tits review

Trails in the Sky (FC and SC) is a 6/10 RPG

There's a good game hiding in it somewhere, but the godawful pa c i n g, bracer points system, and bland combat system really drags it down. Nothing about it really excels, a lot of the characters are 1-dimensional, the plot is adequate at best, and Kevin won't shut up and just inserts himself into every scene. Kevin, go away, no one likes your spiky haired face butting into other people's business.

Most of the core crisis situations of the game are solved so quickly it feels ridiculous and the villain's motivations (just like the last game) are stupid and pointlessly enigmatic. Even worse, there's someone pulling the strings behind the villains of SC that you DON'T EVEN GET TO MEET.

Let's talk about the gameplay a little, too. Not the combat system, which is just pointless to even talk about (the word bland will suffice). I want to talk about the quest system. There's 3 types of quests in this game. Story quests, pointless walking quests, pointless killing quests. They're all tied into the Bracer Point system, but you'll need (100% need) to consult a guide in order to even *be* a good bracer, since there's all sorts of stupid conditions for bonus BP and stupidly hidden quests. Anyways, all the quests that aren't directly part of the story mostly are there to just waste your time.

It's particularly noticeable in one of the hidden quests in SC. You want to restart this village's hot springs because Japan so you need to find a generator and some gasoline. Well, you did the same thing in FC (because of course you did), so you know the generator and gasoline are back in town. So you walk back to town and ask where they are. WHOOPS, neither of them are there, because of course they aren't. The Gasoline is in the previous town, the engine is with the military. Ok, maybe there'll be a cool event in the previous town when you go pick up the gasoline. So you backtrack through a dark cave, through a military checkpoint, through another zone into the town...about 10 minutes of walking. Then you get the gasoline without any trouble or complications or anything exciting happening. So you walk back. Congrats, you just wasted about a half-hour because the game doesn't respect your time AT ALL. Then to get the engine, you do the same thing, but in a different direction. Another half-hour gone. Quest completed. This is how all of Trails in the Sky's optional quests feel.

Also, the game is riddled with bugs, at least on the PC version. My anime cutscenes never worked, I softlocked or crashed more than a few times, and there were visual glitches everywhere.

One final annoyance that probably should be at the top but oh well...
THERE'S ONLY LIKE 3 NEW AREAS IN THE SECOND GAME. YOU SPEND 9/10THS OF SECOND CHAPTER GOING THROUGH ALL THE EXACT SAME AREAS AND DUNGEONS AS FIRST CHAPTER. WHO DECIDED THAT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA?? BECAUSE I HOPE THEY'RE FIRED.

tl;dr
Mediocre story, bad game design, completely rehashed maps makes for a pretty dull game, even if the setting was kind of interesting when it wasn't being annoying.