Board 8 > Just finished Trails in the Sky First Chapter *SPOILERS*

(+) Yeah! (+)

Found this game VERY underwhelming until the final few hours in Grancel. The higher narrative stakes and the way everything wove together at the end (with characters from the earlier sections showing up for payoff moments) brought a great sense of circularity and meaning to the storyline. I loved that. But I wish the buildup had been more fun/compelling/engrossing. Too much of a slow burn for me.

Overall FC constantly failed to wow me. It's one of those games that does everything well but does nothing amazing (at least IMO). The characters, story, world, and battle system are all above-average, but there was never a stretch where I thought to myself, "Wow, this is GREAT!"

Now, I have a question... is SC a huge upgrade over FC? Or is it more of the same? I found FC's formulaic "visit this town, solve the local problems, discover the real culprit" pattern to be tiresome. Not sure if I want to spend another 40 hours going through that again. Also, does the storyline have more drive to it?

If not, am I better off just trying out Cold Steel instead?

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Didn't think much of the first one either tbh. The second one is better but i much prefer the Crossbell and Cold Steel games. I'm in the minority saying that though.

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SC is an improvement however the first half of it is pretty similar to FC's formula just with slightly higher stakes so in that sense the pacing might grate on you if you were already frustrated with it in FC. It's the second half of SC where things really start to ramp up.

Cold Steel (1, at least) follows a similar slow build as FC does, honestly. I think the stakes and pacing feel a bit higher/faster than they do in FC but the general flow of things is fairly similar. It might grab you better but you'll probably feel the first few chapters of it are similar in feel to FC.

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cold Steel 1 is average imo but 2 is fantastic. trails 1 and 2 are both great

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I will likely start this soon myself. Couldn't get past 7 hours or so the first time, but I've got it all moded up with new art, voice acting, and a remixed soundtrack now, so maybe I can get though it.

People say you have to play Sky before Steel no matter what, but I played all 3 Steel games localized so far with almost zero input from Sky and had a blast. 2 has a pretty lackluster latter half, but other that they are top tier RPGs for the modern day.

the remixed music of the trails in the sky games is much worse on the whole

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Everything sounded better while I was testing it and swapping files, but it was some kind of special album, not the PSP music. The PSP music is bad.

CS1 feels very different from Sky 1. Not sure what xp's talking about there!

Sky 2 is a lot more well liked than Sky 1. It's a better game in general, in almost every respect (still low budget with lots of reused locations, though). The formula is similar in some ways, but it's far more focused. Closer to the Grancel stuff in 1, I'd say. The villains especially are a lot better here. Sky 1's thing with all the villains turning out to be mind controlled was the dumbest shit.
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Trails SC is a top ten game

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Sky 1 is 90% world building for every other game in the series

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Mac Arrowny posted...

Not sure what xp's talking about there!

does anyone, really?

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MichelBollinger posted...

Everything sounded better while I was testing it and swapping files, but it was some kind of special album, not the PSP music. The PSP music is bad.

Which one? Zanmai only has 9 or 10 songs even if every one bangs hard

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Yeah it only replaced a small selection of tracks. Pretty sure it was Zanmai, the rest were left alone. There were a total of 14 changed overall I think? Specifically none of them were from the PSP, though, that was a separate overwrite folder altogether.

zanmai battle theme is god tier

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Very mild spoilers if you haven't started SC unless you know Japanese, in which case don't listen until you've beaten FC

this goes way harder than it should
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3EKQqchkH8

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I also disliked FC until the end. Then SC came in and floored me.

The same can be said of Cold Steel for me though.

How long was this game anyway?

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Trollblade74 posted...

How long was this game anyway?

Took me about 45 hours if i remember right. That was pretty much skipping all the side stuff though. You could probably do it in 40 or less if you're really fast.

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colliding posted...

I also disliked FC until the end. Then SC came in and floored me.

The same can be said of Cold Steel for me though.

Interesting. I might have to give it a shot now.

Trollblade74 posted...

How long was this game anyway?

Sky 1? About 35 hours. Keep in mind I used Turbo Mode on PC.

Mac Arrowny posted...

CS1 feels very different from Sky 1. Not sure what xp's talking about there!

Sky 2 is a lot more well liked than Sky 1. It's a better game in general, in almost every respect (still low budget with lots of reused locations, though). The formula is similar in some ways, but it's far more focused. Closer to the Grancel stuff in 1, I'd say. The villains especially are a lot better here. Sky 1's thing with all the villains turning out to be mind controlled was the dumbest shit.

I hated that. Even if it were foreshadowed better, it's still bad writing. Make the characters responsible for their choices, c'mon.

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I think the text makes it pretty unambiguous that the characters are responsible for their own actions. Weissman's mind control can only get people to do things they had an inclination to do anyways, and if I remember everyone or almost everyone acknowledges after the fact that their actions are their own fault.
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pyresword posted...

I think the text makes it pretty unambiguous that the characters are responsible for their own actions. Weissman's mind control can only get people to do things they had an inclination to do anyways, and if I remember everyone or almost everyone acknowledges after the fact that their actions are their own fault.

So basically it's weaponized hypnotism? I still think it cheapens their actions. And the characters blaming themselves afterwards doesn't necessarily mean the choice was their own to begin with.

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plasmabeam posted...

So basically it's weaponized hypnotism?

I think it's explicitly described this way at some point, but that's my understanding either way.

plasmabeam posted...

I still think it cheapens their actions.

Yeah I mean this is a fair reaction. I'm just pushing back on the idea that they've created a villain who can convert anyone he wants into a mindless pawn.
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It cheapens it a bit, but it didn't bug me too much. It just pushed them a little further in extremes than they would've otherwise. Josette and Kyle went along with hypno-Don in kidnapping people despite being unaffected. Dalmore was corrupt as hell regardless and Gilbert joyfully went along with it (I don't think Dalmore needed much nudging at all). Richard, in his talk with Estelle and Josh in the bar and with Cassius at the end, showed that he was desperate for a trump card and was willing to make Liberl a military state regardless of the Gospel manipulation, beginning his infiltration of the military before Lorence showed up, and Kanone is unrepentant.

In the grand scheme of things, I prefer a plot of mass-manipulation of a society with their fingers in every pie rather than largely unconnected monster-of-the-week type stories before the finale brings out the society. The hypnosis, in terms of plot, is a means to an end so that Kurt, Joshua, etc can be affected and raise the stakes rather than a cop-out.

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NFUN posted...

In the grand scheme of things, I prefer a plot of mass-manipulation of a society with their fingers in every pie

I don't think I particularly feel the same way here, but then again I have somewhat mixed feelings on Ouroboros's role in the series in general.
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