• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky SC |OT| More Olivier Than Ever

Dice//

Banned
Great OT!

Just wanted to make this available if you're coming from PSP to PC or if you just want a PC save file:

https://copy.com/BxvcgrF2JrKZhDVx

All BP, all side quests completed, most (all?) characters at level 39 (out of a max transferrable of 40).

2ax4eZV.gif


Probably the reason I was gonna do the PSP one was because I put so much time into FC there than having to do it ALL again on PC. Thanks for this!!!!!!
 
Probably the reason I was gonna do the PSP one was because I put so much time into FC there than having to do it ALL again on PC. Thanks for this!!!!!!

Yeah I was tempted to get the PSP version as well for the same reason, lol.

Hmm, is it surprisingly hard to find a story recap for FC online... Just brief entries on the Wiki which doesn't really help. I remember mostly the ending, but not much about the characters or villains.
 

Aeana

Member
Is it petty of me to be glad that XSEED didn't change the portrait art for FC/SC PC to this shit from Trails in the Sky FC Evolution? Some of the FC Evo music tracks are worse than the original, too. I don't want that version.

I'm not a fan of the Evolution releases at all. It's basically always a case of "what if someone who doesn't respect the source material got their hands on it and tried to redo everything?" to me. Worse music, worse art, and in the case of Zero/Ao Evo at least, insertion of perverted garbage that doesn't belong just to pander to the Vita audience. I wish Falcom had kept up with the Kai releases and done Zero and Ao Kai on PS3, because that's the real way to do it.
 

Psxphile

Member
I hope XSEED at least lets us know when the ship has sailed on TC/Zero/Ao so I know when to start taking Japanese lessons

Or, in the case of Zero, wait in the hopes that the fan translation will be completed one day. They recently put out a call for more translators because the scope is a bit more than 2 people can handle in any reasonable amount of time.
 

Dio

Banned
It's basically always a case of "what if someone who doesn't respect the source material got their hands on it and tried to redo everything?" to me.

That's not an unfair assumption, and it's not just to you. The Evolution remakes are not actually done by Falcom, they're done by Pyramid, so I don't see why it's a stretch to think that.

Also, to be fair, I think the Zero and Ao Evolution soundtracks did a far better job in some cases of doing a 'new soundtrack' compared to FC. Zero's was pretty weak before Evolution, relatively.
 

Aeana

Member
That's not an unfair assumption, and it's not just to you. The Evolution remakes are not actually done by Falcom, they're done by Pyramid, so I don't see why it's a stretch to think that.

Yes, I'm aware. But in the history of Falcom, we've gotten plenty of releases through similar licensing arrangements that came out high quality because they didn't start changing stuff willy-nilly.
 

Nyoro SF

Member
That's not an unfair assumption, and it's not just to you. The Evolution remakes are not actually done by Falcom, they're done by Pyramid, so I don't see why it's a stretch to think that.

It feels strange to hand off your most treasured titles to a company to not only have them muck it up in mediocre fashion once, but many times...
 

Aeana

Member
It feels strange to hand off your most treasured titles to a company to not only have them muck it up in mediocre fashion once, but many times...

Falcom has never cared as long as they get their licensing money. Along with the good releases I mentioned in the above post, a metric ton of garbage (i.e. Ys DS, Legend of Heroes Gagharv Trilogy PSP, etc.) has been produced as well. But it's managed to keep them afloat over the years.
 

Dio

Banned
Yes, I'm aware. But in the history of Falcom, we've gotten plenty of releases through similar licensing arrangements that came out high quality because they didn't start changing stuff willy-nilly.
That's true. Hell, the best version of Ys 4 was the farmed-out-to-Hudson Soft one, in my opinion, and that wasn't even a remake, that was just a different take on the same game (the other one was Tonkin House.)
 
Or, in the case of Zero, wait in the hopes that the fan translation will be completed one day. They recently put out a call for more translators because the scope is a bit more than 2 people can handle in any reasonable amount of time.

I don't follow fan translations so I didn't even think of that. I guess it's an option as well, if it ever gets finished.
Chances of me playing more of those games at some point in the next 30 years are getting better every day!
 

Dio

Banned
Do you have more freedom on party composition in this one? The first one only allowed you to choose at the very end.
There is more freedom, yes. If you look back a couple pages someone posts more indepth what kind of freedom you get.
 

Reveirg

Member
A few questions about FC, I'm very fuzzy about story details (huge FC ending spoilers):

Who was Professor Alba to Joshua/Estelle before the reveal? When did they meet him and who did they think he was?

Also, what was the deal with Joshua at the end?

And are we supposed to know what the snake apostles are?

No SC spoilers please, thanks!
 
A few questions about FC, I'm very fuzzy about story details (huge FC ending spoilers):

Who was Professor Alba to Joshua/Estelle before the reveal? When did they meet him and who did they think he was?

Also, what was the deal with Joshua at the end?

No SC spoilers please, thanks!

It's been four years for me, but from memory:

Alba was, as far as they knew, a wandering archaeologist doing research into various historical sites. They helped him out in the first chapter, and kept bumping into him again after that.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean with Joshua. From memory, he found out that Alba had been using him as a sleeper agent to gain knowledge about Cassius, and then he regained some memories (I think), and said goodbye to Estelle.

Someone who has played the game more recently could probably help flesh out that second part more.
 

Dio

Banned
A few questions about FC, I'm very fuzzy about story details (huge FC ending spoilers):

Who was Professor Alba to Joshua/Estelle before the reveal? When did they meet him and who did they think he was?

Also, what was the deal with Joshua at the end?

No SC spoilers please, thanks!

MORE FC ENDING SPOILERS:

That guy that they kept finding at towers being an archaeologist studying old tech from the lost civilization and they were like 'how come we keep finding him in these places'? if you remember the first time Joshua sees him in the first tower, he gets all lightheaded and has to get some air.

Joshua was a sleeper agent trained by him, and essentially leaked information about Cassius Bright to him and was the reason for the events of FC, by leading him out of the country so "Alba" could execute his plot without Cassius getting in the way. The snap was getting rid of the mental block and 'freeing' Joshua. Now that he's free, Joshua wants to get rid of the organization that made Joshua what he is.
 

Dice//

Banned
A few questions about FC, I'm very fuzzy about story details (huge FC ending spoilers):

Who was Professor Alba to Joshua/Estelle before the reveal? When did they meet him and who did they think he was?

Also, what was the deal with Joshua at the end?

No SC spoilers please, thanks!

BLAH BLAH


EDIT: Beaten and outdone. x) THanks Dio!
 

Dio

Banned
Might wanna tag that, Dragoon. It's not a big deal and they show it off a bit in the SC promo material on XSEED's site, but it's still a big enough spoiler I'd wanna leave it alone.
 

Reveirg

Member
Thanks for the great answers! :)

2 follow-up questions ^^

Huge FC ending spoilers again:

-Why didn't Alba lock Joshua's memories again at the end?
-Joshua was adopted at a late age by Cassius then, I guess? Alba's organization took him in when he was very young and eventually ended up at a new "foster family" -> Cassius. Is that right?
 
Thanks for the great answers! :)

2 follow-up questions ^^

Huge FC ending spoilers again:

-Why didn't Alba lock Joshua's memories again at the end?
-Joshua was adopted at a late age by Cassius then, I guess? Alba's organization took him in when he was very young and eventually ended up at a new "foster family" -> Cassius. Is that right?

I think Alba wanted him to remember. Joshua had completed his job, and Alba didn't have any need for him to act as a sleeper agent anymore.

Yeah, you see that at the start of the game. Estelle is waiting for her dad to come home, and when he does he has Joshua with him, and he's visibly not happy with Cassius.
 
-Why didn't Alba lock Joshua's memories again at the end?
-Joshua was adopted at a late age by Cassius then, I guess? Alba's organization took him in when he was very young and eventually ended up at a new "foster family" -> Cassius. Is that right?
Weissmann is wry about giving Joshua his mental freedom, knowing full and well the desperate reaction he'll get from Joshua and that being tricked in such a way, for so many years, can "weigh heavily on a fellow". I think Weissmann really wants to either trap Joshua in a situation he won't escape from, or he wants him to give in and work for Ouroboros again. Either way, Weissmann has the last laugh after having the Tetracyclic Towers unsealed for him and the organization, and he's mostly here to gloat thinking he's already won
.

And yes, you have the last part right.
 

Aeana

Member
Thanks for the great answers! :)

2 follow-up questions ^^

Huge FC ending spoilers again:

-Why didn't Alba lock Joshua's memories again at the end?
-Joshua was adopted at a late age by Cassius then, I guess? Alba's organization took him in when he was very young and eventually ended up at a new "foster family" -> Cassius. Is that right?

Joshua was adopted when he was still a child, right after he had attempted to assassinate Cassius and failed. Cassius knew who/what Joshua was, and took him in anyway. At that point, Joshua had some idea of what he was, but was moved by Cassius's kindness. Of course, he didn't have the full picture either, and the pieces were filled in by Weissman at the end of FC.
 

Reveirg

Member
Again, thanks for the answers! Read the bracer's notebook, watched the ending again, and with these precisions, it's all coming back! :D
 
Loaded my save, and it's from 9-18-11 and clocks in at 38 hours ! I'm at the last dungeon and don't remember what I was doing, so I'm just going to start over.
 
Whereabouts of Light is a harmonica tune without blues, which bugs me even more being a Southern U.S. bloke. But yeah, the Hisashi resemblance is uncanny even though both tunes are different after a few listens.

The problem was more that a lot of the FC promotional or status art tended to be pretty rough. The new portraits, though, while they help unify the art style with Cold Steel and the Crossbell arc to a lesser extent (though even then, it's not quite like Enami-san's art) really do some of the charm of the originals, particular everyone having a slightly different posture. It always bugged me, even in Zero/Azure, how everyone had a similar posture.
Apparently "You Shiina" was the illustrator working on Sora no Kiseki, but that doesn't explain the schism in polish between the tall character promos and in-game portraits. I'm going to assume the former were completed in advance of the latter, appropriate since Falcom was using the promo art earlier on. None of Falcom's internal character artists were or are free of flaws—Iwasaki's a favorite of mine, but she has trouble with sameface and dynamic poses for characters. Then you have an older artist like Yoneda who reused a lot of ideas (fighting dragons among the clouds being a premise for several promo pieces).
 
Added to the OP

Help! I forgot most of the story in the interim between releases. What can I do to get caught up?
Luckily there's an excellent image-based Let's Play available here. Read it thoroughly or just skim through for major story beats if you want to save time. This thing, much like the game itself, is quite detailed.

Where can I find 100% save files for FC on PSP and Steam?
Steam Save
PSP Save

Please note that if you are using the PSP file on a Vita or PSTV you must have played a PSP game on the device previously in order for the proper files to be created to place the save.

Please let me know if I got anything wrong.
 
Question about one part of the ending/story of the game:

What was Alba's plan? Why did he need Cassius out of the country exactly? I can't really remember the plot about the queen/coup or even who Lorence is exactly. I know Joshua knows him, but can't remember how (if we even know yet as of FC). I think Alba's plan involved Estelle and co. unlocking whatever that final dungeon was, but for the life of me, I can't remember why they even went down there in the first place. What was the purpose of Estelle and co going down there? Sorry, that part of the story (the final chapter basically) is just very vague to me.

Part of me thinks I should just replay FC, but I'm not sure I really have the time now. :(

@Dandy Crocodile - oh that link about the story could prove useful. A lot of reading though lol
 

CrazyDude

Member
Question about one part of the ending/story of the game:

What was Alba's plan? Why did he need Cassius out of the country exactly? I can't really remember the plot about the queen/coup or even who Lorence is exactly. I know Joshua knows him, but can't remember how (if we even know yet as of FC). I think Alba's plan involved Estelle and co. unlocking whatever that final dungeon was, but for the life of me, I can't remember why they even went down there in the first place. What was the purpose of Estelle and co going down there? Sorry, that part of the story (the final chapter basically) is just very vague to me.

Part of me thinks I should just replay FC, but I'm not sure I really have the time now. :(

@Dandy Crocodile - oh that link about the story could prove useful. A lot of reading though lol
Cassius was needed out of the country because he was the only one powerful enough to get in the way of their plan. Joshua was used to tabs on Cassius's whereabouts. He was not using Estelle at all. His plan was to unlock some power by going around the towers and he also used the colonel to create a coupe to the last key under the castle.
 
What was Alba's plan? Why did he need Cassius out of the country exactly? I can't really remember the plot about the queen/coup or even who Lorence is exactly. I know Joshua knows him, but can't remember how (if we even know yet as of FC). I think Alba's plan involved Estelle and co. unlocking whatever that final dungeon was, but for the life of me, I can't remember why they even went down there in the first place. What was the purpose of Estelle and co going down there? Sorry, that part of the story (the final chapter basically) is just very vague to me.
His goal before and during FC was
unlocking the mechanisms sealing the Sept-Terrion, a group of super-powerful Orbment artifacts locked away by the Zemurians after the disappearance of their civilization (right around that point anyway). Getting Richard and his forces into the Aureole underneath Grancel Castle was Alba/Weissmann's ultimate success. He used his powers of suggestion to convince Richard, without him knowing, that a WMD-like artifact lay in the dungeon. Cassius, were he available for contact by the Bracer Guild, would have figured out what could be happening, and he would have uprooted Weissmann and his plan in the amount of time it took for Joshua/Estelle and the others to foil the coup.
 

Dio

Banned
He used his powers of suggestion to convince Richard, without him knowing, that a WMD-like artifact lay in the dungeon.

This moment was so awesome.
When Estelle said to him straight up, "you don't even know why you want this so badly, do you?" and he realizes what's happened, I was actually like "man, they executed this conversation PERFECTLY." It was very easy to mess that up but it just added to how fucked up messing with people's memories and suggestions really was.
 

Dice//

Banned
FC's ending song is eerily similar to Castle In the Sky's main theme :|

Haha yeaaah...

Wild Arms 1's music is also awfully similar to Ennio Morricone's work. Rip-off or homage!? You decide!!!

Whereabouts of Light is a harmonica tune without blues, which bugs me even more being a Southern U.S. bloke. But yeah, the Hisashi resemblance is uncanny even though both tunes are different after a few listens.

Apparently "You Shiina" was the illustrator working on Sora no Kiseki, but that doesn't explain the schism in polish between the tall character promos and in-game portraits. I'm going to assume the former were completed in advance of the latter, appropriate since Falcom was using the promo art earlier on. None of Falcom's internal character artists were or are free of flaws—Iwasaki's a favorite of mine, but she has trouble with sameface and dynamic poses for characters. Then you have an older artist like Yoneda who reused a lot of ideas (fighting dragons among the clouds being a premise for several promo pieces).


I kinda wanna know what you mean with pictures (I can't say I know the artist's work that well but this stuff really catches my interest). Hard to blame artist's for "same face"...shit even the great's of the Renaissance era are guilty of this.
 
I hope XSEED at least lets us know when the ship has sailed on TC/Zero/Ao so I know when to start taking Japanese lessons

Don't you mean "Once enough fine folks by this fine game to make it financially viable for XSEED/Falcom to risk TC/Zero/Ao? :D

Essentially, though a lot of die-hard Trails fans would say it's more than "a bit". It's basically a fairly short main quest used as a wrapper to visit a whole lot of the world-building and extra scenes Falcom simply did not have time or room to fit into the main Trails in the Sky game. A whole hell of a lot of it sets up stuff for Trails of Cold Steel and the Zero/Azure games, though - in particular it's the "proper" first appearance of a particular Erebonian character who is mentioned at length in SC but only makes on-camera appearances in later arcs.



It should support any and all XInput devices.



The problem was more that a lot of the FC promotional or status art tended to be pretty rough. The new portraits, though, while they help unify the art style with Cold Steel and the Crossbell arc to a lesser extent (though even then, it's not quite like Enami-san's art) really do some of the charm of the originals, particular everyone having a slightly different posture. It always bugged me, even in Zero/Azure, how everyone had a similar posture.

Oh yeah, those. Yeah, I see that. But the portraiture for the Sky trilogy is so expressive and, well, 90s. Alot of that was lost in the antiseptic Evo, which is unfortunate.

Added to the OP

Help! I forgot most of the story in the interim between releases. What can I do to get caught up?


Where can I find 100% save files for FC on PSP and Steam?


Please let me know if I got anything wrong.

Cool! I was about to suggest that.
 
Cassius was needed out of the country because he was the only one powerful enough to get in the way of their plan. Joshua was used to tabs on Cassius's whereabouts. He was not using Estelle at all. His plan was to unlock some power by going around the towers and he also used the colonel to create a coupe to the last key under the castle.

His goal before and during FC was
unlocking the mechanisms sealing the Sept-Terrion, a group of super-powerful Orbment artifacts locked away by the Zemurians after the disappearance of their civilization (right around that point anyway). Getting Richard and his forces into the Aureole underneath Grancel Castle was Alba/Weissmann's ultimate success. He used his powers of suggestion to convince Richard, without him knowing, that a WMD-like artifact lay in the dungeon. Cassius, were he available for contact by the Bracer Guild, would have figured out what could be happening, and he would have uprooted Weissmann and his plan in the amount of time it took for Joshua/Estelle and the others to foil the coup.

Ah okay, very helpful. Thanks :)
 
I kinda wanna know what you mean with pictures (I can't say I know the artist's work that well but this stuff really catches my interest). Hard to blame artist's for "same face"...shit even the great's of the Renaissance era are guilty of this.
It's more that I can tell she's capable of doing more interesting artwork vs. the work she's gotten and now gets. Here's two of her late Falcom pieces and two she did after leaving to do freelance work. I really like slide 3 here because of the variation in personality, subtle posing, and the feeling that no one character looks alike. Meanwhile the earlier Falcom stuff is a tad gaudy and same-ish (excusable given it was her earlier stuff), and the Phoneix Wright promo looks cookie-cutter. But I'm still overlooking the truckload of great art she did for Shin Megaten, Wind Seekers, and light novels. I'm annoyed still that her most recent artworks are relatively homogeneous and safe-looking (gee, let's just remove all the noses from characters because that's what everyone does these days).
 
I hope XSEED at least lets us know when the ship has sailed on TC/Zero/Ao so I know when to start taking Japanese lessons

Given how long its taken to get the main portion of the Liberl arc to be translated... you might as well start learning now. Especially since at the moment there doesn't seem to be any good avenue for Zero/Ao to release under.
 

Dio

Banned
Given how long its taken to get the main portion of the Liberl arc to be translated... you might as well start learning now. Especially since at the moment there doesn't seem to be any good avenue for Zero/Ao to release under.
To be fair, XSEED has said that the SC translation process has taught them a shitload about working on giant translation projects. Remember, they ARE releasing Cold Steel quite soon.
 
Given how long its taken to get the main portion of the Liberl arc to be translated... you might as well start learning now. Especially since at the moment there doesn't seem to be any good avenue for Zero/Ao to release under.
If I remember correctly it's Ao/Azure that's the troublesome one. Zero did get a PC release with Falcom.
 

Erheller

Member
Added to the OP

Help! I forgot most of the story in the interim between releases. What can I do to get caught up?


Where can I find 100% save files for FC on PSP and Steam?


Please let me know if I got anything wrong.

Thanks for including my save! I think it may be worth mentioning that it's technically not 100% because Estelle is level 39 instead of 40, but I'm also pretty sure that it's not the levels people care about, it's the sidequest completion.

I also just mirrored it in case something happens. Here's the link:

https://mega.nz/#!zgtABKYb!RfGNn2ggdSoV2GQuGv5NaHsrfCJSLatDfQnHb4SCCy0

Edit: Also, the save *should* work with the GOG version as well as the Steam version. So it's technically a PC save, not a Steam save :p
 
To be fair, XSEED has said that the SC translation process has taught them a shitload about working on giant translation projects. Remember, they ARE releasing Cold Steel quite soon.

Pretty much. Cold Steel is absolutely dropping before December 31st, if nothing else, and I know Kris & Nick are already at work on CS2. And everyone involved has learned an f-load about doing projects of this scale - which is a bit funny because none of the remaining games are nearly as big as SC. Cold Steel + CS2 together aren't as big a script as SC (though those games have the added necessity of a fair bit of VO). The only "project" bigger than SC is Zero+Azure together, and while doing one necessitates committing to the other, those would still ultimately be two separate real projects.

I have no idea if Robin and I will be involved with any Trails projects going forward, but even I feel confident saying we learned a ton from working on SC and working on any of the remaining titles wouldn't take nearly as long, even from the TL+edit side of things. The situation with SC was unique in many ways, and shouldn't happen to any future games.

Assuming SC sells well enough to justify bringing over the remaining sprite-polygon style games, at any rate.
 
If I remember correctly it's Ao/Azure that's the troublesome one. Zero did get a PC release with Falcom.

Both Zero and Ao have been released for PC in China. Only Zero has gotten a release in Japan, IIRC, but it does suggest that both could be adapted for a functional English PC release if the circumstances were right.
 

chaosblade

Unconfirmed Member
Pretty much. Cold Steel is absolutely dropping before December 31st, if nothing else, and I know Kris & Nick are already at work on CS2. And everyone involved has learned an f-load about doing projects of this scale - which is a bit funny because none of the remaining games are nearly as big as SC. Cold Steel + CS2 together aren't as big a script as SC (though those games have the added necessity of a fair bit of VO). The only "project" bigger than SC is Zero+Azure together, and while doing one necessitates committing to the other, those would still ultimately be two separate real projects.

I have no idea if Robin and I will be involved with any Trails projects going forward, but even I feel confident saying we learned a ton from working on SC and working on any of the remaining titles wouldn't take nearly as long, even from the TL+edit side of things. The situation with SC was unique in many ways, and shouldn't happen to any future games.

Assuming SC sells well enough to justify bringing over the remaining sprite-polygon style games, at any rate.

Certainly hope it does well enough, I'm more interested in (hopefully) playing those than the Cold Steel games.
 

Dice//

Banned
While right now I'm just grateful to see SC happening and more Trails love coming our way with Cold Steel... I know I'll always feel a small pain in my heard for 3RD, Zero, and Ao. D:

Still... god bless XSeed, they're the company we need, and not always the one we deserve. :(
 
Top Bottom