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The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky PC |OT|

But gameplaywise:

Honestly Joshua's good enough as a magic nuke. And at everything else really. He really was the best all-arounder of the party in this game. I was surprised because at first glance I figured Estelle would be the better magical person of the two. But it quickly becomes apparent how important having long Orbment lines is in this game. Estelle may have no quartz restrictions, but her having 2 lines of 3 vs, Joshua's 1 line of 4 and 1 line of 2 hurts her magic capabilities in the long-run, especially since White Gehanna is arguably the best spell in the game and Joshua's time quartz 'restriction' actually lends itself well to him being a user of that spell.

For the most part Estelle winds up playing a weaker version of Joshua in terms of their combat role. Which does fit well with the story since Joshua seems to be shown as better than Estelle when it comes to pretty much anything involving fieldwork as a bracer, including combat. It seems obvious that Joshua won't be around for at least a good chunk of TiTS:SC, so hopefully this will give Estelle another chance to show her combat skill
 

Erheller

Member
With enough CP, Joshua can use Flicker and/or Evil Eye to stunlock almost any enemy in the game for several turns. It's insane for farming shining poms.
 
Have the bugs been fixed yet? I let this game slip deep into my backlog last year after having crashing issues and am finally getting around to this.
 

Shiina

Member
Have the bugs been fixed yet? I let this game slip deep into my backlog last year after having crashing issues and am finally getting around to this.

Most of it was fixed only a couple days after release, so yes, it should be as bug free as it's likely gonna get by now.
 

max_505

Member
Have the bugs been fixed yet? I let this game slip deep into my backlog last year after having crashing issues and am finally getting around to this.

What Shiina said. And they also added the HD textures (for Steam, IDK for GOG) so the game looks really good now.

With that said, I hope they release SC with the HD textures already included.
 
With enough CP, Joshua can use Flicker and/or Evil Eye to stunlock almost any enemy in the game for several turns. It's insane for farming shining poms.

Words can't describe how ridiculous a well-timed Evil Eye is, and even the basic Dual Strike is a fairly cheap move that lets him do 2x damage, something that no one else seems to quite have. Most of the CP skills do about as much as the normal attacks, but with effects like AoE or slowdown. Joshua really is a beast in this game. He was definitely a prime candidate for my CP boosting equipment, which interestingly made me fail to realize his magical potential for most of the game.
 
Joshua is the best party member by far followed shortly by Oliver. After that I'd say Estelle is probably overall the 3rd best character then the remaining characters are situational when they're great.
 

Psxphile

Member
Decided to do a replay. Noticed some new additions right away, like the rotating title screen and sweet new "boosted" font size. Also noticed I had to redo all of my settings because apparently some update caused them all to return to default. Also for some reason I no longer had access to the "Secret Movie" on the title screen, but that wasn't too big a deal.

All my previous saves were intact, though. So that's good.
 

Einhander

Member
Hey, quick question, the game looks fine when I play through the beginning, but when I'm on the 1680 resolution, the title screen looks zoomed in. Is this an unresolved bug or can the title screen only be viewed normally at a lower resolution?
 

etrain911

Member
Does the PC version have a better translation than the PSP version? I know all about the updated graphics, but the psp version was recently on sale and I snapped it up. I'd just hate to start playing it when a better translation is out there.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Does the PC version have a better translation than the PSP version? I know all about the updated graphics, but the psp version was recently on sale and I snapped it up. I'd just hate to start playing it when a better translation is out there.

It has some tweaks to better tie into other games in the series, but for the most part it's the same. Without having played any of the games beyond FC I don't know how substantial those changes were, but apparently the issues in the PSP translation were enough for some people familiar with the series to get upset over.
 

Erheller

Member
Hey, quick question, the game looks fine when I play through the beginning, but when I'm on the 1680 resolution, the title screen looks zoomed in. Is this an unresolved bug or can the title screen only be viewed normally at a lower resolution?

I started up my game to test this, and 2 things:

1) Using a 16:10 monitor (2880 x 1800), the logo is cut off on the very right when using a 16:10 resolution (tested with 2880x1800, 1920x1200, 1680x1050, 1280x800). When I use 16:9 or 4:3 ratios, however, it's fine (with black bars on the sides). I'd say it's a bug; there's no reason to expect that 16:10 should give an inferior title screen to the other resolutions.

2) WHEN DID THEY ADD NEW TITLE SCREEN IMAGES THIS IS AMAZING I DIDN'T EVEN MIND REBOOTING MY GAME 10 TIMES TO TEST RESOLUTIONS
 

Varion

Member
Does the PC version have a better translation than the PSP version? I know all about the updated graphics, but the psp version was recently on sale and I snapped it up. I'd just hate to start playing it when a better translation is out there.
It's 99.5% the game, but like chaosblade says there were some terms and names changed (or added -- a few terms disappeared in the localisation entirely that shouldn't have) to better tie in with the rest of the series. There were also a fair amount of translation errors fixed of varying degrees of severity. It's not to the extent that you're ruining the game for yourself playing the PSP version, but the PC version is still the best as far as translation accuracy goes, and the least likely to have you thinking "wait, didn't they call that something else in FC?" when SC comes out.
 
Consistency is always a nice thing when it comes to this sort of game where lore is pretty important.

What's everyone talking about when they mention the new title screen images? Are they referring to the alternate title screen shots? I feel like I've seen those in the past.
 

mugwhump

Member
awwwwwwww maaaaaaaaaaaan, I didn't know this game had a hard mode ;_;

If I'd known that I would've started with someone else's save data, it's way too easy on normal.

Anyone know if it's possible to edit the save into a hard mode one?

Edit: oh great, looks like this was answered earlier. There is! I can't wait to try it.
 

mugwhump

Member
Damn, this game is a completely different beast when it's actually challenging. Suddenly I actually need to strategize in battle, cook regularly and manage supplies, and really think about my orbments. I died 3 times to the
saphirl tower assassin guys
, and dammit it was fun!
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Damn, this game is a completely different beast when it's actually challenging. Suddenly I actually need to strategize in battle, cook regularly and manage supplies, and really think about my orbments. I died 3 times to the
saphirl tower assassin guys
, and dammit it was fun!

That was the only fight in the game to give me trouble on my PC playthrough, but it was because I ended up avoiding battles in that chapter and ended up underleveled.

Thinking about playing SC on hard if it is unlocked from the start, but I've heard it is a harder game regardless. Assumes you played FC and are familiar with how everything works.
 

jb1234

Member
That was the only fight in the game to give me trouble on my PC playthrough, but it was because I ended up avoiding battles in that chapter and ended up underleveled.

I kept getting slaughtered early on to a boss in some random mine until I went to the armory and upgraded all my equipment. That was a lesson learned. ;)
 
Hope no one is expecting SC "too soon".

March is not reasonable at all! Sorry. ;)

May is sounding roughly maybe kinda feasible, I'd say. I wouldn't expect it any sooner than that, and it could be much later, but it's not out of the question for the game to get released in May.

We'll let you know with a little more certainty than "kinda maybe" as we get a bit farther along in QA testing. Right now, it's still just way too early to tell -- I wouldn't even put a "May" guesstimate on it, except you specifically asked about May, so I'm literally just (unofficially) thinking, "Ehhh... yeah, that's possible, I guess!" ;)

-Tom

Taken from their forums from earlier today.
 

Seda

Member
I just finished my replay of the PC version, after playing the PSP version when it released years ago. I like the character interactions and world building quite a bit, and those are definitely the strengths of the game. Here's hoping that SC is a bit more interesting in terms of 'dungeons' and battle system.

An unlocked hard mode from the beginning would definitely be welcome.

My final party included Kloe and Olivier. Kloe's healing and debuff craft were too useful to not have.
 

max_505

Member
Back in the final dungeon again, and this time I brought Schera & Agate with me. Let's see how this'll turn out. If I ever find the time to replay this for the nth time, I'll force myself to bring Tita in the final dungeon.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
Just beat the game recently and am on my replay. I have nothing but praise for this title, everyone and everywhere was telling me how great it was, but I just had a lot of games lined up that was keeping me away for a bit (plus since everyone was having troubles with bugs on launch, looks like I managed to avoid a firestorm of annoyance).

When I played through the first time I decided not to follow a guide to 100% the game because I had done that previously for other RPGs and found it really un-fun, like it turned the game into a job for me. So I just played at my own pace and did my own thing and naturally ended up missing out on some quests and items, but I wasn't bothered because I enjoy playing at my own pace without constantly consulting a guide for the first run. Now on my 2nd playthrough attempting a perfect achievement run.

It's pretty funny how Olivier
spoils the ending of the game when he plays the song to cool the mood at the Gate
without the player realizing it. In my 2nd playthrough catching up on quests I missed there's a lot of extra hints towards the plot that would've made the ending a lot easier to see, that's for sure. Missing the
Amberl Tower
quest on my 1st run definitely made the ending of the game a lot more of a surprise.

Overall a really fantastic game, already feeling sequel withdrawal. Also confirmed that I love playing RPGs on keyboards. If there's one thing I can definitely praise this game for it's the CHALLENGE, many boss fights and even monster quests really came down to the wire, I had to strategize pretty carefully especially when fighting the monsters that were resistant to everything but Arts for example. It's way more fun to try to overcome these fights from scratch and resulted in many extremely close calls.
 

max_505

Member
Welcome to the club, Nyoro SF! Glad to see someone enjoying the game. I first played it without using a guide, too, and didn't regret it.

I've replayed FC for a couple of times already, and I still get surprised about some foreshadowing here and there. Makes you think about how huge and detailed the game's story is when it throws you lots of hints early on without you noticing (at first).
 

Nyoro SF

Member
Welcome to the club, Nyoro SF! Glad to see someone enjoying the game. I first played it without using a guide, too, and didn't regret it.

I've replayed FC for a couple of times already, and I still get surprised about some foreshadowing here and there. Makes you think about how huge and detailed the game's story is when it throws you lots of hints early on without you noticing (at first).

Just finished my second playthrough and got all the achievements. Heard before that the original "Why Do You Have This Many?" achievement required 9999 sepith in all slots (jesus) glad they changed it down to 3000, no way would I have patience for something like that. I felt like the final
dungeon was probably the worst part of the game minus the excellent final fights; you're essentially forced to open every treasure chest because you don't want to miss any crucial weapons. This isn't the first JRPG to do this final dungeon treasure chest grind nonsense and I really hate it, kind of a downer when the rest of the areas in the game were so well paced.
.

Other stuff: the preacher in Rolent also
spoils the ending of the game
.
Also apparently there is a special cutscene
where Cassius comes in and defeats the final, malfunctioning boss, if you're incompetent enough.
I'm certain there are more places where characters foreshadow future events and more special scenes I haven't seen yet.

On music: I find the Recapture theme to be a way cooler battle theme than Silver Will, so I'm surprised that Silver Will is a lot more popular. The whole game soundtrack is fantastic, the only pieces I felt were downers were the road themes (I was kind of hoping for different themes for different roads, like Pokemon Route themes).
 
Just finished my second playthrough and got all the achievements. Heard before that the original "Why Do You Have This Many?" achievement required 9999 sepith in all slots (jesus) glad they changed it down to 3000, no way would I have patience for something like that.

Wait, they changed this?

I'm glad I didn't bother to go for that achievement.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
Wait, they changed this?

I'm glad I didn't bother to go for that achievement.

Yeah. Really easy to go for if you do a second playthrough.

The "read all treasure chest messages" achievement was really scary, but I was very relieved when it popped.

The "S-Craft?" achievement was confusing because it said
Don't use S-Crafts in the final battle, but "final battle" is a bit nebulous. Do they mean the final battle that starts with engaging Richard? Or starting from fighting the ancient mech? Or the final phase where all your S-Crafts are set to 200 by the game, which is suspicious? so I simply didn't use them at all.

EDIT: Looks like 0.3% of Steam players managed to get all the achievemenets, which means; 0.003*100,000 (give or take) meaning that only 300 people managed to do it, give or take a 1000 for statistical range, so I feel a little impressed with myself. :p
 

Marow

Member
I felt like the final
dungeon was probably the worst part of the game minus the excellent final fights; you're essentially forced to open every treasure chest because you don't want to miss any crucial weapons. This isn't the first JRPG to do this final dungeon treasure chest grind nonsense and I really hate it, kind of a downer when the rest of the areas in the game were so well paced.
.
I actually really liked that!
The final dungeon was so long, it really became it's own separate place apart from the world. It made me anxious about how deep it'd go and what could be lurking down there (I really hope SC further talks about this!).

Also apparently there is a special cutscene
where Cassius comes in and defeats the final, malfunctioning boss, if you're incompetent enough.
Oh?
I thought that always happened, because I'm sure it happened to me. Although I had beaten the boss, so maybe we're not speaking about the same thing.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
I actually really liked that!
The final dungeon was so long, it really became it's own separate place apart from the world. It made me anxious about how deep it'd go and what could be lurking down there (I really hope SC further talks about this!).

Yeah I probably would have been more receptive
if instead of chest grinding there were fewer segmented special monster boss fights instead (like in the quests) to up the "unknown" aspect of new, ancient mechanical monsters. But instead it came down to fighting enemies that couldn't really kill you but were extremely annoying to take down without relying on S-Crafts.

S-Crafts on 1st blind playthrough are much tougher to get because you will likely only have one Gladiator item and they have high enough health that even using Arts is tedious, not to mention the missile guys being resistant to all status effects. Your characters likely won't have their best weapons (we know Estelle and Joshua won't, because their best weapons are on the last floor!) so physical attacks are a very slow, painful way to take down these creatures.

I also didn't like how much textures were reused for that area, made navigating a huge pain in the ass... the only part of the game where I was tempted beyond belief to break my "blind" rule and look up a map. Felt like they just threw in all the ultimate weapons at the end behind all of these strategy-less fights rather than cool, significant ones too.

At least the final fights were awesome enough to make it up to me. If anyone has ever loved Chrono Trigger, they'll know exactly how to handle the first phase of the boss mech!

Oh?
I thought that always happened, because I'm sure it happened to me. Although I had beaten the boss, so maybe we're not speaking about the same thing.

I explained poorly.
There's two versions of the final, final fight; in the version most commonly seen, Cassius will jump in and take out the mech's arm, then ask you to finish it off while the game maxes all your characters CP to 200.

However if you ignore all side/optional quests and fail to get any bonus BP on the main quest line, instead of Cassius asking you to finish the final boss off he'll literally just do it all by himself, no battle initiated, with some extra cool moves.

I'm at work at the moment but I saw it on Youtube yesterday!

Really this game has a surprising amount of content, I'm sure new things are discovered all the time.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Oh?
I thought that always happened, because I'm sure it happened to me. Although I had beaten the boss, so maybe we're not speaking about the same thing.

I'm pretty sure you have to try to get that ending. I remember seeing that you could only get a little more than the bare minimum BP or you wouldn't get it. So do no sidequests, and do every story quest "poorly."

I wonder if someone did that and recorded it.


Edit: If you can post a link later that would be great, I don't see a video of it.
 

max_505

Member
...
Also apparently there is a special cutscene
where Cassius comes in and defeats the final, malfunctioning boss, if you're incompetent enough.
...

Wow. I did not know about this. Just watched the video and I lol'ed. I first finished the game 4 years ago and it seems I still haven't seen every thing in FC.
 
Just finished my second playthrough and got all the achievements. Heard before that the original "Why Do You Have This Many?" achievement required 9999 sepith in all slots (jesus) glad they changed it down to 3000, no way would I have patience for something like that. I felt like the final
dungeon was probably the worst part of the game minus the excellent final fights; you're essentially forced to open every treasure chest because you don't want to miss any crucial weapons. This isn't the first JRPG to do this final dungeon treasure chest grind nonsense and I really hate it, kind of a downer when the rest of the areas in the game were so well paced.
.

Other stuff: the preacher in Rolent also
spoils the ending of the game
.
Also apparently there is a special cutscene
where Cassius comes in and defeats the final, malfunctioning boss, if you're incompetent enough.
I'm certain there are more places where characters foreshadow future events and more special scenes I haven't seen yet.

On music: I find the Recapture theme to be a way cooler battle theme than Silver Will, so I'm surprised that Silver Will is a lot more popular. The whole game soundtrack is fantastic, the only pieces I felt were downers were the road themes (I was kind of hoping for different themes for different roads, like Pokemon Route themes).

It's cuz the SC remix is BEAST MODE great.

And thanks for noticing how wonderful the OST is; it made my SOTG list under some savage competition.

Yeah I probably would have been more receptive
if instead of chest grinding there were fewer segmented special monster boss fights instead (like in the quests) to up the "unknown" aspect of new, ancient mechanical monsters. But instead it came down to fighting enemies that couldn't really kill you but were extremely annoying to take down without relying on S-Crafts.

S-Crafts on 1st blind playthrough are much tougher to get because you will likely only have one Gladiator item and they have high enough health that even using Arts is tedious, not to mention the missile guys being resistant to all status effects. Your characters likely won't have their best weapons (we know Estelle and Joshua won't, because their best weapons are on the last floor!) so physical attacks are a very slow, painful way to take down these creatures.

I also didn't like how much textures were reused for that area, made navigating a huge pain in the ass... the only part of the game where I was tempted beyond belief to break my "blind" rule and look up a map. Felt like they just threw in all the ultimate weapons at the end behind all of these strategy-less fights rather than cool, significant ones too.

At least the final fights were awesome enough to make it up to me. If anyone has ever loved Chrono Trigger, they'll know exactly how to handle the first phase of the boss mech!



I explained poorly.
There's two versions of the final, final fight; in the version most commonly seen, Cassius will jump in and take out the mech's arm, then ask you to finish it off while the game maxes all your characters CP to 200.

However if you ignore all side/optional quests and fail to get any bonus BP on the main quest line, instead of Cassius asking you to finish the final boss off he'll literally just do it all by himself, no battle initiated, with some extra cool moves.

I'm at work at the moment but I saw it on Youtube yesterday!

Really this game has a surprising amount of fnord, I'm sure new things are discovered all the time.

I just gave it to Joshua and let him murderface every other trash fight (J-dog is pretty much this game's Alicia :p

He hits him like 4 times and is like "you were having trouble? With this?"

Actually he went down pretty easily in my PC playthrough...

Cassius is effortlessly and subduedly cool; why is this so hard in games?!?
 

Nyoro SF

Member
It's cuz the SC remix is BEAST MODE great.

And thanks for noticing how wonderful the OST is; it made my SOTG list under some savage competition.

I just gave it to Joshua and let him murderface every other trash fight (J-dog is pretty much this game's Alicia :p

Cassius is effortlessly and subduedly cool; why is this so hard in games?!?

Oh man I can't spoil myself yet on music. I already accidentally spoiled some stuff because I wasn't aware that the Trails anime opening included plot elements from SC (foolish of me, I know, but I wasn't thinking clearly at the time), not to mention some people posting spoiler art in the romance thread! >:-|

Yeah Joshua is the
best character in the game bar none. His Crafts are so strong you sometimes don't realize he's also the best Arts caster. His movement range is amazing, he covers all necessary max damage options with both of his S-Crafts and his Orbment slots don't limit him in any way. The ability to resupply Craft Points via Crafted strikes is pretty ridiculous and to be honest imbalanced, but it's all good. It's not like that particular property helps in the fight against Lorence. And yes, Black Fang is the best Area S-Craft in the game easy and helped VERY much on my 2nd playthrough of the final dungeon; I think I cleared that around 10x faster than my 1st run through.

Tentative guesstimate release date of May from XSEED means I'm already suffering from severe sequel withdrawal. It's pretty strange to know reliably beyond a doubt that a great sequel is actually coming to a game I rate as one of the greatest JRPGs of all time. It makes me sad to think of all the great Japanese games that could've had a PC presence in America.... it is honestly difficult to go back to any RPG on a controller now that I have the luxury of a keyboard for games like these.
 
Fun fact: hearing that, Merciless Savior, Fateful Confrontation, Fighting Right On, and Overdosing on Heavenly Bliss got me into this series.

And yes, Trails Thirst is strong. Very strong.

FC being originally a PC game makes the kb/m controls extra nice. The flow of where the arrow pops up at is genius.
 
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