The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd
This review contains spoilers
It might be deserving of a 10/10 rating, but I try to keep my 10s to the games I deem my absolute favourites, so I have to be a little choosy. But quality-wise, it's likely a 10. Because I loved almost every second of it.
Let's start off with Kevin. I enjoyed him in SC because I like the idea of a badass priest who is up to something, so to see that explored was an interesting choice. And his story is absolutely tragic. Got me hard. Also liked his dynamic with Ries, who is a cool introduction with an awesome weapon. My problem is, Estelle is like Heath Ledger's Joker. What I mean is, 3rd is an awesome game even when she's not there BUT she also elevates everything so I think it's impossible for the game not to suffer a bit when she's not the main character. With that said, they treat her with proper reverence (when she's about to show up someone says something like, "And now the girl we've all been waiting for), so in a sense it's almost like Metal Gear Solid 2 where you get to see how cool she is outside of being the protagonist. What I'm saying is, it's a VERY MINOR issue with the game, and it's mostly because Estelle has set the bar impossibly high. With THAT said, he does start the game by charming a girl like he's a prime Bond, stealing an artifact from an arms dealer and then jumping out of the window of a moving airship. So that's cool.
The direction here is way different. Phantasma is a big bad in a gradual sense since it would eventually threaten the world, but this game is about a personal journey that Kevin takes in a place where his grief/guilt comes to life. This leads to a deep look into his psyche, such as when he has to kill a child again, or see his mother, etc. I mean, you literally go through a copy of hell in this. So to forego what Trails usually seems to do (big political stories) and focus more on this is a fascinating way to end a trilogy. I dig it. Not where I would have expected it to go.
Not much to say about the gameplay. It's Trails. You equip orbments. Turn-based combat where your placement matters. The battles take a long time unless you have turbo mode on. It would suck without turbo. But I still like the orbment system, even if I think later games improve upon it. That's the funny thing about this series... I would like it considerably less if I couldn't speed shit up. I just do not have the patience. But since it's a feature in the game, I can't really knock the game for being slow. And ultimately, I'm here for the story more than anything because the Trails games have some of the most layered storytelling in ANY RPG series.
I'll just end this with some quick notes:
- I liked Renne a lot in SC, I like being able to play as her here. Her dialogue in some scenarios was funny and I like that even at the end, she has a hard time accepting that she's worthy of love.
- I'm not a huge Richard fan but I like his S-breaks because they are straight-up like splatter chanbara, which I'm a huge fan of.
- The ending was very emotional. You know, for most games, these long, drawn out goodbyes would be a little annoying, but I actually looked forward to it because Falcom leans into this kind of stuff. Really made it feel like I was saying goodbye to friends, even if I don't love every single character.
- Pacing was quite good here. Very little in the way of Trails obnoxiousness when they make you do way too much. There is the part where you have to go back and keep changing your characters but that's minor. Plus if you read a walkthrough you could get around so much backtracking.
Let's start off with Kevin. I enjoyed him in SC because I like the idea of a badass priest who is up to something, so to see that explored was an interesting choice. And his story is absolutely tragic. Got me hard. Also liked his dynamic with Ries, who is a cool introduction with an awesome weapon. My problem is, Estelle is like Heath Ledger's Joker. What I mean is, 3rd is an awesome game even when she's not there BUT she also elevates everything so I think it's impossible for the game not to suffer a bit when she's not the main character. With that said, they treat her with proper reverence (when she's about to show up someone says something like, "And now the girl we've all been waiting for), so in a sense it's almost like Metal Gear Solid 2 where you get to see how cool she is outside of being the protagonist. What I'm saying is, it's a VERY MINOR issue with the game, and it's mostly because Estelle has set the bar impossibly high. With THAT said, he does start the game by charming a girl like he's a prime Bond, stealing an artifact from an arms dealer and then jumping out of the window of a moving airship. So that's cool.
The direction here is way different. Phantasma is a big bad in a gradual sense since it would eventually threaten the world, but this game is about a personal journey that Kevin takes in a place where his grief/guilt comes to life. This leads to a deep look into his psyche, such as when he has to kill a child again, or see his mother, etc. I mean, you literally go through a copy of hell in this. So to forego what Trails usually seems to do (big political stories) and focus more on this is a fascinating way to end a trilogy. I dig it. Not where I would have expected it to go.
Not much to say about the gameplay. It's Trails. You equip orbments. Turn-based combat where your placement matters. The battles take a long time unless you have turbo mode on. It would suck without turbo. But I still like the orbment system, even if I think later games improve upon it. That's the funny thing about this series... I would like it considerably less if I couldn't speed shit up. I just do not have the patience. But since it's a feature in the game, I can't really knock the game for being slow. And ultimately, I'm here for the story more than anything because the Trails games have some of the most layered storytelling in ANY RPG series.
I'll just end this with some quick notes:
- I liked Renne a lot in SC, I like being able to play as her here. Her dialogue in some scenarios was funny and I like that even at the end, she has a hard time accepting that she's worthy of love.
- I'm not a huge Richard fan but I like his S-breaks because they are straight-up like splatter chanbara, which I'm a huge fan of.
- The ending was very emotional. You know, for most games, these long, drawn out goodbyes would be a little annoying, but I actually looked forward to it because Falcom leans into this kind of stuff. Really made it feel like I was saying goodbye to friends, even if I don't love every single character.
- Pacing was quite good here. Very little in the way of Trails obnoxiousness when they make you do way too much. There is the part where you have to go back and keep changing your characters but that's minor. Plus if you read a walkthrough you could get around so much backtracking.
Mini Review: It's a bit lesser than 2nd Chapter but it's still basically a classic. It's a deeply personal story with deeply personal ending. The loop is different, being more about dungeon crawling than exploration, which I didn't like quite as much. And Kevin's wonderful but he isn't Estelle. Gameplay hasn't changed much and I did like Ries, specifically her weapon. If you like Trails, you'll love this.
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