Ugh yeah they're so rough. They're pretty cool from a story stand point though. It's like The Trails version of "Everyone is here!" lol. Except Rixia, Noel and Wazy. Was a shame they were missing but maybe I need to play Azure to understand why?

Yeah that was such an awesome moment! Speaking of Arianrhod though... Rufus is now the worst character ever lol. I think he got off too easily but I was pleasantly surprised Jusis at least decked him the face or whatever he did. They are usually way too mushy with the villains lol.

One thing I've always noticed with this series (maybe CS specifically?) is that a character will jump in to bail out the party WAY too much. It happens several times per game. I pretty much felt nothing when the Courageous exploded at the end of CS3 and the characters were presumed dead, because I knew them showing up to save the day was exactly what was going to happen lmao. Compounded with the fact that they don't seem to want to keep anyone dead, you already know Crow isn't dead at that point, so yeah. Except Victor though, actually was a surprise he had something else going on.

Majestic Roar was probably my favorite of the game, a pretty amazing final boss theme. I preferred CS3's final dungeon theme but this one was still good. Yeah that was surprising of McBurn. I still don't like him very much though, I look forward to whatever future game where we can finally beat him for real and put him in his place xD

I think CS4 was way harder, there were some fights I used the weaken enemies feature on multiple times in a row. And yeah, I definitely had trouble on Zoro-Agruga and probably used weaken multiple times on that as well. The split into 3 teams thing was something I struggled with a lot in these games because there's a lot of menu preparation needed and of course you need the money to equip everyone properly. Probably lacking in levels as well, since I pretty much just use Rean, Fie, Laura, Alisa and Altina for everything (yeah, I'm a weirdo that mainly uses girls lolz). It's cool how there's a million party members in these games, but I think I actually preferred having a core group I knew I would be able to use in every fight.

Yeah it's an insane ending. We're lucky to play through all these when they're already out, I imagine playing this and having to wait a year or two or whatever it was for CS4 to come out was brutal lol. Yeah the Millium stuff got to me as well, the way Millium and Jusis' relationship developed was really unexpected and cute. I have some more thoughts about it but given I have knowledge of CS4 I think I'll be inadvertently spoiling something if I say them, so I'll hold off for now.

The game had probably the best final dungeon theme I've ever heard, I love how these games just let it play through random battles too, I'm always a sucker for that. The tracks you mentioned are all great. I think my favorite is probably Behind the Lore though, I'm a sucker for that kind of mysterious music I guess lol. Definitely loved the Arianrhod and McBurn thing yeah. Arianrhod's scenes are some of the best things about these game, she's such an awesome character and I'm looking forward to seeing what she does in Azure as well.

Yeah, the CS games were definitely harder than what I've played of Crossbell I think. I'm ashamed to say that even on normal there were times where I just picked weaken enemies and retry. Maybe sometime I'll replay them and try to play them properly lol. I see you've already beaten it though, I hope you liked the the evil cliffhanger which is probably far worse than even CS1's lolz.

Yeah it's really cool Fie became a bracer. Yeah Randy is pretty great in CS. And there's Juna which kind ties Crossbell to the group, she's one of the characters that are in revised versions of Azure, though I'm not sure I've actually seen her yet. As far as the female characters that aren't Altina go I definitely prefer Musse though, she's just amazing lol.

Hopefully I get back to Azure properly soon, my gaming is all over the place lately and I keep getting distracted with other stuff. I see you must have taken a liking to Altina, definitely my favorite member of New Class VII! I have to say Fie is my favorite out of all though, especially in CS3/4, her new design is so good. I always pick her for Rean's romance options, I feel like she deserves him the most especially with her backstory.

I'm the one that should be apologizing, I'm giving way later replies than you lately haha. No worries.

Yep all good tracks, CS III and IV improve upon them even further I'd say. I guess I'll have to replay them eventually to really appreciate the connections to the older tracks. Yeah the Osborne being Rean's father was indeed pretty mindblowing to me. I imagine getting to play as Lloyd and Rixia again was a treat as well. Funny, for the longest time I always thought Rixia was going to be the main girl of Crossbell because of that. How wrong I was lol. Looking forward to finally seeing what her deal actually is when I get further in Azure though, she's so awesome.

I guess I don't have too much else to say because it's hard to comment further without spoilers. You're in for a treat when you play CSIII though, the graphics are a HUGE upgrade lol.

Good to hear you enjoyed it. That's indeed a really awesome theme, definitely seems like CS series has the best OST by far since it only really gets better from there. I see you already started CSII. It's such a massive improvement over CS1, like just getting them out of school into the world and giving them unique clothes instead of a school uniform the whole game makes it feel so much better lol.

I hope you enjoyed CS1. I know the whole school thing is pretty hit or miss for some people though the characters definitely grew on me over time, if not the 1st game then definitely by the 3rd. Guessing you'll be moving right onto CSII after that evil cliffhanger, omg

Nice to see it was one of the best games you've ever played. Yeah I hope to be able to get the full context of them and Renne eventually, I like her. Funny it sort of goes both ways though because there's references to Cold Steel they added in later versions of the game. There's a couple random NPCs with portraits that must have been confusing to you lol. Though I know a lot of it was always there, this series is really well planned out which is pretty impressive. They're lucky the series has been successful enough that they've been able to realize the full scope of their ambitions, a lot of series get canned before then, like Xenosaga.

You're already further than me on Azure haha, unfortunately I've had some gaming struggles lately but hopefully I'll pick up the pace again soon. I was pretty stoked to see Noel join the SSS, I love her.

Good to hear about YS. I'll definitely have to check it at some point, probably whenever I'm done with Trails. I suppose the order isn't something to stress too much about since I'm playing Trails in a weird order too. I actually haven't played Sky so all the Estelle and Joshua stuff in Zero kinda went over my head. I saw a article the other day about Falcom wanting to make them more available though, so if they come to Switch or something I'll grab them in a heartbeat.

Didn't really mean to be away from the BL for this long... But yeah I guess that and he mentioned about how we get into similar conversations on Fire Emblem and stuff over Discord lol

I've actually already played through all the Cold Steel games so we might not technically be in the same spot, but yeah. Definitely had to go back and play Crossbell since it's very important for Reverie, even the localization acknowledged that since they went back and used the fan translations for these instead of moving straight to Reverie. Cold Steel 4 probably ended up being my favorite JRPG ever so you're in for a treat. Azure has definitely had some nice surprises coming from Zero as well. I'm guessing you're taking a break to play some Ys. I should probably get into that series as well but seems like I would be missing too many of the games since I don't really like playing on PC anymore. I don't know how strict the chronology is and if they're as connected as the Trails games are.