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

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

Complete: The Legend of Heroes: a Tear or Vermillion

Originally posted July 10, 2011 on Tumblr


Ok…. this game has one hell of a history lesson attached…. i’ll try to get all the facts straight but honestly… i make no promises.

Released in 2005 by Bandai this was the first “Legend of Heroes” game to hit North American Soil…. but it’s full Japanese title (which is shown at the end of the game) states that not only is it part 4 of the series…. but it’s also part of a trilogy, i think it’s the second game of that trilogy but i’m getting mixed info… so not sure on that one. Originally the game was made in 1996 for a system i know nothing about called the NEC PC-9801… anyways things were made more confusing over here when they released the 3rd game in the series (which they called legend of heroes II even though it’s the first game in that trilogy…but this one takes place as a prequel…. ouch my head…) the next year in North America.

Anyways i knew none of that when i found the game in a place that seems to collect oddities. To be honest i had never heard of the series…. all i knew was that i was nearly done a game made by the same producers “Falcom” and i knew there were more games in the ys series… i thought it could have been one of them but it wasn’t. Still i am glad i picked it up.

First i’ll start with the positive.
The music is really really pretty, epic when needed, sad at the drop of a hat and just overall perfect for the mood. This is a game i look forward to getting the soundtrack to.

The characters are lovable and for the most part feel very real, you feel bad when certain events happen, you laugh with others. Nothing feels too forced and their overall design is very nice even if some of the stills look awkward… no… stay on the positive.

No random encounters. It’s a game where you can see the enemy and if you choose to walk up and touch them only then will the fight start. monsters that wont give good exp or that can be defeated easily tend to run from you while stronger ones come charging. It’s really nice when your just not in the mood to fight to be able to avoid it completely.

For a game with pixel sprites…. it’s violent. I mean some bad guys get knocked off cliffs, a character gets hit against as wall falls… he has left blood on the wall then a pool of blood falls around him… it was just a nice welcome surprise

Finally the ending is good, a bit long but it made me feel like all that work really paid off.

However this game has a lot of very obvious flaws…
The translation and placing of text is atrocious.
ex. When you get a new spell it says. “Avin was Double-Attack Mastered!”
That particular example is the worst one in the entire game HOWEVER you see it every time someone gets any new spell.

also you get a lot of words being cut in odd places or just completely going out of text boxes (happens a lot for inns) nothing too bad but it does take you out of the game.

No auto targeting closest enemies in battles and if a monster your trying to cast a spell on dies your character loses out on the turn. I hate both of these…. if the character can’t attack something cause it’s too far then please just auto go for the nearest monster. same this with spells… just send them to someone else.

Some dungeons make you warp out or they will warp you back when you don’t want it…. i complained about this the other day…. i just feel have a teleporty thingy where the boss used to be and everyone is happy. and don’t make me walk back to the place you just teleported me away from… that’s just mean

You never get to choose your party.

Not even at the end of the game when every possible party character is gathered…. i don’t mind the party i’m given but in the final fight i want a little choice.

no New game plus : ( not really a bad point but it does make me sad.
Set up for sequel but flakes out… unless whats mentioned is what happens in the next game but then we already know how that ends too… hmmmmmmm

Lastly…. it’s predictable…. there were one or two things that caught me off guard (more that it happened sooner then i expected then that i didn’t expect it at all) but overall i knew exactly what was going to happen next beat for beat, line for line…. hell i could even tell what characters were going to say next. The story is good but it climbed to the top of the tropes tree, fell down and hit every branch on the way down.

Granted it did avoid one trope. The main character is a normal person on a mission… not a chosen one… nothing special…. his sister is but he is not… and that was extremely refreshing. so i guess that’s one more positive to add to the list. also i love how the main pair are called out on their young age the entire series.

Anyways i know a new game in this series was released here within the past few months…. and i hope one day to get game LoH3 and 5… which is really game 2 and 3 out here…. damn you chronologically confusing things. so yeah…. possibly more Falcom games to come. (granted from what i’m reading…. LoH1 was released a long time ago so i will probably never find it… and two was never released in north America…. bummer)

wow longer then usual…. guess i had lots to say. overall really did enjoy the game, it’s not terribly long but i feel satisfied and i love being exposed to new rpgs…
ok onto the next thing!

Completed: Paper Mario

Originally posted may 12, 2011 on Tumblr

wait… isn’t that game like 10 years old?
so yeah a while back in he era where cartridges battled with CDs i was in the local video rental store and i picked up paper mario…. i only had it for a few days but i got about halfway.
then didn’t ever rent it for 10 years.
Eventually i ordered it on Virtual console and now it has finally been completed.
So yeah i really liked it, it was really easy but still pretty fun… maybe now i can go and get Thousand year door… but for now i have enough unfinished games on my shelf to last me a while.
I did find it a little funny that paper mario is being ported to 3ds… i thinks thats one of the reason i wanted to beat it cause i wasn’t going to buy it again… and besides i am currently 3dsless.. i refuse to buy a gen 1 handheld from nintendo… i learned my lesson with the original DS.
anyways i’ll probably do things like this in the future when i complete anything… but since this game is from 2001 i think doing a review is kinda pointless… still if you haven’t played it and own a 3ds the port should be pretty good ^^ hopefully.
Edit: apparently it’s not really a port… at least it doesn’t look like one based on the trailer… hmmm i guess time will tell.