The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

I agree with those good reviews around here - in my opinion this is the full five stars game. In short : large game world with rich lore, long interesting storyline with many surprising moments, good system of turn-based combat, perfect music. Tons and tons of text, while party is communicating with NPCs - which can be classified as good or bad trait of this game - depend on the point of view :) And final boss fight is really epic. It is like turn based version of raid boss from World of Warcraft MMO : multiphase fight, different tactic for each phase is needed, like the interrupts of heals or dangerous abilities, grouping for better area party healing, scattering for minimize area damage from boss, managing adds, using power cooldowns in right time ...... All those things are in this final battle. Without proper tactic boss cannot be defeated. I'm really looking forward to the sequel.

Amazing game! I didn't enjoy a JRPG like this for over 10 years. Ok many of the characters are stereotypical , but this somehow makes the game fun. I like the story, even if there is a lot of text, i enjoyed reading it all and i think it is very well made so that we never get bored. I also find the game beautiful despite its cubic look, and the musics are very nice. Now i'm waiting for episode 2! Please buy this game and tell your friends to do so! The more people buy, the quicker we will get the rest of the series.

Despite its positive qualities, it's difficult to recommend the first chapter of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky in the modern era. The combat and story are relatively simple and straightforward, with the script being written with a young adolescent audience in mind; meaning that the target demographic has either grown beyond this title or are young and observing newer products. Because this chapter has to serve as an introduction to the world, its characters, and its story, it must fall short of its potential. In order to preserve its secrets and revelations made in later instalments it must withhold information presently, meaning until the concluding portions much of the story must remain simple and often advances due to the chronic impetuousness of any and all characters, which grows wearisome pretty quickly. The characters being an expansion of one or two traits doesn't help matters. They simply cannot act any other way. For an apt portrayal, see Gene Wilder's Wonka as myself and Mike TeaVee as many characters, "don't, stop, come back." The combat system is also relatively simple, without too much hidden depth. For example, I liked the principle of having a battlefield, as opposed to a static menu of units, until I realised that it does little and you prepare and play as if it weren't even present. With this assessment in mind, the strongest point of Trails in the Sky is the depth of its world construction, that each NPC has a unique line of frequently changing dialogue that reflects the actions of the player and the story's progression, which drastically enhances the plot and gives the illusion that the world and story are more nuanced. Many similar titles fail in this capacity, and their worlds appear more hollow and shallow for it. There is also some tertiary enhancements; additional Japanese voice acting and portraits. Without the turbo combat button and not advancing the dialogue rapidly, it would have been tedious, so I don't recommend them.

This game originally came out on the PSP and was easily the best turn-based RPG the system had. The story is not only good, but a major part of the game. The gameplay is nicely paced, combat has plenty of strategy to it, and grinding is not a requirement to advance. XSeed really did a terrific job in the translation and it far exceeds the quality of the previous Legend of Heroes games that were released by Namco-Bandai. A common complaint about most of the JRPGs that make there way to the west these days is the level of fanservice in them ... thankfully this game is not plagued by that. There are a couple instances, but they're minor and quickly passed. The only complaint about the game is it ends on a cliffhanger, it is intended to be a full trilogy so you will not get the complete story. The Second Chapter (called SC by the community) is in the works, but on the back burner by XSeed due to the shear size of text in the game. SC spans two discs on the PSP which is an extreme rarity. Hopefully the success of the PC release of this game will help spur along the release of the SC so we can all continue the story!

This was my 1st entry into the series and am enjoying it. It grabs you, love the story