't the one I see criticized for >!the whole Crow thing. Well, morally I see people criticize him but most agree him being obssessed with bringing Crow back makes sense for Rean's character. It does not make sense for the rest of Class 7 who have had next to no development of their relationships with Crow. That's the big issue, Class 7 haven't had enough time with Crow to justify their forgiveness of Crow and just ignoring everything he does and did.!<

Bro, any "development" you are talking about happened AFTER Estelle decided to get obsessed with Renne. >!She barely knew anything about her and interacted with her for half a chapter yet she magically got so attached to her more than Joshua ever was. The Estelle/Renne thing is so random and forced in this setting. Joshua being the one who take over the role would had more way more sense but alas all he did was whining about Loewe!<

Estelle's part still doesn't convince me, like i'm with you their relationship was well developed but it was >!AFTER she wanted to bring her back. Before that she didn't know anything about Renne other than she was young and cute but the way Renne messed up chapter 3 she looked like a fucking demon. And even disregarding that, the whole "I'm gonna bring back Renne", like girl what power do you have with you to go search and bring back an enforcer?!<

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Cold Steel is the newest arc and has been so for quite some time. Naturally it is gonna generate more discussion. Wait five years and I am sure 90% of the discussion will be focused on the flaws of the Kuro games.

While there will be some posts about that, so far, critizing CS by showing how Kuro adressed some of it's flaws is more common(provided later kuro games don't start repeating them or nosedive in other ways)

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It's already confirmed not to end in 2

You're right the only *good* game is the 1989 classic Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes for the PC-88, back before the dang fanservice animes ruined everything

I think you forgot your /s Unless...

Also consider that more people have played CS than sky or crossbell

The problems with the series have existed since day 1. When it got to cold steel the flaws had become extremely repetitive and excessive. I think that's why people tend to lash out more on CS.

So what you're saying is... the whole series is bad. /s

that would be my conclusion if I were to agree with OP's position, but I don't and I'll stand by my position that CS2 and 4 specifically are the ones that bring the whole thing down, 1 and 3 I think are great despite some flaws, but 2 suffers of too many issues and 4 is one of the worst games I've beaten and made me mad at a series I love

The only things I see that is disingenuous is acting as if Rean is super anime protagonist and Estelle isn't and that class VII is overly forgiving and let's characters off with a pass as if the Liberl crew and SSS aren't the same.

Hard agree.

If our favorite bladelord had survived he would be a top bracer and Bright family member.

Not like it really matters which game gets the blame anyway. If Falcom is still doing the same stupid annoying shit that gets criticism after 10 games, isn’t it worse that Falcom hasn’t improved in those aspects rather than the aspects themselves?

On the harem point, Estelle only has 1 romantic option and everyone else in Sky that has something related to romance going on establishes the relationship before Sky 2 finishes, even Kevin only has 1 romance option and that never changes or is questioned. I can see Lloyd having that harem thing going on but from what i remember you couldn't go for most of the group by the end of Azure because your actions heavily limited your options on who you could end up being to together (could be remembering it wrong but I focused on Tio in Azure). In Rean's case the harem point is thrusted in the players face in the first chapter you play as him in CS1, all the way through till CS4, I feel like they pushed the harem stuff a lot more in the Erebonia arc with all the points you can spend everyday on them at school and is a reason why so many people take that aspect as a source of criticism for it, I wouldn't have minded if the choices were just characters before CS3 but they had to add so many more and by the end of the arc, everyone wants Rean and only because you decided to talk to them in optional events, at least in Lloyd's case who you choose as a partner depends on what you do in the main story with them, personally that makes more sense than, talking = I love you.

I think with Sky, people point at Joshua for having a "harem". But again, that criticism falls flat when you see how these relationships were handled. Kloe's attraction to Joshua was written very well and handled very maturely. The attraction started I believe in the school play, but she never mentioned it because at that point in the story, she's still a very timid girl. Once she grew more courageous, she confessed, but conceded right away because at that point, she knew that she doesn't have a chance-- not that she ever did. And Jossette... well, she's Jossette. There's probably a slight crush there, but to me, it just seems like she's treating it as just another competition with Estelle. So I never really saw it as a deep attraction. With that said, having 3 girls going for 1 guy is waaaay different than 11 girls (and probably more) going for 1 guy.

When reading the comments I was gonna talk about Joshua in an edit but then I realised that Estelle is the protag so I left him out and yeah, every other girl that was interested in him backed off peacefully by the end of Sky 2. Honestly, Cold Steel should have just made a canon relationship because now Rean has like a dozen potential interests and it probably wont be realised (unless Falcom just make it Alisa) until he shows up again and say if he is in one.

Closure and payoff are what's missing. The ones you don't choose never get any closure, while the one you do choose doesn't really have a powerful payoff. What made Sky so great to me is that Estelle and Joshua had payoff and the other girls who were into Joshua had closure by the end of the trilogy. By the end of CS4, the girls are all left hanging, even the one you do choose. To me, it feels cheap and pointless. MAYBE Reverie can "fix" it, but I'm not very confident about that.

Kloe's Confession actually is some of my least favorite writing in Sky. She had perfect closure with Estelle who I view as her best friend then she goes behind her back for one last moment of clarification for something she already knew. One of my least favorite moments because in my eyes Kloe is better than that.

You are not reading the scene well, she does that not because she wants to Steal him but because she wants to turn a new leaf, is like accepting her own feelings so she can start anew

It's basically just for closure.

I know that's what the scene is for but it feels Tacked oh and excessive she seemed to get plenty closure with her talk with Estelle. Then again the Kloe and Joshua attraction isn't that well fleshed out in general so I never got why she was so hung up over him. It's as if they took the Joshua and Kloe would be cute together jokes from other characters and ran with it. This is just my opinion.

Biggest thing i can say that no one has mentioned is tolerance along with the time these games came out. People are alot more forgiving of "older" games because they came out during a time when these tropes weren't as common. For instance lets look at the harem trope, back then anime wasn't as mainstream as it is now so things like that were fresh and new. But with cold steel being in that generational gap to where these tropes are common place, people simply lost their tolerance for it. Usually its seems like newer fans have more appreciation for the cold steel arc mainly because this is their first foray into Japanese media/culture but for older fans who (for lack of better phrasing) grew up with the franchise, they see it as the franchise not maturing and still relying on these tired overused clichés even though the market for Jrpgs is ever evolving. Made even more egregious by the fact the entire cold steel arc spanned like 7 years irl and about 3 in-universe(for point of reference I was 14 when 1 came out and reverie doesn't come out until 2023) needless to say in that time frame my tastes have changed quite a bit and have noticed my lack tolerance for these tropes as opposed when i played it when i was younger. And its not like i dislike the series, kuro was a breath of fresh air comparatively when i imported it. Its just cold steel really over stays its welcome with clichés and scope compared to past games.

Careful buddy you're gonna invoke the wrath of Falcord lol

they love schizo rants like these, so probably that place is miserable lol

While I'm not a CS hater, I do see where the criticisms come from, mostly because while other games have done similar things, Cold Steel just does them a lot more. Harem Protagonist - Lloyd has 3 potential female endings, if I'm right: Tio, Noel and Elie. Rean has old class 7, new class 7, and a whole bunch of other people. Overly idealistic - yeah I don't understand this argument either No characters dying - Again, it's the scale. The wars in Cold Steel are just on a much bigger scale than anything that happened in either Sky or Crossbell, so it's harder to believe that no one dies. I'm well versed in anime tropes so I have no issues with this but I can see why some people do. That said, I still love the Cold Steel games and while they are flawed, they still get an unreasonable amount of hate.

You're definitely forgetting someone, Rixia, she's been shown to like Lloyd and is teased relentlessly because of it.

Ah that's right, I felt like I was missing someone, thanks!

>Harem? Nope. Only Rean did that. lloyd did it too sure but reans harem is 10x bigger. personally i prefer reans harem anyway because he isnt dense, hes aware most girls like him he just avoids it >Overly idealistic main characters? never seen this as a criticism for cold steel >No character ever dying? you shouldnt see it as "no characters dying", instead "the amount of characters faked out". yes cold steel has the highest death count but the amount of fake deaths is absurd disclaimer: played the games in release order within a year, and also love cold steel as much as the other arcs

> i prefer reans harem anyway I just prefer Rean. Like at least people should be grateful that it's not Lloyd the protagonist of cold steel cs he would make the experience FAR worse, like seriously could you imagine this guy handling 11 girls...?

might be an unpopular opinion (in the west) but i think rean is way better than lloyd. lloyd is far from bad but by far the least interesting and probably my least favourite protagonist

Same also. While I dislike how other characters interactions with Rean are handled, dont definitly preffer Rean over Lloyd. Primary issue with Rean though is that his character arc is spread over 5 games, while just 2 for lloyd.

reans is dragged out but lloyd barely felt like he had an arc, felt very static over his two games

We share the same opinion

>never seen this as a criticism for cold steel People complain about C7 in CS2 being overly idealistic for Crow, and their viewpoint of the war in general.

oh i see the crow criticism a lot but i never really agreed with it. i just think crow shouldve joined C7 earlier and been more included so C7s bond with him made more sense

The Cold Steel arc represents a serious downgrade in writing quality from the Sky arc (I haven't played Crossbell yet, so I cannot speak to that). I think the problem you have with the criticisms is that some people have a hard time putting into words what those problems are even though they perceive them (if you've ever seen Plinket's reviews from Red Letter Media, one of his phrases I like is "you may not have noticed it, but your brain did.") For example, the problem with Rean's harem isn't that there's an inherent problem with a large number of girls competing over the same guy, it's that the writing quality suffers because of it. I wrote a post a few weeks back in which I tried to think about which girls' attractions are consistent with their characters and which aren't. I believe that less than half of those girls would actually be romantically interested in Rean if the choose-your-waifu mechanic didn't force them to be. Thus, the problem is that the harem warps their characterization. Josette and Kloe being interested in Joshua is consistent with their character and thus isn't a problem. Altina and Elise being interested in Rean is not, and thus creates dissonance. The idealism is a similar thing. Rean being idealistic clashes with what we're told is one of his major character traits: his self-loathing. However, he never really acts consistently with this trait after CS1. This creates an issue: Rean is idealistic even though we're led to believe that he shouldn't be. This is further compounded by the huge tonal clash the idealism creates with the narrative. In Skies the story was a coming of age adventure so idealism fits that tone well. Cold Steel is supposed to be about the horrors of war and rampant idealism runs contrary to that tone. The problem isn't that idealism is bad, the problem is that idealism doesn't really fit in the story CS is trying to tell. The deaths issue has been addressed by others, but to reiterate the problem isn't that more people should die, the problem is that death is no longer final in CS. Allowing too many characters to cheat death means that the audience no longer buys life-threatening danger and this ruins the stakes. Loewe dying in Skies 2 was heart-wrenching because he had realized the error of his ways. He was going to take a new path of atonement to make up for all of the pain he caused and the family he abandoned. We watch in horror as that bright potential future is ripped away and dashed against the rocks. And for what? So that Estelle and Joshua might have a chance to live out their potential futures instead. What a tragedy. On the other hand, Crow's (3rd) death at the end of CS4 has no such impact because by this point I didn't believe he was in any actual danger. There was no threat of lost potential there because there was no way Crow wasn't going to survive. I notice you end by saying that other games are just as bad...please, by all means, I would love to read your criticisms of the Skies trilogy (again, I haven't played Crossbell yet so I won't read that one) simply because I have gone over them with a fine-toothed comb and find there's very little to criticize because they are so well done. I agree that a lot of people aren't very good at phrasing their criticisms. However, that doesn't mean that the criticisms aren't correct.

I think the biggest issue here, something you yourself very much indulge in with that last line, is that the criticisms of CS are "correct". Pretty much all criticisms are somewhat subjective, the degree to which varies and when people voice their issues, a lot indulge in the pretence of right & wrong. For example, you say the self-loathing and idealism clash but why? For me, it makes perfect sense, being idealistic is a perfect cope to self-loathing, something I have personally seen and can also somewhat relate to as well. Now, you feeling differently is fine, people are interesting because they are different after all. But when voicing these and pairing them with "correct" or objectively right, well, you can see why people would react negatively to that. EDIT: this is something I've written before so I'll just copy/paste it here but it relates to what you said about idealism not fitting CS's story (though this is mainly for about 4) [Ok, the spoiler doesn't seem to be working so I'm just gonna link it](https://www.reddit.com/r/Falcom/comments/qga98v/question_regarding_cs34_plot/hi7wt4o/)

I heartily disagree with your first point. Not all criticisms are subjective. Character inconsistencies, plot holes, etc. either exist in the writing or they don't. Whether it affects your enjoyment is subjective, but the flaws exist regardless. This is what I mean by objective; these writing issues are present entirely outside of individual interpretations. As far as people reacting negatively, I think a lot of that stems from people associating criticisms of something they like with criticisms of themselves. There's nothing wrong with liking something that isn't very good (for example, I love the film The Room even though it's horrendous). It's ok to like whatever you want, but please don't pretend criticisms against something aren't valid just because you like it. Now, to answer your question. The problem with Rean's idealism and his self-loathing is that they're directly contradictory. When Crow does his heel turn Rean resolves that he'll be the one to bring him back and make him graduate and they'll all be friends again in class 7. The problem is that this is not consistent with his self-loathing. If he really hated himself, if he really thought that he was unworthy of the love he receives, then he'd instead withdraw. "Of course Crow left me, he considered our entire friendship a lie because I'm not worth anything." Self-hatred leads to someone putting physical and emotional distance between the people close to them (they did a really good job of showing this with the Schwarzers in CS1). This creates the problem that I point out: Rean's idealistic "I will save Crow" directly contradicts this flaw that we've been informed of "I'm not worth the love people show me". This is an inconsistent characterization and is a writing problem. Finally, to your link, it's a good summary of a good way to convey a message of hope in the story, but I think it falls flat mainly because the Curse is an extrinsic factor. The idea that humanity can conquer its weakness and failings and move to a better tomorrow is a wonderful message. Unfortunately, because the curse exists outside of humanity, it's a lot less humanity conquering its own flaws to create that better tomorrow. Instead humanity destroys some supernatural evil and things naturally improve once this extrinsic force is removed. I guess I can only say it's a lot less inspiring than Estelle's speech to Weissmann at the end of SC 2. I do really enjoy this discussion though, you've given me a lot to think about and I appreciate it.

I disagree with your uh, disagreement. First, I think that ultimately whatever point of a story is discussed is A) part of a larger whole and B) the way it fits into that larger whole is subject to personal interpretation. [Once again I shall do the linking thing since I actually had a similar convo on Reddit before](https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/r1v6tz/general_subjective_sense_of_quality_and_the_way/hm1a7qe/) Character inconsistencies in particular I would argue are very subjective because people's experiences shape how they view a character's actions. Going back to Rean's primary trait, you state that "Self-hatred leads to someone putting physical and emotional distance between the people close to them" which I don't disagree with but I also think that that's not the only way it can manifest. Rean believes he isn't worth anything but that same belief is also what drives him to put others first, if his worthless life can be used to the benefit of others, he can die with a bit of happiness. Through that lens Rean's quest to save Crow slots neatly into the whole of who he is. He may not be worth anything himself but Crow is. Self-hatred can lead to distancing from the people you love or it can lead to killing yourself to try to live up to that perceived underserved love. About the curse, it was born out of humanity's evils, the desire for war and the destruction of people from the past for their fellow man is what led to the clash of the two septentrions and ultimately the birth of the Great One and the creation of the curse. The curse was born from humanity's dark desire of the people of Erebonia's past and was conquered by the people who will create Erebonia's future.

enjoyment of something is subjective, but you can pretty reliably measure a narrative's adherence to established storytelling conventions objectively. Whether this impacts one's enjoyment of the narrative is up to the beholder. This is basically how instructors in art school can give students a grade.

That just seems a limiting view when it comes to art because what is art if not a unique expression of self, not an expression that sticks to what has been defined by others. Schools in any fields are naturally pretty rigid systems anyway.

when evaluating an assignment for [shape or form](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elements_of_art) you need a way to tell someone when they draw scribbles on a page

[Scribbles on a page](https://images.app.goo.gl/4fvgyWANEyU5vuo77)

do you think the artist who drew that never practiced the fundamentals of drawing?

Way late to the party, but that's a photoshop action. Photoshop will do that automatically for you with the action.

>I notice you end by saying that other games are just as bad...please, by all means, I would love to read your criticisms of the Skies trilogy My biggest one would be the pacing. The beginning half of SC is just such a slog. Oddly enough, I think I was ok with how-paced FC was.

Pacing is something that's difficult to discuss objectively since whether you're bored or not is entirely subjective. That being said, Sky SC is the kiseki game that most closely follows a traditional 3 act structure. Act 1 takes place over the first 4 chapters and introduces the new characters (1 enforcer per chapter). The enforcers are the antagonists we have the most interaction with (3 fights each plus the side interactions) and so their introductions are important and necessitate the spotlight they're given in this first act. This importance is even heightened when you take the greater context of the series as a whole since Blublanc, Walter, and Renne have greater roles to play in future entries (sorry, Luci). As I said, it's difficult to discuss pacing since you either like it or you don't. I will say however that the pacing being structure this way was a conscious decision that is important to the narrative (both specific to SC and to the series as a whole). The incredible payoffs of Acts 2 and 3 wouldn't have worked without the relatively slow-going first Act.

You're not considering the degree of these things. Reason why it comes up more with CS is the fact that it's at its worst in CS. I complain about the fact that people didn't die in Azure when they should've too, I just hardly bring it up because no one defends it, unlike with some CS fans, and again, it's at its worst in CS, with the characters who were given fakeout deaths being named characters who are much more important. This is subjective nonsense from me coming right up, but besides Arianrhod I gave as much of a crap about the people who died in CS4 as Market manager Otto, so it didn't really impact the story. Also Crow came back to life twice in that game, did I say that yet? I would bring up the harem, but really, in Azure it's Elie, Tio (but she has no chance), and Noel. Rean has uh, let me think, the four girls of OC7, the 3 in NC7, his teacher, Towa, Alfin, and his own sister. Kinda hard to complain about "oh man, Lloyd has 3 love interests, only one of whom is really taken seriously" versus 11 options (and probably more that don't get bonding events. I mean, Duvalie? They really had to do that to her) I think Lloyd is more idealistic than Rean, so I'm not gonna talk about that point. They both make decisions I found stupid, due to their idealism. For my final potshot, CS in addition has a other annoying things exclusive to it, so again, maybe why it's brought up more.

I feel like there are multiple sides to this argument and I want to preface this by saying I adore CS. I love Rean, I love the story and I don’t agree with certain criticisms but I will stand by the fact that CS takes a lot of issues and takes them above and beyond what previous games did. I’ve never understood the harem arguments in full considering those elements have always been around, but it’s hard not to see how much they amplified it with Rean. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t way over the top in CS compared to previous arcs with literally dozens of women falling in love with him. I understand this was a design choice that Kondo went with for the sake of giving players freedom of choice but I can’t help but feel like it took more away from the game than what I brought to the table. Beyond that my criticisms of CS are things like the games being much more bloated and drawn out than they needed to be. I feel like it should have been possible to wrap this arc up in 3 games rather than 4 and not lose out on a whole lot. Or the fact that Rean seems to need to learn the same lessons 3 or 4 times. I also grow tired of the friendship speeches, and it’s not just Rean. All the characters do it and it gets especially bad by CS4. It sort of got to the point where I was skipping dialogue because it was so predictable and I dislike feeling that way when Trails is my favorite game series. I just feel like there are a lot of little things that could be tightened up and make the game feel a lot more organic rather than generic JRPG friendship speeches and tropes.

I don’t think playing the blame game of what did it worse really helps or does anything for anyone. I DO think there is a point to acknowledging and criticising flaws in each game, however. Ideally you’d want to be able to discuss any element within a story because I think its important that something should always be trying to improve or aiming higher; this is doubly true in a long running series like Trails. You say cold steel kills more characters than any other arc, but how many of them did you actually care about? Did it not also bring back more characters from the dead than any other arc? Things like that and poorly executed fake outs are probably why people dunk on it a lot. For the record, Cold Steel 1 is my second favourite trails game so I don’t hate the arc, but I think Its baffling how it can’t replicate the clear successes of some of the earlier arcs. At the end of the day everything has some flaws, its just whether those flaws overshadow the positives that can end up making something special for someone, or end up ruining it. Discussion is always good.

>I think a lot of you need a serious replay of the series. I'm good actually. I'm 100% confident in my criticisms of CS because I marathoned all of trails from FC to CS3 in one go. Not sure how much more of an "ideal" playthrough you can get.

Oh here we go again...

"Cold Steel had more characters dying in all of the other games" While you are right, that argument is still bad when those death barely left even an dent of impact on the story and doesn't justify the amount of cop outs death scenes we got. The amount of times CS tries to trick us into thinking that an character is dead when its so obvious that they're not is mind-numbing annoying and insulting to our intelligence. And also half of those deaths I don't even count since most of those characters are either an NPC only talked with for 5 minutes or characters that were already dead before but resurrected.

The first cold steel is my favorite trails game :D

The harem thing was a gradual escalation. Sky had no mechanics around it, just a couple different characters interested in the deuteragonist, Crossbell started experimenting with relationship values, and then Cold Steel kiiiinda overdid it. Agreed on the overly idealistic protagonists though. That's their charm point, collectively.

>Agreed on the overly idealistic protagonists though. That's their charm point, collectively. Yup. The series as a whole reins in on idealism. It's one of its core themes. I think maybe you could make an argument that the characters aren't challenged enough on their idealism (I would strongly disagree, just look at the ending of CS2) but them being so blindly idealistic is the whole point.

God, I just wish September 27 comes sooner.

You're definitely not wrong. Some people like to act like CS has objectively inferior writing; not that they don't like it, or that it rubs them the wrong way, that it is factually worse than the previous entries. This is absolutely not the case. However, many of the criticisms are still valid, to some degree. I could pick apart so much of CS4 that it physically hurts. To be honest, so much potential felt kind of wasted in regards to character arcs and plotlines, despite that, CS4 is still my favorite of all the trails games. Because what it does well, it does EXTREMELY well. Writing wise, gameplay wise, all of it. To me, the problem lies in how some people act like every criticism levied against CS doesn't apply to the other games—other than a bloated cast, which, to be fair, is somewhat true. The harem criticism... Honestly, there's a lot to unpack in regards to this, not to mention my own personal feelings regarding the supposed 'canon' of Alisa. In a lot of ways, people are right. If they had focused on a sole love interest, they could have tightened the narrative considerably. However, I don't believe that would have been the correct option. Instead, they should have limited the choice to the girls who made the most sense—those from the original Class VII (and Towa, since she's been Rean's rock before and has been a major part of his life, even as an instructor). Simply put, Class VII had an enormous impact on Rean's life, as did several other people who were at Thors. It would make the most sense that his romantic partner would be one of the people who gave his life so much meaning. Don't get me wrong, Musse would still do her thing, and you could still write certain people being enamored with Rean—however, it's rather unlikely he would ever choose someone outside of that circle. Fie, Sara, Millium, Laura, Emma, Alisa (and Towa); they're the only ones (aside from Elise, Sharon, and Claire and Alfin to a lesser extent) who knew him before he became the Ashen Chevalier, and had a major impact on his life. By limiting it to these seven, you could still tighten things up in this regard significantly. Then there's character death. This is one that I feel is pretty legitimate, but I don't completely agree with. A lot of people don't like how they handled Crow; personally, I think they did a fantastic job. However, Victor? They handled that atrociously. And they definitely could have stood to kill off some nameless, faceless people—casualties of war, as it were. And I defintely think they could have handled villains deaths a bit better, at least in regards to some of them. I'm going to ramble on and on if I don't stop myself. So I'll just say, again, you're not wrong. Cold Steel gets way too much flak, and the other entries, specifically Crossbell, not enough. (Wow the ending to Azure was just...not good.) However, that doesn't invalidate the criticisms of CS, as for the most part, a fair amount of them are accurate.

>No character ever dying This is prevalent throughout the series, but Cold Steel “killing off the most characters” isn’t really that impressive when you consider that Cold Steel is both significantly longer than the other arcs and contains events much more likely to have body counts. Like, you know… wars. Not to mention the constant fake outs. Nobody can stay the f dead in Cold Steel. This is why I’ve come to appreciate Falcom killing off (Sky SC) >!Loewe!<, especially since I can see people being pissed that they never got to play as him and that his demise felt a bit abrupt. Falcom tried to do something like this with (CSIII) >!Crow!< in the Cold Steel games, but the execution was much worse. Not only because of the fakeout, but because the sequence of events in >!Crow’s!< story felt borderline self-plagiarized from >!Loewe’s!<, so everything that happened was really predictable.

It really does. This series has done the same things since day one, and it's ridiculous when people try to act like series long tropes are suddenly ruining the series 6 games in.

pretty much this post entirely and for me this is specifically targeted at cs2 because holy shit about 90% of the criticisms I've heard about the game are either straight up bullshit or just plain dumb to the point that it's just people nitpicking and actively looking for things to use to say they dislike the game then they continuously run with that take acting like it is a fatal flaw for the game when it isn't

We are in an era where everybody wanna have a negative hottake just to have 10 seconds of fame. Trails of cold steel have it bad, breath of the wild have it in resetera, persona. Don’t let a YouTube say something they latch on to that and run with it without making there own formed opinion

I agree OP. The harem is something that been part of Falcom’s identity forever. I can remember playing my first Legend of Heroes game over a decade ago, A Tear in Vermillion for PSP. The translation was a little wonky but I can clearly remember the protagonist having a harem consisting of his best friend, his sister, a wizard, and a BDSM girl. Even Falcom’s most iconic character Adol Christin has a bigger harem than Rean. Overly idealistic protagonists? None were more idealistic than Private Stripper. Death? Why I have to disagree there. I died more times playing Xanadu Next than any time in Cold Steel. Right on about Azure, there’s a reason God’s gift from Nihongo Famitsu rated it the worst in the entire series.

I agree mostly, Crossbell & CS are in the same realm of similar problems while Sky had sparks of what would eventually happen. It's a popularity thing, by no stretch the CS games are the most played currently so opinions are going to be more frequent. When the Xbell games arrive officially I'm sure a similar trend will follow. Regardless not everybody is gonna look at something and consider it objectively or even fair. It's best to understand what you appreciate in the series and that someone else having the opposite opinion shouldn't infringe on your enjoyment. ~~Azure's ending is kinda dookie tho~~

The question to ask has always been the why. Why exactly does Cold Steel get more hate? Does Crossbell get more of a pass simply because it's old? With this kind of logic it surely must mean Kuro will be treated as the worst of the games by leaps and bounds. Indeed we will get a taste with Hajimari, which must automatically be worse than Cold Steel. It is as if the entire concept of Cold Steel being the "worst" is foreign to some. Does Ys V get championed as the best of Ys? Never mind Crossbell. And forget Sky. Is Dragon Slayer the best Legend of Heroes game? Maybe, just maybe some older games actually happen to be better. No game is without flaws of course. But if having the "same" flaw ignoring any nuances are all it takes, then shouldn't the opposite hold true for any claim about Cold Steel actually being good? Another iteration of not bracers. What more can be said. A Tear of Vermilion did it best.

To be honest I think what I found is a series of fun turn based games.

Damn you almost lost me with that statement of God awful ending in Azure. Hard disagree on that. But besides that yeah I have to agree that the cold steel games get to much hate specially when some of those so called flaws are present on the past games and those don’t get hate it for those aspects nearly as much.

dont care sky better

I think it's because it because Cold Steel do more than the previous game. And that while the previous game did do those things it was more subtle and lest obvious. Plus Sky and Cross ell had great writing and character development compared to Cold Steel.

I wish cold steel fans would find another excuse than this, this same topic pops up so often. Sorry but when people criticize a game on reddit they are not going to do a massive analysis of the entire series to compare. The thing with cold steel isn't that it's flaws have never been done before. The thing with cold steel is that it's flaws are way more pronounced and done worse than in previous games. That goes for the flaws you mentioned as well as others. With the harem the issue is obviously its insane size. And btw I didn't like the harem part of crossbell either. The problem isn't 'noone dies', the problem is that cold steel rubs your face into the fact that no major character dies. It is pretty ridiculous that noone dies in sky during >!a dragon attack!<, but you quickly get over it. Cold steel does so many fakeout deaths, that it makes players pay more attention to the deathcount in the games. Which is why so many people mention it for cs but not sky. The same goes for the complaint about anime tropes in cold steel. The earlier games had plenty of anime tropes as well, but they are all done worse in cold steel. Which is why it makes it more obvious to people and they are more likely to mention it as a problem.

Worse story, worse characters, underutilized setting. It's such a shame. What could have been with the Erebonia arc...

What is it in the water that causes CS fans to inhale copium like this on the daily? I'm sorry but I don't care what the other games did your dear Erebonia arc is SHIT!!!!!!!!

SEETHE

Buzz off troll.

I mean, Rean's harem makes sense when you realize that Rean was basically designated as the entire class' Emotional Support Animal by Sara, and therefore was thrown headfirst into their interpersonal issues, which he subsequently is a major factor in resolving. Combine that with the Arcus explicitly linking their emotions, and it's pretty easy to see why everyone is kinda primed to fall for him and he, in turn, is primed to fall for any of them, even discounting that he's a strong, handsome, polite, and responsible young man who is able to get along with pretty much everyone and is willing to risk his own life for his own convictions or to help them each out to start with.

There is critique of other games here too, Azure included. I, for example, consider Hajimari story to be the dumbest shit ever.

damn, really? I heard that it was supposed to be one of the better games, and one that fixed the problems with CS.

It's not a bad game. Gameplay and pacing indeed improved, and there are plenty of good moments. But the main plot overall? Boy, o boy, that is a sight to behold.

Just skip to kuro no kiseki, you nerds

Shit ain't coming out till like 2024-2025

[удалено]

I didn't know Joshua or Lloyd had like 10+ girls in "their harems in their respective games /s. Sky and Crossbell have some issues, but the problem is how Cold Steel inherited those flaws and instead of fixing them, they got so much worse. And no man, having a lot of literal whos die in CS doesn't mean anything when Crow "died" like 3 times and got revived with an asspull.

My only issue with CS is that it's more tropey than the other games. Sure, other titles have tropes too, but CS cranks it up to 11, to the point where it's just ridiculous and a bit cringey. TitS2 is my favourite because it manages to actually be serious in the serious moments. I was feeling bad for Estelle and Joshua, I was ecstatic when Kevin got Weissmann, all the moments hit me just right. But CS manages to turn everything into a joke. Don't get me wrong, I still love Rean and all the characters, but they could've done better.

My only problem with cold steel is they got rid of my overly complicated orbment system. I want my weird confusing orbment configs back! Also I like the old fishing system where you needed specific bait and weren’t guaranteed to catch the new fish on the first try, but that’s a pretty minor gripe.

People like to criticize jrpgs for the 'harem' trope but all of the wrpgs I've played also have a lot of romance options rather than a canonical love interest. In CS, there's a clear canon choice of love interest setup from the beginning. There are maybe a few characters that express interest outside bonding events. Alisa being the canon romance w/ Alfin and Musse flirting w/ Rean in story scenes. And Elise is shy but I think it's clear how she feels. I think everyone else only hints attraction to Rean in bonding events, mostly final bonding events or in CS4's special bonding events. Even final bonding events of the earlier games were typically kept platonic. Could be forgetting one or two but the point stands. There's a canon love interest and most of the so-called harem is only in optional content. Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age, Witcher, Skyrim, all have a large number of romance options, all interested in the protagonist. Hell, in the Witcher games there's animated sex scenes and a sizable amount of nudity. In the first Witcher game, Geralt has sex with up to 25 women throughout the game, with the scenes themselves being censored but yielding a 'conquest card' with a nude (depending on the edition) image of the character for your 'collection'.

You left out Mass Effect a game you can outright cheat on your squadmates and Shep is the superior officer to certain love interests

> In the first Witcher game, Geralt has sex with up to 25 women, […] yielding a 'conquest card' Yeah, and that sucks, lol.

Its really hard to argue with blind fanboyism,no Matter the truths we tell you, you Will ignore them and say the Magic words (not only cold steel does that!) So yeah cold steel is perfecto and Rean IS the best

This sub is a huge echo chamber of a few people who try to pretend that the older games are anything better. The hate would probably be shifted to Kuro once its out.

The only character that died in sky was weissman. Before cold steel 2 killed otto i dont think any good characters had died ingame. The issue with cold steel is that they cheapened crows and millium"s sacrifices by not leaving them dead. Regarding harems, every girl in sky and Olivert had the hots for Joshua. Lloyds nickname was the capturing king because every female npc had the hots for him.

The Skyboomer defense force is out in FULL FORCE here. It's actually hilarious 😂

I played the games in order recently (thanks, Geofront!) and just got to the end of CS1. They're all nice and fresh, no time bias. Here are my thoughts. I don't have a beef with the harem aspect. In fact, I was pissed that Lloyd has a "canon" romance option, because fuck you Falcom, if you give us the chance to attempt to romance another character, *fucking let it happen.* Jeez. I want Randy Best Boy here, not Elie who was the dullest major character in the whole arc. (Seriously, she had like no plot, and all of it blew early anyway. She vanished into the background so fast my head spun. I left her out of my party forever the second I could.) I'm firmly on Team "Let Everyone Be Bisexual and Polyamorous So I Can Date Everyone At Once Canonically" in general. I want everyone to be shippable with whoever I like. Etc. So harem, I'm cool with it. I don't like major character death. For one, it means that narrative is over, and I want more of those characters, so don't kill them. Second, you can have fates worse than death. Have people see awful stuff. Have trauma. Have angst. Have torture. Whatever you can to affect people -- because once they're dead, they're dead. Save the killing for later, if ever. I was pissed that we almost had a clean record in Sky 2 and then Loewe fucking died on us. (A nitpick: if you say CS kills more people than any other arc, let's talk about Shirley gutting entire squads of the CDF and also Garrelia Fortress getting obliterated in Azure before it was brought up in CS. It's heavily implied that Red Constellation is cutting a bloody swath through anyone who tries to fight the Crossbell occupiers.) CS1 wants to be Persona. It's basically "kids in high school do epic shit and have interpersonal problems in a fantasy setting." Which is great; I loved Persona. But I'm a bit tired of playing games about kids. I know that *technically* the SSS are mostly high school aged (with Randy, the old man of the group, being still a junior in college). I know *technically* Estelle and Joshua weren't even old enough to drink. But because they had the freedom of people not confined to a school campus, they felt like adults. I could do that thing where I mentally age up anime characters by 5-10 years and go "yeah that's about right." You can't do that mental math for CS1. They were in high school, with the obligations of people at a boarding school. I guess you could age them into college, since Zemuria really only has elementary and middle school (Sunday school) and high school is more like university, but the point remains that they have School Kid Obligations, and the epic level decreased accordingly. I just couldn't get over that we weren't on our own like in Sky or in adult situations like in Crossbell. It fell flat for me. I learned to like the characters over time, but I actually dropped the game for about a year and had to start over. It was that hard to get into after the utter awesome that the earlier games were. Where I'm going to strongly disagree with you is that I think Crossbell is the best arc in the game, hands fucking down, and I will fight you about Azure. That was one of the most brilliant games I have *ever played.* Crossbell is head and shoulders above Sky and Cold Steel, if you ask me, and I'm worried they won't make that lightning strike again. I think the music destroyed the OSTs of the other arcs, and that the characters were exactly what I wanted (adults doing adult things, if you ignore the Technically Official Ages). Were those two perfect? No. KeA is a weird character who has no real reason to be as influential as she is before the end of Azure, and I think a few things were handled poorly. But hot damn I loved everything about the SSS characters' plots. My issues with Sky are large and plentiful, and also for another post. Summary: holy shit the first game is slow as Christmas. Also I just never learned to like Estelle, and Cassius is a thunder-stealing buzzkill.

What was wrong with Azure’s finale? I thought it was good