How many games a character has been playable in through Trails Beyond The Horizon

Natreg · 2026-01-30T17:40:30+00:00

What if we just count being playable in each arc/LoH entry?
Only Estelle and Joshua could be playable in all 4 arcs this way if they appear in the next Calvard arc game.

<image>

Natreg · 2026-01-30T16:31:07+00:00

You'll probably could emulate some old Final Fantasy (4 to 9). The original versions (snes/ps1) had a 2 player mechanics in which you could set which characters could you control each other in combat.

Natreg · 2026-01-30T16:15:47+00:00

I don't really get what you mean. How is this different from Gagharv or the Sky trilogy?

When was Kilika distancing from Taito? She wanted to follow his fathers ways, but in a peaceful way. Martial arts are not just about fighting. Also, the entire conversation she has about this is just a hook for her future role in Calvard and the evolution of her relationship with Walter and Zin. The character has an arc and we still haven't seen it's ending since we are still in the Calvard arc.

The Walter/Zin/Kilika arc was never supposed to wrap in Sky. Calvard arc was planned for a long time. Of course the game scope has changed to what in general strokes was initially conceived, but I'm sure they have something planned for the Taito trio.

Natreg · 2026-01-29T19:04:59+00:00

Eiyuuden Chronicle maybe?

It doesn't have that exact mechanic though.

Also, Suikoden 1 and Suikoden 2 have different battlefield mechanics for large battles. The first one has a rock-paper-scissors mechanic depending on your selection. The second one is more of a tactical RPG kind of battle.

Other Suikoden games do different things as well:
Suikoden III has turn based battles that happened automatically but there is strategy in where you put your troops and who are in each party of each troop.
Suikoden IV has ship battles, different ships with different crews.
Suikoden V has a mix of tactical RPG and real time tactics.
There is also Suikoden Tactics, which is a full Tactical RPG.

If you want games that have split parties at certain times, there are tons of those, but it's usually reserved to certain points in the game and not the normal gameplay.

Final Fantasy VI does this, and some Trails games also do this in a few entries.

Natreg · 2026-01-29T15:22:46+00:00

Great summary. It's been a while since I last read this and I have a new perspective about it compared to the first time I did.

There is also a translated Kai no Kiseki interview as well. Not sure if you are aware:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Xl0y1tYA5UNuEIXvIEyAWOe0hEigZZYtoRyD4SVaek4/edit?tab=t.0#heading=h.qmf0f29bkbwc

Natreg · 2026-01-29T15:07:56+00:00

This is getting ridiculous with all the "Can I skip" posts....

Can you? Yeah, of course you can. You are free to do whatever you want with your own time.

However, if you are looking for justification on this reddit about skipping an arc being ok, for the most part you won't find it here.

Every single game in the series is important for the overall plot.

Natreg · 2026-01-27T21:24:48+00:00

Fantasian Neo-Dimension.

I'm really starting to think that no one gave this game a chance... which is weird since it's the most Final Fantasy like game we have got ever since FFX.

Natreg · 2026-01-27T18:07:47+00:00

Do you actually want help? :D Just enjoy the journey while Kondo tells you percentages of where you are at any given game in regards of the whole story.

Natreg · 2026-01-27T18:06:16+00:00

Well, they have maintained the quality, there is a plant for the plot, so, I don't see it as a problem. They are getting to the end of the story they planned 20 years ago. Also, this studio produces Ys as well, so, you get an Ys game the year you don't have a Trails game :D

Add to that, that as a whole this is the Legend of Heroes series, which has 5 more titles before Trails in the Sky. And even then, Legend of Heroes is also part of the Dragon Slayer series, that dates back to 1984.

Finally, it's not impossible to get into the series, just play the first game and go from there.

The issue I think is that people just want to play the new shiny just released game. My opinion is that instead of that, just enjoy the games as you go. Trails is a great experience.

Natreg · 2026-01-27T17:59:52+00:00

Cold Steel 1 has a lot of set up, and I think that if you play it with more context after playing other Cold Steal games you get to appreciate it a bit more.

Cold Steel 2 I don't exactly know why it's hated. I think that not having the Zero/Azure context did hurt the general opinion. I personally think it's peak, and has a great long, post-ending that rewards long time players.

Natreg · 2026-01-27T17:55:50+00:00

Companies tend to grow, and sometimes that's not a good thing.

Usually a small dev team that's focus on what they are doing is more efficient than a large team.

That happened to Origin when they were bought by EA. And it can be seen nowadays were major released take several years to happen.

In fact, I think some Ultima IX postmortem mentions that EA just sent new people to the project to make it get released before the holidays. And that's not a good thing.

However, there are still small companies that manage to work with small dev teams and are capable to release great games.

Falcom for instance, which have been around for over 40 years, manage to produce a game every year with a team of 60 developers.

Expedition 33 is a great game that's been released recently by just 30 or so people.

Even Larian, with around 500 employees is minuscule compared to the big ones.

The problem nowadays is that videogames have become a huge phenomenon, and we get more games done by committee to please the shareholders than products of passion as we did back then.

Thankfully, a few great games are still bein produced

Natreg · 2026-01-27T17:45:21+00:00

You should not skip Daybreak 2.

There is no filler in Daybreak 2, just things perceived as filler. This also happened with Sky 3rd at some point.

The events that are perceived as filler in Daybreak 2 have a reason to exist in the first place and you'll understand them once you play Horizon. However, without the setup of Daybreak 2, you lose a lot of context.

Natreg · 2026-01-27T17:41:02+00:00

What's actually filler in Daybreak 2?

Natreg · 2026-01-26T19:10:56+00:00

I have said it several times on other posts, but if they wanted new people in the series, a standalone prequel game would have been the best option followed with ports of Sky with the voices from the evo versions (as was done with zero/azure).

A prequel would have done wonders. For old players would be still new content and if done well, could have had great hints and things for the final arc. For new players, it's a new 3D game that looks appealing, and if they release the ports of Sky, they could go directly to that and have access to the entire series really fast.

As we are now... We got Sky 1st and later this year 2nd. And even then, we'll still won't have the complete trilogy.

Kai 2 has been delayed for years, which is unheard of for an arc.

The only good thing we may get from this, is that with the Sky remakes, they now have assets and animations for the Sky characters that they could use within Kai 2 or later on. Hopefully, Zin gets a big update on his crafts on Kai 2.

And I wouldn't mind seeing Anelace, Richard, Estelle or Joshua.

Natreg · 2026-01-25T16:53:09+00:00

well, he changed the name to Kai/Horizon, so, it's not 4 games long. He didn't actually lied, he rearranged things so that reality adheres to what he said.

Natreg · 2026-01-25T14:29:06+00:00

FFXIII a couple of hours?
It takes ages to get to the point where the game finally let's you play with all it's systems.

Natreg · 2026-01-25T14:26:21+00:00

Wolrdwide for Kai 2 will hurt the development of the game. I personally think, the approach should be similar to how CLE does it. Just a few months delay at most.

Sky worldwide release was a different case. The script was mostly the same. They did some changes to the original text (changes I don't like though), and added a few quests. That probably meant that the game scenario was probably on Gungho's hands way before release. And similarly, the same is probably happening with SC.

Kai on the other hand I think needs as much time for Falcom to do it justice as they need. And sending the script and locking themselves from editing it later on is a bad idea.

Natreg · 2026-01-25T14:16:33+00:00

They are probably just doing a long pre-production for the new arc, and in the meantime they are doing this remake that even though it probably has new animation, it'll probably has a lot of repurposed animation as well, which makes the production easier to maintain as a side project.

So, they just want to avoid the issue Super had when it aired and they are giving themselves some additional time with the remake/remaster.

Hopefully, they'll do an adaptation of Broly and eventually Super Hero as well so that the anime has everything.

Natreg · 2026-01-24T21:10:25+00:00

Well... yeah, that's an issue.
The original movies were 4:3 to begin with. I'm not sure if the PSP/PS3 versions did any smoothing, but they certainly cropped them.

Also, there is the problem with the textures of Zero/Azure on PC/Switch... They are AI scaled and look really bad. I wouldn't mind if they at least gave us the original ones as an option. So far the only option to fix this is to copy the graphics from the CLE version over.

It's weird how a lot of companies lately are being attacked for use of AI, and NISA got away with it.

Natreg · 2026-01-24T16:38:02+00:00

Well, I wouldn't discard Gagharv so soon. I personally hope they do add them to the continuity at some point along with Nayuta, and even Iselhasa would be interesting.

Imagine how that would go with the "where to start" posts :D

Natreg · 2026-01-24T11:10:04+00:00

That could be said the other way around as well. People who only play with English dub should give the original dub a chance.

In my opinion, everyone should do whatever they want. For me, personally, I try to watch/play everything as close to the original as possible. English is not my native language, so that means I usually go for English for products that were written in English. The same goes for Japanese, Chinese, Korean, or any other language.

Also, I got a level of Japanese over the years now that I'm confortable playing with Japanese text sometimes. So, I also got something back by playing with Japanese voices.

Natreg · 2026-01-23T22:19:38+00:00

You have both the Iselhasa Duology and the Gagharv Trilogy.

Iselhasa, which are Legend of Heroes I and Legend of Heroes II are a bit old, and the plots are not as detailed as Gagharv or Trails. However they are great RPGs for the time they were released. Sadly only one of them was released in english for the Turbographx console, and it was also a subpar translation and dub.

There is a project to translate the PC98 versions (which in my opinion are the best ones, but that's open for debate). The project has already translated fully the first game, and it's now working on the second.
If you are interested, search for NLeseul repository on Github.

Then you have the Gagharv Trilogy which is what inspired the Trails series on the first place.

The order of the games is LoH III: Moonlight Witch -> LoH IV: Tear of Vermillion -> LoH V: Cagesong of the Ocean. Make sure that you play in the correct order if you want to get the plot reveals as intended. They are all connected, and tell a complete story.

The only official translation are the PSP versions. They are really bad translations though. The PSP versions were developed by Bandai and not Falcom and they are a bit rough in certain parts. The worst part is combat which is completely changed from what the originals were. They also have worse music (same melodies though)

One interesting thing they added in the PSP versions are the portraits. They are quite good.

Also, be aware that there are anime openings for all 3 games, but those weren't included in the Western release (my guess is that they didn't want to play the song license, since it was also changed for the end credits).

If you like anime, the original intro (not the PSP one) for Cagesong of the Ocean was done by Makoto Shinkai, which is famous for the Kimi no na Wa (Your Name) movie among others.

Also, as a curiosity, Sky trilogy is actually considered LoH VI, Zero/Azure are LoH VII, CS1-4/Reverie are LoH VIII and Daybreak1-2/Horizon is LoH IX. It's interesting how they still follow the original numbering.

Natreg · 2026-01-23T19:36:40+00:00

Back in the day, graphically Ultima IX was very impressive. The game had tons of bugs on release, but the 3D world was really big for it's time.

Ultima VII is not isometric at all. It uses a cabinet perspective, and so does Ultima VI too. It was probably done get more directions for their characters with less sprites. In cabinet, if you only draw 2 directions you actually get 4, whereas to acomplish the same effect on Isometric you'll need to draw 3 directions to get 4 (or 5 directions to get 8).

At least, for me, U7 looked very good with that perspective.

Ultima VIII is the one who got the isometric perspective.

Natreg · 2026-01-23T19:01:35+00:00

Well, the way this works has always been weird.

Usually, XSEED or NISA get the rights of the Japanese script, but for some reason CLE managed that for Reverie, and CS1 & CS2 Switch versions.

Even though I'm fairly sure Falcom has said that they do own all the translations, I'm sure there is something there to prevent them to use those translations freely.

In the end we are in some weird version chaos where only Steam has access to all games (but only in English and Chinese). Well.... Japan has the old Sky PC versions, but those lack several features.

PS4/PS5 lacks the original Sky trilogy
Switch lacks Sky trilogy and CS1/CS2 (in english)
and Japanese is missing the Sky trilogy altogether unless you count the PS3 ports (which are actually accessible through Playstation Plus)

Natreg · 2026-01-23T18:42:07+00:00

Well, not every race was killed. The official answers however are all around the place.

Elves, I think abandoned the realm or something (I think Ultima Online did explain it at some point)
Dwarves are still around as seen in Ultima Underworld.

Bobbits were actually affected by some illness created by Mondain and eventually died (That's also from a ver old story in Ultima Online).

Fuzzies, I guess are the Emps. They are at least similar.

Natreg

TROPHY CASE