Board 8 > Trails in the Sky Playthrough Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

IIRC I left Kloe here. I think I had Estelle as my healer though

I'm likely using Olivier for a while, if only because I have to finish his quest of testing the orbal gun. But I might switch down the line. Having a character with lower level gives me OCD.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Having a character with lower level gives me OCD.

Lol you are going to have a hard time in 3rd when you get to it.
Or god forbid when you get to CS4 (and, presumably, Reverie).

Trails is a series where I like to use everyone, so I'll often rotate in the lowest levels when I can pick party members (there are exceptions like in the final dungeon of CS2 where you get *everybody*). Admittedly, the downside is either spreading good quartz too thin or doing extra managing of the best ones to move them around. I think characters catch up fairly quickly, so they aren't that much of a liability.

My hot take is Trails is better when you can't pick party members, or at least have several forced ones. That way, you get more people who interact with the plot and NPCs. Since I like to use everyone anyway, I don't mind if the game decides this for me.

I asked in shines chat but no one answered but is reverie the 3rd equivalent for cold steel? fanservice/largely unimportant to the overall plot

Yeah restricted characters means better dialogue writing. Can't say I mind it either.

I predict a lot of annoyance with quartz setups soon. Maybe I'll have less magical chracters like Tita keep a fixed set while I swap arts between the wizards.

tcaz2 posted...

Lol you are going to have a hard time in 3rd when you get to it.
Or god forbid when you get to CS4 (and, presumably, Reverie).

I mean if they just join and quit it's whatever, but if I have to choose I'll usually pick the lowest level characters so they can catch up. Unless my ass is getting kicked, ofc.

_stingers_ posted...

fanservice/largely unimportant to the overall plot

yes, but both 3rd and reverie are important and you really really shouldnt skip them

Yeah its kind of a bad/dumb question because 3rd is really relevant to the plot in a lot of ways so there's not really a good answer to what was asked.

I mean like maybe overall but hardly at all to the liberl arc

it's important for reasons we don't want to get into because it's in the middle of someone's SC playthrough

From what I read the devs started making the Crossbell games, then suddenly realized they needed backstory so they went back and made the 3rd.

and that was after they were going to start erebonia but realized they needed crossbell

thank god they realized that crossbell best arc

Idk for sure about arcs/games but Crossbell is definitely my favorite location in the series so far.

Though I guess that's a bit unfair when Crossbell gets 2 games dedicated to basically 1 region while Sky and Cold Steel have to spread themselves over all of Liberl and Erebonia. Oh well.

Tita can't magic, so I managed to fiddle with Olivier's set to give him all the healing Kloe had while apparently not having him lose anything himself. I don't know how I pulled that. Olivier is just amazing

Clock Down is gone, though

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/4/7/AAO9CbAAEYW7.jpg

What happens when an extremely underleved character meets a gargantuan pile of xp? Kill a shining pom with Tita in the party and find out

courtesy of Morale + Wild Rage boosted Agate s-craft

She went from level 40 to level 49 in one fight

The rest of the party is level 50

what is math. What is truth. What is reality. I don't know anymore

Tita has learned Smoke Cannon 2. Time to wreck shit.

It dealt 1200 dmg against some mob. Heck yes.

Alright: carniviruous plant of sleepiness, IT'S ON

Narrator: "It wasn't on"

I need to stop making Agate kill himself with Wild Rage

this time I won. The winning play is to stop trying to AoE those guys and just focus on one at a time. It helped to have two healers too, Tita and Olivier. Also gave Olivier the only sleeping immunity item I had and La Curia to heal the others from it, but in the end I didnt need it.

And also I counted Agate's HP before burning it this time.

and I almost ruin it by rushing to the next story event without saving and getting stormed by a mob of crazy blue sheeps. Fortunately, that one is not immune to blind

ZeldaTPLink posted...

The game forces me to keep Agate, Estelle and Tita. With Kloe or Olivier as the last

Always choose Olivier when he's available tbh

my bracer rank levels up and I gain a quartz named septium vein, which increases septium drops. i'm never taking it out

It also gives a ton of elemental power which ofc makes Olivier EVEN more broken. He is now responsible for casting high levels spells for wind (Aero Storm), water (La Teara, Blue Impact), space (Dark Matter) and earth (Petrify Cloud, Titanic Roar, La Crest).

Also... Earth Wall has made its glorious return. We are never getting separated again.
This frees Estelle for using fire and time arts. She is the new Josh. Meanwhile Tita gets Chaos Brand thanks to the Hit 3 I just got

And Agate hits things with a sword. Hey, it works.

I face a quest boss composed of a swarm of self healing bugs. It doesn't matter because Olivier just deletes them with Aero Storm

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/9/AAO9CbAAEYqV.jpg

Now this is how you do continuity

I do a quest about finding a peeping tom in a bath. the quest is worth it just for the massive amount of teasing they give Agate. I have zero regrets about picking him over Schera here.

also in the end we fight a boss that is basically a bunch of sheep monsters combined into a sheep megazord who fights kung fu. Devs do some heavy substances sometimes.

Olivier: "Why did you invade a military base and not call me? It sounds so fun!"

We meet Dad Bright at the base. He knows stuff. He also seems to know all about Olivier.

We place the third and final device and a wild Anelace appears! And Schera, ofc

Anelace has a cuteness overload upon seeing Tita

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/0/AAO9CbAAEYqW.jpg

Not having this gem be a permanent party member is the biggest injustice in this game

Schera is investigating the sky bandits. She's in the right track

Bad guys: "Let's attack the military base yet". Cassius: "Hmm I think they will be tempted to attack the military base this time. Let's prepare."
Dude is a mastermind.

Swapped Olivier for Kloe for the end of the chapter, so she can get some xp too. Kloe's orbment setup is considerably worse. Like, she's not even bad, just can't compare to Olivier.

Carnelia Tower is considerably less fun to explore without Haze. It has some huge mobs in tight spaces

I just killed two shining poms in a single fight and the windall of xp was as predicted

got some good loot from Carnelia tho. Lots of clothes, Attack 3 and Action 2. Agate is happy

Got to Elmo village, for the final confrontation. To make the situation worse, the bag guys' avtions are also causing the hot springs to overheat. This game's scenarios kind of remind me of Megaman Battle Network. Each chapter it's one henchman interacting with the mcguffins and causing distress for the local civilians. In that game, it was because everything was connected to systems that were being hacked. here's it's septium veins and other steampunk mumbo jumbo

There is of course a dungeon at the hot springs fountain. of course.

I find a hot spring that heals HP and... CP. The boss ahead must be really strong if the game is letting me come at him with 4 full CP bars, imo

We meet the next member of the Wacky Elite Henchman Crew, Walter the Direwolf

Walter is less wacky and more bloodthirsty. he explains how he wants to splatter people under his earthquakes in graphic detail. For the "thrills".

[It's a trap!] meme

he wont fight us though, because I guess those guys are being saved for later chapters. we fight a mob of worm things. "Mob" is the worst strategy anyone could possibly use against Tita, though.

we are put in surprise battle formation though, which means the enemies surround us and its hard to get a good aoe

which would be a problem, if those guys weren't pathetic. but they are.

the fight ends, characters are all saying it was incredibly tough and villain is mocking us for having a hard time. I object to this storytelling your honor, it doesn't reflect my actual performance!

then he knocks the party out in one punch. Ok, sorry.

But then he says he's going to hunt Josh.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/1/AAO9CbAAEYqX.jpg
Bad call.

I gotta give it Estelle, she is ready to die a pointless death for her man. That's pointless. But brave.

Zin to the rescue! Because while he's not necessarily stronger than the party gameplay-wise, he is in-story

Also Olivier cuz why not

this setup works better because Zin and Olivier were kind of a duo in the last game

Zin and Walter apparently have that thing going where they are the good disciple and the bad disciple of some kung fu master. Classic.

Ooooh the bad guy likes the guild's clerk. the plot develops.

Walter leaves, and we go back to the guild. The clerk (Kilika) gives ZIn a hard time because he let the bad guy get away with the mcguffin. She has a point, but the guy literally phased into the air and I'm not sure if Zin has that skill too.

I smell a love triangle. I want the flashback plz

And Kiliika was the master's daughter. They aren't even trying to be original here.

We go to the 10th argument in the series so far about whether a 12yo should be allowed to join a deadly bracer mission and I'm just tired at this point. She's a party member, it's fine. We have reviving magic anyway.

Also Zin joins the party too. Just at the same time as I get a petrify quartz. Convenient.

Chapter 2: "They are running out of excuses to bring a 12yo to combat": beaten

meanwhile, we see a scene where military does stuff. Cassius and Julia are sparing, though the fight is rather one sized

the sprite fight animations in this game are fantastic. I keep saying it but it deserves to be mentioned over and over. They are so fun to watch.

The good guys have plans too, I guess. Sometimes.

Meanwhile, it's Richard's right hand woman, plotting to break into the fortress to free him. Well I want to see that. And like, if a party of kids did it last game, then why can't she too?

Chapter 3: The Mad Tea Party. That's the real name, not a joke, because the real name is silly enough.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/9/2/AAO9CbAAEYqY.png

I dont know how to deal with this level of choice

Olivier tita gg ez

_stingers_ posted...

Olivier tita gg ez

upvote

I dunno, next quest is at Limestone Cave and... there be penguins.

And Tita was pretty useless against it last time.

she is very small, she just needs practice

So they, for some reason, years and years ago decided to give Trails in the Sky a very short anime adaption that only adapted chapter 2 of SC.

It's really not worth watching in general, but it did give us this gem of a gif:

https://media.tenor.com/46yb7r-e4cEAAAAd/estelle-trails-in-the-sky.gif

Also I actually have a pretty fun fact about Anelace from an interview a few years ago with one of the devs. The devs originally didn't plan her to be a character at all. She was just some random faceless NPC bracer in the initial stages of development, but they realized when they were designing the tournament section of FC they wanted the Bracers to be one of the teams, so they needed another one to join. Thus, Anelace was given a slightly more prominent role, as well as a face portrait.

Then, when FC came out, JP players really liked Anelace because of her dialogue and overall attitude (plus being cute) and a common request on fan websites was that Anelace be a playable character in SC. So they made her playable for a bit in SC.

Then people liked her EVEN MORE and were like "Why isn't she playable for all of SC!?" and, well, you can probably guess what they did for 3rd lol.

Truly a character of the people. She is invincible! ...Or is she?

*whispers*
I don't really care for Anelace

Anelace is good but a pretty low-end Sky character IMO.

colliding posted...

*whispers*
I don't really care for Anelace

NBIceman posted...

Anelace is ... a pretty low-end Sky character IMO.

You people disgust me.

I do a quest in limestone cave, about rescuing a dude from the last game who was looking for a pirate's treasure. He managed to find the treasure in the cave. However, it belongs to the penguins. As soon as he opens the chest, the cave's alarm system triggers and the penguins come to defend it.

Yes, penguins have an alarm system.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/2/2/AAO9CbAAEY1y.jpg

They also call... whatever this is.

It teleports. We have a teleporting giant penguin. All hands on deck.

And I have to fight against it with a dumb escort that dies in two hits. Godanmit

And it has a move named Samba de Penguin where it just dances a lot and statuses the whole party.

The teleporting, samba dancing, self-healing penguin menace has been vanquished. The world is a safer place.

Not bringing Tita this time is a good call. You give Agate and Zin some str boosts and they are wrecking shit with chain crafts and s-crafts. While Olivier and Estele play support, but a much needed one. The dumb escort was smart enough to GTFO after the 1st turn.

The quartz faq tells me to fight this guy over and over to farm some HP 3 and I'm like... yeah no thanks. I'd rather just buy them or something.

The pirate treasure is an actual artifact that warns the owners of incoming danger. Turns out the dumb kid was right about treasure, huh. Even if he almost got himsellf killed. You need Devil Fruits to do that stuff, dude.

We do get a new quartz, Yin Yang, which combines heal and haze and gives a shitton of water element. Estelle now has Diamond Dust and Blue Acension. It does cost her Napalm Breath, but I haven't been very impressed by that

Actually this setup is probably made for Kloe, I just happen not to have her in the party now tbh

The best background character in this game is the singing airship pilot that appears when we are trevalling between regions

We get some character development. Tita reveals stuff about her family and nerds out about airship tech, Olivier tries to make a move on Kloe and gets cockblocked by Not a Falcon, Zin reveals Walter killed their master, because the kung fu plot wasn't cliche enough yet.

That's why Cassius went back to the army and stopped being a bracer, being a mentor in a fictional story is a life risk.

This stuff is basically Kenichi (the manga).

the next mission is to bodyguard the event where they will sign an international treaty. Like in classic Megaman Battle Network fashion, I expect the lights to go dark and for us to have to explore some electricity themed dungeon, or something like that. Where nautrally we will meet another Enforcer in the end, who will not fight us but will send another random monster boss to fight instead, and in the end form a rivarly with another member of the party.

Grancel continues to be a horrible place with almost no sidequests. Smh.

I'm keeping Olivier and ZIn. That's a fun party. Also I'm lazy about changing orbments again

We go to Grancel museum and the local npc talks about Professor Alba's research. Unfortunately, Estelle doesn't remember who professor Alba is supposed to be.

All part of the plan

It's kind of weird, being a player who knows more than the character I'm playing as because the bad guy has messed with her memory. I wonder what else she doesn't remember about the last game. Or what Josh doesn't remember.

He mentions the seven artifacts. Of course we have seven artifacts. Do they call a giant dragon who grants wishes if you get them all?

The fight with the penguin can be a real PITA if you get unlucky enough because it can confuse your entire party before it is physically possible to get... either more than 1 or any, I don't remember, ways to resist it.

Its especially bad on hard and nightmare where its HP is bloated the damage it does is much more. It's the only other fight on hard/nightmare I consider to be truly unfair after the prologue (though it is, at least, optional)

At some point it confused two and sealed the third, but Olivier was none of them so he could remove the status. And he had just used La Crest, which helped mitigate damage.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

It teleports. We have a teleporting giant penguin. All hands on deck.

And I have to fight against it with a dumb escort that dies in two hits. Godanmit

And it has a move named Samba de Penguin where it just dances a lot and statuses the whole party.

This fight took me...SO many god damn tries.
Probably because I was too stubborn to get rid of Tita. She is indeed useless here.
But fuck that escort

I can't imagine doing it on Nightmare, I was on hard and it made me rip my hair out

Took me 2 tries, if you don't count the one in the middle where I accidentally wasted an s-craft in the first turn and resetted it.

The escort is a bit of a roulette. If the minions don't kill him in the beginning and if you do kill them yourself, the escort will run to the corner and then the only move that will ever hit him is the status one, which doesn't deal damage.

Now the penguin in FC was maybe the hardest fight in the game, because I had Tita and she was just a bad match, so I could barely overcome the healing. But in SC I was usually dealing more damage than needed.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/1/2/AAcM16AAEY3M.jpg

tcaz2 posted...

You people disgust me.

Look, it's not my fault she's overshadowed by a mostly awesome cast.

She's just a bit extra for my tastes

exploring grancel sewers once again. I hate this place tbh. But there be xp and goodies

I beat a fairly difficult extermination monsters, four plant things which spam a mud aoe that confuses your party, and summons crabs that faint it. Annoyance.

and another one against some carapace things that "don't have any weak points". But in a balanced game, no weak points means no strenghts, so it's a breeze

we are looking for a little girl in the villa. Estelle gets down to search for her under a table

Olivier: "Your unmentionables are quite mentionable now"

We meet the dude who is in house arrest. Olivier makes a comment about how he is lucky he didnt try to do a coup in Erebonia or he would be hanged. Estelle then makes a cute speech about Kloe, and I wonder what would happen if I brought Kloe in this party.

We find the little girl by giving up on finding the little girl. Profound.

She is Renne

(who I happen to know is a playable character in game 3, and is/will be/was a member of orobouros at some point. I didn't read much beyond that. Sorry not sorry. Either way, she is very plot relevant)

So based on spoiler reverse engineering, I'm guessing shes the one the society planted to spoil the ceremony?

So Renne is now a party member. I mean, an escort. She is obviously a little girl who can't help herself.

Someone needs to distract the little kid while the protagonists talk business. But Josh, the one who usually does that, is not here. Tita reads the room and takes over. I'm impressed.

The next party composition is arranged for me. Agate is going on a solo mission, Tita is distracting the other kid and I play the other 4 chars.

Tita and Renne want to go shopping, but Estelle thinks its dangerous. They use Double Puppy Eyes x2 Combo. It's super effective.

The sad part is that I left my precious Action 3 with Agate and I doubt the game is giving it back.

Renne's family is from Crossbell. Is this the first time that gets mentioned in the series? I think so.

Do we get to explore the insides of the embassies now? I think this will be fun.

knowing Renne is bad news and that we left out 12 year old alone with her is ominous af, though. I predict memory wipe shenanigans. Agate is not exactly safe, either.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

We find the little girl by giving up on finding the little girl. Profound.

You can actually find her without giving up for bonus BP.

Renne sucks

Aww you knew about Renne. It actually caught me by surprise

Might as well go and say I know everyone who is a playable character.

Also means I know Richard has some sort of redemption arc waiting.

The thing is that I get bored and start reading tv tropes pages about games/media that I'm reading/watching/playing. The site does spoil tag most stuff, but there are a few things that slip by.

Also Renne seems to be a major character in the entire series so you google something about whether Estelle appears in a future game and there's some stuff about Renne along it.

I don't know if she actually is currently Orobouros or if her status is more like Josh's though, and I wont try to find that in advance. I just know her arc involves redeeming from it.

Okay but like why not just not google or TVtropes it instead and do something completely unrelated to the thing you're experiencing for the first time when you're bored that doesn't spoil it?

I love TVTropes as much as the next guy but man I avoid it like the plague if it's for something I'm currently playing/watching, especially if I'm heavily invested in it.

Trails 3rd spoiled some of the party members ahead of time in the game itself, just in the loading screens. So, I feel like you're not losing much from that game at least if you already know the playable characters of that game.

I remember seeing a big Trails thread about Renne on this board awhile ago, that I avoided since I was in the middle of a Trails playthrough. Now that I've gotten through CS at least, I feel better about reading these.

I've had most twists in the series spoiled ahead of time and don't feel that my experience with the games has been substantially worse. Browsing TVtropes and wikis has easily been a net positive for my engagement with the series even though that's where most of the spoilers have come from.

Although a significant chunk of my wiki browsing is when I've been caught up on all games released in English and accidentally spoiled myself on the Japan-only games, which I guess you could argue is a different thing.

tcaz2 posted...

Okay but like why not just not google or TVtropes it instead and do something completely unrelated to the thing you're experiencing for the first time when you're bored that doesn't spoil it?

Because that's not how my brain works. It wants more Trails, and if I'm somewhere where I can't play Trails, I'm getting Trails some other way. Other hobbies feel less interesting as long as I'm engaged with Trails.

Look, I'm not going to turn this into a thing where half a dozen people try to change the way I do things. I am bad at avoiding spoilers. That is not going to change because some people in a forum keep telling me that it has to change.

Fiop posted...

I remember seeing a big Trails thread about Renne on this board awhile ago, that I avoided since I was in the middle of a Trails playthrough. Now that I've gotten through CS at least, I feel better about reading these.

I believe the title of this thread was "Renne sucks" which is why I posted "Renne sucks" earlier.

Also, she sucks

Renne is probably my favorite character in the series so far.