The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

...It's great yeah, buy it. Really, buy it.

Note: This review is based on the PSP version, which is pretty much identical to this version. This is a great, if slightly dated looking JRPG. It might not look like anything special at first, with its slightly generic looking setting and rather cheesy voice acting (what little there is). However, give it some time and it will surely grow on you. If you like meta humour, addictive combat, plenty of side questing and dungeon crawling, and cute anime characters, then you will love this game. Estelle is a bit obnoxious at first, but I came to like her a lot as time passed and she matured into a genuinely deep, strong protagonist. I cannot wait for Second Chapter!

Recently I've been enjoying old games and Trails, having never even heard of it before, was the first one from GOG that I decided to purchase. It's an enjoyable classic-feeling JRPG with the anime esque character arts and dialogue, but that there, is where the problem is for me. It's apparently a popular game for its hulking amount of dialogue and I can kind of understand that. While I haven't ran around the game world talking to every NPC there is and just following the story line, I do feel a bit overwhelmed by the amount of stuff to read in one go - especially when I just want to progress with the story. It finds a way to get under your skin and irritate you quite quickly if you're not the type of person to get into reading. It is particularly overwhelming at the beginning of the game where the player must absorb a plethora of information regarding the battle system, game world and characters. Though, after a few hours, the player does begin to make sense of it all. Another bad point is the game's repetition. The music, while enjoyable and very fitting for its genre and tone, repeats itself over and over. Similarly, the battle system is somewhat repetitive. With that said, the game does feature some very artistic world building that accompanies some rather cleverly thought-out character personalities and their own personal histories. Further, Trails has a way of sucking you in so even when you have to tab out and look at Facebook for a little while because you've grown bored of all the brown-nosing chatter that can't be skipped, it will still draw you back to finish the otherwise charming story, and help these appealing characters you've fallen in love with. If you do decide to stick with it after the first couple of hours, you can find yourself spending a good long while being entertained by this delightful game.

While not perfect, Trails in the Sky is a massive story with incredible characters with writing to match. It is traditional and resembles classic game design but in a good way. Be sure not to pass this up.

I'm really struggling with this game and his f*** up difficulty. It's already tiring of having games that let's you choose "Normal" difficulties that are piece of cake and "Hard" difficulties that makes the game unbearable hard. Maybe it's not a game to focus on the combat but, why adding a difficulty selection, then? I got bored of the game in both difficulties and left it after a while. Otherwise, the plot is rather empty, at least for the first 20 hours that I have played. Characters are likeable and less generic than in other JRPGs. If you really like them and can stand the slow-paced narrative and the huge amount of unsubstancial or depressing combats (depending on your difficulty setting) that occur during the playthrough, you'll surely buy the SC because the game has its charm.