is the game tied to trails at all?

[Anzuni]

usually i jump at a new game but i might wait on this one if its not connected

[Koby]

Officially the stance is "no", it's not canon to the rest of Trails, at this time. However the MC is apparently Towa Herschels grandfather in a possibly "alternate reality" or something kind of way. This aspect may or may not end up eventually being tied into the Trails plot. Falcom suggests no, but fans still toss around theories.

[s.schieber]

From what I have heard there are some winks and nods to the Trails games, and people debate if they are just Easter eggs or if they are meant to indicate a link, but Falcom's official position is that they are not related.

So probably not, but I have heard people describe this as a game that kind of marries Ys style action RPG combat to the Kiseki's series focus on narrative and story, and that's enough for me to want to give it a try!

[つづく]

No.

[tykandre]

In the end, it's more like Zwei 3, the stage structure, collection side-quest and how the game actually plays are way more in line with the Zwei series than the Ys series.

[Zekkn]

short answer --- yes

( although falcom go out of their way to say it doesn't, probably cause they wanna throw people off the trail like most game studio's do when people figure out plot points before hand, to keep people more intrigued for their next instalment although kuro 1/2 have kinda dropped the ball on that HARD, lets hope they can bring it back with 3 although the chances of that are 50/50 )

long answer --- they share TOO many similarities whether that being characters, families, same measurement system, gods/deities work in a very familiar way, how the law of the world works... the list goes on but to go any further would spoil BIG PLOT points for both this game and what the kiseki series has been setting up for the past 5 or so games.

some people will say its just references like when they reuse towa's model for Tokyo Xanadu but its way more than just a budget saving model recycle...... WAY more.

you dont NEED knowledge of the kiseki series to play this game though if that is the issue but being up to date does help this games story a fair chunk and put some things into perspective. The game does work as a standalone though if that is also what you were wondering.

Whether FALCOM will follow through on what they have set up is another story though as we have seen multiple times with both of their series ( TRAILS, YS ) they will sometimes setup stuff to just completely abandon it and do something different and just hope you forget what happened and move on.

I could totally see this being something they were setting up but decided not to follow through on because it wasn't as successful or maybe they just decided on another way of going about the story but who really knows... it could go both ways at this point

[Ogami]

Well, one of the big theories by fans linking the two is
that you learn at the end of Nayuta that one of their worlds continents has gone "missing". There is only ocean where previously an entire big continent existed.
A lot of fans think that this continent is Zemuria, the land all the Trails of games are set on.
At the end of Cold Steel 4 we learn that the continent is surrounded by an invisible barrier and you can not sail or fly away from it more then a few miles before you automatically are turned back.
So the theory is the continent got transported to some sort of pocket dimension to run some long running experiment regarding humans and the Sept-Terrions.
There is also the uncanny likeness of a certain Nayuta character to the Grandmaster of Oroborus.
https://prnt.sc/u7vORZzx71vu
All in all, a lot of "hints".

[s.schieber]

I feel like this is one of those situations where these potential links aren't accidents, but they are vague so Falcom can either decide to do something with them further down the road, but also if they decide not to they can just say they are little 'Easter eggs' for lovers of the other series.

Personally I am hoping that the fact that they decided to put this out in English and make it more widely available means they will connect some of these threads in future arcs for Trails, but even if they don't, I am just very happy this game made it to my market. So far it has been just fun and delightful!

As much as I love Trails, I feel like Falcom is at it's best with action RPG's with a sense of adventure to them!