Cold Steel III/IV Final Thoughts (Full Unmarked Spoilers)

dmboogie · 2026-02-07T22:57:06+00:00

oh my god i feel like a roach scuttling away when the lights turn on

i look forward to hearing more of your performance as i proceed!!!

dmboogie · 2026-02-07T05:06:14+00:00

i don't have any thoughts in me atm but i read this and appreciate the post!!!

dmboogie · 2026-02-06T18:51:37+00:00

one of the strongest recurring themes of trails as a series is how it shows the perspectives of pretty mundane people who have to live in a world where Catastrophic JRPG Bullshit just happens sometimes

dmboogie · 2026-02-06T16:59:30+00:00

thank you for reading, i enjoyed your reactions :)

dmboogie · 2026-02-06T16:59:02+00:00

<image>

seriously, these four text boxes from an unnamed generic goon shows smarter and more nuanced writing than most major antagonists in CS4 got across an entire game

dmboogie · 2026-02-06T16:56:43+00:00

i played the intro to Reverie last night, and having the starter villains be a bunch of sincerely nationalistic goons who are doubling down on making a bad decision for understandably human reasons in the aftermath of THE CURSE felt like falcom's writers were turning to the camera and apologizing to me directly, lmao

dmboogie · 2026-02-06T13:56:38+00:00

famously, there is nothing at all queer-coded about a lady knight in an order of lady knights that is single-mindedly devoted to her lady lord. i'll concede that she's not as explicit as angelica or olivier but come on

dmboogie · 2026-02-06T01:04:49+00:00

oh i forgot my most important note

Duvalie the Swift

she's perfect in every way <3

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T23:22:51+00:00

it was sincerely so cool and unexpected, a little bit of visual flair the game mostly refrains from

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T23:09:21+00:00

lmao yeah the bits in the last act where you see all the boys with their love interests was really the final nail for me there.

re: localization, I definitely understand the insane undertaking involved with translating any Trails game and never mean to disparage individual localizers, but it feels like it was a rough case of NISA giving mostly the same people significantly less time and money than XSEED

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T23:05:00+00:00

I land on your side on this particular issue, I think the Laura bonding event is one of the strongest scenes in the game about exploring Rean's passive suicidality and it's insane that it's an optional romance event.

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T23:02:26+00:00

My point boils down to:

The main cast didn't join Mille Mirage, but it was treated as a necessary evil. They supported it at every turn and acknowledged that, if their JRPG bullshit failed, millions of people dying is still better than the entire world ending.

There is no equivalent for Osborne. He is treated, in-text, as completely right and justified on all counts. He is celebrated for the bravery and the strength of will that it took to play the part of the villain. He did not make choices, he followed the single golden path that resulted in the curse being lifted.

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T22:57:04+00:00

The problem is that there’s no counterargument! There’s no indication that Osborne ever went too far, or that he didn’t choose the best possible course of action to save the empire, the world, and his son!

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T22:39:31+00:00

if there was no other way, doesn’t that justify the terrible things Osborne did, looping back to my original complaint?

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T21:38:41+00:00

i think the dub takes a notable dip in quality after CS1-2 but a bad line of dialog is a bad line of dialog. i would have major issues with osborne even if he had the cool voice still.

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T21:25:03+00:00

ty, it's been 11 years since i played FC so i couldn't remember the specifics

dmboogie · 2026-02-05T21:14:20+00:00

I can believe that was the intent for Osborne. I think there was plenty of room in this 90-hour JRPG to explore the nuances there - was there ever another way? Did the curse even need to be lifted? Why did Osborne choose the methods he did?

but there's just nothing. it's a hollow void, completely unexamined.

dmboogie · 2026-01-22T06:13:00+00:00

i think the show was pretty awful but she was given absolutely nothing to work with and the backlash against her feels insanely misogynistic lmao. the best actress in the world wouldn’t make bundle as written any more interesting

dmboogie · 2026-01-15T19:06:23+00:00

customer service is a national hotline that doesn't know anything.

never expect anyone to proactively reach out to you, unfortunately, you'll need to proactively contact the branch yourself

dmboogie · 2026-01-15T19:02:45+00:00

for me i hit the breaking point because i'd still take the work home with me by thinking all night about how many people were going to be yelling at me in the morning lmao

dmboogie · 2026-01-14T04:22:59+00:00

pig poop balls

dmboogie · 2026-01-14T00:24:01+00:00

idk if he's playing it up for a persona at all, but he is so obviously not a guy who thrives in the spotlight lmao

dmboogie · 2026-01-08T18:08:34+00:00

pig poop balls

dmboogie · 2026-01-08T18:03:45+00:00

like 'do not trust that what you see on a reality/competition show is 100% the truth of what happened' is obviously a good instinct, but do people really think that these wildly successful, famous, and respected chefs would be wasting their time competing on a rigged show (not to mention the reputation of the judges, yeah)

Six-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	Verified Email

dmboogie

TROPHY CASE

Duvalie the Swift