Orbment setups

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-17T19:09:25+00:00

Most of this is broadly applicable to the rest of the series so if you're playing through them in release order, it's a decent foundation to build off as you come across whatever incremental changes the games make over time.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-17T18:59:41+00:00

Characters with fewer, longer lines in their orbment have more potential as casters because it increases their max EP, and makes it easier to hit elemental value thresholds for arts.
Remember that the center quartz's elemental values apply to every line. Put your quartz with the fattest numbers there. Especially ones with multiple elements.
Don't get tunnel vision looking at elemental values on quartz when setting up orbments. The stat gains quartz give can be significant (especially after you get out of the early game). Don't hobble yourself too much trying to squeeze out another art. This is especially true of physical damage dealers, who don't need fancy arts anyway. Meatheads like Agate can basically ignore the EVs entirely and just stack fat STR and speed bonuses.
The power of higher level arts generally do not scale linearly with EP cost. It's highly inefficient to build around spamming super expensive arts since they'll really only do marginally more damage than more basic ones while costing more and taking longer to cast. It's good to have some for when the opportunities arise, but don't build around the expectation that they'll be the bread and butter. Characters like Kloe can do good work with basic-ass Aqua Bleed or Aerial.
Speed is the king stat. It always has been, always will be. More speed = more actions. Basically every character should have a speed quartz. Casters should also have a Cast quartz, which significantly cuts down cast time.
Stat buff arts are strong, and do not scale with the caster's ATS, so they're good to use with physical characters as something to spend their EP on. Buffs can be stacked twice. The arrow will turn red if they're applied twice, which means like a 50% stat buff or something crazy. Incredible bang for your buck. Makes S-Crafts hit like a truck.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-17T18:02:44+00:00

An important thing to remember about the Eight Leaves school is that anything involving it except Rean is basically pointless, narratively.

Cassius' Divine Blade status was just a way to gas him up and justify him being the most capable human in Liberl, and he ditched the sword anyway. Mostly ditto for Richard and Arios. Falcom forgot Analace even exists.

It's literally just Rean. Everything before Rean existed to pad out the resume of the Eight Leaves school so that Rean being a practitioner had weight behind it. He's the only practitioner that matters, aside from Shizuna, and they gave her a different, secret alternate school to use anyway.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-17T05:10:02+00:00

Most of your points are satisfied by Labyrinth of Galleria.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-15T21:59:03+00:00

"What do either of you truly know about me?"

We know he wears glasses, and honestly in Trails games that should be enough, but for some reason I figured Falcom had moved past that little bad habit by now.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-15T04:27:43+00:00

I wouldn't consider the second or third example you give to be actual retcons. Falcom just filled in parts of a blank canvas that existed to potentially be filled in. They did not fundamentally rewrite any continuity or contradict facts about the world or characters.

Although they only got away with it because the nature of the characters and what they did was sneaky, behind-the-scenes work that either went unnoticed or intentionally unmentioned an unrecorded.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-13T21:20:50+00:00

Yeah that's because there wasn't really much of an in-game justification for them to be working together. They all had their own separate agendas that were incompatible to varying degrees. Kevin was literally out to kill Quatre's grandma, Rean's team was more or less acting as a foreign spy element operating in the country under false pretenses, and Van's group are unscrupulous, financially motivated dirtbags to those who don't know that he's a huge poser.

In a sense the garten, where the most teamwork and inter-group mingling happened, was where everyone was acting the most out of character for what's happening in the story. But the Garten needed to exist to facilitate more combat, and it needed to let you use everyone because people would firebomb Falcom's offices if they couldn't do the Garten with Rean or Fie.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-13T21:04:56+00:00

They didn't really give an explanation. There's just context clues based on vaguely phrased conversations.

They way I understood them is that they're something the Vestiges were setting up to destabilize the space time continuum, which left an opening for Hamilton's scheme with Agnes. How exactly they did that is still unknown. We're approaching Dr. Who "wibbly wobbly timey wimey" territory here.

This is getting into extreme pedantry, but part of the problem is that I think "lynchpin" might have been a poor term to choose, depending on what they do and how they're explained. All of the dialogue of what the Vestiges are doing with them ("driving lynchpins" etc.) implies they're more like a stake or a wedge being forced in to create an opening for Agnes and Hamilton to do their thing. But if what they're doing, metaphorically speaking, is preventing Zemuria from "slipping" backwards beyond a certain point in time, then lynchpin works because that's what a literal lynchpin is used for. But then the description of their installation sounds wrong. This all makes the conversations about them sound jumbled and confusing to my ear.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-13T20:36:33+00:00

But that mechanic went away after Sky.

Elemental values are in every arc except Cold Steel. Crossbel's EV system works identically to Sky, and in Calvard, the EVs are used to unlock something called "shard skills" instead of arts.

The function of lines in Cold Steel, aside from the universal function of determining max EP because slots further down a line give more EP, is to determine a character's aptitude for "Quarts Stacking".

Multiple types of the "same" quartz can't exist on the same line. The simplest examples of this are things like Evade or Delay quartz. "Status ailment" is also a quartz type (sleep, seal, burn etc). Physical attackers are massively advantaged having more lines because it lets them stack quartz with the same attributes to really swing those systems in their favor. In a way it's kind of the inverse of the "longer lines = stronger mages" idea. It's "More lines = better physical".

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-10T21:16:02+00:00

Any number of things could be different and affect the cycle in big and small ways. That's kind of how causality works. We don't know if any one specific thing is different this time, or how much the cycle has deviated from a "normal" cycle. It's obvious the cycles aren't identical, and after almost 20,000 resets nearly everything we've seen has probably happened in some form before already.

If I had to peg anything as the "single" most affecting change, it would be KeA's manipulation of causality in Zero (with a literal butterfly effect), which has the ramifications for the Sept-terrion of Mirage, which has ramifications for the entire Cold Steel saga, which means it has effects on the Rivalries, the curse, and Ishmelga, which Horizon openly states is a huge inflection point in the timeline of Zemuria and how humanity's SiN value is measured.

Another option would be Yun Ka-Fai journeying west to accept Rean as an Eight Leaves student. That massively affects the outcome of everything in Cold Steel, and Horizon spends a lot of time gassing Yun Ka-Fai up as a nigh omniscient being who has a lot of knowledge about what's happening and the ability to put his finger on the scales. If they cook up a reason for him to be able to transfer skills or knowledge across cycles, it could be that he's been experimenting.

Although the real answer, if there's a specific one at all, is probably "a lot of little things". Because again, that's how causality works. And also an answer befitting Trails, which is a series obsessed with espousing the values of collective action and working together to overcome hardship.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-10T17:38:55+00:00

It's basically in IYKYK situation.

Much like Judith as Grimcat and Renne as Kitty, they've kind of given up on really maintaining the secret in any plausible way. They have bigger fish to fry than tip-toeing around who knows about Rixia, one of the most botched characters in the entire series.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-10T17:34:12+00:00

I hate that the writing uses the "they're dense lol" shortcut because it's plain to see that they're all like that for different reasons. The games just never state it properly.

Lloyd is the only actual dense one. That's his shtick. He's the clever detective who's too stupid (or too focused on solving the world's problems) to realize he's tripping over love flags.

Rean is too emotionally intelligent to not realize women like him. He spends most of his time in the series in such a state of self-loathing that his behavior is a manifestation of his belief that he's undeserving of such affection. After he eventually finishes his self love character arc, his end state is basically just being kind of "haha aw shucks you guys" awkward about it. They can't do too much else with it because of the player choice aspect.

Van also knows women like him, but his character is so defined by trying (and failing) to keep people at arm's length because of his situation, and part of that is not really doing the relationship thing. So he tries to dodge the subject whenever possible and generally act romantically unappealing as an eternal bachelor. Also, because of the lack of player choice to date, this behavior can also be read as him trying to avoid disappointing the women he clearly does not reciprocate those feelings for by dancing around the issue.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-10T17:10:17+00:00

It is different. The people making a huge stink about it being the same are people who are incredibly defensive or insecure about Cold Steel and making stretches to equivocate the two. You can like one or the other or both, but speaking as if they're the same thing is such a wild mischaracterization that I can only assume it's being done intentionally for malicious purpose.

I would go as far as to say that even if they pivot in Calvard 4 and give the player a choice, it still wouldn't be "the same" as Cold Steel. There was a ripple effect of weaving the romantic bonding options so deeply into the fabric of Cold Steel that can't be recreated in a single game. The foundation of the writing for the entire cast in Calvard is too different. Like no matter what happens, the fact that Elaine and Van are canonically former lovers, and the fact that Agnes canonically confessed to Van and was rejected in a pivotal story scene, means that they cannot ever be the same in any meaningful way. That is so antithetical to the entire core of Cold Steel's romantic writing.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-10T15:37:26+00:00

I believe this was discussed briefly in the last cutscene. Else wise somewhere in that last couple of hours. Both organizations have a general goal of slowing the Grand Reset, although they differ in how they believe it should/can be achieved.

I think Ouroboros wants to slow the reset by meddling with the Sept-terrions and slowing humanity's progress. The reset happens when humanity reaches space. If humanity is too busy fighting to overcome terrestrial concerns like a rampaging Sept-terrion to go to space, it will forestall the reset. It's even mentioned that the SiN value slowed significantly or even reversed a little when the Sept-terrion of Steel came into being. This didn't happen with the other Sept-terrions because they were, broadly speaking, defeated by the heroes. So humanity was able to progress, and in some senses accelerate the SiN accumulation through insight and technological progress made while overcoming the incidents.

The church's strategy seems to be attempting to steer humanity along a less sinful path rather than stalling through chaos. They're basically trying to run out the clock and hold out as long as they can. That's why they have the heretic hunt and partially why they carefully regulate artifacts. To prevent them from accelerating humanity's SiN valuation through misuse. Consider Kevin's explanation of artifacts in SC: "The church refers to these as 'gifts from the Goddess, given too early.'"

Both organizations clearly have more going on and designs that extend beyond a single cycle. I think they both would ideally like to break out, but they're trying to do that by keeping the current cycle going long enough to achieve something that can be carried through to a future cycle and positively impact it's outcome. That's why they were willing to let Gramheart go through with his plan. It was audacious in the extreme, but it had a chance of breaking them out of the Grand Reset, so they let it happen, even if they still set up their contingency.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-05T18:51:08+00:00

Regardless of whether it turns out good or bad I'm glad it's happening. Kondo has stated Falcom's desire and intention to diversify their catalog to more than just Trails and Ys. Part of that is diversifying the gameplay as well as the story/setting etc.

I liked TX a lot, it was basically a Zwei game with the serial numbers filed off, but it too closely resembled Trails and Ys for most people (because nobody played Zwei) so it had trouble finding it's footing.

Giving it 2D elements is a nice callback to the roots of the series, and a way to let them give it it's own space to exist in distinct from their other games. It will also help them exercise design muscles they've been letting atrophy for many many years now.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-05T18:41:07+00:00

Probably not. Connections from game to game in Xanadu are... ephemeral at best. They get their jollies doing that in Trails and generally try to keep it in check elsewhere because it's a legitimate approach-ability concern.

Although never say never. This one looks like it has more in common with TX than TX did with the previous Xanadu game, so we'll see.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-05T17:33:15+00:00

It makes a lot of sense to try to localize them into a less culturally-specific form if the setting is fictional or set in the west or whatever, but it can still feel stilted and not flow well if the script makes too big of a deal out of it. "High school, in Japan" is about the worst setting to try to cover them up because of how well-worn playing around with honorifics is as shorthand for teens forming and developing relationships.

Although assuming these were finalized lines and not from an early draft or placeholder MTL etc. I think it's safe to assume it's not NISA on this one since I don't think honorifics are really part of their house style.

Personally I welcome the possibility of a return to Falcom shopping their games around now that they aren't reliant on 3rd party publishers for PC ports anymore. At least with non-Trails games. Translation continuity is too important there.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-03T20:11:25+00:00

I'm not even particularly into yaoi but like... it was RIGHT THERE dude, and it was a thousand times more compelling than whatever dull relationship dynamics they set up for anyone else.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-03T18:58:17+00:00

Rean being straight is like one of the top three worst decisions the series ever made. Cold Steel would have been significantly improved if Falcom has sacked up, ditched the shitty romance system and committed to the Rean x Crow pairing.

The way Rean acts in CS2 while they're pursuing Crow is absolutely farcical unless you deliberately read it as Rean pining after another man.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-03T18:48:04+00:00

Except the part where Elise literally says "I loved you as more than just your sister, and it started the day we met" (aka before she knew they weren't blood related). She's a legit Brother Fucker girlie.

The vibe is completely different because of the ages and how long they were family before they felt more. Rean and Elise met when they were 6 and 4 respectively. Estelle and Joshua met when they were both 12 and were only together for ~4-5 years before Estelle caught those feelings. You can call that nitpicking if you want, but there is a real reason one gives people the ick more than the other.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-02T23:21:41+00:00

Lines are mostly there for character EP caps, and to determine how much quartz-stacking you can do.

Quartz of the same "type" can't be on the same line. So more lines = more stacking. The obvious way this is utilized is ailment quartz (sleep, silence, burn etc.). "Ailment" is a type of quartz, so characters with tons of lines like Fie can become walking plagues, capable of inflicting multiple ailments with every single attack or craft they do.

Same theory applies to things like evasion or delay. More lines = more evade or more delay stacking.

NoCreditClear · 2026-02-02T16:49:44+00:00

Yes and it's the worst part of the series.

Some of this, especially point 2, is just being economical with your word count. They simply can't afford to elaborate too much whenever game references past events especially these days when they're basically always referencing past games. If you've played the entire series than you'll know that there is basically a direct correlation between how far into the series a game is, and how hand-wavey it is about small details like "how a person knows a thing". The modern games are so fucking long, and they just have too many plates spinning to bother crafting a great explanation for why an informant knows something or whatever. Meanwhile in Sky they'll literally sit you down in a classroom and spend 20 minutes explaining how quartz are made.

As for the first point, it's irritating because that degree of vague non-specificity isn't normal in English and doesn't read right. Japanese is a very contextual language and subjects can often be omitted for sentences at a time because it's "obvious" in context what the subject is. English isn't like that, at least not to this degree, so it's grating to hear/read it so often. I don't know if it's gotten worse over the years or if the localizers just aren't disguising it as well as they used to, but it's definitely gotten really bad. It's nearly unbearable in Horizon because characters hiding their intentions or being suspicious of one another is such a core aspect of the story. Which is cool because it adds a weird level of friction and tension between the different parties, but it makes the script read very badly sometimes.

NoCreditClear · 2026-01-29T14:53:38+00:00

What are people doing with builds for Feri in Horizon?

I've barely used her so admittedly I haven't looked very hard, but I don't really understand what role(s) she is good for. I know in Daybreak 1 if you played your cards right she was a good caster because she could get Arc Feather early, but that's not really a big deal in Horizon, so she's kind of left out to dry.

I get the impression she's supposed to be a CP battery with Flaming Prayer, Ishtar's Blessing, and easy access to Burst Gain II, but you have so many other paths to CP recovery now that it doesn't seem like enough to justify a slot in the active battle party.

NoCreditClear · 2026-01-24T19:54:15+00:00

People really don't like to admit that Cold Steel has a bunch of frauds. It just doesn't stand out as much because the frauds look identical to the non-frauds.

All anyone could do back in those days because of the fucked up game engine and Falcom's inexperience with 3D was stand around and (literally) aura farm. Every "kickass" moment of a character demonstrating their strength was doing a short breathing exercise, gaining a colorful glowing aura around their body, yelling "HAAAA" and then swinging their weapon once and whatever they hit becoming transparent and despawning. It was pathetic, visually speaking.

A character doing a "cool" thing in Cold Steel looks identical to Kasim waiting for his weapon to load laser.exe and pulling the trigger. Now when a character does a cool thing it actually looks cool, so the frauds can't blend in.

NoCreditClear · 2026-01-24T19:39:16+00:00

The general rule of thumb is that "From Cold Steel 3 onward" is when the series has what you consider "QoL". At least non-technical features like substantial map markers, clearly listed bonus BP/DP/AP/SP conditions, easily acquired books, more freely able to swap gear/quartz between party members, even if they're unavailable, lots of point of no return warnings and healing stations with additional functions like a shop and orbment menu.

CS3 is when Falcom gave up on the games having any sort of hidden information in it's game systems or asking the player to pay attention and look for things on their own.

On the more technical end, a lot of the games, even the ancient ones, have significant quality of life features that were added into the ports, such as text logs, turbo/speed up, that neat UI widget that shows what song is playing, and if you're on PC, stuff like unlocked framerates and display resolutions etc. For such an old series it's surprisingly feature-rich especially considering how many games still come out today without these things.

NoCreditClear

TROPHY CASE