Game:

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (2004)

Category:

Vlog

Duration: 2:28:07

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Originally recorded: May 25, 2022
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I had to move up my second session of the week by a day this week, because a prior engagement means that I won't be free to record at my usual time on Thursday. Honestly, I don't think that's much of a problem. I am *clearly* getting close to the end though. I might honestly just sacrifice my "free" gaming time on Friday night just to see if I can wrap this sucker up before the end of the month. I'm not 100% confident in my ability to finish in a mere 16 sessions at this point, but at the very least, I'm definitely going to fall within the 16-18 range.

The funny thing is, the progress I made this time around feels counterintuitive. I didn't really get as much of a head start when it came to recording as I usually do, I was a little stressed out from personal matters and worst of all, I was suffering from a migraine aura: which generally results in my vision becoming blurry and extreme tunnel vision. Fortunately, turning off the lights and turning my screen to "Night Mode" early helped things out a lot on my end and I was able to get through this session with absolutely no issues whatsoever. Honestly, that's good to know in case the unthinkable happens during a proper livestream.

I mentioned this pretty early on in the livestream itself, but I feel that it bears repeating. This game ends on a cliffhanger. That's not an opinion, it's a statement of fact. Falcom had to split their original treatment for Trails in the Sky into two games, so this game's story will conclude in SC, while from what I can tell, the 3rd essentially serves as an interlude that provides world building I've heard described as either completely necessary or totally skippable, depending on who you ask. Fortunately, I will be attempting to play the other two games in the trilogy by year's end as well... though to be honest, The 3rd might end up spilling into early 2023 unless I essentially go all-in. As for the cliffhanger ending, I'm completely fine with it. I sure would've hated to be playing this game on the PSP when it first released in North America though: it took XSEED like 4 years to get SC out. Even their PC version had a smaller gap, considering it didn't hit until a year before SC came out on both PSP and PC in English. And, well, the less said about The 3rd's console version, the better...

For as much as this game has been railroading me into progressing through the story as quickly as possible, the whole experience has been completely worthwhile. The problem comes from trying to reconcile that with my interest in the game's organic setting itself. Like I keep repeating, there's just so much to see everywhere and it can be incredible hard to miss things. But the thing is, even checking in with the various NPCs is fun in its own right. They react to story beats and even just their lives changing outside of the grander narrative. It's so impressive to me that Falcom managed to come up with so many complex characters for a game that was literally designed for low-end PCs circa 2004. Such excellent craftsmen at the company. A pity that their business acumen still has a lot of catching up to do.

Having said that, it does seem like I'm approaching the end of this game. I even managed to make it to the whole "split up the party" portion of the game... and even managed to get through the first half of that. I was wondering how I'd get my hands on that last chest in the sewers though, so I'm glad that I didn't miss out on that. I managed to get another achievement as well, though admittedly, I guess I missed seeing it pop on my end. I just hope that there are still random encounters left, because I'm close to one more and I kind of want to get as many as I can. I'm still disappointed about missing out on the recipe one though. Just two shy of the full set. I wonder where the ones I missed out on were.

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