Keeping up on information from a fan-translation of an RPG series that has had a HUGE gap in the middle of it in the west, as for some insane reason nobody will officially translate games 4 and 5 out of the now 10 game long series.
In short order, I saw Twitter attempt their part in this coup, and that previously smart-enough-not-to-get-into-politics translator gloat about the Trump Ban.
Twitter was gone from my life as quick as I could figure out how to delete it.
Twitter should absolutely be going down in price. The company is SHIT. It doesn't make money, it's CEO is a fucking retard, and the only thing driving it's volume was Trump and people being forced into their homes with nothing better to do.
It's the Trails series, also referred to as the Kiseki series, as that was its Japanese name, and technically more than half the games in the series are still unavailable in English.
The first game in the series is "The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky," which was so pre-named because that was technically the... seventh game in the "Legend of Heroes" series... which was spawned from the THIRD game in the Dragon Slayer series, called "Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes." But "Trails in the Sky" was meant to be a totally unrelated game to anything that came before it, set in a new world, new mechanics, new story, completely new, and it was SO ridiculously successful (for smaller game creators Nihon Falcom,) that they kept it going and going and going.
The entire series so far comprises a number of story arcs. First is the "Trails in the Sky" trilogy, consisting of Trails in the Sky, Trails in the Sky - Second Chapter, and then Trails in the Sky the 3rd. The first game and Second Chapter are absolute 100% continuations of the same story, taking place in the small-ish nation of Liberl, south of the Erebonian Empire, 10 years after Erebonia had invaded them and they managed to fight them off with their superior technology brought about by the "Orbal Revolution," which allowed Liberl to defend themselves against Erebonia's larger, better equipped tank-heavy army with aircraft and "Orbments," which are basically magic scifi pocketwatches that let people use "arts" which are basically RPG magic, but explained by RPG science. Our main characters are Estelle Bright and Joshua Bright, two young people who have just joined the "Bracer Guild," who are basically freelance police, sworn to help the citizenry and to STAY THE HELL OUT OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS. They deal with jobs that people post at their branch headquarters, finding missing property, dealing with monsters on the roads between towns, delivering things, locating a lost cat- basically anything people need help with and are willing to pay for, so long as it's not illegal or taking sides in a political issue.
Incidentally, nothing I said there is a spoiler, it's literally spoon fed to you like 10 minutes into the first game, as part of the worldbuilding. Anyway, then The 3rd was made as a capstone to The Liberl Story Arc, as we fans call it, both to bring closure to a couple of loose threads that were left hanging AND to bridge to the next story arc, "The Crossbell Duology." The 3rd ALSO gives us a lot of information on the Septian Church, which is basically Fantasy Catholicism, only god's a woman and her name is "Aidios."
Following the Liberl Arc, we move into the State of Crossbell, with a new main character, Officer Lloyd Bannings, rookie detective of the Crossbell PD. Crossbell, situated in a small pocket between Erebonia and its eastern rival the Calvard Republic, is a hotbed of international intrigue, organized crime, and spy games between the Zemurian Continent's two superpowers. This arc is comprised of "Trails from Zero," as the current SUPERLATIVE fan translation from "The Geofront" has translated its japanese title of "Zero no Kiseki," and the soon to be fully Geofront translated "Trails to Azure," originally called "Ao no Kiseki." It's a two game arc, I've only finished Zero, and I have to say that the fan translation is just as good as any of the officially translated games have been. Also, apparently, the script for the game is bigger than War and Peace. So they put a TON of work into it.
Anyway, THEN is the "Trails of Cold Steel" series, the first two games, Cold Steel 1 and 2, happen SIMULTANEOUSLY to the second half of Zero and to Azure, only they happen in Eastern Erebonia, near the Crossbell border. Here our main characters are the students of Thors Military Academy, and our chief protagonist is Rean Schwarzer. The second two games of the Cold Steel series, then, happen like 10 years later, and intend on bringing together every story thread from the very beginning, and from what I hear Cold Steel 4, subtitled "End of Saga," actually brings together characters from every story arc so far to try and tie up a whole lot of the action. Haven't played 3 or 4 yet myself, as I'm waiting to finish Azure before hitting the time-skip, as I don't want to spoil anything.
And with those games down... you'll notice that I've only mentioned a 3 game arc, a 2 game arc, and a 4 game arc. That's not 10. Then comes "Hajimari no Kiseki," which I understand is trying to be like Sky the 3rd was, a capstone to finish some last loose ends and provide a bridge into the next coming series, which I understand to be an arc FINALLY set in the Calvard Republic, which from what I can understand is supposed to be Fantasy America, complete with deep state problems and massive corruption.
If you're still reading, I'll keep going.
I love the series because of how detailed everything is. Every NPC has their own life going on, and you can run into characters throughout the game and they always have something new going on, some you'll even see from game to game and their lives have developed nicely. I recall an NPC I met in Sky 1 who was interested in the guy who ran a produce shop in town, but was too shy to say anything to him. Meanwhile, his mother upstairs in the shop complained that she'll need to intervene in his life if she ever wants grandkids, as he's too busy with work to ever find a wife. Their story progresses over the course of Sky 1 and 2, and I'm pretty sure I ran into them in Cold Steel 1, or maybe it was Zero, like 4 years later, on vacation with their young daughter.
No heroes are without their flaws. No villains are comically evil (well, maybe on the surface, but there's always depth.) Politics, both local, national, and international, permeates every major event of the game. There's secret societies, terrorist cabals, devil worshiping cults, disaffected uncaring nobles, violent and ignorant communists, it's incredible.
And to its infinite credit, the game NEVER paints any ideology as always bad. For every noble who views the commoners as his subjects and his property, is another noble who agonizes over his decisions because he both needs the funding to defend his people from the turmoil that he sees coming but knows that their taxes are already too much of a burden on their lives. And the same for politicians in the Crossbell Diet, members of the Liberlian royal family, officers in the Erebonian Army, all over. Everyone is basically someone who is trying to do "the right thing" but many are tragically wrong about what they think is right. Expect there to be a couple enemies who get their asses handed to them to then think about what they've done and come to the conclusion that they were wrong, all along.
Well, I've written far too much now, rofl.
But I do fully recommend this series to anyone who enjoys JRPGs, fleshed out worlds, detailed characters, nuance, or even someone who has never done any of that but who wants to be someone else in a different world for a while.
It needs to be down 100%. Everyone keep jumping ship. Plenty of good alternatives like Gab, Clouthub, and maybe Parler when they work out hosting which Gab did long ago.
Trump was Twitter.
I had exactly TWO things I used twitter for:
Primary, following Trump Tweets.
Keeping up on information from a fan-translation of an RPG series that has had a HUGE gap in the middle of it in the west, as for some insane reason nobody will officially translate games 4 and 5 out of the now 10 game long series.
In short order, I saw Twitter attempt their part in this coup, and that previously smart-enough-not-to-get-into-politics translator gloat about the Trump Ban.
Twitter was gone from my life as quick as I could figure out how to delete it.
Twitter should absolutely be going down in price. The company is SHIT. It doesn't make money, it's CEO is a fucking retard, and the only thing driving it's volume was Trump and people being forced into their homes with nothing better to do.
That sounds like a cool series, what is it?
It's the Trails series, also referred to as the Kiseki series, as that was its Japanese name, and technically more than half the games in the series are still unavailable in English.
The first game in the series is "The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky," which was so pre-named because that was technically the... seventh game in the "Legend of Heroes" series... which was spawned from the THIRD game in the Dragon Slayer series, called "Dragon Slayer: The Legend of Heroes." But "Trails in the Sky" was meant to be a totally unrelated game to anything that came before it, set in a new world, new mechanics, new story, completely new, and it was SO ridiculously successful (for smaller game creators Nihon Falcom,) that they kept it going and going and going.
The entire series so far comprises a number of story arcs. First is the "Trails in the Sky" trilogy, consisting of Trails in the Sky, Trails in the Sky - Second Chapter, and then Trails in the Sky the 3rd. The first game and Second Chapter are absolute 100% continuations of the same story, taking place in the small-ish nation of Liberl, south of the Erebonian Empire, 10 years after Erebonia had invaded them and they managed to fight them off with their superior technology brought about by the "Orbal Revolution," which allowed Liberl to defend themselves against Erebonia's larger, better equipped tank-heavy army with aircraft and "Orbments," which are basically magic scifi pocketwatches that let people use "arts" which are basically RPG magic, but explained by RPG science. Our main characters are Estelle Bright and Joshua Bright, two young people who have just joined the "Bracer Guild," who are basically freelance police, sworn to help the citizenry and to STAY THE HELL OUT OF POLITICAL AFFAIRS. They deal with jobs that people post at their branch headquarters, finding missing property, dealing with monsters on the roads between towns, delivering things, locating a lost cat- basically anything people need help with and are willing to pay for, so long as it's not illegal or taking sides in a political issue.
Incidentally, nothing I said there is a spoiler, it's literally spoon fed to you like 10 minutes into the first game, as part of the worldbuilding. Anyway, then The 3rd was made as a capstone to The Liberl Story Arc, as we fans call it, both to bring closure to a couple of loose threads that were left hanging AND to bridge to the next story arc, "The Crossbell Duology." The 3rd ALSO gives us a lot of information on the Septian Church, which is basically Fantasy Catholicism, only god's a woman and her name is "Aidios."
Following the Liberl Arc, we move into the State of Crossbell, with a new main character, Officer Lloyd Bannings, rookie detective of the Crossbell PD. Crossbell, situated in a small pocket between Erebonia and its eastern rival the Calvard Republic, is a hotbed of international intrigue, organized crime, and spy games between the Zemurian Continent's two superpowers. This arc is comprised of "Trails from Zero," as the current SUPERLATIVE fan translation from "The Geofront" has translated its japanese title of "Zero no Kiseki," and the soon to be fully Geofront translated "Trails to Azure," originally called "Ao no Kiseki." It's a two game arc, I've only finished Zero, and I have to say that the fan translation is just as good as any of the officially translated games have been. Also, apparently, the script for the game is bigger than War and Peace. So they put a TON of work into it.
Anyway, THEN is the "Trails of Cold Steel" series, the first two games, Cold Steel 1 and 2, happen SIMULTANEOUSLY to the second half of Zero and to Azure, only they happen in Eastern Erebonia, near the Crossbell border. Here our main characters are the students of Thors Military Academy, and our chief protagonist is Rean Schwarzer. The second two games of the Cold Steel series, then, happen like 10 years later, and intend on bringing together every story thread from the very beginning, and from what I hear Cold Steel 4, subtitled "End of Saga," actually brings together characters from every story arc so far to try and tie up a whole lot of the action. Haven't played 3 or 4 yet myself, as I'm waiting to finish Azure before hitting the time-skip, as I don't want to spoil anything.
And with those games down... you'll notice that I've only mentioned a 3 game arc, a 2 game arc, and a 4 game arc. That's not 10. Then comes "Hajimari no Kiseki," which I understand is trying to be like Sky the 3rd was, a capstone to finish some last loose ends and provide a bridge into the next coming series, which I understand to be an arc FINALLY set in the Calvard Republic, which from what I can understand is supposed to be Fantasy America, complete with deep state problems and massive corruption.
If you're still reading, I'll keep going.
I love the series because of how detailed everything is. Every NPC has their own life going on, and you can run into characters throughout the game and they always have something new going on, some you'll even see from game to game and their lives have developed nicely. I recall an NPC I met in Sky 1 who was interested in the guy who ran a produce shop in town, but was too shy to say anything to him. Meanwhile, his mother upstairs in the shop complained that she'll need to intervene in his life if she ever wants grandkids, as he's too busy with work to ever find a wife. Their story progresses over the course of Sky 1 and 2, and I'm pretty sure I ran into them in Cold Steel 1, or maybe it was Zero, like 4 years later, on vacation with their young daughter.
No heroes are without their flaws. No villains are comically evil (well, maybe on the surface, but there's always depth.) Politics, both local, national, and international, permeates every major event of the game. There's secret societies, terrorist cabals, devil worshiping cults, disaffected uncaring nobles, violent and ignorant communists, it's incredible.
And to its infinite credit, the game NEVER paints any ideology as always bad. For every noble who views the commoners as his subjects and his property, is another noble who agonizes over his decisions because he both needs the funding to defend his people from the turmoil that he sees coming but knows that their taxes are already too much of a burden on their lives. And the same for politicians in the Crossbell Diet, members of the Liberlian royal family, officers in the Erebonian Army, all over. Everyone is basically someone who is trying to do "the right thing" but many are tragically wrong about what they think is right. Expect there to be a couple enemies who get their asses handed to them to then think about what they've done and come to the conclusion that they were wrong, all along.
Well, I've written far too much now, rofl.
But I do fully recommend this series to anyone who enjoys JRPGs, fleshed out worlds, detailed characters, nuance, or even someone who has never done any of that but who wants to be someone else in a different world for a while.
It needs to be down 100%. Everyone keep jumping ship. Plenty of good alternatives like Gab, Clouthub, and maybe Parler when they work out hosting which Gab did long ago.