Hopefully the writing isn't as dreadful as in the games.

Akitokamisen said:
Generic lightnovel archetypes??
Dude Litrally all characters in trails series are like that

Sylverthas said:

For Trails in the Sky I have to disagree. That game took 2000s shounen adventure tropes, which are rather different than the common light novel types.

I have to wonder if an anime about these games is even sensible? Maybe as a side story, but the main story usually depends on so much build up, NPC conversations, intricacy and many characters that it would need a pretty good studio to trim it down sensibly and build it coherently. Or a large episode count^^

AzurealX said:
Now, this anime is related to the third arc in the series, Trails of Cold Steel and it's reputation is a lot less... pristine.

Mystogan03 said:
''I love Trails''

I said that after finished Ao no Kiseki. A great game.

Sadly...

ColdSteel 3 is the worst game I played in my life. ColdSteel 1 and 2 are very bad games I agree but I liked them in some level

But ColdSteel 3 is another level of shitness. They ruined not just the two first games but Crossbell and Liberl's arc and characters too. Sky and Crossbell characters returned as dumbs

Nihon Falcom gave up in everything to please the weebs. Even Ys is slowly in the same trail. I hate everything linked to them now.

This anime will be a great piece of shit like the entire Erebonia Arc.

AzurealX said:
For the uninitiated.
The Kiseki series, or Trails series in English are a long-running JRPG series spanning an overarching narrative across 10 titles, soon to be 11.

The first 2 arcs which consist of the first 5 installments are respected through out JRPG circles for their attention to world building and charming characters with organic interactions.

Now, this anime is related to the third arc in the series, Trails of Cold Steel and it's reputation is a lot less... pristine.
It dives head first into generic Light Novel character archetypes and tropes, something which wasn't present nearly at all in the former arcs and does nothing with them, it introduces a bonding/Harem system that actively hampers character development as some characters' character arcs are locked behind specific bonding events. And even more insulting, the ''chosen waifu'' doesn't carry over from game to game... IN AN OVERARCHING NARRATIVE. This creates a jarring disconnect between each sequel and detracts from the already shallow cast solely designed around waifu appeal points.

All of that on top of tons of filler side plots and padding that effectively turn a main narrative that could've been told in 30 hours into a 50+ hour journey.

TLDR: The Cold Steel games are bad and this will probably be bad.

Animaniaig said:
Yeah this'll be dreadful even if I mostly like the Cold Steel arc excluding Cold Steel 4 which was dreadful and a huge letdown for a good portion of it; though it did know how to play on emotional heartstrings. This anime though will just emphasize the problems already pleasant in the games namely the harem and LN elements whilst missing on the rather subtle good points like the exploration of Erebonia as a setting with the change in perspective, Rean's self depreciation and the plot points from Crossbell.

Tannhauser said:

What are your sources for that? Which JRPG circles? If there's one thing I dislike about this arc is that it made the series popular among people who'd trash a spectacular work of art over something as trivial as the bonding system or harem undertones.

mosam00 said:


There are barely any LN elements at all, stop spreading BS.

AzurealX said:


Are you shitting me lmao?
Barely any LN elements?

Rean is literally every katana wielding black haired LN protag in existence. Coupled with the characters being one dimensional tropes like a Kuudere, Tsundere, etc. and the first character conflict literally opens with Rean accidentally groping Alisa's boobs in a typical LN fashion. The harem aspect itself is a LN trope and is a lot more prominent than you're claiming it is. As to why it's a flaw?
It quite literally forces the characters to be written in such a way that there's always an open door for Rean to waifu any girl whenever he wants and actively ruins character dynamics that fans wanted to see, like Kurt and Juna.
It doesn't help that the cast has zero chemistry together because they have NO TIME to build it up. Why? Because they're too busy talking about how amazing Rean is.

The Bonding system also really hurts the overarching aspect of the series. Because the relationships literally reset every game, making the canonical state of the character relations crappy and vague, with every female stuck at the stage where they potentially have a crush on Rean.

Cold Steel 3 and 4 are not only poorly balanced in terms of gameplay to the point where the gameplay is essentially Craft spamming, whereas Sky and Crossbell required you to plan your moves, buff yourself with Arts, etc. when needed and so on - Rean is a broken unit.

Then there's Cold Steel actively retconning stuff from the previous arcs. Even that aside, how about Cold Steel 4?
It took a crap on every villain the series was building up to that point. All the villains that Class 7 beat there were shown to be able to beat all of Class 7 while SOLO, but they actually lost in a GAUNTLET of all things, fell one after another because ''CLASS 7 IS DETERMINED'' yay friendship power.
It's the single worst offender of power scaling in the series.

Also, so what if Rean is the most popular Trails character? That's partially because he's a self-insert. Literally Adol is voted as the #1 Falcom character and he's also a self-insert blank slate.

Cold Steel will forever remain a stain on this franchise. Thankfully Kuro no Kiseki brought back the quality in the franchise - although the west is probably gonna get it all the way in 2005.

mosam00 said:


It's so stupid, it's literally their only complaint that they massively over-exaggerate and they ignore the fact it started in Crossbell, or that even Joshua in Sky had 3 girls (as well as every single NPC) falling for him.

If anything, Cold Steel is what made the games more mainstream in JRPG circles, and a lot of people who are Cold Steel only, think of them as some of the best games they've played, which speaks to how good they are, even on their own they can be appreciated. They have some issues, mainly pacing and harem affecting continuity (same could be said for Crossbell), but even my least favourite CS game, CS2, I'd still rate 7.5/10, while CS3 is my favourite game of all time, above Sky SC and Azure.

I'm so tired of the toxicity in the Trails fandom when it comes to Cold Steel man.

Tannhauser said:

Erebonia arc is a marvelous journey of around 400 hours of playtime, so no point to argue with seething haters because ultimately it's their loss.

mosam00 said:


Him wielding a sword and having black hair do not automatically make him a LN protagonist, that's the most stupid idea ever, that's literally just character design, so he'd be less of a LN protagonist if he had brown hair? What a stupid take. And the characters in Sky follow early shounen tropes to a T, so that means nothing either that the more modern games have more modern tropes.

Yea, wow one scene, what about the scenes in Crossbell of Shirley grabbing Elie's boobs? Trails has always had this sorta stuff. And even the stuff with Alisa is addressed fine, she literally apologises herself because she realised she was wrong to get annoyed over an accident, unlike in every other anime where the girl never thinks she's wrong, after that it's literally never mentioned again.

The bonding events literally started in Crossbell, every single main girl in Crossbell can romance Lloyd, it just seems like less because of the smaller cast, proportionally it's the same. And NC7 especially have great chemistry with each other. Even in Sky, all of the main girls apart from Scherazard and Anelace (but she's not part of the main cast until Sky the 3rd) fall for Joshua, these harem tropes have been present since Sky.

CS4 did not crap on anything.

Rean is no more of a self-insert than Lloyd, like there's nothing that makes him anymore of a self insert, in fact Rean has deeper and more complex issues than Lloyd.

Cold Steel isn't a stain on the series at all, if anything, it's literally what made the games more mainstream.

AzurealX said:


What makes him a LN trope is because he's exactly that.
A black haired sword-wielding ideal spewing bland nice guy. That description covers the fast majority of LN protagonists, add the sword if it's a fantasy. The fact that his characterization never extends beyond this also adds to his blandness.

Also, bonding wasn't intrusive in Crossbell, all it did there was have the characters become a bit more intimate.
Meanwhile the bonding in Cold Steel has locked away important characterization for some, that you'll never really get unless you go for said character's bonding events. Though the writing is generally not good either way.

Lloyd as a character is still very much a milquetoast white guy, the difference between him and Rean is that Lloyd is a foil to the other characters in the party and makes them better by playing off of their dynamic, whereas Rean actively holds back the other characters - wiafus are not allowed to grow or develop even surface level dynamics with other characters so that the target audience of Cold Steel (virgin otakus) don't feel NTR'd, and even the waifus aside, most of the characters are just kind of Rean-obsessed.
Lloyd's character arc with solving the murder of his brother and trying to live up to his greatness was simpler but executed much better than Rean's character arc - which barely had any substance so they went and repeated it several times through out the CS games - reiterating his dumb backstory where he mopes around cuz he killed a bear that would've killed him or his sister otherwise.
And about Rean's ''depression and sadness''. This dude has NO REASON to act like he does - he has the most supportive network of friends in pretty much every JRPG, and he's practically a deity to them, if the game had presented it as mental issues that he needs to overcome it would've been a lot more organic but no - the game actively tries to pretend there are VALID EXTERNAL REASONS for him to feel like he does when there are none.

From the start to finish Cold Steel has the most shallow and inorganic character moments in the series - it doesn't help that it's filled with retcons, deus ex machinas and power scaling issues compared to the rest of the series.

mosam00 said:


Absolute BS, CS anti’s have awful opinions and awful reasons for their opinions too. I’m not engaging with low IQ people like you anymore.

AzurealX said:


Lmao, the fact you can't deny any of this so you just have to count on calling it bullshit and random readers of the thread taking your word for it.

mosam00 said:


I can deny it lol, I already have in previous quotes but I don’t have time to be spending my time writing essays on MAL to people like you who have close minds and superficial criticisms. I have better things to do.

UTMAN said:
Tbh I find Kiseki >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> everything else in the series so far. (Except Hajimari and Kuro, haven't played those yet.)
Also funnily a lot of people who are shit-talking the Erebonia arc just forgets that these 4 games what helped the game to blow up in the west and japan... like Kuro no Kiseki looks that amazing because Cold Steel basically sold like honey and generated so much income to Falcon that it could do all that amazing thing in Kuro no Kiseki technology wise. And people call it "downfall". it's funny honestly.

AzurealX said:


It's the downfall of the series' reputation.
It used to be known as a cult franchise of really high writing quality, but Cold Steel changed main writers - Takeiri is a scenario designer and not a direct writer now, the Cold Steel writing was criticized a lot more than Sky and Crossbell due to it's inconsistencies and shallowness, which overall harmed the reputation of the series and led to Kuro no Kiseki selling poorly. Meanwhile Cold Steel sold well because Crossbell was successful in Japan and people bought the next thing after Crossbell out of hype.

UTMAN said:


Idk where you getting all of this information. I barely saw Cold steel getting any criticism except my old fans of the series that did not like the high school setup of the story and were blinded by nostalgia. And the other criticism I saw were newcomers who did not like the slow pace of the game, but the slow pace is present in every first entry of the game FC and Zero, where the game spends an immense amount of time setting up the new cast and territory.
As I said cold steel, especially 3 and 4 were number 1 top sales in japan and 1-2 managed to bring it to the west and make it more popular. This is something Sky and Crosbell never could achieve... heck crossbell still does not has an official western release.

Also is pure copium that the Kuro no Kiseki sold poorly because of Cold Steel.
Hajiamri no Kiseki was number one on sales when released:
https://www.gematsu.com/2020/09/famitsu-sales-8-23-20-8-30-20

There are a lot of factors why Kuro had a rough start:
For example, Kuro got released on a "dead" console, Ps4 and its market is getting smaller and smaller now that PS5 is on the market. Then falcon criminally under-advertised it. For example, they usually use the Dengeki magazine to advertise their game, and paper media is on the decline. And I could go on why Kuro sold less successfully...

AzurealX said:


Hajimari no Kiseki is essentially Cold Steel 5- Rean also happened to be featured heavily in it's marketing too.

Also, Cold Steel gets a lot of criticism in a good chunk of Falcom sub-communities and in Japanese user reviews as a whole. Again, because something sells well it doesn't mean it's universally beloved.
The main point of contention being the inconsistencies to formerly established things and extremely blatant retcons - with the game's writing being criticized for using too many outdated and obscure kanji, making it notoriously difficult to read through even for native Japanese and making the dialogue sound stiff, pretentious and unnatural even to Japanese people. People don't dislike the slow pacing of Cold Steel but rather the fact that it's really padded out and a decent chunk of it's runtime could be toned down with nothing lost in the plot, whereas Sky and Crossbell while slow paced were organically spread out and gradually characterized everything from start to finish whereas CS leaves things like characters, etc. entirely unaddressed, dedicates a chapter to them to establish them and then that's that, often leading to shallow results due to not getting the same careful attention as they would in Sky or Crossbell - when the series was still directed by Toshihiro Kondo and written by Takeiri instead of directed by Kusano and being handled by anonymous writers.

UTMAN said:


Hajimari got a lot of Loyd marketing too, so I'm not sure where are you getting at.

"Also, Cold Steel gets a lot of criticism in a good chunk of Falcom sub-communities and in Japanese user reviews as a whole." - you just affirmed my previous sentence that old fans with nostalgia google.

"The main point of contention being the inconsistencies to formerly established things and extremely blatant retcons - with the game's writing being criticized" - can you like name a few? Because I can't think of any major retcons that was done in Cold Steel. As far as I know the game is surprisingly consistent even with all these games and not even Cold Steel. You make it sound that there are like major retcons left and right and they are so OBVIOUS.

"ith the game's writing being criticized for using too many outdated and obscure kanji, making it notoriously difficult to read through even for native Japanese and making the dialogue sound stiff, pretentious and unnatural even to Japanese people. " - first, blame it on falcom and not on Cold Steel, and second I'm pretty sure if cold steel used these, then the old games too, since this feels more like a habit than something they started doing it in cold steel. But since I played it in English text and Japanese voice I could not care any less about the kanji in the game.

"Sky and Crossbell while slow paced were organically spread out and gradually characterized everything from start to finish whereas CS leaves things like characters, etc. entirely unaddressed, dedicates a chapter to them to establish them and then that's that," Not necessarily true again. Like Let's look at Schera. She literally got barely an screen time in FC, just got set up as a mentor on the prologue / chapter 1, then written out completey, then in SC she got some development in SC when Luci came in the picture in Chapter 4, and some minor again when we assaulted the one of the towers and an optional if you brought her to the final dungeon. That's it.
Sara on the other hand, she was mostly all-around in Cold Steel . Sometimes she escorted us in the mission, but between missions when there was the school scenes, she was always there and giving us bits of her characterization, then in CS 2 got some really nice improvement with her fighting against her own jaeger corps, and same thing in CS 3 during Ordis. And this is just one example. I get that you don't like the cold steel series, but please for the love of God don't make up stuff.

I never said Cold Steel is good because it's popular. But it managed to get a LOT of people into the franchise (including me), if it weren't for it, I would have never met Estelle/Joshua, and this is something I will never forget. Not saying it's perfect, but I personally enjoyed way more the story/characters and especially the combat of cold steel. Really loved in CS3 the switch between the normal traditional fights and the Soldat/Divine Knight fights.

AzurealX said:


For starters, yea, Lloyd was in the marketing too - that doesn't mean much, he's not a game seller if we're judging by character popularity polls. As fpr the character interactions, Schera was present for quite a while and most of the time that she was, she had characterization, be it in direct plot involvement or character interactions, we see her get closer and closer to Olivier through small character interactions, sometimes not even voiced, like the celebration in 3rd in Joshua's Star Door just seeing them sitting together on the same table distanced from the rest, plus Schera gets an entire backstory door in 3rd as well - CS characters don't really have that, they throw around a lot of fodder dialogue and we never get INTO the characters, there's practically no room to anyway, they want to focus on Rean 24/7 even though there's nothing to show for him, Rean is the same character from start to finish, relapses into his moody emo depresso shit and gets talked out of it a minute later and that just repeats like 3-4 times through out the series, his character arc is too short to fill even a single chapter and they drag it on for 4 games - the fact that the BEST written Rean is in Hajimari and he's not the main protagonist of that but shares the main spot with 2 other characters is kind of funny - I guess the new writing team after Takeiri is less knowledgeable on how to actually implement character defining interactions.
Sara was often present on-screen in Cold Steel but 90% of her presence is nothing but spewing instructions at the main cast as a teacher would.

Also sure, I'll name you a few retcons. Juna and her involvement with the SSS. She supposedly lives right next door to the SSS, calls them all ''senpai'' and stuff and is generally a big fan of them. Sure... but we never saw her even once in Zero/Ao cause she wasn't created as a character - more of the blatant ''NC7 wasn't even thought of a the time'' moments, her entire relationship with them is super retconned into the plot.
Towa being in the Trade Conference - we literally explore every building in Ao and she is not there - ultimately shoehorned retcon that had no reason to exist.
Ash's entire existence - considering all of Hamel was stated to be wiped out at that point but they shoehorned another Hamel survivor aside from Joshua and Loewe for that shock effect.
How contrived and shoehorned it is is practically confirmed by the fact Kondo confirmed in an interview that New Class 7 wasn't even thought up until after CS2 released. Since from the time that Kondo took over as CEO and gave up his position as the director of Trails to Kusano, the writing has been way less pre-planned and more ''make it up as you go''.

The series' lack of focus is pretty apparent in the Harem garbage - which was most likely implemented in a rush retroactively seeing the forced ''Alisa/Rean'' attempts to shine through in the main plot - the fact that they've met once as kids was never ever brought up again and Cold Steel ended before it could even be addressed, because Cold Steel was made up on the go due to a general lack of focus from the new director.

In the prototype version of the story, Olivier was supposed to be the protagonist of the Erebonia arc and it was supposed to focus on his political confrontation against Osborne. That's yet another thing that Cold Steel retconned - Olivier's master plan which was hyped up so much and Cold Steel turned it into something laughable, making the plan essentially bog down to ''I sure hope my complete blind gamble on these teenagers pays off''...

And there's the likes of Cold Steel 4 - the amount of inconsistency and power scaling issues is just staggering - easily the messiest game in the series. Antagonists that could beat the entire Class 7 Solo and HAVE BEEN SHOWN TO DO IT when even not at full power suddenly losing because ''NOTHING CAN STOP CLASS 7 WHEN THEY'RE TOGETHER AND DETERMINED'' and completely wasted villains like Arianrhod and McBurn in a gauntlet - not even spaced out... LITERALLY ONE AFTER ANOTHER.

UTMAN said:


Well, you are kinda contradicting yourself, cause you are saying that cold steel is the fall of the series but then you say that Rean is more popular than Lloyd, then you said that Kur no Kiseki sold because Cold Steel is vastly unpopular/disliked. So I don't really get what you are trying to state. If a series is popular, then it means it is successful, i don't understand how you connect these together.

Well when it comes to Schera/Sara we either take 2 games FC/SC / CS1 and 2 or we take the franchise.

Schera in FC is non existent. Like she is set up as a mentor/older sibling for Estelle and basically written off and you doN't see her until final dungeon. Sara is at least constantly in the first game as a mentor and gives advice Rean, although her character development comes in the 2nd game, also the 3rd game with the Northern Jaegers getting themselves involved in the conflict.
It feels to me that you are seriously undercutting the Cold Steel cast.
Class VII has deep conflict and character drama with the main antagonist class.

Rean - Osborne/Crow
Laura - Arianrhod / Arseid Legacy
Jusis - Rufus
Emma - Vita
Fie - Zephyr
Sara - Northern Jegers/Zephyr/Red Constallation
Alisa - Sharon/her father
Mollium - well first Altina, then in CS3 she has her own conflict between choosing Class VII and Osborne

The only 2 character who is not really involved is Gaius and Elliot, but even Elliot gets his stuff when the 4th Division becomes his enemy.

Some of these are present in multiple games.

So in my opinion you are not really fair when it comes to cold steel.

About the retcoms.... well these I knew, I hoped you will hit me something with somewhat more serious ones. Like these are not really "retcons" they don't change already set up events or stories of the game. Introducing a char who was not really mentioned is like barely a retcon. If you want to know how bad retcons can be, just look into the warcraft verse, where they change basically events or reasons on what happened and why just to fit the narrative of the new game.

For example it was said that the Crown of Diomination was made by the burning legion, but this was all scrapped in the recent expansion.

So this handles Ash/Towa and Juna problem. Once again you make this way bigger of an issue than it is.


And regarding the powerscaling is once again, Class VII has immense amount of powerful people too.

You have a Dominion in them. A girl who is basically the successor of the Arseid school, same for Vander, although weaker version, a witch who is on the level of the 2nd Anguis, a Divine Blade, two A rank bracerr. Also what you are saying is by the end of the 4 games!

Powercreeping happened in the SC too you know.... I remember Blueblanc singlehandedly decimating Estelle, Schera/or Agate, Olivier and Klose, and by the end of the game they easily defeat him. The same goes for all the enforcers present in the game. Loewe who is on paper on par with Cassius with staff is defeated by Joshue on 1v1 etc.

What is seems to me, that you understandably don't like cold steel, and when you find a small problem in it, you just put it under a magnifying glass and try to make it look as bad it can, while ignoring all the similar issues that the Sky franchise has.

AzurealX said:


Popularity and reception are two entirely different things. I never once claimed CS is unpopular, I said that the japanese fanbase is very harsh on it in terms of reviews because the writing is bad.
Cold Steel was popular as Crossbell was already rising in popularity and CS got to enjoy the peak with CS2 and then started gradually falling down, CS3 sold less than 2, CS4 sold less than 3, Hajimari sold less than CS4 and Kuro sold less than Hajimari. The series has just been on a downwards slope since Cold Steel 2.


You're definitely discrediting Schera's involvement in FC, she was with them when they snuck into the bandit airship too, she was literally there for the majority of the story and had her fair share of gradual characterization.
Also ''serious'' retcons? A lot of these retcons are really major, especially Olivier's grand plan - since he was originally supposed to be the protagonist of the Erebonia arc in earlier stages of development.

Cold Steel characters are on-screen for long but never do anything substantial, can you name the last time Elliot was relevant or even remotely a character? It's not that the characters that were introduced ''weren't ever mentioned''. It's that Juna is supposedly really close with the SSS and HAS BEEN friends with them even during the events of Azure - except that's false, since we saw everything that happened in Azure on-screen. She's a Mary Sue retcon.
Even Ash, his introduction completely contradicts Loewe and Joshua being the sole survivors of Hamel, HELL WE HAVE A CANONICAL MANGA that covers those events and we know that there's no way Ash should even exist.

Legit no one is involved from OG Class 7 for the most part and New C7 just follow Rean. CS has so many characters and none of them are beyond surface level.

Also, Sky's power creep was never to the extent of Cold Steel - at the end of CS4 the main cast should've gotten steamrolled - not won with the power of friendship. The fact that the situation was set up like it was is bad writing 101, since the only way out of there was a Nakama powerup at that point.

As for Joshua/Loewe - it's pretty obvious that the Loewe was really just not fighting back since what Joshua was saying was getting to him and it led to them instantly reconciling after. That's not a case of a power creep.
As for Bleublanc , if you don't recall - the fight was interrupted after the tower went back to normal - and he said ''Oh, you're more capable than I thought. Perhaps it is time we get properly serious''.
He was never defeated. At least remember the story right if you want to argue things against Sky lol.

Also, yeah, every CS character has their own antagonist in their character arc- which is where a lot of the issues stem from in the first place. The characters all have a shallow coverage of their arc because they are too many and often they try to balance the main plot with their side plots and often leave no time to cover them properly. It just comes off as if they glossed over them for the sake of having ''developed'' the characters on paper even if it wasn't organic, gradual or even an inch deeper at all.

Akitokamisen said:
I am of opposite side
Best arc In trails series is erabonia arc (cold steel) then crossbell arc (zero and azure) and liberal arc(sky)
Generic lightnovel archetypes??
Dude Litrally all characters in trails series are like that

Cold steel games cast >crossbell games cast>sky games cast

Agreed it has pacing problems but mostly because erabonia focuses on building nearly every imp npc as as they will appear in all the 4 games
And it also focuses more building erabonia (which even after 4 games is still not fully explored hoes to show how big erabonia is compared to liberal and crossbell)

Raisken said:
I don't get why so many people hate on CS too.

Valyrian1124 said:


I agree with almost everything, except ranking the SSS ahead of the Sky cast. I thought that the SSS were overall really dull characters (and in some cases, unlikeable). The only one I liked was Randy. The Sky cast also had a few duds but also had a lot more likeable characters, IMO.

MonkeyDHunter said:
Ok, late to the party here.

First of all, it was already stated, this anime won't cover the main story so we will get something else most likely either an untold story or an event that was only mentioned without seeing more of it.

Now, as someone who plans to do a grand replay of the series as a chance now that the western release of Crossbell is about to come plus preparation for Reverie, I will give my own input for the franchise as a whole.

As for me, the series sums up like this:

Sky -> favourite cast
Crossbell -> favourite story
Cold Steel-> favourite gameplay

Overall: Crossbell > Sky > Cold Steel
Games: Azure >= SC > CS3 > FC = Zero > 3rd > CS4 > CS1 > CS2

Now, the whole thing that CS being generic and tropey has gotten old. Name one series nowadays that isn't tropey in one way of another. Everything can be labelled as a trope and at the same time generic doesn't equal with "bad". Sky was tropey by using tropes of its own era. Everything is about execution and for the most part the series does it well.

I'm not fond of harem or ecchi undertones either especially when it involves an established character and not a self-insert like Persona or lock character development behind it but this started by Crossbell and built on CS. Heck, Azure which is my favourite game, literally locked two characters' entire backstories in the final bonding moment which is completely asinine so blaming CS for bringing the harem into stage is ridiculous.

And we should have never being limited to interact with other characters(it's dumb to give infinite bond points in 2nd playthrough, I use cheats to get everything in one go) and the "choose your waifu" aspect is pointless since it doesn't carry on and even the games themselves mostly pushes you a choice by interactions involved in the main story.

Now, my main gripe honestly with CS is that it leaves a lot to be desired. The amount of filler in CS2 and CS4 is pretty off-putting especially in the former that if you removed nothing would change in the grand scheme of things. CS4 literally had the biggest-highs yet at the same time the biggest-lows for the franchise for me due to its format.

Also, I never felt there was an organic relationship between the OG Class VII without Rean around. If you put aside Machias x Jusis, Jusis x Millium, maybe Fie x Sara and the small Fie x Laura situation, I cannot think of much despite the aforementioned being handled good imo.

If you compare OG Class VII interactions WITHOUT the MC with the Sky(Agate x Tita, Tita x Renne, Schera x Olivier, Olivier x Agate etc) or SSS(especially the OG 4) casts, on that regard it's pretty lacking especially for a freaking class of students that spend their time together for most time of the day for months and not characters with different affiliations that are on the same journey(enforcer, bracer, royalty, thug etc) which is a major reason I have a hard time to take seriously the whole Crow drama in CS2 coming from the other students that are not named Rean who at least spent some time with him to justify his behaviour.

Despite all that, I don't find any character bad, it only makes me indifferent for some of them since I don't like how the interactions are being handled between the cast without Rean around but their character development itself is fine.

Furthermore, there are many recycled events that are being overused even in just one game. Fight bad guys, defeat them in gameplay but lose in cutscene or the bad guys just hold back and leave. In Sky and Crossbell, the battles felt more threatening and more personal overall at least to me. Another one, is when you are in pinch someone always come to your rescue. This really becomes predictable to an annoying degree. The "That won't be necessary" quote from CS3 has even become a meme among the fandom. I'm aware this happened in past entries too but they really overdid it there along with the speeches.

I wish the games would eventually take a more "show, don't tell" approach later on but I find this unlikely given the series' structure.

I won't deny that CS soured my experience a bit for the franchise but the "characters are generic and tropey" is definitely not one of them and many issues I have with it always existed in the previous installments but they didn't make their presence to me as evident as it did since the Erebonia arc really overstayed its welcome.

Still, every series have both its good and bad times and a bad experience(mostly CS2 if anything) won't change my overall opinion for the franchise. I'm still looking forward to Reverie and Kuro's release when that very long time comes.

NixXSkate said:
I think the writing and pacing of Sky and Zero is better than Cold Steel, but I still ended up enjoying Cold Steel the most. Maybe I got a bit tired of the Ark Engine. Maybe it's because Cold Steel has God-tier music. Maybe I was in the right state of mind while playing and had the patience for it's slow pacing at times.

xyzeee said:
is rare thing kiseki fans talkin shit about cold steel in the forum lmao
but yeah cold steel is downfall of kiseki series
>bad script writing
>you need spend that stupid bonding points for development character between MC and other character
> 95% story of erebonia arc is about rean schwarzer the other class VII just some puppet

but the positive thing is new kiseki game ( kuro) is make this series better than erebonia arc
at least falcom knew they make some mistakes in cold steel

Animaniaig said:
Rean actively holds back the other characters - wiafus are not allowed to grow or develop even surface level dynamics with other characters so that the target audience of Cold Steel (virgin otakus) don't feel NTR'd, and even the waifus aside, most of the characters are just kind of Rean-obsessed.

1SINN said:


No he doesn't what's with all this bs, they all grow individually and while i found the new cast better, Class 7 still have fully fleshed out characters, well except for one guy which is Julius.


Did you even play the first game btw? I thought everyone already picked up about the lesbi relationship with Fie and Laura after they made up so no Rean being a chick magnet to his classmates isn't fully true.

1SINN said:


No he doesn't what's with all this bs, they all grow individually and while i found the new cast better, Class 7 still have fully fleshed out characters, well except for one guy which is Julius.


Did you even play the first game btw? I thought everyone already picked up about the lesbi relationship with Fie and Laura after they made up so no Rean being a chick magnet to his classmates isn't fully true.

Deeoh said:
Wow holy shit, people are on either ends of the extreme in whatever debate this was. There are some valid criticisms for all of the arcs, and more specifically the games individually. The Cold Steel games are definitely more modern tropey, while Sky games where more old classic early 2000 late 1990 tropey. The Crossbell games where not the next coming of Christ like some fans like to pretend they were, but they _were_ the perfect middle ground between Sky and CS.

There is valid critisism in CS locking some important character moments behind optional bonding events, but that's simply the price you have to pay for having a somewhat meaningful relationship mechanic whatsovever. And it was the right choice, god knows if the series would have continued if they didnt pander a bit to bring in new people.

As far as the games go, people seem to very much just lump all the games together in their respective arcs and rate them like that, but they are all like their own games still with their own pros and cons. Yeah we know that Sky FC and SC were supposed to be one game, but they weren't, and SC was fucking amazing, peak JRPG, and it was all because of FC. But. FC was atrocious, horribly paced, the dullest combat in the series, it takes like dozens and dozens of hours before the combat becomes mildy entertaining, and the same goes for the story. It barely delivers anything exciting until the very end.
BUT. Probably one of the best cliffhangers in gaming... apart from CS1, which actually had you personally invested in the ending because of your choices

Here's basically my ratings for the games; FC - atrocious. SC- Peak JRPG, but couldn't be without the first. 3rd a nice change of pace, great character moments, probably the best gameplay in the series. Zero, great. Not much to say about it. Ao, great, the same basically. CS1, the best entry point for someone actually wanting to play a fun game and understand what the fuck is going on, employs bonding system to make you more invested, very good. CS2, great, but ultimately just a follow up to 1 and a minor setup for 3.
3 was... I don't know honestly, I don't know if I just felt shit/weird while playing it but it felt like the writing was weaker, but it also had me screaming out loud in joy when revisiting past characters. I honestly can't judge it properly. I haven't played 4 yet.

Anyway my fingers hurt, rant over. I don't know why I bothered necroing this thread.

AzurealX said:



Heavily disagree with this. FC itself is amazing still. Gradual developments that organically introduce you to the setting and cast, the overall dialogue and general writing was just levels better than Cold Steel.

Takeiri is a scenario planner for CS, not the main writer which is why the dialogue is so cringe and the overall writing is so bad.
A war in which no one dies, deus ex machinas out of thin air, no one was truly evil IT WAS ALL THE CURSE'S FAULT.
The insane amount of retcons to even make the premise work and the terrible ''bonding'' events which literally don't fit within a series that's supposed to be overarching because they're just ''choose your waifu'' pandering and muddle up the canonicity of the series and ruin the integrity of the overarching nature of it. They just muddle up the continuity.

The thing is, Cold Steel fans don't judge the series based on actual narrative merit or quality of writing. BIG HYPE EVENTS HAPPENING = GOOD WRITING, CALM, UNEVENTFUL DIALOGUE = BAD WRITING.

That's how they rationalize it.

AzurealX said:



Heavily disagree with this. FC itself is amazing still. Gradual developments that organically introduce you to the setting and cast, the overall dialogue and general writing was just levels better than Cold Steel.

Takeiri is a scenario planner for CS, not the main writer which is why the dialogue is so cringe and the overall writing is so bad.
A war in which no one dies, deus ex machinas out of thin air, no one was truly evil IT WAS ALL THE CURSE'S FAULT.
The insane amount of retcons to even make the premise work and the terrible ''bonding'' events which literally don't fit within a series that's supposed to be overarching because they're just ''choose your waifu'' pandering and muddle up the canonicity of the series and ruin the integrity of the overarching nature of it. They just muddle up the continuity.

The thing is, Cold Steel fans don't judge the series based on actual narrative merit or quality of writing. BIG HYPE EVENTS HAPPENING = GOOD WRITING, CALM, UNEVENTFUL DIALOGUE = BAD WRITING.

That's how they rationalize it.

"The Aureole facilitated the creation of virtual realities intended to induce euphoria in participants. It even altered brain chemistry to achieve this. It was no different than taking a powerful euphoric stimulant and hallucinogen at the same time. Worse still, there were no side effects. No physical ones, at least."