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FUCK YEA WEDDING END |
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have you ever wanted a BIG TRAILS TEAMUP that lets you play as uh, those random mercenaries from fie’s company or speed du barry? here you go!!!!!!!! |
So after Rean finished battling his inner beast he returned back to normal and we continued our story in where we now have to stop Orboros and Gilliath Osborne but at least all our previous Trails cast friends are back!! ワァ─o(´･∀･`)o─ィ♪
So at first I was really happy with the game. They improved a lot of things like quests, which were very obvious on the map and very easy to do. There was a lot less “maze-al” dungeons to do and for the most part I was able to clear everything without throwing my controller into Kanade’s face. I was also really happy to see all my previous Trails cast back especially Joshua and Estelle and of course Schera, who was now dating Olivert. Unfortunately by the time we got to the very very end, I had to whip out ye old mods and give myself 1 hit kills because I was SO sick of fighting mini(?) bosses non stop. As an example of it being boring and repetitive, aside the fact that you have to fight the same guy 11 times (Looking at you McBurns) you had to basically do a copy-pasta battle with every single old Trails character ~for nostalgia~ as well. You basically had to fight the same exact pathway but with a different team and the monster was reskinned to be a robot instead of a dragon and vice versa. By now I was ready to finish the game and because the FFXIV Dawntrail expansion was a week away.
CS4 started out really well because FINALLY we got a Trails game that doesn’t consist of doing homework and chores for the first three-quarters of the game before we finally can start getting into the actual story. My big complaint with Sky SC is that Sky FC ends with Joshua getting captured, but then we spend chapter after chapter doing random Bracer shit rather than getting him back. This time when Rean gets captured we actually immediately start looking for him. Wowowowowowowow!!!!!!! Unfortunately we had the reverse problem, where now even though the first three-quarters of the game started off well, it completely failed to stick the landing. The worst offender by far was the final dungeon, where you get split into six (SIX!!!!) different teams. Each one of them does a single floor dungeon that are all fairly short and almost identical, so the whole thing feels incredibly repetitive. Then after watching some cutscenes you have to do six (SIX!!!!!!) boss battles in a row with each of the different teams.
Then to add salt to the wound, we ended up getting the Normal (aka bad) ending on our first run. Whut? Why is this even a thing? I thought this kind of bullshit only happened in otome games! (ノ# ﾟдﾟ)ﾉ ┫:･’∵:．┻┻:･’．:∵ So then the game is like “oh btw if you want the true end just leave the dungeon, go fight yet another dragon, and uh you’ll get the good end” (where you had to fight 3 more bosses JFC thank god I was 1 shotting them.) So because of that the ending felt kind of anticlimatic although I guess it’s good they brought a fan favorite character from sudden death.
Just sayin’ but this kinda reminded me of when we played Persona 4 when you think that the game is over and you’re about to get back on the train back to Tokyo after saying goodbye to all of your friends…but then if you talk to the gas station attended you get the true ending.
Anyway in the end, the only thing that stood out to me as usual, were the banter between old and new characters (like everyone roasting Rean and comparing him to Lloyd in terms of womanizing). And of course the best part was *drumroll* Schera and Olivert’s wedding! ｷﾀ──ヽ(‘∀’)ﾉ──!! I have literally been waiting for this moment since I started playing Cold Steel series because I love them so much. 🥰🥰 Hell they even gave us an implied ero-scene with Alisa and Rean. I’m not just saying that either, they totally referenced to it in their hotsprings scene the next day! ლ(́◉◞౪◟◉‵ლ)
But yea, system wise the battles became really REALLY draggy. I was sick of fighting the same characters. I was even sick of seeing some characters (looking at you Cedric) and there’s some characters that were so annoying in the previous games that even when they joined our side, I still couldn’t get myself to like them (Speed Dubarry.) And story wise welllll…it reminded me too much of FF4. The copout of “oh sorry I was being mind controlled – bonk – I am no longer evil” got tiring pretty fast. Even when Osborne was having his son & dad moment with Rean I was like “whatever faildad…ಠ_ಠ”. Even with Alisa it didn’t feel as impactful. If they spent a little more time on developing relationships between the kids and parents instead of just showing flashbacks and throwing us into fighting the brainwashed characters 4 times some actual one on one cut scenes would have been a huge step up.
The other big problem with the end of the game is more of an overarching problem, which is that Falcom does the same boss battles over and over and over again. This is then supposed to be the climax of this story arc, but it’s like whatever, we’ve fought these characters so many times and every time each fight ends with the villain just kinda walking away after getting beat so there’s no excitement in the buildup and no catharsis after you win. You fight McBurn ELEVEN TIMES in this series!!!!!! Even when it seems like someone actually dies we still keep expecting them to pop back up again for some reason. Crow came back to life TWICE!!!!!!!! This series features both a civil war AND a continental war and the only important characters that died were ones that were technically dead from the beginning!!!!!
But still because I love the characters, and I love watching them grow, I can’t hate the game or the series. Falcom only has 62 people on staff, so I do have to realistically cut them some slack because it’s not like how Square Enix are a bunch of incompetent buffoons who throw in a bunch of untested minigames in FF7 Rebirth. 🤪
It’s always fun interacting with all the characters and the game dropped some interesting hints at where everything is leading to, but as usual I keep feeling bad about how hamstrung Falcom is by the fact that they’re a small indie company that needs to release a full game each year. I feel like this series could’ve been a really strong pair of 40-ish hour games, but that’s not going to be enough for them to be able to keep the lights on. So in the end we feel compelled to use cheats and trainers to peel away as much of the padding as possible, but in the end that also can only go so far towards turning these games into a tight, cohesive whole.
One final thing is – apparently if you finish the game, see the credits and see Rean pick up the phone call at the end…you have to then LOAD the game again right before the credits and it reveals a completely brand new cut scene and gives hints on what Orboros is doing. I literally would NEVER have seen this if someone hadn’t joined my stream last minute and told me about it. WTF Falcom. First the hidden good end and now the hidden ending? If you’re gonna pull the visual novel bullshit then make the game a visual novel and stop forcing me into boring ass battles with the same character 5 times. 😂😂 Anyway we’ll be taking a break from Trails because of DawnTRAIL but once I’m kinda settled in I plan to make a comeback in Trails to Reverie!
And now I leave you with my 2nd half of the Rean x Alisa moments from Cold Steel 3 & 4:
This was about CS3, but we didn’t see it until a few days after we finished the game. Anyway, it’s still just as relevant with CS4.
Bread Master Lee 
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