About the ending (spoilers inside!)

[pibedetorres]

So, today at long last I've completed the game, and I can't find enough words to express how much I loved it. The story ended in quite the cliffhanger, and now I'm officially in the club of those who are dying to play SC as soon as it will come out. XD

I managed to miss a total of 10 achievements (would have been less if I played while keeping a guide at hand, but I preferred to enjoy the game the old fashioned way by exploring every corner, talking to each NPC every time their dialogues changed and taking it really slow in general - which explains the over 120h it took me to have just one playthrough), so I can still keep myself busy until the sequel makes its way to Steam.

After this I decided to search some videos about the Evo remake on Youtube just to see how those moments looked like with full voice acting and the new art. And I must confess, I definitely prefer the older version...

Some examples?

• The facial expressions (or rather, lack of) on the talksprites. I know this has been pointed out already on other threads, but it gets particularly annoying on what I consider one of the most emotionally intense scenes of the game ( when Estelle confesses her true feelings to Joshua right after he tells her the truth about his past. Her Evo talksprite compared to the original one looks particularly soulless on those moments )
  
• The different choice Falcom made in the ending AMV (putting this between spoiler tags just in case anyone who accidentally stumbles upon this post and hasn't yet finished the game doesn't expect there being one. I know this might not be an actual spoiler, but better safe than sorry!), where the original series of photos depicting some moments in the shared past of the two characters (which were nothing we couldn't already guess through the dialogues, but were still something we had never actually seen in game) is now replaced by pictures related to events the players had already witnessed (pretty much most of the images posted in this thread). I'm not completely sure but I wouldn't be surprised to find out that those particular pictures were also used through the game as the story progressed, so it's not even about showing us new images (what the original ending AMV did), but just recycling ones we already saw early on in our playthrough. Were that to be true, to me this would sound like an excuse to avoid getting the artist making extra art exclusively for the ending scene.
  
• Going more into detail on what concerns the previous point, one thing I loved of the original thing is that, after you've come to know the truth behind Joshua's past, the photos in the original AMV make a fantastic job of showing the slow but progressive increase of happiness of the male protagonist, something that we didn't get to really witness in the Prologue (as the story skipped the whole five years between the day Cassius brought the boy home and the day he and Estelle become Junior Bracers). All in all, the art for the original game has been fantastic both for its "warmer" graphic style and for the way it managed to convey some deeper meanings.

This said, I don't want to only point out the negative side of what little I've seen of the Evo version. The Japanese voice acting for the ending dialogues definitely added to the atmosphere, and I'm sure a localized version with full English voiceover would give us an enjoyable experience and a great reason to replay this adventure once again.

[sorathecrow]

I can't bring myself to look up the Evo ending. That CG scroll you mention sounds tacky as heck, and if the character portraits don't change in that last scene, well, bleh.

Honestly, I don't miss the voice acting. I'm looking forward to it on future games (like Cold Steel), but I already have voices set to all the Sky characters in my head, and voice acting would just clash with it. I'm usually a Japanese voice freak, and I still cringed pretty hard hearing some of the Evo voices. *tiny internal voice* That isn't what Joshua sounds like! That isn't what Estelle sounds like!

[Missilepom]

The problem with the portrait in the evolution version is that falcom's artist tried to imitate the art style of Katsumi Enami, and didn't do a very good job with it. Enami was the artist who did the artwork for Zero no Kiseki, the fourth game in the series. If you've watched the anime Baccano, you know what his characters look like.

They probably choose this pseudo-Enami art style to keep the art consistent across all the Kiseki evolution games. In fact, some of the adult characters' facial portraits were copy and pasted from Zero and Ao. I'm looking at you, Olivier and Muller :p

[sorathecrow]

I just looked up gameplay from Zero, and yeah, I see the resemblance. I'm not sure why they feel that's worthy of emulation over the old art style, though. It's just different.
EDIT:

Messaggio originale di jl260:

They probably choose this pseudo-Enami art style to keep the art consistent across all the Kiseki evolution games. In fact, some of the adult characters' facial portraits were copy and pasted from Zero and Ao. I'm looking at you, Olivier and Muller :p

That makes sense, at least.

[Missilepom]

I suggest not looking up the Crossbell version of the Sora characters' portraits if you haven't beaten the trilogy yet. It seemed like some of them went through plastic surgery before going to Crossbell hahaha..... *vaguely remembers mental scars from seeing those portraits for the first time*

[pibedetorres]

Yeah, the reason they changed the artstyle of the talksprites was pretty much in order to make Sora no Kiseki Evo closer to games like Zero, so that anyone who discovered the series only recently would find a "coherent" artstyle throughout all the games.

Speaking of talksprites, Cold Steel doesn't have them right? I saw the gameplay demo from E3 and there were only speech bubbles with no picture beside them. That would make sense considering the characters have their facial expressions rendered directly on their actual figures, something harder to show on the smaller models of the previous games.

EDIT:

Messaggio originale di jl260:

I suggest not looking up the Crossbell version of the Sora characters' portraits, if you haven't beaten the trilogy yet. It seemed like some of them went through plastic surgery before going to Crossbell hahaha..... *vaguely recalls mental scars from seeing those portraits for the first time*

Too late T___T

But the positive thing is, all the characters who made their debut in the Crossbell and Erebonia parts of the series have never be shown in the "older" artstyle, so at least we should be able to like the way they look. Returning characters from Sora no Kiseki on the other hand... oh well :P

[Erpy]

I completely agree with the comments about the ending scene. Kinda made me wonder if they ran out of budget and didn't want to redo all those photos.

In addition to the portraits looking more "generic" than their original counterparts, what I also disliked (and which isn't brough up very much) is that the portrait angles are also the same for every character. The varying angles were used to great effect in the original. Most character portraits have the same angle as they have in the Evo version, but several characters have portraits who are looking straight into the camera instead of at an angle.

- Estelle, as the protagonist, looks straight at the player, but it also reflects her tendency to speak her mind without reservation.

- Another example is Matron Theresa, whose use of the straight-ahead angle reflects a motherly openness which gave her portrait an additional bit of personality.

- Yet another example is Duke Dunan. The angle of his portrait in the original is just a little different from most portraits that look straight at the fourth wall. His eyes seem to focus just a little downward, which makes it seem like he's always looking down on whoever he's talking to, which greatly emphasizes his character

- Another example (and the one whose change bugged me most) is Agate. Like Estelle, Agate's personality is very straight-forward and his portrait in the original has a pretty intense gaze that seems more focussed than, say, Estelle's. He's not merely looking AT you, he's looking AT you and also RIGHT THROUGH you, like he's staring you down all the time, especially when he gets pissed off and he narrows his eyes. That smoldering feel of his original portrait is just completely lacking in the new style.

There are also three characters whose portrait is like most portraits, but it switches to a straight-ahead angle at important points:
- Josette starts out at the usual angle while she's in her polite and refined schoolgirl disguise, but when she dons her sky bandit outfit, her portrait changes to one that looks straight at you, very much like Estelle, to show that this is Josette's true personality.

- Joshua has one at the very end of the game. After he drugs Estelle, a frontal view of his face is used and it makes him look like a completely different person, an indication that this isn't the Joshua we've come to know over the course of the game.

- The most memorable is probably Alba's. When his true nature is revealed, his portrait looks straight at the camera and instead of pleasant and eccentric, the dude suddenly becomes creepy as hell.

I haven't seen the last scene on Youtube, but I have the impression that Evo uses one angle for everyone, period. Especially in the latter three examples I mentioned, that fails to use an effect that greatly added to the scenes.

I can see why people refer to the new portraits as soulless. They lack the little nuances the original versions had in abundance. It's like they were translated into the new style, but not localized.

[Erpy]

I believe Cold Steel does have talk portraits here and there. I recall some of them. Personally, I believe that unless you have in-game graphics on the level of the later Final Fantasy games, portraits still add a lot to a story/character-based game.

[pibedetorres]

@Erpy
I feel dumb for never noticing that before, as the only times I noticed a change in the portrait angle was with Joshua and Alba's towards the end of the game. Back then (well, some hours ago, it's not like that long ago haha) I thought little of it and naively assumed it was only done to "add some variety", but your post proves once more how deep and well planned each take in the art making of this game has been. Thanks a lot for sharing this!

If I recall correctly Lila also has a portrait with a straight-ahead camera angle, which is perfect for her as well because of her serious and strict personality. Giving her the default portrait angle would have probably made us miss part of that feeling, and to our eyes she could have just looked like the polite and "speak only when necessary" type.

[Erpy]

It's kinda difficult to judge Lila, since you don't really learn a lot about her, but the stare she gives Nial and Dorothy definitely wouldn't have the same impact if she wasn't looking straight ahead.

There are several other characters using the same angle and most of them seem for a reason.

- Jill's mischievous winks look a lot better because she's looking straight at you.

- Josette and Don Capua both look straight at you and both tend to be kind of boisterous and straight-forward. It makes Kyle, the most reserved of the three Capua siblings, stand out more.

- Mueller is another case of being very straight-forward and to the point in the three scenes he gets.

- Julia Schwarz looks straight ahead to show her no-nonsense yet upstanding nature, which contrasts the more ambigious Kanone Amalthea.

Personally, I think they didn't just flip a coin when determining the angles, they were meant to be part of the characters.

[sorathecrow]

That's a great analysis, Erpy. You summed up what I was never able to put into words about the portraits...it's weird how such subtle things can communicate so much in a video game.

Ending spoiler (FC): That Joshua portrait change was a great example, too. He has a total demeanor shift in the last scene that wouldn't be the same without that VERY unfamiliar-looking portrait.

[omgfloofy]

Messaggio originale di pibedetorres:

Speaking of talksprites, Cold Steel doesn't have them right? I saw the gameplay demo from E3 and there were only speech bubbles with no picture beside them. That would make sense considering the characters have their facial expressions rendered directly on their actual figures, something harder to show on the smaller models of the previous games.

Messaggio originale di Erpy:

I believe Cold Steel does have talk portraits here and there. I recall some of them. Personally, I believe that unless you have in-game graphics on the level of the later Final Fantasy games, portraits still add a lot to a story/character-based game.

Cold Steel has the talk images, but specifically pulled from the CG models of the characters in-game. This decreased the amount of art assets that had to be done, and even gave NPCs talk images as well.

The reason for this is because people eventually started to get to the point of 'THEY HAVE A FACE ICON. MAIN VILLAIN FLAG.'

By using the CG images, they're able to give everyone and anyone talk sprites. It's partly to mess with the players' heads more, I think. On top of cutting down on the number of assets so they can devote time to other aspects of the game.

[pibedetorres]

Messaggio originale di omgfloofy:

Cold Steel has the talk images, but specifically pulled from the CG models of the characters in-game. This decreased the amount of art assets that had to be done, and even gave NPCs talk images as well.

The reason for this is because people eventually started to get to the point of 'THEY HAVE A FACE ICON. MAIN VILLAIN FLAG.'

By using the CG images, they're able to give everyone and anyone talk sprites. It's partly to mess with the players' heads more, I think. On top of cutting down on the number of assets so they can devote time to other aspects of the game.

While the presence of a face icon never gave me the feeling any specific NPC could be a villain, it's true that seeing a character portrait was on obvious way of telling us "Hey look, this character is going to do something important at some point". Even when that didn't happen, those characters were easier to bond with because of their peculiar facial expression (again, see Lila, or Clem). A few more characters would have perhaps deserved a custom talksprite, like the three Ravens or Luke and Pat (the two kids in Rolent), or Tio (Estelle and Joshua's friend from Sunday School). The reason they didn't get one (apart from possible budget reasons) could be that they don't come back later in the game - with the exception of the Ravens.

Apparently some characters who didn't get a talksprite in the original game still ended up having a voice actor in the Evo version, assuming the list in the following site is complete and the hundreds of remaining NPCs weren't fully voiced over by a few voice actors as well:

http://www.behindthevoiceactors.com/video-games/The-Legend-of-Heroes-Trails-in-the-Sky/

For instance, the other three kids from Mercia orphanage and the three Ravens.

(Speaking of, I wonder if XSeed managed to contact the same voice actors who dubbed the battle voices of FC for SC as well. Not that I would be disappointed if the new battle dubs were different of course, I'm simply curious. Same goes for CS in case any character from FC ever shows up -like Olivier :P -, though since this game has a full voiceover it wouldn't be surprising if they opted for different voice actors there)

EDIT: also, even Sieg has an actual voice actor in Evo instead of some recorded falcon sound effect? Does he speak like a Pokémon? Either that or the voice actor is so good Sieg sounds like an actual falcon.

[Erpy]

From what I've heard, the characters on that page who don't have a dialogue portrait in FC do get one in SC. (interestingly enough Lorence doesn't seem to be included there)

About the voices, XSeed recorded the voices for all three Trails in the Sky games at once, so yeah, they'll be the same, though Joshua has a different inflection for SC to reflect his more troubled state of mind.

What's pretty neat about the page you linked to is that several characters' full names are given despite either their first or last name never being mentioned in FC.

- Kurt Nardin
- Mueller Vander
- Anelace Elfead
- Albert Russell
- Aina Holden
- Kilika Rouran
- Phillip seems to have a last name too though it's not mentioned here
- George Weissmann

[kikixeni]

Messaggio originale di Erpy:

- George Weissmann

spoilers for this character

I find it hilarious and awesome that Weissmann is named George. It's such a mundane, normal name for such a terrifying villain. Normal humans are capable of great evil and etc.

[pibedetorres]

Messaggio originale di Erpy:

About the voices, XSeed recorded the voices for all three Trails in the Sky games at once, so yeah, they'll be the same, though Joshua has a different inflection for SC to reflect his more troubled state of mind.

I already admired the excellent work made by XSeed, but this shows even more the love they put in Trails in the Sky's localization. Kudos to them!

Also, I didn't notice Lorence was missing on that page. Now I really wonder whether they just forgot to include it / couldn't specify who his voice actor is, or he actually isn't dubbed in the Evo version. (I doubt it's the latter though)

As for the full names revealed in there, if they aren't mentioned anywhere throughout the games (including staff credits) my best guess would be that they got included in the Special Collection Books.