I can't stay away from this shit for more than a few months. I get Trails withdrawals, I start shaking, I get headaches, I try other JRPGs and I go to another village across the map in the middle of a story beat and I expect random NPC #84 to have new dialogue for me. They don't. Why would they? It's an insane thing to do, and yet it's just the standard in Trails. I don't know what kinda psychopath keeps making this. It's like fucking crack. Oh you didn't pay attention to the dilemma of an elderly NPC in the tavern actually overlapping with a solution given by the gardener in a different city that only exists for one single story step? You missed it? That's a sidequest gone. Idiot. You're an idiot for not doing it. I love that. I'm not being ironic. That's peak RPG.

Barely over a week ago I wrote a review for Persona 5 that said that gaming (implicitly referring to the japanese roleplaying kind, might I add) "has yet to find a good way to hide elemental weaknesses and then show them later". Then I play this shit and they immediately solve it. That's fucked up, man. You're fucking with me at this point. I'm pissed off they've done that.

I sit down to play a game. I ask what the story's about. You tell me it's a bunch of misfits in the found family trope. You slap me across the face. I start crying. You say it's framed in a buddy cop universe. You punch me straight between the eyes. I pass out from the pain. And yet all I feel is happiness. At one point a gruff elder police officer who's been "getting too old for this shit" says "I might just have to admit you're a half decent cop" and I got up in my apartment so fast it scared my roomba and started pacing around the entire living room while clapping so hard I lost all feelings in my hands. You might as well have told me these streets aren't what they used to be. I might have had a seizure.

The biggest (arguably only) weakness this has is that it's basically a sidestory and can't really decide how much it wants to commit to that. Bringing back familiar characters in a slightly awkward way. Not awfully so, but in a way where it definitely feels slightly inorganic. Don't get me wrong, I am the fan getting serviced, and I love my little beloved sprites I already played as for 100+ hours, but the game on its own might honestly stand better without it.