Holy shit the story trailer was something else. Going to have to watch that a few more times to take it all in, but that Van and Elaine moment was...interesting. I expect time shenanigans will be required there, especially since the Genesis device seemed to be going wild just as it happened (also the branching paths imagery).
Also, Elroy's S-Craft. What the hell was that???
Place your bets now: was the first track that played the final boss theme?
All that being said, I kind of feel like it'd be better if people didn't watch that trailer. That moment they reveal, even if it's a fake out, is still something I think I'd have much preferred seeing in game for the first time. Maybe it happens in the prologue or something, but it seems like something you'd want to hold back.
I see you spotted exactly the same things I did in that trailer. xD
Yeah, the probability Calvard's Sept-Terrion is Time has risen to 100%, up from, oh, 95% or so after Genesis Tower. That's definitely the wildest trailer we've had in a long while and I would readily bet money that the sequence they showed is the end of the Prologue. Or possibly the end of the very start of the Prologue, a la CS1 and the Garrelia sequence.
Any wild speculation as to who the masked man (or blindfolded, I suppose) might be? I've seen some people throwing around that it could be Nadia's dead brother, Ace. Don't know how much I buy that, but since she's here, I guess it's possible.
One thing that's interesting is the complete lack of Barkhorn in this trailer. Has he shown up at all in any of the promo stuff we've seen?
Ace seems likely given that Swin and Nadia are returning and that Falcom went to the trouble of making a voiced trailer for 3&9.
I haven't seen hide nor hair of Barkhorn in any of the Kuro 2 material, nope.
Ace being the guy who's cosplaying as TX's White Shroud would make me very salty, because I actually had him pegged for C's identity when Haji was in production.
And yeah, no sign of Barkhorn yet. I have a feeling Falcom is trolling us with him again.
EDIT: With the formal reveal of 'Garden Master' people have pointed out that his sword shares certain similarities with Ace's as seen in the illustrations to 3&9. It's not a perfect match but if you accept a degree of artistic license (or his original weapon being lost and he made a fancier replacement) then it works out, and since it divides in a similar manner to Swin's swords there's a fairly obvious parallel. Throw in that he's clearly trying to hide his identity to an extent with the hood and mask and... yeah.
Oh yes, Setsuna beat me to the punch by a good couple of weeks but I finally finished my annual trailer translation project.
If he is Ace, that would at least make 3&9 make some sense now. It always kind of bugged me how the only people who could have known about those events to write about them, were either dead or Swin and Nadia. And they obviously didn't.
In other news, the early access thing definitely means the ol' spoiler bunker will have to be opened up prematurely. This is a first, isn't it?
And speaking of which, the Dengeki livestream this morning (or evening depending on where you are) showed off the demo that's going to be at TGS. We got a look at some of the minigames via screenshot;. Seventh Hearts seems to mix some elements of Blade and VM, with randomly distributed cards instead of a premade deck, but each card has unique effects and elemental properties and the goal is to be the one with the most life remaining at the end. Also, balloon-gathering with FIO. And the dual Connect Events look interesting, and this is the first time we've actually seen Barkhorn in Kuro II footage, albeit in a flashback. The new Cross Charge system is a field battle dodge counter while EX Chain is a command battle followup on stunned enemies.
Also shown off: A bunch of new dual-element Arts that tend to combine status effects associated with the elements, like Ivy Frost having a chance to inflict Freeze and Corrosion. I'm somewhat sad that these things would have fit perfectly in a Cagesong-esque Ensemble system but they're single-character use instead of something combining multiple character castings to perform. Ah well, can't have everything.
One surprise is that Risette has a new Craft called Mystic Vision which gives her the previously enemy-only ability to create a body double which acts on its own as an extra character with a limited moveset (her double is seen using Silent Rip). Since she didn't have enough CP on her next turn it's not clear if she can only create one copy at a time or if she can do multiples. On a related note, Quatre's Craft strengthening list has a blank spot suggesting he's getting a new one at some point, but the screen for Van doesn't show a similar blank spot for the second S-Craft we already know he has, so how much we can rely on this feature to hint at new moves seems limited.
Another neat addition is that the Sub Parts now have secondary effects, all of which that have been shown off apply specifically to field battle mode. Some increase the power of Charge Attacks or Quick Arts, others speed up the filling of the former's gauge or reduce the latter's charge time, some reduce damage taken and one makes the timing of perfect dodges less strict. Seems like they're trying to enhance field battle in particular with all these upgrades.
Oh, and they also showed the scenario book that comes with the uber-limited and long-since sold out edition and it looks really nice and comes in its own box. Maybe copies will find their way to the secondary market at some point...
Well, that was a cool opening! Falcom's definitely getting better on the animation front, although Kuro 1's OP song is miles better, IMO.
- What's going on with Renne's eyes in her reflection?
- Celis heel turn? Or is it Falcom trickery and it's just training or a test your resolve type of deal.
- Curious what that text behind Oathbreaker is supposed to say
- I'm about to file a missing persons report for Barkhorn
- We're 100% getting a Kuro 3, I feel. Campy pretty much always shows up for the finale game, but he's nowhere to be seen and there's no way they'd have kept him under wraps this long.
- Given the Time shenanigans, I'm guessing that's a reflection of a Renne that might have been, with the blue eyes she was (presumably) born with.
- I'm thinking that's a continuation of the trailer scene where she seems to be targeting Van in a 'Sorry, you're not a bad guy but I have to do this' sort of way, and Rion has decided to take the opposite stance for some reason.
- I'm pretty certain that's the island that we've been getting glimpses of since they started sharing screenshots, which we just saw in the most detail in the one stream that showed Van driving around it. The Japanese is ネメス島, based on the letters that can be seen it sounds like the official romanization would be Nemet(h), with the 'Is' being behind Harwood's back in that shot. As for why that text is appearing behind him... dunno.
- Falcom has to be trolling us again; first it was 'You know that we know that you know it's Barkhorn but we're not gonna say it' and now it's 'We know you're expecting him to return so we're not going to show you anything, mwahahaha!'.
- Yeah, Campanella should be showing up to do his 'observe for the Grandmaster' thing when the stage is set for the Sept-Terrion to be revealed. The fact that he hasn't shown up in any material so far is a pretty effective way of signaling that Eternal Recurrence won't resolve in this game.
Seeing some talk about people thinking Kuro is done after 2, because of Kondo's comments, but he made it sound more like there won't be a cliffhanger ending. On the one hand it'll be nice not having to be blue balled for, presumably, 2 years, but I do love a good "Oh fuck yoooouuuu!" cliffhanger.
Watch out, maybe they're avoiding cliffhangers so they can make the ending of the entire arc one a la Crossbell and we'll have to wait the better part of a decade to learn what happens next...
But yeah, it sounds like Kuro II will resolve most (it doesn't say all) of the mysteries remaining from the first game, and it doesn't promise to resolve all of its own questions either. Just that it apparently won't end with a gigantic fuck-off cliffhanger. There's no real indication at this point that this is the last game in the arc and if it was, we'd expect the advertising to have highlighted that point.
Watch out, maybe they're avoiding cliffhangers so they can make the ending of the entire arc one a la Crossbell and we'll have to wait the better part of a decade to learn what happens next...
Don't even joke...
In other news, the trailer for the anime looks...about what I expected animation quality-wise. Can't say that there any good anime based on videogames that spring to mind, and Kiseki already has a rather...spotty hitstory with that, but hopefully it'll be at least somewhat interesting.
Too late, I just did. ;p
In other news, the latest video mini-release involves a capsule summary of Lapis' story from Haji with a hook for Kuro II.
In other news, the trailer for the anime looks...about what I expected animation quality-wise. Can't say that there any good anime based on videogames that spring to mind, and Kiseki already has a rather...spotty hitstory with that, but hopefully it'll be at least somewhat interesting.
Based on the teases we've gotten so far, I think it should (or at least could) be interesting. There's enough hooks in the character profiles to make for some potentially interesting individual stories and for some integration with events in the games aside from the obvious fact of the war itself, there's Sus People to provide some behind-the-scenes drama and so far the way it's framed is definitely on North Ambria, rather than 'What Rean Did' so it's probably gonna be the closest thing we'll have to actually visiting the country and getting to know it. And it looks about as good as it was likely to under the circumstances. But yeah, we'll just have to wait and see.
Does the video about the Grandmaster that Falcom put out have anything interesting we didn't already know in it? The Lapis one dropped the whole "went into a deep sleep" thing, so it's got me wondering.
