This is the 2nd in a series of reviews and like the games themselves are intended to be experienced in release order, or at least read the preface of the first one here.
Feel free to let me know if you think I missed anything!
Up front, Trails in the Sky SC is better in every single way than FC. Characters, Story, Gameplay. It's all better. The problem is it's not better enough. And that's my real issue with this game.
SC picks up immediately where FC left off which is right away a much more engaging start than FC's prologue. You're already a high level and you have your crafts still available to you. This is something the series keeps doing and I gotta say I love it it's one of my favourite things they do in these games. We still have a lot of the gameplay issues in regards to movement and the grid but overall, possibly due to just higher stat totals in general, your options are much more open this time. Physical damage is now worth using, bolstered by much more useful crafts overall and it leads to a much better play experience especially with the party members who really don't use arts at all.
Speaking of arts, we get a new orbment in this game. There's now a 7th slot for quartz and though you start with every slot unlocked from the start slots can now be upgraded to slot higher level quartz. This is so great I can't even begin to describe. A big problem in early FC is that you just don't have enough options. You have limited slots and limited quartz to work with that there's not much you can really do in terms of build or strategy. In this game however right from the get go you have a full 7 slots to play with and slot whatever you want in without losing that progression of unlocking, or now upgrading, your quartz slots. Everything feels so much more free and you can be a lot more creative. New quartz and more slots also means new arts and it's not great still but in this game there's a lot more use for the other arts other than the 3 you'd spam in the previous game. Along with physical damage now being usable and a full set of crafts (with some new ones) means every character can utilize their own niche much better and you're not doing the exact same thing as often.
The revolving door style of party members is also a thing of the past. Now once you get a new party member they stay with you, although for most of the game you're locked to Estelle, your chosen ally at the start of the game, and the region's new party member your 4th, sometimes 3rd and eventually even 2nd party member can be swapped out for whoever you like. It's great to get to pick and choose anybody you want to take with you, build them however you want and give everybody a much bigger time to shine.
It's not all good news unfortunately. The balancing in this game is not great to put it mildly. For context, I personally played through this one on Hard. I was considering nightmare but was warned against it and thank god for that. The prologue is absolute bullshit to put it mildly. You have to either rely on RNG or use the game's retry offset feature to weaken an encounter on successive retries to even get past it. After that for about 5 chapters you'll have the experience of basic enemy fights being the most brainless easy thing of your life with bosses being near impossible at times. I cannot imagine playing through this game on nightmare without some absurd luck and cheesy strategies. But then, once you get past about chapter 5 the game completely flips on its head and every single encounter become incredibly easy. Maybe I just found a winning strategy but I barely had to think about what i was doing after a certain point.
The story is also much improved from FC's. This is our first face to face introduction to the ""secret"" society of Ouroboros. Who as far as I know are our main antagonists moving forward for the entire series. The good news is everything involving Estelle and Joshua is great. Absolutely no complaints there. Seeing how Estelle has grown since FC is a highlight of the game and how she now makes smart intelligent decisions and works as a competent senior bracer. It's great to see and compare to how she acted in FC. And the scene where she and Joshua finally reunite is the emotional high of the entire arc. The other party members also finally get their time to shine. Kloe takes more of a backseat in this game having most of her development take place in FC but every other party member really steps up to the plate.
Agate's backstory and his relationship with Tita is really heartwarming and made me like Agate as a character much more than the very little he got in FC. Zin actually gets a character for the first time in his interactions with Walter. Schera's backstory finally comes up and her relationship with Estelle is much more fleshed out than just a generic mentor figure. Olivier's true purpose and identity is revealed and he gains a lot more depth and even some side characters like Julia, Josette and Meuler get some growth.
Kevin Graham is a great new character and this game serves as a really nice introduction to him but I don't want to talk too much about Kevin until 3rd.
Leowe and Weissman are really fun villains, they're both decently interesting on their own, mostly Leowe over Weissman but they really shine in what they add to Joshua than just on their own. Meanwhile Renne, although there's not much to her in this game she at least gets more than 5 minutes of screentime and is nicely set up for the future. and her interactions with Tita are great.
Unfortunately the other enforcers are not nearly as good. Luciola is quite literally nothing. She exists only to serve as a prompt for Scherazard to give her backstory. She's so meaningless that I can't even find more to say about her good or bad. I guess she's hot?
Walter is kind of the same but for Zin but at least he has a somewhat interesting thing going on with his past with kilika, zin and their old master. I feel like these two could have been much better villains if their existence didn't boil down to "I've been fucking with a gospel see you in chapter 7 fight these monsters instead" "ive been fucking with a tower fight me then ill see you at the end" "okay its the end lets fight one more time" but I don't know.
I fucking. Hate. Bleublanc. I don't know why. I don't have even slightly a good reason. This guy is just my least favourite character in the entire series. Fuck this guy.
I don't have a good place to put this but I really want to mention how much chapter 8 feels like a lot of busywork. I really liked having the entire country open for you to go through but it had no required fights and just 3 easy sidequests per region that it felt really meaningless other than to be like "hey isn't it crazy that you can't use orbments." it could have been cut down or made more important and it'd be a way cooler experience. The final dunggeon also was really really cool visually and conceptually but again it left a really sour taste in my mouth with how you had to keep going back and forth through a really long path and slow elevators and trains to swap your party out between each fight to not miss out on scenes that vastly improve the experience.
The final half of the game, although being really easy and had those sour spots was really fun though, having the best dungeons and the most engaging gameplay with all the options available to you with a freely swappable party, fully unlocked slots and high level quartz made it great fun to play around with. I do want to mention though that the dungeon in the first half are kinda dire with slow switch puzzles and confusing mazes and really terrible balance.
I really liked SC honestly and I could see myself going back to it sometime but it ultimately was not better than FC enough to not leave this really sour taste in my mouth and make it feel worse than it actually is
Feel free to let me know if you think I missed anything!
Up front, Trails in the Sky SC is better in every single way than FC. Characters, Story, Gameplay. It's all better. The problem is it's not better enough. And that's my real issue with this game.
SC picks up immediately where FC left off which is right away a much more engaging start than FC's prologue. You're already a high level and you have your crafts still available to you. This is something the series keeps doing and I gotta say I love it it's one of my favourite things they do in these games. We still have a lot of the gameplay issues in regards to movement and the grid but overall, possibly due to just higher stat totals in general, your options are much more open this time. Physical damage is now worth using, bolstered by much more useful crafts overall and it leads to a much better play experience especially with the party members who really don't use arts at all.
Speaking of arts, we get a new orbment in this game. There's now a 7th slot for quartz and though you start with every slot unlocked from the start slots can now be upgraded to slot higher level quartz. This is so great I can't even begin to describe. A big problem in early FC is that you just don't have enough options. You have limited slots and limited quartz to work with that there's not much you can really do in terms of build or strategy. In this game however right from the get go you have a full 7 slots to play with and slot whatever you want in without losing that progression of unlocking, or now upgrading, your quartz slots. Everything feels so much more free and you can be a lot more creative. New quartz and more slots also means new arts and it's not great still but in this game there's a lot more use for the other arts other than the 3 you'd spam in the previous game. Along with physical damage now being usable and a full set of crafts (with some new ones) means every character can utilize their own niche much better and you're not doing the exact same thing as often.
The revolving door style of party members is also a thing of the past. Now once you get a new party member they stay with you, although for most of the game you're locked to Estelle, your chosen ally at the start of the game, and the region's new party member your 4th, sometimes 3rd and eventually even 2nd party member can be swapped out for whoever you like. It's great to get to pick and choose anybody you want to take with you, build them however you want and give everybody a much bigger time to shine.
It's not all good news unfortunately. The balancing in this game is not great to put it mildly. For context, I personally played through this one on Hard. I was considering nightmare but was warned against it and thank god for that. The prologue is absolute bullshit to put it mildly. You have to either rely on RNG or use the game's retry offset feature to weaken an encounter on successive retries to even get past it. After that for about 5 chapters you'll have the experience of basic enemy fights being the most brainless easy thing of your life with bosses being near impossible at times. I cannot imagine playing through this game on nightmare without some absurd luck and cheesy strategies. But then, once you get past about chapter 5 the game completely flips on its head and every single encounter become incredibly easy. Maybe I just found a winning strategy but I barely had to think about what i was doing after a certain point.
The story is also much improved from FC's. This is our first face to face introduction to the ""secret"" society of Ouroboros. Who as far as I know are our main antagonists moving forward for the entire series. The good news is everything involving Estelle and Joshua is great. Absolutely no complaints there. Seeing how Estelle has grown since FC is a highlight of the game and how she now makes smart intelligent decisions and works as a competent senior bracer. It's great to see and compare to how she acted in FC. And the scene where she and Joshua finally reunite is the emotional high of the entire arc. The other party members also finally get their time to shine. Kloe takes more of a backseat in this game having most of her development take place in FC but every other party member really steps up to the plate.
Agate's backstory and his relationship with Tita is really heartwarming and made me like Agate as a character much more than the very little he got in FC. Zin actually gets a character for the first time in his interactions with Walter. Schera's backstory finally comes up and her relationship with Estelle is much more fleshed out than just a generic mentor figure. Olivier's true purpose and identity is revealed and he gains a lot more depth and even some side characters like Julia, Josette and Meuler get some growth.
Kevin Graham is a great new character and this game serves as a really nice introduction to him but I don't want to talk too much about Kevin until 3rd.
Leowe and Weissman are really fun villains, they're both decently interesting on their own, mostly Leowe over Weissman but they really shine in what they add to Joshua than just on their own. Meanwhile Renne, although there's not much to her in this game she at least gets more than 5 minutes of screentime and is nicely set up for the future. and her interactions with Tita are great.
Unfortunately the other enforcers are not nearly as good. Luciola is quite literally nothing. She exists only to serve as a prompt for Scherazard to give her backstory. She's so meaningless that I can't even find more to say about her good or bad. I guess she's hot?
Walter is kind of the same but for Zin but at least he has a somewhat interesting thing going on with his past with kilika, zin and their old master. I feel like these two could have been much better villains if their existence didn't boil down to "I've been fucking with a gospel see you in chapter 7 fight these monsters instead" "ive been fucking with a tower fight me then ill see you at the end" "okay its the end lets fight one more time" but I don't know.
I fucking. Hate. Bleublanc. I don't know why. I don't have even slightly a good reason. This guy is just my least favourite character in the entire series. Fuck this guy.
I don't have a good place to put this but I really want to mention how much chapter 8 feels like a lot of busywork. I really liked having the entire country open for you to go through but it had no required fights and just 3 easy sidequests per region that it felt really meaningless other than to be like "hey isn't it crazy that you can't use orbments." it could have been cut down or made more important and it'd be a way cooler experience. The final dunggeon also was really really cool visually and conceptually but again it left a really sour taste in my mouth with how you had to keep going back and forth through a really long path and slow elevators and trains to swap your party out between each fight to not miss out on scenes that vastly improve the experience.
The final half of the game, although being really easy and had those sour spots was really fun though, having the best dungeons and the most engaging gameplay with all the options available to you with a freely swappable party, fully unlocked slots and high level quartz made it great fun to play around with. I do want to mention though that the dungeon in the first half are kinda dire with slow switch puzzles and confusing mazes and really terrible balance.
I really liked SC honestly and I could see myself going back to it sometime but it ultimately was not better than FC enough to not leave this really sour taste in my mouth and make it feel worse than it actually is