Do you actually need to play sky/zero/azure to have a good experience with this series, or is that just autismtalk?
>>3906454Whatever you do, you will not have a good experience with the series
>>3906454It’s fine. Cold Steel 1 especially you can just go into. 2 is doable as well but it does benefit you to know what’s going on in crossbell (they take place at the same time). It’s from Cold Steel 3 and onwards that you really have to have played the previous games, because all the old characters just keep showing up and it gets really messy if you’re unfamiliar with them. So yeah. If you’re interested and want to start with Cold Steel - do 1 and 2, then if at that point you’ve decided you like the general feel of the games, go back and do the older ones before jumping into 3, 4 and Hajimari.
>>3906454A bigger question is why you would wanna skip them.
>>3906454>autismThis series is for reddit normalfags
The Sky and Crossbell games are far better than the Coldsteel games anyway.
I was shamelessly enjoying this series but Hajimari was a letdown. I hear there's a new game, is it worth playing? The new interface isn't as comfy as the older games
I have a question. Sorry for hijacking this thread opWhy does everyone seemingly think that Zin is the worst character?I get why people glaze Agate even though I don’t think hes that strong, but even to someone playing these games it should be pretty clear that up until 3d Tita is factually the worst character while Estelle is basically the worst overall.Like, first time I played FC/SC I actually thought Zin was better than Agate even without the kick craft bug because more damage on a turn by turn basis, agate was only truly useful for AOE spam but had less damage overall. Pic is just something I stole from a generic google images.
>>3906601Tita can blind an entire fight and win it in one turn. She also gives Party-Wide sustain. Zin takes one turn to set up and then another turn to hit a single target. It’s just not good enough. He doesn’t do much for the team itself either. Zin also has to take 2 Earth Quartz (awful) with the worst orbment set-up out of all 16 characters. Like Josette’s isn’t great either, but she’s at least not slow as fuck so she can earth wall with those forced Earth Quartz’s - Zin isn’t even good for that. There’s specific moments where Thunder God Kick is really solid (the return of the worms in SC comes to mind) and frankly you can use any characters and be fine in Sky, it’s just you can get more out of the other one’s than you can from Zin. Agate’s good because you just S-craft with him every turn. Generally though I’d prefer Olivier and Kloe (especially in FC, Kloe’s bird is fucking cracked before it was nerfed and then its still good)
>>3906616Agate takes 1 turn to setup his s-craft which he can spam every other turn.You don’t need to buff zin every other turnHe does more damage than Agate for sure.I don’t see how tita blinding an entire group of enemies makes her better when you literally just said zin is bad because he takes 1 turn to buff.Saying zin is bad because hes not an arts character also seems extremely dishonest to me.
>>3906635>Agate takes 1 turn to setup his s-craft which he can spam every other turn.Agate can be made to S-break every turn. Especially in SC/3rd where he gets 150 cp just from his craft. And then you can set him up so he's using 200 CP S-crafts. >You don’t need to buff zin every other turnYou need to buff him turn 1 for him to be effective. This means he's a turn behind being useful compared to every other character. And Zin's slow, so it takes longer for him to get that second turn either way. >He does more damage than Agate for sureHe doesn't tho. Agate Dragon Dives and hits the entire map for very high damage. Zin can only hit one person (again barring the rare fight where enemies are so clumped up that Thunder God Kick is useful). Agate's output is much higher. >I don’t see how tita blinding an entire group of enemies makes her better when you literally just said zin is bad because he takes 1 turn to buff.Tita can potentially win the fight in one move. That's very good! When Tita hits the blind, the enemies are essentially dead for all purposes because they don't contribute to the fight any more. And with the size of the AoE she can comfortably do that to 3-ish enemies at a time very consistently. Zin buffing himself is completely different - not only does it not win the fight that turn, it doesn't gain any value until the next turn (and most fights are generally 2-3 turns max). >Saying zin is bad because hes not an arts character also seems extremely dishonest to me.Arts characters are generally better than crafts ones in TITS, with the exception of Richard who's sorta just doing his own thing. That's not a Zin thing that's just the game. Joshua's in a decent position because he's good at both. The forced earth quartz also make Zin worse as a craft character because frankly their effects are generally bad (def + / Atk - where you want the fire quartz Atk + / def - instead 100% of the time).
>>3906454You'll miss some connections, like a part of CS1 literally taking place during a big event that's happening in Azure and characters from Sky and Crossbell being in CS but for the most part you'll be fine. The problem starts with Reverie since it's the conclusion to both Cold Steel and Crossbell, so a good portion of the game will be following characters you don't know very well, especially since Lloyd takes the leader role more towards than end instead of Rean. That being said, Sky and Crossbell are just straight up better than CS, so you're skipping good games for no real reason.
Sky got a remaster very recently so not sure if you really want to start with ports of some old games (CS). I would suggest looking into that
>>3906454sky and azure is where the series peaked tho. Id definitely play AT LEAST the crossbell duology before starting cold steel
>>3906454playing the whole series in order is what seprates it from the average generic jrpgjust playing cold steel alone is what turns it into a generic forgettable jrpg
>>3906454Consider Fie
>>3906454You won't have any positive experience with Trails as a whole, it's just typical shonenshit with endless build ups and no pay offs. There's a reason the only Falcom games that gets mentioned as influencial even by other japanese game devs are the ones that focuses on gameplay while Trails is never brought up lmao
Why did this series attract mentally ill antis who can’t let go >>3906457>Whatever you do, you will not have a good experience with the series>>3907067>You won't have any positive experience
>>3906454It's all pure fluff, references and cheap callbacks. The whole franchise is a massive circle jerk of little progression and development BUT OMG DID YOU SEE THAT ONE NPC FROM TWO GAMES AGO! It is a massive waste of time and I regret ever playing SEVEN games of this crap.
>>3907108>he stopped at cold steel 2 for some reasonWhat
>>3906549I was going to say because zoomers don't like old things but CS came out in 2013. Truly a mystery, isn't it?
>>39071532013 is old
>>3907108youre overexaggerating. The worldbuilding and the characters are still pretty good even in the newer games. Also theres no other franchise juggling about 400 (?) characters each with their own story, political affinity and development. These games do tend to become shounen slop at points but they have a grand vision that you dont often see in videogames
>>3907181doesn't matter what the concept is if the execution is lacking. 95% of the series is dead air, and the 5% of substance is so juvenile, standard, and uninteresting that even Marvel movies put it to shame as media.this series cannot and could never write big moments, it thinks cliffhangers make for good endings, and as we found out with the remake, Sky's beloved cast was the product of the translators being more talented writers than the original creator, much to the chagrin of weebs. it doesn't attempt to challenge or enrich the audience, it doesn't have nuance, it doesn't have anything. it's all just trite, creatively bankrupt bullshit that nobody but weebs who've never read a real book in their lives can enjoy. and let's not forget, remakes are always and without fail, an admission of creative bankruptcy as well.
>>3906972Fie best girl
>>3907067> it's just typical shonenshit with endless build ups and no pay offs.This. Trails is the embodiment of everything wrong with the way the Japanese write stories.
>>3907379I've never met one Japanese person that plays this series. The art community for it is practically dead as well.
>>3907370Close. Fie's a very good girl, but Rean would do better with Towa.
>>3906454When I was new to this series I also thought that other games are just the prelude to CS and considered skipping them. Now that I'm playing CS3 I realize that Sky and Crossbell are the peak of the series and Coldsteel is just fanservice for what those games set up.That being said you can play CS1 and kinda play CS2 without prior knowledge. You will regret it later though. CS3 is unplayable without prior knowledge.
>>3906454autism talk
>>3906972Fie's outfit in cs2 is good shit, criminal we don't see it again
>>3906454if you skip sky its like leaving 100 dollars on the bench to grab a 50.
>>3906601are, are you brain dead or something? did you play on a piss easy mode? the entire tower fight where you leave tita behind is meant to reinforce how retarded agate is for considering her useless by making you regret your life choices up until that point. More importantly though I took tita through the blade lord, so skill issue. putting schera in B proves you're an idiot anyway. I dont like her but with Agate and Schera and some luck you can literally alpha strike Loewe.
>>3906454>should I skip the better games so I can play the worse ones sooner?What do you play games for?
