Post by TheBlackStones on May 12, 2011 11:28:00 GMT -5
(Yes, the subtitle is Tits. Get your chuckles out now)
Heroes of Legend: Trails in the Sky is a JRPG developed by Falcom (of YS fame) and published by XSEED who has brought us wonderful games such as the Ys series and Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for the PSP
The Story/Plot
LoH:TitS is about 2 characters, Estelle and Joshua Bright (the latter is someone who was adopted into the family) and the story starts off as they just begin the start of their lives as Bracers. Being a Bracer is like being a mercenary, you do any job for money, but it all goes through a guild, and that guild has various branches all across the country and various other nations as well. LoH:TitS will take Estelle and Joshua on a journey throughout the country Liberl as they try to become full fledged bracers. While LoH:TitS' story might be lacking at the beginning, each time you complete a chapter, you find yourself diving into the plot deeper and deeper, and by the final 2 chapters, you'll be hooked watching how everything ties together and how it all progresses. So while the game starts slow, it'll definitely end with a bang.
The Characters
Estelle is a very nice welcome female lead even though she does have to share the stage with Joshua. While Estelle doesn't always seem to be the brightest one around, it's well noted that she can handle herself in a battle and she's very energetic. It's quite refreshing to have an RPG where the female can handle herself just as well as everyone else around her. All the other characters that you find in the game are well done as well. Each of them definitely has their own charm and I think brought about a good cast of characters with nobody I found myself disliking. Everyone had a great charm to them which I loved.
The Music
As of writing this, I haven't played the game for a few days now, and I struggle to remember anything about the soundtrack. While I wouldn't say that it was bad, I definitely remember thinking the music was nice but ultimately, it's somewhat forgettable. Don't expect anything fantastic like something that Yasunori Mitsuda (Xenogears/Soma Bringer) would do, but there's no reason to mute it either.
The Graphics
The game looks pretty decent. While it's no graphical powerhouse. It has very nice looking sprites and the dungeons and environments look very great. When you get to However, I should note that I'm not a huge stickler for graphics so what looks good for me might not really work for others. I suggest taking a look at some screen-shots and just realize that what you see is what you'll get but look a little nicer in motion.
The Gameplay/Battle System
This is the big thing people want to hear.
First off, the game has no world map. But hear me out when I say this isn't a negative thing at all. Unlike games like the recent Final Fantasy where you just find yourself wandering around corridors all the time. LoH:TitS has nice open environments that encourage wandering around. The best part of things as well is that there's pretty much no restrictions to where you can go. Each chapter will place you in a specific section of the country, and you can wander around it to your hearts content. Don't want to do the story? Explore the region your in! Search that mysterious tower, go to that town you haven't been asked to go to yet! While there's no world map, LoH:TitS makes you think it's not needed anyway. While there are times you may be railroaded due to story reasons. They usually don't happen all that often. So for fans of exploration in their games. LoH:TitS has it in spades.
However, there's only one downside to things. While you get a worldmap, and you can see everything there. There's never any dungeon maps save for very specific locations. Sometimes this can make things very confusing as sometimes you might accidentally hit a story trigger before you finish wandering a dungeon. Also, sometimes the camera will be stuck into one location when sometimes you want it to be rotated. I very rarely had an issue with this though.
So yeah, you don't need to do the main story all the time, in fact, I recommend putting it off whenever possible. Check the guild after every story event and take on those quests! Because quests get you money (which is important, as monsters don't drop any) and will also increase your rank. Each level of rank you get will get you a special item, and the best rank you can get will give you one of the best accessories in the game, so I highly recommend it. These jobs will consist of various things from hunting down monsters, escort quests, to simply finding stuff around town.
Battle/Magic system.
The battle system kind of works like a SRPG. First off, all monsters are visible on the field. You can hit them from the front which will result in a normal attack, hit from behind which will give you a preemptive attack. Or if you get hit from behind (or any of your party members with you. That's right, anybody on the screen can initiate a battle) you'll be sneak attacked.
Once in battle, you'll be placed in a big grid. However, the grid is not visible unless you go to attack or cast magic. Everybody will have a move stat, which determines how much they can move. Also, some characters will have range stats. For example, Estelle uses a staff weapon, so she gets a little more range than Joshua would. However, a character called Tita uses a long range cannon that can attack multiple enemies so she doesn't need to move as much if you increase her range stat. Now how the turn order works, is that you'll see a list of your characters and the enemies on the left hand side of the screen. That will show your turn order. So if Estelle is my first attacker, her picture will be first, and then if Joshua is next, then he goes next. If after Joshua is a picture of a monster, then they go after Joshua. Simple enough. However, it's important to be able to know how to disrupt the turn order either by killing monsters or by using magic because there's special bonuses that go beside the turn order. For example, an ! will mean that whoever gets their turn on that, will get a critical hit on anything they do, special attacks/magic/healing, you name it. Str will increase your damage a little, a ruby will give you extra stones if you kill a monster (I'll get into stones in a bit). But what you have to realize is that monsters ALSO get those bonuses. So again, it's very important to know which monster you want to kill so the critical will fall for you, or if your magic will disrupt the order.
So let's get into that. Magic. Magic is very important in this game. In order to use magic. You have to make Quartz. When you make a Quartz, you choose the element you want, so fire, water, wind, time, ect. Then you also have to choose it's FUNCTION. For example, there's water, but you have water - HP, or Mind, or Heal for example. If I equip water - HP. It will boost my HP as well as giving me some healing spells as well as a possible attack spell. Where if I equip Water - Mind, I'll be boosting my magic attack stat and maybe giving me another water spell as well. Fire can boost attack as well as give fire spells, Space can be used to speed up your turn order in battle ect.
When you use magic in battle, your character will have to wait again in order to use the spell. This will disrupt the turn order as I stated, and can take a while or be short depending on the type of spell you used. Pretty easy to get once you see it in action. Finally, in order to make quartz, you simply need to defeat enemies which will drop elemental stones. So enemies will drop fire stones, earth stones, ect. After every battle instead of money. The stones will also be used to unlock further slots to be able to insert Quartz into (6 in total) and unlocking more slots will give you more MP as well. MP doesn't increase with levels gained.
Finally, CP. CP is gained in battle by simply attacking or getting attacked. 100 CP will let you unleash a special attack. While 200 CP will have it do max damage. You can also use abilities with CP as well. But I never found myself using them that much. Some are pretty handy though.
Final Thoughts
Whew. That was a lot. To wrap it all up. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is a great JRPG that fans of the genre will want to pick up. It clocks in at a tiny bit over 40 hours if you do all the siequests and explore what you can. More if you do a new game + (I didn't) and will probably take about 30-35 to just try brute force the main story. It's like a love letter to all of us that grew up with the genre that super pretty graphics and gimmicks aren't needed in order for a game to be great, and the game does it without feeling utterly generic unlike what Nostalgia for the DS tried to do. A great cast of characters, a very engaging and great battle system, and a plot that by the ending will have you screaming to play the next game, makes Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky a no brainer for anyone looking for those great hidden gem JRPG title.
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky gets a 4/5
Heroes of Legend: Trails in the Sky is a JRPG developed by Falcom (of YS fame) and published by XSEED who has brought us wonderful games such as the Ys series and Lunar: Silver Star Harmony for the PSP
The Story/Plot
LoH:TitS is about 2 characters, Estelle and Joshua Bright (the latter is someone who was adopted into the family) and the story starts off as they just begin the start of their lives as Bracers. Being a Bracer is like being a mercenary, you do any job for money, but it all goes through a guild, and that guild has various branches all across the country and various other nations as well. LoH:TitS will take Estelle and Joshua on a journey throughout the country Liberl as they try to become full fledged bracers. While LoH:TitS' story might be lacking at the beginning, each time you complete a chapter, you find yourself diving into the plot deeper and deeper, and by the final 2 chapters, you'll be hooked watching how everything ties together and how it all progresses. So while the game starts slow, it'll definitely end with a bang.
The Characters
Estelle is a very nice welcome female lead even though she does have to share the stage with Joshua. While Estelle doesn't always seem to be the brightest one around, it's well noted that she can handle herself in a battle and she's very energetic. It's quite refreshing to have an RPG where the female can handle herself just as well as everyone else around her. All the other characters that you find in the game are well done as well. Each of them definitely has their own charm and I think brought about a good cast of characters with nobody I found myself disliking. Everyone had a great charm to them which I loved.
The Music
As of writing this, I haven't played the game for a few days now, and I struggle to remember anything about the soundtrack. While I wouldn't say that it was bad, I definitely remember thinking the music was nice but ultimately, it's somewhat forgettable. Don't expect anything fantastic like something that Yasunori Mitsuda (Xenogears/Soma Bringer) would do, but there's no reason to mute it either.
The Graphics
The game looks pretty decent. While it's no graphical powerhouse. It has very nice looking sprites and the dungeons and environments look very great. When you get to However, I should note that I'm not a huge stickler for graphics so what looks good for me might not really work for others. I suggest taking a look at some screen-shots and just realize that what you see is what you'll get but look a little nicer in motion.
The Gameplay/Battle System
This is the big thing people want to hear.
First off, the game has no world map. But hear me out when I say this isn't a negative thing at all. Unlike games like the recent Final Fantasy where you just find yourself wandering around corridors all the time. LoH:TitS has nice open environments that encourage wandering around. The best part of things as well is that there's pretty much no restrictions to where you can go. Each chapter will place you in a specific section of the country, and you can wander around it to your hearts content. Don't want to do the story? Explore the region your in! Search that mysterious tower, go to that town you haven't been asked to go to yet! While there's no world map, LoH:TitS makes you think it's not needed anyway. While there are times you may be railroaded due to story reasons. They usually don't happen all that often. So for fans of exploration in their games. LoH:TitS has it in spades.
However, there's only one downside to things. While you get a worldmap, and you can see everything there. There's never any dungeon maps save for very specific locations. Sometimes this can make things very confusing as sometimes you might accidentally hit a story trigger before you finish wandering a dungeon. Also, sometimes the camera will be stuck into one location when sometimes you want it to be rotated. I very rarely had an issue with this though.
So yeah, you don't need to do the main story all the time, in fact, I recommend putting it off whenever possible. Check the guild after every story event and take on those quests! Because quests get you money (which is important, as monsters don't drop any) and will also increase your rank. Each level of rank you get will get you a special item, and the best rank you can get will give you one of the best accessories in the game, so I highly recommend it. These jobs will consist of various things from hunting down monsters, escort quests, to simply finding stuff around town.
Battle/Magic system.
The battle system kind of works like a SRPG. First off, all monsters are visible on the field. You can hit them from the front which will result in a normal attack, hit from behind which will give you a preemptive attack. Or if you get hit from behind (or any of your party members with you. That's right, anybody on the screen can initiate a battle) you'll be sneak attacked.
Once in battle, you'll be placed in a big grid. However, the grid is not visible unless you go to attack or cast magic. Everybody will have a move stat, which determines how much they can move. Also, some characters will have range stats. For example, Estelle uses a staff weapon, so she gets a little more range than Joshua would. However, a character called Tita uses a long range cannon that can attack multiple enemies so she doesn't need to move as much if you increase her range stat. Now how the turn order works, is that you'll see a list of your characters and the enemies on the left hand side of the screen. That will show your turn order. So if Estelle is my first attacker, her picture will be first, and then if Joshua is next, then he goes next. If after Joshua is a picture of a monster, then they go after Joshua. Simple enough. However, it's important to be able to know how to disrupt the turn order either by killing monsters or by using magic because there's special bonuses that go beside the turn order. For example, an ! will mean that whoever gets their turn on that, will get a critical hit on anything they do, special attacks/magic/healing, you name it. Str will increase your damage a little, a ruby will give you extra stones if you kill a monster (I'll get into stones in a bit). But what you have to realize is that monsters ALSO get those bonuses. So again, it's very important to know which monster you want to kill so the critical will fall for you, or if your magic will disrupt the order.
So let's get into that. Magic. Magic is very important in this game. In order to use magic. You have to make Quartz. When you make a Quartz, you choose the element you want, so fire, water, wind, time, ect. Then you also have to choose it's FUNCTION. For example, there's water, but you have water - HP, or Mind, or Heal for example. If I equip water - HP. It will boost my HP as well as giving me some healing spells as well as a possible attack spell. Where if I equip Water - Mind, I'll be boosting my magic attack stat and maybe giving me another water spell as well. Fire can boost attack as well as give fire spells, Space can be used to speed up your turn order in battle ect.
When you use magic in battle, your character will have to wait again in order to use the spell. This will disrupt the turn order as I stated, and can take a while or be short depending on the type of spell you used. Pretty easy to get once you see it in action. Finally, in order to make quartz, you simply need to defeat enemies which will drop elemental stones. So enemies will drop fire stones, earth stones, ect. After every battle instead of money. The stones will also be used to unlock further slots to be able to insert Quartz into (6 in total) and unlocking more slots will give you more MP as well. MP doesn't increase with levels gained.
Finally, CP. CP is gained in battle by simply attacking or getting attacked. 100 CP will let you unleash a special attack. While 200 CP will have it do max damage. You can also use abilities with CP as well. But I never found myself using them that much. Some are pretty handy though.
Final Thoughts
Whew. That was a lot. To wrap it all up. Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky is a great JRPG that fans of the genre will want to pick up. It clocks in at a tiny bit over 40 hours if you do all the siequests and explore what you can. More if you do a new game + (I didn't) and will probably take about 30-35 to just try brute force the main story. It's like a love letter to all of us that grew up with the genre that super pretty graphics and gimmicks aren't needed in order for a game to be great, and the game does it without feeling utterly generic unlike what Nostalgia for the DS tried to do. A great cast of characters, a very engaging and great battle system, and a plot that by the ending will have you screaming to play the next game, makes Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky a no brainer for anyone looking for those great hidden gem JRPG title.
Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky gets a 4/5
Excellent review Blackstone! Yes, I so need this game!
