Trails in the Sky is a part of huge legend of heroes JRPG series and a often recommended starting point to the series. I had started it already from Trails of cold steel before this but I can understand why people would recommend this to be played before. The plotlines are very similar and connect to part of the bigger storyline but nothing in a way that you would require to know one before another. The battle system is also same kind of traditional turn based JRPG, with the unique twists being the slightly tactical battlefield where you also move around a bit. I feel that a bit the battle system in cold steel builds on it so that would be a good reason to play this first, but also this feels easier and more fair since I was rather frustrated by difficulty spikes in cold steel where here the progress was more even and natural. There are also several quality of life improvements in the later series that make getting back here a bit jarring, like fast forward and not needing to spin the camera manually so much. Last but not least, while the plot is one of the main reasons for me to play legends of heroes, there are few cringy bits that I find hard to overlook, not the least that the only / main romance in the story is kind of underaged sister-brother thing, I might be getting more prude at my old age but I cannot find anything sweet or cute in that anymore.