This isn't an attempt at being professional review meant for a wide audience, just my review for the old xseed forum/falcomromancia forum gang like I did every kiseki game in the past.
So before I begin, thank you soooooo much to everyone who did this project. I'm an officer for a raiding guild that has been around since the ORIGINAL in Classic Wow. I did NOT want to play classic again but I couldn't say no to the old gang! Despite that... I kinda. uhh.. just... not logged in or said anything to anyone for the past 3 weeks because EFF YOU ZERO COMES FIRST %@#@#%#es. My point being, what you guys did was very important to me, as important as entertainment gets, which sounds shallow but it's not for me, it was more important than entertainment with 12-15 year-long chumps/friends. Part of me wants to put on the rose-tinted sunglasses as I comment on this game, but *tosses it to the floor and stomps on it*. No seriously, I'm going to critique the game, not your guys job. That said I had a blast with the game overall, I have no regrets dumping my old guild, and I had more fun these last few weeks than I've had since CS3, which uhh. I had since uhh.. CS2, and then since cs1, and.. ok well labyrinth of touhou and genius of sappheiros are in there SOMEWHERE but other than those 2 games, basically all the kiseki games.. THANK YOU.
So on with the game itself...Currently I think... umm... Sky1>CS1=CS3>Sky3rd>Zero>cs2=Sky2
I'm not sure about this mind you, and yes I'm fully aware my 'sky' placements are probably weird to say the least. I've already explained my beefs with sky 2 though, and I think 3 is probably going to grow on me over time. Zero I enjoyed more than Sky 3rd I think (it's been a few years), but sky 3rd had replay value from what I could tell, and zero... It had elements that kinda made me tired the FIRST time through. I basically have no intent to replay it any time soon.
CS2 and sky2 are the lowest ranked games, but I still ADORE them, and if I like CS4 as much as them, and no more, I'll still consider it a precious game I'll never forget.
So why is Zero placed below average for me? Well... Here are some gripes I have (in no particular order):
1: Character dialogue portraits just didn't seem as expressive or varied to me as sky... maybe I'm full of it. I'm not sure actually, it's just how I felt, I didn't actually use math and compare the variety o f portraits of each character and/or how often they are all used or anything like that. Personally, I am ok with the transition from 2d to 3d done in CS, portraits do not outweigh it for me, but... they are still a big reason why I don't FAVOR full 3d per say. THAT said, the best scenes in the games are ones where Estelle, Renne, and sometimes Joshua cry. That's a portrait, but it's basically never used except for Renne Scenes, which.. uhh. yeah. Don't count them. I'm saying other than those scenes, it's why I liked this game less than sky, and those scenes... they were strong and hold the game up for me.
2: No cliffhanger... Ok I know, everyone hates to be cliff-hung, but seriously. The ONE time a 1st.. uhhh. I forget the term... segment.. thing, I don't have to wait an agonizing amount of time for the NEXT game, and this is the ONE game that DOESNT have a cliffhanger!?!? WTF!
3: non-quest npc chatter... I got bored of it, and just gave up doing it (sacrificing my doctor book collection chances) early chapter 3. Nobody ever praises it b ut me, but IMO Cold Steel made the 'talk to every npc every new event' thing FUN IMO... I still think it's a bit of a chore in sky, and it's DEFINITELY a chore in Zero IMO. Lots of nameless 'tourist' npcs even outside chapter 3, and even t he non-tourists don't seem to have as much personality as they do in other games. I personally only found myself caring about virtually nobody in central... Oscar and that stalker girl (bakers daughter) only because of CS3, That young girl and father where the father pushes train engineer things on her and she basically wants to be a classy girly-girl (and with an older sister I forgot she even had until recently and I still don't even know who she is), Renne's family cuz duh (and their dialogue was surprisingly disappointing over the course of the game after I figured out who they were. I mean.. before the scene it smacks you over the head. I think I figured it out 1 or 2 'unimportant' dialogues before.
Bond, and his wife/daughter (I'm a sucker for cats, and as soon as I did the cat quest, my heart was owned!). It broke my heart to see his daughter agonize over his father, and then he goes missing, and then you find him near the end and... nothing... argh...
Rixia... The game 'spoils' you that she's Yin after chapter 2, and basically does NOTHING to benefit from such knowledge ever minus 'yin' being able to wear 'female only' gear. that's it. They should have milked the 'mystery' longer, and made 'yin' a more prominent figure IMO.
Heiyue: Not enough interaction with them to really make you care or have a sense of gravity on their assault.
Arios: Game does little to make him out to be a badass between showing up and 1shotting strong enemies... It never showcases how he can be a badass bracer beyond combat like Casius.. I mean Casius doesn't in FC either, mostly SC, but Arios is around the whole time unlike Casius, so Casius kinda has a pass. I mean... Casius is one of my GRIPES about sky. He's like a mary sue, but Arios is even worse because he's described as being as good or even better, but he has way more screentime, and he accomplishes less other than last minute save the player 1-shot bull-dung.
4: final dungeon... I dunno... The trash in it were... pretty trash... those 'hang-you' bot things (I forget the names) could randomly death you, which was annoying, but not challenging... I feel sky's final dungeon trash were similar in power, but you'd fight like 4 at a time, but in Zero, alot of the time they were only just 1 mob, with better ambush mechanics, so I could murder them without them doing anything.
5: I thought crossbell had a magical quartz system where it had master quartz like CS, but the colour-adding mechanics of sky. Guess I misread that. But yeah, I was looking forward to this, and the quartz mechanics were actually worse than sky IMO. No Cast 2's (other than the gemini gem), No mind g ems (or did they change to silver from blue? I mean Kloe would have been the best caster but her blue slots were a limiting factor, Tio on the other hand had blue slots WITHOUT Mind gems.. ugh..). I just felt like these new quartz mechancis did little more than nerf it from SC/3rd. Honestly, how is it different than sky at all?! You can upgrade slots to uhh. hold quartz that you could in sky to begin with? =/
edit: oops, I hit send cuz I got distracted. wasn't done yet... kinda forgot my train thought.
That said, here are some positives I give it over the majority of the series:
1: The music! It's probably about 2nd best in the series IMO, hard to quantify them, but yeah I enjoyed it more than most.
2: Main cast dialogue... CS3 does this too. But basically having a solid party f rom start to end enables it to have good dialogue with them all throughout the entire game, yay.
Uhhh.. maybe that's it. sorry... Great game overall though honest, I'm just gripe-oriented, sorry.
Haha, no worries.
2: No cliffhanger... Ok I know, everyone hates to be cliff-hung, but seriously. The ONE time a 1st.. uhhh. I forget the term... segment.. thing, I don't have to wait an agonizing amount of time for the NEXT game, and this is the ONE game that DOESNT have a cliffhanger!?!? WTF!
Here's the funny thing, Zero doesn't have a cliffhanger but the fact that the ending seems so neat and tidy is itself the twist. You're waiting for the other shoe to drop. xD
5: I thought crossbell had a magical quartz system where it had master quartz like CS, but the colour-adding mechanics of sky. Guess I misread that.
You didn't, it's just that Master Quartz get added in Ao as a new feature for the Enigma II model, which also justifies why you start the game with a clean slate quartz-wise. And as an aside, Ao answers some of your gripes about Arios not really doing enough to justify his reputation nice and early. Likewise some of the other things you mentioned, including a lack of Heiyue interaction which they apparently were saving mostly for Ao.
Nice to see I'm not the only person to have Sky at the top/near the top (I kind of juggle FC and 3rd as my top spot from time to time).
I've been slowly getting through Zero for the past month, and now just started day 2 of chapter 4, so can't give a complete analysis of everything. As for the NPC stuff, while I enjoy it for the flavor text and giving a sense of a whole world and tidbits of lore, I've never been super invested in NPC stories. There's some here and there that stand out, but none that I'm fully invested in (exception may be Anton). I think the hardest part with Zero compared to others Is how the entirety of Crossbell opens up extremely fast, making it a chore really fast for talking to NPCs. In Sky and Cold Steel, you had the area you were in for the story to see for the chapter and that was it, outside of late game for SC and Steel II where the entire world was open up before the end game. In Zero, by the end of the 1st chapter you have the 7 sections of the city, plus all the various outskirts of the country to go to. It takes over an hour for me to get through everyone each time with all of that.
With Arios, I don't mind them talking a big game about him, same with Cassius from Sky. That said, once I found out he had a daughter I sorely wanted to see some kind of interaction between him and her, so once that finally happened over 40 hours into the game for me, I was like "Finally!". I'm a sucker for dad's caring for their kids so I loved that scene.
I'll have to wait to finish the game before diving deep into my thoughts, but just want to end a little bit on my thoughts of Lloyd. Overall, he's a good character, a step above Rean where I feel like they were going for similar things in a way but cut out some of the annoyances. That said, Sky still had the better main characters in Estelle and Kevin.
Oh, most important thing. Randy is just Dandy, and I can confirm I'm also a Wazysexual.
Yeah I kinda have to push myself to do all the npc dialogue in sky even. That's one thing I really think the transition to 3d does well in CS, as well as the 'school' setting. All the NPCs are relatively unique and you know their backstory at a glance and it makes talking to them more interesting. NPC chatter in towns weren't as fun because they had more generic NPCs. This was more of an issue in CS3 because alot of the cities in that game seemed bigger than CS1/2.
Crossbell on the other hand kinda has the worst of both worlds. Tons of generic 'tourist' NPCs, a giant ass city with MORE than 7 sections actually:
Central, west street, fancy residential street, Entertainment district, administrative district, Harbour District, East Street, Downtown, and the back alley. Though to be fair Downtown and the back alley can be combined into 1 in terms of size I suppose due to the alley really being Tiny. Though Early in Chapter 2 there's a part where people in the police station say they opened up the basement for the First division, and I was thinking 'oh I guess I can use that staircase soon'. YOU NEVER CAN WHAT THE HECK FALCOM =P
But it's even worse because most of the interior sections are actually much l larger too. Like the orbal store is way bigger than any of the other orbal stores (with more npcs to talk to), the Times store as well. Multiple General stores, multiple restaurants. I mean it's good for world building I suppose to make it believable but all this adds more NPCs to yack to and I only was really interested in like 1 or 2 per section. I think I'm repeating myself though nm. Let's not even talk about the fact you can visit all the outskirt towns throughout the majority of the game, eek. It's kinda weird though, th ere is one npc that has a unique look like the 3d games and she rarely has anything very interesting to say, that shashan girl or whatever her name is. But even then her 'interesting' dialogue is limited to her mentioning things bout Rixia you probably could already figure out.
Speaking of Rixia, I find it weird that they 'spoil' her identity so early but it felt unnecessary. Did they do that to make you more sympathetic to Yin? Other than having the title of Assasin, Yin never actually does anything that could be seen as bad. At one point someone mentions Lloyd wanting to arrest her at one point, how can they work together and I'm like. Arrest Yin? For what? Running away after being proven innocent of a threat letter? ohhkayyy.. Hell, there aren't even dead mafia bodies found at some point or something that make you go 'this must have been Yin!'.
Making Sky FC #1 might be seen like I don't care for the series as much as sky. Which really isn't it. It's more that Sky 1 masterfully made the series what it is from nothing essentially. SC Expands the world outside of Liberl politics, but it kinda does it poorly because as I've mentioned before it is pretty ham-fisted about Oroborus coming across as pure evil badguys (Minus Lowe). I'm curious how they'll come across to me in AO because I really like how Cold steel makes them way more relate-able. Other than Renne I mean because Renne already becomes pretty sympathetic at the very end of SC and throughout 3rd. Also hoping for some more in-combat KeA. I know she's supposed to do that in general, but for some reason it's her in-combat dialogue/animations that make me go 'awwww'.
Well just wrapped up my Trails of Zero playthrough, clocking in close to 70 hours. Need some time to decompress and organize my thoughts, but two things I want to say quickly. Not a complete fan with how the last two chapters veered towards the cult stuff and that's how the Mafia went down. It makes sense and works overall, but kind of feels like instead of the characters breaking through the barrier the final villain just gave them the keys to get through the door. Also, Weissman worked better because A) the antagonist in the first Sky game was front and center and the whole game led to his downfall on his terms, and B) Once you find out he was manipulating from the shadows it made him a force in the shadows in the second game, wondering what he was trying to accomplish. Joachim just suddenly starts controlling stuff and loses and then the whole corruption stuff gets accomplished pretty quickly. Like I said, it's not bad but still leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.
That said, all those complaints get swept under the rug with the completion of Renne's story to become part of the Bright family. My Aidios I have been so invested in her story and even though I knew it turned out well any scene with her had me an emotional wreck. When Estelle finally hugged her and said "caught you" I was in tears, and remember Estelle's promise that next time she saw her she was going to catch her. When falcom hits a scene just right it's so freaking good.
Now have to decide after a break if I go with the current Ao edit or wait on whenever we get an official release, which could still be years if at all.
I know, Every scene involving Renne is just the best. Part of me looks forward to her showing up in CS4, but part of me is bracing myself for her not stealing the show so utterly with every appearance. How could she?
Well even if she doesn't steal every scene she is in, I've seen her various moves and I already want to play as her. Really fits her personality from what I saw. Really hoping for some on screen interaction between her and Tita. As an aside, was looking at the playable cast because I wanted to see if Randy was playable in CS IV and when seeing Estelle's name I saw Renne's with the last name Bright, which made me smile with joy.
Speaking of Estelle, put her in my party instantly and she stayed there the rest of the game. While visually Phoenix Wave looks cool, I couldn't get past the fact that Estelle didn't have Wheel of Time as that move and Estelle go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Also, unintentionally she ended up finishing the last two phases of the boss.
Speaking of Estelle, put her in my party instantly and she stayed there the rest of the game. While visually Phoenix Wave looks cool, I couldn't get past the fact that Estelle didn't have Wheel of Time as that move and Estelle go together like peanut butter and chocolate. Also, unintentionally she ended up finishing the last two phases of the boss.
Funny anecdote, the first time I played Zero I had Estelle and Joshua in my party for the second to last boss and as soon as I scanned him I noticed that glaring omission in his resistances, while two of my party members had spammable Delay moves and I had Calamity Claw available. Garcia never got a turn... xD
Funny anecdote, the first time I played Zero I had Estelle and Joshua in my party for the second to last boss and as soon as I scanned him I noticed that glaring omission in his resistances, while two of my party members had spammable Delay moves and I had Calamity Claw available. Garcia never got a turn... xD
And thus Garcia was met with the unfortunate fate that many of his ilk would later meet in Cold Steel I and II. At least he was spared going against Fie, the delay Goddess 🤣
I just used rean's Arc slash for that. It had similar delay but was far more spammable (in terms of cp afford-ability). I personally liked using Fie as a debuff goddess. Her orbment had more splits than rean, which enabled more debuffing quartz combinations, throw on a debuff MQ, and her crafts have built in slow, blind, or faint... All of which being high tier status inflictions, oh and instant ko. It was just too fun seeing the enemy party falling over themselves like vegetables after her turn.
Ahhh, Machias was definitely my favorite for that in CS1/2. Throw enough of the S-Rare blade/fang Quartz on him (ailments/stat-downs respectively) and combine them with Petrification Shell and you can potentially inflict nearly a dozen effects over a huge area. Great fun for dealing with trash mobs.
Speaking of quartz setups @Ghaleon, how many of the level-locked chests did you manage to open in Zero?
i think I got em all but I was only playing on normal. I like hard games but I always start on normal so I can get a feel for it for my less nerdy friends if I convince them to try. Cs3 is an exception cuz 1 and 2 are already way easy and I didnt get anyone to try cs 1 and 2 yet let alone 3, and my friends dont have ps4s. I found them very imbalanced. Like the big monkey one that was supposedly level 25 was no easier than the 40 ones. Was the one in stargazers 45 too? I forget.
Macchias would be good for debuffs but I just dont like him as much as fie baseline, I want alisa for the cp regen, rean is arc slash botting, and my slot 4 is normally a guest like sharon, or plain damage. I also like that fie always goes first to debuff em before they make their first move. Cold steel is good despite being easy. One of the few games where the fun benefits outweigh the challenge lack due to mechanics. Reminds me of advance wars where the COs are horribly imbalanced but are still a blast to change around for variety.
I know Cold Steel you can easily break the game using multiple characters. Fie and Laura were my go to where I didn't have to think about it. Fie between quartz and equipment could Delay with normal attacks, and her speed caused her to attack so much, sometimes three times in a row before anyone else could go at times. Then Laura was slow with the Tauros quartz, but with the accessory that increased CP each turn it was Fie delaying until Laura could unleash her S craft dealing 200k plus damage. As for Zero, Randy's craft that could blind made so many encounters an absolute breeze.
I got to the final chapter and realized there were some level monster chests I forgot, but one was level 40 and I wasn't going to attempt that one.
I have to say, when it comes to the various character interaction between the SSS my favorite banter was between Randy and Tio, which probably is because of how opposite their personalities are. My favorite moment was when they got permission to take over the Drug Trade stuff and both Randy and Tio are like "how sweet is this to be important", then both regretted their words after Dudley's death stare. Individually I think the characters are overall weaker, but the group dynamic is way above Cold Steel and a good bit better than Sky.
People love to dump on Alisa, but I think she's actually a pretty deep nuanced character, and I would consider her (and Jusis and macchias) to be more developed than the cast in zero so far. However I find other characters to be about the same (Fie and Emma), and some 1 note characters like Gaius, Elliott, and Laura (people love laura, but seriously, she's basically training training training training, with the occasional 'but I'm still a lady after all' here and there) to be weaker than the Zero cast after the first game.
Going to CS3 however, with a similar sized party, I do think they are more developed than zero so far (I keep saying so far because I find it fair to compare 1 game's worth of development to 1 game's worth). Minus Musse that is, she's definitely 1-note the entire damn game for CS3. I kept waiting for her secrets to come out to make her more interesting, but they never come in 3.. argh.
I never did abuse 1shot scrafts... Mostly cuz I don't scraft though lol. But I made good use of Randy's flashbang too, as different as they are, he's like Tita where he can single handedly trivialize big, numerous, and hard enemy encounters that aren't immune.
Alisa is a character I want to enjoy, and on replays I definitely see a good story. However, between her voice (petty, I know) and early on her being mad at Rean way longer than it needed to be, put her on a bad start that was hard to get past. Same with Machias where he has a point with the Noble stuff but comes across pretty badly at first. Jusis I like and he's one of my favorites behind Fie. I like Laura, Elliot and Gaius but deep and well developed they are not. As for Emma, I have no strong feelings towards her as there's nothing that really sticks out. I put group dynamic above Cold Steel because of a much smaller cast, but can agree that CS III is much closer to Zero with the group dynamic. Individually, I would put Zero above both because while there are characters that are above most of the Zero group, Cold Steel has this problem where with most characters I feel like there is always one thing that becomes annoying after a certain point that dampens my opinion, where with Zero while Lloyd and Elie aren't the most interesting there hasn't been anything as of yet that gets under my skin.
We'll see how Ao changes my opinion on some things, since that's the game that started the Harem stuff hardcore. Also sounds like unlike most of the other games, the final boss is actually challenging, or more accurately, frustrating due to instakill moves and some other BS.
