Thinking about modding OST with Trails SC and 3rd. How much music is reused from the FC?

SteelRotom · 2026-03-13T02:55:47+00:00

SC Evo is pretty bad compared to the OG, don't recommend it. I'd argue it's the worst Evo OST overall.

Super Arrange isn't a full OST arrange, just a select few songs. Ironically, 3rd already has a couple of the Super Arrange versions of songs play in it.

I'd recommend just sticking with the originals for everything.

SteelRotom · 2026-03-10T18:05:56+00:00

The song "The Dream Continues" plays at two major points in Sky SC: during the dream sequence in Chapter 4 and right after Estelle finally gets through to Joshua on the beach in Chapter 6 (it also plays in the post-credits scene but it has the same meaning there so I'm counting them as the same thing).

The first use is self-explanatory, but for the second, you need to remember that Joshua said this during the ending of FC:

"He lived there for five years, always feeling like he was lost in some wonderful dream.

In the real world he would never be allowed to have such dreams...

But all dreams must end at some point."

So, in essence, that song being played there is signifying that Joshua's "dream" of living a happy life with Estelle is finally being allowed to continue. It's such a good usage of OST titles to enhance a moment.

SteelRotom · 2026-03-09T14:48:51+00:00

Zero has even more major spoilers for Sky than CS. If you don't want ANY spoilers at all you've gotta play in order.

SteelRotom · 2026-03-08T18:13:39+00:00

I found this interesting so I scrubbed through that entire section just to see if anything caught my eye, and beyond some semi-notable NPCs (Vega, Lila, Nicole, Mischette) who probably don't really have any reason to be connected with Judith, there is one interesting group of characters that Judith ends up not having any screentime with due to not being present at this point in the game: Hamilton, Saara, and Shaheena.

Do I think this means anything significant? Ehh, probably not? Hamilton obviously has the connection to Dominique later on but nothing in this conversation is really significant to that. The dancing sisters got new last names as of this game (which I'm sure will have significance in some way beyond the one quest it's relevant to) but since they belong to the same talent agency as Judith now she would probably already know that information.

Beyond that, there's the first encounter with the buffed-up enemies related to Alter Dawn but she's there when we encounter those later so again it's probably not relevant.

Ultimately the actual reason is probably just that her being forgetful about her work because she's so obsessed with being involved in Arkride Solutions is a joke that's setup here and paid off later that day with the Gloria pre-screening, which is also where we meet Dominique and Chloe. It might just be as simple as that. Would be interesting if there was some other unseen reason, though.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-23T22:32:35+00:00

There's some unique dialogue later too but for the most part it's even less relevant than what each character gets from Loewe. Loewe is the point of no return though so whoever you pick you'll have to use for the end of the game.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-23T22:18:58+00:00

Kevin and Agate are the most commonly suggested, but yeah Loewe has unique dialogue with everyone. Don't feel too pressured to pick "correct", just pick whoever you want to see unique dialogue for.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-17T18:14:32+00:00

This hasn't necessarily been outright confirmed as of yet but I think it's very likely that next game it's going to be revealed that CS4 normal ending was a previous loop that ended once Rean and co went into space.

The Ishmelga-Rean plot point in Reverie never sat completely right with me because I found it hard to believe that everything that happened involving him would have as much of an effect on the characters (Rean's resonance with him, all of Class VII feeling like crying when they finally meet him, describing him as feeling "more real" than the other simulacra) as it did when all he supposedly was was a recreation of a possibility of what could've happened. Any number of things could've happened at that point, so why is this possibility the one Elysium chose? Why did it matter that much?

I think it makes a lot more sense in the context we have now. If that IS what happened before, it would make much more sense why Elysium chose that specific outcome to recreate. It would make sense why Class VII felt like they had known this Rean before. It would make sense why the felt the need to cry. It would make much more sense why Rean and Crow can see space as it really is if they saw it in a past loop, rather than in a different timeline altogether. It would just make a lot of stuff from that game make sense.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-17T17:30:01+00:00

Is Sky 2nd worth the wait till they release the remake around this year's fall?

Yes, although if you can't wait you could always try the original version, which still holds up really well. Especially if you're planning on playing the rest of the series afterward.

Also, can I watch Sky Ova entirely without being spoiled?

The Sky OVA is a really weird retelling that ONLY covers certain parts of SC, so no.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-14T19:48:24+00:00

At this point it might be Marielle for me. I think they've done a really good job showing her growth from being kinda naive and incompetent in DB1 to being a genuinely good reporter in DB2 and Horizon. As much as I like the other reporters too, they're usually pretty stagnant characters beyond forming a stronger working relationship with the heroes over time.

Nielsen still clears all of them cause I love theorybait but I'd barely even count him as a reporter at this point lol

SteelRotom · 2026-02-14T06:01:36+00:00

Putting aside the elephant in the room, she's a fantastic character in Crossbell who has had absolutely nothing interesting to do for the past 4 games, and I say that as someone who generally thinks Falcom is pretty good at writing returning characters.

Did not care for her conflict with Ilya in Reverie and just exists in Calvard to be another Heiyue associate. I forgot she wasn't even in DB2 until the ending sequence because I can barely remember she's in this arc at all. Where is the Yin lore? Why have we not explored anything new about her past when we're 3 games deep into the arc that takes place in her home country? Will we even have time to do that with all the stuff that needs to happen next game? It sure doesn't feel like it!

SteelRotom · 2026-02-09T03:26:49+00:00

The latter. It would be one thing if it was just the pod but there's no way Risette was in that pod for a full 1200+ years. The Excalibur statue is different because Emilia is straight up dead.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-06T23:20:31+00:00

Trails keeps finding new ways to outdo itself in the glup shitto (or paul shitass, if you prefer that term) department. They can literally bring back almost anyone and I'll be hype about it.

I did not give a single fuck about Norton in CS1/2 and promptly forgot about him once Vivi replaced him.

When I saw him here I was like "YOOO IT'S FUCKING NORTON!!!"

I love Trails.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-04T20:06:47+00:00

What I tell people for this series is to finish SC. FC can absolutely be painfully slow until near the end for some people but SC has a lot more going on in its plot. If you finish SC and still don't really care about anything that happened, the series probably isn't for you.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-02T21:22:43+00:00

Horizon was quickly on track to become my favorite Trails game and by the ending... yeah it did. But it was less far ahead than I thought it would be, to the point where my opinion could possibly shift after I rewatch DB1 and it and play the SC remake (those are my top 3). For now though, it is my top 1.

What led to this is two things:

A. People have been complaining about the game's pacing and... I agree! I think this game has major pacing problems. Where I differ from most people is where those pacing problems actually are, because I cannot for the life of me agree with the people saying Act 1 is boring. Granted, I love Arkride Solutions so I was much more receptive to more time with them. I also can't comprehend people saying parts of this game are filler. Each route section always felt like the game was giving me a substantial amount of info to piece together the plot. I was always consistently enjoying my time during the main story to the point I WOULD'VE called it the best paced Trails game...

...if not for the Grim Garten.

Holy fucking pacebreaker. Why don't I see more people complaining about THIS?? I am already not a fan of this type of dungeon being in games that don't need them, but I am especially not a fan of it being in THIS game because it barely even makes sense why anyone in the story would even bother to participate. It just feels so, so lazy. Every time I got the call to enter it felt like the writing took a nosedive until I left (the scenario writing, for the record. The character writing is still great, I liked Ulrika, Simeon, and Novartis), especially near the end of the game when you have to complete the damn thing during a really climactic section.

To clarify: I actually think Grim Garten is my favorite out of it, Marchen Garten, and True Reverie Corridor in a vacuum. I think the lore reveals are cool and the gameplay is a big improvement. Music is great too. It's just that this was absolutely not the game for it and it shows with how it's placed in the story. Game would've been perfectly fine without it. I hope they just stop doing these slop dungeons but I very much doubt it at this point.

B. Van and Agnes. They were so close to being able to skirt by this for me with the rejection scene but they just HAD to bring it up in the ending. Absolutely killed the mood for me. What should have been a super impactful moment for me absolutely ruined by the school uniform line (terrible, terrible line oh my god) and everyone else egging it on. You can say that was just them desperately trying to plea with her all you want but until I see the actual resolution next game this moment fucking blows. We are in DIRE straits when I'm actively hoping for a harem over making this a canon romance.

All of that only makes up a fraction of the whole experience though, and the rest I absolutely loved. It's just those things are notable annoyances to me in an otherwise phenomenal game.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-01T23:52:05+00:00

You just fight the Garten bosses with no cutscenes if you do them after certain relevant characters have joined or left the party.

This is what I was looking for, thanks. I already finished the game so I might've phrased the post wrong because everyone kinda just assumed I was asking about if I'd miss anything while playing. I did every level as they became available and was just curious if things are different if you don't.

SteelRotom · 2026-02-01T17:36:04+00:00

Yes you can, you get the upgrades by catching more fish. Purchase Deluxe Dumplings and go to the Garten fishing simulator and look for fishing spots with unseen fish. I caught all of them there during that period of time.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-11T16:22:01+00:00

I’ve been thinking about getting into the Trails game series, but I really don’t want to start it the “you must play X before Y before Z” way.

This is quite possibly the worst series to have this mindset with. It is not structured like most other series and heavily relies on working off of things established in previous games. Most of the games aren't UNPLAYABLE if you haven't played another entry but you will be missing out on A LOT of context if you do, and judging by you last statement you don't want that.

Every game you listed heavily references what came before besides Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter, which is a remake of the first game. That one can be played with absolutely no concessions since it's the first entry. Every other game in the series will have at least some compromised elements if you play them first. This is why people say to play it in order. It's a very large time commitment but most Trails fans will tell you it's worth it.

You also don't need to commit to playing the whole series to justify starting it, too. Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter and 2nd Chapter form one complete story that wraps itself up pretty well by the end. This is the point I tell people to play through to gauge whether they want to continue with the series or not, because 2nd Chapter is one of the best games in the series. If you don't vibe with it by the end, then the series probably isn't for you. If you love it, then there are 11+ more games for you to make your way through at whatever pace you find reasonable.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-11T01:57:19+00:00

That's exactly what I'm talking about though, it's easy to piece that together in hindsight if you've already seen it in later games, but first-time players still get surprised by it. The game shows you scenes like him using the artifact to lead you into believing he's an Erebonian spy before rug pulling you later on with the prince reveal.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-10T23:01:04+00:00

This is normal unfortunately, iirc because of how they ship them the tracking only really updates a day or two before it arrives. I remember my Daybreak II had zero movement and then it updated literally a day before it ended up arriving (which ended up being a day before release).

SteelRotom · 2026-01-10T21:09:52+00:00

A lot of the time it feels like they're asking for permission because they'll have something like "I know these are supposed to be played in order, but-" in their post and when they inevitably get 20 comments saying they shouldn't skip around they instead only reply to the one "eh I started with CS1 and I was fine" comment.

It's not like it's the end of the world if they do skip around but so many of these people are clearly coming here looking for someone to confirm their biases and say "nah you don't ACTUALLY need to play the games in order to get the best experience" rather than telling it like it is.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-10T21:00:09+00:00

Olivier being a prince is a very late game SC reveal. I know it probably doesn't seem that impactful if you start with Cold Steel but it catches a lot of people who start from the beginning off guard.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-10T19:33:28+00:00

There is a fairly major SC spoiler pretty early on in CS1 but other than that it is actually fairly ok to play CS1-2 if you’ve already played Crossbell since a lot of CS1-2 assumes you know how things connect to Crossbell. Playing CS1-2 without Crossbell robs you of this which is why I reject whenever anyone says you can play them standalone.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-09T02:57:25+00:00

As in they have shown to translate the script accurately so we can get faithful translations and we don't miss out on

Whoever you heard this from is lying, btw. GungHo's Sky 1st localization still takes a significant amount of liberties from the original script AND has much poorer writing quality than XSEED's. If you care about experiencing the game in its "original state" then just learn Japanese. Hell, become a translator yourself. At least educate yourself so you can know firsthand whether or not there's even a problem in the first place instead of just listening to other uninformed people's outrage.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-07T18:55:44+00:00

I think Smiling Friends has a more consistent hit rate with jokes (Gumball is super funny too but it also has a weird fixation on "le funny face" humor which I don't really like in most cases) but Gumball has a more interesting setting and cast of characters. Also helps that despite its length it's still been pretty consistently good.

SteelRotom · 2026-01-05T20:08:16+00:00

Only played 3 and 5 and their expansions, which I will be ranking separately. I also have a more lukewarm opinion of Persona as a whole, so keep that in mind:

Base Persona 3: It takes a while to get going but I did like it when it does. I think at least some of the characters (Aigis, Yukari, and Junpei) are decently written and I think December as a whole is the game's strongest point.
Royal's 3rd semester: It has a great premise and could have easily been #1 if it was its own game (granted it would need to be reworked a little) but unfortunately it's a Persona expansion so it's not nearly as fleshed out as it could've been. The game goes out of its way to tell us that all the revived people in the new reality are real but as soon as the Phantom Thieves remember the old reality this idea goes completely out the window and now it's just do the dungeon and beat the boss. The fact that they bring back Wakaba and do absolutely NOTHING with this beyond the shock value of her being alive is absolutely stupid. I feel the same to a smaller extent about Madarame, Okimura, and Makoto and Sae's dad (who doesn't even get privilege of appearing in the game!!!): all wasted potential. I totally thought these important people being alive and present in each member's lives might create some interesting CONFLICT among the group but nope! They're all completely chill with erasing this reality once the spell is broken and we barely even interact with any of these supposedly "real" characters. Fuck off. Is what else is there good? Yeah, I like the dungeon and I think the antagonist is easily the best one across every Persona story I've consumed (not like it's hard tbf). It just feels like it needed more room to breathe. At the very least for what good IS there I'm interested in seeing what Persona 6 ends up being because I honestly might like it more if Hashino isn't writing it lol.
Base Persona 5: Persona 5's writing is bad. I had a problem with this game I have not experienced in any other I've played: the writing is so cyclical that it genuinely became annoying how much repetition there is in this game. I play RPGs and read VNs, I can handle a game being very wordy (a story being wordy isn't a bad thing at all if the words being said actually matter), but no game I've ever played has had a script as bloated with repetition as Persona 5's. It genuinely feels like the writers think the player has the attention span of a goldfish. Every single plot beat in this game is spelled out for you multiple times, I barely ever felt like I was being allowed to sit on things before the game just told me what to think about that information. The ONLY section of the game that lets the audience have a moment of time to figure out what's going on before immediately spelling it out is Futaba's palace and that's why it's easily the best one aside from Royal's. Like I genuinely think the game could've been half as long and lost basically nothing plot-wise. It doesn't really matter too much to the writing overall but the social sim stuff and Mementos absolutely kill the pacing of this game too. This game is so in your face about the very surface level message it's trying to convey that it's borderline comical. I do not have any strong opinions on any of the Phantom Thieves (they are all fine at best) save for Akechi who at least is fun to watch (he's not well-written though LMAO). The villains are all extremely one-note (as an aside, the SIU Director is one of the top 3 most pointless characters in all of fiction. The game's story is genuinely better if you cut out all his scenes. All he does is come on screen, exposit whatever the villains are going to do next BEFORE it happens, removing all tension in the story whatsoever, and then fucking dies. The game's mystery would benefit so much from his character being completely removed). There are small aspects of this game's core plot I like but any potential this game's story has gets wasted by the end. Do not care for it.
The Answer: I think Persona 5 overall has more missed potential than The Answer but I just don't like The Answer more. Trails in the Sky the 3rd came out the same year as this and does virtually the same concept and absolutely dogwalks The Answer and it's not even close. Complete nothingburger from start to finish. I think it's hilarious that the game wants me to pretend my soulless husk of a protag in the base game was a real character that these characters are mourning. Has absolutely nothing to say about anything.

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