SpoilerFull SeriesA thought I had after a long conversation with Latte yesterday. There are definitely clear parallels between Zemuria and the cosmere. What’s the possibility that the three worlds the church has sworn to defend are the Physical, Spiritual, and Conceptional worlds? If Erebonia dealt with the interaction between the physical and spiritual, would Calvard deal with the physical and conceptual?
Congratulations, you just broke my brain. ;p I hadn't thought about that specific parallel just yet.
That said, I think the three worlds are the three planes we've seen mentioned in the Church's teachings: Zemuria, Gehenna and... whatever Aidios' realm is named, they haven't given it a specific term yet but I'm certain it's coming. That this doesn't correspond to reality as we understand it after the revelation about the Outside may not be relevant depending on how much the rank and file Gralsritter know of the truth. If it's something only the Dominion know, the three worlds being the three planes makes sense. If they do know... then yeah, that opens up some interesting possibilities.
Continuing that theme, the idea that 'truth and lies' will be a big element in Calvard's story would fit really well with a Physical/Cognitive interaction. It's practically Shallan's core concept extended to a country.
<Waits for someone in Calvard to have a spirit companion that has to tell them 'NO MATING!'. Oh wait, Valimar already kind of did that with Rean and Alisa. xD>
Well with CS IV coming out in the west soon and Hajimari coming out in Japan soon, I wanted to get an idea of how some of you found yourself getting into this series.
For me, it was my last semester in College and I was thinking of getting rid of my PSP since it was a dead system. However I decided to look up online any games worth trying out and a few websites had Trails in the Sky as a hidden gem. I picked it up and was sucked in instantly, and haven't looked back since. This was back at the beginning of 2013, so being in 2020 with the Cold Steel series about to have the last game released here and having been able to play all the other games before it now is crazy. How far we've come from wondering if SC will be released, to when and if this series would continue on once it was released. I may be heavy on criticism from time to time but much like the MCU, there is nothing like this in video games and I love the ride I've been on since 2013, both ups and downs in game and out of game.
I got started growing up with a friend who had a Turbo Duo and was able to play the first Legend of Heroes but I didn't get really into it until college myself, when I started learning Japanese and importing more games. Grabbed Gagharv and then got into Kiseki on the ground floor because one of the feelies in the Ys VI box was a promo for 'Legend of Heroes VI' back when they were still numbering the games and nobody knew it was going to end like that.
So yeah, I'm old. 😋
I got started growing up with a friend who had a Turbo Duo and was able to play the first Legend of Heroes but I didn't get really into it until college myself, when I started learning Japanese and importing more games. Grabbed Gagharv and then got into Kiseki on the ground floor because one of the feelies in the Ys VI box was a promo for 'Legend of Heroes VI' back when they were still numbering the games and nobody knew it was going to end like that.
So yeah, I'm old.
Does that make you the fan who thinks us darn kids have it good and we wouldn't know quality because they don't make them like they used to?
I kid, I kid. As long as you don't accuse me of ruining the franchise because I'm a millennial and apparently we ruin everything, we shall be fine. If you do go down that route, a fair warning, I have a large stockpile of "ok boomer" to shoot back with.
Well with CS IV coming out in the west soon and Hajimari coming out in Japan soon, I wanted to get an idea of how some of you found yourself getting into this series.
I only got into the series in 2017, so there was a comfortable lack of waiting. The first thing I ever saw about Kiseki was the Cold Steel 2 cover and my first thought was basically: Your average anime RPG - boring. The visual design of the characters mildly rose my interest, so I looked the series up on TV Tropes, all the while thinking that 'Legend of Heroes' is the most cliched title ever. I then found out that this is a long running series, so I looked into the earlier titles. What truly piqued my interest then was Zero no Kiseki, because it was stated that this was a RPG centered around a single big metropolis.
That intrigued me, but I soon found out that there was, oh surprise, only a fan translation available. Still, a JRPG within a single city sounded like such a departure from usual RPG convention. The TV Tropes Page even mentioned that Crossbell had a Shin Megami Tensei feel to it, so I just had to play it. But because I'm a thorough kind of person and it was stressed that the Sky Trilogy was connected to Crossbell, I was ready to give the earlier games a go...
The Prologue of Sky FC with Cassius and Estelle was one of the best story introductions I've ever encountered in any kind of fiction. My intrigue only grew as I played through FC and when I reached that Joshua Cliffhanger... I was already inside the rabbit hole.
Haven't found the way out yet.
Sorry Alice, once you follow the Kiseki White Rabbit there's no way out of the rabbit hole... xD
SpoilerNayutaSo I've never played Nayuta, but I saw this picture from the game and with no context as to what's going on, I'm wondering...could that missing chunk be Zemuria???? I do kinda want to play the game someday, so maybe keep the answer somewhat vague lol
...but it's damned important, that's for sure.
And Nayuta is very much worth playing. There's a bit of a rough patch at one point in the story but overall it's a good blend of Falcom action with a Kiseki-esque story backing it up, the gameplay is phenomenal and the music is great too. If you've played Zwei II, imagine that and you'll be in the right ballpark.
Was gone for awhile due to computer issues. Hope you don't mind some extended story.
First off, I did see Trails in the sky on the psp, but I didn't get it. I loved RPGs back when I was a kid on the NES and SNES, but I got a playstation 1 like 3 years later than everyone else, and heard everyone gush about how amazing final fantasy 7 was, and how some liked 8 too. Bear in mind at my age, nobody even KNEW what an rpg was, whenever I had to explain it to them it was like an alien they coudln't understand. But FF7 (and pokemon I guess) suddenly made it so EVERYONE knew what RPGS were, and they all loved it!. I kinda though FF7 was a bit of a letdown. I didn't like the dirty futuristic setting, I didn't like the sound and music compared to the snes games. The combat mechanics were fine but the game was noticeably too easy, and I hated how op cloud was (hate op protagonists). I didn't hate 7, but I didn't particularly like it, and I HATED 8. I heard wild arms is good but the western setting didn't appeal to me, and basically I just kind of fell out of the JRPG wagon for quite some time. I did end up getting back into it again before trails, but never with the same level of passion or dedication. When I saw TiTs on psp, I took note and said, yeah maybe I'll try it, kinda looks like lunar, and I love lunar, but I think I was busy playing WoW at the time and in school, so just didn't get around to it.
Anyway I got into Kiseki because BEFORE Kiseki, I fell into the wonderful rabbit hole of Doujin games, Japanese Indie games for those who don't know. I love games, and I love the indie game scene, and the Japanese Indie game scene is only more advanced for the most part IMO than the western one due to the fact it's been around longer, and they actually have retail stores dedicated to selling indie products (not just games, but games are a large portion of it). I first started off with Touhou, for the games before the music, I'm a freak like that. Then I tried other Doujin shmups, then I found doujin rpgs, and doujin games galore. It was a good time.
Then one day a doujin game was about to be released on steam. No wayyy. I didn't know anything about the game, but I HAD to get it because I really wanted the doujin game industry to break into the western/steam market. That game was Reccettear, which is as far as I know, the first 'imported' doujin game on steam. It was pretty good, it got old eventually but it gave me lots of hours of fun, and it was a smash hit to boot. yay. The company that localized that game made another game I don't think is worth mentioning, then fortune summoners, which is actually kind of a hidden gem IMO. Unfortunately it ends with a very clear impression of it's just the first game in the series, but it never got a 2nd game due to poor sales =(.
Happy with this company's work for the most part, I would regularly visit their website/blog/forums, and one day they made a giant blog post about how Spacedrake was going to work on the localization of Trails in the sky for PC. I was like, oh hey, yeah I remember that game! I then mentally short-listed it as a fan of Carpe Fulgar, and as someone who DId intend to try TiTS at some point anyway. Of course, you all probably know what kind of a disaster this was for Spacedrake. But I still consider myself a fan because of he is IMO a doujin game pioneer for steam, and got me to try trails in the first place finally, which is the best game series ever IMO.
I just hope he still loves the series as a game he can enjoy, and not look at them with the negativity it caused while he was working on sky PC.
edit: unrelated tidbit. I got windoze 10 now and can play pso2 now, yay. If you were playing it too trailsofpersona, I'm on ship 2. Which is basically the ship everyone English played on back in jpn beta, so it's kind of the ship to play on for 'old' fans.
I’m mostly done editing your theory, but I still have a few questions and comments before I schedule it. You can reach me on Twitter or Discord. My discord ID is Hellseye47#1419. The sooner the better because I want to get this theory published before Hajimari breaks street date in China.
I love how that's a 'when' statement rather than an 'if' statement...
Thanks again for the editing and going over the changes beforehand.
@wuolong77 So you got to miss out on the roller coaster ride that was the wait for SC. 2017 would've been around the time 3rd was released, so you'd have the whole Sky trilogy and the first two Cold Steel games to get into. Glad to see another person who was grabbed into the game via Estelle
@ghaleon I haven't heard Carpe Fulgar in quite a while. Played the three games of theirs and enjoyed each of them to varying extents. Really should play Recetter again. Never even touched PSO2 so unfortunately I won't be joining you, but hope you are enjoying the game.
@wuolong77 So you got to miss out on the roller coaster ride that was the wait for SC. 2017 would've been around the time 3rd was released, so you'd have the whole Sky trilogy and the first two Cold Steel games to get into. Glad to see another person who was grabbed into the game via Estelle
I know it's has become an overused meme, but Estelle is indeed Bestelle. The moment she asked "Why is my present a boy?", I knew I was diving into something special.
But now, 9 Kiseki games later, two of those forcing me to dust off my Chinese, I'm in this strange place that I love all Kiseki protagonists equally. They all have their strengths and flaws and idiosyncrasies, but I simply refuse to rank them... even Rean.
Though if there's one character who truly ranks first among all these great characters, it would be Olivert. Estelle grabbed me into the game, but Olivier, Hunter of LOVE, captured my heart.
@wuolong77 So you got to miss out on the roller coaster ride that was the wait for SC. 2017 would've been around the time 3rd was released, so you'd have the whole Sky trilogy and the first two Cold Steel games to get into. Glad to see another person who was grabbed into the game via Estelle
I know it's has become an overused meme, but Estelle is indeed Bestelle. The moment she asked "Why is my present a boy?", I knew I was diving into something special.
But now, 9 Kiseki games later, two of those forcing me to dust off my Chinese, I'm in this strange place that I love all Kiseki protagonists equally. They all have their strengths and flaws and idiosyncrasies, but I simply refuse to rank them... even Rean.
Though if there's one character who truly ranks first among all these great characters, it would be Olivert. Estelle grabbed me into the game, but Olivier, Hunter of LOVE, captured my heart.
For me, her saying "Are you an Adatuwere" was what really got me. That whole little opening scene was just really well done and everytime I replay the game I love it more and more.
I can easily rank protagonists, but glad you can enjoy all of them for various reasons equally. Olivier is indeed one of my absolute favorites, just a little behind Estelle. Falcom really nailed his type of character to be charming instead of unlikable, as his personality can easily become annoying quickly. Replays of Sky especially really show his depth. I still get floored when I realized how he spoiled his identity in SC early on, but the context of the scene makes you think it's just him joking.
