Game:

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd (2007)

Category:

Vlog

Duration: 4:01:43

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Originally recorded: October 31, 2022 (Happy Halloween!)
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It's funny. I knew the end was near... and yet, just how quickly it happened still came as a surprise to me. Given just how long SC's finale took, I figured I was in for another long haul, especially given just how long Chapter 6 was. I can't really say that what Falcom offered as the final chapter of the Trails in the Sky trilogy wasn't really disappointing. I guess I'm just surprised that they managed to condense such a conclusion down to something that I managed to finish in a single (albeit slightly extended) session.

I guess I was expecting this to take two streams so much, I even decided to renege on my promise to ignore that last Abyss boss. I did ask the person who originally requested these recordings on his thoughts on whether I should've gone back and did it and his input wasn't exactly decisive. Still, he wasn't wrong: doing it this time around would've been a lot easier and I'd be lying if I said that having that achievement progress stuck at "3 out of 4" for the foreseeable future would've probably driven me nuts. The really funny part is that it really didn't take that long for me to get through it in the first place. I probably *should* have just gotten it out of the way on my first trek through the Abyss.

Likewise, I'm happy I spent that filler stream grinding all of my more neglected characters up to Level 130. Not only did the Abyss make catching the stragglers up quick and easy, but I ended up needing everyone to get through the final dungeon anyway. I think the funniest bit is that I ended up inadvertently ended up sending Renne along the path that concluded with a boss fight against the Gordias Type-0. Giant robot battles, anyone?

I guess if I were disappointed by any aspect of the finale, it would probably be that it mirrored SC's in one unfortunate way: the difficulty drops substantially after you take out Loewe. Maybe I had just overleveled everyone -- I honestly wonder if Falcom just hadn't intended players to level up their other characters to match wherever Kevin and Ries had gotten. Still, it was a pretty cool finale from a thematic standpoint. And having everyone say their goodbyes, not just to each other... but technically the player as well was a bittersweet moment. Granted, I know that at least a few of these characters are going to return in future games... but it's not really their adventure any more. They'll just be minor characters from here on out. So I guess it really is a goodbye, in a sense.

Likewise, this marks an end to recording my progress through the Trails series on video. Part of the reason I was able to justify it was due to the Sky trilogy's "awkward" release status in the West, but every other game moving forward is available on modern consoles as well as PC. Also, recording these games for the sake of viewing both monopolized a lot of my free time and required me to set aside large chunks of time in order to make any meaningful progress. I have to wonder if playing Zero on my own will go a lot faster, just because only being able to play for an hour won't seem like a waste of time and effort. Either way, I do owe this series a lot. A big reason why I dropped Trails in the Sky in the first place was because I felt constrained by "experiencing everything the games had to offer"... which would require following a meticulous walkthrough to the letter. Learning to stop worrying and just play the games without a roadmap definitely improved my experience significantly. Better still, it even gives me an excuse to revisit these games later, if only to grab the rest of those nagging achievements.

I'm planning on cataloging my further escapades with the Trails series, but I'm afraid I'll be sticking to text-based journals from here on out. I've decided to log everything on a game-by-game basis, though I'll probably give each arc a "heading" -- and I've already picked out the perfect one for Zero and Azure. I'll be posting these on my side-blog Radical YMCK... which I have linked on my channel if you're curious. They won't be starting until 2023 though, but I figured it's worth mentioning anyway. As for BtLO, I've got no idea when or even if it's coming back. But it was definitely a fun experiment and I'd love to do something like this again in the future. We'll just have to wait and see if anything else comes of it.

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