2023: The Year I Fell Back In Love With Trails

[@GCVazquez]

One day I'm going to play through the Trails series. As soon as I get past Ys 1.

[@culIen]

A Trails Questrospective sounds legendary

[@closeschaef5867]

You won't regret it! Some of my happiest memories are of playing Ys and Trails - which I found out thanks to Cullen ;)

[@NoonDragoon]

I’m glad someone else also admits the “cardinal sin” of playing these games on Very Easy. I love these stories but the gameplay has largely been samey to me since about Azure, and Cold Steel was when I just committed to starting the games at a lower difficulty. I am eager to start out Daybreak at a higher difficulty, though, since it has some bigger changes to the battle system.

[@culIen]

I've played some of Daybreak's steam port (bought it bc the loc will come in an update later) and yeah I can absolutely see myself playing all of that on at least Normal. It's really fun, and a completely different beast. I like playing these games well enough, but you nailed it. Zero on offers iterative changes on its battle system. The core is good, but after awhile you realize you're just playing the same thing with the stats increasing. I see the appeal, but I don't do well with hundreds of hours of the same thing haha. Glad there's some solidarity 🤝

[@elolawynladriel]

@@culIen The earlier games are brutal on nightmare. Trails from Zero and Azure are a bit difficult on Nightmare in the early game and then it gets easier and Cold Steel is just TOO easy on nightmare. Damn, I just bought an evergreen and the game broke.... Sirius master quartz? 600% extra counter damage. Rage quartz? 100% critical counters. W T F.

[@elolawynladriel]

- Time to turn up the heat! - Answer my prayer and appear before me! (200 CP VERSION) - bonk sound * 4 - ALL CANCEL MC BURN * 4

[@elolawynladriel]

It is a matter of the tools you have at your dispossal. At the start the characters have almost no crafts, they do shit and you almost have no quartz available. As you start to get things the battle system breaks. Unless they reduce your tools, they give more OP attacks to the enemies or they just buff A LOT the enemy (this last point is not the ideal one) the last games are just too easy even on nightmare. Ash, Laura and Rean just one shot enemies, you just keep them in backrow until the time is right. Divine Song allow you to buff like a mad man. All ranged attackers can to a certain degree dodge tank and infinite spam critical counters no matter the distance. Jusis can spam his area shield and Alisa her insight + CP recovery. Crescent Mirror art is broken as hell. My party for casual nightmare is Fie + Alisa + Emma + Jusis and then just keep Ash, Laura and Rean in backrow with extra damage quartz on first craft, only damage and criticals. When the enemy is broken with half health just bring them back, buff them and spam S craft.

[@elolawynladriel]

My like but i can't watch this because i have not yet finished all those games.

[@LimitedTimeGamer]

WELL ACTUALLY, NAYUTA IS LIKE GURUMIN AND ZWEI.... sees 20:00, well played sir.

[@culIen]

OOOOOO YOU GOT ZWEI'D

[@payphone86]

Great video! C (I’ll be nice as well) has incredible moments at the end of the story, maybe the best stuff in trails. Finish up Azure! That game is incredible even if you know the story. The execution of those plot beats is simply excellent.

[@culIen]

Oh I definitely want to! I just love tackling it at my own pace, there's definitely a right mood for psp Trails but it just hasn't hit me lately. Maybe during the holiday when game releases slow down! Also thank you for the kind words ^-^

[@Chaiberry]

Great video for a goated series

[@BronxDragon]

As the tryhard nightmare runner and enjoyer of the "It's my turn" I can say without a fathom of a doubt.....the Azure and below teams cannot compare to the new kids on the block with a few exceptions here and there. The Cold Steel people and those introduced in and going forward are so much better than everyone else combat wise it is hilarous. The 40 hour epilogue was nice though lol.

[@culIen]

Yeah I was hoping they'd give them a bit more to work with, especially with the Reverie Corridor putting gameplay front and center. They really didn't give them much new to work with to match up from what I played of Normal lol.

[@salsamonkey65]

I love all of these games so much. I am so happy that all these games are finally available in the west. And yes I've beaten all of them except Reverie and Sky 3 more than once... And I kinda want to do it again...

[@gregoryream9380]

I honestly do not mean to stir anything up here, but I had always heard from reviews that Trails of Cold Steel 4 kinda sucked... so I was kinda dreading having to "power through it" just to get the full story, but... I actually really liked it. I have not played any of the 3 Trails in the Sky games, but I DID watch literally 3+ hours of youtube videos detailing the 3 games' entire story and character breakdowns before I first began with Trails from Zero and, played Zero, Azure, CS 1,2,3, and 4, and Reverie (and cannot WAIT for Daybreak to release in a couple of days). But I wasn't part of "the community" when CS 4 was released, so I legitimately do not understand what people dislike so much about it. I happened to enjoy more so than CS 1 and 3, but CS 2 rivals CS 4 for me. Edit: I really enjoyed Rean being mostly out of the story and unplayable for the first chapter or so. I admire the fact that the all of the supporting characters are strong enough that the developers took the risk of leaving the main character almost completely out; it takes some "balls" for any story teller in any medium to exclude the main protagonist for such a long period. Oh, but don't get me wrong... I like Rean more so than Lloyd (but haven't "spent enough time" with Estelle and Joshua to properly rank them), as Rean reminds me more so than myself than any other character (umm... except... yeahhhh... Unfortunately I DON'T have a harem =D hahahah), but I simply highly respect the fact that the developers have enough faith in their secondary characters to allow them to carry the story without the protagonist. That's just at least somewhat rare to a certain degree in any storytelling medium, and I respect that, I guess? I don't know hahah, I just really enjoyed CS4 and don't understand the "hate".

[@cius2112]

The best way to enjoy Trails is to avoid the fanbase at least until you're caught up lol

[@Beeyo176]

You left out Trails into Oregon

[@gachafiedstreams]

Can’t watch this yet. I’m in the final chapters of cs3. Trying to get through 4 and reveries before daybreak. I don’t feel too much pressure to rush bc those localizations take time. Trails is just so incredible. Even at its worst it’s still an amazing world building junction.

[@JJG1666]

Hope I could still buy Nayuta before the year ends.

[@dragonmaster1500]

27:56 ...You're not even wrong, I think that someone asked Xeed/Falcom about Valimar back when CS1 was localized and they said that yes, he was a Xenogears reference.

[@LachM2011]

Dude this is gonna be great I have no clue what Trails even is.

[@culIen]

Funny enough, one of the recording clips I considered using after the credits was us quoting Bushworld Adventures in call lmao

[@Chumbv]

No hate but, since you said you don't particularly like the Trails combat and play it on easy for the story, what type of RPG combat do you like?

[@culIen]

What I meant was I don't really like how a lot of battles in Cold Steel play out. They have a very consistent flow, and rely heavily on crafts to get big damage dealt. And also it's four games with very little iteration, which is fine! I just got burnt haha. I'm very picky about battle systems, but I do tend to gravitate towards ones where weakness exploitation is a big deal (like Persona and SMT) or one where you are frequently forced to mix up your tactics. What I've played of Kuro seems to be pushing it more in that direction, and making you juggle more things at once, so I've been really enjoying it.

[@hitomikagewaki31]

You didn't mention for the psp underrated jrpg Hexyz Force. Still wish falcom would remake Brandish 2 and other lesser known games. Also great video and I didn't know you were a part of Geofront and keep up the good work.

[@jmporkbob]

I gotta say, reverie didnt change anything about my opinion on rean. it firmly cemented it as "meh"

[@genericyoutubeusername6462]

Ahh i wanted to see why you said you like Trails in Ys turns out you just like the story and don't care about the gameplay this is another "It could have been anime" game

[@culIen]

@@genericyoutubeusername6462 for Nayuta? I thought the story and gameplay were both solid.

[@blackdragoncyrus]

The story and writing has fallen right off the deep end. It's just such predictable slop. The only thing keep the Trails games afloat is the music.

[@ivansolodyankin6820]

As i've heard, Daybreak have amazing writing and is much better than CS.

[@chillpillsfornil]

Man, Nayuta is just blue hair Adolf and you can't convince me otherwise. ...and pronouns(jk)