Funny how falcom told the story of a great protagonist that sacrifices everything, a hero that lived long enough to turn into the antagonist, and they told this masterfully, through bits and pieces and trough the eyes of some randos and his son. The trails of Cold Steel are the trails Osbourne walked, we just followed him around and played his tune.
i did a poll in my gaming discord friends group (none of them have played this game so its all on looks) on which wifu I should pick as the ultimate bonding event. Most of them chose emma... which was def not my personal choice
One of the things I love about trails of cold steel, is that self sacrifice is not painted as the completely noble thing many comics do. As some one who grew up with spiderman, that belief clashed with the one this game series presented causing me many times to pause mid game and think. Change me as a person, the best JRPG period. Side note personally I think Rean is the best charater in all of trails.
I know he was eaten up inside by his major character flaw of never believing he was deserving of having faith in others which took two full arcs to start to beat back. He was so driven and willing to go out of his way to guide and help others like a true hero, but didn't have the capacity to comprehend the love and appreciation he garnered from his friends and family. The way they broke the protagonist trope of his flaw being that he was "too selfless that he was perfect" into making it so that it was always a detriment to his psyche and a sincere struggle was brilliant to the levels of Altina's level of growth. He had to be able to internalize and overcome himself in order to become a teacher and leader. His character is a shining example of the despair of putting others first in a toxic way and feeling no sense of self worth no matter how hard he tried. Many might gloss over his character as a bit too nice and perfect. But his allies perceptions of him could never reach his heart and that ate at his soul. If he never slogged his way through finding and overcoming himself through the trials he faced he would have easily fallen under the sway of the curse and lost himself to the demon inside forever. We saw what the curse did to peoples sensibilities, how much easier it would have been for the literal sacrifice to have never saw light again if his students and friends couldn't reach him! Rean is the most heroic member of the story and not because he was an awakener or had an unflinching passion for justice. But because he was willing and able to overcome the darkest part of himself, even while enveloped in his own proverbial/literal darkness by trusting others to be his crutch when he needed it. He gradually accepted their love for him which empowered him to be the hero he had the potential to become. TLDR: If that war within to break through his own mental limitations wasn't overcome through sincere diligence and learning to trust others Rean would have easily fallen under the sway of the curse and become nothing but a monstrous catalyst. He overcame it through learning to accept himself and let his allies be a beacon of hope to become the hero he needed to be.
I think Rean is the worst important characters in trails series and a part of why Cold Steel has so many problems. I was so glad to see Estelle and Lloyd again and that after Hajimari we won't see him much. X) So yeah he does give a lot of different vibes haha
@@Haarwyvern I understand your point of view, I disagree but I respect it. About the seeing after Hajimari while he won't take a big part, there is a lot still set up for his character going into Calvard. Out of all the protagonists he is the only one with reason to go to Calvard and room to grow.
@@sherrdreamz7232 I love this comment. Thank you for articulating this. Rean is one of the most compelling characters I’ve ever had the privilege of journeying with. And I think the reason for this, as you wrote, is quite complex and nuanced. I’ve never seen a protagonist like him, and it’s hard to imagine one being believably written. And yet here we stand. Falcom are masters of character craft, perhaps due to how many different types of characters they create.
@@RyanBancroft the thing about his character boiled down to the most basic principle is he has all the same building blocks and motivations of any other JRPG protagonist. However Falcom put those blocks together into a "slow burn" tale of actual growth across the entire Cold Steel series by how others had an impact on him in real time. If someone saw only "What he did" throughout the games it mostly would seem like a typical bland protagonist. Falcom made him grounded in reality by showing his very real shortcomings and failures while still having him take the most honorable/heroic road. Other characters may act like Rean but they certainly haven't been as fleshed out and shown the actual struggle of becoming a hero from ground zero. From an anxious teenager with a severe and very grounded inferiority complex to Someone who would sacrifice everything out of love for his friends/the world his character arc is perfect.
Regarding Rean in the normal ending, I actually think this was different from his usual self-sacrificing antics. Here's why: The normal ending is almost like a reverse mirror image of the ending of Cold Steel 1: once again, Rean is inside Valimar, about to take off into the unknown. But this time, he chooses to go, and it's his classmates who are begging him to stay. This time, he's not fleeing from Crow; Crow comes with him as his best friend. And this time, Rean isn't trying to sacrifice himself as a first instinct because of desperation or a sense of worthlessness. He's willing to die because unless a literal miracle happens (i.e. the true ending), this is well and truly the only way. In other words, it's what Rufina Argent would have done.
Greetings, I never made that connection to the ending of part one, and that is a great observation. I hear a lot of backlash against Rean for still sacrificing himself in the normal ending, but I do not know what else he was supposed to do without the Argres's "donation." Good stuff, mate. Please have my second like. Cheers, co is
Yeah, I agree. Also the way i see it, the normal ending wasn't him sacraficing himself as a first option, like he has tried to do before. This time, he didn't want to sacrafice himself, but it was the only option he had left without the secret endings intervention, and i think that shows lots of char development in itself. He isn't willing to throw his life away as a first option, but if it is the only way, he is still willing to do whatever it takes to protect the ones he loves.
Precisely the way in which he was willing to sacrifice everything at the finale was an entire antithesis to his mental state, of wanting to find a way to die admirably per (Laura's Island Support) and living with his mental state. At the end of CS IV he wanted to stand by his comrades and not hurt them with his departure, but there was absolutely no options left. He wasn't feeling like doing it would be a welcome end, but rather a neccicary gift to his friends and the world he hoped to preserve with all his being. Rean grew immensely between the first and second arc and even then he still had to ultimately wrestle with his own demons of valuing himself over his willingness to surrender himself if it meant it would help/save others. As an Aside... That character development being locked behind a romantic support with Laura is kind of disappointing. I feel it is crucial to understanding what Rean is going through and the most vulnerable side of him
We Fie fans are a vocal bunch. We stand by our girl. That’s why she’s top 10 :p All joking aside, I just personally love her story in all four games. I found it engaging, and felt she got some of the most character growth of Old Class VII. I went into CS4 with her already being my favorite. But even then, CS4 gave me a much more personal connection to the character, because I was actually playing the part where she says goodbye to Rutger when I got the news that my own father passed away. So I’ll likely always feel a personal connection to the character.
I am really happy for #1 because it's how I see it as well. The scene at the end of CSIII when weaken Altina still tried to help Rean made me cry. It was so touching to see her gaining these emotions and that strong will.
Ash is my favorite character in all of cold steel. He is such a well written character. His arc was very enjoyable for me to watch. How we learn that behind all his anger is a caring guy who suffers from a lot of trauma. His English voice actor helps a lot with it too. I just have a soft spot for male tsundere who slowly warm up to the rest of the cast and learn how to voice their feelings and how to handle their emotions.
I can understand why Allie is #1. That was one hell of character development. You see this emotionless, robotic girl become a human. Rean was a huge factor in her development. Other than saving the world, this was Rean's greatest accomplishment throughout the arc IMO.
Just a quick correct to number 4. My balls are made of steel (316L the surgical type, to be more precise), and not from iron (now read CS arc title again and think deeper about it :D). Iron is in my blood. Thanks for the video!
On Emma, I just think she makes a MASSIVE late series comeback for a number of reasons. In CS I/II, she has (in my own humble estimation) practically no good entertaining personality synergy with anyone in OC7. She’s just kind of quiet and there with her secretive stuff. By the end of the series, thanks to her well developed dynamic with Celine and Roselia, she actually has real personality and character because she can jaw with those two back and forth and she becomes occasionally adamant/forceful in certain spots; and it’s just so much more compelling than her silent mystery good girl archetype early. Her progressively improved plot relevance is obvious, but it’s still huge. She leaps a Grand Canyon of a chasm between CS1 and CS4 in terms of having a key role. It’s also my opinion that, for whatever reason, each redesign of her character per game from CS1 to CS4 progressed so well that it’s a quantum leap in her appearance/presentation from the beginning to the end of the series. She looks very meh at the start of Cold Steel; she looks great at the end of the arc. Because of all this, like many players who I think saw some of what I commented on in her design, I paid like zero attention to Emma in bonding in CS1/2, and that was shocking to me as someone who likes the smart female mage character typings in generally. But her quiet considerate kind no offense low personality demeanor was so boring. In CS4, I did all of her bonding because of how radically she had improved from her CS1 base and how much more interesting she was. I can support the top 10 here for her. Even though I’m an OC7 junkie and there’s really no excuse for Laura not being #1 at everything ever. An entirely separate point.
I think Emma's big problem is Celine. Like, Celine literally hijacks Emma's role as a witch supposed to be guiding an awakener (Rean). Her bondings in CS4, especially when she practically risks her life just for a glimmer of a chance to help rean, dials things up to 11 but, still, considering Celine ends up hijacking so much of Emma's potential, it kinda leaves her wanting more in CS3/4 imho. I wouldn't say she doesn't deserve to be high, but it definitely feels like Arianrhod and Ash got cheated out of a higher rank by her. They just seemed more compelling to me as characters. And I say this as a guy that'd waifu her over any other class 7 girl in a heartbeat.
One thing I will add to what you said about Altina is that, character itself aside, her relationship with Rean is beautiful. From being on the opposite sides of war, to her being attached to him as a spy, a position that allows for no sincerity from either side. To them stepping on each other's toes trying to adjust to their new roles of teacher and student. To the uncertainty of losing her place in the world, as her masters loosen their leash on her, to, finally, developing into a thinking and feeling person who can navigate her own life. Having come out of it on the other side in no small part to Rean's guidance and selflessness, it's no wonder that their eventual bond is so warm and satisfying to witness. Falcom misses with the characters quite often, but Altina was a bullseye hit. Hands down my favourite character in Trails.
Firstly, Cheers for the comment mention! Second, I think this rankings kind of showed what Falcom has prioritized with this arc. Cold Steel, while certainly having some great characters, had way more attention to it's overall narrative and story. The Sky series was much more character and character narratives(not saying the story was bad by any means, just of the first 3 arcs, it was the weakest imo). Crossbell serves as that middle lane of sorts with a good portion of both. May just be overthinking it, but can't help it. Nonetheless, awesome series and can't wait for more.
With the size of Erebonia, it makes sense that the focus shifts from character driven narrative to story driven, and the characters just kind of mould around it. With so many big forces at play especially in CS3/4, I think Cold Steel as a whole showed the struggle of fighting against the tide so to speak. And it's why I hold CS4 in particular so high, because of how grand it feels in nature.
I was so shocked when i see osborne as the 4th. I mean i would rated him 1st or 2nd with olivert. Somewhat expected crow to be big 3. But Altina as the 1st really unexpected and that's the thing i can't complain about. Altina really deserves to be the number 1.
Altina #1 is unexpected? I'd say there would be no justice in this world if she wasn't #1, with how she's one of the best characters in the series as a whole and probably top 5 most liked characters for sure
If there was a shock, then honestly I think it was Olivert being number 3. I love him as a character(if there was an all-time ranking, then yes absolutely top 3...MINIMUM), but for what he does in CS3 and 4, I can't help but wonder why. And frankly the same could be said with Crow and Valimar. Again love them but for CS3/4?...not a top 10 imo.
@@arcanegale285 well, i expect more into millium to be honest. From my point of view, millium gave so much impact on many characters. One of them is Altina. Well, Altina sure get more interactions and more screen time on CS3 and 4 than millium, so that's why i somewhat expected her to be big 5. Being number 1 is a little unexpected, but still well deserved.
Great top 10 - and a really fun list in general!! I really enjoyed checking each day to cast my votes! I shall come out as one of the Emma fans! Haha. Emma was my #1 throughout the whole CS Arc. I felt drawn to her character right from the beginning of Cold Steel 1, and was delighted to see how she grew from being a shy, unconfident bookworm into a really powerful witch by the end of Cold Steel 4! Unlike a lot of the original class 7, it felt like she had a relevant story that spanned all 4 games - rather than being pretty much solved at the end of 2. I think what I liked was how she came from being such an unassuming character into one of the most important of original class 7 - they would have been stuck without her on several occasions throughout 3 and 4. But maybe I’m biased as I prefer old C7 to new C7!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that some of the girls had the "waifu" element taking priority for some fans. Altina absolutely deserved her rank, though. With Crow, it's probably another case of a character's role from CS1/2 affecting the poll for CS3/4. In any case, thanks again for the poll. Hope you do another one for Reverie at some point.
@@ZeraThroughZero I want to say that story significance and character development should be more important...but I can't deny the strength of the element.
@@TheKisekiNut That's because even her stans have to recognize that she pretty much was a tease in CSI that went nowhere. Improved in CSII but she was outshined by her cat lol. Also Celine was more useful to Rean as a guide even though she was cranky and did the buddy cop routine most of the time.
this might just be me, but 3 "waifus" most people love so much I am either indifferent or borderline annoyed by those being Emma, Alisa and Claire I couldn't care less for Claire, to me she didn't have anything to offer in all 4 games. Alisa is a tsundere done badly, which immediately gives her negative points in my book, I'll admit she was better in these 2 games than the first two. And as for Emma, well... I feel like she had nothing going on from the moment you meet her. CS1: mysterious and intriguing, CS2 "haha I'm a witch" and that's it CS3 I exist CS4 I kind of still just exist but now I decided to take a page out of Rean's book and go on the self-sacrifice route + my sister, grandmother and cat do more of my job than I do. Her witch aspect was explained like it was completely normal and it wasn't done anything with.
I prefer un-sympathetic antagonists personally, I feel like the whole "this bad guy wasn't actually bad, just misunderstood" shtick has been overdone a few hundred times now. However, I think it was done well with Osborne, falcom managed to make him into both the most and least evil antagonist in the series, it's very cleverly done.
The thing is I've seen the unforgivable antagonists like Weissman and Joachim. And they work because their involvement is mostly limited to their individual arc. However Osborne has been around since Sky SC at least in reference. The longer a character stays in the narrative, the more I want them to have added layers of motivation or depth. You can no doubt make a deep 'evil' character, but I think it's a lot harder to do. If Osborne's speech at the end of CS3 (drowning the world in conflict) was the main goal of his entire character, and it was motivated by his past, I'd accept it but I'd be disappointed. For someone so integral to the games up till that point, I would want to see something beyond just being evil - and that's why I'll always be on board with his redemption.
As long as Osborne doesn't miraculously come back to life like everyone seems to do in kiseki nowadays, he has had an impact on the series that'll probably last till everything ends.
@@zearow5458 The only 2 people who came "truly" back to life are Crow and Millium. All the other one were either imposters (robots, clones, concepts, etc), lived on borrowed time or were shown in flashbacks. And i wouldnt count Olivert, Viktor and Toval, since that explosion screamed faking death. Nobody believed they were dead.
@@MandalorOrdo There are way too many scenes where a person shouldve died but didnt or ended up coming back to life. The only one I personally think makes sense was Osbornes in CS due to him being built up as the biggest villain to date. Angelica got shot but didnt die, the Emperor got shot but didnt die, Olivert and co got blown up in an airship but didn't die, Crow came back twice and Millium somehow managed to come back when her soul was trapped in the sword. Was way too convinient how everything worked out . Every time a person has a scenario where they should've died, they didn't. Not like I dont understand why they keep bringing people back but still feels kinda annoying when a death can lead to further growth of characters and plot.
I think a big reason why Falcom doesn't kill off their characters anymore is that they probably got ALOT of people disliking it when a favourable character died (Mainly Loewe). I do agree to some extent when I think about how the series would've been in Olivert was kept dead.
Dang, harsh comments on Emma :( I don't even know we were asked to defend her position in the ranking. Many people just really like her, myself included. She's likable, has a great design, is definitely more important to the story than a lot of characters, and she's incredible in combat. I get the point about her not being the only witch, but I always felt she was the most important one, story-wise, since she has that close connection with Rean as an awakener. I don't think Rean would have gotten along nearly as well without Emma. Vita and Roselia contribute to the story, sure, but Emma's our gal, she does more than you might think. I also loved her growth from just some girl in the class to a pivotal, key member of the cast. I think her development is really great and is the most consistent over the course of all 4 games. She never concludes her arc early and coasts like some characters, she's always relevant and growing through all 4 games. She's also just adorable, and I love her
It's not Roselia or Vita that are the problem; it's Celine. Emma doesn't feel as close to Rean as she should be because her familiar keeps taking the important parts. That's what I think, at least.
While I don't mind Emma, basically Celine does a much better job in guiding ya boi Rean than Emma. Even Rose kinda sucks at it. So in other words a talking cat does the duty better than an immortal and a human. Too bad Celine became a furry to appease a certain demographic otherwise she would've been higher on the list.
@@yojimbo26 if Emma got all of the guiding scene from Celine none of the other girls will have a chance from the harem from all the time she will spend with Rean
Emma is my go-to choice for the class 7 girl I'd waifu, but her ranking is definitely undeserved. She is overall being carried hard by waifu factor here. I dont think it'd be unfair to deny her a high spot regardless, but it definitely feels like at her current spot she cheats much more deserving characters like ash and arianrhod out of a higher spot, even if its only a small rank difference. Its kinda sad how major celine becomes instead, since she pretty much steals Emma's actual role. Tbh i kinda feel the same about fie. While great, its always felt to me like the community has been exceptionally kind to fie. Maybe cause she can pretty much carry whenever shes in the party?
@@maxjohnson65 favorites work that way , as for ash , my opinion for his lower rank is that he has a late start , when you get him at the point in game you already had a full team you got used to , so he no matter how great he is , has a hard time making up the time you spent with the rest of new class 7 . for me personally its hard to rank most people in trails , as the game has yet to give me one person that I will hate , so when someone is asked to rank , the differences are going to bee small and the wifu part tends to tip the scales in the end
even though i knew olivert was alive in cs4 the scene where he comes back still made me cry. olivert is just an amazing character with also an amazing voice actor
Altina had great character development over the course of CS3 and 4. Definitely one of my favorites from new class 7. I even chose her as Rean's partner in CS4 because I really loved their relationship. That reunion scene with Rean was really touching and shows how much he meant to her. Definitely enjoy her more than most of the girls from original class 7.
I would like to get into the series if it wasn't the "You need to play the whole series to understand the story." But ever since I started watching these videos on the series, it's gotten my interest. One party member/ally becomes your enemy while the next your enemy becomes your ally. Ever interesting for me. Keep up the good work!
This was such a cool video idea/series and awesome to see what the community is thinking! Thanks for making it! I totally shipped Emma and Rean together. I feel like they had similar experiences and could relate to each other's struggles (especially with all the supernatural elements/gifts that they had.) more than Rean might with other characters. I was kind of surprised to see Altina as #1. She is one of my favorite characters but not THE #1 favorite.
I got to admit.. I actually really like Emma in 3 and 4th.. and I think the reason was that she was way more sure of herself and really came into her powers as a witch. You got to remember in cs 1 and 2 she could only do little spells but by the end of 4 she could break powerfull barriers...she sense Campanella, she could transport most of the cast to the ground from the airship something she struggled with in cs 2. She held her own against mcburn keeping his fire at bay. So yeah I did enjoy her more in cs 4.
Crow is bottom tier for me and always will be, don't understand the love he gets, I enjoy his personality but I think his story is one of almost constant missed opportunities. If he had stayed as an antagonist or stayed dead then fair enough, I think he was just a popular character so Falcom felt the need to bring him, like Akechi in persona 5.
I like the gambler aspect of Crow. Big risk and reward type of person. I would have liked for him to stay dead though. Biggest issue my brother has with the series is no dies. They never kill any villains either.
@@Hutchdh But...five different antagonists died in Cold Steel IV alone. Arianrhod, Black Alberich, Ishmelga, Osborne and Rutger. Sky killed Loewe and Weissman. Joechim died in Zero. A good number of characters have died. Sure Trails is no Game of Thrones when it comes to character deaths, but people have definitely died.
Great videos! The Crow thing is one of my problems with the second half of CS (even if I think CS3 was pretty good until the introduction of the curse), the lack of tangible death. Trails was never a death heavy series, but I feel the Erebonia arc kinda took it too far with the lack of consequences and outright resurrections. I still love Crow, Millium, Olivier and Victor, I just think that some cynicism helps to make a war story a bit more "real".
"I don't understand why Emma scored so high". Because she is the #1 waifu of the kiseki community in the west from what I can tell. Dirty poms....although I'm just being salty that my Laura scored so low.
I was a Laura fan first time I played through the series, but in CS3 and CS4 her character really suffers from boring and generic dialogue/writing. Her outfit in CS2 is also way better (Why the flip do New Class 7 get 10 costumes but Old class 7 get none, except the bathing ones) Emma in CS3 onwards goes godlike in the wife department, although I shifted towards Sara
Seriously have you seen Emma's magic Girl outfit..best outfit in trails.and yes she's my Waifu and was my choice from the very first bonding event in CS1. On the other hand I can't believe that people consider Altina to be the most important character in the arc
There's a few things I don't agree with, but all in all, great ranking imo. Altina as number one is something I can definetly get behind. Thank you for taking the time to make this ranking, it was really fun (from the voting/discussing to seeing the results)! Also, I got my comments featured! Thank you so much! That really put a smile on my face!
And here I thought I was unique in my obsession with Crow. Okay not really. But I do agree 2 is a bit too high. While I agree on his no. 1 slot in CS I-II, I would’ve had him around 7-10 in this one. Because while he is my personal favorite character overall and his scenes with Rean were really good, I just don’t think he did enough in the second half to be 2nd place. Mostly because I agree about azure Siegfried, it kinda removed a lot of opportunity to talk about what happened in the civil war and confused the focus of his return. It was unnecessary and didn’t add anything because once it ended, aside from Crow being irritated at mentions of it, we never even saw him PROCESS what happened and what George did. So yeah. Wish they hadn’t done that. That said, still very glad he scored so high just on a personal level because he is best boy. I agree so much with this ranking in general, but while I’m not surprised Ash didn’t get higher and am pleasantly surprised he made top 10, he would’ve easily been in my top 5. But yes to number one Altina all day. (And yay Fie!!!)
Alright I'm here for my evaluation Previous top 10 guesses: 1- Mr. Speech 2- Best daughter 3- Got shot and lived 4- Blue Destination 5- Transfomers 6- F*** YOU SCHWARZER 7- 7th A 8- Dodge tank 9- It's gotta be the chest 10- Debauchery Actual top 10 [vs guesses]: 1- Altina [2] 2- Crow [4] 3- Olivert [10] 4- Gilliath Osborne [3] 5- Fie [8] 6- Rean [1] 7- Emma [9] 8- Valimar [5] 9- Ash [6] 10- Arianrhod [7] I knew I wasn't going to get everyone, but damn I was hoping to get at least 1. Also thank you Trails community, you have done me proud with this top 10 and putting Angelica in her place
Well, I think I’ve already made my own problems with Osborne clear before (tl;dr, didn’t want him to be unrepentantly evil, but I think he should have been more flawed in his motives, though I’d still keep the ending with him and Rean mostly the same), so I won’t beat a dead horse there. Other than that, I think I would have ranked Rean slightly higher, but this is certainly a Top 10 I can get behind. Altina taking the top spot wasn’t exactly surprising, but that’s just because it’s so well-deserved. Can’t wait to see what’s next!
Thanks for your work, it really is amazing. I'm just a bit bummed that Cedric was so low in this ranking, I hated him at first but I always found his personality refreshing seeing that seemingly every character in Cold Steel ends up being a good guy despite everything bad they might have done. He doesn't like when things don't go his way and fight his own weakness by grasping at easily obtained power, almost childishly. And the wrap up of his arc makes a lot of sense imho, instead of taking the easy way, as he had done before, and going back to his family where everyone would most likely forgive him, he chose to atone by himself. His path shows that the only way to redeem/grow isn't just about seeking forgiveness and admitting he did things wrong, he faces consequences of what he did headfront, somehow like Richard in Sora or even to some extent Osborne.
Cedric unfortunately just gets off to a bad start. First impressions mean a lot, especially in the case of Trails characters. Unfortunately, Cedric is just awful for a full game in terms of endearing himself to a fanbase, his attitude makes you want to slap the bloke. Like you say, it's a shame because in CS4 you see the true Cedric beneath the bravado, the one laced with insecurity and doubt. But hey, the community voted it that way, and I just report on it!
@@TheKisekiNut Of course I don't blame you for him being so low :p I just felt like pointing out that it's a shame that a well-written side character like him was this low. Especially since one of the most famous critic made to the Kiseki series (overabundant in Cold Steel) is the lack of consequences, with Cedric they show that they can write a character paying the cost of his bad deeds (even if it's somewhat soft) while staying coherent to the story and the whole universe. Basically showing other aspects of humanity, that's a bit selfish but I wish they did it more.
While a lot of this top ten I'd shuffle around, for the most part I can quite agree with it. Overal of cold steel III and IV I think one of the biggest strengths and weaknesses is the new class VII On the good side, some of the best characters from these games are part of it and as a group they work really well together. But it does take away a lot of focus from existing characters, I feel not all of old class VII had enough chances to flesh out. It ties into one of the big things of Cold Steel. It's grand, very grand. And in some ways that holds it back but I really love Cold steel regardless as one of my favorite JRPG series. Let's hope the next arc hits well, and finds a good balance between new and old. Cuz really, I do hope to see certain characters again.
IMO the problem of the roster clutter wasn't new class VII's fault but stuffing in characters from two previous game arcs. Yeah everyone was waiting for voiced and 3D Estelle, Joshua, Renne, Sherrazzard, Casius, Tita, Agate, Lloyd, Rixia, Tio, Randy, Mariabelle and especially Ellie for...two obvious reasons. And Gilbert, I suppose. But yeah that means shoving Erebonia characters out of the limelight because you can only stuff in so many characters for certain scenes... I feel the role of the old characters should've been smaller so that the 'new' characters could shine (and most are good characters with potential arcs). But then again CSIV was pretty much there to wrap up western Zemuria (and Falcom still needed another game to do that) so it makes sense other heroes team up to stop the literal end time before Zemuria transforms in Warhammer.
@@yojimbo26 I do think they made it worse, but I think new class VII drew the main focus away, the old characters more just ate time. Still that's not to say I wanted things differend. I like all of new class VII, love 4/5 of em. Compared to old class VII I prefer the new one overal and am happy with em. Just hoping that the new game will be able to scale things down a bit. New characters come first, and I'd hate for the old ones to steal spotlight for em.
Honnestly that's the issue with Cold Steel since day one, that was the issue with Old Class VII since the beginning there is just to much character and as a result it inevitably fall into some characters being put in the spotlight and being more fleshed out than the other, sometime a smaller cast just works better cause for small group each character get more chance to shine, that's why I think New Class VII is better they are only 5 and even tough some are more flesh out than other all 5 had a decent amount of time given to them to properly understand them and see them grow and also they get enough so we can understand and appreciate their personnality, or the SSS in Zero no Kiseki even tough you don't see the back story of one of them since they were only 4 characters each of the 4 get much more time to shine with their background or personnality and by the end of the game you understand them perfectly and got more time to become attach to each of them.
honestly, altina reaction to millium sacrifice is what I expected how laura will react on his father "death", I imagine she must hit the hardest and yet she don't show much, almost nothing apart from some dialogue, I kinda expect she tried to bottle up her feelings and then later on, it just broke also the fact that her special memories don't include actual fight when yoi already experience fie and sara special nemory bond which include a surprise fight don't help either she still my favorite tho
I can see why Altina gets the top spot.. Altina reminds me so much of Tio in zero and azure.. Tio very much like Altina, Is a very bland blunt character when we first meet her. But as the crossbell arc goes on we see how Tio endured the DG cult and got some closure out of defeating Joachim Gunther in Zero once she returns in Azure. She is much stronger and is more able to support the team emotionally. We see this same development with Altina through most of cold steel 3 and more predominantly in cold steel 4 in terms of her emotional and character development and to me she does become the emotional catalyst that helps push all of class VII to get Rean back.
I think Juna should of been higher, maybe right near Altina at least. I know she annoys some people sometimes, but I believe she's just as important as Altina, in rallying everyone to save Rean at the beginning CS4.
@@egorobotentertainment8057 I don't disagree with Juna being higher , but I don't see as much emotional character development in Juna than what I saw in Altina. Bear in mind, Altina is a Homonculus , an artificial being that normally do not have any cognitive or emotional attachment to anything mental or physical. It was always hammered In to her mind that that her mission objective was all that mattered. But in CS 3 and 4 Altina is thrown the curveball of free will . Something she has never experienced and to see her grow into this free will is really fun to watch as we get to see a side of Altina that we may not have seen had she not been assigned to the new class VII and had Rean as her instructor.
@@tatotato85 I guess it's just a popular archetype? Though Kiseki Nut did mention that Altina is arguably the pinnacle of this particular archetype, so I doubt any future renditions will be as well received (they'll problem get responses like "Altina did it better).
premise: i'm a huge emma fan, she's probably my favorite Trails characters ever (followed by Olivier and Randy), so i'm definitely biased, but if i were to try and explain why she managed to place so high, the main reason would probably be the poll's criteria i mean, story significance? she definitely has more than any other OG Class 7 member except rean, and while some might say her "awakener's guide" role is often stole by celine, at the same time it must be said celine... does't have much more than that (and her tsundere attitude), so IMHO giving celine all the credit for being rean's guide isn't 100% honest dialogue? some say she's boring and i accept that, but since many of her fans love her bonding events (myself included), she ended up getting a more than sufficient score in this also, when she speaks, she often has something interesting to say, be it about vita, roselia, eryn's village or whatever design? i think no one can really argue that hers is one of the best character designs the Trails series has to offer character development? just like fie, she changed a lot from CS1: she became much more self-confident and knowledgeable, the latter being a thing generally every OG Class 7 member did, but Emma has enough connections to make her knowledge feel actually useful and interesting for the player (i mean, would you prefer listening to machias telling you about his next investigation or emma explaining you what is the place Mcburn comes from?) likeability? now this is an interesting criteria, but it's very, very vague it could vary from including all the other criterias, to even just one, or even being something else completely as far as i'm concerned, i always tried to consider "likeability" as "what can this character offer players to make them feel engaged with them?" so for me, in emma's case, this was a sort of average between every other criteria, plus some "favorite character" factor don't know if this could make anyone change their mind about emma, but if not, that's ok the world would be incredibly boring if we all liked and disliked the same things
To my surprise, Juna had one of the best character development in the game. Also, It is why I shipped both of them in 3 and 4. Interestingly, I find chancellor Giliaith Osborn a very well-written antagonist. He is also the father of Rean Schwarzer. Oh yeah, I can't forget some of his interesting underlying too. The Fool, McBurn, and Shirley. In my humble opinion, the coolest characters were Crow and Mcburn. Lastly, If I had to rank the three most badass females in the game. I will start with Principle Le Guin, Arianrhod, and Vita or Shirley. Lastly, Trails of Cold Steel 3 was the best installment in its series.
Altina made me cry. Multiple times. As an autistic dude, I feel a kinship to her in many ways. (And no, I’m not saying she’s autistic, too. Just saying I relate to some of her characteristics) So happy she’s numbers one on this list.
I cant say i agree 100%, my personal list would have a few changes but ovefall I think this came out really well. Especially #1, i couldn't agree more. Definitely one of my fav chars in the series.
Awesome! I think I loved the community rankings through and through. They really did do me proud. I'll talk a little bit about every character on this list because why not? Arianrhod / Lianne: LOVE this character, and would have happily seen her soar even higher. Her character really just oozes that sort of dignity and grace that you would expect of a knight as ancient as herself. I think you're right that "saint" really is the vibe she gives off. An antagonist, but not a villain. Ash: I too hated him at first, but he did put in some work to earn his way back into my graces. I don't mind "bad boy" characters, but he's a dick more often than he's not. I guess you argue that level of anti-social behavior and dysfunction makes sense as a reasonable character flaw given his tragic past - which really was brilliantly tied to the storyline. So I get why he ranked this high even if he isn't quite my cup of tea. Valimar: Ok, I'll take flak, but in a cast like this, I'm not sure I agree with him taking top 10 for characters. I LOVE Valimar, and I appreciate his role in the story, and did find his partnership with Rean endearing. But I think the "cool" factor of sword-mech is carrying perhaps an undue amount of weight here. Emma: Ok, so my bias is WITH Emma. She's my waifu, she's gorgeous, she's powerful, and in combat she's - in my opinion - the strongest character in the entire series. Load her up with ATS optimization, two lost arts, and an S-Craft that is grail sphere on crack, and you've got a character who gives, and gives, and gives performance wise. I say all of this to say I agree with you TKN, she doesn't deserve to be this high. I think her beauty (which to many myself included ranks higher than any in class 7) and her raw power both lore wise and mechanically are hiking her up. Still, in the story she IS important, and when you think about it, that's pretty amazing given how much spotlight she has to share with Rose, Vita, and Celine. I agreed on the Celine rating that Emma weirdly got the shaft spotlight-wise by Celine's existence. If I could script doctor the game and make Emma the canon romance and remove the dating sim elements I would. ;) But then again, I'm a simp for Emma. Maybe part of her charm is how mild she is by design and how she never really WANTS the spotlight. Rean: In the shadow of Estelle and Lloyd it took me a really long time to be a fan. But I am happy to say that in the long run, I did. Even despite ALL the bonding and sim elements, it's actually amazing to me how much of a self-insert Rean *isn't.* I'm still NOT a fan of the bonding system - and never will be - but Falcom still juggled it masterfully. By the end of the game, I felt very proud to share this journey with Rean, and could finally consider myself a fan. Fie: This is more fan-bias (and I'm a fan too!) Like Emma, Fie's a complete MONSTER in combat. You basically just break the game by turning her into an evade tank every.damn.time. On top of that she's so cool, and chill, and it's hard to not like her. I have a hard time looking a girl who is so young, tiny, and frankly boyish as a waifu, but I'm not here to start waifu wars. Fie's spotlight with Rutger was pretty good, and I think fan bias of 4 games of building up good graces carried her the rest of the way here. Obsorne: You said it all, man. This character is one of the most masterfully written villains I've ever experienced, and he absolutely earned his spot here. You said Olivert owned the scene every time he was on screen. True, barring Osborne. Every scene with *him* in it was *his*. And the fact that this character was tee'd up to us in Sky the 3rd. What the heck!? Amazing. Olivier: YES, Olivier (Liberlian here, don't judge me). Yeah, he's a fan favorite for every reason, but I think he actually deserves this spot. He really is the glue bridging most of the characters across arcs (especially the Liberl arc) to the story. Couple that with the Courageous and his role in forming Class VII and his unrelenting amounts of charisma and charm, and there's just no way he doesn't make it this high on the list. Been traveling with this dude since 2014 on my end - happy to see him sit so damn high up. Crow: Yep, he's my favorite member of Class VII and I think his place here is well earned. Cool, story-important, tragic, nothing to not like here! Funny enough my main party was Rean, Emma, Fie, and Crow in my CSIV clear. Love seeing my main party represented in this top 10! Altina: Not my number 1, honestly, but I get why she's here, and do believe she deserves all the high regard you gave her. Character development doesn't get any better - or fuller - than Altina Orion.
It's a shame that you don't like Rean that much. I honestly was hoping that you would make a character analysis of him after Reverie(cs their is a LOT to talk about if you understood well his character).Love your analysis of the other characters btw(osborne and altina top tier characters)
@@TheKisekiNut i know dude, and i'm not complaining everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that i digged your character analysis of Renne, Kevin,Osborne and Altina(and i know what you mean cs they are all top tier characters to me), and i was hoping that you would make 1 for Rean, but given you reviews on him, i think i was hoping for too much, haha...
About what you said for Rean, about him maybe not really changing much from being self-sacrificing and self-deprecating, well. Without any spoilers, thats what Hajimari / Reverie is for.
My commentary was kept exclusively to Cold Steel and the prior games. I know some people would consider mention of his arc continuing as a spoiler, so I don't even take the risk. It's one reason why the content is more based around general JRPGs now rather than just Trails.
Here's a question, how much character development will most of these characters get in Hajimari when most of it was done in CS4? Im hoping some of things left out in CS4 will be covered in Hajimari with Rean especially.
Without directly spoiling stuff, Rean definitely does grow more during the events of Hajimari, which does finish his character arc. A few other characters get some amazing growth too. Can’t say any more than that, though.
Kiseki Nut's comment on Rean not really changing is finally fully addressed in Hajimari. Hajimari is the actual closure for both crossbell and erebonia, not CS4. Out of the CS4 characters on this list, very few besides Rean will receive much development there, but it does happen and its done well enough. You also do get the impression that these characters have all more or less "come of age" as it were by the end.
I’m sure this has been addressed, but do you ever put out your own personal ranking list? I’ve never seen it discussed in a video…maybe it’s been in a comment section. I would like to see your independent list as a hardcore fan/series expert. The community rankings are…ok, but the fandom as a whole REALLY loves certain character archetypes and it skews outcomes. My primary example of this is Tio and Altina just running away with top rankings in Zero/Ao and Cold Steel. They’re fine characters, really good, but are they just so epically epic they crush the top spot, or does the fandom just eat up the small quiet well-developed young female characters who drop occasional hilarious one-liners and eventually overcome their life obstacles? I think the latter. If your rankings are around somewhere I would love to see those!
No, seriously... Oliver as No. 3 will forever remind me why I hate fandoms. I appreciate the games for what they are, but Oliver in this arc is, at best, slightly funny.
I think with Osborne, there's nothing wrong with having a villain just be a villain. I think the idea that all villains need to be sympathetic is a mistake because look at popular villains like Joker, who's sheer insanity and villainy alongside mystery for why he does what he does ends up making him a superb villain. Many people mistake that a villain having a sympathetic background automatically means the character has depth. That's just false as writing depth into a character DOES NOT REQUIRE A SYMPATHETIC BACKGROUND. A villain isn't automatically better if they can get sympathy points. Writing depth just means giving characters a multi faceted deep dive, similar to how Ash is both brash but also incredibly patient in certain situations. *It's not that they shouldn't have written Osborne the way they did, but that it's disappointing that literally everything awful thing he did can technically be blamed to a mythical force instead. Would have been way more interesting if Osborne has more grounded motivations with humanistic flaws such as maybe his Kasia was killed in a proxy way with Calvard or something to that nature.* Even then, Osborne's evil acts aren't even absurd when considering real life history. Like, they could have written him as someone who loved Erebonia that he wanted to show off its full might. To most, the major thing he did was take land, which realistically speaking, isn't at all far fetched for any normal person to do if they were given power of a powerful country. Osborne became less interesting the more that was revealed to me imo. It's not a unique story entirely as we've seen both tropes of holding such an evil back thus showing their indomitable will and big bad villain does things but is realistically good. Osborne as just a scheming but intelligent villain on top of carrying a lot of power was a great villain to end it off of. There was potential to show a lot of manipulation of events normally to encourage war. It happens all the time where governments create propaganda to support their war efforts. Cold Steel in general had most of its antagonists be sympathetic in many ways, from Crow to Vita to most of Ouroboros, Lechter, Claire, etc. So I think it would have been a perfect send off to have the main villain actually show that there is no hesitation and that he is fully aware of the morality of his choices, but his own selfishness and ambitions superceded them. The whole idea of the curse also turned me off because it ends up being used way too much as a scapegoat for the plot to move along. For me personally, Osborne's heel turn and the introduction of the curse absolutely robbed what could have been textbook country wide manipulation and planning that also repeated the history the Erebonia government did and tried to hide. We were robbed of possibly one of the most convincing, and powerful tyrant stories in place of a mythical curse that works on borders only and a man that actually is just the nicest of them all. BTW not saying it was extremely bad, just moreso a trope that recently has been extremely drawn out. People need to realize sympathetic villains aren't automatically better than immoral ones. That's just a weird false statement people parroted around without realizing that you can't have a fun and entertaining villain without them sacrificing a lot of morals. For Osborne, he had the perfect scapegoat in Ishmelga.
I think it comes down to preference. I'm all on board with Osborne's redemption personally, but I'll just paste what I replied to another commenter as it serves the same purpose. The thing is I've seen the unforgivable antagonists like Weissman and Joachim. And they work because their involvement is mostly limited to their individual arc. However Osborne has been around since Sky SC at least in reference. The longer a character stays in the narrative, the more I want them to have added layers of motivation or depth. You can no doubt make a deep 'evil' character, but I think it's a lot harder to do. If Osborne's speech at the end of CS3 (drowning the world in conflict) was the main goal of his entire character, and it was motivated by his past, I'd accept it but I'd be disappointed because it just feels so direct and lacking, which is not what I associate with a character as important as him. For someone so integral to the games up till that point, I would want to see something beyond just being evil - and that's why I'll always be on board with his redemption. I think a main issue is that we already saw a redemption story in the same arc with Crow, so maybe it lost a bit of luster, but I'm all on board with taking an antagonist down that route if it's done correctly. I consider the likes of Osborne and Alan Richard to be those types who make the u-turn work. Richard is great because his love for his country motivated him to take matters in to his own hands, but he sees the errors of his ways and gets many moments to atone, he still is to this day. It lended well to not only his arc in Sky, but his continued involvement in all the future games. Osborne is done well because it ties well in to the narrative itself. I know some people are not on board with the Curse, but I've always liked it personally. And I think it raised a very interesting viewpoint of Osborne overall, this idea of the ultimate self sacrifice. Even with his redemption, he'll still be remembered by many as a tyrant. So it's not a complete redemption like Richard which in a way makes it bittersweet, and that allows me to feel even more sympathy for his character.
Thank god that everyone is on the same page about Altina being the best character. Watching her change is so fulfilling. The scenes of her smiling in the photo and screaming after remembering the Gral hit me like a truck because of how emotional they felt. If a character can make you feel proud and happy simply by smiling for a photo, I think they're definitely a home run.
I'm sure im gonna get a lot of hate for this, but here it goes: I feel like rean wasn't grounded enough as a character. I (unlike most) liked rean in cold steel 1 and 2 cause he felt more grounded and real to me, I felt more connected with him. But by cold steel 3 and 4 i felt like he was just the perfect protagonist, everyone loved him, any of his faults were his positive traits in excess, he never really was wrong i most of he decisions and actions he took. He was just perfect and that just felt less real to me. I wish we saw more his character in more mellow and downtime moments were he isn't solving everyone's problems and maybe he is fumbling and fucking up at doing something like maybe he tries drawing or dancing and he really sucks at those. i dunno something that makes him feel more like a dude. BUT DON"T GET ME WRONG I LIKE REAN, if i never played the other trails games he would be my one of my top 3 favourite characters in any jrpg, but now he is like my 9/10th favourite
For the record, I think that the whole "fake death"/"resurrection" thing is only going to be a real problem if it becomes too much of a trend. I somewhat doubt they handle it as well as Crow's case, so I hope the developers don't overdo it.
I just wish we get permanent deaths from now on. Don't want a slaughter, Kiseki is not ASOIAF, but if someone dies, it will be better if it stays that way.
I saw Altina, Crow, Rean and Fie getting top 10 a mile away. Rean is the only C7 character I feel like I can call complete, Altina/Millum are good characters (though I do think that it's stupid that they made 2 of them), Crow has his lowpoints but one of the better characters overall and they worst I can say about Fie is that it's kinda stupid that for a character that calls C7 family she only has notable relationships with like... 4 of them. I'm glad Ash did well, really did like him. The only thing I didn't like is the side quest with the liberl crew in the finale, just made him feel more like a retcon. I expected Valimar, Olivert, Osborne and Arianrhod to do well, maybe like top 20 so top 10 came as a surprise to me. The biggest surprise though is Emma getting top 10. I would say its due to waifu factor but she still somehow managaed to score higher than other characters that had that factor as well.
In my opinion(Bonding Events Included): Top 5 (Not in Order) Altina: Her arc is good but I also think thats is more easy to see her growth cause she is a Kuudere character. She have good presence in story and some very good moments with Millium and Juna (Emma and Alisa too) I’m not a “moe fan” and think the papa-daughter relation in trails is a bit overused but in the end I still think she is one of the bests. But her bondings are a big atrocity and Falcom ruined a lot of things with that. Crow: In CS3 his character is meh but he is amazing in CS4. Another character with a good presence in the story. Fighting Rean’s side in Rivalry is cliche but cool at same time. His bondings are very interesting and worked well as a redemption arc with his fellow teammates. Emma: The character with the best “show don’t tell” arc in the entire ColdSteel. OC7 act more in a supporting way in Cs3/4 and it is the perfect way to show Emma’s role in the story. Even being in the background she had too much presence in the Story and Side Quests (even more than some main characters). The biggest problem with her character was in CS2. I have a theory that Falcom used Celine as a way to split Emma’s role cause they need to sell Alisa as the “main heroine” but then Falcom in CS4 gave Emma the most powerful Bonding event in the series 🤨. I don’t care about ships and waifus but her entire interaction with Rean during the Bonding is very strong. Fie: She is a very consistent character in all 4 games. Her role in the story is a bit limited to herself and Zephyr but I still think she have the best maturity growth in ColdSteel. And her bondings are Very Good. I think she have a better Brother/Sister relation with Rean but that’s my opinion. Olivier: Olivier 6-10 (Not in Order) Ash Juna Lianne Rean Valimar After the curse’s plot I think Osborne don’t deserve to be in top 10. His character during Sky/Crossbell is very interesting but Cs3/CS4 killed the character. He still have a very important presence in the main story but not a good one IMO. Sorry for any typo. I’m not very good with ✍️ in English.
I was creeped out by many of the romance options in CSIV honestly. I just don't see Rean perving on his students or his sister and the only 'younger' option for him is Fie in my mind.
Yeah, and it's a reason why I didn't include many bonding events in the commentary. I wanted to keep it mostly tied to the main story. If I had to draw on a bonding event, it would generally be because I absolutely had to in order to say anything meaningful (Alfin), or I felt it lended better to the main point being made. But the final bonding event I just disregard completely.
I see lot of people saying that fault to Altina was her romantic side towards Rean that was developed in the game, and I can see why, the age difference is there and it is something that normally I would agree with, in this game though? I couldn't disagree more, the writing Falcom shows is simply too on point here, the first hints at her feelings I suppose is more of personal choice, but the actual final bonding event and romance event in Mishilam? How can people dislike that? The moment when Altina arrives to talk with Rean, realizing how she feels and breaking down in tears because she doesn't 'want him to just be with some fake who can't even understand her own feelings'? That was such a beautiful moment, the whole event was handled so amazingly, from her breaking down, Rean consoling her, her finally accepting her own feelings and that she is no longer just some fake. That scene was absolutely perfect and had me crying more than once over it, it is beautiful finale for her development and awakening actual emotions in herself despite being designed to have none. And it was actually handled perfectly in regards to them actually being together too, him stating pretty clearly that he appreciates her feelings but they are teacher and student and as such they cannot be together in such way, and that if she still feels same once she is older and no longer his students that he will give her his answer, it was handled amazingly for a romance with age difference, because yes, 9,9/10 times these kind of relationships and romances are handled poorly and become creepy. This one though? It is anything but that, I guess in the end it does depend still on personal taste but I cannot disagree more with people calling that relationship creepy personally. I 100% understand people seeing Altina as daughter or little sister, both are perfectly valid options that I can get behind myself, but I don't think people should simply disregard the romantic side in this relationship either, it is sweet and wholesome, as one youtuber I watched said and pretty much perfectly described the whole event 'It is extremely commital in the things it should and non-commital in things that would make it weird', and he was one of the people who felt like it will be weird one as well, but surprise surprise, he changed his mind to point of considering making it his canon choice I just think that people should not disregard something simply because it is generally considered strange, and should give it a chance, I am glad I went with Altina as my personal choice on my first playthrough, I love the development and personality of this girl, and she honestly deserves it probably more than any other choice maybe besides Towa, Altina and Towa are imo the two closest to Rean, Towa because she genuinely understands him and he understands her. And Altina because her growth would never happen if it weren't for Rean, and in same merit, Altina helped Rean grow as a person too
I really liked Arianrhod! She was really cool, I liked her design and I really liked her story/motivations. Another Anguis that I saw that isn't really evil. Funny enough, I've only seen one Anguis who was evil and that was back in Sky(haven't played the Crossbell games yet) though they were really entertaining to me with how evil they are. I always wanted to hear Cherami Leigh in the Trails games and man, I didn't expect her to voice this one but I'm glad she did. She made her sound reat imo! I liked Ash from Day 1! He didn't give no shits and I loved that but he had more underneath. I loved his character arc and his convos with other characters. The twist with him near the end of CS3 I'll never forget and I really liked how his English VA preformed it. He's my 3rd favorite of the New Class VII under Altina and Musse. I really liked Valimar! How could I not like a talking badass robot from the past that holds part of the power of a great treasure. That's why it really hurt seeing him go. Valimar gave Rean a way to stand out among the other Protags but now that he's gone Rean doesn't have that stand out trait, unless he still has his Ogre power which I really hope he does cause that power is so cool to just lose like that too. Fie is pretty high up there for me too and Emma is pretty nice too so I can accept where they're placed. Crow's my man. I'm REALLY happy that he came back and came back to life even. I feel like he deserved to after all he went through and it was all for nothing. At least now, he can live a life of peace instead of a life of revenge. I really liked his design as Azure Seigfried though. ^_^ Man, Rean is much lower than I thought but it's fine, Rean is at the top tier group of favorite Trails characters and my favorite protag so far! I relate to him a lot in wanting to find a place to belong and feeling negative about myself that and I really love his sword skills and his final S-Craft was SOOO awesome! I'm also really glad he got become a Divine Blade. The man deserved it. I still really hope he has his Ogre powers so he has something that makes him stand out from the other protags, Estelle being the only girl protag, Joshua being an ex Ouroboros member, Kevin being a Dominion, and Lloyd being a normal guy but with insane amounts of strong will and determination(well, that's the vibe I get off of him from CS2 and 4 at least. Haven't played the Crossbell games yet.) My girl Atina, okay I can be happy with her being number 1. I loved her since day 1(I say that a lot lol) but I knew that she would grow and that was what I wanted to see and boy did I see it. I'm really happy she got a happy ending and that she'll have a bright future as one of Zemuria's Legendary Heroes! Also she's my best girl in Cold Steel tied with Millium and they're both 2nd best girl in the series over all though they are 2nd only to a certain purple-haired angel. ^_^
Well, I was writing a text wall talking in detail about every character in this top 10, but the comments somehow got deleted before I pressed "comment", so now I don't feel like rewriting everything. Dammit youtube. Long story short: 10. Arianrhod: Cool. Good. 9. Ash: Mostly agree with video. Probably not top 10 for me, but still great and probably top 15. 8. Valimar: I like Valimar but I feel he's incredibly overrated by being number 8. I would also like to have a figure of him since his design is really cool. He's a nice character, particularly in CS3, but I feel he's very, very far from being top 10. I probably wouldn't have even considered him for this ranking (as it was originally intended), but once here, he probably wouldn't make even my top 30, maybe not even my top 40. 7. Emma: One of the better characters from Class VII, but wouldn't make my top 10 either. Mostly agree with video here. 6. Rean: He pretty much has to be top 10 as the protagonist. Not his biggest fan, but I like him a lot better in 3 and 4. He's a bit too much the center of attention to a point I feel it's a detriment to him. Being in the spotlight is good, but being in the spotlight too much can also burn you. 5. Fie: My favorite original Class VII character. Still not a top 5 character in my opinion. My favorite character design starting from Cold Steel 2. One of the original Class VII members that managed to keep herself relevant. Still suffered from being in a class with a bit too many characters and again, Rean stealing a lot of the available screentime through the 4 games. 4. Osborne: Amazing antagonist. Imposing even when not on screen. One of the few characters that just steals the show whenever he's on screen. He's 4th and I would still rank him higher. I consider him a valid choice for number 1 even (though I do think our number 1 is also valid choice). Jouji Nakata as his japanese voice actor was pure perfection. 3. Olivier: Maybe my favorite Kiseki character. Just like Osborne, he steals the show whenever he's on screen. It's amazing how he's the character the most game appearances, only missing Zero so far. He's the reason Class VII came to be, he's a big figure of the mighty Erebonia. Has the soul of a bard, but he's very intelligent. He's the reason class VII is even there, which means he's pretty much the reason Cold Steel exists as an arc. Everyone and their mothers knew he survived the explosion, but he still managed to make a grand entrance in Cold Steel 4. 2. Crowe: Favorite male character in Class VII, both new and all. Love his personality and he does have a very good development. He's obviously very important to the plot of Cold Steel as a whole, even going through various roles in it. That said, all of his deaths and resurrections do bother me, not only because I don't really buy it, but because of stuff like Crowe coming back all the time, it's impossible to think for even a second that someone died in the Corageous explosion. At this point, we know characters are just gonna survive everything the throw at them, and that's very bad going forwards. I do hope this changes in Hajimari and/or Kuro. Also agree his role in Cold Steel 3 was unimpressive. Of course, the whole dying thing doesn't apply to him only. This is a general problem that was very present through all of Cold Steel. Definitely not a top 2 for me, but obviously still a key, likeable character in Cold Steel. 1. Altina: Altina is indeed Falcom at its best in character development. Just like I rant about original class VII being way too big, Altina really made use of her smaller class to get more screentime and develop stronger bonds instead of a lot of weak bonds (even if they're supposed to be strong in game). She went from being a fairly boring antagonist in Cold Steel 2, to being kind of an intriguing sidekick on the epilogue of the same game, to gaining massive delopment in the next 2 games. She's the best of the great New Class VII and in two games she really developed in such way that I can only agree with considering her the best character in the Cold Steel arc, even if she makes no appearances in Cold Steel 1 and isn't very relevant in Cold Steel 2. Out of every single character in Cold Steel, I think she had the best chemistry with Rean, of course, closer to a father-daughter relationship than a waifu-husbando one. Actually if Rean grew on me in Cold Steel 3 and 4, it's probably mostly thanks to Altina. And this is another great thing about this cute little girl: Not only she had an amazing growth as a character, but she also made other characters shine, which is something even more difficult to achieve. A very well deserved number 1 spot. Altina might just be the best Cold Steel character, and she's a top tier Kiseki character as a whole. I can only hope we get more of her in future games.
I think Emma deserved her spot, but Fie didn't. Fie was top tier in CS1-2. Her sarcastic lines, unorthodox nature and background made her stand out. But I barely noticed her in these 2 games. Her personality didn't shine through as much and now she fully fits in with the others and was rarely relevant to the plot. Emma is my favorite old class member after Rean. She's the most mature in the class and more of an observer, so she rarely shaped the narratives. What makes her interesting is that she have a lot of depth and mystique and she actually starts revealing a lot of her secrets. I also like her supportive relationship with Rean more than any of the other relationships from the old class, so I was always glad to have her around. I think Emma is also popular because she represents that cute bookworm girl archetype really well. It's all the pieces together that makes her popular. She stands out unlike pretty much all the other old class mates. I think they handled a few other characters pretty well, like Jusis and Gaius, but they're a bit too one-dimensional. Emma, Millium and Gaius are the only ones that actually gets better in 3-4. I like the Osborne is not evil twist, because it actually makes sense with how he was portrayed. Osborne never comes across as evil in the scenes that he's in. We only get that perception because that's how many characters and the overall narrative describes him. The one complaint I have about Osborne is the reincarnation thing. I remember speculating that he was Dreichels or his ancestor back in CS1-2, but I couldn't put the pieces together. Reincarnation felt too supernatural as an explanation to just accept without further explanation. This might be a cultural thing though, since Buddhism had a large role in Japan's history. I agree about what you said about Crow. He wasn't as prominent as in the first games. He might still deserve a lower end top 5 spot though. I think the top 4 picks all belong in the top 5, and Rean should be there as well. But Ash and Juna should be right behind them followed by Musse, Celine and Emma.
So I see that Cold Steel 1 and 2 are out for Switch but not in English. I'm just getting into Trails and I'd like to play in order on Switch. It doesn't look like Trails in the Sky is going to make it so I'm watching playthroughs on UA-cam. But since Zero and Azure were announced im going to wait to play Cold Steel. Im not sure if i should pick up CS 1 and 2 or just wait and see if they get the translation. I mean it already exists, is Xseed just mad they got dropped for NIS?
And at number 1 The puppet leading show stealing Heart winning snow haired queen Altina I can only imagine how she'd react to winning top honors in popularity
Great choice for the top three... I like all of them .. however the only thing I did not like about Altina was how falcom was building up her romantic feelings for Rean .. they were not necessary at all.. I hated seeing her participating in the Rean harem to the point it made me dislike her a little.. I wished they build her relationship with Rean to be how it is with Millium and Jusis .. also I think personally that Millium should be up on the ranks.. she is so underrated..
Solid agree, I really hated the romance pushing on altina towards the very end. Even if it was a bit of a Renne rehash, i see really no reason why she couldnt have simply been adopted into the Schwarzer house or something. Rather, it would seem like a kind of natural sequence of events.
I may be an unforgiveable sinner here but as much as I adore Altina, she is not my favorite character in that arc. Close second to my first, Ash, for sure though. Olivier may be my favorite in the series overall but I wouldn't have ranked him this high in that arc. Overall things I'd add for characters in this are that I definitely loved Rean a whole lot more in 3&4 than 1&2 and was pleasantly surprised at the end of the first field study when he was scolding his class. He really took into that role as an instructor. I also loved that Ash just always had the line to say that everyone behind the screen playing was thinking. I honest to god bursted out laughing when he refered to Victor Arseid as "an edgelord" in the midst of everyone admiring the man. Also the reason I see Emma and Fie this high up in the rankings, I'm "sorry, not sorry" to claim but I 100% believe it's because waifu bias. I don't specifically dislike any of them because of it but I believe Falcom did wrong on some occasions on these character by trying to force the waifu potential. Platonic friendships exist, they're not a far-fetched concept and some of these characters imo would have been so much better had they not been a part of the Harem. And in my controversial belief, Fie really should never have been an option.
CS3/4 are technically better at the platonic friendships between males and females than CS1/2, if only because of Juna and Kurt (Japan voted their relationship at 8 out of 30 for CS4). Though as I've stated many times before, a romance between them and Juna having a platonic admiration for Rean is something I would've preferred over Juna "joining Rean's harem." P.S. The Rean/Juna relationship was voted 23 out of 30, and Kondo admitted in an interview that he surprised that more people didn't get Juna's trophy, which the interviewer speculated (jokingly or otherwise) that maybe some people weren't comfortable with Rean romancing his student.
@@shadefti8684 Okay, I'm a bit confused as to what you're asking. After Cold Steel IV's release, there was a poll to determine various fan opinions: "who's the strongest character," favorite battle, favorite S-Craft, ect. One of the polls was "favorite relationships (not necessarily romantic ones)." here's the page for the top 20, if you can read Japanese: i.imgur.com/7KzV4SE.jpg At some other point, there was an interview with Falcom President Kondo, and among the various questions asked, the interviewer pointed out that Alisa seemed to be the most popular pair/trophy gotten (can't remember which), which didn't surprise Kondo; he even called her the "王道 heroine," which I'm not sure how to translate, but I guess has to do with her being the main heroine. He then admits that he expected Juna to be more popular than she ended up being (and I'm pretty sure he was referring to a shipping sort of way). Don't remember where I saw the interview, though, so I imagine I'd have to search for it.
@@shinnbidan7536 I can't help but feel good seeing Rean and Crow being the top pick and Machias and Jusis being really high up. Especially the latter XD.
Ema is Reans Awakening guide. She has The most important role besides Rean. She has the best bonding events outside of maybe jusis. She is the most likely choice to be reans love interest if it werent for them almost forcing Alissa on you. and last but certainly not least she has the best rack out of all of class 7
Celine was more of a guide to Rean really. Also, Emma's bonding events really didn't do much for me at all. Her Cold Steel IV events were pretty good, but her earlier ones don't stick out in my mind much. Emma isn't a bad character but I really don't think she belongs in the top 10.
@@TheKisekiNut she did though. She guided him in cs1 Celine only fills in in cs2 because she had to. And in terms of the bonding events 3 and 4 are really good to emma
@@Jarjarfunk Elliot really doesn't get to do a lot in Cold Steel III or IV, so him being near the bottom makes sense. His one moment to shine came in Act 2 of Cold Steel IV and to be honest if felt like we were retreading old ground with him, with him wanting to show his father just how much he has grown...which he already did in Cold Steel II.
I'm really surprised people voted Altina higher than Juna, I personally think Juna had way better dialogue lines. Altina's personality change was interesting but it did not lead her to accomplish anything special, whereas Juna ends up being a leader and fights for both Erebonia and Crossbell.
I don't get why everyone like Crow so much. I replayed cold steel 1 and 2 again and a lot of his actions are unforgivable for me. He endangered innocent people only to reach his own selfish goals. Like when the class was in Roer. He never shows any remorse for his actions outside of his bondings events. I tolerate him but i don't really like him. Overall I think it would be better if he stayed dead.
I didn't get it either, until CS4. I seriously didn't care at all about him for 3 games. Then it suddenly clicked. He's still not one of my favourites, but I do like him now. I'll definitely be using him when I replay CS1
About Emma, really for her to be in the top 10 was for waifu material XD, yes she has great importance for the story, but as you said in the other video this was stolen by Celline. I must agree with Fie's part, which could have developed this relationship with Rutger a lot more and also didn't deserve this top 5... Now about Rean, for me CS4 was very problematic, if I hadn't gotten used to Shonen anime, I would have dropped the game XD jokes aside, every time using the motivational speech takes its weight off it, and by far the top 1 was deserved. PS: In general, I think the game could have deaths to give more impact, not that plot twists haven't already,, but you see a war of this magnitude going on, and that doesn't happen is kind of strange, Victor as already mentioned in Previous videos would be a good example, even Crow too, as much as the character is still alive, takes some of the weight out of this scene.
i'm serprised crow didn't get a lower score beceuse of his azure sigfried part but i'm not complaining he was stil my faverite character even after azure sigfried i was also serprised with emma being so high i love her a lot she is probebly in my top 10 trails girls but i thought she would be lower i realy like her personalety she is very relateble even if you don't see it much outside of bonding events but i personaly don't see why it's a problem fie realy doesn't serprise me being so high she is easely the most populare girl in trails except maiby estelle from whet i have seen in the community but i also thought musse was populair and emma wasn't so i don't know as much as i would like from the community
@@Lennis01 yeach her anglish va is realy good probebly one of my faverite's al her characters have amazing voice acting I'm always more hyped when I see she is voicing somewhone and than they end up in my faverite list most of the time
I think the bonding events are why shes so high, it adds so much to her character and the lengths she will go to for rean, emma and rean are the cannon romance in my head
@@chrisradford4079 Alisa and Rean are the cannon romance but many have joined the resistance and have their own ideal romance partner in mind for our boi Rean.
@@chrisradford4079 I really never saw the big factor with the lengths Emma was going. After all the old class VII already collectively proofed that they were ready to put their lives on the line for Rean at the end of CS 1...
Getting reminded of what happened to her.(Lianne)......... ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....UGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
To answer your question on top waifus: Emma: is the embodiment of waifu and has fun powers Fie: fun personality, interesting background, evasion tank goes dodge
Top 10 scores with the completely arbitrary nonsensical weightings removed (because in no world should emma rank above arianrhod): altina 43.21 crow 41.94 olivert 41.57 giliath 41.06 fie 39.86 rean 39.68 arianrhod 39.00 emma 38.65 valimar 38.51 ash 38.39
I feel like Fie is honestly still kinda carried by a decent chunk of waifu factor of sorts, people have been soft and lenient on her since CS1 and meta-wise she basically can carry the party through the series. But yea, besides her still being above arianrhod, valimar and ash, i can dig this order a lot more.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! Altina the white haired loli reigns supreme! Bow before her flat chest and surprisingly thick thighs! PS: Awww... Fie is only 5th? I guess not all flat chested lolis are made equal.
And here we are mates, the final part of the CS3/4 community ranking is here. Thank you to everyone who took part!
Funny how falcom told the story of a great protagonist that sacrifices everything, a hero that lived long enough to turn into the antagonist, and they told this masterfully, through bits and pieces and trough the eyes of some randos and his son. The trails of Cold Steel are the trails Osbourne walked, we just followed him around and played his tune.
I personally think there's two reasons why Emma is as popular as she is.
……..😑
Have to be honest, it doesn't hurt.
her staff and glasses?
i did a poll in my gaming discord friends group (none of them have played this game so its all on looks) on which wifu I should pick as the ultimate bonding event. Most of them chose emma... which was def not my personal choice
Japanese players seem to really love Emma
One of the things I love about trails of cold steel, is that self sacrifice is not painted as the completely noble thing many comics do. As some one who grew up with spiderman, that belief clashed with the one this game series presented causing me many times to pause mid game and think. Change me as a person, the best JRPG period. Side note personally I think Rean is the best charater in all of trails.
I know he was eaten up inside by his major character flaw of never believing he was deserving of having faith in others which took two full arcs to start to beat back. He was so driven and willing to go out of his way to guide and help others like a true hero, but didn't have the capacity to comprehend the love and appreciation he garnered from his friends and family.
The way they broke the protagonist trope of his flaw being that he was "too selfless that he was perfect" into making it so that it was always a detriment to his psyche and a sincere struggle was brilliant to the levels of Altina's level of growth. He had to be able to internalize and overcome himself in order to become a teacher and leader. His character is a shining example of the despair of putting others first in a toxic way and feeling no sense of self worth no matter how hard he tried.
Many might gloss over his character as a bit too nice and perfect. But his allies perceptions of him could never reach his heart and that ate at his soul. If he never slogged his way through finding and overcoming himself through the trials he faced he would have easily fallen under the sway of the curse and lost himself to the demon inside forever.
We saw what the curse did to peoples sensibilities, how much easier it would have been for the literal sacrifice to have never saw light again if his students and friends couldn't reach him! Rean is the most heroic member of the story and not because he was an awakener or had an unflinching passion for justice. But because he was willing and able to overcome the darkest part of himself, even while enveloped in his own proverbial/literal darkness by trusting others to be his crutch when he needed it. He gradually accepted their love for him which empowered him to be the hero he had the potential to become.
TLDR: If that war within to break through his own mental limitations wasn't overcome through sincere diligence and learning to trust others Rean would have easily fallen under the sway of the curse and become nothing but a monstrous catalyst. He overcame it through learning to accept himself and let his allies be a beacon of hope to become the hero he needed to be.
I think Rean is the worst important characters in trails series and a part of why Cold Steel has so many problems. I was so glad to see Estelle and Lloyd again and that after Hajimari we won't see him much. X)
So yeah he does give a lot of different vibes haha
@@Haarwyvern I understand your point of view, I disagree but I respect it. About the seeing after Hajimari while he won't take a big part, there is a lot still set up for his character going into Calvard. Out of all the protagonists he is the only one with reason to go to Calvard and room to grow.
@@sherrdreamz7232 I love this comment. Thank you for articulating this. Rean is one of the most compelling characters I’ve ever had the privilege of journeying with. And I think the reason for this, as you wrote, is quite complex and nuanced. I’ve never seen a protagonist like him, and it’s hard to imagine one being believably written. And yet here we stand. Falcom are masters of character craft, perhaps due to how many different types of characters they create.
@@RyanBancroft the thing about his character boiled down to the most basic principle is he has all the same building blocks and motivations of any other JRPG protagonist. However Falcom put those blocks together into a "slow burn" tale of actual growth across the entire Cold Steel series by how others had an impact on him in real time.
If someone saw only "What he did" throughout the games it mostly would seem like a typical bland protagonist. Falcom made him grounded in reality by showing his very real shortcomings and failures while still having him take the most honorable/heroic road. Other characters may act like Rean but they certainly haven't been as fleshed out and shown the actual struggle of becoming a hero from ground zero.
From an anxious teenager with a severe and very grounded inferiority complex to Someone who would sacrifice everything out of love for his friends/the world his character arc is perfect.
Regarding Rean in the normal ending, I actually think this was different from his usual self-sacrificing antics. Here's why:
The normal ending is almost like a reverse mirror image of the ending of Cold Steel 1: once again, Rean is inside Valimar, about to take off into the unknown. But this time, he chooses to go, and it's his classmates who are begging him to stay. This time, he's not fleeing from Crow; Crow comes with him as his best friend. And this time, Rean isn't trying to sacrifice himself as a first instinct because of desperation or a sense of worthlessness. He's willing to die because unless a literal miracle happens (i.e. the true ending), this is well and truly the only way. In other words, it's what Rufina Argent would have done.
Greetings,
I never made that connection to the ending of part one, and that is a great observation. I hear a lot of backlash against Rean for still sacrificing himself in the normal ending, but I do not know what else he was supposed to do without the Argres's "donation."
Good stuff, mate. Please have my second like.
Cheers,
co is
Yeah, I agree. Also the way i see it, the normal ending wasn't him sacraficing himself as a first option, like he has tried to do before. This time, he didn't want to sacrafice himself, but it was the only option he had left without the secret endings intervention, and i think that shows lots of char development in itself.
He isn't willing to throw his life away as a first option, but if it is the only way, he is still willing to do whatever it takes to protect the ones he loves.
Precisely the way in which he was willing to sacrifice everything at the finale was an entire antithesis to his mental state, of wanting to find a way to die admirably per (Laura's Island Support) and living with his mental state.
At the end of CS IV he wanted to stand by his comrades and not hurt them with his departure, but there was absolutely no options left. He wasn't feeling like doing it would be a welcome end, but rather a neccicary gift to his friends and the world he hoped to preserve with all his being.
Rean grew immensely between the first and second arc and even then he still had to ultimately wrestle with his own demons of valuing himself over his willingness to surrender himself if it meant it would help/save others.
As an Aside... That character development being locked behind a romantic support with Laura is kind of disappointing. I feel it is crucial to understanding what Rean is going through and the most vulnerable side of him
Bu.... But he is not willing to die 🤔
We Fie fans are a vocal bunch. We stand by our girl. That’s why she’s top 10 :p
All joking aside, I just personally love her story in all four games. I found it engaging, and felt she got some of the most character growth of Old Class VII. I went into CS4 with her already being my favorite. But even then, CS4 gave me a much more personal connection to the character, because I was actually playing the part where she says goodbye to Rutger when I got the news that my own father passed away. So I’ll likely always feel a personal connection to the character.
Not to mention she's both adorable and badass
I am really happy for #1 because it's how I see it as well.
The scene at the end of CSIII when weaken Altina still tried to help Rean made me cry. It was so touching to see her gaining these emotions and that strong will.
Before Millium pushed her out of the way of the Nameless One, you mean?
I swear, The CS4 true ending music you played at the end of the vid triggers a pavlovian reaction that makes me tear up. I can’t stop it.
Why is Emma so high up on the list, you ask? She ticks all the boxes of what makes a character "waifu". Her character design is top notch.
True, and this is a valid reason since it is shonen JRPG. What are if not horny teenagers. Lead on captain Rean.
Ash is my favorite character in all of cold steel. He is such a well written character. His arc was very enjoyable for me to watch. How we learn that behind all his anger is a caring guy who suffers from a lot of trauma. His English voice actor helps a lot with it too. I just have a soft spot for male tsundere who slowly warm up to the rest of the cast and learn how to voice their feelings and how to handle their emotions.
Same friend same
For me, Austin Lee Matthews as Ash stands at the pinnacle of "Trails characters who sound better in English."
Ah yes, I see you are a man of culture as well
I can understand why Allie is #1. That was one hell of character development. You see this emotionless, robotic girl become a human. Rean was a huge factor in her development. Other than saving the world, this was Rean's greatest accomplishment throughout the arc IMO.
one of my favorite scene's in trails will always be Ash giving Rean the middle finger in CS3
Just a quick correct to number 4. My balls are made of steel (316L the surgical type, to be more precise), and not from iron (now read CS arc title again and think deeper about it :D). Iron is in my blood. Thanks for the video!
Really your excellency I thought they were made of pure neutronium..
On Emma, I just think she makes a MASSIVE late series comeback for a number of reasons.
In CS I/II, she has (in my own humble estimation) practically no good entertaining personality synergy with anyone in OC7. She’s just kind of quiet and there with her secretive stuff. By the end of the series, thanks to her well developed dynamic with Celine and Roselia, she actually has real personality and character because she can jaw with those two back and forth and she becomes occasionally adamant/forceful in certain spots; and it’s just so much more compelling than her silent mystery good girl archetype early.
Her progressively improved plot relevance is obvious, but it’s still huge. She leaps a Grand Canyon of a chasm between CS1 and CS4 in terms of having a key role.
It’s also my opinion that, for whatever reason, each redesign of her character per game from CS1 to CS4 progressed so well that it’s a quantum leap in her appearance/presentation from the beginning to the end of the series. She looks very meh at the start of Cold Steel; she looks great at the end of the arc.
Because of all this, like many players who I think saw some of what I commented on in her design, I paid like zero attention to Emma in bonding in CS1/2, and that was shocking to me as someone who likes the smart female mage character typings in generally. But her quiet considerate kind no offense low personality demeanor was so boring. In CS4, I did all of her bonding because of how radically she had improved from her CS1 base and how much more interesting she was.
I can support the top 10 here for her. Even though I’m an OC7 junkie and there’s really no excuse for Laura not being #1 at everything ever. An entirely separate point.
I think Emma's big problem is Celine. Like, Celine literally hijacks Emma's role as a witch supposed to be guiding an awakener (Rean). Her bondings in CS4, especially when she practically risks her life just for a glimmer of a chance to help rean, dials things up to 11 but, still, considering Celine ends up hijacking so much of Emma's potential, it kinda leaves her wanting more in CS3/4 imho.
I wouldn't say she doesn't deserve to be high, but it definitely feels like Arianrhod and Ash got cheated out of a higher rank by her. They just seemed more compelling to me as characters. And I say this as a guy that'd waifu her over any other class 7 girl in a heartbeat.
She is the most beautiful of all class 7 for sure in CS4.
One thing I will add to what you said about Altina is that, character itself aside, her relationship with Rean is beautiful. From being on the opposite sides of war, to her being attached to him as a spy, a position that allows for no sincerity from either side. To them stepping on each other's toes trying to adjust to their new roles of teacher and student. To the uncertainty of losing her place in the world, as her masters loosen their leash on her, to, finally, developing into a thinking and feeling person who can navigate her own life.
Having come out of it on the other side in no small part to Rean's guidance and selflessness, it's no wonder that their eventual bond is so warm and satisfying to witness.
Falcom misses with the characters quite often, but Altina was a bullseye hit. Hands down my favourite character in Trails.
Firstly, Cheers for the comment mention! Second, I think this rankings kind of showed what Falcom has prioritized with this arc. Cold Steel, while certainly having some great characters, had way more attention to it's overall narrative and story. The Sky series was much more character and character narratives(not saying the story was bad by any means, just of the first 3 arcs, it was the weakest imo). Crossbell serves as that middle lane of sorts with a good portion of both. May just be overthinking it, but can't help it. Nonetheless, awesome series and can't wait for more.
With the size of Erebonia, it makes sense that the focus shifts from character driven narrative to story driven, and the characters just kind of mould around it. With so many big forces at play especially in CS3/4, I think Cold Steel as a whole showed the struggle of fighting against the tide so to speak. And it's why I hold CS4 in particular so high, because of how grand it feels in nature.
I was so shocked when i see osborne as the 4th. I mean i would rated him 1st or 2nd with olivert. Somewhat expected crow to be big 3. But Altina as the 1st really unexpected and that's the thing i can't complain about. Altina really deserves to be the number 1.
Altina #1 is unexpected?
I'd say there would be no justice in this world if she wasn't #1, with how she's one of the best characters in the series as a whole and probably top 5 most liked characters for sure
If there was a shock, then honestly I think it was Olivert being number 3. I love him as a character(if there was an all-time ranking, then yes absolutely top 3...MINIMUM), but for what he does in CS3 and 4, I can't help but wonder why. And frankly the same could be said with Crow and Valimar. Again love them but for CS3/4?...not a top 10 imo.
@@arcanegale285 well, i expect more into millium to be honest. From my point of view, millium gave so much impact on many characters. One of them is Altina. Well, Altina sure get more interactions and more screen time on CS3 and 4 than millium, so that's why i somewhat expected her to be big 5. Being number 1 is a little unexpected, but still well deserved.
Great top 10 - and a really fun list in general!! I really enjoyed checking each day to cast my votes!
I shall come out as one of the Emma fans! Haha.
Emma was my #1 throughout the whole CS Arc. I felt drawn to her character right from the beginning of Cold Steel 1, and was delighted to see how she grew from being a shy, unconfident bookworm into a really powerful witch by the end of Cold Steel 4!
Unlike a lot of the original class 7, it felt like she had a relevant story that spanned all 4 games - rather than being pretty much solved at the end of 2.
I think what I liked was how she came from being such an unassuming character into one of the most important of original class 7 - they would have been stuck without her on several occasions throughout 3 and 4.
But maybe I’m biased as I prefer old C7 to new C7!
Yeah, I'm pretty sure that some of the girls had the "waifu" element taking priority for some fans. Altina absolutely deserved her rank, though.
With Crow, it's probably another case of a character's role from CS1/2 affecting the poll for CS3/4.
In any case, thanks again for the poll. Hope you do another one for Reverie at some point.
Than again isn't Waifu element apart of their charm, like Crows husbando element. Still completely agree.
@@ZeraThroughZero I want to say that story significance and character development should be more important...but I can't deny the strength of the element.
It's interesting though because this ranking suggests Emma has a very strong fan base - but she didn't do too hot in the CS1/2 ranking.
@@TheKisekiNut That's because even her stans have to recognize that she pretty much was a tease in CSI that went nowhere. Improved in CSII but she was outshined by her cat lol. Also Celine was more useful to Rean as a guide even though she was cranky and did the buddy cop routine most of the time.
Ah, I suppose Juna and Jusis falling out of the top ten makes more sense now. I disregarded the very important waifu factor.
True, personally Juna would be easy top ten.
Yeah the waifu brigade showed up stanning Emma lol
this might just be me, but 3 "waifus" most people love so much I am either indifferent or borderline annoyed by
those being Emma, Alisa and Claire
I couldn't care less for Claire, to me she didn't have anything to offer in all 4 games. Alisa is a tsundere done badly, which immediately gives her negative points in my book, I'll admit she was better in these 2 games than the first two. And as for Emma, well... I feel like she had nothing going on from the moment you meet her. CS1: mysterious and intriguing, CS2 "haha I'm a witch" and that's it CS3 I exist CS4 I kind of still just exist but now I decided to take a page out of Rean's book and go on the self-sacrifice route + my sister, grandmother and cat do more of my job than I do. Her witch aspect was explained like it was completely normal and it wasn't done anything with.
@@arcanegale285 same emma is overrated af
It's deceivingly powerful as a force.
I prefer un-sympathetic antagonists personally, I feel like the whole "this bad guy wasn't actually bad, just misunderstood" shtick has been overdone a few hundred times now. However, I think it was done well with Osborne, falcom managed to make him into both the most and least evil antagonist in the series, it's very cleverly done.
The thing is I've seen the unforgivable antagonists like Weissman and Joachim. And they work because their involvement is mostly limited to their individual arc. However Osborne has been around since Sky SC at least in reference. The longer a character stays in the narrative, the more I want them to have added layers of motivation or depth. You can no doubt make a deep 'evil' character, but I think it's a lot harder to do. If Osborne's speech at the end of CS3 (drowning the world in conflict) was the main goal of his entire character, and it was motivated by his past, I'd accept it but I'd be disappointed. For someone so integral to the games up till that point, I would want to see something beyond just being evil - and that's why I'll always be on board with his redemption.
As long as Osborne doesn't miraculously come back to life like everyone seems to do in kiseki nowadays, he has had an impact on the series that'll probably last till everything ends.
@@zearow5458 The only 2 people who came "truly" back to life are Crow and Millium.
All the other one were either imposters (robots, clones, concepts, etc), lived on borrowed time or were shown in flashbacks.
And i wouldnt count Olivert, Viktor and Toval, since that explosion screamed faking death. Nobody believed they were dead.
@@MandalorOrdo There are way too many scenes where a person shouldve died but didnt or ended up coming back to life. The only one I personally think makes sense was Osbornes in CS due to him being built up as the biggest villain to date. Angelica got shot but didnt die, the Emperor got shot but didnt die, Olivert and co got blown up in an airship but didn't die, Crow came back twice and Millium somehow managed to come back when her soul was trapped in the sword. Was way too convinient how everything worked out . Every time a person has a scenario where they should've died, they didn't. Not like I dont understand why they keep bringing people back but still feels kinda annoying when a death can lead to further growth of characters and plot.
iit works well with Osborne because he isnt misunderstood, he deceives most people
I think a big reason why Falcom doesn't kill off their characters anymore is that they probably got ALOT of people disliking it when a favourable character died (Mainly Loewe). I do agree to some extent when I think about how the series would've been in Olivert was kept dead.
Dang, harsh comments on Emma :(
I don't even know we were asked to defend her position in the ranking. Many people just really like her, myself included. She's likable, has a great design, is definitely more important to the story than a lot of characters, and she's incredible in combat. I get the point about her not being the only witch, but I always felt she was the most important one, story-wise, since she has that close connection with Rean as an awakener. I don't think Rean would have gotten along nearly as well without Emma. Vita and Roselia contribute to the story, sure, but Emma's our gal, she does more than you might think.
I also loved her growth from just some girl in the class to a pivotal, key member of the cast. I think her development is really great and is the most consistent over the course of all 4 games. She never concludes her arc early and coasts like some characters, she's always relevant and growing through all 4 games.
She's also just adorable, and I love her
It's not Roselia or Vita that are the problem; it's Celine. Emma doesn't feel as close to Rean as she should be because her familiar keeps taking the important parts.
That's what I think, at least.
While I don't mind Emma, basically Celine does a much better job in guiding ya boi Rean than Emma. Even Rose kinda sucks at it. So in other words a talking cat does the duty better than an immortal and a human. Too bad Celine became a furry to appease a certain demographic otherwise she would've been higher on the list.
@@yojimbo26 if Emma got all of the guiding scene from Celine none of the other girls will have a chance from the harem from all the time she will spend with Rean
Emma is my go-to choice for the class 7 girl I'd waifu, but her ranking is definitely undeserved. She is overall being carried hard by waifu factor here. I dont think it'd be unfair to deny her a high spot regardless, but it definitely feels like at her current spot she cheats much more deserving characters like ash and arianrhod out of a higher spot, even if its only a small rank difference. Its kinda sad how major celine becomes instead, since she pretty much steals Emma's actual role.
Tbh i kinda feel the same about fie. While great, its always felt to me like the community has been exceptionally kind to fie. Maybe cause she can pretty much carry whenever shes in the party?
@@maxjohnson65 favorites work that way , as for ash , my opinion for his lower rank is that he has a late start , when you get him at the point in game you already had a full team you got used to , so he no matter how great he is , has a hard time making up the time you spent with the rest of new class 7 . for me personally its hard to rank most people in trails , as the game has yet to give me one person that I will hate , so when someone is asked to rank , the differences are going to bee small and the wifu part tends to tip the scales in the end
even though i knew olivert was alive in cs4 the scene where he comes back still made me cry. olivert is just an amazing character with also an amazing voice actor
Altina had great character development over the course of CS3 and 4. Definitely one of my favorites from new class 7. I even chose her as Rean's partner in CS4 because I really loved their relationship. That reunion scene with Rean was really touching and shows how much he meant to her. Definitely enjoy her more than most of the girls from original class 7.
I would like to get into the series if it wasn't the "You need to play the whole series to understand the story." But ever since I started watching these videos on the series, it's gotten my interest. One party member/ally becomes your enemy while the next your enemy becomes your ally. Ever interesting for me. Keep up the good work!
Wow nice to see my fav character at #2. Also I’m usually not a fan of “dead” characters making a return but I personally think they did Crow justice.
This was such a cool video idea/series and awesome to see what the community is thinking! Thanks for making it!
I totally shipped Emma and Rean together. I feel like they had similar experiences and could relate to each other's struggles (especially with all the supernatural elements/gifts that they had.) more than Rean might with other characters. I was kind of surprised to see Altina as #1. She is one of my favorite characters but not THE #1 favorite.
I got to admit.. I actually really like Emma in 3 and 4th.. and I think the reason was that she was way more sure of herself and really came into her powers as a witch. You got to remember in cs 1 and 2 she could only do little spells but by the end of 4 she could break powerfull barriers...she sense Campanella, she could transport most of the cast to the ground from the airship something she struggled with in cs 2. She held her own against mcburn keeping his fire at bay. So yeah I did enjoy her more in cs 4.
Crow is bottom tier for me and always will be, don't understand the love he gets, I enjoy his personality but I think his story is one of almost constant missed opportunities. If he had stayed as an antagonist or stayed dead then fair enough, I think he was just a popular character so Falcom felt the need to bring him, like Akechi in persona 5.
I like the gambler aspect of Crow. Big risk and reward type of person. I would have liked for him to stay dead though. Biggest issue my brother has with the series is no dies. They never kill any villains either.
@@Hutchdh But...five different antagonists died in Cold Steel IV alone. Arianrhod, Black Alberich, Ishmelga, Osborne and Rutger. Sky killed Loewe and Weissman. Joechim died in Zero. A good number of characters have died. Sure Trails is no Game of Thrones when it comes to character deaths, but people have definitely died.
Great videos!
The Crow thing is one of my problems with the second half of CS (even if I think CS3 was pretty good until the introduction of the curse), the lack of tangible death. Trails was never a death heavy series, but I feel the Erebonia arc kinda took it too far with the lack of consequences and outright resurrections.
I still love Crow, Millium, Olivier and Victor, I just think that some cynicism helps to make a war story a bit more "real".
Love your videos. Love that I know someone else who's a big fan of the Kiseki series!
My favourite mage characters win out again! Well deserved rankings for my favourites.
Yeeeesss!! Altina is #1! She's one of my all time favourite characters ever, so I'm SO happy to see her there!😆
"I don't understand why Emma scored so high".
Because she is the #1 waifu of the kiseki community in the west from what I can tell. Dirty poms....although I'm just being salty that my Laura scored so low.
I was a Laura fan first time I played through the series, but in CS3 and CS4 her character really suffers from boring and generic dialogue/writing.
Her outfit in CS2 is also way better (Why the flip do New Class 7 get 10 costumes but Old class 7 get none, except the bathing ones)
Emma in CS3 onwards goes godlike in the wife department, although I shifted towards Sara
Seriously have you seen Emma's magic Girl outfit..best outfit in trails.and yes she's my Waifu and was my choice from the very first bonding event in CS1. On the other hand I can't believe that people consider Altina to be the most important character in the arc
@@jamesmaclennan4525 I haven't but it seems it's DLC...still none in base sadkek
She is! Never knew, in my top 5 but Juna and Fie take it for me.
You mean in the east. Japanese polls put her insanely high in the favourite FALCOM characters (yes, not just Trails, but Falcom in general)
There's a few things I don't agree with, but all in all, great ranking imo. Altina as number one is something I can definetly get behind. Thank you for taking the time to make this ranking, it was really fun (from the voting/discussing to seeing the results)!
Also, I got my comments featured! Thank you so much! That really put a smile on my face!
Thanks for taking part bud!
I believe the one sentence story summary of Trails is "the story of how Olivert fought for and found happiness."
And here I thought I was unique in my obsession with Crow. Okay not really. But I do agree 2 is a bit too high. While I agree on his no. 1 slot in CS I-II, I would’ve had him around 7-10 in this one. Because while he is my personal favorite character overall and his scenes with Rean were really good, I just don’t think he did enough in the second half to be 2nd place.
Mostly because I agree about azure Siegfried, it kinda removed a lot of opportunity to talk about what happened in the civil war and confused the focus of his return. It was unnecessary and didn’t add anything because once it ended, aside from Crow being irritated at mentions of it, we never even saw him PROCESS what happened and what George did. So yeah. Wish they hadn’t done that. That said, still very glad he scored so high just on a personal level because he is best boy.
I agree so much with this ranking in general, but while I’m not surprised Ash didn’t get higher and am pleasantly surprised he made top 10, he would’ve easily been in my top 5. But yes to number one Altina all day. (And yay Fie!!!)
I didn't even like Crow in 1 and 2. Hell, not even 3. But 4, goddamn he was a true bro.
Alright I'm here for my evaluation
Previous top 10 guesses:
1- Mr. Speech
2- Best daughter
3- Got shot and lived
4- Blue Destination
5- Transfomers
6- F*** YOU SCHWARZER
7- 7th A
8- Dodge tank
9- It's gotta be the chest
10- Debauchery
Actual top 10 [vs guesses]:
1- Altina [2]
2- Crow [4]
3- Olivert [10]
4- Gilliath Osborne [3]
5- Fie [8]
6- Rean [1]
7- Emma [9]
8- Valimar [5]
9- Ash [6]
10- Arianrhod [7]
I knew I wasn't going to get everyone, but damn I was hoping to get at least 1. Also thank you Trails community, you have done me proud with this top 10 and putting Angelica in her place
Man F angelica
@@siege_sensei I feel like that statement is one thing the whole of the community can get behind.
@@xdesertxbloodx I can't
Well, I think I’ve already made my own problems with Osborne clear before (tl;dr, didn’t want him to be unrepentantly evil, but I think he should have been more flawed in his motives, though I’d still keep the ending with him and Rean mostly the same), so I won’t beat a dead horse there. Other than that, I think I would have ranked Rean slightly higher, but this is certainly a Top 10 I can get behind. Altina taking the top spot wasn’t exactly surprising, but that’s just because it’s so well-deserved.
Can’t wait to see what’s next!
Totally agreed with your point of view on this top 10 !
Thanks for your work, it really is amazing. I'm just a bit bummed that Cedric was so low in this ranking, I hated him at first but I always found his personality refreshing seeing that seemingly every character in Cold Steel ends up being a good guy despite everything bad they might have done. He doesn't like when things don't go his way and fight his own weakness by grasping at easily obtained power, almost childishly. And the wrap up of his arc makes a lot of sense imho, instead of taking the easy way, as he had done before, and going back to his family where everyone would most likely forgive him, he chose to atone by himself.
His path shows that the only way to redeem/grow isn't just about seeking forgiveness and admitting he did things wrong, he faces consequences of what he did headfront, somehow like Richard in Sora or even to some extent Osborne.
Cedric unfortunately just gets off to a bad start. First impressions mean a lot, especially in the case of Trails characters. Unfortunately, Cedric is just awful for a full game in terms of endearing himself to a fanbase, his attitude makes you want to slap the bloke. Like you say, it's a shame because in CS4 you see the true Cedric beneath the bravado, the one laced with insecurity and doubt. But hey, the community voted it that way, and I just report on it!
@@TheKisekiNut Of course I don't blame you for him being so low :p I just felt like pointing out that it's a shame that a well-written side character like him was this low. Especially since one of the most famous critic made to the Kiseki series (overabundant in Cold Steel) is the lack of consequences, with Cedric they show that they can write a character paying the cost of his bad deeds (even if it's somewhat soft) while staying coherent to the story and the whole universe. Basically showing other aspects of humanity, that's a bit selfish but I wish they did it more.
While a lot of this top ten I'd shuffle around, for the most part I can quite agree with it.
Overal of cold steel III and IV I think one of the biggest strengths and weaknesses is the new class VII
On the good side, some of the best characters from these games are part of it and as a group they work really well together.
But it does take away a lot of focus from existing characters, I feel not all of old class VII had enough chances to flesh out.
It ties into one of the big things of Cold Steel. It's grand, very grand. And in some ways that holds it back but I really love Cold steel regardless as one of my favorite JRPG series.
Let's hope the next arc hits well, and finds a good balance between new and old. Cuz really, I do hope to see certain characters again.
IMO the problem of the roster clutter wasn't new class VII's fault but stuffing in characters from two previous game arcs. Yeah everyone was waiting for voiced and 3D Estelle, Joshua, Renne, Sherrazzard, Casius, Tita, Agate, Lloyd, Rixia, Tio, Randy, Mariabelle and especially Ellie for...two obvious reasons. And Gilbert, I suppose. But yeah that means shoving Erebonia characters out of the limelight because you can only stuff in so many characters for certain scenes...
I feel the role of the old characters should've been smaller so that the 'new' characters could shine (and most are good characters with potential arcs). But then again CSIV was pretty much there to wrap up western Zemuria (and Falcom still needed another game to do that) so it makes sense other heroes team up to stop the literal end time before Zemuria transforms in Warhammer.
@@yojimbo26 I do think they made it worse, but I think new class VII drew the main focus away, the old characters more just ate time.
Still that's not to say I wanted things differend. I like all of new class VII, love 4/5 of em. Compared to old class VII I prefer the new one overal and am happy with em.
Just hoping that the new game will be able to scale things down a bit. New characters come first, and I'd hate for the old ones to steal spotlight for em.
Honnestly that's the issue with Cold Steel since day one, that was the issue with Old Class VII since the beginning there is just to much character and as a result it inevitably fall into some characters being put in the spotlight and being more fleshed out than the other, sometime a smaller cast just works better cause for small group each character get more chance to shine, that's why I think New Class VII is better they are only 5 and even tough some are more flesh out than other all 5 had a decent amount of time given to them to properly understand them and see them grow and also they get enough so we can understand and appreciate their personnality, or the SSS in Zero no Kiseki even tough you don't see the back story of one of them since they were only 4 characters each of the 4 get much more time to shine with their background or personnality and by the end of the game you understand them perfectly and got more time to become attach to each of them.
honestly, altina reaction to millium sacrifice is what I expected how laura will react on his father "death", I imagine she must hit the hardest and yet she don't show much, almost nothing apart from some dialogue, I kinda expect she tried to bottle up her feelings and then later on, it just broke
also the fact that her special memories don't include actual fight when yoi already experience fie and sara special nemory bond which include a surprise fight don't help either
she still my favorite tho
I can see why Altina gets the top spot.. Altina reminds me so much of Tio in zero and azure.. Tio very much like Altina, Is a very bland blunt character when we first meet her. But as the crossbell arc goes on we see how Tio endured the DG cult and got some closure out of defeating Joachim Gunther in Zero once she returns in Azure. She is much stronger and is more able to support the team emotionally. We see this same development with Altina through most of cold steel 3 and more predominantly in cold steel 4 in terms of her emotional and character development and to me she does become the emotional catalyst that helps push all of class VII to get Rean back.
I think Juna should of been higher, maybe right near Altina at least. I know she annoys some people sometimes, but I believe she's just as important as Altina, in rallying everyone to save Rean at the beginning CS4.
@@egorobotentertainment8057 I don't disagree with Juna being higher , but I don't see as much emotional character development in Juna than what I saw in Altina. Bear in mind, Altina is a Homonculus , an artificial being that normally do not have any cognitive or emotional attachment to anything mental or physical. It was always hammered In to her mind that that her mission objective was all that mattered. But in CS 3 and 4 Altina is thrown the curveball of free will . Something she has never experienced and to see her grow into this free will is really fun to watch as we get to see a side of Altina that we may not have seen had she not been assigned to the new class VII and had Rean as her instructor.
Surprised me to see her at #1 since her its a story we already saw with Tio and Millium
@@tatotato85 I guess it's just a popular archetype? Though Kiseki Nut did mention that Altina is arguably the pinnacle of this particular archetype, so I doubt any future renditions will be as well received (they'll problem get responses like "Altina did it better).
@@tatotato85 That's a good point. I think falcom needs some new tropes that haven't been done. Lol
premise: i'm a huge emma fan, she's probably my favorite Trails characters ever (followed by Olivier and Randy), so i'm definitely biased, but if i were to try and explain why she managed to place so high, the main reason would probably be the poll's criteria
i mean, story significance? she definitely has more than any other OG Class 7 member except rean, and while some might say her "awakener's guide" role is often stole by celine, at the same time it must be said celine... does't have much more than that (and her tsundere attitude), so IMHO giving celine all the credit for being rean's guide isn't 100% honest
dialogue? some say she's boring and i accept that, but since many of her fans love her bonding events (myself included), she ended up getting a more than sufficient score in this
also, when she speaks, she often has something interesting to say, be it about vita, roselia, eryn's village or whatever
design? i think no one can really argue that hers is one of the best character designs the Trails series has to offer
character development? just like fie, she changed a lot from CS1: she became much more self-confident and knowledgeable, the latter being a thing generally every OG Class 7 member did, but Emma has enough connections to make her knowledge feel actually useful and interesting for the player (i mean, would you prefer listening to machias telling you about his next investigation or emma explaining you what is the place Mcburn comes from?)
likeability? now this is an interesting criteria, but it's very, very vague
it could vary from including all the other criterias, to even just one, or even being something else completely
as far as i'm concerned, i always tried to consider "likeability" as "what can this character offer players to make them feel engaged with them?"
so for me, in emma's case, this was a sort of average between every other criteria, plus some "favorite character" factor
don't know if this could make anyone change their mind about emma, but if not, that's ok
the world would be incredibly boring if we all liked and disliked the same things
To my surprise, Juna had one of the best character development in the game. Also, It is why I shipped both of them in 3 and 4. Interestingly, I find chancellor Giliaith Osborn a very well-written antagonist. He is also the father of Rean Schwarzer. Oh yeah, I can't forget some of his interesting underlying too. The Fool, McBurn, and Shirley. In my humble opinion, the coolest characters were Crow and Mcburn. Lastly, If I had to rank the three most badass females in the game. I will start with Principle Le Guin, Arianrhod, and Vita or Shirley. Lastly, Trails of Cold Steel 3 was the best installment in its series.
Altina made me cry. Multiple times. As an autistic dude, I feel a kinship to her in many ways. (And no, I’m not saying she’s autistic, too. Just saying I relate to some of her characteristics) So happy she’s numbers one on this list.
I cant say i agree 100%, my personal list would have a few changes but ovefall I think this came out really well. Especially #1, i couldn't agree more. Definitely one of my fav chars in the series.
Awesome! I think I loved the community rankings through and through. They really did do me proud. I'll talk a little bit about every character on this list because why not?
Arianrhod / Lianne: LOVE this character, and would have happily seen her soar even higher. Her character really just oozes that sort of dignity and grace that you would expect of a knight as ancient as herself. I think you're right that "saint" really is the vibe she gives off. An antagonist, but not a villain.
Ash: I too hated him at first, but he did put in some work to earn his way back into my graces. I don't mind "bad boy" characters, but he's a dick more often than he's not. I guess you argue that level of anti-social behavior and dysfunction makes sense as a reasonable character flaw given his tragic past - which really was brilliantly tied to the storyline. So I get why he ranked this high even if he isn't quite my cup of tea.
Valimar: Ok, I'll take flak, but in a cast like this, I'm not sure I agree with him taking top 10 for characters. I LOVE Valimar, and I appreciate his role in the story, and did find his partnership with Rean endearing. But I think the "cool" factor of sword-mech is carrying perhaps an undue amount of weight here.
Emma: Ok, so my bias is WITH Emma. She's my waifu, she's gorgeous, she's powerful, and in combat she's - in my opinion - the strongest character in the entire series. Load her up with ATS optimization, two lost arts, and an S-Craft that is grail sphere on crack, and you've got a character who gives, and gives, and gives performance wise. I say all of this to say I agree with you TKN, she doesn't deserve to be this high. I think her beauty (which to many myself included ranks higher than any in class 7) and her raw power both lore wise and mechanically are hiking her up. Still, in the story she IS important, and when you think about it, that's pretty amazing given how much spotlight she has to share with Rose, Vita, and Celine. I agreed on the Celine rating that Emma weirdly got the shaft spotlight-wise by Celine's existence. If I could script doctor the game and make Emma the canon romance and remove the dating sim elements I would. ;) But then again, I'm a simp for Emma. Maybe part of her charm is how mild she is by design and how she never really WANTS the spotlight.
Rean: In the shadow of Estelle and Lloyd it took me a really long time to be a fan. But I am happy to say that in the long run, I did. Even despite ALL the bonding and sim elements, it's actually amazing to me how much of a self-insert Rean *isn't.* I'm still NOT a fan of the bonding system - and never will be - but Falcom still juggled it masterfully. By the end of the game, I felt very proud to share this journey with Rean, and could finally consider myself a fan.
Fie: This is more fan-bias (and I'm a fan too!) Like Emma, Fie's a complete MONSTER in combat. You basically just break the game by turning her into an evade tank every.damn.time. On top of that she's so cool, and chill, and it's hard to not like her. I have a hard time looking a girl who is so young, tiny, and frankly boyish as a waifu, but I'm not here to start waifu wars. Fie's spotlight with Rutger was pretty good, and I think fan bias of 4 games of building up good graces carried her the rest of the way here.
Obsorne: You said it all, man. This character is one of the most masterfully written villains I've ever experienced, and he absolutely earned his spot here. You said Olivert owned the scene every time he was on screen. True, barring Osborne. Every scene with *him* in it was *his*. And the fact that this character was tee'd up to us in Sky the 3rd. What the heck!? Amazing.
Olivier: YES, Olivier (Liberlian here, don't judge me). Yeah, he's a fan favorite for every reason, but I think he actually deserves this spot. He really is the glue bridging most of the characters across arcs (especially the Liberl arc) to the story. Couple that with the Courageous and his role in forming Class VII and his unrelenting amounts of charisma and charm, and there's just no way he doesn't make it this high on the list. Been traveling with this dude since 2014 on my end - happy to see him sit so damn high up.
Crow: Yep, he's my favorite member of Class VII and I think his place here is well earned. Cool, story-important, tragic, nothing to not like here! Funny enough my main party was Rean, Emma, Fie, and Crow in my CSIV clear. Love seeing my main party represented in this top 10!
Altina: Not my number 1, honestly, but I get why she's here, and do believe she deserves all the high regard you gave her. Character development doesn't get any better - or fuller - than Altina Orion.
I think Emma was ranked highly based on her 2 enormous “assets”.
1) kindness
2) stubborness
My Top 10 is probably something like
1. Crow
2. Ash
3. Duvalie
4. Emma
5. Jusis
6. Sara
7.Olivert
8. Rufus
9. Osbourne
10. Rean
It's a shame that you don't like Rean that much. I honestly was hoping that you would make a character analysis of him after Reverie(cs their is a LOT to talk about if you understood well his character).Love your analysis of the other characters btw(osborne and altina top tier characters)
Wouldn't say I don't like Rean, I just don't think he's as good as the other protags.
@@TheKisekiNut i know dude, and i'm not complaining everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that i digged your character analysis of Renne, Kevin,Osborne and Altina(and i know what you mean cs they are all top tier characters to me), and i was hoping that you would make 1 for Rean, but given you reviews on him, i think i was hoping for too much, haha...
@@abdoazar8343 Don't worry bud, I know you weren't attacking, just clearing up the idea that I don't like Rean.
Great list! Not my number one pick but I respect the logic that went into that pick and the list as a whole.
Emma, Fie and Towa. My three the most beloved female characters of The Cold steel series.
About what you said for Rean, about him maybe not really changing much from being self-sacrificing and self-deprecating, well. Without any spoilers, thats what Hajimari / Reverie is for.
My commentary was kept exclusively to Cold Steel and the prior games. I know some people would consider mention of his arc continuing as a spoiler, so I don't even take the risk. It's one reason why the content is more based around general JRPGs now rather than just Trails.
Here's a question, how much character development will most of these characters get in Hajimari when most of it was done in CS4? Im hoping some of things left out in CS4 will be covered in Hajimari with Rean especially.
Without directly spoiling stuff, Rean definitely does grow more during the events of Hajimari, which does finish his character arc. A few other characters get some amazing growth too. Can’t say any more than that, though.
Kiseki Nut's comment on Rean not really changing is finally fully addressed in Hajimari. Hajimari is the actual closure for both crossbell and erebonia, not CS4. Out of the CS4 characters on this list, very few besides Rean will receive much development there, but it does happen and its done well enough. You also do get the impression that these characters have all more or less "come of age" as it were by the end.
I’m sure this has been addressed, but do you ever put out your own personal ranking list? I’ve never seen it discussed in a video…maybe it’s been in a comment section.
I would like to see your independent list as a hardcore fan/series expert. The community rankings are…ok, but the fandom as a whole REALLY loves certain character archetypes and it skews outcomes. My primary example of this is Tio and Altina just running away with top rankings in Zero/Ao and Cold Steel. They’re fine characters, really good, but are they just so epically epic they crush the top spot, or does the fandom just eat up the small quiet well-developed young female characters who drop occasional hilarious one-liners and eventually overcome their life obstacles? I think the latter.
If your rankings are around somewhere I would love to see those!
No, seriously... Oliver as No. 3 will forever remind me why I hate fandoms. I appreciate the games for what they are, but Oliver in this arc is, at best, slightly funny.
I think with Osborne, there's nothing wrong with having a villain just be a villain. I think the idea that all villains need to be sympathetic is a mistake because look at popular villains like Joker, who's sheer insanity and villainy alongside mystery for why he does what he does ends up making him a superb villain.
Many people mistake that a villain having a sympathetic background automatically means the character has depth. That's just false as writing depth into a character DOES NOT REQUIRE A SYMPATHETIC BACKGROUND. A villain isn't automatically better if they can get sympathy points. Writing depth just means giving characters a multi faceted deep dive, similar to how Ash is both brash but also incredibly patient in certain situations. *It's not that they shouldn't have written Osborne the way they did, but that it's disappointing that literally everything awful thing he did can technically be blamed to a mythical force instead. Would have been way more interesting if Osborne has more grounded motivations with humanistic flaws such as maybe his Kasia was killed in a proxy way with Calvard or something to that nature.*
Even then, Osborne's evil acts aren't even absurd when considering real life history. Like, they could have written him as someone who loved Erebonia that he wanted to show off its full might. To most, the major thing he did was take land, which realistically speaking, isn't at all far fetched for any normal person to do if they were given power of a powerful country.
Osborne became less interesting the more that was revealed to me imo. It's not a unique story entirely as we've seen both tropes of holding such an evil back thus showing their indomitable will and big bad villain does things but is realistically good. Osborne as just a scheming but intelligent villain on top of carrying a lot of power was a great villain to end it off of. There was potential to show a lot of manipulation of events normally to encourage war. It happens all the time where governments create propaganda to support their war efforts. Cold Steel in general had most of its antagonists be sympathetic in many ways, from Crow to Vita to most of Ouroboros, Lechter, Claire, etc. So I think it would have been a perfect send off to have the main villain actually show that there is no hesitation and that he is fully aware of the morality of his choices, but his own selfishness and ambitions superceded them.
The whole idea of the curse also turned me off because it ends up being used way too much as a scapegoat for the plot to move along.
For me personally, Osborne's heel turn and the introduction of the curse absolutely robbed what could have been textbook country wide manipulation and planning that also repeated the history the Erebonia government did and tried to hide. We were robbed of possibly one of the most convincing, and powerful tyrant stories in place of a mythical curse that works on borders only and a man that actually is just the nicest of them all.
BTW not saying it was extremely bad, just moreso a trope that recently has been extremely drawn out. People need to realize sympathetic villains aren't automatically better than immoral ones. That's just a weird false statement people parroted around without realizing that you can't have a fun and entertaining villain without them sacrificing a lot of morals. For Osborne, he had the perfect scapegoat in Ishmelga.
I think it comes down to preference. I'm all on board with Osborne's redemption personally, but I'll just paste what I replied to another commenter as it serves the same purpose.
The thing is I've seen the unforgivable antagonists like Weissman and Joachim. And they work because their involvement is mostly limited to their individual arc. However Osborne has been around since Sky SC at least in reference. The longer a character stays in the narrative, the more I want them to have added layers of motivation or depth. You can no doubt make a deep 'evil' character, but I think it's a lot harder to do. If Osborne's speech at the end of CS3 (drowning the world in conflict) was the main goal of his entire character, and it was motivated by his past, I'd accept it but I'd be disappointed because it just feels so direct and lacking, which is not what I associate with a character as important as him.
For someone so integral to the games up till that point, I would want to see something beyond just being evil - and that's why I'll always be on board with his redemption. I think a main issue is that we already saw a redemption story in the same arc with Crow, so maybe it lost a bit of luster, but I'm all on board with taking an antagonist down that route if it's done correctly. I consider the likes of Osborne and Alan Richard to be those types who make the u-turn work. Richard is great because his love for his country motivated him to take matters in to his own hands, but he sees the errors of his ways and gets many moments to atone, he still is to this day. It lended well to not only his arc in Sky, but his continued involvement in all the future games. Osborne is done well because it ties well in to the narrative itself. I know some people are not on board with the Curse, but I've always liked it personally. And I think it raised a very interesting viewpoint of Osborne overall, this idea of the ultimate self sacrifice. Even with his redemption, he'll still be remembered by many as a tyrant. So it's not a complete redemption like Richard which in a way makes it bittersweet, and that allows me to feel even more sympathy for his character.
Thank god that everyone is on the same page about Altina being the best character. Watching her change is so fulfilling. The scenes of her smiling in the photo and screaming after remembering the Gral hit me like a truck because of how emotional they felt. If a character can make you feel proud and happy simply by smiling for a photo, I think they're definitely a home run.
She's the best character in all Trails for me. I would kill Kondo if he did anything to her 🔫
I'm sure im gonna get a lot of hate for this, but here it goes: I feel like rean wasn't grounded enough as a character. I (unlike most) liked rean in cold steel 1 and 2 cause he felt more grounded and real to me, I felt more connected with him. But by cold steel 3 and 4 i felt like he was just the perfect protagonist, everyone loved him, any of his faults were his positive traits in excess, he never really was wrong i most of he decisions and actions he took. He was just perfect and that just felt less real to me. I wish we saw more his character in more mellow and downtime moments were he isn't solving everyone's problems and maybe he is fumbling and fucking up at doing something like maybe he tries drawing or dancing and he really sucks at those. i dunno something that makes him feel more like a dude. BUT DON"T GET ME WRONG I LIKE REAN, if i never played the other trails games he would be my one of my top 3 favourite characters in any jrpg, but now he is like my 9/10th favourite
For the record, I think that the whole "fake death"/"resurrection" thing is only going to be a real problem if it becomes too much of a trend. I somewhat doubt they handle it as well as Crow's case, so I hope the developers don't overdo it.
I just wish we get permanent deaths from now on. Don't want a slaughter, Kiseki is not ASOIAF, but if someone dies, it will be better if it stays that way.
I was surprised to see best girl Fie in the top 10, but top 5. now that's a shock.
I saw Altina, Crow, Rean and Fie getting top 10 a mile away. Rean is the only C7 character I feel like I can call complete, Altina/Millum are good characters (though I do think that it's stupid that they made 2 of them), Crow has his lowpoints but one of the better characters overall and they worst I can say about Fie is that it's kinda stupid that for a character that calls C7 family she only has notable relationships with like... 4 of them.
I'm glad Ash did well, really did like him. The only thing I didn't like is the side quest with the liberl crew in the finale, just made him feel more like a retcon.
I expected Valimar, Olivert, Osborne and Arianrhod to do well, maybe like top 20 so top 10 came as a surprise to me.
The biggest surprise though is Emma getting top 10. I would say its due to waifu factor but she still somehow managaed to score higher than other characters that had that factor as well.
In my opinion(Bonding Events Included):
Top 5 (Not in Order)
Altina: Her arc is good but I also think thats is more easy to see her growth cause she is a Kuudere character. She have good presence in story and some very good moments with Millium and Juna (Emma and Alisa too) I’m not a “moe fan” and think the papa-daughter relation in trails is a bit overused but in the end I still think she is one of the bests. But her bondings are a big atrocity and Falcom ruined a lot of things with that.
Crow: In CS3 his character is meh but he is amazing in CS4. Another character with a good presence in the story. Fighting Rean’s side in Rivalry is cliche but cool at same time. His bondings are very interesting and worked well as a redemption arc with his fellow teammates.
Emma: The character with the best “show don’t tell” arc in the entire ColdSteel. OC7 act more in a supporting way in Cs3/4 and it is the perfect way to show Emma’s role in the story. Even being in the background she had too much presence in the Story and Side Quests (even more than some main characters). The biggest problem with her character was in CS2. I have a theory that Falcom used Celine as a way to split Emma’s role cause they need to sell Alisa as the “main heroine” but then Falcom in CS4 gave Emma the most powerful Bonding event in the series 🤨. I don’t care about ships and waifus but her entire interaction with Rean during the Bonding is very strong.
Fie: She is a very consistent character in all 4 games. Her role in the story is a bit limited to herself and Zephyr but I still think she have the best maturity growth in ColdSteel. And her bondings are Very Good. I think she have a better Brother/Sister relation with Rean but that’s my opinion.
Olivier: Olivier
6-10 (Not in Order)
Ash
Juna
Lianne
Rean
Valimar
After the curse’s plot I think Osborne don’t deserve to be in top 10. His character during Sky/Crossbell is very interesting but Cs3/CS4 killed the character. He still have a very important presence in the main story but not a good one IMO.
Sorry for any typo. I’m not very good with ✍️ in English.
My only problem with Altina was that she was a romance option
You're not the only one.
Though that's less of a problem with Altina herself, and more the writers going overboard with the bonding events.
Yeah, it was really creepy.
I was creeped out by many of the romance options in CSIV honestly. I just don't see Rean perving on his students or his sister and the only 'younger' option for him is Fie in my mind.
FBI intensifies
Yeah, and it's a reason why I didn't include many bonding events in the commentary. I wanted to keep it mostly tied to the main story. If I had to draw on a bonding event, it would generally be because I absolutely had to in order to say anything meaningful (Alfin), or I felt it lended better to the main point being made. But the final bonding event I just disregard completely.
I see lot of people saying that fault to Altina was her romantic side towards Rean that was developed in the game, and I can see why, the age difference is there and it is something that normally I would agree with, in this game though? I couldn't disagree more, the writing Falcom shows is simply too on point here, the first hints at her feelings I suppose is more of personal choice, but the actual final bonding event and romance event in Mishilam? How can people dislike that?
The moment when Altina arrives to talk with Rean, realizing how she feels and breaking down in tears because she doesn't 'want him to just be with some fake who can't even understand her own feelings'? That was such a beautiful moment, the whole event was handled so amazingly, from her breaking down, Rean consoling her, her finally accepting her own feelings and that she is no longer just some fake. That scene was absolutely perfect and had me crying more than once over it, it is beautiful finale for her development and awakening actual emotions in herself despite being designed to have none.
And it was actually handled perfectly in regards to them actually being together too, him stating pretty clearly that he appreciates her feelings but they are teacher and student and as such they cannot be together in such way, and that if she still feels same once she is older and no longer his students that he will give her his answer, it was handled amazingly for a romance with age difference, because yes, 9,9/10 times these kind of relationships and romances are handled poorly and become creepy. This one though? It is anything but that, I guess in the end it does depend still on personal taste but I cannot disagree more with people calling that relationship creepy personally.
I 100% understand people seeing Altina as daughter or little sister, both are perfectly valid options that I can get behind myself, but I don't think people should simply disregard the romantic side in this relationship either, it is sweet and wholesome, as one youtuber I watched said and pretty much perfectly described the whole event 'It is extremely commital in the things it should and non-commital in things that would make it weird', and he was one of the people who felt like it will be weird one as well, but surprise surprise, he changed his mind to point of considering making it his canon choice
I just think that people should not disregard something simply because it is generally considered strange, and should give it a chance, I am glad I went with Altina as my personal choice on my first playthrough, I love the development and personality of this girl, and she honestly deserves it probably more than any other choice maybe besides Towa, Altina and Towa are imo the two closest to Rean, Towa because she genuinely understands him and he understands her. And Altina because her growth would never happen if it weren't for Rean, and in same merit, Altina helped Rean grow as a person too
Don't have an official count but pretty sure the word "partner" gets said more in Rean Altina dialog than any other character with Rean.
I really liked Arianrhod! She was really cool, I liked her design and I really liked her story/motivations. Another Anguis that I saw that isn't really evil. Funny enough, I've only seen one Anguis who was evil and that was back in Sky(haven't played the Crossbell games yet) though they were really entertaining to me with how evil they are. I always wanted to hear Cherami Leigh in the Trails games and man, I didn't expect her to voice this one but I'm glad she did. She made her sound reat imo!
I liked Ash from Day 1! He didn't give no shits and I loved that but he had more underneath. I loved his character arc and his convos with other characters. The twist with him near the end of CS3 I'll never forget and I really liked how his English VA preformed it. He's my 3rd favorite of the New Class VII under Altina and Musse.
I really liked Valimar! How could I not like a talking badass robot from the past that holds part of the power of a great treasure. That's why it really hurt seeing him go. Valimar gave Rean a way to stand out among the other Protags but now that he's gone Rean doesn't have that stand out trait, unless he still has his Ogre power which I really hope he does cause that power is so cool to just lose like that too.
Fie is pretty high up there for me too and Emma is pretty nice too so I can accept where they're placed.
Crow's my man. I'm REALLY happy that he came back and came back to life even. I feel like he deserved to after all he went through and it was all for nothing. At least now, he can live a life of peace instead of a life of revenge. I really liked his design as Azure Seigfried though. ^_^
Man, Rean is much lower than I thought but it's fine, Rean is at the top tier group of favorite Trails characters and my favorite protag so far! I relate to him a lot in wanting to find a place to belong and feeling negative about myself that and I really love his sword skills and his final S-Craft was SOOO awesome! I'm also really glad he got become a Divine Blade. The man deserved it. I still really hope he has his Ogre powers so he has something that makes him stand out from the other protags, Estelle being the only girl protag, Joshua being an ex Ouroboros member, Kevin being a Dominion, and Lloyd being a normal guy but with insane amounts of strong will and determination(well, that's the vibe I get off of him from CS2 and 4 at least. Haven't played the Crossbell games yet.)
My girl Atina, okay I can be happy with her being number 1. I loved her since day 1(I say that a lot lol) but I knew that she would grow and that was what I wanted to see and boy did I see it. I'm really happy she got a happy ending and that she'll have a bright future as one of Zemuria's Legendary Heroes! Also she's my best girl in Cold Steel tied with Millium and they're both 2nd best girl in the series over all though they are 2nd only to a certain purple-haired angel. ^_^
amazing top 10 guys and the most deserved #1 ever!
Well, I was writing a text wall talking in detail about every character in this top 10, but the comments somehow got deleted before I pressed "comment", so now I don't feel like rewriting everything. Dammit youtube.
Long story short:
10. Arianrhod: Cool. Good.
9. Ash: Mostly agree with video. Probably not top 10 for me, but still great and probably top 15.
8. Valimar: I like Valimar but I feel he's incredibly overrated by being number 8. I would also like to have a figure of him since his design is really cool. He's a nice character, particularly in CS3, but I feel he's very, very far from being top 10. I probably wouldn't have even considered him for this ranking (as it was originally intended), but once here, he probably wouldn't make even my top 30, maybe not even my top 40.
7. Emma: One of the better characters from Class VII, but wouldn't make my top 10 either. Mostly agree with video here.
6. Rean: He pretty much has to be top 10 as the protagonist. Not his biggest fan, but I like him a lot better in 3 and 4. He's a bit too much the center of attention to a point I feel it's a detriment to him. Being in the spotlight is good, but being in the spotlight too much can also burn you.
5. Fie: My favorite original Class VII character. Still not a top 5 character in my opinion. My favorite character design starting from Cold Steel 2. One of the original Class VII members that managed to keep herself relevant. Still suffered from being in a class with a bit too many characters and again, Rean stealing a lot of the available screentime through the 4 games.
4. Osborne: Amazing antagonist. Imposing even when not on screen. One of the few characters that just steals the show whenever he's on screen. He's 4th and I would still rank him higher. I consider him a valid choice for number 1 even (though I do think our number 1 is also valid choice). Jouji Nakata as his japanese voice actor was pure perfection.
3. Olivier: Maybe my favorite Kiseki character. Just like Osborne, he steals the show whenever he's on screen. It's amazing how he's the character the most game appearances, only missing Zero so far. He's the reason Class VII came to be, he's a big figure of the mighty Erebonia. Has the soul of a bard, but he's very intelligent. He's the reason class VII is even there, which means he's pretty much the reason Cold Steel exists as an arc. Everyone and their mothers knew he survived the explosion, but he still managed to make a grand entrance in Cold Steel 4.
2. Crowe: Favorite male character in Class VII, both new and all. Love his personality and he does have a very good development. He's obviously very important to the plot of Cold Steel as a whole, even going through various roles in it. That said, all of his deaths and resurrections do bother me, not only because I don't really buy it, but because of stuff like Crowe coming back all the time, it's impossible to think for even a second that someone died in the Corageous explosion. At this point, we know characters are just gonna survive everything the throw at them, and that's very bad going forwards. I do hope this changes in Hajimari and/or Kuro. Also agree his role in Cold Steel 3 was unimpressive. Of course, the whole dying thing doesn't apply to him only. This is a general problem that was very present through all of Cold Steel. Definitely not a top 2 for me, but obviously still a key, likeable character in Cold Steel.
1. Altina: Altina is indeed Falcom at its best in character development. Just like I rant about original class VII being way too big, Altina really made use of her smaller class to get more screentime and develop stronger bonds instead of a lot of weak bonds (even if they're supposed to be strong in game). She went from being a fairly boring antagonist in Cold Steel 2, to being kind of an intriguing sidekick on the epilogue of the same game, to gaining massive delopment in the next 2 games. She's the best of the great New Class VII and in two games she really developed in such way that I can only agree with considering her the best character in the Cold Steel arc, even if she makes no appearances in Cold Steel 1 and isn't very relevant in Cold Steel 2. Out of every single character in Cold Steel, I think she had the best chemistry with Rean, of course, closer to a father-daughter relationship than a waifu-husbando one. Actually if Rean grew on me in Cold Steel 3 and 4, it's probably mostly thanks to Altina. And this is another great thing about this cute little girl: Not only she had an amazing growth as a character, but she also made other characters shine, which is something even more difficult to achieve. A very well deserved number 1 spot. Altina might just be the best Cold Steel character, and she's a top tier Kiseki character as a whole. I can only hope we get more of her in future games.
And yes, this is the very short version of what I had written before.
As a shameless fanboy of Emma, she deserves top 10. She's too underappreciated!
I think Emma deserved her spot, but Fie didn't. Fie was top tier in CS1-2. Her sarcastic lines, unorthodox nature and background made her stand out. But I barely noticed her in these 2 games. Her personality didn't shine through as much and now she fully fits in with the others and was rarely relevant to the plot.
Emma is my favorite old class member after Rean. She's the most mature in the class and more of an observer, so she rarely shaped the narratives. What makes her interesting is that she have a lot of depth and mystique and she actually starts revealing a lot of her secrets. I also like her supportive relationship with Rean more than any of the other relationships from the old class, so I was always glad to have her around. I think Emma is also popular because she represents that cute bookworm girl archetype really well. It's all the pieces together that makes her popular. She stands out unlike pretty much all the other old class mates. I think they handled a few other characters pretty well, like Jusis and Gaius, but they're a bit too one-dimensional. Emma, Millium and Gaius are the only ones that actually gets better in 3-4.
I like the Osborne is not evil twist, because it actually makes sense with how he was portrayed. Osborne never comes across as evil in the scenes that he's in. We only get that perception because that's how many characters and the overall narrative describes him.
The one complaint I have about Osborne is the reincarnation thing. I remember speculating that he was Dreichels or his ancestor back in CS1-2, but I couldn't put the pieces together.
Reincarnation felt too supernatural as an explanation to just accept without further explanation. This might be a cultural thing though, since Buddhism had a large role in Japan's history.
I agree about what you said about Crow. He wasn't as prominent as in the first games. He might still deserve a lower end top 5 spot though.
I think the top 4 picks all belong in the top 5, and Rean should be there as well. But Ash and Juna should be right behind them followed by Musse, Celine and Emma.
When it's localized will you do Reverie?
6:30 I think it's because of TWO BIG REASONS(if you know what i mean....) and that hat of hers.
Mostly the hat though?
@@TheKisekiNut Obviously, that's like 95% of the reason she is that high in the ranking.
So I see that Cold Steel 1 and 2 are out for Switch but not in English. I'm just getting into Trails and I'd like to play in order on Switch. It doesn't look like Trails in the Sky is going to make it so I'm watching playthroughs on UA-cam. But since Zero and Azure were announced im going to wait to play Cold Steel. Im not sure if i should pick up CS 1 and 2 or just wait and see if they get the translation. I mean it already exists, is Xseed just mad they got dropped for NIS?
Personality think juna and Musse should have broke into the top 10
Emma has more uploads in Rule 34 than all other girls in class 7. Enough said.
And at number 1
The puppet leading show stealing
Heart winning snow haired queen
Altina I can only imagine how she'd react to winning top honors in popularity
ValiBRO is in the rankings.... NICE
Great choice for the top three... I like all of them .. however the only thing I did not like about Altina was how falcom was building up her romantic feelings for Rean .. they were not necessary at all.. I hated seeing her participating in the Rean harem to the point it made me dislike her a little..
I wished they build her relationship with Rean to be how it is with Millium and Jusis .. also I think personally that Millium should be up on the ranks.. she is so underrated..
Solid agree, I really hated the romance pushing on altina towards the very end. Even if it was a bit of a Renne rehash, i see really no reason why she couldnt have simply been adopted into the Schwarzer house or something. Rather, it would seem like a kind of natural sequence of events.
I may be an unforgiveable sinner here but as much as I adore Altina, she is not my favorite character in that arc. Close second to my first, Ash, for sure though. Olivier may be my favorite in the series overall but I wouldn't have ranked him this high in that arc.
Overall things I'd add for characters in this are that I definitely loved Rean a whole lot more in 3&4 than 1&2 and was pleasantly surprised at the end of the first field study when he was scolding his class. He really took into that role as an instructor.
I also loved that Ash just always had the line to say that everyone behind the screen playing was thinking. I honest to god bursted out laughing when he refered to Victor Arseid as "an edgelord" in the midst of everyone admiring the man.
Also the reason I see Emma and Fie this high up in the rankings, I'm "sorry, not sorry" to claim but I 100% believe it's because waifu bias. I don't specifically dislike any of them because of it but I believe Falcom did wrong on some occasions on these character by trying to force the waifu potential. Platonic friendships exist, they're not a far-fetched concept and some of these characters imo would have been so much better had they not been a part of the Harem. And in my controversial belief, Fie really should never have been an option.
CS3/4 are technically better at the platonic friendships between males and females than CS1/2, if only because of Juna and Kurt (Japan voted their relationship at 8 out of 30 for CS4). Though as I've stated many times before, a romance between them and Juna having a platonic admiration for Rean is something I would've preferred over Juna "joining Rean's harem."
P.S. The Rean/Juna relationship was voted 23 out of 30, and Kondo admitted in an interview that he surprised that more people didn't get Juna's trophy, which the interviewer speculated (jokingly or otherwise) that maybe some people weren't comfortable with Rean romancing his student.
@@shinnbidan7536 I knew that there was an overall ship popularity poll but there was a poll for rating each ship as well?
@@shadefti8684 Okay, I'm a bit confused as to what you're asking.
After Cold Steel IV's release, there was a poll to determine various fan opinions: "who's the strongest character," favorite battle, favorite S-Craft, ect. One of the polls was "favorite relationships (not necessarily romantic ones)." here's the page for the top 20, if you can read Japanese: i.imgur.com/7KzV4SE.jpg
At some other point, there was an interview with Falcom President Kondo, and among the various questions asked, the interviewer pointed out that Alisa seemed to be the most popular pair/trophy gotten (can't remember which), which didn't surprise Kondo; he even called her the "王道 heroine," which I'm not sure how to translate, but I guess has to do with her being the main heroine. He then admits that he expected Juna to be more popular than she ended up being (and I'm pretty sure he was referring to a shipping sort of way).
Don't remember where I saw the interview, though, so I imagine I'd have to search for it.
@@shinnbidan7536 I can't help but feel good seeing Rean and Crow being the top pick and Machias and Jusis being really high up. Especially the latter XD.
Ema is Reans Awakening guide. She has The most important role besides Rean. She has the best bonding events outside of maybe jusis. She is the most likely choice to be reans love interest if it werent for them almost forcing Alissa on you. and last but certainly not least she has the best rack out of all of class 7
She's MEANT to be his guide as an Awakener, but that role is mostly done by Celine. I didn't see too many of her bonding events either.
Celine was more of a guide to Rean really. Also, Emma's bonding events really didn't do much for me at all. Her Cold Steel IV events were pretty good, but her earlier ones don't stick out in my mind much. Emma isn't a bad character but I really don't think she belongs in the top 10.
@@DevilHunter1994 ya well yall trashed a lot of the characters that belonged in higher rankings. Elliot 3 from the bottom? That's disgusting.
@@TheKisekiNut she did though. She guided him in cs1 Celine only fills in in cs2 because she had to. And in terms of the bonding events 3 and 4 are really good to emma
@@Jarjarfunk Elliot really doesn't get to do a lot in Cold Steel III or IV, so him being near the bottom makes sense. His one moment to shine came in Act 2 of Cold Steel IV and to be honest if felt like we were retreading old ground with him, with him wanting to show his father just how much he has grown...which he already did in Cold Steel II.
I'm really surprised people voted Altina higher than Juna, I personally think Juna had way better dialogue lines.
Altina's personality change was interesting but it did not lead her to accomplish anything special, whereas Juna ends up being a leader and fights for both Erebonia and Crossbell.
Because Altina is best daughter. I really like Juna too. But if I had to save 1 of them from death, Altina no doubt. Sorry Juna...
I don't think their will ever be a mc that divides a fandom more than rean
I don't get why everyone like Crow so much. I replayed cold steel 1 and 2 again and a lot of his actions are unforgivable for me. He endangered innocent people only to reach his own selfish goals. Like when the class was in Roer. He never shows any remorse for his actions outside of his bondings events. I tolerate him but i don't really like him. Overall I think it would be better if he stayed dead.
crow have a awesome personailtes like randy,olivert,wazy,lechter there are very similar of personalites wise im a huge fan of them
I didn't get it either, until CS4. I seriously didn't care at all about him for 3 games. Then it suddenly clicked. He's still not one of my favourites, but I do like him now. I'll definitely be using him when I replay CS1
Rean , Laura, The Radiant Blade Master and the Principal are the best characters in the game.
Well, they were my main four in CS4s true final battle.
About Emma, really for her to be in the top 10 was for waifu material XD, yes she has great importance for the story, but as you said in the other video this was stolen by Celline.
I must agree with Fie's part, which could have developed this relationship with Rutger a lot more and also didn't deserve this top 5...
Now about Rean, for me CS4 was very problematic, if I hadn't gotten used to Shonen anime, I would have dropped the game XD jokes aside, every time using the motivational speech takes its weight off it, and by far the top 1 was deserved.
PS: In general, I think the game could have deaths to give more impact, not that plot twists haven't already,, but you see a war of this magnitude going on, and that doesn't happen is kind of strange, Victor as already mentioned in Previous videos would be a good example, even Crow too, as much as the character is still alive, takes some of the weight out of this scene.
i'm serprised crow didn't get a lower score beceuse of his azure sigfried part but i'm not complaining he was stil my faverite character even after azure sigfried i was also serprised with emma being so high i love her a lot she is probebly in my top 10 trails girls but i thought she would be lower i realy like her personalety she is very relateble even if you don't see it much outside of bonding events but i personaly don't see why it's a problem fie realy doesn't serprise me being so high she is easely the most populare girl in trails except maiby estelle from whet i have seen in the community but i also thought musse was populair and emma wasn't so i don't know as much as i would like from the community
I think part of Fie's charm is the English voice actress who plays her. All of her lines are gold.
@@Lennis01 yeach her anglish va is realy good probebly one of my faverite's al her characters have amazing voice acting I'm always more hyped when I see she is voicing somewhone and than they end up in my faverite list most of the time
The reason I can guess and Fie put it tactfully in TOCS: "It's the power of the boobs!" regarding Emma being in the top ten.
I think the bonding events are why shes so high, it adds so much to her character and the lengths she will go to for rean, emma and rean are the cannon romance in my head
@@chrisradford4079 Alisa and Rean are the cannon romance but many have joined the resistance and have their own ideal romance partner in mind for our boi Rean.
@@chrisradford4079 I really never saw the big factor with the lengths Emma was going. After all the old class VII already collectively proofed that they were ready to put their lives on the line for Rean at the end of CS 1...
I really want to See this Video but still have to finish Part 2
nice i guessed the top 4
Getting reminded of what happened to her.(Lianne)......... ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....UGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
Counting the day till valimar figure/kit happen, pls falcom
I'd happily buy a Valimar plamo!
To answer your question on top waifus:
Emma: is the embodiment of waifu and has fun powers
Fie: fun personality, interesting background, evasion tank goes dodge
Where's bestelle or Lloyd (and sss lol hope you mention their involvement in hajamari, tho I know Randy and tits is on that "represent" gang lol)
yay! Daughter made number 1!!
Você poderia fazer um rank dos personagens mais fortes com base na lore
Top 10 scores with the completely arbitrary nonsensical weightings removed (because in no world should emma rank above arianrhod):
altina 43.21
crow 41.94
olivert 41.57
giliath 41.06
fie 39.86
rean 39.68
arianrhod 39.00
emma 38.65
valimar 38.51
ash 38.39
I feel like Fie is honestly still kinda carried by a decent chunk of waifu factor of sorts, people have been soft and lenient on her since CS1 and meta-wise she basically can carry the party through the series. But yea, besides her still being above arianrhod, valimar and ash, i can dig this order a lot more.
YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!
Altina the white haired loli reigns supreme!
Bow before her flat chest and surprisingly thick thighs!
PS: Awww... Fie is only 5th? I guess not all flat chested lolis are made equal.