Video Game / The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

Just a story about a girl, a guy, and the simple adventures they get into...

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky^note 英雄伝説VI 空の軌跡 (Eiyuu Densetsu VI: Sora no Kiseki or The Legend of Heroes VI in Japan), is a JRPG released by Falcom in the mid-2000s, first on the PC and then on the PSP. It is an entry in Falcom's line of "traditional" turn-based story-heavy JRPGs (as opposed to the action RPGs of the Ys series), and kick-started what has become the company's flagship title as the first entry in the Trails Series.

After recently passing their exam to become Junior Bracers, wandering adventurer-types helping local communities, Estelle Bright and her adopted brother Joshua begin their journey to become full-fledged Senior Bracers, following in the footsteps of Estelle's father Cassius. They meet new friends while undertaking a journey across the kingdom of Liberl, a country on the Zemurian continent, which the entire Trails series takes place in (future arcs take place in different countries). To become true Bracers, they must travel across all of Liberl's major cities doing work for the Bracer Guild branches in each one. However, things quickly get muddied.

Joshua and Estelle find themselves dealing with a string of strange crimes where the suspects, upon exposure, seem to develop amnesia. In addition, the airliner that Cassius was aboard when he left the country for some work has disappeared. Fighting the crime spree and searching for answers as to Cassius' location, Estelle, Joshua, and their newfound friends find themselves entangled in a complex series of events that could change the face of Liberl, and answer certain questions about Joshua's past... even if they are answers Joshua may not want brought to light.

Trails in the Sky is, in a word, gigantic. It was so large, in fact, that Falcom couldn't practically release it as one game; it was released as two games, with a third game that was more of an epilogue than a third part. Trails in the Sky FC (short for "First Chapter") was released in mid-2004, ending on a massive cliffhanger, with several major questions left unanswered. In spite of the game's modest budget and sprite-based graphics (far behind those standard for the then current wave of PlayStation 2 games), it received praise from critics and players alike for its sprawling cast of characters, depth of Worldbuilding, ambitiously extensive script, and numerous side stories about the lives of its hundreds of non-playable characters.

Second Chapter followed nearly two years later in 2006 (it was so large as to require two UMDs when released on the PSP in 2007), resolving the arc's main plot; despite some complaining during SC's development, it released to nigh-rabid reviews. A year later, Trails in the Sky the 3rd was released; it functioned as a sort of Mission-Pack Sequel combined with a Playable Epilogue. It expanded upon the development of most of the series' characters, including party members and supporting cast, and also resolved dangling side-plot hooks, in addition to setting up plot elements that would come to be important to subsequent games in the franchise.

Similar to Falcom's other flagship RPG series Ys, Trails in the Sky historically suffered from No Export for You syndrome, which is the primary reason why (much like franchises such as the Tales Series and Shin Megami Tensei) the series was quite popular in Japan, but was originally practically unheard of outside of it.

However, the first chapter was eventually localized and released in March 2011 for the PSP courtesy of XSEED Games (who worked on Falcom's Ys series previously). After several years, XSEED announced in late 2013 that Trails in the Sky SC would be released on PSN and Steam, with the translation done in cooperation with Carpe Fulgur; and after several other travails, SC finally got a release date of October 29, 2015. The Third was released on May 3rd, 2017 (but only on PC).

Beginning in 2015, the games received an Updated Re-release for the Play Station Vita and PlayStation 3 to bring the trilogy in line with later games in the franchise containing enhanced graphics, redrawn character portraits, new animated sequences, a rearranged soundtrack provided by several freelance musicians, full voice acting for the story scenes with the exception of sidequests, with various gameplay additions. Due to the licensing issues involved, these versions of the games are currently only available in Japan and are likely to remain unlocalized.

There is also a two episode OVA entitled Trails In The Sky: The Animation, which covers roughly half of SC.

The series, as a whole, is one arc in the Trails franchise. It was followed up by the Crossbell duology, which consists of Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure. Taking place a few years after the events of the Sky trilogy, these games take place in Crossbell, another country in Zemuria, and stars a new set of protagonists. That arc was then followed up by the The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel tetralogy, which also takes place some years after the Liberl arc and features some returning characters from it. Additionally, the series was so popular as to inspire an Intercontinuity Crossover fighting game with Ys, in the style of Marvel vs. Capcom, as well as a more traditional spinoff title, The Legend of Nayuta: Boundless Trails.

Be warned: This page has a lot of marked spoilers; this is because talking about most of the tropes related to the game requires talking about the revelations the game makes later in its narrative (particularly in the second chapter).

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The Whereabouts of Tropes:

Tropes A - H

• Absurdly High Level Cap:
  • FC's level cap is 49, but the Final Boss can be defeated in the mid 30's, even on Nightmare, and actually grinding to 49 is a tedious process as all encounters will start giving 1 exp long before then. And it's pointless to go that high, as while Estelle's level transfers to SC with an Old Save Bonus, it's capped at 40. This is joked about in The 3rd's Pop Quiz minigame.
  • Subverted in SC and The 3rd, with level caps of 99 and 150 respectively, which you're likely to be close to by the endgame.
• Actually Four Mooks: Played straight with most of the random battles, where a single monster on the field map turns out to be two or more.
• Adam Smith Hates Your Guts: That he does. Even at the end of the game, when you are explicitly saving the entire kingdom from a shattering cataclysm and pretty much everyone has acknowledged this, even major characters will still charge you for items. Granted, the infinity-1 weapons are only sold to you at a price much much lower than your average luxury vehicle and only about 1000 times of the cheapest food you can buy in stores, they are probably marked down by A LOT.
  • Averted with inns. Most of the game's inns cost a fixed rate of mira per party member.
• A Day in the Limelight: The Doors in The 3rd function this way for all the main cast, revealing the backstory of some characters, showing what others were doing off-camera and much hinting at things to come. This also extends to minor characters like Aina.
  • The 3rd as a whole could be seen as this for Kevin, graduating from major supporting character to protagonist.
• Adventure Guild: The Bracers' Guild.
• All in a Row: Your party travels like this, which can actually be a nuisance when you have four people in it, since it takes a second or two for your party-members to follow the path you took, meaning a monster you dodged can still nail one of the tailing members of your party and draw you into battle. Worse, unless you have quartz to preven it, this is likely to be a back attack where the enemies get to go first.
• All-Powerful Bystander: Cassius Bright. An ex-Master Swordsman and the strongest Bracer in Liberl, he managed to Curb Stomp the final boss of FC. The earth trembles when he spins his rod. Second strongest character in the trilogy after Loewe according to the author. In fact, he's so broken that the Big Bad's plan is to set up a disaster in a different country so Cassius wouldn't disturb him. He is considered such a Memetic Badass that Alan Richard honestly believed that if Cassius hadn't left the army, his plan to launch a coup and militarize Liberl to deter their more powerful neighbors from considering invasion would not have been necessary. Interestingly, though, Cassius doesn't see himself this way; as far as he's concerned, he's a gigantic fuckup who deserves to live the life of an outcast because of what he failed to do... namely, save his wife.
• Aloof Big Brother: Loewe to Joshua. They are not related (Loewe was the boyfriend of Joshua's now deceased older sister) but the dynamic is the same.
• Always Someone Better: Cassius, no matter how many great deeds Estelle has done to save the world, Cassius always managed to top everything that she and her party has done, then again we're talking about Cassius here...
• Amazon Chaser: The Ravens find Kloe's sudden transformation to Action Girl to be "so hot". They also feel this way about Estelle in SC, after she beats the snot out of them during the Grancel tournament in FC.
• Anachronism Stew: Applies somewhat, though as the series takes place only fifty years into the Orbal Revolution the setting is more analogous to the late 19th or early 20th century than modern times. There are automobile analogues, flying ships, guns and even laptops (well, briefcase-tops, Tita has one), but out of sixteen playable characters between the three chapters, only three use guns, with most of the other characters preferring melee weapons and the only other ranged user uses a crossbow. (Okay, Tita uses enough gun to count for an entire party, but still.) Kind of justified in-universe, Orbal guns shoot out Orbal energy, not bullets, thus much less damaging to humans than Real Life guns. Specially-made guns that shoot out projectiles are around, but not very common.(Also justified the infinite ammo) They do have petroleum oil and gunpowder in-universe, but have stopped development due to the Orbal revolution.(So yeah, the Empire scrambling hundreds of petroleum fueled tanks with gun powder weapons really shows Osborne's conspiracy to take over Liberl).
  • Also played with, once you get Tita's S-Craft, the Satellite Cannon.(She uses her laptop to aim and shoot the cannon for starters)
• Ancient Conspiracy: Third, in particular, implies that Ouroboros has been around for a long time. It's also got a lot of Illuminati-esque trappings, with the small number of high-powered operatives and fingers in every pie. It's often called The Society for short.
• Another Dimension: The space where Aureole was sealed away for 1200 years, containing some rather creepy monsters. The four Towers exist simultaneously in the normal world and the other dimension and the latter is where all the machines that maintains the seal on Aureole are contained.
  • Also Phantasma is one of these that was created by Aureole.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: At the end of FC, Joshua tells Estelle of his past and explains his intentions to disappear from her life forever. Her response is an angry and tearful confession of her love for him, something she'd grappled with for much of the latter half of the game. They wind up sharing their first kiss... which, unfortunately, was a ploy by Joshua to slip her a knock-out drug in order to get away quietly.
• Antidote Effect: Averted. Most such items heal multiple effects and restore some HP in the process, making them quite useful. Also, status effects can be extremely debilitating and item use has no charge time unlike Arts. Poison in particular was designed to avert this because it harms you after every turn and the turn you select an Art counts so healing yourself with an item is actually the safer option.
• Anti-Grinding: Like many other Falcom games, every enemy you can fight has a level, and once you are at or above the level of the enemy, the XP reward for beating it starts going down until you eventually reach 1XP/enemy. However, the XP needed to gain a level tends to be much lower than in other Falcom games (Such as Ys), so it's still possible to gain a few levels over the course of the game even when everything only provides 1 XP.
• Armor-Piercing Question: Joshua: "How did you know about this place, Colonel?"
  • In one sidequest in SC, an NPC gives you one of these to use on another character. Remembering it will get you bonus BP.
• Art Shift: The cover art for 3rd is very different from the cover art for the previous games and the art used in the games themselves.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In SC Estelle expresses a few things to herself after Dorothy gives her a photo that shows Joshua working with the Sky Bandits.
  Estelle: Joshua, you idiot... Doing crazy stuff like attacking an army base... And your eyes are so cold, like when we first met... And... And... AND WHY DO YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE GETTING ALONG SO WELL WITH THAT STUPID TOMBOY?!
• Ascended Extra: Several popular NPCs in first two games become playable in the last installment. Kevin even becomes the main protagonist!
• Assassin Outclassin': Cassius first met Joshua when he tried to murder him and Cassius kicked his ass. Cassius claimed that the fight was a lot closer than Joshua implied, though.
• A Taste of Power: When you get to control some high-ranking guest characters, it's almost certainly going to be this trope played straight where arts is concerned. For example, you get to control Julia for one battle in SC in an earlier chapter and the game lets you cast high-powered Earth arts that your proper party would only be able to use nearing the final chapter.
  • In Third, the prologue chapter starts with Kevin having an excellent loadout with good access to higher ranking arts. Needless to say, you lose everything when the game starts proper.
• The Atoner: Col. Richard in Third. Also, Cassius throughout most of the trilogy.
• Badass Army: The army of the Liberl Kingdom doesn't come across as this at first (that "gate music" doesn't help), but the special divisions like Special Ops and the Royal Guards manage to make an impact in FC, and the entire army steps up to the plate magnificently in SC.
• Badass Adorable: Renne and Tita. Estelle may also count as well.
• Badass Family: The Bright family. Enough said.
• Badass Longcoat: Loewe, in order to counter this Joshua relies on his Scarf of Asskicking. Olivier and Kevin wear these as well, Olivier having several over the course of the plot.
• Badass Preacher: Kevin is a priest of the Septian Church, which is loosely based on Christianity. He's also one of the earlier people who join your party.
  • Sister Carnelia, the supporting character in the eponymous story-within-a-story found on the bookshelves in the Erebonian embassy, also qualifies. At the end of the tale, she rapidly dispatches a group of Jaegers, which the game's story regards as more powerful than the heroes at the beginning of SC.
• The Bad Guy Wins: FC, on multiple levels. Not only does Richard's scheme have the desired side effect the hidden villain wanted, as part of the cleanup from the main plot, Cassius takes an extended leave of absence from the Bracers and returns to the Army, so that he can help reorganize the military to make it stronger and a greater deterrent from foreign threats, which is ultimately what the Big Bad was trying to do with his scheme, so even though his plot failed, he still got what he wanted out of it.
• Bag of Sharing: In SC, during the curbstomp battle with Anelace and the bracer you didn't pick, they have access to the main party's items.
  • Averted later on when playing as Joshua, who is 15~20 levels ahead of the party and loaded to the brim with powerful orbments.
• Bag of Spilling: Slightly subverted in that while the characters lose all their items, their levels can be carried into the next game if the clear data of the previous game is present.
  • Justified in-universe. A new model Tactical Orbment makes your old Quartz useless in SC and the plot puts Estelle in a situation where she doesn't need to carry around her Mira and Sepith. You also start with statistically equivalent gear to the stuff you ended FC with and you retain all your Crafts so the characters haven't really 'lost' anything. The 3rd has a different justification for losing your things but reaches effectively the same result.
• Ballroom Blitz: The opening of The 3rd involves a running battle amidst a fancy party, culminating on center stage.
• Batman Cold Open: The first half of the prologue of The 3rd is about Kevin completing a mission to retrieve an artifact that has absolutely nothing to the main plot of the game, which is kicked off when a simple pickup job he was instructed to do on the way home from his other mission goes awry.
• Batman Gambit: Kevin and Cassius come up with a way to destroy the Stigma that allows Weissman to control Joshua, but it can only be triggered by Weissmann giving a specific order. They choose to set it to Weissmann ordering Joshua to kill Estelle, knowing that Weissmann would not be able to resist the opportunity to Kick the Dog.
• Battle Couple: Estelle and Joshua basically define the trope, especially in the later parts of the story.
• BFG: All of Tita's weapons, starting at the level of a portable mortar and working their way up. Carna briefly wields a pretty big gun in SC.
• The Battle Didn't Count: The last battle with Lorence in FC goes the same way win or lose. If you win, Lorence will compliment you, then beat your party in a cutscene. SC inverts it with his Boss Battle as Loewe, which occurs just before the final boss: if you can't beat him, the retry screen gives you the option to just move on with the story as if you'd won.
• BFS: Agate's Heavy Blade and to a lesser extent Mueller's sword. However, the gigantic blades used by Stormbringer put theirs to shame.
• Bigger on the Inside: Justified in the case of the Device Towers, which contain the machinery that keeps Liber Ark sealed away. The machinery and the Ark both reside in an alternate dimension and the four towers around Liberl are the 'anchors' connecting the two.
• The Big Guy: Zin and Agate share this role, later joined by Mueller.
• Beware the Nice Ones:
  • Joshua may look a bit girly, but he's called "The Black Fang" because he is that dangerous. He's usually a pretty chill, nice dude, but if you threaten to harm Estelle? Aidios help you. The mayor of Ruan learns this the hard way in FC, which even freaks Estelle out a little.
  • Renne often comes across as sweet and cuddly, even after The Reveal about her. She's also the most emotionally disturbed member of the entire cast, with accompanying violence.
  • This applies to Leonhardt, too, even when he's posing as "Lorence". He is capable of being disarmingly nice and polite, even when you're actively fighting him.
• BGM Override: Rescue Mission becomes the field and battle BGM (with no interruption) during the mission to rescue the hostages at Erbe Imperial Villa and later to rescue the Queen from Grancel Castle. Also reappears in the final dungeon of The 3rd when Castle of Illusions <Phantasmagoria> plays from the minute you enter the final dungeon to the minute your parties reach the end of their respective areas.
  • A non-story related example happens if a character drops to critical health or is defeated. The normally jaunty battle music is replaced with a more desperate remix.
• Big Damn Heroes: FC's final chapter. The princess is rescued but a little girl has been taken hostage. Cue the arrival of Schera, who we haven't seen since a quarter of the way into the game.
  • SC raises the bar by having this happen with all your allies near the end of the game. After Weissmann injures Loewe and makes off with Joshua, a pair of TM Dragion units show up to menace your party. Cue a massive volley of fire from offscreen, followed by Professor Russell, your unused party members and the Capuas who distract the enemies while your party makes a break for it.
  • In the end of SC, Estelle and Joshua fall from Liber Ark but are saved by Cassius, riding a magical dragon.
  • The 3rd manages to take the SC scene and crank it up even further as everyone storms Hell (sort of) to free Kevin and Ries...and Gilbert.
• Big Eater: Estelle. In nearly every town/city you enter, she makes a comment about the food.
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Imperial Family of Erebonia is implied to be one. Later games will prove this is not in fact the case, the representative example seen in this trilogy is just... quirky.
• Bishie Sparkles: Olivier all the time, Joshua when crossdressing. Estelle occasionally does a female version of this when she's really excited. Sneakers may be involved.
• Black Knight: Literally, the Dragon to the Lord of Phantasma in The 3rd is named Schwarzritter, wears badass armor and carries a huge sword. Oh, and he's a Phantasma recreation of Loewe, to absolutely nobody's surprise, in or out of universe.
• Bland-Name Product: In FC, Dorothy comments that Nial told her that their coverage of the coup attempt will likely win them the Fuelitzer Prize. In the English translation, Estelle comments "Don't you mean the Pu--" and Joshua shushes her.
• Blood Knight: Walter in SC.
• Body Horror:
  • Weissman, after absorbing the Aureole, turns into a bizarre, Lovecraftian-horror.
  • In Gehenna, the seventh plane of Phantasma, Kevin encounters the remains of all the sinners he killed, which have been turned into something resembling mud-men. Probably the most horrific is a young child named Elmer, who was taken by a devil-worshipping cult and turned into a flesh-eating monster. Despite Kevin trying every form of Thaumaturgy he knew, he was unable to save the child and could only give him the blessing of a quick death.
• Bokukko: Josette. Estelle actually calls her this.
• Bonus Dungeon: The Abyss in The 3rd is an optional twenty-floor dungeon filled with tough monsters and bosses, very nice treasure and the final Star Door.
• Book Ends: FC begins and ends with Joshua playing "The Whereabouts of Light" on his harmonica.
• Boring, but Practical: Chain Crafts. They may not be as flashy as S-Crafts, but their damage output is comparable or sometimes even higher, especially with a fully strength-buffed party, at a cost of only up to 40 CP per participant. This is especially true for Julia or Mueller in The 3rd, who hit multiple times in chains (Julia hits everything in the AoE twice, Mueller hits the center target twice); for them it's usually more effective to spam Chain Crafts than to use their regular Crafts or S-Crafts.
• Boss Rush: In The 3rd, the party splits into four to explore each gate in Phantasmagoria. Each time a team makes it to the end, they run into a boss, but the perspective cuts off and changes to a different party. Once all the parties make it to the end, the three parties other than Kevin's each have to fight a Palette Swap of a previous boss in the series.
• Bragging Rights Reward: The reward for catching the ultimate fish in SC is a key item that allows you to buy bait at the Fisherman's Guild. But since the fish is only catchable in the penultimate chapter (In the first playthrough, at least), and the fact that you've gotten the ultimate fish means there's no more need for fishing bait, all this really gets a player is one more Steam Achievement off the list.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Weissman reveals he did this to Joshua.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: According to Renne, a proper tea party has "tea, crumpets, and explosions".
• Breakout Character:
  • Kevin becomes the main character of The Third; it might be said that the reason why it's called The Third and not Third Chapter was because Estelle and Joshua aren't really the main characters anymore.
  • Loewe. Despite the fact that he died in SC, Falcom (sort of) brought him back in The Third. Then you have Vantage Master Portable where he and Renne become playable main characters instead of other party members. It's even worse in Alternative Saga in which he appears without any explanation despite being dead, though that turned out to be non-canonical. Loewe also got his own sidestory manga.
• Break Out the Museum Piece: During the Orbal Shutdown Phenomenon Carna borrows an 'antique' rifle from the Ruan weapon shop and uses it to great effect.
• Break the Cutie: Joshua, Renne, Kevin and Loewe's pasts are riddled with this, although the first three eventually recover due to the Power of Love.
• Break Them by Talking: Professor Alba/Weissmann the Faceless utterly shatters Joshua at the end of the First Chapter.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In one of the Star Door subquests in The Third, we see a meeting of Ouroboros leaders and their conversation regarding the events in Liberl and revealing that this is all just the beginning. After the meeting, Campanella laughs, before saying...
  Campanella: By the way...I know I'm not one to talk, but...*looks at the player* I don't know who you are but can you please stop peeping?
• Brick Joke: Olivier tries to offer a lovely secretary a talk over tea during the Martial Arts tournament. It's only during the royal dinner that Hilda explaines what a gentleman requesting tea really meant.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Something that jams up the gears of some people who play the game. Estelle and Joshua aren't even remotely related by blood (They're not even the same nationality - Joshua's Erebonian by birth), and they first met as not-quite-teens, so they weren't so young that the Westermarck effect would kick in to prevent them falling for each other... but at the same time, they basically lived together as siblings for years and Cassius even formally adopted Joshua after the events at the start of the game, when he came to live with the Brights, so he has the last name Bright himself.
  • The really hilarious part to all this is that a ton of incidental characters in the Rolent area are surprised this isn't happening at the start of FC and most people who they meet on their journey simply assume they're a young couple. Meanwhile, Estelle is oblivious and wonders what the hell everyone is going on about. This doesn't really become an issue until Joshua leaves to take his revenge, forcing Estelle to examine how she feels about him.
• Butt-Monkey: Gilbert. Oh, Gilbert.
• Calling Your Attacks: Several characters do this with their S-Crafts.
• Casting Gag:
  • It's not the first time we hear Hideyuki Tanaka (Weissmann) voicing a despicable villain, except the last time, he voiced a mass-murdering Nazi.
  • Also, it's not the first time we hear Kumiko Nishihara (Renne) voicing a Elegant Gothic Lolita in a robot, except the last time she was the one of the heroines of the show, and she was neither insane nor she was welding a scythe.
• Central Theme:
  • Trails is unrepentant about wearing its theme on its sleeve, that theme essentially being: "No one person, no matter what they've done in the past, no matter what they've done with their lives, is completely beyond love and redemption. Any life can be given meaning so long as you're willing to reach out to a person." Joshua, Renne, Kevin, Olivier, and Loewe all have major story arcs about coming to terms with this, and Kloe, Scherazard, and Josette all face the concept to some degree as well.
  • Another common theme explored is that the greatest "miracle" of all (note that an alternate translation for the Japanese title is Miracle in the Sky) is the simple joy of people working together to overcome hardships, and not even the ultimate power of the gods can change that, as Richard and Weissmann both found out.
  • People deal with grief and failure in different ways, and some of those ways are self-destructive even if they don't realize it. However, if you own up to your own grief and work with it instead of running away, you can come out stronger.
  • Self-sacrifice is a highly dangerous thing. Things aren't always made better because you gave yourself up for another person- they may still need you, and your absence will only make things harder for you both. In many cases it can make the situation worse. It's better to work alongside the person who needs your help than stand in the way of their problems.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The game starts out light and idealistic at the start, takes a sudden nosedive at the end of FC, and proceeds to descend into near-Berserk-levels of darkness as SC goes along- even Estelle is feeling the strain by the end of the story.
• Char Clone: Lorence in First Chapter.
• Checkpoint Starvation: Averted, for the most part, since you can save anywhere. That said, each chapter tends to end with multiple long bosses followed by several long scenes, undoubtedly making some players nervous about their power/battery going out while trying to absorb all the dialogue.
• Chekhov's Gun: Loewe's sword is one that takes a game and a half before it's fired. For a closer example entirely within First Chapter, the mysterious black Orbment Estelle and Joshua recieve at the end of Chapter 1 plays a huge part in the conclusion of Chapter 2.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Almost too many to list; Professor Alba in FC is a great example, but nearly half the main cast has a secret or two... which is part of the reason so much of this page is spoiler-tagged.
• Chessmaster: Cassius Bright and Weissmann. Kevin has his share of manipulation as well.
  • Joshua overtly directs chess metaphors at the "pawns" that he saved at the beginning of SC, but Josette calls him out on this with a mocking tone.
• Chest Monster: In addition to the chest monsters seen throughout the franchise, one of the chest messages in SC reads "Oh, no, it's a Mimic! Prepare for battle! ...Wait. No? False alarm! hehe."
• Chick Magnet: Joshua. Estelle does not find this particularly amusing.
• Church Militant: Kevin and Ries belong to the group within the Septian Church that serves this function.
• Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The cast is able to make the Arseille fly in The 3rd by exploiting the nature of Phantasma and this trope. Since most of the cast has been on the ship, their combined will is enough to make it fly... better than it's actually capable of in reality.
• Climax Boss: Loewe in SC and Cassius and Schwarzritter in Third.
• Collapsing Lair: The end of SC features an untimed playable escape sequence - mostly a long, empty set of hallways.
• Colonel Badass: Richard, even though he technically stops being one after FC.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The lift that takes you to the battle with Loewe atop Axis Pillar is surrounded by red lights as a not so subtle clue that you're at the Point of No Return.
  • Also, in The 3rd certain enemies are color-coded as a hint that you really really shouldn't try using Arts on them.
• Company Cross References: A number to Falcom's other RPG franchise Ys:
  • One can't really help but suspect that Anelace's outfit was intentionally designed to resemble Adol's "classic" armor.
  • On the Glorious, after Estelle tries and fails to break down an electrified pillar barrier with her staff:
  Estelle: So much for my career as Estelle the Wall-Crusher, I guess...
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: Many of the boss fights in the Door subquests in The 3rd give the bosses seemingly unlimited CP, allowing them to use crafts repeatedly, sometimes even after they had just used an S-Craft, which uses up all a character's CP by definition.
• The Computer Is a Lying Bastard: There are a couple of errors in the guide text for the English translations on Steam that can easily frustrate a player. One of them involves the orbal arts, specifically that the notebook in some cases shows them as requiring less of a particular element or elements than is actually needed in order to make them available. Additionally, The 3rd includes an accessory called Sapphirl Neckklace which carries the same description as the Grail Locket item, "Protects against all status ailments (except KO)." However, Sapphirl Necklace actually protects against Stat Down, i.e. lowered defense, sped, strength, etc.
• Conspiracy Redemption: The Intelligence Division were mostly genuine patriots (albeit with rather gray methods) to begin with so they're given a chance at redemption in SC. They prove themselves more than worthy of it by stepping up to defend Grancel from an Ouroboros attack with Richard personally guarding the refuge of the Queen and Princess.
• Consummate Liar: The first half of the prologue of the 3rd is retrieving an Artifact that makes its bearer one, able to convince anyone of all but the most outrageous of Blatant Lies.
• Containment Field: The Singularity of Origin serves as one of these. An Artifact placed inside one will be unable to affect the outside world in any way, so the Church uses them to store particularly dangerous ones such as the Demon Lance of Loa.
• Contractual Boss Immunity: In SC, bosses are usually resistant to Status Effects, though not all of them are immune to status down effects, including some of the endgame bosses.
• Convection, Schmonvection: The lava-filled Phantasma recreation of Balstar Channel plays this straight. You'll only be harmed when you step on the lava directly, although the damage adds up very fast unless you equip special protective gear that reduces the damage. Ultimately justified via Fridge Brilliance as Phantasma is a virtual realm that was originally created in part to grant the wishes and fantasies of the people of Liber Ark so it makes sense that it would operate on video game logic.
• Cooking Mechanics: This game has an extensive cooking mechanic that is your main way of healing outside of a town. Monster parts are the main ingredients, sometimes supplemented by local ingredients from shops. Cooking can be done anywhere from a special menu, and usually creates an item that can be used at any later time, but some recipes have an immediate effect on your party. You have to learn recipes in order to make specific items, which is usually done by just eating the food a restaurant or shop. Each town you visit has special local ingredients, unique monster parts in the surrounding area to harvest, and unique recipes to use them.
• Cool and Unusual Punishment: Schera's favorite method of keeping Olivier in line is to threaten to take him drinking with Aina again. Bear in mind that compared to Scherazard, Aina is described as a bottomless hole...
• Cool Big Sis: Scherazard to Estelle.
• Cool Old Guy / Battle Butler: Philip who used to be the captain of the Royal Guard.
• Covers Always Lie: The description on the case of the Animated Adaptation gives the plot of FC. The events covered by the anime are the first half of SC.
• Crutch Character: Oddly enough, a food item serves this purpose: Surprise Cookie, the first attack food you get in SC. It's bizarrely the single most damaging thing you have access to at the start of the game, even out-damaging S-Crafts most of the time, and you will need it to beat the Prologue's boss on Hard or Nightmare. As you get stronger, however, you'll be able to out-damage it easily. And then the game gives you better attack food...
• Cut and Paste Environments: A rare cross-game example: The majority of areas in FC were directly ported into SC, but with new NPC dialogue and quests. Most of SC's environs in general are from the first game.
• Crosscast Role: The School Play in FC, where everybody plays the role of a member of the opposite gender. Jill admits that despite dressing it up with various justifications, she really did it because she thought it would be fun.
• Curse Escape Clause: In SC, Kevin creates one of these for the Stigma that Weissmann implanted into Joshua, which will cause it to destroy itself if Weissmann says a particular phrase
• Cuteness Proximity: Anelace
• Cutscene Power to the Max: Somehow, Zin and Joshua are able to duel and defeat Walter and Loewe, respectively, even though both can hold off the entire party in their boss fights. This is explained by the bosses being tired after their fights, but the same could be said of the heroes.
  • Nearly every character (on both sides) gets at least one chance to show off outside of battle, but Joshua arguably gets the most of these scenes. It is justified surprisingly well, as they often relate to stealth and characters acknowledge that Joshua is vulnerable out in open combat.
• Cynicism Catalyst:
  • Joshua lost his older sister during the destruction of his village, which led to his and Loewe's joining Ouroboros.
  • The 3rd reveals Kevin had two: his mother snapping and trying to commit murder-suicide with him shattered most of his optimism, and accidentally killing Rufina got rid of what little remained.
• Dark Reprise: Hamel for Silver Will.
• Degraded Boss: The Special Ops soldiers are a ridiculously fast and strong Dual Boss when you first face them, but your party eventually becomes strong enough to treat them as mooks, to the point where it's possible to respawn a mob of them in the Erbe Villa.
  • The Evil Penguin from FC can be encountered in SC.
  • The third form of the first Devil boss in The Third (and only its third form, interestingly) becomes a normal enemy in the 7th plane.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • Joshua crosses it once he realizes that he's been a pawn of Ouroboros all this time and that he could be a danger to everyone he loves. A large part of the second game is devoted to Estelle pulling him back from this.
  • Kevin crossed it when he killed Rufina, this marked the point where he abandoned all his humanity and became "the Heretic Hunter"... all to punish himself.
• Determinator: Estelle will stop at nothing to save those whom she cares about.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The Arts system is fairly complex, requiring specific Quartz combinations all in a line to get you certain skills, and it doesn't help that different characters have different line setups. Combined with how quickly they drain EP, the turn delay in executing them, and endgame enemies having moves to cancel Arts, first-time players are likely to ignore them in favour of Crafts and physical attacks other than having basic healing moves. However, those who understand the system can get very powerful Area of Effect Arts such as White Gehenna early on, and Hard and Nightmare require a good understanding of the Arts system to beat the game due to physical damage being significantly nerfed at those difficulties.
• Difficulty Levels: Easy, Normal, Hard, and Nightmare difficulties.
• Disc-One Final Dungeon: Interestingly played with. When the game was originally in development as a single unit, it's clear that the ruins beneath Castle Grancel were going to be this; sure, you rescued the queen, beat Col. Richard and saved the kingdom but clearly not everything was answered and it would serve as what would in other games be the "big twist point" when the real villain was revealed and whatnot. Once the project got too big to contain in one game, though, it was chosen to be the actual final dungeon of FC, meaning it is and isn't a final dungeon; it's the end of FC, sure, but it's barely the beginning of the real story.
  • Played straight in SC with the airship Glorious.
• Disney Death: Luciola survives her fall from the Axis Pillar after her boss fight in SC, as revealed in Azure. The fortune teller in Mishelam? It's her.
  • Happens to Estelle and Joshua as well, right at the end of SC. They fail to escape the collapsing Liber Ark, and Estelle asks Joshua for a Last Kiss before they fall to their deaths. Then it turns out that Ragnard and Cassius Bright ended up saving them after all.
• The Dog Was the Mastermind:
  • Professor Alba aka Georg Weissman, the guy Estelle and Joshua keep bumping into for helpful conversations, is the true Big Bad of story.
  • The Ouroboros agent responsible for both sending the threatening letters to Grancel and masterminding Kanone's plot to rescue Richard? It's none other than Renne.
• Doomy Dooms of Doom: Estelle suggests calling the black orbment the "Dark Thingy of Impending DOOM." Her suggestion is dismissed as being annoying to say.
• Dragged into Drag: Halfway through FC, Estelle and Joshua are tapped to help put on a play for a school festival. The production is a gender-flip of a well-known play about a love triangle competing for the heart of a princess. Joshua plays the princess (And looks disturbingly good in a dress). In the final chapter of FC, upon learning that the plan that the plan to sneak her into the Queen's quarters involves disguising her as a maid, Estelle cheerfully forces Joshua into a maid outfit as well (And again, he looks disturbingly good in it).
• The Dragon: Schwarzritter serves this role to the Lord of Phantasma in The 3rd.
• Drought Level of Doom: While some segments of the game will cut off access to Orbal Recharge Stations and shops, Joshua's raid of the bandit hideout in SC and Anelace's battle against the dummy Special Ops are notable for giving the new party a completely different and meager inventory compared to the main party.
• Dual Wielding: How Joshua prefers to fight.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: A minor one. In the English version of FC, Kloe explains that Jill was the one who first gave her her nickname. This part wasn't present in FC, as the original Japanese text simply stated that the nickname was a portmanteau of Kloe's first and last names, with no mention of Jill as the source. This became a plot hole in The 3rd, as a flashback to when Kloe first started attending Jenis Royal Academy showed that she was already going by that name before she ever met Jill.
• Dub Name Change: A few names were changed in the English localization.
  • Kloe was originally named "Klose". The explanation for how her alias was derived was also changed. In the Japanese version, she said it came from the first and last syllables of her whole name, (Klau)dia von Ausle(se), as the 'au' in Klaudia is pronounced 'o'. But that wouldn't work in English; name change aside, the 'au'/'o' spelling difference would stand out like a sore thumb in English, so the explanation was changed to it being formed from several pieces of her full name, presumably (Kl)audia v(o)n Ausles(e).
  • Kurt was originally named "Kurz".
  • Kyle Capua was originally Keer Capua.
  • Archaisms were originally orbal muppets (or possibly overmuppets, the katakana can go either way). Presumably the name was changed was to avoid a lawsuit since, you know, The Muppets exists. The Japanese script also tended to describe them in Japanese as "doll/puppet weapons" (ningyō heiki), but the English script also changed the vast majority of those instances to "archaisms" as well, though a few instances describing them as dolls or puppets were retained.
  • As a change in general, the English script strongly favors calling things by name where the Japanese script tends to use descriptive phrases more often than not. Aside from the example above about archaisms, the Aureole was only referred to by name once or twice in the Japanese script, and most times it was described in Japanese as "the shining ring" (kagayaku wa); the English script reversed this, calling it the Aureole almost exclusively and only referring to it as the shining ring on rare occasions.
  • Aidios was originally named Eidos. The name was presumably changed to avoid a lawsuit from Eidos Interactive.
  • Early English builds changed Zin's name to Zane; this was eventually reverted in a patch. This got Lampshaded in a chest message in The 3rd, along with an admission that this nearly happened to Olivier too:
  Chest: Did you know? It's true that Zin's name was once written as 'Zane', but another name change considered was Olivier's. The original suggestion was 'Oliver'. This chest is glad that request never went through.
  • Ries's name was originally spelled Rieß.
• Dude Looks Like a Lady: Joshua can ding this at times; his Japanese VA being female does not exactly help. Less prominent after he embraces his identity as the Black Fang.
• Dysfunction Junction: The game does manage to avoid treading into Wangst territory, but good grief, the party has some issues. When all is said and done, let's see: we have two nigh-superpowered Tyke Bomb assassins, one of whom constantly wrestles with the happiness he experienced with the Brights versus what he's done and is capable of doing and the other of whom is wrestling with a history of terrible abuse; an imperial prince who is utterly disgusted with his family and, by extension, himself; another, local princess who absolutely wants nothing to do with the responsibility thrust upon her; a woman who wants nothing more than to bury her past in alcohol; a man who is driven by the loss of his entire family and the guilt he feels over being unable to prevent it; a priest who has problems with his faith and serious doubts about his place in the world; a girl with a massive wannabe-hero complex; and an aristocrat-turned-sky-pirate who has rather serious entitlement issues. Estelle is lucky Tita and Zin are around in all three games, or she'd find she's the Only Sane Man among this cast of nutters.
• Early Game Hell: The prologue of SC is surprisingly difficult because there are only two party members, equipment and orbments are reset, and the boss of the chapter can heal himself.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: FC's final boss normally has 3 phases, with the last one being a Zero-Effort Boss that allows your party to deliver the coup de grace. However, if your Bracer Rank is only 5th class, Cassius Bright will just finish off Reverie himself in an extended action sequence. What puts it in this category is that doing a Minimalist Run will still leave you with 3 less BP than it takes to reach 4th class, and that requires you to not only skip all extra missions, but to make the wrong decisions to avoid gaining extra BP during the story quests. A player generally will not see this scene unless they're really trying.
• Easter Egg: A painting of the Gagharv from the previous Legend of Heroes sub-series appears in The 3rd, as does a complete novel series from the same trilogy. There are some hints that this may not be a coincidence.
• Eldritch Location: Phantasma, more specifically Gehenna and the Castle Phantasma and the area around it.
• Elegant Gothic Lolita: Renne, good lord Renne.
• Elemental Powers: Because of the way Orbments work, all characters except for Estelle and Renne have at least one slot restricted to one of the six (later seven) types of Quartz, giving them a natural inclination towards one element or another. Despite this, actual specialization is mostly a matter of player choice combined with line setups.
  • Earth Element: Zin and Josette.
  • Water Element: Kloe and Mueller.
  • Fire Element: Agate and Richard.
  • Wind Element: Scherazard and Anelace.
  • Time Element: Joshua and Kevin.
  • Space Element: Tita and Julia.
  • Mirage Element: Olivier, Kurt and Ries.
• Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors
• Elite Four: SC has the four Enforcers, which you are introduced to one at a time throughout Chapters 1-4. Chapter 7 has you climb the four towers of Liberl with each of them serving as a tower boss, and the final chapter has you face them in succession before facing off against The Dragon Loewe and then the final boss.
• The Empire: Perhaps not too surprising for a Japanese RPG. Erebonia are introduced as a heavily militaristic empire that tried to invade Liberl a few years ago in the Hundred Days War, and are a background antagonist for most of the story. This becomes heavily subverted over the course of the game- Erebonia is as much a victim of Oroborous's machinations as Liberl is, placing the two countries at risk. The game also makes them pretty sympathetic, with fact that one of your party members is their prince, and one of their commanders joins up for the final dungeon! If you keep playing the series, Erebonia continually becomes more sympathetic as its internal problems become clearer, ultimately leaving them as a subversion of this trope.
• The Ending Changes Everything: It's actually kind of incredible how much of FC's plot can be viewed in a different light once you learn just who "Professor Alba" is and what he's been doing in the background of your adventure.
• Enfante Terrible: Renne, in SC and the 3rd.
• Epic Fail: Towards the end of SC, a secondary Ouroboros leader attacks the Jenis Academy in order to kidnap Princess Klaudia, who he had learned was attending the school under an alias. Said secondary leader forgets to first make sure that he knows what the princess looks like, and to check to see if she's even on campus at the time of the attack, thus leading him to grab the wrong girl while believing that she's somebody who isn't even in that part of the country at the time. When an Ouroboros Enforcer shows up after the hostages are rescued, he actually apologizes for the whole mess.
• Escort Mission: Several times in the game you'll have helpless NPCs tagging along in battle. If they die, it's Game Over.
• Even Evil Has Standards: One ironclad rule in Ouroboros is that all members must join of their own free will. You'd think that this would hinder Weissman, given his usual method of operation, but this rule only applies to actual members, not their pawns.
• Everyone Can See It: Estelle and Joshua's budding romance seems patently obvious to everyone except them.
• Evil All Along: Subverted with Olivier in Chapter 8 of SC, where he's revealed to be an Imperial Prince of Erebonia, leading an invasion against Liberl in their time of weakness. However, while he really is the Prince, his "invasion" turns out to have been a ruse to delay the Empire and mess with Osborne's plans.
• Evil Chancellor: Chancellor Osborne of Erebonia is revealed near the end of SC to have been making backroom deals with Ouroboros for some time, giving Erebonia a suspicious military advantage after orbal technology was disabled throughout Liberl. He's also been undermining and weakening the power of the lords, concentrating it to himself by proxy of the Emperor.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Gilbert gets this during his raid on Jenis Royal Academy when Estelle asks him if he remembers the girl who fought alongside her at the lighthouse:
  Gilbert: Of course I do! Kloe Rinz, whom my men have informed me was... not... present... at the academy today... ...Whaaaaaaat?!
• Expy:
  • Dr. Russell is often described as "Dr. Wily gone good".
  • Olivier is a guns-and-devices using, blond-pony-tailed, blue-eyed ladies man who happens to be royalty and uses the lechery partially as a coping mechanism. This draws a number of comparisons to a certain King of Figaro.
• Eyedscreen: Every S-craft has this.
• False Flag Operation: The village of Hamel was a small Erebonian community just across the border from Liberl. It ceased to exist during the Hundred Days War, officially due to a massive avalanche, but in truth, the entire population save for Joshua and Loewe had been massacred by Erebonian soldiers using Liberlian arms. The war hawk faction of the Empire used this as justification to start the war. After the war ended, the accusation of Liberlian aggression was withdrawn and the avalanche story was made up, while the Erebonian government quietly executed the parties responsible for ordering the attack. Liberl went along with this because even though they had pushed Erebonia's forces out of Liberl using the increased mobility granted by Liberl's airship fleet, they didn't have the manpower necessary to stop a second invasion if Erebonia decided to go all out.
• Fantasy Gun Control: Mostly averted, actually. The technology base of this setting is rather high, and you'll encounter quite a few firearms-wielding mooks, not to mention some bosses who pack heat of various kinds. We say "mostly", though, because while firearms are reasonably common in this setting.... as noted above, out of a grand total of sixteen people who can join the player party, only three of them actually use guns. This can get a little silly when the party charges down gun-armed mooks with swords, daggers, a crossbow and a staff and wins. Granted, your ranks can include some of the most dangerous assassins on the planet, but still. Well, also as mentioned above, these "Guns" are not really the same as Real Life counterpart, and are more like electronic stun guns.(Basically what Orbal energy mainly used for, as a fantasy counterpart of electrical energy.)
• Fascists' Bed Time: The Intelligence Division enact a curfew on Grancel during FC's final chapter, which becomes very inconvenient for Estelle and Joshua when Julia anonymously summons them to the cathedral to let them in on the true extent of what's going on.
• Faux Yay: When Anelace and the senior bracer you didn't pick at the start of SC are about to leave for Rolant, Anelace makes a strong implication that she wants to get into a relationship with Estelle. The implication is so strong that everyone around her assumes the same thing. It turns out that she simply wants to be rivals instead.
• Feelies: The Limited Edition comes with a reversible poster/map, a bracer emblem pin, and the game's soundtrack.
• Fiery Redhead: Agate. Estelle may count too, though it's kinda hard to tell if she's a brunette or redhead; her hair color even seems to shift a little from between various depictions.
• First Girl Wins: Kloe and Josette never really stood a chance. Especially when the first girl is also the main character of the game.
• Fishing Minigame: At Valleria Shore in Chapter 1 of FC. Expanded into a full gameplay mechanic in SC.
• Fishing for Sole: The aforementioned Fishing Minigame in FC can give you "Holey Boots" as a catch depending on your dialogue choices.
• Five Stages of Grief: Estelle during the prologue of SC after Joshua disappears.
  • Denial: She tries to think what she experienced was only a dream.
  • Anger: After her father revealed he knew of Joshua's past and that he might leave one day, Estelle angrily yells at him and runs off.
  • Bargaining: She immediately convinces herself that Joshua simply went back to their family home, despite the clear fact this isn't true.
  • Despair: Falls to her knees and cries after seeing Joshua is nowhere in their house.
  • Acceptance: She accepts Joshua's absence, but realizes there's still hope in finding him.
• Floating Continent: Liber Ark, a sealed floating city from Ancient Zemuria era long abandoned by ancestors of Liberl's inhabitants, which serves as the final dungeon.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Estelle and Joshua, somewhat, as they're not actually related.
• Foreshadowing: Goddamned EVERYWHERE. The game absolutely loves to tease upcoming reveals and plot points; sometimes this is blatant, sometimes you'll barely notice them 'till later and you play through the game again.
  • Especially evident in FC with the lead-up to the reveal of the Big Bad- Boy, Professor Alba, you certainly have a knack for wandering into dangerous areas without getting a scratch... Wait a minute--
    • Joshua suddenly starts to feel sick while Professor Alba is lecturing the party about Esmelas Tower's history.
    • Kurt also feels rather unwell when Estelle and Joshua encounter Alba on the tournament stands. This allows Joshua to piece together what's really going on during The Reveal.
  • Joshua, in FC, really wants to find out who Lieutenant Lorence is. This is because Lieutenant Lorence is Loewe and Joshua is subconsciously remembering him.
  • Agate seeing his sister Misha when he's bedridden and in delirium from being poisoned. He later talks about visiting her, but he is very evasive about the subject when asked about it. His sister died in the Hundred Days War and he blames himself for it. When talking about visiting her, he was talking about visiting her grave. In fact, the grave with her name on it can be visited as soon as you get to Ravennue Village, so thorough players would have already picked up on what would be a plot twist to those playing the game normally.
  • In fact, one thing introduced in FC the Carnelia books, source of so much foreshadowing continues to have payoffs six full games later in Trails of Cold Steel II (and that entire game is based of a comment from Olivier in the penultimate chapter of SC that the nobility is the only force in Erebonia that can keep Osborne in check) and more are probably waiting to happen.
  • If you're paying close attention or are savvy enough, you might figure out ahead of time that the Jaeger attack in SC's Prologue is really an elaborate training exercise. The Jaegers knock you out and take you to the middle of a forest rather than just killing you, they leave all your gear for you to find in treasure chests, they know how to operate the traps in the fortress (which was previously described as a training facility built by the Bracer Guild) and the end boss of the chapter has a suspiciously similar fighting style to Kurt.
  • The Chapter 1 gambling sidequest in SC is a big one for Olivier's true nature. Firstly, it's pointed out that he has a very good Poker face. Secondly, you might notice that he's much more serious in his internal monologue than in his normal speech. Third, he's shown to be very good at strategic planning and at reading people.
• Four-Star Badass: Every general of the Liberl Kingdom Army qualifies.
• Gambit Pileup: Towards the end of SC, the plot basically descends into a mess of inter-conflicting plots between *deep breath* the Bracer Guild, Liberl's army, Ouroboros, Cassius Bright, the war hawks of Erebonia, Joshua, the Septian church, and Olivier (yes, really).
• The Game Never Stopped: In SC, during the prologue the Bracer training lodge is attacked by Jaegers just after Estelle and Anelace finish the training. After being kidnapped and left in the woods, making their way back to the lodge, finding the fort the enemy have taken over, and defeating the Jaeger forces... the Jaegers take off their helmets to reveal they were actually their instructors, although people who played the previous game could figure it out since they use the same weapons as the bracers from the Tournament Arc. The reason for the ruse was because the Bracer guild was on unfriendly terms with them anywhere outside of Liberl - and there only because Jaegers can't legally operate in Liberl.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: The party is not exempted from the Orbal Shutdown Phenomenon, and whoever wants to use their orbments - or, in Tita's case, any of her weapons besides the Gatling gun she uses in one of her S-Crafts - during chapter 8 is forced to use a Zero Field Generator to disable the Aureole's effect.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: Quartz stat bonuses are unaffected by Orbal Shutdown Phenomenon for some reason. This is likely an Anti-Frustration Feature, as stats suddenly tanking would make an already-difficult chapter even worse.
• Gatling Good: Tita's S-Craft has her pull out a minigun from somewhere to riddle an entire screen's worth of enemies with bullets. In addition, the Society's red airships come with two massive gatling cannons each... Except for the one Joshua steals, naturally.
• Genki Girl: Estelle, Dorothy, Tita and Anelace.
• Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Both Cassius and Estelle deliver these in SC to Joshua and Renne respectively. You might even call them Bright Slaps.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: FC and SC tend to avert this, with there usually being a good reason for every boss fight, but the Evil Penguin in Zeiss definitely counts. Even Estelle lampshades it.
• Glass Cannon: Tita. Until she busts out the Orbal Gear at least.
• Gratuitous German: Many characters and places here have German names, but of particular note is a misty forest called... Mistwald Forest. Falcom appears to have assumed that the German word Mist means the same thing it does in English; it does not. Rather, Mistwald is actually German for "Crapwood".
• The Great Offscreen War: The Hundred Days War, which ended ten years before the start of the story proper, but played a key role in the backgrounds of many of the characters.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Anelace and Kurt in SC. The former becomes a permanent party member in The 3rd, the latter does not.
• Guide Dang It!:
  • Many examples, such as getting all recipes, netting A-Rank in SC etc. The last is particularly bad as you only have 2 BP worth of wiggle room. As there are hidden quests and secret BP conditions, it's effectively impossible to get the 380 required for the best Rank without using a guide.
  • Getting all the Carnelia / Gambler Jack chapters requires the player to go out of their way, sometimes at completely inappropriate moments (in one case in FC, running in the opposite direction when an emergency is supposedly occurring).
  • The Abyss Worms. You fight them twice and both times they show up in large groups. Dealing damage to any one of them causes it to retaliate on its next turn with "Earthquake", a powerful attack that hits all of your characters. It's not immediately obvious (unless you read the monster description carefully) that this attack is a counter-attack, so the player's natural indication is simply to hit the creatures with the largest AoE attacks they have access to, thus ensuring a large number of Earthquakes in return. Unless the player happens to notice what's going on and changes their strategies accordingly, the worms are one of the hardest fights in the game and a total-party kill is not out of the question.
• HA HA HA—No: In the English translation, one of the many "empty chest" messages you can get for examining a chest you have already opened is this.
• Handsome Lech: Olivier Lenheim. He makes Edgar Figaro look restrained. Most of it is an act. (Only most of it, though.)
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: Scherazard. Aina combines this with Big Eater.
• Hard Mode Perks:
  • Thanks to stat multipliers on higher difficulties, confused enemies will deal even more damage to each other.
  • During the Star Door 1 Duel Boss, Julia will get a better selection of Arts and items on higher difficulties.
• Harder Than Hard: Nightmare difficulty, which multiplies enemy stats to insane heights ^note In SC, this means: 1.83x STR, SPD, and ATS; 1.18x DEF and ADF; 1.22x HP without changing their Character Level.
• Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: After defeating each of the Enforcers on top of the four towers in SC, the Gospels they have plugged into the towers shut off, and the Enforcers withdraw. The party thinks that this means that they're making progress, until the end of the chapter, when it turns out the Gospels shut down because they were finished with what they were doing, and the villain's plan continues to the next stage.
• Heal It with Water: All healing arts are of the water element.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Loewe.
  • Also, Carnelia in the eponymous story-within-a-story which can be found on bookshelves. Though the real person she was based on is very much alive.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": A very easily missed book called "I'm a Bracer!" (on the desk in Luke's grandma's room) is heavily implied to have been written by Luke, one of the kids in Rolent. It's about how he's an amazing Bracer who is fully committed to his work, completes every job he's given and everyone is jealous of his amazing skills but still adores and respects him. Justified, as he's a young child.
• Hero of Another Story:
  • A lot of the other bracers, particularly Team Kurt (Kurt, Carna, Grant and Anelace) come across this way. Kurt and Anelace join the party for a bit in SC, and Anelace is a somewhat more permanent fixture for Third. Cassius definitely comes across this way. Hell, half of Weissmann's plot in FC is to create a whole other crisis for Cassius to be the hero of so that he doesn't jam up the gears in Liberl.
  • Also, this game takes its NPC dialogs seriously. If you take the time to Talk to Everyone as often as possible, you will find a lot of recurring NPCs all having their own stories going on in parallel to yours. It's quite fun really.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl:
  • Agate and Tita have a dynamic like this, especially since Agate is pretty much the second most physically-imposing party member in the game, behind Zin.
  • Also applies, after a fashion, to Renne and Pater-Mater. One of the shortest characters in the game, who is already plenty dangerous enough by herself, protected by an at least semi-sentient robot the size of a building.
• Humongous Mecha: Pater-Mater, which is a boss in SC and an S-Craft for Renne in 3rd. Another example is Reverie, the final boss of FC and several other examples show up as well. These are examples of Lost Technology from 1200 years ago except for Pater Mater.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: Background information revealed in the Star Gates in The 3rd reveals that Ouroboros never built any more Gordias-class archaisms after Pater-Mater because the control interface rendered most of the test operators dead, comatose or insane. And one can't really say that the one operator they found who could use it was an exception, because Renne was already crazy when they stuck the interface in her.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: Most of the healing items are food. In fact, the best healing items are food- right from the start, the 'Flowery Soda' item is cheaper and restores more health than the basic health balm.
• Hyperactive Sprite: Strangely zigzagged. Some of the sprites use the classic walking-in-place animation, but others curiously stand still when not moving.

Tropes I - P

• Idiot Ball: A rare villain example: Considering who Weissmann is, you would think that he would take into account that Loewe's sword might be something worth keeping an eye on.
• I Knew It!: Almost everyone can figure out the Black Knight's identity, treated so in-universe as well.
• I Let You Win:
  • Lorence holds back during both of his fights in FC. The first time is because Richard wants Estelle and Joshua to meet him in the castle so they can talk about Cassius. The second time is because Lorence wants to test Estelle's strength as a potential obstacle to Ouroboros.
  • In SC Chapter 8, despite the Enforcers establishing that the party wouldn't stand a chance against them in a Wolfpack Boss fight, they split up in the final chapter, which definitely gives the heroes a fighting chance. Weissmann states that he wanted the party to defeat the Enforcers one by one as an experiment and that stopping the party before they reach the Final Boss isn't a necessary part of the plan, especially when he's rightfully confident that he can beat them with the Aureole's power anyways.
  • During Loewe and Joshua's duel, Joshua exhausts himself disarming Loewe while the latter doesn't look that tired. The only reason Joshua "won" was because Loewe was satisfied with his answer during their duel dialogue.
• Implausible Fencing Powers: Loewe and Joshua. Loewe's powers become less implausible when you realize that his sword is no ordinary weapon and he was trained by Arianrhod, who has had a long time to get really good at fighting
• Impossibly Cool Clothes: Most of the cast. Joshua and Estelle are by far the most sensibly-dressed, and the latter has a tendency to wear a bomber jacket with cut-off sleeves as everyday wear.
• I'm Standing Right Here: In The 3rd, if you speak with Anelace if she's not in the party after Agate joins, she asks if he headed out yet, that she wants to make her move on Tita when he's out of the picture, but doesn't want to try anything too soon and get caught in the act. If Agate is actually in your current party...
  Agate: You do know I'M RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU, right?
  Anelace: Wh-Where'd YOU come from?!
• I'm Taking Her Home with Me!: Recited almost word-for-word when Anelace meets Tita.
• Inconsistent Dub: During the ending scenes of SC, the Salt Pale is referred to as "the Pillar of Salt" in the English version, unlike in later games of the series. Notably, unlike other instances in the series where certain translations were updated in re-releases and patches for consistency, this case was never changed.
• Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain: Gilbert, Gilbert, and Gilbert.
• In Medias Res: The Animated Adaptation covers a quarter of Estelle's arc. The third quarter, specifically. Since the entirety of FC is not covered, anyone watching the anime who has not played the games will not understand what is going on. It doesn't help that the plot description on the cover of the DVD case is the plot of FC when the anime is actually about the first half of SC.
• Instant Sedation/Kiss of Death: Joshua's first kiss to Estelle is laced with sedative to keep her from following him.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: Alternative Saga crosses Trails in the Sky with Ys using the engine from Ys SEVEN and includes support characters from Gurumin, Zwei, Brandish, Legend of Heroes III and The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Josette, Anelace and Kurt are all voiced when you face them in combat in FC, despite their compatriots not being voiced and despite them not joining the party proper. Three guesses as to what happens in SC, and the first two don't count.
  • Early on in SC, the Ruan weapon shop selling pistols will probably tip you off to which character will join you soon. On a related note, the fact that said shop doesn't sell crossbows is an indicator that another character isn't going to stick around in your party just yet...
  • When Renne joins you as an NPC, you will probably notice that she somehow has a whopping 10202 HP. It all makes sense at the end of the chapter.
  • A strange example due to the 10 year gap in localization of the PC versions and the proliferation of widescreen monitors and televisions, all games in the series reveal a bit more on the edges of the screen. While this mostly culminates in sprites oddly popping in and out or being visible before they should, certain reveals like the green dragon at the end of Chapter 4 end up happening too soon.
  • In all three titles, the initial loading screen (before the title screen) shows strictly playable characters in the upper left corner performing a short animation. These include characters who may not yet have joined the party.
• It's All Upstairs From Here: Axis Pillar in SC.
• It's Personal: Each Enforcer has a personal conflict with various party members.
  • Downplayed with Bleublanc, who is obsessed with Kloe's beauty and considers Olivier a rival. However, his main goal is to see the beauty of humanity struggling against Ouroboros and attempt to steal their hope.
  • Walter was once a fellow Taito student with Zin, but adopted the Murderer's Fist and killed their master in a deathmatch, who refused to name him as the successor. While Zin doesn't hold a grudge for that match, which their master agreed to, he still wants to know exactly why the deathmatch happened in the first place and he also wants to use his Living Fist to defeat Walter's Murderer's Fist. Likewise, Walter is bothered by Ryuga's claim that Zin is more talented, but unconsciously holds back.
  • Estelle is concerned about Renne's status as an Ax-Crazy child soldier for Ouroboros. Likewise, Renne wants to kill her for leading Joshua away from Ouroboros and questioning her brutal way of life.
  • Schera and Luciola were once as close as siblings while working in Harvey's Circus, but the latter killed their ringmaster when he disbanded the troupe. However, Luciola was secretly concerned about leaving Schera behind and is happy when Schera survives both of their fights, proving that she can survive despite the abandonment.
  • Joshua and Loewe were both survivors of Hamel's massacre, leading them to join Ouroboros. While Joshua ends up leaving Ouroboros, Loewe stays in order to see if humanity can face disaster without becoming complacent and forgetting their grim pasts. Additionally, Joshua realizes that when he went into a Heroic BSoD after Hamel, he fits Loewe's description of a self-deluded human, motivating him to find an answer to Loewe's trial.
• Jurisdiction Friction:
  • In theory, Liberl's army and the Bracer Guild cooperate with each other. Underneath the surface, however, there's a lot of disputes. Your two main characters, Joshua and Estelle, learn this firsthand when investigating the missing airline their father Cassius Bright was on and discover from the Bose Bracer Guild that the military is maintaining a public information blackout, and that includes the Bracer Guild. Furthermore, a notoriously stubborn general infamous for his hatred of the Bracer Guild is calling the shots, meaning bracers are being prevented from entering the areas the army is investigating.
    Joshua: So pretty much what you're saying is that it's a bunch of jurisdictional disputes, right?
  • Jurisdiction friction even happens within the ranks of the Bracer Guild itself. If a senior bracer wishes to take control of an investigation that was being handled by junior bracers, they can do so at will, and there's not much the junior bracers can do about it, no matter how much they may dislike it.
• Karma Houdini: The worst any of the people involved in the coup in FC get hit with is a few months of prison time followed by dismissal from government service. If Olivier is in the party when they first encounter Duke Dunan in SC, he'll tell the man to stop whining about his luxurious house arrest - if he'd tried that stunt in Erebonia, he'd have already been executed.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Most of the party thinks Weissmann escaped after Second Chapter. They have no idea that Kevin delivered karma in the form of a Salt Bolt, though Joshua later figured out Kevin finished the job.
• Killed Off for Real: Loewe and Weissmann, at the end of SC.
• Kirk Summation: Estelle delivers a great one to Colonel Richard in FC's last dungeon. Given Estelle's role in the party, this isn't surprising in some ways, although everyone else is amazed at her sudden, momentary eloquence.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: With FC being a good nine years old as of this edit and SC being seven, avoiding these has become fairly difficult as Falcom now assumes most interested people in Japan already know about all the major spoilers and revelations... and uses them in promotional material and whatnot, making them kind of hard to avoid if you're outside of Japan and following the news at all! (Places like The Other Wiki casually ruining the plot of all three games also doesn't help.) The biggest offender is probably Renne and her actual affiliation, motivations and alignment. One of the most prominent extant pieces of art for her (from Third) in various Western sources show her clearly rocking her Sinister Scythe, which will tip off anyone that she's more than she appears to be. Natch for Alternative Saga, which shows off the above and Pater Mater, and the Animated Adaptation will be terrible about this as well (the aforementioned stuff is being used in promotional images). Never mind, uh, all the spoilers on this very page.
  • XSEED actually tries their damnedest to avoid these (all the way to only discussing one member of the villain group in SC at all on the promo website, which is less than even the Japanese site did), but it's an uphill battle.
  • If you've seen any marketing for Trails of Cold Steel at all, you'll spoil the big twist about Olivier from the get-go.
  • Funnily enough, the original, circa-2004 PC version of FC in Japan ran into this problem when SC was announced: during FC's development and pre-release promo period, it was never revealed that there'd be a second part to the story, and all the material, including the box behaves as if it's going to be a one-off game in the same vein as the Gagharv games. Seeing SC sitting right next to it in a store, needless to say, rather ruins the surprise.
• Late Character Syndrome: In SC, Josette joins the party at in the final "Finale" chapter. (out of 10) Unfortunately, she is around 10 levels below your favored party members and lacks any of the pricey level 3 slot upgrades that the player has invested on their favorites. Also is a required character for a section of the final dungeon which ends up causing her to be The Load.
  • You also get to add Julia and Mueller right before the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon, but naturally there is next to no emotional investment in those characters.
• Last Episode, New Character: Just about all the new characters in The 3rd. But Ries and Lechter stand out from the rest, especially since there's no hint whatsoever about their existence and their roles in the next series are enormous. The others (Rufina, Ein, and Osborne) do come up a few times during FC and SC.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Lorence wears a red colored version of the Special Ops outfit, and he is even stronger than his boss.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: One of the chest gags in SC pokes fun at how far behind schedule the US release was: If you can read this, please send help. We've been stuck on this game for years - Localization Team
• Lens Flare: The title screen of SC actually opens with a lens flare effect then reveals the sun rising through a pair of mountain peaks in the distance.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: For the final mission in FC and when you enter Phantasmagoria in the 3rd. Justified, as there are many characters and quite a bit to do.
• Lotus-Eater Machine:
  • As Estelle and her friends find the source of the fog covering Rolent, they are engulfed by a spell from Luciola. Estelle wakes in front of her family house with her father and suddenly-alive mother and turns into a child, spending happy times together. She manages to get out of it when she remembers Joshua's harmonica song.
  • As it turns out, the Aureole itself gradually became one. Its effect was apparently akin to being high on speed and acid simultaneously, sans physical side-effects, and the inhabitants of the Liber Ark became so addicted to it that birth rates fell and society began to break down, forcing Celeste D. Auslese to seal it away.
• Luck-Based Mission:
  • The Ramblin' Gambler achievement, which requires collecting all the Gambler Jack novels (A Guide Dang It!), scoring a 21 in blackjack in the casino (Not too hard), and getting a 4 of a kind in poker in the casino (The 2nd least likely hand in the game - this can take a while).
  • The second Lieutenant Lorence fight in FC. In order to win this fight, you need to have a good set-up, good tactics, good turn bonuses, and pray that your opponent doesn't spam his best moves.
  • The prologue chapter in SC is notorious for being one of the hardest sections of any Trails game when doing an N3G ("No New Game+ Nightmare) run. Due to the limited resources, it is extremely easy to make the prologue completely unwinnable by burning through your best items early. Even with a perfect set-up and proper use of items, success is heavily based on luck - if the enemy targets one of your characters too often or if they abuse their best moves, it is completely impossible to win and defeating the first few minibosses can take several dozen attempts. Something as simple as missing one attack can spell the difference between victory and defeat.
• MacGuffin: The Black Orbment in FC, Aureole in SC and the Arca of Recluse in Third.
  • It's somewhat debatable whether these qualify since they all do come up again, explain some facet or facets of the plot or explain absolutely everything about The 3rd. The differing powers of the Sept-Terrion also lead this trilogy to have a very different sort of story than the next games. Oh, and Ouroboros clearly wants all seven so presumably there's something that can only be done once they have them making them a continuing plot element.
• Magic from Technology: A cornerstone of the setting; "orbments" allow for all kinds of technological feats, from airships to cannons to computers to combat magic effects for our heroes, and are basically mechanical devices powered by Applied Phlebotinum.
• The Man Behind the Man: Weissmann behind almost everything in FC and SC. In a wider meta-series sense, The Grandmaster of Ouroboros is probably behind nearly everything going on in the series, with the exceptions of Third and The Legend of Heroes: Trails from Zero.
• Manipulative Bastard: Weissmann in SC and also Kevin in the 3rd. The whole point of the 3rd's plot is how Kevin has been manipulating the party as a Dominion. This also happens in SC (to a lesser extent)
• Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Clearly fits Joshua and Estelle (at least in FC).
• Masquerade Ball: The 3rd opens with Kevin Graham attending a masquerade ball being hosted by Hermann Conrad of the Reinford Group. It makes a perfect cover for Kevin, the Heretic Hunter of the Septian Church, to break into Conrad's room and reclaim the artifact that Conrad has been using to gain power and influence, one which lets him tell lies convincingly.
• The Maze: A lot of dungeons are like this, in all 3 games.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Loewe's real name is "Leonhardt" which means "The determination of the lion", hence why he is called "Loewe" which means, of course, "lion" in German.
  • Also present in the title, at least in the original Japanese. You see, the kanji used for "Sora no Kiseki" fairly clearly state "[Tracks/Wagon Trail/Path/etc.] of/in the Sky", but "Kiseki", as a spoken word, has another meaning: "miracle". The title can therefore be heard as "Miracle in the Sky" in addition to the written meaning. This gets extremely meaningful, both ways, during the second chapter. This gets especially crazy (awesome) with the vocal theme song to SC, "Silver Will, Golden Wings": every single time the word "kiseki" is said in that song, it can mean either "trail/path" or "miracle" and the song will still make perfect sense.
  • Estelle's surname is Bright, and her first name comes from the Old French word for "star"; everyone thinks she is as bright as the sun that shines through the darkness. She is even called the Sun Girl by Kevin in 3rd.
  • A huge amount of minor background NPCs have names related to their professions
    • The priest in Rolent is named Divine.
    • The owner of Rolent's orbal factory is named Melders, a fitting name for one who melds sepith into quartz.
    • One of the merchants in the Bose market hall talks at length about porcelain. His name is "Meissen".
    • The harbormaster of Ruan (i.e. the guy who runs the port) is named Portos.
    • The gardener at the mayor's house in Ruan is named Gartner.
    • A random fisherman in Ruan is named Pesca, which means "fish" in several Romance languages.
    • The janitor at Jenis Royal Academy, who doubles as the groundskeeper, is named Parkes.
    • One student at Jenis Royal Academy, who is particularly devoted to his studies, is named Logic.
    • The P.E. teacher at Jenis Royal Academy is named Mr. Effort.
    • The master of the Fisherman's Guild in Grancel is named Fisher. This even gets a lampshade hung on it:
    Percy: You ought to see our leader, the appropriately-named Mr. Fisher. He's the real pro. I mean, hell, it's in his name!
    Percy: Our president, Mr. Fisher, is a consummate professional... and the rest of us would KILL for that last name!
    • The owner of the ice cream stand in Grancel is named Sorbet.
    • A reporter at the Liberl News Service in Grancel is named Noticia, which is Spanish for "news".
  • Liberl Kingdom is a bit on the nose when describing the nation itself. Aside from the attempted coup, it is a fairly liberal autocracy. It features professional mobility, a free press, a lack of draconian social taboo and elections on the local level though no indication of any national parliament (although the "council of mayors" seen during FC seems to fulfill a similar-ish role). Far removed from the feudalism typically associated with aristocracy, it's essentially like a modern industrialized nation with an absolute monarch as the executive.
  • Joshua's original surname is Astray, which pretty much describes how his entire childhood went.
  • Matron Theresa, who runs an orphanage, is an obvious reference to Mother Teresa, who spearheaded a number of various charities, orphanages included. Mother Teresa is so famous that she is still the go-to name for charity.
  • Pater-Mater^note paternal/maternal the Humongous Mecha is appropriately named, being as it bears the role of Renne's surrogate parents.
  • Captain Kanone Amalthea's first name (German for "cannon") is unlikely to be an accident given her tendency to rely on heavy firepower.
  • The city of Zeiss's name references Carl Zeiss, a maker of precision scientific instruments. A fitting name for a Scienceville.
  • Albert Russell's first name references Albert Einstein. They have much in common: both are scientists who completely revolutionized their world's understanding of science, and both have the same hairstyle.
• Metal Slime: Shining Poms. The only things that can reliably kill them are certain S-Crafts and spells that have a chance of inflicting instant death. But killing one yields a lot of sepith. In SC they can also give enough XP for an underleveled character to go up multiple levels after killing one. An optional dungeon in The 3rd lets you fight a group of them as the final bosses of the dungeon that are so powerful that even some S-Crafts can't beat them unless your strength is properly buffed up.
• Mini-Mecha: The smaller Archaisms along with most of Ouroboros' modern creations and the Orbal Gear.
• Mission-Pack Sequel: The third chapter caught some flack on release over perceptions that it was, basically, this, since the plot had nicely wrapped up in the previous game. Opinions have shifted over time as concepts and characters first introduced in The 3rd continue to appear in every subsequent game.
• Mistaken for Lesbian: When Anelace proposes to become Estelle's rival, she doesn't exactly make her intentions clear at first. Her vague wording causes Estelle (and the other bystanders) to think that she's proposing to become something else entirely to Estelle.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: A few, but none more obviously than the Crocodark, an enemy found in the Ruan region. It's a cross between a crocodile and a shark.
• Money Spider: Averted. Monsters and even human enemies don't drop money, they drop sepith, small septium crystals, that can be exchanged for money or used to purchase orbment upgrades and quartz crystals. The only way to receive money directly in this game is to complete quests.
• More Dakka: Who else but... Tita, of course. This applies in all three games, and just gets more insane as the trilogy goes on.
• More Insulting than Intended: When Clem mistakenly thinks the Ravens were responsible for burning down Mercia Orphanage and confronts them about it, Deen, unaware that he's an orphan, tells him he should "go home and get back to sucking on [his] mama's tit", enraging the already furious kid further.
• More than Mind Control: Weissmann is an absolute master of this. It's how he was able to force Joshua to spy on the Bracers, it's a large part of the reason Joshua feels so guilty over what happened to Karen and it's one of the main impeti for Joshua leaving the Brights at the end of FC, as the idea that Weissmann might still have such control over him and might force him to betray or even kill Estelle fills him with absolute, blinding terror. SC reveals that his terror was entirely justified, though he's still called out on his manner of dealing with it.
• Multiple Government Polity: The Kingdom of Liberl is a traditional hereditary monarchy ruled by a queen. It's divided into five regions made up of a capital city and the surrounding villages and farms. Each city is run by a mayor, but the position varies in the different regions; Ruan's leadership is explicitly run by a hereditary nobility (and experiments with democracy after the mayor is arrested and stripped of his position without an heir), and Zeiss is a corporate dominion run by the local Central Factory and doesn't have a mayor (the factory's director also handles governance.) Meanwhile, Grancel is the seat of the national government and is therefor governed directly by the Liberl queen and doesn't have a local government. According to FC, much of the governance is performed not by Queen Alicia herself but by a team of bureaucrats who work in the castle; while how these bureaucrats are chosen is unknown, Olivier says in SC "While Liberl is, in practice, a democracy, remember that it is still a constitutional monarchy."
• My Beloved Smother: Erika to Tita. Poor Agate has to suffer because of it.
• Mythology Gag
  • The story of FC and SC is a huge Mythology Gag to Legend Of Heroes IV.
    • The final test to become Junior Bracer and Adventurer both involved getting things from sewer.
    • Before Cassius went away in the prologue, he entrusted Estelle with Black Orbment. Sage Lemuras (who is pretty much Avin's father figure) entrusted Avin with Sacred Treasure Kabessa before he passed away. Both are Chekhov's Gun.
    • The Guest-Star Party Member in Chapter 1 are a senior Bracer/Adventurer (Martie and Scherazard) and Royals Who Actually Do Something (Muse/Mildine and Olivier/Olivert).
    • The Guest-Star Party Member in the first part of Chapter 2 (for AToV) or whole Chapter 2 (for FC) are another senior Bracer/Adventurer (Douglas and Agate) and a girl who develops a crush on one of the main duo (Archem and Kloe). When they were party members, the party must deal with the corrupt leader of the region who threatened the well-being of the girl's precious things (Meefas and Mercia Orphanage).
    • The token young girl/boy (Tita and Rael) befriend a fellow young girl/boy with Dark and Troubled Past (Renne and Rouca). The pairs also happen to be "mage and engineer" combination.
    • There's a Rival who actively prevents the party for ever advancing their adventures in the second half of the game. Said rivals are actually someone close to the main character. Not only that, near the end of the game, they engage an duel with one of the main characters.
    • Both Avin's and Estelle's Love Interest are Scarf of Asskicking wearing, black-haired Troubled, but Cute assassins with sibling issues and Doomed Hometown in their backstory.
    • Weissmann asks Estelle to join Ouroboros with promise that she, Joshua, Loewe, and Renne can live happily together. This is similar to when Bellias-controlled silver-haired Mile asks Avin to join Octum's Apostles so he, Mile, and Eimelle can live happily together. Of course Avin and Estelle reject it.
    • Loewe sacrificed himself to weaken Weissmann by using Kernviter to invoke Taking You with Me after he knew that Weissmann was responsible for the Hamell tragedy. Madram sacrificed himself to kill Borgeid by using Dominique's Ring to invoke Taking You with Me after he knew that Borgeid was responsible for the Kanaphia tragedy.
  • The 3rd also invoked a little Mythology Gag to Legend Of Heroes IV:Loewe is Back from the Dead thanks to Lord of Phantasma and serves as her Dragon, and after the party defeats him, he disappears after a Tear Jerker exchange with Joshua, Estelle, and Renne (if one brings the latter two in the party, that is). Mile is Back from the Dead thanks to Lord Bellias and serves as his Dragon, and after the party defeats Octum, Mile disappears after a Tear Jerker exchange with Avin. The difference is that Mile isn't meant to die yet.
    • Again from The 3rd: Kevin goes to Gehenna in order to save Ries, much like when Avin jumped to Hades in order to save Mile.
    • Might be intentional since The 3rd was released shortly after PSP version of Legend Of Heroes V, but the whole point of the game is similar to Legend Of Heroes V's Tuning Forks Special Scenario. You get party members from clearing a dungeon or moving to the next chapter, can team up with the entire playables of the previous two games along with Original Generation, involves a boss rush, and a massive amount of grinding is required to reach 100% Completion.
  • The Orbment system is an expanded version of Resonance Stones system from Legend Of Heroes V.
  • Josette's S-Craft Wildcat is named after Legend Of Heroes III's Wildcat Bandits. It doesn't help that The Capua family and Wildcat Bandits are actually good people.
  • You can find the complete Doll Knight books set in SC. Renne is even referenced it when she was saved by the party, commenting that she's like Princess Tia who was saved by Pedro's Blue Knight. The books were originally from Legend Of Heroes V.
  • Some of the opened chests' messages contain references to both prior games in the Legend of Heroes series and Falcom's Ys series.
• Nested Story: The games feature a number of short stories on bookshelves, some of which reading through in their entirety (or, you know, just spamming "A" through) earn the player an achievement. SC for example includes The Doll Knight, a story with a distinct shonen style, and Carnelia, a truish story written for (young) adults with the flowery language one might expect from such a novella.
• Never Gets Drunk: Aina drank 36 shots of liquor in one sitting, showing no signs of intoxication aside from the smell. Anton and Olivier challenged her at 18 apiece, and even under the influence of anti-drunkenness medicine both passed out.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: You defeat the Ring Guardian at the end of FC. This eventually allows the villains access to Aureole. More to the point, Weissmann's whole plan revolves largely around manipulating Estelle and company into doing this a lot.
• Nobody Poops: In the first game at least, there are bathrooms in hotels with a bathtub, but no toilet.
• No Endor Holocaust: At the end of SC, a floating island the size of a city drops out of the sky into Valleria Lake, which most of Liberl was built around. There is no mention of enormous waves wreaking havoc on the coastline. The 3rd even goes on to explicitly state that while there were waves, the most damage they did was to drench a few fishermen.
• Noodle Incident:
  • After an incident in FC's prologue - in which Estelle somehow managed to make eggs explode while frying them - Joshua decides to come and help to prevent Estelle from setting the curtains on fire again. How, exactly, she managed to do either is all up to the imagination.
  • Ditto in that same incident - Estelle's managed to burn her eyebrows off while cooking in the past. If she weren't a hardcore bracer, she probably could get a job as an explosives expert.
• NOT!:
  • One of the chest messages in the English-language SC reads "You obtain the Emperor's New Clothes. Not."
  • After listening to Weissman's speech at the Aureole in SC, Estelle comments, "Boy, I bet you're a real hit at parties. Not."
  • In The 3rd, regarding Grimsel Fortress, Anelace comments that Grimsel Fortress is especially complicated and that she and Estelle had a tricky time getting through them, especially the dark ones, that it was just great... not.
• Numerical Hard: The difficulty levels seem to do nothing other than multiply each enemy's stats, though STR, ATS, and SPD are multiplied higher than others.
• Obfuscating Stupidity:
  • Professor Alba does an excellent job of keeping up the facade of an underpaid archeologist, while actually being an Anguis of Ouroboros.
  • Olivier is the Handsome Lech type, though he has ties to a number of Erebonian nobles, including the Sky Bandits. The real wham happens when we find out he's actually Olivert Reise Arnor, an illegitimate son of the Erebonian Emperor.
  • Kevin actually pulls this twice. First he acts like a humble priest, and when that fails identifies himself as a Gralsritter — a sort of covert inquisitor for the Septian Church. But it is further revealed at the end of SC that he is the Gralsritter's Fifth Dominion, making him one of the most powerful people in all of Zemuria
  • Renne fronts herself as an innocent, mischievous girl who ended up separated from her parents. It turns out she's an enforcer for the the society.
  • Lechter in the third game who is just a happy-go-lucky slacker of a student council president of a royal academy turns out to be an Intelligence Agent for Erebonia and is one of the Ironbloods.
• Obviously Evil: Played straight and subverted six ways from sundown at the same time. Unless you read these spoilers ahead of time, betcha didn't see Renne coming, did you? Or Professor Alba, for that matter?
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In SC The Enforcers attack Grancel Castle, Philip moves forward and reveals himself to be the former commander of the Royal Guard, everyone prepares for a fight...and then the scene shifts back to our heroes and we only see the aftermath.
  • Also, both Loewe and Rufina separately mention that they encountered the other several years ago in an incident that was resolved to their mutual satisfaction. Given the parties involved, the awesomeness is a given.

• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The meeting of Ouroboros' leadership seen in The 3rd.
• Ominous Floating Castle: The Final Dungeon of Sky - Second Chapter; The Liberl Ark.
• Ominous Message from the Future: One of the empty chest gag messages in SC reads "I'm so glad you checked this chest! I'm you from the future and I came back to warn you about—"
• One Game for the Price of Two: Accusations of this went flying around during SC's development, though died down once people saw how mind-blowingly huge SC was and how it simply couldn't have been included in the original release. Remember, two UMDs for the PSP version, and it really makes use of that second UMD. Third, meanwhile, sparked rather different accusations.
• One Stat to Rule Them All: While it's certainly important to have enough STR and ATS to deal damage, SPD is by far the most important stat due to the conditional turned-based system. Being able to get more turns than the enemy is important in Earth Wall strategies and higher SPD means buffs will last longer.
• One-Winged Angel: Weissmann in SC and the Lord of Phantasma in Third.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Throughout The 3rd, all of the empty treasure chests have jokes, stories, or witty one-liners (a series tradition); however, when you reach the game's Darkest Hour as Kevin is sent to Gehenna, all of the chests simply say "The chest is empty." Also qualifies as Shoo Out the Clowns.
• Optional Boss: The four bosses encountered in The Abyss; getting the fourth to appear is a bit of a Guide Dang It!. Each one yields a piece of Zemurian Ore, and beating all four nets you an achievement.
• Optional Character Scene: A major part of the 3rd is bringing specific characters to doors that will show them a flashback of their past or current events.
• Overrated and Underleveled: You can have all kinds of highly ranked Bracers join the party, but their levels aren't that much higher than Estelle's. Justified because it's implied that they're holding back so Estelle and Joshua can pull their own weight.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Anyone who played the first two games can figure out that the black knight in Third is supposed to be Loewe. Even the characters can see it.

• Plot Tunnel: When you get to Chapter 6 of SC, the party conducts a raid on the lakeside laboratory that ends with Estelle being abducted by Ouroboros. Estelle spends the rest of the chapter escaping from the Glorious while reuniting with Joshua. And then the towers are turned into Eldritch Locations, meaning you spend Chapter 7 either on the Arseille or in the towers. You lose access to the Bracer Guilds entirely until chapter 8, and even then, you're going there out of necessity to deliver Zero Field Generators since all orbments in Liberl and southern Erebonia have been shut down by the Aureole.
• Point of No Return: Beginning the mission to rescue Princess Klaudia in FC, entering the core of Liber Ark in SC and the Castle of Phantasmagoria in Third.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Estelle and Joshua during FC, though Estelle is more red than pink.
• Promoted to Playable: With the exception of Kevin, all the new playable characters in SC were supporting characters in FC: Anelace, Kurt, Josette, Julia and Mueller. The 3rd continues this with Richard and Renne, as well as the Ravens in a sidequest.
• The Psycho Rangers: The Ouroboros Enforcers generally act as this, particularly towards the end of SC, with each having a counterpart on the good guys' team:
  • Loewe and Joshua as a matching pair of Dragon and Lancer respectively, as well as sharing a Dark and Troubled Past in Hamel.
  • Renne and Tita as The Evil Genius and The Smart Guy, as well as being the Token Mini-Moe on their respective teams.
  • Walter and Zin filling the roles of The Brute and The Big Guy. Both were also students of an Eastern martial arts style and studied under the same teacher.
  • Luciola and Scherazard as The Heart. They were also both members of the Harvey troupe before it disbanded.
  • Bleublanc and Olivier, both fulfilling the role of The Bunny-Ears Lawyer.
• Puzzle Boss: The second Lorence fight in FC. He's fought with a set party of 3, and is significantly harder than everything else in the game. Beating him requires you to really understand the battle system and take advantage of your characters' abilities to the fullest. His status attacks mandate the use of specific status resist accessories, his speed and ability to cancel Arts mandates the use of Time quartz and Scherazard's turn-advancing Heaven's Kiss to keep up, his massively damaging attacks makes Kloe's Kaempfer Craft necessary to debuff him and defend your party, and he heals so often that you need to time Estelle's highly damaging Barrage S-Craft well to finish him off.

Tropes R - Z

• Randomly Drops: A ton of equipment in 3rd. Most of them aren't really the best equipment (in fact, all of them have multiple "levels", so you might find a weapon, then the same weapon except with more attack and a "+1" as an affix later), but there sure are a lot of them. Really painful for those who want a copy of every item.
• Rank Up: In the three months between the end of FC and the second scene of the prologue of SC, Retired Colonel Cassius Bright becomes General Cassius Bright, Chief of Staff of the Liberl Army.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: The reason Renne is so messed up? She got sold into a brothel for pedophiles, was constantly abused, beaten and drugged with opium to soothe the pain. She cut herself up repeatedly and created multiple fake personalities to cope with it. It's actually a miracle she managed to come around at all.
• Recurring Riff: Expect to hear the second half of the opening theme show up quite often in other tracks, especially in areas related to ancient Zemuria.
• Recycled Soundtrack: A number of tunes in SC are lifed directly from FC, particularly themes from locations that are shared by both games.
• Red Baron: Beginning the series' long history with this trope.
  • Cassius Bright, the Divine Blade^note Later story arcs reveal that "Divine Blade" is a rank and there are a few of them out there, but the Sky trilogy treats it as his personal nickname.
  • Scherazard Harvey, the Silver Streak
  • Agate Crosner, the Heavy Blade
  • Zin Vathek, the Immovable
  • Kurt Nardin, the Artful Tactician
  • Kilika Rouran, the Flying Swallow
  • Georg Weissman "the Faceless"
  • Campanella, the Fool
  • Leonhardt, the Bladelord, a.k.a. Loewe
  • Luciola, the Bewitching Bell
  • Walter Kron, the Direwolf
  • Phantom Thief Bleublanc
  • Joshua Astray, the Black Fang
  • Renne, the Angel of Slaughter
  • Ein Selnate, a.k.a. Carnelia
  • Kevin Graham, the Heretic Hunter
  • Rufina Argent, the Thousand Arms
  • Aureole, the Shining Ring
  • Ragnard, the Ancient Dragon
  • General Morgan, the God of War
  • Phillip Runall, the Sword Fox and the Demon Commander
  • Albert Russell, the Father of the Orbal Revolution
  • Harvard Fisher, the Fishing Baron
• Redemption Equals Death: Loewe in SC.
• Redemption Quest: Ex-Colonel Richard and the disgraced Intelligence Corps take the field against Ouroboros at the end of SC to redeem themselves for the crimes they committed in FC.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: In all three games, Estelle (red) and Joshua (blue). For an FC-exclusive example, Estelle and Kloe, respectively.
• Replacement Goldfish: Tita ends up being a surrogate for Agate's dead sister Mischa, though Tita actually embraces the role late into SC.
  • The end of SC reveals that Estelle was a kind of replacement for Karin, Joshua's sister who died in the war. Joshua is seen having a hard time grasping their bf/gf status as a result.
• Required Party Member: This occurs frequently over the course of the SC, starting with the fact that Estelle must always be in the party.
  • In Chapter 4, Scherazard is locked into the party during events in Rolent. During one forced encounter, Kloe and Tita are also locked in.
  • In Chapter 5, Agate is locked in for the start, Tita is locked in for the middle, and then both Agate and Tita are required for the end.
  • Midway through Chapter 6, Kevin is a forced party member for a dungeon.
  • From the climax of Chapter 6 to the end of the game, Joshua is a mandatory party member.
  • During the Plot Tunnel in Chapter 7, the second area visited requires Zin, and the third requires Scherazard.
  • The Jenis Royal Academy sidequest in Chapter 8 forces the party of Estelle, Anelace, Kurt, and Joshua.
  • In the final chapter, Josette (who unfortunately suffers from Late Character Syndrome) is required to be in the party for a dungeon, but can be replaced before The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter: A fair number, starting with the "Crop Munchers" Estelle and Joshua deal with in the FC prologue.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Joshua against Weissmann in SC.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something:Kloe and Olivier in all three games.
• Rule of Cool:
  • The games do apply this principle to a few things. For example, if we're being remotely realistic, even briefly pulling the trigger on any of her weapons should result in Tita being knocked flat on her butt from the recoil, if not injured outright^note since there's no way in hell she weighs more than 90 pounds (in armor, mind you) while her weapons spew out easily 100+lb of recoil; never mind that a lot of her weapons would weigh almost as much as she does. Tita looks awesome using them, though, so nobody cares a whit.
  • Also, Enforcers like Joshua, Renne and Loewe routinely engage in physical acts that are blatantly impossible (for example, Loewe leaping off the top of Grancel Castle without injury, though considering the clues present, it may have been one of his shadows). This is handwaved to some degree by what we see Orbal technology can accomplish and later material provides additional explanations for some examples.
• Running Gag: Holy Stregas! An exclamation both Estelle and Kevin will utter per course of the game. (For reference, Stregas is a brand of their favorite footwear.)
• Saintly Church: One of the most believable aspects of the setting is that the Septian Church is, by and large, a benevolent organization and doesn't really meddle with massive plots at all in FC or SC. Its clergymen clearly believe what they preach, are peaceful, benevolent presences in their towns (they even teach school for most people), and they even act as obvious allies to our heroes in FC when the Grancel Cathedral gives knowing shelter to Julia while she's a fugitive from Col. Richard's coup. Nearly all the characters are faithful to a greater or lesser degree, as well, with invocations to Eidos/Aidios relatively common in places you'd expect a real life person to invoke God. There's ultimately nothing sinister about the church in FC or SC. Third makes it a little more complicated, although in that case we're dealing more with the Church as a continent-wide organization and Kevin's place in it, with the general message being: "in an organization as large as this, and based on beliefs as fundamental as this, you are always going to have disagreements about how best to defend those beliefs".
• Samus Is a Girl: In Sky The 3rd, The Lord of Phantasma is a girl. This gets subverted when Kevin deduces that the real Lord of Phantasma is actually his own Stigma being channeled by the artifact, meaning it doesn't have a gender as such.
• Sarcastic Confession: A subtle and easily missed, but extremely clever one. At the end of Chapter 1 in SC, Kloe and Estelle reminisce about their role as knights in the festival play and Olivier promptly adds in that his role must be "the long, wandering prince from a nearby country, here to take back the dark-haired princess, even if by force." Everyone - likely including the player - pretty much chalks it up to Olivier being... well, Oliver, but it turns out he's actually perfectly describing himself. As the player discovers later in the game, Olivier IS a wandering prince from a nearby country (Erebonia) who was sent to Liberl to take a dark-haired princess (Kloe), first as part of an arranged marriage, then as part of a hostile takeover plan.
• Savvy Guy, Energetic Girl: Joshua and Estelle, naturally.
• Scarf of Asskicking: Joshua picks up one of these in the second chapter.
• School Festival: Yes, Jenis has one in FC!
• Self-Inflicted Hell: In Sky - The 3rd, Phantasma has elements of this, especially Gehenna. It was drawn from Kevin's mind as his vision for how he wanted to be punished, and man does it show.
• Series Fauxnale: Trails in the Sky SC was the originally intended conclusion to the story arc that began in the first game, with the entire central conflict being resolved. Trails in the Sky the 3rd is more of a Dénouement Episode that serves to expand on certain supporting characters (such as Kevin Graham, who takes over the leading role from Estelle and Joshua) and flesh out the series' universe.
• Serious Business: The Fishing Guild. Also, Lt. Schwarz is serious business indeed to her fanclub. Make the slightest disparaging remark and you're likely to get choked.
• Shadow Archetype: Joshua and Renne. Joshua even acknowledges this openly; to him, Renne represents everything he could have been had he not lost to Cassius and met the Brights. This is largely what fuels his ardent desire to help her; her behavior is so radically different from his own, but he could have been just like her - even fighting at her side! - had his life turned out even a little differently.
• Shoo Out the Clowns: Owing to it being a Fire and Brimstone Hell and Kevin's Dark and Troubled Past having just been elaborated on, none of the chests on the seventh plane have comedic quotes, instead simply saying "The chest is empty".
• Shout-Out: Shares one with the rest of the series here.
• Single Phlebotinum Limit: Everything is powered by Sepith/Quartz. From lights to airships to combat magic.
• Single-Stroke Battle: Zin and Walter have a martial arts one if Zin is in the party when fighting Walter in the final chapter of SC.
• Sinister Scythe: Your first hint that Renne only looks cute and innocent.
• Sinister Shades: Worn by Walter in Second Chapter and mafioso thugs in The 3rd. Sunglasses are new technology in the setting.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism:
  • The main story arc (in FC and SC) actually slides along the scale as it goes on. It starts off pretty light and idealistic, but then gets more and more cynical and dark until we're at almost Berserk levels of bastardity and cynicism, to the point that even Estelle begins to crack under the strain. Ultimately it swings back toward the idealist side of things in the grand finale, though. The title can be heard as "Miracle in the Sky" in Japanese for a reason, after all.
  • The third chapter, meanwhile, works partially because it examines the concept of this and how we bury ourselves in our perceptions. It even uses Loewe, Cassius and several figures from Kevin's past to hammer the point home.
• Sky Pirates: The Capuas are a classic example in FC. They later get pardoned by Alicia and become an international delivery service.
• Smug Snake: Most villains. The ones you should be afraid of are the ones who aren't this, at least when you initially meet them.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: The Capua Sky Bandits are... perhaps not evil-evil, but certainly criminals with a fair bit of what that entails, the proper villains of FC (the Liberl Royal Army Intelligence Division) are principled in their own way but willing to engage in acts that most people would consider "evil", and the overall villains (the Society of Ouroboros) are willing to routinely engage in acts of mass assault, property destruction, attempted and actual murder and whatnot in order to further their ends.
• Sprite/Polygon Mix: One of Japan's most famous recent examples.
• Story Overwrite: There is a side quest in the second chapter of SC where you can train with soldiers in Leiston Fortress. When you return here later for story reasons, the characters forget this happened, referring to the "last time they visited" as when they all broke in during the previous game.
• Story to Gameplay Ratio: The first game definitely falls on the side of Story > Gameplay, with the gameplay present being fairly simplistic. The second game expands the play aspect a bit while not sacrificing story at all. (in fact, SC's word count is a whopping 716,401, about 20% more than War and Peace) Overall, the series still lands on the "story rich" end of the spectrum.
• Student Council President: Jill. Lechter is revealed to be the one in charge before Jill, during his time observing Liberl's situation from Jenis Royal Academy.
• Super Boss: The final stage of the Nightmare Arena, which features a Dual Boss against Cassius and Loewe, the two strongest characters in the trilogy.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • During the SC the protagonists will be affected by a disaster involving the technology they use failing, and as such need to equip Zero Field Generators in order to use arts. Tita in particular needs a ZFG, as the only weapon she has that doesn't use orbal power is the Gatling gun she uses in one of her S-Crafts.
  • One sidequest in SC involves rescuing miners trapped by their elevator failing due to the Orbal Shutdown Phenomenon, Tita restoring the elevator's functionality using a Zero Field Generator. However, as one LPer pointed out, just because the elevator now works doesn't necessarily mean it works properly. The ZFG doesn't restore full power to the orbment, meaning the elevator's movement is pretty much start suddenly and stop just as suddenly, over and over again, until it reaches the top or bottom, resulting in a horrible stomach-churning journey in and out of the lower level.
• Tarot Motifs: Enforcers' number and personality are based on the tarots. Like Renne (XV) is The Devil, or Campanella (0) is The Fool. Joshua (XIII) was Death, Blueblanc (X) is The Wheel of Fortune, Walter (VIII) is Strength, and Luciola (VI) is The Lovers. Loewe is actually an odd one: he is obviously The Emperor (IV), but he's No. II, which is actually The High Priestess. Take a look on the meaning of The High Priestess. Loewe actually fits BOTH The Emperor and The High Priestess.
• Taken for Granite: Kind of. Weissmann was shot with a Salt Bolt that effectively worked like this, except transforming him to salt instead of stone. On his way out after retrieving some 'lost property' Campanella stopped to to break Weissmann's now-petrified body into pieces.
• Tempting Fate: Private Gutte, bored night watchman of the army-seized Sky Bandit lair, scoffs at his boring job saying no one would attack their out-of-the-way base in the middle of nowhere at night. Joshua then suddenly leaps down and incapacitates both guards.
• There Are No Coincidences: The Erebonian Empire just happened to have spent years secretly developing steam powered tanks with gunpowder weapons, which would be utterly useless against orbal-powered tanks... and then Ouroboros summoning the Arc causes every orbment in Liberl to suddenly stop working. Olivier flat out states that there was no way anyone could have forseen a use for steam tanks unless they knew that there was a way to make orbments break down in large quantities... which means that Chancellor Osbourne of the Erebonian Empire is connected to Ouroboros and knew enough of their plans to start planning to take advantage of them years in advance.
• Title Drop: An interesting variation. The English title "Trails in the Sky" is part of the lyrics to one of Olivier's songs, but it ultimately has little to do with the plot. However, the Japanese title "Sora no Kiseki" can also be translated to mean "Miracle in the Sky". The word "miracle" is dropped many times throughout FC and SC and the concept of miracles is central to the themes of the story. "Trails in the Sky" is also the title of the final chapter in SC, referencing the Liber Ark, which was powered by an artifact that makes wishes come true.
• To Be a Master: The goal of the first game is for Estelle and Joshua to become master Bracers. Played with in that contrary to the child prodigies the main characters usually end up as in stories like these, being the best in the Trails universe requires years of experience akin to becoming a Black Belt in martial arts, and even if you, the player, get the highest rank, they're still only Juniors getting promoted to Senior at the end of the game. In SC, you can ascend all the way to A-Rank if you do every mission virtually perfect, and a certain character at the end of Chapter 8 will express shock that Estelle managed to reach that rank at such a young age (though her canon rank is B). However, getting S-Rank, which is reserved for absolute legends of which there are only 4 in the entire of Zemuria the only revealed one being Cassius Bright, is impossible in the scope of the game. Also, this is gameplay-only, as SC otherwise subverts this since Estelle has more pressing matters to attend to, namely finding Joshua and dealing with Ouroboros.
• Together in Death: Loewe and Karin, in the 3rd.
• Tomboy: Estelle practically defines the trope, both as a young girl in the prologue and during the main game itself. Anelace and Josette also have elements of this. Josette resents this perception deep down, though, since she's only doing the kind of work she does because her family's fortune was ruined.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Estelle and Kloe's relationship in a nutshell.
• Truth in Television: Joshua accurately describes the conditions of what happens to the citizens of a country that focuses on its military might — high taxes, weapon development, military conscription and others contrasted to a peaceful government focused on peace through diplomacy and trading.
• Übermensch: FC and SC heavily deconstruct this trope through their main antagonists.
  • Richard's Fatal Flaw is that he idolized Cassius Bright as one of these, to the point that when he left the military, he thought himself too weak to ever live up to his legacy and believed that relying on a miracle, i.e. The Aureole, an ancient superweapon, was the only way he could protect his country. In other words, his misguided idealization of Cassius causes him to commit to a course of action that, as shown by happens to Crossbell and North Ambria in the following two arcs, would likely have massively backfired had he been in charge when the Tetracyclic Towers were deactivated.
    
    Estelle chews him out for this, pointing out that her father didn't single-handedly win the war by himself. People from all over the country working together were essential to make his plan work, and she even points out that he himself was one of them. And that, to her, was the real miracle. Cassius himself shows up after the final boss fight to chew out Richard for giving him undeserved credit even though he was a flawed man who ran away when things got tough. This Let's Play annotates the game's dialogue with explanations of how it argues against the notion of the lone hero, and how its rich backstory shows that the deconstruction is more than just talk.
  • Estelle gives a similar speech against the true Big Bad, Georg Weissmann, who, unlike Richard, does consider himself this and claims he needs the Aureole to control humanity and save it from itself. Estelle denies this, countering that she's seen how people would work together to deal with a nation-wide power outage, and that they don't need a higher power to survive, just the ability to care for each other. Besides, to her, a life being purely governed by Ubermensch intelligence without the bonds shared with each other would be awful.
• Underestimating Badassery: In the final chapter in FC, when Estelle, Scherazard and Kloe rescue the Queen during the coup d'état, they encounter Lieutenant Lorence. Estelle, who defeated his team during the tournament, confidently states that even though he is strong, there is no way he can take the three of them all by himself. As she realizes after fighting him, she's wrong. Actually winning the fight is optional and reliant on specific quartz setups and good luck, and even if you manage to win, he doesn't go down.
• Unexpectedly Dark Episode: These games are mostly a typical JRPG firmly on the idealistic side of the Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism. Which makes these moments stand out much more.
  • The Hamel Incident, as detailed in SC. A civilian village was massacred, children included, by mercenaries as a Pretext for War. While fleeing, Joshua and his sister were confronted by a soldier who attempted to rape her, and Joshua, less than 6 years old, was forced to kill the soldier with his own gun.
  • Kevin's past as detailed in Chapter 7 of The 3rd. His mother went insane and tried to commit murder-suicide with him when he was a child, he accidentally killed his Parental Substitute in an incredibly gruesome way, and punished himself for it by becoming a Church Militant assassin whose missions included having to Mercy Kill a child. Things don't get much better for him in the present after he reveals this, as he turns out to hate himself so much his subconscious created a replica of hell within Phantasma where he could be tortured, and you're forced to traverse it. It isn't pretty.
  • Star Door 15 in The 3rd. Most of the other doors are humorous or heartwarming character vignettes. This door details Renne's past in a child brothel, told from her perspective, and doesn't downplay or gloss over anything. This one in particular was so dark Japanese re-releases had to censor it.
• Unwitting Pawn: The party becomes this to Weissmann in FC. Joshua, in particular, does not take it well.
  • The party is pretty much unwittingly furthering the agenda of Ouroboros throughout the entire SC as well. Justified in a gameplay sense as the Enforcers are so overpowered that they could curbstomp the party easily at numerous junctures.
  • Weissmann himself winds up becoming one. Right before his death he wonders whether the Master knew in advance that Weissmann's plan to evolve humanity using Aureole and the Ark would fail and that he was simply being tested and failed. He's right.
• Very Definitely Final Dungeon: The Sealed Area underneath Grancel Castle in FC, Axis Pillar in SC and the Castle of Illusions (aka Phantasmagoria) that is the heart of Phantasma in The 3rd.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: To put it simply, the party really sucks at capturing anyone they defeat. And when they finally manage to knock a villain (Kanone Amalthea) unconscious, they neglect to restrain her in any way or confiscate her weaponry/orbment to prevent her escape when she wakes up. And when she shows up again and gets knocked out again, they still just leave her unconscious without doing anything.
  • SC takes this trope up to eleven as Ouroboros enforcers always stand upright and talk with the party after every battle, while always having some means of escape. Even Weissman does this after you fight him and his two One-Winged Angel forms, and it's Father Kevin who corners and executes him without Estelle or Joshua's knowledge.
• Villain Has a Point: While one might not agree with Richard's actions in the first game, one can understand his goals: Liberl is a small nation that borders two major powers, one of which had tried to conquer it a decade before and nearly succeeded. The kingdom needed some form of deterrent to keep that from happening again.
• Wake-Up Call Boss:
  • Kurt serves as the first boss of SC, which is appropriate since the entire prologue is a training exercise. His fight is emblematic of how much harder SC is compared to FC, and many players have restarted the game on Normal instead of Hard because of him.
  • In The 3rd, Rostrum, the boss of the 2nd plane, is the first boss that requires a decent Quartz setup to beat, especially on Nightmare. Its damage output is far too high for healing or defense buffs to match (it's Strength is almost double that of the next major boss), so an Earth Wall user is necessary, and without Action 2 and Cast 2 Quartz you won't be able to cast it, and other buffs, before your party is wiped. You can get by without synthesizing new Quartz until this point, but Rostrum will make sure you do.
• Walking the Earth: The game is very "Ys-scale" about this. While you will, naturally, do some wandering about (Estelle and Joshua are "Bracers", or adventurers who openly wander about doin' good (with organized HQs in multiple towns even)), the game is confined to the Liberl Kingdom in terms of scope. This is partially because the crisis is local, and partially out of realism since wandering the planet, even with a conveyance, would take months.
• Weapon for Intimidation: Star Door 8 of the third game has some of the characters speculate that Chancellor Osborne's plan to invade Liberl was more about showing off Erebonia's military might to the rest of the world rather than actually invading Liberl. The fact that the Imperial Army had functioning tanks despite the Orbal Shutdown Phenomenon rendering all orbal technology useless makes them seem Crazy-Prepared to the rest of the world, meaning even if something like that were to happen again, Erebonia would be able to handle it.
• We Have Reserves: Campanella causes three of his Jaegers to first spontaneously revcover, and then subsequently explode, as a demonstration of his power. Subsequently downplayed when they turn out to be orbal puppets, the in-universe equivalent of androids.
• Wham Episode: The end of First Chapter. Joshua is the Black Fang of Ouroboros, he remembers the death of his family, he's been an unwitting mole since the opening text boxes of the game and is/was a pawn of Weissmann. He leaves Estelle behind so that he can... settle things. At the very end, Estelle sets off after him. This one left people spinning when the game was first released, and marked the point at which the main narrative started to get a lot darker. The effect was especially pronounced as Falcom had given no indication that the game was anything but a stand-alone title.
• Wham Line: "Allow me to clear away your confusion. *fingersnap*" Congratulations Joshua, you now remember your place and history as the Black Fang, Enforcer XIII of Ouroboros.
  • "Enforcer no. XV. Renne, the Angel of Slaughter."
  • From Loewe on the Glorious, revealing his relationship to Joshua, as well as a detail about Joshua's past we never knew: "Karin Astray. A childhood friend of mine and Joshua's older sister."
  • "I'm sorry but that's just not going to happen" Kevin revealing that A) He's present where he shouldn't be and more importantly B) he's not just a novice Grals Ritter.
  • Kevin gets a pretty big one regarding his backstory, in Chapter 7 of The Third. Hits especially hard as, unlike what happened to Rufina Argent, there's been very little foreshadowing towards this reveal.
  Kevin: I killed my mom.
  • "Now, hurry and take off that disgusting mask of yours...Lord of Phantasma—No, RUFINA ARGENT!"
• Wham Shot: The Lord of Phantasma's face being Rufina.
• Whip Sword: Ries uses one in the 3rd.
• Wolfpack Boss:
  • Several of the monster hunt requests feature difficult battles against multiple Elite Mooks.
  • Josette, Kyle, and Don are the bosses of Chapter 1 of FC.
  • The Martial Arts tournament features several team based battles. The first opponents are the Ravens while the second opponents are Kurt, Carna, Grant, and Anelace. The last team is the Intelligence Division, though this is more of a Flunky Boss with Lorence at the lead.
  • In SC, the Ravens attempt another one of these fights in Chapter 1 in their warehouse.
  • In The 3rd, Walter, Bleublanc, and Lucciola form the penultimate boss battle of the Black Ark.
  • Weissmann, Rostrum, and Astarte are the bosses of Chapter 7 of The 3rd.
  • Pretty much every boss fight in the series comes with at least two Elite Mooks to back them up. In fact, that two specific fights avert this while being That One Boss examples show how good said characters are, that they can fight an entire party single-handedly with no backup of their own.
• The Worf Effect: Agate often falls victim for this trope. In FC, he seems to win against Lorence... but then we find out that was a just a mirror body-double. Played straight in SC, in that he gets beaten easily by Loewe. Then again, in his defense Loewe and Lorence are the same person.
• Worthless Treasure Twist: Played for Laughs in one of the empty chest messages in SC, which reads "You find the greatest treasure of all: friendship."
• Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe: Ancient Dragon Ragnard speaks this, though toning it down when something important is being stated.
• You, Get Me Coffee: Estelle and Joshua visit the city of Zeiss to meet with Professor Russell about a mysterious black orbment sent to their father, but which has ended up in their care. They end up escorted to his home and lab by his granddaughter, Tita. Upon arrival, and trying to introduce themselves, they find him completely absorbed in his work, putting the finishing touches on his latest invention. He whizzes away, bumping Estelle aside, and when they catch up with him, he has Tita start helping him with his work, tells Joshua to go fetch a book, and tells Estelle to make him coffee.
  Professor Russell: I take it black, by the way. I want it clear as mud!
• Your Princess Is in Another Castle!: One of the most epic and memorable in Japanese gaming history, at the end of FC. It seems like the plot is done, but aren't there a few things left over?... oh, by the way, Joshua: *fingersnap*.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Tita pulls this on Loewe when he's about to murder Agate.

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