Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

Ta bueno!

Having finished the game and completed all side quests that I'm aware of (anything highlighted on the map, at least), I would no longer recommend this game to my friend who likes other JRPGs and was considering it when I first mentioned it (I felt a lot more positive about it at the start). I'll try to break that down, but different aspects of the game felt more rewarding at different times throughout. [h1] Gameplay [/h1] In general, the game feels very modern. The controls (I played with keyboard and mouse) feel perfectly fine and polished. The premise of action RPG into stun into turn-based is similar to Metaphor: Refantazio, but the real-time combat here has more depth (more moves to use). The turn-based combat reminds me a bit of fire emblem, but not snapped to the grid. Some of the earlier boss fights really incentivized/required rearranging your orbments to get useful support skills or focus firing a single target vs using spread moves. All of these are positives and initially had me very happy with the game during the demo and for a while after. Unfortunately, it overstays its welcome by the end. I think one of the main reasons is that I stopped feeling a sense of progression after unlocking the 6th orbment slot. The strongest arts guzzle EP like nobody's business (requiring mitigation like EP cut and EP) but don't feel all that impressive even when the elemental types match and it's the strongest spell for the element. Compare that to something like persona, where the most expensive skills all feel impactful and you continue to get stronger personas or skills throughout instead of stopping partway through. Also, U-Material upgrades were incredibly grindy. I beat the game on normal with only a couple of orbments maxed at 3+, so it wasn't exactly necessary, but it just felt really weird to hit the end with so much unmaxed and yet so little upgrade material in my inventory. I'm sure that someone playing at a higher difficulty than normal would feel more pressure to minmax their builds to perfectly solve fights, but I would sooner just go play a different game if not for the story. [h1] Story [/h1] Just going to spoiler tag all of this just in case. Read at your peril. [spoiler] I appreciated during the demo that, even though Joshua was adopted, they were just like normal siblings and it wasn't weird for once in an anime setting. Oh, how naive I was. It's less bad imo than other cases since they met relatively recently on the scale of their lifetimes, but still not thrilled by how that all developed throughout. That aside, my bigger beef with the story (writing this review after finishing the game) is how dumb and unsatisfying the ending felt. Joshua always had some kind of dark or tragic past teased, but they finally revealed it and it was a complete disappointment. Unrealistic child assassin history, some sort of abstract notion about a broken heart and putting it back together, and then the decision to leave Estelle instead of trusting her or Cassius after all this time (and kissing her with a sedative like he planned it even before she confessed). At the MINIMUM he should have warned her about Professor Alba. Speaking of Alba, I guess I shouldn't be surprised when a game telegraphs suspicious characters like him or the Colonel by appearance, but it still ruins any semblance of a surprise/twist. [/spoiler] I don't fully regret buying or playing this game and [i]may[/i] even pick up the next chapter on release or during its first sale, but I'd be hard pressed to recommend this over other JRPGs I've played.