At this point, I'm not holding my breath for the Crossbell games to get an official Western release, especially since NISA is handling publishing duties for forthcoming Falcom games in the West now. ... I'll just play ToCS 3 rather than bothering with slapdash solutions to play games with dodgy fan translations. *shrug*

It was a bit weird for some of the to me unknown Crossbell characters to pop up at the end of ToCS 2, but I'm sure I'll get used to the new peeps showing up in ToCS 3.

Lol, there is anything but "dodgy" about Geofront's Zero translation that recently came out. It's phenomenal and arguably better than many official localisations. They also included many features and improvements just like Durante does in his ports of Cold Steel.

Thanks for the report. I mostly worry about getting Azure to work. I expect Zero ends with a cliffhanger as usual for a first game :/. It sounds like Zero is DRM-free but I'm not sure if there is a DRM-free version of Azure.

Yes, Zero no Kiseki from DLsite is DRM-free. The Geofront patch is indeed XSEED quality, that's what they were aiming for and they delivered. The writing and editing are top-tier. There are rare typos here and there in the release version but a patch is coming out within the next few days to fix them.

I'm still in the middle of Zero but I have heard many times that it ends relatively conclusively. You can easily take a break or wait for a better translation before playing Ao/Azure.

I heard Azure is not even available for purchase any more at the one Chinese retailer that sold it (there was never a JP PC release) and has awful DRM that recently broke the game for those who bought it. The pre-patched version of Azure from other sources is DRM- and malware-free though.

Thank you for your explanation.
But since you're already a GOG customer for almost 10 years you've probably already noticed that there's no way that GOG can get as big as leverage as steam when it comes to forcing publishers to take certain steps.

GOG's too small.
steam's just too big.

In my opinion, If you want GOG to have more power in the market (and be able to make a stand against bad publisher decisions) you have to "vote with your wallet". If people keep buying their games on steam, publishers will inevitably remember that they don't have to bother with GOG at all, because steam always gets the bigger $$$.

But again, that's just my idea. If one just wants to buy cheap games, regardless of clients or DRM, then steam's the place to go.
Myself, I only buy on GOG because I support the store project. Otherwise (if I didn't care about DRM) I would probably only buy on steam.

Just played ~3 hours without any issues to speak of. :)

As someone who hasn't played any of the Trails game:

How tight is the connection between Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel? Do they lead into each other or is it more along the lines of how Final Fantasy is a series? (not between 1-3 but between the two trilogies)

Same world with some events happening parallel to one another. Also, characters from previous games tend to make cameos so if you didn't play the previous games you will have a "and who are you supposed to be?" moment.

It's nothing at all like Final Fantasy in that regard.

Trails games are all heavily connected to one another, and each sub-series (which are: Trails in the Sky, Crossbell, and Trails of Cold Steel...with another additional sub-series coming in the future) directly continues characters' personal stories and also overall plot lines from the previous sub-series(es).

So by the way, that means it's not "two trilogies" as your post says: but rather it's

1. One Trilogy (Trails in the Sky).

2. One Duology (Crossbell, which has two games).

3. Cold Steel series: this is not not a trilogy as it currently has 4 games in the sub-series, not three...but part 4 has not been released in English yet, even though it's been out in Japan since 2018. Moreover, they are releasing a 5th game this year in Japan that is going to continue the characters and close up the loose ends from Cold Steel, and also the continue the characters and close up the loose ends from Crossbell too...and also add new characters that sets up the next upcoming sub-series).

Some of the plot lines that start in the Trails in the Sky series, are resumed in the Crossbell series, and then are concluded in the Cold Steel series.

Also, for these reasons, each sub-series heavily spoils the previous ones, so if the player plays them in a different order than they were released in, they therefore will have a very diminished experience for that reason.

As well, players who skip some of the earlier games will have no idea what the significance of many elements of the world and returning characters are, since they were explained in previous games, but do not get re-explained (or sometimes they receive only a minimal re-explanation) in the newer games wherein they re-appear.

The best thing to do is to play the games in order of their release that they came out in Japan, if possible.

I think that about sums it up pretty good - one of the other cool parts of this series is that side characters and random NPCs you run into can also sometimes end up showing up in later games. If you track where the named NPCs are in every game, there are some that you can "follow" on their adventures around the continent. It's a heavily lore-built world that keeps building on itself (each set of games takes place in the continent of Zemuria, but in different provinces like Liberl in the Sky Trilogy; Crossbell in Zero/Ao; Erebonia in Cold Steel, etc.).

I wonder: what are ed1-5? Trails in the Sky 1 is ed6. Do you know? I suppose I could check wikipedia later.

I didn't notice anything missing without Crossbell, but I gloss over things sometimes.

It refers to the Legend of Heroes series:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Heroes

However, the first five are connected to each other and unrelated to the Trails games so it is mostly just an example of confusing naming.

The Legend of Heroes series it itself a spinoff of the Dragon Slayer series that includes Sorcerian, the first Falcom game I played due to Sierra translating a few excellent PC-88 games back in the late 80s (also Silpheed, Thexder, and Zeliard). It sounds like there have been several remakes of Sorcerian in Japan hopefully it will get translated again at some point. It is still a fairly unique game as far as I have seen (a side scrolling RPG where characters need to train in town for a while and get older). I liked it well enough to remember the name Falcom when I next saw it a couple of decades later.

OK, thanks. I guess I could've looked it up myself, but doing Internet on the bus sucks (but is better than nothing).

Greyhound? You are lucky that it works at all :/. The extra space and even better than usual prices seem nice but hopefully they don't make you get off at every station like usual. Hopefully you can avoid the virus.