Board 8 > Wickle starts on a blind playthrough of Trails in the Sky SC [Unmarked spoilers]

(+) Yeah! (+)

Unmarked because hell, I don't feel like marking anything I say. And for a note... Don't read this topic if you haven't finished the original game. The first one is world building primarily but there's a lot that has to do with creating the plot of the second game in the final chapter of the first.

Now, onward to spoiling my feelings on the main duo storyline. First, Joshua's plotline was pretty much cookie cutter and I had suspicions he was an assassin from the first moment I used his S-Craft. I knew it was the case from a few of his later crafts and just their animations. Second, I didn't like Estelle by the end of the first game. There's a chance I express agitation with her through this one, but I'm also expressing giving her a chance. I'm not sitting on "there's no way she's ever a good character" just because of everything up till now. Hell, I think she's going to be in the right in being upset at this point. Literally the person she's grown to be dependent on and realize her feelings for up and abandoned her. Yelling at Cassius in this opening scene is far from an unwarranted backlash.

(I stopped to make this topic after "I HATE YOU" quite literally, felt it was time I make this topic, so next post could be more about more opening scene stuff).

I believe I've done a post-Trails FC party ranking, but don't mind doing that again if someone wants to see that due to missing it or not remembering a thing since it's been a while. Otherwise... Well, I got to enjoy that my first time loading up the game the sprite that appeared in the first loading screen was my favorite, ahaha~

Alright, that should be good enough for the ramblings of my first post. Now time for the tags.

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tag for best video game.
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Kevin Graham is great. While he steps into the same flirty terrain as Olivier, he adds a much more serious personality to it. It's possible depending on how he continues, that he could pass Olivier on my own list, but for now... Well, he's probably not returning for a while.

I had to make that comment, but wasn't gonna make a post until I had control post-Prologue cutscene stuff. And with me there... whew.

First: I enjoy that the first control we have is indeed right back in Rolent, being able to talk to all the characters (and getting juicy gossip with a few NPCs about the new hot guy with Estelle). Naturally the storyline was obvious where it was going, though pretty insane how connected Kevin is already. Having a couple things where Kevin also connected with the NPCs was great, especially visiting the Father of Rolent's church. Potentially something to remember if I have to bring up a specific topic.

I'm also glad that our actual prologue begins someplace new, two months later, and you immediately get to see Estelle growing. She's still definitely going to be the same, but based on a few comments, maybe she'll just have her mindset thrust in a direction that counters something I hated from the first game. Shall be interesting if more is put into the combat from that, but I doubt it.

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tag

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JoshuaAstray posted...

tag

But you're not even in the story atm, how are you following Estelle's journey!?

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I have a source.

Anelace is a member of Ouroboros, you haven't realized yet?


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I dunno, Ouroboros doesn't seem like it's filled with enough cute things. I mean, it's based on a snake. No way it has enough cute things to tame Anelance.

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Tag.

"I am invincible! ...or am I?"

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Kevin best Trails character

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NBIceman posted...

Kevin best Trails character

#2 behind Estelle for me.

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Moving through the Prologue... So I find it weird to have this new map movement thing. It kinda... takes away from an aspect of the game that hadn't been there prior. A bit strange. It's in a sense nice, but also... not so much.

And as for the events of this, it's becoming obvious that this to be all Kurt's test. We fought him and won, so he moved to the second test. I mean, Jaegars abandon two bracers in the forest at their former base, and even leave their gear around the entirety of the forest, making it a search to find their gear. It's not on a Jaegar, it was just scattered around, unguarded.

Just feels like there would be more precautions set in place if this wasn't a test.

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Also, opened literally the worst chest. There's times I like puns, but... ughhhhhhhhhhh

>There's this great story I want to Estell you sometime.

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WickIebee posted...

Also, opened literally the worst chest. There's times I like puns, but... ughhhhhhhhhhh

>There's this great story I want to Estell you sometime.

they get worse

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I started to think about the party member names, and realized probably the least worst could be Zin/Agate, and I've already seen the latter. The worst kind of pun is when you force the pun onto the statement. I can see way too many of these being that.

Anyway, prologue finished, and of course I was right. Got to individually fight each of the bracers truly testing us. And got to learn that Joshua is being an edgy bitch and riding with the Capua family (as seen in the opening video anyway). Of course, also got to see Loewe titled by that name and introduced to a Hall of Fame baseball player, Roy Campenella the Fool. Wait. Okay, ignoring that joke, chance we have all of Ouroboros based on Arcana cards, Schera is going to have a heyday.

And Chapter 1 starts us off with... picking a teammate and potentially then separating the story based on the character you choose? Rolent and Ruan are the destinations, I selected Agate so back towards the school and the city that was left without a mayor. Does your choice actually select which region you go to? Quite neat if so, since then perfect reason for replay ability (besides obviously getting to see what the characters are like after you already know it).

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Puns, you say...

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You go to Ruan either way, sadly

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NFUN posted...

You go to Ruan either way, sadly

Disappointing, but not much can be done. Took my trip to Ruan, and yay got a fishing rod that I get to keep~ Also a Fishing Book so new stuff in this game. Learned Klaudia is at the school so potentially a party with my favorite sooner rather than later again. Shall also be nicer not having a set second character for the entire game, so more unique party members per chapter.

And of course Estelle has the most cliche anime stereotype ever. More cliche than -dere archtypes in my opinion, though I'm sure there are people who have their own opinion in what's the most cliche. But yeah, fear of goddamn ghosts. Stopping for tonight, I grabbed the stuff off the guild board and took note that one is Medium (and the others are Long), so nothing too urgent atm unless there's hidden stuff already, I'll wander around of course.

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Ruan is the better city anyways tbh. Probably my favorite Liberl town.
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Sorry, been delayed. Shall be back on this soon, just have a friend in the mood to play a game I wanted to play with him, so had to install it yesterday and will play that game today.

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Back on the game I decided to double check the missions I have. A few things to note. #1, new location, I think? Vista Forest didn't really exist previously... That I remember. Unless it was the road to the school that didn't get utilized that much in the first game.

#2. The Guild Memo has a lot more in it now. Items of notes on Large Monsters, and just feels more descriptive in general. Shall make more quests a little easier.

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IIRC that is the road to Jenis Academy, yeah.

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tag

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Having usable items is great. Got a camera for the Sapphirl Tower since Air-Letten was one of the locations to visit. Figured it'd be an escort mission and learned otherwise.

Decided to poke around and found myself definitely wishing to seek information here. Fishing, are there just very specific spots you can fish at or are there story bits where you get to fish during instead?

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WickIebee posted...

Fishing, are there just very specific spots you can fish at or are there story bits where you get to fish during instead?

Specific spots. I think the tutorial shows you what they look like with the ripples and such.

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Alright, so there will be a tutorial at a point. Found that there's stuff at the casino, both a rod upgrade and a book. I assume the Gambler Jack books are the new Carnelia books. I did find the first volume.

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WickIebee posted...

Alright, so there will be a tutorial at a point. Found that there's stuff at the casino, both a rod upgrade and a book. I assume the Gambler Jack books are the new Carnelia books. I did find the first volume.

Er, if you've gone fishing already you got the tutorial I thought I remembered.

Um... if the game didn't make you go fishing when it gave you the Fishing Book then uh... walk around Ruan a bit there should be at least one spot with like ripples in the water. It'll be very noticeable. Estelle will have a "!" interaction thing when you're close enough and facing it. That's a fishing spot.

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I didn't go fishing, we were on an airship when I got the book.

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Oh. Huh. For some reason I had it in my head some fishing dude grabs Estelle in Ruan somewhere. ...Still might then. >_>

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iirc you just locked out of fishing for some (relatively short) period of time until you go through a mandatory tutorial at some point in chapter 1.
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Seems that's the case, I found some ripples and nothing happened, so there's still a tutorial I haven't accessed. So I'm not missing any chances yet.

Just ran into Lloyd though. And... Yup, there's the tutorial. Though there wasn't much on the actual fishing part of the tutorial. Had to learn that I need to react quickly. Took 4 of my bait to catch somethi- ...

...
Ah shit, fish drop sepith, nice.

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easy way to fish is to just mash the button every few seconds. can get fish that are tough to catch with your bad rod more easily that way

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I do recall there being some trick to it. I don't think I ever button mashed but I also don't recall what it was. IIRC it's tougher on PC than PSP/Vita, might have been a framerate thing.

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I cant say I ever had any trouble fishing just pressing the button after the ! shows up as intended. I don't think its terribly difficult

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_stingers_ posted...

I cant say I ever had any trouble fishing just pressing the button after the ! shows up as intended. I don't think its terribly difficult

try going for the available end game fish with the first rod. absolute hell

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NFUN posted...

try going for the available end game fish with the first rod. absolute hell

I did get the dynatrad but I definitely didn't use the starter rod. Why would you? Lol

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Oh nice, the trio of thugs now have portraits. I wasn't sure if anyone would gain them between games but had suspicions that it possibly could happen. Now I've learned it does.

And then finished the Raven fight and Norman's son's story of seeing the dude dancing in the air. Weird.

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_stingers_ posted...

I cant say I ever had any trouble fishing just pressing the button after the ! shows up as intended. I don't think its terribly difficult

To be honest, he's right. It's not too difficult, just the timing is fairly unforgiving. Not a problem though, there's more unforgiving things in plenty of other games.

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_stingers_ posted...

I did get the dynatrad but I definitely didn't use the starter rod. Why would you? Lol
I wasn't talking about the Dynatrad. You can get the Giganora with the second rod in the first chapter to try to get a Tiger's Heart or Crimson eye, or the Granakor for the Tiger's Heart. Those break the game that early

what you see is not what you get. Jesus christ how does that even happen gamefaqs

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Visiting Sapphirl Tower and... Well, someone refilled all the chests here, how nice of that person.

But now I'll stop for tonight. Not much progress but I didn't have a long play period before I'd get busy again.

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Hm...

"Inside the empty chest is carved:
'Olivier is handsome.'
You briefly wonder if he put that there himself."

I think we found who refilled the chests of places we've already been to.

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Lost my Proxy Puppet against the two snakes in the forest and now trying to fight the dogs. Pretty nice to just have stronger versions of everything we've already fought previously. Of course, we got some new enemies too, but it just feels nice to walk around an area I've already been and see everything that once was here. It's fantastically done.

Also nice to see when Estelle upgraded her Hurricane move it replaced the old one.

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Visited Manoria and... Well, we immediately get a little bit of Estelle maturing. She didn't bitch about seeing Orvid for the fourth time this series. Interesting quest though, gather materials that aren't on the list. Shall be fun.

Of course we also hear the oh so obvious detail that Kevin Graham was assigned here. So likely our party will become him and Kloe, although there was an orbal gun in the shop that indicated Olivier might wander here. Seems a bit strange if Kevin used those as his weapons. There's a Sunday school in the windmill, so maybe he's teaching that.

Visiting Mercia Orphanage, I'm confirmed about that last part. Oh boy, I enter Manoria for the second time and the game assumes I didn't visit here first, lol. Agate: "Haven't been here since that whole 'stolen donations' thing." Like, Agate, please, I was here like a minute ago.

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Not long after and Kevin joins the party for a few battles. With higher EP at a lower level. Also a crossbow, nice. I returned to Ruan and did the next couple scenes and as I walked away I thought about it.

Chapter 1.
As soon as you reach the city, you learn of something that is happening that sets Estelle in an unnerved state. i.e. ghosts vs Estelle thinking her dad's been kidnapped.
You go investigating, then eventually an argument ensues (granted, very different circumstances, but still)
Argument gets heated, starts looking to turn into violence, and a wandering, blond, musician breaks it up.

Of course Olivier had to appear in the most similar of situations. And of course Olivier pointed out one of the things I was thinking about too. Where the ghost would escape to. Good detective work.

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one of the best scenes tbh

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Oh man, Agate also with the hostility against Olivier. We got two peas in a pod with Estelle and Agate vs our Erebonian... Well, he's definitely something more than just a musician considering he has a dedicated bodyguard.

And now... Time for some more gambling.

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More gambling tomorrow. I got above 200 now. Not about to stop yet!

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The payoffs for gambling aren't too high in this game unfortunately

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I want the book and fishing rod, they're... at least partially important.

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Got a hold of both after a little bit of a frustrating endeavor. I have absolutely no luck when it comes to gambling, never seem to get one straight ever with Poker. And Blackjack is always risky. I'm not a risk taker enough for Craps either, so yeah. Stopping at the two item gains and leaving with 20 leftover is fine for a while.

Went back to the Bracer Guild to realize there were more quests, including a Sunday School lecturer. Oh no.

Oh god it's a multiple choice quiz for the player. Definitely screwed up a few of those questions, but ah well, not going for perfect currently. Everything else is Long so time to head to the Academy, probably. I'll save before entering there just in case.

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Oh god, that was perfect. So I bought the sit down dish from the cafeteria, and immediately after Dorothy took a pic in the direction of us and the cook. I'm sure it's completely random when she does that, but it was like she took a pic of us eating. Made me crack up.

And of course we have a scene of Estelle and Kloe about how quickly Kloe got a crush and then dismantled it after Joshua's bloodlust during the Dalmore instance. More importantly is just how she's still struggling with the idea of being forced into the role of Klaudia, and is afraid of losing herself to loneliness without her alternate personality. I wonder if it'll be this game or the next one that will ease her attitude in that.

Alright, nighttime at the Academy. Hopefully didn't miss something on Sundown, not that I'll go back after that for this playthrough. We had a missing person for a moment but there wasn't anything too special about that. Off to the Old Dormitory instead. Feels like this time Jenis Royal Academy didn't have too much.

Another little search game, finding the cards to get the key to access a door that primarily implied I could use a key I already had (though I didn't even try it, expecting the cards to have something). Granted, you know. This felt like a minor test, with how the cards were laid out and had hints. Reminds me of a specific quest in the previous game... which also had cards.

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