Game:

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter (2006)

Duration: 5:12:02

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Originally recorded: September 5, 2022 (Happy Labor Day!)

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And with this session, Trails in the Sky SC is officially the game I've spent the longest time with on Back the Log Off. It's been a whopping 17 sessions now, finally blowing past the first installment's total of 16 recordings. To make matters even more interesting, I think this was also the longest session I've ever done for BtLO as well. I'm pretty sure I haven't cracked the five-hour mark in past recordings... and I still intended to pull double duty in honor of the holiday.


Having said that, I didn't make *nearly* as much progress as I would've hoped to in 5 hours. Chapter 8 was a literal behemoth, on par with the chapters from FC. And I while I thought I was relatively far in at the end of last time, I had merely scratched the surface by that point. While I can't say I regret the sheer amount of effort I put into wrapping up the chapter in this recording, I was essentially sitting on a full bladder for like 2 of those 5 hours. I don't think I've had a gaming session like this period since college... or maybe even since summer vacation back in high school. I definitely had a blast with this session, but my hubris was definitely showing when I expected to knock this one out in no time.


It was definitely interesting to go through the rest of Liberl one last time... and the optional content I managed to find -- both secret sidequests and just random story events -- were definitely well worth checking out, though. On that front, I have absolutely no regrets. Honestly, for as much motivation as recording my playthroughs has given me, the fact that these are eventually intended to be consumed by an audience after the fact has affected my playstyle in some ways. I'd say it's been positive for the most part: giving me an excuse to ignore whatever urges I have for aiming for a "perfect" playthrough as curated by following a walkthrough to the letter is always a benefit. But on the other hand, I guess I feel like the clock's always ticking and I need to "finish the game as soon as possible". I probably could've shaved off an hour or two if I just didn't seek out any of that additional side content... but frankly, I feel like my experience would've been worse off for it.


Erebonia trying to invade Liberl again may not be quite as bad as the whole Hamel incident... but it's not helping make the country look any more likeable in my eyes at this rate. Seeing Olivier reveal his true identity was pretty badass though. And the fact that he and Cassius masterminded such a big reveal was pretty cool. Having said that, I can see why people are complaining about some of the lower stakes generally involved in the Trails games: I'm shocked that even the nameless soldiers didn't die from the Enforcers' attack on Grancel.


Even after such a long session, I was optimistic about finishing the game. Surely, I had avoided the pitfalls that forced me to go into overtime at the end of FC and left myself plenty of time to wrap up the finale... right?

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