Trails in the Sky the 3rd Evolution（英雄伝説 空の軌跡 the 3rd Evolution）

It's become a regular ritual of mine to pick up a Trails game every time a new one comes out in a desperate attempt to try to keep up. Now that I've finally beaten the 3rd one, that brings the current tally to 3/11 or a grade of F minus minus minus, which compared to the US government is actually pretty good IMO. I would put up the usual Trump meme pic but I'm so fucking tired of that shit, here's a picture of a bat plushie instead.

Please stop eating the fuckers, for fuck's sake!! (You know who you are)

There is no better time than now to escape from shitty reality into the sweet bliss of logical and responsible adults in a fantasy RPG video game. Yes, let's dig into the 3rd iteration of brave heroes fighting against people of differing ideologies, political intrigue, and high-level foreign policy negotiations between shrewd leaders... Naw, let's just go into some la-la land after the prologue chapter with magic memory doors n shit... yeeaaaaah....

Falcom, your own characters are saying your setting is a fucking JOKE!

I'm glad they didn't call this Sora no Kiseki TC, calling it "the 3rd" like a 5th wheel is appropriate because it plays like a fan-service afterthought, not the finale of a trilogy. It's a good excuse to get all the characters from the first 2 games together and reminisce on extra events that fill out the setting. As much as I love to see little side stories of tiny RPG characters in pajamas, the manner in which the game presents them just bothered me. Like, why does a character that recently LIVED through the event need to see a memory of it much less through some weird door? From the standpoint of the character, it must be like watching a shitty home movie from last week on VCR (kids, you'll need to Google that).

 

Awww, so cute! Oh I know, let's have her fight ruthless mercenaries and ancient legendary monsters!

Yeah sure, technically the game does have a story and it's not bad actually. But at times, it just feels so contrived and just an excuse to beam all the familiar crew back into another game (and I mean "beam" literally). I did at least like the new character and her VA, RieB with a weird B (or whatever that is). While I'm not into nuns, she was cool because she likes to eat. It's too bad she's not a morbidly obese trans person of color to properly represent us American gamers. Missed opportunity there IMO. Maybe it'll be fixed in the PS5 version if MS buys Falcom or something. #FuckMe2020

Why is she white, thin, and binary? I want REAL people, like those assholes that don't wear masks

The part of the game that I finally really started warming up to was the combat. I know I complained about the fact that it's recycled for SC but kinda like how some people start to like shitty songs after hearing it repeatedly on the radio, it eventually grew on me. As usual, I loved how you start at level 90 unlike most RPG sequels that offer no explanation as to why you're back at level 1 and weak as fuck again.

They couldn't resist the obligatory stroll in molten lava cliché however

Another common annoyance that this game handles gracefully is grinding under-leveled characters. I really wish more RPGs scale EXP like this. You haven't used a character for a few chapters? No problem, just have them hang out in the back for a few battles and they'll level up in no time. I even maxed out 9999 EXP in one battle for the unsightly males to prepare for the final battle.

As usual, I tend to leave... ugh MEN out of my party

Save for some minor changes such as enemy elements, the mechanics are pretty much identical. However, the strategies I employed were different because of the insanely effective quartz. While I mostly ignored arts in the first game, having 50%-75% reduction in casting time made them so much more useful. In particular, because some bosses are immune to all debuffs and status ailments, it's vitally important that you keep your buffs up. Speed, in particular, is of the upmost importance in hard mode. As usual, I have not played in nightmare mode, saving that for another day.

Yeah! What's wrong with having a 13 year old girlfriend? Hmm... let me think... #Jailbait

Other notable areas besides the combat, side stories, new character, and Agate's weird relationship with a 13-year-old girl, are the annoying mini games and music. The mini games such as poker, blackjack, and trivia are well, like I said, just annoying. I didn't mind the fishing contest so much though.

From this angle, you can tell Estelle has it where it counts

Some of the dungeon songs were head rockers so I'm liking the soundtrack more and more with each iteration of the series, which is always a good sign of things to come.

Good stuff. I was rocking while dungeon crawling.

Score: 3.5 C'mon Falcom, where is the obligatory hot springs church outing event? out of 5 (79 hours to beat)

Is the premise contrived and the game a bit fan servicey for bringing back all these characters? Sure, but overall, I still had fun for the total of almost 80 hours and the main plot wasn't bad, just a bit too much hocus pocus for my tastes. For the reason that I had fun for that amount of time and there's nothing wrong with the game, I would rate it as slightly above average.

Cover art for "I'm so wet, I want to have your baby but I'm a nun!" (as featured in the doujin series) 

I guess there's finally an English localized version of the game on Steam but based on the original PSP version. I dunno, maybe because I wasn't a Jhipster back then, but I like the Evolution remakes just fine so there's a tiny Jhipster smugness bonus added on for this version.

"It was a clever inducement of the temporary representative Cashius bright that broke down the agglutinating situation of a war." WTF??? I bet Falcom never expected anyone to read this shit.

The final boss battles were kind of brutal even in just Hard mode. I recommend looking up the best party member distribution before you start the last dungeons. Thankfully, they at least offer you an option to save before the last boss battle because I would have thrown my Vita at the wall if I had to start over after hours and hours of fighting. Thanks to the OP Absolute guard and continually buffing despite that annoying move the final boss has to remove all your buffs, I was able to make it to the end on my first try. Whew!

Legend of Heroes VII? That's one of like 5 ways to define this series (fucking Falcom man)

And that's that, finally done with this series in a series in a series. I'm definitely NOT catching up on all these Legend of Heroes RPGs but I'm having fun with them so I suppose it's not a bad thing to have a whole stack to go through still. I'm certainly looking forward to moving on from Liberl after well over 200 hours in the same locations. It's time to go to Crossbell... finally!!!

Additional Evolution screenshots for the Jhipster smugness library

Beating the game unlocks music from all 3 games. Cool, unless you're a classic OST pig in the mud

Ugh, fuck this trivia game. I'm down for more what's his face crossdressing though.

Holy shit, is this some huge spoiler?! Naw, it's just another fucking "memory".

Oh magic clothes that coincidentally reuses an existing asset? How... convenient!

The cursive on this Salt Paling doc is hard to read saving Falcom from further embarrassment.

It's a hidden gem shooter! Get your copy now before it becomes RAREZ!!!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Trails in the Sky SC Evolution（英雄伝説 空の軌跡 SC Evolution）

OH MY GOD.

Sora no Kiseki SC Evolution is a fucking loooooooooooooooooong game. Got dayum! That's really the first thing I have to say after 118 hours of trailing in the sky... or something...

Game too long, doesn't respect reviewer's time. Score: 0 out of 5 -Shitaku

Of course, now that the original PSP game has finally been localized (oh, welcome to 2006, non-Jhipsters), you might think you can beat this game under 60 hours, but remember I'm playing through the main story like an audio-book and listening to hours and hours of professional voice acting takes a lot longer than the version that's now 12 year's old. (Sorry, non-Jhipsters).

Most don't know SC secretly means Shit-hole Countries cause Japan is racist unlike USA

I started playing Sora no Kiseki SC Evolution right after I finished FC, which is always a mistake. I mean, I always do this even though I'm always burnt out from the previous game and inevitably, I drop the game after a few hours. Though in this case, it didn't really matter because I had zero chance of finishing such a long RPG without dropping it at least 3 or 4 times (or 5... or 6). The only reason I was probably able to finish it was my vain attempt to catch up every time Falcom announced or released another game in the series. At any rate, once I got up to Chapter 5 clocking in at 60 hours, I got far enough in that I figured, fuck it. Time to GIT GUD.

Unfortunately, that's not a coincidence as chapter 5 is when you're done traveling the lands of Liverl for the 2nd time. Ala FF X-2 style, Falcom saved a buttload of work by recycling all the exact same locations from FC. It's reasonable to expect a game to start slow as it introduces the setting and characters so I gave FC a break for the slow start. However, I naively didn't expect to do the same thing AGAIN in the sequel. Yeah, you finally get to go to the docks at the Capital (big whoop) and that tantalizing locked room in the sewer of Rolent (spoiler: there's nothing in it), but 90% of SC's locations are recycled and milked to death. So while the highlight of FC was all the detailed sprite trinkets, I was definitely less impressed this second time around.

Wow, I didn't know Libeeru was spelled like that in English. I guess better then Liverpool?

However, what WAS impressive was the sheer amount of dialogue and how much of it was voiced. If you thought FC had tons of dialogue, you ain't seen nothing yet as SC probably has more than double the previous game. In addition, there's TONS more variation depending on who you decide to take in your party compared to FC which had fixed party members for the majority of the game.

The level of variation in the voiced dialogue was made possible probably only because the original developers didn't have to worry about voice acting. It only takes a dev a few copy and paste operations and a switch statement to code up "Let's go, A-kun and B-ko!", "Let's go, B-ko and C-chan!", "Let's go A-kun and C-chan!", etc., etc., etc. Some of the dialogues even depend on what you did in the previous game ala Mass Effect (before EA took a huge dump on it). When it came time to voice the Evo version, I really don't envy the enormous job that was in store, especially for poor Estelle-chan. I highly doubt that the newer games such as "Steel at its natural temperature" would have the same level of immersion, though I would be highly impressed if it did.

Notice the little pacman to replay the voiced dialogue. (Sorry non-jhpisters)

Falcom also could have taken the lazy route and decided not to voice at least the side quest dialogue, but nope, they soldiered through and even though the VA quality of the various NPCs sometimes sounds like Falcom friends and family members pitching in to help, I at least applaud the effort. Fei, the mechanic, is a hottie though cause she kinda sounds like my ex. (We broke up because they changed her illustration style to be based on the manga spin-off instead of the canon light novel.)

Hey, where's the Falcom friends & family cast credits?!

As usual, the game is chock full of side quests and not all of them are just filler. You'll probably miss a few hidden ones unless you are playing with a guide. The one for chapter 2 was an absolute BITCH, and was actually the most difficult battle in the entire game because FUCKING JIMMY dies in one hit and it's game over (hard mode ofc). There were literally times when you would lose the game even before your first turn. If I was smart and bought the accessories that prevent sleep and confuse for all 4 party members at the Capital, it would have been much easier as you can keep casting absolute guard on FUCKING JIMMY. Of course the store in Zeiss didn't have JACK SHIT. I finally made it with a bunch of Evade 2 Quartz and plenty of items for the status ailments after like 10 tries.

You know what was surprising though? Just by completing this optional sub-quest, FUCKING JIMMY takes his stupid pirate treasure to the museum and you can talk to him throughout the next chapter. Eventually, he ends up applying for a job at the museum. Presumably, none of this would have happened if you didn't complete the optional sub-quest and would have affected even a tiny bit of dialogue in Chapter 8. I didn't check but it would be almost impossible to see every tiny piece of dialogue in this game.

Music was not bad. A bit better than FC.
A couple variations I did check for fun was even a tiny change depending on the order in which you spoke to NPCs or party members. For example, when I spoke with the lady at the restaurant in Rolent, she mentioned her daughter wanting to see Estelle and Estelle replies, "Actually, I already said hi" based purely on the order in which you spoke to two NPCs. Most of these tiny variations in dialogue are voiced as well and really adds immersion to the world not unlike Fallout.

The attention to the tiny sprite details also added to the immersion. While I was a bit disappointed at the heavy recycling of the towns and locations from the first game, I still enjoyed seeing the various tiny expressions in the character sprites and the little accessories. This is the kind of game where if the character were to make an omuraisu (hypothetically speaking), you would see the tiny eggs cooking in the frying pan and a dot of ketchup on the finished product along with the salad.

As a Tiny Kitchen fan, I approve of this game.

The gameplay, while the same as FC, was more interesting as you get more powerful orbments. While in the first game, I almost ignored Arts because of how long they take to cast, this time around, thanks to upgraded orbment for 40-50% reduction in cast time, I made way more use of Arts buffs. Having absolute guard even in a small circle was almost OP as I just bunch my characters and cast after every attack.

As for the story, well, it was a bit of a disappointment honestly. There's nothing wrong with it and it's a perfectly fine, orthodox (what we call Jhipsters call "King's road") story. However, when you experience a story that spans two games and over 150 hours, you kinda end up having super high expectations on a grand finale. And let's just say, while the story wasn't bad, it was certainly no Xenogears. The new art and videos were a pretty good addition at least IMO. I mean, if it wasn't misogynistic that is.

Oh settle down, spoiler freaks, she's right on the damn LE game cover

While I really did want to give this game a score of 4 as a great game, the ending just doesn't deliver greatness. Also regarding the length, while I had fun with it and it's chock full of content, I'm a very busy man and I would like to move on to my next paycheck... err I mean review. I'm not doing this for fucking free you know? Oh oops, actually, I am doing this for free cause OH MY GOD I'm playing games... for fun?? CRAAAZY. So yeah, fuck you Kotaku, this game gets a 4 just for the hours of fun and entertainment.

Score: 4 ok sure why not but WTF is up with Ren's voice? Don't they have lisp speech therapy in Japan?? out of 5 (118 hours to beat)

Having said that though, I'm totally burnt out and I definitely WON'T be starting 3rd anytime soon. Maybe I'll get to it when Falcom releases Subzero Steel 6 Kai.

I mean c'mon, you get to see an NPC hungover, throwing up in the shower. GAMING GOLD!

At the end of the day, I had fun times with all the NPCs and the side stories. I just have to wonder how the story would have turned out if Joshua was ugly and not a fucking ikemen. Where's the representation for ugly, fat men in gaming today?! #GamerGate.

Oh, and FUCK YOU JIMMIE!

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Ys: The Oath in Felghana（イース -フェルガナの誓い-）

I started Ys: Felghana no Chikai (that's "oath" for the non-jhipsters) pretty much right after I beat Ys 2 since it's a remake of Ys 3. In the good ol' days, people used to use numbers so customers would know what order shit came in. But now, we have games like Ghostbusters 2016 aka "AHAHA you bought this garbage??", Tomb Raider 2013 aka "we spent that whole year working on Lara's hair", and Prince of Persia 2008 aka "maybe it'll sell better if you can't fucking die joke edition" so yeah whatever, we're all fucked. Where was I? Oh yeah.

So Falcom is probably THE pioneer of series you can never figure out without consulting Wikipedia (fuck you Dragon Slayer 2 Legend of Heroes -4 Xanadu not Next). So after looking up what games are in what order, I decided to skip Ys Wanderers From Ys, and went straight to the remake.

For fuck's sake, jut put the goddamn 3 on the cover

I mentioned previously that I was traumatized on the series from the start with a rental of the SNES side-scrolling version of this game. Fortunately, Falcom went back and fixed it all up and made a completely different game which is probably why they changed the subtitle.

They scrapped the side scrolling thing and went with the 2.5 style of the later Ys games. The classic bumping mechanic is gone and you now have to jump and climb platforms and shit. When I first started this game after finishing Ys 2, it was weird having to swing your sword like some kind of barbarian. I imagine Adol was previously using some impressive Iai invisible sword attacks during the bumps previously so this brute swinging style seems like a few steps backwards for the swordsman in terms of technique.

This is Adol in Ys I+II... IMO.

Personally, I preferred the old style without all this fancy double jumping and attack button. Even though the platforming segments were pretty tame and not super annoying, I'm not a big fan of jumping on shit, falling, and having to start again. (Did I mention I'm not big into platformers?) What was REALLY annoying were those TINY flying monsters which were such a pain to attack especially before you get the green ring.

...well at least it's better than Mario...

In fact, this game is pretty annoying until you unlock at least the dash ability (aka oh thank god, I can move at a normal speed FINALLY). The options give you the ability to have dash on at all times or by double tapping a direction but seriously why?? Turn it on always. DUH!

Take my advice and turn dash on always. Screw that arrow key x2 BS.

Another tip is to not worry about having enough Ravel ore. I never upgraded my equipment until the end because I was a Ravel hoarder. Only to find out near the end that enemies in the last dungeon drop Ravel so there's no need to hoard. Another great tip for boss battles is the healing cloak. While it will never restore HP by itself during boss battles because you can't stand still long enough, it WILL restore HP when you boost after the curly bar totally fills up. I unfortunately didn't realize this until the last two bosses but it definitely came in handy for the tough final boss. My final tip is to check the castle entrance frequently as there's a missable escort event there.

You can press L to quickly switch to the cloak

The exploration gets easier as you unlock other abilities such as teleportation to save points and pretty much becomes a cakewalk when you get the healing cloak except for the bosses. Oh boy, the bosses. I played on Hard difficulty (cause hardcore gamer) and each boss battle was an exercise in trial and error by death. Nearly every boss battle was tense, frustrating, and while winning had that great feeling of satisfaction, it was mentally exhausting as well. Especially near the end, it seems like there's yet another boss around every corner.

I've been playing this game on and off for over a year now because I always felt a need for a break from yet another extremely tense boss battle. Since I'm hardcore but not masochist, I didn't play on Nightmare mode in the previous games and this game unlocks an even HARDER Inferno difficulty upon completion. You can get New Game+ bonuses but yeah... maybe next time.

Overall the boss battles are definitely the highlight making this game so fun but frustrating. That ice dragon thingy took at least 10 if not 20+ tries to beat. One personal highlight was Zirduros, The Clockwork Cannon. On about my fourth try, I've pretty much given up on winning after a dumb start and only one hit away from death. Then I got into some kind of crazy groove where I was able to dodge or ram through every one of his attacks with the yellow ring. HELL YEAH!!

The story was adequate to move the action along and voiced, which was nice. The music was, you know, the usual Ys stuff.

You're going to be hearing this a lot on Hard mode
Score: 3 oh you better believe some oaths will be said while you play and they will have nothing to do with Felghana out of 5 (19 hours on record to beat but probably more with resets)

I didn't enjoy this game quite as much as the first two. All that complicated jumping and swinging sword seemed to detract from the pure precision and skill required of the first two games (well except for that bullshit falling tile hope you're lucky final boss in the first game). However, while the exploration and grinding before boss battles were ho-hum, the boss battles were definitely sweaty hands good action, though a bit tiring.

Being a Ys game, it's localized in English and easily accessible on Steam (I played the #BAE PSP version of course). I don't know if the drama CD is localized however. It's pretty much a rehash of the same story anyways. Non-jhipsters aren't missing much. Those hoping for a hot spring scene with Elena will be sorely disappointed (um... not me!).

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

The Legend of Heroes: A Tear of Vermillion（英雄伝説 ガガーブトリロジー 朱紅い雫）

I'm gonna try to not rehash all that stuff about how Tear of Vermillion is LOH IV blah blah blah. To make a long story short, this is the second entry in the LOH Garghav trilogy. Chronologically, it takes place before White Witch but story-wise, the two games have pretty much zero connection so it really doesn't matter.

To be honest, it's been a while since I beat this game so I don't really remember the story details but I do remember it started out with a bang. My theory is it was to fix the absolutely mind-numbingly boring start of the previous game.

IMOUTO TAIMU, always a good start to a game. Oniichan is here Aimeru!!

In terms of graphics and game engine, everything looks pretty much the same as the first PSP port except they changed the weird pseudo ATB nature of the battle system into a standard turn based affair. I actually preferred the neat trick in the previous game of cancelling out of the menu and letting everybody duke it out automatically so having to select attack for every party member every turn was a bummer. At least it does a better job of showing your attack range so you don't have to waste a turn just trying to reach your enemy if you don't want to.

Attack, attack, attack, attack, standard RPG fare...

To be perfectly fair, you do want to use spells and skills that have area effects when the enemies are bunched together Chrono Trigger style. The change to a clearer turn-based system does make timing things easier compared to the rather chaotic free-for-all of the first game. Overall, there's nothing too special about the gameplay. Some of the more challenging boss battles did require some planning for special attacks since they charge over time (the POWER meter). The difficulty was a bit better balanced this time around compared to the super easy previous entry with the weird difficulty spike at the end. I actually died once or twice in this one.

Overall, I enjoyed the story much more than the previous game as well. The characters were more interesting and there was some good character development for at least some of the characters if not the main character. Sure, some of the plot elements are a bit cliche at this point but hey, this is a remake of a PC98 game from 1996. The music was pretty good too overall.

For some reason, I found this tune really catchy
The main "heroine" or as we now call it "damsel in distress in OMG TRIGGER WARNING MISOGYNIST WOMEN HATER GAME", is actually your little sister. So there's not much of a romance, but it was still cool to join in Avin's frantic quest to reunite with his cute imouto. Hey, if my sister was cute and 2D, I would have done exactly the same (my real 3D ones... um... not so much).

Score: 2.5 oh those innocent days before oreimo when everything wasn't tinged with weird imouto incest fetishes out of 5

Get a room, you guys!
Also, I hear it's legal in some States?
Might wanna check that out.

Obviously, in today's modern enlightened times, an RPG about chasing after your little sister would look very different (and to be perfectly honest, I would totally be all over that). Regardless, while nothing too special, I found the second part of the Garghav trilogy to be adequate enough to be an average fun title overall.

Given the scale of the ending in White Witch (which frankly was poorly done and came out of nowhere), I think there was a missed opportunity here to expand upon the overall story and grow the universe. Unfortunately, the tiniest bit of connection to the first game they show doesn't really add anything to the story as a trilogy. It remains to be seen if there's a larger picture here in the 3rd entry: Song of the Ocean. At this point, I think it may be too late to really tie anything together but we'll see I suppose.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Ys I & II Chronicles（イース I & II Chronicles）

The first time I ever played a Ys game was on the SNES. The game left such a bad taste in my mouth, traumatically wasting a precious video game rental, that I avoided the series for about a decade until Ys I & II on the PSP.

Despite my self-delusional fantasy of growing up in Japan, my <sarcasm>wonderful childhood</sarcasm> in New Jersey left me deprived of all the good games from Japan and things like the PC88/98, MSX, and FM TOWNS were totally unheard of. Nowadays, every Joe Schmo thinks they're some sort of expert because they can use Google but back in the dark ages, we only knew about whatever was on TV or at the local video rental (or Toys"R"Us for the rich kids). So yeah, good luck on finding out about the TurboGrafx-CD version in 1990.

This is SO nostalgic in my fake Japanese fantasy childhood.
(http://www.tokyorpgfactory.com/)

Starting up Ys I & II as a newcomer was quite a shock for me as a retro newb. I was frantically trying to figure out how to attack the enemies. Eventually, I got a sword and still it totally did nothing. Apparently, I wasn't retro enough to realize that your sword doesn't actually move and you just run into enemies. Now, if you have not played these games, just running into enemies sound completely boring and pointless but the trick is to not run at enemies head-on (this hurts you) but from at an angle or from behind.

You're better off going at it from behind (hardy harhar)

You may be tempted to think just running into stuff won't be a very fun game but you would be OH SO VERY WRONG. I beat both games on Hard and some of the boss battles are incredibly challenging. It will take all your reflexes, pattern learning, and coordination not to mention hours of practice to beat both games on hard. Be prepared for a very sore thumb and an intense feeling of satisfaction when you finally beat the game.

The first game especially was brutal at some parts. Yes, the bat boss in the first game was HARD AS HELL but at least you could grind for it. The last boss with the collapsing floor tiles was just ridiculous and there's no way to grind past the max level. I didn't really like how luck played a large part as sometimes you can get completely stuck if you're unlucky with a falling floor tile.

The second game is not as hard as they added magic and the ability to use your items during the boss battles. Having items during the battle made a huge difference in terms of difficulty but it's still no push over.

Shooting fireballs makes Ys 2 a bit easier even on the first boss

Overall, I shudder to think what the games are like on Nightmare mode.

The game has the original PC88, PC engine and a newly arranged soundtrack and it's all good even though I'm not normally a fan of rock guitar music. Koshiro Yuzo was one of the original composers so I don't think anything more needs to be said about that.

There are better tracks but you'll hear this one for so often, you'll never forget it
By now, everybody and their moms have talked the Ys series to death but I still have to add my two cents to say I&II is really a lot of fun. I would even go as far as to say I missed the bumping mechanic while playing Oath in Felghana. You have to do all this CRAP such as jumping and swinging your sword around that I'm just like UGH, I wish I could just run into shit.

Score: 3.5 OW MY THUMB!!!! out of 5.

I liked the PSP version so much that I even bought the PS2 version in case I'm ever in the mood for some good ol' bumping action on the big screen.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

Trails in the Sky FC Evolution（英雄伝説 空の軌跡 FC Evolution）

After several failed attempts at beating Sora no kiseki FC on two other platforms (yay Falcom), I finally marathoned this game on my trusty ol' Vita. See, what happened was Xseed (AKA the company that no longer does fan service games) FINALLY got around to localizing the sequel to this game. And in their usual classy manner, they decided to spoil this game in the first THREE WORDS of the steam description. I got so annoyed that I decided screw it, better finish this game and play SC (second chapter) as well before all the 'mericans spoil that too.

Guess which version is from the tasteful folks at Xseed?

Anyways, putting aside my disgust at Xseed's total lack of respect for spoilers, I'm glad to have finally finished the first game in a series that already has a total of 7 games so far. The trails series is the most recent and longest running series in the Legend of Heroes metaseries, which I first talked about in my last review of LOH3 or 2 or 2-1. In fact, this game was originally called Legend of Heroes VI as the sixth entry in the entire... oh, WHATEVER!

Of course, as a Jhipster, I am playing the Japanese exclusive Evolution remake for the Vita which features voice acting, sharp-ass graphics, and new artwork. I'm sure non-jhipsters can enjoy when it gets localized sometime around 2025, just in time for it to be completely obsolete with the PS5 super evolution 3d waifu Matrix VR remake... at least going by the current release schedule.

The first thing that really struck me about the Evolution version compared to the 2 disk UMD grindfest version or even the PS3 HD "port" (emphasis on the double quotes) was how damn sharp those pixels were on my fancy OLED screen. While the graphics remain mostly the same, the details on the shops, buildings, signs, and everything was just amazing. This is the only 2d RPG I know of so far where you can actually read the tiny signs without having to examine it.

Thanks for the ! but I can read the sign just fine already (click image for full size)

The other aspect that makes this game unique is just how much the NPCs have to say in the towns. Virtually every NPC has something different to say after every tiny, little story event. And if you have the patience to talk to every NPC over and over, tons of little stories will unfold. Some of them will react to the events of the story and others will talk about simple mundane things like the guy working at the bar babysitting his girlfriend's little sister while she goes to work. There's even a couple that are on a pilgrimage that you will see at every town as you travel from one place to another.

Enjoy as this poor guy's mom asks every girl in the village to marry her son

About half of the 75 hours it took me to beat this game was probably spent walking around town and talking to NPCs. Even if you aren't crazy like me, there is SO MUCH dialogue to the point where I'm tempted to put this game in the ADV category, which is why having the main story fully voiced is such a HUGE improvement. As an American, of course I'm offended when confronted with the notion of having to read so being able to listen to the dialogue with auto progress on is a huge bonus. The only annoying part is having to swipe every few minutes so the Vita doesn't go to sleep. I can't believe there is STILL no option to turn that off.

The voiced dialogue also features matching mouth movement in the character profiles and various expressions which is an attention to detail I really appreciate. Really, the level of detail and the hours and hours of voiced dialogue just boggles the mind when you consider Falcom is already releasing SC Evolution a mere 6 months after this one while Xseed took many years just to translate the text. (I've worked in Japan so I can imagine the poor salarymen slaving away at this.)

There was a free demo on JP PSN last time I checked

This visual novel even has an RPG aspect (lol), and the battle system is a very fun turn-based grid system. I played on hard and it felt like just the right amount of challenge. The level progression is VERY controlled. In other words, you level up right away in a new chapter and each level makes a huge difference but it rapidly slows down until the next chapter. The dip is sharp enough to the point where it's almost impossible to grind and become overpowered unless you enjoy watching your exp bar inch up a few pixels every battle (kinda reminds me of Fate/Extra in that regard). As a result, the boss battles were all fairly challenging for the most part.

If you've played the PSP Westerner newb edition, you may remember the option to retry a battle in easy mode and (apparently?) 100% success rate of escaping from battles. The easy retry option was never in the Japanese version and while I only played this game on hard, escape success rate generally starts around 60% (higher or lower depending on who has the initiative) and goes up after every failed attempt.

Sorry, no retry on easy or 100% escape rate here... NEWB

There is some strategizing you can do in terms of attack delays, and turn skipping to try to get the good field effects but not as much as a game like Grandia. Still, it's fun to fill up your CP gauge and take the enemies turn on a Zero craft field effect and get a special attack for free. However, it can get really annoying if, for example, a boss you've been pounding at forever gets a 50% heal field effect randomly.

That critical turn is gonna make this attack GOOOOD

As for the story overall, I obviously would have enjoyed it more if it wasn't spoiled at the outset. While it wasn't exactly jaw-dropping, most of the charm lies in the character interactions, which is ironic because that's exactly what was so sorely lacking in LOH White Witch. They both feature a male and female character traveling the land but unlike Julio and Chris, Joshua and Estelle actually have personality, back stories, and character development (OMG!!).

Now featuring back stories and personality

WHA??? Character development?

Score: 3.5 Jhipsters don't have to READ FOO (except 20+ hours of NPC gossip) out of 5 points (75 hours to beat)

Is Sora no Kiseki FC the best RPG of this decade as some who talk about the the same 5 games over and over and over and apparently hasn't played any other game since would say? Nooooot exactly, but it's still an above-average game, especially since it's voiced. I fully enjoyed my time with it and looking forward to the second chapter. Oh, and the updated soundtrack was a nice bonus too.

The OST was pretty good, especially this one
For those who have played previous versions of the game, you have to check out chapter 2 fully voiced. As those who played can probably guess, there's a part that's way more hilarious voiced rather than just reading the (copious) amount of text. I have to say, Joshua sounds way better than I expected at that part. Ha ha.

Bonus Vita wallpaper for smug Jhipsters to use while playing on their Vita (and I'm not talking about PSP archives)

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely

The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch（英雄伝説 ガガーブトリロジー 白き魔女）

First, before I can talk about "Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch", let me first write a dissertation explaining the Legend of Heroes （英雄伝説） series. If you are already familiar with the series, feel free to skip this section.

Falcom (aka the company that makes at least 12 different versions of every game) for some reason put like every RPG they ever made under the single meta-series known as Legend of Heroes. It's like Final Fantasy, except, you would have something like FF XIII-4-2 the revenge of Lightning after she left, after that time she returned again Win 10 evolution remastered edition.

The LOH series graph. See? It's not so confusing once you create a FUCKING GRAPH for it.

Now that you have an an idea of how the series as a whole look (OR NOT), let's now talk about "The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch", otherwise known as Legend of Heroes III, otherwise known as the first entry in the Garghav trilogy, otherwise known as HOW FUCKING HARD CAN IT BE TO NUMBER SHIT?

You see, released in '94 for the PC98, this was the 3rd game in the Legend of Heroes series so it made sense to call it 3 in a series that only had 2 other games. However, this game has no relation to LOH 1&2 (I STILL haven't really figured out that Dragon Slayer shit yet). So really, it was the first part of the Garghav trilogy (3-1 if you will). As per Falcom's MO, it was then remade like a million times (ok ok, just 4 - Win, PS1, Saturn, and PSP) and by the time it came out for the PSP, there was so much shit in the LOH series, it was renamed to "Legend of Heroes Garghav Trilogy White Witch", dropping the III label. Ok, problem solved right? WRONG!

For some reason, the localizers decided to release the SECOND entry FIRST (maybe because it's a better game?). Then they released this game as a "sequel" with probably the worst possible name EVAR: "The Legend of Heroes II: Prophecy of the Moonlight Witch". It's not the two of anything really except as maybe the second screw-up by the boneheads who published this game outside of Japan.

Now that we got THAT out of the way, let's talk about the game itself. It was.... ummm... OK? I guess it was a decent port from MiCROViSion whom I have never heard of before. The backgrounds sure look better than the Saturn version even though they removed the nice anime cut scenes and replaced it with lame and now totally outdated 3D stuff.

  This is totally NOT in the PSP version
I dunno, I think my main issue with this game is that Julio and Chris were like the two most boring characters I've ever seen in a video game. They have zero backstory, no character development, and pretty much every other character in the game is way more interesting. Their whole pilgrimage was just SO BORING. You know what would make a great Hero's Journey? The story of the White Witch seemed to have potential for a great narrative. However, you only hear her story in bits and pieces while you're stuck with these two boring characters that have zero chemistry throughout the entire game.

The art looks fine but the two main characters have as much personality as a bag of bricks

The battle system is a weird real-time ATB kinda system where the characters just kinda walk around to attack and you can input commands at any time. There is no clear ATB bar or anything so you just kind of wait around for the characters to do their move. It was kind of challenging on the last boss because there are so many moves that are queued up, it's hard to get the characters to do what you want at the right time.

But beside the obligatory difficulty spike on the last dungeon and boss, this game was so easy that I was really glad it wasn't traditional turn-based. At some point in the game, I discovered that you can just cancel out of the first menu and the characters would just start walking around and attacking automatically. Most battles literally took one button press and some healing afterwards, a nice bonus for what is totally a multitask game.

There are some summon spells that Julio learns that have cool effects but there was absolutely no need to ever use them except to check out the neato graphics once in a while.

Score: 1.5 dunno why but it's just so damn mediocre points out of 5

I mean, the game tried to be interesting. There's some scenes that try to be funny, you meet a large cast of characters, and the land has some history and backstory. But at the end of the day, personally, Chris and Julio just wasn't cutting it for me. As a game that originally came out in 1994, I guess I can't be too harsh on it. But at least MiCROViSion (who??) could've made the gameplay a bit more interesting in the PSP remake. Maybe the Saturn or PC98 version is better but when it comes to the gameplay, story, and music, this game is as mediocre as they come.

Scale
0 - Awful
1 - Bad and not worth your time
2 - Has some flaws but still enjoyable
3 - An average enjoyable experience
4 - A great game
5 - Masterpiece of a caliber only found very rarely