I’m interested in this one, but honestly a bit worried about increased realism effects.
The original was surprisingly VERY detailed about things like facial expressions in 2D character portraits - a good thing when the game has so many moments of growth and heartbreak. I’m a little worried about how well they’ll imitate a lot of that with increased graphics.
But hey, maybe I should play the demo to find out.
EDIT: Just learned that they’ve replaced the iconic line “Why is my present a BOY!??” with the generic “Who is this BOY!??” in the name of translation accuracy.
I know it’s a silly line but I have always feared interfacing with religious “translation accuracy” folks. Without translation liberties, we’d have Naruhodo Ryuichi declaring an “Igyari!” which is Japanese for Contradiction, instead of Phoenix Wright famously shouting Objection. That makes me very worried about the enjoyability of the rest of the script. We’re definitely not going to get any empty-chest messages.
Having played a chunk of the demo with Japanese audio, this hasn’t been a literal translation situation. It’s a standard JRPG localization, closer to NISA’s work with the series than XSEED’s that was on the loose side.
The original was one of my personal top 3 stories, really captivated me. Problem is that I still remember the twists, and 95% of the game‘s charm is the plot to me so I won‘t get a remaster.
I envy anyone who gets to experience this for the first time with uptodate graphics though.
But I do hope they touch up those iceskate-y run animations, they look super awkward compared to the rest shown lol
As a Trails hater, I wholeheartedly disagree with you. I don’t think anyone should ever play these games, except Zero and Azure. Ignore everything else and pretend they don’t exist.
Why do you hate them?
The overarching story is just terrible and makes no sense, but the absolute worst are definitely the villains. You constantly get blue balled, every time you win the fights, but then lose in cutscenes, so you end up pretty much going nowhere.
Cold Steel constantly resets most progression at the start of each game, so you end up just spinning wheels for hours on end, building a relationship with characters that shouldn’t matter, until there’s a tiny bit of story (that contributes to the overarching plot) at the end of the game.
The exception in the series for me were Zero and Azure, which I genuinely liked, because of the much smaller setting and since it has nothing to do with the rest of the series, until the end of Azure, where some connection to the rest of the games is shoehorned in.
Wtf, Azure was the worst of those issues. Crossbell gets attacked by about a dozen villains, and your police squadron never gets to actually “defeat” any of them until the very last chapter.
Imma be honest, I played those games all back-to-back in 2020, Sky SC to CS3, 500 hours of Trails in two months, so I don’t remember a lot about all of these.
It definitely does have some of these terrible moments, which is why I didn’t like it as much as Zero, but I still liked the smaller region more than the other games, along with the rest of the characters.
Yeah, but telling people to pretend Trails does not exist and to ignore them goes a little far. I personally liked them better than Zero and Azure.
telling people to pretend Trails does not exist and to ignore them goes a little far
It doesn’t go far enough. These games should be laughed at and used as examples of what not to do.
I personally liked them better than Zero and Azure.
You are objectively wrong (although after thinking about it some more yesterday, Azure is now also on my Trails-shitlist).
Nobody should play Sky FC and think “that wasn’t very good, and the final act was garbage, but there are like a dozen more of these games, they have to get good eventually. Maybe the great world building I’ve heard so much about kicks in at some point.” NO! You can still turn back!
Nobody should get hope after playing Zero that the series might finally be on the up and up, and not hot trash. You will be disappointed!
Nobody should be like me, be literally held at gunpoint to eventually play the rest of the games, because of the hundreds of hours, that I’ve already wasted on this abomination of a video game series.
I started the Trails series because of the remake announcement a few months ago. Currently at Trails to Azure, I may revisit this remake once I reach the end of this long journey.
Very excited to see how they animate the end of this game, and I really look forward to the 2nd chapter. I also really look forward to the soundtrack for one track in particular towards the end.
I am also tempted to just revisit this remake at release, but hngh, will be better once the story is a bit less fresh in my mind.
Are you playing them in chronological order? Or did you start with the Crossbell duology?
Playing in release order. Sky trilogy and then Crossbell duology currently, and then Cold Steel it shall be.
Ahhh… I was playing them in chronological, but starting with Cold Steel. The events in Crossbell happen during the first couple Cold Steel game, and it’s interesting to read about it in the newspaper, and hear people mention rumors about it.
Haven’t finished Cold Steel 3 yet, and I’ll probably play the Trails in the Sky remakes
How well they reproduce some of those key drama stings is definitely key to the game’s rating imo.
A lot of game directors don’t quite appreciate just how short scenes like FF7’s death of Aeris are; or what made them compelling even with poor visuals on a struggling console. I’m a little bit worried some of these scenes will get over-acted, and leave players kind of “done with the scene” before they’ve wrapped up. Trails has way too much dialogue overall, but it ends up working well when it gives you a series of huge “WHAM” moments, and the credits are rolling before you’ve fully parsed it.
spoiler
But now that I think about it, they could likely wind down some of Weissman’s speech during his reveal.
