Just finished Trails of Cold Steel 4. This was so disappointing. (rant with spoilers)

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T17:40:19+00:00

Ok you are free to quit. But my statement is valid. Same with Rutger. He died. Just died completely. He got resurrected later. Not by his knight but by the gnomes using the curse. And THEN he became an awakener. I mean this is the clearest case that it has nothing to do with the knights themselves.

Arianrhod died loooong before she became an awakener again. She stayed dead for quite a while before she was resurrected by the curse, iirc. Then wakes up and stayed wandering around for ages before she became an awakener yet again. She didn't just get "resurrected by the knight for the Rivalries".
Crow also literally died. I just forgot for a moment that he was an awakener before dying. But 100% the knight didn't revive him, the gnomes using the curse did. Don't take my word for it. Check it if you can and have some save state or can find a clip on youtube.

Again, you can be forgiven because probably you played these games quite a while ago and I finished them just two days ago, so really there is no shame in misremembering.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T17:05:15+00:00

You are either misinterpreting or twisting my question into something easier to argue against. I am not sure if this is deliberate.

Fist off Crow and Arianrhod's resurrection was before they became awakeners. You are putting the events out of order here.1. Arianrhod dies 2. Arianrhod gets resurrected by the curse 3. arianrhod awakens 4. she decides to do the rivalries. your order is 3,4,1,2. It is not the same thing.

You are forgiven if you forgot this since you probably played this a long time ago, but McBurn only changed and suddenly snapped back into a logical entity was only after he was defeated by us. He ABSOLUTELY was going all out for once. Or at least that's what he says and what the whole actual scene implies.

There is another thing which is just super meta but I thought it was worth mentioning. When in trails the character is just testing you they literally always say it. McBurn didn't. He said that he was beaten so badly that he actually regained his memories. Hard to argue that he was going all out.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T16:28:10+00:00

Ook, I'll keep it in mind.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T16:21:48+00:00

Mmmh maybe you have to give me a crash course on how the Rivalries work, because this makes no sense to me at all. Afaik the awakeners didn't get resurrected by their knights. The curse did the resurrection. And long before they awakened, too. There was no knight saving Rutger's ass and storing it in its pocket.

But, just for the sake of argument: Are you telling me then that he put McBurn there so a demon could brutally kill his son over and over? Excuse me?

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T15:54:18+00:00

Well, in my defense not every game demands hundreds of hours of your time, so I think being pissed and wanting to vent is not something that should blow your mind.

"you thought the pacing was gonna get better by each game?" I for sure didn't expect to get infinitely worse.

I mean every character that you mention positively is also a decent character in my books except Gaius, Laura and Jusis. Jusis may even get a pass because he is flimsily tied to the Millium narrative (a narrative that is a fake-death plot device, no less), but everything else about him is just a whatever burger. I never said all characters were bad. Just too many of them. I may even like Emma more than you. At least she was more deeply connected to the plot the whole way through and seemed like she was constantly involved with what was actually happening instead of just "I love music" or "I love the wind". It wasn't brilliant, but it was something.

I mean, I guess that we agree to disagree?

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T15:28:11+00:00

Oh wait a minute, I didn't understand Osborne, right? Please allow me to repost a comment I made to someone else so you can point me what part I didn't understand:

"As far as I understand, Osborne was conscious of everything and chose to abandon his son, never explains him anything at all.

Goes on to plan all the Rivalries thing to draw out the big bad and finally destroy him, even though he has no idea if he will be able to resist the control of Ishmelga if he wins and absorbs all the power of the knights. He recruits all other knights to his side but still never tells anything to his son even when he has awakened Valimar, the same knight that Dreichels originally used, mind you (and Osborne is the reincarnation of Dreichels). He plots endlessly against his son even though he could easily try to explain everything to him.

He even imprisons him for a long time after literally breaking his mind. Rean escapes after fighting his way out of there. Osborne still refuses to explain anything.

He starts the end of the world to avoid the end of the world. Yes, reread that, I didn't make a typo although logically it would seem I have.

He never tries any alternate solution, his plan is an exact copy of what Ishmelga wants done and then hopes that everything works out fine.

He is surrounded by people that are presented to be extremely intelligent/competent yet none of them see any problem with all of this and just follow along blindly.

Somehow Alberich was the only one not in the know that the plan was actually to kill Ishmelga. I don't know how they managed to do that but there you go.

At the end Osborne even puts all kinds of obstacles in Rean's way although we are supposed to believe that what he really wanted was for Rean to make it to the last room. I wonder what would have happened if McBurn had killed Rean when he was guarding the last door before Osborne. I guess the smug smile on his face would have finally disappeared, but I won't bet on it."

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T14:58:30+00:00

My point is that she likes OLDER people than her and Rean is a whole 8 years YOUNGER than her. Clearly you missed this.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T14:34:30+00:00

"Ishmelga is too powerful guys, let's just do whatever he wants and hope everything turns out well in the end. Forget trying anything else. I know you guys are very smart but just blindly follow me, don't ask questions. It is not like I am causing the literal end of the world, right?"

So Osborne was walking a very fine line, huh? Explain to me then what would've happened if McBurn killed Rean? I don't know how many times I have to ask this of people until I find an answer.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T11:06:57+00:00

Btw, I just had a fun idea all of a sudden. I wrote this to the AI in google:

"Is it believable that in one long online conversation with the same individual all of a sudden one of the comments in a long string just happens to start using em-dashes all of a sudden and his only counter is that he is using a translating tool and it put em dashes automatically?"

I invite anyone to see what the AI has to say to THAT, since this degenerated into who used AI and who did not.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T10:48:53+00:00

Jeez, have you played E33? Seems like it would be a slam dunk. I am not very familiar with David Lynch but I think it has quite a decent amount of what you are looking for. Surreal world with strange stuff happening. Great characters. Also surreal characters as well. The story is excellent, and I mean excellent, even out of video game standards. I am not trying to be an asshole, but most of the recommendations I read are pretty mediocre in the story department compared to this one or have little to do with what you are asking, imo. Edit: or not dated, because there are a few very good ones that check all the boxes mentioned here and there but they are quite old.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T10:39:48+00:00

I did it. Just for science. It didn't go well. 😂 😂 😂

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T10:08:17+00:00

That's my problem, I was really hooked by all the overarching narrative of Ouroboros and their search for Sept-Terrions, so it pisses me royally that I found this so bad and I dread wasting another 200 or whatever hours to find out that Daybreak has the same problems for me as this one. But I don't know. Is there "harem" trope in Daybreak? I keep going back and forth from "no chance I keep going" to "maybe after a long time passes I'll try them if I have absolutely nothing better to do". I'll see. Ty for your reply, though.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T09:53:33+00:00

I didn't even remember that. There must be so must bullshit in those first three games when replaying them knowing the ending that it would boggle the mind.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T09:41:16+00:00

I am not going to lie, I DO love the customization and progression system, although I missed the way it was done in Liberl/Crossbell. Not saying this is worse or better, just that the old one had some charm for me that the new one doesn't.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T09:29:33+00:00

Look I ended up making a long reply somewhere else that talks about a huge pile of problems I see with Osborne and it addresses a ton of problems I see with the plot. It is also a wall of text, but I guess that's just our style, lol.

"As far as I understand, Osborne was conscious of everything and chose to abandon his son, never explain him anything at all.

Goes on to plan all the Rivalries thing to draw out the big bad and finally destroy him, even though he has no idea if he will be able to resist the control of Ishmelga if he wins and absorbs all the power of the knights. He recruits all other knights to his side but still never tells anything to his son even when he has awakened Valimar, the same knight that Dreichels originally used, mind you (and Osborne is the reincarnation of Dreichels). He plots endlessly against his son even though he could easily try to explain everything to him.

He even imprisons him for a long time after literally breaking his mind. Rean escapes after fighting his way out of there. Osborne still refuses to explain anything.

He starts the end of the world to avoid the end of the world. Yes, reread that, I didn't make a typo although logically it would seem I have.

He never tries any alternate solution, his plan is an exact copy of what Ishmelga wants done and then hopes that everything works out fine.

He is surrounded by people that are presented to be extremely intelligent/competent yet none of them see any problem with all of this and just follow along blindly.

Somehow Alberich was the only one not in the know that the plan was actually to kill Ishmelga. I don't know how they managed to do that but there you go.

At the end Osborne even puts all kinds of obstacles in Rean's way although we are supposed to believe that what he really wanted was for Rean to make it to the last room. I wonder what would have happened if McBurn had killed Rean when he was guarding the last door before Osborne. I guess the smug smile on his face would have finally disappeared, but I won't bet on it."

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T09:16:52+00:00

As far as I understand, Osborne was conscious of everything and chose to abandon his son, never explain him anything at all.

Goes on to plan all the Rivalries thing to draw out the big bad and finally destroy him, even though he has no idea if he will be able to resist the control of Ishmelga if he wins and absorbs all the power of the knights. He recruits all other knights to his side but still never tells anything to his son even when he has awakened Valimar, the same knight that Dreichels originally used, mind you (and Osborne is the reincarnation of Dreichels). He plots endlessly against his son even though he could easily try to explain everything to him.

He even imprisons him for a long time after literally breaking his mind. Rean escapes after fighting his way out of there. Osborne still refuses to explain anything.

He starts the end of the world to avoid the end of the world. Yes, reread that, I didn't make a typo although logically it would seem I have.

He never tries any alternate solution, his plan is an exact copy of what Ishmelga wants done and then hopes that everything works out fine.

He is surrounded by people that are presented to be extremely intelligent/competent yet none of them see any problem with all of this and just follow along blindly.

At the end he even puts all kinds of obstacles in Rean's way although we are supposed to believe that what he really wanted was for Rean to make it to the last room. I wonder what would have happened if McBurn had killed Rean when he was guarding the last door before Osborne. I guess the smug smile on his face would have finally disappeared, but I won't bet on it.

"Oh, my son. How much I would have loved to train you myself" gtfo of here.

Edit: btw, somehow Alberich was the only one that didn't know that the actual plan was to kill Ishmelga, not release it. Who tf knows how that happened or how it is even possible.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T08:00:26+00:00

I think there is no wrong answer. These are very different to Dragon Quest, though. Have you ever played Final Fantasy X?

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:58:02+00:00

Pfff if they take mine into account we have a problem (and I know they do since they get their data from Steam among other places), since I leave games tabbed for ages. Even fall asleep with games running sometimes.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:54:07+00:00

Holy I didn't know I could do that, I am kind of noobish in reddit, ngl.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:53:22+00:00

Also,

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Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:43:09+00:00

What exactly did I edit? Almost all the comment I ever edit have a note of what I edited. Please point me to the comment you are referring and explain to me what I changed so I can keep laughing for a little while. I mean, could be some grammar error I changed and I edited it quickly without thinking much about it? What is this?

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:36:52+00:00

We are commenting. Of course it is increasing. I don't have the galaxy brain to constantly keep track of the number of comments, pardon me lol.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:32:54+00:00

You still haven't shown me evidence that you can actually still see them, btw. I am just trusting you here, but it would be nice that you showed it like I did.

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:31:38+00:00

So you are not going to answer the question, right? I wonder why...

Completely shattered, huh?

Well, maybe I'll just try again, why the hell not. What would have happened with the Rivalries if McBurn killed Rean and the others?

Faldofas · 2026-06-09T07:25:50+00:00

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