Board 8 > Trails in the Sky Playthrough Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

yeah julia and mueller are people who get better in 3rd by virtue of having more screentime lol

Hbthebattle posted...

yeah julia and mueller are people who get better in 3rd by virtue of having more screentime lol

This, but that being said I don't know if I'd have them that much further up on my own ranking as far as playable characters go either.

> But he is still just a bird, and I can't keep from ranking him for too long before it gets ridiculous.

I don't know, I'd probably put Sieg in the top 10.

#26 Walter

Before Renne sworn to butcher them all, Walter did the same, but we forgot because it's more schocking when it's said by the 12 year old. The Direwolf spares no one, they said. Weirdly, that aspect of his character went into the background, probably to keep the game PG. What we focused on instead was a very cliche kung fu movie story. Was it good? I think so.

Walter's motivation is clearer than Luciola, and so he is easier to empathize with. He is a tragic man, driven by jealously and love. It's highlighted that he was already on the path of evil for a while before his master rejected him, so he is not entirely without fault. But you can feel bad for him nonetheless.

Walter is also pretty damn cool. Orobouros is all great designs, and his s-craft is flashy like him. And whenever he is on, we get some sprite action, which I love. Walter is good times.

And I love how in the end, his downfall was that he mixed other styles instead of training his master's style like Zin did. It's a classic tradition vs modern, but it works well.

But don't emphatize with him that much. He is a jerkass who is probably not joking when he says he kills children.

#25 Bleublanc

Damn, this quest AGAIN?

Bleublanc is that sidequest, which you do 6 times total during two games. Which is pretty fun most of the time, but also aggravating. He's also the weirdest enforcer (except maybe Campanella but that doesn't count). His motivation that he reveals in Sky Pillar is bonkers. He's just goofing around hiding mundane objects most of the time instead of burning orphanages like the villains in this game do. He is a rival to friggin Olivier, though he doesn't quite mangage to out-clown Olivier (nobody can). Bleublanc is guaranteed fun times, if not because the game overdoes his presence a little.

He's also a weird little sex predator, though. I considered ranking him below Walter just for that, but then I remembered Walter kills people, and murder is worse than sexual abuse I suppose. So Blew gets to be 25.

#24 Maybelle

Capitalism, ho! Maybelle deserves to at least be in this list because of the sheer amount of memes she allowed me to write. She owns everything! She can buy anything, and anyone! But really, jokes aside, she is very much a decent person. Her sidequest involving Lila's past proves it, as it's one of the best sidequests in this duology. She is a hard worker, busting her ass to make her city a better place. She also seems to want a regime change in Liberl! If she ran for president, I might vote for her.

How weird is it that this game makes me like all sorts of institutions I usually hate, from capitalism, to military, to religion, and make it feel natural? And the next arc is about cops! That's one of the amazing things about Trails.

#23 Amalthea

Before Gilbert, there was someone who could be called the biggest tryhard in the cast: that was Amalthea, the most loyal member of the intelligence division, to the point they had to bring her former boss out of prison just to convince her to stop being dumb. You fight Amalthea three times in the series, because she just. Doesn't. Give up. And she is pathetic every single time, but she doesn't care. She steals a tank and decides she is going to conquer the kingdom with it, as if blasting walls and killing a few castle staff is going to bring a regime change. It's clear Richard was the brain of the opeartion here.

Amalthea is also fun because of how mean she looks in her portraits. As soon as the story is allowed to show the Intel Div as the villains they are, she is just smirking evily all the time. That's another contrast to Richard, who looks like a saint even as he plots a coup.

We are at that point of the list where most characters are swallow but are just plain likable or fun, and that's the case with Amalthea.

Amalthea > Maybelle is spicy imo

i can still hear Richard's Japanese VA constantly calling her Kanone, as if the Amalthea part does not exist

#22 Loewe

This is one that could end up being controversial, because depending on what community you go to, Loewe is Top 3 material. He is the quintessential edgy anime badass. He has a sword, is called Bladelord, has white spiky hair, is strong as shit, has a badass coat, a tragic backstory that will have teenagers clamoring about how deep he is, etc. Look no further than Itachi from Naruto if you need a comparison, he's that guy.

I like the guy. I don't love the guy though, because I stopped caring about Naruto over a decade ago. Loewe is not that deep. His story boys down to "they killed my girlfriend, yo". Something similar happened to Agate, but his character went places. Josh lost the same person, and his character went even more places. Loewe decided to go full Edgelord, adopted a "peace turns humans into hypocrites" philosophy and joined the nearest maniac he could find, and even stuck with him after finding out he was responsible for Loewe's own tragedy. He then spends the actual game being by the most decent enforcer, occasionally trying to kill Agate (I mean, everyone has that urge from time to time), but otherwise praising Estelle and generally rooting for the good guys. Loewe seems like he is already done with Orobouros when the story starts and is just looking for an excuse to bail, honestly.

I enjoyed having Loewe around, and surely I enjoyed the two insanely difficult fights he gave, one per game. But I was unimpressed, honestly. Fortunately, Orobouros had a way better anti-villain story to give me. More on that later.

#21 Kilika

I'm going to copypaste the write-up because Kilika already wrote it for me 2 days ago, when she correctly predicted I would rank her # 21. Thanks, Kilika. She said she's just doing her job.

Kilika's efficiency is an in-universe meme, and it's a great one. All those clerks are doing a good job, but she's killing it. She is clearly overqualified for this position, perhaps because she was trained to be the wife of the Taito Dojo Master.

Kilika doesn't give a damn, though. It's hard to know if she is actually annoyed at people praising her, or if she is just so efficient she wants to get to business. And she has the cool sequence where she climbs a high level dungeon alone just to tell two boys that they need to grow the fuck up.

Her position in the boys' backtory is kind of weird though, because she feels like a side character in it. She never really becomes close to Zin and neither she and Walter get together again. She just quits and goes be a clerk in a guild. So she feels rather disconnected to the whole thing, despite being the primary reason for Walter's defection. I guess not everyone wants to, or needs, to be in the spotlight, and Kilika very much knows that.

21- Kilika
22- Loewe
23- Amalthea
24- Maybelle
25- Bleublanc
26- Walter
27- Don
28- Luciola
29- Hans
30- Julia
31- Sieg
32- Cid
33- Mueller
34- Kurt
35- Kyle
36- Josette
37- Aina
38- Queen Alicia
39- Russel
40- Jill
41- Anton
42- Clem
43- Ricky

Unranked:

Agate
Anelace
Campanella
Cassius
Dorothy
Dunan
Estelle
Gilbert
Joshua
Kevin
Kloe
Mogran
Nial
Olivier
Renne
Richard
Scherazard
Tita
Weissmann
Zin

catesdb posted...

Amalthea > Maybelle is spicy imo

The problem with Maybelle is most of what makes her great was in my playthrough topic, not in the game itself. At the end of the day she is just another decent mayor, and the capitalism thing is just a meme.

Amalthea > any character with a portrait is spicy imo.

...is what I would have said but then I remembered Gilbert, who I see is also yet to appear on the list >.>

pyresword posted...

Amalthea > any character with a portrait is spicy imo.

...is what I would have said but then I remembered Gilbert, who I see is also yet to appear on the list >.>

Do you people even know comedy.

Characters like that exist because they are funny as hell.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

How weird is it that this game makes me like all sorts of institutions I usually hate, from capitalism, to military, to religion, and make it feel natural? And the next arc is about cops! That's one of the amazing things about Trails.

That's the best thing about trails, instead of being preachy over the downfall in the trust in modern day institutions, they just let us revisit a magic place where you can feel secure in it again. Some good wholesomeness is what this world needs more of

Wait did someone just dump on Gilbert?
What the hell is wrong with you?

ZeldaTPLink posted...

has a badass coat

and the best sprite in the game imhotbqh

To defend Loewe a bit (I am among that "holds him in the Top 3" group you reference) part of the reason he joined up with "the nearest maniac" is because Joshua went catatonic after Karin's death and said maniac (Weissmann) said he could get him out of it... and technically he did! But probably not how Loewe intended. At which point bailing on Ouroboros would mean bailing on Joshua (and later Renne.)

Plus Loewe's whole thing is ultimately that his past broke him just like it did Joshua, he just handled it differently. He joined Ouroboros as essentially a coping mechanism and adopted the whole "test for humanity" nonsense to try to tell himself that at least the tragedy ultimately could have some sort of meaning even though his new worldview was never coherent and if he truly believed it he wouldn't even be there. Hence in the end Joshua gets through to him by making him realize he's ultimately just deluding himself to avoid having to fully confront and accept his past.

#20 Campanella

This guy was originally going to be ranked much higher, but I had time to think about the names in the rest of this post and realize they all have reasons to be ranked higher. The Fool is awesome. He is one reason I want to play the rest of the series, because he is such a cool presence when he is around. He is also the most mysterious character in the series, so far. Why does he never grow? WHAT is he? What can he do, besides teleporting? Campanella is such a great set up I can't wait to see the pay off of.

But I need more content to rank him higher. Because right now, he's just that, a set up. A puzzle. Let me know when the puzzle is solved.

#19 Cassius Bright

One of the 4 top swordsmen of the world. One of the 4 top bracers of the world. The greatest military general. The crappiest father (jk).

Cassius is that guy. The character so amazing he becomes a hindrance to storytelling. 9 ouf of 10 times, this guy gets killed to hype the villain up, or just to give the hero a motivation to grow. Instead of that the writers went and did something genius: they deconstructed the concept, by having Cassius's perfection be the primary cause of conflict. Because once the genius retires, he creates a void, and that motivates Richard to make a coup. And at the same time, Cassius's continued presence in Liberl means Orobouros must have a contingency plan against him, and so Joshua's entire character comes into existance as part of a long term plan to bait Cassius out of Liberl when the time comes for Phase 1.of the Gospel Plan.

But Orobouros doesn't make the same effort again in SC, and that gives him some room, just a little, to strike back. Ironically, through Joshua, by having him manipulate Weissman into doing more evil, just like Weissman once had Joshua manipulate Cassius into doing good. I love how the start and end of the duology show opposite plots.

Now whole I'm amazed with the way the story uses Cassius, that makes Cassius himself less interesting, by design. He doesn't really do things. It's Estelle, Josh, Kloe, Olivier who do, he just nudges them in the right direction. He forces himself to be a background character, so the plot doesn't suffer, and because he has to let Liberl, the Bracer Guild, and his children walk with their own legs, or the world is doomed. But that means there just isn't much material to make Cassius more of a mid tier character in my book. Someone had to take the fall for the good of everyone, and Cassius surely did.

#18 Mogran

The drill sergeant. The guy who doesn't have time for this supernatural stuff. The competent but unimaginative general.

Mogran serves an important role in FC, which is a red herring to Richard. Unfortunately his portrayal was so negative compared to Richard's it ended up giving it away! But he is a good guy at heart, once he learns bracers are not some stupid thing kids these days invented. Then he becomes a support in the story, albeit minor because Cassius, Julia, and arguably even Cid get to do more.

In SC, he also gets the sequence with Agate, which really endeared him in my book. He is consumed by the grief of not being able to prevent the unpreventable. That is something Agate shares, and which consumes him even more. Mogran is just a solid character, really. We are entering the point where everyone else is just more solid.

#17 Richard

The main villain of FC tends to be forgotten once you enter SC and its flashy sociopath enforcers. But Richard was a big threat, even if Orobouros was helping. He got really close to taking down a country with pretty much just his brains, and a few loyal guys. He's also got that "affable villain" aura. Where he's never really mad, or gloating. He knows he is a demon, he is doing it for his cause, not for pleasure. It reminds me of a sentence of a webcomic I read (Unsounded), "Only a cause makes a good man do evil". Villains of that type can feel inconsistent, but when they are written well, they are amazing. Richard is great.

His cause is also rather original, as I have explained in the Cassius post. What do you do when a man like Cassius retires, and an empire like Erebonia is still bordering you? The existential threat must have driven him crazy. So Liberl has to prove they can do the impossible without the help of an impossible man, and Richard doesn't think he up for the challenge.

I'm hyped to see more of him in 3rd, now that we know he regrets everything.

#16 Gilbert

He sucks! Gilbert was just a mid villain in SC. He was pathetic but he served to show how cool the real villains were. Well, the writers decided to bring him back, and run the point to the ground. There is nothing to salvage here, he is a sociopath and idiot. Gilbert absolutelym sucks! His quotes, his moves, it all suck! And it's HILARIOUS! This guy is great comedy whenever he is around. The entire cast will line up to dunk on him because he can't even be a threat. His allies will dunk on him. Campanella will. He is so shit he forces Campanella to have a bit of a character just to torture him. That's how you solve the Campanella mystery, keep Gilbert around so the former shows more character.

Gilbert is excused from not having much character, because he is funny. That's all I have to say.

16- Gilbert
17- Richard
18 - Mogran
19 - Cassius
20 - Campanella
21- Kilika
22- Loewe
23- Amalthea
24- Maybelle
25- Bleublanc
26- Walter
27- Don
28- Luciola
29- Hans
30- Julia
31- Sieg
32- Cid
33- Mueller
34- Kurt
35- Kyle
36- Josette
37- Aina
38- Queen Alicia
39- Russel
40- Jill
41- Anton
42- Clem
43- Ricky

Unranked:

Agate
Anelace
Dorothy
Dunan
Estelle
Joshua
Kevin
Kloe
Nial
Olivier
Renne
Scherazard
Tita
Weissmann
Zin

I totally expected them to kill off Cassius at some point, for the reasons you mentioned. I guess this could be another way the writers were fighting against a common trope.

Cassius annoyed me while I was playing through Trails initially. I still don't really like him, but I appreciate what they did with his story.

Solid top 15. These games are so great.

catesdb posted...

Solid top 15. These games are so great.

real

I haven't been showing it, but so far I have been using tiers to make it easier to rank the characters.

The bottom tier is probably Kyle and everything below him. From Kurt to Bleublanc is the low tier. Mid tier is up to the 14th place. So we have 2 characters left to rank from it.

Then there is the high tier, which is 13th to 7th. The very high tier is 6th to 3rd. Finally, the top two characters are my god tier.

Good luck guessing.

Cassius is the kind of character that I usually don't like at all. It's a testament to the Trails series writing that I actually love him.

Is he actually Mogran? I thought ot was Morgan this whole time and this just a continuing bit, but now I'm second-guessing myself

No it is definitely Morgan lol

#15 Dunan

For the Duke, the same can be said as it was said for the previous guy: HE SUCKS! But there is some extra care given to Dunan's shittiness. Gilbert is used for the plot twist, and then later his terribleness is just driven to the extreme, with no middle ground. Dunan starts terrible, but his terribless is built, fostered, kindled, to obtain the maximum hate from the player, as well as maxmum humor.

His first act in the game is to deprive Estelle and Josh of their big hotel room. It gets personal right away. He then has that sidequest where Estelle is recruited to her... methods... to prevent him from making the guests at Air Letten uncomfortable. It's a a great scene. He then gets sucked into the madness that is the final chapter of FC, as a politcal pawn meant to be used by Richard to rule the country. It's genius. Meanwhile, Dunan gets worse and worse, as sexism gets added to his elitism.

But somewhere along the line, you get used to him, and the monster becomes a clown, particularly after he is deprived of his power in SC and placed on house arrest. He is now making his butler get cookies and comics for him. The demon! And then, finally, he gets some offsceen character development, and becomes a honorable man. I don't know how that happened and I wish I had seen it, but after two games with this idiot, it feels well earned.

Dunan is such a great part of the lore. He is a love to hate character and I loved to hate having him around. So the position in the top 15 is well earned.

#14 Dorothy

One of the two members of the news duo, her job is similar to Lotta Hart in the PW series: produce those magical photos that gets things moving. Dorothy is a genius photographer, and fact balanced by how she is a massive klutz at everything else. It's always a delight seeing how much fun she is having photographing things, and it's always a good time to have to bail her from things she obviously shouldn't be getting near.

Dorothy is not the most three-dimensional character, but honestly, can you not like her? I surely can't.

#13 Scherazard

It's time to rank the 9 protagonists of the duology, as well as the 4 people who are so great they get to hang out with the protagonists.

Schera is the first to fall. My view of her is complicated. I've gone on a rant before about how I think the alcoholism jokes are just toxic. And the other aspect of Schera is her sadism gags, which aren't my cup of tea either. So in terms of humor, Schera just fails, which is a problem since almost every character in a game like this is trying to hit a comedy point, Schera included.

Next is the character development, which is more complicated. Schera's role is to be a big sister, the mature one. At the same time, when she meets Luciola, she descends into a child, who feels weak and emotionally dependent. It's an interesting inversion, but I feel like we could have developed that relationship a bit harder, maybe with some flashbacks. It doesn't help that Luciola herself is inescrutable as she is.

Now, the good sister role? There's where Schera really shines. I was particularly endeared at her chapter 4 scenes with Estelle. Schera is perfectly comfortable being the emotional support to Estelle. And really, Schera is the unspoken hero behind Joshua's redemption. Because while Estelle did the work with Josh, Schera was the one who prep'd Estelle for it, keeping her together as she was faced doubts and traumas.

Schera is also pretty good in FC. She is the balanced mentor. Unlike Agate who just cockblocks the kids over and over, Schera gives them agency, letting them figure out what it means to be a bracer by themselves, but constantly giving advice and helping conduct the investigation to find the missing airship. Schera is the perfect supporting character, she just isn't that good when she has to take the lead, or provide comedy.

Schera is weird in that when she's being a serious character she's actually pretty good, but any and all 'comedy' attempts they try with her are awful.

#12 Anelace

"I AM INVINCIBLE! ... Or am I?"

I don't know why that quote is so awesome but it just is. I think it's because while all the other characters are being at least a little serious in their victory poses, Anelace just doesn't care. She is pretty much a joke character, someone who got added to the playable roster because the players liked her in FC and wanted more of her.

But something about her just works. I feel like she is Estelle without the baggage. She is a bit more sassy, a bit more mature, but also a bit sillier. And because she doesn't have the Josh drama, she can be silly all the time, and that helps Estelle be less gloomy in what was going to be a very gloomy prologue. Anelace was the right party member at the right time.

She is also great in the school sidequest. I mean, the whole thing is pretty much Estelle and Anelace taking turns to taunt all the mooks you face at the start of each battle, but I'm so in for that. Honestly if they made a full game with just the two girls as protagonists, I'd pay full AAA price for it. Make it a buddy cop story or something.

Anelace isn't higher because I thought it felt unfair to rank all the 3-dimensional characters in this list lower than what is well, a gag character. But if 3rd gives her more development, the sky is the limit for Anelace. She is invincible, after all. Or is she?

#11 Zin

Zin is hard to rank because often he feels like the most side-character-y member of main playable roster. He is an outsider, who pretty much came to Liberl on Cassius's request (and before, was apparently around because of the tournament), so he is a helper by definition (the same could be said about Olivier, but that one forces himself into the spotlight). His personality fits with that, he is the very chill guy who lets the other characters do as they please, often being even more passive than Schera in his mentoring style. But that kind of behavior paid off, because when we learn Zin has been doing it on purpose all around, secretely supporting the kids, it makes him feel pretty cool.

Zin gets more of a character in SC, with his rivarly with Walter. That one was better written than the Schera/Luciola one, imo, and also much more fun to watch, because it was an actual fighting rivarly! I mean, it's an incredibly cliche kung fu story, but cliches are fine if they are executed well. Zin's role here is the devoted disciple, the one who never stopped believing in his master's teachings even after seeing the master himself killed by the disciple who abandoned them. He kept training, and training, every day, to the point he managed to get stronger than Walter, even though, by his own words, he was less talented. Zin's extreme dillegence also made him an A-rank bracer, and the only of that rank in the story so far, other than Cassius who is S-rank. Zin is canonically the strongest guy around, even if gameplay wise, he has to be nerfed so he can be similar to the others. That was a fun aspect of him.

Overall, Zin is not a guy you remember much, but he is just nice to have around, when he is giving Estelle words of wisdom or when he is just training his stances in some room in the Arseille, because he believes you should never stop practicing the basics. Zin is the kind of guy anyone who wants to become a master at a craft should mirror themselves after, honestly.

#10 Tita

At some point before I started writing this list, it was going to only have the 14 playable characters, so I was going to have a disclaimer making it clear that gameplay did not count in this list's criteria. Because if it did, Tita would be fighting for #1. She is really that fun to play with, seriously. The fact they made a character in an RPG whose basic attack is AoE is nothing short of awesome.

But I'm judging the character, not her combat skills (though I include in the criteria whether their attacks and battle quotes look cool, and Tita also aces that). Tita's issue is that she is exactly what she is advertized as: a 12 year old girl. It's temping for stories to write little kids that behave as anything but, and then explain that away as them being geniuses and stuff. Not Tita. While she is a genius at her craft (and the story is not shy of using that as a plot device over and over), personality wise, she is really just a kid. She is naive, she doesn't have any huge psychological issues (I mean, she is just now hitting puberty), she doesn't really participate in the other characters' sarcastic banter. She is most of the time just smiling and being cute. Now I'm not saying that is bad writing, as it makes sense. And it provides great contrast with Renne, who goes into the opposite direction. But that makes Tita kind of boring, most of the time.

She was going to be much lower for a while. But there was a saving grace, the chapter with the dragon. While that didn't develop Tita's character, it gave her a role in developing Agate's, which she executed perfectly. Chapter 5 is one of the best in the game, and Tita does a lot of the work in that. She is absolutely great at supporting Agate, helping him understand that he is not alone anymore, and being his little sister. And the scene where she tries to block a sword blow from fucking Loewe to protect Agate is nothing short of amazing.

Tita's strangth in supporting other arcs also extends to Estelle, particularly FC. She is a key piece of the building blocks of Estelle and Josh's characters that happen in that game, by giving Estelle a little sister she must feel responsible for. Now that I think about it, on big theme of this game is family. Estelle, Josh, Tita, Agate and Schera are all family to each other, even if none of them are related by blood. And all of that just helps make Trails the good story it is, because it does the hard work to make characters feel like people, and to make the world feel like a world. Tita was not the complex character that really make the meat of a story, but she is the little kid that makes the world feel worth protecting.

#9 Nial

Nial is the least important character in this part of the rankings. That's just a testament to how good he is.

In the middle of FCs massive political conspiracy, the protagonists, finding themselves unsupported by the kingdom and the military, who are under attack by the Intel Division, manage to find help among the press. The dynamic between Estelle/Josh and Nial is just really good. They tell him about their adventures each chapter, so he can write the next Liberl News, and in turns, he reveals the plot hooks they need to slowly crack the bad guys' plans. it works all the way from chapter 1 to the coup at the end of the game. The point is that, whenever Nial is around, you can expect interesting reveals, and good plot developments. The press is another institution that the writers of this game wanted to show in a good light, and he and Dorothy represent that.

Nial himself is also a pretty likable dude. He is snarky, but not too much that he is hard to deal with. Estelle and Josh earn his repsect in the prologue, and from then on, he always has time to sit with them at a bar and trade info, often negotiating for it.

He does take a hit in SC though, because the conflict changes from a political conspiracy to a mkre JRPG-like one, with an evil organization bound to dig some mcguffins. So Nial is now less of a partner in crime, and more of a guest in the Arseille so he can help make the crown look good.

Honestly, Nial is here much more for his role than for his person, but he is an integral part of the tightly written plot that is Trails.

#8 Kevin

I was originally going to say Kevin would be the most unfairly ranked character in this list due to me not having played the game he is the protagonist of. But he got to #8! Man, Kevin is just great! Like, Anelace, this is another character who could be hanging out with the big guys by the time I finish the trilogy.

Kevin is a very supporting character, by nature. You could say he is the quintessential RPG cleric. Even in battle, he is the least offensive character in the group, while having the best support s-craft and a few other strong support crafts. Because he wasn't in FC, Kevin feels like a guest for most of SC, popping in and out fo help move things around. And at the end of SC, he takes the spotlight, helping Josh achieve his great victory over Weissmann, and ultimately killing Weissmann himself. That scene shot Kevin up a few positions, because he is just so badass in it. He has been hiding what he can really do all game, and suddenly, he is some ruthless inquisitor. At the same time, there are hints of him hating himself for being like that, which I'm hyped to see the developmnent of next game.

Kevin also strikes a good balance between a clown and a mature guy. While he tries to be a mild Olivier, his wisdom score is just through the roof (again, cleric). He has a very strong introduction at the start of the game, where he accompanies Estelle as she is having a mental breakdown. And then, for the rest of the game, he is that dependable guy who shows up whenever things are going to shit, being particularly pivotal in chapter 3. And he always seems to have access to artifacts and knowledge necessary to counter Orobouros tools. Otherwise, he can be found in the infirmary, keeping things ready in case someone gets hurt. Kevin doesn't want to be a protagonist, in fact, it's possible he hates it, but he is so great he ends up bing the ace in the hole the good guys need to defeat Weissmann.

#7 Kloe

I think FC may be my favorite of the two games. While SC is a masterpiece, I'm very awed at the insanely subsersive thing the first game set out to do, and how well it executed it. What I mean is how it does not really try to have a big, epic, JRPG story about saving the world, instead being just a story of two kids who travel around the world learning what it means to be a bracer. But because we are not looking at the plot yet, we get to build the world, and the characters. And make the foundations that will make the pay offs worth it.

Kloe plays an integral role in that. Her main chapter in FC is sandwiched between the sky bandit red herring, and the real plot with the Intel Div that starts in Zeiss. She is the girl who shows you around the city, and hangs out with the main characters because she just likes them. She helps them get acquainted with the orphanage kids, and eventually takes them to the school where they can make a play. I am particularly awed at how much I enjoyed that sequence involving the play, considering how much it is absolute filler to the main story. It's just... fun to watch. Kloe herself is not revealed to be a princess yet, which can be a metaphor to how, at this point of the story, we just need good friends, not princesses. Her friendship with Estelle and Josh is one of the most real things in this series. So when it's time to save Kloe and her kingdom, it feels personal. It feels like it matters. Like they say, it's "our Kloe" that we are saving.

And it all works because Kloe herself is just so likable. Kloe is just a good person, someone who is easy to like. That's all there is to it.

She is another character who takes a big hit in SC, though, probably why she is not in the tier above. When it's time to focus on main plots, Kloe is given a personal sidequest that, while good on paper, is solved completely offscreen. She vanishes for one chapter, then returns and announces she is now heir to the queen. And the payoff to that, the negotiation scene, isn't as good for her as it could have been, because it's Olivier who is the MVP of the whole thing. Kloe really needed to have her big moment of decision shown, just like Dunan needed to have his character development, which happened at the same time and was also cut. I wonder if those scenes were originally going to be in the game, and they didn't make to the final product.

God Tier

1-
2-

Very High Tier

3-
4-
5-
6-

High Tier

7- Kloe
8- kevin
9- Nial
10- Tita
11- Zin
12- Anelace
13- Scherazard

Mid Tier

14- Dorothy
15- Dunan
16- Gilbert
17- Richard
18- Mogran
19- Cassius
20- Campanella
21- Kilika
22- Loewe
23- Amalthea
24- Maybelle

Low Tier

25- Bleublanc
26- Walter
27- Don
28- Luciola
29- Hans
30- Julia
31- Sieg
32- Cid
33- Mueller
34- Kurt

Bottom Tier

35- Kyle
36- Josette
37- Aina
38- Queen Alicia
39- Russel
40- Jill
41- Anton
42- Clem
43- Ricky

Unranked:

Agate
Estelle
Joshua
Olivier
Renne
Weissmann

I loved your writeup on Kloe...yeah FC really nails the small stakes to big stakes journey like no other RPG. I still enjoyed SC more but I agree that that aspect of it really didn't exist as much in SC and it does make FC stand out

Niall is my personal favourite character in the two games

Kevin is one of my favorite video game characters. His story across SC and the 3rd had such a profound impact on me that I'm planning to get a tattoo inspired by him, and I've never even been a tattoo guy.

Really looking forward to seeing what you think of it in the next game.

Yeah Kevin is cool too bad he doesn't have a game of his own where he is the protagonist huh

(this is a joke about how Falcom keeps forgetting he's a series protagonist in all the promotional stuff)

3rd def the black sheep fr

#6 Weissmann

I have already posted this gif, but it sums it up so perfectly I'll post it again.

https://media.tenor.com/MN5_Om7EuQ0AAAAC/megamind-presentation.gif

Weissmann is all about the impression.

The entrance this guy makes at the end of FC is all the reason you need to go to the Steam shop and immediately buy SC. No, it's not Josh and his fake kiss (albeit that was great too). It's Professor Alba and his mix of surprise, style and over the top sadism.

From there on, he hangs over the narrative like a dark cloud, and Weissmann feels very aware of it, because he just keeps playing with the heroes for the entire game. From his decision to "break" Estelle to recruit her, to the scene with the Joshbots and the surprise sleeping gas, to his introduction to Estelle while playing a fricking organ. Then him activating the towers, then sending the Enforcers to destroy Grancel just because the heroes had the nerve to repair some telephones. The his little "come get me" message at the entrance of the Axis Pilllar, and finally, the whole ending sequence. Weissman isn't just a great villain, he is enjoying every second of his own villainess.

He wouldn't be a great villain just for being flashy, though. He has another important aspect: being a fucking monster. He just enjoys ruining people's lives, to the point his stated goals don't get pass a second of scrutiny. He is a master manipulator, and an expert hypnotizer. Even if he doesn't appear as a villain for most of FC, his presence is felt all over the game, as every villain has a chilling moment after defeat where they reveal they didn't know what they were doing. In the end, he is only outsmarted because he can't help but torture Josh and Estelle one more time, just for the pleasure of it.

His flaw might as well be his strength. He is too evil for his own good, so Loewe ends up defecting, the other enforcers don't really go the extra mile for him, and the heroes kick his ass. I'm a little disappointed that he was able to fuse with a sept-terrion and still lose in a direct contest of strength though (although Loewe helped with a magic sword). I feel like, after having the upper hand for an entire game, he would take a greater deal of outsmarting to be defeated in the end. But chances are the one pulling many of the strings was never him. It were the Grandmaster and The Fool, while the Faceless was enjoying the benefits of that.

#5 Joshua

If Estelle is the heart of Sky, Joshua is the game's story. Things don't actually happen without him. His leave at the end of FC motivates most of SC.

Josh is a tricky character to assess, because the game, and Josh himself, are usually hiding what he is about. For most of FC, he is something between Estelle's fellow newbie, and another mentor, having a lot of experience himself. That dynamic is pretty good, because while Josh is much smarter and more prudent than her, he really believes in her, so he will usually help her follow through her ideas and hopes, unless it is just suicidal. It gives the duo a healthy dynamic, where they become more than the sum of their parts. Josh and Estelle were perfect for each other from the first scene, she just took a while to realize that.

But the reality comes to call, and Josh decides he can't risk what he loves most, and he must destroy his enemies by himself. The sequence that comes next is pretty fun, with Josh becoming the classic edgy anime anti-hero. It all comes crashing as soon as Estelle comes, though, because she reads him like a book, and we learn Josh was, in fact, just scared, of losing Estelle, but also of himself and what he had become. Josh would show another moment of vulnerability when he convinces Loewe to defect, and we learn he has been bottling a feeling of wanting to have his big bro again for a long time. So it's especially sad when Loewe dies and for a moment, Josh wants to die with him too.

Afterwards, Josh just doubles down on trusting Estelle. Let's redeem Renne? He's all in. Defeat the enforcers? Sure. Beat Loewe? if Estelle believes in me, so do I. The world is saved and now Estelle wants to stay with me while I go on my personal quest? I wouldn't have it any other way. Find someone who admires you the way Josh admires Estelle, and never let go of them.

Joshua makes it hard to see what makes him tick. But Estelle makes that happen, and what we get is a really solid, cool, and fascinating character. He is not my favorite character, but he is absolutely pivotal to making this one of my favorite JRPGs.

#4 Agate

If Loewe is the edgy anti-villain, Agate is the edgy hot-headed shonen hero. No wonder the two become rivals so easily.

At first, Agate is just a tsundere. He doesn't have time for those naive newbies, he is a serious man with serious worries. Because the plot goes after Estelle/Josh and not him, he is forced to work with them, but resists it at every step. He is the less lenient mentor, compared to Schera and Zin. That makes him annoying, but I think the game managed to make it work, because often Agate was right about the risks, and he gave Josh proper respect for his smartness when the later showed it. Hot-headed heroes tend to be stupid, but Agate is very smart, and that works in his favor.

The game proceeds to use Tita to mellow him out, and after the initial scene where Tita asks stupid and Agate tells him off, he gets poisoned, and she becomes his little sister. Unfortunately, he doesn't get much mandatory screentime again.

In SC, Agate is more willing to recognize Estelle, now that she is a senior. That lets him fall into a more balanced position, where he is still the voice of reason, but the dynamic is more balanced, and now characters take turns at dunking him out for being too serious. So Agate is just fun to have around. He is pretty fun in battle too, screaming in anger before dealing devastating blows to enemies. There is something about the skinny but macho dude with a sword the size of a door that just works.

His character really achieves greatness at the dragon chapter, though. That's when we learn he has always been broken. He made efforts to fix himself, and find a direction, but he never quite got there. The fear of losing people again and the shame for the disaster he wasn't able to prevent are too great. But new bonds form, Tita becomes his little sister, and Agate eventually heals.

Agate is pretty straightforward for a character. He works because he is just written well, being rather likable from the start and then just getting organic development until he becomes a well rounded character. I couldn't ask for more, really.

#3 Renne

Renne is one of the most raw things in this game. And I love what they did with her.

Chapter 3 is one of the best in this game, and it's not just because of the reveal with Renne at the end, but because she engineers the entire thing. From the letters, to the tank, to her own disappearance, it's all part of her Tea Party, which we discover was made just for fun, to add a little flavor to an otherwise boring gospel test. Renne is nothing but intense.

She is also a little girl, in every sense of the way. Like I said before, it's easy to design a kid character and tell the audience they are a genius to justify them acting like an adult. Renne does not act like an adult, ever. She is a genius alright, but her emotional growth is stunted, and she has been twisted into enjoying murder and bloodshed as if they are child's play. Even her theme of dolls and puppets alludes to the way she sees the world, a playground. Her only parental figure is a mecha, and everyone else are things she can break. The end result is one of the scarier characters in the game, like a horror movie villain. Her declarations of how she will gut the party members, her s-craft at the start of the battle (with the little girl voice saying "Ready or not, here I come!"), her emotional swings, it's all off-putting. Renne competes with Weissmann for the scariest villain in this game, because while Wiessmann tries hard to make a great presentation, Renne achieves it just by being who she is.

The character arc is not complete, of course. We just saw the beginning of what will be Renne's conflict phase, to be seen in the next few games. But damn, just what I saw already puts her at 3rd place. Can she beat the top two? Maybe, maybe not.

God Tier

1-
2-

Very High Tier

3- Renne
4- Agate
5- Joshua
6- Weissmann

High Tier

7- Kloe
8- Kevin
9- Nial
10- Tita
11- Zin
12- Anelace
13- Scherazard

Mid Tier

14- Dorothy
15- Dunan
16- Gilbert
17- Richard
18- Mogran
19- Cassius
20- Campanella
21- Kilika
22- Loewe
23- Amalthea
24- Maybelle

Low Tier

25- Bleublanc
26- Walter
27- Don
28- Luciola
29- Hans
30- Julia
31- Sieg
32- Cid
33- Mueller
34- Kurt

Bottom Tier

35- Kyle
36- Josette
37- Aina
38- Queen Alicia
39- Russel
40- Jill
41- Anton
42- Clem
43- Ricky

Unranked:

Estelle
Olivier

Mostly agree with the top section. Only real complaint is I didn't like Weissman much. He has several very good scenes (most notably the FC ending...I also like his discussion with Estelle before the last boss fight), but there's also a lot of times I just don't really care about him.

Agate probably doesn't make my top, but that's more because of how much I liked everyone else.

Think you might have Renne even higher than I did after just SC, even if only by a few places. (think I had her at like 6th at the time? It's hard to remember)

I thought a lot less of Renne than everyone else it seems...I was never a huge fan of her. I think Albedo permanently ruined psychopath characters for me

I liked Renne after SC but it wasn't until the later games that I thought she was a top-tier kinda character.

Estelle at 1 or riot.

Let's finish this.

#2 Olivier

Olivier is the funniest character in this game by a mile, and the rest of the cast can't even hope to compete.

This alone warrants a top 5 with no other explanation. I like comedy. Olivier is great comedy. I'm satisfied. Honestly, refer to the dozens of times I mentioned a joke by him in this two-game playthrough if you want to know my favorite jokes, because I have lost track. He is a pervert but in a way that just works, he is a bard (I love bards), he is annoying, he makes everyone else his Straight Men, whether they like it nor not.

But Olivier is also way more than meets the eye. And whenever the story needs it, he steps up and becomes a key party member, being good at reading people and saying the right things. He is Kevin, but without Kevin's sense of shame from being a priest. His diplomacy sequence with Kloe is the crowning achievement of that, when he plays two entire countries at the same time, just by saying the right things.

Olivier's character is difficult to analyse, though. When I was playing, I decided I would put him above Estelle if the game gave him a good character arc. The game cheated, though. Because Olivier is that rare example of a character whose arc was already finished before he entered the story. He already had his story with his family members and the chancellor, with whatever events made him decide something had to change. His struggles, his decision to take down his arch-nemesis, and probably the initial phases of his plan, it's all past events. Olivier is a protagonist of a previous story. Now, that character archetype is not necessarily bad. I know one amazing example in Durkon, from Order of the Stick. But Durkon works because there is an extended flashback sequence later in the story that shows what him made the man that he is. I still don't know what made Olivier who he is. I hope we learn it in future games. If we do, and it's truly great, he could end up above Estelle, because Estelle has a 10/10 character arc already shown on-screen. To be fair, it's still early in the series, and there is an entire Erebonia arc coming, so I'm hopeful this isn't the last we get of Olivier. Heck, we could get more in Sky 3rd.

One another note, I still don't get why he went to Liberl. Because while he ended up making a big political move in the end, that was a consequence of Orobouros's actions, which (I don't think) he could possibly predict. We know he went there to meet Cassius, but is it just that? Did Cassius promise to help him with his personal goals? Because I have a feeling he went there just hoping to form relationships with Liberians, thinking that one day, he will need a big alliance to take down his enemy. So rather than just going straight to an authority to ask for help when he needs it, he's playing the long game and making some real friends he can count on.

And during that time, he also got to be himself. The bard. Because I think the Olivier we saw for most of the game is really who he is, when he is not having to be a politician. Although the politician is also who he is, whether he likes it or not. But the bard is his true, childish, innocent self, the one he probably wants to become full time when all of this is done. So in the end, Olivier just went and had a good time. And so did I.

#1 Estelle

I'm not a writer. I'm not a specialist in writing, either. So don't take this seriously. But I'm someone who consumes a lot of fiction, so I have some opinions. If you ever asked me what are the most important things a writer needs to pay attention to, one of the things I would reply was this:

Nail the protagonist.

The protagonist is the person the audience will see the most, so they will inevitably set the tone of the story. The protagonist's actions will be the plot of the story. Their relationships, the dialogue of the story. Their personality, the comedy and the drama of the story. Therefore, for a story to be great, it needs the protagonist to be great. A bad protagonist with great supporting characters can give a good story, but they will hardly reach the same highs of a story whose protagonist serves it perfectly. Write a perfect protagonist and the world around them will write itself. I think. Again, I'm not a writer.

Trails in the Sky is an optimistic game. It's a game about a kingdom that wants to believe in a happy ending, about an organization (the Bracers) who want to protect the innocent. It has evil factions full of despicable people, but no matter what they do, they can't break the good guys' spirits. It has realistic geopolitics, but it believes in peace. It's a game that believes people can be redeemed for their actions, and that nihilism will be defeated by hope and love. At the core of all that, there is Estelle, who embodies those philosophies. Estelle is the sun that shines over the entire cast, keeps them hoping when there is no hope, shows them the path to redemption, shows them their own good parts when they themselves don't believe in those anymore. She even dismantles Weissmann's philosophy like it's made of wet paper. Of course her surname is Bright. She just shines.

The plot of SC is about redeeming Josh, and Estelle pulls that off with absolute mastery. The scene at the beach is perfect, not just because of the dialogue, but the build up to it. Estelle spent a lot of time doubting herself, but her love, her empathy, her own personal experiences with Josh, led to her understanding what he was feeling, and to be able to say what had to be said to get through him. Later on, she also got through Renne, although not as completely as Josh, but Renne was just a much bigger mountain to climb (and the job is still not over). And her optimism is so contagious she even inspired Josh to do the same thing with Loewe.

She also sets the tone of the story on a micro level. Because while Olivier is making (great) dirty jokes, Estelle is making the bulk of the story and the comedy, making chit chat with the people of Rolent, commeting on the places she visits, getting involved with every quest, making jokes about the silly things she sees. Like I said in the Kloe write-up, this game is all about it's slow, dilligent worldbuilding, and Estelle is the hard worker behind that.

And her arc is just great. Because while he is a shining sun from the start, she initially likes the maturity and the emotional intelligence to really affect the world around her. She is silly and childish, a classic shonen protagonist. It takes the journey, the pains she experiences and the positive influence of other people (mostly Josh), to show her what it really means to be a hero, and a person who improves the lives of others around her. She already wanted to, but she lacked the knowhow, and the restraint to know when it's a bad idea to interfere directly.

But in the meanwhile, we also get one of the funniest characters in this game, someone who consistently makes good quotes, who snarks at others, threatens to hit perverts with her staff, or just says childish things on good comedic timing.

Estelle is so good I fear for the future of this series because I don't know if it's even possible to repeat a character that good in the same series (though hey, we are off to a good start with Kevin). The next few arcs will happen at darker and more morally ambiguous places, including a separatist region and the setting's evil empire, so I imagine they will get edgier protagonists. Can this series work that tone out, too? We will see.

God Tier

1- Estelle
2- Olivier

Very High Tier

3- Renne
4- Agate
5- Joshua
6- Weissmann

High Tier

7- Kloe
8- Kevin
9- Nial
10- Tita
11- Zin
12- Anelace
13- Scherazard

Mid Tier

14- Dorothy
15- Dunan
16- Gilbert
17- Richard
18- Mogran
19- Cassius
20- Campanella
21- Kilika
22- Loewe
23- Amalthea
24- Maybelle

Low Tier

25- Bleublanc
26- Walter
27- Don
28- Luciola
29- Hans
30- Julia
31- Sieg
32- Cid
33- Mueller
34- Kurt

Bottom Tier

35- Kyle
36- Josette
37- Aina
38- Queen Alicia
39- Russel
40- Jill
41- Anton
42- Clem
43- Ricky

Thanks for reading. See you in Trails in the Sky 3rd.

I've enjoyed the four post-SC games I've played so far, but I don't think any future Trails will ever match up to SC for me because I just don't see how they could possibly overcome Sky's cast advantage, especially when it comes to Estelle

Thorn posted...

Estelle at 1 or riot.

ultraviolence averted

I think Sky has the weakest cast in the series with only a few standouts honestly

Which isn't to say I dislike the cast, just that both Crossbell and Cold Steels casts are better on average.

Sky definitely has my favorite cast in the series. There are times when the other games do specifically the rpg main party group-of-friends dynamic better than Sky, but I also think that's more or less by design because Sky is supposed to be primarily focused on Estelle and Joshua.

Also I don't know if this is what you meant, but I think that the later protagonists in the series have felt somewhat different to Estelle. The series is still going to maintain more or less the same philosophy, but I don't think that necessarily carries over to them trying to make Estelle 2.0 with their protagonists.

(There are some ways in which the games seemingly do try to mimic the past though...I'm still wondering how many new ways the series is going to come up with to have us play as bracers without actually having us play as bracers.)

pyresword posted...

(There are some ways in which the games seemingly do try to mimic the past though...I'm still wondering how many new ways the series is going to come up with to have us play as bracers without actually having us play as bracers.)

Well the problem is that Bracers are literally RPG Protagonists: The Guild. They designed an institution that's description is literally "do everything you normally do in a video game".

So they kind of have to keep justifying why you are basically just copying the Bracers homework every time they make a non-Bracer protagonist.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Estelle is so good I fear for the future of this series because I don't know if it's even possible to repeat a character that good in the same series (though hey, we are off to a good start with Kevin). The next few arcs will happen at darker and more morally ambiguous places, including a separatist region and the setting's evil empire, so I imagine they will get edgier protagonists. Can this series work that tone out, too? We will see.

Don't worry about that, Crossbell also nails the protagonist.

Cold Steel..eh

I think I'm being kind of hyperbolic, but my point is Estelle rises above the usual MC because how well she merges with the plot. So I imagine this is difficult to repeat.

But there are other ways to make a great cast. The "group dynamic" pyre mentioned is also another thing I enjoy, for example.

I would argue that Crossbell's MC echoes the themes of the plot in a similar way

_stingers_ posted...

Don't worry about that, Crossbell also nails the protagonist.

Cold Steel..eh

Heavily disagree on both fronts. Lloyd is fine personality wise but is the most boring protagonist story wise in the series, and Rean is one of the most interesting and is heavily misunderstood by people that don't pay attention to dialogue.

I've only played CS1 and 2 so my opinion is open to change but so far Rean is really boring

But I'm a Lloyd fanboy idgaf

Lloyd and Rean are both a lot more uneven protagonists compared to Estelle and Kevin, IMO. The Sky duo are just consistently great as the leads while Lloyd and Rean are way more up-and-down and even then their ups generally don't reach Estelle. Peak Lloyd > Peak Rean IMO even though Rean as a character is more complex.

th3l3fty posted...

ultraviolence averted

for now