Board 8 > Trails in the Sky Playthrough Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

Elie gang

Renne definitely top 5 characters at least.
Tio is my favorite though (not the one from Sky that is Estelle's friend).

I really need to stop reading this thread because I haven't played Sky the 3rd yet.

I pick up a new sidequest. A sidequest? In my Grancel? madness

its the damn phantom thief again. Should have known

we visit the Calvard embassy. theres an entire book with 22 chapters in one of the shelves. Whats up with this game and books?

I actually went and read the whole thing (got an achievement for it too). It's a cheesy but fun tale about fighting puppets. Yeah.
we have a chat with the Calvard ambassador about realpolitik, and I almost forget this is a videogame

fun little chapter. instead of running randomly asking about ghosts or earthquakes, we are talking politics with a lot of npcs

the phantom thief quest ends with a boss fight against an ice monster, fortunately it only knows how to cast diamond dust over and over. My party has 3 characters with Impede. GG.

A maid from the Erebonian embassy speculates on who Olivier is really chasing after. She needs to do her research on Olivier: the only possible answer is "everyone"

this embassy has the carnelia book series, which I did not bother to read last game.

Olivier is soloing this chapter. His political skills are top tier. Kloe is good too, but he's even better. He sounds silly until he suddenly says exactly what has to be said, every time.

The Erebonian ambassador isn't so bad, after his initial introduction. I was expecting something similar to the Duke. Yes he is a dick, but a few levels better than the other guy.

Carnelia is even longer than the Doll Knight and I'm lazy so I'm reading it online later

next person to investigate is Nial the reporter, who I suspect will have 99% of the information we need

Random woman outside the Erebonia embassy: "You were talking to that black-haired Imperial soldier, right?

Hmm, yes... I'm a big fan of his"

Nial knows nothing we don't know but his read of the situation is still miles better than everyone else. They are probably not attacking the ceremony, they want us to think they will

I mean let's be real, Orobouros is a widely known threat (not by the general public but by every authority figure in the setting) and they have a tendency to use diversion tactics. Why would they strike the most obvious place that is likely to expect them and guard against them?

The real question is what their actual target is

we learn Renne's parents are basically ghosts. Hmm.

knowing the deal with Renne makes the hotel scene incredibly ominous

meanwhile, Schera and Anelace engage in some Mission Impossible at Bose, and I get to play as them in a fight against some intel div bad guys

they meet Green Haired Enforcer, the leader of the Wacky Elite Henchman Crew. Campanella the Fool. That's a name.

he gives us what is probably the more violent scene in the series so far. Though the complete lack of blood makes it seem like he just broke a bunch of legos. Lel.

well turns out they are a bunch of legos! Or androids, apparently. Is this start wars?

I like the parallel with the fact I just read a book about puppets in some random in-game library. Turns out... that was foreshadowing

Kevin shows up again. The man is everywhere

we cut to Josh, who apparently knows everything that is happening. Turns out he left some intel for Schera's group to help them deal with the incoming events. But he's not going to help himself. He doesn't want to risk meeting Estelle, I guess

we are treated to a sequenece where Estelle roasts the Duke, and I'm 100% having it

I love the sequence where Renne just walks out in the middle of the dialogue, and nobody sees it
about when we started mentioning Enforcers in front of her, too

We learn from some npcs Ruan elected a new mayor. And it's the tourism guy, not the port guy. I know because they mention that Portos lost

Renne delivers to Estelle what seems to be a letter from Josh and I only have more questions
its obviously something fake, because we just saw a scene of Joshua saying he's NOT going where
Estelle is. But Estelle doesn't know, so she goes there alone. Honestly, Agate is kind of an idiot for letting her do that, considering Josh is involved in Orobouros business

She meets someone and the scene cuts away before we can see who it is

It's Kevin. Again.

[it's a trap meme]

Kevin and Josh need to hold a competition for who has more information that the party doesn't

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/4/5/AAO9CbAAEZ5V.jpg

Estelle is not one for discretion

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/4/6/AAO9CbAAEZ5W.jpg

Or for patience, either

The guild was attacked while I was busy falling in an obvious trap. Ofc

they should start getting used to this already. orobouros uses diversions. Do not go to where things are happening, look elsewhere

The entire party has been drugged so Kevin, Schera and Anelace are the party now

Well not Anelace, because she is sent to another sidequest. Danmit!

Cid realizes shit is going down and calls for reinforcements. I'm guessing Dad. Though chances are it's just the boring option (Julia)

They forgot to drug Not a Falcon. That will be their downfall. Unless that's also part of their plan

I'm not following something. Amalthea seems to be the culprit here, but we do know she is not quite aligned with Orobouros, and a repeat of the last's game plot with the intel div being manipulated would be boring. Something else is afoot

I finish making the orbal setup to end all orbal setups, but all the ep increases I just got are useless because the game doesn't let me go to the inn to heal my EP

whatever I'm using items

Kevin's voice acting is annoying

my selective spoiler makes me realize what is about to happen. Amalthea is not Orobouros. But Renne is. She is about to murder the entire intel crew, right?

Amalthea busts out a fucking tank and announces she is conquering the kingdom with it.

Look, that's a powerful looking tank, but I don't think that kind of plan has ever worked before. Worst comes to worst, the queen can just escape through one of the 15 secret passages the castle likely has and return later with 5 airships armed with a thousand bombs each.

The midboss energy Amalthea is giving rn is real. It's clear why Richard was the villain of the last game, not her

lol she doesn't even make it to the castle. Julia stops her

the two are about to fire at each other when... Plot Music starts playing and what seems to be a gospel activates

yeah the tank is definitely from orobouros, but Amalthea is too stupid to realize

Kevin busts out an artifact and neutralizes the gospel. The man is full of tricks, isn't he

the tank has been downgraded from cutscene boss to gameplay boss. TIme to destroy it

Ooooh I get to play as Julia. Nice.

she has a bunch of high end arts. I'm guessing her orbment is full of Tier 4 slots. Niiiiice.

unfortunately its a bunch of aoe and we are fighting a single foe. Whatever

the tank has higher stats than pretty much anything I've faced in the series so far, but it's got the tactical flexibility of a rock. It hits things hard and is sturdy, but is very easy to manuever against

it does make a big explosion when it finally goes down, though

Amalthea doesn't give up though, so we have to face her too. Does she never learn?

the whiole thing is, predictably, pathetic. Can we not fight this boss again plz? She was easy enough the first two times

And Renne, the mastermind, reveals herself

Yep, Doll Knight was foreshadowing

she makes some cool exit. And leaves Estelle heartbroken

Well I was spoiled but I'll give it to ya, this is a cool reveal scene. Albeit it's a little convoluted of a plan for what was just yet another gospel test. But hey, those enforcers like their convoluted plans

We get a cutscene where Cassius brings Richard to Alamthea so he can convince her to stop being an idiot. At last.

The good guys lament not seeing Renne coming. I don't blame them, but that's the 3rd consecutive chapter Orobouros just runs laps around them, and that's not counting last game. At some point they have to stop doing things the most predictable way imaginable. This isn't Legend of Zelda, this is an opponent who likes to use deception

Estelle vows to redeem Renne. If Casius could why can't she, right?

Kevin reveals he is a member of the Church's macguffin hunter squad.

All 8 party members join together. Except Anelace again, because the devs are mean. She joins some other non-playable characters. Kevin also stays out for the time being.

Anelace's team will go find the bad guys' HQ, certainly so that they can later stay outside while the PCs invade it

We get another scene with the bad guys, where Aizen decides he wants to make Estelle join. Out of "free will". After he breaks her mind, that is.

Loewe mentions an interesting detail. The gospels are not meant as weapons. Because the bad guys probably know the same thing I said above: a tank is still just a tank, no matter how strong it is. Now what they are actually meant for is the interesting question.

Chapter 3: "If you need manpower, just use child soldiers": beaten.

now this was a fun chapter. Grancel is kind of lame, so it focused on story instead. The plot felt random, until it was revealed the randomness was intentional, given the nature of the villain.

Agate being a mandatory party member is way beyond forced now. It made sense when only he and Estelle were bracers, but noiw Zin and Schera are around, and Zin is canonically the strongest party member.

yeah well it stops happening after this lol

Each Trails game has some books with short stories, and they put the ones from some of the previous games in libraries altogether, and have you collect individual chapters of some other ones. I've read many of them, but not all of them. Don't think any are must reads but may have some loose nods. There's also often a reward for collecting all chapters, and they're often missable, so I try to collect them if I can.

IIRC, Julia in that fight has an impossible orbment setup since she has the high level stuff but not the low level stuff that she should have also had.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

I pick up a new sidequest. A sidequest? In my Grancel? madness

XD XD XD

I always think I look forward to Grancel during FC because so much plot happens. But then it's the first day or Arena. Then sewers. Then more Arena. Then seeing more guards on patrol. More sewers. More Arena. Most guards. Such a pace killer after Zeiss.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Though chances are it's just the boring option (Julia)

!!! You take that back!

All of the Trails books are at least somewhat relevant to the story and/or characters (or will be in the future).

I never bothered reading books in CS3 and 4. Is Tomatonio relevant?

Fiop posted...

Don't think any are must reads but may have some loose nods

I think this is accurate for most of them, but I would be very surprised if Three & Nine from Cold Steel 4 isn't basically required for some of the future games.

Carnelia is also kind of borderline. I don't know if it's quite a must-read but the game clearly wants you to have read it.

Mega_Mana posted...

XD XD XD

I always think I look forward to Grancel during FC because so much plot happens. But then it's the first day or Arena. Then sewers. Then more Arena. Then seeing more guards on patrol. More sewers. More Arena. Most guards. Such a pace killer after Zeiss.

SC does it better because it uses the city more, and makes the sewers optional. Still, you could have filled the city with sidequests, with how many npcs there are. Other areas make that work, but Grancel is weirdly allergic to sidequests for some reason.

Hbthebattle posted...

yeah well it stops happening after this lol

Which thing?

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Which thing?

I believe that's referring to Agate no longer being a forced member pretty soon.

Agate no longer being a forced party member without a good reason to be, mind you.

BK_Sheikah00 posted...

I never bothered reading books in CS3 and 4. Is Tomatonio relevant?

Not as of yet, but it very well could be at some point. How? Dunno.

Three and Nine is SUPER relevant to Reverie, however.

honestly I've never carefully read any of the in-game books. except for that one that you need to in order to do the quest I understand there's some cool easter eggs in there but I find the writing to be extremely boring.

I think I've read them all online, and I'm not sure it's been worth it. I like getting all the newspapers, though.

fight an optional boss who is 4 flaming birds that spam feathers. I win because I give Agate eat a zeram powder to max cp then delete the entire field, because I just wasn't dealing damage fast enough. They are weak to water but water is bad for damage, all the aoe spells trade attack power for some 20% freeze chance that isn't reliable

exploring the sewers once again is a pain, but the game makes it worthwhile by adding A LOT of optional minibosses, and goodies.

two little stories about npcs end up with them going to the same airship as us. One is a tea maker who wants to become a master and surpass her sister, so she is travelling to Bose to train. her sister misses her, though. The other is a lazy guy travelling with his friend for adventure. Love the little npc plots

Nial shows up as we are about to depart to Bose and asks Estelle for a private conversation. Everyone goes to the ship while she stays to talk. Except Olivier, who stays and asks her to consider him as a stone in the pavement. Schera returns and drags him to the airship. Was worth the try, I guess.

It's a photo of Josh looking badass while stealing an airship with the sky bandits.

The chapter ends now, even though I called it over earlier. Never mind.

Chapter 4: "My man is now a criminal. What do I do": begins.

we get a flashback of the bandits well, doing the deed. Coupled with some classic scene of two idiot guards going "man, I'm glad nothing is going to happen tonight!" before things happen tonight

I actually get to play as Josh in this sequence. Niiiiice

His orbal setup is everything and then some. I want that EP Cut 4

the devs did him dirty by diving him 5-3 lines instead of 6-2 like Kevin and Schera, though

and he is... level 72? holy shit

Josh has a new spell named Abyss Fall, which summons Freeza

Josh: "My switch wasn't flipped last time. Now that it was, I've gained 827598375984857578 xp and 100x more edginess."
Uh, is it just me or Weissman shouldn't have turned that thing on?

Yet he can't compare to other enforcers in an 1v1, because he was trained for stealth instead of combat. Well, those Orobouros guys better have some mean survaillance tech, then

Josh's victory quote is the same as last time's, but a little slower and more exhsuated, as if he is just fucking tired of this shit

Dorothy has found the solution to world peace. Just feed military tastier food, so they will stop wanting to attack people. Of course.

Josh also has Death Scream, which summons... I don't even know what it summons. Like, I was in a in a heavy metal festival yesterday and that thing wouldn't feel out of place there

Josh's stats are so busted it's better to use AoE with lower damage so you wipe out enemies faster, than single-target attacks, even though the later are his speciality

I have to face Mueller as a boss on a 1v1. I say 1v1 because Josette dies in 2 hits, but fortunately the game doesn't force you to keep her alive. Mueller is a tough cookie, but once I manage to cast Clock Up Ex on myself, it's kind of over since I get 2 turns for each turn of his, and I have healing spells

we move on to Estelle, who is just really having a bad day

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/6/8/AAO9CbAAEaRI.jpg

She gets it

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/6/9/AAO9CbAAEaRJ.jpg

Focusing on the things that matter

Estelle and Kloe bond over how much they want Josette dead. With how good this game is at holding plot points, I'm just hyped for when the 4 finally meet. With some classic "We were taking a break!" sitcom misunderstandings

Estelle almost catches Olivier talking with Muelle about Josh on phone, but she doesn't because cellphones don't exist in Liberl yet, so she can't guess what he was doing. Phew.

Olivier: "we are both hiding things from each other, so you stop asking questions and I won't reveal I know what you are hiding". Sharp.

She then makes a speech about how she trusts Olivier against all common sense and he actually breaks character and looks surprised for a few seconds. A few seconds.

We are going to turn this guy into a 3 dimensional character eventually, just you wait

Rolent is attacked by the world's biggest fog machine and it seems chapter 4 is going to be here, not Bose.

Schera is now a mandatory member, since she is from here. I wonder how this works if I had picked her in chapter 1. Does she just stay mandatory for 4 chapters?

I form a party of Olivier (currently the lowest lv char) and Tita (it's early chapter so there will be minibosses. I'll just pull her away when we go fight the chapter boss)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUE_fthJpYg

That seems incredibly difficult.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

That seems incredibly difficult.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/8/AAcM16AAEaRc.jpg

AFAIK, he posted that every time Mueller began the fight

Yeah if you picked Schera she just stays mandatory for that chapter.

spent a good amount of time at the orbal shop in Rolent. Open a few slots (finally maxed out Estelle's) and buy an EP Cut 3. The mana cost curve has caught up to me and I'm burning through EP restoring items really fast.

Estelle is the main healer and can use high level water attacks. She also heals her own HP and EP after battle and has some fire magic too. I boost both her physical and magical damage.

Schera can use Aero Storm, making her my main AoE. She also gets the EP Cut 3 because her mana is kinda bad. She is built as a witch, for mostly magical damage. Though Sleep gives an incentive for physical attacks too. Shes also a back up healer.

Olivier is the main user of Earth (earth wall, titanic roar) and time (orbal down, white gehenna). He hits a little less than Schera since he doesn't have Mind 2, but I went for spell options here. And honestly if you have earth wall, you are not the main magical attacker in the party anyway.

Tita has the standard phys damage stuff. She ends up carrying Heaven's Eye because there just aren't two space options that fit her. But there is one, Strike. This girl is going to hit hard

everyone gets aerial. You can never go wrong with aerial.

Rolent's kids are still brats but Estelle has matured since last game so she's just giving them lectures left and right. Our girl has grown up so much

I think Rolent's song is the worst of the 5 towns. It's cute and all, but it gets old really fast.

Estelle in this game seems to be more physical than magical. Her arts seem to have fallen behind, even with Mind quartz, but her crafts have gotten boosts and they are much more worth spamming now. Tita's damage also seems better. That also increases the relative value of pure magical attackers, such as Olivier, Kloe, and to a lesser extent, Schera. But they saw their physical power get nerfed, which means there is now a bigger need for EP. This game is just more balanced and forces you to make harder decisions, I suppose. While in the previous game you'd just spam white hegenna with everyone and ditch the physical characters, here you have to optimize.

Estelle has learned True Barrage and I'm just feeling bad for future bosses.

A boss drops HP 4, my first tier 4 quartz in the series. Estelle uses water but she already has enough, and Mind 3 is more useful for her, while Ying Yang is good for the party. Well, I guess Tita is finally breaking the 3k HP threshold

I'm roaming the Rolent region and enter the farm, where npcs greet Estelle and ask where Joshua is. I'm actually feeling nostalgic myself, we came here to do the first quest in the game, where Estelle and Josh taught some monsters to be good. And now it's all world threatening stuff and dark pasts. The game felt so small back then

I obtain Scent, which was buffed in this game to give a total of 10 points of 4 different elements. It seems made for Olivier

But the party needs to level up so Olivier and Tita are swapping out, Kloe and Zin come in, and Estelle gets that Scent instead. Which gives her a new fire attack, Cyclone Napalm

it's weird to explore Esmelas Tower now, a dungeon designed for the first game's prologue, in SC's chapter 4. Because it's clearly the most linear of the 4 tetracyclical towers, so after all those maze-like towers, this is a cakewalk

I gain Shield 4, a quartz that gives insane magical defense but lowers your magical attack power... I give it to Zin

I find a pair of boots called Duende Slippers, which greatly increase magical attack. I give it to Kloe, along with Mind 3 and an armor that also increases magic. Her ATS is now 529

... what have I created

We return to the guild, and spend a long dialogue sequence clueless at what to do. In chapters 1 and 2, we were able to point the location of the boss after drawing a map. Here's there's nothing. And in chapter 3 the boss basically summoned us to the fighting spot. This time, there's nothing.

Suddenly, the mayor shows up and announces people have started fainting, because we need a plot hook, one way or another.

I level up to D-rank and gain Haze. Bitch plz, I have Yin-Yang now

kind of weird how this game has improved versions of the overworld quartz from last game, and gives them to you ealier than the basic versions. I basically never use Eagle Eye. Haze seems like it will go unused. Heal had a short use and I still don't even have Information!

No information? Do you get a hybrid quartz that includes it or something, I forget

_stingers_ posted...

No information? Do you get a hybrid quartz that includes it or something, I forget

I do, that's the point I'm making. You get the hybrid quartz way before the regular ones and then you don't have an use for the later.

Is there a chance they thought you'd leave quartz on inactive party members? That would be silly, though.

after I interview the citizens to learn what happened when people started faiting, the cast comes to the conclusion it's an enforcer who is doing it (you don't say). The cast randomly decides the men will patrol during the night while the women go to bed. Kind of makes sense from the perspective of Estelle and Schera since they have been walking all day, but other party members are flexible. Whatever.

Olivier tries to join the female group but he can't be subtle about his intentions. Agate drags him kicking and screaming back to the patrol group

Estelle and Schera have a cute scene at night where they talk about Joshua. This is where Schera is best as a character, when she gets to be the mature, empathetic mentor instead of the overbearing alcoholic.

Schera also makes fun of the possible love triangle with Josette, and I love it.

the next section will also be with an all girl party. Too be fair, lately I've been preferring those fixed party scenes, because it means everyone gets custom dialogue.

I lost a quest about finding a missing cat during the night. Very short term, and I was paying too much attention to the plot to notice. Danmit.

tbh the game autosaves too but I used all autosave slots by spending a good hour roaming around looking for fishing spots for another quest

I also wasted a lot of time fiddling with orbments, because I decided to do the setup gamefaqs recommended, until I realized it only works if you have that Luck quartz you get for doing all the quests in the first game, which I did not

so I then wasted more time moving back to my slightly less optimal setup

the optimal setup was optimal because it gives Kloe stronger earth magic, which is good in this chapter. But Kloe's ATS is so off the charts she hits like a boulder (literally) even with the weakest earth attack. She doesn't have stronger ones, cuz I chose to give her Scent so that she isn't completely devoid of AoE.

The big losers here are Tita and Estelle, though, since the smoke enemies have huge evasion. Though Estelle charges her s-crafts faster due to an item and Tita has Hit 3, so they hit sometimes, I guess.

the enemy got to the farm before I could arrive to evacuate the people there, so now everyone is in a coma. Rough

After the last chapter's "Tea Party", Orobouros is back to "experiments" that actually hurt people
Ok that tank was dangerous but Amalthea was being so pathetic while using it it didn't really feel like it

Estelle has a small breakdown because she feels useless. Because this time, the villains didn't just lead them into their location for free, and that's a requirement for the good guys to accomplish anything in this game

this chapter is really milking Schera's mandatory party member presence, by focusing on the relationship between her and Estelle. I like it, with how flat of a character Schera had been so far

A wild Kevin appears

because someone needs to watch over the comatose people and the game doesn't feel like breaking my party in half now

the cast discusses how they just fell into a trap. Kids, when are you not falling into traps? The antagonists of this game have the plot on a tight leash

the bad guys finally decide to lead us into where they are and we decide to go there because that's basically the only way we know to find them

I pick Kloe and Olivier, for an all mage party

those floating fish metal horse thingies are weird as hell

Olivier finally learns Howling Bullet 2, so his s-craft is no longer a complete waste of CP

for some reason, the equipment that boosts magic the most (Holy Cloth and Duende Slippers) is female exclusive. this means Kloe is actually the best magic attacker of the party, even if Olivier is better for other reasons (more flexible orbment). I'm giving him my only Mind 3 and the Buzzer and he still can't compare to Kloe. Her ATS is 100 points higher at the same level.

I arrive at Lost Woods. You have to follow a bell to get to the other side

I get to the exit, somehow. Actually the exit is the entrance, but the maze is gone. Or something. Whatever.

this time the enforcer sent the chapter boss after me before even appearing. which I think is stupid because the xp they give levels up both Olivier and Kloe, and that heals their EP back. You don't want to face this Olivier and Kloe at full power, trust me

Estelle is put under some illusion where shes still a kid and her mom is still alive. I imagine the non-protagonist party members have been put through other illusions

Estelle breaks out of the illusion by remembering the scene at the start of the first game, where Josh plays the harmonica at their house. The Power of Love is too stronk

Well this is some good emotional scene

We meet yet another member of the Wacky Elite Henchman Crew, Luciola.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/1/8/8/AAO9CbAAEbP8.jpg

These guys know how to make introductions

also that's an attire that says "evil sorceress", right there

those guys all dress like the could be the final boss of some videogame. Plus, the fact the game doesn't let me fight them directly and keep sending unrelated bosses so I only fight the main ones later adds up to the hype. I can't wait to kick their collective asses

Schera wants to kick her ass, but like everyone else, she has some escaping power. And that's it for another build up chapter

we got back to the guuild and Aina lists all the enforcers we have met so far. I think that's the sign we have seen the whole evil cast of this game, minus any secret plot twist villains

that's seven characters. enough for everyone to have individual archnemeses, and enough for one hell of a boss rush

Chapter 4: "The World's Biggest Fog Machine": beaten

meanwhile, bad guys talk about plans in cryptic terms so the player can only guess what's coming

In my mind, Campanella's voice is incredibly annoying.

next, other bad guys go meet a dragon. Because they aren't strong enough yet, they need a friggin dragon in their ranks. The dragon is also intelligent.

Dragon: "GTFO, I can see your evil"
Professor Aizen: "Well... duh!"

Chapter 5: "The plot seems like it will start moving now": begins

We are going to Bose! Except there are 5 new quests. We are going later.

Agate and Zin are the lowest leveled party members, so time for a full physical party. If this was FC I'd calling myself crazy, but physical characters are actually ok in this game

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Estelle is put under some illusion where shes still a kid and her mom is still alive.

I remember this scene feeling really tense, since I had just beaten the boss and it had been awhile since I saved. I was really hoping I wouldn't stumble onto another boss or something. These moments seem to come up less in more modern games that are better about letting you save.

Did the PSP version of Sky not have autosave? (I'm constantly confused by what features were added where since we had the PSP version followed shortly by the PC version which added a bunch of stuff, yet again followed shortly by the Vita version which had even more stuff we never got!)

Fiop posted...

I remember this scene feeling really tense, since I had just beaten the boss and it had been awhile since I saved. I was really hoping I wouldn't stumble onto another boss or something. These moments seem to come up less in more modern games that are better about letting you save.

I mean at this point I've caught the pattern. You don't fight the Enforcer in the same chapter they are introduced, ever. You fight a random creature and/or tank.

I was playing on PSP. I don't remember any sort of autosave. I know I lost progress a couple times because I had a bad battery that would sometimes shut off the PSP. I don't recall whether I was plugged in or playing on portable mode for that particular scene, though.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

I mean at this point I've caught the pattern

That's a dangerous thing to say about a Trails game. I mean, not specifically the fight Enforcer in same chapter thing; truth be told, I don't remember this one way or another. Trails sometimes does throw things out of left field, though.

Fiop posted...

That's a dangerous thing to say about a Trails game. I mean, not specifically the fight Enforcer in same chapter thing; truth be told, I don't remember this one way or another. Trails sometimes does throw things out of left field, though.

To be fair I imagine the game will drop all patterns when it's time for the plot to catch up, and I expect that to be soon since we are about to explore the final region of the map.

Oh man, the dragon. What a weird part of the game

Xiahou_Shake posted...

Did the PSP version of Sky not have autosave? (I'm constantly confused by what features were added where since we had the PSP version followed shortly by the PC version which added a bunch of stuff, yet again followed shortly by the Vita version which had even more stuff we never got!)

PSP version did not have auto-save.

we meet a guy who wants to make a potion that will make him immunte to the effects of alcohol

Schera: "That's an insult to responsible drinkers!"

Agate: "Responsible my ass, Schera"

YR: another quest about recovering an item stolen by the Phantom Thief

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/4/9/6/AAO9CbAAEbkY.jpg

We complete the quest about finding a fish for the anti-booze potion, but now we have to watch as the client tries to use it for a date with Aina

And I love how Olivier finds himself into the scene even if he is not a party member, and the party members are like "how the fuck did he appear here, he's not supposed to be in the party now". This game does a great job with writing multiple versions of the dialogue depending on who is with you. I imagine if Olivier is in the party he just asks to join the table with the other group, or something like that.

We get an amusing scene where the client and Olivier challenge Aina to a drinking contest, but still come short

... alright, rant time.

I hate the way this game portrays alcohol.

Look, I'm not a prude. I drink rather often myself. But I impose limits to myself, because alcohol is addicting. And the way this game deals with it goes along how real life deals with it, which is unhealthy as fuck. A part of society tries to completely ban it (which is unnecessary and impossible), but another part goes the opposite way, by acting like getting drunk until you fall unconscious is normal, or that alcoholism isn't a horrible disease. The fact Schera and Aina can drink insane amounts of booze without getting drunk is not a virtue, it just means they are alcoholics. Aina being able to drink multiple bottles of the strongest liquor in the store without feeling anything is just a sign she's not far from having liver failure. It's not a thing to be treated as a childish joke, people die and families get broken up because of it in real life. And the fact they keep trying to drag other members of the cast into it, and the game plays it for laughs, is rather offputting. There was even a scene at the start of the first game where Schera tried to get Joshua to drink, and he is a minor. That never happened again, but it didn't get much better than that either.

Maybe it's a time thing, and this was ok in like 2006, but at this point I've had enough exposure to the concept of alcoholism as a disease, both in real life and fictional media, to not enjoy those jokes that much. I mean, joking about a character being drunk here and there is one thing, but here it's just too much. And it's the reason Schera can't break to the top half of my character rankings.

so yeah, fun little sidequest, but while one part of my brain was going "lol", the other party was like "this is SO wrong"

The priest makes a note that drinking too much is bad, but it's basically a footnote to a running gag that has run too far

Me: faces a boss who spams Blind, only has 3 anti blind items
decide to leave Zin without one, he spends the whole fight blind and being useless
Then at the final turn, he snaps out of the blindness and kills the last enemy
Zin: "They messed with the wrong guy!'
Me: [roll eyes]

Estelle is now lv 60. Wont be long before she catches up with Josh. He should learn from her, the best way to train to take down an evil secret society is becoming a mandatory party member in an rpg

yknow, doing these sidequests makes me realize how huge Rolent is. It's advertized as a small town, but it has so many little hidden bits. Definitely bigger in content than Zeiss, and probably not much behind Ruan and Bose

Though Zeiss kind of wins if you count the factory, I guess

we recover the document that was stolen from the Phantom Thief, and the characters have a debate on how to secure it. Truth be told, there is little this small city can do to protect anything from what might be the best thief in the world. Because that's the kind of guy who steals stuff from banks, not official documents from miner's houses. The PT is impossible to stop as long as he keep making small crimes like this

He offers us 500 sepith of one color of my choice, and the answer of course is black. It's always black

Ok NOW we can go to Bose, 5 quests and another bracer rank later

lol no all of Trails treats alcohol like that. There's another character in Cold Steel who does the same thing (I do think she is a better character than Schera overall though).

It should be noted that Japan has a CRAZY problem with alcohol and it is beyond even culturally accepted and more of a cultural expectation that everyone drinks. Not really excusing it, just pointing out that's probably why. It annoys me too.

For the record it's a minor issue, otherwise I wouldn't be singing praises to this game this whole playthrough. But it keeps coming up and I felt like this sidequest was a good time to talk about it.

Where I live (Brazil) alcohol is also culturally accepted too much in my opinion, maybe not as much as Japan (we do have the prudes in the other end who think it should be banned). If you are in college you are expected to drink so much you remember nothing next day. I went to parties in college where next day we would check the news to see how many people had died of overdose, or from drowing in some pool after drinking. I look back and think "why the hell did we think that was normal". And I'm making this rant because I think media should have a responsibility of portraying binge drinking as a problem, not as something fun.

But I won't keep talking about this too much because I imagine most of you didn't come here to talk about RL issues. Thanks for bearing with me, normal programming is returning.

Prof Russel and Cassius discuss the mechanics of how the gospels work. I like the implication that EP is an unit of energy, since they mention it on one sentence and joules in the other. I wonder what the conversion rate from EP to joules is.

They also mention, once again, the idea of warp paths, which seems to be a recurring theme in this game. We have the seption veins in the ground, and the mysterious "trail" to the Aureole.
(it's in the sky, guys. That's the title of the game)

NPC in the airship: "Bose has been absolutely peaceful lately, it doesn't even appear in the news anymore. That's something to be happy about!"
PC: "Well, WOULDN'T IT BE A SHAME if I moved the plot of the videogame to it?"

Olivier: "tries to get Estelle into letting him teach her about sex"
Estelle: "I WILL REMIND YOU THAT I HAVE A VERY LARGE STICK"
[insert bonk meme]

Estelle almost gets him to reveal what kind of personal flashbacks he had while he was in the illusion but he manages to hold it and switch back to women stuff. I swear, we will get that character development out of you, Olivier. Just you wait.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/8/3/9/AAO9CbAAEbpv.jpg

Schera talks more of her backstory. Good stuff

She mentions how Estelle has the ability to attract other people to follow her. Yes, that's standard anime protagonist stuff.

Tita and Agate talk about the later's sister, and the plot continues to hint pretty hard that she's dead

And Zin talks about how Cassius is basically a savant at everything he does. While Loewe is incredibly strong, but is not quite the same thing

Agate is, this time, a mandatory character, which means he is finally getting some character development. The whole thing about letting me pick either Agate or Schera for the first 3 chapters just crippled both of them character-wise, imo. Since it made them interchangeable. Schera really enjoyed being mandatory on chapter 4, so let's see what they give to Agate.

the local shop is now selling tier 4 quartz, so I drop a bunch of it. Attack 4, Defense 4, Mind 4, Hit 4 and Action 4, all distributed among my party. The current party is Estelle, Agate, Kloe and Zin.

I build Estelle for Aero Storm and back-up healing, as well as Blue Ascension and Cyclone Napalm. Who says I can't optimize Estelle for both melee and magic? Not anybody in stick hitting range, I tell you.

And Kloe for healing, time magic (Clock Down/Clock up Ex/White Gehenna), and Earth magic (both Titanic Roar and Earth Wall, as well as stuff like La Crest). I'm pretty sure that titanic roar is going to break the geneva conventions when used by Kloe and her 500+ ATS. She also unlocks Athelas, which revives a single party member with all HP. I'm not even sure if I need it, but getting healing arts that the party doesn't need is Kloe's speciality.

And Agate/Zin just get the standard combination of attack, action, hit and move, in tiers 2/3/4 depending on what I could save for them. Not being the party's source of arts means you are low priority for certain quartz

The ongoing plot with the noble girl and her maid from the academy finally turns into an actual sidequest, where the girl tries to escape an arranged wedding. the entire party immediately takes her side, because adventurers are more progressive I guess. But the girl ran alone into a road full of monsters and/or a dragon, so we gotta drag her back to town

The damage scale of this game is just hilarious now. Kloe is casually dealing 3k damage with aqua bleed while the rest of the party struggles to do that with s-crafts. All because of some boots and armor.

I'm changing the Buzzer to Estelle to reduce the difference a little. But nothing can be done to make the physical characters not bad in comparison. Except make more Attack 4s, I guess

I beat the first monster I have to exterminate. It doesn't attack me the entire fight, because it "seems scared of something". Huh.

(it's afraid of the dragon isn't it)

We learn the issue with the arranged marriage is less about the marriage and more of the fact the maid is a jerk for setting it up in secret. This is getting spicy

Maid: "It doesn't matter if she hates me, my job is to be hated". That's some pretty bad customer service you do, girl.

I go report the monster I just killed and the guild doesn't take it. This is weird.

one of the Phantom Thief's last hints is inside the bracer's guild. The clerk is PISSED that he didn't see an enforcer sneaking in. He should be.

Amberl Tower has 25 chests. That's a lot of searching around, but it also means 25 witty jokes. Like this

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/6/AAO9CbAAEb1a.jpg

Or this

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/7/AAO9CbAAEb1b.jpg

Good stuff.

monster 2 eliminated. it looked strong but spent the whole fight confusing and attacking itself. Huh

Monster 3 eliminated. it also spends the fight attacking itself. The characters comment on it. Agate implies it has happened before

We return to the guild. Agate is about to explain what happened the last time the monsters acted strange, when the game decides one image is worth more than a thousand words:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/5/8/8/AAO9CbAAEb1c.jpg

I think if I kill that I'll get enough EP to become S-rank right away

Lorence, aka Loewe, aka Leonhardt (dude likes Ls), introduces himself as the Bladelord. I think I'll just call him the Edgelord.

He has a character portrait for looking behind with a smug face. This game is dedicated to its very specific character portraits

Agate, in classic Agate fashion, announces he'll try to kill the dragon alone. His position as the #1 Edgelord has been threatened, and he must fight back for it.

Agate left with my quartz and now we have to go save his ass. Danmit

the city's normal upbeat music has been replaced by a sad one. this is how you know the bad guys have gotten the upper hand

Just kidding, they've always had the upper hand.

Since the market was stomped by a friggin dragon, the mayor ordered the hotel will operate as the market for the time being. You can count on Bose's mayor to ensure capitalism never get interrupted, even by a dragon.

We go to Revennue village, where we learn the dragon breathed fire at the city's orchard and flew away. That's one way to be mean. The citizens are all depressed since their livinghood was scorched.

We get confirmation Agate's sister is dead, by reading the damn tombstone at the local graveyard. See kids, that's why you always take notes in RPGs! (I never do, not even in tabletops)

I don't fully remember the dragon plotline but it sure is being a dick

Fever dream chapter fr

I played SC on the PSP and it doesn't have the chest flavor-text. shame

ZeldaTPLink posted...

We get confirmation Agate's sister is dead, by reading the damn tombstone at the local graveyard. See kids, that's why you always take notes in RPGs! (I never do, not even in tabletops)

It was there in FC too but it's the kind of detail that wouldn't register with a first time player because the name Mischa means nothing to you (or the party) at that point in time.

meanwhile, Loewe complains about the hassle of having to tame a dragon as if he's complaining about having to write a boring report on a friday afternoon

He reveals Agate's rank. It's C. That's lower than Schera, and just half rank higher than where I am right now (D+). Because the in-game rankings are just plan unrealistic, tbh. Story-wise, you probably aren't supposed to advance a whole letter by beating about 5 bosses, finding 2 missing cats and solving 3 sets of phantom thief riddles

Never mind, Agate was promoted to B. I'm still catching up soon, though.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/8/AAO9CbAAEb9a.jpg

You don't make snarky remarks about the backstory of the party's edgelord if you don't want to face his wrath. Just don't.

They engage in sprite combat, and Loewe starts reading Agate's psyche. This is a problem for Agate, because having your opponent give therapy to you during an anime combat is a sign you are losing the fight.

While Agate risks his life fighting an enforcer AND a dragon, I take my time combing every inch of the previous area for treasure chests

Loewe does the classic anime thing where he breaks the protagonist's sword in half to asset dominance

Just one sprite fight scene in this game is better than any lightsaber fight of the latest star wars trilogy, give or take

...

Tita just went up a few positions in my tentative character rankings

and the army arrives, which makes Loewe leave, because as much as he has A FRIGGIN DRAGON, videogame wisdom says even dragons have limited HP, so you don't test it against a country's military might when you can save it for a time where you have tactical advantage

the dragon is called Ragnard the Ancient. That's probably a lv 22 monster in DnD, or something like that. Not something for a normal party to face.

Agate is going to win the award for Most Time Spent Recovering in a Bed amongst the party members by the time this trilogy ends

General Mogran is a pretty good chapter once he drops the arbitraty prejudice against bracers. And once you no longer need a red herring to make the real villain (Richard) less suspicious.

we get some great character development scenes involving Agate and that's just all I have to say

The queen has sent the best airship in the country, and invited the press to join, so they can show everyone the power of crown slaying a dragon. Smart political move, though I think there's zero chance that will work as intended.

Agate and Tita did not make it in time, which means they are being saved to be the good guys' ace in the hole when things get rough

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/0/9/9/AAO9CbAAEb9b.png

Capture? They are awfully cocky.

this is a cool plan, Mogran, but there is 99.99% chance Orobouros wants you to use all of your resources so they can test their own tech and advance yet another step in their evil plan. Don't those good guys ever learn?

soldiers doing the military hand gesture when estelle passes by is a nice touch

I'd say the Arseille is grossly understaffed. They did not bring in the most important airman to the crew: the Singing Helmsman.

We get some Ship vs Dragon action, and I estimate about one third of the game's animation budget went into this chapter

Huh. Cassius knows the dragon himself. Ofc.

The plan seems to work. Until it doesn't, because Orobouros predicted it and set up a trap. Another chapter, another successful trap by the bad guys.

The Arseille chases, but the dragon already knows where to go to lose it.

Fission mailed.

Time for our ace in the hole to show up. Agate knows a guy who can get us to the dragon, and Tita brings a special sword with some orbal technology that can be used to break the gospel. I'm calling it the Monado.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Huh. Cassius knows the dragon himself. Ofc.

Lol I don't even remember that. Of course he does

ok time to raid a dragon's lair

I spent the last 30 minutes making the perfect orbal setup so I feel great. I'm prepated to kill even Loewe if he appears in front of me

Olivier is the man of choice here, and his spell list is multiple pages long

after a lot of walking around and trying to convince an npc to help us, we enter a dungeon where the normal enemies look like bosses

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/9/4/5/AAO9CbAAEcKp.jpg

have heard this game took long to release in the rest, but wow

I was expecting to have to fight Loewe. We have to fight the dragon.

The dragon is... kind of easy? It has one attack that deals massive aoe damage, but only uses that once and then spends the rest of the battle doing nothing. The 25k hp is a lot but its defense isn't much greater than average so it goes down eventually

Tita gains 4 levels, Agate/Olivier gain 2 and Estelle gains 1. That's nice.

obviously, the thing is not really dead. That was like the first hp bar. it rampages

clearly the solution is to fight in a cutscene, not in a gameplay battle. The protagonists do that and it works. They don't kill the dragon, but destroy the thing controlling it

the dragon gameplay fight was completely pointless but the devs wanted to throw the player a bone, I suppose

the dragon decides to atone for his sin. In gold, like a good dragon

Agate decides to barter with the dragon. Lmao

Who do you think you are, Bilbo Baggins?

oh hes just making the dragon "hire" him to deliver the rest of the gold to the villages. Ok.

the dragon says Cassius once challenged him to a duel. I wish I could see that in all its sprite glory

he says more cryptic stuff and leaves, like a good npc god

we get an ominous scene where Agate, Tita, Mogran.... and Loewe, mourn at some graves. They mention Hamel, the city Joshua is apparently from. Interesting

Chapter 5: "Shen Long just gives people gold": beaten

Cool chapter. I think 3 is still my favorite in this game so far, the build up to Renne was just perfect. But this was a really cool (and bizarre) sequence.

So, Josette does like Joshua huh. I thought she was just doing it to mess with Estelle

Joshua is still lv 72. Estelle is catching up, man. You better start leveling up or she will have enough STR to make that slap on your face hurt really hard. Tick tock.

Don't forget she has an Attack 4 quartz, and it works on unarmed combat

The sky bandits unleash heavy artillery on what is apparently an Orobouros airship. By heavy artillery, I mean, they have Joshua dock it. May Aidios have mercy for those people.

We don't get to see the cool thing Joshua is about to do. Meh.

Chapter 6: "We have visited every region twice. Now what?" begins

In a rare instance of non-protagonists being more useful than the protagonists, Kurt's team has found Orobouros's base.

the game makes me choose the whole party so whoever I didnt pick goes ahead to the lake inn. The choice it's easy, I pick whoever didn't get massive xp from the dragon (Kloe, Schera and Zin). Plus Estelle, ofc

gamefaqs teachs me a small hack where if you do to the next story location but then say you are not ready, Kevin joins your party and you can use him for quests. yay

he's very overleveled though, and I'm only gonna use him for the novelty cuz my ocd demands I use the other guys

we do a sidequest involving finding Lila's lost family. It's cute

She finds her aunt, who says she hopes she visits sometimes, although it will be expensive.

Lady, she works for the mayor aka capitalist overlord of Bose, she can go anywhere really

Mayor Maybelle and Lila are totally a couple and the game is barely hiding it

A man goes fishing without telling his wife. We tell the wife. She gives us his favorite fishing rod. That's one evil quest

I do a sidequest that I only know exists because I check the faq, involving extermination of some metal bugs. I'm rewarded with a cutscene about the jaggers. I did not expect that

the party, now with 8 people, goes over who will sleep where. Unfortunately, someone has to sleep with Olivier, and nobody is safe with him, regardless of gender. Agate draws the short stick

the characters discuss the Big Bad. I just realized one weakness to wiping people's memories is they can still remembers blanks where the memories got wiped, and if a lot of those people start talking about it, and if they also know there is a secret society who wants to rule the world... they will figure out what happened, even if they don't know who you are. So now they are on guard for our friend The Professor

there is a cute montage where the characters have fun. At one point, Zin and Agate fight. If this was a gameplay fight I don't know who would win, but it's a cutscene, where Zin is stronger than the entire population of Liberl, or something, so he wrecks Agate's shit

I mean, excluding Cassius, ofc

The characters talk about how Estelle is good at fishing. Kevin is, too. Well, you have to be if you are going to be a playable protagonist in a trails game, I suppose

Estelle now knows how to play Josh's song in the harmonica. If he doesn't return soon she will start using dual strikes in his place. Shes only 6 levels behind now.

Kevin tries to make a move on Estelle. Heh. It's not a bad idea, assuming Josh continues to screw up. Sometimes you gotta play the long game.

An unconscious Kurt appears in a boat. Sounds like he and his buddies tried to fight the bad guys, but lose because they are, well, non-playable

I swear to god if anything happened to Anelace

(It won't, though. She is invincible)

(... or is she)

Kurt's memory got wiped but Kevin just undoes it. This is the second time he cockblocks otherwise invincible Orobouros tech using church stuff. Forget Estelle and Josh, if there is any hidden counter to the bad guys, it's Kevin

That said... they still let Kurt live and sent him on a boat floating where we are

We have to form a party. Estelle is going, because she is the MC, and Kevin, because he is OP. The other two are up to choice

I pick Kloe and Zin, who are kinda low level. I also imagine Kloe would want to go there, if we meet Josh. Schera's level is lower than Zin but I pick him for physical-magical balance, plus I'm kinda liking him in battle lately

Ok pop quiz: does Orobouros know we are about to invade their base?
A) Yes.
B) Hell yes.
C) In fact, the success of they entire plan depends on us invading their base now.
D) Heck, they probably engineered history's events to make the party members be born at circustances that led us to being in this time and place to invade their base and advace their plans.

I will believe this cast can outfox Orobouros when I see it

orbment setup prepared. Kloe has 610 ATS. If this isn't enough power to incinerate those enforcers the moment they enter our sight, I don't know what it is. Or freeze, in Kloe's case.

The others just have whatever combination of attack and magic I could cramp on them. At this point, elemental distribution doesn't matter much, since everyone can cast everything. And two people can earth wall, so we are golden.

I'm assuming this is one of the "13 factories" those guys keep mentioning. It definitely is a factory

We meet Grant, who has been brainwashed. That may or may not make him a more interesting character, tbh

After Grant is wasted, Zin learns a thing named Thunder God Kick

I dunno what it is but it sounds OP

Carna rescued too

One of the doors leads to a mysterious looking orb on top of a mysterious round roof. There is zero chance this is not the key to the entire plot

thunder god kick is ridiculous

finally, we fight Anelace, who as it turns out, is not invincible at all.

We meet Josh unconscious on the floor. Ok, that I did not expect. The guy prepared for this for like half a game, and that's all he has to show for it?

Gonna bet now it's an illusion

It's Renne. Close. Wrong enforcer's trick.

I suppose you don't have to worry about Josh leaving your organization when you have the ability to mass produce Joshbots

The Joshbots go down, and we see the big bad triumviratte. Renne, Edgelord and Aizen. I guess this is where they gloat and reveal all our efforts have been for nothing

Estelle is no longer a playable character. That's when you know shit has hit the fan

The bad guys have succesfully kidnapped Estelle. Another dungeon, another uncontested Orobouros trap.

Estelle has a nightmare. Then she wakes up and is relieved as she sees Renne. Then she remembers Renne is evil and goes OH SHIT

You know a villain's base is huge when it gets an anime cinematic to show it for the first time

Renne is the lead character but she isn't controllable in battle. Nice touch.