CS4 Summary

[fiddlestick]

WARNING: This guide goes on the assumption you've played Cold Steel 1 & 2 and have read the CS3 Summary. Spoilers ahoy.

SEN NO KISEKI 4/TRAILS OF COLD STEEL 4
Aka: Time for Everyone to Fight their Dad

Fair warning, since the game only came out a few weeks ago, details are still being slowly translated so this won't cover EVERYTHING.

BASIC PREMISE
CS4 takes place right after the events of CS3 and covers the span of a month. Erebonia is now at war with Calvard, demonic corruption is spreading across the country and basically it's the end of the world. So it's up to Class VII & Friends to gather as many allies as possible to put a stop to this.

The game is divided into a prologue, three chapters, one intermission, and a finale - so kinda like CS2, but no long epilogue. In the first chapter you play as New and Old Class VII sans Rean, and then Chapter 2 Rean and Crow (finally) rejoin the party for the rest of the game. There's a ton of guest characters too, and times where you run those characters in dungeons. It's not Chrono Cross level of party size, but it gets pretty big.

RETURNING CHARACTERS
Note: Unless there's a major change, I'm not going to bother listing off characters I already listed for CS3. Elliot's still a musician, Sara's still an alcoholic.

CLASS VII

Rean: Starts the game very much stuck in demon mode. He's seen better days. He's trapped in the Black Workshop until Class VII goes to save him. After they save him and bring back his sanity, he's stuck with white hair and red eyes thanks to the curse being all over the land. Also if you use demon mode for too long in battle, you lose control of him until someone heals him.

Millium: Is now a sword. Eventually they are able to communicate with her spirit, but not for most of the game.

Crow: Thanks to his memories coming back, he's now ride or die with Class VII. He likes to lean a bit too much on the die part thanks to now being basically undead. But hey, at least he's trying hard to be a better person than he was before.

Celine: Turns out she can turn into a human form sometimes. Not sure if this is a new ability or if she just never bothered because she's lazy. Could be either. Technically she's playable, but considering she has one single craft...not sure why you would. And no. You can't romance the cat.

OTHERS

Duvalie: Decides to leave Ouroboros when she realizes the current plan could end the world. She joins the group along with Crow because apparently he just befriends lesbians.

Rufus: Still a thot, but turns out to be the final (AND I MEAN FINAL) awakener. Fucking hell.

McBurn: Finally learn what's up with him. He isn't human, but actually a full demon with amnesia until fighting Class VII causes him to remember. He comes from another realm, arriving in Zemuria along with the Salt Pale disaster that destroyed Sara's homeland. Also apparently has an insane drinking tolerance, according to Crow who was dumb enough in the civil war to try to outdrink him. He leaves after he regains his memories, and that'll probably be someone else's problem eventually.

Claire & Lechter: This is them the whole game.

NEW CHARACTERS
All of these have appeared in previous games. But this is the first time they're in Cold Steel, so they're going here. Most of them are in supporting roles to the plot only.

Team Sky/Liberl: A group of mostly Bracers who came to investigate what's going on in Erebonia. They want to help stop things because end of world is bad, Olivert is their friend, and Liberl is high on the list of countries for Erebonia to invade. Members include:

Estelle: Bracer and defacto leader of their team.

Joshua: Estelle's boyfriend. Bracer and the other remaining survivor of Hamel.

Cassius: Estelle's dad. Former Bracer and current general to Liberl. Divine Blade in 8-Leaves Style.

Schera: Former circus performer turned Bracer. Has had a long time relationship with Olivert (and maybe Mueller too ITS HARD TO TELL WITH THESE THREE).
Other members: Josette, Agate, Tita, Renne, Kloe.

Team Zero/Crossbell: A group of mostly police who are mostly there to try to get Crossbell's independence, and you know, stop the world from ending.

Lloyd: Police officer and defacto leader of their team.

KeA: An artificial child like Millium and Altina, but made by someone else. She was intended to hold the power of the mirage Sept-Terrion and used to have the power to warp time. No longer has that power.
Other members: Elie, Tio, Randy

TERMS TO KNOW

"The Curse": The demonic corruption that's spreading across Erebonia. When afflicted, it amplifies your negative emotions or mental fallacies and can trap a person in a mental loop, eventually allowing them to be controlled by a demonic force or simply become way more aggressive. Animals affected can just turn into very demonic looking monsters. You can catch the curse any number of ways - exposure to the flowers or tainted items, even hearing tainted music can infect you. Elliot's capable of curing mild/recent cases of curse/corruption ... somehow (Look I don't know how his powers work okay, just say it's because his mom's Rihanna). More severe cases usually need anything from a stern talk to help them break the mental loop to a stern ass-whooping.

Divine Knight Smashy Highlander Vore Time: There is a slight chance this is not the official term. So basically divine knights were built to battle each other. When a divine knight defeats another one, it will absorb the loser's power and the losing divine knight will merge with it. If the Awakener is alive and never died, they'll be fine when this happens. However if the Awakener is undead, they get absorbed with their knight and die for realises as their lifeforce was tied to the knight. The whole reason Vita wanted Crow and Rean to fight in CS2 was to do a test run to see if this rumor was true and have Ouroboros use the victor, but Cayenne messed everything up. Now they are doing it in hopes they can use it to help save the world.

Awakeners
(just to help keep track)

Rean	Ashen	Valimar	Alive
Crow	Azure	Ordine	Undead
Cedric	Vermillion	Testa-Rossa	Alive
Rutger	Palatinate	Zector	Undead
Arianrhod	Silver	Argreion	Undead
Rufus	Gold	El-Plado	Alive
Osborne	Black	Ishmelga	(actually a fake knight. It's really the source of the curse posing as a divine knight)

BIG PLOT POINTS
This will not cover everything as things are still getting translated.

Prologue/Chapter 1

Right after the end of CS3, Osborne teleports Rean and himself out of there, Celine and Crow get dragged with probably by accident. Musse decides to vacate on her own, revealing she's in cahoots with Vita to her classmates. Emma and Roselia manage to escape with the rest of Class VII and Randy. Juna, Kurt and Altina pass out because of exposure to something. They had to Emma's hometown, Elin Village, as it's magically hidden.

In the meantime, Erebonia's gone nuts and is now preparing for war. There's military parades in Heimdallr and everything.

Meanwhile in Crossbell, a combo of Team Sky and Team Zero attempt to raid a place to get information on wtf is going on. They managed to get some info, but have to flee when Alberich, Claire and another Ouroboros member show up.

Two weeks later, the kiddos wake up and find OG VII (and Randy) are still reeling from everything that happened and haven't done much yet. One shonen speech later, they snap out of it and the Old and New Class VII decides to work together.

They split up into teams to investigate different parts of the empire. The kiddos do some training and recovery with Roselia and Randy before heading out to check out Saint Ark. They eventually find Ash in Hamel, who decided to head there to die because he feels like his entire life got controlled by his curse. Kurt manages to snap him out of it and he rejoins the team.

The kids are then attacked by Jaegers. They get saved by Elliot, Fie and Sara who had finished up their mission early and came to check on them. They all head back to Elin except for Randy who decided to stay with some other Thors II students who don't have adult supervision.

After a free day, they head out to another region with either Elliot, Fie or Sara as adult supervision. Bunch of stuff happen, and eventually they encounter Musse. Juna convinces her to come back.

Meanwhile Crow explores the Black Workshop with Duvalie in tow. Finds that Angelica is alive...but she's got one of those memory-suppressing masks on. Frick.

Class VII heads to check out Crossbell next, this time with other members of OG VII because I guess Auntie Sara needs a drink or something. A bunch of stuff happens like finding out Rufus is an awakener and running into Sharon.

Intermission

Class VII finally get an idea on where Rean is, and go to save him. Crow has the same idea but does it gayer, and Duvalie is just along for the ride.

There's a bunch of showdowns, but they manage to get Rean back to sanity eventually through the power of friendship and beating the crap out of him.

All of them manage to escape, but Crow and Duvalie decide to part ways for a bit. Crow tells them to meet him at a shrine later. The rest head back to Elin.

Chapter 2

After resting up, Rean rejoins the party and goes back to being MC.

Gaius, able to make contact with the church, borrows an airship from them and becomes acting captain.

They head to the shrine where Crow is, and Crow challenges Rean once again, making it sound like it's a test of strength or something. In truth, he's planning to die via Divine Knight Smashy Highlander Vore Time so Rean can have his power. When they realize what's happening and Crow starts to fade, Rean rejects the idea so hard that he ties their life-forces together to save Crow. Via hugging. It's real gay. Afterwards, Crow joins the party for good.

Afterwards they start traveling around Erebonia and do a lot of stuff to help fight against the curse and gather more allies/resources. I won't list off everything because there's a lot but some important results are as followed:

They rescue Towa and break Angelica's mask so her memories come back. Both rejoin the team.

They beat up the entire 4th Division and Olaf to help save Alfin and get them to join their side.

Retake Thors II campus I think. Something with Elise, idk.

Eventually the different factions that are on team good decide to meet up and discuss a strategy for how to beat all this. They all meet up on the Pantagruel. While they're there, the ship gets attacked and they have to defend it. Olivert and Toval turns out to be alive and has a new airship (though Olivert lost an eye), they'd just been quietly gathering resources. Victor is also alive but lost his arm...and also has one of those masks on. Welp.

Chapter 3

So they start using the Courageous II as their airship probably because you're not allowed to canoodle on Gaius's holy ship. They do more of going around and helping out around the country.

Along the way they find out the truth of what's going on: there's a demon/evil thing named Ishmelga that's been manipulating so much shit like corrupting the Gnomes, making a deal with Osborne to save his son, causing the curse, etc etc. Also Osborne is the reincarnation of Drechiel. Sure. Why not.

They face down George and Sharon. Afterwards they convince Sharon to come back to the Reinford family. George shakes out of his curse and tries to kill himself, but Angelica and Crow stop him.

Eventually they decide it is time to do plan Divine Knight Smashy Highlander Vore Time (i don't know how they came to this decision). First they go after Rutger. They beat him and they try to save him the same way they saved Crow, but Rutger rejects the idea because he's all about the yolo jaeger life. Or he's not ready to be the third wheel in their soul marriage, who knows. Anyway, he dies after a sweet goodbye moment with Fie.

More stuff happens, and eventually they need to help Crossbell out. Elliot and Crow plan a large concert with a bunch of other musicians to distract the troops in Crossbell while the rest of the group does a covert mission. It works and they're able to save Crossbell as well as Victor.

Next up in plan Divine Knight Smashy Highlander Vore Time is Arianrhod. They find out that Arianrhod was actually good all along and knew Osborne was cursed, but she was hoping to stop things from the inside. They convince her to join their side and survive the same way Crow did ....but Rufus pops up and kills her, absorbing her life and power. She does leave them something that allows them to talk to Millium from her sword though (I think).

Then the big plan to cause the end of the world appears. Six giant masses of salt appear hanging over different cities of Erebonia, the largest being over Heimdallr, ready to drop and destroy the land. At this time, Erebonia also announces intent to invade literally everyone.

Finale

All the different factions have a meeting about their plan. They work something out with many different groups chiming in to join for their own reasons (from heroism to "i'm one of the idiots that lives on this planet"). Afterwards, they decide to have one last peaceful night at an amusement park in Crossbell so they can be ready for tomorrow.

During that night, Cassius tells Rean that their sword teacher asked him to test him. He ends up passing the test and earns the title of Divine Blade.

Olivert proposes to Schera.

The next day after some final sidequests, they kick off the plan. Five teams go to tackle the smaller targets, while Class VII goes after the big one.

They face off Claire and Lechter and finally break them of their curse. They pass out.

They face off with Cedric and steal his robot. He manages to break himself of his curse and realizes what a horrible person he's been. Then he passes out.

They face off with Rufus and steal his robot too. Jusis punches him out. Feels good man.

Also some Ouroboros fights, whatever.

Finally they confront Osborne and fight it out. They beat him and Osborne dies, but Ishmelga possess Valimar and in order to defeat Ishmelga once and for all - Rean, Crow and Millium sacrifice themselves in front of everyone and credits roll.

However after the credits finish, the game will ask you to save clear data and reload. When you do, it'll take you back to your last save before the osborne fight, and you'll have a new quest. You get a call from Toval, KeA, and Beryl - aka the fortune teller occult girl from Thors. They ask you to complete one extra mission that gives Rean divine protection. Somehow, time's been rewound.

This time after the Osborne fight, Rean is able fend off Ishmelga and everyone shows up for one last boss battle against Ishmelga/The Great One. once it's defeated, they're able to destroy the curse once and for all.

Franz/Alberich passes away (probably because he's been possessed for too long?), but has some nice words with Alisa.

Crow along with the Divine Knights start to save, but they use the last of their energy to make him alive alive.

Rufus goes to jail, Crossbell regains independence, and Erebonia starts to rebuild.

They find a spare body in the Black Workshop and use some magic to put her spirit into that body, so she gets to survive.

The end credits is everyone attending Olivert and Schera's wedding, happy and alive.