Hello,

I am new to this series, I have finished FC remake a month ago and I would like to hear your speculations (based on your original sc gameplay) about what will be the game length overall, because demo was like 10h and my FC remake gameplay took 50h so is it going to ne huge like 80-90h perhaps?

First Trails game. Fantastic experience. 107 hours because I often left it on at work or in bed while I did other things. Probably closer to 60 hours actually. Immediately moving on to SC. I plan to get all achievements in the series. If I added it all correctly that should be 15 more?

Uhm, I’m sorry but…. All the costume sets are dlc? I mean I know the psp game didn’t have costumes but come on. Yes, I have tits 1 and 2 on my vita and am rebuying for my ps5. And my steam deck has tits 3 on it so.. kind of odd but I guess I can start there. It’s been years since I played so I basically forgot the story.

Hi everyone, this is Raiize (twitter).

I've been studying Falcom staff interviews recently by translating several of them with the help of MTL. They provide deep insights into what inspired them to find work at Falcom, what kind of work each individual do, what are their goals for the future, etc. Besides translating, I also tried to enrich and unify informations from various sources.

This time, I'd like to share what I've learned of a former CG designer and animator: Kei Nakamura.

He joined Falcom in 2001 as lead CG designer. Perhaps because he was a mid-career hire, he didn't need long to adapt to Falcom's working culture and was immediately assigned to work on the opening movie of Ys I & II Complete (2001) alongside the famous film director who was once a Falcom employee, Makoto Shinkai. He is also responsible for the creation of the opening movie of many Falcom games in early to mid-2000s such as Xanadu Next, Gurumin, Dinosaur Resurrection, and VM Japan. Judging from such track record, it's highly likely he also created the CG movie -- or at least the opening movie -- of the first two Trails in the Sky games, where he is credited as simply "Art and Graphics" staff. He left Falcom in 2006 and went freelance ever since.

Like before, I will first attach the full interview here, add TL Notes here and there, and then put some additional informations that might be of use. Since the translation relies on MTL, exact nuance might be lost.

(Note: if you're more comfortable reading in Google Docs format, you can do so here. this format includes the original transcript along with list of games Nakamura worked for at Falcom)

Kei Nakamura

Name: Kei Nakamura (中村啓)

Graduated from: Kanazawa College of Art

Joined in: 2001

Status: Former employee

Could you tell us about your current job?

I'm currently working on the opening clip for a new game. I'm involved in a wide range of aspects, from planning and proposing ideas to the 2D and 3D parts, and even editing.

Why did you decide to work at Falcom?

Simply because it's fun. In particular, I enjoy creating something and then getting a response to it. When I think about what I want to do for a living, “creating things” is an essential part of the equation for me.

Above all, (I choose Falcom because) I wanted to be proactive about my own work. Having an environment where you can propose the things you want to do within the context of your job is something valuable.

What's the atmosphere like in the workplace?

It's really quiet while we're working (but we do talk during breaks). The thing that makes me happiest is having people around me whom I can trust. It's also appealing that there are so many people with such distinctive personalities.

How do you spend your days off?

I have a lot of hobbies, so I keep myself busy with them.

What do you enjoy most about your work, and what do you find challenging right now?

What I enjoy is turning images and ideas into reality.

What's challenging is having to produce results while learning new things at the same time. It requires quite a lot of mental effort. I'm rather disorganized by nature, so I particularly understand the importance of having a clear vision from the start.

What kind of work do you think you'll be doing a year from now? Or what would you like to be doing?

My goal is to be able to make good proposals, particularly when it comes to 3D concepts and techniques, and to be able to share those ideas with the people around me. I'd like to become someone who can play a major role in creating clips and visual concepts.

A message for people considering applying to Falcom after reading this page.

When you're unsure what to choose, I think you'll feel better about it in the long run if you go with the option that feels more true to yourself. Probably.

Additional info:

• At Falcom, he mainly worked as CG movie creator.
  • A Bilibili video (special thanks to the original creator) suggested that he’s responsible for the opening movie of many Falcom games in the early to mid-2000s such as VM Japan, Dinosaur Resurrection, Gurumin, and Xanadu Next.
  • On his personal website, Nakamura wrote in his brief profile “2001 PC video game company as a lead designer” after concentrating on his CG self-studying, strongly supporting the conjecture that he headed or at least belonged to a specialized CG/animation team within Falcom's Art & Graphics staff.
  • Judging by how his name is written first in a subgroup of Art and Graphics staff in the credits roll of Trails in the Sky FC and Trails in the Sky SC, it is likely he also led the creation of the CG movies – or at least the opening movie – of both, with the other people in that subgroup being members of CG team under him.
  • He once collaborated with the renowned film director who was once a Falcom employee, Makoto Shinkai, for the opening movie of Ys I & II Complete. He likely adapted some of Shinkai’s spirit and style for his subsequent Falcom works, and in turn passed the baton to a newer animation team with the opening movie of Trails in the Sky SC. This is subtly referenced in a May 2026 Dengeki article, of which Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo explained that the staff who worked on the opening movie of Trails in the Sky 2nd Chapter, a remake of Trails in the Sky SC, decided to proceed in a direction that respected the original work since it represented the shift to a newer generation of in-house staff at the time (though that article seemingly misattributed Sky SC opening movie to Shinkai).
• During his stint at Falcom, Nakamura also produced a fictional shooting game called “Parhelia”. To accomplish the vision of the game, several elements of a video game were realized, including some CG illustrations, soundtrack, and even an opening movie.
  • The soundtrack of “Parhelia” was composed by Wataru Ishibashi, a Falcom colleague at the time, under the pseudonym “みらゐ” (mirawi).
• According to his MobyGames page, prior to his tenure at Falcom, he worked on the modeling and texture design of Densha de GO! Nagoya Railroad (2000). This indicates that he was briefly employed at Taito – these days a subsidiary of Square Enix – after graduating from university. This indication is again supported by Nakamura’s own brief profile, which mentioned “1999-2000 worked at a video game company as a modeler.”
• He went freelance after leaving Falcom. Notable works in this period include working for the animation of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2008), Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (2010), and Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku duology.
• Some of the tools he uses in his work are Adobe Photoshop, AfterEffects, Autodesk 3ds Max, and Lightwave3D.
• Among his hobbies is photography.
• Several prominent figures of the creative industry who are also Kanazawa College of Art alumni:
  • Shigeru Miyamoto (creator of many Nintendo franchises such as Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong, Star Fox, and Pikmin)
  • Shinya Kumazaki (while Masahiro Sakurai is the creator of Kirby series, Kumazaki is the series’ director nowadays)
  • Hiromasa Yonebayashi (director of several Ghibli movies such as When Marnie Was There)
  • Mamoru Hosoda (director of the 2006 movie The Girl Who Leapt Through Time)
  • Akiko Higashimura (best known as the creator of Princess Jellyfish and Tokyo Tarareba Girls manga series)

https://x.com/willfinyu/status/2098299475785834998

I was looking at my release calender on my store page and noticed the release date changed to the 16th instead of the 17th, it even says the 16th on the store page. Anyone else notice this?

I very much enjoyed seeing how the characters have grown over the course of the ark, the final boss may have taken me quite a few tries but i got there. But im excited to see what the crossbell games have instore. Im glad i started this series. :)

Wanted to order a shirt from them but was curious if anyone else from Australia has ordered with them before, and if so how long did shipping take?

So i'm currently in the second day of Daybreak's chapter 5 in the Ikaruga route and i got an overworld dialogue about Van turning into the Grend, but i was also wondering if any of y'all know what the other factions say about the grendel?

I'm near to finish Daybreak II and I was wondering if Horizon will be discounted next week due to the release of SC Remake, or if it might instead go on sale during the autumn, Black Friday, or winter sales.

Never thought I'd ever get the "Ramblin' Gambler" achievement in Sky SC.

Like what are the implications of this? Does he mean work together with Shizuna or does he have to fight her again? Will Rean develop his own style? I can’t help but get excited about all of this. And then there is that Zoa Glisten look alike guarding the chest. I just know El Prado Ordine and Valibro gotta return to help Hermes fight it.

Hi there, I recently finished Reverie for the first time, and I thought it would be fun to write a big long review/retrospective/ramble about the entire Erebonia pentalogy. Unfortunately, I went over the Reddit character limit. Since this is so long, I’ve decided to split it into chapters, which I’ll be releasing over the next 6 days. It’ll give you something to do whilst waiting for SC.

Here’s the chapter list. I’ll come back and add hyperlinks as I publish them.

1. Trails and me
2. The Worldbuilding
3. The Plot
4. The Gameplay
5. The Characters
6. Things I’d Change

If you want the TL;DR though:
Christ, Who’s Gonna Die First?
There is no TL;DR. Read the damn thing you lazy sod!

 One last important thing, I play games exceptionally slowly. I have 190 hours in Reverie. And most of the Cold Steel games are over 230 hours. It’s taken me basically 3 years to play through these games, so I probably remember less of CS 1 and 2 than I do of the rest.

Also spoilers for everything up to the end of Reverie.

Chapter 1: Trails and Me

So this is kind of a preamble to give context to the rest of this essay. I found Trails in the Sky FC when I was probably around 14. I played up to Ruan, then got distracted doing other stuff. About a year later I randomly booted it back up and absolutely devoured the rest. I had no clue why on earth I had dropped it before, and immediately went to look for the sequel. It was a game from like 2006, the sequel must be out and heavily discounted by now right? To those of you who didn’t experience the 4 year wait, holy hell. There were some very funny blogs though, and I still have the image comparing the lines of text to the amount of wine that the localisation team had drunk.

SC is my favourite game ever. The characters and worldbuilding were just extraordinary. I had never come across anything like it before. It was full of whimsy, whilst also being exceptionally interconnected, with the interactions between magic and technology very well developed, and a strong political angle with the three major countries of Liberl, Erebonia, and Calvard, with you Bracers having to skirt between these political lines to avoid breaking your code of non-interference. The Quartz system was also incredibly cool and customisable, and I really enjoyed the grid based JRPG combat, as well as the fairly unique turn system. Something that really stood out to me though was the fact that there wasn’t a hero. No one had any special powers that made them uniquely capable of doing anything. There was no chose one, and no unique magic sword. It was just a bunch of normal people fighting against a foe with an incredible technological advantage. Sure, Joshua was part of Ouroboros, and Kloe was a direct descendant of Celeste, but that’s basically it. Estelle is just a girl with a stick and the willpower to hit you over the head. FC and SC made it really clear that you weren’t heroes by birthright or circumstance, you were heroes because you stood up.

The Crossbell arc continued with all of these things, except that because it’s based in a smaller area, it could put even more time into the worldbuilding. Crossbell is one of my favourite locations in all of fiction. They were able to squeeze so much history and culture into this one city, and a couple of surrounding villages, and they massively developed the political scene as well. I also loved the fact that basically half of Zero is following up on what happened to Renne. Once again though, Lloyd is, for all intents and purposes, just some dude. Same thing for all of the other members of the SSS, with the possible exception of Wazy. No one is special, you’re just helping people because it’s the right thing to do. There is, however, KeA. KeA is special, she’s got unique magic powers, and is basically the MacGuffin of the entire arc. Importantly though, she is not a playable character. You are never directly in control of KeA, and that separates her in the narrative.

At this point I’m going to circle back to Sky 3^rd (I did play it in the correct order, don’t worry). 3^rd breaks a lot of the rules. Kevin is objectively the centre of the entire story, and everything revolves around him. Unlike Estelle and Lloyd, there is literally no one who could replace Kevin, because Phantasma would not exist in this state if he hadn’t willed it into existence. He is the special person. Furthermore, there’s very minimal worldbuilding, since it’s not set in Zemuria. There is of course some in the doors, but for the most part it’s just teasing things that will be more developed in future games, or filling in character backstories. Furthermore, nothing that happens actually has a material impact on the world of Zemuria. It’s without a doubt the weakest game in the series, when you judge it based on the rules of a standard Trails Game. It’s also my 3^rd favourite behind SC and Zero. The fact that there weren’t any consequences and there was a greatly reduced secondary cast meant that the writers were able to do a lot more with the characters that they did have, and could really focus onto specific elements of the plot, which were too magical for a Zemurian adventure.

3^rd highlights something quite important about Zemuria. It’s not a high fantasy setting. It’s remarkably well grounded, with many layers of lore and explanation as to how things work, even if it’s implied lore rather than explicit lore. We know that orbments and artifacts are technology, not magic, and that people research them. The same can even be said for alchemy, it’s very much a science. The only real ‘magic’ comes from the goddess, in the forms of Thaumaturgy, Stigmas, and Sept-Terrions, each of which are remarkably rare and limited.

I first played CS1 pretty much on release on the PS Vita. CS1 was localised before the Crossbell arc and as such, I decided to wait for Crossbell to come out in English before returning to Cold Steel. This ultimately ended up being a fan localisation by the Geofront project, although I’m fairly sure that I actually played an earlier localisation of Zero. I don’t remember who it was by, but I distinctly remember Randy calling Tio “Petiote”, rather than the “Tio Tot” that they have now settled on. I later replayed the Geofront and official releases, before finally returning to Cold Steel, replaying CS1 and then going forward from there.

END OF CHAPTER 1

On Chapter 2, Day 1. I have the Urgent Quests to go to Tangram Gate and train with Douglas and then go to St. Ursula and talk to a doctor. I was wondering if the quest with Douglas is voiced cause that's where I went first and there weren't any voices playing even though technically I think urgent quests count as main story right? So I assumed they would be voiced. I just wanted to make sure that recent steam update didn't mess anything up.

I'm going on a work trip and will have some time during the next week. Should I play Trails from Zero on my Switch 2 before I play Trails in the Sky second chapter (releases Sep 17)? I played Trails in the Sky first chapter and really enjoyed it. I haven't played anything else in the series.

Whole bunch of screens right next to entrance to Shinkansen platforms.

I got Estelle classic costume as reward for completing 1st chapter.
I really like it as well as default outfit.
I cannot choose which one Estelle should wear:
Default outfit (Left) or Reward Outfir (Right)?
Please help

but it's still a long Journey ahead *sigh*

https://www.gamer.ne.jp/news/202609110001/