Quick note for you or anyone else that hasn't played Azure yet since you mentioned the Evolution versions. Do NOT watch the Azure Evo opening animation if you haven't played the game already, it has some pretty huge spoilers in it. The original version opener is fine
Oh shit, have you finally done it. Did you finally manage to... get over the barrier? I will echo the sentiment that Azure is peak trails and is a total treat to play.
Of all the things about trails, I think maybe the most amazing story is how quickly it's taken hold in the west. It still doesn't sell that well, but the fanbase is growing rapidly. It's really only been 7 years now, but it seems so much longer. Sky FC was released in Japan in 2004. It was not localized in English until 2011, for the PSP, and when it was localized, it was a sales failure, because the PSP was a dead platform (no idea why Sky SC got a PSP release too). The story of Trails in the west really begins in 2014 (7 years ago, and 10 years after the initial release of Sky FC in Japan) when Sky FC was ported by Xseed to the PC, which is when people actually played it. Sky FC - July 2014 (PC) Sky SC - October 2015 (PC/PSP) Sky the third - May 2017 (PC) Cold Steel 1 - December 2015 (Playstation 3) / August 2017 (PC) Cold Steel 2 - September 2016 (Playstation 3) / February 2018 (PC) Cold Steel 3 - October 2019 (Playstation 4) / March 2020 (PC) Cold Steel 4 - October 2020 (Playstation 4) / April 2021 (PC) Just looking at the release dates, and options for playing the games, it should be obvious that Falcom's strategy for the west has been to spotlight the Cold Steel games, put them on multiple platforms and have the first two CS games come out before Sky the 3rd came west. They skipped localizing the Crossbell arc until Geofront basically said "fine, we'll do it ourselves", did it, did a great job of it, and now NIS America is going to take that localization and make an official version. It's obvious why Falcom has chosen to ride Cold Steel as their marketing ploy in the west. Lloyd might be harem protag, but Rene is the king of all Harem protags. CS has current generation graphics on a current generation platform (Playstation). Why bother with older games with older graphics and an older experience if you want to sell games? The long and short is that trails in the west is still very young, only really been around since 2014/2015, but western sales made up 27% of overall Falcom sales last fiscal year. The future is very bright, and so long as Falcom sees the west as a prime place to grow their sales, we'll get trails games in the west much faster in the future. It took forever for Trails to come west due to the immense business risk (and cost) that a small studio would have to take to translate a game with more text than all 7 Harry Potter books combined and try to sell that in a foreign market. That's why it was more than a decade between Sky FC's release and Japan and the PC release of the game in the west.
Actually the story of trails in the west really does start with 2011s psp release since Xseed themselves would always get bombed with "Trails SC when" comments with every game announcement they made after its launch. That's why it was released on psp in 2015. It was Xseeds way of respecting the fan base that helped get falcom to approve the localization of SC
I thought SC was peak Trails until I played Azure, at which point Azure became not only my favorite Trails game but also my favorite game of all time, bar none (and it's not even close). So perhaps that can set your expectations.
i haven't gotten to azure yet. i played zero though and even though the characters really started to grow on me, i don't think any characters will ever top estelle and joshua for me. gotta get around to playing azure sometime, but right now i just started playing the cold steel games, i'm nearly at the end of the first one and will probably continue playing through all 4 of them. the trails games are by far the best rpgs i've ever played by far, i don't think any other rpg series will pull me in the way these games do.
Great to see you back! Zero might be the slowest-paced among the first games of each arc (and that's saying something), but man do I love it to death. I even prefer it to Azure in some aspects. It's funny because after finishing the 3rd, I was actually more interested in what would go down in Erebonia than in Crossbell, then Zero took me by surprise with a very solid core of main characters that work extremely well together. And as much as I love the Sky trilogy, I find this setting to be more interesting, since Crossbell is pretty much a shithole compared to the idyllic Liberl. You end up playing as a true underdog where nearly everything and everyone is against you from the very start, which makes getting over all those *barriers* all the more rewarding. We saw a bit of it in Sky already, but this game shows you more of the darker side of Zemuria and the political worldbuilding gets rather deep for a JRPG, and I'm all for that. I'll be waiting with bated breath for your take on Azure, since that's definitely where the brunt of this arc is. Also, I believe in Rixia supremacy.
Brother I really love your “Lets Talk about it” series on Trails games!!! The editing and story telling is amazing. Can’t wait for your comment on Azure! Also may I know will you play Cold Steel as well?
Regarding the part where Noel is shooting shit outside the car, it was actually done in a pre rendered cgi video. But because the older trails games have rly bad compatibility with video codecs (on PC), they're usually skipped or turned off completely to avoid freezing the game. This happened to me in all of the sky trilogy and zero. You can still watch the scenes on youtube or smth tho.
Welcome back weapons! I still remember playing zero alongside your playthrough months ago.... Now I'm literally just finished with cold steel 2 and starting 3 soon and so far trails to azure still stands on top of it all, an amazing experience and I can't wait for you to experience it too
Completely agree, the sen games are good, but nothing has come close to Ao in terms of storytelling, gameplay (as good as it is in sen the changes to the orbment system really drag it down), or characters (only the new characters in sen iii come close). I haven’t played Hajimari or Kuro but I’m really hoping they start taking more inspiration from Sky the third and the Crossbell arc.
i just started playing cold steel myself, i'm nearing the end of the first one and i'm loving it. estelle and joshua will always be my favorite characters, but i'm really liking the characters in cold steel, especially laura.
The man is back! Side note: as much as I did enjoy cold steel the harem problem with loyd is even worse in that game, where as in zero loyd is atleast aware of whats happening he just doesnt get what he did thay seemed so significant. In cold steel however he just randomly headpats people without their concent and doesnt even consider the feelings of others, I guess thats cuz he is a kid though idunnu. Cold steel still rly good however just a small gripe I have. NOW GIMME AZURE CONTENT OR ELSE!...
I finished Zero just as you finished your last video on it, since then I’ve played all the remaining games (except for Hajimari). Not to set your expectations too high but Ao is absolutely amazing, the best Trails game and, in my opinion, the best JRPG of all time!
I'm so happy to see you finally posted new Kiseki content. I hope your issues are going better now and I'll definitely enjoy watching this video sipping my cup of tea tonight, but I just wanted to show my appreciation first. Cheers.
As a guy who did cs 1-4(while doing half of 3 and then all of 4 then back to 3), and tag teaming both zero and sky FC slowly but surely, and I'm not 100% sure I get what you mean by "peak trails" 😅, but I'm excited for it tho after looking up Shirley vs Randy as I figured she'd be in Zero, but alas
36:54 Yup, bonding scene gives you an upgraded version of a Combo Craft. (In my case, it was Star Blast II. Yes, I had a bonding scene with Elie. Don't drag me into that "best girl" war, please. Persona fanbase already was a pain on that front afaik.) You can get every CC upgrade if you beat the game a few times on New Game+, with "Craft Upgrade transfer" unlocked and get bonding scene with a character other than one you had on first playthrough. (Or with any character in your case, Weapons.) And yes, these upgrades are carried over to Azure. Just wanted to explain that. 38:30 Yeah, about that... The original version of the game has a cutscene with Noel being a badass during our crew's escape. Guess there were some benefits of picking PSP version because of a lack of other options. Besides that, great video. ^^
The man, the legend, the king, is back!!! Great review of the game, I was wondering if you were gonna mention the music at some point XD. Though in the character section or the story part, I'm surprised you didn't even mentionned once Arios MacLaine, the Bracer symbol in Crossbell and Guy's former partner in the police, I feel like he's significant enough to get acknowledged in the video (hell, Sergei and Zeit got at least a mention, but Arios squat, the Bracer hate in crossbell is strong here XD) PS: You mention Noël didn't get shown kicking ass, but I'm fairly certain there was a cinematic before and after it showing that. Weird.
It might be a good idea to listen/watch the trails to zero audio drama road to the future that takes place right after the end of zero. It explains some things that might be confusing if you just jump into azure.
Don't care, KeA is the SSS' daughter. Any fool who tries to do some shady shit to her will get absolutely destroyed. That's also what I thought of when I started playing Azure. Anyone who makes KeA sad, gets to be pummeled by them police tonfas. Edit: After finally finishing Azure where I took a very long hiatus, stopped literally at the Finale and played FF14 instead, I say we did beat down almost everyone who hurt KeA. Unfortunately, there's one more person left we need to smack the living hell out of to fulfill the promise of beating everyone who messes with KeA.
After loving the Trails in the Sky trilogy as much as I did, I was not expecting Trails from Zero to become my new favorite. All of the new characters were excellent, it was nice to see Estelle, Joshua, and Renne's story come to a close, the plot threads that were set up in Sky the 3rd continue, among other things. I can't wait to find out what happens next in Azure. Great review! Oh, and Tio and KeA are best girls in terms of story and relevance to the plot, but yes, Rixia is best girl for obvious reasons...lol
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaall you said... or you could do it my way and just recommend it as a visual novel with some over the top fighting mechanics. It works like a charm:)))
So somehow NisA managed to make the localization of the Crossbell games actually a bad thing for those that already played them. How? Well by pushing back the trails games currently releasing in japan to 2023 and beyond? Whats bad about this? Well Falcom just releases way more games than NisA localizes. Generally Falcom releases 1 game per year and then takes a small break when an arc is done. So with NisA taking this huge break to fit in Zero and Ao into their release schedule we might end up like 5 games behind the east again. Another thing is also Falcom's usage of the PS4 for Kuro 1&2, by the time we get those games its gonna be PS5 games everywhere. If the Arc after Kuro is on the PS5 we might see another Crossbell situation where its more appealing for the publisher to get the shiny new game on the shiny new console and skip an arc. Anyway thats not the fault of these games, Crossbell is great and definitely the best currently translated Arc. Azure is tied with Hajimari for my favourite game in the series. Zero really nails what an Arc opener needs. Its not gonna be instantly big stakes so having a good cast of characters and a way to make "fake bracer work" interesting goes a long way. 4 man party right of the bat and you never feel like you need more since all of them are likable af and incredibly useful in battle. Having the characters be detectives and solve cases instead of just doing busywork is also a great way to hook you on the early chapters. You actually get to think a bit and Lloyd is refreshingly competent when it comes to actually working things out. This game just focuses on being an enjoyable experience while keeping future stuff subtle and relatively out of focus. It doesn't rely on Azure to pay off on its setup to be a good game.
Damn. I'm hoping that first part might not become a reality, but I could definitely see it happening. Agree on everything else. If it wasn't for the Sky residue Zero could've stood on its own as a fun little detective JRPG, because I'm just now noticing it didn't really have a cliffhanger ending like FC did.
For all the flak Lloyd gets for his corny lines and harem protagonist antics, he's certainly competent at his job right off the bat. Unlike Estelle, he's usually the one to see through cases before the others, rather than simply follow along everyone else's conversation for extra points, a nice way of making him the brains of the party despite everyone else having their own specialist fields. Sure, Lloyd lacks Estelle's radiant personality and her and Kevin's magnificent character arcs, but he earns his spot as a Trails protagonist elsewhere. I just wish I could say the same for the next one. As for which arc is best, personally I'd still hand it to Liberl, although I don't fault anyone who likes Crossbell more. Sky's a simpler story but makes few mistakes, and I like that over something that doesn't quite reach its loftier goals. Or, to put it in other words, Sky was aiming for a seven and got a seven, but Crossbell aimed for a nine and got an eight. Also, I feel like I need to defend FC's honor a little when it comes to the ending. What kept me thirsting for a sequel to FC for a couple of years wasn't the promise of more, but a really well written story that was basically the JRPG equivalent of the first Baldur's Gate. The reason the twist worked so well was because the game had a wrapped plot without any immediate threads left hanging, and that minor character had already had a payoff in helping the junior bracers on their journey. Yes, the cliffhanger happened, but the game would have been fine if we just cut to black on that bench in Grancel, leaving sorting out the mastermind to future Estelle and Joshua. Kind of like how Zero left the villain's ominous words of trickery behind the scenes as setup for Azure. And then- *BAM,* you're not quite done yet, buddy, here's a little heartbreak for the road.
@@wishuponamonkeyspaw2458 I'd argue that without the cliffhanger FC would be pretty bad as a trails game. (but its the first one so it had to do a ton of set up to actually get the bigger picture and story rolling) The cliffhanger pretty much opens the wider world. FCs issues are mostly how terribly slow its intro section is to the point where a ton of players could play for 24hrs without reaching anything that would hint at what this series is about. As someone who started with CS1&2 and went back to sky I at least knew about the bigger happenings that would eventually take place to keep me going. As it stands FC has big "It gets good after 40hrs" energy for anyone who isn't into oldschool JRPGs. The game really doesnt seem to care whether the player keeps playing or drops it. If it were to ever get remade I'd ideally want to get a few changes from later materials like the Trails in the Sky manga. For example during the perzel farm cropsmuncher extermination there is this choice between sparing the monsters or killing them and in the manga Estelle chooses to spare them but as she turns her back to them they attack and joshua kills the monsters reflexively to protect her. That was so much better than in the game because it reinforces a lot of things about both characters and actually gives a lot of weight to joshua's "I don't feel bad about killing" etc feelings. It also highlights early on that there is more to him which is a good hook to keep people playing. FC also doesn't really spread the attention well among its cast members which is worsened by how often you are piloting only Estelle and Joshua(Which is fine purely narratively but a bit messy in a game). Its also the most dated game combatwise with even SC being a massive step up and much more enjoyable to modern audiences. TLDR: FC really wants to be a book and is very well written as a set up, it just often forgets to also be an enjoyable game.
@@luminous3558 Maybe that's the thing: FC was my introduction to Trails. I didn't know there was even supposed to be a continuation, as the official title is just "Trails in the Sky". I simply took it all as Estelle (and Joshua's) coming of age story in a fun little romp through a relatively grounded low fantasy kingdom filled with JRPG antics and at times surprisingly mature writing. If you ask me, that's still what the series is "about" at heart, albeit the quality has noticeably gone down in recent years. As for the pacing, I actually recall the first and only time I got particularly bored with the game being Jenis academy. So, different strokes for different folks, I guess. Not exactly sure where the cutoff date is, but I'd argue 2004 is pretty old school these days, especially if we're talking about a game from a developer that's been around since the 80's. Now, about that crop muncher scene: wow, that escalated quickly. Yet, isn't it just redoing the whole thing with Luke and Pat's rescue all over again; Estelle lets down her guard and almost gets maimed. You know, that thing that already got her questioning if she's cut out to be a bracer just yesterday. For manga Estelle, I'd say the answer seems to be a "no" if she repeats the same mistake the following day. As for Joshua's part in that scene, maybe it's just me but that sounds either completely justified or really on the nose, depending on the delivery. Either way, I guess Joshua's just plain right and killing them is not just an option, it's the only reasonable one if they're going to attack at every opportunity. We put down dangerous animals that attack people in the real world too, after all. In the game him doubling down on logical arguments to justify his stance and confiding with Estelle later served to highlight how they both compliment and rely on each other at times and still delivered foreshadowing. Sure, we have a heavy-handed instance of Joshua calling himself "broken", but we also have Estelle chewing him out for such negative talk and thanking him for not bubbling it up. It's one of those moments that really sells that they've developed a healthy stepsibling relationship over the years. I don't see that scene working on a fundamental level if Joshua did nothing wrong by killing critters mid-lunge at Estelle's neck. And really, his dead eyes whenever he uses his S-craft didn't clue you in that the boy ain't right? I'd be more concerned if a sequel had worse gameplay than its predecessor, especially when said predecessor was basically rushed when the management ordered to release what they had as part 1. Also, again, 2004. Somehow, I fail to find it in me to criticize Falcom for failing to futureproof their games a decade and some into the future for the sake of the "modern audiences". Sorry about the long response, brevity is not one of my virtues.
So I just finished the game yesterday so of course I came to watch yout spoiler discussion... Then I realized something dumb. When Joachim tells you about the cult, his name on screen is actually Doctor Guenter (DG). That was a heavy giveaway that I just noticed. The trails devs are really silly with their naming. All the NPCs in Liberl that had names that were words in spanish that show some characteristic of their personality (like that book loving npc called Libro -which is the spanish word for book-). Or they calling their goddess Aidios which reads like the spanish "Ay Dios!", which is spanish for "oh (my) God".
It's okay that you chose Rixia as the best girl. It's okay to have a wrong a opinion. But just remember the golden rule: Big breasts may fill a man's hand, but small breasts fills a man's heart. (Also Tio is actually best girl.
Watching this kinda scratched my itch to replay zero and azure, but damn still really want to, but the legit localizations come out soonish.... The wait is killing me.
Holy shit, I completely forgot that they gave Renne some pills at Paradise. Although, those other kids never actually existed. They were a mental coping mechanism that she created, to avoid having to face that it was all happening to her.
Well he likes zero more than FC and 3rd, but not SC, which means SC>zero>FC?3rd for him so far, which is super mega typical, following the typicality, he will like Azure most of all. I personally think it's more like FC>Zero>3rd>Azure>SC. I think FC deserves more credit because it's a kickass game that is built on nothing. All the other games have some foundation based on what sky started, without that, they wouldn't be as good as they are IMO. Zero is better than Azure because it has more Renne and she effing steals the show with every scene she's in. Furthermore, there's just more satisfaction to beating up Zero's big bad than Azure's, plus zero is alot more believable with its antagonists so that's cool too. I also thought the final dungeon was alot more fun too. Azure's was just tedious as hell what with all the enemies vanish mechanics.
Nice to hear from you again. I finished azure 3 days ago. It was amazing. I was bawling at the end. But I was also bawling at the end of Zero, cause Renne was crying. I really love Rixia and think she should become Lloyds official girlfriend before he dies single. Prepare the tissues mate. And try not to die.
Inevitable struggle > Silver will. Did you hear the normal+zanmai version? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-1olmqeTV82M.html Also trails always makes the lolis best girls (Renne and Tio, and later Altina). Though if you're scared of being a lolicon or need hawtness, I can understand the unwillingness. Though wait until you see Rixia's new outfit when she no longer hides being an assasin =P. Also you weren't hard on Elly. She truly is kinda boring compared to the rest of the cast. It's like she's the straight man in the cast but she doesn't even get any punchlines doing it.
Before zero I always thought Lloyd and the SSS was corny…then I played zero and they are now my favorite people in my favorite city in the continuity lol. And the music? Fuckin’ fire
wait at like 13:05 he mentions a character introduced in a side quest, and that people who've played the game will know who he's talking a bout, but I finished the game and I have no idea who he's talking about please help
I play the whole first game and got the news that a oficial release of both games after all, and because i feel a little guillty for play for free, well y have a job now, so i have to wait to buy this time, i left the pirate ship, and i live in argentina so spend money in games is not cheap in the eternal economic crisis here, but i love the trails series.
you don't know what the hell tonfas were? that means you've never played suikoden 2, please play it fun fact: suikoden 1 protag uses bo staff and suikoden 2 protag uses tonfas. see the parallels?
I honestly don’t care who someone picks as “best girl” as long as they recognize the objective fact that Elie is worst. 👍 (Also Noel is my favorite character, but nothing interesting really happens with her till Azure)
Noel and Claire are objectively the literal worst people in all of Zemuria not because they're bad but because their moral compass is dictated entirely by who has best them with a stick most recently. They're the sorta people who'd see the Nazis committing genocide and say "HURRR DURRR I WAS JUST FOLLOWING ORDERS"