You know, I honestly kind of hate the term "flawed masterpiece". It's extremely overused, and often times people don't even really use it correctly.
Truth be told, there's only one game I can confidently hand this fabled accolade to. Trails in the Sky SC.
Sky SC has an extremely strong foundation, beginning right after FC's devastating cliffhanger. And while the prologue to this game is extremely good, what ensuses after well... isn't. See, Sky SC might have one of the most repetitive and mind numbing first halves I've seen in a videogame. It almost entirely consists of investigating odd occurrences throughout Liberl, and finding out who's behind them. It's pretty cool the first like, two times, but it gets old really fucking fast. It's not without its pros though, as there's some really good sequences and character moments interspersed throughout the tedium. On top of that, you have consitent qualities such as the stellar world building, dialogue, combat, and music.
However, when you board The Glorious near the mid point of this game, EVERYTHING changes. Sky SC goes from being pretty okay, to literally being one of the best games ever made. The game kicks into high gear, and pays off everything both it and the previous game set up. At a certain beach scene I thought to myself "Yeah this might be one of the best scenes I've ever seen in a videogame." and then I went on to see this moment get trumped MULTIPLE TIMES during the final act of the game. All of this concludes with an ending that's just like... what the hell do you even want me to say? The back half of this game is legendary, and it blew me away in every aspect.
It's so easy for me to downtalk this game by talking about its first half, which admittedly isn't even as bad as I painted it out to be. However, I can just as easily prop this up as being one of the greatest games ever made by talking about its masterful back half. While I can't just ignore this game's issues, in the end I choose to love and embrace this game for everything it is and what it stands for.
"That's love and peace, baby."
Truth be told, there's only one game I can confidently hand this fabled accolade to. Trails in the Sky SC.
Sky SC has an extremely strong foundation, beginning right after FC's devastating cliffhanger. And while the prologue to this game is extremely good, what ensuses after well... isn't. See, Sky SC might have one of the most repetitive and mind numbing first halves I've seen in a videogame. It almost entirely consists of investigating odd occurrences throughout Liberl, and finding out who's behind them. It's pretty cool the first like, two times, but it gets old really fucking fast. It's not without its pros though, as there's some really good sequences and character moments interspersed throughout the tedium. On top of that, you have consitent qualities such as the stellar world building, dialogue, combat, and music.
However, when you board The Glorious near the mid point of this game, EVERYTHING changes. Sky SC goes from being pretty okay, to literally being one of the best games ever made. The game kicks into high gear, and pays off everything both it and the previous game set up. At a certain beach scene I thought to myself "Yeah this might be one of the best scenes I've ever seen in a videogame." and then I went on to see this moment get trumped MULTIPLE TIMES during the final act of the game. All of this concludes with an ending that's just like... what the hell do you even want me to say? The back half of this game is legendary, and it blew me away in every aspect.
It's so easy for me to downtalk this game by talking about its first half, which admittedly isn't even as bad as I painted it out to be. However, I can just as easily prop this up as being one of the greatest games ever made by talking about its masterful back half. While I can't just ignore this game's issues, in the end I choose to love and embrace this game for everything it is and what it stands for.
"That's love and peace, baby."
Kevin and the White Boy Summer gang save the day from a used condom.
"My Estelle...you shine like the sun"
JRPG is my favorite videogame genre, but the big thing that gets me down about them in general is that:
Most of them present the mechanics and almost everything that you will see during the game in terms of gameplay in the first hours, and proceed to abuse everything to the limit, presenting few new elements.
And most of all, they lack consistency. I'm not even talking about pace, but that often the best passages are given in the first hours or halfway through, and the quality declines as the game progresses. And this is something even more serious when it's a genre where you can easily find games with more than 50 hours of main story alone.
Fortunately, Trails in the Sky SC goes against the grain of these things, being not only one of the most consistent I've played but having perhaps the best second half I've experienced in any game.
The plot improves with each passage of the game, the characters' arcs are all closed in a satisfactory way, the bosses and events of the final stretch are very memorable and the elements of customizing your party and combat progressively evolve over time. It really fails to use the exact same map as the previous game, which is kind of bland and diminishes the potential of what could have been the experience.
Truly a great game and an example of how to make a direct sequel.
This review contains spoilers
While FC had a smaller scope and executed that very competently as setup for this game, SC aims for a greater scope and ambition, with what I think is more flawed execution. It turns into Trails in the Backtracking: Padding Chapter at times, though it generally didn't bother me (yes, even in chapter 8, turn on turbo), other than the final dungeon which was backtracking incarnate in identically looking hallways across multiple floors.
When in FC the game's main villain was most present right at the end and didn't have a very strong dynamic with the cast, though it was serviceable, the FC antagonist group, Ourorobos, are present throughout all of the game. Each member of that group serves as a foil to most people in the main cast, such as Renne for Estelle, Leowe for Joshua, etc. When in FC you had initially episodic stories that didn't connect until the end, you have a central plot from the get-go here. When in FC Joshua's backstory wasn't revealed until the end, it is front and center here. And when in FC the moral/themes of the story don't really come into play until the very end, they are pretty clear here from early on.
So what's the issue? Well, I think it spread itself thin despite having plenty of time to deeply develop all of these things.
I felt like Joshua's exile arc had too little screen time to hit hard before his return. And while Estelle is insanely charismatic and likable, more than my favourite protagonists across fiction, and I like her, I would resonate with other types of protagonists more than pretty much an all-good person. Well-adjusted, hopeful, "bright" protagonists have their place, and I generally like them, but they don't leave a long-lasting impression beyond their personality being charismatic for me. I get that there's a cool dynamic between Estelle and Joshua in the way that she brings him back into the light in a sense, and their romance is fine for me, but I dunno, I just don't care for it that much. Her connection with Joshua and Renne of trying to bring them back to the human side and tell them how to join in on the warmth of human connection is neat, but it doesn't really wow me. The ending was cool, but yeah. Joshua himself seemed to have more potential when he was in his edgelord arc, and his dynamics with Leowe and Weissmann are cool, but again, not enough screen time for them to truly resonate with me.
The supporting cast is much better in this. They all get deeper dynamics, and most of them have their backstories explored more, such as Agate, Schera, and Joshua, of course.
The theme that Weissmann discusses is very interesting, but unfortunately I feel like it was not featured enough to truly resonate with me. The game definitely did have the runtime for it, so I don't know what happened.
Also, what's up with the OST in this game? While some songs, like the opening, are great, I overall felt that the first game's soundtrack had both better and more atmospheric tracks on average, as well as higher highs. The final boss themes in SC feel a little more lowkey and for the worse, in my opinion. Still cool, though.
Overall though, just like FC, definitely a good game, but it didn't blow my mind. I am however excited for 3rd, as Kevin was really cool in what little screen time he had in this game, and Azure, which everyone is excited for at the point in my journey anyway. I think I prefer SC to FC for sure.
When in FC the game's main villain was most present right at the end and didn't have a very strong dynamic with the cast, though it was serviceable, the FC antagonist group, Ourorobos, are present throughout all of the game. Each member of that group serves as a foil to most people in the main cast, such as Renne for Estelle, Leowe for Joshua, etc. When in FC you had initially episodic stories that didn't connect until the end, you have a central plot from the get-go here. When in FC Joshua's backstory wasn't revealed until the end, it is front and center here. And when in FC the moral/themes of the story don't really come into play until the very end, they are pretty clear here from early on.
So what's the issue? Well, I think it spread itself thin despite having plenty of time to deeply develop all of these things.
I felt like Joshua's exile arc had too little screen time to hit hard before his return. And while Estelle is insanely charismatic and likable, more than my favourite protagonists across fiction, and I like her, I would resonate with other types of protagonists more than pretty much an all-good person. Well-adjusted, hopeful, "bright" protagonists have their place, and I generally like them, but they don't leave a long-lasting impression beyond their personality being charismatic for me. I get that there's a cool dynamic between Estelle and Joshua in the way that she brings him back into the light in a sense, and their romance is fine for me, but I dunno, I just don't care for it that much. Her connection with Joshua and Renne of trying to bring them back to the human side and tell them how to join in on the warmth of human connection is neat, but it doesn't really wow me. The ending was cool, but yeah. Joshua himself seemed to have more potential when he was in his edgelord arc, and his dynamics with Leowe and Weissmann are cool, but again, not enough screen time for them to truly resonate with me.
The supporting cast is much better in this. They all get deeper dynamics, and most of them have their backstories explored more, such as Agate, Schera, and Joshua, of course.
The theme that Weissmann discusses is very interesting, but unfortunately I feel like it was not featured enough to truly resonate with me. The game definitely did have the runtime for it, so I don't know what happened.
Also, what's up with the OST in this game? While some songs, like the opening, are great, I overall felt that the first game's soundtrack had both better and more atmospheric tracks on average, as well as higher highs. The final boss themes in SC feel a little more lowkey and for the worse, in my opinion. Still cool, though.
Overall though, just like FC, definitely a good game, but it didn't blow my mind. I am however excited for 3rd, as Kevin was really cool in what little screen time he had in this game, and Azure, which everyone is excited for at the point in my journey anyway. I think I prefer SC to FC for sure.
the more time passes and the more i think about it the more i realize how peak it is
Not as good as the first one in my opinion thanks to weird pacing but it's still absolutely right next to it. I have an embarrassing review of the first one i cba to do this one in detail. Check out my list for more in detail thoughts.
I wasn’t really planning on writing any long form pieces of writing about Trails where I’d go in-depth in relentlessly praising it and talking about how much of a destressing, genuine experience it’s been until I was done with Sky the third because acting like a huge fan of an 11 game long series when I’ve only played 2 games seemed weird, but between the engaging political conflict that’s incredibly ambitious because of the increasing amount of parties with different motivations involved with each conflict, the twists surrounding each conflict, how these political conflicts impact the characters in realistic ways that enforce challenges upon the leading main characters to overcome both on an ideological level and a physical level, the heartwarming large cast full of good for nothing goofy ahh misfits with earnesty and charm filling their banter as much as it fills their genuine moments of emotional vulnerability, the ridiculously large scale amount of global level conflicts being set up for events far into the future with lots of twists and turns and conspiracies that kept me at the edge of my seat at times, the deep lore that’s not too convoluted and is moreso used as a backdrop for kiseki’s characters’ struggles, and most importantly, the human and grounded struggles that characters like Joshua, Estelle, Loewe, and Agate go through that brings this insanely ambitious narrative that covers several continents to a grounded level, it was hard not to scream at the top of my lunges “AHHHHHHHH I LOOOVVVEE TRAIILLSSS I LOOVVEE BRAZIL KONDO MADE A SERIESS THAT’S FOR ME BRUH”
Ok but frfr it’s virtually impossible to write down every single thing I loved about Sky FC/SC, but the best starting point I can think of is the central driving force, that being Joshua and Estelle’s dynamic and how it plays out during the story. There’s a line Joshua says in FC where he tells Estelle to go about expressing her unbridled trust towards her surroundings, her innocence, and to not so much as doubt what’s infront of her and see the darkness within it, practically telling her to avoid seeing the unpleasant side of things and questioning them and to leave the anxiety driven suspicions and doubts to joshua instead because that’s his speciality as an assassin. In a way, Joshua was keeping her vision unclouded, and telling her what he doubts and sees as dangerous to help her avoid making the wrong choice as much as he can. Similarly, at the end of SC, due to Joshua’s self isolationist, self hating tendencies that always look to make him run away from what’s right before him and wallow in his misery because that is more convenient to him than thinking he’s worth other people’s company and troubling them with his presence, Estelle told Joshua that she'll be the one to keep him in check and walk alongside him because Joshua always fails to see the obvious things like people’s love for him, how much they want to be there for him, and how important he is to them, which Estelle regulates by pointing to him these obvious cues and keeping him on the right track. In their own ways, at different points, they covered for each others’ weaknesses, and seeing their method of helping each other out transition from an unhealthy one to a much more empowering one was super poetic. That beautiful, organic transition where Estelle goes from being a naive, innocent dork to an emotionally mature, determined lady with unwavering, grounded optimism and Joshua goes from being a tryhard tough act who pretends to be emotionally mature and determined to a vulnerable, scarred soul trying to walk the right path with the bad bitch he bagged by trauma dumping and correct all the sins he’s made with his previous antics, perfectly sums up why I love their relationship so much. It’s so full of parallels like the one I mentioned yet so opposing, and in their opposition to each other in terms of background, they manage to connect to a spiritual level and works so well as the main force that pushes Sky’s themes about facing your fears and embracing the truth as the guiding light that’ll help you carve your path with others instead of losing it no matter how different you all seem.
All of what I mentioned are things I like to see in media being on full display in Trails, but…what really struck me wasn’t any of the larger than life aspects I mentioned as much as Joshua’s personal struggles did. Drowning in self denial for solace, shifting the responsibilities you’re supposed to uphold by running away from them and attaching them to external sources, hurting others in the process of putting your guilt elsewhere, and self isolating to avoid hurting others as much as possible while maintaining the distance you’ve built between you and the guilt you shifted elsewhere to balance things out, all being a byproduct of abandonment issues and the fear of losing others dear to you, are all things that terribly resonate with me and since I’m in the middle of trying to uncover the root cause for them and get rid of these toxic habits once and for all, going through Sky fc/sc was like going through my own small journey of revisiting myself and re-evaluating it from a different perspective that rung true to me. Relatibitly aside, while I do relate to Joshua in some aspects, I don’t wholeheartedly relate to him, and most of my appreciation for his character comes down to how much of a unique spin it is on the ideas and struggles I mentioned above. While most characters who fall under that trope direct that guilt towards a different person, Joshua directs it at a different version of himself, the puppet like person inside him that was born after Weissman experimented with his heart and the source of his inner turmoil, which is a very interesting touch Kondo made with his character because while it’s a less common coping mechanism than laying the blame on another different person, it’s just as realistic and potent because of how it fits his background with being a test subject who had his sense of self played with in the past.
Ok but frfr it’s virtually impossible to write down every single thing I loved about Sky FC/SC, but the best starting point I can think of is the central driving force, that being Joshua and Estelle’s dynamic and how it plays out during the story. There’s a line Joshua says in FC where he tells Estelle to go about expressing her unbridled trust towards her surroundings, her innocence, and to not so much as doubt what’s infront of her and see the darkness within it, practically telling her to avoid seeing the unpleasant side of things and questioning them and to leave the anxiety driven suspicions and doubts to joshua instead because that’s his speciality as an assassin. In a way, Joshua was keeping her vision unclouded, and telling her what he doubts and sees as dangerous to help her avoid making the wrong choice as much as he can. Similarly, at the end of SC, due to Joshua’s self isolationist, self hating tendencies that always look to make him run away from what’s right before him and wallow in his misery because that is more convenient to him than thinking he’s worth other people’s company and troubling them with his presence, Estelle told Joshua that she'll be the one to keep him in check and walk alongside him because Joshua always fails to see the obvious things like people’s love for him, how much they want to be there for him, and how important he is to them, which Estelle regulates by pointing to him these obvious cues and keeping him on the right track. In their own ways, at different points, they covered for each others’ weaknesses, and seeing their method of helping each other out transition from an unhealthy one to a much more empowering one was super poetic. That beautiful, organic transition where Estelle goes from being a naive, innocent dork to an emotionally mature, determined lady with unwavering, grounded optimism and Joshua goes from being a tryhard tough act who pretends to be emotionally mature and determined to a vulnerable, scarred soul trying to walk the right path with the bad bitch he bagged by trauma dumping and correct all the sins he’s made with his previous antics, perfectly sums up why I love their relationship so much. It’s so full of parallels like the one I mentioned yet so opposing, and in their opposition to each other in terms of background, they manage to connect to a spiritual level and works so well as the main force that pushes Sky’s themes about facing your fears and embracing the truth as the guiding light that’ll help you carve your path with others instead of losing it no matter how different you all seem.
All of what I mentioned are things I like to see in media being on full display in Trails, but…what really struck me wasn’t any of the larger than life aspects I mentioned as much as Joshua’s personal struggles did. Drowning in self denial for solace, shifting the responsibilities you’re supposed to uphold by running away from them and attaching them to external sources, hurting others in the process of putting your guilt elsewhere, and self isolating to avoid hurting others as much as possible while maintaining the distance you’ve built between you and the guilt you shifted elsewhere to balance things out, all being a byproduct of abandonment issues and the fear of losing others dear to you, are all things that terribly resonate with me and since I’m in the middle of trying to uncover the root cause for them and get rid of these toxic habits once and for all, going through Sky fc/sc was like going through my own small journey of revisiting myself and re-evaluating it from a different perspective that rung true to me. Relatibitly aside, while I do relate to Joshua in some aspects, I don’t wholeheartedly relate to him, and most of my appreciation for his character comes down to how much of a unique spin it is on the ideas and struggles I mentioned above. While most characters who fall under that trope direct that guilt towards a different person, Joshua directs it at a different version of himself, the puppet like person inside him that was born after Weissman experimented with his heart and the source of his inner turmoil, which is a very interesting touch Kondo made with his character because while it’s a less common coping mechanism than laying the blame on another different person, it’s just as realistic and potent because of how it fits his background with being a test subject who had his sense of self played with in the past.
IF YOU'RE NOT A FAN OF THE WORDS
PEAK FICTION
GOAT
RAW
FIRE
Click off the review rn!
PEAK FICTION
GOAT
RAW
FIRE
Click off the review rn!
Wise to ignore opinions from people who think this game is good.
Falcom was able to build peak in cave! With a box of scraps!
After the first game I was impressed, but now I am hooked and I am eating. It's incredible how thought-out and thorough the work that's gone into this is. I tried at several points to trick the game into giving me a single line of generic dialogue from ANY town NPC and they just kept beating my ass with more world-building. They would not let me stop reading. There's no wonder this took longer to translate than the dead sea scrolls
The combat is better but it's still the weakest part. There's a lot more to building a party than the previous entry but it still feels like it needs a bit of tightening.
Anyway, looking forward to spending another 500 hours catching up to this until the games suddenly get bad or whatever
After the first game I was impressed, but now I am hooked and I am eating. It's incredible how thought-out and thorough the work that's gone into this is. I tried at several points to trick the game into giving me a single line of generic dialogue from ANY town NPC and they just kept beating my ass with more world-building. They would not let me stop reading. There's no wonder this took longer to translate than the dead sea scrolls
The combat is better but it's still the weakest part. There's a lot more to building a party than the previous entry but it still feels like it needs a bit of tightening.
Anyway, looking forward to spending another 500 hours catching up to this until the games suddenly get bad or whatever
Some enemy designs, including bosses and normal foes, can be frustrating however this time we have much better plots, character improvement and dialogues than previous game and it has the best OST entire series for me... "IN MY HEART"
one of the single best jrpg stories ive experienced, i never thought it would be possible for something to trump xenoblade chronicles 1-3 in my mind, but i've found it. nihon falcom just continues to surprise me with the effort and care and passion within their games, and im happily looking forward to playing the third installment in this trilogy.
Even after fully catching up to the series, this remains the most magical and memorable game for me, the first game that truly skyrocketed me into being a longtime fan of this medium. The hold this game has on me is strong.
This is the 2nd in a series of reviews and like the games themselves are intended to be experienced in release order, or at least read the preface of the first one here.
Feel free to let me know if you think I missed anything!
Up front, Trails in the Sky SC is better in every single way than FC. Characters, Story, Gameplay. It's all better. The problem is it's not better enough. And that's my real issue with this game.
SC picks up immediately where FC left off which is right away a much more engaging start than FC's prologue. You're already a high level and you have your crafts still available to you. This is something the series keeps doing and I gotta say I love it it's one of my favourite things they do in these games. We still have a lot of the gameplay issues in regards to movement and the grid but overall, possibly due to just higher stat totals in general, your options are much more open this time. Physical damage is now worth using, bolstered by much more useful crafts overall and it leads to a much better play experience especially with the party members who really don't use arts at all.
Speaking of arts, we get a new orbment in this game. There's now a 7th slot for quartz and though you start with every slot unlocked from the start slots can now be upgraded to slot higher level quartz. This is so great I can't even begin to describe. A big problem in early FC is that you just don't have enough options. You have limited slots and limited quartz to work with that there's not much you can really do in terms of build or strategy. In this game however right from the get go you have a full 7 slots to play with and slot whatever you want in without losing that progression of unlocking, or now upgrading, your quartz slots. Everything feels so much more free and you can be a lot more creative. New quartz and more slots also means new arts and it's not great still but in this game there's a lot more use for the other arts other than the 3 you'd spam in the previous game. Along with physical damage now being usable and a full set of crafts (with some new ones) means every character can utilize their own niche much better and you're not doing the exact same thing as often.
The revolving door style of party members is also a thing of the past. Now once you get a new party member they stay with you, although for most of the game you're locked to Estelle, your chosen ally at the start of the game, and the region's new party member your 4th, sometimes 3rd and eventually even 2nd party member can be swapped out for whoever you like. It's great to get to pick and choose anybody you want to take with you, build them however you want and give everybody a much bigger time to shine.
It's not all good news unfortunately. The balancing in this game is not great to put it mildly. For context, I personally played through this one on Hard. I was considering nightmare but was warned against it and thank god for that. The prologue is absolute bullshit to put it mildly. You have to either rely on RNG or use the game's retry offset feature to weaken an encounter on successive retries to even get past it. After that for about 5 chapters you'll have the experience of basic enemy fights being the most brainless easy thing of your life with bosses being near impossible at times. I cannot imagine playing through this game on nightmare without some absurd luck and cheesy strategies. But then, once you get past about chapter 5 the game completely flips on its head and every single encounter become incredibly easy. Maybe I just found a winning strategy but I barely had to think about what i was doing after a certain point.
The story is also much improved from FC's. This is our first face to face introduction to the ""secret"" society of Ouroboros. Who as far as I know are our main antagonists moving forward for the entire series. The good news is everything involving Estelle and Joshua is great. Absolutely no complaints there. Seeing how Estelle has grown since FC is a highlight of the game and how she now makes smart intelligent decisions and works as a competent senior bracer. It's great to see and compare to how she acted in FC. And the scene where she and Joshua finally reunite is the emotional high of the entire arc. The other party members also finally get their time to shine. Kloe takes more of a backseat in this game having most of her development take place in FC but every other party member really steps up to the plate.
Agate's backstory and his relationship with Tita is really heartwarming and made me like Agate as a character much more than the very little he got in FC. Zin actually gets a character for the first time in his interactions with Walter. Schera's backstory finally comes up and her relationship with Estelle is much more fleshed out than just a generic mentor figure. Olivier's true purpose and identity is revealed and he gains a lot more depth and even some side characters like Julia, Josette and Meuler get some growth.
Kevin Graham is a great new character and this game serves as a really nice introduction to him but I don't want to talk too much about Kevin until 3rd.
Leowe and Weissman are really fun villains, they're both decently interesting on their own, mostly Leowe over Weissman but they really shine in what they add to Joshua than just on their own. Meanwhile Renne, although there's not much to her in this game she at least gets more than 5 minutes of screentime and is nicely set up for the future. and her interactions with Tita are great.
Unfortunately the other enforcers are not nearly as good. Luciola is quite literally nothing. She exists only to serve as a prompt for Scherazard to give her backstory. She's so meaningless that I can't even find more to say about her good or bad. I guess she's hot?
Walter is kind of the same but for Zin but at least he has a somewhat interesting thing going on with his past with kilika, zin and their old master. I feel like these two could have been much better villains if their existence didn't boil down to "I've been fucking with a gospel see you in chapter 7 fight these monsters instead" "ive been fucking with a tower fight me then ill see you at the end" "okay its the end lets fight one more time" but I don't know.
I fucking. Hate. Bleublanc. I don't know why. I don't have even slightly a good reason. This guy is just my least favourite character in the entire series. Fuck this guy.
I don't have a good place to put this but I really want to mention how much chapter 8 feels like a lot of busywork. I really liked having the entire country open for you to go through but it had no required fights and just 3 easy sidequests per region that it felt really meaningless other than to be like "hey isn't it crazy that you can't use orbments." it could have been cut down or made more important and it'd be a way cooler experience. The final dunggeon also was really really cool visually and conceptually but again it left a really sour taste in my mouth with how you had to keep going back and forth through a really long path and slow elevators and trains to swap your party out between each fight to not miss out on scenes that vastly improve the experience.
The final half of the game, although being really easy and had those sour spots was really fun though, having the best dungeons and the most engaging gameplay with all the options available to you with a freely swappable party, fully unlocked slots and high level quartz made it great fun to play around with. I do want to mention though that the dungeon in the first half are kinda dire with slow switch puzzles and confusing mazes and really terrible balance.
I really liked SC honestly and I could see myself going back to it sometime but it ultimately was not better than FC enough to not leave this really sour taste in my mouth and make it feel worse than it actually is
Feel free to let me know if you think I missed anything!
Up front, Trails in the Sky SC is better in every single way than FC. Characters, Story, Gameplay. It's all better. The problem is it's not better enough. And that's my real issue with this game.
SC picks up immediately where FC left off which is right away a much more engaging start than FC's prologue. You're already a high level and you have your crafts still available to you. This is something the series keeps doing and I gotta say I love it it's one of my favourite things they do in these games. We still have a lot of the gameplay issues in regards to movement and the grid but overall, possibly due to just higher stat totals in general, your options are much more open this time. Physical damage is now worth using, bolstered by much more useful crafts overall and it leads to a much better play experience especially with the party members who really don't use arts at all.
Speaking of arts, we get a new orbment in this game. There's now a 7th slot for quartz and though you start with every slot unlocked from the start slots can now be upgraded to slot higher level quartz. This is so great I can't even begin to describe. A big problem in early FC is that you just don't have enough options. You have limited slots and limited quartz to work with that there's not much you can really do in terms of build or strategy. In this game however right from the get go you have a full 7 slots to play with and slot whatever you want in without losing that progression of unlocking, or now upgrading, your quartz slots. Everything feels so much more free and you can be a lot more creative. New quartz and more slots also means new arts and it's not great still but in this game there's a lot more use for the other arts other than the 3 you'd spam in the previous game. Along with physical damage now being usable and a full set of crafts (with some new ones) means every character can utilize their own niche much better and you're not doing the exact same thing as often.
The revolving door style of party members is also a thing of the past. Now once you get a new party member they stay with you, although for most of the game you're locked to Estelle, your chosen ally at the start of the game, and the region's new party member your 4th, sometimes 3rd and eventually even 2nd party member can be swapped out for whoever you like. It's great to get to pick and choose anybody you want to take with you, build them however you want and give everybody a much bigger time to shine.
It's not all good news unfortunately. The balancing in this game is not great to put it mildly. For context, I personally played through this one on Hard. I was considering nightmare but was warned against it and thank god for that. The prologue is absolute bullshit to put it mildly. You have to either rely on RNG or use the game's retry offset feature to weaken an encounter on successive retries to even get past it. After that for about 5 chapters you'll have the experience of basic enemy fights being the most brainless easy thing of your life with bosses being near impossible at times. I cannot imagine playing through this game on nightmare without some absurd luck and cheesy strategies. But then, once you get past about chapter 5 the game completely flips on its head and every single encounter become incredibly easy. Maybe I just found a winning strategy but I barely had to think about what i was doing after a certain point.
The story is also much improved from FC's. This is our first face to face introduction to the ""secret"" society of Ouroboros. Who as far as I know are our main antagonists moving forward for the entire series. The good news is everything involving Estelle and Joshua is great. Absolutely no complaints there. Seeing how Estelle has grown since FC is a highlight of the game and how she now makes smart intelligent decisions and works as a competent senior bracer. It's great to see and compare to how she acted in FC. And the scene where she and Joshua finally reunite is the emotional high of the entire arc. The other party members also finally get their time to shine. Kloe takes more of a backseat in this game having most of her development take place in FC but every other party member really steps up to the plate.
Agate's backstory and his relationship with Tita is really heartwarming and made me like Agate as a character much more than the very little he got in FC. Zin actually gets a character for the first time in his interactions with Walter. Schera's backstory finally comes up and her relationship with Estelle is much more fleshed out than just a generic mentor figure. Olivier's true purpose and identity is revealed and he gains a lot more depth and even some side characters like Julia, Josette and Meuler get some growth.
Kevin Graham is a great new character and this game serves as a really nice introduction to him but I don't want to talk too much about Kevin until 3rd.
Leowe and Weissman are really fun villains, they're both decently interesting on their own, mostly Leowe over Weissman but they really shine in what they add to Joshua than just on their own. Meanwhile Renne, although there's not much to her in this game she at least gets more than 5 minutes of screentime and is nicely set up for the future. and her interactions with Tita are great.
Unfortunately the other enforcers are not nearly as good. Luciola is quite literally nothing. She exists only to serve as a prompt for Scherazard to give her backstory. She's so meaningless that I can't even find more to say about her good or bad. I guess she's hot?
Walter is kind of the same but for Zin but at least he has a somewhat interesting thing going on with his past with kilika, zin and their old master. I feel like these two could have been much better villains if their existence didn't boil down to "I've been fucking with a gospel see you in chapter 7 fight these monsters instead" "ive been fucking with a tower fight me then ill see you at the end" "okay its the end lets fight one more time" but I don't know.
I fucking. Hate. Bleublanc. I don't know why. I don't have even slightly a good reason. This guy is just my least favourite character in the entire series. Fuck this guy.
I don't have a good place to put this but I really want to mention how much chapter 8 feels like a lot of busywork. I really liked having the entire country open for you to go through but it had no required fights and just 3 easy sidequests per region that it felt really meaningless other than to be like "hey isn't it crazy that you can't use orbments." it could have been cut down or made more important and it'd be a way cooler experience. The final dunggeon also was really really cool visually and conceptually but again it left a really sour taste in my mouth with how you had to keep going back and forth through a really long path and slow elevators and trains to swap your party out between each fight to not miss out on scenes that vastly improve the experience.
The final half of the game, although being really easy and had those sour spots was really fun though, having the best dungeons and the most engaging gameplay with all the options available to you with a freely swappable party, fully unlocked slots and high level quartz made it great fun to play around with. I do want to mention though that the dungeon in the first half are kinda dire with slow switch puzzles and confusing mazes and really terrible balance.
I really liked SC honestly and I could see myself going back to it sometime but it ultimately was not better than FC enough to not leave this really sour taste in my mouth and make it feel worse than it actually is
oomf lost their save data by installing chinese malware siajaosofjaifiiaskdsj
I don't know how to start this. But I will say this took WAY longer than I expected it would take me.
After finishing FC I pretty much just kept on going at the pace I was at since I got to chapter 3 or so. SC prologue really tugs the heartstrings after the ending of FC and you just NEED answers man. Then after that the game really gets... repetitive.
The time period from when I completed the first half versus literally the rest of the game is INSANE. Took me about 2 months for the first half and the second half took me a business week. I don't mind the first half as I do think there were great moments interspersed. But god that was mind-numbing. Repeating the same sequences for a good portion of the game was a turn off. But don't let this fool you. The moment you get on The Glorious EVERYTHING changes.
The story picks up tremendously and it just builds and builds until the finale.
This is when I started to realize "yea this may be one of the greatest video games ever made."
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC is the definition of a sequel in every sense of the word. Every facet gets improved. And the stakes are higher than the last. This was essentially a 70 hour long JRPG finale. And I love it for everything it stands for.
This may sound conflicting as you have two opposing opinions for each half but let me assure you that the highest of highs overshadows the lowest of lows.
Trails in the Sky SC is truly one of the best JRPG games there is and even with its flawed and monotonous first half, on the other hand you have one of the most legendary second halves to a video game. In the end I will cherish it all the same.
Oh and this soundtrack is cool.
After finishing FC I pretty much just kept on going at the pace I was at since I got to chapter 3 or so. SC prologue really tugs the heartstrings after the ending of FC and you just NEED answers man. Then after that the game really gets... repetitive.
The time period from when I completed the first half versus literally the rest of the game is INSANE. Took me about 2 months for the first half and the second half took me a business week. I don't mind the first half as I do think there were great moments interspersed. But god that was mind-numbing. Repeating the same sequences for a good portion of the game was a turn off. But don't let this fool you. The moment you get on The Glorious EVERYTHING changes.
The story picks up tremendously and it just builds and builds until the finale.
This is when I started to realize "yea this may be one of the greatest video games ever made."
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC is the definition of a sequel in every sense of the word. Every facet gets improved. And the stakes are higher than the last. This was essentially a 70 hour long JRPG finale. And I love it for everything it stands for.
This may sound conflicting as you have two opposing opinions for each half but let me assure you that the highest of highs overshadows the lowest of lows.
Trails in the Sky SC is truly one of the best JRPG games there is and even with its flawed and monotonous first half, on the other hand you have one of the most legendary second halves to a video game. In the end I will cherish it all the same.
Oh and this soundtrack is cool.
Man, it'd probably be more reasonable to let my opinion settle before making a bold statement, but this series hasn't consumed my mind over the past several months for nothing. I spent a good 90 hours on Trails in the Sky SC only to come out thinking "yeah, this is one of the best games I ever played."
I've barely scratched the surface of this series yet and I'm both amazed at how I simultaneously feel like I've already found an absolute peak story and that there's still so much more to uncover in this series' lore. The world feels incredibly fleshed out thanks to the abundance of flavor text and dialogue but it never feels like every answer is just given to you as there are always hints of bigger, more sinister events taking place behind the scenes. Even though Trails is often seen as a slow burn, I never found myself bored with the story as I found it interesting to let my mind wander and guess where the story will go and I can't say I've experienced many games that strike such a rich balance.
The stakes of the story in SC are much higher than that of the first game and that game's set of already established characters are all given time to shine in some of their most emotional and badass moments yet. It definitely helped that most of the characters were likeable from the get-go but now they feel far more fleshed out with backstories being explored and development taking place throughout the story. I don't want to give too many details for the sake of spoilers but I'll let you know that this game left me speechless more than once. And that doesn't even get into Estelle and Joshua's relationship which was a huge emotional Rollercoaster throughout the game and led to some of the absolute peak of JRPG writing if I've ever seen it.
I am slightly disappointed that they mainly reused locations from the first chapter as I liked the new location the game starts out in, but I never found this to be a major hindrance as the aforementioned world-building gives each location enough depth to feel like fully realized settings and the new dungeons revealed in these previous locations contributes to the sense of mystery in this world. The combat similarly went through little change though I found it significantly more addicting this time around, but maybe that's because I actually made stuff resembling character builds and liked playing with the new arts/orbments. I'm almost inclined to do a second playthrough to experiment with more combinations, which rarely happens with RPGs for me.
Either way, I have no clue why it took me so long to try the Trails series. It doesn't really revolutionize the genre but the concepts, mechanics and storytelling are so well executed that I find it hard to call this game anything less than a masterpiece.
I've barely scratched the surface of this series yet and I'm both amazed at how I simultaneously feel like I've already found an absolute peak story and that there's still so much more to uncover in this series' lore. The world feels incredibly fleshed out thanks to the abundance of flavor text and dialogue but it never feels like every answer is just given to you as there are always hints of bigger, more sinister events taking place behind the scenes. Even though Trails is often seen as a slow burn, I never found myself bored with the story as I found it interesting to let my mind wander and guess where the story will go and I can't say I've experienced many games that strike such a rich balance.
The stakes of the story in SC are much higher than that of the first game and that game's set of already established characters are all given time to shine in some of their most emotional and badass moments yet. It definitely helped that most of the characters were likeable from the get-go but now they feel far more fleshed out with backstories being explored and development taking place throughout the story. I don't want to give too many details for the sake of spoilers but I'll let you know that this game left me speechless more than once. And that doesn't even get into Estelle and Joshua's relationship which was a huge emotional Rollercoaster throughout the game and led to some of the absolute peak of JRPG writing if I've ever seen it.
I am slightly disappointed that they mainly reused locations from the first chapter as I liked the new location the game starts out in, but I never found this to be a major hindrance as the aforementioned world-building gives each location enough depth to feel like fully realized settings and the new dungeons revealed in these previous locations contributes to the sense of mystery in this world. The combat similarly went through little change though I found it significantly more addicting this time around, but maybe that's because I actually made stuff resembling character builds and liked playing with the new arts/orbments. I'm almost inclined to do a second playthrough to experiment with more combinations, which rarely happens with RPGs for me.
Either way, I have no clue why it took me so long to try the Trails series. It doesn't really revolutionize the genre but the concepts, mechanics and storytelling are so well executed that I find it hard to call this game anything less than a masterpiece.
loewe
This review contains spoilers
All I have to say is that this game is PEAK PEAK PEAK.
Anyways second Trails game review. I didn't know what I was getting myself into after the cliffhanger of the first game but I definitely needed to play this game for some closure.
I'll actually talk about the gameplay first. Maybe I'm just an idiot but I actually decided to use the food we cook in recipes for this game! Especially the food where you can use it to damage enemies in battle. Also, I'm glad that they finally incorporated actual attack arts for space, I was really annoyed that the first game didn't have any. Most of the gameplay remains the same, but they incorporated Chain Crafts (I think that's what they were called, it's been a while since I played this game). Now coming from someone who completed this game on Nightmare, I didn't really use them (maybe I should've, might've made this game way more forgiving on the hardest difficulty), just never really saw the need to when most of my characters had no CP to use anyways. But EP will always be king in these games.
Like I said in my last review, the worldbuilding is phenomenal, and only continues to get better in this game. The grave importance of the Non-Aggression Pact between Liberl, Erebonia and Calvard made the situation all the more tense. On top of all of that, you had Ouroboros being snakes around the entirety of Liberl and trying to cause chaos, and they're just really weird. And Hamel, that stuff got my blood boiling when I found out about it. I think if a game is truly able to get my blood boiling for fictional content, I may as well just resign myself to the entire series, it's seriously that great.
I love love love the story in this game. Estelle goes on a double mission, to gather intel on Ouroboros, and to find Joshua. Dammit Joshua, why'd you have to leave, you carried me in the previous game. Anyways, I enjoyed going back to each city in different order, as well as being able to use the old squad, but also new characters like Anelace and Kevin. I enjoyed getting to discover the different Enforcers of Ouroboros, with many having relationships with other party members. Ouroboros in a whole is just mysterious, but I think it's better that way, as we aren't really meant to know how they operate. Oh yeah, did I ever mention how much I hate Weissman? Well, I hate him, he sucks. The one part of the game that I disliked was where you had to climb the four Tetracyclic Towers, it felt so repetitive, but I enjoyed each of the boss fights (even if I had to restart on each of them a bunch of times until I figured out a strategy). Now, the endgame was truly when this game became peak. Olivier being royalty, yeah sort of saw that coming, but the Liber Ark and how they essentially just eliminated our orbments for part of the final chapter. Brilliant incorporation of the story into the gameplay, even if it was annoying to deal with. The Liber Ark felt like a true boss rush, fighting some of the strongest members of Ouroboros to stop their Gospel plan. The Joshua and Loewe scene kind of got me near the end there. The final boss, honestly not that memorable, all I remember is Weissman summoning a bunch of ads that just kept deleting my Earth Wall.
Kevin killing Weissman was the cherry on top, and really got me interested in Kevin's character and backstory. I felt that Estelle and Joshua's arc was handled great, and I just love a lot of things about this game. That last part of the game where Joshua and Estelle are about to 'die' didn't have as much of an emotional impact on me, as I knew they would survive due to there being another game after this one, but nonetheless, it still did hit me. And of course, Cassius had to ride in on his dragon and rescue us.
A great game, and a great game to end Estelle and Joshua's story, but only beginning their adventures as senior bracers.
BLORF.
Anyways second Trails game review. I didn't know what I was getting myself into after the cliffhanger of the first game but I definitely needed to play this game for some closure.
I'll actually talk about the gameplay first. Maybe I'm just an idiot but I actually decided to use the food we cook in recipes for this game! Especially the food where you can use it to damage enemies in battle. Also, I'm glad that they finally incorporated actual attack arts for space, I was really annoyed that the first game didn't have any. Most of the gameplay remains the same, but they incorporated Chain Crafts (I think that's what they were called, it's been a while since I played this game). Now coming from someone who completed this game on Nightmare, I didn't really use them (maybe I should've, might've made this game way more forgiving on the hardest difficulty), just never really saw the need to when most of my characters had no CP to use anyways. But EP will always be king in these games.
Like I said in my last review, the worldbuilding is phenomenal, and only continues to get better in this game. The grave importance of the Non-Aggression Pact between Liberl, Erebonia and Calvard made the situation all the more tense. On top of all of that, you had Ouroboros being snakes around the entirety of Liberl and trying to cause chaos, and they're just really weird. And Hamel, that stuff got my blood boiling when I found out about it. I think if a game is truly able to get my blood boiling for fictional content, I may as well just resign myself to the entire series, it's seriously that great.
I love love love the story in this game. Estelle goes on a double mission, to gather intel on Ouroboros, and to find Joshua. Dammit Joshua, why'd you have to leave, you carried me in the previous game. Anyways, I enjoyed going back to each city in different order, as well as being able to use the old squad, but also new characters like Anelace and Kevin. I enjoyed getting to discover the different Enforcers of Ouroboros, with many having relationships with other party members. Ouroboros in a whole is just mysterious, but I think it's better that way, as we aren't really meant to know how they operate. Oh yeah, did I ever mention how much I hate Weissman? Well, I hate him, he sucks. The one part of the game that I disliked was where you had to climb the four Tetracyclic Towers, it felt so repetitive, but I enjoyed each of the boss fights (even if I had to restart on each of them a bunch of times until I figured out a strategy). Now, the endgame was truly when this game became peak. Olivier being royalty, yeah sort of saw that coming, but the Liber Ark and how they essentially just eliminated our orbments for part of the final chapter. Brilliant incorporation of the story into the gameplay, even if it was annoying to deal with. The Liber Ark felt like a true boss rush, fighting some of the strongest members of Ouroboros to stop their Gospel plan. The Joshua and Loewe scene kind of got me near the end there. The final boss, honestly not that memorable, all I remember is Weissman summoning a bunch of ads that just kept deleting my Earth Wall.
Kevin killing Weissman was the cherry on top, and really got me interested in Kevin's character and backstory. I felt that Estelle and Joshua's arc was handled great, and I just love a lot of things about this game. That last part of the game where Joshua and Estelle are about to 'die' didn't have as much of an emotional impact on me, as I knew they would survive due to there being another game after this one, but nonetheless, it still did hit me. And of course, Cassius had to ride in on his dragon and rescue us.
A great game, and a great game to end Estelle and Joshua's story, but only beginning their adventures as senior bracers.
BLORF.
Spent a while considering the rating for this one, it’s an incredible game that I sadly had issues with. There’s a strange issue when it comes to dialogue. Due to the freedom you get in terms of how many reserve party members you can get, a lot of them do not get dialogue in sections they should, and it’s really off putting. The first 4 chapters are incredibly formulaic, and chapter 8 as a whole just pissed me off.
Having said that, while those are definite issues for me, I loved this game to bits, it starts off right where FC left off, and bit by bit as the chapters go on, you start to piece just exactly what is going on. Plenty of big moments, fun encounters and great music on display here.
It’s one of the best RPG’s I’ve ever played, Falcom were so close to greatness with this one. Can’t wait to play 3rd.
P.S. - Dragon Dive
Having said that, while those are definite issues for me, I loved this game to bits, it starts off right where FC left off, and bit by bit as the chapters go on, you start to piece just exactly what is going on. Plenty of big moments, fun encounters and great music on display here.
It’s one of the best RPG’s I’ve ever played, Falcom were so close to greatness with this one. Can’t wait to play 3rd.
P.S. - Dragon Dive
games lucky i don't give it a half star for having the abbreviation SC and not having it stand for SoulCalibur
Trails in the Sky SC is the best of the series that I've played so far, no doubt.
It's got the world-building and characterization of the first game, but without the super sluggish prologue and a more realized and expanded upon combat system. The plot just keeps pushing forward and there's a ton dabbled with and drastically improved with fantastic storytelling and even deeper dives into every character. This one's going to sit with me for a while. I'll keep playing through more of the series (3rd, then Trails of Cold Steel IV once that comes to PC), and hopefully it's just as good, if not better than this. But if this ends up being the peak, I'd honestly be okay with that. SC is just that good.
It's got the world-building and characterization of the first game, but without the super sluggish prologue and a more realized and expanded upon combat system. The plot just keeps pushing forward and there's a ton dabbled with and drastically improved with fantastic storytelling and even deeper dives into every character. This one's going to sit with me for a while. I'll keep playing through more of the series (3rd, then Trails of Cold Steel IV once that comes to PC), and hopefully it's just as good, if not better than this. But if this ends up being the peak, I'd honestly be okay with that. SC is just that good.
PEAK, RAW, GOAT, FIRE
Peak
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC is a fantastic sequel to an already good game.
In what can only be described as a mix between Golden Sun and Fire Emblem, Tales of the Sky SC doubles down on what made the older Final Fantasy games great by proving once again that the best JRPG's of all time were produced by Tri-Ace in the early 2000's. I would go as far as to say that this is the Final Fantasy X of the 2000's, it's just that good.
Nihon Falcon's second entry in the long-running Dragon Slayer saga picks up right at the end of FC, where Josh has left Estelle behind after realizing that he really was in fact the bad guy all along. Having vanished without a second rational thought, Josh leaves immediately to go hang out with the Akatsuki. Estelle leaves with her friend Anal Lace to go train in the woods, and after a very traumatic and horrifying experience, Estelle realizes that harmonica's are only capable of creating awful music.
Returning characters Tifa, Calvin, and Adol have their back-sides expanded upon, and much like sunscreen, gets everywhere and makes you feel good. Other characters include the very dull and unintersting Chloe von Einzburn, and Zin the Avatar, references to Orie and Aang specifically. Estelle continues to be the star of the show; brandishing a very large stick and a mouth that would get her sent to the principal's office, Estelle leads the gang very obviously, and it's clear form the get-go that she will be the one that takes the final step to villainhood.
The visuals are nice, taking inspiration from Breath of The Wild and Dragon Quest XII
(Thanks Dhoom)
In what can only be described as a mix between Golden Sun and Fire Emblem, Tales of the Sky SC doubles down on what made the older Final Fantasy games great by proving once again that the best JRPG's of all time were produced by Tri-Ace in the early 2000's. I would go as far as to say that this is the Final Fantasy X of the 2000's, it's just that good.
Nihon Falcon's second entry in the long-running Dragon Slayer saga picks up right at the end of FC, where Josh has left Estelle behind after realizing that he really was in fact the bad guy all along. Having vanished without a second rational thought, Josh leaves immediately to go hang out with the Akatsuki. Estelle leaves with her friend Anal Lace to go train in the woods, and after a very traumatic and horrifying experience, Estelle realizes that harmonica's are only capable of creating awful music.
Returning characters Tifa, Calvin, and Adol have their back-sides expanded upon, and much like sunscreen, gets everywhere and makes you feel good. Other characters include the very dull and unintersting Chloe von Einzburn, and Zin the Avatar, references to Orie and Aang specifically. Estelle continues to be the star of the show; brandishing a very large stick and a mouth that would get her sent to the principal's office, Estelle leads the gang very obviously, and it's clear form the get-go that she will be the one that takes the final step to villainhood.
The visuals are nice, taking inspiration from Breath of The Wild and Dragon Quest XII
(Thanks Dhoom)
The emotions this game put me through is insane.
If you haven't played Trails in the Sky: First Chapter, let me STOP YOU RIGHT HERE and tell you to go purchase that and play it ASAP. The Trails series is NOT Final Fantasy, it NEEDS to be played consecutively because the entire series is one massive interconnecting story. Second Chapter is a direct sequel to the events of the first game and if you haven't played the first game before going into this one, you'll be completely lost. It'll be like starting The Lord of the Rings trilogy on Return of the King instead of The Fellowship.
Now that I've said that piece, if you HAVE played First Chapter and you're reading reviews instead of purchasing this game INSTANTLY after that jaw-dropping ending of the first game. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR? PLAY THIS GAME NOW. It takes everything you loved about the first and amplifies it 10 fold. The story, characters and lore of the world are greatly expanded upon and developed even further, the combat is even more refined and varied with extra attack options like chain crafts and 3rd tier artes and the music is just as beautiful as the first game. If you thought First Chapter was a masterpiece like I did, you haven't seen anything yet because SC surpasses it in every-way possible.
Honestly if you're a J-RPG fan and you still haven't gotten into the Trails series in 2020, you're missing some of the absolute best the genre has to offer and should rectify that IMMEDIATELY.
Now that I've said that piece, if you HAVE played First Chapter and you're reading reviews instead of purchasing this game INSTANTLY after that jaw-dropping ending of the first game. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR? PLAY THIS GAME NOW. It takes everything you loved about the first and amplifies it 10 fold. The story, characters and lore of the world are greatly expanded upon and developed even further, the combat is even more refined and varied with extra attack options like chain crafts and 3rd tier artes and the music is just as beautiful as the first game. If you thought First Chapter was a masterpiece like I did, you haven't seen anything yet because SC surpasses it in every-way possible.
Honestly if you're a J-RPG fan and you still haven't gotten into the Trails series in 2020, you're missing some of the absolute best the genre has to offer and should rectify that IMMEDIATELY.
Trails SC : A Mixed Bag of Goodness
(This serves as both a review of FC an SC but the rating is for SC)
The Trails series is one that I wanted to try out for a while now, Falcom is an historic company that was for the most part in advance for its time no matter the era you're looking into but never got the success of exposure of companies like Squaresoft, Enix, Bandai Namco or even Atlus despite their huge catalog.
So far my journey had led me to try out a few of the Ys titles which were a pretty pleasant experience if you can handle the crust of some of the earlier titles but the series they're probably more known for is the Legend of Heroes series and most importantly the "Trails" subseries of games which by that point is its own beast of its own much like Persona has become independent from the SMT series.
One year and an half ago, I played through Trails in the Sky FC and thought it was an alright game honestly, mind you nothing truly mind blowing but it has a lot of charms and the simple nature of the story that continuously build up to one big bombastic finale , it is a slow game that made me think of older Dragon Quest titles were you go around the world solving little cases here and there while discovering the world along Joshua and Estelle who are simply put one of the most iconic pair in JRPG history at least to me. Estelle and Joshua but much more so Estelle are absolutely great. They don't truly fit the typical JRPG protagonist role which was quite refreshing to see, Estelle for example is an absolutely fantastic exemple of a strong female character that doesn't fall into the "too cool for school woman that needs no man" mentality that is seen way too much with this type of character, she's a spunky tomboy who kicks ass, take no shit from anyone and will often times make quirky sarcastic remarks to mock the different antagonists with a stick up their ass.
The rest of the cast is also really damn nice, not all of them are created equal mind you, Agate and Zin barely have any screen time and barely anything resembling a character arc in FC but this is something that the sequel does fix a little. My absolute favorite character to me is Olivier, he's just a random sexually ambiguous spoony bard with an heart of gold ans a passion for beauty and grace that makes him so corny yet so enjoyable and every time he was on screen was a good time (which is why he stayed for a long while in my party during SC, I just love the dude that much on top of also being an excellent spellcaster).
The alchemy between these characters and the little moments most of the cast has together especially in SC makes you attached to these characters almost instantly and since FC was the introduction, SC does expand on them and put some neat little twist on them. This is of course served wonderfully by the dialogues which are written in such a snappy and natural way, these characters speaks like human people and not actors on a play like most JRPG tend to do (which mind you isn't a bad style just a different one) and it fits the tone of the game perfectly, no matter how casual the dialogues between party members or NPC's tend to be, there's always something to look forward to.
Which leads me to talk about another one of the series strong point, its sense of cohesion and attention to detail for the most part of FC you're going on your little adventure minding your own buisness and are only introduced to serious stuff at the end of the game making you feel like a single unit in a vast world, in a way Trails pulls off something that reminded me of Durarara (a pretty damn cool show, if you can handle the concept being kinda wanky), even if you're a bunch of JRPG protagonist with important roles and stuff, do know that every single member of the world live lives that are about as complex and intricate as you ! Each NPC in the game has a name and some of them even have small little character arc , yeah totally faceless random NPC becomes more interesting because you get to see them throughout the course of the game either during the sidequest when they ask you something or just by randomly talking to them, the world feels dynamic and alive and I'd say that the way trails introduces his worldbuilding is buttery smooth and rarely revolves around pointless infodump, there's truly a delicious amount of hidden lore that you can only find if you go out of your way to find it, there's a local newspaper for exemple that talks about what has been going on in the background while you were doing JRPG protag thing and the NPC's themselves always have something new to say and different reaction and routine in response to events of the story (FOR FUCK SAKE EVEN THE EMPTY CHESTS HAVE LORE).
This of course is one of the game strongest aspect and what made it so in advance for its time, that does mean that you probably gonna miss a lot of things by the end but the game make sure you at least retain the finer details in a way that feels satisfying enough.
The sequel SC also continues these little subplots from the first game and most of the NPC's you go to will remember you for what you helped them with in the previous game thanks to the transferable data between each games changing some small stuff here and there.
Gameplay wise, the game certainly does have some depth to its battle system but playing on normal I felt was piss easy and I only had trouble during the final boss of the game and some encounters during side quests, the exploration was also fairly simple but there's definitely a huge issue with back tracking between places which is something you will do a lot especially if like me, you're the type of person to do all the side content (which the game kinda pushes you to do anyway since it's the only effective way to gain money without fucking you over gameplay wise and they go from "cool" to mediocre to borderline insanely tedious at times).
The dungeon layouts are pretty barebones and often times confusing with the rotating camera that can disorient you if you're not paying attention and they're basically just huge caves with monsters in them , nothing truly standout in that area but Liberl does have tons of charm as a region visually. The game kinda looks like an evolution of games like Grandia mixed with Digimon World 2003 aesthetically and while it might not please everyone, it does give the game a very relaxing and comfortable vibe to it and honestly I'm a sucker for minimalism and chibi models usually.
But at the end of the day, despite my praises and the flaws I mentioned , I'd say that FC was a decent and fun experience that I did end up having some fondness for while looking back on it after a year.
Yeah I did wait a solid year and an half to finally dive into SC properly, not because I didn't want to play the game (in fact who the fuck would not want to play the second one immediately after the big reveal at the end of FC seriously) but because a lot of things came in the way and I just forgot about it and became a Muv-Luv fan instead (which I dunno if it's honestly better than becoming a Kiseki fanboy lmao).
But honestly I didn't feel the need to replay FC to refresh my memories and attachment to the cast, after all JP people had to wait 2 years for this game and English people had to wait 4 between the first and second chapter translation so my situation while being far from ideal is actually closer to the intended rhythm you're supposed to play these games with and beside the game will constantly remind you of what happened in FC and the characters are as good if not better than they were in FC.
I'm not gonna expand on the points mentioned above since I do think SC retains a lot of the same qualities as FC in terms of its writing and general "kiseki" vibe BUT THE FLAWS SHINES WAY MORE IN THIS SEQUEL THAN THEY SHOULD DO.
The game is the very definition of padding the fuck out of a story that could honestly have been told in less than the required 100h of game it took me to complete it, if the first game was around the 50h mark which was decent to say the least, this game is LONG and doesn't really respect your time with all the shit it's pulling at you.
The first half of the game is especially dreadful and if I have one word to describe the SC experience it's definitely "redundancy", the first 5 chapters of the game follows a structure that I swear makes it more boring than literally anything happening in FC which isn't much. The game pretty much makes you go on a second tour of Liberl where you have to solve cases related to Ouroboros the new group of antagonist to this game, so yeah you thought the first game was build up and character introduction ? Well fuck you here's even more build up and this time the formula gets tiring very fast, this second round of Liberl does make for some cool and cute scenes of nostalgic melancholy of your journey in FC at times but these moments are so few and far between that the entire package feels like it could've been delivered in a better way.
Because the game is a direct sequel, you do explore literally all the same maps and dungeon you've been backtracking endlessly already in the first game, but this time you double the backtracking and divide the fun by zero because while in the first game you were discovering these places, in SC you're pretty much dragging your ass through all of the same content and the game will not let you continue unless you do so, so prepare yourself to do all of that shit all over again. And the villain of the week formula truly doesn't help, most of the chapters follows a similar structure that gets old very very fast.
SC plot structure is like
-Go to Place
-"Oh no something is making people shit themselves"
-"Oh my god what could it be?"
-"It's ouroboros but I'm not sure..."
millions of fetch quest later
-"It was Ouroboros"
-"HAHAHA I'M POOPWINKLE THE DICKWINKLE ENFORCER N°69 OF OUROBOZOS FIGHT A RANDOM TRASH MOB FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON"
-Repeat
This is literally the first half of the game and mind you by the time you're over with chapter 5, you've already sinked 60h into the game and almost no important plot progression has happened outside of a few more intimate scenes between characters which are for the most part really good, in order to even access that good content, you have to put up with so much tedium that you could fill an entire mine with it. It also truly doesn't help that outside of Loewe (and maybe Renne), the Ourobozos actually are a rather pathetic attempt at the vilain organization trope, they're pretty ridiculous and corny and rarely ever fun to interact with, It's cool that some of them have connections to some of your party members , making for some cool scene but the group itself are pretty barebone and generic anime villain, which is insane considering the original game had Richard which was quite honestly an amazing vilain with great motivations and which ideals and goals fitted with the nuanced and grounded world Liberl is. Meanwhile at depressed chuuni boomers with world domination fetish, we're so evil that the main bad guy has to play to organ in a very clearly evil manner to remind you how evil they are, the subtlety has been thrown out the fucking window with these clowns being around and since they're the main center of attention and source of conflict within the narrative, suffice to say that it makes them as ridiculous as they sound and even Estelle mocks them constantly at how bad they are, really going from Richard to some cartoon network villain , is truly saddening.
There's little to no variety in the plot and it fucking drags as fuck, fortunately once you gain back Joshua, the game starts to pick up again and the rythm becomes somewhat consistent but there's still a lot of needlessly long and stretched out gameplay section, chapter 7 and chapter 8 could've honestly been both a series of cutscenes but no, in chapter 7 you go through the 4 towers to defeat the 4 bad guys, so you're dragging your ass through 4 very similar looking dungeon to defeat one bad guy and maybe have a cool scene or two and chapter 8 tries to do the "world of ruin" bits from FF VI but instead of it being a major event that changes not only how you approach the world but also the tone of the game , it's another way to drag you through all the same location for more backtracking but this time WITHOUT YOUR SPELLS because we gotta keep shit RP. The chapter ends on a pretty high not tho so it's not entirely wasted.
The final chapter is actually really damn nice even if again, it needlessly drag, it's like Falcom was scared that the game wouldn't have been worth our money if each chapters wasn't at least 10h long to go through but some other JRPG's can tell much more and much more meaningful stuff in less than the time and with less the tedium while keeping the variety afloat.
Which this whole thing is a shame because story wise, SC does deliver on a lot more emotional bits than FC and brings closure to almost every characters and subplot almost perfectly while introducing new cool characters to booth, I liked Renne and Kevin the most out of the new characters and much like Estelle I damn wish Renne wasn't part of Ourobozos because she clearly deserves better than being indoctrinated by an evil organization which goals and ideals are...
Well I don't know and the game never truly expands on that actually..., I guess it's part of the continuous narrative of the series to answer all of these questions but if that's the case then let me tell you that the introduction of that plot was less than optimal cause the most memorable thing about them would be the Weissman plotwist in FC and nothing else so far (and it's insane the game actually tries to make a case for Estelle joining them but they barely gave any valuable reasons to do so...)
Loewe honestly should've been the final antagonist of the game by a land mile and he was done so dirty by Falcom at the end, he should've killed Weissman and carry the plan himself like any good villain sidekick do in a JRPG especially since he doesn't like the guy all that much anyway and also he's just way more cool and has still one of the sickest battle theme ever, that would've made for a way more meaningful and cathartic final confrontation imo.
Some scenes in the back half of the game makes it worth it but there was probably another way to go around some of the most tedious bits of the game I think and some corners could've honestly been cut or reworked in a way to be more digestible.
I'd say that yes, SC was overall a less enjoyable experience than FC because FC at least had qualities that SC doesn't ruin by needless padding, the plot does deliver a lot more but it's truly the structure that make or break this game. Estelle has great character development and is probably the best aspect of the game storywise honestly, she matures without having a drastic change in character too much and becomes able to empathize with way more complex situation than her and we go on this journey along with her.
SC overall is about as good as FC quality wise but the flaws are that much more prevalent and by the time I approached the ending, I really wanted this to end already which is honestly never a good sign.
So yeah, looks like despite some genuine qualities, I ain't gonna rate this game highly in my mind or even in my heart and it's a damn shame since I truly wanted to enjoy this experience to the fullest and I still love the cast and a lot of the neat stuff the game does with its world and characters, I hope 3rd changes my mind on the series for me to consider going forward with it.
TL;DR : Estelle is Bestelle
(This serves as both a review of FC an SC but the rating is for SC)
The Trails series is one that I wanted to try out for a while now, Falcom is an historic company that was for the most part in advance for its time no matter the era you're looking into but never got the success of exposure of companies like Squaresoft, Enix, Bandai Namco or even Atlus despite their huge catalog.
So far my journey had led me to try out a few of the Ys titles which were a pretty pleasant experience if you can handle the crust of some of the earlier titles but the series they're probably more known for is the Legend of Heroes series and most importantly the "Trails" subseries of games which by that point is its own beast of its own much like Persona has become independent from the SMT series.
One year and an half ago, I played through Trails in the Sky FC and thought it was an alright game honestly, mind you nothing truly mind blowing but it has a lot of charms and the simple nature of the story that continuously build up to one big bombastic finale , it is a slow game that made me think of older Dragon Quest titles were you go around the world solving little cases here and there while discovering the world along Joshua and Estelle who are simply put one of the most iconic pair in JRPG history at least to me. Estelle and Joshua but much more so Estelle are absolutely great. They don't truly fit the typical JRPG protagonist role which was quite refreshing to see, Estelle for example is an absolutely fantastic exemple of a strong female character that doesn't fall into the "too cool for school woman that needs no man" mentality that is seen way too much with this type of character, she's a spunky tomboy who kicks ass, take no shit from anyone and will often times make quirky sarcastic remarks to mock the different antagonists with a stick up their ass.
The rest of the cast is also really damn nice, not all of them are created equal mind you, Agate and Zin barely have any screen time and barely anything resembling a character arc in FC but this is something that the sequel does fix a little. My absolute favorite character to me is Olivier, he's just a random sexually ambiguous spoony bard with an heart of gold ans a passion for beauty and grace that makes him so corny yet so enjoyable and every time he was on screen was a good time (which is why he stayed for a long while in my party during SC, I just love the dude that much on top of also being an excellent spellcaster).
The alchemy between these characters and the little moments most of the cast has together especially in SC makes you attached to these characters almost instantly and since FC was the introduction, SC does expand on them and put some neat little twist on them. This is of course served wonderfully by the dialogues which are written in such a snappy and natural way, these characters speaks like human people and not actors on a play like most JRPG tend to do (which mind you isn't a bad style just a different one) and it fits the tone of the game perfectly, no matter how casual the dialogues between party members or NPC's tend to be, there's always something to look forward to.
Which leads me to talk about another one of the series strong point, its sense of cohesion and attention to detail for the most part of FC you're going on your little adventure minding your own buisness and are only introduced to serious stuff at the end of the game making you feel like a single unit in a vast world, in a way Trails pulls off something that reminded me of Durarara (a pretty damn cool show, if you can handle the concept being kinda wanky), even if you're a bunch of JRPG protagonist with important roles and stuff, do know that every single member of the world live lives that are about as complex and intricate as you ! Each NPC in the game has a name and some of them even have small little character arc , yeah totally faceless random NPC becomes more interesting because you get to see them throughout the course of the game either during the sidequest when they ask you something or just by randomly talking to them, the world feels dynamic and alive and I'd say that the way trails introduces his worldbuilding is buttery smooth and rarely revolves around pointless infodump, there's truly a delicious amount of hidden lore that you can only find if you go out of your way to find it, there's a local newspaper for exemple that talks about what has been going on in the background while you were doing JRPG protag thing and the NPC's themselves always have something new to say and different reaction and routine in response to events of the story (FOR FUCK SAKE EVEN THE EMPTY CHESTS HAVE LORE).
This of course is one of the game strongest aspect and what made it so in advance for its time, that does mean that you probably gonna miss a lot of things by the end but the game make sure you at least retain the finer details in a way that feels satisfying enough.
The sequel SC also continues these little subplots from the first game and most of the NPC's you go to will remember you for what you helped them with in the previous game thanks to the transferable data between each games changing some small stuff here and there.
Gameplay wise, the game certainly does have some depth to its battle system but playing on normal I felt was piss easy and I only had trouble during the final boss of the game and some encounters during side quests, the exploration was also fairly simple but there's definitely a huge issue with back tracking between places which is something you will do a lot especially if like me, you're the type of person to do all the side content (which the game kinda pushes you to do anyway since it's the only effective way to gain money without fucking you over gameplay wise and they go from "cool" to mediocre to borderline insanely tedious at times).
The dungeon layouts are pretty barebones and often times confusing with the rotating camera that can disorient you if you're not paying attention and they're basically just huge caves with monsters in them , nothing truly standout in that area but Liberl does have tons of charm as a region visually. The game kinda looks like an evolution of games like Grandia mixed with Digimon World 2003 aesthetically and while it might not please everyone, it does give the game a very relaxing and comfortable vibe to it and honestly I'm a sucker for minimalism and chibi models usually.
But at the end of the day, despite my praises and the flaws I mentioned , I'd say that FC was a decent and fun experience that I did end up having some fondness for while looking back on it after a year.
Yeah I did wait a solid year and an half to finally dive into SC properly, not because I didn't want to play the game (in fact who the fuck would not want to play the second one immediately after the big reveal at the end of FC seriously) but because a lot of things came in the way and I just forgot about it and became a Muv-Luv fan instead (which I dunno if it's honestly better than becoming a Kiseki fanboy lmao).
But honestly I didn't feel the need to replay FC to refresh my memories and attachment to the cast, after all JP people had to wait 2 years for this game and English people had to wait 4 between the first and second chapter translation so my situation while being far from ideal is actually closer to the intended rhythm you're supposed to play these games with and beside the game will constantly remind you of what happened in FC and the characters are as good if not better than they were in FC.
I'm not gonna expand on the points mentioned above since I do think SC retains a lot of the same qualities as FC in terms of its writing and general "kiseki" vibe BUT THE FLAWS SHINES WAY MORE IN THIS SEQUEL THAN THEY SHOULD DO.
The game is the very definition of padding the fuck out of a story that could honestly have been told in less than the required 100h of game it took me to complete it, if the first game was around the 50h mark which was decent to say the least, this game is LONG and doesn't really respect your time with all the shit it's pulling at you.
The first half of the game is especially dreadful and if I have one word to describe the SC experience it's definitely "redundancy", the first 5 chapters of the game follows a structure that I swear makes it more boring than literally anything happening in FC which isn't much. The game pretty much makes you go on a second tour of Liberl where you have to solve cases related to Ouroboros the new group of antagonist to this game, so yeah you thought the first game was build up and character introduction ? Well fuck you here's even more build up and this time the formula gets tiring very fast, this second round of Liberl does make for some cool and cute scenes of nostalgic melancholy of your journey in FC at times but these moments are so few and far between that the entire package feels like it could've been delivered in a better way.
Because the game is a direct sequel, you do explore literally all the same maps and dungeon you've been backtracking endlessly already in the first game, but this time you double the backtracking and divide the fun by zero because while in the first game you were discovering these places, in SC you're pretty much dragging your ass through all of the same content and the game will not let you continue unless you do so, so prepare yourself to do all of that shit all over again. And the villain of the week formula truly doesn't help, most of the chapters follows a similar structure that gets old very very fast.
SC plot structure is like
-Go to Place
-"Oh no something is making people shit themselves"
-"Oh my god what could it be?"
-"It's ouroboros but I'm not sure..."
millions of fetch quest later
-"It was Ouroboros"
-"HAHAHA I'M POOPWINKLE THE DICKWINKLE ENFORCER N°69 OF OUROBOZOS FIGHT A RANDOM TRASH MOB FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON"
-Repeat
This is literally the first half of the game and mind you by the time you're over with chapter 5, you've already sinked 60h into the game and almost no important plot progression has happened outside of a few more intimate scenes between characters which are for the most part really good, in order to even access that good content, you have to put up with so much tedium that you could fill an entire mine with it. It also truly doesn't help that outside of Loewe (and maybe Renne), the Ourobozos actually are a rather pathetic attempt at the vilain organization trope, they're pretty ridiculous and corny and rarely ever fun to interact with, It's cool that some of them have connections to some of your party members , making for some cool scene but the group itself are pretty barebone and generic anime villain, which is insane considering the original game had Richard which was quite honestly an amazing vilain with great motivations and which ideals and goals fitted with the nuanced and grounded world Liberl is. Meanwhile at depressed chuuni boomers with world domination fetish, we're so evil that the main bad guy has to play to organ in a very clearly evil manner to remind you how evil they are, the subtlety has been thrown out the fucking window with these clowns being around and since they're the main center of attention and source of conflict within the narrative, suffice to say that it makes them as ridiculous as they sound and even Estelle mocks them constantly at how bad they are, really going from Richard to some cartoon network villain , is truly saddening.
There's little to no variety in the plot and it fucking drags as fuck, fortunately once you gain back Joshua, the game starts to pick up again and the rythm becomes somewhat consistent but there's still a lot of needlessly long and stretched out gameplay section, chapter 7 and chapter 8 could've honestly been both a series of cutscenes but no, in chapter 7 you go through the 4 towers to defeat the 4 bad guys, so you're dragging your ass through 4 very similar looking dungeon to defeat one bad guy and maybe have a cool scene or two and chapter 8 tries to do the "world of ruin" bits from FF VI but instead of it being a major event that changes not only how you approach the world but also the tone of the game , it's another way to drag you through all the same location for more backtracking but this time WITHOUT YOUR SPELLS because we gotta keep shit RP. The chapter ends on a pretty high not tho so it's not entirely wasted.
The final chapter is actually really damn nice even if again, it needlessly drag, it's like Falcom was scared that the game wouldn't have been worth our money if each chapters wasn't at least 10h long to go through but some other JRPG's can tell much more and much more meaningful stuff in less than the time and with less the tedium while keeping the variety afloat.
Which this whole thing is a shame because story wise, SC does deliver on a lot more emotional bits than FC and brings closure to almost every characters and subplot almost perfectly while introducing new cool characters to booth, I liked Renne and Kevin the most out of the new characters and much like Estelle I damn wish Renne wasn't part of Ourobozos because she clearly deserves better than being indoctrinated by an evil organization which goals and ideals are...
Well I don't know and the game never truly expands on that actually..., I guess it's part of the continuous narrative of the series to answer all of these questions but if that's the case then let me tell you that the introduction of that plot was less than optimal cause the most memorable thing about them would be the Weissman plotwist in FC and nothing else so far (and it's insane the game actually tries to make a case for Estelle joining them but they barely gave any valuable reasons to do so...)
Loewe honestly should've been the final antagonist of the game by a land mile and he was done so dirty by Falcom at the end, he should've killed Weissman and carry the plan himself like any good villain sidekick do in a JRPG especially since he doesn't like the guy all that much anyway and also he's just way more cool and has still one of the sickest battle theme ever, that would've made for a way more meaningful and cathartic final confrontation imo.
Some scenes in the back half of the game makes it worth it but there was probably another way to go around some of the most tedious bits of the game I think and some corners could've honestly been cut or reworked in a way to be more digestible.
I'd say that yes, SC was overall a less enjoyable experience than FC because FC at least had qualities that SC doesn't ruin by needless padding, the plot does deliver a lot more but it's truly the structure that make or break this game. Estelle has great character development and is probably the best aspect of the game storywise honestly, she matures without having a drastic change in character too much and becomes able to empathize with way more complex situation than her and we go on this journey along with her.
SC overall is about as good as FC quality wise but the flaws are that much more prevalent and by the time I approached the ending, I really wanted this to end already which is honestly never a good sign.
So yeah, looks like despite some genuine qualities, I ain't gonna rate this game highly in my mind or even in my heart and it's a damn shame since I truly wanted to enjoy this experience to the fullest and I still love the cast and a lot of the neat stuff the game does with its world and characters, I hope 3rd changes my mind on the series for me to consider going forward with it.
TL;DR : Estelle is Bestelle
this probably will do nothing for you if the first game wasn't your thing
but man i love this cast with all my heart. its corny but theyre like my little friends inside my PSP. i think about them and i smile (:
but man i love this cast with all my heart. its corny but theyre like my little friends inside my PSP. i think about them and i smile (:
trails is my favorite series of all time and I do tierlists of like what my favorite game in the series is and why and shit, and I always put 3rd and azure in the highest one and then sit there going where do I put SC. Ive seen so many opinions and takes on this game and its writing and gameplay and pacing and characters and yada yada and thought about this game so much man. I just want to say yes of course certain character and there backstories weve seen before, joshua bright isnt the first to have this character arc, estelle bright isnt the first to have a stubborn happy go lucky character have to mature and grow up to the task at hand type character arc, but god damn man does this game do it so fucking well. its soundtrack its art its world its characters and just how fucking falcom does not care that this is an rpg they do not care they are going to make you run around the entire country again in chapter 8, because thats what they want estelle and them to do it just has so much fucking guts and confidence and its doing a story we more or less have seen aspects of somewhere or another but I will prolly never play anything ever again that made me feel like this. When I am making my little trails/falcom game tierlist SC always makes me stop and go I cant rank this I cant compare this. Im not saying others cant but god what cast what a soundtrack what a fucking game dude. I wont give it 5 stars idk why maybe cause i dont wanna fill up my 5 star ratings or whatever but this shit MEANS sumn to me man. Cold steel 4 killed all my goodwill the series had built up in me and it destroyed in future interest in the series, but thinking about SC again makes me wanna give reverie and kuro a shot. I love this game so much I could also write about how its orbment system feels really good and how its just another thing that helps immerse you into liberl and zemuria and shit but you know different people play things for different things.