Trails in the Sky the 3rd

[Dave55811]

I've been at this game since April 4th, after having beaten FF7R.

 

There's not much for me to say at this moment, other than the fact that I am on the final chapter.  I'm hoping to have this game wrapped up before April 26th, but I feel inclined, for whatever reason, to acquire those weapons from those Grimoires.  It's taking quite a while, though; those fights require you to wait until they morph, and God help you if you don't get that weapon-drop after the umpteenth time.

 

I also completed every Moon Door, Star Door, and Sun Door.

 

So, uh....yeah.  Anybody want to talk about Trails 3rd?  This is the place to be.  I still haven't traveled past the point of no return yet, though, so try not to reveal anything about that in this thread, please?

[Zemekis]

15 minutes ago, Dave55811 said:

So, uh....yeah.  Anybody want to talk about Trails 3rd?  This is the place to be.  I still haven't traveled past the point of no return yet, though, so try not to reveal anything about that in this thread, please?

No problem, we can treat it like the past 2 threads. No 3rd spoilers, but everything from previous entries (FC & SC in this case) is fair-game. We can also make use of spoiler tags. It can be a bit tough to discuss the game without mentioning anything about it, after all. What is your current favorite party? I already mentioned this to you outside of Kametsu, but my party of choice was:

 

Spoiler

Kevin

Ries
Richard
Renne

 

I think @Koby mentioned that this was his favorite in the series? Or one of them, at least. He might have a lot to add perhaps.

I'm glad you have been enjoying the series so far & still have the motivation to 'complete' them rather than just bashing your way through. I had a bit of a strange introduction to the series and did things out of order originally. My first title was Trails in the Sky...no issues there, but I had it on PSP way back in the day & only got halfway through. Years later, I got Cold Steel I for my birthday when it released & played through that in its entirety without realizing that there were games that came before! Whoops! I played Cold Steel II without looking anything up either. I hadn't connected in my head that the "Trails" in the Sky & "Trails" of Cold Steel would be related. I have to stress that these games look very different considering the hardware for which they were released. I found out the error of my ways shortly after finishing Cold Steel II. Even if I HAD played the TitS trilogy, Zero & Azure weren't available in English yet. So much happens in Cold Steel II that remained baffling to me for years.

 

Back to the 3rd, since that's what this thread is about...I actually enjoyed it. Maybe not as much as Koby, but I have a lot of respect for what this entry tried to do. If it had been too similar to FC & SC, I think burn-out would have set in earlier. The dungeon-crawler nature of the 3rd & darker tone were welcome shake-ups. It feels a bit like the Majora's Mask of Kiseki. I also appreciated the nudge upwards in battle difficulty. I didn't love all the minigame doors, but the story ones (usually) added a lot. We get to meet Lechter, which is pretty cool. There's also the infamous Star Door 15 + whichever door had the info about the Salt Pale. The Salt Pale is my favorite thing about Trails 3rd...the supernatural tinge to the Salt Pale is fascinating.

[Dave55811]

1 hour ago, Zemekis said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Kevin

Ries
Richard
Renne

 

That's pretty much my go-to party, now that I got everybody else above Lv.130.

 

1 hour ago, Zemekis said:

Back to the 3rd, since that's what this thread is about...I actually enjoyed it. Maybe not as much as Koby, but I have a lot of respect for what this entry tried to do. If it had been too similar to FC & SC, I think burn-out would have set in earlier. The dungeon-crawler nature of the 3rd & darker tone were welcome shake-ups. It feels a bit like the Majora's Mask of Kiseki. I also appreciated the nudge upwards in battle difficulty. I didn't love all the minigame doors, but the story ones (usually) added a lot. We get to meet Lechter, which is pretty cool. There's also the infamous Star Door 15 + whichever door had the info about the Salt Pale. The Salt Pale is my favorite thing about Trails 3rd...the supernatural tinge to the Salt Pale is fascinating.

I agree.  I think you said one time that people actually skip Trails 3rd, which to me is kind of mind-blowing, because I'd think that you'd have to play Trails 3rd if you want to stay up-to-date with the complete story.  However, Trails 3rd sure feels like a far-cry from Trails FC & Trails SC, and I think you're spot-on when you say that Trails 3rd being exactly like FC & SC would feel like a "burn-out".  As such, Trails 3rd has some change of pace about it.  As for it being much darker, that it something I can appreciate....and there is some dark shit, especially Star Door 15, which I had hoped to save for last, but I couldn't as Star Door 14 could only be accessed after seeing Star Door 15 (assuming the previous Star Doors were completed).  I suppose that story about the Salt Pale, via Star Door 2 (I think), could count as "dark shit", especially considering how one of the Anguis described it, which really makes you think....or maybe it just makes me think.

 

Speaking of Star Door 15, I remember hearing that Nihon Falcom was planning to release the OG TitS trilogy to consoles.  However, after experiencing Star Door 15, I have a feeling that they're "going to have to make compromises".  Star Door 15 wasn't as explicit as I had anticipated, but I think it would be too much for this generation of gamers.  For me, it was certainly disturbing; there were some parts when I said "Oh, God," in response to what I perceived (like what they called "work"...oh, and that "water of life").....but, if it's disturbing, isn't that the point?  Like, welcome to reality; the world isn't all rivers of chocolate and full of unicorns and rainbows like you were brought up to believe.  Oh but people can just say "tEh PoEpLe WhO mAdE tIhS aRe CwEePy PrEvErTs!1!1!" and I think that's why the entertainment industry is so fucked now, because people want to control what can & can't be created.  But, I digress.

I don't know how they're going to resolve the Star Door 15 issue.  They shouldn't get rid of it, nor should they have to get rid of it, because it's an important detail about a specific character.  If they decide to omit Star Door 15 altogether, that would be stupid on their part.  Maybe I shouldn't be caring so much, because I experienced this trilogy on PC, not a re-release....but, the best I can do is suggest that people play the OG TitS trilogy on PC (via GOG, if I may).

[Koby]

3 hours ago, Zemekis said:

I think  mentioned that this was his favorite in the series? Or one of them, at least. He might have a lot to add perhaps.

My favorite of the Sky trilogy, but not the whole series. My favorite two games in the whole series thus far would be Cold Steel 3 and Reverie.

 

I liked Kevin.

[Dave55811]

Today, I'm just going to say "Fuck it," to the Abyss and just travel into the Phantasmagoria.  After all these days, I wasn't able to get Hotarukiri+1, Jormungandr, Snow & Rain+1, Aster+2, Zigeuner+1, Merciless Rocket+2, Quinty Ribbon+1, nor Iron Arms+1.....I feel like I'm going to regret this, but I'll just have to cut my losses.  Everybody is past Lv.130, so even though I should expect a rude awakening that has me thinking "Damn; I should've grinded more," I think I should be okay for the most part.  This walkthrough has been most useful.

 

Usually I'm stubborn about this shit, but Friday (April 26th) is around the corner, and I had planned to have this game beaten by then.  If Stellar Blade were coming out next week, I'd probably be grinding in the Abyss for another week....but, then again, I've already got over 100+ hours of play-time, which is pretty close to my Trails SC play-time; I guess the extra 20-30 hours was because of me grinding in the Abyss, but still.  I guess I was hoping my play-time would be far less than Trails SC, too....but, for this, I blame the Abyss.

 

19 hours ago, Koby said:

My favorite of the Sky trilogy, but not the whole series. My favorite two games in the whole series thus far would be Cold Steel 3 and Reverie.

 

I liked Kevin.

Trails 3rd has certainly made me appreciate Father Kevin much more.  Though, to be fair, I had him with me in my final battle with Weissmann in Trails SC.  In Trails SC, Father Kevin wasn't very strong, but his Craft would prove to be invaluable now and then.  Mad props to Sacred Breath.....oh, and Grail Sphere, too.

[Zemekis]

On 4/23/2024 at 5:28 PM, Koby said:

My favorite of the Sky trilogy, but not the whole series. My favorite two games in the whole series thus far would be Cold Steel 3 and Reverie.

 

I liked Kevin.

Ahh, okay I thought it may be something like that. I actually didn't like Kevin in SC, but I grew pretty attached in the 3rd. It just goes to show that the games have effective character building/development to change my opinion on them. It's not often that I change my opinions, for better or worse. Cold Steel 3 is next up for me! It bodes well that your favorite 2 games are yet to come (for me)...it's uphill from here, I suppose.
 

On 4/24/2024 at 12:50 PM, Dave55811 said:

Today, I'm just going to say "Fuck it," to the Abyss and just travel into the Phantasmagoria.  After all these days, I wasn't able to get Hotarukiri+1, Jormungandr, Snow & Rain+1, Aster+2, Zigeuner+1, Merciless Rocket+2, Quinty Ribbon+1, nor Iron Arms+1.....I feel like I'm going to regret this, but I'll just have to cut my losses.  Everybody is past Lv.130, so even though I should expect a rude awakening that has me thinking "Damn; I should've grinded more," I think I should be okay for the most part.  This walkthrough has been most useful.

 

Usually I'm stubborn about this shit, but Friday (April 26th) is around the corner, and I had planned to have this game beaten by then.  If Stellar Blade were coming out next week, I'd probably be grinding in the Abyss for another week....but, then again, I've already got over 100+ hours of play-time, which is pretty close to my Trails SC play-time; I guess the extra 20-30 hours was because of me grinding in the Abyss, but still.  I guess I was hoping my play-time would be far less than Trails SC, too....but, for this, I blame the Abyss.

 

Trails 3rd has certainly made me appreciate Father Kevin much more.  Though, to be fair, I had him with me in my final battle with Weissmann in Trails SC.  In Trails SC, Father Kevin wasn't very strong, but his Craft would prove to be invaluable now and then.  Mad props to Sacred Breath.....oh, and Grail Sphere, too.

Yeah, skip that Abyss stuff it it's adding dozens of hours of grinding. You won't use most of those characters in the end anyway (and they won't carry forward to the next game). I won't spoil anything about the next game or its cast, but nothing carries forward. It's a fresh start. If you've done all the doors & grinded (probably way too much) just kill that final boss and you're all done. Grail Sphere is so frickin' good.

 

On 4/23/2024 at 3:12 PM, Dave55811 said:

it's disturbing, isn't that the point?

They would probably change Star Door 15 in a full-blown remake, which would somewhat break that character's backstory. No idea how they'll handle it. Even if it's just a remaster of sorts for consoles, I can't imagine that they'd leave it as-is....but then again.....the 3rd was only released in English as recently as 2017. Perhaps it would be left in? I wonder if it would be Xseed or NisA. I assume NisA would change it, I recently watched a stream NisA did about how they want to update their localizations for "Westen values" and it's once again causing me worry about the future of their translation/localization efforts with all that's going on in the industry these days. I think we all had a similar conversation back on the FC or SC thread, so I don't mean to re-open a can of worms here. I appreciate that translations aren't 1:1 and I also grasp the need for concepts to be localized somewhat because Japanese idioms or puns may not make sense (among other things). I've been involved in both in the past. There is no need to edit/remove scenarios, however. Changing the substance of what's actually happening in the scene is what I fear from NisA. The guy on the stream seemed giddy about the opportunity to bend things to his viewpoint, it was a bit nauseating. 

 

 

On 4/24/2024 at 12:50 PM, Dave55811 said:

I've already got over 100+ hours of play-time, which is pretty close to my Trails SC play-time; I guess the extra 20-30 hours was because of me grinding in the Abyss, but still.  I guess I was hoping my play-time would be far less than Trails SC, too....but, for this, I blame the Abyss.

You always manage to double or triple my playtimes, it's like your special superpower. My playtime for the 3rd was 54 hours.   I didn't grind for those drops. I consider "completion" to be main story + sidequests (BP or with an item reward) + recipes + Zemurian Ore books. I don't think I've ever scanned 100% of enemies with the Battle Scope or collected 100% of items/drops. I don't care about 'chievos so as long as I experience all the story content I'm happy.

[Koby]

Speaking of playtimes... my time for the entire Sky trilogy was only about 120 hours or so.

 

So you spent nearly as much on 3rd alone as I did the whole trilogy.

[Dave55811]

Welp, I defeated the final boss, and though I'm currently taking a break, I am in the process of viewing the ending.  When I hop back on within the hour, I should have this all wrapped up.

 

46 minutes ago, Zemekis said:

Yeah, skip that Abyss stuff it it's adding dozens of hours of grinding. You won't use most of those characters in the end anyway (and they won't carry forward to the next game). I won't spoil anything about the next game or its cast, but nothing carries forward. It's a fresh start. If you've done all the doors & grinded (probably way too much) just kill that final boss and you're all done. Grail Sphere is so frickin' good.

Two minutes before 6PMCST, I decided to call it quits in the Abyss....though, I made use of the Zemurian Ore and I acquired way back from those boss fights.  Apparently it was a total of four that I had (not two).  I think I used them for Father Kevin's weapon, Estelle's weapon, and Sister Ries's weapon....but, right now, I forget what I used the fourth one for.  Probably Joshua.

 

Curiously, it was possible to earn those weapons from some enemies in Phantasmagoria, as well as the Jormungandr & Quinty Ribbon+1, but I never got those nor the two items listed.  Earlier today when I started up Trails 3rd, I backtracked a little bit to see if I could get either the Jormungandr or the Quinty Ribbon+1, but I didn't, so I just stepped through the gate to confront Anima.  Then the boss fights started, and the rest is history.

 

I hope the next Trails games feature a "Luck" stat, or something that can help denote the likelihood of acquiring rarer items from enemies.  For this game, you needed that Luck quartz, but it helped to have Josette as auxiliary, and if the person using Luck was wearing Phantom Thief's Cape, it would've increased your chances (though it didn't specify a percentage)....but even so, that shit was time-consuming, and in some ways, not worth the effort.  I should've focused more on acquiring those armor items, which I kind of did, but it was getting to the point where I should just wrap the game up.

 

59 minutes ago, Zemekis said:

They would probably change Star Door 15 in a full-blown remake, which would somewhat break that character's backstory. No idea how they'll handle it. Even if it's just a remaster of sorts for consoles, I can't imagine that they'd leave it as-is....but then again.....the 3rd was only released in English as recently as 2017. Perhaps it would be left in? I wonder if it would be Xseed or NisA. I assume NisA would change it, I recently watched a stream NisA did about how they want to update their localizations for "Westen values" and it's once again causing me worry about the future of their translation/localization efforts with all that's going on in the industry these days. I think we all had a similar conversation back on the FC or SC thread, so I don't mean to re-open a can of worms here. I appreciate that translations aren't 1:1 and I also grasp the need for concepts to be localized somewhat because Japanese idioms or puns may not make sense (among other things). I've been involved in both in the past. There is no need to edit/remove scenarios, however. Changing the substance of what's actually happening in the scene is what I fear from NisA. The guy on the stream seemed giddy about the opportunity to bend things to his viewpoint, it was a bit nauseating. 

2017?  I'd say that was about one year before the parasitization of Japanese games.  The end of 2018 was when the agenda was being revealed....or was it the second half of 2018?  Either way, 2018 was when woketards would gain a prominence in the English dubbing of Japanese games, at least for lesser titles (compared to, say, Capcom's games, specifically RE2 Remake & DMC5).  Speculative history lesson aside,

Spoiler

the context in Star Door 15 was still there.  In fact, I'd say the first bits of dialogue gave it all away, when Renne said "...I was defiled."  This little girl, stating that she was "defiled"; from there on, you can imagine what she went through....or not, preferably, but the story helps to explain everything.  I'd say there's a decent pay-off at the end, too; at the end, I thought "Wow.  Ouroboros has standards.  Like, they're evil, but they'll still kill pedophiles & child-molesters."  At least, when Joshua & Loewe were raiding Paradise, Joshua(?) called them sub-humans; I thought that was because they were on their own and could say whatever they wanted, but that could just be me overestimating Ouroboros's omniscience.  Either way, Ouroboros has standards, and from the sound of things, they're not "pure evil", but rather evil on relative terms.  Hell, Weissmann would be testament to that; he wasn't "pure evil" himself.

 

I'd hate to see how NisA (or whoever) translates the OG TitS trilogy, but I really shouldn't care so much, because I already experienced the OG trilogy, and that's about all I can do.  Like I said, if people want the original experience, they'll have to make do with the PC versions, because as convenient as a remake of the OG trilogy would be, there are likely to be changes that could be detrimental to the experience.

 

58 minutes ago, Koby said:

Speaking of playtimes... my time for the entire Sky trilogy was only about 120 hours or so.

 

So you spent nearly as much on 3rd alone as I did the whole trilogy.

God damn.  Well, like I said, for Trails 3rd, I blame the Abyss.  If not for me submitting to the temptation of grinding for fancy weapons and armor, my total hours into Trails 3rd would've been double-digit.

[Zemekis]

On 4/25/2024 at 4:55 PM, Dave55811 said:

God damn.  Well, like I said, for Trails 3rd, I blame the Abyss.  If not for me submitting to the temptation of grinding for fancy weapons and armor, my total hours into Trails 3rd would've been double-digit.

The nice thing about the Trails games is that despite being long they usually don't require much grinding. I won't say it's absolutely zero, but if you fight each enemy you come across organically without going out of your way to fight more, you should be roughly at the correct level & have enough sepith to get the job done. This is on Normal difficulty and 1st playthrough, of course. If you're completing all the sidequests, the monsters you encounter along the way serve as your grinding. I couldn't have spent more than 2 hours total during the 3rd fighting monsters for the sake of EXP or sepith. I also utilized fast-forward to move around the map more quickly + rush through battle animations. I think you mentioned that you didn't use the fast-forward feature much (if at all)? If you listen to every dialogue line in full & don't use Fast Forward, that can add a lot of hours. Regardless, let it be known that Dave got all the juice out of the Sky trilogy and left no stone unturned! You'll never need to look back and wonder if you rushed things, that's for sure.

[Dave55811]

On 5/1/2024 at 11:28 PM, Zemekis said:

The nice thing about the Trails games is that despite being long they usually don't require much grinding. I won't say it's absolutely zero, but if you fight each enemy you come across organically without going out of your way to fight more, you should be roughly at the correct level & have enough sepith to get the job done.

I fear that grinding is pretty much an "addiction" when I play RPG games.  But, TitS is set up in a way similar to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, where you can be of a high enough level that enemies will only yield 1 experience point.  The Abyss was my go-to so I could level up my characters past Lv.130, but I persisted because I wanted to get some of those item-drops.  I managed to get some of those Lv.3 armor pieces, but I had hoped to get max-level weapon drops.  Eventually, I prolonged the grinding session because I'm just stubborn like that.

 

On 5/1/2024 at 11:28 PM, Zemekis said:

I also utilized fast-forward to move around the map more quickly + rush through battle animations.

Oooh; you've used fast-forward as well?  I recently found that feature near the end of Trails 3rd; I pressed the + button on my controller (8BitDo Ultimate C 2.4G Wireless Controller, for the record here) and saw the game speed up.  I also noticed that it didn't speed up the in-game time, so if I wanted to rush through something, I could do so without suddenly accumulating extra seconds of in-game time.

 

On 5/1/2024 at 11:28 PM, Zemekis said:

I think you mentioned that you didn't use the fast-forward feature much (if at all)? If you listen to every dialogue line in full & don't use Fast Forward, that can add a lot of hours.

I refrain from using the fast-forward function when it comes to plot-related shit, or when I'm experiencing a new scenario.  I don't think fast-forward really does anything for dialogue; it may speed up the text scrawl, but that's what the buttons are for.  The issue with spoken dialogue is that a sentence finishes, and the character speaks their dialogue, but I hit the button right when they speak again, to which I'm like "D'aw, fuck!".....which is why an automatic sequence for spoken dialogue would've been convenient (something like what's available in Akiba's Trip: Undead & Undressed).  If I remember correctly, Trails from Zero & Trails to Azure (the Switch versions) will have those functions, and I'm assuming the Cold Steel series will, too.

 

On 5/1/2024 at 11:28 PM, Zemekis said:

Regardless, let it be known that Dave got all the juice out of the Sky trilogy and left no stone unturned! You'll never need to look back and wonder if you rushed things, that's for sure.

Ah, that.  Here it is:

 

Trails in the Sky FC (2023/11/12 to 2024/1/30)

87:55:23

Trails in the Sky SC (2024/02/01 to 2024/03/03)

137:07:59

Trails in the Sky the 3rd (2024/04/04 to 2024/04/25)

121:17:56

 

Thus, my total playtime of the TitS trilogy is 346:21:18.  I did some calculating, and the total playtime equates to 14.43145833 days.  As for personal time, the TitS trilogy took 5 months.....which would be an estimated 24 weeks, or 165 days.  Basically, Trails FC took the longest, partly due to playing other games inbetween, as well as the fact that it took a while to get used to, among some other things.  I think I decided to "commit" in January; although Custom Mech Wars arrived at my place, after I Platinum'ed that game I returned to Trails FC, and eventually I would finish it up, on the date aforementioned.  Trails SC was next; this game was projected to be the longest of the trilogy.  I had bought Final Fantasy VII Rebirth on release-day, but I held off on that until beating Trails SC, in accordance to my "commitment".  Then after beating FF7R, I started up Trails 3rd, and because a specific date was approaching, I felt like double-timing this one....and, well, here we are.  For some more in-depth descriptions of my experiences with Trails FC and Trails SC, in case anyone is curious, you can just check their respective threads, linked behind each name.

 

As for the rest of the Trails series, well, for now, I'm taking a break.  I figured that completing the original TitS trilogy would be an accomplishment.  There's other things I do besides just gaming, and I feel that I'm behind schedule.  However, considering that there aren't anymore new games right now (besides EDF6) that pique my interest, I see returning to the Trails games happening within the foreseeable future....maybe months from now.