I understand this is basically a Setup game, but it really takes a toll on how much of its content feels boring, tropey, and predictable.
For starters, I really don't care much about the characters as they are basically tropes and not something I could call well-written.
The Plot isn't any better either, it has an episodic tone for most of the game while slowly progressing over what's going on in its grand narrative which while is my thing doesn't work here as I didn't care much about the characters here. It does pick near the end, but even that isn't very impressive.
I wasn't a big fan of the final dungeon either, felt too long and was too confusing to get over.
The ending was pretty good and probably the strongest point of the whole plot, but anyone who is even a little familiar with JRPGs or rather media in general will know how it's gonna end.
But it's not like I didn't appreciate the game at all, in fact, there are tons of stuff I enjoyed in this game.
The gameplay is very enjoyable and its turn-based system is one of the best in this game, offering various strategies to deal with opponents, or just do your regular hit until they are dead battle.
It's not just the combat segment, the ability to save anywhere in the game, no random encounters, easy escape from battles, and a lot more. Its quite refreshing how not many JRPG for its time do that, but I am glad Trails does
The Music is pretty good as well, but I have heard a few tracks from Crossbell and Cold Steel games, and nothing in this game comes close to them. I like the music here but I feel like they are gonna have it even better.
The Worldbuilding is already very captivating and got me hooked, it makes you feel like the world of Trails is Grand and there are tons of events going to happen. And since it's the first game in the series, that makes it much more promising and I can't wait to see how better the Worldbuilding gets.
Overall I think it's an okay but promising start to the franchise, and I am hyped for going through all the games in it.

Muy bueno, se nota que es parte 1 de 2 (sobre todo por ESE FINAL) y la recta final a lo mejor es la que más sufre de ello porque se esfuerza mucho por hypear y hacer buildup a eventos que, en ese momento, tampoco son todo lo importantes que podría parecer. Probablemente sí sean relevantes a futuro tho
Mataría por Estelle y Joshua, hacer el juego más character-driven que plot-driven (que no por ello implica que "no pase nada", como he visto por ahí) lleva a que salgas encantadísimo con los chiquillos y su relación, así como todos los que se encuentran por el camino. Cada arco es más interesante que el anterior, siempre hay algo que te lleve a seguir jugando, es relativamente adictivo y ayuda mucho que sea cortito para estándares de su género. Además el worldbuilding es muy interesante y me gusta mucho cómo los NPCs reaccionan a todo lo que pasa, se siente como que de verdad tienes un impacto palpable en el mundo
El gameplay pues no diría que es del montón, tiene ideas curiosonas y las bossfights son muy entretenidas pero tampoco es la panacea que digamos. Dicho lo cual, cuando, tras doce horas de gameplay, descubrí que había un botón de turbo, mejoró exponencialmente para mí

En resumen: peak, sienta bases solidísimas, estaré SENTADO para SC. Olivier Lenheim el personaje de todos los tiempos

*This is coming from a guy who beat all Trails games after the Liberl arc and its the final arc that still need to be played.

Trails in the Sky FC is a slow-burn, but a pretty solid game. As the very first story to tell in Zemuria, the story was extremely character driven with it doing the job of introducing the settings and concepts that'll stick with the series until the end of the series's storyline. However, because of those introductory elements, FC suffers on a very slow start with the pacing being slow paced and low-staked. While I carried through due to my experience with the future arcs, I had to admit the story was pretty slow despite me liking the characters from the get go. I'll honestly say it took until Ruan for me to fully be invested in it. Despite the story stakes being slow and low stakes, the character moments definitely makes up for it with its strong writing and developments. Estelle Bright is indeed Bestelle (though Kloe was personal favorite). Gameplay is pretty simple, with the quartz system being the factor of making the game entertaining for anyone. Despite how initially confusing it looks, the quartz system is simple and with the right art setup can snowball your characters into winning any fights since arts are king in the game in terms of damage output. Despite that, you'll only stick with usually two same characters as you traverse Liberl, you get shuffling character that fit for any story moment in each location. For the most part, you only really need to worry about equipping gear your two main character being Estelle and Joshua Bright. The system is extremely simple, but its a recipe for it to get better. Visually, while it looks a bit dated, the 3-Dish sprites are charming and the cities are all distinctly different. Music is great with my favorites being Ruan, Zeiss, and Silver Will. Finally, talking to the named NPCS were just fun as some have small development over the course of story events. It shows the attention to detail Falcom gave to the game (which they continue to do for every future game). Overall, recommend it as the excellent starting point since it's the first chronological story of a long series. However, understand it is more character-focused so come in the game with that in the mind.

The more I think about this one, the worse it gets honestly.
I don't think something this calm should've been the start for such a long running series as Trails, specially when people will become interested via other later games.
Nice begginings can be good, but the problem with this one is how long it takes to have any ounce of interesting things happen.
Estelle and Joshua banter alone can't make the convos funny, and story is a snorefest for a while.
Olivier helps remediate it when he joins, but leaving as soon as the chapter is done is HORRIBLE, specially with Schera too, as the game shoots itself on the foot by removing the 2 characters that were fun to hear until story picked up more.
And the first half of CH2 is horribly painful in how boring it is.
Half of it is boring and barely feels engaging.
And its gaameplay isn't much better.
Level scaling at first is a MESS.
You don't have 4 party members much, which sucks for a game designed for 4 of these characters.
The ending IS very exciting and leaves a mark, and the second half is engaging, but getting there is such a struggle.
And people say this is actually amazing?
Yeah, I just don't see it.
Maybe if this was the start of another arc other than the very first, it would'be been better as a way to calm after lots of shit happened.
But a beggining so boring for a long series like this is prone to bite it in the ass more than help, specially when its not even engaging in any way for such a long time.

You have to accept that things are going to take some times with this game, with this entire series if i trust the JRPG community.

I love a lot of things about this game : it rewards the player's willingness to search for details and take parts in the universe in a great way, the gameplay, while tedious, is interesting and can be very fun at times, the constant works toward getting better is an integral part of the story, same for the sidequest which are included in a good way, easy for the writters to create them and satisfying for the players to play through them. They're not always interesting, but this works for the universe of the games.

The graphics are pretty, and there is a tons of extra sprites to represent the characters, it implements the world well.

The slow story reminisced me of those 90's RPG and also made a game where the creators didn't fear making those slow and emotional moments. Making the game world breath through the players, never trying to go too fast and telling what is overall a pretty sweet story.

this critic was written fast, sorry

"just as the brightest light casts the darkest shadow"

the trails series is gonna be a series where i commit to long term, as the first trails game i've played in the series this did not dissapoint me at all. One of my favourite introductions to a series. The first trails in the sky game was so fun to play i was fully immersed in the whole time, the combat is fun to play with and I already love the cast, there's not really that much to say bad about this game apart from some pacing issues but that's ok because its the first game and i'm expecting that this game will be even better after i play the other 2 in the sky trilogy due to the buildup for the later chapters.

i love estelle as a character already and i have really high hopes for joshua, the last stretch and the final few scenes were so good for joshua and was a great twist, i really liked the build up regarding his backstory. im looking foward on how Loshua and Estelle improve as a dynamic later on.

overall amazing introduction to a series I enjoyed this way more than I should have, great game

Umm, well this is not how you do an introductory game. Yes it's the first in a trilogy, setting up a story, it does it pretty poorly for the most part. Everything prior to the final chapter and a bit of chapter 3 was such a drag. Annoying character interactions (except Olivier, you get a gold star babes) and nothing about the world that got be interested in the setting. Felt like a quest completer for most of it. Thought the ending bits were pretty nice, nothing special and found a couple things about it generic? or nothing new for me, but was at least a step up from the rest of the game.

My cynical prediction is that none of these npcs have any actual weight to them.

The point is to make the world feel super big and crowded and ambitious, but with no actual impact on the player and the world at large, they will feel isolated and borderline pointless

Something like Demon Souls was so immersive because the NPCs had insane ramifications on the entire world in that game.

Help one NPC, and suddenly half of all useful vendors will be murdered and none of their items are accessible anymore.

Help another one, and you unlock some of the best items in the game.

I will cynically predict Trails has none of that and lets every background NPC live out their lives in isolation

Even Terranigma on the SNES managed to let a lot of NPCs/side-quests have huge influence on the world at large...

I played the FC evolution version on the Vita. This game is a fairly traditional RPG that brings its own ideas and qualities to the table. Soundtrack was very good, gameplay was fun (could have been a bit more tactical) and the dialog is really well written. The story takes an extremely long time to get going but remains refreshingly down to earth (we don't end up fighting God^^). I still would have liked more story relevant content (a rare case of quality is there but quantity is a bit lacking). Characters are very well done. I love the fast-forward feaure. In opposite to many other JRPGs out there, the last dungeon wasn't a slog and actually pretty fun. Overall, I can recommend this game to pretty much any JRPG fan out there.

An extremely slow starting point for the Trails series. Fortunately, it does eventually get more interesting... it just takes the entire damn game to get to that point. It feels like Trails in the Sky Second Chapter is the JRPG I thought this game was going to be while Trails in the Sky First Chapter is a pretty uneventful but necessary prequel. The first game is mostly familiarizing yourself with the setting of Trails and giving a shallow introduction to characters who turn out to be a lot more fleshed out in future games. The second game is where the actual adventure takes place - or at least the adventure that's most relevant to Estelle and Joshua as characters.

Did they really need two games to tell the initial story of Estelle and Joshua? I suppose they probably did. I can't really think of a graceful way to fit the events of Trails 1 and Trails 2 in one game. But I do think the story of Trails 1 is just a bit on the boring side for most of the campaign. Maybe it had to be that way. After all, you can't continuously elevate the stakes of a story if you start at maximum intensity.

I don't think the combat system in Trails 1 plays to its strengths well due to only making interesting use of the grid system near the end of the game, but future games make up for this. My major complaint with the combat system is the same as with all of the games in the Sky trilogy: it's too damn slow.

I think this game desperately needs a remake. Not because I think remaking the game would elevate it to masterpiece status - far from it. But if Falcom is telling new players to start with this game then they need it to make as good of a first impression as possible. And let me tell you, it definitely does NOT make a good first impression. Increasing the production values and adding voice acting for every line could go a long way toward making the game more approachable. They would definitely need to increase the speed of the combat as well. And personally I think some skillful remixes could make the soundtrack feel a lot less generic.

This definitely isn't the masterpiece JRPG that some claim it is, but it's the starting point for a long line of JRPGs that are much more impressive. Trails in the Sky was a game that I forced myself to play through while not massively enjoying it, but I'd say it was definitely worth it because I got to a point with future games where I was playing for the sheer enjoyment rather than forcing myself to play it so I could see why other people liked the games.