Trails in the Sky the 3rd is easily my favorite of the Liberl Arc. Yes, the game is not the conventional Trails game since its more of a dungeon crawler rather than exploring a nation with a grand story and full of named NPCs. Despite it being different, Sky the 3rd still is an amazing game in its own right. The gameplay is still solid, with the big thing being you can basically use a lot of the major characters from the first Sky games and use them in anyway you want. The dungeons (or Corridors) were fun to do and raising a team of about 16 playable character is easy due to level experience gains being easy for low - level characters. The biggest things to note about the game is specific - colored doors in which there are three - Moon, Star, and Sun Doors. While Sun Doors are simply minigames, the Moon and Star Doors are significant is they provide more moments of characterization between the main playable characters, as well as giving focus to side-characters, and setting up plot points for future games. They are all great in quality, though I do admit the Moon Doors do take long (thankfully only five doors are in the game). As for the story, while it isn't a grand tale that doesn't reaches the highs of SC, it still is a well-told story that focuses greatly on Kevin and newcomer Reis. Maybe that fact that the game is shorter in length and didn't have problems with being split unlike FC or SC, the story's pacing is well-done and there is barely any padding at all in it's execution. Music is still great with my favorites being "Fighting Right On" and "Determination to Fight". The only negative I can really think off is the lack money (which even that isn't a problem since you get ample amount of quartz to trade in for mira), the Sixth Corridor does pad out with too many fights, and the game being more of a dungeon - crawler (which is still more on preference than anything). Overall, Sky the 3rd is an excellent game that made Kevin a top-five favorite character and is a game that should NEVER be skipped, even if the game structure is different. Easy 4.5 / 5.

Definitely a substantial improvement from the earlier games. Decent pacing for the most part and some strong moments. Kevin is a really good protagonist. Can't believe star door 15 was even allowed to be put in. That shit was crazy.

However, while still better than the earlier games, it still has things holding it back dramatically for me. My main issue with the game is that it's fairly underwhelming for most of it as everything that it does is done better in other games or stories I've experienced. 3rd is a standard execution of its ideas that brings nothing new to the table nor does it in a way that feels very impactful for me.

Another problem I have with it is that while the pacing is decent and for sure better than the earlier games, it's still not very good for me. Not much actually happens for most of the game as it mostly just repeats a similar formula, barely deviating until the very end, which by then the story is immediately about to end. The combat and dungeon crawling do not really circumvent this issue as they're fairly unimpressive for me overall, and by this point in the series, I'm burnt out and want to see a major shake up to the combat. I'm also fully burnt out on the setting and cast of Liberl, which further accentuates this problem for me. Hopefully the crossbell games deliver on these fronts.

For a series I have spent more than 150 hours at this point to be this underwhelming, it's such a shame and also a bit annoying. Especially when it is a hyped up entry such as this one.

"That brief hesitation was all it took to spawn a great evil. It crawled through the fields, ran through the hills, and spread disaster in the skies above. Book of Ezer, Verse 2, 'Disaster Unleashed.'"

An epilogue to a finale. The bridge which leads to the next story arc for this legendary series as well as one that is filled with context of the past, present, and future of this story.

Trails in the Sky the 3rd is massively different from its predecessors and ones that follow it. A dungeon crawler with Visual Novelesque side stories that are apart of its own door system. There is a requirement for every door and whoever fulfills it gets granted a flashback to the past. On how this is handled it is easily one of the best side story concepts I have seen in a video game. I am definitely going to miss doors like Moon Door 4, Star Door 8, and Star Door 15. Obviously there are more but those are ones that stood out to me or are the most memorable.

Although I have seen people who dislike the gameplay in this game, I personally love it. I think it was a very different change of pace considering how you're done with Estelle and Joshua's magnificent journey, and Kevin motherfuckin Graham takes over.

Kevin Graham's story is something that will stick with me for a LONG time. I thought Estelle would never be topped or let alone matched when it comes to a main character standpoint in this series and it did not take long for my expectations to be shattered. Now I don't know where I stand in the comparison between the two, but I can confidently say I love them both.

The soundtrack is somehow on par or arguably better than the last. I really don't know how this is even possible but man it is something special. When I first started the game and this track was the first thing I heard I knew we were in for something special.

Unlike SC, this game had me invested from beginning to end. There were several times where I just audibly said "wow." At this point I can just say that this is one of the best video game trilogies ever. Like each game of this trilogy just sets a high bar for the rest of the genre after experiencing it.

The Trails in the Sky trilogy has truly been an emotional and special journey and I just can't wait what future games has in store waiting for me.

Lastly although I was absolutely loving this game while playing, there was a line by Kevin himself that really stuck with me and solidified this game as an all timer.

"It's why it gave me the strength to move forward, even knowing how many hardships awaited. Because for every hardship, there'll be just as much joy waiting for me."

Now I don't know if recency bias is affecting anything here, but I feel like this is the strongest game in the Sky trilogy. There are a few things that people usually have issues with regarding this game, but I wholly believe that it peaks in all the right areas. Including combat, writing and presentation. Kevin and Renne are the standouts of this game, with Ries being another good new addition, as well as this game having great set-up for many future titles through it's Door system. To address the Door system, many people have an issue with this because of the idea of it breaking up the flow of the game to essentially present an inorganically formulated flashback sequence or lore dump, that is sometimes not acknowledged by the characters hereafter. However, despite this I honestly believe it works for the game, even if it COULD have been presented more organically. The amount of sheer good content that is presented through this system is incredible, and I don't believe many aspects could have been communicated the same without this system existing, especially things like Star Door 8, where the right moment in the story to interject it is difficult, and Star Door 15, where it's unlikely that what is being talked about COULD be brought up in a more organic way. Speaking of Star Door 15 and Star Door 8, these were probably some of the biggest highlights of the game, making incredible set-up for future characters, areas and themes. Overall, probably my favourite game in the Sky trilogy, and it's worth playing for all the right reasons.

A trilogia como um todo é incrível, mas este em particular se tornou o meu favorito. Diferentemente dos dois jogos anteriores, que começaram com uma abordagem mais slowburn no gameplay e no ritmo da história, este já inicia com intensidade total. Momentos que normalmente seriam reservados para mais adiante nos jogos anteriores se desdobram logo no início deste. O impacto é imediato, marcando uma mudança significativa no design do jogo em comparação com seus predecessores, que adotavam uma abordagem mais lenta, introduzindo primeiro o cotidiano comum dos JRPGs antes de mergulhar nas partes mais intensas da narrativa. Aqui, a trama começa com um caso envolvendo Kevin, seguido por grandes revelações e uma incursão quase imediata em uma espécie de dungeon crawler. Exploramos diferentes planetas em locais novos ou conhecidos dos jogos anteriores. A surpresa dessa mudança brusca na narrativa desde o início foi cativante, proporcionando um novo fôlego à série. Entendi isso quando um amigo explicou que este jogo serve como um elo entre os arcos, funcionando como epílogo e prólogo para a próxima fase da história.

Nos dois primeiros jogos, havia inúmeros personagens pelos quais nutrimos o desejo de ter na party, mas muitas vezes eles permaneciam por pouco tempo. Neste jogo, esses personagens surgem como uma espécie de "dream team" dos jogos anteriores, o que adorei. Isso tornou as trocas de party mais dinâmicas, especialmente considerando a nova abordagem de exploração deste jogo. Com 16 personagens jogáveis, utilizamos todos eles, e a possibilidade de criar inúmeras estratégias para diferentes times proporciona uma ampla variedade de combates. Richard é OP e DERAM UM MECHA PRA TITA, foi genial. Achava ela bem inútil nos jogos anteriores, aqui tá maravilhosa, tanka pra caramba.

A ideia de explorar mais a fundo os personagens por meio de grandes ou pequenas sidequests encontradas em diferentes pontos da aventura pela extensa dungeon ou planetas é um acréscimo bem-vindo. A exploração de locais antigos de uma maneira renovada e a reutilização eficiente de recursos não são aspectos negativos quando bem executados. Deu oportunidade de conhecer mais do particular dos personagens da franquia, e quando falo isso, não apenas dos personagens da party, outros do universo são explorados de forma muito bem executada também.

Uma das grandes novidades é o Teleporte, algo ausente nos jogos anteriores, e embora nunca tenha sentido falta disso anteriormente, neste jogo faz todo sentido. A cada novo jogo, houve melhorias na qualidade de vida, e este certamente segue essa tendência.

O universo compacto deste jogo se aproxima mais da alta fantasia do que os anteriores, apresentando inimigos diretamente inspirados em contos de fadas, em contraste com a abordagem mais tecnológica ou de animais com elementos distintos dos dois jogos anteriores.

Enfim, trata-se de um jogo com um ritmo dinâmico e uma história fascinante que evoca emoções desde o início. Se você apreciou o universo e seus personagens, é absolutamente essencial explorar meticulosamente cada aspecto deste jogo.

Well, Trails has finally truly impressed me. This is definitely my kinda series after all.

3rd has decent pacing of things happening the entire time, though that is partially helped by its shorter length. The dungeon structure is preferable to FC's and SC's for me, and there is way less backtracking. It has a complex main character and a personal character-driven story. The combat system is mostly similar to FC and SC, but the way it ties into the story here more often is cool. Most of the 3rd music is the best in the series so far for me, especially the final boss theme and the OP.

Every problem I had with FC and SC have been fixed. Nobody is annoying anymore; a lot of the story is a love letter to the Sky games in general. Hell, some characters are better in this game than the previous ones. I even care more about Joshua and Estelle in 3rd than I did in FC and SC.

It's also got the majority of the emotional and dark moments (especially that one door) of Trails in the Sky. I genuinely cried to a few of them, which hasn't happened with Trails so far.

I will be continuing onto Crossbell with high expectations.

Ranked a bit lower then the second and about on par with the first, but this is still a very solid game. It should be noted this is for fans of the first two. It more heavily follows two characters from the interesting Septian Church faction that appeared only briefly in the other games.

Who doesn't love badass nuns and priests wielding a sword and a crossbow? While not as familiar as the OG cast of Sky 1+2 they are fantastically well written characters in their own right. As time goes on all the familiar characters return to fight along side each other to escape from where they find themselves in this one before a final sendoff to end this first arc.

This is definitely for fans of the first two but still a great game and recommended if you played the first two.

after playing sc, the second game in the trails in the sky trilogy, I thought it would be hard for it to be topped for something better sort of until I finished the 3rd. SC was so good but I think I like this game a bit more.

trails in the sky the 3rd kind of drifts away from the style of the first 2 games, the gameplay is more like a dungeon crawler and this change might've annoyed some players but it defo didn't for me, I found this gameplay very fun although it might take a chapter or 2 to get used to the style of the game.

my favourite part of the game is the doors feature, such a unique way to present side stories into a game, these doors helps you to understand the lore and story of the game but also helped the cast individually, all of the main cast got drastically better due the stories within these doors. Other than story, certain doors have minigame features and actual objectives you need to meet which was so fun for me I enjoyed it a lot, it really helped me to immerse myself into trails the 3rd. The moon doors really felt like I was playing a VN tho. My favourite door was star door 15 by far, Renne is the most interesting character for me so far and I cant wait to see her later arcs as I play through the trails series

Kevin being the MC really paid off since his journey is beautiful and the whole arc revolving around him was just greatness. Kevin's arc is pretty much relative too Estelle and Joshua in my opinion.

i also think, unlike the first 2 games, trails in the sky 3rd had the best starting point and stayed the most consistent, this helped the flow of the game better. I cant really think of bad segments in this game due to how consistent it is. Overall this game was something else, it was so good

An amazing finale to an amazing trilogy, what an experience and I'm looking foward to the next arc which is crossbell

"so we put on our bravest faces and promise to meet again -whether it becomes true of not - and we go back to our lives and keep on going"

Best of the trilogy. Do have issues but thought Kevin and his whole thing was pretty decent and definitely related to certain aspects of his character, Reis was a nice addition also, nothing extravagant or big but did well, don't have anything to say on any of the other characters as they felt like bit parts. Kind of was expecting a bit more after the starting bit but was underwhelmed just a bit, but still overall was decent. So far in the series, seems to always have one section of the game that's either stale or padded out for length which really throws off the pacing at times and something I really don't appreciate and wanes my interest, iirc it was ch. 5 or 6 in this game where I got that feeling which was kind of a blow cuz as I said earlier, was expecting a good bit based off how the game started.

A pretty big departure for the series till this point. Whereas FC & SC were slow treks around the largely idyllic countryside of liberl; here you slowly go through the levels of a dungeon crawl in a secretive dimension past the prologue.

Kevin Graham had some level of mystique in SC before his major role in the finale, and here we finally get an expansion on his character as he gets to take center stage. The tidbits of his past are slowly revealed in beginning of chapter slideshows that range from 5-10 minutes which I enjoyed, the previous two games were told in a more conventional manner and I do miss them but this style that keeps on until the final chapters holds to the pacing this game ascribes to in addition to it's own version of side content which I will touch on later. I think even with this being his only game in this trilogy and the probable rest of the series, he has the upper hand on Estelle at least in regard to how interesting I found them individually, not just their closest counterparts in their respective relationships.

In SC & FC the majority of the side content was in the form of tasks you could find on guild boards but instead here it is all seperated into short stories and mini-games - doors. Skipping doors isn't something I would recommend but especially the several that aren't minigames and that aren't just flavor pieces for characters. Multiple go in depth on events, people, and items that were probably some of the bigger questions of the trilogy and the game. A few doors in particular seem to heavily allude to and shed light on future events and the series going forward, particularly the latter doors which also just so happen to have tenser prerequisites. The very last door is incredibly dark and together with Kevin's story made this game somewhat hard to get through at times. I've seen a lot of complains that some doors drag on too long but I feel most of them aren't deserved, a lot of these refer to moon door 3. You go through the motions in this door more than any other and I do feel it went on for a bit too long but it served it's purpose well enough.

Phantasma wasn't the most fun crawl imaginable but it's backstory and reason for existence is interesting and makes me have some appreciation for it, even if I didn't quite enjoy going through it as much as I did journeying a state like in the previous games. the side content does well to break up the pace and I think that the pacing takes somewhat of a turn for the worse if you don't stop occasionally to take a peek at them, if not all.

I did not enjoy 3rd as much as others fans like I did FC & SC, and had to push myself a bit harder with this game at it's most boring points more than the last two but like the last two it has some great highs. Getting one last hurrah with the sky trilogy cast was a joy and the goodbyes at the end were very sweet. This was great fan service and sendoff for sky.