The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky
Cover art
Developer(s)	Nihon Falcom
Publisher(s)	JP: Nihon Falcom NA: Xseed Games EU: Ghostlight (PSP)
Artist(s)	Haccan Yuu Shiina
Composer(s)	Hayato Sonoda Wataru Ishibashi Takahide Murayama
Series	The Legend of Heroes - Trails in the Sky
Engine	Ys: The Ark of Napishtim
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita
Release date(s)	Microsoft Windows JP: June 24, 2004 WW: July 29, 2014 PlayStation Portable JP: October 28, 2006 NA: March 29, 2011 EU: November 4, 2011 PlayStation 3 JP: December 13, 2012 PlayStation Vita (Evolution) JP: June 11, 2015[1]
Genre(s)	Role-playing
Mode(s)	Single-player

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (英雄伝説VI (シックス) 空の軌跡, Eiyū Densetsu Shikkusu Sora no Kiseki) is a Japanese role-playing video game developed by Nihon Falcom. It is commonly referred to as Trails in the Sky First Chapter (英雄伝説 空の軌跡FC) to distinguish itself from the rest of the games in the Trails in the Sky series. The game is the first game in trilogy of titles, which also includes Trails in the Sky Second Chapter and Trails in the Sky the 3rd, and collectively, the titles create the sixth entry in the larger The Legend of Heroes series of video games.

First Chapter was first released in Japan for Microsoft Windows in 2004, and later ported to the PlayStation Portable in 2006. North American video game publisher Xseed Games acquired the rights to push the game from Falcom, but did not release it until 2011 due to the game's massive size and amount of text necessary to translate and localize. A HD port to the PlayStation 3 was released in Japan in 2012 as part of Sony's PSP Remaster line of games, while a HD remaster for the PlayStation Vita has been released in 2015; both Japanese-only releases. A localization of the PC original was announced for the third game in the Sora no Kiseki trilogy to be released by XSEED Games in 2017.

Gameplay

A field map in the game.

A combat screen in the game.

In Trails in the Sky, the player controls a cast of characters, embarking on a number of quests to progress the story. There are two different type of maps when navigating in the overworld of the game: field maps and town maps. In field maps, enemies roam around and a battle ensues if the player comes in contact with one. In town maps, the player can visit various shops to purchase items, replenish health at an inn and, for the major cities, take on and report quests to the local guild. In addition, the player can interact with numerous non-playable characters (NPCs) in the game; a unique aspect in Trails in the Sky is that each NPC's dialogue changes as the game advances, allowing the player to follow along sidestories that accompany the NPCs throughout the game.^[2]

Combat in Trails in the Sky takes place on a grid and is turn-based. The character's turn order is determined by a tracker called the AT Bar. During the character's turn, the player can move or make an attack. In addition to the normal attack, each character also have three other methods available for action: Arts, Crafts, and S-Crafts. Arts are magic spells that characters can use to attack opponents or support teammates but must take an additional turn to cast. Crafts are character-specific abilities that are similar to Arts but can be used in the same turn; however, they utilize a special gauge called "Craft Points" (CP) for the cost to perform. S-Crafts are powered-up Crafts that can be performed once a character has over 100CP but completely depletes the CP gauge upon using it. Further extending S-Crafts are S-Breaks which allows characters to immediately perform an S-Craft regardless of when their turn order is.^[3][4]

An additional component in combat is AT Bonuses which grant bonus effects at certain turns throughout the battle, visible on the AT Bar.^[3][4]

If the player loses a battle, the game is over. The player is then allowed to continuously retry the battle and subsequently lower the difficulty of the battle for each retry; should the player not want the difficulty to be lowered, they can turn it off in the settings menu.^[3][4]

Plot

Story

The game takes place in Liberl Kingdom, 10 years after being invaded by the Erebonian Empire from the north. It is governed by queen Alicia II. Currently, the kingdom thrives off of high technology which is eyed closely by the Erebonian Empire.

The main character is Estelle Bright, a young woman newly recruited into the country's Bracer's Guild, a civilian-run peacekeeping organization. She and her adopted brother, Joshua, travel throughout Liberl to become fully fledged Bracers, but happen across a conspiracy to seize control from the queen.

Characters

• Estelle Bright (エステル・ブライト, Esuteru Buraito) (Japanese voice: Akemi Kanda;^[5] English voice: Stephanie Sheh): 16 years old. The main protagonist of the game. She is a rather naive and straightforward girl who is always energetic and positive. She was born and raised in the rural areas of Rolent, a quiet farming and mining town based just north of the Kingdom's capital. She is very tomboyish, loving to fish and collect sports shoes, although, over the course of the game, she becomes aware of her developing romantic feelings for Joshua. She learned the ways of the staff directly from her father.
• Joshua Bright (ヨシュア・ブライト, Yoshua Buraito) (Japanese voice: Mitsuki Saiga; English voice: Johnny Yong Bosch): 16 years old. The main male character. Adopted into the Bright family five years after the end of the war with Erebonia, he is a calm youth with black hair and amber eyes who is always there to keep the hotheaded Estelle from getting too deep into trouble. His special hobby is to play the harmonica, and in combat he wields dual swords.
• Agate Crosner (アガット・クロスナー, Agatto Kurosunaa) (Japanese voice: Takayuki Kondō; English voice: Bryce Papenbrook): 24 years old. He hails from a small village in the rural Bose area but also spent most of his youth in the port city of Ruan as the leader of the Ravens gang. He is one of the up-and-coming bracers in the kingdom, nicknamed "Heavy Sword" for his use of such a weapon in combat. He always appears angry and grumpy on the surface but is in fact a caring youth who looks after newcomers like the Brights.
• Tita Russell (ティータ・ラッセル, Tiita Rasseru) (Japanese voice: Hiromi Konno): 12 years old. She is a girl residing in the city of Zeiss, and is the granddaughter of Albert Russell, the founding father of Orbment technology in the kingdom and a genius inventor. She is incredibly skilled in machinery and orbment technology. Despite her young age she's an apprentice in the central workshop, the most important R&D facility in the country. She is seen as a little sister figure by Estelle, and sees Estelle and Joshua as elder siblings. When she works with orbment, she often becomes oblivious to her surroundings and starts bombarding others with excessive information on the subject.
• Scherazard Harvey (シェラザード・ハーヴェイ, Sherazaado Haavei) (Japanese voice: Yuka Shioyama; English voice: Michelle Ruff): 23 years old. A female Bracer with silver hair and dark skin, nicknamed "Silver Streak". She is a sisterly figure to the Brights, and looks after them through much of their journey. She is also a student under Cassius. Born in the slums of a foreign realm, she was picked up by a traveling circus as a child, and after the circus disbanded she stayed under Cassius and became a Bracer. She is well versed in dancing, cards and thief skills. Her hobby is drinking, and she's often seen drunk during the game. Her favorite drinking partners are Aina, the guild's Rolent branch attendant (and a woman that never gets drunk), and Olivier.
• Olivier Lenheim (オリビエ・レンハイム, Olibie Renheimu) (Japanese voice: Takehito Koyasu; English voice: Troy Baker): 26 years old. A handsome blonde man from the Erebonian empire who claims to be a traveling musician. He is extremely carefree and often says peculiar things, which often gets him in trouble, especially when making passes at all attractive characters he encounters (of both genders). His childhood friend Mueller Vander is a military officer, and is often seen trying to stop Olivier from getting into further trouble.
• Kloe Rinz (クローゼ・リンツ, Kurooze Rintsu) (Japanese voice: Yuuko Minaguchi; English voice: Cristina Vee): 16 years old. A female student in the Royal Jenis Academy in rural Ruan area. She is a calm and sensitive figure who looks after kids in a foster home. She has a pet white falcon named Sieg and is also the school's fencing champion.
• Zane Vathek (ジン・ヴァセック, Zane Vatekku) (Japanese voice: Tetsu Inada; English voice: Patrick Seitz): 30 years old. A giant of a man hailing from the Calvard republic, he is a skilled martial artist and one of the highest-ranking bracers in the entire world. Nicknamed "The Immovable", he is a reliable figure who gives the Brights a great deal of support. He meets Joshua and Estelle at a martial arts competition, and proceeds to help them with their quest.

Release

Trails in the Sky was initially released for Microsoft Windows on June 29, 2004 in Japan. The game was later ported to the Playstation Portable console and released in Japan on October 28, 2006. The Playstation Portable version of the game was released in North America on March 29, 2011 and in Europe on November 4, 2011.^[6] The PC version of the game was released worldwide on July 29, 2014 and included a number of features that were available from the Playstation Portable version.^[7]

A high-definition version of the game, The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC Kai HD Edition, was released for the PlayStation 3 in Japan on December 13, 2012.^[8]

A redesigned version of the game titled The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC Evolution was released in Japan for the PlayStation Vita on June 11, 2015. Evolution renovated the old designs and user interface and incorporated several new features such as voice acting and animation in scenes, additional illustrations, and enhanced battle tactics.^[9][10]

Localization

The North American version of the game was localized by XSEED Games, whom in May 2010 announced that they had acquired the rights to bring the Trails in the Sky trilogy to North America.^[11] The length of the script for Trails in the Sky FC, which contained approximately 1.5 million Japanese characters, presented a challenge for XSEED's editor Jessica Chavez.^[12] Chavez spent nine months working on the script, with the fourth chapter of the game ultimately requiring assistance from XSEED's localization specialist Thomas Lipschultz at the last month.^[12][13]

Despite the series's popularity in Japan,^[14] Trails in the Sky FC sold poorly in the West upon its market release.^[15]

In September 2013, XSEED announced a PC version of Trails in the Sky was planned to be released for the early 2014 winter season.^[16] However, issues with the programming aspects of the game forced them to push the release date to July 2014 instead. According to XSEED's localization programmer Sara Leen, much of the code needed to be rewritten from scratch as a result of code differences between the Playstation Portable version and the PC version; further complicating matters were software bugs which appeared frequently as a result of the coding changes.^[7] When the game was officially released, not all of the issues were corrected; since then, patches were released for the game which fixed a majority of them.^[17]

Related media

The soundtrack was released as Eiyū Densetsu VI Sora no Kiseki Original Sound Track in July 2004 in Japan, published and produced by Falcom Sound Team JDK. It was composed by Hayato Sonoda, Wataru Ishibashi, Takahide Murayama and arranged by Kohei Wada. The album has two discs with 33 and 26 tracks, respectively. Tracks 24 to 31 comprise "The White Flower Madrigal" Suite. The song "Whereabouts of the Stars" was written by Hideaki Hamada, with vocals from u-mi. The soundtrack to the first chapter is also distributed with the Windows release in the form of Ogg Vorbis music files.

An OVA adaptation of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky was announced in 2011.^[18] The first OVA was released on November 25, 2011 on DVD and Blu-ray. The second and final OVA was released on January 22, 2012.^[19] In 2012, the OVAs have been licensed by Sentai Filmworks in North America.^[20]

Reception

Reception
Review scores Publication Score PC PSP Famitsu 32/40 Game Informer 8.25/10[21] GamePro [22] GamesMaster 82%[23] GameSpot 8/10[24] GamesRadar [25] IGN 8/10[26] Hardcore Gamer 4.5/5[2] Pocket Gamer 9/10[27] RPGFan 90%[28] 88%[29] Aggregate scores GameRankings 86%[30] 79%[31] Metacritic 85/100[32] 79/100[33]
Awards Publication Award RPGFan Best RPG (Editors' Pick)[34][35] RPGFan Best Traditional RPG[36] Wired 16th Best Videogame of 2011[37]

First Chapter was well received by critics. Review aggregator GameRankings gave it ratings of 86% for the PC version and 79% for the PSP version,^[30][31] while Metacritic gave rated it 85/100 for the PC version and 79/100 for the PSP version.^[32][33] Neilie Johnson of IGN gave it a positive review, stating that, though "First Chapter is not the most original ever made, like any good JRPG it offers amusing writing, dynamic combat, interesting tasks, an absorbing narrative, and hours upon hours of gameplay" and concluded that "while the game's 50/50 balance between combat and story may not be to everyone's taste, its charm and overall entertainment value make it well worth the investment."^[26] Hardcore Gamer praised the "rock-solid character writing", noting every character has "their own history, ambitions, and social connections", every NPC "has their own name and motivations and interpersonal relationships with other NPCs", and the influence of Hayao Miyazaki's classic anime film Castle in the Sky on the cast and steampunk setting. They also praised the open-ended story, quest design, and combat system, and for having "one of the most complete and enthralling worlds ever rendered", concluding it to be "one of the finest JRPGs in the history of the genre".^[2]

References

External links

• Official website
• (Japanese) Official Sora no Kiseki portal
• (Japanese) Legend of Heroes VI: Sora no Kiseki official website
• (Japanese) Legend of Heroes: Sora no Kiseki official website
• (Japanese) Mobile phone version by Taito

Works of Kinema Citrus
TV Series	Tokyo Magnitude 8.0 (2009) Higepiyo (2009–2010) Oshiri Kajiri Mushi (2012–present) Code:Breaker (2012) Yuyushiki (2013) Black Bullet (2014) Barakamon (2014) Is the Order a Rabbit?? (2015) Norn9 (2016) Kuma Miko: Girl Meets Bear (2016) Scorching Ping Pong Girls (2016)
Films	Eureka Seven: Pocketful of Rainbows (2009) Neppu Kairiku Bushi Road (2013)
OVAs/ONAs	.hack//Quantum (2010–2011) Busou Shinki (2011–2012) The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (2011–2012) Nagareboshi Lens (2012) Under the Dog (2016) Yuyushiki (2017)
Category