Matt Braly’s Amphibia is my favorite TV show of all time right now, and yet I paid it no consideration when it first premiered. I saw the pilot episode uploaded to YouTube within its first week, and gave it no consideration at all. The humor was silly when I was looking for something meatier, and something about the setup of its “plot” and teased mysteries felt hollow or unpromising. Then, after years of forgetting about it, I heard rumblings online; Amphibia fans were upset because the season two finale, “True Colors,” was delayed. “Good for them,” I thought. “The show found its audience. Whatever. Fun. Happy to see it.” It wasn’t until “True Colors” was released that I saw the clips. The clips of the protagonist I had met so long ago in this nothing-seeming kids’ show attain a form not unlike Super Saiyan to destroy the guard robots of the massive and imposing king. The clips of the young girls sword fighting with unexpected ferocity, down to Anne cleverly twisting Sasha’s cape over her head and punching her in the nose. The clips of a character, live on the Disney channel, getting stabbed through the chest by a burning sword. I realized in those moments that Amphibia was then something more akin to what I had sought all that time prior, that its first impression was merely disingenuous. So, I binged the series up to that point. I saw the slow, extensive first season build out the town of Wartwood in a manner I’d never truly seen from an episodic comedy before. Despite every episode being as wacky and self-contained as I had expected, the plot kept moving in subtle ways I hadn’t anticipated. Hop Pop’s cart was closed down, and a good few episodes touched on the struggle the Plantar family had to stay afloat. Anne helped a background character build up his “diner” into a respectable restaurant in one particularly funny episode- a restaurant that continues to be used as a location and point of reference for the rest of the show. Characters learned lessons about selfishness or other such sins and virtues, in classic childrens’ television fashion, but those lessons stuck deeply and carried forward to every succeeding episode. I got invested in so many more things than I expected to, found so many moving parts that I could appreciate on their own terms and not just in how they served larger wholes, that when I got back to “True Colors”- an episode I’d basically already seen in full from the start thanks to all the clips- I… couldn’t even move in my seat. My jaw was on the floor, my throat choked up with emotions I could only describe as reverence for the sheer masterpiece achievement I was witnessing.
With all the sweet time FC took to establish things, that I couldn’t see SC winning me over in the same fashion feels like a fundamental failure of foresight on my part and I feel deeply stupid for it.
I feel compelled to start with the things I didn’t like about SC, or caveats I should address. I’ve gotten word that people dislike chapter 8 because of the ZFG system locking more and more of your characters’ Arts as the chapter drags on. I can see that, but the strategy of it was something I adapted to fairly quickly and it didn’t bother me as a result. It kept with the lore well enough, and I appreciate the story showing enough self-respect to keep its consistency the way it does (EP and specific Orbal Arts like Anti-Sept being known quantities within this world that characters reference in conversation, as another example). What I dislike is the lack of fast-travel, at least to Bracer Guilds akin to towns in Octopath Traveler. Throughout FC and SC, the lack of fast-travel was always something of an annoyance, but so long as your routing through side quest objectives had forethought put in it was never that bad.
Then the side quest in Elmo Village has you run to Zeiss, then the landing port, then the factory basement, then UP TO THE SOUTH SIDE OF RUAN before finally forcing you to run allllllllll the way back down to Elmo Village, far south of Zeiss. And this involves trekking the now-darkened Kaldia Tunnels twice. The entire chapter is this arduous journey of repetition as not a single gameplay convenience is afforded to the player. Taking away Arts is more than enough to sell the circumstance, I don’t need to walk every square inch that I’ve walked six times before. I think we can just kinda skip that with no consequences.
Party management similarly got under my skin a bit. Using Octopath Traveler as a basis again, I can tolerate only switching party members at specified locations and having to travel back. What gets obnoxious is the menu not clarifying the gear of absentee members. Perhaps it’s best explained with a hypothetical: I’d prefer if the menu showed every item you had, with a symbol to indicate it being equipped by a character in or out of your party, rather than having the item disappear from the menu. I’d rather the menu showed me how many Attack 4 quartz I’ve created and a small icon indicating one of them is on Agate (who’s not in my party) instead of just showing me the one I still have available to equip. As it stands, it’s paranoid party-switching to see if I potentially forgot to unequip things from one character, robbing my current party of their best potential Quartz and gear.
…and that appears to be the end of the list. Hm… I guess… I could say…
Alright, there’s nothing for dancing around it, Sky SC is one of the best video games I’ve ever played and writing this has been incredibly daunting as a result; it feels almost impossible to decide where to begin. What’s changed from FC feels both perfect and inadequate as a starting point, with how little has changed. Full transparency, I was warned to play this game with a guide for fear of its missable content, and though I absolutely would not have seen half of it without that guide (and the dungeons are still awful, requiring online maps to make them tolerable), the general design is far more interesting. Taken with maps (an enormous caveat, but one I find as worth making), the winding corridors are well-laid and clearly had effort put in. Were there even just a minimap, there wouldn’t be an issue in sight. Funny how that means there are issues as it stands, and yet… it doesn’t register as such. Shocking what love can do, eh?
What registers FAR more than it did in FC is the soundtrack. Good Aureole above, the music goes so much harder. Strepitoso Fight has the higher BPM and energy I crave in my battle themes, Fight with Assailant brings more of the guitars that complete my balanced breakfast, every rendition of the Whereabouts of Light-motif (eh? Like a leitmotif? Ay…) is gorgeous, and… The Enforcers.
Do Organization XIII members introduce themselves with guitars? No. No they do not. That honor is reserved for the cooler Organization XIII. The Kingdom Hearts fan in me screamed with every letter I just typed, but the truth must be spoken.
SC manipulates every last vector of emotion I have like this, in ways not even Amphibia took advantage of. In exploring the country the way we did in FC, slowly and deliberately taking a counter-clockwise tour of Liberl, every location suddenly has purpose and place. The beach scene at the end of chapter 6 isn’t just on some beach we don’t care about, that’s the beach by Ruan! Up that path there is Jenis Academy, and further back the other way is the road to the old orphanage! I did some side quests around here, saved an idiot in a little nook from monsters! It’s right over there! Side quests carry over from FC, with everyone who needs help again recognizing you from your first go-around and giving you extra rewards. When I saw that Junior Bracer Notebook, exactly the same, hidden in the menu… I still don’t know what word explains the emotion I felt in that moment. That was mine. Even the two quests I gave up on and missed, they’re there and marked up. That’s… wow.
Every character feels so much more interesting than ever. Estelle’s struggles to mature towards the start of the game are nothing short of heartbreaking; the first minutes of SC alone hit me more than all of FC added exponentially on top of itself multiple times over and almost scared me with such an omen of how emotional this game was going to make me. Chapter 6… can vouch for the validity of those omens. Joshua’s struggles are so damn captivating. Every moment of his journey, from Weissmann’s grand entrance at the end of FC to his unlikely but EXTREMELY welcome stint with the Capua family (Josette is best girl and I will die on that hill absolutely do not test me #dirtytomboynation), his reunion with Estelle where she gives him the most gut-wrenching and emotionally uplifting deconstruction I’ve ever seen in my life, his solemn reunions with every NPC and party member (especially in Rolent), to his glorious reversal on Weissmann in the finale… it’s a journey I’m not soon forgetting, and I can’t wait for some later game to have Estelle and Joshua show up out of nowhere to save the new protagonists like a Marvel cameo. I will be cheering that hard.
Finally ripping into Agate’s issues and Schera’s past was extremely welcome; the more time goes on, the more I understand that every Trails character exists as a legitimate and equivalent part of this enormous tapestry. Agate and Tita’s relationship is so incredibly cute and wholesome, it pulls every heartstring like a harp. The romantic teasing from Estelle makes me want to ask Joshua for a quick death, but thankfully there was VERY little of it. Seeing the origin of Scherazard’s current emotional support network was equally adorable, and her relationship with Luciola was more subdued than I expected- in a way I quite liked.
And on the subject of Luciola, every new character is fantastic in their own ways. I’d never loved a character an amount equal to my desire to punch them in the face before the day I met Kevin Graham, and this new sensation ensures I never want to go back to the before times. Definitely excited to see where his story goes in 3rd. The Enforcers are a fun spread as well; Renne’s whole reveal was phenomenally paced, her boss fights are intense, she’s such a fun character overall. I can’t wait to see where she goes next. Same goes for Luciola, the most obvious fake-out death paired with the plausible deniability of the circumstances surrounding her final encounter creates the most engaging coin flip I’ve seen in a long time- not bad, Trails. Not bad. I don’t know where Walter’s gonna go next, considering he doesn’t seem like he’s going to change the way Renne will and he didn’t die regardless of that, but I suppose it’s going to be fun to see him lackadaisically pursuing some other villainous goal as his Final Fantasy VIII-lookin-ass keeps punching people.
(Seriously, I can’t tell if he belongs more at school with Squall or getting recruited by the Turks. Someone weigh in, please.)
Though, special attention obviously goes to Loewe. I didn’t care for Lorence much in FC, I thought he had too much confidence and walked all over like he owned the place despite being only a lackey in a larger plan, but Loewe ceasing to act like that and finally getting his backstory revealed leaves him the clear frontrunner of the Enforcer pack. Powerscaling seems to be all over the place a bit in Trails so far, leaving me with a bit of a disconnected view of how he’s exactly supposed to rank, but he remains intimidating, tragic, and refreshingly composed for his archetype. Watching him take Joshua proving him wrong in stride was a level of emotional maturity I never thought this character trope was capable of. The destruction of Hamel he teases proves to me Trails isn’t afraid of the horrors of war crimes, and all the better for it- the story is captivating and haunting in ways that remind me of my middle school self first reading One Piece. And Weissmann… is only okay. I like that his seeming ignorance of his own stupidly over-the-top evil existence stems from him following the Grandmaster’s prophecy, making it not a confidence in himself but in the things he trusts, but that just makes for a justification and not a more engaging villain. Despite the organ in chapter 6 he didn’t exactly chew the scenery like a Dio Brando, nor did he play into his sympathetic tendencies like a Colonel Richard. Just alright, overall.
Weissmann’s contributions in bringing to light ancient Zemurian society can’t be ignored any longer, however. Though I completely ignored the high-tech nature of FC’s finale in my review, the larger look in SC is a magical thought experiment that I was unable to tear myself away from. Whereas a game like Xenoblade Chronicles doesn’t necessarily require so much thought to appreciate what the narrative point of the past civilization is, using shorthand reminiscent of our own world to communicate the intention of “it’s supposed to be like the world you know,” Trails gives us a similar amount of information that speaks to a society wholly original. Picking apart every data log and public service announcement on Liber Ark is an utter joy, as my theories kept shifting around. Are they a democracy? So the Gospels are like iPhones, but government-provided ID then? But… it grants wishes? How much does it control? What’s the level of government control, were they more authoritarian? They must be, considering their personalized devices are government-issued and monitored, but how much of that is the Aureole? Just how sentient is it? WHAT ARE THE OTHER GIFTS? HOW CULPABLE IS AIDIOS?! WHAT WAS HER INTENTION AND WHERE DID EVERYTHING GO WRONG?!?!
It’s so much fun.
This game is so much fun.
Trails in the Sky SC is so much damn fun.
It may be a minute before I buy more of the games and keep going, money is a concern, but I’m on this ride. From here to eternity, I’m here with Kiseki.