[17] Barrier Discourse is Here to Stay - Trails of Cold Steel 2 Funny Moments 

And Grace pretty much implies she's aware of that in this little bit.

We'll be sending you to Crossbell till your 90

He isn't wrong :) nah I kid

Well more of they tried to attack Crossbell after Deiter practically froze all of their assets.

That Aion left the Republic traumatized, huh? Lol

@@weaponsci Yep.

Robbie Daymond. You'll also recognize him as Goro Akechi in Persona 5.

It’s too funny that this is the voice of Akechi

Once again, I really do like how they pulled the "previous and current protagonists fight each other trope." Reminded me of pokemon lol

that was the scene you get for collecting the black records? i watched that as well before starting cs3 and i am still confused why they decided to hide it beyond the ng+ barrier 😋

Confirmed Weapons has seen it. Not sure if we'll get his reaction though.

i hope he also reads the black records

@@agustinruiz9467 They're in Cold Steel 3, so he'll probably read them then.

Honestly, in some later games it gets to be a bit too much.

@@TheRedzeth Its absolutely ridiculous later on yeah. Its like they're trying to one up the previous design each time

As they say: The bigger, the better.

Yeah I have to say I think she looks best in cs2 actually. No im not a woke phobic of femininity person, I just appreciate elegance and grace and having giant in your face physical aspect of a character kinda makes that hard to pull off.

A 'character development' arc that would make even Eiichiro Oda proud.

I do really like how half of the dialogue tries to jam in as many Crossbell names as possible,just looking at you to get it

Mistakes were made then huh?

The purple/red one. I doubt it's every specified

She got canons fr

Tbf, Rixia is like what, 18? She's still growing I guess 🤷

I noticed she didn't have the qinglong or whatever it was called, that boosted her STR and SPD iirc Edit: It really sucks that meteor breakers gone though. Hoping Lloyd maybe gets it back in CS3/4

@@weaponsci One unfortunate thing about moving into 3D is that: the greatest animated fight in the series is Sky SC Joshua vs Loewe. Nothing in the series comes remotely close until perhaps reverie/daybreak. Really a shame ;-;.

@@Chausies7 I know right! This reminds me that in kigdom hearts, the only Fight we see in cutscenes is in recoded Sora vs Data Riku

ro be fair some of them got converted to brave orders like tio's zero field becoming a brave order so you can't spam it anymore.

Point Taken, some Crafts are really broken to contine to exist, but simple crafts such the ones that some characters are going to lose in the next games, don't have a reason to not be there. And don't get me started on bullcrap like Steath and Shinning continue to exist in the next games even though how broken they are.

- There's a bunch of stuff you cut out of the video; I'll start with the newspaper, this one will be especially juicy to compare with the next one we'll get in the Epilogue; it's a Crossbell Times issue talking about the occupation when it happened on January 14th (compared to now where it's March 9th), about how Mayor MacDowell and many Crossbellans treat this annexation as a funeral for their state, which is quite true, it much be especially hard for the mayor who spend many years fighting against the congressmen of both superpowers so that Crossbell can be treated as a nation, only for it to be absorbed into the empire because of all the shit that happened in Azure; let's talk about that then, the newspaper spend a good portion of its pages trying to answer a political question that has a lot of room for debate: were Erebonia's actions and subsequent invasion of Crossbell justified ? They break down everything that happened in Azure (including the part where Erebonia attempted to fire the Railway guns at Crossbell, which if you started with Cold Steel, is the first time you hear about this, showing how the Empire's propaganda is strong into portraying them as victims in this whole thing), people in the fa dom have debated on this question, from a morality standpoint, the answer is clearly no, however, you can argue that Erebonia are exercising their rights as sovereign state to conquer a rogue nation who went bonkers on everyone, which is technically true, even if they tried to make up for it afterwards by arresting Dieter and taking down the Aions and Azure Tree, it was too late by this point, Crossbell failed the moment they let Dieter do whatever he wanted to force the continent to acknowledge Crossbell's independance, they stained their international image by pulling this shit and they ripped the consequences of it, before that,Liberl and Remiferia and even Arteria probably could've put pression to keep Crossbell from being invaded, but with the stunt they pulled, there's no defending that and Erebonia has every reasons to do that, also there's a matter of protection against Calvard as well, which as we saw, was the primary concern of the imperial army for ending the war quickly, with Garrelia Fortress gone and unable to serve as a B a r r i e r , if Calvard invades Crossbell, they can use it as a staging area to invade the Empire in turn and there's nothing to stop them, so Erebonia occupied Crossbell to protect themselves from Calvard by occupying Tangram Gate and fighting the republic from there as we saw in the intro; the evidences against Crossbell are damning, but let's not act as if Erebonia is innocent in all of this, we talked about this at length in Azure, but Erebonia alongside Calvard are responsible for a bunch of nasty stuffs that happened in these games, notably the laxative government incapable of pulling reforms quickly, their manipulations to force their agendas unto them as we saw in the Trade Conference, and of course their past intelligence feuds that caused a number of accidents and was the motivation for a bunch of characters to do what they did, mainly Grimwood, Arios and Noel, these things are why Crossbell were supportive of Dieter, some even after the reveal of the Aions which is where we can confidently say was the point where they've gone too far, heck even Dieter's motivations were directly related to this, he had enough of the dick measuring contest of the superpowers, which is why he wanted to unify Zemuria and the idea of justice; the firing of the railway guns by the empire for exemple is also an argument for how the empire didn't needed to go that far, but you can also argue that they had sent their tanks first, and only once they were destroyed, fired the railway gun and deliberately avoided areas crowded with civilians; while the argument for Crossbell from an emotional standpoint is understandable, it also can't be denied also that their response was overexcessive and that to be fair, Erebonia and Calvard gave them plenty of warnings that were all refused by Dieter because of his trump card, the moral scale has tipped to Erebonia for this invasion; however, the reinvasion and annexation was another thing entirely, we spent an entire Finale in Azure correcting the wrongs of Dieter, including invalidating the declaration of independence; while I wouldn't say Crossbell should've gotten off scot free, there needed to be consequences of Dieter's actions under Crossbell's name, their attempt to put things right by toppling the dictatorship and taking responsibility for it definitely should've been taken into consideration too, Erebonia's invasion was too sudden and excessive when it was clearly made aware that Crossbell didn't have their WMD any longer and were defenseless, they were also ready to accept retribution, so the moral thing to do was probably to let the international opinion decide Crossbell's fate, at least that would've been fair and done with the accord of everyone, but instead Erebonia decided "oh, it's free real estate, yoink!" and took it for themselves (even if there was the matter of protecting themselves like we talked about earlier, but as we also saw in the Finale, Osborne intended to invade Crossbell as soon as the war was done, so he probably wouldn't have even listened had they asked for negotiations). So yeah, all in all, with all the things that happened and the different ideologies at play, this is an extremely complicated situation where the line of legality and excessiveness are blurred, to the point where Erebonia can allow themselves to do this without being called into question, does Crossbell deserved punishment for their actions ? Definitely; did they deserved to end as a nation and being conquered ? Hmmmm..... I presented plenty of arguments for both sides, so it's extremely nuanced, however, if there's one thing I think we can agree on, it's that Erebonia took advantage of the situation to claim these lands without consulting the international community, even if they were in their right as Sovereign state, so for the question of "were Erebonia's actions and invasion justified?" I think it's safe to say that it wasn't, but there needs to be a big asterisk alongside it because it's clearly not black and white........... Did I just spend two hours talking about the political situation of two fictional countries ? Yes, yes I did. Also, as we saw at the start of the Divertissement and as said by Lloyd on the recap, the republican army has been invading Crossbell since Erebonia took control of it, and it's still ongoing two months later, the ashen knight was mentionned as the most powerful weapon of the imperial army to bring the conflict to a swift end, and it ends with an editor's note regarding Crossbell's situation, how it will contested and be argued upon for years to come and encouraging the reader to keep thinking, feeling, and dreaming for a better future regardless of what happens. - Let's go back to Lloyd and Rixia, during the dungeon, they will have these little conversation in order to keep us up to speed and potentially answer some of our questions, for exemple, their first answer two that you posed : "how did the two of them got their hands on ARCUSes?" Michel got it for them (and yes, it's Michel, not Michael), and " did we visit this sector?" no, it was a sector hidden from the general public by corrupt politicians and diet members to hide their deeds here, at least according to Elie and it was just one of its use; funny enough, the vent scene logically changes depending on who you're controlling, since for you it was Rixia, Lloyd get to see her........ You know 😏, and when he's in the lead, he's glad he's going through first because of her outfit; the second answers your earlier question on "why is it only Rixia with Lloyd?" Because the imperial army began to keep watch on everyone, Randy being the first one, then followed by Elie and Noel, make sense since they're pretty important figures, be it of the Crossbell's government or the CGF, and probably Tio as well, which made sure to keep Lloyd a'd KeA out of trouble for the time being, KeA being in hiding right now with Arios and Shizuku, so that's why he's with Rixia right now, because everyone else was unavailable; the third references the times Lloyd got nearly blown up by the mines of the Mainz tunnel and when they got also attacked by Gareth in Mainz when they were looking for Randt in the Finale, just to show that her instinct are usually sharp, however she has the sense that whatever's coming is far beyond her capabilities (and based on what we see later, she was most likely feeling the Ashen Knight); also, I like that they the consistency of the bestiary, in this dungeon, you can find the typical monsters of Crossbell instead of the ones in Erebonia, like the fat bats, the cleaning robots and the big ass mosquitos. - And now that they've reached the terminal room, time to talk about their mission, like Cao said earlier, this is the place where all the informations of Crossbell gathers, it contain a tons of data, whether on the citizens, transactions, or even Geofront layout; which means of course that if the imperial army get their hands on it, it would be big trouble, the resistance cannot afford to let them have these informations if they want to liberate Crossbell, so the plan is to wipe the data off the net using an initialization unit so theat the army can't use it, but it's not going to be easy.......

- Just as we start, who shows up but our buddy Rean with Altina in tow to stop the initialization, I like what they did with Rean in this moment, for starters, him working with Altina, one of the antagonist of this game, already makes you uncomfortable, but it's also how he's viewed as an antagonist by the people we're currently controlling: Lloyd and Rixia, who don't know everything he went through; and yeah, like you said, it's the meeting of the protagonists of the last arc and current arc, who fights each other because they have conflicting goals, one fight for the Crossbell resistance, the other for the invading forces, you compared this encounter with pokemon and the battle of Red VS Ethan in mont Silver, but for me, this is the other reason I call this game "Trails of Cold Steel: Civil War" beside the more obvious Civil War, because of the two heroes fighting each other because of conflicting goals when they could've been best friends had they met under different circumstances. The fight against both of them needs to be feasible, even on Nightmare, so the game gave you all that you need in the dungeon earlier to get through it, notably equipement that protects you from the delays of Rean's craft, as well as other potential deadly ailments, while Rean and Altina only have 50 on sleep and Faint, making it easy to inflict them with it thanks to Rixia's Falling Moon and gathering Criticals and BPs, as well as inflicting delays thanks to the Impede quartzs and Zeus Gem you got earlier, however they can still catch you by surprise of you aren't careful, they are linked so they can do follow-ups and rushes, but also, they can use their S-crafts, Rean's Termination Slash Dawn in particular is pratically a guaranteed wipe on higher difficulties (and is probably the reason the game gave an Adamantine Shield quartz in Lloyd's build). - After this skirmich, Rean decides to enter Mean status, but before he could do so the initialization is completed, so it's the victory of Lloyd and Rixia, but Rean doesn't hear it that way and calls upon Valimar to completely destroy the terminal (which is something Lloyd wanted to keep intact) in order to split their losses and he let them go after they exchange their names, it hurts a bit to hear Rean presenting himself not as student and member of Class VII, but as a military officer instead; so yeah, Rean failed in his mission, but it's not the end of the world for Lechter, and while Lloyd's mission was technically a success, they also realize that they escaped by a hair's breadth and only because Rean allowed them to, I like that they compare Valimar with the things they know like the Aions or the Archaisms, but Also to the Soldats they discovered recently, and that Llyod feels like there's more to it than just that (not a detective for nothing) he then goes to do a bunch of namedrop and finish it by throwing the B-word at us. Rean on the hand, goes back to the motherland this afternoon by train, refusing to take the Eisengraf back to talk to a certain someone (you can probably guess who), saying Goodbyes to Altina with whom he seem to be more acquainted with since then, and throws out there that he's jealous of Lloyd and Rixia..... Probably because they fight for something they actually believe in while Rean helps the imperial army at conquering Crossbell, something he's not happy with, but we'll get back to Rean's mindset in the next section. - And that's it for the Divertissement ; all in all, that was quite the interesting section that allowed us to view Erebonia's actions, and Rean's in particular, through another perspective, the one of Lloyd's and Crossbell's, a good change of pace and subversion to remind us how Erebonia is viewed by other countries, which we could've forgotten after 2 games of rubbing shoulders with the dorks of Class VII. We'll get back to thel next time though, and there'll be plenty to talk about.

It follows an event that's pretty significant between 2 and 3 for Rean, but it's glossed over a lot

You can ignore the anime. It's an unfortunate production that, aside from name, is never regretted back to. Hell im still trying to figure out what gave Rean "ptsd" when nothing went wrong with him being there

@@Runexn Spoilers of course: When he had to do Spirit Unification inside Valimar. It was just a lot more ''potent'' than when he did it in Cold Steel 2 I guess.

I think it's very obvious what should be the play order. Crossbell "spoils" Cold Steel by saying that Osborne is shot and a Civil War starts, and by also saying that Osborne survives. But those scenes were clearly written with the expectation that you know that. So if you play in correct order, knowing Osborne gets shot is NOTHING with the shotgun of other twists peppered around it. We have WHO does the shooting. We have Vita as an anguis. We have Sharon as an enforcer. We have the Valimar reveal. Maybe a couple others I'm not thinking of. And then the Osborne surviving "twist" also has Rufus as a double agent, Rufus as an Ironblood, Osborne taking over the Phantasmal Blaze plan, Osborne being Rean's father. In the reverse order, the things that Cold Steel spoils about Crossbell do nothing but take away the twists because they weren't written with you knowing them in mind, so there aren't other things sprinkled in to keep you on your toes and surprise you. And the further you go into Cold Steel, the more it takes away, until the end of Reverie when it has spoiled literally every twist from Crossbell.

​​​@@jmporkboboh no CS3 onward absolutely takes the gloves off, I mean the route being 1-2 and Crossbell. it's surprisingly well done both ways around after going thought both routes

I'm on the start of Chapter 4 of Daybreak and it's feeling VERY slow paced after coming off the Cold Steel arc. I'm hoping its going to pick up the last few chapters. Usually the first game of an arc is a little slower paced though so I guess it's to be expected.

Daybreak is still good though. It's a lot slower, but the stuff later game is REALLY good.

@@JetTheBaron Yeah I am holding out for the later chapters of the game to blow me away, i've loved every trails game so far so I know it will all be great in the end.

I really liked Daybreak, all the games are good

@@guccidonbuzzflightyear4440 Absolutely. I love them all, and I'm really enjoying daybreak, but it definitely has been a change of pace so far. A change of pace is nice sometimes though

Yeah without the knowledge from the two Crossbell games, this section will absolutely make zero sense.

As someone who also started with Cold Steel, I kind of really liked it actually. A switch of perspective to show how the rest of the world can see those characters and Erebonia here felt rather eye-opening and fun. Seeing the kind of shit Rean needs to deal with throughout the whole annexation make you feel for him more as well. This section also finally got me to realize that there's a whole franchise out there and Cold Steel was not the first game in the series (I kind of just found it randomly online and decided to jump in so I had no context at that time). Overall makes for a nice teaser to what you can expect/look forward to in the other games. That all, and Rixia is hot af, staring at her the entire time made this section of the game really enjoyable.

I didn’t have the knowledge at the time but I had seen Lloyd before and known he was the protagonist of Zero and Azure so I thought it was cool and exiting

@@hungry_kyouko_x3def agree

Nah.

Nah.

Facts.

Best girl in crossbell

Well more like they were even and he was holding back.

So, you love that Lloyd has BS plot armor?

@@zerofudou5689 Lloyd has zero plot armor