October 23, 2017

What I’ve been playing – Trails of Cold Steel

Posted in video games tagged gaming update, tokyo xanadu, trails of cold steel at 7:29 pm by riulyn

FINALLY I’m playing Cold Steel! I’m sure someone out there is saying that besides me as I’ve made it through Trails of the Sky, Trails of Zero & Blue, and now there’s hope I might catch up on this major Falcom series. (Though tomorrow I will probably get derailed by Nights of Azure 2, but whatever.)

I’m okay playing Cold Steel in English so far. It’s funny to see Japanese school/company culture in pseudo-Europe, but it’s almost okay because of the military school setup. The localization has kept the “rise, bow” stuff but removed the honorifics. So far so good I think.

The “Falcom decides to voice as many characters as possible so the main character doesn’t speak even if others are in the conversation” thing is super bad in this game and pretty jarring. I know it happens in Ys 8, but it felt like everyone was just cut off suddenly during a scene.

I’m kind of amused by the game’s setup since I played Tokyo Xanadu first, which is like a light version of Cold Steel. I think Falcom’s a bit too married to the “let’s have the group do tasks and then learn about the world” so they had to find an “excuse”. I know it’s justified in the game, but it kind of makes me like Tokyo Xanadu a bit more for being focused on the characters and a main thing instead of quests and quests. But the characters so far seem better in Cold Steel and the game is supposedly much better on that front than Tokyo Xanadu.

Speaking of Tokyo Xanadu, eX+ finally has a release date for NA and it falls right after Xenoblade 2, so maybe I’ll be saving that replay for early next year. I have no preorders for 2018 yet, which is crazy! Though my brother has KH3 preordered, so I guess that may technically count as I will probably play that game too.

Permalink Leave a Comment