Maybe it's different in further entires, but trails in the sky 1 and cold steel 1 don't offer the perspective I'm looking for, at least early on. I didn't finish either of those either. It's weird, i enjoy that series but it's almost like theres too much good supplemental information. I feel like I need to talk to every NPC at every part of the game and it ends up killing the pace. The combat in trails 1 is also too damn slow to where it feels really tedious in fights that aren't difficult.
You have a good beat on how the series works.
Sky FC is in fact slow. I have two friends going through FC right now and one going through SC (person playing SC played through all of Cold Steel first). The one of the FC players had a really rough time through the first few chapters and then suddenly was on Chapter 5. The game has a very slow start and FC/SC have a different kind of difficulty curve that the other games don't necessarily have.
When I started the series (I started with FC) I did not talk to every single NPC between story segments. By the time I got to Cold Steel 3 I was talking to every single NPC between story segments. I'm 103 hours into CS4 (I won't be able to finish it for a while due to the new Path of Exile league). The game series is specifically made that you can talk to everyone if you want without much punishment if you don't, but by the time CS4 rolls around (I mean you're like 500+ hours in at this point, CS2/CS3/CS4 are 100+ hour games...) you're probably going to want to anyways.
The pacing issues are still there. I frequently stop during transitions between "story segments" and "exploration segments" to keep the pacing. "exploration segments" are my "chores", but there are some NPCs (e.g. Anton who is in almost every game in the series) which are fun to keep tabs on. I tend to skip dialog for NPCs I don't really care much about.
CS includes the Bond system which is like Social Links in Persona to add even more to this fire (you even get some unique accessories at the end of CS4). Really helps to stick with characters here you actually like. Don't feel obligated to save scum. Then again, my "main girl" in all of these games was Towa, which apparently is one of the least popular characters based on achievement stats.
tldr: The series really just is not for everyone.
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You're a regular Jack Kerouac Reality is overrated