Really liked the first games. Haven’t played the remakes since the Cold Steel subseries made me kinda hate the series (and IMO the games were perfectly fine in the original form. I don’t see why a remake was needed, especially since it still split them in two parts).
I saw a front page about Saudi ownership, multiple game shutdowns, gen AI, etc, and figured I’d post something seeming a bit more positive/interesting.
The Sky duology is very much built such that you shouldn’t even watch trailers for the second if you haven’t finished the first. To put it bluntly, it’s a JRPG with turn-based combat, and everyone I have seen watch its conclusion has been immediately on board for its sequel - but that is a very large qualifier given how many people drop out due to some honestly quite slow, “soft” dialog early on.
I wouldn’t consider myself a Trails nut; I tried the three games in the series following this one, and they felt progressively worse and worse in terms of teenage Japanese anime writing. But, while this part of the saga holds a few of those issues, I do hold these early installments in high memory, and the remake has been very faithful as well as making use of a newer age of visuals (on the plus side, it doesn’t rely on DLSS, but on the minus, the environments are often pretty basic). I’m also guessing a lot of people skipped the first after seeing it was a duology, so now the option of playing both interrupted is on the table. While there is a third game, there’s no confirmation it’ll be remade, and it’s more like a smaller series of enjoyable extras anyway.
Gotta chime in as a Trails hater, from time to time.
This is one of the worst games I’ve played, mainly because of the terrible story and worst written villains ever. I cannot understand why anyone would like this game. There is only one good game in the series, Trails from Zero, because it has almost nothing to do with the rest of the series (which is ruined in the sequel).
Combat is decent though.
Trails from Zero? Renne and the Sky protags showing up isn’t connected to the rest of the series?
That’s why I said almost. I remember being pretty disappointed at the end, because the ties to the rest of the series got more prominent.
I got a taste of that interconnection when I played Zero and really hated it. Renne’s one big scene felt like it was planned in Sky (or at latest Sky 3) and didn’t get in; it seemed to have nothing to do with the SSS, and I could see it was trying to start other new “character bricks” to throw later into Cold Steel. I never played those games, and generally think it’s a poor way to set them up.
It seems cool to pull Estelle and Joshua into later games for Avengers style teamups, but poor planning to make other games a part of someone’s (even a villain’s) arc.
See, I think there’s plenty to criticize in the game, but I’m always cautious anytime someone strings together adjectives “worst / terrible” without much description/quantitiy behind it. Not to accuse you directly, but it’s the pattern I see when the “anti-woke brigade” wants to attack a game.
I’d definitely say Sky’s main villain is mustache-twirlingly generic, but that’s part of why they have so many supporting villains, like Loewe. I also thought a lot better of the core character development of the heroes, and how a mustache-twirling generic villain compels the best out of them. But I’d say Zero’s villains were just as generic, and comparatively never got the feeling of hero development out of them. It also felt like a few arc patterns were just being reused from Sky.
So for any third parties reading, I guess you’d have to consider whether you care more about good heroes, or good villains.
The biggest problem with the villains is the typical anime game trope of defeating them in the battle, but losing in the cutscene, constantly. This whole series just loves to blue ball you. You are constantly getting teased, never getting a payoff. Nothing you do matters.
spoiler
Until finally in CS3, the big mystery is revealed, and it’s a wet fart. Just a massive let down. 8 games, 500h of time wasted on that garbage. Jokes on me though, since Falcom got all my money already, and I eventually plan to hate-play the rest of the series, just to see the conclusion of this train wreck. I’m in too deep at this point.
Tits 2?
TitS 2.
2 Tits 2 Furious
I was onboard with this series until CS4. I hate the stupid bracer points system. I always need to use a guide to make sure I get all the stuff, but it always drags me down, since it takes forever.
By CS4, I just completely lost track of WTF is going on, and quit midway through.
Quite true that CS4 is kinda a low point in the series, it left me soo disappointed after how good Cold Steel 3 felt in comparison, and I hated how similar the plot felt to Cold Steel 2, and how slow things were happening for a game that should conclude everything in the arc.
At the very least, Reverie felt like a step in the right direction, and the Daybreak arc felt better with the removal of romance options and side quests being a change from feeling like a bracer (since you are more on the grey side of things, you can blackmail people to solve a quest among other things).
Really gotta finish chapter 1. I was doing pretty good working my way through, and then Cyberpunk 2077 went on sale for $18 and I just … That fucking game took over my life I swear … Lmao
