Trails of Cold Steel
This morning, everybody else was being reasonable. And by "reasonable" I mean "cowards." We have a train to catch tonight, sure, but how hard can investigating a robbery be? A few hours at most to track it down. Instructor Sara has given us the freedom to pursue our own initiatives, so it's on. Luckily, my natural leadership skills easily convince the others. The fact that we're armed with state-of-the-art ARCUSes so that we can pretty much wreck random civilian robbers should it come to blows probably helps steady my compatriot's courage. And if they actually can fight back, hey, Laura, we'll be riiiiight behind you.
Of course, while Laura... uh, we... wreck the thieves well enough, there has to be an unpleasant surprise out to make me sleep in the dirt. Repeatedly. Mostly just me, although Laura once too. I guess this was on me, so fair enough. That was pretty brazen of the (real bad guys) at the end though... like, if they were gonna shoot us, fine, but don't practically announce your evil plan then leave us alive. Ah well. Luckily my compatriots also snarked at this idiocy, so I'm in good company. Then we got Deus Ex Machina saved, but the narrative acknowledged that too and said something was up and the timing was way too convenient, so I'll take it, whoever this guardian angel looking over our shoulder is.
--
C1 boss was actually pretty awesome. The first fight lures out Laura's S-Craft, so I'm not set to insta-gib the fairly badass support the real boss brings. The actual boss is super-huge and gets stuck on his support, which is some of the good news, I guess, although it becomes annoying later when his big body is literally blocking the way to go revive Rean's corpse and the like. Anyway, actual boss has very badass 2HKO area damage on his physical (spread out!), full MT 4HKO w/ Seal (luckily, I block Seal on the two characters I care about for this, so who cares), and OHKO-anyone-even-with-defense-buffs to try to stop too much stally stratz. Healing a lot and waiting for S-Crafts was still solid, although attempting to apply Burn was also good, since the percentage health damage is pretty huge for a boss, like 2000 a tick. Had to use some revival items after Alisa ran out of EP, but eh, that's what they're there for.
This is a silly and minor nitpick, but is a setting adjustment, Falcom clearly wanted things to be a bit more modern so sure we have a freaking COMPUTER LAB at school. Oh well, I'll forgive it, for all that this doesn't fit with Trails in the Sky where that kinda stuff was reserved for Zemurians, Ouroborous, and the Russel family. Also, similar to Trails in the Sky SC C8, I like that the academic question on what exactly the super-powerful orbal tech for military use is - yeah, it's communications. Deadliest weapon a soldier has is a radio, after all. (Or, nowadays, a cell phone.)
As another random thought, Class VII is supposed to be a bit special because it's integrated across class lines. But tons of other stuff seems integrated too...? Like, sure, there's separate classes and people being snooty, but said classes mix all the time and have unified clubs and extracurricular activities and other such stuff. So Class VII isn't THAT shocking.
--
Sopko: Yeah, I dunno. Guess I'll find out soon enough, FOR SCIENCE. I guess Elliot's staff damage is more relevant than I'd expect thanks to ARCUS links.
CK: So it seems indeed. Well glad Our Heroes recognize that they're being given Bracer tasks, at least. I see that the story finally remembered to introduce Chancellor Osbourne for people who didn't play Sky. Bit o' slow-rolling there.
