I'm back after a month long hiatus, slowed down in Trails progress by Sekiro (Good lord it's so good. Top 10 games of all time personally... maybe a review for it will be my next writing project after SC), Monster Hunter World (Alatreon rekindled some MH flames in my heart), and.... a surprisingly boring, and honestly quite bad chapter of TitS SC? A word of warning: this week is FULL of salty complaints and criticisms, so if you don't like seeing that kinda stuff, you should turn back now. I mean salty like the Dead Sea kind of levels of salty.

And as always, this writeup will consist entirely of SPOILERS!

Previously in Trails: "You'll NEVER defeat me! Muahahahaha!"

Chapter 7 (2/2)

So... let's get straight to the point here, since I don't feel like being too nice to this chapter to be quite honest; What a painfully unnecessary chapter. Yes, some of the fights were interesting (and one was VERY much not, more on that later), and yes we got to see at least a tiny bit more about the Enforcers, but.... in the end, it felt like all of this chapter could have been told in a few cutscenes or a lengthy piece of dialogue. Let's go through the chapter and talk about its problems as we face them:

Picking up where we left off, our heroes head to the third "device tower," aka the Sapphirl Tower, to face off against Luciola once again. The party member forced upon the player is Schera this time, which yet again shows how skewed the usefulness of each character is... but that's a topic already covered previously. As was expected since going through half the chapter, the following sequence is dreadfully familiar: Walk through a very uninspired samey looking dungeon (mercifully a very quick single-track hike this time), fight the exact same looking monsters with slight color variations yet again, collect some "data crystals" that contain corrupted voice logs that are too corrupted to even try deciphering before the game does it for you, and finally defeat a boss only to find that you actually haven't defeated him/her. What. A. Drag. I've introduced a bunch of topics I wanted to talk about already, but the first one is definitely the monotony of this sequence. Just the fact that all the dungeons and monsters within look all the same with only a slight color difference very effectively eats away at player motivation, even if it would make sense within the world (as in, why would the four device towers have different minions and aesthetic designs? Though that "plot consistency" argument takes a hit with the gradually rising levels of the monsters). While I don't think this kind of story pacing/chapter structuring hasn't exactly been a strong suit of Falcom, it usually isn't a problem either. This kind of blatant playtime padding is unfortunately common in this genre, but it's still disheartening to see it in a story that has been doing a fairly good job of hiding the playtime padding under some character development and charming writing.

Speaking of "charming writing," let's move on with the chapter and discuss the boss for this tower, Luciola, and the lack of "charming writing." After a fairly uninteresting pre-fight conversation (Schera: "Tell me why you left the circus and me if I can prove myself to you in battle"), Luciola gives a small bit of backstory: She wanted to "look into [her] own darkness" by joining the Society, because she murdered the owner of the circus, Mr. Harvey. I will direct no judgement towards those who found this bit of exposition interesting, but personally, I found it horrendously rote and uninteresting. Perhaps the lack of detail and previous information about Luciola accentuated the issue, but I can't find a reason why the player would care at all about the revelation that a "baddie" aligning themselves with a nefarious secret organization that obviously doesn't write "human rights and morals" anywhere in their company motto has... murdered someone? That we've never met? Perhaps we were supposed to care because Schera told us she was like a sister to her when she was a wee little gal... but let's be honest here; Schera's past hasn't had enough story presence until now for us to care about its intricacies, and just being told to be in shocked disbelief that a character that seemed kind over a decade ago turned out a little murder-y is... in harsh words, a bit lazy. Of course, not everything can be perfect in a game. But this game is Trails. If there was one thing that I would want to be top notch quality in this game, it would be the character writing (well actually the world building, but let's rope characters in there too for convenience). In terms of lack of interest, let's just say even Luciola's story was slightly more interesting than Bleublanc or Walter's. I suppose Bleublanc gets a pass for the memes, but Olivier wasn't even there to complete the humor. Did we even need the Enforcers at each of these towers at all? It's not like the team getting there changed anything...

Which brings me to my next topic, the aspects about this chapter that go from "disappointing" to "straight up bad," the first one being the Renne fight. After the Luciola fight and seemingly important dialogue being interrupted by something AGAIN, the heroes head to the Amberl Tower to face Renne, where the format is the exact same YET AGAIN (actually the dungeon part was unnecessarily complicated so I suppose it was worse?). But that's just the same as before. I'll even say that the story development around Renne manages to slip into the territory of "mildly interesting if not slightly cheaply melodramatic." What REALLY grinds my gears about this segment is the fight itself. Get a load of this: It starts with your party being ambushed, meaning they're surrounded and most of them won't get a turn until the whole enemy roster, and Renne automatically starts the fight with her S-Craft THAT HAS 1-SHOT POTENTIAL. And I don't mean "it does enough damage to 1-shot" 1-shot; I mean the status effect 1-shot. In my case, literally my whole team wiped on the first go. Who... who thought this was a good idea?! I'll admit there were "hints" in that you pick up an anti-1-shot charm right before, but I think it's fair to say that not many people would expect that attack to be crammed into the beginning of the fight against your whole team. Maybe this would be a somewhat interesting setup if you could avoid the attack by min-maxing a character for speed and applying status ailments on Renne.... but of course, as she is a boss, she's immune to all status ailments other than stat lowering. By the way, the fight itself (given that you survive the S-craft or get lucky and it misses, and survive the followup attacks from her minions) is fairly easy; As long as Kloe was alive with 100+CP, she could S-craft everyone back to life, and Renne and her minions really aren't too powerful. But honestly, I don't think that makes me feel any better about the fight. It's not that it wastes that much time, since you'd presumably save the game right before the fight (if you didn't.... yikes), but it just feels BAD, for particularly no purpose. It honestly soured the experience of this entire chapter even further, and I'm not even done complaining about it yet.

And now we come to my final point, which is a nitpick about the writing. This chapter ends with the Aureole being set free, appearing in the skies of Liberl and shutting down all Orbments in the country, starting to set the stage for the final rush towards the end of the game (presumably). That's all fine, but what bugged me is how the characters acted throughout this chapter leading up to this conclusion, and how they reacted to it. Refer to the screenshot to of Joshua to the right; His line reads something like "So the 'towers' going back to normal was part of your plan?!" .... Excuse my language, but NO SHIT JOSHUA. I'm not going to spend the time to go back and check, but I think one of the characters (probably Dr. Russel) expressly predicted that the towers' "alternate dimension" fields were there to try to fight intruders and protect the towers' functionality (which was also not hard to guess that they were keeping the Aureole from activating, considering the events of FC, which I won't get into). But even without that prediction or very blatantly obvious foreshadowing, the Enforcers that guarded each tower should have made it so glaringly obvious that the hero team didn't achieve anything at each tower; The moment the Gospel replicas did their thing, they all said some variant of "my job here is done" and left the scene.... when the heroes had done absolutely nothing to the towers themselves. Throughout the chapter, the team and the supporting characters speak as if they were achieving something by just going to each tower and... watching it shut itself off? With no sense of urgency? I know the towers getting shut off and Aureole getting released is necessary to move the story forward, but jesus christ. Making the smart characters suddenly incompetent for the sake of convenience is bad writing! I kind of feared this kind of thing would happen at some point when I saw that the writers kept using Joshua as the sort of tell-all solution for explaining plot points, but it still really sucks seeing it happen.

Again, no game is perfect, and I assume this chapter fell into an awkward spot of having to fill in time to nudge the story forward while giving the villains a little more time in the spotlight before facing off for the final time. But my god, this was just. so. bad. Each individual component wasn't anything too major by itself: the dungeons being boring, the story being modular and one-note, having a couple bad fights, having some sloppy writing in the details... But that's a lot of points, and when all of these come together on a chapter that really didn't accomplish anything more than what could have been shown in a cutscene (Essentially, that last cutscene with the Aureole appearing in the sky could have been the entire chapter. Just add a cut of all the Tetracyclic Towers "shutting off" at the beginning), it manifests into a painful waste of time. And this is with a chapter that had no side quests to distract from it! Maybe the bar had been set too high with the past couple of chapters.... Anyways, my enthusiasm for the game definitely took a nosedive with this chapter, but I'm still curious where the overall plot will lead to. Hopefully, they're done with all the play time padding they needed to put in to make the FC/SC split feel worth it? I would imagine they have to be, since the biggest mystery of the story just materialized right above their heads. Only time will tell I suppose. On to the next chapter! Extra screenshots below.

Had to skip a week due to... life (and getting back into Sekiro and getting HOOKED. That game is a masterpiece, y'all), but here we are again. Let's turn our eyes from responsibilities and talk some Trails! Though this one is going to be VERY short, since I haven't gone through much and there wasn't much to talk about.

As always, Spoilers! Though there really isn't much in here this week.

Previously in Trails: Que song

Chapter 7 (1/2):

Alright, there isn't much to talk about in terms of the story, but let's scrap together some things to talk about! In this chapter, the heroes go around the Tetracyclic Towers (the towers we've seen near the major cities throughout the game until now). It's basically just a boss rush with short mini-dungeons in between, where we go through the list of Enforcers we've met along the way.

There are... some good things about this format. First of all, we get to focus on the story without having side quest distractions, which I'm starting to get more and more fond of. Second, we get to have a very dense string of combat encounters, and as someone that enjoys the combat in Trails, this is pretty fun in a different way from usual. However, I do feel like this might be a net negative: The focus on the story doesn't do much since all we're doing is running by the Enforcers (who really don't make themselves very interesting), and even with the focus on battles, it's very repetitive (which is why I couldn't get though much this week). It's kind of fun that the game gives us opportunities to use some of the less relevant characters, but it also brings forth the issue that some characters are so much less useful... especially since there is no system that keeps the other characters leveled appropriately.

Anyways, here are some points of interest in this chapter so far:

Ever notice that almost any Japanese game, primarily JRPGs, will pretty much always have this kind of mystery dimension area? The whole "floating fantasy-future platforms in a goopy weird colored alternate dimension" area? Really reminds me of Derris-Kharlan in Tales of Symphonia. It's suggested that the Tetracyclic Towers were built by people attempting to contain the so-called Aureole, so maybe we will be visiting this Aureole thing later, and it will look pretty similar to this?

Also, I had forgotten how Joshua is basically a Deus Machina in terms of explaining whatever is going on, almost to a hilarious degree. Came across a pre-historic data recording device? No worries, Joshua will just clickity-clack for a couple seconds, and voila! you've extracted the relevant information and you know exactly what it is! Oh, Josh, what will we ever do without you. (but no really wtf is the reason he can do literally everything? Just because he was a former Enforcer with assassin training?)

In terms of the fights, the BleuBlanc fight at the end of the first tower had an interesting gimmick. BleuBlanc would summon a bunch of illusory clones that would teleport away every time they get hit with an attack, and the robot minions that got summoned at the beginning of the fight can also be resummoned by BleuBlanc. The fight is a race to find the true BleuBlanc and grind him up before the rest of the enemies get too overwhelming. Pretty cool as a one-off concept! In my case, I got pretty lucky that I used Kloe's Kaempfer craft on him before he summoned his clones, which let me track him down with the debuff icon. Being able to counter the fight's gimmicks like that is another fun factor that makes this more interesting.

And how could we forget? We finally get Zin's moment of glory in the main story! His.... final? moment of glory? The fight itself with Walter was as vanilla as it gets, but the ensuing cutscene/battle sequence of his 1v1 with Zin was pretty cool. There are some aspects in the game system and battle that I have lingering issues with (which I've gone over before), but things like this are perhaps my only gripe with an otherwise superb story. They bring in a canonically "badass" character who should be able to act as a mentor, and who also has a mysterious(?) backstory, but they only focus on him for a grand total of... 30 minutes or so? It's pretty mind boggling. I've heard that Zin doesn't really make an appearance in the games after the Sky trilogy, which just makes things even worse. The saving grace is that the Trails series still seems far from over, and the Calvard Republic (Zin's homeland) is still unexplored territory, which means... maybe we get some games focused on that region? One can hope!

Welp, that's basically all I've got so far! I thought of talking about the Shining Poms, but really all they are is that they're rare enemies that drop insane amounts of EXP and Sepis... the Metal Slimes of the Trails world, if you will. It at least lead to the glorious screenshot below! Well anyways, hopefully I can finish up the chapter soon, and finally start getting some juicy conclusions to this long adventure. We'll see... Bye!

Extra screenshots:

Back again for another chapter of Trails in the Sky SC! We've got some real good plot development this week, and there's so much going on that I'm going to have trouble picking out a few to write about. Anyways here we go!

As always, everything below are going to be SPOILERS!

Previously in Trails: Que music Proof of a Hero.

Chapter 6

Back to back with last week's amazing chapter 5, this was another juicy chapter! Just as I thought, they're doing the same thing as the previous game, where all the visible plot development is jam packed in the second half of the game (though I do appreciate some of the nods to the previous events).

I'll skip the intro bit in Bose, since I don't have quite as much time this week, but a few notes: While I did complain about the side quests in the previous week, they do still offer a lot of interesting story bits, exemplified in this chapter. We had a chance to get a glimpse of Lila's (Mayor Maybelle's maid) past, which turned out to be surprisingly tragic. Her quote that goes something like "Rennie (her childhood name) is dead, resting somewhere in these lands with her parents" was weirdly moving to me. Also, we had a quick trip into the Ravennue Mines that lead us to some mechanical drones roaming around, with a special little cutscene that foreshadowed a "menacing figure from the heroes' past"... which we meet shortly after. It appears that this hidden side quest can influence a short piece of dialogue later on, which was pretty interesting.

Let's get back to the main story, which starts with a pleasant little vacation for our heroes at Valleria Lakeshore. I always love these kinds of short breathers in a story, where literally nothing threatening is happening... and considering its placement, this late into the story, seems like the game's telling you "Shit is about to start moving. Rest up while you can!" I'm all for it. We also have Kevin joining our heroes for the vacation, who reveals that he'd been researching the Tetracyclic Towers and thus missed the dragon commotion. I wonder if this means he will finally be joining the team for good? The way he drops in and out of the team has made it difficult to invest resources into his character building, which has had... adverse effects towards his performance in battle (though then again, nobody else is coming close to Kloe's ridiculous magic damage output and Agate's S-Craft spam).

However, our heroes' rest is short lived, as that very evening, Kurt pulls a Kurt and shows up half dead drifting on a boat (why is it that Liberl's supposed No.2 Bracer is always treated so harshly in this story...? Same category as Zin I suppose). Turns out that Ouroboros had been setting up a secret lab near the lakeshore, camouflaging themselves from the air with a huge hologram (oho chapter 1!) and from the surface with a thick fog (oho chapter 4!). This leads me to wonder if the whole bit about using the Gospel to cause earthquakes, power tanks, and control dragons is going to come into play later. Anyways, the team heads into the lab to face Ouroboros, but finds themselves in a largely empty building, only guarded by conveniently possessed Bracers from Kurt's team. What JRPG is complete without fighting some friends possessed by evil mind tricks? On a side note, the enemy characters' resistances to status ailments is starting to get really annoying, and kind of turning out how I feared in the beginning... Even human mini bosses (who I would imagine isn't performing at the peak of their capabilities) is STILL immune to every single status effect...? I know that's a pretty common thing in RPGs, but it's still pretty annoying. Let me use my whole kit! Anyways, finally, as the team makes its way to the top floor of the lab, they're met with....

ROBO JOSHUA! Well I certainly didn't expect that (well Anelace's description of "familiar clothes" was a dead giveaway, but I certainly didn't expect the silver robo-face). The fight itself was fairly interesting too, with three Robojoshes and being surrounded at the beginning. You also realize how dangerous the AT Delay status effect can be (again, LET ME USE STATUS AILMENTS AGAINST BOSSES FALCOM). I mean, the game isn't all that difficult to begin with... why not let me at least feel smart about my wins? In my case, I was lucky enough to get all of them in fairly close proximity, letting me wipe them out with the Kloe Cannon (i.e. Diamond Dust in this case). To no surprise, Weissmann and team were watching the fight, and gas our heroes to knock them out. To some surprise, he leaves them all in place except for Estelle, whom he has Loewe carry out as they escape into their....

BIG RED FLYING FORTRESS! Well damn, the scale of the conflict is getting bigger at each plot point. Also the orange-red coloring and yellow emblems totally give off a Char/Zeon flagship vibe, and I am SUPER into that. I'm usually not too impressed by the vehicle designs in the Trails franchise, but this one's pretty cool. Which reminds me how I'm also kind of fond of the smaller patrol ships that are on board the Glorious; They look like dumb little lobsters and are kind of cute (screenshot at the end!). Here, Estelle wakes up to Renne offering to take her to Weissmann's cathedral, where she will get a chance to talk to the big bad and get some of her questions answered. Surprisingly, Weissmann offers Estelle a position within the Ouroboros, starting as an Enforcer; She'll be able to give Joshua a reason to come back to the Society. Now I don't know if the Joshua bit is the sole reason Weissmann would extend such an offer, but it is an interesting curve ball of a plot point... though I can't see any purpose other than keeping Estelle as hostage against Cassius and Joshua. Also going a little off course... OF COURSE Weissmann would greet Estelle at his cathedral playing a pipe organ. OF COURSE. Let's just check all the stereotypical "JRPG smart bad guy" boxes, shall we. (I like it.)

Still captive and back at her room, Estelle talks with Loewe about his past - The truth about Harmel Village (my apologies for the last post, calling it Harlem), where a mercenary group attacked and slaughtered the village while carrying Liberlian weapons, conveniently used by the Erebonian Empire as an excuse to start the Hundred Days War. It was there that Loewe and Joshua had lost Karin Astray, Loewe's love interest and Joshua's older sister. In terms of tragic anime backstories, having your village burned to the ground seems pretty standard, but it's still fairly reasonable that the event would cast a heavy shadow on the two survivor's hearts. Loewe vows to "test" the world that has been so cruel to him by joining the Ouroboros's sinister plans, while Joshua claims to have been broken by the event, becoming an empty husk of a human. (It still is kind of cringey the way Joshua says it though) Anyways, Estelle makes up her mind that she is going to decline Weissmann's offer, and stages a daring escape, in what is possibly the coolest shit she's ever done; Breaks the window, waits for the guards to come close to the window to check outside, swings down with a dropkick to one of them, and quickly dispatches the other with her staff. DAMN girl.

She doesn't get far, however, until she's caught running by a group of armed guards, where we learn that the "menacing figure" in the intro bit was none other than.... Gilbert the former secretary to the mayor of Ruan! ................ Yes me too Estelle, I didn't remember who he was during that earlier cutscene either. However, having a little comedic relief thrown in doesn't make the next fight any less difficult, as you get a bonus of 5BP to the quest reward for defeating the gang of 5 within a certain turn limit (now this is pretty cool). I ended up retrying a few times, finally settling for a brute force strategy of equipping Estelle with enough quarts to learn Titanic Roar, a decently powerful and easy to equip Arts that hits the whole screen. The defeated guards stand back up, claiming they have been modified to be able to extract even more potential power from their bodies, and surrounds Estelle to capture her for good (I feel like it's pretty lame that winning the fight didn't lead to her actually winning the encounter, but oh well). And just as it seems like it's over for Estelle, a familiar voice: JOSHUA! And this time it's fleshy Joshua! Gotta admit, that was a pretty cool entrance for our emo boy. Them having to spend the next 30 minutes trying to escape the ship in relative silence kind of seems like a pacing issue (like maybe it would have been more natural for Joshua to show up right before they escape), but I for one liked the awkward/embarrassing doki-doki-ness of the awkward silence until then, at least on Estelle's side. Anyways, after a bit of a chase through the ship and some skirmishes with some patrol robots, the two manage to escape the Glorious by hijacking a patrol ship and losing their pursuers with some unexpected help from the Capua Family.

And now for the emotional payoff. The two end up on the beach near Ruan, where they abandon the ship and spill their hearts out. Joshua, being the little emo shit that he is (btw I'm only kidding, as I'm sure losing your entire village will fuck anybody up), still tries to push Estelle away at first: His heart is "broken," unable to feel any real emotions, and Estelle being around him will neither help him or her. But as many players may have noticed, he has a tendency to blame his "brokenness" to every single one of his faults and past traumas even though he has shown over and over that he is capable of humanly emotions, and badass Estelle realizes this too. She puts her foot down, and tells it like it is: "Naw mate, you aren't turning your back on me because you think you're broken. You fucking love me too much and are scared shitless of losing me like your sister because you think I'm took weak. WHO DO YOU THINK I AM" (excuse me for the non-literal but totally true translation). Estelle bitchslaps the edgy attitude out of Joshua, brings the sparkle back in his eyes with a warm hug, and goes, "GUESS WHAT MOTHERFUCKER YOU OWE ME A REDO ON THAT KISS" (excuse me for the non-literal but totally true translation). I. Fucking. Love it. (btw Estelle is much more gentle and caring than how I wrote it, in case it needs any clarification.) Honestly this whole scene may have been the most satisfying moment in all of my gaming years in terms of an in-game relationship coming to fruition.

Not gonna even go into the whole Joshua harem slowly taking shape with Josette still waiting for her moment on the sidelines, but there we go, another solid chapter in a great game. On more surface level plot concerns, the central conflict is finally starting to take shape, with Weissmann and his gang arriving at the Tetracyclic Towers and starting some kind of summoning ritual to get a hold of the Aureole, though we still don't quite know what that entirely means. It looks like the next chapter is going to be a boss rush of the previously introduced Enforcers, so it'll be interesting at the very least in a battle perspective (Though cramming that into one chapter probably means that Zin is going to get shafted yet again and won't be given any real character development. 'Tis a tragedy). We'll see what's coming next, hopefully by next Monday! Signing off with some extra screenshots below:

Had to skip last week, but here we are again. Week 4!

Things are starting to get wild! And as always, This is entirely comprised of SPOILERS!

(I don't know if anyone's reading at this point, but I apologize again if the specific names/quotes are not the same as the English translation. I try to find the actual English names at least, but I translate the quotes on the spot.)

Previously in Trails: Estelle regains confidence and the power of love.

Chapter 5

What a FUCKING. RIDE.

I've mentioned before that Agate felt like a character with a lot more potential in him, and boy does he deliver. In spite of the rather... mythical reptilian(?) spectacle of this chapter, the main plot itself doesn't move too much (or at least, not any more than the previous chapters). Our heroes are still in the dark about what exactly Ouroboros is planning with all these experiments, and there technically aren't any updates from Joshua's side within this chapter either. But the sheer focus of this chapter is just something to behold in terms of character writing in a JRPG. My god I love (some of) these characters.

Let's start where chapter 4 leaves off, in the town of Rolent (and the hour or so in the next town, Bose). There's one thing I've reaffirmed about this game: There's a significant amount of bloat that they could have cut off in the side quests. Feels a little strange to lob a complaint after that glowing intro, but it is what it is. Most of these side quests are fantastic in that they shed light on fun conversations and bits of world building that truly make these Falcom games stand out. But man... sometimes there's just too many of them, especially the "go kill X" side quests, which the game likes to throw handfuls at you at every turn in the story. And even if they aren't the generic monster-hunting, no-story side quests, sometimes they ask for weirdly time consuming tasks, like fishing up some oddly rare fish in a fishing minigame that they've hardly incentivised until this point. Don't get me wrong, this particular side quest ended in the most entertaining way possible, with the Rolent guild receptionist Aina utterly destroying Olivier and Anton (another fun NPC); with that said, however, it's also true that it grinds the game to a halt, even when things are starting to look like they're finally moving forward. It doesn't help that the first three "story quests" that the team takes in Bose is yet another list of "go there and kill this" quests, despite them being quite clever in foreshadowing the crash landing coming soon after (in fear of the approaching dragon, the monsters behave strangely and actually appear afraid/confused during battle. Nice touch! ...If they didn't make you run around the whole damn area for an hour). But no matter! This chapter does the absolute right thing and ditches the side quests (for the most part) after this point, and lets you focus on the rollercoaster ride coming up.

That is....

A motherfucking DRAGON crashing through the roof of the Bose city market! (The REAL rollercoaster is Agate's psychological transformation, but let's talk about the dragon too) This came as a surprise when the dragon was shown at the end of the last chapter, since the Trails world setting seemed a lot more grounded than allowing for full-blown western dragons coming out of nowhere... But I guess we have dragons now! Not that I would complain much, though it helps that the other characters are equally surprised at the existence of a living dragon. Anyways, finding out that Loewe was indeed his arch nemesis Lorence Belger from FC, Agate goes back to his hot-headed ways and chases after Loewe and the dragon by himself (though surely the danger they posed to his home village played a large role too). Aside from that, it was nice to have another of those conversation options that lets Estelle show her leadership skills, and seeing the residents of Bose staying strong together to survive the incident. I will say however that Bose and its residents are one of the more forgettable ones in the FC/SC world... I almost couldn't remember the town's name at the start of the game. Following a brief depiction of the rescue efforts, the scene moves to Ravennue Village, Agate's home turf, where the dragon had damaged the apple orchard it prizes.

And here we meet my Cool NPC of the Week! To be quite honest I'm slightly regretting my decision to limit this award to face-graphic-less NPCs since this chapter has so many good, prominent NPCs, but I'll try sticking to my guns. The cool NPC this week is Elder Reisen, the mayor of Ravennue Village. This guy's coolness is a little more subtle than Ashton from the entry before, but he's no less of a cool-ass dude, in that he's also a very caring father.... figuratively, apparently to the whole damn village. In the small bits of conversations we get with him, he shows genuine concern and understanding for Agate, who only visits the village once a year to say hi to his sister. In this scene he sees right through Agate's careless rush to face his nemesis, urging the heroes to hurry on ahead to help him instead of stopping to provide support for the damaged village. Later, we find that he had rebuilt Agate's burned down home after the events of the 100 Days War. Finding this becomes one factor that snaps Agate out of his grief, self-pity, and all-encompassing anger (but more on that later!).

At the end of the Ravennue Mine, Agate finally comes face to face with Loewe; A small point I'd like to point out first is how much I love the "fight cutscenes" in this game. It's so simplistic, with fairly rigid character sprites just kind of zipping around the screen... but the pacing and energy in how the battles are played out is so cool and actually convincing. I couldn't take a good screencap of the quick action in this scene, but another good example that comes to mind is when Schera fucking air-comboed a guy into a wall in FC. So satisfying.

Back at the story, Loewe points out Agate's critical weakness, and the emotional obstacle that is holding back his potential: His lack of a true identity as a warrior. Loewe observes that Agate merely uses the weight of his heavy blade to fill his empty heart, a void hollowed by his anger and grief over the loss of his sister and his inability to save her; He has neither the resolve to reach the heights of combat "enlightenment" like Cassius, nor the conviction to cast away his human values and become a "demon" of the sword like Loewe himself. Infuriated by the observation, Agate lashes out at Loewe, only to be easily defeated and cast aside with a broken sword. He is only saved by Tita shielding him from Loewe, loudly proclaiming her trust in Agate's true value as a person, as General Morgan swoops in with his troops to ward away the dragon and Loewe. I love this sequence, as cheesy as it is. The parallel of the heavy blade to the emptiness of Agate's heart, the natural explanation for his brash and (on the surface) uncaring attitude, his outburst of rage at General Morgan's by-the-books and slow military approach to saving the lives of Liberlian citizens, Loewe's ability to see through someone's heart where it pertains to combat, Tita's innocent but heartfelt trust in Agate's true nature.... EVERYTHING hits the right spot, somehow. And to think that this level of introspection is going on for a "side character!" Good stuff.

Another emotional moment follows as Agate is carried back to his house at Ravennue Village under Tita's care. Agate finally admits to Tita that his sister Mischa (whom Tita had been wanting to meet) is no longer, lost to the fires of war 10 years ago. I'll avoid going into the details of his past, but as Agate begins to look into his own past and belittles himself for his powerlessness (going from the anger/bargaining stage of grief to the depression stage), it is of course Tita that can give him a helping hand (to the face!). "Don't you dare belittle my kind and caring brother!" she yells, unknowingly embodying Mischa's behaviorism. It is then that Agate realizes he had been grieving for a long 10 years, only to make himself blind to all the other precious things in his current life: A home to come back to (rebuilt by the mayor and other villagers out of love), a caring girl that has welcomed him as someone as close as family, and a trusty team of friends that he joins in a career to help those in need. Again, it's amazing that this game would delve so deep into the character growth of a side character like Agate (though admittedly a bit rushed towards the end), and carefully portray his pseudo-sibling bond with Tita. Now, the anime fan in me gets the weird feeling that they might spin this into some kind of weird pseudo-sibling incesty thing, complete with a 12 year age gap, but.... I'll have hope that they keep it platonic. Otherwise, what a sweet and heartwarming tale of self love and overcoming grief.

I could honestly end there, since the chapter basically finished what it set out to do... but might as well finish the rest of the events, because they're really good too. General Morgan gets over his anti-Bracer shtick and comes up with a plan to capture the dragon using his trusty fleet of battle airships and the newly completed Arseille cruiser, allowing the Bracer team to be on board to provide backup in case anything goes wrong. The plan ultimately fails, however, as the captured dragon reawakens with the power of the Gospel embedded in his forehead. Our heroes decide that now is the time to utilize the quick movement only possible by the light-footed Bracers to track the dragon into his lairs in the misty peaks, and Gen. Morgan agrees. Gen. Morgan is another great NPC (honestly would have chosen him for the weekly award if he didn't have a picture for himself) that goes through a nice character arc throughout the series. He starts off hating the Bracer guild, deeming them untrustworthy and ineffective. But as our heroes work together with him and prove their worth, he slowly comes around to realizing his mistakes and opens up. His confrontation with Agate is fantastic too; He becomes much more human and complex as he shows his remorse at his failure to protect Ravennue Village during the war. It was also a nice touch that he remembered Agate in his youth, who was lashing out at the authorities for not being able to save his sister. These two had blamed themselves for something that they could not have reasonably prevented, trying to carry the weight of something that they couldn't carry by themselves for 10 years. The final shot of them standing together by Mischa's grave with flowers (which they both had been leaving every year) was genuinely touching. Screenshot at the end.

The dragon fight was cool too! It actually reminded me of the Safi'Jiiva fight in Monster Hunter World: Iceborne, since the dragon does an uninterruptable spell towards the end that blasts the whole field. To make the comparison even more apt, it even did the whole "glitter of energy slowly descending towards the center of the map, then HUGE EXPLOSION" thing too. I was strongly reminded of how completely broken the Earth Guard spells can be, since I was able to completely negate that spell by casting a block-all shield on everyone right before. However, one thing that is starting to annoy me is the classic JRPG and status ailments issue: NONE of the common status ailments work on the bosses, and kind of throws strategy out the window. Boss fights pretty much devolve into a matter of equipping the correct status ailment prevention charms on your team, and then dishing out the highest DPS possible. A bit of a shame. One more thing: how the team flashbanged the dragon out of the air to deal the finishing blow was totally Monster Hunter too. I approve. (Also, Agate jumping from something like 3 stories high and stabbing his new sword into the dragon's forehead is pretty much peak anime. Fucking. Awesome.)

Well there we go! Kinda rushed it at the end since it's getting super late, but man Chapter 5 was a blast. I've kind of accepted that the story is going to do the same thing as in FC, where the "overall plot" only moves towards the end, but I guess that's fine too, since we're getting some quality writing delving into each character. I'm crossing my fingers that we get a little more character development for good ol' Zin, since... he's pretty much been COMPLETELY absent in the story the whole time. He has to come up again, right....? He does have that whole rivalry with Walter to deal with... He's been so forgotten that he's close to 10 levels behind the rest of the team (Which is actually the same with Olivier and Schera, since Kloe has been single-handedly magic-ing the SHIT out of everything she encounters. That ATS+100 armor is fuuuuucking broken). I actually liked the forced team compositions in FC, since it gave all the characters a place to shine. Hopefully it comes back in later installments; At the very least, Cold Steel 1 had something close for most of the game.

Anyways, here's some parting screenshots!

Oh dang today is already Monday! I was about to forget about writing this because of Memorial Day. I've finished Chapter 4, so I'm going to ramble on about that this week. (This is finally starting to look like what I was thinking of at first, a play-by-play journal of the Trails experience).

Spoilers!

The rest of Chapter 4:

Quick recap of last week: Joshua is emo, and Estelle is back in Rolent!

First off: It looks like we're still going with the "monster of the week" "Enforcer of the chapter" system? Kind of wanted a little more overall plot development considering how much more interesting Ch.3 was compared to previous chapters, but I guess I'll give it a pass for now. It is somewhat appropriate here, with Estelle in a bit of a downer mood after seeing a scandalous photo of Joshua with another girl (phrasing).

So what's the problem this time? Mysterious fog that is knocking out random townsfolk! I do appreciate the slightly eerie nature of this case, with the usually calm and happy town of Rolent being covered in oppressive white fog, as if to serve as a metaphor for Estelle's lingering doubts about her own resolve during this chapter.

After a quick investigation about the fog's range and effects, the crew gets reports about the civilian casualties from the Mayor (cheeky little callback to FC here, btw). The crew then decides to go around the houses of those affected, and investigate each situation. It is quite effective in bringing down Estelle even further, as NPC we've known since the very beginning of the game/people that truly care for Estelle, are seen worried and afraid of what could happen to their loved ones. A small point I wanted to point out here is that the sprite work for this game is truly lovely; We occasionally see Estelle giving warm hugs to other characters throughout this game (like when Tita is being too f'ing cute), but I just love how tender it feels, even to the player. This spritework is really what makes older games feel so warm in my eyes... making the player fill in for the missing details really makes them sympathize with the characters' emotions. Also, I can't get enough of how genuine and kindhearted Estelle is, being able to give her friends kindness and stability even when she is trying to handle some emotional baggage of her own. One of my favorite RPG main characters for sure.

Predicting that the fog could be caused by yet another Enforcer due to reports of a suspicious "woman in black robes" showing up at key scenes, the Rolent guild decides to call for backup from the local military post. Here's small point #2, a point I would like to try to revisit as many time as I can throughout the playthrough: The "Cool NPC of the Week" award, which will go to the coolest face-graphic-less NPC that left the biggest impression on me during that week. This week, that award goes to Chief Watch Officer Ashton, whom the team meets on their way to helping the residents at Perzel Farm evacuate to the town to be protected by the military. This guy is another example of fantastic NPC writing in Trails; we've known him since the very beginning of FC, being a hard-ass commanding officer who whips into shape the new and inexperienced recruits at the Verte Bridge checkpoint. We also know that he is a caring father to Luke, a child who unfortunately fell victim to this foggy case. As Estelle starts to awkwardly reassure Ashton about Luke, this badass calmly stops her, telling her to save the sympathy for later; He is a trained professional, who won't let personal misfortunes affect his honor and duty. Even if he doesn't say it, we know that he is worried to bits about Luke... but the goddam Chief Watch Officer knows that he is the only one that can command his troops and protect the rest of the town. Not all heroes wear capes.... or rather, Not all JRPG heroes are teenage main characters in anime costumes. I just LOVE that Trails is able to consistently show that the "average Joes" in the game are all "main characters" of their own life stories, trying their best to survive and make their world a better place. It's also clever that this guy serves as one of many role models for Estelle, who is unable to tell her team about the photo of Joshua and the Capua family. Even though it isn't explicitly stated, I'm sure that witnessing Asthon's resolve and professionalism was one of the factors that lead to her own renewed determination at the end of the chapter.

Moving on, the team finds that they were too late in getting to Perzel Farm, finding the residents unconscious at their dinner table. Estelle breaks down in self-doubt, witnessing yet another close friend falling victim to the mysterious woman in black. I regret not taking a screenshot, but Schera's slap to literally snap Estelle out of her downwards spiral was very satisfying. The NPCs are great, but the hero team's chemistry is also fantastic! It could just be that Schera is awesome overall. We also get another instance of Kevin Shady McShade showing up at the most convenient moment to take care of the unconscious family.... just who the hell is this guy??

Anyways, after a bit of searching around in a Zelda-style maze forest, the team yet again finds the Black Orbment, i.e. the Gospel, being used in some kind of experiment, causing the mysterious fog and knocking out the townsfolk. After fighting off some random fog-ghosts, the team is knocked unconscious by the new Enforcer (Luciola, again not very interesting so far), and Estelle finds herself waking up in her past, back to when her mother was alive. She "lives" an undetermined amount of time in this happy little fantasy, enveloped by the safety of her father and the love of her mother. Even though it's tropey as all hell, I couldn't help but feel my heartstrings tugged at Estelle coming to recognize the illusion by noticing the absence of Joshua. And I LOVED that the final trigger was her playing Whereabouts of the Stars on Joshua's harmonica, complete with a nice callback to one of the first conversations we hear between the star-crossed lovers. After a short but sweet conversation with Illusory Mother, Estelle fully embraces the power of love and reinvigorates her resolve in grabbing Joshua by the collar, and kicking the shit out of Ouroboros.

With the fog cleared and the team back at the guild, Estelle breaks the news: Joshua is doing some shady stuff with the Capua family, but she's more determined than ever to kick ass. It's so very satisfying to see her slowly regain her confidence and professionalism through her interactions with Schera, Ashton, and the other great characters around her during this chapter. We also get a great line from her: "Although the paths we walk may be different, I know that we're heading to the same destination." They all know that Joshua's still a good boy deep down, and trusts that he's doing what he can to take down Ouroboros. Hopefully he can show more of his good boy side soon!

This was a rather slow and introspective chapter, but I don't mind it much when the writing is this good (That and I love introspective moments in stories. Fate: UBW anyone?). The bad guys are making cryptic remarks about the "plan going to the next phase," so hopefully I get more story development in the next chapter! As always, can't wait to get more.

Here are some extra screenshots that I couldn't fit into the main text above:

Here we go, rambling on. Since last week's was unnecessarily long and mostly just a recap of FC, this time is a short as possible catch-up to where I'm currently at in SC. Again, Spoilers abound. (Also I'll probably just post these only to my profile after this one, since it seems kind of rude to fill up the game page forums with blog posts meant for myself.)

Prologue

Wow, did not expect the game to literally pick up where we left off in FC; I guess it's no exaggeration to say FC and SC were just one game that got split in two last second (which is, I think, what the devs said too). I was thinking we'd at least skip around until we're back in Rolent or something, but... nope, wake up in the Grancel castle again, Joshua's gone for maybe a couple hours, and Estelle is shaken to her core. I very much appreciate Schera being the mature "older sis" and calling out Joshua's selfish way of seeing himself out to "protect her from him" (I mean c'mon man, he just took her first kiss, roofied her, and went "Peace I'm out"). It's great to see such an old game properly downplaying that kind of romanticized "manliness"... even if the game has some questionable statements some other times. Product of the times I guess.

As for the new character: Ohhh boy does this Kevin dude look sketch. Kansai dialect in an anime game? Way too friendly? Shows up at the most convenient moment? Checks all the boxes for a late game "gotcha bitch" reveal.

The other "new" character: Anelace is great! She has a great moveset, great chemistry with Estelle, and her very forward-facing attitude and personality is never unwelcome. I think the fluidity of the party roster is something that's very unique and interesting to the Trails series too; Without having to cater to player comfort and making every party member available at all times, they really make the story telling feel much more natural.

Poor Kurt.

Chapter 1

I love that Ruan is the first town we're back to in SC: I love how the town looks, the music is nice, and I'm sure we all remember the school play bit of the story from FC very fondly.

I chose Agate to join Estelle in the investigation first, and (without knowing how the dialogue and story goes with Schera) it seems to have been the right choice. I've always felt that Agate seemed underdeveloped in FC, even though he seems like he could be a very good character. Complex background, great fight style, rivalry with the "strongest bad guy", tsundere personality, blazin' red hair... what's not to like. But man, the chilled-out version of Agate we get in SC just makes everything so much better. Now with the kind of older-brother-ish maturity and mutual respect he shows to Estelle, his surface level brashness and confidence just seems lovable. Well done, Falcom.

It's also great that we get Olivier and Kloe right off the bat with this composition too, since we have the physical DPS in Agate, the tank/support in Estelle, magic DPS in Olivier, and secondary magic DPS/support in Kloe. Actually might make things harder if you chose Schera over Agate, since you'd be lacking a physical DPS...

Bleublanc? Also great. I've already played Cold Steel 1, but I didn't expect he was such a major player in the larger story!

Chapter 2

Back to Zeiss! Another fun city, with all the labs in the workshop and Antoine, the best cat ever. I kind of love and hate the somewhat modular structure the story is starting to take, with seemingly short stories and small conflicts that end with an Enforcer reveal. After the slow burn of FC, the quick pace of the story here is enjoyable... but also feels long when looked at from a distance, because of the predictable structure and somewhat unexciting conflicts. Not a big deal so far, but I hope it gets better.

Also, welcome back Tita! More games should have Engineer Machine Gun Lolis. The nerf on her smoke cannon Craft is slightly annoying, but understandable... it was kind of too powerful in FC. However, seeing all these enemies with SO MANY status ailment resistances gives me the impression that the battle system might get a little too one-note, with more interesting strats being completely overshadowed by brute force tactics.

This chapter felt more of just a character re/introduction, with Good Guy Zin coming back and introducing his arch nemesis, Walter the Direwolf (Who is, so far, a fairly uninteresting character despite the name). Overall pretty meh of a chapter.

Chapter 3

Here we go, the little push towards story development that was sorely missing, as the crew heads back to Grancel! The subquests in the sewers are kind of annoying as usual, but the story finally feels a little more interesting, with two reveals that seem important for the rest of this game. As expected, Kevin is an undercover agent of sorts, with ulterior motives... though he seems to be hiding more than he lets out here. And the little girl from a previous chapter is revealed to be yet another Enforcer (jesus how many of them are there). What is it with JRPGs and their love for psychopathic lolis? It seems like the crew wants to help this girl out (you know, because children are always redeemable even if they're murderous devil children), so she'll probably be a big part of the story moving forward.

This chapter felt like it showcased one of the greatest things about the Trails universe, detailing out the political standings of the countries in the region. Being able to visit the Erebonian and Calvardian embassies were great from a world building standpoint, and the ambassadors themselves being much more "human" than they let off in their previous appearance is exactly what I'd expect from the exquisite NPC work from Falcom. It's such a small point, but I love that the Erebonian ambassador starts off the conversation by continuing his "huge asshole" persona from the previous chapter, but he quickly calms down and shows his caring and respectful side by the end of the conversation. This is what makes the writing in Trails (so far at least) feel so comfortable to read, IMO.

Also concerning Renne and her Pater-Mater: I'm not a huge fan of most the mech design (looks like just another generic JRPG robot), but the name is fucking perfection. It's SO GUNDAM, with a translation that makes it sound super silly, and having that bouncy(?) little rhyme to its name. I LOVE it. Also Renne riding on its palm to fly away in classic villain fashion is greatly enjoyable too.

Early Chapter 4

We get to see what Joshua's been up to with the Capua family. Cool! Also the fight with Mueller was pretty interesting.

I really hope we can get Joshua to snap out of his emo phase soon, as it's getting REAL cringey and annoying already, not even half way through the game. He's almost like one of those shitty self-insert MCs in recent "isekai" light novel animes...

And back to Rolent! I just love the way the townsfolk treat Estelle, welcoming her back home with neighborly love and affection. Such a wholesome little RPG, this one.

Alright, and now for another week of trying to find time to play a long ass JRPG while weaving through work... I feel like I complained a lot about the story so far, but the overall writing quality is still very enjoyable, making even the "boring" parts fairly painless to play. Can't wait for more, good job Falcom!

Also, if anyone feels like putting in their 2 cents, I'm all ears. Cheers!

Intro

As the title says, just jotting down some thoughts for myself as I play through the Trails series games. Honestly not really meant for a wide audience, since it's just for my sake as a journal... or a blog, as one might say. Haven't been making much use of the community features on this site, so what better way to start doing so than writing about games?! I just need a place to exercise my fingers and ramble on about stuff I've been enjoying while this quarantine business is going on.

Alright, so to start off with context: I've actually already started playing these games a long time ago, hence the "X+1" in the title. In fact, I've already played the entirety of the first game (Trails in the Sky FC), and I'm about 35% of the way through Trails in the Sky SC. I actually started with Trails of Cold Steel 1, so that's out of the way as well. For the sake of continuity though, let's start journal entry #1 with a quick run through and thoughts about Trails in the Sky FC!

Btw: I've been playing these games in Japanese (PSP version), so I won't be mentioning specific lines or other things that may be different from the typical player's experience. Also, obviously as a nature of these kinds of things, there will be SPOILERS! Though I'll probably try to avoid super critical things (or hide them a little).

Nihon Falcom

Before I start.... Ahh Falcom. What an intriguing company they are. Founded in 1981, Falcom started its life as an Apple computers retailer in Tachikawa, Japan. Their first game was released in '82; "Galactic Wars 1", brought in by just a random hobbyist that frequented their store (Yoshio Kiya, who eventually became one of their core programmers until leaving in '93). Apparently, the name "Falcom" was taken from the Millennium Falcon, with the last "n" changed to an "m" to follow the trend back then of having electronics company names that end with "~com". What a strange beginning indeed. It's honestly kind of baffling that a company with such a long history never really made a name for itself to the wider audience, only being recognized by folks that are either A. old and Japanese, or B. old and well versed in video games history. Sure, they consistently release a lot of anime games (Xanadu, Ys) that get some level of hype in Japan, but it really never seems to be huge in the mainstream consciousness, even across the pond. Then again, I guess that's just kind of how most of them are in Japan...? (Thinking of "Tales of", another long running JRPG series that I used to adore as a kid) There's a wider conversation to be had here about the quality of games with current Japanese game devs, particularly the ones that don't make a big effort at selling overseas, but that's probably for another blog if I ever get around to it. That kind of thing is something that intrigues me greatly, however.

Trails in the Sky: FC

Anyways, enough with getting immediately sidetracked by the Japanese game industry. So what is Trails in the Sky after all? As confusing as it is, Sky FC is the first chapter of a trilogy that starts off the entire "Trails" series, which is in itself the 6th, 7th, and 8th entries into the larger "Legend of Heroes" series. Trails in the Sky FC ~ The 3rd is "The Legend of Heroes 6", Trails of Zero + Trails of Azure is "The Legend of Heroes 7", and finally, Trails of Cold Steel 1~4 is "The Legend of Heroes 8". What a clusterfuck! Thankfully, knowing anything about The Legend of Heroes 1~5 is not going to be important at all in talking about the Trails series. I started playing these games with Trails of Cold Steel 1, and enjoyed the combat and kind of stereotypically "anime" story of feel-good friendship building and love and victory... and thought it was neat that there's apparently a huge Marvel-esque cinematic universe going through the entire series. So I figured, "Why don't I try to get the back story in all this stuff going on? I might not get too invested into each entry, but I'm sure it'll be a decent amount of fun!"

... And MAN was it a lot of fun. Trails in the Sky FC is one of those rare games that have a certain feeling of "warmth" about them, where characters are lovable and the world feels like it's brimming with life. It is unabashedly an "anime" game; There's a lot of standing around and talking, a lot of flavor text, and a lot of characters that have exaggerated personalities. But it's an "anime" game that's done well. The talking in this game feels like it's written with care; people say things that make sense to their characters (though you will get some lines that are... "a product of their times," if you will). The flavor text is actually funny/interesting, and give every town a sense of fantasy realism. And the characters, exaggerated as they seem, are actually much more interesting than they appear at first.

Let's take the main character, Estelle, as an example of an interesting character. She gets introduced as the energetic, boy-ish, and somewhat of a "not the sharpest tool in the tool shed" kind of character. And she plays that part well! But the writing in this game makes you care about her much more than you'd expect. It closely follows her growth as a Bracer (the civilian police-like guild whose main purpose is to help the wider public in places that the army/police cannot), starting off as a clueless initiate and slowly growing into a keen eyed, professional problem solver with a rapidly blooming talent in combat. We also get to see her growth as a human too, starting with one-note naivete and slowly maturing to the aforementioned professional, still able to pull the story forward with her sun-like energy. And if I'd allow myself to weeb out a little... God damn her slow realization of her feelings towards Joshua, and her determination to grab him by the collar and bring him back after that heartbreaking ending, is fuckin' kawaii as fuck, for lack of better words. You really feel like cheering her on throughout the story.

Nobody talks about the trails series without talking about the NPCs, and for good reason. Whereas even highly acclaimed story RPGs like The Witcher 3 and the likes would have town fulls of nameless NPCs that mutter fairly generic lines about their towns, Trails games have NPCs where 90% of them have names and actual tiny stories about themselves and their lives. Each time you progress the story a little and come back to town, talking to these NPCs is a little treat of its own, and this progression even carries over to the next game (SC). For example, Portos, the director of the docks at Ruan, seems like a nice guy that everyone at the docks looks up to... and Norman, the hotel owner at the business district, seems like a stern but respected businessman... and by the time the story gets back to Ruan in SC, they're in an election battle for the position of mayor; their votes split among the blue collar workers that want to sustain the jobs at the docks and the business owners that want to expand tourism. These NPCs are often involved in the numerous side quests that the story crams into the game, and sometimes show up again later in a different town. Help an engineer test a pair of sneakers in one of the early towns of the game? He shows up again when you visit the industrial city of Zeiss, doing more research in the labs there. There are many, many more examples of townsfolk that just feel alive. The ones that I mentioned don't even have character portraits like the more important NPCs in the story! I feel like this insane attention to detail has slightly slowed down in the later titles (at least from what I've played of Cold Steel), but maybe it will pick up as I play more of Cold Steel 2.

The pacing, however, can be a bit divisive I feel. The story starts out with Estelle and Joshua (adopted into the family in the prologue) becoming Bracers-in-training, getting ready to take on the many challenges that they are required to overcome in order to become a full fledged Bracer. However, their father Cassius goes missing in a supposed airplane accident; They take it upon themselves to tour through the entire country, taking on tasks and earning their certifications for promotion while searching for clues about their missing father. This intro alone can take HOURS.... While the strong point of this game is the extensive writing and the attention of detail, these same traits can lead the game to progress VERY slowly at times. And due to the nature of the game being split up into Sky FC and Sky SC, the first couple hours of FC can feel very inconsequential in terms of the actual events that take place. You hop from town to town, taking up side quests (some may say a few too many) and solving the big issue in each town before going to the next. While this progression can start to feel fairly repetitive, there is a payoff at the end, where all the foreshadowing that was scattered throughout the story culminates into an exciting finale of a coup d'etat by a division of the royal military.... followed by a goddam BOMBSHELL of a reveal in the epilogue, taking you straight into the next game.

Continuing with points that may potentially divisive, the combat is slightly different from what one would expect from a traditional JRPG. I've heard criticisms that it is far too easy; some spells and special moves were broken in terms of balance, and most enemies are pushovers once you get the hang of it. Personally, I liked what I played in the game, without trying to optimize too carefully or relying on aforementioned "broken" tactics. In short, it is a turn-based battle system where characters can move on grids, with some moves targeting a single enemy, or being able to hit multiple targets in a specified area. It has a third bar to manage on top of the usual HP and MP (called EP in Trails) referred to as CP, which is required to use each character's unique special moves. This intricate balance of three bars, along side the turn order displayed to the left of the screen and the positions of the enemies, made for a surprisingly tactical feel to the combat, making you pay attention to everything that goes on in the battlefield while trying to predict what will happen a couple turns ahead. The character stat building is my favorite (and again potentially divisive) feature of the battle system, where each character has a predetermined "slot layout" on their "battle orbments"(i.e. magical pocket watches). By slotting in "quartz" of various colors and effects, many of which carry stat bonuses, each character can use "orbal arts" (i.e. magic) that manifests according to how much of what color element you've slotted in to each line of "connected" slots. Makes no sense in writing? I think so too. Apparently the developers thought this was too confusing too, since the whole color counting system was abolished by the time Cold Steel came around (Perhaps it was gone in Zero/Azure as well?). In my opinion, it made the character builds into a sort of puzzle, and was rather enjoyable. Playing through FF7 for the first time with the Remake and seeing the Materia system somewhat reminded me of this system in Trails. I suppose the more "refined" system in Cold Steel was closer to what was in FF7R, however.

At this point I feel like I'm just explaining the game, so this is probably a good point to wrap up. I've heard that Sky FC is perhaps the shortest game in all of the Trails series games... and it still took me 50 hours. I am both excited and afraid to take on the rest of the games in an attempt to catch up with this loooong series. But I just can't seem to get enough of this game's charms! The "harem anime"-fication of Cold Steel was unnecessary, but that game had a fairly interesting plot as well, so the future seems pretty bright! And what's even better, we've got a Steam release (with both Japanese and English audio/UI! Now THAT'S rare) of Cold Steel 3 so I don't have to sit in front of my TV and PS4 to play! And even EVEN better, we're eventually getting a Steam release of Cold Steel 4! Awesome! Here's the plan for me... I'm going to try to play as often as I can (I do have a job) and write down what I think here as I do so in the form of a blog, updating every so often. If anyone finds that interesting, feel free to join me in discussion! This whole thing is mostly just for my purposes as mentioned at the very beginning, but I'd love to hear what other people think too.

What's that? Falcom is releasing ANOTHER game into the series in August this year?

...... We're in for a long haul, folks.