Board 8 > Trails in the Sky Playthrough Topic

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9kvtsdIZTQ

ZeldaTPLink posted...

because I find out Little Girl's basic attack is AoE

I repeat.

Her basic attack is AoE.

This is not a drill.

REAL

Titas the best I was a tita abuser no shame

Tita is an amazing character against all regular enemies and the few horde style bosses in the game and absolutely terrible against every single target boss in the game (which is, unfortunately, the majority).

I rate her pretty highly because the majority of fighting you do in the game is against regular enemies but a lot of people think she's terrible because she can't really pull her own weight in boss fights.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Surely Estelle will learn

are you quite certain about this

ok I've figured it out.

Estelle: Evade 2 - HP 2/Mind 2/EP Cut 1 - Action 2/Impede 2
Joshua: Action 2 - EP 2/Cast 2/Blind/Attack 2 - HP 2
Tita: EP Cut 2 - Action 1 - Petrify/Haze/Eagle Eye - HP 2

Estelle keeps the previous setup. I don't see any room for improvement here.

Josh goes for the max time set this time. Attack 2 also gives him some good single-target power. HP 2 helps balance it, and really, it's good on everyone.

Remember when Josh was using earth wall and chaos brand? Those are Tita's jobs now. She's bad with bosses? Give her support arts that are good versus bosses. Her only AoE art is the terrible Stone Impact, but who cares, she's got AoE basic attack, which can also petrify. HP2 is mandatory for her survival, and Action is mandatory period. To be replaced by Action 2 when I get enough sepith.

Tita seems cool in theory but in practice I've never gotten much mileage out of her, her damage doesn't end up being all that great in my experience and she's reliant on luck with status quartz to really make a difference beyond that AoE blind craft being genuinely good, but she's bad against bosses and also very frail.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

this is Kloe's letter's doing, isn't it? Btw, I have been spoiled on the fact both Kloe and Olivier are princes of their respective countries. Before you throw rocks on me, the problem is that you can't google the character for info on crafts without that spoiler appearing at the top of the wiki page.

Eh, this isn't too much of a spoiler really, especially Kloe. When she has a pet Royal Symbol of the Kingdom and calls in the royal guard you kind of figure it out immediately. Olivier's status is a lot more ambiguous but it's not exactly surprising that he ends up being someone important, I think I had predicted as much by the end of the Haken Gate section where he first joins up.

Tita's Smoke Cannon craft is straight up busted against mobs. Comes with a huge AoE Blind? Can add Petrify or whatever other status quartz you want to it? lol. But yeah, you can just make her a support caster for bosses. She's not as good at it as others because of her EP pool but that's usually not really an issue.

Zeiss music the best.

You'd hardly be the first person to play through the series knowing Olivier's identity anyway, seeing as a lot of people play Cold Steel first. Does sort of suck, but eh.

But yeah Kloe's identity isn't really a huge spoiler anyway.

Kloe's identity I kinda had figured out from the beginning, but Olivier's blindsided me somehow

I would be scared shitless to use a Wiki for anything in a game like this that has 10+ sequels, especially when everything you'd ever need to know can be found either in your in-game notebook or in the spoiler-free FAQs and Steam guides that exist.

I don't even use the wikis now and we're 'only' 3 games behind because I don't want spoilers for Reverie and Kuro lol

Yeah, I don't use wikis for this series (or any story based series, like Phoenix Wright) for basically these reasons. The risk of getting spoiled is not worth whatever I was going to look up. I'm more comfortable with using a FAQ (while trying not to look at the table of contents), or searching message boards here if I have to, although both of those have their risks too. I'm willing to risk missing stuff in order to not be spoiled (and modern games are better about missables than older ones anyway).

That does sometimes mean I don't understand certain mechanics and strategies and things like that. I guess the further I get into a game, I may be more lenient about checking the boards here, since risk of getting spoiled goes down.

I tried to be pretty thorough in my playthrough of the Sky 1 and 2, but I did miss a few secret quests which meant missing out on max bracer level. I'm okay with that - still better than using a guide.

it's frankly a miracle how I've been able to dodge spoilers for this series

I don't really go out of my way to avoid looking at wikis for this series.

Idk, my attitude is that outside of dedicated mystery stories, if a plot point fails to land because I know it's coming then it probably would have failed to land regardless.

pyresword posted...

Idk, my attitude is that outside of dedicated mystery stories, if a plot point fails to land because I know it's coming then it probably would have failed to land regardless.

It has nothing to do with whether it lands without it or not and everything to do with you only being able to experience it the way the author intended one time.

A plot can be good with foreknowledge, sure, but you only get one shot at letting a story teller manipulate you the way they intend. A story works by the author crafting an experience, and anything that gets in the way of the intended experience works against the experience itself.

If I wanted a bullet point list of everything that happened in the game, or in the movie, or in the book, why would I bother to go to all the trouble of reading, watching, or playing it myself? It's the experience as the author intends it I'm after, after all. Better to give the author the benefit of the doubt and let them actually, you know, tell the story as it is suppose to be told. I can experience the story with foreknowledge as many times as I want. I cannot experience the story without foreknowledge ever again.

I mean yeah I'm going to try and avoid getting spoiled for that reason. That was more to say that for me personally the downside is usually small even if I do get spoiled.

ok Tita's grandpa is definitely on the spectrum. Not sure if they were tried to depict it when they made the game back then, but they ended up getting super close to it

the black orbment shuts down all the orbal power in the city. My guess is that it's some kind of anti-orbment, with the ability to nullify other orbments. It did a similar thing in the climax of Ruan.

orbal power can't work on a device that is designed to counter it, so the professor has a revolutionary idea: invent the combustion engine

I guess it makes sense that since this civilization got a huge technological boost from magic rocks, they skipped some of the fundamental discoveries the real world had

we find a computer, which reveals some lore of the game. nice

Estelle carrying gasoline is a top 10 scariest moment in videogames

calling it now: the mcguffing got stolen while we went out to look for materials. Ah, never mind.

and now everybody is going out except the prof. Perfect.

apparently every single battle in the next area is against a single enemy. which is clearly good game design when the newest party member specializes in AoE (not)

I do a quest involving getting a cat to follow the party so it can identify a cigarette thief. These keep getting more and more creative

then we run into a quest to protect a broken caravan from a horde of evil bunnies, and Tita blinds 4 of them in the first turn with smoke cannon. Nice.

I meet a "boss" that is made of 4 enemies. I used "" because Tita blinds 3 and petrifies 1 in the first turn. this is ridiculous

The normal enemies come in small numbers, but there are a ton of monsters in chests, which usually are represented by large mobs. That's when the carnage starts.

you only need to get around the fact she dies on two hits by anything, I guess

scent +haze is a broken combo. the first quartz give you a ton of magic but makes enemies more likely to see you, the other one gives you more magic and makes you invisible. And the game prioritizes the effect that benefits you

Tita is not really better than the other characters, but she sticks out because this is one of those games (i. e. FF6) where magic > everything, which lends to less gameplay variety, so she sticks out like a sore thumb, being good at something other elemental wizardry. the "something" being physical AoE and status effects. I've had 5 characters so far whose main tactic was spamming aerial or white gehenna. Suddenly there's a new way to kill things.

I find an acessory called long barrel, which increases weapons range. the crippling status now comes all the way from the other side of the map

I go the the border to Calvard Republic. The last time I was at a border was the Erebonian Empire. The mood here is VERY laid back, really different from the previous one. Which makes sense since they were at war with the empire not long ago

I arrive at Elmo village, an idyllic place in an otherwise industrial region. Typical.

Tita is a mobbing goddess and the disrespect she gets from minmaxers is crazy

Tita carried me so if you want to use her you definitely can

I mean it's not like I choose who to use, I just gotta make the most of who I have.

Love using Tita. A lot of my choice in character use stems from multi-hitting on septium turns. Even after I've already past the point of needing septium in games, like NG+ runs, I still base my strats around getting lots and lots and lots of gems flying out of enemies at once.

I tend to die more often than I should =P

while Tita fixes a water pump, Josh and Estelle leave the village to go rescue yet another helpless npc who decided to commit suicide by walking in monster infested place

at least this game is realistic in the sense that it makes clear anyone without superpowers should never leave npc towns (and that in such a world, you'd need said powerful people to escort travellers). But the irony is that those people keep doing anyway

and ofc the girl in question is Ms. Plucky Photographer

Josh and Estelle kill one of the monsters in the cutscene which is lame because I'm not getting and exp or sepith from it

nvm, the actual battle had an extra 2, to a total of 6. Where is Tita when you need her.

Estelle nearly kills the girl after saving her. Final villain material right here

Tita: "Estelle, I have something I want to ask you. Are you and Joshua married?"

Estelle.EXE has crashed and will restart.

this ship is good stuff. Most videogames shy away from doing real romance with playable characters, maybe because they know romance is hard to do well. At most, they just tease and tease and tease. Here there is tease, but it's the kind of tease that is clearly leading to a conclusion, in-story.

I recently read a review for the TV show Andor, praising it for how much it does the hard, dirty, character work. How it builds and builds for a long time before delivering its pay-offs. This game is exactly that. Barely nothing has happened so far, but we are building. The romance, and all other character things. Not many people have patience for this kind of story, but I think the secret is to make the building itself entertaining. And with characters like Estelle, it certainly is.

it also leads to a scene where Joshua accidentally sees Estelle in a hot spring, because the Japanese. Can't. Help. Themselves.

old lady is sharp: "why are you so mad? this unisex poll is made for family members to relax together". I see what you did there.

Estelle and Josh adopt Tita as their sister. This is cute.

the hot spring gives everyone max CP. ok, where do I find a shining pom

The lab OBVIOUSLY got attacked while we were in the hot springs. That's such a basic plot

and Agate is here again, to get mad that the protagonists got there before he did. lol get fucked

and the prof was kidnapped. ofc

military woman asks the bracers to stop investigating and Agate shuts her down mid sentence. Imagine asking Agate not do something

The irony is that the last time someone did that in-game, it was Agate, asking the protags not to investigate the orphanage fire

they kick Tita out of the party because things have gotten dangerous. Well excuse me, weren't they before?

Agate: "TODAY, people". lol. Agate is half the time an asshat and half the time the guy who says exactly what the audience is thinking

So much for having 4 party members, though.

for a moment of horror I look at my number of silver sepith and see a 999. Is it a hard limit? but then after the next battle it goes above 1000. false alarm

Agate has two s-crafts. one single target and one AoE. Very nice

we are ready to go rescue the prof. here's the line up

Estelle: Evade 2 - HP 2/Mind 2/ EP Cut 2 - Action 2/Impede 2 Nothing new here.

Josh: Action 2 - EP 2/Attack 2/Deathblow 1/Eagle Eye - HP 2. Not much different from before. A little worse, in fact, because Scent is harder to pull off without Tita carrying Haze too, so no Clock Up Ex. I could optimize more, but not without making Agate a donkey for Haze and EE, and I feel bad for him. Though I do get Chaos Brand on both characters. And Deathblow is neat.

Agate: Attack 2 - Evade 2/EP Cut 2 - Hit 3 - Action 2/Seal. Agate's orbment is ass, so besides a decent fire AoE, everything exists to make him better at wacking things with a sword. Evade 2 makes him a little less squishy.

Agate is the stereotypical anime tough guy, but you can't say it's badly done. I love watching him yell in rage as he raises his own CP then makes unrealistic sword attacks

the above setup gets radically changed as soon as I find Mind 3 in a chest and I'm not going to bother posting again

I finish off the bad guys on top of the tower. they are very tough, arguably as tough as their protags, but they lack that tactical oomph that would make them non-npcs. Also s-crafts. Those are kind of a big deal.

We almost rescue the prof but Tita shows up out of nowhere and spoils a perfect plan from Agate by trying to shoot down the bag guys' ship, and gets him to take a bullet for her a bonus. Oh, he's gonna be so mad

He slaps her in the face. The man just slapped Tita in the face. The prosecution recommends the death penalty.

He's right tho. The problem isn't Tita trying to help. It's her forcing Agate to stop what he's doing to save her. She went up being a liability instead of an asset.

he ends up giving her a motivational speech. Agate best tsundere.

And now Agate is dying from poison that was in the bullet he took for Tita. That girl is going to have PTSD

Fortunately the last party member, Mr. Huge Monk Dude, is here, and he'll help carry Agate to the city

The doctor doesn't know how to cure the poison. So we are going to the church. That's where the real science is.

also thank you, Quartz FAQ, but telling me when to unequip those rare quartz from Agate so he doesn't make them inacessible by being in a coma

I never unequip before party members leave I can't let them go on their own naked :(

Later Trails games definitely auto unequip party members when they leave, as long as their quartz is equipable. I don't remember if the first Sky game did that, though.

Fiop posted...

Later Trails games definitely auto unequip party members when they leave, as long as their quartz is equipable. I don't remember if the first Sky game did that, though.

They do

Yeah they definitely automatically unequip gear and quartz when a party member leaves in Sky.

They do in FC but not in SC which drove me fucking insane on the regular

Xiahou_Shake posted...

They do in FC but not in SC which drove me fucking insane on the regular

Do they not do it with quartz or something?
I definitely remember them doing it with equipment, at least, in SC. But to be fair I don't remember the precise details because its been so long since I played Sky now.

I dunno about SC, but in FC the rule seems to be if a character leaves for a long period, they drop everything, if they only leave for a dungeon or two, they keep they stuff.

Though Olivier in chapter 1 did drop everything even though he wasn't out for long. But Tita and Agate in chapter 3 don't seem to behave like that.

there is a quest in Zeiss about recovering a book from the hot springs and bringing it back to the factory archives. The reward, accodring to gamefaqs, is Impede 3, a very useful quartz. However, once you complete the story events at the hot spring, the librarian who is supposed to receive the book is traumatized and decides to take a break from her job, only returning near the end of the chapter. That means the only way to complete this quest and get Impede 3 early is to go to the hot spring, pick up the book, go back to Zeiss, complete the quest then go to the hot spring again to continue the story. There are also other book quests that are unlocked then, which you also must complete before going to the hot spring.

Although this game has fun quests, their availability is obnoxious as fuck.

to save Agate, we need a special moss that only grows in the back of a deadly cave. Typical.
Zin, the two meter tall monk, joins the party! 4 party members at last, been a long time since I've had that.

no seriously, his in-game sprite is like twice as tall ad the other party members. it's hilarious

Google says he's 1.98m tall, so I was close

Zin sports a metric ton of HP, a metric ton of Defense, and an incredibly shitty orbment. Like, that's even worse than Agate and Tita. It comes with a free Action 2, though, which is awesome because those are expensive

my orbment setup is the same as last time, so I won't post it.

Estelle keeps her water/wind spellcaster setup, now with Mind 3 and Cast 2 in place of Mind 2 and HP 2. A little more squishy, but casts faster and hits harder.

Josh gets a time + fire set with spiral flare and white gehenna, and attack 3 boosting his physicals. deathblow is also very useful, since he one hit kills enemies 20% of the time.

Tita keeps the same set as before, with earth wall and chaos brand, because she is not that useful for arts. Her EP Cut 2 is downgraded to 1 so I can give the better one to Zin, whose max EP is lower. She also carries Haze so Joshua can use Scent, giving him fire AoE. Earth Lance is also an option for Tita.

Zin gets:

Defense 2 - HP 2/EP Cut 2 - Action 2 - Shield 2 - Poison

This is a wall. He can take hits, and I've noticed he has taunt too, a move I've been ignoring all game that may be finally worth using. He also uses earth wall, which is a little redundant but you know what, too much earth wall isn't bad. His AoE is stone impact, the worst in the game, but I feel like I won't need it. Poison is not great, but I want Tita to have Petrify since she hits more enemies.

Everyone has Action 2, of course.

Zin's crafts lets him increase his own stats, heal himself or other party members, taunt enemies to attack him or confuse enemies to make them attack each other. There's "support" written all over. I'm not complaining

I read the book I was ranting about earlier and it's an interesting piece about woodpecker ecology. Those devs really liked writing random stuff

Josh learns a new scraft, Black Fang, which is basically ridiculous.

nothing screams overkill more than Tita blinding 7 enemies in the first turn. Yes, she is niche, but that niche is "chest enemies no longer exist"

Tita obtains a new gun, G Impact, which increases her attack, but more important, are of effect.

I don't know what "You yella?" is supposed to mean or why enemies get so pissed when Zin says it, but it works.

this cave is a maze.

we find the Healing Herb of Plot, and I brace myself for the inevitable boss. it comes.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/2/3/4/AAO9CbAAEULi.jpg

Estelle has the same reaction as mine

Zin's s-craft is cool. Not very strong, but cool.

this penguin was the tankiest enemy in the game so far. massive defensive stats and could self heal at will. Also immune to all status I tried to use. I almost lose because I just couldn't outdamage him, until I said screw it and just had all 4 character spam arts. I barely made it

We give the medicine to Agate and wait for him to heal. then we get a sequence where, in his fever, he mistakes Tita for some Mischa. Who is clearly some female love interest or a sister who died when he was young and drove him to a path of edginess and badassery.

Zin leaves in an airship. he has the decency to leave his quartz with us, though

Photographer girl shows up with a photo of a military facility she took for funzies, and the characters all notice there is an airship flying over it. They make it sounds like it's super hard to see, which is not at all. Those people need to play some Phoenix Wright some time.

the ship is from the bad guys, which means I'm back to suspecting Colonel Richard.

we arrive at Leiston Fortress, where no one is guarding the door. Because the plot wants us to go in, I suppose. Convenient.

the guy in charge is a dude named Major Cid, who is a kind of serious, no fun allowed dude. I trust him more than Colonel Richard.

the door to the fortress doesn't work, which suggests the McGuffin is there. Shenanigans are afoot!

we are invading the country's most tight military base, by sneaking into cargo of an airship and using a device that blocks the military's bioscanners, which the professor has just conveniently happened to invent.

also Agate returns to the party, replacing Zin.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

I don't know what "You yella?" is supposed to mean or why enemies get so pissed when Zin says it, but it works.

"You yellow?" with yellow being slang for a coward.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Estelle has the same reaction as mine

p e n g u i n

the ultimate lifeform of zemuria

ZeldaTPLink posted...

nothing screams overkill more than Tita blinding 7 enemies in the first turn. Yes, she is niche, but that niche is "chest enemies no longer exist"

Yesssssss

ZeldaTPLink posted...

we are invading the country's most tight military base, by sneaking into cargo of an airship and using a device that blocks the military's bioscanners, which the professor has just conveniently happened to invent.

I am much excite for the start of the next update

Love Antoine~

I advance to bracer rank 2 and gain an acessory that grants immunity to all status except KOs. I give it to Estelle, along with another acessory that grants immunity to instant kills. no status will get in the way of my spellcasting

I finish the librarian quest. Using a faq to figure out the last (rather difficult) two riddles. At the end of it, a letter says the riddles were created to pass on a powerful quartz to a person who proved their intelligence. Err...

Whatever, I take Impede 3 and give it to Estelle so she unlocks Aero Storm. I don't need intelligence, I have Estelle.

Guild woman hands me a map of the most secure military base in the country. Estelle asks how the hell she has it. She says "the guild knows things. It's better if you don't know"

She also says "it's absolutely crucial we don't ruin relations with the army. RIGHT, AGATE" Agate: "sure but if I meet the bad guys they are screwed, I've been chasing them for so long they'll be offended if I don't kick their asses". lol

Agate opposes bringing Tita. I tend to agree with him. This is insane. She's 12. However she is the only one who can use the miracle device that lets us enter the otherwise impenetrable base. This is massive child abuse, though.

we learn some royal guardsmen in the capital have been arrested. Coincidentally, the black mask guys who have been the game's antagonists disguised themselves as royal guardsmen. However, they seem to be using the military's intelligence base. The politics in this game has gotten complicated and hard to crack, which is great. I'm at a loss of who is evil here.

yep, Mischa is his sister. Though she doesn't seem to be dead, unless he's lying

I feel like we are about to strike a win against those black masks, because there's no way they have a escape plan against a "bracers invade the pentagon" situation

Like, an airship ready to take off from carnelia tower? that's realistic, anyone can go to carnelia tower. But not the place we are about to invade

the scene of the 4 trying to fit a cargo box is hilarious

Major Cid is a Cat Person. That puts him at least on the Neutral alignment scale. If he were a dog person I'd be more sure about trusting him, though.

(evil people are the ones who don't like animals)

using a cat as a decoy is a clever touch, though

Richard is with the prof. I knew it! He dunnit!

Cid is also bad. I guess it wasn't a double subversion, everyone in this building is evil.

so the royal guards have been set up, and the intelligence are the bad guys. the plot unfolds

Cid stays alone with the prof, which is a terrible position to be in when protagonists are coming and your boss, who is stronger than you, leaves. That means you have been assigned to the position of chapter boss, to be defeated next scene.

I just realized the person Agate fought when he was chasing the bad guys in the woods, Lorence, is a guy. Their hair thingies made me think it was a girl.

So we recover the supercomputer, but the bad guys have left with the mcguffin. Because, like all mcguffins, it must be used to power up the Doomsday Device during the final battle

the alarm fires and a billion soldiers are chasing us. I wonder if they can see us through the haze quartz, though. Now that I think of it, the Haze quartz might be the most powerful intelligence asset in the world of Trails. It has Stone Mask levels of effectiveness

wow I was only joking but haze actually works. None of the soldiers see us. Lmao. Though the front door is locked so we still have to find an alternative exist.

suddenly, a ! mark appears over one of them and he sees us. "Half works", I guess. Wonder what triggered it

Tita's smoke cannon can solo the country's army. I'm not joking

With all doors locked, we find one to the prison, where the bosses of the previous chapters are all locked in. What a coincidence

I was thinking we were going to do a prison break out but the main characters are too lawful for that. Lame.

Cid is actually secretely on our side. So both my predictions turned out to be right. Cool.

Mogran is also a good guy, despite being a dickhead. I figured that out when the game started comparing him unforavorably to Richard. That's where you place a twist

it turns out continuing to be a military state once war is over tends to lead to corruption, and coup attempts. This game is realistic

Cid is ready to face prison to do the right thing. Good character

he shows us a secret door to an aqueduct, where I assume the chapter boss awaits

Agate, TIta and the prof have been compromised, so they will go into hiding. Meanwhile Estelle and Josh will move on with the game's plot

that said I'm not sure I agree Tita is that compromised and the writing is kind of forcing it. I'm pretty sure Estelle and Josh ran into the intelligence division guys more often that she did

No chapter boss, apparently. Unless you count those two door guards. I don't

Chapter 3: McGuffins and Whodunnits beaten

I said before I felt like we were about to get a major win against the bad guys because they wouldn't see us coming. Well, they didn't, but they were already leaving when we arrived. Final tally: We rescued the prof and retrivied the super computer, but bad guys have already used those to figure out how to use the McGuffin, aka the Gospel, in their incoming Doomsday Plan. Everything is about to collide at Grancel, and the Josh and Estelle have been given a mission to warn the queen before it's too late.

meanwhile, Agate and Tita are on the run, after dropping all their armor and orbments, which would probably help them surviving

between chapter scene: Princess Leia, I mean, Kloe, escapes the Empire, I mean the Intel Div. Her trust royal guardwoman, Julia, does a You Shall not Pass and stays behind to fight the enemy. But it is moot, as Richard catches up with her with an airship

meanwhile, we cut to the man. The legend. The bard among bards. Olivier himself.

A man from the empire meets him, and after much annoyance, reveals what is probably Cassius was in the empire this whole time, investigating attacks on the erebonian guild branches, by someone named jaegers. This keeps getting more convoluted.

The man asks Olivier to go back to the empire since shit is about to go down, but Olivier is having none of it. Why, you don't make a mess without inviting him!

Final Chapter: "Cassius aint here so that ponytail girl will have to do it" begins

We receive the region's gym badge, and airship tickets to Grancel. The protagonists like walking but that would take TWO WHOLE MINUTES of gameplay, and that's if they use haze. The kingdom is at stake, so there is no time to waste. We will go there by flying. Once we do some groceries and armor shopping and talk to every npc in the city to see dialogue changes, of course.

To clarify, "Jaegers" are basically what the Trails world calls mercenary groups.

the military held the ship we were going to take, so we are really just taking the land road. That's two whole minutes less to save the queen.

military arrives. GTFO

Estelle wants to ask Josh out. This is cute.

there will be a fighting tournament. perfect timing

the bad guys are smart. they order to arrest any bracer who tries to enter the capital. But professor Alba shows up from nowhere and vouches for us

downside is that we now have an escort who cant fight

the royal villa off limits. which is a problem cuz that's where we were going to

welcome to Grancel. where people get to enjoy the GDP produced by the other 4 major areas

The music is the same as the school's

Ok I'm mistaken, the royal villa isn't where the royalty lives, they just go there. The castle at Grancel is where they live. I wonder why the army is bothering to block the villa, though.

we find the fisherman's guild, led by Mr. Fisher, which seems more like a secret society of fishermen who rule over all bodies of water than just a mere guild

we arrive at the guild, where a bunch of seemingly important characters are leaving for the tournament.

we report to the guild on whats going on and leave to go to the castle.

there are no quests. Outrageous!

we obviously can't enter the castle. Silly kids, the way to sneak into a castle is by jumping on the moat, swimming to the corner of the area and entering a small hole that leds into the royal gardens, where about 6 guards are running in circles. Then you get past them and meet the princess.

Duke Idiot is running the country since the Queen is sick. And since he is well, an idiot, Colonel Richard is the one actually in charge. Of Course.

We enter the coliseum, to watch some fights, because all obvious plot progression avenues are closed.

The ongoing match is Bracers with Unique Sprites and Animated Faces vs Generic Soldier Squad

It's a massacre.

I'm particularly awed by the Bracers' ability to move backwards to a more favorable position and then attack in the same turn. That's a skill my party has yet to gain access to.

Next is a team of 4 generic lowlifes from Ruan vs... Zin. Just Zin. He's so cool he came without a team.

I feel sorry for the generic lowlifes.

Zin gets 4 turns for each turn those guys get. Doesn't make sense, but it's not like he needs it either, his stats are completely busted compared to theirs. Then he uses a kamehameha, which he definitely couldn't do when he was a party member. I'm calling management.

so the winner of the tournament gets to visit the palace. thats our plot hook. We need to convince Zin to let us join his "team" since applications for the tournament are closed.

Josh prefers the simpler plan of sending non-protagonists, though. Josh, that has zero chance of working.

we go meet the non-protagonists, and before we can say anything, they suggest my plan.

... they know.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/2/9/AAO9CbAAEUi5.jpg

Estelle is HYPED, though. And that's a lot of birds.

still no quests and I'm definitely rioting. Are you telling me I'm gonna be stuck on Bracer Rank 2 for the rest of the game? Lame.

We go into the bar looking for Zin, and the music stops. A piano is playing

HE

is back

whether you like it or not.

he does play a mean piano, tbf

and once again, he attaches himself to the party like a leech

He teases Estelle x Josh and she hits him so hard he won't wake up

the guard at Calvard's embassy entrance is super chill. It's nice to have a neighbor you weren't at war with in recent history

npc dialogue has been pretty boring since the chapter started because all everyone talks about is the main plot. Which they know less about than the protagonists. So it is a bunch of "I can't believe the royal guard is bad!". Which is repetitive.

I'm exploring the overworld to look for Zin. There are some huge crocodile enemies that have 1400 hp, can kill a character in one hit and call for backup. I think I'm a little overwhelmed

they give a ton of xp though, which means the game acknolwedges I'm underleved. I think i'll grind here for a while

Joshua learns a skill named "Evil Eye". Those crocodiles have messed with the wrong kids

Evil Eye is very good.

I just gained like 2 levels in 15 minutes. Too much Haze leads to being underleved, I suppose

Zin comes to rescue us from a mob. He is lv 33 and we are lv 26. lmao

Zin accepts the team up. But we are short one person for a 4-man party. Estelle says it loudly: "Is there not anyone who can join us?"

Bad idea, Estelle. Because that's the cue for the piano to start playing.

Zin can tell Olivier uses guns just by observing the way his eyes move. Wow.

On the next day, the party meets up. Zin suggests we grind. I aint gonna try to argue with the man. when the guy 7 levels above yours says grind, you grind.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/7/3/0/AAO9CbAAEUi6.jpg

I think thats the most sepith i'll ever get from a single fight in this game

done grinding. got just 2 more levels, but xp gain is starting to get pitiful. Also found Defense 3 and Shield 3 in chests which is nice

Zin's training routine must have been completely insane if he actually got to lv 33 here

I'd guess he meditated very intensely under a waterfall, but the only waterfall in this kingdom is on the other side of the map

Now to figure out where to put 24 quartz.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

the fisherman's guild, which seems more like a secret society of fishermen who rule over all bodies of water than just a mere guild

the mark of a Trails player

The endgame is approaching so I'm bingeing it harder. Will probably take a small break once FC ends

Small, because this story is great and I want to see the end of it.

Alright, i've built the tournament winning setup. Redundancy is the keyword here. Only Estelle can cast Aero Storm, but Olivier gets Aerial too. Both Estelle and Olivier have La Teara for healing. Josh has the entire time art list, but Olivier has White Gehenna too. Both Estelle and Josh get Spiral Flare. Everyone has Action 2 (Josh has Action 3). Both Josh and Estelle have Attack 3, though they each have one defensive quartz (HP2 and Evade 2). Both Estelle and Olivier have Mind 3 for maximum magic damage. I made both the quartz shop and the equipment shop a richer (everyone has the best weapon and armor available). And Zin? He has Earth Wall, and a setup build for maximum tankiness (Defense 3, HP 2, Shield 2). He spams "You Yella" while the other 3 murder everything on sight.

the first opponents for the tournament match are more goons from Ruan (the least weak ones). They come to provoke us before the match. It fails because Estelle decides to be nice to them and that ruins their mood.

our waiting room has two teams we are not going to fight now, including "Non-Playable Bracers" and two groups of generic soldiers. Meaning there are two groups of non-generic opponents in the other room, waiting to beat the soldiers down

I love how they keep calling it the "no holds-barred tournament" over and over. For emphasis.

Non-Playable Bracers slaughter yet another group of generic soldiers

watching civilians wipe the floor with military in public is satisfying, ngl

Next is Playable Bracers and a Bard vs Ruan Bandits. I win, but one of them lands an insta kill attack on Zin before going down, which wastes 200 CP. Danmit.

Next is the Capua family, as a twist. This gun be gud.

Because the Duke is basically a child who probably pulled some straws to make it happen. Likely in exchange of some actual state powers given to Richard

And the last mystery opponent is Lorence from the intelligence team. If Agate breaks into the arena just to fight him I wont be surprised

What is the good in having an army if individual spies are just physically stronger? Just give whatever training you are giving to the spies to the army too then.

Josh keeps getting flashbacks whenever that guy shows up

we are ambushed by reporter dude, who wants an interview. Not after we saved the country 4 times, but after we decided to join a fighting tournament and reach the semifinals.

Estelle demands food for it, though.

We exchange info. The way this game uses the press is pretty cool.

The guys we just beat give us a key to the sewers, which conveniently has monsters slightly stronger than the ones we fought yesterday. Time for more grinding

the sewers are rather small and boring and I'm moving back to the tournament. Gained a level, at least

the sky bandits softly blackmail us. thats the price for not staging a prison break earlier. Either way, we aint fighting them now

we are fighting Non-Playable Bracers, which means the Sky Bandits are gonna be used to show how strong Lorence is

Kyle, the bandit, is surprisingly chill.

not making the same mistake twice (saving CP) The next opponents are going to eat s-crafts for breakfast

Zin Taunt is absolutely OP. Everyone just keeps hitting him for 0 damage.

so is Josh's AT Delay

and the rest is just spamming whatever strong AoE art I have and watching HP bars shrink

in classic anime tournament arc fashion, the bad guys make it to the finals against the protagonists

The Press returns with more info, though the info is kind of whatever.

One of the reporters' names is Noticia, which means News in Portuguese/Spanish

and another sewer key. Yay for more grinding!

while we were fighting, the military has managed to estabilish a night curfew and assign people to patrol the local newspaper so reporters don't get too brave. Fascism works fast in this universe

Anelace continues to call us newbies after we mopped the floor with her npc ass. She should at least wait until she becomes a playable character (I know shes playable in SC)

We get a mysterious letter asking us to go to the cathedral and Josh tries to convince Estelle to let him go check it out alone. Unfortunately for him, Estelle rolls a Nat 20 in Insight.

Ah, a videogame guard stealthing minigame. Classic. I hate those.

the game removes some guards whenever I fail though, which is an interesting, if humilliating, anti-frustration measure. I'd wager I also lose some EP for that

It's Julia Schwarz, asking us to do the thing we were already going to do. She does give us a letter that might open some doors, though

And we have another cute character moment, where Josh vows to reveal his past once the Plot ends, while Estelle vows to reveal she just wants to fuck him. I don't think that's gonna work, particularly because the Plot is not ending anytime soon.

And off to another wierdly placed sewer dungeon crawl

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Anelace continues to call us newbies after we mopped the floor with her npc ass. She should at least wait until she becomes a playable character (I know shes playable in SC)

I played trails 2 like a year after trails 1 and I forgot anelace was even in the first one lol. I thought she was a cool new character

She seems fine, but in FC they clearly gave her some barebones characterization.

at least she has that ribbon, best ribbon in the series

Round 2 at the sewers. This one has tougher enemies and beter items to find. It also has an unlockable path to the previous section. That makes the map huge though, almost impossible to navigate without using an online map. And the map shows there's a third area to open! But I also get to eliminate two boss monsters which is great because that's the only semblance of quests in this chapter so far

Now everyone is lv 31, except Zin, who is still 33

The game crashes while I'm saving after finishing this long dungeon and I nearly fall into despair, but it manages to save the game before crashing. Phew

Time to destroy Lorence and win the tournament

Estelle and Josh are going to stroll around the coliseum before the match and I think that's a terrible idea

One of non-playable bracers reveals he was also briefly brainwashed at some point. Well he doesn't know, but I do because it's the same thing thats happened to other characters

the mayors have been invited to the dinner party. It is now 200% more evil

Lorence and his team are a tough fight. But excuse me, do you have a minute to hear about our Lord and Savior, Earth Wall?

I use clock up ex on Zin and have him spam earth wall, then I just focus s-crafts on the minions to destroy Lorence's action economy, so even if he's worth about 3 members of my team, I still have 4

Ngl I was half expecting Lorence to just beat us in a cutscene. Since he's the villain and all

And... it's revealed he was holding back. Ofc

we get a scene with the villains bragging about their evil plan Standard stuff

Erebonian military dude arrives and is furious at Olivier. Josh: "Olivier, did you deliberately hide your participation from the embassy?" Olivier: "Of course not, I simply didn't tell them!"

Olivier's invitation to the dinner party is revoked. And his membership in my party, I guess

well the game didn't return his items, so I think not

ZeldaTPLink posted...

The game crashes while I'm saving after finishing this long dungeon and I nearly fall into despair, but it manages to save the game before crashing. Phew

If you're playing on PC then IIRC the game autosaves on all screen transitions and you can find them on Page "0" of the saves. In case it happens again.

ZeldaTPLink posted...

Lorence and his team are a tough fight. But excuse me, do you have a minute to hear about our Lord and Savior, Earth Wall?

Realest thing ever said about trails 2D

I don't know why, but Olivier screaming "My dinner party!" as Mueller drags him away is one of the things from FC that's most burned into my brain.

NBIceman posted...

I don't know why, but Olivier screaming "My dinner party!" as Mueller drags him away is one of the things from FC that's most burned into my brain.

I love Mueller/Olovier dynamics

Zin is a womanizer but in a way that feel less... icky, I guess? He just likes to flirt and is unapologetic about it, but isn't a pervert

the castle is immense, for videogame standards

Mission: find the maid named Hilda and deliver her the letter.

the duke fired most of the people who do governmental work because reasons. so things are just not being done now. I'm astounded by the level of realism here. It's not unlike the state my country was in not long ago.

We find Hilda and she is sharp, and also has a plan to get around the bad guys

Estelle's way of praising the food while roasting the duke is amazing, especially because he doesn't get it

the Duke is a semi nice person when in a party. He isn't really the bad guy, just the idiot being used as a puppet by the bad guys

or... he's just happy because they are letting him become king now

Bose's mayor tries to implement democracy, but it fails. Coming from her, it would be corporate democracy, though, so not sure if it's worth it

"You may not agree with this but there may be riots or outside invasions, so your jobs as politicians is to keep stability despite fascism taking over". Classic

We have a chat with the villain before the final battle. It probably screwed up our plan in some way

And... Josh is dressing like a girl again

The Japanese. They can't help it. They just can't.

He's dragged kicking and screaming to the dressing room

there is a problem with this disguise. Kloe is going to recognize it in 2 seconds. She's had first hand experience with crossdressing Josh

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/3/9/1/AAO9CbAAEVcH.jpg

Josh: "just make it stop plz"

the plan works. for now

Estelle keeps asking every npc if they knew her dad. She should get at this point that the dude is basically Batman. Everyone knows him.

so the entire plot of the game is caused by sexism? really? stop being realistic, Tits

so if we save the princess, the bad guys lose their hostage and the queen can take over again. Got it

if this coup thing works, my prediction is that the Duke is going to be assassinated by his butler in less than a year. I feel bad for the guy

They should tell everything to Zin already. He keeps covering for them even though he doesn't know anything. Dude is just awesome.

Zin can make his blood flow to make his head redder on purpose. That seems OP

And it turns out Cassius was the one who sent Zin here. The plot unfolds once more. Everyone knows more stuff than those protagonists, it seems.

now that I think of it, it's funny that Estelle and Josh were acting all shady by Zin and Olivier even though the later two both knew where Cassius were and the former did not

Meanwhile, the Bad Guy enters the Final Dungeon. The clock is ticking. Will the good guys catch up to him before he activates the Doomsday Device?

We gotta save the princess first, though

I reach Junior Bracer 1st class. Nice.

So Cassius's trip was a decoy. They engineering a whole international incident just to keep the resident badass away.

The mission is to recruit Non-Playable Bracers (probably so they can wipe out some mobs while we fight the bosses), the royal guards (so they can watch the entrance, I guess) and the reporter (so he can give us another character profile that doesn't reveal much because it's not the most dramatic moment for that).

In other words, it's just us and Earth Wall vs the world.

Olivier will also find a way to join. Somehow. I just know he will.

Kurt, one of the B-list bracers, also had memory loss. The interesting thing is that it didn't affect his personality, unlike that apparently happened with Don. Not sure if this is a brainwashing or not, anymore

we find the four bracers, but the other 2 people have already left, probably to try to do the thing we are already doing. Well, it could help produce some deus ex machina saves

The battle plan is convoluted. We barely have enough people. But of course, more show up. It's Julia!

Naturally, the plan involves letting the playable characters do the more important role while everyone else distracts the mobs

the characters elect Estelle their leader. Because the's the MC, ofc

we are treated to some cutscenes with hyper-realistic sprite warfare. I mean, as realistic as sprites fighting can be. Which is none, but still very fun to watch. I'd say that is one of the untold strengths of this game

The plan works great, because as much as the intelligence division may be intelligent, they are still npcs. Also breaking into 4 teams with 2 decoy ones is rather smart.

climatic fights where the overworld song just keeps playing after the fight starts are fun

Every time I pick a wrong room in the royal villa I'm abushed by enemies when I leave. But they are fun to give and give a crapton of xp. i'm not complaining

the spy enemies arent super tough stat wise but their attacks have an insta death chance. which is SUPER annoying

gotta use my s-crafts when I get them or I'll lose my cp

though saving s-crafts just a bit means I dont get destroyed by the two guys with halberds guarding Kloe's room. Only almost destroyed. AoE faint is mean.

we get to the moment of the shocking revelation. That Kloe is the princess. After the last 30 or so hints.

it does catch Estelle completely off-guard, though

The comment on how they would have gone there sooner if they knew it was "their" Kloe is cute, though. I love those guys

Their friendship with Kloe is cheesy but the writing does make it feel real

Schera out of nowhere

and the leech

Not a Falcon returns, because Kloe is not Kloe without the broken bird attack

TIme for Round 2 of the climax. We split into two parties of 3, one to infiltrate from the sewers and one to make the frontal attack. The two teams are fairly balanced, tbh. Not having Agate on either helps.

special ops are now patrolling the streets with rifles in hand. Shit has gotten heavy

I read the news and most of it is stuff related to the plot, but the last two pages are speculation on a dragon sight. Something for the next game?

I get hit by a deathblow from a random monster in the sewers. I then load to the previous save and buy 30 reviving balms from the nearest store. Enough is enough

I told ya the way to sneak into the castle was through the waterway. This stuff has been the same since the old zeldas!

Cloak: No Encounters
OP

meanwhile, the girl's team will attack friom the front

I get a steam achievement for unlocking all orbment slots, though to be fair most of them unlocked themselves. Either way, both Kloe and Schera come with some expensive quartz included, which is nice

alright, we have a castle to raid

using two parties of 6 is neat but having to split my quartz in 6 is not. I'm missing some good ones I left with the boys' team

we actually move back to the boys' team before the girls get to watch. They are in. Time to go open the door.

Guard: "Intruders?" Josh: "Yep" [beats them up]

oh nice plan! (I guess I didnt pay much attention to the dialogue when they planned it). the boys open the door from the inside so the npcs can make a frontal attack. In despair, the bad guys send everything to the entrance. But then the girls show up in an airship and attack the roof. Now we just have to beat the boss and it's checkmate.

the second-in-command folds like paper. she's got some strong attacks but schera has AoE AT Up now, and thats awesome

Wow, the Duke is basically walking far-right troll post. KIll it with fire.

Schera to the butler: "Don't worry, we didn't actually hurt the duke". Nope, we just used Napalm Breath and White Gehenna on him. That pile of coal on the floor is what used to be him.

I love how the guys' team gets an easy little dungeon while the girls get... a boss rush.

Oh, so silver hair dude was Lorence all along. And he took his mask off. I assume that boosts him at least 10 levels

Loerence... murders my entire party and pisses on their graves

his attack, defense and HP are manageable. What is insane is what he can do. His casting time and turn speed are immense, like a hardcore version of Josh. He casts so fast it's hard for me to use Impede, and when I manage to do it, he just casts again. He self heals, uses status, has a number of arts that aren't even in the spell list, has an s-craft, is immune to every status and has Impede himself, with an AI that knows how to cast it when I'm trying to use Earth Wall or something. It's like I'm fighting a player character.

and then he apparently remembers he's supposed to be a boss from the sequel game, not this one, so he says some cryptic stuff and leaves. wtf

the quartz guide was implying there was an optional boss I could fight for max BP. But it also said i was supposed to drop all the quartz from the boys party in order to minmax for it. Which I didn't. So I'm not going to keep trying over and over to figure this guy out. He's earned his win, I'll kick his ass next game.

however, the villain of this game (not of the series, that guy left) is still in the Final Dungeon, seeking the Doomsday Device, which he can combine with the McGuffin. That has to be stopped

Prof Russel appears to open a locked elevator which is the perfect excuse to bring Agate and Tita back to the party. Now all playable characters are together.

The final dungeon has an interesting scheme. It's basically Skies of Arcadia, where party freedom only comes at the end of the game and only for the secondary characters, but the dungeon itself is divided in sections so you can mix and match teams for each one. The excuse to keep 4 characters behind is dumb, though. But meh

I'll start with Tita, who I just like to use, and Schera, who I haven't been able to use in a while, besides the recent scene

the normal battle song has been replaced by a dramatic tune

I beat a very tough chest enemy. three robots who have a decently powerful AoE attack and an impede attack, with very high defense. They can't really stop you from using all magic, but it makes the fights delay and the my HP eventually end. I win but have to dump all my s-crafts on them. And they also have minions who can heal

ok I'm getting the hang of those guys. The key is to use broken stuff to kill/blind the minions in the start and focus fire on them so they stop healing. Spread your characters around so enemy aoe doesn't do much damage (which made hard because the game doesn't let me control my movement and attack in the same turn). Then S-craft one of the big robots to reduce their numbers, and then slowly wear the remaining ones down with magic but watching the AT list so they cant impede you. Phew

Josh's Black fang is absolutely insane. It has been carrying the team

the 2nd type of chest boss is much easier. yes it calls for backup of minions almost endlessly, but no immunity to blind and no impede means I actually have my abilities at disposal here

ok I'm starting to get how Schera's heaven kiss works. it doesn't just increase the party's speed. It actually swaps the turn order so all party members besides herself attack next, producing extra turns out of nothing. That's OP

Boss fight! It's Alamlthea!. I kind of already beat her, though? This game does know how to prolong its endings

oh she has drones now

ngl this was easier than the chest bosses I've been fighting

I FINALLY make it to a forward base where I can switch characters. And looking at an online map, there's only one of those. This is kind of lame, I'm reducing my praise of the character swap system. That means at least 2 characters are never going to participate, unless you backtrack.

Also not a huge fan of this dungeon, it's too long and the chest battles are starting to weak me down, since they are both repetitive and tricky. I think I'll wait to finish it tomorrow