Nayuta no Kiseki was a game that i've been looking forward since i've caught up to trails (Kuro 1 back then) and something was always strange of why this game took more than a decade to get localized and after NISA announcing Nayuta is coming to west, nothing could've prepared on how much i've loved.

It's so crazy knowing Falcom releasing games every single year, but something is very different in this one game especifically. For a example that really took their own time to create an story than doesnt really rely in the other games, and that's the biggest strength of this game, it gives a sense of identity while pleasing the veterans like me. Also it's not a game that was forced to be the next game for whatever means, like Tokyo Xanadu was released to give more dev time for YS 8 or Kuro no Kiseki 2 for YS X in the same reason.

So coming from after Kuro 2, i'm so glad Nayuta felt like a complete fresh of an air, chibi sprites, old falcom soundteam soul, immaculate art direction and a simple but touching story while maintaining a bit of the Trails series is everything i wished for. It's safe to say that it meet my expectations by a long shot, playing an trails game late a night and having me dialed makes this game an another special to me. Especially considering the struggle of being an Trails fan.

The last thing i wanted to mentioned is how i geniuely missed the old comfy and insane tracks that Falcom is very known for, especially Saki Momiyama (Zero/Azure composer) was insane in this game, it geniuely stole the spotlight for me and makes me miss the cohesion and the passion of every sound team composer and making an special game for as long they can remember.

Pikmin 4 is the epitome of comfort. Starting from a design similar to Breath of the Wild, or even Mario Odyssey, with an open world focused entirely on exploration with dungeons along the way, Pikmin 4 builds a very pleasant and charming experience that makes you wonder why the previous ones weren't like that before.

This game is not a walk in the park as some say, the point is that the challenge usually hides from the player in specific dungeons, especially in the post game. The most fucked up situations I went through in a Pikmin game were here.

The management part of our little friends, as well as the controls and different approaches to solving puzzles, have never been so good. The more linear approach of the previous games has its charm, but whether through exploration or puzzle solving, it never left a big impression on me. This is the first Pikmin that I can say made me appreciate and become a fan of this series.

Despite being a very complete game full of content, the gameplay and reward loop is always the same, which made me feel tired in the final stretch. And although the post game is impressive, the normal ending leaves a bitter taste as it seems inconclusive; the game demands that you do 100% to have a satisfactory ending, and I can't say that this approach pleased me.

I will always remember this game with affection, as a comfortable place that I can always return to and forget about my problems, just letting myself go aimlessly without even knowing my objective or what I'm doing there. When a game gives you that feeling, you know how special it is.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to mourn for my Pikmins who weren't so lucky along the way.

Here's each party member's favorite From Software game:

Estelle: Dark Souls 2. (Nobody is perfect I guess.)

Olivert: Bloodborne. (Actually, this ins't his favorite, he just likes people to know he has a ps5.)

Kloe: Elden Ring. (She often says that Mountaintop of the giants is not that bad.)

Joshua: Kuon. (Dude is just edgy as hell.)

Agate: Sekiro Shadows die Twice. (He believes that Sword Saint Isshin Ashina is one of the best final bosses of all time, and you know what? He goddamn right.)

Tita: Armored Core: For Answer. (Honestly, I don't think I need to explain.)

Zin: King's Field. (And of course this old ass boomer often says that all games after demon's souls are garbage.)

Scherazard: None. (This bitch is too busy drinking all day to play video games)

I'm ngl this game (if it can even be called one) is really fucking bad. Like. Genuine trash. Actual comedy. I can't believe they thought this was a good, no, even a mediocre idea. Easily 0/10, now, you might think, why did you give this a 5/10?

It's simple actually

It has Kevin Graham. He's there. I can see him moving, attacking, and throwing Grail Sphere. And, as bad as this game is, that's something that no trails game can say since Sky 3rd. I'm craving for Kevin. Anything they give me is good at this point. I am desperate. And only for that will i give this a 2.5/5. When Kevin comes back in a REAL game I'll lower this to 0.5 as it truly belongs. For now tho, this is where Kevin is at, and my scores are where Kevin is.

Trails to Azure : A Frustrating Masterpiece


Starting the Trails series was a wild ride, it had lows, it had highs (and oftentimes very high highs) but in general those games were overall pleasant to play although I can’t say any of them truly blown me away with the might of some of the old time greats such as Xenogears, Chrono Trigger, Terranigma, Suikoden II and many more that I could mention.

I need to preface this because a lot of people might say that a lot of my criticism for these games are in bad faith but no, it’s just that I feel the main public of Trails comes from a non-JRPG background that aren’t used (and tired) of some of the genre tricks and thus claim Trails as this “outlier” that seemingly does what Nintendon’t.

But when a franchise such as the Legend of Heroes series is so long and so well beloved, it must’ve at least had that ONE game, that ONE that could universally be considered as one of the all time greats, every long JRPG series need its own FF VII, the kind of title that transcend the concept of being simply yet another good game in a long series of more or less good titles and reach out of the screen to slap you in the face, the kind of game that sparks debate on whether it’s an all-time classic or an overrated piece of trash (which if it reaches that status, that usually means it’s a title worth checking out if contrarians cares so much to dismantle them).

The qualities of the Trails series is not to demonstrate anymore, I’ve talked about most of what was great about the Trails formula in my big double-review of Sky FC and SC and what was ass about that formula too but I want to preface that every time, I felt that while the core idea of Trails was fantastic on paper, it often lacked in the execution department.

Awkward pacing and structures, repeated content, filler content up the wazoo, needlessly long stretch of uneventful and unengaging story section ludo-narrative dissonance, forgettable gameplay scenario (and in opposition the ones that were great), lackluster dungeon design, uneven sidequest (which hurts the pacing even more if like me you tend to go for all of them) and cliché character archetypes especially on the vilain side of things (especially in SC and Zero) that turn games that could be amazing into simply “good” games and that’s fair and alright

Because on the other side, there was always something that made me come back to them, whether it’s the sheer sincerity of it all, the charm of its cast of character and world, the minute attention to detail, the Quality of Life stuff that are genuinely impressive for mid-2000’s RPG standard, the buttery smooth and natural writing of dialogues and how all of these elements comes together to create a world that feel alive and pleasant to explore and get through even with all the bumps in the road as they can lead to some of the most emotional pay-off ever in an RPG that wouldn’t be possible if not for the weird way these games are divided and elongated to infinity.


Which is funny because so far, my favorite Trails game isn’t even the Trails that follow the classic Trails formula and it’s weird because that can’t be right. Trails the 3rd feels like an anomaly to me because it’s amazing in spite of being a Trails game rather than because it is a Trails game and I always feel “wrong” for liking it as much because it’s like out of all the cookies in the jar, I decided to pick the weird fucked up one that’s half-baked and taste funky but boy did those edibles hit the night I’ve finished Trails the 3rd and ended up as a sobbing mess clapping to the tunes of Cry for Me, Cry for You while being on my knee ready to suck off whoever came up with the name “Kevin Grahams”.

And so coming into Zero, I knew that I was gonna face the Trails Formula again and after a year of finishing 3rd (believe me it’s better to spread your playthrough of these games in the long run to not get burned out on them) and yeah it was the usual song and dance. Zero was a fine game, nothing exceptional and in some areas I’d say it’s slightly better than FC but also more forgettable despite still having all of the same qualities and flaws of the Sky Duology but made slightly more digestible for a new audience and because the games need to evolve with time.

And coming into AO, I thought to myself “Oh no it’s gonna happen again” and I remember dreading the recycling of content, the awkward pacing and structure, the shitty JRPG villains and all of the stuff that stopped me from fully appreciating SC in comparison to FC.

So let me preface this before anything else comes through, Ao fixes every issue I had with the typical “Trails Sequel” problem.

Of course being a sequel to the first game, the recycling of content is inevitable but I feel like they took some notes out of the Sky 3rd book and made it so the ratio from recycled area and new stuff was more balanced and the structure of the game isn’t as formulaic and redundant in fact this game is the opposite of a drag, it’s actually … genuinely engaging from the first hour to the last which is something I can’t say of all of the games I’ve covered so far.

Each plot related events are linked to new areas and dungeons, yeah sure you have to back and forth on the roads and villages of Crossbell at least once but pretty early on, you unlock a fast travel option for the entire map which mitigate a lot of the tedium, no longer do you have to take the bus, now you can get access to any area on the map by using a good ol car (and later on an Airship because of course) which is more quality of life stuff on top of the ones from Zero.

And those new areas and dungeons are freaking amazing for the most part, it’s insane how much they’ve improved in the dungeon design department, it’s nothing to write home about but the dungeons have multiple paths, they have light puzzle solving, tons of chest and secrets to find and the atmosphere is generally stellar in each of them due to some kickass music (shoutout to Mystic Core that one bangs).

Out of all the Dungeons in the game only 3 do come back from the previous game but they like Trails the 3rd they rearranged some stuff to make them more exciting to go through the second time in and honestly, I like this aspect of the game a lot because unlike SC you don’t feel burned out on all of the padding linked to all of that.

Gameplay wise, the game is just more of the same and an improvement on Zero’s and the rest of the series' already solid system. The game introduces Master Quartz which is kind of a poor attempt at introducing a “job system” into the game but its effect on combat is barely noticeable outside of stat buffs, additional effects that are too situational to be useful and Master Arts which come so late into the game due to the leveling curves of MQ being slow as shit and comes out as just yet another unexploited mechanic that has potential but could never truly blossom into something unique.

Exclusive to certain dungeons and the last chapter of the game is the Burst Mode that you can activate after filling up a gauge on the right corner of the screen and lets you spam magic instantly without cool-down time, get turn priority for the entire duration of it, a free auto-CP recovery to make you spam all the craft available, serves as an emergency heal all status effect and art/craft cancel and probably will put your children to college and make your wife love you again if that doesn’t indicate how absolutely busted that shit is.

In fact, the game has so many options for “breaking the game in half”, like for the other titles I’ve played the game on normal so I’m pretty sure I’m missing out on its true depth but damn with so many options on top of combo craft and s-craft, this game is very generous when it comes to combat option and trivialize a lot of combat scenario even though thankfully near the end of the game there’s quite a few challenging boss fight (and the final boss which is about as bullshitly hard as its main theme song is pure literal cum in music form) and some superbosses that are in the main game and don’t penalize you for losing against them but rewards you with more lore and a shit load of EXP if you manage to fully beat them properly (but I’ll get to some problem about missable content later trust me) there’s even some bosses with unique mechanic, sadly only two of them are like that in the game which is a shame because the game could use more unique boss encounter that fully exploit the semi-tactical RPG positioning aspect of the battle system because a lot of bosses just end up being big hard hitting, hard tanking HP sponges that are more long that they are difficult to beat (especially since most of them also are resistant to all stat debuffs and status effect which is always the lamest shit ever).

But enough about all of that, I already went long enough on this write-up and I still haven’t talked about the strongest and at points most divisive part of the game which is the story.

And boy is the story of that game the best in the series yet.

To start up, the initial premise of the scenario is amazing, following the events of Zero most of the Mafia controlling the city and the government officials corrupt by them got properly arrested and put to prison, in the after-math of the events that transpired that day a new Mayor was elected, this guy is Dieter Crois the drippest capitalist pig you’ll ever know who decides to perform a bunch of reform within the current government, build a tower the size of his ego and organize an international trade conference between each nation of West Zemuria to discuss the future of Crossbell.

In the wake of all these changes lies a dormant conspiracy that involves Crossbell status as a buffer state between the war-mongering expansionist Erebonian Empire and the Politically divided Republic of Calvard as well as all kinds of third parties wanting to profit off of the chaos to advance their agenda such as Ouroboros serving more of a support role this time.
In fact the main political conflict throughout the narrative is deeply fascinating because it puts into light how complex and nuanced Crossbell political situation is, Liberl was already a country prompt to the menace of the Empire (which made Richard a superbly written villain for the first game) but Crossbell is an individual state that’s not only rotten to the core with weak governmental and military structure, an awkward national identity due to be the crossroad of the continent but also a huge economic asset for the greater power as Crossbell neutrality combined to being the center of the world's economy makes it a tool for anyone that dare to profit off of that status.

Crossbell is constantly on the verge of exploding onto itself and while the mafia and the cult were terrible they kinda served as a mean to balance the fragile ecosystem of the Crossbell criminal and political underworld, of course a country ruled by mobs that fight over drugs and gang wars is never a good thing and Revache was a pretty goofy bunch of goons but once they’re gone, that stability isn’t so guarantee anymore and between keeping them around and eliminating them is like choosing between the lesser of two evils which is naturally the narrative and thematic throughline of the game.

Late into the game during the Zemurian conference, Dieter announces wanting to make Crossbell an independent nation to save itself from the calculating hands of Erebonia and Calvard and the argument presented are pretty convincing and naturally as someone who spent so many times with these characters, with these places with these inhabitants you do lowkey wish for that stability, you feel proud for them to be able to reunite as a nation and become a legitimate state because they deserve it.

In fact I believe it’s in these high stakes narrative with constantly rising tension that the Trails Formula shine the best for me, in the other game talking to all the NPC and experiencing micro-level story arcs while roaming around the world felt like at nice addition at best and a distraction at worse something that’s good on paper but not something that truly enhances the narrative of each entry main plot significantly enough to enrich it but here it’s such a core element of the conflict at place that you’d be missing out not to talk to every NPC, each of them having different opinions on what’s going on reinforcing the hard nut to crank Crossbell as a setting is.

Eventually these political elements cross the path of the Supernatural aspect of the series and even when it enters full bulshit JRPG mode the main themes and struggle presented by the game never truly fade away keeps being a narrative throughline for the entire duration of it and actually brings out more questions.

The typical “Trails pacing” is almost completely absent here, there is not a single dull moment in the narrative but because of the plot being so engaging on a micro and macro level at all time, it makes some of the Trails formula problem shine a bit brighter than they should and I think it has to do with the way the game handle its side-content.

The side-quest system of the series needs to go away or needs to be reworked, even tho this game has a lot more “good” or even “great” side-quest, a lot of them mechanically speaking involves pretty menial and dull task and the monster hunt is also just unnecessary but it’s not like you can skip on them either because they give you money, crucial plot elements and new mechanics to mess around with such as combo craft or quartz.
The game pushes you to do these side-content so much so that now some support requests are mandatory to progress through the game, like do we really need to go on a wild goose chase to bring a cat back to its owner just to set up a future rivalry between two characters ? I think not but the game feels like this part was absolutely necessary and crucial to the progression of the plot while some are not despite being of equal and even greater importance.

And don’t get me started on the secret side quest and all the missable content like the bonding events which are hidden behind cryptic and completely ass-backwards conditions. I wouldn’t be complaining so much about that since I do think it’s ok to have missable content in an RPG you will probably likely replay if you ever feel like it to keep it fresh on subsequent playthrough and with how massive these games get in terms of sheer volume of text and events to discover, it’s impossible not to miss on anything just playing casually without a guide.

But the game has no priority on what should be considered plot crucial quest to setup for a future conflict within the narrative (especially regarding one of … the “twist” …. uuugh… we’ll get there) and things that are unimportant but nice to have nonetheless and outright HIDE CRUCIAL LORE AND IMPORTANT CHARACTER MOMENT WITHOUT GIVING ANY WARNINGS OR HINTS TOWARD THEM.

WHY IS THIS SO INCONSISTENT I SWEAR TO GOD AAAAGH

This system slows down everything, make these games longer than they should be, ruin the pacing but because the game was so engaging, I was ready to forget its flaws because again I’m making a mountain out of a molehill because in general they are significantly more fun to go through here (for the more part) but these are minor but still infuriating little things (and as we’ve seen with this franchise both the good and the bad are always in the little things) that spits in the face of what could be a genuinely great experience instead of a chore, homeworks to do to get to the good and juicy parts.

I’ll talk about the newest addition to this game side-content aka the Bonding Event later when they become relevant because I want to talk about the story like the actual story.

While the context of the story is important to understand why this game works so well with the Trails formula, it’s nothing if the story has no good characters to back it up and interesting character arcs to go along with them so let’s talk about those.

Like I said previously in my Zero review, I think the SSS is a solid group of characters but they lack the oomfs of the cast from Sky and this remains true here, this cast lacks an Olivier, it lacks a Scherazad, a Kevin or more importantly an Estelle and Joshua. I also think that individually they don’t shine but together as a group that’s where the true force of the SSS lies

Joining the crew of the first game is two characters that were sporadically available throughout the course of Zero : Noel and Wazy, these additions are decent but with how solid and iconic the original 4 are they feel like Graggle from the Simpson (look it up) and the plot in general put much more importance to the main group than the entire SSS as a whole.
But I do like them a lot. Noel is a spunky tomboy with a great ass and a great attitude. She likes 2 things, cars and serving her country, the perfect tradwife to put as an avi to make terrible conservative twitter posts with pretty much.

Wazy is a cool and sleezy sexually ambiguous and smooth talking delinquent turned policeman with a secret life as one of the Graslitter and that plot wist was genuinely awesome as it made an already awesome character into an even bigger badass than he already was, I kinda regret not using him as much during the game because character wise, he’s really cool.

Most of the returning characters are still about as solid as ever, while Tio get a bit side-lined since her story arc is kinda over, the rest finally got the development they desperately needed.

Randy in particular is actually amazing, like I already loved Randy in Zero but this time around he really came into his own as the best character in the cast for me and the one with the best arc in this saga.

Rixia also joins the party later on and her arc was genuinely a nice surprise, she lived a life of strife where killing and perpetuating the burden of her family’s tradition while trying desperately to cling on to something to finally be truer to herself and see that reality shatter around her and not being able to forgive herself (AND I ALSO WANT TO MAKE BABIES WITH HER)

Rixia and Randy share more or less similar arcs but it’s also probably one of the main throughlines of the game, the so-called “barrier” the characters have to get over to reach their happiness.

The world of Trails is a cold, indifferent godless world, its inhabitant dancing to the tunes of these roaring factions, countries or cults or anything of the sort playing games of chess with every life in Zemuria.

While Trails always suffered from a very black and white approach to morality when it comes to its storytelling with clearly well established good guys and bad guys especially in SC, it often dabbled into the moral grayness of the world of Zemuria and how uncaring that grey can be.

And I think this is an aspect that the series shied away from for too long, while some sparks of it have been showing here and there with characters like Richard it was always overshadowed by Falcom need to establish a clear cut evil in the world and I honestly think the existence of Ouroboros, their continued influence within the narrative and many antagonist who are just evil for the hell of it is a complete waste of potential for this series.

But Ao embraces it, it embraces the terribly crude nature of the world of Zemuria, countries are set aflame, lives are lost or ruined, your protagonist are but pawns in a greater conflict, too weak to make a significant difference but determined enough to find a place in this world, to find their happiness and grasping it with their own han to assure a better tomorrow not by taking the easy path but by taking the hard one.
Everything feels bigger than us in this game, what is justice in a world where such concepts are malleable ? Can we truly escape this grayness, can we truly escape our past and our heritage ? Can we really hold the world on our shoulders when we can barely hold our sins crawling down our back ?

In this game, the characters are faced with those difficult situations and the game often asks the character what’s better between what they truly want and what seems like the most rational thing to do ?

And the game is fully in support of self-determinism of letting humanity and society grow and evolves through a complex cycle of mistakes and hardship because because in all that is beautiful and in all that is ugly, lays the indomitable human spirit that will one day transcend pain and suffering and lead to a better tomorrow.

The game knows that the characters are not fully in the right and that the villains aren’t fully in the wrong either. Sometimes the character will feel hypocritical, refusing the divine protection of infinite retry and reality altering shenanigans to assure Crossbell prosperity in the coming future just for the sake of saving one human life and make a little girl happy and not let them shoulder the pain of the world.

Even at the end of the day, the decisions taken by the characters didn’t lead to an happy ending, it’s a bittersweet reality that the game prepares you for during most of the game story, the villains in all of the bad they’ve committed did so to assure no one has to suffer and Crossbell can finally be free and independent and the characters knows this, they know not everyone will approve of their silly rpg nonsense motivations and actions and that they will have to carry the burden of the inevitable bigger evil that will loom over the horizon once the lesser of the two evils, the one keeping the balance of the world in spite of its darkness and toxic aspect will crumble…

In this ending, the game goes full circle, the same way removing Revache troubled the fragile balance of Crossbell, so was removing the cure to that balance just so that humanity can march on with dignity and they pay the ultimate price.

The ending is actually both terrible and genius, terrible in that it’s obvious sequel bait for future entry while also being conclusive in a “We did our best, and it didn’t work out yet we’re still here continuing the fight so that one day the conflict will end and peace will prevail.”

Now you must be thinking, that I love this game story, that I feel it’s deserving of its perfect 10/10 status among the fandom and the JRPG landscape, a game that’s both thought provoking, fun to play and terribly engaging the whole way through and a total “must-play masterpiece of the medium ?”

That’s because I wanted to demonstrate that Azure is a story that works, it’s a story that should work, it’s a story that had all the ingredients to work, they’ve baked the perfect cake with the perfect amount of icing and the cherry on top for good measure, it’s a beautiful cake.

But then Falcom was like : “But we do like Olives tho, it could be a great idea to spread olive haphazardly on our cake it’ll definitely make it better !” said the Falcom baker before getting his nuts kicked in by yours truly.

Everything up to Chapter 4 even with the Intermission which is funny character moment that helps you breathe between two heavy chapters and set up some rivalry as well as the “Fragments” mini-chapter that serves as the introduction to the last fifth is genuinely incredible, like every piece fitted into place, the puzzle was almost complete and at this point I was ready to SLAP that 10/10 rating almost instinctively because I can sense great art when I see and this smelled the smell of a pristine work of art that’s gonna stay in both my mind and my heart for the rest of my life.

But in the wake of realizing that they did something 100% right for once, Falcom decided to shoot themselves in the foot with a Bazooka and make some of the most completely ass-backwards narrative design decisions you could ever think of given the context of what they had built for 40 or so hours.

Like I said, the chapter starts really strongly, Dieter declared the independence of Crossbell and established himself as the new ruling president of the country, he reformed the police and the military to form one super giga defense force and the guy has gained the heart of everyone in Crossbell while gaining the favor of Arios as the new leading commander of the armies.

This send off a series of event that are way too fucking crazy and rise the stakes significantly, pretty much the Crois Family rose into power through gaining the favor of the people and this allowed them to carry their plan to claim back an ancient artifact that can pretty much over-rule basic scientific concept and this artifact is KeA herself and the plan of the Crois Family goes way back and is kind of meticulously calculated to sway the public opinion of them despite all of this, we need to remind ourselves that a good majority of people are ok with Crossbell gaining access to something equivalent to a nuclear bomb to protect the independance and sovereignity of Crossbell and establish world peace through fear mongering by being stronger than everyone on earth, people will have to accept their legitimacy and plan to create a United Nation of Zemuria but some are not because this is an illegitimate government that was established through non-democratic means.

After uncovering that plan, Lloyd and his friends get arrested for treasons and terrorism and the game fast forward one month later in Prison where we see Lloyd in Prison with Garcia a minor antagonist from the previous game as they break out of prison and kick Lloyd’s ass so that he can be a man and claim his life for himself and the people he cares about amidst the chaos.

You’re now left alone and the game goes on a “search for your friends” moment similar to Final Fantasy VI when you revisit the world in the aftermath of the villain's plan succeeding to reform your group and see what happened to everybody.

On paper, this last part is nice, I mean if it worked in esteemed classic Squaresoft 90’s JRPG classic, it should still work here but this is where the praise I gave to the game kinda falls aparts and the cracks start to form and show their ugly faces.
This last fifth of the game is where most of the issues with the game lies, after raising the tension, the stakes and the scale of the conflict to such absurd degree to build-up for this finale (and remember all of that buildup was honestly pretty phenomenal) sticking the landing was not gonna be an easy task.

For starters, this last chapter is long but like really long, I would say it’s about as long as its FFVI counterpart but at least in FFVI most of it was optional and you could ignore most of it (now why would you do that is completely up to you and you will miss out on stuff and have a least satisfying ending but that’s not here nor there) but also what happens in it isn’t really worth the time dedicated to it and you’re forced on a set path without any freedom of orders on how to do these rescue mission.

And I say this because the pacing of the game was generally excellent and there was no recycled area but here you kinda have to drag your ass across Crossbell once again and while there’s some visual change to most of the areas, it’s not much. The game shows that cryptids (big ass kaiju monsters) are roaming the world but outside of the first area you revisit, you don’t see them ever again (and thank god cause they’re a pain in the ass to defeat).

You get an exclusive party member for this part of the game only then he fucks off to the back row of your party not being playable once you gathered enough forces. But like these series of rescue missions are already pretty long and while some make sense why they would be there during the conflict, Tio and Ellie are just trapped somewhere for no apparent reasons on why they were there in the first place.

Of course I get it, going back to these areas lets you talk to more NPC’s and generally speaking this does work for the story but I still feel like the chapter is a drag because after saving your friends, you have to deactivate 2 magical artifacts protecting the Kefk… I mean the Orchis Tower.

Which is, you guessed it, an excuse to make you fight 2 Organization XI… Huh I mean Ouroboros members in their respective recycled dungeon (even with a self-aware joke about how they recycled one of the dungeon and at this point, given the precedent of the series to do that shit consistently, you’re really not having that kind of wink at the camera meta-humor anymore)

Which leads me to talk about Ouroboros and their role within the story, unlike SC when they were the main sources of conflict and were pretty ridiculous in their role, Ouroboros serves more as a neutral third party this time around a support role to provide the villains with the necessary means to carry out their plan, now of course this is just a total sham for further progressing their big plan which we still don’t know half a shit about, not even a slight hint.

All we kinda know about Ouroboros is that they have a big plan, they're gonna do some stuff to unleash that big plan and one day trust me it’s gonna pay-off while being the most obvious mustache twirling Saturday morning cartoon villain while doing so. It’s difficult to take that aspect of worldbuilding and continuity seriously because of a bigger issue that’s not just part of this game's core issues but the whole series issue when it comes to handling antagonistic forces throughout the different games.
See, Falcom has ideas but they also don’t have the balls to commit to these ideas, I said earlier that the world of Crossbell and Zemuria was a complex and unforgiving world especially for the small everyday people within it which in this case you are a part of. It’s a world prompt to conflict and political unrest, people die, people kill other people, some of your party members were either the victims or the perpetrators of terrible acts that now haunts them and have to carry their sin on their back (sometimes quite literally for characters like Kevin or Wazy) and it’s not afraid to show blood on screen or cities being set aflame.

But while all of this is said to you, no true significant loss is happening, if a character has a name or a face, they will simply not die, they will simply not suffer for too long. During the events of the story there’s a raid that happened earlier in the story, during that raid multiple characters which you come to know and love almost met their fate to the cruel hands of the world.

Illya is a character from the previous game and a pretty important character for one of your party member Rixia, Illya is also a shining beacon of light for the people of Crossbell being the living proof that the people of Crossbell are capable of culture that unites the heart of many outside of the realm of politics and ideologies. During the raid, she is supposedly dead but during the next chapter, she’s actually alive and fine.

Now mind you the game will be keeping you wary of her situation that she might suffer heavy consequences, her spin has been completely shattered, multiple ribs were broken, she’s barely hanging in there, here surviving this incident is a miracle but a miracle that might be a fate worse than death, she might not be able to dance and go back on stage.

But the characters say the opposite, that she has simply too much willpower and will come back on the stage and if you watch the end credits they were right as she comes back on stage like nothing happened (Crossbell probably has some of the best surgeons in Zemuria go figure at this point).

Another character, Fran (Noel’s sister) takes a literal grenade on her face, the fact that she survived is also completely unbelievable but also the fact that she survived while not being at least disfigured, injured or crippled and can carry on her life being as cute as a button and serve as a crew member for your newly acquired airship is just the icing on the cake and the accident or the troubled relationship with Noel going to the Defense force is but a fluke in the unrest of the chaos that this part of the story is.

Now it’s not like character deaths are an automatic peak fiction button but it’s kinda like salt, too much salt will hurt the steak, none at all will make it tasteless but just enough salt spread evenly with care and you have yourself a wonderful brisket.

I just think that for a game that loves to make the character in front of their own contradictions and carry the consequences of their actions, the game want to have its cake and eat too by not having loss be an actual part of that narrative process and I’m pretty sure it’s that way only so these characters can come back and say hi in future titles for fanservice but Sky wasn’t afraid of killing off characters. Here even the villains don’t die or face any real harsh punishment for the things they did and I feel like this is where the core demographic and aim of this game become painfully apparent.
This game is made primordially for teenagers, now there’s not anything wrong with that mind you tons of great stories are meant for a younger demographic and JRPG’s and anime are no strangers to that but that explains a lot about how it treats its audience but also how it treats its characters.

Remember when I said that as a group and a part of the narrative the SSS are solid but each member individually are kinda lacking ? Well I think it’s time to talk about the most awkward part of the game which is the character writing and yes we will also be talking about the hidden “bonding mechanic” and how that too hurts their development.

I think the issue with the characters is that while a lot of them are pretty solid, the group as a whole gravitates way too much around the central main character Lloyd, now I had a lot of apprehension for Lloyd coming from the first game where he’s a pretty flat classic shonen protagonist and it doesn’t really change too much here but I think Lloyd works for this kind of story because it needs a truly happy optimist guy to push away the grayness of the conflict.

Nah in reality the problem comes from the fact that the ideas behind the different character arcs are solid but oftentimes the execution can be a bit lacking or disappointing, I have nothing to say when it comes to Randy and Rixia, these two are the clear outliers.

But let’s talk about Harem.

Harem is a cancerous plague of Japanese writing and this game sadly suffers from it in full force, let’s take Ellie for example as this is the most flagrant exemple.

Ellie is an important figure within Crossbell, being the daughter of the previous mayor and someone knowledgeable on Crossbell’s internal politics, she chose to become a police officer to see the problems of Crossbell from the little people point of view but she knows that this position is temporary and that she’ll inevitably have to go back to politics if she wanna change the world. She also is really close to Dieter and Mariabelle Crois two of the main antagonist of the game and while she is shocked to learn about their heel turn, she’s not really that much concerned about their actions which is especially dumb in the latest scene involving Mariabelle where she gets off scott free and Ellie barely makes any comment about it or try to reason her or have discussion or intervene in any kind of manner.

Ellie has a main conflict but the game never truly expands or touches upon it, in fact contrary to what her chest area might indicate, Ellie is a pretty flat character with the only real piece of personality being the main love interest of Lloyd…

And that’s not even something unique to her because like we said earlier, this game is dead set on giving Lloyd a personal harem and this hurts most of the female characters that just breathed in the direction of Lloyd even if it often time makes very little sense at all like for Noel, you tell me when Noel showed any sign of affection for Lloyd before the final chapter happens and suddenly Mr.Smoothtalker convinces Noel to give up her position and abandon her heel turn in like 5 min just because Lloyd is so sexy, he can even convince a patriot to love him instead of the country they swore to protect somehow.

And do I really need to get into Tio ?

First of all Tio is a minor, the previous game has Lloyd even making a comment about how the legal age of consent is 16 (yeah this is this level of writing) and while their relationship is cute and pretty heartwarming, it’s more so in a lil sis and big bro kind of manner, not a romantic one but because this is a very self-indulgent Japanese game for teenagers to live their fantasy, of course it needs to be romantic.

Lloyd is too good, he has no flaws except being boring in his flawlessness, he seems to have no weakness outside of being kinda dense and that’s how average the dude is but in Azure they rise him to a level of absurd importance as even for the male character, Lloyd has become the most important person in their life and the catalyst towards their growth. Now that’s not necessarily a bad thing but this is something the previous saga managed to avoid, while Estelle was the main protagonist, she wasn’t the object of interest of everyone around her and if everything Estelle was a character with depth.

A spunky tomboy with a heat or gold, a great personality but still unaware of the pain of growing up and facing hardship and claiming your happiness for yourself and she had great dynamic with all the party members in that game and of course the game was dead set on setting with one romance within the game and a beautifully touching one at that, sure there’s a love triangle with Kloe, her and Joshua but pretty quickly does Kloe give up since she understands the fact that she’ll never be the one and her responsibilities will stop her from pursuing his affection in the long run while not letting feelings be unheard and also she’s literally super best friend with Estelle on top of that and their relationship as love rivals and comrades is the cutest most adorable shit ever.

And you just… WISH that the SSS and the different guys and gals within it had that kind of chemistry with one another, kinda like how in Muv-Luv all the girls are in a competition for the main character but at the core of it all they’re just really good friends that does thing together and have an actual group dynamic outside of the MC and also that there is a supposed “canon” romance to pursue that make the most sense for the game narrative.

But here even the “canon” romance isn’t even canon and isn’t even unique and just the fact that it’s there is weird because it troubles me for the continuity of these games, I don’t mind romance at all and I do like to have choices but also whenever a game does that like FF VII for example, it’s a one game or one saga thing and not a piece of a bigger puzzle and I don’t think that that kind of narration has its place within the series you feel me ?

I bring the FFVII comparison because much like that game there’s a hidden “bonding” mechanic that the game never tells you about where by favoring certain characters you get more events with them, you get to know them better and you have one final scene with them which serves as the conclusion to their arc.

I don’t mind it in theory as I always welcome a bit of RP in my RPG and I’m all for giving each player a somewhat personalized experience tailored to them and forcing replay value to see what outcomes might happen but I say here it’s an issue for two reasons.

The first one is that this doesn’t work really well, there are 7 possible characters you can bond with and somehow I got none of the bonding scenes at the end, what was the trigger ? Where was I supposed to get that scene ? Did the algorithm that determines how many flags you have with one character broken ? Because in a good game, I would’ve had at least one of those scenes but here I got none. I get that this is a personal experience issue and that I probably should’ve looked at a guide but as someone who likes to enjoy my games blind it irks me off to miss on something like this because of bad programming or bad game design.

The second is how crucial these bonding scenes are especially for Randy, Rixia and Wazy because in the case of these 3 their entire backstory which the game teases but never fully touches upon are contained entirely in these bonding events at the tail end of their character arc. Even for the ones which don’t have such crucial information, it’s sad that depending on your actions, the game will not give you closure on characters if you didn’t go out of your way to get interested in them.

This is the reason why systems like the one from Persona and its social links always bothered me because it creates a disjointed narrative between what the characters are in the context of the narrative and their character arc which is a side-dish that you can completely miss out on and also will never matter and often contradicts what is told about them in the main game…

Here there’s not even a mechanical reason to reach for these bonding events, maybe a special craft or a special equipment or some bonuses would be cool but you get legitimately nothing and considering that Lloyd can end up with at least 3 female characters, it’s also pretty saddening that your Lloyd can end up single through no control of your own and Ellie is the most canon romance but I wonder if they’ll bounce back on this in future title or pretend like this entire thing isn’t entirely canon and back off from it, again there’s a contradiction between a system like this being implemented and the need to create a continuous narrative where these characters will eventually come back and see continuous development, it’s just too big to be ignored and I feel like it’s not as rewarding for the players who invested time into these characters because at the end your favorite won’t be the ones you liked the most, but the one you gave the most attention too (if that even make sense).

And this is for the good guys, I didn’t touch upon this game's treatment of antagonists and this review is already pretty long but damn, I need to talk about how the game treats its antagonist because here lies another core issue of the story.

I’ve mentioned earlier that the game presents a gray moral filter between its protagonist wanting for what they believe is the right thing for them but not the best solution for everyone and how the antagonist actually works toward the greater good but are misguided in the solution they came up with and the actions they had to take to reach these goals.

While all of this is true, the game still feels the need to write these characters in the most cartoonishly over the top way that even if deep down you and all the characters good, bad and neutral may think they have a point behind their action, you can’t help but realize that Falcom desperately need to establish a clear evil because it can’t handle a morally and philosophically complex situation like this with the tact and the subtlety that they should have.
But I will give credit where credit is due, the antagonists this time around are both the best and the worst ones of the series. Dieter is a great villain, I genuinely believe it was a fluke that he ended being as good as he is. The guy’s a cunning bastard and an idealist with natural charisma, he has money, he has power but most importantly he has influence beyond his ego. Dieter is a guy you can’t help but sympathize with, his idea of justice and the means necessary for a paradigm shift to occur in the world and the way he presents his arguments makes it hard not only for you but for the protagonist to fully disagree with his actions.

But he can be a little goofy but goofy in a Senator Armstrong kinda way, in the words of Jack he’s not greedy, he’s bat-shit insane. And I like that, he’s an entertaining and really good antagonist and his rise to power and the development of his plan make sense felt natural and earned and it was really great to see all of that happening at once with the people being united under his cause because they realize that this guy is the man that can bring about real change within the current system.

I think so far, Trails excelled with its “political” villains aka the characters that work toward achieving a certain goal to put into light a fundamental issue with the way society is handled and try to bring change even if it’s through extreme means. Richard did the coup d’etat out of love for his country, realizing the impending doom of the Erebonian Empire looming its ugly face over Liberl and the need to re-create a strong military force to prepare for the worst because no time of peace lasts forever. Dieter did so out of an ideal to create a better world, a united nation where war and conflicts would be things of the past with his motto being to use war as a mean to end all war (with the Aions being clear metaphor for nuclear dissuasion) with Crossbell at the front center of this newly established world order not through conquest but persuasion because if you want peace you need to prepare for war and Dieter knows that as long as Crossbell keep its neutrality, it’ll never be free of the clutches of Erebonia and Calvard and Crossbellians will never be considered a nation with people that can claim that land as theirs.

But for every villain like Dieter, Falcom likes to introduce his favorite trope : the “True Antagonist” , another plague of JRPG writing that should’ve died in the pits of hell in the Dragon Quest vault where it belongs (side note : I love Dragon Quest).

Azure is a game with many twists and turns to keep the story fresh and exciting at all times which include twists, lots of them and twist villains and for this game in particular they went a bit overkill in that area. The Crois family was already the true antagonist compared to Joachim because they’re the ones manipulating the D.G Cult to further their own agenda of awakening the Sept-Terrion of Mirage which was a family treasure the Crois family was trying to perfect for thousand of years through alchemy and other magic bullshit but it’s fine because Mariabelle is at first presented as an evil whorish side-kick while Dieter was the main dish and for good reason because he doesn’t care the Crois heritage more so than using said heritage to further his agenda.

But then once Dieter is defeated in what I swear was going to be the final dungeon of the game because that last chapter reached its most climatic point yet… Dieter gets cucked by the Ouroboros member who sold them the mech and then in a surprise reveal…

The actual villain comes out of the frey…

IAN

FUCKING

GRIMWOOD

Oh…

Man…

Where do I even begin with this absolutely unbelievably dumb plot-twist ?

Oh maybe the fact that Ian Grimwood is a total nobody, an absolute nothing character that had very little bearing on the plot for the past 50h, a character that I had rightfully ignored or even forgot the existence so far into the game or the fact that the side-quest leading to that revelation is AN HIDDEN MISSABLE QUEST THAT YOU CAN ONLY OBTAIN BY BACKING OUT OF THE ORCHIS TOWER AFTER A CLIMATIC CAR CRASH WHERE YOU SWEAR YOU COULDN’T GET OUT OF BECAUSE YOU’RE TAKEN BY THE FLOW OF THE STORY ????

HOW ASS-BACKWARD DO YOU HAVE TO BE TO THINK FOR EVEN A SECOND THAT YOU CAN PULL A TWIST VILLAIN OUT OF NOWHERE BY FORESHADOWING THEM IN CONTENT THAT’S MISSABLE YOU ABSOLUTE MEGA IDIOTS AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH

Outside of how bad this twist is, you wanna know the worst part about this ?

It’s completely pointless, like actually pointless, Ian is such a nothing villain that you could remove him from the story entirely and give his motivation to Arios which had an heel-turn during the events of the game and was Lloyd’s rival and the presumed murderer of his brother (according to his own term) and has motivations that are the exact same as those of Ian Chad ThunderCock Grimwood god even his DESIGN is like the stupidest shit ever, he’s just a regular fat dude lawyer how the fuck did he got all the connections and knowledge to carry out a plan like this that involves politics and the knowledge of an ancient art only known to a secret family of well-kept billionaires ???

The motivation of Ian is to use KeA aka the Sept-Terrion of Zero to rewrite reality so he can create a world where Crossbell rules over the world and no suffering could exist just because he lost his wife in a plane crash but guess what, that’s also the motivation of Arios WHO UNLIKE MEMEWOOD IS AN ACTUAL CHARACTER WITH PROPER BUILDUP, TENSIONS AND CONFLICTS BUILD AROUND HIM !

FOR FUCK SAKE, IT’S RIGHT FUCKING THERE, MAKING THE BIG ANIME BISHONEN SWORD GUY BETRAYING HIS OWN MORAL CODE AND WHAT THE BRACERS STAND FOR JUST FOR HIS OWN WISH THE FINAL BAD GUY ? THAT’S OBVIOUS AND THEY EVEN FUCKED THAT UP, IT MAKES ZERO SENSE FOR THIS CHARACTER TO EXIST.

The only reason Grimwood exist is so that Arios couldn’t be the real murderer of Lloyd’s brother so Arios could be forgiven for his “sins” and come up in subsequent entries but it’s not like it matters to do such mental gymnastic because no vilains in this game faces hard enough punishment for the crime they commited they either get forgiven by the protagonist are convinced of their wrong doings…

BUT IT’S NOT OVER YET

After Ian Grimwood got convinced to put a stop to his 5 year long super complex 5head plan after hearing the most 7/10 Shonen talk no jutsu speech ever by Lloyd FREAKING BANNINGS which is like wow… that … THAT WAS THE DEPTH OF YOUR CONVICTIONS ? (seriously fuck that character why is he a thing ?)

Turns out MARIABELLE WAS MANIPULATING GRIMWOOD FOR…

Reasons ?

Oh no it’s another one of those Ourobozos Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Umizoomies Rollie Polie Olie plan isn’t it ?

BUT OF COURSE IT IS BECAUSE HER MOTIVATION EITHER SEEMS TO BE SO THAT SHE EITHER

Did it for the lolz
Did it to preserve her family legacy
Get a free sit at the ouroboros club of bad Akatsuki Reject Extraordinaire table

Why is she the final villain and why does she also get scott free for the things that she did including killing (but not really and fuck her for that) Ian in front of them in fact when she says “Oh dw he’s fine, I specifically didn’t hit his vital organs” and everyone pans out to him because even I forgot he was still a thing in this story cause I simply cannot believe this wasn’t a complete fever dream that my mind made up out of fatigue for this game that does not seem to end…

I mean of course at the end of the day, all of these sets of villains were themselves controlled by a greater force which is the will of KeA aka the Sept-Terrion of Zero aka the Demi-urge in a pretty clever plot twist involving an intentional inconsistency between the first hour of Zero and the last hour of that same game and how she pretty much rewrite history to arrive at this place and time.

I think KeA, her inner struggles with the role she’s meant to fit, the nature of her own powers and simply how adorable and endearing she is and how you want her to be happy and not have to shoulder the sins of the world and end up like the old Demiurge is a pretty interesting take on the concept of “killing god” in a JRPG. And I think that everything surrounding her, her relationship to the SSS, her desire to make everyone happy and not having to face hardship kinda saves the last few remaining hours as the emotional crux of the story as a whole.
Falcom has this tendency to write good villains only for them to end up as the pawn of a greater more clear-cut evil and I think it’s a testament to what this game lacks to carry on the weight of all of its ideas

MATURITY

Maturity is a nebulous concept, but I think in this it should be about acknowledging the forces of your series and not self-indulge in your own fantasies for the sake of pleasing a niche of neckbeard who can’t think further than the back of the 4 walls that cover their sweaty mother’s basement.

Instead of treating its audience with respect by giving them what they need, they were contempt with giving what the “Falcom audience” wanted and it’s a damn shame because had it fully committed to its ideas, had it taken even more risk than it already did, had it stopped itself from falling into clichés and absurdly outdated JRPG tropes.

That’s really what’s stopping the series from reaching more than a simple niche cult status because it didn’t reach for the sky, it reached for the bottom and is contempt with doing so.

It’s also sad because for as much flack as I give the Sky Saga more so because of its structural issues, I felt that sense of maturity was real there but not in Crossbell but while the Sky series only had an ok premise and an ok story served by beautiful emotionally poignant writing that will get you one way or another.

Azure crumbled under the weights of its own self indulgence which tampered its ambition and by flying too close to the sun Falcom burned their wings in the process which is a shame because I think such an alignment of planets between story, themes, pacing, structure, ideas, politics, morality, hope, despair and the indomitable human spirit is not something that the series had achieved so far and likely will achieve ever again.

The reason why I’m still rating this game highly despite my numerous complains is because the game cheats, it cheated me, it cheated with my heart by giving me the classic cani-core soup that I love so much.

At times, Azure is Xenogears, at times it’s Suikoden or Tactics Ogre and at times it’s Gurren Lagann one of my favorite piece of fiction of all time to which they took direct inspiration when it comes to the character of Lloyd, his brother, KeA and the narrative of an ultimate force for good and an optimist at heart doing what they feel was right in the face of the dark grayness that plague the sad reality of the real world facing villains who asked for lighter burdens when they should’ve asked for broader shoulders which is exactly what Lloyd, the SSS, KeA and Crossbell stand for.

None of the dumb twist, the awkward pacing of the ending actually ruins the beautiful yet bittersweet message of the finale and the game as a whole in fact Ian is no different than Dieter or Arios, all three men wanted the best for the world but had to resolve to means that weren’t right, that were eradicating the very idea of freedom, democracy, individuality and human dignity.

These twist are just additional barriers and maybe with time I will grow to ignore them or maybe these twist will grow on me (except Mariabelle, she can go fuck herself) or maybe will I cross the barriers of Falcom’s terrible narrative priorities to enjoy what they truly accomplished especially after 4 chapters of a complete perfect run of good to great to brillant ideas and twists.

An ambitious, beautiful title, that’s a masterpiece that never actually meant it’s potential due to some creative decisions that needed more time to be thinked about but I think that at the end, I enjoyed this game and I wished I enjoyed it more, it’s a game I have lots of respect for what it is but also for what it fails at being

The beauty of an RPG that will stay with me for the rest of my life both in my mind and in my heart and that I personally feel everyone should get a feel for regardless of what I could’ve said and my very ambivalent feeling towards its almost legendary status.

And this is why Legend of Heroes : Trails to Azure is a frustrating Masterpiece

Lloyd Bannings is such a bad fucking character and it's only upsetting because I can't even like Zero the same way I used to largely because of it

Love to make a character entirely about "I overcome the odds" and "I have a mystery backstory" only to have that mystery backstory be the worst written thing you've ever seen

I just watched someone play CS1 after being immensely disappointed by Azure and they immediately lost their mind over Class VII having like
Actual growth and conflict and any writing whatsoever that isn't "We must overcome the barrier...we must save Crossbell...🙂"

im so toxic cause any time someone livetweets Azure I'm just desperate to see them get to CS1 instead

Kiseki discourse would be a lot simpler if Azure fans just talked about their game like this instead of calling you slurs for thinking it's the worst one

Azure fans when characters are written to have flaws, emotions and struggles like actual human beings