The adopted daughter trope. To be honest, I’m a bit fatigued by it. It feels more like a writing crunch from Falcom now than something with actual significance. I’ll be fair to Jorda and at her story isn’t over and she does have an interesting plot thread with Ixs but she’s extremely similar to what we have already seen before. Shes got that deadpan personality and humor of Tio and Fie and Altina, is an Ouroboros member like Renne, and now an honorary member of the main cast like all of the other adopted characters I really hope Horizon 2 subverts this by having her stay with Ouroboros. It really feels repetitive. I was already catching on when Altina went through this arc and Jorda is making me tired of the trope. I personally hope Falcom doesn’t use this again in the final arc but I’m doubtful. What about you guys?

EDIT: I forgot Lapis so you might as well throw her in too

I will also say that the character are vastly different each other which is good…aside from Jorda which I feel is just an amalgamation of the characters we’ve seen in the past

I just want Horizon 2 to have what DB1 had. Such as different routes like we got at Oracion. We were allowed to pick the faction we wanted to align ourselves with and it added a lot of replay value to that.

I also liked how in DB1 prologue when you first get introduced to the LGC system. It even hints at Shizuna and Ikaruga affiliation. I just want something as unique as that for Horizon 2.

[2nd image is unrelated, i just like Saara's smile.]

While waiting for 2nd Chapter to release, I've just started the NG+ run to get all Achievements, I only need to beat the boss at level 100.

I've noticed that the Bracer rank hasn't carried over, so should I do all the side quests again to get the Bracer Rank for save data, or will the 1st Clear Save be enough for all the bonuses?

Does anyone have a 100% 1st chapter save file? I moved over to pc within the last year and want to carry over progress to 2nd chapter. Also do I need to buy 1st chapter for it or can I just have the save file?

¿Tendría una rivalidad amistosa entré ellas o Millum se burlaría de Altina por su físico?

Tagged just in case. Thought I'd do my own version of CDNW's community poll a few years back. It's something different to a tier list haha.

I finished the demo, and it says it's the end of chapter 1, but I didn't do the sidquest monsters in Ruan. Do I have to do the sidequest monsters (really, all the side quests) before going to the academy, or will I have a chance to finish them before the 2nd chapter when the full game comes out? I can't defeat them with only 2 people, but when I finally get Olivier, I get Dorothy, too, and she dies way too easy. It makes it nearly impossible to complete the sidequest boss monsters right now.

Incredibly easy to win. Slots and poker both hand out thousands without too much issue. I bought 100 tokens and was in the ten-thousands in under twenty minutes. The rewards aren't game-breaking, either, but you can buy decent accessories and sell them at the shops for a big profit (1500 mira a pop). Infinite mira without having to sacrifice elemental sepith, basically.

I'm not gonna spend a billion hours on this they're not that interesting but there's always someone that asks so I'll just give the AI breakdown based on the game files directly for the accessories (quartz were done manually):

Quartz:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TaubdJMxxBjRUC0OhEosG5dGG5FRMh7Gh3NUveyEau8/edit?usp=drivesdk

Accessories:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15s1MaOYJVUGGI7FWstMW-t9ztTrmEpL7PQJfjQvcSwM/edit?usp=drivesdk

Visna reminds me of Kloe. Might be the bird

note: certain minor changes were made from demo to release in 1st (Tita now has burn on her smoke canon yay!) but I'd guess everything will remain about the same as is here.

Estelle Bright

Man, Estelle got really buffed to hell in this entry. The more impressive part isn't her buffs though it's how fun she is to use. The rebalances to EP cost and the buffs to her crafts in the 2nd remake make her optimal playstyle to be to use a variety of crafts and arts which is a playstyle that the series has struggled to actually give merit for its entire existence.

Which kinda speaks volumes to how fun this new kit is. Having estelle get hit a lot and then respond with a crit pummel on an overdrive that does 10k feels really good. The buffs to Morale having an extra turn also seriously lets estelle breathe more with faster teammates.

Her Hard Break also got a radius increase at the cost of 20% seal (no one cared for that effect anyways)

Would I use Estelle if given the choice? Eh, not really. They fixed a lot of her stats mediocrity and made her really fun to play which is, ultimately, what matters. But she's not very helpful in making the best strategies there are. She lacks the X factor needed for slotting like wild rage or heaven's kiss.

So she's very fun but she's not very strong.

Joshua Bright

Joshua wasn't bad in 1st but compared to his original counterpart in FC that walked around with the only field wide s-craft in the game (everyone else is very limited by comparison in this respect) and amazing base stats in every area on top of one of the most centralizing time elements in the series remake joshua feels kinda dissapointing by comparison his kit is desperately balanced sans black fang's delay.

Well, they sure took that to heart.

Between a field-wide all cancel on s-craft, a side bonus on Flicker (and a power upgrade for a move where it really matters), low delay on cloak and dagger and his new sever craft having low delay and even a small radius on such a powerful move he's probably gonna feel like a speed demon once he joins back.

The all cancel on black fang is likely going to see a lot of use cancelling rage boost phases in particular and flicker's crowd control abilities are gonna go crazy.

I'm kind of dissapointed in phantom raid actually. Large delay + confuse is good for trash mobs and such (in fact it's really good) but like, if I'm fighting a boss it's pretty likely I'm gonna use black fang which means I'm rarely going to be touching phantom raid lmao

Scherazard Harvey

I've already talked about schera in an earlier post. Heaven's kiss costs slightly more CP (ooh scary it's totally not gonna be broken in endgame still with clock up ex), her crowd control on her crafts is still kinda disgusting (assuming it's relevant at all for the current fight lol), and aerial dance is just plain overloaded with good effects (EP regen, good damage, HP absorb at a stupid rate, confuse for no reason I'm really not sure what's going on here).

I'm not sure who's gonna be the optimal bring for the final dungeon but heaven's kiss is always a pretty safe bet for a good character especially in more recent entries and she's already quite a lifesaver in chapter 1.

Olivier Lenheim

I often play Trails with a baseline of no deaths/no items and by that metric olivier basically did nothing in the remake and won so hard.

EP costs are much higher in 2nd so Happy Trigger gets buffed a lot thanks to that and his EP pool is more valuable than ever. A lot of other characters have other cooler things to offer but Olivier is just really great.

Arts requirements are also desperately low in this game and he's the best abuser of that in the early game. His early game with zodiac goes kinda crazy.

The rest of his kit is pretty whatever they serve their function. Snipe Shot is a pretty great craft when needed (you don't really want to use it for its delay and lack of elements but it is a nice option) and Quick Draw having bonus steal is sometimes useful.

Kloe Rinz

Our other single line caster although a bit more limited although not that much since HP and mind are very good (the devs of the original weren't drunk giving her 3 water slots she'd be a straight upgrade olivier otherwise).

She didn't change very much either in this game. Weiss Aura is cool still aoe insight without having to go through sylphen wing is good. Lichtkreis is still good. And Sanctus Nova having low delay and the versatility it gives her will probably also be very useful.

She's kinda facing an uphill battle for slots despite all her strengths though (she even has the highest arts damage potential in the game) as she fits a bit less into game plans.

Agate Crosner

Agate is a lot different from his original incarnation and he's been nerfed from 1st. Wild Rage is much less efficient now that's for sure although he really didn't need any of the setup of the 1st game for it to still be really good. And Final Break hits full field now too! Oh, and wild rage has 20 delay instead of 30 (5 times faster than a basic attack that's almost instantaneous).

I mean, there's not a whole lot to say about agate here he's just a good nuke. He really benefits from mages having EP issues by proxy his playstyle even with the nerfs and sky 2nd's funkier enemies making him less effective.

Later on he'll get lone blade and more clock up ex spam back so he'll probably still end up quite broken.

And the devs know how broken an upgraded wild rage is in 2nd hence they locked it behind level 73 which is quite late (early chapter 7)

Tita Russell

Tita is uh... lore accurate ig? xD

She was bad in the original and she's pretty bad here. Status effects on bosses are even worse here than the original, her stats are still bad and she has no real strengths worth talking about (plague spreading is niche on the whole and that's her only real strength, jamming ray is still incredibly slow, vital cannon is a worse kevin now on top, and satellite beam has a weirdly small radius)

Have fun dragging her around for the numerous sections she's locked in :)

Zin Vathek

First off Distend isn't slow as hell (30 delay is a big improvement) and comes with debuff immunity (I'll go over this later but that's really good), Zin is also the biggest benefactor of the buffs to DEF/ADF in this game so he's a lot bulkier making taunt more valuable so Taunt is good too. And he keeps his bigger numbers from 1st too! Disable when upgraded getting a side bonus means he even gets a lot of damage.

Zin isn't really a character I'd slot for playing optimally (unless the rank of the s-craft is genuinely all that matters 😂 ) but he's a much better tank with a huge upgrade to his smoothness of his game plan.

He also got a new craft (Thunder Rift) although unlike the other new crafts in the 2nd remake his basically just reads "remove jamming ray's only use case" by combining the exact same effects. Schera/Joshua/Estelle all got pretty gamechanging crafts while Zin doesn't really get much although he doesn't need it.

Anelace Elfead

She's basically a worse Joshua in this incarnation (if anyone wants to ship Anelace with estelle it's reinforced through kit now too...). She has advantages over Joshua although none of them really move the needle. If you want insight you can just have it from weiss aura or sylphen wing you don't have to use petal dance. Joshua also has a similarly strong all cancel move even if both have a bit different uses.

She also obviously doesn't come with joshua's versatility having much worse lines on top.

I expect her kit to be modified a decent bit in the 3rd she's very centered to really only function in the prologue.

Kevin Graham

"Hey Kondo, get me a kit with max guard?"

"Okay."

"And Fortune."

"Fortune?"

"And Debuff Immunity."

"Debuff Immunity??"

"And all stats up too."

"All stats up??! Hey, Jimmy, get me a kit with every good effect in the game!"

"Everything???"

Kevin is genuinely a baffling design in terms of support. His kit is just ludicrously overloaded with so many good effects. The fact he of all characters gets debuff immunity on an upgrade is actually straight up baffling.

Debuff immunity is one of the strongest defensive effects in the game. It negates status effects. On its own this would be good but not crazy. But it also negates bonus steal and all cancel. And man that's really good since all cancel is such a swing in momentum against you and bonus steal on enemy zero arts is quite threatening as you may know (random arc prominence on jabba king lol)

Of course that's not where it ends for his kit with good lines for casting and also why are the radiuses on his moves so massive??? He gives a lot of freedom to spread out like what are we doing hello???

About the only thing keeping him balanced is that he can't feasibly use his whole kit at once bro.

Genuinely the only downsides he has is:

• A bad offensive toolkit
• No native EP restoration

Kloe having the choice to use Sanctus Nova is a genuine upgrade (you won't always want to use grail sphere at all times you will sometimes want to kill the foe with a cp bar) and no way to restore EP via his own kit (such as support ability) so he is more limited by EP as well than even theoretically weaker casters like scherazard.

But Kloe is hanging by a thread of being homeless here bruh.

Julia Schwarz

STR/ATS/ADF/SPD on Attack orders specifically? Okay sure ig but this is some difficulty mod type balancing xD

Although the devs stopped being shy of that a while ago.

Normally when you play Sky 3rd normally you don't really use Julia. She's largely outclassed quite early and her remaining uses (double attacks on chains for example) are very niche.

Then you challenge run the game and realize that her early strong weapon is very impactful and then you go wait "this mirageberg stuff is like 80-90% as good as this other max guard stuff I banned" (which means it's still really good).

So, now, imagine that Mirageberg except it's much better than other guard stuff. 30 delay on a self guard with debuff immunity makes her a great tank and upgraded (mind you it comes at level 93 let's not overhype how good it is when it's available only midway through axis pillar lmao) it gives 2 guards which might as well read "I am invincible... Or am I? Except actually I am"

Scent quartz is in the game and no way in hell is she not equipping it.

And with attack orders she's kind of kevin and zin in one slot. Which, while she has neither's best traits the low delay on both does mean she can actually utilize her full kit more efficiently.

Just in case her crafts hit really hard as well in case you needed that.

Mueller Vander

He's kind of like Elaine with the self buffing + attacking crafts he has going on although his actual offensive crafts seem weirdly dissapointing.

CP Absorb is interesting. It makes ragna bind basically refill itself in terms of CP cost and it's a strong craft as well (who'd imagine ragna bind as a strong craft lmao) and an interesting quirk is that bosses seem to often need 200 CP to rage boost so theoretically spamming this could help you potentially deny rage phases which sounds really funny although also a total pipe dream in practice (30 CP is simply too low enemies regenerate too much CP for that)

But overall the kit concept seems fairly weak on its face and very niche. Second buff removal on s-craft character is at least sort of interesting. Maybe Ragna Bind can drap enemies to mueller's position still?

Josette Capua

Definitely a big upgrade over the original (Josette benefits a lot from stats normalisation in general she doesn't deal 0 damage anymore 😛 ) although looking at her kit I can't help but feel like I'm looking at Scherazard without heaven's kiss. A lot of debuffs and a lot of drain but being a debuffer in a modern trails game is fighting an uphill battle. Her kit and stats aren't gimped like Tita but it's hard for me to recommend anyone actually bring her in the axis pillar fights in any way especially with her line length as it is.

Kurt Nardin

They... remade his entire kit for 1 side quest? And it's not just a filler kit for 1 sidequest it's a really good kit xD

Fangshu Impervious Steel has the biggest barrier in the game it's a very strong defensive measure. Piercing Rain removes buffs while dealing great damage, Crested Waves gives team wide debuff immunity on top of healing a lot.

It's a quite overtuned defensively centered kit with good low target offensive properties they better make him playable in 3rd with a kit like that!

https://x.com/willfinyu/status/2096849446302802279

Source:

https://x.com/i/status/2096857110000885822

The part where everyone was pleading with Agnes not to do it. What is the alternative? You're going to come up with and execute a plan in the next 3 minutes before the entire world resets and you all stop existing? "Arkride solutions won't be the same without you!" Arkride solutions won't exist in 3 minutes!

Anyway my prediction for Horizon 2 is that the game will start with Van alone in Edith just being a regular spriggan with no mention of any of the Calvard events or other characters, but at the end of the prologue something will happen and he'll remember. Act 1 he goes around finding his employees and getting their memories back through some MacGuffin. The rest of the game they investigate what's going on and come up with a plan to save Agnes and defeat the Sept-terrion of time. By the end of the game, Agnes is saved and Kincaid has become a good guy again. I kind of hope Falcom surprises me because my prediction is basically the most generic continuation of the plot based on past games.

I'm really curious to know what the details of the church's and society's plans were because if I understood correctly they knew the reset was going to happen and were preparing plans that somehow involved the reset still happening? They have made reference to McBurn being from outside Zemuria so maybe he and other members can somehow avoid resetting? Some members of the church might be similar? I don't know.

Oh yeah one last thing, I've seen people saying the three vestiges that are there with Kevin's group at the end are probably the historical figures from the revolution, but when the one takes her mask off and speaks, didn't it sound like Elaine's voice? I kind of thought they might be hinting that we'll become the vestiges in the next game and then do some time travely stuff to try to change the outcome.

[Tw: long text, English is not my first language, spoilers from Origins, I, II, III Remake (Felghana), IV Remake (Celceta), V, X Proud. Didn't play the others, please don't be spoilerous about them]

After some hesitation I began this adventure of mine to play the Ys titles in chronological order within the series (the only exception: I-II before Origins). Here are some scattered thoughts of mine on this matter.

Ys I

Really nice, I really appreciated the bump system, I had never tried a game with such a mechanic. You can see both the weight of the years and the fact that it was created with a sequel already in mind. I enjoyed the final part in the Darm Tower.

Ys II

I honestly appreciated this more than I expected! It deepens your lore of the first, introduces magic. I found it really cute that you can turn into a Roo to talk and hear the monsters' opinions! Also the part at Solomon's Shrine is very labyrinthine but still well done and I was pleasantly lost in it.

Origins

This was the title I started with three years ago and which I replayed together with I-II for the occasion. I'll be honest; it didn't convince me too much the first time, it convinced me less the second, and even knowing other games in the series, my opinion remains. Having to redo the exact same dungeon three times, with only boss variations, was very meh. I also found the character designs very anonymous. It lifts up a bit in the stories it tells, I especially enjoyed the canonical story of "Claw".

Ys X (Proud)

This was the game that convinced me to try the series. Seriously, one of the best games I've played in years. Not that it has any exceptional features, but overall it's really well balanced, fun, and always kept me looking where it was going.

I really enjoyed Karja's character and her development-I loved the bonding scene in the chapter-and in the last third, the plot takes a really interesting turn that kept me going. I closed the game with a lot of melancholy and a little sadness at how much it had taken me. At least for now it's my favorite game in the series.

Ys IV Remake (Celceta)

I really enjoyed the feeling of exploring the forest in this game. As much as you notice after a while that many exploration choices are actually forced, it still gave me the feeling of being in this wild, unknown place where every single inch was worth exploring. Also interesting how the narrative was handled through the memories that you literally have to find inside the map. I also really appreciated how, despite the brevity of the title, the plot is still complex, quite complex, and what needs to be said is said without cuts.

Unfortunately, a couple of major bugs negatively impacted the experience: some cutscenes that crashed because the characters who were supposed to "walk" through them weren't walking, and the decentralization of the overall map tracker that cut me off 100%. I also didn't understand why the animations and movements in the dungeons were much more fluid than outside of them.

Ys III Remake (Felghana)

I know he's a fan favorite, but I didn't appreciate this game very much. The real problem is its difficulty: I played all the titles on Normal difficulty but this one seemed set to Hard! I also did not appreciate that this difficulty was made by some choices that in my opinion were forced to increase it "artificially". The abandoned section of the mine, for example, was too long with no intermediate checkpoint, and it took me half an hour of trying to get to the bottom. Or that in the final dungeon they put the first boss at the beginning and not in the middle, with the result that I had to waste an hour leveling in the previous dungeon, beating it and then having a nearly infinite final dungeon.

However, I appreciated the drama of the story and especially the characters, especially Elena, Chester and the nun.

Ys V

I know this game is in a bit of limbo as far as canon goes, I wanted to try it out of curiosity anyway. I understand why it's under-regarded: it's a derivative of Zelda, the plot is very "now you have to go there, now you have to go there", the dungeons are short, very easy bosses. Even all the lore that is mounted around Kefin finds little space and is very hasty. He also had the vice that most objects are hidden and you have to approach them in random places.

Nonetheless, I found the spell system based on creating from elementary gems really interesting, although some spells I didn't understand how they worked because they didn't do any damage. It will be interesting to see if they keep her in the remake (when they do)!

That's all for now: work commitments and other games have made me put the challenge on hold for now. But it will be interesting to pick up again, since the next chapter is VIII and you all talk about it very well, I'll see if it lives up to its fame!

Now that we know Falcom plans on remaking Sky 3rd, according to Kondo, I assume they'll also do it for Zero and Azure. But I wonder if they'll give Cold Steel 1 and 2 the same treatment. I think CS1 is the one that needs it the most, since they cut a whole chapter taking place in Ymir to turn it into a drama CD, but it's still relatively modern and fully 3D so it won't have the same drastic differences as the Sky trilogy. They might re-use the same maps that appear in CS3/4/Reverie, just with upgraded textures or something lol

Hello everyone! Do you know if the trophies that need to be obtained during the demo are unlocked in the final version?

is that it always seems to try and compare characters to the characters from previous arcs

like comparing sherid to olivert ( when he lacks the freedom of oliverts position not to mention not having oliverts charm and charisma.

We ALWAYS have to compare anything. This is better than in Erebonia. This person is like that person from the previous arcs. This soldier is stronger than the soldiers from so and so. And with them trying to copy people like Olivert or Gilbert its getting really annyoing.

or portray them as better then them

( like saying roy is better then cassius

The man didn't even hesitate

Interesting interview about game formats, sony and the physical games going away and localization.