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.

A Truly Amazing Game!

The game's prologue was a great immediate continuation of the finale of fc and served as a nice break from everything we saw from trails thus far in terms of the mountain area and it's structure.

The first half is admittedly pretty slow but it has enough switch-ups in it's episodic returns and investigations of each region (especially 3 & 5), for me to keep interested. A latter chapter also has some element of repetitiveness and it's something that I do wish could have been injected with more variety but the boss fights are fun and it serves it's purpose.

The character work is still incredible and potentially even much better, FC's planted seeds begin sprouting and some characters growth or just in general presence is great.

The story was irresistible especially near the end and the way it tugs on your heartstrings was special.

Multi-tiered orbal slots are cool and so are multi-party member s crafts.

Excited for the rest of this series.