#2: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
PlayStation Portable
Falcom / XSEED Games
Released March 29, 2011
The Legend of Heroes has not had a great record in the US. Three games came over from Bandai with terrible translations, and the ridiculously high text count stopped many companies from translating a game of this size. Fortunately, XSEED, in its partnership with Falcom, decided to localize and publish the game over here, and has released one of the best games on the PSP.
Trails in the Sky stars Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua Bright, two siblings that are bracers, a sort of peacekeeping force around the kingdom of Liberl. Throughout the game the two travel throughout the kingdom doing requests at all five areas of the kingdom in an effort to become senior bracers and to look for their father, who disappeared following a plane kidnapping in the nearby region.
Like talking to NPCs? Trails in the Sky has a huge number of NPCs that frequently change what they say and where they are after every important plot event. This results in huge amounts of story progress just by NPC dialogue. The game has a huge number of sidequests as well. Each one of these sidequests has a journal entry for it, as well as a mini-story with even more dialogue (except for the beat a strong monster quests.) All of this text from the above shows just how much dialogue is in this game, and shows the risk that XSEED took when localizing this.
Even with all the above dialogue, there's still a great story to find. Trails in the Sky provides a story that starts off rather slowly, but develops into a tale that stretches throughout the entire kingdom. It's really hard to explain without spoiling anything, though it's another game that had me continue playing from chapter 3 all the way to the end.
If you're a Ys fan, you'll be very well acquainted with Falcom's impressive music record. Though Trails in the Sky is somewhat more calm in its overworld tracks, Falcom still provides some great music, some that would fit well in both series. The voice acting is limited, happening only in battles, but it serves its purpose well. Unfortunately, though, the graphics are (and for a game released originally in 2004, this is not surprising) underwhelming, to say the least. Considering the game's original release date and what now can be produced, the graphics are the low point of this game.
The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is probably the best jRPG on the PSP, and any jRPG fan not playing this is doing themselves a disservice. Honestly, the only things I can feel that are bad about this game are the graphics and the fact that the sequel isn't released yet. Hopefully that will come out sometime in 2012.
Soundtrack Links
To Be Suggestive -
Leiston Fortress -
Silver Will -
Challenger Invited -
Ancient Makes -
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Congrats to 2011 Rivalry Rumble Guru winner, SuperNiceDog
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