The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC

First off, please play Trails in the Sky FC first. It's a duology and SC continues exactly where the first game went off. This is one of the best JRPGs available on GOG. Takes everything that made the first game good and massively improves upon it. Pair that with fantastic music, amazing villians and storytelling and tactical turn based combat. It reminds me a lot of the classic Final Fantasy games in terms of it's quality and scale.

The Second Chapter of Trails in the Sky comes with the gameplay and Look of the first one which you should have played before starting this, so I won't go into detail on that. The story features the locations and characters you know and love by now and picks up right were the other game ended. After five chapters or round about 50 hrs played it reaches its climax and if the game ended there I would have rated it 5 stars and called it one of the best in the genre. Sadly this RPG drags on for another 3 chapters before it reaches a conclusion, clocking in at around 80 hrs total play time which makes this the longest story driven game I ever played by a good margin. Now, being long is not a bad thing as long as the game delivers. Unfortunately though, the writing gets more and more cheesy and cliché-ridden towards the end. The clever and believable plot about individuals and political factions struggling for their respective goals gets replaced by oh so powerful bad guys who are super mean for reasons but always have a convenient excuse not to finish you off right now because your plot armor is so strong. Especially chapters 6 and 7 don't contribute to anything and should have been skipped for good. Despite this letdown the larger half of this game and the saga as a whole are still pretty good and I do not regret playing them. However, I don't have any intentions to play another entry to this series either.

Like the first game a very text heavy story driven JRPG. The story is mostly written for girls and reminds a lot of fan fiction. While it drives the story forward, the massive amount of deus ex machina moments was a bit of a letdown for me. Also in some parts the game feels a bit stretched. I prefered the first part of the series. But if you want to follow the story of the bracers you won't get around this game. And it is still an ejoyable experience of course.

If you've completed Trails in the Sky you really don't need a review you likely already bout this because this game picks up just a few hours after the cliff hanger ending of the first game. Honestly this is barely a new game. It's really the 2nd half of the first game. But they are so massive that it's not surprising they were split up. If you haven't played the first Trails in the Sky game you CAN NOT play this. It would be like walking in to the last half of a movie and having no clue what's happened. So you should know what to expect from this game. Combat has barely changed other than it being harder. The characters are largely the same. You'll see most of the same places you saw in the first game. The graphics and music are 95+% the same. But like I said this really is just the 2nd half of the first game. You'll be playing it for the continuation of the story and to learn more about the mysteries started in the first game. It's a longer game than the first and more difficult but totally worth it. But honestly if you played FC you already know all you need to make a decision about this game.

It reaches Shakespearean heights in dialogue and exploring the human condition. I saw someone else call Trails in the Sky First Chapter a game-length prologue, and while I don't think that is quite a fair characterization, I understood what they meant. The real payoff is in this game. The music, the worldbuilding, the character growth, and the feels this franchise brings are truly something special. I was repeatedly moved to tears, and witnessing the journey of these characters pushed me to Be Better.