It depends if games are connected or not (like FF or Tales) but yes I'm especially glad I didn't start with Cold Steel and instead just randomly stumbled upon Sky FC xD I only wish I had started on PC so I had access to my save files, lol
That was a very enjoyable story! I remember when I first checked out FC in the middle of 2014, and thought it looked fun. Played through it only to realize, that was it, until Xseed finished SC (and that's a whole another story there!). After SC, I pretty much fell down the rabbit hole of trails, absolutely loved the story, characters, and the casual turn-based gameplay. Very happy to see others share their story and experience ;)
I'm one of those people that wanted a JRPG and stumbled upon CS 1&2. CS1 is such a big cliffhanger I bought second immediately, didn't know anythig about the series. After that.... no CS3 localization for a long time, I started from the begining - Sky. Funny thing is, when I saw Joshua, I thought he looked familiar, but I didn't think much of it. When I got to meet Walter in that cave, during Second chapter, I remembered why Joshua looked familiar, I watched that mini anime for Trails years ago, and that scene where Walter kicks Estelle, that scene triggered it, it was funny to me. After it's fan translations for Crossbell, CS3 is out for west and I couldn't wait for CS4 localization, so I jumped in CS4 with fan translation, after that - Hajimary and every other game after, the wait is killing me, so thanks to all people who make all fan translations. Love the series.
I´ve only fallen into the rabbit hole very recently. I´ve always been semi-aware of this franchise because I follow Sean Chiplock, Rean´s VA, and occasionally saw some Cold Steel stuff pop up on Twitter. And I recently noticed Cold Steel 1 and 2 being on sale on playstation and decided "Why not?". I played CS1 for like... a few hours before stopping. It felt like an ok start, but after reading a few of the books I decided I should probably go back to beginning. So I got Sky. I usually don´t like playing on PC, but Sky is so worth it. I´m currently in chapter 2 of SC, as I said, I´ve only fallen in recently, but I´m already very in love with this franchise. And I can also already see that Kevin is going to be a very fun character.
Awesome! I hope you continue to enjoy your journey! I tried to keep this video as spoiler free as possible in terms of imagery used xD and yes! As you've already seen the "insensitive jerk" is a very fun character. SC and Sky 3rd have a lot of very emotional moments so prepare yourself! Lol.
Enjoy SC. There are very few games I've played that I think to myself that I'd love to experience it blind for the first time again, and SC is absolutely one of those.
I can't believe your first interaction with the series was hearing Musse flirt with Rean, that's hilarious XD I first heard of Trails from TheGamingPilgrimage's review about nine years ago. The game sounded right up my alley and I especially liked what he said about the NPCs, so I put it on my backlog... and didn't play it until two years later in 2017 (which I'm grateful for because that's when the 3rd localization released). I was hooked by FC immediately. I was blown away by the love and care put into the writing, and I knew to talk to all the NPCs because that was the one thing I remembered from the review I watched. I loved the music too. It's just such a cozy opening. Then the plot had me hooked by chapter 1. I also loved how the party members came and went throughout the game, it made them feel like real people with lives. I wish the later games did that more. I had no idea that the later Trails games were connected, so I assumed that FC would take place in Liberl, SC would take place in Erebonia, and 3rd in Calvard haha. I don't think it was until I googled one of the characters and saw they were in Ao that I saw they shared a continuous story, and it blew my mind. I've always been a big fan of fantasy books and Trails is like that in game form. When I beat 3rd there was no localization for Crossbell yet. I was learning Japanese, but I hadn't learned enough yet to play an RPG. I tried playing Zero and the prologue took me 35 hours lol, and I couldn't really follow the story. So I took a six month break, deciding I would play Zero when I had learned enough Japanese, but I couldn't get Trails out of my head and eventually broke and played Cold Steel 1&2. After that my Japanese had advanced to the point that I could play Zero, and I've played every game from then on in Japanese without having to wait for localizations. I've actually learned a ton of Japanese just from playing Trails haha. It took me a year to play CS1-CS2-Zero-Ao-CS3-CS4, but I never experienced burnout. I love this series so much I don't think burnout it possible. I was also watched a friend play through the entire sky trilogy during that time, so I was doubling up on Trails haha. Every time a new game comes out it feels like coming home. It's become my favorite video game series and there's really nothing else close.
Ha, yeah I can't believe I owe my love of Trails to a green haired anime girl xD that reddit post will never leave my brain, even if it was fake it was such a bruh moment. Wow Trails has actually helped you become more proficient with Japanese? That's awesome. It seems like such a difficult language to learn so kudos to you. I probably could've binged the entire series and felt the same way. Playing through Kuro 2 has really just reminded me of why I love this series, it's as you said... feels like home. Falcom has done such a wonderful job crafting this world and getting us so attached to it. I have other series and types of games I really love, but nothing to this degree. It really is something special. Thanks for sharing your story! Appreciate you taking the time to listen to mine and for responding in kind ^^
I don't even recall why I decided to buy FC back when I did. I guess I was just in a mood for an older, story heavy JRPG and that popped up. Liked it well enough from the start, mostly the chill vibes and how it seemed to avoid some of the typical genre tropes like hilariously overdesigned characters, grandiose plots or a hate boner for organized religion. Plus, the characters were verbose enough to feel like real people with personalities instead of NPCs regurgitating exposition. By the time I got to the ending I was certainly happy with my purchase, but it wasn't until the sequel a year or two later that I got properly hooked. In fact I'd almost forgotten FC even existed when I saw some familiar faces on GOG and immediately knew what I was playing next. Within minutes SC had me pulled right back into Zemuria like I never left, that's how strong of a prologue it had. By the end of that game it was easily one of my favourite video game stories. Then, since it was the release order, I played Cold Steel 1. I gave it a fair chance. I _didn't_ do that to another Trails game until 2020 when the esteemed Geofront translation was on the horizon, nuff sed. Since then I've played all the ones with an official translation. Long opinion short: Sky is wonderful, Crossbell is pretty darn decent and Erebonia can go have tea with Duke Dunan. Reverie is, I find, a return to form in some aspects and even worse in others and overall leaning on the later, so I'm extremely hesitant to give Daybreak a go. It'll happen eventually, I'm sure, but I feel like I need to detox before taking that plunge, and maybe revisit Cold Steel first to see if I can't make some manner of peace with those. And yes, bring back the old portraits.
That was one of the things I noticed too, a game where the church wasn't portrayed as inherently evil. It was a breath of fresh air. The characters and npc's in this series are so good, I still can't believe some people find Estelle or Lloyd boring or uninteresting. I loved how SC picks up immediately where FC left off. Which makes complete sense when you find out they were originally meant to be one game. Sorry you didn't enjoy CS that much. Despite my gripes with it I enjoyed it a lot but it's my least favorite arc so far. Reverie was incredible and I absolutely adored the Daydreams. The doors were some of my favorite aspects of Sky the 3rd so to see them come back in a sense made me very happy. I don't blame you for being hesitant on Daybreak, I won't try to convince you of anything but I personally loved it. I hope you do too when you get around to playing it, Van is a wonderful protag. He's basically Gintoki from Gintama or Spike from Cowboy Bebop. I've gotten used to the 3D models at this point but yeah, I'll always miss the portraits. I know it's a pipe dream but I hope they get brought back in some way.
I bought Sky FC on the PSP in 2014 off amazon for $10 because i saw a lot of people on a forum raving about it who had good taste I didn't play it until 2020, when i had a friend who was deep into cold steel who said how good the series was
Hey sometimes those forums have great suggestions. It's how I discovered Nier (back before Automata was even an idea) Tons of hidden gems on those lists. Word of mouth works great too, sometimes that's the push we need to really jump into a series. Glad it worked out for you ^^
My experience was actually really similar to yours, in regards to FC. I failed to get through the opening hours of FC on two separate occasions, and I'd always lose interest really early on. Then about a year and a half ago, I'd had enough of hearing about how great the Trails series was, whenever discussions of the best JRPGs came up. My curiosity reached a very overdue boiling point and I was like, "That's it, how good could it ACTUALLY be? I'll play at least through one of them," and booted Sky FC back up and restarted from the beginning because I had forgotten almost everything by that point. It was somewhere around the Ruan arc - which I was surprised to hear many say was the lowest point of FC - where I fully slowed down and stopped having this driving urge to finish it to see what the hype was about. And from that point on was when I enjoyed FC and its characters, story and world for itself rather than trying to rush to find what people were hyping up. And that slowing down, funny enough, was the key point in getting me there. To cut the rest short, I went from a skeptic to a believer by the time credits rolled on Sky FC. I had never purchased a sequel as fast in my life as I did in buying SC afterwards. Within a minute of being brought back to the title screen, I'd already bought SC, it affected me THAT heavily. And by the time I finished SC, that trend basically continued with 3rd, fan translations of the Crossbell games, and in the present day I'm about halfway through Cold Steel 3. The only thing I can say without spoiling anything for those who haven't gotten in yet, is that I went from thinking nothing of the series to hailing it as my favorite RPG series ever. The fact that you need to play them in order can be intimidating, but if you take it at your own pace and just play each game instead of thinking about how much you have left, you'll probably love it too. Also, Estelle is the best and I will not elaborate.
Estelle is Bestelle, nothing else needs to be said. Glad we understand each other, lmao. My story seems fairly common, which makes sense. The Trails series are essentially visual novels disguised as jrpgs and that can turn a lot of people away if they're not prepared for that kind of game at the moment. But man once it hooks you, that's it. Might as well put up your holey boots and let Estelle fish you up. Lol. Yup, the attention to detail in this world is crazy, and has the best npc's easily of any game I've played in my life. Enjoy the rest of Cold Steel 3! I hope you're ready to "write an end to this wretched fairy tale" as a certain character says later in the game :p You will probably want to jump into CS4 immediately after. You thought FC or CS1 had a crazy cliffhanger? All I'll say is good luck! xD And yes very well said at the end there. Play order will always be the best method to tackling these games. I'll champion that stance until the series is over.
Similar to my experience but unlike you who kept hearing how great the series was after trying Sky FC and not getting into it I put it on the back burner figuring one day I’d get back to it and this was back when GameFly was still a thing. I was looking for a new game to rent and stumbled across Cold steel and loved it only to find out it was connected to Sky FC so I went back and while yeah FC is slow compared to others I feel head over heels in love with the series
@@nediojon749 GameFly? Sent me back in time with that one xD I think they're still around, yeah? I vaguely remember seeing an ad for them not too long ago. If it's not Sky that gets you, Cold Steel usually deals the finishing blow. Falcom will get ya one way or another, lol.
Ayy that's awesome! I'm glad my simple story helped envigorate you even further. This series is truly special and I hope you enjoy your journey even half as much as I did ^^
I played FC cause I was told the script was huge. My dumb mind "this means it must feature an ensemble cast and losts of lore and characterization for one long adventure!". Reality: I know each NPCs as much as that cousin I saw three times in my life but who told me his life and we went to a nice lil adventure for an afternoon.
LOL true! I think it's one of the very few games where I actually remember the npc's xD but that's part of what makes the series so good to me, them taking that time to attempt to flesh out even the most minor of characters
@@Cyrus_Bright One of my fav moments in the whole series is when that guy from Rolent goes to Almoria to show his father he is now married and now has a son. That moment made me cry. But it hit thrice as strong for how much invested I was with the NPCs. Trails NPCs make me care more about their world and life. And boosted incredibly that "get over the barrier" message during Zero and Azure. It was not just Lloyd, whole Crossbell was fighint to keep going on during their hardest times. I cried again when I saw Tio helping in the hospital during final chapter.
On my end, a few people were talking about the release of Cold Steel 4 in my Final Fantasy XIV FC, and I was like "That sounds cool", and pocketed that information until about a year later, as one does, when I ran into CS1 and 2's PS4 release at my local library and remembered the raving reviews. (At the time, I didn't realize this was a blessing and a curse, as it's pretty impossible to find cheap, physical copies of the NA release). I picked up the game, showed my friend, and he had that moment of explaining this might not be the best start to the series, but I shrugged and went ahead anyway, as the intro and in medias res prologue had already intrigued me too much to stop and 'go back' to the proper start of the series. I then pretty much blitzed through both games, and, after feeling like I had seen the light, was stopped by my friend as I was searching for my copy of CS3, which was nowhere to be found around me. On his recommendation, I attempted to play Sky FC, stopped after getting to Agate for the first time, and didn't really touch the series until the following year where I just decided to play CS3 and 4 without the context. ...I wish I would have done that from the get-go, but, alas, you live and learn in this fandom that chronological order isn't always the best for everyone. That being said, after finishing CS4, I beat FC, was pretty content with that, and then chilled until Reverie came out. (By chilled, I really mean rushed to beat FFXVI before Reverie came out as that was an insanely dense summer for amazing RPG releases). I'm now playing through the Crossbell games and thoroughly enjoyed Zero. I'm working on Azure now, and, after that, finally intend to finish SC and Third before Daybreak's US release. Blasphemous order to play the games in, I know, but half of the joy for me has been seeing the characters post growth and then watching how they got to that point (looking at you, Olivert and Randy).
That is definitely an interesting play order you have there, I would normally send you to Knox Prison to await for inevitable execution via 1000 Poms but... I feel I have grown more accepting of peoples choices these past few years xD Yes I will always champion that release order is the best experience (as it's the intended way Falcom designed the games) but with there being basically no way for people to play Sky outside of PC, emulation, or PSP/Vita... Cold Steel 1 (or Daybreak! :0) are also perfectly acceptable starting points to me. Zero is iffy, because of all the connections to Sky and things that just won't resonate with you if you haven't played them but well, you already passed that point XD At the end of the day as long as people enjoy the games and become fans of the series, who am I to tell them the way they played the games was wrong? Unless they started at Reverie... or CS4... or Sky 3rd for some reason... then I have full reign to mock you :D Good luck with Azure! Thank you for the lovely comment as well, it was a... pleasure? reading it xD
It's been a few years now, but I was trying to find a "new" JRPG series to play since there was a drought and I already played the other main JRPGs that I play. I picked up Cold Steel 1 and thought it was interesting. But I kept feeling that I was missing something, and couldn't figure out the combat. An early boss (the 3 statues in the schoolhouse) stumped me and I just couldn't get passed it. So I stopped playing for... I think a year until I went back and used a guide to help me out. I ended up loving the rest and played CS2, then decided to go back and play the Sky trilogy before continuing. Been a fan ever since.
Lol, it sucks but it's true. Only recently have I started diving back into new/backlog games. Living through the Great Trails Depression was definitely something. I'm sure I'll experience it all over again once I play Kuro 2 and Kai no Kiseki xD
I was in college and had nothing to do, picked up Sky FC on a whim around the middle of October 2021. Now I'm at the end of CS3 and it ain't never gonna stop lul
Enjoy the ride that is CS3's ending, lol! Ha, we almost started FC at the same time xD Good luck with the rest of the series. CS4 was a good ending to the Erebonia arc imo and Reverie wrapped a lot of things up really well, plus the setup was just too good I had to jump into Kuro right away XD
Falcom: "Who?" lol Kevin is one of my favorites, which is funny because at the start of SC I thought he was just going to be a knock-off Olivier xD Are you caught up with western releases at this point?
@@Cyrus_Bright It’s okay the next game will have Kevin… And yes I’ve played up til Reverie and have considered playing Kuro patched but I think I won’t care to play the games patched until the final game releases so I don’t get spoiled lmao
we tell ourselves that every time... one day we'll be correct! That will be a glorious day indeed xD okay cool, the patch for Kuro was actually pretty good. But waiting is perfectly fine too. Personally, I don't think I can wait much longer... after reading the news on Kai no Kiseki, Kuro 2 just keeps calling my name. Lol.
I mean I only say he'll be in the next game because I saw a screenshot with a blurry picture of a guy wearing clothes similar to Kevin's @@Cyrus_Bright 👀
I also feel in the rabbit hole of sorts, and the story about me playing Trails is funny. When i started looking more about it was around 3 something years ago. A little after Cold 4 came out in the west. Then i started paying more attention to what the fuss over this series was about. But... At first i was taken aback by how many games i needed to play and the fact that Crossbell duology was only available through fan translation, and i was, and still am, more of official translations. Since not all the games were out, then skiped this series (At the time i was thinking of starting Cold 1). Not much after Nisa anounced Zero/Azure and Reverie for 2022/23. And just like that all the games were going to be available officially to play. But i was still not conviced, and i pointed out this series to a friend that tried it. And he still thanks me for pointing out Trails series to him, without me ever playing it, and becoming his best JRPG series to date. But then, i waited for zero to come out, and then i started all from the start myself, and holy damn... Since late last year up until now, i finished sky FC, Sky SC, Sky Third, Zero, Azure (still my favorite game, holly damn), Cold 1, Cold 2 and Cold 3(my second best trails game). Will start Cold 4 in the coming days after that ending... I barely played anything else, that is how damn good it is. I believe that many people want to get into this series, unfortunatly it's a huge time spender, and i played these games for more than a year straight without having time to play anything else just because i could not drop or take time from the series, i just wanted to really play them one after the other.
yeah, the time commitment is really a big ask for a lot of people considering it's more than 10 50+ hour games but man... once they grab you, you won't care about anything else for a while anyway. Lol. Cool to see that Azure is your favorite! Seems to be a majority of fans favorite. I think mine is still Sky the 3rd. But Azure got close, so did CS3, Reverie and Daybreak. Thank you for sharing your story ^^
I remember browsing trough steam for new rpgs to play. Thats how i saw trails in the sky fc discounted and bought it, played like 4 hours and did not return the next day. It took a couple of years before i found the game again in my steam library and thats when i made it trough the game. And just like you the ending of fc was what really got me hook line and sinker.
glad to hear it! It is interesting how the games lose people at first but then on a return playthrough or after finishing FC that's when it really clicks for some people. Lol. Thank you for giving the game another chance though, this series deserves to be played if you're a jrpg fan imo :p
I think the biggest thing for me ironically is a few of the friends I've made along the way you know I was looking for directions for the longest time in anything and it helped me find a direction I needed
That's wholesome af, isn't it wonderful that something as simple as a video game can help bring people together? I kinda had that happen to me too. Randomly stumbled upon Kevin Street's channel when he first started reviewing the Trails games, left a few comments and then we kinda became internet friends. Now I'm always in his streams just chatting and listening to him lose it as he progresses through the games has been super entertaining. Lol. Wouldn't have ever stumbled upon his channel had it not been for Falcom and this series. Also met some really cool people after starting my own journey as well which has been really fun. Nevertheless, excited to see whatever the future holds ^^
My story is very similar. I was scrolling through Steam for some JRPGs. I just wanted something casual, not necessarily AAA, to pass the time. I finally saw FC. It looked innocent enough. At first, it was exactly what I wanted. Cute, comfy, cozy, but very polished. Before I knew it, I was at the end, balling my eyes out. (SC was still a few weeks away) I then saw some reviews or something talking about the NPCs and went, "Wait, they update with EACH little story progression?" I immediately replayed the entire game, talking to everyone thrice to make sure I didn't miss a thing. I couldn't believe such a masterpiece was falling under everyone's radar. Shortly after playing through SC, I saw Cold Steel at Best Buy, and the rest is history.
Yeah, I didn't realize the NPC's changed their dialogue until SC. But once that realization hit me, I vowed to exhaust all they had to say any chance I got. Didn't matter if I wanted to bee line straight to the next story segment, I'd spend an hour tracking them all down. Trust me, there were a few times I wanted to skip them (like in Daybreak, lmao) but I knew I'd be missing out if I did. Lol. Eventually I went back and watched/listened to an LP of Sky FC (TheTwitGamer) and was still mind blown that I had failed to notice and appreciate such attention to detail. Now I speak to significantly more npc's in other games than I used to. Unless it's obvious they're just placed for mini tutorials, directions, or random fluff text that doesn't mean anything.
It’s interesting to see how other people got into the series. I’d heard of Trails in the Sky but I’d never played them. I started out with Cold Steel and immediately loved it. The first 2 were fine but when I got to 3 all these characters and references to past games kept popping up and I felt like I should know about them to fully enjoy the game. I put Cold Steel 3 on pause and went back and started from the beginning. No regrets!
very interesting indeed, seems like your situation is a fairly common one. Which makes sense seeing as up until fairly recently we only had FC and SC on PSP, with Cold Steel being the first Trails game on more modern consoles. I feel like I got into it at almost the perfect time since all the games were on PC. A few hoops with Zero and Azure but I was already fairly familiar with modding games (Bethesda, lol) so following those steps were fairly simple. Have you completely caught up with the western releases? Are you excited for Daybreak? :0
@@nicoleshh noice! Can't wait for everyone to meet Van. He's such a good protag. I'd place him on the same level as Kevin personally (whose my third favorite protag, after Estelle and Lloyd) which might sound crazy... but just trust me. I'm sure he'll win a lot of people over fairly quickly. Lol.
I got into trails the worst way possible. I found out about the series because the sky movie was on demand and I watched it. didn't think too much about it until my middle school years when I was thinking about it, looked for it, and couldn't find it. fast forward a few months the whole movie is on youtube. so I watched it again, didn't think too much about it. after googling the name that's when I found out it was a game I said to myself, Man I should totally play this game series. That was 2017 2022 comes around and here's nothern war (I can't help but cringe as I retell this story now) "Holy cow, Northern war trails! I wonder if it's any good?" watched it, thought it was ok for a one season wonder but didn't think too much about it. April of 2023 is when my friends started playing trails, I joined in on sky and here we are now, finishing up cold steel IV, with only reverie remaining
You got into Trails through the OVA!? Now THAT'S a unique perspective for sure! Wow. I still need to watch the Northern War anime, even if it's cringe. Maybe I'll do a review on it, that sounds... uh... fun? Lol. Cool that you ended up diving into the games as well. Enjoy the ending to CS4, and hope you have fun with Reverie when you get to it!
My experience started with Cold Steel one. I knew already it´s part of a gigantic story and Cold Steel would have many infos, cameos and other nods from SKy 1 to 3 and the Crossbell Saga. At the End of Cold Steel there was this whole epilogue with "new" characters. Lloyd, Rixia... who is that? Ah okay... Crossbell Series. I really might finish this one too sometime. At Cold Steel 3 i had the feeling i missed so much i had to catch on. I finished the game and despite the horrible brutal cliffhanger i went on with Sky 1... That was last year around this time... I am at Trails from Zero now... probably gonna finish it this week. After Azure i will finally finish Cold Steel IV and from what i´ve seen already i will get an experience that will pay out, now that i know all the characters with all their stories.
so there is this yakuza youtuber called devilleon7 that i've been following for a while since i'm a yakuza fan, he used to talk a lot about this niche jrpg series called trails and how it's his favourite game franchise and at the time i was like: wait, yakuza is not his favourite franchise?! i didn't think much of it at the time but one day in one of his yakuza 7 randomizer streams he played a song, and when i heard it i was so hooked, i had to know where it came from so he said it's a song from trails, the same jrpg franchise he mentions all the time so i thought: ok, i have to know what this is about i did my research, bought trails in the sky i'm at cold steel 2 now, i bought the whole series and trails is pretty much my favourite franchise now thank you devilleon7 by the way, the song i mentioned earlier is spiral of erebos from cold steel 3, i'm yet to get there but it's funny how music is the one thing that always gets me into new franchises
Devilleon7 is a huge Trails fan!? I didn't know that! Now I respect him a lot more than I already did xD that's cool how he introduced you into this series. Spiral of Erebos is a banger so I don't blame you, lol. I'm the same way sometimes, I'll hear a track from Jesse's Auditorium and feel compelled to check out the game it's from xD
I don't know how I learned about the series, but ever since then all I ever wanted to do was to do research on the games, what the play order is, looking at various RUclips videos, and what it meant to other players on their journey. Eventually, I decided to give Sky FC a try during the Holidays of 2023 and I'm ready to plunge into this abyss we call Trails. Currently on chapter 4 of FC but man I am really enjoying this ride, the characters are fun and whimsical but serious when they need to be, combat is super engaging but most importantly the game just feels alive and like what the video says it really makes you want to talk to every NPC and devote your time into being this world which I absolutely love. I'm really trying my best to not spoil myself for the other games to come but its getting really hard to not take a peek on some super juicy story details which sucks cuz I want to experience everything the first time since Trails is super special. Kinda makes me wish this series has an anime adaptation but at the same time I'm glad it doesn't because I wouldn't want to lose on those awesome story details and quests that the games have in them to want to learn about the NPCs and the world a bit more than what a 12 episode seasonal anime would make it out to be. I guess I am super glad that I started the series now since I can just binge the arcs one by one instead of waiting for entire years on the next entry. Thanks for posting this video, it really makes me want to experience the series even more now and I hope to share it just as much as any other person has with this amazing series.
That's awesome man, hope you keep enjoying your time with the games. The Sky trilogy overall is still my favorite but you're right in saying that this series is special, because it is! The attention to detail alone is evidence enough of that, and once you get to a certain part of FC... that's when things will really pick up and open your eyes to what this series can really do :p no spoilers obviously, and I did my best to not show anything too crazy in the video itself. Trails as an anime would work well if done correctly but uh... yeah, I don't think Falcom has the budget to make that happen since it'd need to be at least 24 episodes per arc in order to condense all the main story details and have it still be enthralling. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for watching my very simple video xD If you ever want to talk more Trails feel free to reach out to myself or my YT buddy Kevin Street. He dove headfirst into the series last year and has done reviews on all the games (he's currently in the middle of Cold Steel 4 so that's how you know he's become a fanboy like me XD) and he loves interacting with fans, new and old, as well. Buckle up, because it's gonna be quite the ride!
My descend into Kiseki madness started because after showing some interest in the Trails series after watching a video from Erick Landorn, my wife had the brilliant idea to gave me as a birthday present a handmade collectors box with the first 3 Cold Steel games (CS4 wasn't out yet). I did my research and started with Sky FC. Didn't really get into it at first, but after a few months, I started again, this time with the voice patch, and went all the way to the end. The cliffhanger was what hook me into the series. I Started with Sky SC after finishing FC, and Sky the 3rd after that, but.... I didn't actually liked Kevin on SC, and having him as a main protagonist, plus the gameplay changing to a dungeon crawler... I stoped after chapter 2. I played other things for awhile, like Hollow Knight (if you haven't tried this one, really recomended). Then I continued with Sky the 3rd and got hooked to Kevin's story. After finishing it, I notice that Geofront had released their patch for Zero a while ago, so I jumped into that one inmediately. Lucky for me, Azure's patch was released when I was almost done with Zero, so, that was a no brainer. and Cold Steel followed. I played the entire Cold Steel series one after another, but after CS4 I wanted more :D So, I platyed the Gagharv trilogy after that... That wasn't enough, I wanted more... So I played the translated version of Dragon Slayer The Legend of Heroes.... Then Tokyo Xanadu followed... but... I stopped when I saw that a patch for Reverie existed. I gave it a go... and played Reverie, followed by Daybreak. I actually google translated everything from Reverie and Daybreak that wasn't translated at the time, including all NPC dialogue. After I was done with Daybreak, I decided to play Dragon Slayer Legend of Heroes II doing the same translation work. Great game :) Then I backported the fantranslation of PSP Nayuta to my steam copy of Nayuta and played that one as well. Kuro 2 was next, and after that I finished Tokyo Xanadu. And today, I'm waiting patiently for the release of Kai no Kiseki :) So, yeah, my wife made a big mistake with that little birthday gift :D
ooh they had a collectors box with CS1-3? Cool! Yeah it seems the FC cliffhanger is what drags most people into the Trails abyss, lol. Wow you even went back and played all the older LoH's games? AND you went through the trouble of translating lines yourself? Welp, I think you might have me beat there in terms of obsessed fan xD I'd like to go through Falcom's backlog of games at some point. Hope to start Ys soon. Also yeah, that was one heck of a birthday gift xD
@@Cyrus_Bright There was no collector's edition of CS1-3. She actually made the box herself. So I own a Unique item for sure :) And Yeah, I got really obsessed, but in my defense I'll say that I took my time with the games. A little over 3 years to play all of that. Sadly, now I have to wait for the next one. It's also difficult to find games that fill the void of the Trails series. I recently tried Xenosaga, and so far that one works. Also, I'm looking forward for Eiyuuden (100 heroes chronicles), the spiritual successor of Suikoden. This one I strongly recommend (and the Suikoden remasters should be out this year as well). My wife also loves RPGs, so my presents are usually kinda like that. Last year She gifted me the Ar Tonelico series, and the year before a few Atelier games as well. My backlog keeps growing. Ys is also very good. I recommend playing in order. There's not really an overall plot, bu there are a few references to previous games. So at least play the current games on steam and Ys 5, which is fan translated. The worst Ys for sure, but not as bad as everyone says. It's also very short.
Aw that's really sweet actually. She sounds like a keeper, lol. Ooh Eiyuuden Chronicles is one I've been wanting to get into. I just saw the recent trailer and it looks really good. Never played Suikoden either if you can believe that xD The backlog barrier is one that even Lloyd would struggle to overcome. Yeah I've heard the Ys games are short so that'll be good for me, was going to start from 1+2 and work my way up. Didn't know 5 had to be fan translated. I'll keep that in mind for whenever I get to it 👍
I’m still pretty new to the Trails series. Started with CS 1 and went immediately into 2 after that ending. After finishing the epilogue and seeing the characters from crossbell and hearing SC 3 is bringing back older characters I knew I had to start from the beginning. So I’m playing Trails into the Sky now. It’s gonna be a journey catching up but I’m in this for the long haul
Everyone starts somewhere, glad to have you aboard the Kiseki Express! Lol. Thanks for stopping by as well. Hope you enjoy the Sky and Crossbell arcs! They're a lot of people's favorites in the series. Also I don't know if this is something you've been doing already but the npc's in these games actually change dialogue quite frequently so it's worth checking in with them after every major story event. They add a lot of depth and worldbuilding to the games. The attention to detail is crazy. I don't really like telling people how to play their games but I just figured it'd be worth mentioning at least xD Also! I know it might be tempting to try and rush to catch up but these games aren't going anywhere. Savor the experience a bit, there isn't anything else out there quite like the Trails games.
@@Cyrus_Bright Exactly! I noticed that incredible detail early in CS1 since I tend to talk to everyone at least once. It was the first time I was honestly invested and keeping track of what the npc’s were up to. It was one of my biggest surprises with this series next to the world building. Ending a chapter felt like I was finishing an arc in One Piece with a glimpse of new details, or something unknown. Which has me trying to fill in the blanks. That level of world building will always keep me engaged. Which is great since it helps me take my time and savor the quality these games have. Also I have quite a few games I’m getting next year too so I should be able to give myself enough space between. I had my share of burnout as well
@@gamekiller64 You aren't the first person I've seen to compare this series to One Piece, and it probably won't be the last xD I really should try and get into that series at one point. All my friends are big fans too but despite appearances (lol) I'm not the biggest anime consumer. I maybe only watch 2 to 3 shows a year, depending on if a long-running series comes back or not. Like Re:Zero or MHA for instance. Glad to hear you take your time with them, and yeah next year is looking pretty stacked in terms of jrpgs alone. I don't know if I'll have the time to even check out all that I'm interested in xD I still haven't finished Like a Dragon Gaiden, and Infinite Wealth comes out next month! My body is not ready xD
The Trails series for me was really a happy accident, I'd seen Cold Steel 1 multiple times on Steam sales and thought I'd get to it one day. It wasn't until the pandemic and finishing Ys 8 where I finally decided to bite the bullet and get started (had no knowledge of the series outside of Falcom making it, just thought the fantasy steampunk looked cool). It got me good I spent 100 hours on the dot beating CS1 and loved the school life mechanics, the npcs having new dialogue and acting like actual characters, and the story. I then start doing some digging online to see if other people played the game and found out about the whole continuity between games. I told myself I'd get into Cold Steel 2 and if it really started making references I didn't get, I'd go back and start from the beginning. Safe to say I finished CS2 not understanding any of the Azure references and went back to start at Sky 1. I beat all of the games back to back, including the Geofront patched versions of Zero and Azure, which took me into 2021 (finishing the year with Azure was such a great experience). Trails has enriched my life with its world and stories and turned me into a massive Falcom fan (I went down the Ys rabbit hole shortly after and have completed every game but Ys 7). I love the fact that each year more and more people discover these series and hope that 2024 brings even more with Ys X and Daybreak. Great video btw love the use of the Sky portraits I also think they have a timeless charm!
Agreed! It seems like slowly but surely (not _that_ Shirley, lol) the series is gaining more popularity in the west. Which is great. Maybe that'll eventually incentivize Falcom to hand over the scripts to Nisa earlier so we can get simultaneous worldwide releases. I actually plan on starting the Ys games properly fairly soon, so I look forward to that. As well as eventually checking out Falcom's older titles too. Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it ^^ I love doing all kinds of edits with these characters (just check out my community tab, lol) The character portraits from the Sky trilogy are still my favorite. They just ooze personality and charm. Like with Estelle and Kevin for examples xD I wish Falcom kept using them for future titles (they had some moments in Nayuta which was cool to see) but I do like what they've done with the 3D models. They killed it in Daybreak imo.
Everyone plays at their own pace ^^ I just happened to have a lot of free time back then, lmao. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series when you get to 'em. I liked CS2 a lot more than CS1. Especially a certain section towards the end :D
I had heard good things about the worldbuilding of Falcom games from back in maybe 2015 or 2016 and since had them on my "games to try" list. But I was a bit hesitant to jump straight into a series with so many games, so I decided to start with a one off when Tokyo Xanadu eX+ was on sale around the end of 2019. I didn't play too much in the beginning and had like 2 week breaks between sessions. But after Xmas was when I seriously started to power through the game, because the episodic anime like story finally captured me. By the end of February 2020 I had finally made it to the ending, through the extra chapter for the true ending and the DLC chapter that followed the true ending. Let's just say I got a lot of game for the €6,99 I paid and from this point put all of the Trails games on my wishlist. I didn't really get to them until August 2021 when I started with Cold Steel 1 and made it through that game and CS2 by the end of the year. I made a smallbreak and played something else(I think it was Ni No Kuni 2) and after that I went back to play the Sky games. I took several small breaks to play other things between them. Then, while I was playing Sky SC, Zero officially relased in the West, but I didn't catch up to that before Azure followed, so I bought both Crossbell games at the same day, played them back to back and right after I went to Cold Steel 3 and 4, which I finished right before Christmas Eve and that was pretty much my whole year. I could start right into Reverie, but I think I'll take another long due break and play some other things. While the world of Zemuria has some of the best characters I've ever seen in an RPG, talking to all of them after every story beat can become a little bit tiring over time.
Understandable, these games can be quite long (especially Cold Steel 4) so taking a break sounds good to me! Hope you enjoy whatever you decide to play, and that you'll thoroughly enjoy Reverie when you decide to go back to it. Plenty of time until Daybreak comes out ^^
Well in my case, my breaks from the games could reach even to 8 months I remember back in the days when lets plays were still popular on youtube I was just looking for a good JRPG to play. For a long time I wasnt able to find anything that peaks my interest since I didnt want to waste time, this sounds really stupid right now but at the time I didnt want to play a game 1 time, experience the story and then put it back and never return to it, I wanted something that would constantly come back to me or at least last for a long time. I was just looking at JRPG lets plays on youtube and found a channel called something like GachiGamerCalli and she was playing Cold Steel 1, I watched like an hour of her playing and decided that its good enough since it will keep me company for 100h. Thats how I started with Cold Steel 1, absolutely loved it, didnt expect Valimar at the end of that game, jumped to CS2 4 months after finishing the CS1, I was finishing that game on Christmas and remember that the last chapter was so tense I was just playing the whole night until the end credits, didnt sleep at all that night. After finishing CS2 I wanted to jump right into the 3rd part but CS3 was not officially out at that time so I was like “ok, I can wait I guess” and started looking into other Kiseki games and the Ys games since you know same company. I played Sky Chapter 1 and 2 since it was chronological beginning, still didnt started 3rd and after that I returned to CS 3 and 4. The entire time I was spoiler free, didnt know anything about the plots of games I didnt play but since I learned about existence of Crossbell and its location on the map, I hated that place. An autonomous town state that is localized in the only place that allows transport by land between Empire and Republic and its only autonomous because its a disputed territory between those 2 superpowers so they allowed it to avoid open war. In my mind Crossbell was just this one town sitting in a magical trading spot growing fat and pretentious on money, the Empire and Republic had to pay them each time they wanted to engage in trade or any business. Absolutely a place where crime families and debauchery could grow rampart. I was also very pro-Erebonia since I started with Class VII. Now I am gearing up to start Crossbell games and see what story those Crosbell scums have to offer.
That's definitely quite the perspective on Crossbell, but you're not entirely wrong. Crossbell is one of my favorite locations in fiction so I'm excited to eventually hear your thoughts on Zero and Azure after you finish them (even if it's 8 months from now :p) Since I started with Liberl I was pro Calvard and Anti Erebonia until the Cold Steel games. Really interesting to see how peoples perspectives on each country change depending on their starting point. I'm the same with breaks sometimes, except that void is usually filled with mindless survival games like The Long Dark or Project Zomboid. Thank you for sharing your thoughts ^^
it definitely had a -genshin- impact on my wallet, zing! Oof that one hurt to type, lol. It is crazy to think about that just a few years ago I had no idea this series existed and then bam, it quickly became one of my favorite series. Makes me wonder what other gems are out there that I've yet to experience.
Nice to see someone else who loves Sky 3rd & Kevin as much as me! Been a long time fan here, I found Sky FC pretty much at release on steam and waiting 18 months for Sky SC was easily the most painful wait for a game I've had in my life! If you haven't already & looking for something to play, give The legend of Nayuta a try - some tenuous links to the trails series & tons of that Falcom charm, just finished it & thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sky the 3rd was such a beautiful ending to a magnificent trilogy. It's my favorite of the three, all the extra bits of characterization with the doors and those farewell sequences still makes me emotional to this day. Lol. Oof yeah I imagine that wait was fairly brutal. Especially with the cliffhanger ending. At least you didn't have to wait multiple years like the psp folks did 😅 I have so much going on right now that waiting a bit to jump into Kuro 2 isn't as painful as one might think. But if I had started around the same time as you I think I may have gone slightly crazy xD I actually did a review on Nayuta not too long ago! I'd link it but I know YT gets iffy with links sometimes so feel free to check it out if you want to. It was my favorite video to work on, even though I know it's not perfect and could have been improved a lot more. But yes, I could feel the old-school Falcom charm, and the ost still kicks ass. I listen to it fairly frequently and try to find any excuse to use some of it as bgm when I can :p also the potential connections to the mainline series was a lot of fun to think about and I had a few truly "out there" theories. Lol.
Oh hey, didn't expect to see you here xD thank you though, that's the kind of feeling I hope to create. Just a guy blathering on about things he enjoys while also trying to make them somewhat entertaining xD
I totally had no idea about the Trails series before. Then one day, years ago, I saw this nice looking box of the Lionheart Edition of Cold Steel 1 for the PS Vita lying on the shelf for quite some time in my local video game store. So, I decided to buy it with my meager allowance and I fell in the Trails rabbit hole since then. Now, I have Trails Through Daybreak preordered and there are also a lot of great video games coming this next year. I'm worried about my wallet's condition for 2024.
Seems like you were fated to be a fan of this series, that copy of CS1 was waiting for the moment you would pick it up off the shelf xD it was an allowance well spent... maybe not for your future finances but hey, sometimes we all have to make sacrifices. Lmao. Daybreak was awesome. Can't wait to see everyone's opinions once they're finally gotten their hands on it. You and me both, my wallet is already shuddering with anticipation. Even in just the jrpg category alone is a ton of potential bangers. Infinite Wealth, Re:Fantazio, Eiyuden Chronicles, Suikoden Remaster, Decapolice, Unicorn Overlord, Daybreak, and many more! Can we ask the developers to slow down a little so we can catch up!? Lol.
To make a long story relatively short, my brother played through Sky FC when it first came out on the PSP in 2011. He tried to get me into the game, but I wasn't into RPGs at the time. I did have a second hand experience of him waiting for Sky SC, telling me all about the updates and delays until it finally came out in 2015. A few months later, he also got Cold Steel. I wanted to play something on my Vita (my favorite handheld), and despite a mixed first impressions, I stuck through until the explosive ending. Needless to say, I was hooked. Got my copy of Cold Steel 2 at release, and the rest was history. Went back and played through the Sky trilogy and Crossbell duology before the western release of Cold Steel 3 and 4, and now it has become one of my favorite series ever. And, yes, I've played Kuro 1 and 2 (The Reverie tie-in was too strong).
Ay, you're the second person who's brother inadvertently got them into Trails. Nice! I couldn't imagine playing FC, getting to that cliffhanger, and then waiting 4 years for the sequel. That must have been torture. Same! After I saw the three... er... "special scenes" I immediately had to go and play Daybreak. Actually... I think the screenshot I showed has me starting Daybreak literally the day after I finished Reverie XD
Since we are sharing, I was similar to most gamers as I used to buy a ton of games but play very few as I kept burning out since the choice was too much. I actually had stopped playing games for a year or two in the PS4 era. When I decided to return to gaming, I completely changed how I game. I started putting together specific lists to track games I was interested in while only playing 1 game at a time, to completion (unless I hated it). As a huge JRPG fan, I started watching several best of videos to search out things I might have missed. I came across Cold Steel 4 as it was set to be released soon, when I started this. It just so happened a friend was playing the first CS so I checked with him. After talking and a ton of research, I decided to give CS1 a shot, and absolutely feel in love with it. I was sure I would burn out as it was my third calender based game in a row after Persona 5 and Three Houses. But man, it just grabbed me and didn’t let go. I instantly picked up 2 and 3 as a completed them back to back going right into 4. Just recently picked up a Steam Deck so have gone back to Sky and Crossbell with the western releases. Am currently finishing up Reverie. Greatest series ever.
I need to keep reminding myself of the massive backlog I have before I even consider buying a new game... I'll let you know when that works xD I think the calendar system in the CS games feels differently to Persona and Three Houses that's why you didn't necessarily feel burnt out with it. They're more gameplay systems in the latter two while in CS it's mainly there for aesthetics. Hope you enjoy the post-game of Reverie! You might not be able to resist the siren call of Daybreak once you finish xD Greatest series for sure, haven't found anything that's hit me quite as hard as Trails has. But hey, you never know what the future holds right?
Seeing people get into this series just makes my heart so happy. It's so interesting to see how everyone starts with it! My history with the series is surprisingly long, despite not having played the games until 2019. I first heard of the series when I watched an old friend of mine streaming Sky FC. It sort of reminded me of some PS1 RPGs I remembered back then, namely Grandia, and I found its style super charming! The battle system looked interesting, and Estelle and Joshua seemed like fun protagonists, but after that stream, it was pretty much radio silence for me for years. Years later, when I was burned out on other RPGs I'd been playing at the time, I asked a co-worker of mine for some RPG recommendations that weren't Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, or SMT/Persona, since those were the big three/four that I'd been into at the time. He gave me a massive list of games, and one of those games happened to be Cold Steel 1. I recognized the Trails name from that stream I'd seen years before, and decided to pick up a special edition copy of CS1 since it was on sale at the time. I was pretty into it at the time, though I hadn't learned the intricacies of the series yet, like just how detailed NPC dialogue can be, and I didn't learn the magic of empty chest messages yet. (Which, of course, aren't in Cold Steel, sadly, but still.) Like you, I was used to NPC dialogue being sort of bland or not having much of a point to it, so I skipped out on talking to a lot of NPCs, or I'd talk to them once and never again, not realizing that their dialogue changes as the game progresses. (That blew my freaking mind when I first found that out and made me admire both the game's writers and localizers so much for putting that much attention into the game's dialogue.) I don't remember when it happened, but some time after playing CS1 for a while (I think I'd gotten to chapter 2), I decided to go back and try the Sky arc. I knew the stories were interconnected after some very, very brief research, and I didn't know it was on Steam at the time, so I just emulated the PSP version. I fell absolutely in love with Sky. There was something about its presentation that made me enjoy it so much; maybe it was the character portraits, or the charming sprites, or maybe even Liberl as a whole, but I loved the game so much. Then once I realized that all three Sky games were available on Steam, I bought all three of them officially as soon as I could and absolutely marathoned them and Cold Steel at the same time. The Crossbell games weren't out at the time, and I didn't really know how to figure out getting the Geofront translations to work. By the time I'd thought to do so, they announced their partnership with NISA, so I decided I'd just keep playing the games I currently have in the series and I'd eventually go back for that extra context. As of now, I've played every game except for Azure and Cold Steel 4. (And Reverie, of course, but I don't count that yet since I haven't even purchased it yet.) I got 50 hours into CS4 before I was able to afford Azure, and the moment I was able to, I stopped CS4 immediately and promised myself I wouldn't pick it back up until I've beaten Azure. These games changed how I play RPGs in a good way. Now I talk to all the NPCs in all games I play, and a lot of NPC dialogue is a lot better than I gave the games credit for! Unfortunately, when I was SUPER into the series around 2020-2022, I was incredibly annoying about it to my friends and significant other, just constantly telling them how great the series is and how much I know they'd love it, to the point where I'm sure I sort of scared some of them away from the series. Thankfully, I've toned things down a ton since then, but every so often, if it comes up in conversation, I'll just give a passing recommendation and hope they'll try these games someday. But if not, it's also no problem. I know these games aren't for everyone. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that these games are incredible, and I still love them very much.
Indeed, very interesting. Have gotten to see many of them just in the comment section, lol. Starting at the Sky anime though... I think that one takes the cake for craziest entry point that I didn't even consider. I've heard the Grandia comparison come up here and there. I love the 90's aesthetic of the Sky trilogy. Especially the portraits. They were (and still are) my favorite out of the entire series. Seriously, only Trails can make me excited to do the rounds after each main story beat. Appreciating the moments of downtime let's the more heavy-handed moments stick with you a lot longer. I remember going through TheTwitGamers FC LP and being blown away at all the dialogue I had missed. Which just led me to appreciating the series (and FC) even more. Reverie will be worth the wait, I enjoyed my time with it a lot. It feels a lot like Sky the 3rd (which is my favorite Sky game) and the resolution for certain characters arcs was excellent. The set up for Daybreak was so good I had to see what happened next asap xD I used to be like that too, you get so passionate about a series and you want everyone you meet to give it a chance but that ends up doing more harm in certain instances. I've toned it down significantly as well, but here? This is my domain so I can do whatever I want XD Thank you for the comment, it was an enjoyable read ^^
I wish my origin story for playing Trails was as interesting. I had a PS Vita and wanted to justify still using it after beating Persona 4 Golden. I started playing the Sky games after beating the Cold Steel arc when I realized I could download the PSP versions onto my Vita
Hey nothing wrong with a simple origin story! I just wish Sky 3rd was available on PSP/Vita too. Hoping for an eventual rerelease of the trilogy on modern consoles so more people can give them a proper try.
@@Cyrus_Bright learning to play trails the third using a mouse on steam was a vibe lol, but as soon as I connected my PlayStation controller to the steam game it became world's easier
I was fairly used to playing PC games at that point so adjusting to M+KB wasn't too difficult for me. But yeah, games like those are much easier to use a controller with since it's usually just a few buttons you have to press xD
my journey started at almost the perfect time for series, was looking for turn based game and picked up cold steel 1 finished it and ordered cold steel 2 got to the loyd bannings bit and stopped because Zero was just announced, so did not finish CS2 then and instead brought trails in the sky FC/SCand 3rd finished all those and zero came out finished that waited 6 months and finished Azure and then finished CS2/3/4 all this in one year! and then straight in to reverie! now waithing for Daybreak!
I got into Trails because the mid 2000's to the mid 2010's were a Turn-Based RPG DESERT. There were almost none of them released that didn't look like SNES games, and most of them were on handheld. I randomly saw a trailer for the first Trails of Cold Steel game when it had been announced for localization, and I was like, "WOW! It's Turn-Based, and 3D, and looks to have a respectable budget!? It's been 10 or more years since I've seen something like that. I'll have to try it!" I looked into it, and figured out what the whole series was. I didn't want to play through it all, as I just wanted to hurry up and get to Cold Steel, so I watched story summaries of the first 5 games on RUclips. I then played all 4 Cold Steel games over the next few years, as they were released, and I was completely hooked. Since we ended up waiting for Reverie for so long, I decided to go back and play every single game in the series, even the 5 games that came before the Trails series began (Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes 1 & 2 (the second wasn't even officially translated, and I had to use real-time machine-translation to play it), and the 3 Gagharv games). Now I've played all of them before Cold Steel, and am replaying the whole Cold Steel series while I wait for even more games to be released.
ooh story summaries? Interesting. I always wondered how that would impact someone's enjoyment of the series. Awesome that you eventually went back and played through them though. Whoa you played the older LoH's games too? I need to revoke my Falcom Fanclub card xD
@@Cyrus_Bright The summaries were good enough. I just missed out on some of the side quests and random NPC dialogue. Although, maybe "summary" isn't the right term. I basically watched the entire stories, but with the gameplay removed. No battles or anything. Just straight from scene to scene.
oh interesting, so basically a story only Let's Play? That's cool. So you didn't really miss out on too much then. That's actually a lot better than your typical summary video, lol.
My journey technically started 3 years ago when my best friend was playing one of the cold steel games and I wanted to give it a try. Prolly CS1 or 2 got bored and didn't like dating sims. A year ago I tries trails zero and was fun but felt dialogue heavy and forgot about it after 1 hours. Then the real start was actually this past January. I kept re watching the trailer for daybreak and was like I really need to play this game. My friend was like u gotta start at the beginning I was like nah. And then I was like fuck it I'll play reverie. After 5 minutes of being utterly confused tossed into a story i did not understand and a combat system so complicated I realized i made a mistake. Then I stopped being a degenerate. I started Sky FC and played the optimal order and currently at CS3 now. Reverie will be mine in a month or less and it will be a much different experience with the intro lmao.
Quite the interesting origin story, lol. But hey at least you finally went back and played them in order! I can't imagine starting at Reverie, they explain literally nothing 😅
@@Cyrus_Bright ya I only did the intro cutscene and one battle. Spoiled a bit for myself but I'm glad I went back and did things the right way. I'm glad I gave the series a chance cause this honestly became ng favorite game series and like u said hard to play other jrpgs after this I can't do mediocre gaming anymore lol
I started with Sky FC because of Killscottkill video .. rip 😢 I got completely hook and binge all the games back to back till the end of western release ( was CS3 at the time) It wasn't enough, so I imported Hajimari, then kuro 1 and Kuro 2 , I 'm at that point where I can't even wait for fans patch. I can't wait for Kai (Kuro3) 😁 Such a fantastic series !! and Ys too ! That series doesn't seems to burn me out , I get hit by nostalgia every once and a while since then and replay all the games over 😅 You notice new nuances and hidden stuff when you go back that you couldn't notice before. The foreshadowing in these games are completely insane , nothing is irrelevant, everything had a meaning.
I've seen his name pop up a few times before. Seems like he was a fairly prominent figure in the Falcom community. Rip. Ha, I feel that. Sometimes I wish I knew Japanese so I didn't have to wait for localizations. Still need to play Kuro 2 though so I have a small buffer before I truly hit the list of fans who are all caught up with the games. Can't wait to explore Ys too, I'm sure that'll be a fun time. I actually want to replay them again too, there's so many npc interactions and small bits of info that I've just forgotten. Going on one big refresher journey is something I'd love to do eventually. Yup everything in this series has a purpose, even things that seem extremely insignificant will be important later on. Lol.
I played about 20hrs of cold steel 3 on switch as my first game. I was sold on the series... but the more i played, the more i realized i was missing a lot. Put the game down when i found out i was missing 7 games of context😅 but promised myself id play from the beginning when both crossbell games were on switch. Once i had all the physicals on the shelf i started with sky FC on steam a few months ago. Ive binged them all up to cold steel 1 now on ps4 and if im really lucky, ill be finishing reverie as the new calvard game comes out.
take your time my friend and don't be afraid of taking a break if you feel you need to ^^ The CS games just get better and better after 1 so you're in for a good time. Daybreak will be awesome, excited to see everyone meet and get to know Van. He's such a cool protag, lol.
I won’t watch this right now, as I’m only about halfway through Sky SC, but I’ve started from the beginning after finishing Xenogears/Saga, and I’ll try to come back to watch this in however many years it’ll take me to catch up to Trails! Congrats on the subs, but I’m too afraid of spoilers to stay longer! 😅
Haha, good luck! Thank you for the comment at least :p I did keep it very spoiler free if you just wanted to listen though. As far as imagery goes I used mainly OP's from the games and footage from Sky FC. I essentially just went over the timeline of events and this video is nothing more than me basically being a fanboy for Trails xD but hey I appreciate you stopping by regardless and hope you enjoy your own journey. Maybe I'll see ya in one of my FC Evo videos? :p
Now is a good time to jump into Kuro 2 btw i just wrapped it up myself, the story and all side quests are translated its just the NPC's left, they did translate the ones in the prologue and ACT 1 but the rest are still MTL which is still good tbh its just got a few grammar mistakes but i managed to get the general idea of what they're talking about. Curious to hear what you think about it as its hands the down the most divise game in the series so far.
oh trust me, I've seen the posts on Reddit. Lol. Which just makes me even more curious to jump into it to see how I'd rank it. Good to know the translation is pretty good. As long as I can get the gist of things that works for me. Don't know when I'll officially start it, but definitely sometime January or February. Preferably sooner, lmao.
I must say I played some JRPG's before the Trails series (mainly Final Fantasy, and yes 13 too). I noticed a JRPG on Steam for cheap, called "Trails Of Cold Steel", and I bought it just for fun. I was only a half hour or so in when I noticed in the comments the game was a part of a series. I got curious and did some reading, and decided to drop Cold Steel for now and dive into Trails In The Sky. From that my story with the Trails series was comparable to Cyrus Bright. Only I had some bigger gaps, because Trails of Cold Steel II was not released in English translation yet, so I had to wait for every next game. This could have been unbearable, but I found other JRPG's that where perfect to fill those gaps. Of course there where the games from the Falcom "stable", like the Ys series (Ys VIII - Lacrimosa Of Dana is still my favorite) and Tokyo Xanadu eX+. But I also was very pulled in by a much "fluffier" JRPG series, namely the Atelier series from GUST. That are a LOT of games that where perfect to fill the gaps, and lighthearted enough to unwind if I had a hard day. I also like both Blue Reflection games from the same developer. After that I was hooked on the JRPG genre and played a lot of them, even obscure ones like the both Caligula Effect games, Crystar, Dusk Diver 1 + 2, both Conception games, Omega Quintet, both Nights Of Azure games, and so on, and so on...
FF 13 too? or FF 13-2? 😏lol I'm glad you at least decided to stop playing CS1 and check the series out from the beginning. I don't think most people would have done that. Oof, yeah waiting for the games can be rough. I fortunately had access to all the games up to Daybreak (and technically Kuro 2 if I so choose) so really, I'll only be a part of the waiting crowd once I finish Kuro 2. I'm not excited for that, luckily (?) I haven't really had much time to game recently so something like a 20-hour game is taking me 2-3weeks to get through. I wish that wasn't the case but... personal responsibilities ya know? Can't wait to dive into the Ys series, only played Memories of Celceta and VIII but I LOVED VIII. The Atelier series is another one I'd like to try one of these days. I've heard the name Blue Reflection, but I haven't looked anything up on it. Caligula Effect 1 was pretty good but the combat kinda got stale to me after a while. Crystar was a fun time though. I'm not a huge fan of Compile Heart games but I played Omega Quintet through a friend, and I actually really liked it. Never got the true ending though before I had to give it back, lol. I own Conception 2 on 3DS but well, backlogs and all that. So many jrpg's left to play, both old and new. It's a good problem to have imo :p
@@Cyrus_Bright Yeah - The "waiting game" can be a real bitch for sure. The only fan translations I did with the Trails games are those two Geofront translations. The other fan translations often let out the NPC's, so I rather wait for the "official" translations to have the full experience.. If you want to dive into the Atelier series, there are two nice entry points. First is Atelier Sophie and Sophie 2, followed by Atelier Firis and Atelier Lydie & Suelle (these games are known as the "Mysterious series"). The reason to start here is that the older games have a rather tight time management system. Not really bad, but it can be overwhelming as a starting point. The second entry point are the Atelier Ryza games (there are three of them, known as the "Secret series"). These last games are not turn-based, but far more real time. The Blue Reflection games are a bit odd to be honest. The first game has some weird in-game animations. Not bad in general, but a bit weird at times. The general tone of the game is slightly depressing, but with a pointer to hope in the future (the reason will be clear at the very first parts of the game). The second game Blue Reflection: Second Light is way better than the fist game, but because it's a sequel playing the first game is advised. Oh - And Caligula 2 is better than the first game. Anyway - Sorry for this long text, but I will stop now (otherwise I would go on with the Dusk Diver games and Nights of Azure).
@@jclosed2516 Ha, its fine! As someone who also tends to write long comments (I've gone over the character limit on YT a few times now 😅) I actually appreciate seeing it from the other side, so to speak. Thank you for giving me those details. I think I picked up Lydie & Suelle randomly for Switch a long time ago when I wanted to give the series a shot (and never got around to it) the Ryza games do interest me the most but I also love playing older games, seeing how things started and their progression to what they become later. Good to know about Caligula Effect 2 as well. I wanted to check it out eventually. Yeah I did some light reading of the Blue Reflection wiki after reading your comment and it definitely seemed like an interesting game, the same devs make Nights of Azure right? I swear I saw that name pop up in the wiki too xD
I've been in this rabbit hole for a long time, so long it feels like a time loop as I go through my second romp through all of Zemuria but cranking things to nightmare after FC to see how jank the games can get. There's just something magical about this series that honestly makes me miss Trails when I play a different Jrpg. Recently I had to think about why I'm having more fun with CS3 than playing Persona 5 despite the latter generally being touted as the superior game. I think for all the issues with Trails pacing, I kinda like that there's a sort of instinct with these games where you know when it's wind back and relax story time and when things go crazy. I know structure is boring and all but I find myself enjoying Trail's structure more than other turn based systems. As for personally, the Sky games got me out of a slump I had during a difficult time in my life. Hell, replaying it again got me into playing the harmonica like Joshua. I can't say I'm anywhere as good as the man but it is one of those nice little things I think. I got into Sky after Recettear and tbh, I was a bit bored like you were until the finale where everything goes cliffdives. Though during that time was the painful wait that was SC. Frankly, I'm glad SC's localization went through despite how awfully messy it was, I'm not entirely sure if we'd have every other Trails today if that one flopped. After SC, I went on a binge straight to CS4. There was a bit of a burnout after but the variety gaming eventually lead me back to just straight up redoing Trails but nightmare lol. It's been a wild ride witnessing Trails history from the live or die localization of SC, going through the early fan translations of Zero/Azure and then doing it two more times for both the Geofront translation and the NIS version. I'm happy we're at a point where as niche as it perhaps still is, Trails is doing pretty healthily.
I feel that, you get used to the formula of the Trails games so you enjoy the downtime moments because you know things will ramp up down the line. It's that sense of familiarity. I get that same feeling too when I begin a new Trails game and I see all the familiar arts and other gameplay mechanics. That's really cool that it got you into playing the harmonica! I've read about the nightmare of SC's localization, it really did seem like things could have easily ended there. But I'm glad that the games have come such a long way that we now don't have to question if we'll keep getting these games localized. We're almost caught up with the Japanese releases and every game is finally available in English in some way officially. Mainline at least, I don't count Akatsuki xD
I enjoyed hearing your story. It's crazy to me that you dropped Sky FC for months before picking it back up again. I think I played FC for 8 hours straight when I first started it. lol So you already know my story, but I'll give you a quick little recap. My friend recommended Cold Steel to me back in I want to say 2020 or 2021. I bought it and it just sat in my backlog for years. I constantly heard other people bring up the Trails series, including Erick Landon. Funny how you mentioned him in your video as well as another commenter. Eventually I learned more about the series and how it would be more wise to start with Trails in the Sky FC. I bought all three Sky games on GOG when they were on sale and they sat there for around a year. I finally decided to play the Trails games this past April with Sky FC, SC, and the 3rd back to back. After that I took a little break and played Yakuza: Like A Dragon in between them. Then I played Zero and Azure back to back. Then I played Nayuta which was a fun little in between game. Then I went crazy (you know haha) trying to decide which game to play because I didn't want to get burned out. Then I just decided to play Cold Steel 1 and 2 back to back and now I am getting ready for 3 later this weekend. Yes, I am obsessed too. :D
Thanks for listening! I know right? I just didn't vibe with it for whatever reason the first time. Glad I gave it a second chance. Wasn't Nuke the one who recommended them to you? I vaguely remember you saying something like that at one point. So many backlog games, so little time. Now Trails takes up all your free time and you gladly give it xD Ah man, I still remember my time with Like A Dragon too. What an awesome game. Nayuta was a fun little side journey too. Soon you'll be ready for CS3 and all that game has to offer. Excited to check out your Divertissement video later today. I don't think past Kevin's body was quite ready for that section! Lol.
I too enjoyed Sky FC from the start. I thought the game was very charming and it reminded me a lot of the snes/ps1 era jrpgs, but improved in some aspects, such as worldbuilding and npcs. By the end of the prologue I was intrigued and the ending made me love the game. I always hear from most fans that they didn't like their first trails experience at first, but ended up giving them a 2nd chance and loving it. This makes me imagine how many people quit these games and never gave them a second chance. Maybe it's one of the reasons the series is so niche.
That's awesome to hear, glad you've been enjoying this series ^^ if you're a fan of jrpg's it deserves to be experienced imo. The ride has been truly unforgettable. It really does seem like the more games you get under your belt the more your appreciation of them rises.
I started with Sky some time ago, very very long time ago, but i played it and droped because i was bored. Then like 5 years past, and i saw ToCS 1 and asked my friends what about it, it's a trails game, does it have the connection with that old Sky game? He said yes and told me about it. And i played it, all of it (almost, i play CS4 now). And my friend who got me into trails is dead... Shit, i used to send him screenshots of funny moments when i played trails games, or the moments i've got confused with and now i can't. But i play the series because i like it and because he would've wanted me to play.
That's a very bittersweet story, thank you very much for sharing it. Were you the one that made that Reddit post asking for Trails songs to play as a tribute to their friend? The ending to CS4 is very emotional, I also feel like "Even if that Warmth is Small" is the perfect song that encapsulates all of Cold Steel ( I also think it's Reans theme in general) Losing someone close to you is always rough, hopefully you can keep remembering him fondly through Trails.
@@Cyrus_Bright i don't use reddit, so it wasn't me, but thank you anyway. My friend was a jrpg geek, not only trails, i played Xenblade after his advise, some FF games, Persona, Chronotrigger, Xenosaga (i know that blade and saga have same creators, but games are different) and so on.
@@ivansolodyankin6820 Ah okay, you're welcome. That's great that he introduced you to some good games though. Xenoblade is another favorite of mind, alongside Trails and the Yakuza series.
@@Cyrus_Bright yeah, i want to get into Yakuza, but don't have time yet. In my understanding, it's the same as Trails, should be played from the first game, since it has a plot that spans all over the game series.(and maybe Kiwami before the first game, since it's a prequel) But i have to beat CS4 and Hajimari before i'll play Yakuza.
@@ivansolodyankin6820 the Yakuza is connected but not to the same level as Trails, some plot points carry over but the stories themselves are fairly self contained. That being said it is worth it to see Kiryus journey and all the wacky scenarios he finds himself in. Some people say to start with Kiwami 1 since it's technically the first game but I think Zero is a better starting point because it expands upon certain things that make the first game hit harder. Luckily unlike Trails, all the games are easily accessible and are frequently on huge discounts too. Take your time and enjoy Trails though (and anything else you might want to check out in the interim)
I also played all the games from Trails in the Sky FC to Trails of Cold Steel 3 pretty much in a row a couple years back lol. The Sky trilogy is still my favorite arc in the series so far. But I haven't played the Calvard games yet
Haha, sometimes you just can't stop 🤣 I feel like I flip flop between Sky and Crossbell as my favorite, but I do really like the CS arc too. Look forward to Daybreak! Van is an awesome protag and the game has a more mature atmosphere than the CS games.
@@Cyrus_Bright Nice, I'm looking forward to it. I really like the Crossbell games too. I have mixed feelings about Cold Steel. I still enjoyed them, just not as much as the others 😅
@@saiga1545 a lot of people share that sentiment so don't be ashamed of it xD CS is my least favorite, but I still immensely enjoyed my time with it. CS3 and 4 in particular. Reverie just felt like the perfect cherry on top. I've seen people who adore the CS arc but found the Sky arc to be not as interesting. Heck I'm sure there will be people that place the Calvard arc as their favorite. Seen plenty of people say the Calvard arc has the worst ost in the series and while I'll agree that the quality isn't quite the same as opposed to say the Sky or Crossbell arc, the more jazz/blues feeling was something I really vibed with personally, but I understand someone who says they didn't much care for it. It's a different feel overall, and I probably appreciate variety more than the average person anyway. People are already saying Van is their favorite protag so that wouldn't shock me. As long as people are civil about their opinions, I enjoy seeing what other people do/don't like since everyone's values and standards are so vastly different and it can help me see things from a different perspective. I would probably be categorized as a fanboy by a more casual fan but that doesn't really bother me xD
We do kinda speak in a similar manner, although I do think I'm a bit more... animated? I haven't watched much of his stuff so I can't say if that's true definitively xD
My story isn't too wild, my friend mentioned Sky FC was really good and then i binged the sky arc and the first half of the cold steel arc before i had to take a break due to cold steel 3 not Being out and being unable to play Crossbell until the NISA version came out.... although I've bought all the games multiple times to drag friends down this rabbit hole
Nothing wrong with a simple origin story my friend, you're doing Aidios' work by attempting to drag your friends down the rabbit hole too xD I've tried as well but they aren't big jrpg fans. I had to at least try, ya know? This could be the game that they like out of all the others, and if not then I only lose $10 which I'll gladly give away if it gets someone to try Trails out. Lol.
I pretty much just downloaded an FC rom on a whim one day after hearing a bit about Cold Steel and then immediatelly bought SC on steam afterwards, the rest just snowballed from there as i marathoned to Cold steel 4.
ooh a rom? That must have been an interesting experience! Snowballed is a great way to put it, and then we slowly found ourselves unleashing an avalanche of money on Falcom with every new Trails game they released xD
Ah, another victim of Sky and now falcom is holding your wallet hostage. I understand completely. I watched TKNs videos back then and he got me into trails. Yes, I spoiled myself on huge parts of the plot. I still loved playing through all of the sky games. Except the fishing minigame. Screw fishing in Sky. I played the geofront translations for Zero and Azure, then started Cold Steel on new years eve. Got bored midgame, played something else, then finished both CS 1&2 close together. Recently finished my replay of Zero. Currently playing the Xenoblade 3 DLC and my old Pokemon sword DLC I never finished. I preordered daybreak, even though I still have 3 games to go and Azure for my replay. My main problem is always wanting to press the turbo button in other games that do not have turbo mode. I am also thinking of getting myself into the type moon visual novels. Because Tsukihime seems like a really cool story. And the protag has this really cool power. I also want to play more Ys games. Ys 4 was fun but I also hate final dungeons now. The combat was great though. I am excited to play more Trails and falcom is still holding my wallet hostage, so i will buy the games anyway. And a new one was also announced already. i saw it all over reddit today. Although the reddit for falcom kinda sucks, since it's mainly just waifu wars and people asking where to start, since nobody can use google these days anymore. I myself am having a lot of fun and hope people stop complaining about the release schedule, since we are only 2 games behind now. Almost 3 but that game isn't out yet. I am excited for Tsukihime though. It's supposed to be really messed up, but I think I will play one route and then just call it a day. I want to play the other story too. Hope it gets on sale sometime. Games are ruining my finances and I hate it, but I am unable to stop. I really want to play all of those games I buy, but i have so little time and then something new comes out and I just have to buy it! The curse never ends! And I also never finished Fairy fencer! I really want to finish that game! Why do I always buy more? My poor wallet! Btw, is that rune factory frontier on your shelf? very good taste. I still need to play it.
My poor wallet, now I'm buying figures and multiple copies of their games. Lol. Honestly I feel like all jrpgs should have some kind of turbo mode, it's the only reason I stuck with FF12 for instance. Interesting story though, you've definitely had quite the unique experience compared to me xD Hopefully I can start playing the Ys games soon. Rune Factory? I don't think so, I've never played one of those before ^^; thank you for sharing your story :D
My story is I tried playing Trails in the Sky 1.... felt it was a bit dated but still a good JRPG... wait a few years, learn about the Cold Steel saga and how it actually feels like a Modern/Urban-fantasy JRPG (because lets face it.... Sky didn't really start feeling like such even if it 100% was), play through the entirety of Cold Steel about a year after each game releases, now on Reverie but Ill likely finish it some time after Daybreak's english release
Well Zemuria is still in the early stages of the orbal revolution at the start of the Sky games, and Liberl is definitely more of a peaceful countryside than a bustling metropolis like Crossbell, Heimdallr, or Edith. I'd say the Sky games definitely felt like a mix of a bunch of different genres (at least FC and SC) which they nail imo. You only mentioned FC, did you play SC or the 3rd? Plenty of events and npc's mentioning the progression of technology and such, especially in Zeiss and once Ouroboros start performing their little experiments and using their archaisms, etc. Reverie does a great job of setting up Daybreak so depending on how hook'd you get it might be hard to resist playing the fan translation. Either way Daybreak is awesome, I hope all the fans both new and old enjoy it.
@@lanteanboy huh? They're not in their own timeline. They're literally the foundation for the entire rest of the series with some of the most important lore and worldbuilding that's still relevant to this day. Especially in the Calvard arc xD
@@Cyrus_Bright what I meant is story arcs. I know that every Trails game is connected (except maybe Nayuta, but then that one is not named in the classic sense)
@@lanteanboy about that... recent screenshots might be hinting that Nayuta could be connected after all. Obviously it's still just a theory but it's looking more and more likely :p it could just be a coincidence or it could just be Falcom trolling us but hey it's fun to put on the tin foil hat sometimes 😉
I still feel like I honestly could have marathoned all 9 games (at the time) and been fine. I only took a few breaks just to be safe, lol. But that's crazy going through all those games in 3 months, especially CS3 since it's pretty long.
I really enjoyed your story. I discovered Trails by accident. JRPGs were my favorite genre when I was younger and my all-time favorite one to this day is Skies of Arcadia. It's a travesty that it hasn't been re-released and that it never got a sequel. I was going through a pretty rough time in life, was looking for a game I could escape in on Steam, and saw this charming looking JRPG with airships on sale on Steam and bought it. I was pretty quickly hooked on the world and characters and fell in love with the series. I played Crossbell for the first time on the older pre-Geofront fan translations and Hajimari wiht the original spreadsheet. I've decided to wait for official localizations for the newer games. Looking forward to Daybreak!
Thanks for stopping by! Glad you enjoyed the silly sauce, lol. I actually own Skies of Arcadia but I've never played it (a travesty I know) I've heard nothing but good things about it. Hopefully they can release a remaster of that game sometime soon. Isn't it awesome how something simple like a video game can help us through rough patches in life? I just think that's awesome. Oh wow, you went the spreadsheet route with Hajimari? I've always been curious how doing something like that would impact one's enjoyment of the game or if it didn't really get in the way too much. Daybreak was a ton of fun, it's definitely a breath of fresh air that I think this series needed. Summer 2024 can't come soon enough!
@@Cyrus_Bright The spreadsheet definitely impacted my enjoyment of the game, which is why I decided to wait for the official Daybreak localizations. The fan translation is tempting, but I have plenty of stuff to play in the meantime. I own both versions of Skies of Arcadia. I bought it the day it came out on the Dreamcast and then bought the GameCube version used for $16 at Gamestop in 2004. I recently played through it on the Dolphin emulator, and while it feels dated, it very much holds up. If you liked the Sky trilogy in particular, it has very similar vibes.
@@Psaurus81 ooh that's good to hear, I'll have to move it up on my list of games to play in the future xD which is uh... a long list :/ wow $16? That's a steal! I had to pay almost $80 on ebay for my GameCube copy. The fan translation is actually pretty good, but yeah if you have other stuff to keep you preoccupied then it'll be worth the wait I think. Very curious to see how Nisa translates certain lines, some are kind of... spicy xD
Thanks for sharing your personal experience with these fantastic games. Also, I keep hearing that Cold Steel 4 is very long, maybe too long, but 290 hours!? Jeez...😰
Thanks for listening to me ramble xD I think turbo might affect the playtime, but yeah CS4 was long. I checked GOG and it says 50 hours but that can't be right :/ I guess we'll never truly know~ If I had to guess it would be between 80-100 hours on average. Love this series though, if that wasn't obvious lmao
Sky can run without a GPU? Interesting. I feel like I knew that already but I forget things all the time xD Did you play through the whole series yet? Up until Reverie I mean as far as western releases go.
Really enjoying the channel, My journey started the way Falcom intended, with Cold Steel 3. While I wouldn't recommend that to new players I wouldn't say it's completely a non starter. The game does a better job than people realize of introducing all the current and past characters and then going back and playing the series chronologically gives you cool insight on where everyone came from and you can see events people were referencing
unfortunately the opposite of that is also true, people started at CS3 and then dropped the series because they didn't understand certain things. Now the same is true for each starting point, even Sky lol, but I will always champion that these games should be experienced through release order. BUT! Each individual can choose whatever starting point they think they'd enjoy the most, even though they might not get all the references or have the most immersive experience if someone wants to start from Zero, CS1, CS3, or Daybreak I won't stop them. Not that I can anyway xD Glad to see that even though you jumped in at CS3 that you were still able to go back and appreciate the older games too.
Marked this video for later since it’s very late here, but I’d love to share my story too while I’m at it cause why not. Funnily enough I got into the trails rabbit hole cause I was sorta bored 😂 I got a steam account cause P4G was releasing on steam and I wanted to play it but thought “hey I should make more use of this account and get other jrpgs too to play alternatively with persona 4”. So I got persona 4, played it, lost motivation for a bit, looked for other games available and saw there were a LOT of titles that started with “The Legend of Heroes”. I saw that all of them were rated positively then I checked reviews and found out there was an order to them. The Sky games were also discounted that time, so I figured there was no harm in trying them out. Initially I didn’t really think anything about it since it’s quite the slow burn. I played it for a few hours, got confused by the gameplay then I switched over to persona 4 again. Didn’t think about it for quite a while. Then one day I thought to myself that there was no way I’m giving up on understanding the combat system in Sky FC. So again I switched over to Trails, got the hang of it while realizing that I was REALLY loving the main characters, and when I reached the part where Cassius was reported missing I was GONE. Played through the whole game non-stop. Then I got to the end of FC and that sealed the deal forever. Three years later and I’m already 70+ hours into Cold Steel 4 yet I STILL haven’t finished persona 4 😂😂
I hope you enjoy it whenever you get to it ^^ Yup, the ending to FC really does that to a lot of us xD and that's hilarious! You're knee deep in CS4 but still haven't finished Persona 4 after a three year Trails journey... *Your Affection plays in the background* looks like the Inaba Case will go stone cold now since there's still Reverie and Daybreak around the corner too :p
i remeber reading something online bout a LoH game being in development which is wat CS1 is today but was rean with guns and alisa with a sword i think?
Good story! Mine mainly came around through Cold Steel 1 and 2 first, during in 2020 and I enjoyed them. So I went back played the Sky Trilogy enjoyed them also, then obviously played Zero on Geofront, Azure with a flame edit (as Geofront didn’t get to that at the time), and obviously came back to Cold Steel 3 and 4, and Reverie within the span of 3 years after my journey started.
Thanks for listening to my almost tragic start to this series xD hey at least you went back and played the older ones, that's more than some can claim lol. Now you have Daybreak on the horizon (was that an intentional pun? Possibly) which will be a good time. Still crazy to me how I went from almost dropping this series to becoming a devout fan, and there's still so much to look forward to.
Hey there, are you planing on making a discord server anytime in the near future? Id love to have more of these types of discussions. Also once again a really cozy video, great job!
I got into trails because I got into Ys and saw the Falcom brand on TitS on PSP GO. I got into Ys because I heard some YT music covers for Ys and tried Ys 1&2 on Wii Virtual Console. Being that I have a very soft spot for retro I got hooked more easily than some......aaaand then I suffered for 4 and a half years for that FC sequel lol.
oof, you were one of the og fans that lived through the Great Trails Drought? That must've been... fun? xD I'm actually going to be playing Ys 1 for the first time soon, so I hope I enjoy it half as much as I do Falcoms other main series :p
I was aware of Trails in the Sky as far back as 2011, when I thought about getting it for the PSP. I never ended up doing that, but I did pick it up on Steam at the end of 2015. I played through it, enjoyed it, and picked up SC a year or two later. By the time I finished that, I was decidedly a fan of Trails in the Sky, but I didn't see any need to go beyond those two games. Sky the 3rd was out at that point, but a dungeon crawler didn't seem that interesting. And hearing about Trails of Cold Steel didn't interest me much either. I hadn't yet grasped the interconnected nature of the Trails games, so I expected Cold Steel was only as connected to Sky as different titles would be in series like Final Fantasy, and the school setting and mech combat didn't appeal to me. Still, I was enough of a fan to keep up with news on the series. I was intrigued when familiar faces from Sky showed up in promotional material from Sen no Kiseki III, though I didn't get too excited without a guarantee that the game would be localized in English. But the tipping point came when I watched a video of the true ending of Sen no Kiseki IV shortly after its release. I didn't understand everything that was happening, and I had no idea how some of the characters got to where they were in that ending, but I was sure that I wanted to find out. So once I knew that Cold Steel III would be localized (and probably its sequel as well) I decided I had to play the full Cold Steel series. After I finished Cold Steel IV, I went back and played Geofront's version of Trails from Zero. I enjoyed Zero, but wasn't sure whether I would play Azure, since the only site that offered the original Chinese PC version for sale seemed a bit fishy. But while I was pondering this, I watched an online concert that Falcom Sound Team jdk put on for their western fans. As suspicion I had when I heard the start of “Inevitable Struggle” turned into an amazed realization when they announced that NISA would be officially localizing Zero and Azure. This settled my conundrum about playing Azure: I'd just wait until the official release. But the concert also helped me decide something else. Hajimari no Kiseki had released the previous year in Japan, but wouldn't be released in English until 2023. At the rate Falcom had been releasing games, we might end up several games behind by the time Reverie came out. I didn't want to wait that long to be caught up, so I pre-ordered the Spriggan Edition of Kuro no Kiseki. The previews for Kuro promised the return of several characters from Sora no Kiseki. Since it had been a while since I had played the Sky games, I decided to replay the trilogy in the time leading up to Kuro's release. I replayed FC and SC, and finally got around to playing Sky the 3rd. Then when my copy of Kuro no Kiseki finally arrived, I played through it as best as I could using Google Translate and my own rusty skills at Japanese (I played it again later with a fan translation). Then I played through NISA's version of Zero and Azure after they came out. Wanting to continue with the story from where Azure left off, I decided to replay Cold Steel III and IV after that. And that brings us to today. I haven't played Reverie yet, but I hope to do so before too long. I'll want to play Daybreak when it comes out, and I'll probably wait until Kuro II is localized before playing it - NISA seems to be picking up the pace so I'm not as concerned about falling behind as I used to be.
Oh wow, what an interesting story. Thank you for sharing. You were really all over the place huh? xD It really sucks that people dismiss Sky the 3rd so often and potentially miss out on some incredible storytelling, worldbuilding, and character moments simply because the structure is a bit different. Probably why they hadn't gone back to that style of game until Reverie. But I feel Reverie does that dungeon crawling aspect way better while also telling a great story and still allowing you to roam various towns and cities to interact with the world. I feel if 3rd at least had npc's in some regard people would have been more receptive to it initially. Hope you enjoy Reverie when you get around to it. The best version of Rean exists there imo. I was also planning on waiting until Kuro 2 got officially localized but ever since the announcement of Kai no Kiseki I don't think I can wait for much longer. It's too enticing, especially after seeing those screenshots. Lol. I heard the fan translation isn't terrible so I'm willing to at least give it a go. Probably sometime in January, I have some other things I want to get started on before that (finishing Like A Dragon Gaiden and starting my Ys journey to name a few :p)
My own story was way more straightforward. I just came across FC on Steam which had a special sale for the release of SC back in 2015. It looked nice and I was like "it's only 15 bucks I have not much to lose" and the rest is history. I immediately got hooked and had a very hard time shutting my PC down after my first play session because I was already dying to see what would happen next. And of course SC was an instabuy. Then I was in the 3rd waiting room and was so happy that I couldn't help but crying when I was in the main menu. And ofc cried a whole lot more in the end. I only followed official releases so I sadly played CS I and II before Crossbell and felt really sad when I noticed I didn't get much about what happened with the Lloyd section at the end. That's when I heard about Geofront. Waited for their Zero patch. But when finished I immediately jumped on Azure with the old patch as I thought the Geofront one wouldn't be done before years and CS III was coming soon. Quartz system is confusing at first but as you said it's really simple when you get how it works and it's really satisfying when you get the addition perfectly right to unlock the broken art you wanted. Sad they dumbed down the system. Never really been into gacha games but as it's turn based I tried HSR and had fun for 2-3 months but then gave up because in the end of the day I don't like gacha system.
Hey, nothing wrong with being an OG fan. Lol. That was me with my second attempt with FC. I had a hard time going to bed because I would turn my Vita on for a few minutes and play xD Oh yeah and Zin was called "Zane" for some reason. I remember being slightly confused when they called him Zin in Sky the 3rd. But I recognized it pretty quickly as "oh it just must have been a localization error" and accepted his "new" name. yeah the title screen music from Sky 3rd hits pretty hard (it's called "A Faint Glitter of Light", I had to look it up xD) such a beautiful track. Freakin' pianos man... Sky 3rd Evo videos are going to be very emotional for me whenever we get to them. I think you'll enjoy Daybreak a lot then, not only is the gameplay naturally faster (you really don't need turbo in battles) but they do a cool fusion of the new Quartz system and the old one. It was a lot of fun for me since I slightly preferred the older system too. I played HSR for about a month and don't really feel like going back, lol. The fomo and all that stuff just wear me down after the initial honeymoon period wears off.
My main fear for the future of the series, is the soundtracks. It just seems like they're about to go downhill. The little I've heard has not been at all impressive. I'm really hoping I'll change my mind, once I actually play them. Edit: I just realized I already posted a similar comment on another one of your videos...
I personally really enjoyed the music of Daybreak. Koguchi was great, Sonoda sounded fine, Jindo was fantastic as always, and Singa had some good pieces too. But yeah the style of music is definitely different compared to past games. I do wish we still had Momiyama with us at least, but oh well. You did make a similar comment but that's okay, feel free to say whatever is on your mind. I don't bite, we all have different opinions on all kinds of things. I try to look at things from others perspectives, although I am human so I do fail sometimes... xD
The writing has dropped hugely in quality from the first five games, there are so little stakes, and repeated story beats now. It's a huge shame because the series was shaping up to be so well written and intriguing.
My story with trails began in late 2019 when i was reallly into "fire emblem 3 houses". There was the VA of my favorite character from that game who made a short video saying "hey, i voice this dude called kurt vander in this game called "trails of cold steel III". check that out". So i started playing the demo and i was completely lost: "who the hell are these guys ? why do we start the game with a flashforward ? why does every one praise the main protag ? how can a 13 years old girl can join a military academy ? did they really have a phone that can enhance physical and magical abilities ? " i hadn't finish the tutorial and i just stop wandering " am i missing something? " i didn't take that much research to find out that was the case. (insert joke about another unknown jrpg that struggle to get localised outside japan). It's an even bigger problem for me since i'm french and this was and still is to this day the only entry in the series that was translated in my language. ( a fan translated version of the first sky game in french is coming next year but having an official one even for the upcoming trails games is pretty much impossible ). That wasn't an issue since i was not really into the game but i kept in mind that the series existed. 2 years has passed, language barrier partially stopped being an issue and it was time for me to start AND finish a falcom game ... Ys VIII. This game caught my eyes way back then but the Ys IX trailer made the game look dark and edgy and i didn't like. After watching a video about Ys IX saying it was pretty great, i started playing the game that came before and oh boy what a game it was. Ys origin was next and somehow i liked it even more. Not to long after in late 2022 i learned about the other franchise from falcom and 'hey i know that game. Wait: crossbell duology official release; trails into reverie; what did i miss this time ?" So i gathered all the knowledge i needed and figured out this was the best moment to start by the first game. So i finished the prologue, really liked it and ... took a 6 month break. I needed first to exit the genshin impact rabbit hole, plus there was the new fire emblem game and all the other Ys games i still haven't played back then. Can you really blame me if i was playing the other falcom franchise instead ? But i was only a matter of time before i continue my playthrought of the first sky game. From there i played the series not stop until cold steel IV. I tried taking a break between azure and cold steel I by playing "tokyo xanadu" but this wouldn't do. I needed to continue. I finished reverie recently after finishing "tokyo xanadu " and Ys IX. And well, it was worth it. Taking the differents games individually made me realise all the problems i have with them, espacially gameplay wise (the most baffling one being: WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THE DEATHBLOW STATUS EFFECT WAS A GOOD IDEA ?!), but taking the franchise in its entirety, it truly is something special. I can name a lot of character i love but if i have to choose only one of them, it would be the fan favorise whose doomed to not have a 3D model. Speaking of fans, i have to agree with most of them: "trails to azure" is probably the best one out of the first 10 games, but "trails in the sky the 3rd" and "trails into reverie" are more fascinating to me. Can you name another franchise who can make entire games as epilogue for what came before? I can't. Who ask for this ? Who would dare to do that ? Anyhow it happened, and i'm so happy about that. Plus these games got my favorite collection of "side" content and most of all favorite new protag. I spent more that 600 hours into that franchise but i'm still begging for more character interaction between all these guys. Not because they're lacking, quite on the contrary. And don't let me start on the ost. I can talk about it for hours but that more than enough text from me. all that left for me to say is " hype for the calvard arc and Ys X " (i still haven't done nayuta thought).
(I thought I replied but I guess I got distracted, lol) Yeah that was Claude's VA, I remember watching some videos with him on YT and went "Hey that's Kurt's VA!" Ha, seems a lot of people fell into the CS3 starting point pitfall. I wonder how many dropped the series because of that? Thankfully you did research. That's cool that you went and played the games anyway. I've actually been impressed by how many different nationalities I've interacted with just on my tiny channel. Shows that Trails is appreciated all over the world. Ys 8 was fantastic, no complaints with that being your first Falcom game lol. Memories of Celceta was technically mine but Ys 8 was second. I need to play the other Ys games though. Hopefully will be starting Ys 1 on the channel soon :D oh gosh Genshin Impact, I fell down that rabbit hole for about a year during 2019-2020. I don't play anymore but man I now know the dangers of a gatcha game to it's fullest extent. Lmao. Honestly same, if I had to name all my favorite characters I'd be here all day, don't even get me started on music. Just take a look at my channel XD God the music is so good, especially Sky 3rd and Zero. Those are probably my two favorite Trails ost's but I love all of them, even Daybreak and yes... even most of Singa's stuff. Although I can say his stuff is lower quality than most of the sound team but that doesn't make him bad. You probably don't want to hear me ramble so I'll save that for a future video, lol. There just isn't anything else out there like Trails. The only other games that have come close to me are Xenoblade and the Yakuza series. Both of which are top 5 easy. Mass Effect trilogy to an extent as well. But Trails is special, hence why I even started this little journey of mine. Hopefully I can convince just one person to play this series and fall in love with it like I have. I won't say anything, but Daybreak hype is true and real. Van is a ton of fun and the vibes are different but in a positive way. Nayuta was a great side game, I loved it. The music in that one is phenomenal too. They had some stuff from Osaki and Takeshita. Momiyama, Jindo, and Sonoda were also present and man it just felt like old school Falcom. Had a bit of Sky 3rd, had a bit of Zero, even had a tiny bit of Cold Steel (somehow) lol Anyway, thanks for the comment. It was a joy to read!
I think I'll share how I fell down the rabbit hole. Back when DangerDoug was still streaming, I stumbled across his Persona 3 streams, and I stayed until the end. Then he started streaming Trails in the Sky the 3rd after that, and I immediately fell in love with Kevin, the music, and the story. After the first stream, I left the stream because I didn't want to get spoiled. I was just about to get my Steam Deck, but the Sky games were classified as unsupported for deck, but I went to my best friend's house soon after, brought a Steam card, punched it in my bud's spare laptop while he played a VR game in the other room, and started Sky FC. I finished the Prologue, fell in love with the game, then after that, I didn't really play further, so I could hang out with my best friend. After I got home, I got Cold Steel 1, started it, then I got to Chapter 4 of CS1 and finally got Sky running on the Steam Deck, then I finished FC and SC, then I can't remember whether I finished CS1 or Sky the 3rd before the other. I finished Sky the 3rd the day before my last day at a school I had been going to for 8 years, so the ending of the 3rd and To Meet Again Someday really spoke to me, so I listened to To Meet Again Someday on my last day. Needless to say, I broke down crying 3 times, and Trails in the Sky the 3rd dethroned Etrian Odyssey V as my favorite video game of all time. I started Sky FC sometime around September last year, and I finished Sky the 3rd in the end of May of this year. I finished Zero end of September this year, and I'm currently in Act 2 part 2 of CS2 (just did quest cleanup and was about to return to the Courageous) and the Finale of Azure (just did Randy and Wazy's final bonding events and I'm writing this comment in the middle of Rixia's final bonding event). I have started CS3 and done the Prologue because curiosity is trying to get me killed like it killed the cat, but the little self-control I have kicked in, so I'm saving CS3 until after I finish Azure and CS2. I'm actually trying to finish Azure by the end of the year, and I only have a week, because I'll be busy from the 23rd onward. I do have the 26th and 27th as a safety net however, considering the fact that I'm absurdly slow at finishing games
I'm very slow at playing games too. It took me 35 hours to finish Nayuta and the average completion time is 25 hours xD I essentially always have to add 25% whenever I look up a game on HowLongToBeat. Good on you for not letting the curiosity get to ya. CS3 is my favorite of the Erebonian arc so I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot more after finishing Azure. There's a lot of callbacks and references. Sky the 3rd really is an emotional powerhouse, even listening to the title screen "A Faint Glimmer of Light" gets me teary eyed. Jeez. Ah man, but that's cool, how it had more of a personal attachment to it. It really did feel like you were saying farewell to a bunch of really close friends you weren't sure if you'd ever see again. My friend actually owns a Steam Deck and told me the Sky games work even though it says unsupported. Which is awesome. They're the perfect games to play on a handheld imo. Thanks for sharing your story, I'm still impressed with how varied everyone's stories are. It's fascinating. Was DangerDoug an older RUclipsr? or a Twitch Streamer? I've never heard of him. You mentioned streaming specifically so I'll just guess Twitch xD
I started straight from the start. In my eyes, story is more important than gameplay. Story helps create memories. Trails helped me realize that.
It depends if games are connected or not (like FF or Tales) but yes I'm especially glad I didn't start with Cold Steel and instead just randomly stumbled upon Sky FC xD I only wish I had started on PC so I had access to my save files, lol
That was a very enjoyable story! I remember when I first checked out FC in the middle of 2014, and thought it looked fun. Played through it only to realize, that was it, until Xseed finished SC (and that's a whole another story there!). After SC, I pretty much fell down the rabbit hole of trails, absolutely loved the story, characters, and the casual turn-based gameplay. Very happy to see others share their story and experience ;)
Couldn't agree more! 😎👍
I'm one of those people that wanted a JRPG and stumbled upon CS 1&2. CS1 is such a big cliffhanger I bought second immediately, didn't know anythig about the series. After that.... no CS3 localization for a long time, I started from the begining - Sky. Funny thing is, when I saw Joshua, I thought he looked familiar, but I didn't think much of it. When I got to meet Walter in that cave, during Second chapter, I remembered why Joshua looked familiar, I watched that mini anime for Trails years ago, and that scene where Walter kicks Estelle, that scene triggered it, it was funny to me. After it's fan translations for Crossbell, CS3 is out for west and I couldn't wait for CS4 localization, so I jumped in CS4 with fan translation, after that - Hajimary and every other game after, the wait is killing me, so thanks to all people who make all fan translations. Love the series.
"How I fell down the Kiseki Rabbit Hole"
me: I have ADHD
and now you're here listening to a rando on YT recount his journey with the series xD I hope you enjoyed the games ^^
I´ve only fallen into the rabbit hole very recently.
I´ve always been semi-aware of this franchise because I follow Sean Chiplock, Rean´s VA, and occasionally saw some Cold Steel stuff pop up on Twitter. And I recently noticed Cold Steel 1 and 2 being on sale on playstation and decided "Why not?". I played CS1 for like... a few hours before stopping. It felt like an ok start, but after reading a few of the books I decided I should probably go back to beginning. So I got Sky. I usually don´t like playing on PC, but Sky is so worth it. I´m currently in chapter 2 of SC, as I said, I´ve only fallen in recently, but I´m already very in love with this franchise. And I can also already see that Kevin is going to be a very fun character.
Awesome! I hope you continue to enjoy your journey! I tried to keep this video as spoiler free as possible in terms of imagery used xD and yes! As you've already seen the "insensitive jerk" is a very fun character. SC and Sky 3rd have a lot of very emotional moments so prepare yourself! Lol.
Enjoy SC. There are very few games I've played that I think to myself that I'd love to experience it blind for the first time again, and SC is absolutely one of those.
@@Pompadourius agreed 100% where's the Men in Black when you need them? Lol
I can't believe your first interaction with the series was hearing Musse flirt with Rean, that's hilarious XD
I first heard of Trails from TheGamingPilgrimage's review about nine years ago. The game sounded right up my alley and I especially liked what he said about the NPCs, so I put it on my backlog... and didn't play it until two years later in 2017 (which I'm grateful for because that's when the 3rd localization released). I was hooked by FC immediately. I was blown away by the love and care put into the writing, and I knew to talk to all the NPCs because that was the one thing I remembered from the review I watched. I loved the music too. It's just such a cozy opening. Then the plot had me hooked by chapter 1. I also loved how the party members came and went throughout the game, it made them feel like real people with lives. I wish the later games did that more. I had no idea that the later Trails games were connected, so I assumed that FC would take place in Liberl, SC would take place in Erebonia, and 3rd in Calvard haha. I don't think it was until I googled one of the characters and saw they were in Ao that I saw they shared a continuous story, and it blew my mind. I've always been a big fan of fantasy books and Trails is like that in game form.
When I beat 3rd there was no localization for Crossbell yet. I was learning Japanese, but I hadn't learned enough yet to play an RPG. I tried playing Zero and the prologue took me 35 hours lol, and I couldn't really follow the story. So I took a six month break, deciding I would play Zero when I had learned enough Japanese, but I couldn't get Trails out of my head and eventually broke and played Cold Steel 1&2. After that my Japanese had advanced to the point that I could play Zero, and I've played every game from then on in Japanese without having to wait for localizations. I've actually learned a ton of Japanese just from playing Trails haha. It took me a year to play CS1-CS2-Zero-Ao-CS3-CS4, but I never experienced burnout. I love this series so much I don't think burnout it possible. I was also watched a friend play through the entire sky trilogy during that time, so I was doubling up on Trails haha. Every time a new game comes out it feels like coming home. It's become my favorite video game series and there's really nothing else close.
Ha, yeah I can't believe I owe my love of Trails to a green haired anime girl xD that reddit post will never leave my brain, even if it was fake it was such a bruh moment.
Wow Trails has actually helped you become more proficient with Japanese? That's awesome. It seems like such a difficult language to learn so kudos to you. I probably could've binged the entire series and felt the same way. Playing through Kuro 2 has really just reminded me of why I love this series, it's as you said... feels like home. Falcom has done such a wonderful job crafting this world and getting us so attached to it. I have other series and types of games I really love, but nothing to this degree. It really is something special.
Thanks for sharing your story! Appreciate you taking the time to listen to mine and for responding in kind ^^
I don't even recall why I decided to buy FC back when I did. I guess I was just in a mood for an older, story heavy JRPG and that popped up. Liked it well enough from the start, mostly the chill vibes and how it seemed to avoid some of the typical genre tropes like hilariously overdesigned characters, grandiose plots or a hate boner for organized religion. Plus, the characters were verbose enough to feel like real people with personalities instead of NPCs regurgitating exposition. By the time I got to the ending I was certainly happy with my purchase, but it wasn't until the sequel a year or two later that I got properly hooked. In fact I'd almost forgotten FC even existed when I saw some familiar faces on GOG and immediately knew what I was playing next. Within minutes SC had me pulled right back into Zemuria like I never left, that's how strong of a prologue it had. By the end of that game it was easily one of my favourite video game stories.
Then, since it was the release order, I played Cold Steel 1. I gave it a fair chance. I _didn't_ do that to another Trails game until 2020 when the esteemed Geofront translation was on the horizon, nuff sed. Since then I've played all the ones with an official translation. Long opinion short: Sky is wonderful, Crossbell is pretty darn decent and Erebonia can go have tea with Duke Dunan. Reverie is, I find, a return to form in some aspects and even worse in others and overall leaning on the later, so I'm extremely hesitant to give Daybreak a go. It'll happen eventually, I'm sure, but I feel like I need to detox before taking that plunge, and maybe revisit Cold Steel first to see if I can't make some manner of peace with those.
And yes, bring back the old portraits.
That was one of the things I noticed too, a game where the church wasn't portrayed as inherently evil. It was a breath of fresh air. The characters and npc's in this series are so good, I still can't believe some people find Estelle or Lloyd boring or uninteresting. I loved how SC picks up immediately where FC left off. Which makes complete sense when you find out they were originally meant to be one game. Sorry you didn't enjoy CS that much. Despite my gripes with it I enjoyed it a lot but it's my least favorite arc so far. Reverie was incredible and I absolutely adored the Daydreams. The doors were some of my favorite aspects of Sky the 3rd so to see them come back in a sense made me very happy. I don't blame you for being hesitant on Daybreak, I won't try to convince you of anything but I personally loved it. I hope you do too when you get around to playing it, Van is a wonderful protag. He's basically Gintoki from Gintama or Spike from Cowboy Bebop.
I've gotten used to the 3D models at this point but yeah, I'll always miss the portraits. I know it's a pipe dream but I hope they get brought back in some way.
I bought Sky FC on the PSP in 2014 off amazon for $10 because i saw a lot of people on a forum raving about it who had good taste
I didn't play it until 2020, when i had a friend who was deep into cold steel who said how good the series was
Hey sometimes those forums have great suggestions. It's how I discovered Nier (back before Automata was even an idea) Tons of hidden gems on those lists.
Word of mouth works great too, sometimes that's the push we need to really jump into a series. Glad it worked out for you ^^
My experience was actually really similar to yours, in regards to FC. I failed to get through the opening hours of FC on two separate occasions, and I'd always lose interest really early on. Then about a year and a half ago, I'd had enough of hearing about how great the Trails series was, whenever discussions of the best JRPGs came up. My curiosity reached a very overdue boiling point and I was like, "That's it, how good could it ACTUALLY be? I'll play at least through one of them," and booted Sky FC back up and restarted from the beginning because I had forgotten almost everything by that point.
It was somewhere around the Ruan arc - which I was surprised to hear many say was the lowest point of FC - where I fully slowed down and stopped having this driving urge to finish it to see what the hype was about. And from that point on was when I enjoyed FC and its characters, story and world for itself rather than trying to rush to find what people were hyping up. And that slowing down, funny enough, was the key point in getting me there.
To cut the rest short, I went from a skeptic to a believer by the time credits rolled on Sky FC. I had never purchased a sequel as fast in my life as I did in buying SC afterwards. Within a minute of being brought back to the title screen, I'd already bought SC, it affected me THAT heavily. And by the time I finished SC, that trend basically continued with 3rd, fan translations of the Crossbell games, and in the present day I'm about halfway through Cold Steel 3.
The only thing I can say without spoiling anything for those who haven't gotten in yet, is that I went from thinking nothing of the series to hailing it as my favorite RPG series ever. The fact that you need to play them in order can be intimidating, but if you take it at your own pace and just play each game instead of thinking about how much you have left, you'll probably love it too.
Also, Estelle is the best and I will not elaborate.
Estelle is Bestelle, nothing else needs to be said. Glad we understand each other, lmao.
My story seems fairly common, which makes sense. The Trails series are essentially visual novels disguised as jrpgs and that can turn a lot of people away if they're not prepared for that kind of game at the moment. But man once it hooks you, that's it. Might as well put up your holey boots and let Estelle fish you up. Lol. Yup, the attention to detail in this world is crazy, and has the best npc's easily of any game I've played in my life.
Enjoy the rest of Cold Steel 3! I hope you're ready to "write an end to this wretched fairy tale" as a certain character says later in the game :p You will probably want to jump into CS4 immediately after. You thought FC or CS1 had a crazy cliffhanger? All I'll say is good luck! xD
And yes very well said at the end there. Play order will always be the best method to tackling these games. I'll champion that stance until the series is over.
Similar to my experience but unlike you who kept hearing how great the series was after trying Sky FC and not getting into it I put it on the back burner figuring one day I’d get back to it and this was back when GameFly was still a thing. I was looking for a new game to rent and stumbled across Cold steel and loved it only to find out it was connected to Sky FC so I went back and while yeah FC is slow compared to others I feel head over heels in love with the series
@@nediojon749 GameFly? Sent me back in time with that one xD I think they're still around, yeah? I vaguely remember seeing an ad for them not too long ago. If it's not Sky that gets you, Cold Steel usually deals the finishing blow. Falcom will get ya one way or another, lol.
I've decided to finally start Sky FC this year but this video really got me excited to kick off my Trails journey!!
Ayy that's awesome! I'm glad my simple story helped envigorate you even further. This series is truly special and I hope you enjoy your journey even half as much as I did ^^
I played FC cause I was told the script was huge. My dumb mind "this means it must feature an ensemble cast and losts of lore and characterization for one long adventure!". Reality: I know each NPCs as much as that cousin I saw three times in my life but who told me his life and we went to a nice lil adventure for an afternoon.
LOL true! I think it's one of the very few games where I actually remember the npc's xD but that's part of what makes the series so good to me, them taking that time to attempt to flesh out even the most minor of characters
@@Cyrus_Bright One of my fav moments in the whole series is when that guy from Rolent goes to Almoria to show his father he is now married and now has a son. That moment made me cry. But it hit thrice as strong for how much invested I was with the NPCs.
Trails NPCs make me care more about their world and life. And boosted incredibly that "get over the barrier" message during Zero and Azure. It was not just Lloyd, whole Crossbell was fighint to keep going on during their hardest times. I cried again when I saw Tio helping in the hospital during final chapter.
On my end, a few people were talking about the release of Cold Steel 4 in my Final Fantasy XIV FC, and I was like "That sounds cool", and pocketed that information until about a year later, as one does, when I ran into CS1 and 2's PS4 release at my local library and remembered the raving reviews. (At the time, I didn't realize this was a blessing and a curse, as it's pretty impossible to find cheap, physical copies of the NA release). I picked up the game, showed my friend, and he had that moment of explaining this might not be the best start to the series, but I shrugged and went ahead anyway, as the intro and in medias res prologue had already intrigued me too much to stop and 'go back' to the proper start of the series. I then pretty much blitzed through both games, and, after feeling like I had seen the light, was stopped by my friend as I was searching for my copy of CS3, which was nowhere to be found around me. On his recommendation, I attempted to play Sky FC, stopped after getting to Agate for the first time, and didn't really touch the series until the following year where I just decided to play CS3 and 4 without the context. ...I wish I would have done that from the get-go, but, alas, you live and learn in this fandom that chronological order isn't always the best for everyone.
That being said, after finishing CS4, I beat FC, was pretty content with that, and then chilled until Reverie came out. (By chilled, I really mean rushed to beat FFXVI before Reverie came out as that was an insanely dense summer for amazing RPG releases). I'm now playing through the Crossbell games and thoroughly enjoyed Zero. I'm working on Azure now, and, after that, finally intend to finish SC and Third before Daybreak's US release. Blasphemous order to play the games in, I know, but half of the joy for me has been seeing the characters post growth and then watching how they got to that point (looking at you, Olivert and Randy).
That is definitely an interesting play order you have there, I would normally send you to Knox Prison to await for inevitable execution via 1000 Poms but... I feel I have grown more accepting of peoples choices these past few years xD Yes I will always champion that release order is the best experience (as it's the intended way Falcom designed the games) but with there being basically no way for people to play Sky outside of PC, emulation, or PSP/Vita... Cold Steel 1 (or Daybreak! :0) are also perfectly acceptable starting points to me. Zero is iffy, because of all the connections to Sky and things that just won't resonate with you if you haven't played them but well, you already passed that point XD At the end of the day as long as people enjoy the games and become fans of the series, who am I to tell them the way they played the games was wrong? Unless they started at Reverie... or CS4... or Sky 3rd for some reason... then I have full reign to mock you :D Good luck with Azure! Thank you for the lovely comment as well, it was a... pleasure? reading it xD
It's been a few years now, but I was trying to find a "new" JRPG series to play since there was a drought and I already played the other main JRPGs that I play. I picked up Cold Steel 1 and thought it was interesting. But I kept feeling that I was missing something, and couldn't figure out the combat. An early boss (the 3 statues in the schoolhouse) stumped me and I just couldn't get passed it. So I stopped playing for... I think a year until I went back and used a guide to help me out. I ended up loving the rest and played CS2, then decided to go back and play the Sky trilogy before continuing. Been a fan ever since.
Awesome, glad to have you aboard the fandom xD
18:34 ah the Trails void, all of us legend of heroes fans know it well
Lol, it sucks but it's true. Only recently have I started diving back into new/backlog games. Living through the Great Trails Depression was definitely something. I'm sure I'll experience it all over again once I play Kuro 2 and Kai no Kiseki xD
I was in college and had nothing to do, picked up Sky FC on a whim around the middle of October 2021. Now I'm at the end of CS3 and it ain't never gonna stop lul
Enjoy the ride that is CS3's ending, lol! Ha, we almost started FC at the same time xD Good luck with the rest of the series. CS4 was a good ending to the Erebonia arc imo and Reverie wrapped a lot of things up really well, plus the setup was just too good I had to jump into Kuro right away XD
@@Cyrus_Bright just finished cs3
Holy crap
@@jorntumrongwit9056 aaaand now you know :D welcome to the cliffhanger club! At least you don't have to wait for CS4 like some people did :p
Kevin Graham the GOAT.
I knew of the series years ago but didn't start until early 2021 and that's pretty much it
Falcom: "Who?" lol
Kevin is one of my favorites, which is funny because at the start of SC I thought he was just going to be a knock-off Olivier xD
Are you caught up with western releases at this point?
@@Cyrus_Bright It’s okay the next game will have Kevin…
And yes I’ve played up til Reverie and have considered playing Kuro patched but I think I won’t care to play the games patched until the final game releases so I don’t get spoiled lmao
we tell ourselves that every time... one day we'll be correct! That will be a glorious day indeed xD
okay cool, the patch for Kuro was actually pretty good. But waiting is perfectly fine too. Personally, I don't think I can wait much longer... after reading the news on Kai no Kiseki, Kuro 2 just keeps calling my name. Lol.
I mean I only say he'll be in the next game because I saw a screenshot with a blurry picture of a guy wearing clothes similar to Kevin's @@Cyrus_Bright 👀
@@Zephhi I saw the screenshot but until I see his full model in glorious 3D I'm keeping my expectations in check, lol xD
I also feel in the rabbit hole of sorts, and the story about me playing Trails is funny. When i started looking more about it was around 3 something years ago. A little after Cold 4 came out in the west. Then i started paying more attention to what the fuss over this series was about. But... At first i was taken aback by how many games i needed to play and the fact that Crossbell duology was only available through fan translation, and i was, and still am, more of official translations.
Since not all the games were out, then skiped this series (At the time i was thinking of starting Cold 1). Not much after Nisa anounced Zero/Azure and Reverie for 2022/23. And just like that all the games were going to be available officially to play.
But i was still not conviced, and i pointed out this series to a friend that tried it. And he still thanks me for pointing out Trails series to him, without me ever playing it, and becoming his best JRPG series to date. But then, i waited for zero to come out, and then i started all from the start myself, and holy damn... Since late last year up until now, i finished sky FC, Sky SC, Sky Third, Zero, Azure (still my favorite game, holly damn), Cold 1, Cold 2 and Cold 3(my second best trails game). Will start Cold 4 in the coming days after that ending...
I barely played anything else, that is how damn good it is.
I believe that many people want to get into this series, unfortunatly it's a huge time spender, and i played these games for more than a year straight without having time to play anything else just because i could not drop or take time from the series, i just wanted to really play them one after the other.
yeah, the time commitment is really a big ask for a lot of people considering it's more than 10 50+ hour games but man... once they grab you, you won't care about anything else for a while anyway. Lol. Cool to see that Azure is your favorite! Seems to be a majority of fans favorite. I think mine is still Sky the 3rd. But Azure got close, so did CS3, Reverie and Daybreak.
Thank you for sharing your story ^^
I remember browsing trough steam for new rpgs to play. Thats how i saw trails in the sky fc discounted and bought it, played like 4 hours and did not return the next day. It took a couple of years before i found the game again in my steam library and thats when i made it trough the game. And just like you the ending of fc was what really got me hook line and sinker.
glad to hear it! It is interesting how the games lose people at first but then on a return playthrough or after finishing FC that's when it really clicks for some people. Lol. Thank you for giving the game another chance though, this series deserves to be played if you're a jrpg fan imo :p
I think the biggest thing for me ironically is a few of the friends I've made along the way you know I was looking for directions for the longest time in anything and it helped me find a direction I needed
That's wholesome af, isn't it wonderful that something as simple as a video game can help bring people together? I kinda had that happen to me too. Randomly stumbled upon Kevin Street's channel when he first started reviewing the Trails games, left a few comments and then we kinda became internet friends. Now I'm always in his streams just chatting and listening to him lose it as he progresses through the games has been super entertaining. Lol. Wouldn't have ever stumbled upon his channel had it not been for Falcom and this series. Also met some really cool people after starting my own journey as well which has been really fun. Nevertheless, excited to see whatever the future holds ^^
My story is very similar. I was scrolling through Steam for some JRPGs. I just wanted something casual, not necessarily AAA, to pass the time. I finally saw FC. It looked innocent enough. At first, it was exactly what I wanted. Cute, comfy, cozy, but very polished. Before I knew it, I was at the end, balling my eyes out. (SC was still a few weeks away)
I then saw some reviews or something talking about the NPCs and went, "Wait, they update with EACH little story progression?" I immediately replayed the entire game, talking to everyone thrice to make sure I didn't miss a thing. I couldn't believe such a masterpiece was falling under everyone's radar.
Shortly after playing through SC, I saw Cold Steel at Best Buy, and the rest is history.
Yeah, I didn't realize the NPC's changed their dialogue until SC. But once that realization hit me, I vowed to exhaust all they had to say any chance I got. Didn't matter if I wanted to bee line straight to the next story segment, I'd spend an hour tracking them all down. Trust me, there were a few times I wanted to skip them (like in Daybreak, lmao) but I knew I'd be missing out if I did. Lol. Eventually I went back and watched/listened to an LP of Sky FC (TheTwitGamer) and was still mind blown that I had failed to notice and appreciate such attention to detail. Now I speak to significantly more npc's in other games than I used to. Unless it's obvious they're just placed for mini tutorials, directions, or random fluff text that doesn't mean anything.
It’s interesting to see how other people got into the series. I’d heard of Trails in the Sky but I’d never played them. I started out with Cold Steel and immediately loved it. The first 2 were fine but when I got to 3 all these characters and references to past games kept popping up and I felt like I should know about them to fully enjoy the game. I put Cold Steel 3 on pause and went back and started from the beginning. No regrets!
very interesting indeed, seems like your situation is a fairly common one. Which makes sense seeing as up until fairly recently we only had FC and SC on PSP, with Cold Steel being the first Trails game on more modern consoles. I feel like I got into it at almost the perfect time since all the games were on PC. A few hoops with Zero and Azure but I was already fairly familiar with modding games (Bethesda, lol) so following those steps were fairly simple.
Have you completely caught up with the western releases? Are you excited for Daybreak? :0
@@Cyrus_Bright yep I’m caught up now. I’m super hyped for Daybreak. I’ve been waiting to check out Calvard!
@@nicoleshh noice! Can't wait for everyone to meet Van. He's such a good protag. I'd place him on the same level as Kevin personally (whose my third favorite protag, after Estelle and Lloyd) which might sound crazy... but just trust me. I'm sure he'll win a lot of people over fairly quickly. Lol.
I got into trails the worst way possible. I found out about the series because the sky movie was on demand and I watched it. didn't think too much about it until my middle school years when I was thinking about it, looked for it, and couldn't find it.
fast forward a few months the whole movie is on youtube. so I watched it again, didn't think too much about it. after googling the name that's when I found out it was a game I said to myself, Man I should totally play this game series. That was 2017
2022 comes around and here's nothern war (I can't help but cringe as I retell this story now) "Holy cow, Northern war trails! I wonder if it's any good?" watched it, thought it was ok for a one season wonder but didn't think too much about it. April of 2023 is when my friends started playing trails, I joined in on sky and here we are now, finishing up cold steel IV, with only reverie remaining
You got into Trails through the OVA!? Now THAT'S a unique perspective for sure! Wow. I still need to watch the Northern War anime, even if it's cringe. Maybe I'll do a review on it, that sounds... uh... fun? Lol. Cool that you ended up diving into the games as well. Enjoy the ending to CS4, and hope you have fun with Reverie when you get to it!
My experience started with Cold Steel one. I knew already it´s part of a gigantic story and Cold Steel would have many infos, cameos and other nods from SKy 1 to 3 and the Crossbell Saga.
At the End of Cold Steel there was this whole epilogue with "new" characters. Lloyd, Rixia... who is that? Ah okay... Crossbell Series. I really might finish this one too sometime.
At Cold Steel 3 i had the feeling i missed so much i had to catch on. I finished the game and despite the horrible brutal cliffhanger i went on with Sky 1...
That was last year around this time... I am at Trails from Zero now... probably gonna finish it this week. After Azure i will finally finish Cold Steel IV and from what i´ve seen already i will get an experience that will pay out, now that i know all the characters with all their stories.
so there is this yakuza youtuber called devilleon7 that i've been following for a while since i'm a yakuza fan, he used to talk a lot about this niche jrpg series called trails and how it's his favourite game franchise
and at the time i was like:
wait, yakuza is not his favourite franchise?!
i didn't think much of it at the time but one day in one of his yakuza 7 randomizer streams he played a song, and when i heard it i was so hooked, i had to know where it came from
so he said it's a song from trails, the same jrpg franchise he mentions all the time
so i thought: ok, i have to know what this is about
i did my research, bought trails in the sky
i'm at cold steel 2 now, i bought the whole series
and trails is pretty much my favourite franchise now
thank you devilleon7
by the way, the song i mentioned earlier is spiral of erebos from cold steel 3, i'm yet to get there
but it's funny how music is the one thing that always gets me into new franchises
Devilleon7 is a huge Trails fan!? I didn't know that! Now I respect him a lot more than I already did xD that's cool how he introduced you into this series. Spiral of Erebos is a banger so I don't blame you, lol. I'm the same way sometimes, I'll hear a track from Jesse's Auditorium and feel compelled to check out the game it's from xD
I don't know how I learned about the series, but ever since then all I ever wanted to do was to do research on the games, what the play order is, looking at various RUclips videos, and what it meant to other players on their journey.
Eventually, I decided to give Sky FC a try during the Holidays of 2023 and I'm ready to plunge into this abyss we call Trails. Currently on chapter 4 of FC but man I am really enjoying this ride, the characters are fun and whimsical but serious when they need to be, combat is super engaging but most importantly the game just feels alive and like what the video says it really makes you want to talk to every NPC and devote your time into being this world which I absolutely love.
I'm really trying my best to not spoil myself for the other games to come but its getting really hard to not take a peek on some super juicy story details which sucks cuz I want to experience everything the first time since Trails is super special. Kinda makes me wish this series has an anime adaptation but at the same time I'm glad it doesn't because I wouldn't want to lose on those awesome story details and quests that the games have in them to want to learn about the NPCs and the world a bit more than what a 12 episode seasonal anime would make it out to be. I guess I am super glad that I started the series now since I can just binge the arcs one by one instead of waiting for entire years on the next entry.
Thanks for posting this video, it really makes me want to experience the series even more now and I hope to share it just as much as any other person has with this amazing series.
That's awesome man, hope you keep enjoying your time with the games. The Sky trilogy overall is still my favorite but you're right in saying that this series is special, because it is! The attention to detail alone is evidence enough of that, and once you get to a certain part of FC... that's when things will really pick up and open your eyes to what this series can really do :p no spoilers obviously, and I did my best to not show anything too crazy in the video itself.
Trails as an anime would work well if done correctly but uh... yeah, I don't think Falcom has the budget to make that happen since it'd need to be at least 24 episodes per arc in order to condense all the main story details and have it still be enthralling.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and for watching my very simple video xD If you ever want to talk more Trails feel free to reach out to myself or my YT buddy Kevin Street. He dove headfirst into the series last year and has done reviews on all the games (he's currently in the middle of Cold Steel 4 so that's how you know he's become a fanboy like me XD) and he loves interacting with fans, new and old, as well.
Buckle up, because it's gonna be quite the ride!
My descend into Kiseki madness started because after showing some interest in the Trails series after watching a video from Erick Landorn, my wife had the brilliant idea to gave me as a birthday present a handmade collectors box with the first 3 Cold Steel games (CS4 wasn't out yet).
I did my research and started with Sky FC. Didn't really get into it at first, but after a few months, I started again, this time with the voice patch, and went all the way to the end. The cliffhanger was what hook me into the series.
I Started with Sky SC after finishing FC, and Sky the 3rd after that, but.... I didn't actually liked Kevin on SC, and having him as a main protagonist, plus the gameplay changing to a dungeon crawler... I stoped after chapter 2.
I played other things for awhile, like Hollow Knight (if you haven't tried this one, really recomended). Then I continued with Sky the 3rd and got hooked to Kevin's story. After finishing it, I notice that Geofront had released their patch for Zero a while ago, so I jumped into that one inmediately.
Lucky for me, Azure's patch was released when I was almost done with Zero, so, that was a no brainer. and Cold Steel followed.
I played the entire Cold Steel series one after another, but after CS4 I wanted more :D
So, I platyed the Gagharv trilogy after that... That wasn't enough, I wanted more...
So I played the translated version of Dragon Slayer The Legend of Heroes....
Then Tokyo Xanadu followed... but... I stopped when I saw that a patch for Reverie existed. I gave it a go... and played Reverie, followed by Daybreak.
I actually google translated everything from Reverie and Daybreak that wasn't translated at the time, including all NPC dialogue.
After I was done with Daybreak, I decided to play Dragon Slayer Legend of Heroes II doing the same translation work. Great game :)
Then I backported the fantranslation of PSP Nayuta to my steam copy of Nayuta and played that one as well.
Kuro 2 was next, and after that I finished Tokyo Xanadu.
And today, I'm waiting patiently for the release of Kai no Kiseki :)
So, yeah, my wife made a big mistake with that little birthday gift :D
ooh they had a collectors box with CS1-3? Cool! Yeah it seems the FC cliffhanger is what drags most people into the Trails abyss, lol. Wow you even went back and played all the older LoH's games? AND you went through the trouble of translating lines yourself? Welp, I think you might have me beat there in terms of obsessed fan xD I'd like to go through Falcom's backlog of games at some point. Hope to start Ys soon. Also yeah, that was one heck of a birthday gift xD
@@Cyrus_Bright There was no collector's edition of CS1-3. She actually made the box herself. So I own a Unique item for sure :) And Yeah, I got really obsessed, but in my defense I'll say that I took my time with the games. A little over 3 years to play all of that. Sadly, now I have to wait for the next one. It's also difficult to find games that fill the void of the Trails series. I recently tried Xenosaga, and so far that one works. Also, I'm looking forward for Eiyuuden (100 heroes chronicles), the spiritual successor of Suikoden. This one I strongly recommend (and the Suikoden remasters should be out this year as well).
My wife also loves RPGs, so my presents are usually kinda like that. Last year She gifted me the Ar Tonelico series, and the year before a few Atelier games as well. My backlog keeps growing.
Ys is also very good. I recommend playing in order. There's not really an overall plot, bu there are a few references to previous games. So at least play the current games on steam and Ys 5, which is fan translated. The worst Ys for sure, but not as bad as everyone says. It's also very short.
Aw that's really sweet actually. She sounds like a keeper, lol. Ooh Eiyuuden Chronicles is one I've been wanting to get into. I just saw the recent trailer and it looks really good. Never played Suikoden either if you can believe that xD
The backlog barrier is one that even Lloyd would struggle to overcome.
Yeah I've heard the Ys games are short so that'll be good for me, was going to start from 1+2 and work my way up. Didn't know 5 had to be fan translated. I'll keep that in mind for whenever I get to it 👍
I’m still pretty new to the Trails series. Started with CS 1 and went immediately into 2 after that ending. After finishing the epilogue and seeing the characters from crossbell and hearing SC 3 is bringing back older characters I knew I had to start from the beginning. So I’m playing Trails into the Sky now. It’s gonna be a journey catching up but I’m in this for the long haul
Everyone starts somewhere, glad to have you aboard the Kiseki Express! Lol. Thanks for stopping by as well. Hope you enjoy the Sky and Crossbell arcs! They're a lot of people's favorites in the series.
Also I don't know if this is something you've been doing already but the npc's in these games actually change dialogue quite frequently so it's worth checking in with them after every major story event. They add a lot of depth and worldbuilding to the games. The attention to detail is crazy. I don't really like telling people how to play their games but I just figured it'd be worth mentioning at least xD
Also! I know it might be tempting to try and rush to catch up but these games aren't going anywhere. Savor the experience a bit, there isn't anything else out there quite like the Trails games.
@@Cyrus_Bright Exactly! I noticed that incredible detail early in CS1 since I tend to talk to everyone at least once. It was the first time I was honestly invested and keeping track of what the npc’s were up to. It was one of my biggest surprises with this series next to the world building.
Ending a chapter felt like I was finishing an arc in One Piece with a glimpse of new details, or something unknown. Which has me trying to fill in the blanks. That level of world building will always keep me engaged. Which is great since it helps me take my time and savor the quality these games have. Also I have quite a few games I’m getting next year too so I should be able to give myself enough space between. I had my share of burnout as well
@@gamekiller64 You aren't the first person I've seen to compare this series to One Piece, and it probably won't be the last xD I really should try and get into that series at one point. All my friends are big fans too but despite appearances (lol) I'm not the biggest anime consumer. I maybe only watch 2 to 3 shows a year, depending on if a long-running series comes back or not. Like Re:Zero or MHA for instance.
Glad to hear you take your time with them, and yeah next year is looking pretty stacked in terms of jrpgs alone. I don't know if I'll have the time to even check out all that I'm interested in xD I still haven't finished Like a Dragon Gaiden, and Infinite Wealth comes out next month! My body is not ready xD
The Trails series for me was really a happy accident, I'd seen Cold Steel 1 multiple times on Steam sales and thought I'd get to it one day. It wasn't until the pandemic and finishing Ys 8 where I finally decided to bite the bullet and get started (had no knowledge of the series outside of Falcom making it, just thought the fantasy steampunk looked cool). It got me good I spent 100 hours on the dot beating CS1 and loved the school life mechanics, the npcs having new dialogue and acting like actual characters, and the story. I then start doing some digging online to see if other people played the game and found out about the whole continuity between games. I told myself I'd get into Cold Steel 2 and if it really started making references I didn't get, I'd go back and start from the beginning. Safe to say I finished CS2 not understanding any of the Azure references and went back to start at Sky 1. I beat all of the games back to back, including the Geofront patched versions of Zero and Azure, which took me into 2021 (finishing the year with Azure was such a great experience). Trails has enriched my life with its world and stories and turned me into a massive Falcom fan (I went down the Ys rabbit hole shortly after and have completed every game but Ys 7). I love the fact that each year more and more people discover these series and hope that 2024 brings even more with Ys X and Daybreak. Great video btw love the use of the Sky portraits I also think they have a timeless charm!
Agreed! It seems like slowly but surely (not _that_ Shirley, lol) the series is gaining more popularity in the west. Which is great. Maybe that'll eventually incentivize Falcom to hand over the scripts to Nisa earlier so we can get simultaneous worldwide releases. I actually plan on starting the Ys games properly fairly soon, so I look forward to that. As well as eventually checking out Falcom's older titles too.
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it ^^ I love doing all kinds of edits with these characters (just check out my community tab, lol) The character portraits from the Sky trilogy are still my favorite. They just ooze personality and charm. Like with Estelle and Kevin for examples xD I wish Falcom kept using them for future titles (they had some moments in Nayuta which was cool to see) but I do like what they've done with the 3D models. They killed it in Daybreak imo.
And I'm still in CS II. Though you have a year or two up on when I started (this last spring in my case).
Everyone plays at their own pace ^^ I just happened to have a lot of free time back then, lmao. Hope you enjoy the rest of the series when you get to 'em. I liked CS2 a lot more than CS1. Especially a certain section towards the end :D
I had heard good things about the worldbuilding of Falcom games from back in maybe 2015 or 2016 and since had them on my "games to try" list. But I was a bit hesitant to jump straight into a series with so many games, so I decided to start with a one off when Tokyo Xanadu eX+ was on sale around the end of 2019. I didn't play too much in the beginning and had like 2 week breaks between sessions. But after Xmas was when I seriously started to power through the game, because the episodic anime like story finally captured me. By the end of February 2020 I had finally made it to the ending, through the extra chapter for the true ending and the DLC chapter that followed the true ending. Let's just say I got a lot of game for the €6,99 I paid and from this point put all of the Trails games on my wishlist. I didn't really get to them until August 2021 when I started with Cold Steel 1 and made it through that game and CS2 by the end of the year. I made a smallbreak and played something else(I think it was Ni No Kuni 2) and after that I went back to play the Sky games. I took several small breaks to play other things between them. Then, while I was playing Sky SC, Zero officially relased in the West, but I didn't catch up to that before Azure followed, so I bought both Crossbell games at the same day, played them back to back and right after I went to Cold Steel 3 and 4, which I finished right before Christmas Eve and that was pretty much my whole year. I could start right into Reverie, but I think I'll take another long due break and play some other things. While the world of Zemuria has some of the best characters I've ever seen in an RPG, talking to all of them after every story beat can become a little bit tiring over time.
Understandable, these games can be quite long (especially Cold Steel 4) so taking a break sounds good to me! Hope you enjoy whatever you decide to play, and that you'll thoroughly enjoy Reverie when you decide to go back to it. Plenty of time until Daybreak comes out ^^
Well in my case, my breaks from the games could reach even to 8 months
I remember back in the days when lets plays were still popular on youtube I was just looking for a good JRPG to play. For a long time I wasnt able to find anything that peaks my interest since I didnt want to waste time, this sounds really stupid right now but at the time I didnt want to play a game 1 time, experience the story and then put it back and never return to it, I wanted something that would constantly come back to me or at least last for a long time.
I was just looking at JRPG lets plays on youtube and found a channel called something like GachiGamerCalli and she was playing Cold Steel 1, I watched like an hour of her playing and decided that its good enough since it will keep me company for 100h.
Thats how I started with Cold Steel 1, absolutely loved it, didnt expect Valimar at the end of that game, jumped to CS2 4 months after finishing the CS1, I was finishing that game on Christmas and remember that the last chapter was so tense I was just playing the whole night until the end credits, didnt sleep at all that night. After finishing CS2 I wanted to jump right into the 3rd part but CS3 was not officially out at that time so I was like “ok, I can wait I guess” and started looking into other Kiseki games and the Ys games since you know same company. I played Sky Chapter 1 and 2 since it was chronological beginning, still didnt started 3rd and after that I returned to CS 3 and 4.
The entire time I was spoiler free, didnt know anything about the plots of games I didnt play but since I learned about existence of Crossbell and its location on the map, I hated that place.
An autonomous town state that is localized in the only place that allows transport by land between Empire and Republic and its only autonomous because its a disputed territory between those 2 superpowers so they allowed it to avoid open war.
In my mind Crossbell was just this one town sitting in a magical trading spot growing fat and pretentious on money, the Empire and Republic had to pay them each time they wanted to engage in trade or any business. Absolutely a place where crime families and debauchery could grow rampart. I was also very pro-Erebonia since I started with Class VII.
Now I am gearing up to start Crossbell games and see what story those Crosbell scums have to offer.
That's definitely quite the perspective on Crossbell, but you're not entirely wrong. Crossbell is one of my favorite locations in fiction so I'm excited to eventually hear your thoughts on Zero and Azure after you finish them (even if it's 8 months from now :p) Since I started with Liberl I was pro Calvard and Anti Erebonia until the Cold Steel games. Really interesting to see how peoples perspectives on each country change depending on their starting point.
I'm the same with breaks sometimes, except that void is usually filled with mindless survival games like The Long Dark or Project Zomboid. Thank you for sharing your thoughts ^^
Lovely, I'm happy to hear how much impact a game series can have on people.
it definitely had a -genshin- impact on my wallet, zing! Oof that one hurt to type, lol. It is crazy to think about that just a few years ago I had no idea this series existed and then bam, it quickly became one of my favorite series. Makes me wonder what other gems are out there that I've yet to experience.
Nice to see someone else who loves Sky 3rd & Kevin as much as me! Been a long time fan here, I found Sky FC pretty much at release on steam and waiting 18 months for Sky SC was easily the most painful wait for a game I've had in my life!
If you haven't already & looking for something to play, give The legend of Nayuta a try - some tenuous links to the trails series & tons of that Falcom charm, just finished it & thoroughly enjoyed it.
Sky the 3rd was such a beautiful ending to a magnificent trilogy. It's my favorite of the three, all the extra bits of characterization with the doors and those farewell sequences still makes me emotional to this day. Lol.
Oof yeah I imagine that wait was fairly brutal. Especially with the cliffhanger ending. At least you didn't have to wait multiple years like the psp folks did 😅 I have so much going on right now that waiting a bit to jump into Kuro 2 isn't as painful as one might think. But if I had started around the same time as you I think I may have gone slightly crazy xD
I actually did a review on Nayuta not too long ago! I'd link it but I know YT gets iffy with links sometimes so feel free to check it out if you want to. It was my favorite video to work on, even though I know it's not perfect and could have been improved a lot more. But yes, I could feel the old-school Falcom charm, and the ost still kicks ass. I listen to it fairly frequently and try to find any excuse to use some of it as bgm when I can :p also the potential connections to the mainline series was a lot of fun to think about and I had a few truly "out there" theories. Lol.
this video makes we want to pull up next to a fire place and drink hot chocolate while I watch this. it is so surprisingly relaxing
Oh hey, didn't expect to see you here xD thank you though, that's the kind of feeling I hope to create. Just a guy blathering on about things he enjoys while also trying to make them somewhat entertaining xD
I totally had no idea about the Trails series before. Then one day, years ago, I saw this nice looking box of the Lionheart Edition of Cold Steel 1 for the PS Vita lying on the shelf for quite some time in my local video game store. So, I decided to buy it with my meager allowance and I fell in the Trails rabbit hole since then. Now, I have Trails Through Daybreak preordered and there are also a lot of great video games coming this next year. I'm worried about my wallet's condition for 2024.
Seems like you were fated to be a fan of this series, that copy of CS1 was waiting for the moment you would pick it up off the shelf xD it was an allowance well spent... maybe not for your future finances but hey, sometimes we all have to make sacrifices. Lmao. Daybreak was awesome. Can't wait to see everyone's opinions once they're finally gotten their hands on it.
You and me both, my wallet is already shuddering with anticipation. Even in just the jrpg category alone is a ton of potential bangers. Infinite Wealth, Re:Fantazio, Eiyuden Chronicles, Suikoden Remaster, Decapolice, Unicorn Overlord, Daybreak, and many more! Can we ask the developers to slow down a little so we can catch up!? Lol.
To make a long story relatively short, my brother played through Sky FC when it first came out on the PSP in 2011. He tried to get me into the game, but I wasn't into RPGs at the time. I did have a second hand experience of him waiting for Sky SC, telling me all about the updates and delays until it finally came out in 2015. A few months later, he also got Cold Steel. I wanted to play something on my Vita (my favorite handheld), and despite a mixed first impressions, I stuck through until the explosive ending. Needless to say, I was hooked. Got my copy of Cold Steel 2 at release, and the rest was history. Went back and played through the Sky trilogy and Crossbell duology before the western release of Cold Steel 3 and 4, and now it has become one of my favorite series ever.
And, yes, I've played Kuro 1 and 2 (The Reverie tie-in was too strong).
Ay, you're the second person who's brother inadvertently got them into Trails. Nice! I couldn't imagine playing FC, getting to that cliffhanger, and then waiting 4 years for the sequel. That must have been torture.
Same! After I saw the three... er... "special scenes" I immediately had to go and play Daybreak. Actually... I think the screenshot I showed has me starting Daybreak literally the day after I finished Reverie XD
Since we are sharing, I was similar to most gamers as I used to buy a ton of games but play very few as I kept burning out since the choice was too much. I actually had stopped playing games for a year or two in the PS4 era. When I decided to return to gaming, I completely changed how I game. I started putting together specific lists to track games I was interested in while only playing 1 game at a time, to completion (unless I hated it). As a huge JRPG fan, I started watching several best of videos to search out things I might have missed.
I came across Cold Steel 4 as it was set to be released soon, when I started this. It just so happened a friend was playing the first CS so I checked with him. After talking and a ton of research, I decided to give CS1 a shot, and absolutely feel in love with it. I was sure I would burn out as it was my third calender based game in a row after Persona 5 and Three Houses. But man, it just grabbed me and didn’t let go. I instantly picked up 2 and 3 as a completed them back to back going right into 4.
Just recently picked up a Steam Deck so have gone back to Sky and Crossbell with the western releases. Am currently finishing up Reverie. Greatest series ever.
I need to keep reminding myself of the massive backlog I have before I even consider buying a new game... I'll let you know when that works xD I think the calendar system in the CS games feels differently to Persona and Three Houses that's why you didn't necessarily feel burnt out with it. They're more gameplay systems in the latter two while in CS it's mainly there for aesthetics.
Hope you enjoy the post-game of Reverie! You might not be able to resist the siren call of Daybreak once you finish xD Greatest series for sure, haven't found anything that's hit me quite as hard as Trails has. But hey, you never know what the future holds right?
Seeing people get into this series just makes my heart so happy. It's so interesting to see how everyone starts with it! My history with the series is surprisingly long, despite not having played the games until 2019. I first heard of the series when I watched an old friend of mine streaming Sky FC. It sort of reminded me of some PS1 RPGs I remembered back then, namely Grandia, and I found its style super charming! The battle system looked interesting, and Estelle and Joshua seemed like fun protagonists, but after that stream, it was pretty much radio silence for me for years.
Years later, when I was burned out on other RPGs I'd been playing at the time, I asked a co-worker of mine for some RPG recommendations that weren't Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, or SMT/Persona, since those were the big three/four that I'd been into at the time. He gave me a massive list of games, and one of those games happened to be Cold Steel 1. I recognized the Trails name from that stream I'd seen years before, and decided to pick up a special edition copy of CS1 since it was on sale at the time. I was pretty into it at the time, though I hadn't learned the intricacies of the series yet, like just how detailed NPC dialogue can be, and I didn't learn the magic of empty chest messages yet. (Which, of course, aren't in Cold Steel, sadly, but still.) Like you, I was used to NPC dialogue being sort of bland or not having much of a point to it, so I skipped out on talking to a lot of NPCs, or I'd talk to them once and never again, not realizing that their dialogue changes as the game progresses. (That blew my freaking mind when I first found that out and made me admire both the game's writers and localizers so much for putting that much attention into the game's dialogue.)
I don't remember when it happened, but some time after playing CS1 for a while (I think I'd gotten to chapter 2), I decided to go back and try the Sky arc. I knew the stories were interconnected after some very, very brief research, and I didn't know it was on Steam at the time, so I just emulated the PSP version. I fell absolutely in love with Sky. There was something about its presentation that made me enjoy it so much; maybe it was the character portraits, or the charming sprites, or maybe even Liberl as a whole, but I loved the game so much. Then once I realized that all three Sky games were available on Steam, I bought all three of them officially as soon as I could and absolutely marathoned them and Cold Steel at the same time. The Crossbell games weren't out at the time, and I didn't really know how to figure out getting the Geofront translations to work. By the time I'd thought to do so, they announced their partnership with NISA, so I decided I'd just keep playing the games I currently have in the series and I'd eventually go back for that extra context.
As of now, I've played every game except for Azure and Cold Steel 4. (And Reverie, of course, but I don't count that yet since I haven't even purchased it yet.) I got 50 hours into CS4 before I was able to afford Azure, and the moment I was able to, I stopped CS4 immediately and promised myself I wouldn't pick it back up until I've beaten Azure.
These games changed how I play RPGs in a good way. Now I talk to all the NPCs in all games I play, and a lot of NPC dialogue is a lot better than I gave the games credit for! Unfortunately, when I was SUPER into the series around 2020-2022, I was incredibly annoying about it to my friends and significant other, just constantly telling them how great the series is and how much I know they'd love it, to the point where I'm sure I sort of scared some of them away from the series. Thankfully, I've toned things down a ton since then, but every so often, if it comes up in conversation, I'll just give a passing recommendation and hope they'll try these games someday. But if not, it's also no problem. I know these games aren't for everyone. Regardless, it doesn't change the fact that these games are incredible, and I still love them very much.
Indeed, very interesting. Have gotten to see many of them just in the comment section, lol. Starting at the Sky anime though... I think that one takes the cake for craziest entry point that I didn't even consider.
I've heard the Grandia comparison come up here and there. I love the 90's aesthetic of the Sky trilogy. Especially the portraits. They were (and still are) my favorite out of the entire series.
Seriously, only Trails can make me excited to do the rounds after each main story beat. Appreciating the moments of downtime let's the more heavy-handed moments stick with you a lot longer. I remember going through TheTwitGamers FC LP and being blown away at all the dialogue I had missed. Which just led me to appreciating the series (and FC) even more.
Reverie will be worth the wait, I enjoyed my time with it a lot. It feels a lot like Sky the 3rd (which is my favorite Sky game) and the resolution for certain characters arcs was excellent. The set up for Daybreak was so good I had to see what happened next asap xD
I used to be like that too, you get so passionate about a series and you want everyone you meet to give it a chance but that ends up doing more harm in certain instances. I've toned it down significantly as well, but here? This is my domain so I can do whatever I want XD Thank you for the comment, it was an enjoyable read ^^
I wish my origin story for playing Trails was as interesting. I had a PS Vita and wanted to justify still using it after beating Persona 4 Golden. I started playing the Sky games after beating the Cold Steel arc when I realized I could download the PSP versions onto my Vita
Hey nothing wrong with a simple origin story! I just wish Sky 3rd was available on PSP/Vita too. Hoping for an eventual rerelease of the trilogy on modern consoles so more people can give them a proper try.
@@Cyrus_Bright learning to play trails the third using a mouse on steam was a vibe lol, but as soon as I connected my PlayStation controller to the steam game it became world's easier
I was fairly used to playing PC games at that point so adjusting to M+KB wasn't too difficult for me. But yeah, games like those are much easier to use a controller with since it's usually just a few buttons you have to press xD
my journey started at almost the perfect time for series, was looking for turn based game and picked up cold steel 1 finished it and ordered cold steel 2 got to the loyd bannings bit and stopped because Zero was just announced, so did not finish CS2 then and instead brought trails in the sky FC/SCand 3rd finished all those and zero came out finished that waited 6 months and finished Azure and then finished CS2/3/4 all this in one year! and then straight in to reverie! now waithing for Daybreak!
Awesome! Daybreak will be worth the wait. Thank you for sharing your story ^^
I got into Trails because the mid 2000's to the mid 2010's were a Turn-Based RPG DESERT. There were almost none of them released that didn't look like SNES games, and most of them were on handheld. I randomly saw a trailer for the first Trails of Cold Steel game when it had been announced for localization, and I was like, "WOW! It's Turn-Based, and 3D, and looks to have a respectable budget!? It's been 10 or more years since I've seen something like that. I'll have to try it!"
I looked into it, and figured out what the whole series was. I didn't want to play through it all, as I just wanted to hurry up and get to Cold Steel, so I watched story summaries of the first 5 games on RUclips. I then played all 4 Cold Steel games over the next few years, as they were released, and I was completely hooked. Since we ended up waiting for Reverie for so long, I decided to go back and play every single game in the series, even the 5 games that came before the Trails series began (Dragon Slayer: Legend of Heroes 1 & 2 (the second wasn't even officially translated, and I had to use real-time machine-translation to play it), and the 3 Gagharv games).
Now I've played all of them before Cold Steel, and am replaying the whole Cold Steel series while I wait for even more games to be released.
ooh story summaries? Interesting. I always wondered how that would impact someone's enjoyment of the series. Awesome that you eventually went back and played through them though. Whoa you played the older LoH's games too? I need to revoke my Falcom Fanclub card xD
@@Cyrus_Bright The summaries were good enough. I just missed out on some of the side quests and random NPC dialogue. Although, maybe "summary" isn't the right term. I basically watched the entire stories, but with the gameplay removed. No battles or anything. Just straight from scene to scene.
oh interesting, so basically a story only Let's Play? That's cool. So you didn't really miss out on too much then. That's actually a lot better than your typical summary video, lol.
My journey technically started 3 years ago when my best friend was playing one of the cold steel games and I wanted to give it a try. Prolly CS1 or 2 got bored and didn't like dating sims. A year ago I tries trails zero and was fun but felt dialogue heavy and forgot about it after 1 hours. Then the real start was actually this past January. I kept re watching the trailer for daybreak and was like I really need to play this game. My friend was like u gotta start at the beginning I was like nah. And then I was like fuck it I'll play reverie. After 5 minutes of being utterly confused tossed into a story i did not understand and a combat system so complicated I realized i made a mistake. Then I stopped being a degenerate. I started Sky FC and played the optimal order and currently at CS3 now. Reverie will be mine in a month or less and it will be a much different experience with the intro lmao.
Quite the interesting origin story, lol. But hey at least you finally went back and played them in order! I can't imagine starting at Reverie, they explain literally nothing 😅
@@Cyrus_Bright ya I only did the intro cutscene and one battle. Spoiled a bit for myself but I'm glad I went back and did things the right way. I'm glad I gave the series a chance cause this honestly became ng favorite game series and like u said hard to play other jrpgs after this I can't do mediocre gaming anymore lol
I started with Sky FC because of Killscottkill video .. rip 😢
I got completely hook and binge all the games back to back till the end of western release ( was CS3 at the time)
It wasn't enough, so I imported Hajimari, then kuro 1 and Kuro 2 , I 'm at that point where I can't even wait for fans patch.
I can't wait for Kai (Kuro3) 😁
Such a fantastic series !! and Ys too !
That series doesn't seems to burn me out , I get hit by nostalgia every once and a while since then and replay all the games over 😅
You notice new nuances and hidden stuff when you go back that you couldn't notice before.
The foreshadowing in these games are completely insane , nothing is irrelevant, everything had a meaning.
I've seen his name pop up a few times before. Seems like he was a fairly prominent figure in the Falcom community. Rip.
Ha, I feel that. Sometimes I wish I knew Japanese so I didn't have to wait for localizations. Still need to play Kuro 2 though so I have a small buffer before I truly hit the list of fans who are all caught up with the games. Can't wait to explore Ys too, I'm sure that'll be a fun time.
I actually want to replay them again too, there's so many npc interactions and small bits of info that I've just forgotten. Going on one big refresher journey is something I'd love to do eventually. Yup everything in this series has a purpose, even things that seem extremely insignificant will be important later on. Lol.
I played about 20hrs of cold steel 3 on switch as my first game. I was sold on the series... but the more i played, the more i realized i was missing a lot. Put the game down when i found out i was missing 7 games of context😅 but promised myself id play from the beginning when both crossbell games were on switch. Once i had all the physicals on the shelf i started with sky FC on steam a few months ago. Ive binged them all up to cold steel 1 now on ps4 and if im really lucky, ill be finishing reverie as the new calvard game comes out.
take your time my friend and don't be afraid of taking a break if you feel you need to ^^ The CS games just get better and better after 1 so you're in for a good time. Daybreak will be awesome, excited to see everyone meet and get to know Van. He's such a cool protag, lol.
Taking a break for christmas, def feeling the post trails down though😅 super excited to keep going
@@tjgii1207 haha, been there. Hope you've been enjoying your break and that you had a great Christmas and a Happy New Year :p
Living like a glutton😅 same to you. Happy 2024 from Germany🎉
I won’t watch this right now, as I’m only about halfway through Sky SC, but I’ve started from the beginning after finishing Xenogears/Saga, and I’ll try to come back to watch this in however many years it’ll take me to catch up to Trails! Congrats on the subs, but I’m too afraid of spoilers to stay longer! 😅
Haha, good luck! Thank you for the comment at least :p I did keep it very spoiler free if you just wanted to listen though. As far as imagery goes I used mainly OP's from the games and footage from Sky FC. I essentially just went over the timeline of events and this video is nothing more than me basically being a fanboy for Trails xD but hey I appreciate you stopping by regardless and hope you enjoy your own journey. Maybe I'll see ya in one of my FC Evo videos? :p
Now is a good time to jump into Kuro 2 btw i just wrapped it up myself, the story and all side quests are translated its just the NPC's left, they did translate the ones in the prologue and ACT 1 but the rest are still MTL which is still good tbh its just got a few grammar mistakes but i managed to get the general idea of what they're talking about.
Curious to hear what you think about it as its hands the down the most divise game in the series so far.
oh trust me, I've seen the posts on Reddit. Lol. Which just makes me even more curious to jump into it to see how I'd rank it. Good to know the translation is pretty good. As long as I can get the gist of things that works for me. Don't know when I'll officially start it, but definitely sometime January or February. Preferably sooner, lmao.
I must say I played some JRPG's before the Trails series (mainly Final Fantasy, and yes 13 too). I noticed a JRPG on Steam for cheap, called "Trails Of Cold Steel", and I bought it just for fun. I was only a half hour or so in when I noticed in the comments the game was a part of a series. I got curious and did some reading, and decided to drop Cold Steel for now and dive into Trails In The Sky. From that my story with the Trails series was comparable to Cyrus Bright. Only I had some bigger gaps, because Trails of Cold Steel II was not released in English translation yet, so I had to wait for every next game. This could have been unbearable, but I found other JRPG's that where perfect to fill those gaps.
Of course there where the games from the Falcom "stable", like the Ys series (Ys VIII - Lacrimosa Of Dana is still my favorite) and Tokyo Xanadu eX+. But I also was very pulled in by a much "fluffier" JRPG series, namely the Atelier series from GUST. That are a LOT of games that where perfect to fill the gaps, and lighthearted enough to unwind if I had a hard day. I also like both Blue Reflection games from the same developer. After that I was hooked on the JRPG genre and played a lot of them, even obscure ones like the both Caligula Effect games, Crystar, Dusk Diver 1 + 2, both Conception games, Omega Quintet, both Nights Of Azure games, and so on, and so on...
FF 13 too? or FF 13-2? 😏lol
I'm glad you at least decided to stop playing CS1 and check the series out from the beginning. I don't think most people would have done that. Oof, yeah waiting for the games can be rough. I fortunately had access to all the games up to Daybreak (and technically Kuro 2 if I so choose) so really, I'll only be a part of the waiting crowd once I finish Kuro 2. I'm not excited for that, luckily (?) I haven't really had much time to game recently so something like a 20-hour game is taking me 2-3weeks to get through. I wish that wasn't the case but... personal responsibilities ya know?
Can't wait to dive into the Ys series, only played Memories of Celceta and VIII but I LOVED VIII. The Atelier series is another one I'd like to try one of these days. I've heard the name Blue Reflection, but I haven't looked anything up on it. Caligula Effect 1 was pretty good but the combat kinda got stale to me after a while. Crystar was a fun time though. I'm not a huge fan of Compile Heart games but I played Omega Quintet through a friend, and I actually really liked it. Never got the true ending though before I had to give it back, lol. I own Conception 2 on 3DS but well, backlogs and all that. So many jrpg's left to play, both old and new. It's a good problem to have imo :p
@@Cyrus_Bright Yeah - The "waiting game" can be a real bitch for sure. The only fan translations I did with the Trails games are those two Geofront translations. The other fan translations often let out the NPC's, so I rather wait for the "official" translations to have the full experience..
If you want to dive into the Atelier series, there are two nice entry points. First is Atelier Sophie and Sophie 2, followed by Atelier Firis and Atelier Lydie & Suelle (these games are known as the "Mysterious series"). The reason to start here is that the older games have a rather tight time management system. Not really bad, but it can be overwhelming as a starting point. The second entry point are the Atelier Ryza games (there are three of them, known as the "Secret series"). These last games are not turn-based, but far more real time.
The Blue Reflection games are a bit odd to be honest. The first game has some weird in-game animations. Not bad in general, but a bit weird at times. The general tone of the game is slightly depressing, but with a pointer to hope in the future (the reason will be clear at the very first parts of the game). The second game Blue Reflection: Second Light is way better than the fist game, but because it's a sequel playing the first game is advised.
Oh - And Caligula 2 is better than the first game. Anyway - Sorry for this long text, but I will stop now (otherwise I would go on with the Dusk Diver games and Nights of Azure).
@@jclosed2516 Ha, its fine! As someone who also tends to write long comments (I've gone over the character limit on YT a few times now 😅) I actually appreciate seeing it from the other side, so to speak. Thank you for giving me those details.
I think I picked up Lydie & Suelle randomly for Switch a long time ago when I wanted to give the series a shot (and never got around to it) the Ryza games do interest me the most but I also love playing older games, seeing how things started and their progression to what they become later.
Good to know about Caligula Effect 2 as well. I wanted to check it out eventually.
Yeah I did some light reading of the Blue Reflection wiki after reading your comment and it definitely seemed like an interesting game, the same devs make Nights of Azure right? I swear I saw that name pop up in the wiki too xD
I've been in this rabbit hole for a long time, so long it feels like a time loop as I go through my second romp through all of Zemuria but cranking things to nightmare after FC to see how jank the games can get. There's just something magical about this series that honestly makes me miss Trails when I play a different Jrpg. Recently I had to think about why I'm having more fun with CS3 than playing Persona 5 despite the latter generally being touted as the superior game. I think for all the issues with Trails pacing, I kinda like that there's a sort of instinct with these games where you know when it's wind back and relax story time and when things go crazy. I know structure is boring and all but I find myself enjoying Trail's structure more than other turn based systems.
As for personally, the Sky games got me out of a slump I had during a difficult time in my life. Hell, replaying it again got me into playing the harmonica like Joshua. I can't say I'm anywhere as good as the man but it is one of those nice little things I think. I got into Sky after Recettear and tbh, I was a bit bored like you were until the finale where everything goes cliffdives. Though during that time was the painful wait that was SC. Frankly, I'm glad SC's localization went through despite how awfully messy it was, I'm not entirely sure if we'd have every other Trails today if that one flopped. After SC, I went on a binge straight to CS4. There was a bit of a burnout after but the variety gaming eventually lead me back to just straight up redoing Trails but nightmare lol.
It's been a wild ride witnessing Trails history from the live or die localization of SC, going through the early fan translations of Zero/Azure and then doing it two more times for both the Geofront translation and the NIS version. I'm happy we're at a point where as niche as it perhaps still is, Trails is doing pretty healthily.
I feel that, you get used to the formula of the Trails games so you enjoy the downtime moments because you know things will ramp up down the line. It's that sense of familiarity. I get that same feeling too when I begin a new Trails game and I see all the familiar arts and other gameplay mechanics.
That's really cool that it got you into playing the harmonica! I've read about the nightmare of SC's localization, it really did seem like things could have easily ended there. But I'm glad that the games have come such a long way that we now don't have to question if we'll keep getting these games localized. We're almost caught up with the Japanese releases and every game is finally available in English in some way officially. Mainline at least, I don't count Akatsuki xD
I enjoyed hearing your story. It's crazy to me that you dropped Sky FC for months before picking it back up again. I think I played FC for 8 hours straight when I first started it. lol
So you already know my story, but I'll give you a quick little recap. My friend recommended Cold Steel to me back in I want to say 2020 or 2021. I bought it and it just sat in my backlog for years. I constantly heard other people bring up the Trails series, including Erick Landon. Funny how you mentioned him in your video as well as another commenter. Eventually I learned more about the series and how it would be more wise to start with Trails in the Sky FC. I bought all three Sky games on GOG when they were on sale and they sat there for around a year. I finally decided to play the Trails games this past April with Sky FC, SC, and the 3rd back to back. After that I took a little break and played Yakuza: Like A Dragon in between them. Then I played Zero and Azure back to back. Then I played Nayuta which was a fun little in between game. Then I went crazy (you know haha) trying to decide which game to play because I didn't want to get burned out. Then I just decided to play Cold Steel 1 and 2 back to back and now I am getting ready for 3 later this weekend.
Yes, I am obsessed too. :D
Thanks for listening! I know right? I just didn't vibe with it for whatever reason the first time. Glad I gave it a second chance.
Wasn't Nuke the one who recommended them to you? I vaguely remember you saying something like that at one point. So many backlog games, so little time. Now Trails takes up all your free time and you gladly give it xD Ah man, I still remember my time with Like A Dragon too. What an awesome game. Nayuta was a fun little side journey too. Soon you'll be ready for CS3 and all that game has to offer. Excited to check out your Divertissement video later today. I don't think past Kevin's body was quite ready for that section! Lol.
I too enjoyed Sky FC from the start. I thought the game was very charming and it reminded me a lot of the snes/ps1 era jrpgs, but improved in some aspects, such as worldbuilding and npcs. By the end of the prologue I was intrigued and the ending made me love the game. I always hear from most fans that they didn't like their first trails experience at first, but ended up giving them a 2nd chance and loving it. This makes me imagine how many people quit these games and never gave them a second chance. Maybe it's one of the reasons the series is so niche.
@@Cyrus_Bright My body was certainly not ready. lol
@@kevinstreetgaming lmao 🤣
I thought it was something I wasn't going to like I start streaming the game on RUclips and I enjoyed them more and more as I went through
That's awesome to hear, glad you've been enjoying this series ^^ if you're a fan of jrpg's it deserves to be experienced imo. The ride has been truly unforgettable. It really does seem like the more games you get under your belt the more your appreciation of them rises.
I started with Sky some time ago, very very long time ago, but i played it and droped because i was bored.
Then like 5 years past, and i saw ToCS 1 and asked my friends what about it, it's a trails game, does it have the connection with that old Sky game?
He said yes and told me about it.
And i played it, all of it (almost, i play CS4 now).
And my friend who got me into trails is dead...
Shit, i used to send him screenshots of funny moments when i played trails games, or the moments i've got confused with and now i can't.
But i play the series because i like it and because he would've wanted me to play.
That's a very bittersweet story, thank you very much for sharing it. Were you the one that made that Reddit post asking for Trails songs to play as a tribute to their friend? The ending to CS4 is very emotional, I also feel like "Even if that Warmth is Small" is the perfect song that encapsulates all of Cold Steel ( I also think it's Reans theme in general) Losing someone close to you is always rough, hopefully you can keep remembering him fondly through Trails.
@@Cyrus_Bright i don't use reddit, so it wasn't me, but thank you anyway.
My friend was a jrpg geek, not only trails, i played Xenblade after his advise, some FF games, Persona, Chronotrigger, Xenosaga (i know that blade and saga have same creators, but games are different) and so on.
@@ivansolodyankin6820 Ah okay, you're welcome. That's great that he introduced you to some good games though. Xenoblade is another favorite of mind, alongside Trails and the Yakuza series.
@@Cyrus_Bright yeah, i want to get into Yakuza, but don't have time yet.
In my understanding, it's the same as Trails, should be played from the first game, since it has a plot that spans all over the game series.(and maybe Kiwami before the first game, since it's a prequel)
But i have to beat CS4 and Hajimari before i'll play Yakuza.
@@ivansolodyankin6820 the Yakuza is connected but not to the same level as Trails, some plot points carry over but the stories themselves are fairly self contained. That being said it is worth it to see Kiryus journey and all the wacky scenarios he finds himself in. Some people say to start with Kiwami 1 since it's technically the first game but I think Zero is a better starting point because it expands upon certain things that make the first game hit harder. Luckily unlike Trails, all the games are easily accessible and are frequently on huge discounts too. Take your time and enjoy Trails though (and anything else you might want to check out in the interim)
I also played all the games from Trails in the Sky FC to Trails of Cold Steel 3 pretty much in a row a couple years back lol.
The Sky trilogy is still my favorite arc in the series so far. But I haven't played the Calvard games yet
Haha, sometimes you just can't stop 🤣 I feel like I flip flop between Sky and Crossbell as my favorite, but I do really like the CS arc too. Look forward to Daybreak! Van is an awesome protag and the game has a more mature atmosphere than the CS games.
@@Cyrus_Bright Nice, I'm looking forward to it. I really like the Crossbell games too. I have mixed feelings about Cold Steel. I still enjoyed them, just not as much as the others 😅
@@saiga1545 a lot of people share that sentiment so don't be ashamed of it xD CS is my least favorite, but I still immensely enjoyed my time with it. CS3 and 4 in particular. Reverie just felt like the perfect cherry on top.
I've seen people who adore the CS arc but found the Sky arc to be not as interesting. Heck I'm sure there will be people that place the Calvard arc as their favorite. Seen plenty of people say the Calvard arc has the worst ost in the series and while I'll agree that the quality isn't quite the same as opposed to say the Sky or Crossbell arc, the more jazz/blues feeling was something I really vibed with personally, but I understand someone who says they didn't much care for it. It's a different feel overall, and I probably appreciate variety more than the average person anyway.
People are already saying Van is their favorite protag so that wouldn't shock me. As long as people are civil about their opinions, I enjoy seeing what other people do/don't like since everyone's values and standards are so vastly different and it can help me see things from a different perspective.
I would probably be categorized as a fanboy by a more casual fan but that doesn't really bother me xD
Your kind of quiet way of talking always reminds me of Super Derek.
We do kinda speak in a similar manner, although I do think I'm a bit more... animated? I haven't watched much of his stuff so I can't say if that's true definitively xD
My story isn't too wild, my friend mentioned Sky FC was really good and then i binged the sky arc and the first half of the cold steel arc before i had to take a break due to cold steel 3 not Being out and being unable to play Crossbell until the NISA version came out.... although I've bought all the games multiple times to drag friends down this rabbit hole
Nothing wrong with a simple origin story my friend, you're doing Aidios' work by attempting to drag your friends down the rabbit hole too xD I've tried as well but they aren't big jrpg fans. I had to at least try, ya know? This could be the game that they like out of all the others, and if not then I only lose $10 which I'll gladly give away if it gets someone to try Trails out. Lol.
I pretty much just downloaded an FC rom on a whim one day after hearing a bit about Cold Steel and then immediatelly bought SC on steam afterwards, the rest just snowballed from there as i marathoned to Cold steel 4.
ooh a rom? That must have been an interesting experience! Snowballed is a great way to put it, and then we slowly found ourselves unleashing an avalanche of money on Falcom with every new Trails game they released xD
@@Cyrus_Bright yeah, it was fun for a first run but i definitely would rather keep the PC releases with turbo.
Ah, another victim of Sky and now falcom is holding your wallet hostage. I understand completely. I watched TKNs videos back then and he got me into trails. Yes, I spoiled myself on huge parts of the plot. I still loved playing through all of the sky games. Except the fishing minigame. Screw fishing in Sky. I played the geofront translations for Zero and Azure, then started Cold Steel on new years eve. Got bored midgame, played something else, then finished both CS 1&2 close together. Recently finished my replay of Zero. Currently playing the Xenoblade 3 DLC and my old Pokemon sword DLC I never finished. I preordered daybreak, even though I still have 3 games to go and Azure for my replay. My main problem is always wanting to press the turbo button in other games that do not have turbo mode. I am also thinking of getting myself into the type moon visual novels. Because Tsukihime seems like a really cool story. And the protag has this really cool power. I also want to play more Ys games. Ys 4 was fun but I also hate final dungeons now. The combat was great though. I am excited to play more Trails and falcom is still holding my wallet hostage, so i will buy the games anyway. And a new one was also announced already. i saw it all over reddit today. Although the reddit for falcom kinda sucks, since it's mainly just waifu wars and people asking where to start, since nobody can use google these days anymore. I myself am having a lot of fun and hope people stop complaining about the release schedule, since we are only 2 games behind now. Almost 3 but that game isn't out yet. I am excited for Tsukihime though. It's supposed to be really messed up, but I think I will play one route and then just call it a day. I want to play the other story too. Hope it gets on sale sometime. Games are ruining my finances and I hate it, but I am unable to stop. I really want to play all of those games I buy, but i have so little time and then something new comes out and I just have to buy it! The curse never ends! And I also never finished Fairy fencer! I really want to finish that game! Why do I always buy more? My poor wallet! Btw, is that rune factory frontier on your shelf? very good taste. I still need to play it.
My poor wallet, now I'm buying figures and multiple copies of their games. Lol. Honestly I feel like all jrpgs should have some kind of turbo mode, it's the only reason I stuck with FF12 for instance. Interesting story though, you've definitely had quite the unique experience compared to me xD Hopefully I can start playing the Ys games soon. Rune Factory? I don't think so, I've never played one of those before ^^;
thank you for sharing your story :D
My story is I tried playing Trails in the Sky 1.... felt it was a bit dated but still a good JRPG... wait a few years, learn about the Cold Steel saga and how it actually feels like a Modern/Urban-fantasy JRPG (because lets face it.... Sky didn't really start feeling like such even if it 100% was), play through the entirety of Cold Steel about a year after each game releases, now on Reverie but Ill likely finish it some time after Daybreak's english release
Well Zemuria is still in the early stages of the orbal revolution at the start of the Sky games, and Liberl is definitely more of a peaceful countryside than a bustling metropolis like Crossbell, Heimdallr, or Edith. I'd say the Sky games definitely felt like a mix of a bunch of different genres (at least FC and SC) which they nail imo. You only mentioned FC, did you play SC or the 3rd? Plenty of events and npc's mentioning the progression of technology and such, especially in Zeiss and once Ouroboros start performing their little experiments and using their archaisms, etc.
Reverie does a great job of setting up Daybreak so depending on how hook'd you get it might be hard to resist playing the fan translation. Either way Daybreak is awesome, I hope all the fans both new and old enjoy it.
@@Cyrus_Bright I only played FC for the Sky saga since I at least knew that those games would be in their own timeline
@@lanteanboy huh? They're not in their own timeline. They're literally the foundation for the entire rest of the series with some of the most important lore and worldbuilding that's still relevant to this day. Especially in the Calvard arc xD
@@Cyrus_Bright what I meant is story arcs. I know that every Trails game is connected (except maybe Nayuta, but then that one is not named in the classic sense)
@@lanteanboy about that... recent screenshots might be hinting that Nayuta could be connected after all. Obviously it's still just a theory but it's looking more and more likely :p it could just be a coincidence or it could just be Falcom trolling us but hey it's fun to put on the tin foil hat sometimes 😉
Im also curently 7 games in a row without a break. We going hard we gonna do 12 games in a row without a break 🤣🤣🤣
Haha, honestly I feel I could've done the same. Good luck! At this rate you might catch up just in time xD
@@Cyrus_Bright I'll definitely catch up to day break. I did 7 games in 2 months lol
wow someone else that didnt get burned out like me
i went through cs 123 zero adn 4 in 3 months
I still feel like I honestly could have marathoned all 9 games (at the time) and been fine. I only took a few breaks just to be safe, lol. But that's crazy going through all those games in 3 months, especially CS3 since it's pretty long.
I really enjoyed your story. I discovered Trails by accident. JRPGs were my favorite genre when I was younger and my all-time favorite one to this day is Skies of Arcadia. It's a travesty that it hasn't been re-released and that it never got a sequel. I was going through a pretty rough time in life, was looking for a game I could escape in on Steam, and saw this charming looking JRPG with airships on sale on Steam and bought it. I was pretty quickly hooked on the world and characters and fell in love with the series. I played Crossbell for the first time on the older pre-Geofront fan translations and Hajimari wiht the original spreadsheet. I've decided to wait for official localizations for the newer games. Looking forward to Daybreak!
Thanks for stopping by! Glad you enjoyed the silly sauce, lol. I actually own Skies of Arcadia but I've never played it (a travesty I know) I've heard nothing but good things about it. Hopefully they can release a remaster of that game sometime soon. Isn't it awesome how something simple like a video game can help us through rough patches in life? I just think that's awesome. Oh wow, you went the spreadsheet route with Hajimari? I've always been curious how doing something like that would impact one's enjoyment of the game or if it didn't really get in the way too much. Daybreak was a ton of fun, it's definitely a breath of fresh air that I think this series needed. Summer 2024 can't come soon enough!
@@Cyrus_Bright The spreadsheet definitely impacted my enjoyment of the game, which is why I decided to wait for the official Daybreak localizations. The fan translation is tempting, but I have plenty of stuff to play in the meantime.
I own both versions of Skies of Arcadia. I bought it the day it came out on the Dreamcast and then bought the GameCube version used for $16 at Gamestop in 2004. I recently played through it on the Dolphin emulator, and while it feels dated, it very much holds up. If you liked the Sky trilogy in particular, it has very similar vibes.
@@Psaurus81 ooh that's good to hear, I'll have to move it up on my list of games to play in the future xD which is uh... a long list :/ wow $16? That's a steal! I had to pay almost $80 on ebay for my GameCube copy.
The fan translation is actually pretty good, but yeah if you have other stuff to keep you preoccupied then it'll be worth the wait I think. Very curious to see how Nisa translates certain lines, some are kind of... spicy xD
Thanks for sharing your personal experience with these fantastic games. Also, I keep hearing that Cold Steel 4 is very long, maybe too long, but 290 hours!? Jeez...😰
Thanks for listening to me ramble xD I think turbo might affect the playtime, but yeah CS4 was long. I checked GOG and it says 50 hours but that can't be right :/ I guess we'll never truly know~ If I had to guess it would be between 80-100 hours on average. Love this series though, if that wasn't obvious lmao
When my brother was waiting on his GPU for his PC he needed games that would run without a GPU.
Enter Trails in the sky
Sky can run without a GPU? Interesting. I feel like I knew that already but I forget things all the time xD Did you play through the whole series yet? Up until Reverie I mean as far as western releases go.
Really enjoying the channel, My journey started the way Falcom intended, with Cold Steel 3. While I wouldn't recommend that to new players I wouldn't say it's completely a non starter. The game does a better job than people realize of introducing all the current and past characters and then going back and playing the series chronologically gives you cool insight on where everyone came from and you can see events people were referencing
unfortunately the opposite of that is also true, people started at CS3 and then dropped the series because they didn't understand certain things. Now the same is true for each starting point, even Sky lol, but I will always champion that these games should be experienced through release order. BUT! Each individual can choose whatever starting point they think they'd enjoy the most, even though they might not get all the references or have the most immersive experience if someone wants to start from Zero, CS1, CS3, or Daybreak I won't stop them. Not that I can anyway xD Glad to see that even though you jumped in at CS3 that you were still able to go back and appreciate the older games too.
Marked this video for later since it’s very late here, but I’d love to share my story too while I’m at it cause why not.
Funnily enough I got into the trails rabbit hole cause I was sorta bored 😂 I got a steam account cause P4G was releasing on steam and I wanted to play it but thought “hey I should make more use of this account and get other jrpgs too to play alternatively with persona 4”. So I got persona 4, played it, lost motivation for a bit, looked for other games available and saw there were a LOT of titles that started with “The Legend of Heroes”. I saw that all of them were rated positively then I checked reviews and found out there was an order to them. The Sky games were also discounted that time, so I figured there was no harm in trying them out.
Initially I didn’t really think anything about it since it’s quite the slow burn. I played it for a few hours, got confused by the gameplay then I switched over to persona 4 again. Didn’t think about it for quite a while. Then one day I thought to myself that there was no way I’m giving up on understanding the combat system in Sky FC. So again I switched over to Trails, got the hang of it while realizing that I was REALLY loving the main characters, and when I reached the part where Cassius was reported missing I was GONE. Played through the whole game non-stop. Then I got to the end of FC and that sealed the deal forever.
Three years later and I’m already 70+ hours into Cold Steel 4 yet I STILL haven’t finished persona 4 😂😂
I hope you enjoy it whenever you get to it ^^
Yup, the ending to FC really does that to a lot of us xD and that's hilarious! You're knee deep in CS4 but still haven't finished Persona 4 after a three year Trails journey... *Your Affection plays in the background* looks like the Inaba Case will go stone cold now since there's still Reverie and Daybreak around the corner too :p
Funny when I bought cold steel 1 or 2 i didn't realise it was related to the loh series cause it was in Japanese
i remeber reading something online bout a LoH game being in development which is wat CS1 is today but was rean with guns and alisa with a sword i think?
Good story! Mine mainly came around through Cold Steel 1 and 2 first, during in 2020 and I enjoyed them. So I went back played the Sky Trilogy enjoyed them also, then obviously played Zero on Geofront, Azure with a flame edit (as Geofront didn’t get to that at the time), and obviously came back to Cold Steel 3 and 4, and Reverie within the span of 3 years after my journey started.
Thanks for listening to my almost tragic start to this series xD hey at least you went back and played the older ones, that's more than some can claim lol. Now you have Daybreak on the horizon (was that an intentional pun? Possibly) which will be a good time.
Still crazy to me how I went from almost dropping this series to becoming a devout fan, and there's still so much to look forward to.
Hey there, are you planing on making a discord server anytime in the near future? Id love to have more of these types of discussions. Also once again a really cozy video, great job!
Hmm, I'm not sure. I won't say it's unpossible (lol) but I'll consider it for the future. I appreciate the kind words ^^
I got into trails because I got into Ys and saw the Falcom brand on TitS on PSP GO. I got into Ys because I heard some YT music covers for Ys and tried Ys 1&2 on Wii Virtual Console. Being that I have a very soft spot for retro I got hooked more easily than some......aaaand then I suffered for 4 and a half years for that FC sequel lol.
oof, you were one of the og fans that lived through the Great Trails Drought? That must've been... fun? xD I'm actually going to be playing Ys 1 for the first time soon, so I hope I enjoy it half as much as I do Falcoms other main series :p
I was aware of Trails in the Sky as far back as 2011, when I thought about getting it for the PSP. I never ended up doing that, but I did pick it up on Steam at the end of 2015. I played through it, enjoyed it, and picked up SC a year or two later. By the time I finished that, I was decidedly a fan of Trails in the Sky, but I didn't see any need to go beyond those two games. Sky the 3rd was out at that point, but a dungeon crawler didn't seem that interesting. And hearing about Trails of Cold Steel didn't interest me much either. I hadn't yet grasped the interconnected nature of the Trails games, so I expected Cold Steel was only as connected to Sky as different titles would be in series like Final Fantasy, and the school setting and mech combat didn't appeal to me.
Still, I was enough of a fan to keep up with news on the series. I was intrigued when familiar faces from Sky showed up in promotional material from Sen no Kiseki III, though I didn't get too excited without a guarantee that the game would be localized in English. But the tipping point came when I watched a video of the true ending of Sen no Kiseki IV shortly after its release. I didn't understand everything that was happening, and I had no idea how some of the characters got to where they were in that ending, but I was sure that I wanted to find out. So once I knew that Cold Steel III would be localized (and probably its sequel as well) I decided I had to play the full Cold Steel series.
After I finished Cold Steel IV, I went back and played Geofront's version of Trails from Zero. I enjoyed Zero, but wasn't sure whether I would play Azure, since the only site that offered the original Chinese PC version for sale seemed a bit fishy. But while I was pondering this, I watched an online concert that Falcom Sound Team jdk put on for their western fans. As suspicion I had when I heard the start of “Inevitable Struggle” turned into an amazed realization when they announced that NISA would be officially localizing Zero and Azure. This settled my conundrum about playing Azure: I'd just wait until the official release. But the concert also helped me decide something else.
Hajimari no Kiseki had released the previous year in Japan, but wouldn't be released in English until 2023. At the rate Falcom had been releasing games, we might end up several games behind by the time Reverie came out. I didn't want to wait that long to be caught up, so I pre-ordered the Spriggan Edition of Kuro no Kiseki.
The previews for Kuro promised the return of several characters from Sora no Kiseki. Since it had been a while since I had played the Sky games, I decided to replay the trilogy in the time leading up to Kuro's release. I replayed FC and SC, and finally got around to playing Sky the 3rd. Then when my copy of Kuro no Kiseki finally arrived, I played through it as best as I could using Google Translate and my own rusty skills at Japanese (I played it again later with a fan translation).
Then I played through NISA's version of Zero and Azure after they came out. Wanting to continue with the story from where Azure left off, I decided to replay Cold Steel III and IV after that. And that brings us to today. I haven't played Reverie yet, but I hope to do so before too long. I'll want to play Daybreak when it comes out, and I'll probably wait until Kuro II is localized before playing it - NISA seems to be picking up the pace so I'm not as concerned about falling behind as I used to be.
Oh wow, what an interesting story. Thank you for sharing. You were really all over the place huh? xD
It really sucks that people dismiss Sky the 3rd so often and potentially miss out on some incredible storytelling, worldbuilding, and character moments simply because the structure is a bit different. Probably why they hadn't gone back to that style of game until Reverie. But I feel Reverie does that dungeon crawling aspect way better while also telling a great story and still allowing you to roam various towns and cities to interact with the world. I feel if 3rd at least had npc's in some regard people would have been more receptive to it initially.
Hope you enjoy Reverie when you get around to it. The best version of Rean exists there imo.
I was also planning on waiting until Kuro 2 got officially localized but ever since the announcement of Kai no Kiseki I don't think I can wait for much longer. It's too enticing, especially after seeing those screenshots. Lol. I heard the fan translation isn't terrible so I'm willing to at least give it a go. Probably sometime in January, I have some other things I want to get started on before that (finishing Like A Dragon Gaiden and starting my Ys journey to name a few :p)
My own story was way more straightforward. I just came across FC on Steam which had a special sale for the release of SC back in 2015. It looked nice and I was like "it's only 15 bucks I have not much to lose" and the rest is history.
I immediately got hooked and had a very hard time shutting my PC down after my first play session because I was already dying to see what would happen next.
And of course SC was an instabuy.
Then I was in the 3rd waiting room and was so happy that I couldn't help but crying when I was in the main menu.
And ofc cried a whole lot more in the end.
I only followed official releases so I sadly played CS I and II before Crossbell and felt really sad when I noticed I didn't get much about what happened with the Lloyd section at the end.
That's when I heard about Geofront. Waited for their Zero patch. But when finished I immediately jumped on Azure with the old patch as I thought the Geofront one wouldn't be done before years and CS III was coming soon.
Quartz system is confusing at first but as you said it's really simple when you get how it works and it's really satisfying when you get the addition perfectly right to unlock the broken art you wanted.
Sad they dumbed down the system.
Never really been into gacha games but as it's turn based I tried HSR and had fun for 2-3 months but then gave up because in the end of the day I don't like gacha system.
Hey, nothing wrong with being an OG fan. Lol. That was me with my second attempt with FC. I had a hard time going to bed because I would turn my Vita on for a few minutes and play xD Oh yeah and Zin was called "Zane" for some reason. I remember being slightly confused when they called him Zin in Sky the 3rd. But I recognized it pretty quickly as "oh it just must have been a localization error" and accepted his "new" name.
yeah the title screen music from Sky 3rd hits pretty hard (it's called "A Faint Glitter of Light", I had to look it up xD) such a beautiful track. Freakin' pianos man... Sky 3rd Evo videos are going to be very emotional for me whenever we get to them.
I think you'll enjoy Daybreak a lot then, not only is the gameplay naturally faster (you really don't need turbo in battles) but they do a cool fusion of the new Quartz system and the old one. It was a lot of fun for me since I slightly preferred the older system too.
I played HSR for about a month and don't really feel like going back, lol. The fomo and all that stuff just wear me down after the initial honeymoon period wears off.
My main fear for the future of the series, is the soundtracks. It just seems like they're about to go downhill. The little I've heard has not been at all impressive. I'm really hoping I'll change my mind, once I actually play them.
Edit: I just realized I already posted a similar comment on another one of your videos...
I personally really enjoyed the music of Daybreak. Koguchi was great, Sonoda sounded fine, Jindo was fantastic as always, and Singa had some good pieces too. But yeah the style of music is definitely different compared to past games. I do wish we still had Momiyama with us at least, but oh well. You did make a similar comment but that's okay, feel free to say whatever is on your mind. I don't bite, we all have different opinions on all kinds of things. I try to look at things from others perspectives, although I am human so I do fail sometimes... xD
The writing has dropped hugely in quality from the first five games, there are so little stakes, and repeated story beats now. It's a huge shame because the series was shaping up to be so well written and intriguing.
Have you played Daybreak out of curiosity?
My story with trails began in late 2019 when i was reallly into "fire emblem 3 houses". There was the VA of my favorite character from that game who made a short video saying "hey, i voice this dude called kurt vander in this game called "trails of cold steel III". check that out".
So i started playing the demo and i was completely lost: "who the hell are these guys ? why do we start the game with a flashforward ? why does every one praise the main protag ? how can a 13 years old girl can join a military academy ? did they really have a phone that can enhance physical and magical abilities ? " i hadn't finish the tutorial and i just stop wandering " am i missing something? "
i didn't take that much research to find out that was the case. (insert joke about another unknown jrpg that struggle to get localised outside japan). It's an even bigger problem for me since i'm french and this was and still is to this day the only entry in the series that was translated in my language. ( a fan translated version of the first sky game in french is coming next year but having an official one even for the upcoming trails games is pretty much impossible ).
That wasn't an issue since i was not really into the game but i kept in mind that the series existed.
2 years has passed, language barrier partially stopped being an issue and it was time for me to start AND finish a falcom game ... Ys VIII. This game caught my eyes way back then but the Ys IX trailer made the game look dark and edgy and i didn't like. After watching a video about Ys IX saying it was pretty great, i started playing the game that came before and oh boy what a game it was. Ys origin was next and somehow i liked it even more.
Not to long after in late 2022 i learned about the other franchise from falcom and 'hey i know that game. Wait: crossbell duology official release; trails into reverie; what did i miss this time ?"
So i gathered all the knowledge i needed and figured out this was the best moment to start by the first game. So i finished the prologue, really liked it and ... took a 6 month break.
I needed first to exit the genshin impact rabbit hole, plus there was the new fire emblem game and all the other Ys games i still haven't played back then.
Can you really blame me if i was playing the other falcom franchise instead ? But i was only a matter of time before i continue my playthrought of the first sky game.
From there i played the series not stop until cold steel IV. I tried taking a break between azure and cold steel I by playing "tokyo xanadu" but this wouldn't do. I needed to continue. I finished reverie recently after finishing "tokyo xanadu " and Ys IX. And well, it was worth it. Taking the differents games individually made me realise all the problems i have with them, espacially gameplay wise (the most baffling one being: WHO THE HELL THOUGHT THE DEATHBLOW STATUS EFFECT WAS A GOOD IDEA ?!), but taking the franchise in its entirety, it truly is something special.
I can name a lot of character i love but if i have to choose only one of them, it would be the fan favorise whose doomed to not have a 3D model. Speaking of fans, i have to agree with most of them: "trails to azure" is probably the best one out of the first 10 games, but "trails in the sky the 3rd" and "trails into reverie" are more fascinating to me. Can you name another franchise who can make entire games as epilogue for what came before? I can't. Who ask for this ? Who would dare to do that ? Anyhow it happened, and i'm so happy about that. Plus these games got my favorite collection of "side" content and most of all favorite new protag.
I spent more that 600 hours into that franchise but i'm still begging for more character interaction between all these guys. Not because they're lacking, quite on the contrary. And don't let me start on the ost. I can talk about it for hours but that more than enough text from me.
all that left for me to say is " hype for the calvard arc and Ys X " (i still haven't done nayuta thought).
(I thought I replied but I guess I got distracted, lol) Yeah that was Claude's VA, I remember watching some videos with him on YT and went "Hey that's Kurt's VA!"
Ha, seems a lot of people fell into the CS3 starting point pitfall. I wonder how many dropped the series because of that? Thankfully you did research. That's cool that you went and played the games anyway. I've actually been impressed by how many different nationalities I've interacted with just on my tiny channel. Shows that Trails is appreciated all over the world.
Ys 8 was fantastic, no complaints with that being your first Falcom game lol. Memories of Celceta was technically mine but Ys 8 was second. I need to play the other Ys games though. Hopefully will be starting Ys 1 on the channel soon :D
oh gosh Genshin Impact, I fell down that rabbit hole for about a year during 2019-2020. I don't play anymore but man I now know the dangers of a gatcha game to it's fullest extent. Lmao.
Honestly same, if I had to name all my favorite characters I'd be here all day, don't even get me started on music. Just take a look at my channel XD God the music is so good, especially Sky 3rd and Zero. Those are probably my two favorite Trails ost's but I love all of them, even Daybreak and yes... even most of Singa's stuff. Although I can say his stuff is lower quality than most of the sound team but that doesn't make him bad. You probably don't want to hear me ramble so I'll save that for a future video, lol.
There just isn't anything else out there like Trails. The only other games that have come close to me are Xenoblade and the Yakuza series. Both of which are top 5 easy. Mass Effect trilogy to an extent as well. But Trails is special, hence why I even started this little journey of mine. Hopefully I can convince just one person to play this series and fall in love with it like I have.
I won't say anything, but Daybreak hype is true and real. Van is a ton of fun and the vibes are different but in a positive way. Nayuta was a great side game, I loved it. The music in that one is phenomenal too. They had some stuff from Osaki and Takeshita. Momiyama, Jindo, and Sonoda were also present and man it just felt like old school Falcom. Had a bit of Sky 3rd, had a bit of Zero, even had a tiny bit of Cold Steel (somehow) lol
Anyway, thanks for the comment. It was a joy to read!
I think I'll share how I fell down the rabbit hole. Back when DangerDoug was still streaming, I stumbled across his Persona 3 streams, and I stayed until the end. Then he started streaming Trails in the Sky the 3rd after that, and I immediately fell in love with Kevin, the music, and the story. After the first stream, I left the stream because I didn't want to get spoiled. I was just about to get my Steam Deck, but the Sky games were classified as unsupported for deck, but I went to my best friend's house soon after, brought a Steam card, punched it in my bud's spare laptop while he played a VR game in the other room, and started Sky FC. I finished the Prologue, fell in love with the game, then after that, I didn't really play further, so I could hang out with my best friend. After I got home, I got Cold Steel 1, started it, then I got to Chapter 4 of CS1 and finally got Sky running on the Steam Deck, then I finished FC and SC, then I can't remember whether I finished CS1 or Sky the 3rd before the other. I finished Sky the 3rd the day before my last day at a school I had been going to for 8 years, so the ending of the 3rd and To Meet Again Someday really spoke to me, so I listened to To Meet Again Someday on my last day. Needless to say, I broke down crying 3 times, and Trails in the Sky the 3rd dethroned Etrian Odyssey V as my favorite video game of all time. I started Sky FC sometime around September last year, and I finished Sky the 3rd in the end of May of this year. I finished Zero end of September this year, and I'm currently in Act 2 part 2 of CS2 (just did quest cleanup and was about to return to the Courageous) and the Finale of Azure (just did Randy and Wazy's final bonding events and I'm writing this comment in the middle of Rixia's final bonding event). I have started CS3 and done the Prologue because curiosity is trying to get me killed like it killed the cat, but the little self-control I have kicked in, so I'm saving CS3 until after I finish Azure and CS2. I'm actually trying to finish Azure by the end of the year, and I only have a week, because I'll be busy from the 23rd onward. I do have the 26th and 27th as a safety net however, considering the fact that I'm absurdly slow at finishing games
I'm very slow at playing games too. It took me 35 hours to finish Nayuta and the average completion time is 25 hours xD I essentially always have to add 25% whenever I look up a game on HowLongToBeat. Good on you for not letting the curiosity get to ya. CS3 is my favorite of the Erebonian arc so I'm sure you'll enjoy it a lot more after finishing Azure. There's a lot of callbacks and references. Sky the 3rd really is an emotional powerhouse, even listening to the title screen "A Faint Glimmer of Light" gets me teary eyed. Jeez. Ah man, but that's cool, how it had more of a personal attachment to it. It really did feel like you were saying farewell to a bunch of really close friends you weren't sure if you'd ever see again. My friend actually owns a Steam Deck and told me the Sky games work even though it says unsupported. Which is awesome. They're the perfect games to play on a handheld imo. Thanks for sharing your story, I'm still impressed with how varied everyone's stories are. It's fascinating. Was DangerDoug an older RUclipsr? or a Twitch Streamer? I've never heard of him. You mentioned streaming specifically so I'll just guess Twitch xD
@@Cyrus_Bright DangerDoug started out as a Twitch streamer, but when I found him, he had moved to streaming on RUclips
@@Demi-Joker okay, neat. I tried searching his name but didn't find anything (just a bunch of videos about dogs, lol)
@@Cyrus_Bright you gotta specifically look up DangerDougYT
1:46 What is that from?
It's a scene from the Trails in the Sky OVA. I haven't watched it yet but it's a popular enough meme that I know of it's existence.
Cyrus, am i your friend?
that depends... do ya like Jazz? *spends the next 10 hours meticulously reciting the entire Bee Movie script*
@@Cyrus_Bright imma head out.
@@alexchettiath7214 understandable, have a good day