Trails franchise (Trails In The Sky, Trails Of Cold Steel etc)

So people have been getting copies of Reverie early so here some more cast members (with the pages being updates) just for funsies

• Ilya and Erika: Laura Post
• Garcia and Emperor: Mick Wingert
• Mirielle: Allegra Clark
• Mattues: Edward Bosco
• Roy Gramheart: Brent Mukai

I've heard the end credits also added a memoriam for Scott Tijerina (localizer from Geofront who was also lead editor for Reverie) and Billy Kametz (previously voiced BG Wallace Bardias).

Yep, saw it online. Its a nice thing for the localizers to do.

In addition, I heard that Elaine's nickname have been changed to Sword Maiden to Beauty's Blade. Idk which is preferable since they both sound pretty ok in my book.

Anyone else in the US order a Reverie limited edition and not receive shipping confirmation yet?

A heads up, the entire Trails franchise is currently on sale on Steam, with up to 50% off some of them.

Kondo interview with PushSquare.

Some details worth noting (IMO):

• Falcom is developing a new game that isn’t Trails or Ys. Whether it is an existing IP (I’ve seen a lot of speculation that it might be a new Tokyo Xanadu game) or a new one…. We will just have to wait.
• The surprisingly decent sales of the Crossbell duology in the West was a massive source of encouragement to the employees.
• Due to Reverie’s bigger cast, they had a hard time keeping track of the timeline and locations.
• The localization for Kuro seems to still be in the works.
• The reason Rean can’t romance Aurelia is because “ she is so strong, she never lets her guard down for it to happen.”

Or maybe because she's a grown adult and he was a teenager when he first met her?

That didn't stop Sara from being a love interest. Aurelia, Duvalie and Angelica are like the only ones around Rean that arn't romance options.

For some reason I've just got this image of Aurelia patting Rean on the head, and him blushing and acting flustered.

Cue the other girls loosing their minds.

It'll likely be a Tokyo Xanadu sequel, but I hope it's one of their abandoned franchises. Gurumin leaves enough plot threads open that it begs for a sequel.

Yeah, I don't think age has anything to do with why Aurelia isn't a romance option. Sara isn't that much younger than her, and while not actual options both Duvalie and Claire get a lot of Ship Tease with him.

The real oddity, in my opinion, is Alfin being a romance option when she's not playable in most games and doesn't have the excuse of being a major presence in Rean's life the way Towa and Elise do.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jul 6th 2023 at 3:18:35 PM

Alfin is the only one who has actually canonically stated to be attracted to Rean outside of bonding events and not made a joke about it. He has rescued her at least three times now. Not to mention they have great chemistry with each other, quite a bit like Estelle and Joshua.

Also... that scene in Alister at the grave...

Oh, to be clear, I'm certainly not decrying her as a bad option, I just mean that in terms of narrative and gameplay she feels somewhat more disconnected, and so I'm more surprised she is one; all the way into Cold Steel IV, no less.

The Class VII girls are all consistently playable party members, Towa is like an honorary Class VII member even if she's seldom playable, and gets a lot of scenes with Rean outside of bonding events, and Elise... is a major part of Rean's life the game (unfortunately ) kind of pushes harder than the other girls save Alisa. Alfin does have the whole princess-rescue sequence in Cold Steel II though, I guess.

I mean, Rean/Elise is as squicky as Estelle/Joshua but everyone loves the latter. Not condoning incest, but if everyone gives Estelle and Joshua a pass, why not those two?

Rean has known Elise for all of his memory, whereas Joshua was only adopted about 5 years before Sky.

Also, Elise only learned that Rean was adopted a year before CS 1.

Joshua was adopted well past the Westermarck Effect's domain. It's likely they never even saw each other as "real" siblings, just two people sharing a household. Especially if Joshua was in love with Estelle the whole time, like he says.

Still mildly eyebrow-raising, but much further removed from incest than Rean and Elise.

Honestly, out of the romance for Rean, Elise is one of the worst just because of the Not Blood Siblings angle of the whole thing, speaking as someone who grew up with an older brother her entire life. I hate it when Japanese media does that. Needless to say, I avoided all bonding events with her like the plague.

It doesn't help she thinks of him explicitly as a brother, and treats him the same way. Also it's a bit unequal in that Rean uh, doesn't see her as anything but a sister for 4 whole games. Even at Estelle's least self-aware moments, the pairing was never that lopsided.

My copy of Reverie has been delayed by Fedex...

I'll be getting it on Steam, although it releases at about 2AM. But no shipping delays at least!

So I'll likely start playing it tomorrow morning. I was going to wait, but a big factor in jumping right in is hearing there are very few missables like in 3rd (and the ones that exist are clearly outlined). So unlike for CS I won't really bother with a guide.

This is the first one since CSIII I haven't got early. IDK what NISA has been doing this time around.

I'm really hoping the Trails franchise has a bit of a reset, and that's more because Continuity Lockout is a horrible thing in this franchise. To the point where I often suggest people to play Trails in the Sky 1 and SC just because it gives a complete story and doesn't require any other games to understand. Hell, Trails from Zero is also a good stand alone title. But anything more than that and you're going to end up having to play a LOT of games in the franchise.

Thats... Kuro, the next game in the series.

Every new saga is soft reset with a new main character and is structured for new players, almost to a fault as older players can get annoyed at it.

I mean, I get it?

But people recommended big long running epic fantasy book series or TV shows all the time and you don't see anyone complain.

Trails is different from most videogames in that sense, but that's not what it's modeling itself after.

Edited by kkhohoho on Jul 7th 2023 at 12:28:51 PM

I'd recommend Trails first solely because of Estelle, and there's much more than her in there. The game system is archaic, but the story itself is worth exploring in full.

(He says, still needing to replay the games before going into Crossbell duology)