A thread to discuss the Trails Series of video games (known in Japan as the Kiseki series). Adaptations of the games are also on-topic.
As of May 2024, there is no specific spoiler policy for this thread, which means the the default forum spoiler policy
applies.
In summary:
- Spoilers for non-episodic works should remain tagged for a minimum of one month after the work's release.
- Spoilers for episodic works (including any DLC) should remain tagged for one month or until the next instalment releases, whichever is shorter.
There hasn't been much good news in months for people who want more Legend Of Heroes VI in English. Xseed has apparently been translating the second installment for PSP, but no release date yet, and they apparently have not had much sales success. Meanwhile, there have been no official statements about releasing the Windows versions in English.
But thanks to this Andriasang article
, I learned that Aeria Games (best known for MMORPGs) plans to release the Trails in the Sky trilogy internationally on smartphones. Some online and social functions will be added to the basic gameplay. No clear indication of what international smartphone platforms just yet.
Edited by Mrph1 on May 13th 2024 at 3:27:09 PM
I'd say that's oversimplifying things. It's the effect of her growth, not the cause. The cause was having Joshua leave, which forces her to start making decisions on her own terms, and begin to rely on her own two feet, as Cassius would put it.
I kind of wonder about that, actually. Joshua and Cassius' talk at the beginning of FC, I wonder if he was thinking that when Joshua leaves, not if, would she be ready when the time came? Knowing that he knew his son would leave might be why he's so harsh on her to improve because he knows it won't last.
In terms of Sky's swordspeople she is better than Richard in turn Julia but weaker than Muller and Cassius who in turn are weaker than the Bladelord.
In the overall scheme of things she is probably on par with default Rean.
The Eight Leaves school is strong but the Vander and Arseid schools are no slouches. The Radiant Blademaster of the Arseid school and Master Ka-fai duel every time they meet, no one has won yet cause they have too much fun fighting which turns into a party.
Oh yes, that was definitely the impetus, did not at all mean to imply otherwise. Her time at the training lodge let Falcom skip showing the process of acquiring skills and growing a brain. Admittedly, the brain was there in FC, she just passed off the thinking to Joshua as much as possible. See: Dunan, Air-Letten, best results.
The brain was there, it developed a lot over her just taking notes in the bracer book. But the skill was not, her time in Lemon was instilling skills such as storming a fortress and training under Kurt the person who taught her dad the staff.
Much of her development though was not during the time skip, we are shown nearly all of what did happen via the flashbacks to before the trip though. And really the best parts are yet to come.
edited 7th Jun '17 10:25:58 PM by Memers
I'll look forward to it then.
@darkabomination: Going back to your question about Cassius and Joshua, I can't imagine he thought about Estelle's emotional reaction in the moment. Probably not for years, if ever. Cassius strikes me as a Serenity Prayer kind of guy ("Lord grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,/Courage to change the things I can,/And wisdom to know the difference.") He knows from the moment he saves Joshua's life that he's going to lose Joshua one day over the skeletons in the kid's closet, and he resolves to accept that because he wants Joshua to make his own decisions, even if those decisions break Cassius's heart.
Estelle getting attached probably made things worse for Cassius, but ultimately he decides not to warn Estelle, because he thinks it's inevitable and doesn't want to borrow pain from the future.
(BTW I don't think he's very harsh on Estelle at all. Maybe in staff training, but it seems that he puts a lot of distance between his work life and personal life. Estelle thinks of him as a dumb dad and it's only when Joshua leaves that he's anything else in front of her.)
Enjoy the time you have together not dread the time you wont be.
Also while he might have not been able to prevent him from leaving, not telling Estelle was respectful of Joshua's wishes and the best way to ensure she would go after him. You do not get in the way of her when she sets herself on an idea, Yandere characters are less persistent.
Estelle spent at least weeks of trying to get Joshua to talk to her when he first came, she was the most persistent little girl and as an adult she didn't lose any of it. If anything Joshua cultivated it.
edited 8th Jun '17 12:38:39 AM by Memers
I think we're in complete agreement on those points.
Of course, in acceding to Joshua's spoken wishes he never considered Estelle's reaction. She went to a real bad mental place once she realized he was gone. Imagine if she hadn't met Kevin before arriving at the house? Schera nailed it when she called the two men miserable sons of bitches.
Actually, spoiler question: how aware was Cassius of Joshua's feelings for Estelle? And vice versa? Everyone Can See It on his part yes, but it seems that Estelle literally wasn't interested in boys until the two of them took their roadtrip. Perzel Farms at the absolute earliest.
EDIT: Also, lol yanderes. Estelle does get... passionate. And clingy. Huh. Are we sure she's not one?
edited 8th Jun '17 12:55:29 AM by Watashiwa
Well.... she only really gets full on scary eyes Yandere with Joshua when it involves a dress. But otherwise no she never threatens with actual violence with Joshua aside from some drop kicks as a kid.
Now with an other you could make a case for it.
Where exactly are you in SC btw?
As for Cassius he hints that he approves to Estelle at the end of FC IIRC but that's the earliest I remember.
edited 8th Jun '17 1:51:37 AM by Memers
I've seen some detractors of Estelle's character insist she's in the wrong for wanting to go after Joshua because it's claimed she's invalidating his decision to leave. Joshua being Joshua, I don't buy for a second he's not considered the possibility that she'll drop everything and search all of Zemuria looking for him.
At this point he knows exactly how she feels with no room for doubt, and given hints so far, I think he's got a plan in mind.
The same detractors also gave the impression that Estelle's more a burden than genuine support. Which gets at the core of what I think her best quality is, her determination. I don't think she's an idiot.
Book Dumb sure, but anyone who spent more than five minutes not skipping dialogue in towns would know she spends quite a while wanting to learn a lot about the places she visits. I think that she has a simple heart in that what she's feeling isn't filtered too much out of how she reacts, but as said, there's not really one big thing that makes her become more self-aware, it's a number of little things that pile on during the adventure.
Plus, mental conditioning aside, it's pretty clear he wasn't healthy in his behavior. The sad part to all of this is there's nothing anybody really could've done to change any of this. On the positive though, I think it's also a good time for Joshua to sort out his feelings too.
Tragedy aside, this game seems to be about growth and emotional acceptance. There's the usual JRPG angst, but it serves a purpose and is handled far better than a lot of games I've seen, romance included.
Its not like she actually did leave everything and go after him, she didn't.
She followed everyone's advice and went on a training trip, then came back stronger and continued her Bracer work, working her way up to that A rank, while looking for him / looking for ways to help him and kicking Oroboros ass.
She is Book Dumb, aside from Church Sunday School she spent a grand total of 3 days in actual school. However she learns very quickly via first hand experience, all throughout FC she is the one asking questions and taking notes in the journal that players read. And becomes the defacto leader of Liberl Bracers by the end of FC despite being only a junior at the time.
Hell being able to knock Lorance's helmet off shows a lot of her skill in the first place, it would be like landing a serious body blow to her father.
As for Joshua, that is GD hard to get into without actually discussing spoilers, going to semi pass on that for now.
edited 8th Jun '17 6:29:53 PM by Memers
I'm in the opening act of chapter 1, made it to the point where I can leave Ruan. IRL I'm behind on a contract so I've put the game down until next week.
Oh, I went with Agate over Schera. I'm using Estelle as a caster and didn't feel the need to double up. Turned out to be a plus since we're in Ruan.
Also:
- Yes Estelle is ignoring Joshua's expressed wishes by going after him. She's completely right to do so as well.
- Estelle is a textbook case of Book Dumb because she literally leaves all the thinking to Joshua unless she's not thinking about thinking, a la Bose in FC.
- IIRC Lorence tosses off his own helmet.
- Just because they call it Sunday School doesn't mean it's like our Sunday school. It's pretty clear that the church is the source of public education in-universe and the program is probably several days a week and seasonal in the towns that have full churches.
- I don't think she's treated as a leader of the Liberl Bracers in FC. It's pretty clear that protagonist status is warping the story around Estelle and Joshua. They DO have the mission from the queen, which is the stated reason that they're mandatory for the Oubliette, but in-universe Zin would be in charge, the party would split into two teams that progress through the dungeon separately, probably in the form of Estelle/Zin/Olivier/Kloe and Joshua/Agate/Tita/Schera.
- thinking about it it's pretty clear that Joshua is the yandere in the relationship
edited 9th Jun '17 12:54:33 AM by Watashiwa
The fact that he's the Erobonian prince, which explains his conspicuous absence to the plot until the final dungeon.
It also explains why Mueller is so extremely not in the mood to deal with his shit, and spent a huge part of FC running around Liberl looking for his ass.
Also those remarks about the princess's marriage candidate suddenly dropping off the plot. And why Mueller was dead set on keeping him out of the dinner party.
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It does seem like it's only a day a week, it is made quite clear in Cold Steel what days kids attend. The only actual schools in the universe seem to be high schools and universities.
Zin makes it clear that he is just following, assisting and in many ways teaching. It is what Cassius said to do.
ack
but Do you feel sorry for Mueller now? Being Mueller is painful and he has been at it since he was born.
edited 9th Jun '17 10:01:42 AM by Memers
Mueller's life is suffering. Interesting, but suffering nonetheless. Him, Philip, and Julia need to have a beer some time. And bond over the fact that the high-ranking officer of the military somehow has it the easiest with her charge, if only because she's doing something productive with her life. Cue shots of Estelle and Kloe's crossplay swordfight.
Funny thing is, I don't at all feel tempted to click on these spoilers.
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Zin not taking the lead is a prime example of the plot wrapping around the protagonists. In a realistic-ish situation you absolutely do not leave a national security matter involving state secrets going back 1000 years that ALSO involves founding elements of the continental religion to the rookies, even if you're a paramilitary organization that doesn't involve itself with national affairs.
Yes it was a field situation but the second the party got the download about the Oubliette, the whole group should have defaulted to their ranks and roles. I'm not saying this to denigrate Estelle and Joshua since they solve the issue perfectly (including great verbal takedowns of Richard from both Estelle and Joshua), but it shouldn't be their job to lead the mission at that point, and Zin allowing/encouraging it is incredibly irresponsible and (I feel) out of character.
It IS of course anime as fuck, so.
If this was realistic, they'd be skipped right past the whole junior status and into senior immediately upon joining the guild on the basis of being Cassius's kids. You know how that stuff is like IRL.
But yeah, anime as fuck.
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Well, at least we tried to warn you not to look at anything about him.
Normally, you find that out at the end of SC.
Cold Steel lets that spoiler loose at the end of the tutorial. That's how little Falcom cares about holding stuff like that back for people who jump in late.
edited 9th Jun '17 3:54:12 PM by burnpsy
It's kinda something every western Trails fan knew going into SC sadly because how prominent it is. Falcom really REALLY leans on Late-Arrival Spoiler hard, to the point where everything that happens in SC is basically laid out out in the open in a book in a library in Cold Steel.
I am already pretty angry at Cold Steel III for how much they have spoiled II in their previews.
I count myself as lucky I didn't know any of the other big twists. Although I have been spoiled about what happens to Sky's characters that appear in Ao/Zero. Which isn't so bad since we don't know if we will ever get those two games.
edited 9th Jun '17 5:15:55 PM by Memers
I bet we will. With NISA sniping Ys, X Seed will want to release the Crossbell games to secure future Trails games. There's a Windows version which makes it all the more likely.

I mean, I haven't even hit the meat of chapter 1, but I've had several characters bring up Estelle's character growth and Anelace specifically attributes it to the training camp. So if most of the development happens onscreen great! Buuuut the game's telling me she did a lot of growing up during the training camp.
edited 7th Jun '17 9:29:50 PM by Watashiwa