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There has been a lot of Discourse (capital D) around how to optimally play the Trails series. There are hardcore purists who say you MUST start with the first game and play sequentially. There are others who say hey, you can start elsewhere, but you MUST start with the beginning of an arc. And there are still others who say just play whatever game you want, have fun, enjoy yourself. In my opinion, NONE of those ways is truly going to serve every single potential fan out there.

My experience playing Trails is pretty out there, in terms of the order I played, and I wanted to share my story, along with the reasons why playing out of order can ACTUALLY be good! AND bad! It's complicated!

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00:00 Intro
00:58 Out of order... Out of my hands
02:56 Cold Steel... Without Crossbell
05:17 Backtracking to Move Forward
09:32 Bottom Line 1: Benefits to Playing Out of Order
13:31 Bottom Line 2: Problems with Playing Out of Order
15:17 Conclusion and Outro