You know, I honestly kind of hate the term "flawed masterpiece". It's extremely overused, and often times people don't even really use it correctly.

Truth be told, there's only one game I can confidently hand this fabled accolade to. Trails in the Sky SC.

Sky SC has an extremely strong foundation, beginning right after FC's devastating cliffhanger. And while the prologue to this game is extremely good, what ensuses after well... isn't. See, Sky SC might have one of the most repetitive and mind numbing first halves I've seen in a videogame. It almost entirely consists of investigating odd occurrences throughout Liberl, and finding out who's behind them. It's pretty cool the first like, two times, but it gets old really fucking fast. It's not without its pros though, as there's some really good sequences and character moments interspersed throughout the tedium. On top of that, you have consitent qualities such as the stellar world building, dialogue, combat, and music.

However, when you board The Glorious near the mid point of this game, EVERYTHING changes. Sky SC goes from being pretty okay, to literally being one of the best games ever made. The game kicks into high gear, and pays off everything both it and the previous game set up. At a certain beach scene I thought to myself "Yeah this might be one of the best scenes I've ever seen in a videogame." and then I went on to see this moment get trumped MULTIPLE TIMES during the final act of the game. All of this concludes with an ending that's just like... what the hell do you even want me to say? The back half of this game is legendary, and it blew me away in every aspect.

It's so easy for me to downtalk this game by talking about its first half, which admittedly isn't even as bad as I painted it out to be. However, I can just as easily prop this up as being one of the greatest games ever made by talking about its masterful back half. While I can't just ignore this game's issues, in the end I choose to love and embrace this game for everything it is and what it stands for.

"That's love and peace, baby."

I don't know how to start this. But I will say this took WAY longer than I expected it would take me.

After finishing FC I pretty much just kept on going at the pace I was at since I got to chapter 3 or so. SC prologue really tugs the heartstrings after the ending of FC and you just NEED answers man. Then after that the game really gets... repetitive.

The time period from when I completed the first half versus literally the rest of the game is INSANE. Took me about 2 months for the first half and the second half took me a business week. I don't mind the first half as I do think there were great moments interspersed. But god that was mind-numbing. Repeating the same sequences for a good portion of the game was a turn off. But don't let this fool you. The moment you get on The Glorious EVERYTHING changes.

The story picks up tremendously and it just builds and builds until the finale.
This is when I started to realize "yea this may be one of the greatest video games ever made."

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC is the definition of a sequel in every sense of the word. Every facet gets improved. And the stakes are higher than the last. This was essentially a 70 hour long JRPG finale. And I love it for everything it stands for.

This may sound conflicting as you have two opposing opinions for each half but let me assure you that the highest of highs overshadows the lowest of lows.

Trails in the Sky SC is truly one of the best JRPG games there is and even with its flawed and monotonous first half, on the other hand you have one of the most legendary second halves to a video game. In the end I will cherish it all the same.

Oh and this soundtrack is cool.

"My Estelle...you shine like the sun"

JRPG is my favorite videogame genre, but the big thing that gets me down about them in general is that:

Most of them present the mechanics and almost everything that you will see during the game in terms of gameplay in the first hours, and proceed to abuse everything to the limit, presenting few new elements.

And most of all, they lack consistency. I'm not even talking about pace, but that often the best passages are given in the first hours or halfway through, and the quality declines as the game progresses. And this is something even more serious when it's a genre where you can easily find games with more than 50 hours of main story alone.

Fortunately, Trails in the Sky SC goes against the grain of these things, being not only one of the most consistent I've played but having perhaps the best second half I've experienced in any game.

The plot improves with each passage of the game, the characters' arcs are all closed in a satisfactory way, the bosses and events of the final stretch are very memorable and the elements of customizing your party and combat progressively evolve over time. It really fails to use the exact same map as the previous game, which is kind of bland and diminishes the potential of what could have been the experience.

Truly a great game and an example of how to make a direct sequel.

Trails in the Sky SC is the best of the series that I've played so far, no doubt.

It's got the world-building and characterization of the first game, but without the super sluggish prologue and a more realized and expanded upon combat system. The plot just keeps pushing forward and there's a ton dabbled with and drastically improved with fantastic storytelling and even deeper dives into every character. This one's going to sit with me for a while. I'll keep playing through more of the series (3rd, then Trails of Cold Steel IV once that comes to PC), and hopefully it's just as good, if not better than this. But if this ends up being the peak, I'd honestly be okay with that. SC is just that good.

IF YOU'RE NOT A FAN OF THE WORDS
PEAK FICTION
GOAT
RAW
FIRE
Click off the review rn!

If you didn't like FC then don't play this-- it's a lot more of the same but digs a lot deeper into the game's world, the main conflict, and the partys' characterizations. I personally loved FC and found it super cozy, so going into this was really exciting. The story picks up directly where the first game leaves off and the gameplay does too, carrying over your levels and data including everything you interacted with or didn't. Seeing the payoff of sidequests I did in the first game and even the continuing stories of random NPCs I talked to absentmindedly was rewarding in such a mundane but satisfying way.

The gameplay itself improves decently from FC. I don't see people talk about it much but the dungeon design in this is pretty significantly improved; it's still Falcom jank but it's not nearly as mind-numbing as FC's dungeons (the final one in that game made me wanna kms). Re-exploring the areas between cities and dungeons might get kinda tiring depending on how long ago you played the first game, because they're largely the same, but as always the constantly evolving city dialogue and fun sidequests keep things engaging. As for the combat itself, the game gives you much more options now as you continue to level your characters and progress through the game (the first game capped at around the 40s, this game goes from 40 to the 90s). The amounts of crafts you have on each character doubles and the amount of abilities you have like... triples. There's a shit ton of new orbments, causing your orbment set-up to feel like it really matters and it can completely change the tide of boss battles for you. The dude a few reviews below me complaining about bosses being too tanky and getting instakilled was just preparing for fights incorrectly, orbments are very accessible and the game gives you a surplus of gear and accessories to take on the tough fights even without having to buy any. There's also a ton of party members you can use, whose crafts have a pretty big effect on battles, but seeing as how dialogue changes based on what party members you have you'll prolly end up just rocking with the characters you like the most (Agate and Olivier the GOATs). The amount of options you have actually kinda gets pretty annoying at the end since the final stretch gives you a handful of cool new party members to use, but you can't really use them since a few climatic scenes in the final dungeon require specific party members to see.

I can't say much about the story without spoiling stuff, if you played the first game you know what it's gonna be about and what you're getting into, but the twists and surprises the plot has in store are absolutely mindblowing and several of them end up recontextualizing the first game entirely. All of the mysteries shot off in the first game land on their feet with perfect precision and do a double fucking somersault in the middle of it. The weakest part of the story is prolly the Enforcers that serve as the main group of antagonists throughout the game, they feel pretty one-note monster of the week-y and their backstories are way too "tell don't show" for me to care about them besides Loewe and Renne. This is a pretty big problem since some of the party members' arcs are paired with the Enforcers' stories that aren't very relevant to the world and don't even go anywhere, at least in this game, causing characters like Zin and Schera who were already on the weaker end of the cast in terms of substance not really coming out of this game feeling any stronger.

Overall it was a fantastic and memorable ride that honestly has me itching to start 3rd already, but I'm gonna force myself to take a break so I don't get burned out. Dunno what to expect from the rest of the series, but if it has as many beautiful, awesome, and emotional moments as the first two then it may grow to be one of my favorites.

Man, it'd probably be more reasonable to let my opinion settle before making a bold statement, but this series hasn't consumed my mind over the past several months for nothing. I spent a good 90 hours on Trails in the Sky SC only to come out thinking "yeah, this is one of the best games I ever played."

I've barely scratched the surface of this series yet and I'm both amazed at how I simultaneously feel like I've already found an absolute peak story and that there's still so much more to uncover in this series' lore. The world feels incredibly fleshed out thanks to the abundance of flavor text and dialogue but it never feels like every answer is just given to you as there are always hints of bigger, more sinister events taking place behind the scenes. Even though Trails is often seen as a slow burn, I never found myself bored with the story as I found it interesting to let my mind wander and guess where the story will go and I can't say I've experienced many games that strike such a rich balance.

The stakes of the story in SC are much higher than that of the first game and that game's set of already established characters are all given time to shine in some of their most emotional and badass moments yet. It definitely helped that most of the characters were likeable from the get-go but now they feel far more fleshed out with backstories being explored and development taking place throughout the story. I don't want to give too many details for the sake of spoilers but I'll let you know that this game left me speechless more than once. And that doesn't even get into Estelle and Joshua's relationship which was a huge emotional Rollercoaster throughout the game and led to some of the absolute peak of JRPG writing if I've ever seen it.

I am slightly disappointed that they mainly reused locations from the first chapter as I liked the new location the game starts out in, but I never found this to be a major hindrance as the aforementioned world-building gives each location enough depth to feel like fully realized settings and the new dungeons revealed in these previous locations contributes to the sense of mystery in this world. The combat similarly went through little change though I found it significantly more addicting this time around, but maybe that's because I actually made stuff resembling character builds and liked playing with the new arts/orbments. I'm almost inclined to do a second playthrough to experiment with more combinations, which rarely happens with RPGs for me.

Either way, I have no clue why it took me so long to try the Trails series. It doesn't really revolutionize the genre but the concepts, mechanics and storytelling are so well executed that I find it hard to call this game anything less than a masterpiece.

Spent a while considering the rating for this one, it’s an incredible game that I sadly had issues with. There’s a strange issue when it comes to dialogue. Due to the freedom you get in terms of how many reserve party members you can get, a lot of them do not get dialogue in sections they should, and it’s really off putting. The first 4 chapters are incredibly formulaic, and chapter 8 as a whole just pissed me off.

Having said that, while those are definite issues for me, I loved this game to bits, it starts off right where FC left off, and bit by bit as the chapters go on, you start to piece just exactly what is going on. Plenty of big moments, fun encounters and great music on display here.

It’s one of the best RPG’s I’ve ever played, Falcom were so close to greatness with this one. Can’t wait to play 3rd.

P.S. - Dragon Dive

I wasn’t really planning on writing any long form pieces of writing about Trails where I’d go in-depth in relentlessly praising it and talking about how much of a destressing, genuine experience it’s been until I was done with Sky the third because acting like a huge fan of an 11 game long series when I’ve only played 2 games seemed weird, but between the engaging political conflict that’s incredibly ambitious because of the increasing amount of parties with different motivations involved with each conflict, the twists surrounding each conflict, how these political conflicts impact the characters in realistic ways that enforce challenges upon the leading main characters to overcome both on an ideological level and a physical level, the heartwarming large cast full of good for nothing goofy ahh misfits with earnesty and charm filling their banter as much as it fills their genuine moments of emotional vulnerability, the ridiculously large scale amount of global level conflicts being set up for events far into the future with lots of twists and turns and conspiracies that kept me at the edge of my seat at times, the deep lore that’s not too convoluted and is moreso used as a backdrop for kiseki’s characters’ struggles, and most importantly, the human and grounded struggles that characters like Joshua, Estelle, Loewe, and Agate go through that brings this insanely ambitious narrative that covers several continents to a grounded level, it was hard not to scream at the top of my lunges “AHHHHHHHH I LOOOVVVEE TRAIILLSSS I LOOVVEE BRAZIL KONDO MADE A SERIESS THAT’S FOR ME BRUH”



Ok but frfr it’s virtually impossible to write down every single thing I loved about Sky FC/SC, but the best starting point I can think of is the central driving force, that being Joshua and Estelle’s dynamic and how it plays out during the story. There’s a line Joshua says in FC where he tells Estelle to go about expressing her unbridled trust towards her surroundings, her innocence, and to not so much as doubt what’s infront of her and see the darkness within it, practically telling her to avoid seeing the unpleasant side of things and questioning them and to leave the anxiety driven suspicions and doubts to joshua instead because that’s his speciality as an assassin. In a way, Joshua was keeping her vision unclouded, and telling her what he doubts and sees as dangerous to help her avoid making the wrong choice as much as he can. Similarly, at the end of SC, due to Joshua’s self isolationist, self hating tendencies that always look to make him run away from what’s right before him and wallow in his misery because that is more convenient to him than thinking he’s worth other people’s company and troubling them with his presence, Estelle told Joshua that she'll be the one to keep him in check and walk alongside him because Joshua always fails to see the obvious things like people’s love for him, how much they want to be there for him, and how important he is to them, which Estelle regulates by pointing to him these obvious cues and keeping him on the right track. In their own ways, at different points, they covered for each others’ weaknesses, and seeing their method of helping each other out transition from an unhealthy one to a much more empowering one was super poetic. That beautiful, organic transition where Estelle goes from being a naive, innocent dork to an emotionally mature, determined lady with unwavering, grounded optimism and Joshua goes from being a tryhard tough act who pretends to be emotionally mature and determined to a vulnerable, scarred soul trying to walk the right path with the bad bitch he bagged by trauma dumping and correct all the sins he’s made with his previous antics, perfectly sums up why I love their relationship so much. It’s so full of parallels like the one I mentioned yet so opposing, and in their opposition to each other in terms of background, they manage to connect to a spiritual level and works so well as the main force that pushes Sky’s themes about facing your fears and embracing the truth as the guiding light that’ll help you carve your path with others instead of losing it no matter how different you all seem.



All of what I mentioned are things I like to see in media being on full display in Trails, but…what really struck me wasn’t any of the larger than life aspects I mentioned as much as Joshua’s personal struggles did. Drowning in self denial for solace, shifting the responsibilities you’re supposed to uphold by running away from them and attaching them to external sources, hurting others in the process of putting your guilt elsewhere, and self isolating to avoid hurting others as much as possible while maintaining the distance you’ve built between you and the guilt you shifted elsewhere to balance things out, all being a byproduct of abandonment issues and the fear of losing others dear to you, are all things that terribly resonate with me and since I’m in the middle of trying to uncover the root cause for them and get rid of these toxic habits once and for all, going through Sky fc/sc was like going through my own small journey of revisiting myself and re-evaluating it from a different perspective that rung true to me. Relatibitly aside, while I do relate to Joshua in some aspects, I don’t wholeheartedly relate to him, and most of my appreciation for his character comes down to how much of a unique spin it is on the ideas and struggles I mentioned above. While most characters who fall under that trope direct that guilt towards a different person, Joshua directs it at a different version of himself, the puppet like person inside him that was born after Weissman experimented with his heart and the source of his inner turmoil, which is a very interesting touch Kondo made with his character because while it’s a less common coping mechanism than laying the blame on another different person, it’s just as realistic and potent because of how it fits his background with being a test subject who had his sense of self played with in the past.

If you haven't played Trails in the Sky: First Chapter, let me STOP YOU RIGHT HERE and tell you to go purchase that and play it ASAP. The Trails series is NOT Final Fantasy, it NEEDS to be played consecutively because the entire series is one massive interconnecting story. Second Chapter is a direct sequel to the events of the first game and if you haven't played the first game before going into this one, you'll be completely lost. It'll be like starting The Lord of the Rings trilogy on Return of the King instead of The Fellowship.

Now that I've said that piece, if you HAVE played First Chapter and you're reading reviews instead of purchasing this game INSTANTLY after that jaw-dropping ending of the first game. WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU WAITING FOR? PLAY THIS GAME NOW. It takes everything you loved about the first and amplifies it 10 fold. The story, characters and lore of the world are greatly expanded upon and developed even further, the combat is even more refined and varied with extra attack options like chain crafts and 3rd tier artes and the music is just as beautiful as the first game. If you thought First Chapter was a masterpiece like I did, you haven't seen anything yet because SC surpasses it in every-way possible.

Honestly if you're a J-RPG fan and you still haven't gotten into the Trails series in 2020, you're missing some of the absolute best the genre has to offer and should rectify that IMMEDIATELY.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC is a fantastic sequel to an already good game.

In what can only be described as a mix between Golden Sun and Fire Emblem, Tales of the Sky SC doubles down on what made the older Final Fantasy games great by proving once again that the best JRPG's of all time were produced by Tri-Ace in the early 2000's. I would go as far as to say that this is the Final Fantasy X of the 2000's, it's just that good.

Nihon Falcon's second entry in the long-running Dragon Slayer saga picks up right at the end of FC, where Josh has left Estelle behind after realizing that he really was in fact the bad guy all along. Having vanished without a second rational thought, Josh leaves immediately to go hang out with the Akatsuki. Estelle leaves with her friend Anal Lace to go train in the woods, and after a very traumatic and horrifying experience, Estelle realizes that harmonica's are only capable of creating awful music.

Returning characters Tifa, Calvin, and Adol have their back-sides expanded upon, and much like sunscreen, gets everywhere and makes you feel good. Other characters include the very dull and unintersting Chloe von Einzburn, and Zin the Avatar, references to Orie and Aang specifically. Estelle continues to be the star of the show; brandishing a very large stick and a mouth that would get her sent to the principal's office, Estelle leads the gang very obviously, and it's clear form the get-go that she will be the one that takes the final step to villainhood.

The visuals are nice, taking inspiration from Breath of The Wild and Dragon Quest XII

(Thanks Dhoom)

This is the 2nd in a series of reviews and like the games themselves are intended to be experienced in release order, or at least read the preface of the first one here.
Feel free to let me know if you think I missed anything!

Up front, Trails in the Sky SC is better in every single way than FC. Characters, Story, Gameplay. It's all better. The problem is it's not better enough. And that's my real issue with this game.

SC picks up immediately where FC left off which is right away a much more engaging start than FC's prologue. You're already a high level and you have your crafts still available to you. This is something the series keeps doing and I gotta say I love it it's one of my favourite things they do in these games. We still have a lot of the gameplay issues in regards to movement and the grid but overall, possibly due to just higher stat totals in general, your options are much more open this time. Physical damage is now worth using, bolstered by much more useful crafts overall and it leads to a much better play experience especially with the party members who really don't use arts at all.
Speaking of arts, we get a new orbment in this game. There's now a 7th slot for quartz and though you start with every slot unlocked from the start slots can now be upgraded to slot higher level quartz. This is so great I can't even begin to describe. A big problem in early FC is that you just don't have enough options. You have limited slots and limited quartz to work with that there's not much you can really do in terms of build or strategy. In this game however right from the get go you have a full 7 slots to play with and slot whatever you want in without losing that progression of unlocking, or now upgrading, your quartz slots. Everything feels so much more free and you can be a lot more creative. New quartz and more slots also means new arts and it's not great still but in this game there's a lot more use for the other arts other than the 3 you'd spam in the previous game. Along with physical damage now being usable and a full set of crafts (with some new ones) means every character can utilize their own niche much better and you're not doing the exact same thing as often.
The revolving door style of party members is also a thing of the past. Now once you get a new party member they stay with you, although for most of the game you're locked to Estelle, your chosen ally at the start of the game, and the region's new party member your 4th, sometimes 3rd and eventually even 2nd party member can be swapped out for whoever you like. It's great to get to pick and choose anybody you want to take with you, build them however you want and give everybody a much bigger time to shine.

It's not all good news unfortunately. The balancing in this game is not great to put it mildly. For context, I personally played through this one on Hard. I was considering nightmare but was warned against it and thank god for that. The prologue is absolute bullshit to put it mildly. You have to either rely on RNG or use the game's retry offset feature to weaken an encounter on successive retries to even get past it. After that for about 5 chapters you'll have the experience of basic enemy fights being the most brainless easy thing of your life with bosses being near impossible at times. I cannot imagine playing through this game on nightmare without some absurd luck and cheesy strategies. But then, once you get past about chapter 5 the game completely flips on its head and every single encounter become incredibly easy. Maybe I just found a winning strategy but I barely had to think about what i was doing after a certain point.

The story is also much improved from FC's. This is our first face to face introduction to the ""secret"" society of Ouroboros. Who as far as I know are our main antagonists moving forward for the entire series. The good news is everything involving Estelle and Joshua is great. Absolutely no complaints there. Seeing how Estelle has grown since FC is a highlight of the game and how she now makes smart intelligent decisions and works as a competent senior bracer. It's great to see and compare to how she acted in FC. And the scene where she and Joshua finally reunite is the emotional high of the entire arc. The other party members also finally get their time to shine. Kloe takes more of a backseat in this game having most of her development take place in FC but every other party member really steps up to the plate.
Agate's backstory and his relationship with Tita is really heartwarming and made me like Agate as a character much more than the very little he got in FC. Zin actually gets a character for the first time in his interactions with Walter. Schera's backstory finally comes up and her relationship with Estelle is much more fleshed out than just a generic mentor figure. Olivier's true purpose and identity is revealed and he gains a lot more depth and even some side characters like Julia, Josette and Meuler get some growth.
Kevin Graham is a great new character and this game serves as a really nice introduction to him but I don't want to talk too much about Kevin until 3rd.
Leowe and Weissman are really fun villains, they're both decently interesting on their own, mostly Leowe over Weissman but they really shine in what they add to Joshua than just on their own. Meanwhile Renne, although there's not much to her in this game she at least gets more than 5 minutes of screentime and is nicely set up for the future. and her interactions with Tita are great.
Unfortunately the other enforcers are not nearly as good. Luciola is quite literally nothing. She exists only to serve as a prompt for Scherazard to give her backstory. She's so meaningless that I can't even find more to say about her good or bad. I guess she's hot?
Walter is kind of the same but for Zin but at least he has a somewhat interesting thing going on with his past with kilika, zin and their old master. I feel like these two could have been much better villains if their existence didn't boil down to "I've been fucking with a gospel see you in chapter 7 fight these monsters instead" "ive been fucking with a tower fight me then ill see you at the end" "okay its the end lets fight one more time" but I don't know.
I fucking. Hate. Bleublanc. I don't know why. I don't have even slightly a good reason. This guy is just my least favourite character in the entire series. Fuck this guy.

I don't have a good place to put this but I really want to mention how much chapter 8 feels like a lot of busywork. I really liked having the entire country open for you to go through but it had no required fights and just 3 easy sidequests per region that it felt really meaningless other than to be like "hey isn't it crazy that you can't use orbments." it could have been cut down or made more important and it'd be a way cooler experience. The final dunggeon also was really really cool visually and conceptually but again it left a really sour taste in my mouth with how you had to keep going back and forth through a really long path and slow elevators and trains to swap your party out between each fight to not miss out on scenes that vastly improve the experience.
The final half of the game, although being really easy and had those sour spots was really fun though, having the best dungeons and the most engaging gameplay with all the options available to you with a freely swappable party, fully unlocked slots and high level quartz made it great fun to play around with. I do want to mention though that the dungeon in the first half are kinda dire with slow switch puzzles and confusing mazes and really terrible balance.

I really liked SC honestly and I could see myself going back to it sometime but it ultimately was not better than FC enough to not leave this really sour taste in my mouth and make it feel worse than it actually is

Falcom was able to build peak in cave! With a box of scraps!

After the first game I was impressed, but now I am hooked and I am eating. It's incredible how thought-out and thorough the work that's gone into this is. I tried at several points to trick the game into giving me a single line of generic dialogue from ANY town NPC and they just kept beating my ass with more world-building. They would not let me stop reading. There's no wonder this took longer to translate than the dead sea scrolls

The combat is better but it's still the weakest part. There's a lot more to building a party than the previous entry but it still feels like it needs a bit of tightening.

Anyway, looking forward to spending another 500 hours catching up to this until the games suddenly get bad or whatever