Trails in the Sky SC & the 3rd Review | The Best JRPG Series Keeps Getting Better

The Year of Trails continues with a double review - no dueling this time, because that would be like asking my own darling children to battle to the death. Trails in the Sky SC is where things REALLY get going in the Trails series, and Trails in the Sky the 3rd provides SO much context and backstory for the world while simultaneously getting us prepped for everything that's to come. The Sky arc comes to a powerful conclusion here, and I want to talk about it!

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00:00 Intro
01:48 How We're Going to Do This
03:16 Trails in the Sky SC
06:35 Trails in the Sky the 3rd
10:38 Conclusions
11:30 Outro

[fancywaffles]

I can see why people would have been disappointed with 3 when it came out, but in hindsight, it sets up so much of what's to come that skipping it is doing yourself a disservice. Plus, I just really like Kevin and Ries. Looking forward to your Azure/Zero reviews!

[BlaBlaBla-]

Wish the Sky games would come to modern consoles already, so everyone can really start this series in the best way possible; from the beginning.

Sky trilogy is still the best in the series imho.

[DrGamingPlays]

Glad to see a video give Sky the 3rd some kudos. It really shouldn't be skipped. I am trying to remember now if the third chapter introduced us to the higher elements during battle or was that also in Sky SC.... Sky SC is hands down my favorite single game in the series. While these games are older, no random battles and you can save just about anywhere (and there are games made today with random battles and limited save points... looking at you Octopath Traveler!).

[sjstronghold]

The 3rd is my favorite game of the series, despite being probably the least "trails" of all ten games I played (even Reverie) but the dark tone and introspective story instead of cozy (like CS1/FC) or bombastic (SC/CS4/Az) just really spoke to me.

[roniboboni]

I’ll say it, you’re doing youself a disservice if you don’t play these games in order or if you don’t play Third! You will get so much additional enjoyment of the later games if you play them all in order. And, Brandon, you should defiinitely watch One Piece if you like epic stories that build. I’m slowly making my way through it and it is so good. Netflix’s live action version dropped me down that rabbit hole. Each of the anime episodes is less than 20 minutes long if you skip the opening and credits. Less time than it takes to watch a YouTube video. ::cough cough::

[timseyer]

I have played everything in publishing order and am now playing cold steel 4. So I don't know about reverie or the end of cold steel 4 yet. But as of now the third is my favorite.

[madkaiser]

More Trails content? You know I’ll be there 👌

[hollamonm]

Thank you for making this, I learned what I wanted/needed to know about the 3rd... I'm probably gonna give it a whirl, just so I can get those backstory payoffs and setup for payoffs later on.

For me, I finally got to the entry trio, at the same time, felt FC was just gonna do another... let's go with another discount FF plot, but I finally sat down and started playing FC a week or two ago, and am at the beginning Chapter 5 in SC (as in, I saw that cutscene featuring the harmonica and am still on my way to perfect BP, yes, I'm using guides, but that's mostly because, I don't wanna miss quests), working my way to 3rd now... and then my other copies are on PS4/PS5... it'll be nice to be able to sit next to my dog without having to finagle things with my HDMI port or sit at my computer and ignore my dog... I'm thinkin' I'll be done with SC by Thursday or Friday most likely ... only downside is just... I can't play it on the Playstation at all... which fills me with sadness... oh well, at least I get to play some good games... at least I have that.

PS- for those curious, I live off of VA full-disability pay, meaning that I have a ton of time, hence why I beat them so quickly in terms of days spent on a game, it's fairly short. However, I'm still at over 50hours in SC, not 100%ing, just max BPing the game... and in FC, I spent another 70hours in... so, obviously I'm not like, skipping out on dialogue or anything. So yeah, um... SC is roughly 50% and TC will be following it within a couple days so I can finish the Sky Arc and move over to Zero and Azure!

[uppernimbus]

Love hearing you gush about your passion for Trails once more! Great video my dude!

[MJ-oiul]

Just finished SC honestly beautiful ending was going to look for a review on what other people thought and surprised to see you JUST posted this yesterday lol
Can't even imagine what the 3rd game would be cause it seems they could have moved on to the next series with new characters now but I am glad this is atleast a spoiler free review so I should know whether or not to play it

[JRPGAntiquity]

That first time you go through Star Door 15....

[MiamiSunrise]

If "skipping the 3rd" was mainly because of its lack of english version at the time, thats understandable as a reason since you didnt have a choice anyway. However, the 3rd has too many important character backstory elements to miss and I think they created a really strange and interesting world with Phantasma.
Star Door 15 is one of the most insane setups and deliveries of any story concept in any game I've ever seen. The last star door, in the pit of gehenna, the darkest deepest reaches of hell with Renne, a horribly broken child...you know, when they put these games back out again remastered or remade....I wonder if they will be able to show this sequence again?
To me Trails needs to be started from the beginning. There is too much to lose in not doing so and this series has shown me that time and time and time again. Thanks for going over these!

[bradando]

SC I hold up there with the best jrpg’s I’ve played, I still think about it frequently. Trails as a whole really rewards players for their investment I think. 3rd while I didn’t vibe with it straight away, grew to love it over the course of the game. It sets up so much lore wise and expands on past material

[jclosed]

As a PC gamer, I have played all the "older" games (from Sky SC to 3th and the two Crossbell games) before jumping into the Cold Steel series. It is a shame that some of those early games where not ported to all consoles. I definitely would have liked to see everyone, also console gamers, to enjoy the full game series. A said - As a PC gamer I was lucky, because after FC, SC and 3th, I could play the Crossbell games that where freshly translated by the Geofront team (sadly we lost one important member during the "official" translation later on). I am really happy I could play all games in the order they where made.
Anyway - There are indeed some dark themes in the 3th, and especially Stardoor 15 is a hearth-wrenching story, that let you sympathize with a certain character even more in a massively way (by the way - that story gets a follow-up in the Crossbell games, but that's something you have to see for yourself). I hope you can play and review those games too, because they are one of the highlights of the series.
I am in the middle of Trails Into Reverie, but will take my time to finish that game, so I can "time" it for the release of Trails Through Daybreak. In the mean time I picked up a very different and more "fluffy" series that are not that strongly connected games-wise, namely the Atelier series. I decided to start with Atelier Rorona and end with the latest Atelier Ryza 3 (yeah - that's a massive 14 games if you include Atelier Marie), and also the two Blue Reflection Games. On the Falcom end I will replay Tokyo Xanadu eX+ (a great game), that is just announced to get a sequel...
Thanks a lot for your hard work, and I cannot wait to see what you think about the Crossbell games.

[johnathanrhoades]

I’m over half done with SC!! It’s so good 😊 Looking forward to the Third. I don’t want to rush it, though.

[jeffhernandez]

A just the gems review of a game I've finished? Sign me up!

[aaronmayfield]

I will say thank you for choosing not to do a dueling reviewing format for these two games. I feel like that with all the content I’ve watched of yours (I’ve avoided some due to spoiler warnings but have left a like anyhow) that format definitely took away the chance to let FF16 and FF7R totally shine on their own. This way allows people to enjoy the ride that you put us on. If that makes sense.

Thank you keeping these spoiler free. I am grateful for your content regardless and thank you for putting these videos out there. Please keep them coming. 😁👍

[cenbu]

I'm sure it is a great video but as I've only completed FC going to just leave a thumbs up and move onto the next video :)

[themanboycave]

I’m slowing collecting all of these games. Once I have them all I’m going to try and get into the series.

[daymosaldare]

I'm sure there's many others like me: I played Cold Steel on PS3 back when it came out, I thought it was a low budget obscure JRPG with really fun battles but a confusing and relatively boring story. Years later I slowly played sky1-3 and zero/azure and it was like slowly becoming enlightened (for 700 hours) as I absorbed some new religion! Right now I'm playing Cold Steel again on PC, absorbing every line of dialogue.. because I actually understand who everyone is. World of difference. It's a one-of-a-kind game series, nothing else has this depth of world building.