Must I Play Trails in The Sky Third Chapter?

[Astroconvoy RZ-028]

is Trails in the Sky Third Chapter a must play before i move onto the crossbell arc?

[DooMDaddy]

yes. cause cause there's a progression plot for Joshua, Estelle and Renne

[Astroconvoy RZ-028]

oh okay thanks i just 100% SC yesterday but i think im burnt out on trails atm ill check TC out later

[Erpy]

That's definitely the best option. A certain subplot in Zero has an immensely larger amount of emotional impact if you played through 3rd first.

[Astroconvoy RZ-028]

is the Hard mode in this game actually balanced or is it unfairly hard like the Hard mode in the Sky Trilogy?

[zefyris]

You don't need to, as Zero will still be an excellent game even without that.
Simply, some very emotionally impactful scenes will be seen completely different depending if you've played 3rd or not.
So it's up to you to decide.
Personally, two of these in particular are among my favorite scenes in the whole Kiseki franchise so I'm glad I played 3rd first.

[Astroconvoy RZ-028]

The reason i asked was because i felt that FC was great and the ending got me to play SC but SC felt like it dragged on for too long and me 100%ing the achievements for that game might have to do with feeling burnt out and the Finale Chapter was a bad experience in my opinion if i may ask does TC improve on anything from SC gameplay wise?

[Wyrtt]

Originally posted by Wyrtt:

Originally posted by Astroconvoy:

is Trails in the Sky Third Chapter a must play before i move onto the crossbell arc?

No you dont have to. Just watch doors content on youtube. There are videos that specificly show you plot relevant doors. Spend 30 minutes on that and go play zero after that.
Third game is a waste of time. Simple fandisk that they sold as a real game.

Originally posted by Astroconvoy:

The reason i asked was because i felt that FC was great and the ending got me to play SC but SC felt like it dragged on for too long and me 100%ing the achievements for that game might have to do with feeling burnt out and the Finale Chapter was a bad experience in my opinion if i may ask does TC improve on anything from SC gameplay wise?

No, TC is PURELY dungeon crawler where you grind your way trought ONE big dungeon. Sometimes you are allowed to jump into a door. Inside you get some story content that basicly just dumps lore on you. They didnt know how to incorporate that content into the main games so they created TC.

[Tawm]

The main plot isn't all that relevant, but the optional story doors are, like the other guy said. You could just read a summary of the main story and watch each of the doors if you just want to be done with Sky and move on to Crossbell. I'd play through it at some point, though.

Originally posted by Astroconvoy:

is the Hard mode in this game actually balanced or is it unfairly hard like the Hard mode in the Sky Trilogy?

Zero and Azure are much easier on Nightmare than the Sky trilogy is on Hard. Azure has 2 fights that are hard to get max DP (BP equivalent) in, but other than that, it's a breeze beyond the usual early game hardship due to lack of build variety. Still not even remotely close to as hard as SC's prologue.

[DooMDaddy]

Originally posted by Uz:

Sky 3rd sets up a lot of future game plot points and its characters, characters in sky 3rd also carry over and their story is also integrated into the story for this game. It is definitely and important game to the series and people who say otherwise have not played it before

couldn't agree more.

[zefyris]

Since Sky the 3rd is all about blocking something from happening so that the world won't affected by it, the events in there have very little impact to the world. However, the charaters involved have growth, interactions with each others, as well as special scenes through doors that all matter and sometimes pretty heavily.

So it's a game where it's less "what you do" that matters, and way more "what you learn".

[HunterRassius]

Some pretty L takes in this thread ngl. Do yourself a favor and don't read some cliff notes on the game.

Originally posted by Astroconvoy:

The reason i asked was because i felt that FC was great and the ending got me to play SC but SC felt like it dragged on for too long and me 100%ing the achievements for that game might have to do with feeling burnt out and the Finale Chapter was a bad experience in my opinion if i may ask does TC improve on anything from SC gameplay wise?

If this is true The 3rd might be right up your alley. It's my 2nd favorite in the series so far because:

A) The fat got trimmed from it big time. Probably the shortest game in the series because you aren't doing never ending bracer fetch quests and having to talk to NPC #24437965 for the 8th straight time.
B) The protagonist is far and away the best of the 3 arcs that i've currently played. Not much teenage bs problems and +1 to real psychological damage problem.
C) Has some serious backstory reveals involving some of the "mains" one of which is heartbreaking and ties directly into Zero.

Kinda surprised you disliked the Liber Ark though. A "final dungeon" done right.

is the Hard mode in this game actually balanced or is it unfairly hard like the Hard mode in the Sky Trilogy?

Hard mode for both Zero and The 3rd is a pleasant breeze at best.

[jmporkbob]

Originally posted by Astroconvoy:

The reason i asked was because i felt that FC was great and the ending got me to play SC but SC felt like it dragged on for too long and me 100%ing the achievements for that game might have to do with feeling burnt out and the Finale Chapter was a bad experience in my opinion if i may ask does TC improve on anything from SC gameplay wise?

Sky 3rd is probably the shortest Trails game. It has a better balance of story to gameplay, and doesn't feel like it drags at all. Even if you do all sidecontent (you really REALLY should do all doors in that game) it should be barely north of 50 hours if even that.

[leafs43]

The third is a good game.

It only gets flak because its its own self contained story and not apart of the larger narrative.

Its also one of the more important games in the series because its a huge lore dump.

[Shadic]

3rd is amazing

[Astroconvoy RZ-028]

Originally posted by HunterRassius:

Some pretty L takes in this thread ngl. Do yourself a favor and don't read some cliff notes on the game.

Originally posted by Astroconvoy:

The reason i asked was because i felt that FC was great and the ending got me to play SC but SC felt like it dragged on for too long and me 100%ing the achievements for that game might have to do with feeling burnt out and the Finale Chapter was a bad experience in my opinion if i may ask does TC improve on anything from SC gameplay wise?

If this is true The 3rd might be right up your alley. It's my 2nd favorite in the series so far because:

A) The fat got trimmed from it big time. Probably the shortest game in the series because you aren't doing never ending bracer fetch quests and having to talk to NPC #24437965 for the 8th straight time.
B) The protagonist is far and away the best of the 3 arcs that i've currently played. Not much teenage bs problems and +1 to real psychological damage problem.
C) Has some serious backstory reveals involving some of the "mains" one of which is heartbreaking and ties directly into Zero.

Kinda surprised you disliked the Liber Ark though. A "final dungeon" done right.

is the Hard mode in this game actually balanced or is it unfairly hard like the Hard mode in the Sky Trilogy?

Hard mode for both Zero and The 3rd is a pleasant breeze at best.

I mainly disliked the Liber Ark section mainly because of the like 8 boss rush and i think i said this in the post but i basically used alot of my good healing items on the enforcers and by the time i fight Leonhardt i didnt have any of my "Good" healing items anymore and the final boss was a absolute chore for me not only did i have almost no good healing items the damn thing kept reviving my party like bruh let me go to the gameover screen and try again