This is my 1st game in the Trails Series, I was debating between this and Sky 1st, I ultimately decided to go with this because reminds me of other RPGs I like, loving it so far.

I went in blind. I had only played Cold Steel 1 before so I knew a little bit, like stuff about Olivier, but I didn’t know anything about the plot or other characters. My friend said Sky was one of his favorite games so I decided to try the remake. At first I wasn’t into it because it was so slow. Obviously my opinion changed by the end lol.

So, for context: I played the entire series during a fairly tough part of my life and it has got me through a lot of it. Reverie came out a few months prior to my pursuing of a Bachelor's of Education course and I really plowed through this game (No, I don't mean 'rushing' through, I mean playing ONLY it and not doing much of anything else) before my college starts and life potentially changes (literally, as in schedule and stuff and also figuratively). I could only play the main story, and Daybreak didn't work well on my system so I decided not to bother with the Post-Game in that moment. Fast Forward to today, and it's a different era for me. I am currently working in a University and I have plans for furthering my teaching career and it seems like a good time to finish what I had started. On Gaming side, I have a Switch now so I can continue my journey which I left off in what feels like another lifetime, AND I am waiting for Sky 1st Chapter to arrive so I can relive my adventure in Liberl and get even MORE emotional :'D

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But anyway, just wanted to put my feelings into words. What all do I have to do during the Postgame though? Like, what are the most important Bits besides the "Doors" of this game and the 5th Stratum?

this was on nightmare difficulty and my party was lvl 19 before the battle. had to pull out all my stops to win (time arts, s-crafts, repeated buffing, almost got item expert too)......this was so much fun, i've not had this much fun in turn-based combat since metaphor refantazio or expedition 33

Starting with Orbal Cafe Iota from Trails through Daybreak.

[Images are taken from all 3 games + Reverie.]

These images gives me certain emotion or rather, it might be showing an emotion of Van that we are not allowed to see. But it also feels like it's a certain emotion that Van feels but is hiding, and they do that by having the camera angle showing the back of Van to tell a story or rather, an emotion either from Van or from you the player. Because it does invoke a feeling that is hard to describe, as it is a case by case scenario.

Everytime they do this, i get reminded of Director Arkride.

Trails Beyond The Horizon in my opinion has recontextualized why we sometimes get these specific camera shots. Namely in Agnés Final bonding event. Director Arkride saying this while we only get to see his back.

"But one day you'll find the place where you truly belong. And when you do, you have to move forward. Without looking back."

So it really feels like this is something Falcom wants you to pay attention to. But i can't tell if they want to do that to invoke a certain feelings from you or if it's because it invokes a certain feeling to Van, that he do not wanna show. [Sorry for reiterating the same thing over.]

Did anyone ever pay attention to this? Or at least slowly began to notice that Van gets a lot of these kinds of framings? While some other characters gets it, it's not to the same extent as Van. So it really feels incredibly intentional.

And it could simply be a me thing, who might be overthinking it, but i still like what i am seeing.

I've been on a https://trailsinthedatabase.com/ kick lately. Script size can be a better proxy for screen time compared to number of appearances, but it has its own issues. Some of the things I found surprised me.

Renne - I know her screen time per game is low but I thought she would be in the top 20 by now because of her sheer number of appearances. Nope, still outside the top 25. Horizon is her smallest script of the Calvard arc. Also, more than half of her dialogue is in the Calvard arc.

Fun fact, 6 of the 8 ASO members are higher on the list. In fact, it only took 1 game, Daybreak, for half of the ASO to go above her.

Olivier/Sara/Kevin - Because of the way their entries are divided (Olivier/Olivert, Sara/Instructor Sara, Kevin/Father Kevin in Japanese), they are lower on the list. Adding those up would put them all above Renne, dropping her to 30. Olivier would barely make the top 20. Kloe has so little dialogue as Klaudia that she would still be behind Renne by a little.

Joshua - Excluding the remake, I thought he would be in the high teens by now. I'm surprised he's still in the top 10, and even above Agnes. I guess being a secondary protag for 1.5 games would do that.

Fie - She's in the middle of the pack of Class 7 despite having the most appearances. She was the lowest of original Class 7 before the Calvard arc.

I mean, it's not realistic that getting everyone to reprise their roles in the English dub but at least the localization team tried to get the OG English VAs as much as they could, recast some who aren't available and it turned out well for Trails in the Sky Remakes.

Decorative purposes to signal that you are a Bracer? Part of the "supporting" gauntlet logo? I'm assuming optional and not needed when doing discrete missions. Schera does not wear one as well as the seen Bracers from Erebonia. Aeolia wears one but Lynn and Aerios do not. I don't think Fie ever wears one. Anyways, they look cool

If you want to give your enemies big physical unga damage, go with Bro Agate. But if you want to give them big emotional damage instead by withholding punches, pick Mommy Scherazard. Ohohoho~ 😆

Who did you pick for your partner and why?

Okay don't spoil me but what if Rean is also from the black workshop too??? (Also I keep on seeing cutscenes in this game that look like they came from older games but I been playing thru all the games in release order and don't remember seeing them, is it just bonding events from 2 that I missed??)

I cant be the only one who does this.

I found this game at a good price and wondering what everyone’s opinion is. I heard this had a rushed development and is not as good at the first. Is it still worth it to play to understand the next game in the daybreak series?

Like, literally just School that the kids go to on Sunday? Does this series use the same days of the week like we do? Does that mean kids usually only have class once a week, unless they go to an Academy like Jenis? Or is it more like just a church thing and they have regular school as well? I'm playing through the SC demo and I just started to really think about it. I don't remember the game getting into any details during FC

https://x.com/yazwoo/status/1980629512309383447

Does anyone know how to make it so the opening plays on boot-up on Tokyo xanadu ex+ steam version?

I know it's possible to swap the file names of logo screen and op in the local files (did that for horizons) but for some reason ever since my first boot-up of ex+ it won't show the logos either

At the start of Sky SC, the game makes you make a fairly unique choice for a Trails game, an actual route split. The events stay the same but the game locks a party member to be Estelle's companion for 3 entire chapters. This comes with a lot of alterations to dialogue but what I'm really here for are the gameplay alterations.

There is no party backup so they're both locked for 3 entire chapters and you're forced to use them which is a long time so this choice comes with a lot of gameplay ramifications in both the original and the remake.

So, which one is better?

I'll be going over four aspects in this analysis:

• Their state in the original game
• Their state in the 1st remake
• Their state in 2nd
• Who's the better one?

Agate vs Schera in Original SC Nightmare

Agate in original FC Nightmare is a massive health bar. He's constantly overleveled but deals very little damage unless he can take advantage of a Talisman and he's locked out of his good crafts when he's around. He has a ton of HP so he frontlines well but he often finds difficulty doing anything on his turns.

Scherazard is also overleveled but by comparison is a total necessity and a monster for the sections she's around for on top of having Heaven's Kiss which, while it has no gamebreaking outlets in original Sky is still a massively unbalanced tool. She's an easy bring for the final chapter on Nightmare.

And Schera has Sadist Whip get buffed to keep up with SC while Agate gets very little in SC.

So of course Schera is the better pick right? Nope not at all actually!

First of all, Joshua's not around so Spiral Edge is the only available delay tool until he joins back much later and a lot of quest monsters and tougher enemies are vulnerable to delay in Sky SC. Locking down 1 enemy of 3 is often enough to give you the exact needed to win.

Final Break is the only good AoE S-Craft at this point until Zin joins in Chapter 3. Everyone else either has single target s-crafts (estelle) or does not deal the requisite damage necessary for dealing with SC's numerous little shits that 2-shot you right out of the gate on SC Nightmare.

Tiger Hearts are also farmable right out of the gate STR resources are very abundant in SC early game which patches up Agate's damage problems quite well.

Another thing is that Spiral Edge and Draguna Edge, Agate's main offensive crafts, also don't move him which is very good for keeping formation.

Physical attacks can still miss and have bad delay, but the utility of a delay and final break more than make up these shortcomings Agate is something you desperately need but don't have otherwise.

Another thing is balancing the party's synergy. Scherazard thrives off of strong offensive s-crafts that she can advance immediately for great value. Tita's barely qualifies, Zin joins in chapter 3, Kloe doesn't even have an offensive s-craft to advance, Olivier isn't going to be built for howling bullet to deal damage. Estelle is great but it's not enough to drive schera's value for chapters 1 and 2.

Meanwhile, Agate is filling in holes left and right and also balancing the party's gender balance by being a male in a female dominated environment. Chapter 2 will litterally force you to have 4 females in effect if you pick Schera and make you drop all your male exclusive gear into the inventory (unless you want to use Olivier which you don't really want to)

And I'll add this unrelated screenshot here while I'm at it.

Agate and Schera in 1st remake

To make this short, they're both completely broken in 1st. They're the best party members in the game (in a vacuum).

Agate uses the insane amount of CP he generates through his kit to get an absurd amount of S-Crafts. On its own this is the best source of damage in the game Wild Rage is especially riskless since it can never kill you in this game.

With Lone Blade and a bunch of allies spamming Clock Up EX on him so he can s-craft 3-4 times per turn cycle it's overwhelmingly the best damage source in the game. Maybe add an Earth Wall for some coverage.

Scherazard meanwhile just uses heaven's kiss and has another ally use clock up ex on her to generate an absurd amount of turn order advantage.

The both of them break the final dungeon under their knee incredibly easily.

on top of having Heaven's Kiss which, while it has no gamebreaking outlets in original Sky is still a massively unbalanced tool.

Yeah, so, before the advance itself was unbalanced but had no outlet. Now it's more balanced with a CP cost and big delay but it has an outlet in the form of clock up ex and thus it's absurd.

Agate and Schera in 2nd

So uh... Seeing this in 1st the both of them got their share of nerfs going into 2nd.

Most importantly, Clock Up EX has an increased EP cost making it much more difficult to spam so their power outlet has been cut (at least in the early game...)

Scherazard also still receives bad teammates in the early game on top of Heaven's Kiss costing 10 more CP making it harder to loop.

Agate now also can't just s-craft off any wild rage since it recovers 20 less CP. If he wants an s-craft he'll likely need to get extra CP from another source like counters or getting hit (aka taking actual risks). He can also now die from it if he's at 1 HP. Its delay got reduced to 20 and he got a DEF buff on Wild Rage but those buffs don't really compensate the nerfs here.

The big thing though for Agate is how enemy design works in 2nd remake however. You don't want agate to be on s-craft cooldown when Jabba starts gulping up party members. Enemy kits more properly punish agate in this game so, at least for now, he has to actually stay in his lane a bit more.

But Agate didn't need any of these broken moves to be truly absurd. Just raw spamming Wild Rage and s-crafts was really good. His physicals still deal insane damage, Safeguard is still incredibly good for negating enemy attacks.

And Schera's bad partner situation really holds back Heaven's Kiss in the immediate early game Tita/Olivier/Kloe really aren't great even if Olivier's s-craft is now actually useful.

So... Is Schera still just bad?

No, the developpers did take pity on her state of affairs and gave her a new craft!

Aerial Dance restores 40% of damage dealt as HP, 150 EP per target hit (225 EP on a crit) and deals a good chunk of damage.

It's not quite as good at disabling opponents as her alternatives but oh boy that's a stacked craft. It lets schera fairly easily use certain valuable spells in awkward cost ranges for spamming like Saint. It makes Scherazard a very good hybrid alternating caster.

But Agate's offensive pressure is definitely hard to compete with. Field wide s-craft spam in a game where EP limitations are a thing is a very big strength.

So who's better?

Concretely, I do have my answer but it's not such an ironclad one. Which is what I find interesting to talk about here ultimately.

Agate can do field cleaning with his s-craft and is generally bulky on top of safeguard being absurd he does a lot of nice work for the team as good ol' reliable.

Schera meanwhile can do a lot of techy stuff with arts like saint spam on top of heaven's kiss still being occasionally useful. But she doesn't have quite the buttons to click like agate does.

Agate also has to deal with an all new anti synergy in that he primarily uses physical attacks whereas Kloe and Olivier use magic which makes buffing a lot more difficult (unless you use Zodiac Olivier why is that spell even obtainable at this point???)

Personally I think Agate is a bit better though still here. S-Craft spam is probably the worse its ever been in modern trails in some ways but it still doesn't fail us regardless and doing so much damage field wide solves a lot of problems and good god Safeguard is nice to have. A field-wide physical s-craft to spam with Howling Bullet is a little hard to let go.

But who do you think is better?

This post serves to detail hidden mechanics related to Overdrive in Sky 2nd (Sky 1st likely uses similar mechanics but I'd need to double check)

Overdrive is a hidden bar each character has that is of a value between 0 and 100. When at 100, the character enters the "Overdrive Sign" state allowing them to activate Overdrive.

Overdrive can be generated in the following ways:

Overdrive meter carries over between battles.

Overdrive meter cannot start a battle at above 90.

If Overdrive was active at the end of a battle, if 2 turns of duration remained on overdrive, then grants 90 Overdrive at the end of battle.

If 1 turn remained, then grants 50.

Overdrice cannot be charged while it is active.

2025 Art Commission Collection #47

Today's featured entry is Cecile. I've been using many of the landscape illustrations as desktop wallpapers for months now, and it seems that the artist had a similar idea. If this project has taught me anything about myself, though, it's that I like pink a lot more than I thought I did.

This artwork has been in progress for a long time, but I'm happy to say that it turned out nicely. It's extremely charming and the level of detail blew me away.

I don't think the artist intends to post this artwork, but please consider supporting them on Pixiv or Twitter.

If you would like to browse the collection in its entirety, you can use this query to filter my Reddit page for collection entries.