r/Falcom

Big fan of Trails series. I love its world building and the team's commitment to long-form storytelling.

I've always considered Trails a visual novel in a trench-coat. Great stories, great characters, great gameplay, great music. It's basically a VN in 3D visuals.

I struggle to think of any game that are Trails-like. I feel that's what makes the series so unique in that regard.

Thoughts?

Does anyone know of any similar games they played that captures the similar commitment to long-term story telling as Trails?

I never beat any Trails games on Nightmare so far. The older games were tuned really well to normal difficulty but as I played more and more of the games the better I got at understanding and breaking their systems. Now I’m on my 10th game in a row like a total Trails sicko and I’m trying to get the challenge back without making the game tedious.

CS3 on hard was a cake walk. Easier than the original games on normal by a long shot. Was gonna try CS4 on Nightmare but I just wanted to breeze through it, get max rank and move on because I’m a bit tired of the Cold Steel arc and I’m so excited for Reverie. Getting back my SSS crew and in my favorite setting in Zemuria so far with a huge gigantic cast. Still get some more Rean now that he’s grown on me finally after CS3 and 4 so it’ll be my first game I’m actually looking forward to playing as him, and he’s not monopolizing all the time this time. Then we have exciting third protag who I’m desperately trying not to spoil because I feel like it’s gonna be a really interesting part of the game. Anyway so here is my most anticipated of all the Trails games, up there with Horizon as my other most anticipated, and so if I’m gonna put all my focus and energy into beating one on Nightmare, Reverie seems like as good a choice as any. One final challenge on the og battle system before they switch to the new engine and battle system with Daybreak.

I am really worried that playing it on Nightmare is going to make the enemies super spongey and make it so that I can’t just use proper planning to destroy the enemies quickly. I want to be forced to use my toolkit but not forced to mindlessly plug away at gigantic health bars. I want to min max my builds, and actually have a reason to, because when I min maxed builds in CS3&4 I became so hilariously over powered I didn’t even have to pay attention to boss battles. I know they retuned the difficulty though so can someone help me understand what Nightmare feels like in Reverie? I’m the kinda person that once I put it on Nightmare I won’t want to switch it off, I will feel like I failed at the challenge I set for myself and so I only want to choose to challenge myself with it if I’m really committed to giving it a go.

If there’s any game for me to slowly pour through and take my time with to make some perfect builds and explore every quest and dungeon to the fullest it’s Reverie and I’d feel really good if the last game before the new engine was able to be completed as my first Nightmare Trails experience. I will likely never replay this game, as it’s my 10th Trails game in a row so the only Trails games that will be getting replayed are the new remakes so this is gonna be a one and done experience and want to get the most out of it.

What does everyone think? Is Nightmare on Reverie a FUN challenge? Is it grindy or more strategic and making the most use of your toolkit? One thing that killed me in the last two games was when your party would talk about how insanely tough the opponents were and how this isn’t gonna be easy. And then I just stunlock them with Rean 0 delay casting Alvion Wolf 6 times and they never get a turn. That was super anticlimactic. I know I could just not do it, but I found a way to build so that I could do that, I want the reward of being able to do that! I am hoping for a game that can allow me to create my super broken builds that will then give me a nice edge against my opponents, but give the poor saps a turn if you’re going to act like they’re gods compared to us. If I’m having a big conversation about how brutal this next fight is going to be, I want to feel like it’s brutal - but not spongey and not unfair. Do we think Reverie fits what I’m looking for or should I just run through on Hard and enjoy it for the story. The one thing I do know is the beginning is going to be the hardest part. CS3 was the easiest game in the series but even its first dungeon with Millium was pretty difficult at the boss early on. When you don’t have any tools to work with, there’s not much you can do and so I’m worried about that initial Nightmare barrier of entry before you can really start making a good build.

Sorry for the rambling post, I just am so excited I finally made it to the conclusion of all these 9 previous wonderful games that I was introduced to with the Remake. I am dying to give it a try but I want to make the right decision so I’m not kicking myself and feeling like a weakling because I have to turn the difficulty down lol. Thanks for putting up with my paragraphs of text.

TL;DR: how does Reverie feel on nightmare? Well balanced? Spongey? Grindy? Easy? Did anyone try Nightmare on their first run through of Reverie and have a good experience?

EDIT: sounds like I’m going to be doing a nightmare play through, sounds like if I can wreck hard on CS 3&4 I should be able to to at least finish Nightmare. Hijacking my post to mourn the identity of C because I was just googling to find what the exact things that change for each difficulty setting on Reverie. I thought that would be a safe thing to look up, it should have just showed stats like boss health and stats and how they differ between nightmare and hard. I couldn’t imagine how it would be anything but that. The first picture that popped up right on the main Google screen at the top was just captioned C and showed him with his helmet off…why couldn’t I just done a full blackout on all on anything related to the games. The one entry I was most excited for and that’s the one whose main twist I spoil for myself. Literally heartbroken. That’s my super sad rant that I deserve because I wasn’t patient enough and had to keep reading things to quench my excitement for this game. Heartbroken.

Heya guys as many of you probably saw, Falcom themself had a census during their fan-meeting where they asked a buncha questions and I thought that was rather interesting so following in their steps I've also made one and hope that y'all would be kind enough to fill it out and spread it around other Trails/Kiseki fans.
I've added a few question that weren't included in the og census but thought would be interesting to have some data on.