Trails in the Sky (PSP RPG)

Anyone have it yet? I’ve had my eye on this game for a while, but I actually have enough to play right now. Still, if it is REALLY good I might set something else aside for it. I haven’t played any of this series, but the battle system looks interesting to me. The graphics look…OK. But that’s not my main draw for a PSP RPG anyway.

Favorable review at rpgfan.com.

Might pick this one up.

edit: Quote from review:

Sounds pretty good.

I’m two hours in so far. Seems relatively stock standard up to that point, but all of that is subject to change in an instant as I’m only in the middle of the prologue. The battle system is nice, though I am not a fan of the arbitrary phase bonuses that are dropped into the battle. They are completely random and it absolutely ruins your entire fight if the enemy gets a guaranteed critical hit or 50% strength boost out of nowhere. There’s a way to hijack those bonuses for yourself, but it’s highly undesirable to use in any but the most desperate of circumstances.

I’m sure I’ll have more to say about it in the next few days after I finish logging more time with it.

You don’t have to rely on just S. Breaks to take the bonuses. You can also look at employing Artes which may or may not change the turn order enough to switch the bonus from an enemy to an ally, gang up on the specific enemy, or use the Move command to get out of melee range for the applicable turn if the enemy type is melee only.

I’m about four hours in and really enjoying it. Combat is a lot of fun and while the main story has yet to make itself known, the characters are reasonably charming and their are sidequests galore.

I would be playing this now but the Fed Ex delivery person “tried to deliver but no one was available to accept the package,” which is interesting because I was home all day yesterday. There’s gotta be a better way to get this niche stuff in a timely manner.

Niche stuff? It’s just a regular PSP game. Your fedex guy was probably being lazy and didn’t ring the bell, or you were in the shower or something. Once you get it, add some impressions.

Anyone else bothered at the most obvious acronym for this? I’m not sure I want to tell my wife I’m playing TITS again.

I play the PC version, I believe this is one of those old rpg that got remade.

It was very fun back then.

Considering snagging this sometime. I have been generally pleased with the Ys series Falcom and Xseed put up on PSN over the past year(Ys 1+2 being the exception, as I found they are mostly terrible remakes that did little to mitigate the gaping problems with the original titles. Pretty as they are with superlative music.)

Well it was originally released in 2004 for the PC, don’t know if that qualifies as “old” though. The PSP version came out in 2006 and we are just now seeing it here.

PSN. It was available there on Tuesday night.

7 years is pretty damn old in game age, I play the original chinese one anyways.

If that’s a shot at how tiny the PSP market has become, well played. If it’s an implication that Trails in the Sky is on par with titles that stores order reasonable quantities of, I don’t think so.

Collector’s edition or death.

The SE is currently winging its away across the Atlantic Ocean but I already have Tactics Ogre, The 3rd Birthday, Lord of Arcana, Dissidia 012, Yggdra Union, Oath in Felghana, Ys Chronicles, Peace Walker, Half-Minute Hero, FFT and P3P to play.

It wasn’t so long ago that my PSP backlog involved just VCII and Kingdom Hearts. This is absolutely the last game I’m buying for my PSP!

…until FFIV Collection.

Somewhere a Patapon is crying. I hope you’re happy, jerk.

 -Tom

Thanks, Tom.

Not only have you reminded me that there’s another PSP title I have to get, I’m now going PON PON PATA PON at work.

I’m about thirty hours in, and not too far away from the end, I don’t think. Impressions for a game no one remembers came out!

I am reminded of Skies of Arcadia constantly while playing Trails In The Sky. Not because of airships (there are ships, but you don’t have your own, and there is no free-flying exploration), not because of random encounters (thankfully, there aren’t any), but because of relentless optimism. Skies of Arcadia came out around the time that Final Fantasy VII’s mindfuck steampunk and Final Fantasy VIII’s brooding child soldiers were dominating the market. Trails In The Sky comes out in this new age of RPGs where seemingly 90% of RPGs take place in the grim, dark land of Darkgrim under the tyrannical rule of the Mad King Arterial Spray.

By comparison, TitS – you know, let’s not actually do that.

By comparison, Trails is a light-hearted, brightly-colored romp through the best RPG mechanics of yesteryear. The combat system and character system isn’t much to speak of; you have some control over placing on the battlefield, meaning if you play your cards right you can hit every enemy with an area-effect spell, or you can just hit one if you don’t. Spells are determined by how you equip magical gems on your characters, which gives the game some nice versatility in building your characters for battle. You know the order of upcoming turns because it’s listed on the left side of the screen, and careful use of spells and focused fire can make sure any turn bonuses land on your characters and not the enemies.

The highlight, though, is the story and the characters. The lead character is a girl, something rare for RPGs in my experience. Rarer still is the fact that her gender isn’t important at all. Estelle Bright is a bracer-in-training, a young general do-gooder/mercenary with a carefree attitude and a bit of a space cadet. She reminds me a lot of Aika in Skies of Arcadia. Her adopted brother, Joshua Bright, is much more level-headed and reserved. He joined the family when Estelle’s father, a renowned bracer, brought him to the house five years before the game begins (when Estelle and Joshua were both eleven). Despite the fact that they have the same last name and treat each other as siblings, of course it’s going to get more complicated than that.

You always have these two in your party. The other two slots are periodically filled with a heavy drinker with a sadistic side, a foppish bard sporting an incredible crush on Joshua, a college student, a man wielding a giant sword purely out of rage, a womanizing martial artist, and a ten-year-old girl with a mortar.

The writing is fantastic; a great localization gives the characters personalities that keep you wanting to play the game. Estelle in particular is a great lead character, one with flaws and faults, but that same trademark relentless optimism that really makes Trails stand out. Side characters aren’t flat or forgettable, and the Persona-style pictures for each line of dialogue that show the characters’ different moods easily make up for the lack of voice acting.

Trails In The Sky isn’t going to be an all-time classic, but it’s a wonderful, charming RPG. Highly recommended.

Nice summary.

I agree with just about everything you said. I played until i ragequit at the very end at the multistage boss battle with no save points in between stages. Looking back on it now, I should have given it one more try because I was genuinely engaged with the story and characters, and never got to experience the conclusion of the story, and find out what was up the Estelle and Joshua’s father.

I did find the gameplay rather dull overall. There were some knobs to twiddle to customize characters, but the fighting was easy enough that the game never really encouraged you to experiment, so I never bothered. Maybe that’s why I couldn’t beat the final boss, but I hate when games all of a sudden force you at the end to master a game mechanic you could easily spend the whole game ignoring.

Overall it was a charming game though, and hope the next game in the series ends up getting localized.

Thanks for reminding me to up this game in my psp backlog!

I put about 4 hours into this, still in the prologue. I really like it so far, but the main attraction for me is the classic Ultima4/5 party grid combat system. Apparently the story and world are amazing, but I haven’t really put enough time into it for that to shine through- though I’m sure it will soon enough.

Definitely recommend this one from what I’ve played.

Another great thing about this RPG:

Save anywhere! Every mobile game needs this.

Just got this out of my backlog after discovering that half minute hero was not really my cup of tea.

I’m about two hours in and really enjoying it. Although I haven’t seen the original source material (and I would not yet be able to understand it), the English writing seems very well done and has actually already made me smirk several times - this does not happen to me often in games nowadays. The writing is really “charming” for lack of a better word. I also really appreciate the almost revolutionary save system of being allowed to save at almost any time.

Two minor issues I have encountered are firstly that the (english) combat voices aren’t to my liking (which can be easily fixed in the options menu) and that, at least at the beginning, the heroes feel pretty weak. For instance I was at full health and got ganged up by four monsters and was dead after that. Add in the roulette of those random bonusses landing on an enemy and it could become a bit frustrating.

Overall I think I’ll really enjoy this game, unless the story (of which I haven’t seen much) is really bad.