Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter takes about 80 hours to complete, doubling playtime of original

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In a recent interview with The Gamer. Kondo comments that while the original Trails in the Sky took just under 40 hours to play through, the remake's main programmer reported that it took him 80 hours to finish Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. As the main causes behind the increased volume, Kondo cites the game's sizable maps, as well as new exploration elements incorporated into the remake.
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"There's more map exploration compared to previous games, and we found that if you explore those areas, listen to the voiced lines, and complete all the quests, it takes twice as long as the original. Maybe it's also because you spend more time watching the events. Back in the day, we really did tend to scroll through text at the speed it appeared, and that gave the original a kind of snappy feel in its own way." By comparison, Kondo mentions that he spent about a week chipping away at the new remake.

That said, Trails in the Sky the 1st Chapter covers basically everything the original game did story-wise, with only small additions. Another detail Kondo mentions is a significant number of voiced lines. Although the first entry in the Trails series has a much smaller cast of characters than successors, its remake ended up with a higher number of voiced lines than any title in the series. Kondo attributes this to the long periods of time when Estelle and Joshua are alone together. While these moments were often silent in the original, the remake adds new dialogue between them to make their journey feel more natural. "For example, in scenes where the two travel together and cross checkpoints, we've added quite a lot of detailed dialogue, increasing the total number of lines. There's also some casual dialogue during battle, which is more detailed than in previous games."
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On the topic of travel, you won't have to worry that traversing the remake's large, semi-open world map will make the game drag on, as the developers have introduced instant fast travel as well as high-speed movement.
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automaton-media.com

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter takes about 80 hours to complete, doubling playtime of original - AUTOMATON WEST

The upcoming remake of 2004’s The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky has taken its developers roughly 80 hours to play through.
automaton-media.com automaton-media.com
 
Man I'd love to get this physical on Switch but I want to know if it will be enhanced at all for Switch 2, at this point 5 weeks out they haven't said anything so I feel like it will just be a crusty low-res Switch 1 version and that's it.
 
As the main causes behind the increased volume, Kondo cites the game's sizable maps, as well as new exploration elements incorporated into the remake.
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For a second I thought they had doubled the amount of battles and grinding. That would have been a Golden Sun level of grind.
 
It took me 48 hours to complete FC with no voice acting, and I didn't bother talking to all NPCs. Add the larger size of the various zones and the increased playtime might make sense.

I doubt the game will be fully voice acted for the main story like FC Evo though.
 
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Jinzo Prime said:
I still might buy it, but yeah 😮‍💨. I also want to play Digimon Time Stranger, but this is a lot of JRPG to find time for.
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Yeah I tried playing this several years ago and it didn't click with me. I thought this might be a good way to give a second chance, but everything taking twice as long is an instant turn off. If there's one thing I want from JRPGs it's for them to be shorter and better paced, not longer.

Be it more recent stuff like Chained Echoes, Triangle Strategy and E33 or classic games like Chrono Trigger, one thing a lot of JRPGs I like have in common is main stories under 40 hours.
 
Fbh said:
Yeah I tried playing this several years ago and it didn't click with me. I thought this might be a good way to give a second chance, but everything taking twice as long is an instant turn off. If there's one thing I want from JRPGs it's for them to be shorter and better paced, not longer.

Be it more recent stuff like Chained Echoes, Triangle Strategy and E33 or classic games like Chrono Trigger, one thing a lot of JRPGs I like have in common is main stories under 40 hours.
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You can finish any Trails game in under 40 hours without much effort. It's just that they provide plenty of hours of side content, especially if you are talking with NPCs after the each time update.
 
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So I recently played Daybreak as my first Trails game and it was pretty good, a bit bloated, took me like 100 hours to finish it. One thing that is annoying is the English voice acting not voicing a lot of lines in cut-scenes, and so you have conversations where one character is being voiced and one is not, it's super off-putting and I hope that it's not like that in every game in the series. I had game store credit that was going to expire and so I used it to get this remake. I hope the game will be fully voiced in the cutscenes at least.
 
Ehhhhhh ... not sure how I feel about that.

Doubling the length of the game just by increasing the field size but not adding any kind of new narrative / content to compensate sounds a bit iffy.

Daybreak II already bored me a lot. Not sure if I'll even bother with Daybreak 3 in January so soon after this, at this rate.
 
Boss Mog said:
So I recently played Daybreak as my first Trails game and it was pretty good, a bit bloated, took me like 100 hours to finish it. One thing that is annoying is the English voice acting not voicing a lot of lines in cut-scenes, and so you have conversations where one character is being voiced and one is not, it's super off-putting and I hope that it's not like that in every game in the series. I had game store credit that was going to expire and so I used it to get this remake. I hope the game will be fully voiced in the cutscenes at least.
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Only the Evo version of FC, SC and 3rd are fully voice acted (for the main story). There is a mod to add that voice acting to the original version of FC, SC and 3rd though.

All the other games are only partially voice acted, usually only the important dialogues and cutscenes. Apparently Falcom doesn't have the budget to include full VA.
 
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The time to beat trails games varies greatly depending on your playstyle, so that 80 hour figure doesn't say much. Some people will be finishing in 40 hours while others will take 120, as usual.
 
_Ex_ said:
I call these "just give up on life" games.
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This was Metaphor for me. Took me 80 hours. I just understand that I will be playing these games for like two months and that's ok. Not like I have a schedule to keep or anything. Sometimes I even play some sort of non-story related type game on the side for small breaks. Like with Metaphor I would hop into Hollow knight or an MP game every now and then.
 
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That said, Trails in the Sky the 1st Chapter covers basically everything the original game did story-wise, with only small additions. Another detail Kondo mentions is a significant number of voiced lines. Although the first entry in the Trails series has a much smaller cast of characters than successors, its remake ended up with a higher number of voiced lines than any title in the series. Kondo attributes this to the long periods of time when Estelle and Joshua are alone together. While these moments were often silent in the original, the remake adds new dialogue between them to make their journey feel more natural. "For example, in scenes where the two travel together and cross checkpoints, we've added quite a lot of detailed dialogue, increasing the total number of lines. There's also some casual dialogue during battle, which is more detailed than in previous games."
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Definitely a version thing. The original release is not voiced. The next set of releases of Sky are fully voiced. My playtime was a little longer, possibly as a result as I listened to all the voice lines. I clocked in a little north of 50 hours, having done everything the game had to offer. I don't think longer is necessarily better. I love the final act of this game but the opening has always kinda blown imo. Maybe the improved combat system will help hook people.

Kondo's really trying to sell the quantity of voiced lines but he's not fooling any long-time fans. With each new set of games the ratio of voiced to non-voiced lines got worse. From fully voiced, to main quest only, to 'We probably couldn't afford all the Kouki Uchiyama booth time', to 'So sometimes parts of these conversations will be voiced and parts not for no discernible reason other than maybe a last second rewrite?' Sky Remake's voice cast consists more of newcomers though and not veteran VAs outside of a few, notable exceptions. We'll see how it turns out, but I'm expecting the same as from Daybreak.

Fbh said:
Yeah I tried playing this several years ago and it didn't click with me. I thought this might be a good way to give a second chance, but everything taking twice as long is an instant turn off. If there's one thing I want from JRPGs it's for them to be shorter and better paced, not longer.

Be it more recent stuff like Chained Echoes, Triangle Strategy and E33 or classic games like Chrono Trigger, one thing a lot of JRPGs I like have in common is main stories under 40 hours.
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The first Trails in the Sky has a rough start. I don't think the game gives you much incentive to keep going and the B plots tend to be bad too. Once you enter the game's second act, the game gets better and better to possibly my favorite ending in the series. But yeah, rough. The battle system's the worst in the series too - Crafts in particular are really restrictive and borderline useless. I bounced off this game twice before playing Cold Steel I and II and circling back to power through.
 
This is normal for Trails game. I think they wanted to add lots of things and retroactively done that in a meaningful way. Trails fanbase is not too crowded but they have huge possesive behavior to these games. So nobody will complain on that and.

For new players it can be intimidating but if this (80 hours) doesn't apply to your taste then it doesn't apply your taste, nothing wrong with that.


GateofD said:
I went Cold Steel III-IV, Trail to Zeros/Azure, Reverie.

Should I just go to sky. and put daybreak on the fence?
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Did you play Cold Steel 1-2 and old Trails in the Sky games or you just started from CS3? If you started from the middle of the series, probably this game doesn't attractive to you much. Even so, you can check if you want because it is the first game's remake version, where Trails saga started.


Addition:

I'm totally biased by the way to these games. So I play them slow and longer than most people. Played Crossbell duology with Geofront fansub before they came to Steam that's why I don't have them on my Steam playtime 🤷‍♂️ But I spent 100ish hours for each of them as well.

HZtcOC5OHknKdtOG.png

fj0x8Wi1rKqOFlUj.png
 
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GateofD said:
I went Cold Steel III-IV, Trail to Zeros/Azure, Reverie.

Should I just go to sky. and put daybreak on the fence?
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Either/or.

Both will essentially start a "new" story for you.

Horizon, the continuation of Daybreak 1 & 2 is releasing early next year, so you could always do Daybreak 1 & 2 followed by Horizon, and then circle back to the Sky remake after that. Thinking about it, that's probably what I'd do in your situation.
 
Company should understand because we all have jobs and resposibility now, jrpg need to be shorter not longer. If it actually takes 80 hours to complete then I'm just not gonna buy it. the only jrpg that I can play for 80-100 hours is persona and any other should be the standard 40-50 hour
 
digimaster7 said:
Company should understand because we all have jobs and resposibility now, jrpg need to be shorter not longer. If it actually takes 80 hours to complete then I'm just not gonna buy it. the only jrpg that I can play for 80-100 hours is persona and any other should be the standard 40-50 hour
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just take your time with it and play it when you have free time do not bitch.
 
Based on the interview, it doesn't sound like the game is literally twice as long. Most of the extra length is due to voiced dialogue and side quests. I do, however, hope the trophy list is good. I've platinum'd every Trails game so I'm excited to chase this one as well.
 
I've long known that I play games at a slower pace than average, but hearing that this game is just under 40hours in the original form is yet more proof.

Trails FC - 60.5 hours
Trails SC - 70.5
Trails 3rd - 44.4
Cold Steel - 57.4 (was my third playthrough no less, others on PS3 along with CS2 first time))
Cold Steel 2 - 52.6
Cold Steel 3 - 101.8
Cold Steel 4 - 130
Reverie - 128
Daybreak - 88.1
Daybreak 2 - 96.9
Zero - 59.5
Azure - 77.7

I do most things, but I don't usually 100% them. Ah well, as long as I am having fun I guess.
 
Sept Terrion Of Nothing said:
Did you play Cold Steel 1-2 and old Trails in the Sky games or you just started from CS3? If you started from the middle of the series, probably this game doesn't attractive to you much. Even so, you can check if you want because it is the first game's remake version, where Trails saga started.


Addition:

I'm totally biased by the way to these games. So I play them slow and longer than most people. Played Crossbell duology with Geofront fansub before they came to Steam that's why I don't have them on my Steam playtime 🤷‍♂️ But I spent 100ish hours for each of them as well.

HZtcOC5OHknKdtOG.png

fj0x8Wi1rKqOFlUj.png
Click to expand...

Sept Terrion Of Nothing said:
This is normal for Trails game. I think they wanted to add lots of things and retroactively done that in a meaningful way. Trails fanbase is not too crowded but they have huge possesive behavior to these games. So nobody will complain on that and.

For new players it can be intimidating but if this (80 hours) doesn't apply to your taste then it doesn't apply your taste, nothing wrong with that.




Did you play Cold Steel 1-2 and old Trails in the Sky games or you just started from CS3? If you started from the middle of the series, probably this game doesn't attractive to you much. Even so, you can check if you want because it is the first game's remake version, where Trails saga started.


Addition:

I'm totally biased by the way to these games. So I play them slow and longer than most people. Played Crossbell duology with Geofront fansub before they came to Steam that's why I don't have them on my Steam playtime 🤷‍♂️ But I spent 100ish hours for each of them as well.

HZtcOC5OHknKdtOG.png

fj0x8Wi1rKqOFlUj.png
Click to expand...

I started with Cold Steel III. Never played I-II. It be nice to get the context of the Sky characters, since they keep popping up all the damn time, so it be nice to know their background. Like as I said, i started with Cold Steel III-IV, so didn't really get the Trails from Zero characters. (no reaction from Randy showing up in III), but then went back to Zero/Azure (my favorite cast by far now) and I'm like ohhh, everything fits so much more now. And also feels like Zero/Azure was the conclusion to what happened to the Sky characters.
 
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GateofD said:
I started with Cold Steel III. Never played I-II. It be nice to get the context of the Sky characters, since they keep popping up all the damn time, so it be nice to know their background. Like as I said, i started with Cold Steel III-IV, so didn't really get the Trails from Zero characters. (no reaction from Randy showing up in III), but then went back to Zero/Azure (my favorite cast by far now) and I'm like ohhh, everything fits so much more now. And also feels like Zero/Azure was the conclusion to what happened to the Sky characters.
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You should definitely play FC, SC and 3rd.

One of the three co-protagonists of Beyond the Horizon is an important character from SC and 3rd.

You've already played Zero, and in that game a major plot point is the conclusion of the arc of a certain trio of characters. It will let you appreciate that more if you play the Sky trilogy.

Then you can get to Cold Steel I-II later. You know most of the Cold Steel's characters from III and IV anyway. But you should totally go back and play I and II at some point, since it has important plot points (they run parallel to Zero and Azure in the timeline) + it is important for Rean's character arc (and Crow too).
 
That just killed a lot of my interest sadly. Increasing the game length almost double means there will be unnecessary padding. Even if not, I find 80 hours way too long these days. I couldn't finish Persona 5 despite how much I initially loved it. I know JRPGs are known to be long, but I wish they kept their length under 50 hours.
 
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