Friday, 30 March 2012

Completed: Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC

Originally pubished January 17, 2012 on tumblr


FC stands for first chapter… anyways… yet another Falcom game…

Before getting into anything i would just like to mention that the Legend of heroes series has a mighty screwed up release history in north america.

I have only played Legend of heroes 4: a tear of vermillion before this… a game i only picked up because i had played the Ys games and enjoyed them… when i finished that game i did a little research cause i hadn’t heard of LOH1-3 or 5+ because at the end it said it was part two of a trilogy.

from what i could gather the two first LOH games are connected, then the next three are there own trilogy but can technically played in ‘any’ order since from what i could gather they all take place on different continents that can’t meet each other due to weather. it’s called the Gagharv Trilogy… would love to play the other games…. but as far as i can find out… that's not gunna happen any time soon… these games are rare and from what i understand i was lucky to get 4 for such a low price…. plus they are old now… and apparently they screwed up the order in which they were released here…. but that's fine

next is this series and here's where my brain starts to implode

trails in the sky is a trilogy…. with 4 and possibly even 5 games.

trails in the sky is spread out over 3 games making it it’s own trilogy…. game 4 is a sequel sat in the same world, possible with same characters or allusions to them but seems to be counted as part of the trails in the sky (sora no kiseki) trilogy…

and the series continues… and my head continues to feel nothing but pain… anyways onto the actual review
review starts here
We start off the game in the past, little Estelle is waiting for her father to come home from work, seems like she’s been home alone for a few days now.

Soon enough he bursts through the door carrying something in a blanket, a boy about the same age as estelle… about 11. The boy is injured but fighting with the girls father “you don’t know what your getting into!” he complained but the man doesn’t seem to care and introduces his daughter.
when he tries to argue with her she jumps on his bed in hopes to scare him into shutting up and resting.

now actually fearing for his life he shuts up and eventually rests… fast forward 5 years.
they have grown up together as brother and sister (since her father adopted him) and now have finally completed their training to be Bracers. Hired Mercenaries who help the people… be it fetch quests or eliminating monsters that are causing a problem.

right around this time their father who is a fairly well known bracer himself gets called away…. unfortunately he happens to be on a airship that gets kidnapped by bandits, Estelle and Joshua (the boy) being worried for their father work to help find him and that starts there long and complicated journey.

along the way they work with one of the people who trained them… a sadist named Sherazade.
They also meet other bracers, each with different levels of crazy personalities… a wandering bard who fights with a gun and hits on anything pretty…. he doesn’t care about gender at all. the granddaughter of the man who essentially created the technology they all use to have magic and such. a student a the royal academy who just wants to help the local orphanage… as well as a man who always seems to get into trouble and a reporter who always wants the biggest scoop.

Now what did i think? my biggest complaint about 4 was it was predictable…. this one isn’t as predictable as there are some things i didn’t see coming… but certain characters i saw and went “ah…. you’re evil” one because he was blond (i’m sorry but in games and anime silver hair always = bad guy or good guy being tricked to be bad) and the other because he looked too nice… (if it’s too good to be true it probably is and all that) so in that department i was fairly pleased.

characters were interesting and fairly funny, after having one character reveal who they really are thinking back to certain parts in the game the reactions they give make more sense and actually make me sympathize with them more.

the ending was really good, really glad that they are bringing over the sequel cause i would be annoyed if they left where they did (and i have been told that SC starts the very next day from FC)
The music isn’t as good as other falcom games… but there are some great pieces…. specifically the opening song (trails in the sky) a song near the end of the game (Hollow light of the Sealed Land) the end credit song (the Whereabouts of Light) and the everything is peaceful now song (Dancing with the Wind)… but that's only 4 stand out songs that i would listen to out of context on a cd with 33 other songs (yeah thank you falcom for putting cds with your games…. that makes me happy) but yeah…. ys 7 and 3 almost every song is pure gold so…. didn’t quite measure up in my mind.
game play is an improvement on LOH4… feels way less stiff but oh my god so many monsters self destruct… that’s annoying.

Legend of Heroes: Trails in the sky FC shouldn’t be too hard to find but if you buy it i suggest getting the special edition… for 10 extra bucks you get a CD, a double sided poster and a Bracer Pin… not to mention this really fun game…

it is a long game…. i didn’t beat the prologue till about 8 hours in…. so thats a warning.
Legend of heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter has been licensed and is in development…. but apparently it’s even bigger then FC so it may be a while yet.

Final note? To the person who made dialogue for every single chest you look in that’s empty…..  Bravo, i had so many laughs thanks to that…. i didn’t check every chest twice but i really should have.

Also new game plus FTW…

good game… go check it out end of review

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