Recently, Falcom left a pair of tweets related to Hajimari no Kiseki (here and here) and Gu4n and Hansuke suspect they’re lyrics to a song from the game, either the OP song which Kondo named in a recent Famitsu interview as ‘No End, No World’ or the inevitable ED song. After Sen III I’m not going to be dogmatic about which it is based on lyrics but it feels opening theme-ish to me. In any event, I thought I’d do a translation of what we’ve got and see what we can pick up from them. Hat-tip to Florac on the Falcom Discord who drew all of this to my attention.
It should go without saying but since there will be Hajimari speculation below, there will be spoilers for the end of the Cold Steel games.
Japanese
世界は今日も歪に廻る 醜いことは絶えなくあるけど
この手を伸ばし触れられる 温もりは信じて生きたい
独りよがりの黄昏が 巨イナル影を落としても
挑み続けていく その先に 光るものがあるのだと 絆が叫んだ
<Break>
独りよがりの黄昏が 巨イナル影を落としても
誰もが幸せになれないと 弱気に俯かされる時には…
涙 零れないようにと 焼け付く笑顔の宵闇
一人きりじゃないと気づいたら 強くなれるはずだよと 絆が叫んだ
Translation
This still-distorted world keeps turning and the ugliness remains
But even so I can reach out, I want to believe in this warmth.
Even though the selfish twilight casts a great shadow
I’ll continue to oppose it, our bonds cry out that something shines beyond the darkness.
<Break>
Even though the selfish twilight casts a great shadow
Even though it depresses me when I know I can’t make everyone happy
I won’t let the tears fall and I’ll face the dusk with a blazing smile
Our bonds cry out that once you realize you’re not alone, you’ll become strong.
Thoughts
The above might not be completely accurate and the context of the rest of the song is missing, but the repeated line shared in both tweets definitely feels like it belongs in a song. There’s a lot of allusions in here, to the Great Power and Twilight in particular. The line about how the twilight casts a great shadow combines both in one, with the construction 巨イナル being the idiosyncratic way that Falcom has written ‘The Great x’ since CS1. It might not be a coincidence that the specific expression used almost matches the description of Loa Luciferia that appears just before the boss battle (巨イナル白キ影). In any event, it seems pretty clear that they want to imply that we’re not quite out of the woods yet with the events of Phantasmal Blaze. This fits with what we’ve seen in the trailer.
The first line we’ve been given and the second line of the second part also foretell of bad times ahead, but both of them are balanced out with expressions of hope and the recurring theme of bonds is emphasized. Since this song would stand for all three routes, I won’t be surprised if the bonds between the three protagonists and their respective casts become very important to the resolution of the game. We see how Rean and Lloyd interact and we’ve seen Rean facing down C, while at the same time C and Lloyd appear to have an ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation going on if nothing else. And on that note, the final line about becoming strong once you realize you aren’t alone seems odd if it were applied to Rean and Lloyd since they’ve already realized this, which makes me suspect that it’s going to be more symbolic of the cast of C’s route and developments there over the course of the game.
And because I can’t resist the urge to engage in some total crack speculation, ‘The Blazing Smile’ would be a fairly good bracer title for Estelle, she’s in the game and we know a promotion to A-rank was in the cards for her even before the events of the Great Twilight. So there you go, Falcom also just teased her title.