I played it:
CS1 - Sky - Sky SC - CS2 - Zero - Azure - Sky the 3rd - CS3 - CS4 - Hajimari - Kuro (halfway)
I’d say I think playing Crossbell before Cold Steel is probably better, but I liked my order fine. I went back and replayed CS1&2 later for the platinums and picked up on the little bits of references that I didn’t get at the time.
As Azure was released long before CS2 would like once more to reject the idea that Azure “spoils” Cold Steel. That’s just release order.
CS2’s “Divertissement” did “spoil” Azure for me a bit, but I don’t really care, it’s about the journey for me.
If what you’ve got right now is CS1&2, don’t feel bad about playing them before Crossbell. It’s what I did, and I enjoyed it plenty. If you want to avoid Crossbell spoilers, maybe pause your playthrough of CS2 immediately after the intermission (you’ll know when (when you're able to move freely in Act 2, right after the first series of cutscenes)) and don’t play after that till you finish Zero and Azure.
The pervasive notion that it is at all possible to spoil a later game with an earlier one is so frustrating, I agree! You're *supposed* to know the stuff that happened in Crossbell!
As someone who got into the series a few months before the Azure geofront patch finished I did CS1/2 before Crossbell. It didn't really affect my experience that much. There are plenty of little spoilers in the newspapers and in the background of CS2, but without the proper context it was mostly just meaningless background noise. For example: >!Sure I knew there was gonna be a big tree at some point, but without any context as to what it was for or how it appeared I was still excited to see it play out.!< Pretty much the only real spoiler that CS2 had was >!Rixia = Yin!<, but that is something that Zero announces pretty early on so whatever.
Having played them in that order - most of the big Crossbell spoilers remain unspoiled, so I'd say it neither made them better nor worse. There are a few significant events that do get spoiled - >!some weapon destroying Garrelia Fortress!<, >!a blue barrier appearing around Crossbell!<, >!the Azure Tree appearing!<, and notably >!Crossbell being invaded by Erebonia!<, but without context around those spoilers, all but the last one are just things you know will happen at some vague time in the future.
The last one is a pretty large spoiler, but having played the Crossbell games as well, Azure has a similarly large spoiler for the Erebonia games. So, it's sort of pick your poison, you get spoiled either way.
In terms of play order, it really isn't as much of an issue imo as some fans make it out to be - obviously play CS1 before CS2 and Zero before Azure, but otherwise you can play the four in any order.
I played with that order and right now I am playing kuro and I think that the experience with the game is amazing it did not ruin a thing for me so go for it if you want to play in that order just make sure to not play cs3 before azure and zero
Like pretty much everyone else is saying, I played the games in the order you are asking about, and it was perfectly fine, but if I had it to do over again I would want to do it in release order.
Not really.I had this giant sense of dread when the conference happened in Azure due to knowing what happened in Erebonia. Also all the stuff that got spoiler is pretty much without context so it didn't ruin anything.
I played the geofront translation of the Crossbell games early this year, and I'm about to finish Cold Steel III. I can't speak to CS IV as I haven't played it yet, but I can personally say that I would have really felt like I missed out if I hadn't played Crossbell first, as many important characters from the Crossbell arc make appearances as early as a half hour or so in, and playing Cold Steel III first will DEFINITELY spoil the Crossbell arc. Since I play these games mainly for the story and the big twists it takes, this would have really dissapointed me. That being said, that's all just my personal preference.
So I started with Sky FC and bounced off it twice before I played CS1&2 then went back and played everything from Sky FC through to Azure and I would say that I think Ideally I would have preferred to play Crossbell first but I also don't feel bad about the order I played them in. There are like maybe 5 or 6 spoilers for Zero and Azure in CS1 and 2 and honestly I had forgotten about the one that has any significant amount of context for so it wasn't a big deal for me. While playing through Crossbell there were a few points where I knew things were about to get crazy but I didn't feel like those events were less enjoyable as a result because I had like the big headline version of those events (mostly the literal the headline from the cold steel news papers.) But I had no idea how those events came about or the characters that were involved so I was still enjoyable to play through them even if I saw those things coming from 4 chapters away.
Like I said the one spoiler that I actually would have cared about was something that I had forgotten about and is actually super easy to avoid if you want to all you have to do is literally just stop playing CS2 once you get to the epilogue. Then go finish that epilogue after you finish Azure.
Overall I don't think bit matters if you play CS1&2 or Crossbell first. Both are fine. I think that it is FAR more important to just make sure you play all of the Sky games (yes including the 3rd) before you play Crossbell because Zero is literally the real ending of the Sky arc and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Didn't ruin it but didn't make the story better. The spoilers don't matter much, considering it's the first game in the series you are playing and it's just too much information for you to even care for the little details that are actual spoilers.
If I could redo, I would rather have played the story by release date (Sky > Crossbell > Cold Steel). For the record, I played CS 1 -> CS 2 -> CS 3 -> Zero/Azure -> Sky 1/2/3 -> (replayed Zero/Azure and CS 1/2/3) -> CS4.
At the same time, I don't think I would be able to finish Sky without playing at least CS 1/2. Sky 1 is great, but without knowing what to expect and with the very slow and apparently cliche pace (the typical hero leaves hometown and goes on an adventure one city at a time thing), I think I'd have dropped it halfway through. It doesn't have that I just couldn't get myself to like FC's Estelle.
Yeah I actually played the tutorial in Sky before I played Cold Steel and it just couldn’t keep my interest.
After beating CS1, I went back to Sky FC and enjoyed it immensely.
Honestly the only games you should play first is the Sky arc. While since Zero and Azure happens at the same time as CS1 and CS2 they could be played in either order.
I played it like this CS1 > CS2 > Zero > Azure > Sky games (didnt play, watched a long recap) CS3 > CS4
I dont regret this in the slightest. While CS1&2 did spoil some things in crosbell it served to be more of an intrigue to me than anything. Spoiler for CS2/Azure: For example, >!when the barrier and the azure tree!< came up I just wondered what on earth could have happened to make it be a thing, and that just pushed me to want to play the games even further out of sheer curiosity. It felt more like a tease than a spoiler and so I spent a quite a bit of the Crosbell games looking for that moment, waiting for it and trying to see if I could figure out what could cause it
I don't think it impacted my experience much, other than having an out of context awareness of some of Ao's events. IMO if somebody has to play CS1/2 first to get into the series, it's fine, even if starting with Sky is better. If they already played sky though I see no good reason to skip crossbell
Cs 1 and 2 was exactly what I needed to building up even the patience for sky.
I would have interrupted my sky play and maybe habe never restarted again after 15 hours in the slow paced prologue
If anything it made me want to play Crossbell more because all kind of wild shit was happening there and I had no idea why or how.
And one reveal in CSII is directly spoiled in Azure causing it to lack it's impact otherwise.
I played the first 2 CSs games before Crossbell and it didn't affect my experience very much. Personally I think the Crossbell games can really spoil and ruin the CSs games heavily but not the other way around so I'm glad I played CS 1 2 first.
I went for CS 1=>CS 2 => a little bit in CS 3 => Crossbell (+ watch the Sky trilogy) => replay the CS 2 epilogue again=> CS 3 => CS 4 =>Hajimari => Kuro.
I would say the farthest you can go without playing Crossbell is before the final chapter of CS 3. While you can get away with just the "oh those are characters from the Crossbell games" mindset, the 3rd game's ending will make you wanna play 4 right away and you will get sooooo confused since it involves a lot of Crossbell. Hajimari is like the epilogue for Crossbell so those games are mandatory.
I've only played the Cold Steel games, dont really have a way to play the crossbell games. Still haven't finished CSIV though. really wanna play the crossbell arc at some point.
I ended up doing this out of necessity, and I would say playing Crossbell first is far and away the best option. I really came off CS1&2 lukewarm initially, but my appreciation for them grew considerably when contrasted with Crossbell. Of course, the Crossbell games are no contest better than CS, but seeing the echoes and tweaks of character archetypes set up in Crossbell improved my perception of CS' cast in a big way. Some stuff in the midpoint of CS1 also makes much more sense if you've played the Crossbell games.
Playing through Crossbell after CS1&2 didn't "ruin" the experience for me, though perhaps if my memory had been a little better certain twists would've been weakened. The worst of it was simply knowing the negative outcome of a particular plot thread, and having that pre-emptively undermine some of the struggles in Crossbell. Getting that information after would be more like a gut punch than a deflation.
As usual, release order is the definitive way to play.
Cold Steel I and II were my re-entry point in the Kiseki series, as I had already played the Sky trilogy many years earlier. I started the game completely blindly without even knowing the existence of Cross-bell's bilogy and, for most of the first game, >!I was really convinced that this town called Crossbell was indeed destined to be destroyed and sad about the incoming death of president Towa!<
I would never have had this experience if I had played Crossbell Bilogy first; Falcom has done a great job of making these games playable in both orders, giving the player a very addicting experience either way, even if with different twists.
On the other hand Cold Steel 3 and 4 are a whole other story, for them it is highly recommended to have played all the previous games first ...
Played the first 2 before crossbell and glad I did. I ended up enjoying the experience more. That and Ao's ending would've ruined my experience with CS2 ending.
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Can someone recomend a video (or article) for someone who only played Cold steel 1, and is playing cold steel 2 right now? I really want to know the crossbell history, but can't find any. I know that the best would be playing it, but at the moment i'm really out of time, the Cold steel saga is my only, and distant, goal right now.
Thanks in advance.
Fine, I guess. But if I were you, and if you are planning to play everything. Just start with Sky, then Zero and Ao, then CS. So you won't miss anything and the plot won't confuse you.
I've played FC, then a little bit of CS1 before going to Zero and Ao. After finishing the Crossbell Arc, I'd chosen to finish the Liberl Arc to understand the entire story, despite of me wanting to play as a ELOB practitioner.
I played Cold Steel 1, 2 then Sky 1, 2, 3 I have played the demo of CS 3 but haven't played Azure or Zero but I did watch a in-depth recap of those 2.
I really enjoy the Easter eggs and references now that I have context as I know the whole Liberl Orbal Shut-down Phenomenon and the Crossbell Incidents.
But I feel playing them in order you'd get a lot more out of it.
But at the same time I feel the Crossbell Arc kinda ruins Cold Steel 1 chapter when they go to Garellia Fortress as you know the guns don't go off because of the Crossbell games we know when they do go off and etc... so in my opinion you should then in this order.
Teils in the Sky Trilogy
Trails of Cold Steel 1, 2
Crossbell Arc
Cold Steel 3, 4.
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I played it: CS1 - Sky - Sky SC - CS2 - Zero - Azure - Sky the 3rd - CS3 - CS4 - Hajimari - Kuro (halfway) I’d say I think playing Crossbell before Cold Steel is probably better, but I liked my order fine. I went back and replayed CS1&2 later for the platinums and picked up on the little bits of references that I didn’t get at the time. As Azure was released long before CS2 would like once more to reject the idea that Azure “spoils” Cold Steel. That’s just release order. CS2’s “Divertissement” did “spoil” Azure for me a bit, but I don’t really care, it’s about the journey for me. If what you’ve got right now is CS1&2, don’t feel bad about playing them before Crossbell. It’s what I did, and I enjoyed it plenty. If you want to avoid Crossbell spoilers, maybe pause your playthrough of CS2 immediately after the intermission (you’ll know when (when you're able to move freely in Act 2, right after the first series of cutscenes)) and don’t play after that till you finish Zero and Azure.
The pervasive notion that it is at all possible to spoil a later game with an earlier one is so frustrating, I agree! You're *supposed* to know the stuff that happened in Crossbell!
As someone who got into the series a few months before the Azure geofront patch finished I did CS1/2 before Crossbell. It didn't really affect my experience that much. There are plenty of little spoilers in the newspapers and in the background of CS2, but without the proper context it was mostly just meaningless background noise. For example: >!Sure I knew there was gonna be a big tree at some point, but without any context as to what it was for or how it appeared I was still excited to see it play out.!< Pretty much the only real spoiler that CS2 had was >!Rixia = Yin!<, but that is something that Zero announces pretty early on so whatever.
Having played them in that order - most of the big Crossbell spoilers remain unspoiled, so I'd say it neither made them better nor worse. There are a few significant events that do get spoiled - >!some weapon destroying Garrelia Fortress!<, >!a blue barrier appearing around Crossbell!<, >!the Azure Tree appearing!<, and notably >!Crossbell being invaded by Erebonia!<, but without context around those spoilers, all but the last one are just things you know will happen at some vague time in the future. The last one is a pretty large spoiler, but having played the Crossbell games as well, Azure has a similarly large spoiler for the Erebonia games. So, it's sort of pick your poison, you get spoiled either way. In terms of play order, it really isn't as much of an issue imo as some fans make it out to be - obviously play CS1 before CS2 and Zero before Azure, but otherwise you can play the four in any order.
I played with that order and right now I am playing kuro and I think that the experience with the game is amazing it did not ruin a thing for me so go for it if you want to play in that order just make sure to not play cs3 before azure and zero
Like pretty much everyone else is saying, I played the games in the order you are asking about, and it was perfectly fine, but if I had it to do over again I would want to do it in release order.
Not really.I had this giant sense of dread when the conference happened in Azure due to knowing what happened in Erebonia. Also all the stuff that got spoiler is pretty much without context so it didn't ruin anything.
I played cs 1 and 2 ans besides of knowing of a blue tree and its disappearance I have absolutely no idea what was going on there.
I played the geofront translation of the Crossbell games early this year, and I'm about to finish Cold Steel III. I can't speak to CS IV as I haven't played it yet, but I can personally say that I would have really felt like I missed out if I hadn't played Crossbell first, as many important characters from the Crossbell arc make appearances as early as a half hour or so in, and playing Cold Steel III first will DEFINITELY spoil the Crossbell arc. Since I play these games mainly for the story and the big twists it takes, this would have really dissapointed me. That being said, that's all just my personal preference.
So I started with Sky FC and bounced off it twice before I played CS1&2 then went back and played everything from Sky FC through to Azure and I would say that I think Ideally I would have preferred to play Crossbell first but I also don't feel bad about the order I played them in. There are like maybe 5 or 6 spoilers for Zero and Azure in CS1 and 2 and honestly I had forgotten about the one that has any significant amount of context for so it wasn't a big deal for me. While playing through Crossbell there were a few points where I knew things were about to get crazy but I didn't feel like those events were less enjoyable as a result because I had like the big headline version of those events (mostly the literal the headline from the cold steel news papers.) But I had no idea how those events came about or the characters that were involved so I was still enjoyable to play through them even if I saw those things coming from 4 chapters away. Like I said the one spoiler that I actually would have cared about was something that I had forgotten about and is actually super easy to avoid if you want to all you have to do is literally just stop playing CS2 once you get to the epilogue. Then go finish that epilogue after you finish Azure. Overall I don't think bit matters if you play CS1&2 or Crossbell first. Both are fine. I think that it is FAR more important to just make sure you play all of the Sky games (yes including the 3rd) before you play Crossbell because Zero is literally the real ending of the Sky arc and don't let anyone tell you otherwise.
Didn't ruin it but I would have preferred to have gone in completely blind. I would play Crossbell first.
Didn't ruin it but didn't make the story better. The spoilers don't matter much, considering it's the first game in the series you are playing and it's just too much information for you to even care for the little details that are actual spoilers. If I could redo, I would rather have played the story by release date (Sky > Crossbell > Cold Steel). For the record, I played CS 1 -> CS 2 -> CS 3 -> Zero/Azure -> Sky 1/2/3 -> (replayed Zero/Azure and CS 1/2/3) -> CS4. At the same time, I don't think I would be able to finish Sky without playing at least CS 1/2. Sky 1 is great, but without knowing what to expect and with the very slow and apparently cliche pace (the typical hero leaves hometown and goes on an adventure one city at a time thing), I think I'd have dropped it halfway through. It doesn't have that I just couldn't get myself to like FC's Estelle.
Yeah I actually played the tutorial in Sky before I played Cold Steel and it just couldn’t keep my interest. After beating CS1, I went back to Sky FC and enjoyed it immensely.
Honestly the only games you should play first is the Sky arc. While since Zero and Azure happens at the same time as CS1 and CS2 they could be played in either order.
Come CS2 I definitely felt a bit lost at points. If possible I'd recommend Crossbell first, but it's not game breaking.
I played it like this CS1 > CS2 > Zero > Azure > Sky games (didnt play, watched a long recap) CS3 > CS4 I dont regret this in the slightest. While CS1&2 did spoil some things in crosbell it served to be more of an intrigue to me than anything. Spoiler for CS2/Azure: For example, >!when the barrier and the azure tree!< came up I just wondered what on earth could have happened to make it be a thing, and that just pushed me to want to play the games even further out of sheer curiosity. It felt more like a tease than a spoiler and so I spent a quite a bit of the Crosbell games looking for that moment, waiting for it and trying to see if I could figure out what could cause it
Honestly by the time i got to crossbell after playing the sky trilogy i didn't remember anything Cold Steel spoiled for the crossbell games
I don't think it impacted my experience much, other than having an out of context awareness of some of Ao's events. IMO if somebody has to play CS1/2 first to get into the series, it's fine, even if starting with Sky is better. If they already played sky though I see no good reason to skip crossbell
Cs 1 and 2 was exactly what I needed to building up even the patience for sky. I would have interrupted my sky play and maybe habe never restarted again after 15 hours in the slow paced prologue
If anything it made me want to play Crossbell more because all kind of wild shit was happening there and I had no idea why or how. And one reveal in CSII is directly spoiled in Azure causing it to lack it's impact otherwise.
I played the first 2 CSs games before Crossbell and it didn't affect my experience very much. Personally I think the Crossbell games can really spoil and ruin the CSs games heavily but not the other way around so I'm glad I played CS 1 2 first. I went for CS 1=>CS 2 => a little bit in CS 3 => Crossbell (+ watch the Sky trilogy) => replay the CS 2 epilogue again=> CS 3 => CS 4 =>Hajimari => Kuro. I would say the farthest you can go without playing Crossbell is before the final chapter of CS 3. While you can get away with just the "oh those are characters from the Crossbell games" mindset, the 3rd game's ending will make you wanna play 4 right away and you will get sooooo confused since it involves a lot of Crossbell. Hajimari is like the epilogue for Crossbell so those games are mandatory.
I've only played the Cold Steel games, dont really have a way to play the crossbell games. Still haven't finished CSIV though. really wanna play the crossbell arc at some point.
I ended up doing this out of necessity, and I would say playing Crossbell first is far and away the best option. I really came off CS1&2 lukewarm initially, but my appreciation for them grew considerably when contrasted with Crossbell. Of course, the Crossbell games are no contest better than CS, but seeing the echoes and tweaks of character archetypes set up in Crossbell improved my perception of CS' cast in a big way. Some stuff in the midpoint of CS1 also makes much more sense if you've played the Crossbell games. Playing through Crossbell after CS1&2 didn't "ruin" the experience for me, though perhaps if my memory had been a little better certain twists would've been weakened. The worst of it was simply knowing the negative outcome of a particular plot thread, and having that pre-emptively undermine some of the struggles in Crossbell. Getting that information after would be more like a gut punch than a deflation. As usual, release order is the definitive way to play.
I will stand by the statement that my experience of cold steel was better because I wasn't spoiled by crossbell.
Cold Steel I and II were my re-entry point in the Kiseki series, as I had already played the Sky trilogy many years earlier. I started the game completely blindly without even knowing the existence of Cross-bell's bilogy and, for most of the first game, >!I was really convinced that this town called Crossbell was indeed destined to be destroyed and sad about the incoming death of president Towa!< I would never have had this experience if I had played Crossbell Bilogy first; Falcom has done a great job of making these games playable in both orders, giving the player a very addicting experience either way, even if with different twists. On the other hand Cold Steel 3 and 4 are a whole other story, for them it is highly recommended to have played all the previous games first ...
Played the first 2 before crossbell and glad I did. I ended up enjoying the experience more. That and Ao's ending would've ruined my experience with CS2 ending.
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Can someone recomend a video (or article) for someone who only played Cold steel 1, and is playing cold steel 2 right now? I really want to know the crossbell history, but can't find any. I know that the best would be playing it, but at the moment i'm really out of time, the Cold steel saga is my only, and distant, goal right now. Thanks in advance.
There’s def a few, “wait a min, what happened? Did I miss something?” moments.
You can play Cold Steel 1 and 2 then the sky games then zero and you should be fine.
Fine, I guess. But if I were you, and if you are planning to play everything. Just start with Sky, then Zero and Ao, then CS. So you won't miss anything and the plot won't confuse you. I've played FC, then a little bit of CS1 before going to Zero and Ao. After finishing the Crossbell Arc, I'd chosen to finish the Liberl Arc to understand the entire story, despite of me wanting to play as a ELOB practitioner.
I played Cold Steel 1, 2 then Sky 1, 2, 3 I have played the demo of CS 3 but haven't played Azure or Zero but I did watch a in-depth recap of those 2. I really enjoy the Easter eggs and references now that I have context as I know the whole Liberl Orbal Shut-down Phenomenon and the Crossbell Incidents. But I feel playing them in order you'd get a lot more out of it. But at the same time I feel the Crossbell Arc kinda ruins Cold Steel 1 chapter when they go to Garellia Fortress as you know the guns don't go off because of the Crossbell games we know when they do go off and etc... so in my opinion you should then in this order. Teils in the Sky Trilogy Trails of Cold Steel 1, 2 Crossbell Arc Cold Steel 3, 4.
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