This game had ideas they directly used and improved for the trails series. It has the idea of the Bracer's guild (adventurer's guild created with permission from the crown and army) that works similarly. Adventurers do all kind of jobs the army can't do as flexibly, like fighting off monsters and all kind of noncombathelp people might need for about anything. There are famous adventurers everyone wants to hire, the better you are the more you earn. Your adventurer's guild membership is just a need to an end most of the time in this game, and the adventures guild as a whole gets mostly sidelined or just used as a plot device. There is no adventurer rank to increase for your party. Sometimes the bracer(i mean adventurer) district leader asks for help with jobs and we are like ' srry lol no time we have plot to do'. It's still a very clear origin of the Bracer guild in trails, where it (for the better) is more smoothly ingrained in the rest of the story, i might even say the red line as far as worldbuilding goes.
It also has the Church as an important player, and a dark cult that have different ideas of how to shape the world. Problems in the mines (the last game had that as well, seems to be a signature LoH theme). 4 elemental shrines (who's inside look a bit like the 4 elemental towers in trails) NPC women having a crush on a pretty boy in the party. In general the dialogue of almost every npc changes with each story event, more than in the last game and as much as in trails. Even some npc's you wouldn't expect and sometimes have to go out of your way for, have party members react with new dialog as well, depending on who you have at the time. Even some of the OST i'm pretty sure i heard in the trails game somewhere. Just listen "- Bonds −Sadness Overcome−" from the ost on the YouTube Falcom channel and you get what i mean.
There certainly is a connection between the games. The whole land used to be the three continents together, but a highly intelligent tribe that experimented with magic too much broke it in three pieces, with a big cleft of shadow in the middle (called Gagharv, hence why it's used as a name for the whole trilogy). The different pieces of the continent are El Phildin, (this game), Tiraswheel (last game) and the still unnamed continent of the last game. They all have ruins from the civilization that lived in all three of them.
Chronologically this game takes places before the last one, but that game gets quite a few references that makes it clear the other game is meant to be played first. There is an important character in the last game who is the only person in existence who can travel between the three continents with his special magic (Michel de Lap). This is the younger self of a character with a legendary reputation who lived in the village the two main characters from the last game started, and gave them his staff. It's really awesome they have the two games connect with him as a lone traveler between worlds, and this probably goes over the head of anyone who played the games in the wrong order, which is a shame. It will not have the same feels when he talks about how Tiraswheel is without even been there yourself. There are other things that are fun when you play the games in order. There are a few cute references (like the boar joke at the start, the name of a teddy bear which was the same as a real pet bear of one of your Triaswheel party members (Bang Bang), the origin character of the bookseries you can collect in the last game (and you can meet the writer). Michel de lap brought the book over and that's why it's in the last game, pretty cool. Exploding jewels. Cute stuff like that.
You however don't miss anything of the main story or will be confused when you play this as a standalone game, unlike trails.
I found the battle of gods as a backdrop of this story very interesting, a bit like final fantasy (and a lot of other JRPG) where both the light and darkness are not good and evil in the classic sense, and one cannot live without the other. Sometimes preserving the status quo is good, sometime change is. A bit like a centrist points in politics. There also is a third god that just cares about life, like a mediator between conservatism and change. I guess it's another version of 'everyone has a good and a dark side' that games like the persona ones explore more in depth.
In conclusion i honestly like the plot a lot, i feel it's almost on par with trails. The worldbuilding is also to be praised (sometimes a bit more hidden than in later titles), and it's less rough around the edges than the white witch one (but still an acquired taste). A true trails 0.5 , i quite enjoyed it and would rate it 4 stars (with keeping it's age in mind). Except the battle system is the same really bland one the last game had, and unfortunately brings the game down a bit. I personally found this translation better than in the moonlight witch (less mistakes), but it's not perfect. If Falcom really would integrate the Gaghav continent as one in their new titles as some rumors claim, these games really could use new remakes for sure!
It also has the Church as an important player, and a dark cult that have different ideas of how to shape the world. Problems in the mines (the last game had that as well, seems to be a signature LoH theme). 4 elemental shrines (who's inside look a bit like the 4 elemental towers in trails) NPC women having a crush on a pretty boy in the party. In general the dialogue of almost every npc changes with each story event, more than in the last game and as much as in trails. Even some npc's you wouldn't expect and sometimes have to go out of your way for, have party members react with new dialog as well, depending on who you have at the time. Even some of the OST i'm pretty sure i heard in the trails game somewhere. Just listen "- Bonds −Sadness Overcome−" from the ost on the YouTube Falcom channel and you get what i mean.
There certainly is a connection between the games. The whole land used to be the three continents together, but a highly intelligent tribe that experimented with magic too much broke it in three pieces, with a big cleft of shadow in the middle (called Gagharv, hence why it's used as a name for the whole trilogy). The different pieces of the continent are El Phildin, (this game), Tiraswheel (last game) and the still unnamed continent of the last game. They all have ruins from the civilization that lived in all three of them.
Chronologically this game takes places before the last one, but that game gets quite a few references that makes it clear the other game is meant to be played first. There is an important character in the last game who is the only person in existence who can travel between the three continents with his special magic (Michel de Lap). This is the younger self of a character with a legendary reputation who lived in the village the two main characters from the last game started, and gave them his staff. It's really awesome they have the two games connect with him as a lone traveler between worlds, and this probably goes over the head of anyone who played the games in the wrong order, which is a shame. It will not have the same feels when he talks about how Tiraswheel is without even been there yourself. There are other things that are fun when you play the games in order. There are a few cute references (like the boar joke at the start, the name of a teddy bear which was the same as a real pet bear of one of your Triaswheel party members (Bang Bang), the origin character of the bookseries you can collect in the last game (and you can meet the writer). Michel de lap brought the book over and that's why it's in the last game, pretty cool. Exploding jewels. Cute stuff like that.
You however don't miss anything of the main story or will be confused when you play this as a standalone game, unlike trails.
I found the battle of gods as a backdrop of this story very interesting, a bit like final fantasy (and a lot of other JRPG) where both the light and darkness are not good and evil in the classic sense, and one cannot live without the other. Sometimes preserving the status quo is good, sometime change is. A bit like a centrist points in politics. There also is a third god that just cares about life, like a mediator between conservatism and change. I guess it's another version of 'everyone has a good and a dark side' that games like the persona ones explore more in depth.
In conclusion i honestly like the plot a lot, i feel it's almost on par with trails. The worldbuilding is also to be praised (sometimes a bit more hidden than in later titles), and it's less rough around the edges than the white witch one (but still an acquired taste). A true trails 0.5 , i quite enjoyed it and would rate it 4 stars (with keeping it's age in mind). Except the battle system is the same really bland one the last game had, and unfortunately brings the game down a bit. I personally found this translation better than in the moonlight witch (less mistakes), but it's not perfect. If Falcom really would integrate the Gaghav continent as one in their new titles as some rumors claim, these games really could use new remakes for sure!