This is worst single jrpg i've ever played.
a lot of backtracking.
the main structure of plot is meh
mostly doors just ok and meh, except 15 door
and story of Kevin is really good

Different Game, Same Awesomeness and Tough Challenge

Despite slight graphical improvements and some small additions, this is familiar ground we're on.

Challenging gameplay? Check (in fact this is the hardest of the three games.)

Visuals that are refreshingly old school and well executed? Check.

Well told and executed story that continues to see characters grow, sometimes in ways you don't expect? Check.

Excellent soundtrack? Check.

There are some different aspects though, like quick travel (due to how the game is structured as well as story elements), LOTS of characters to recruit (which you will have access to all, unlike some JRPGS) in which gives you a lot of flexibility to tackle dungeons and bosses and a easier way to equip everyone.

And the challenge! If you thought FC and SC were hard, this game is a test of your knowledge from the previous entries as well as how you can adapt. Again though, it does reward you for persevering and overcoming the tough challenges.

This is a more contained game compared to the previous games but by this point, you're here to see how the Trails in the Sky ride ends and you'll won't be disappointed.

Rating: 8/10

I still liked it but I think this is definitely the worst entry in the Sky trilogy.

I think my main problem is just that its so disconnected because the plot is just 'you get stuck in a pocket dimension for 45 hours then get out' and the "plot" is given to you through these 'doors' which are just side-stories. there are definitely standouts to those side stories like Star Door 8 for its fantastic political drama or the notorious Star Door 15 which is FUCKED - i wasnt expecting Salo vibes but here we are

it just sort of feels kinda empty. like a necessary series inclusion but i much preferred the 'actual plot happening' in Second Chapter than "batman stops fighting crime for a bit and gets really good at bowling"

the gameplay is better than ever in terms of like... actual fights, but the open ended party construction and generally weird pacing, partnered with the fact that what I was actually doing didn't really feel like it mattered, because I was in a pocket dimension... makes 3rd feel like a game you have to play through to get to the Crossbell duology - rather than a triumph of development to cap off one of the strongest trilogies in RPG history. iunno. i had fun but i think i had more fun with Second Chapter's combat than this game's.

doors

there's A LOT i could write about this game (both positive and negative) but i'm feeling lazy right now. what i will say is, amazing character cast, and brilliant writing like every trails game that i've played so far. i enjoyed this game more than FC, but not quite as much as SC.

star door 15 felt like i was playing a different game. bone chilling

Después de terminar Sky SC no tenía la expectativa muy alta por el hecho de qué no sabía que seguiría con la historia ya que el conflicto principal había acabado y que cambiaran el protagonista me parecía algo raro, creo que esto mismo hizo que el juego me sorprenda y supere todo lo que esperaba de el y llegara a ser, hasta el momento, mi entrega favorita de la franquicia, tanto por su historia (Kevin al final fue un protagonista que me encantó) tanto por todas las mejoras que tiene su gameplay y los status extra que agregó que me parecieron muy divertidos, que haya tanto contenido e historias adicionales en forma de las puertas me gustó mucho y sin darme cuenta las terminé haciendo todas y gracias al cielo por fin agregaron el viaje rápido porque en el final de SC se notó muchísimo que hizo falta.

Very sad that people skip this game. Character writing is at it's peak in this title and this is where the overall combat has gotten to the point where I would call it amazing. Kevin's core writing is one that feels very relatable to an extent which helps so much of his changes drill deeper into you. Ries is fun to be around and helps enhance Kevin out with his development (and vice versa). Door's are an idea I don't really like, but the writing in these doors go from really fun to heart wrenching. These doors only work so well cause the main 2 still get every ounce of their development inside the main story. Boss design is an increase for the previous 2 to an extent, but I wouldn't say it's as good as it could have been. The sky trilogy suffers from an idea that they cover holes in boss design by throwing x amount of enemies in there to keep you busy, it's just boring to fight cause it doesn't really add true difficulty to anything. But through it all, I love this game

Beat: 5/21/23

Having at last finished the Sky trilogy with the completion of Sky the 3rd, I can confidently say this is the best entry in the series thus far, in spite of the baffling decision to turn the game into a dungeon crawler.

The writing here is a marked improvement over the writing in the first two games, and this is in large part thanks to the Doors. The Doors are technically optional, but you’re really missing out if you don’t do them, as they’re easily the best part of the game. I didn’t do all of them, but of the ones I saw, nearly all of them added something of note to the characters they focused on. It’s an impressive feat, considering how between the first two games, the writers already did a good job fleshing out everyone in the main party, and yet somehow, they managed to develop them here even more. There were even a couple of Doors that focused on NPCs from the past two games, and those also did a good job expanding on those characters, despite their relative unimportance to the overall narrative. Trails’ commitment to getting me to like characters I was indifferent towards or outright hated at first is astounding.

It’s not just the side content that saw an improvement though, I would say that the main narrative of Sky the 3rd, minimal as it is, still manages to reach for more adventurous heights than Second Chapter. I appreciated how they opted to go a somewhat darker route with the story and I also appreciated how they decided to include some honest-to-God plot twists in this one (the main one is a bit predictable, but there are some smaller ones that are more interesting).

For some final one-off positives, I thought it was really cool that they brought back every party member from the first two games and how party construction was overall a lot more freeform than in the first two games. I also appreciated the relative lack of Cassius Bright in this game. Sure, they still fill the annoying character quota here with Gilbert, a character who has way too much screentime considering how his whole schtick stopped being funny towards the end of Second Chapter, but I will take “overstayed his welcome” Gilbert over “walking deus ex machina” Cassius any day.

As previously stated though, the main problem with the game is the dungeon crawling structure it decided to adopt. From a writing perspective, while it technically manages to connect all the disparate elements of writing that make up this game, it doesn’t do them any favors either. It feels like Phantasma was the first idea they came up with and they just decided to roll with it without considering better alternatives. I understand that as an epilogue game, they didn’t want to go all-out with the world design, but the whole thing feels a bit slapdash for my liking.

In terms of gameplay, while seeing alternate versions of areas from the first two games was neat at first, it ended up becoming a bit of a drag to explore by the end. Chapter 6 in particular is such a slog; it took up 14 hours of my 55 hour playtime and mostly consisted of barely-modified dungeons copy-pasted from the first two games but now populated with overly tedious combat and boss encounters. The fact that the game is a straight-dungeon crawler also makes it so that you can’t fit the Doors nicely into a play session. Many Doors feature anywhere from 20-40 minutes of uninterrupted cutscene, and as there are few natural story breaks in the middle of any given chapter, there never really felt like there was a good time to casually pop into a Door and watch. For me, I usually had to sit down and commit to watching a few at a time.

Normally, I would say that the general structure of any given game feeling a bit iffy would count as a rather large flaw, but thankfully it’s my only real complaint with Sky the 3rd, and the writing largely makes up for it. To reiterate something I said earlier, it really felt like the writing was reaching a little higher than it did in the first two games, something I mentioned that I was hoping for at the end of my Second Chapter review. Now that the Sky arc has concluded, I’m really excited to try out the next two arcs, both for a chance at a stronger overarching narrative, and also because I’m a sucker for callbacks and returning characters.