I finally jumped back into Trails in the Sky after beating the first game in late 2019 or early 2020. I have to say that I'm glad I did. The writing is just as good as the first game, with the story building off of the first game's cliffhanger. Estelle's quest to find Joshua has to take a backseat to helping the different regions of Liberl, but it's always there at least. And it's great to revisit all the regions and locales as well as all the characters we met there.

A big change for me this time was that I ignored the people who say you need to read every NPC dialogue after every plot point or else you're missing the game. I engaged when I wanted to and didn't when I wanted to just plow through with the story and that helped me avoid burnout and love every chapter of this game. The way the story comes to a head is worth all the hours I put into both games.

The battle system is exactly the same as the first game, but it's cool that it starts you all at level 40. It's a serviceable system, with the orbments tuning (like materia) being a fun way to customize the party. Thank god for the devs putting in the turbo option though, which makes the entire game a breeze to walk through instead of a slog of slow battle animations.

A super fun JRPG that is totally worth the time investment. I loved it in spite of some of its anime tropes.