Long or Short?

[Sol]

Recently, JRPG's have undergone a conspiracy worse than the DLC model; making very short 12 hour games where they make 5+ sequels, which could have all just been combined into one game. They don't even have the decency to make them all DLC either, they literally make 5-6+ or more, "shorts".

I find this irritating. I want a game with immersion and depth. I am not buying a book one chapter at a time.

Help me out with this, is this game worth getting? How immersive is it? What is the average gameplay length for a completist type of gamer?

[Harag]

The average gamplay lenght depends on how many sidequests do you do, but most people finish it around 60 hours.
That being said it IS just the first part of a game which was split into two. Worst, it ends with a huge cliffhanger and the second part is not done yet.
However, second chapter(the second game) is considerably longer than this and both games have immersion and depth so I would advise playing it, even if not right away but when the second chapter comes out.

[Andrettin]

I have 98 hours played on the game, having played through it twice (the second time with new game plus and pressing ESC through most of the dialogue). I imagine a completist type gamer would take 50-70 hours to finish the game. I found the game rather nice, with the storyline probably being its strongest point.

[Sol]

60 hours?

Bet. I am in.

Thanks!

[Domi]

To be honest is actually between 40~50 hours, maybe even a bit less if you go really fast.

[sorathecrow]

Just to chime in with my time: my completionist run took about 75-80 hours. If you just kinda play it casually, it's probably a 40 to 50 hour game.

[Sol]

I go a bit slow, kinda casually. Like an old schooler. I am in no rush.

I like the game so far.

[Letari]

My first completion of the game took 50 hours, but I missed 2 achievements so I'm replaying it to complete them, the monster book and talking with every npc multiple times as the story quest progresses since their dailogue changes with it. It's fun watching the townsfolk have their own little stories and problems that develop and get solved as I'm going through my own storyline.

One of the more important little events is the development of the Arsielle's engine, a spare (less powerful) engine was being used when it first appears. An engineer in Ruan who is asked to help develop the originally intended engine ends up turning it down for the sake of his kid brother. When you get to Zeiss you find that the engineering team is struggling to get the ball rolling for the engine development and are short on hands and ideas at this point. By the time you finish Zeiss a new member has been brought on board in the form of a young lady who wasn't doing too well in her last assignment but almost immediately starts contributing. There's a couple other ones but this one is so far my favorite.

[Erpy]

Ah yeah, the engineer in question is Louise if I recall correctly. The girl who lives next door to professor Russel. I remember that one...it's one of the few mini stories that spans multiple chapters.

I'm currently busy trying to map out all the NPCs in the game, as well as their relations with one another and their mini-stories if they have any. Just finished with Mercia Orphanage and Manoria. I still have the big cookies to do: Ruan, Jenis, Zeiss and Grancel. (hooboy Grancel)

If anyone's interested in taking a peek:

http://trails.wikia.com/wiki/Category:NPCs_(Prologue_FC)

http://trails.wikia.com/wiki/Category:NPCs_(Chapter_1_FC)

http://trails.wikia.com/wiki/Category:NPCs_(Chapter_2_FC)

It's a nice demonstration of how much detail has been put into the NPCs and the world they inhabit.

EDIT: You need to copy the links into your browser address bar so it won't discard the closing parentheses.

[Hayeth]

Mapping the NPC's?.. that's... a lot of work, thank you for your work on doing that, and a question.

I've already finished Trails FC, so I'm curious as to some NPC interaction I might have missed, will there be spoilers in the Mapping you're doing? [want to feel SC without spoilers].

[Xengre]

OP I would also suggest Xenoblade Chronicles, Persona 3/4, and most of all the Tales of series if you want long games. Tales of Abyss, is probably the longest rpg I know of and is about twice as long as Trails in the Sky and your average RPG depending on your speed (but looking online averages at almost exactly 2x as long for both main story and completionist stats compared to this game and much longer then any FF game). As for Trails in the Sky, you won't be disapointed I believe.

[Letari]

Very nice, and yeah...Grancel, that's going to be quite a project by itself lol.

Hayeth, I don't think there's any real spoilers that you'd be able to recognize without playing SC first. I'm assuming there's quite a bit of foreshadowing in this game but some of it won't become obvious until we see the related events happen in SC.

[sorathecrow]

Originally posted by meginb:

My first completion of the game took 50 hours, but I missed 2 achievements so I'm replaying it to complete them, the monster book and talking with every npc multiple times as the story quest progresses since their dailogue changes with it. It's fun watching the townsfolk have their own little stories and problems that develop and get solved as I'm going through my own storyline.

One of the more important little events is the development of the Arsielle's engine, a spare (less powerful) engine was being used when it first appears. An engineer in Ruan who is asked to help develop the originally intended engine ends up turning it down for the sake of his kid brother. When you get to Zeiss you find that the engineering team is struggling to get the ball rolling for the engine development and are short on hands and ideas at this point. By the time you finish Zeiss a new member has been brought on board in the form of a young lady who wasn't doing too well in her last assignment but almost immediately starts contributing. There's a couple other ones but this one is so far my favorite.

That's a great one, and maybe one of the most complex ones that I know of. My favorite NPCs were the couple you first meet in Rolent that decide to go on a date in Grancel to see the birthday celebration. It was fun following along with them.

[Letari]

There's also that mother and son pair that came from Grancel I believe and go around to all the cities buying and reselling things. Also there's that blue haired man named Rutherford, I keep forgetting about him and what his backstory even is, he just keeps popping up in like every city and village I visit lol. (It's like playing "where's Waldo")

[omgfloofy]

Originally posted by meginb:

There's also that mother and son pair that came from Grancel I believe and go around to all the cities buying and reselling things.

One of my favorite things in Sen no Kiseki, far later in the series, is you meet that pair again! So they remain in the series, too.

[Letari]

They sure know how to get around! I'd love for the other Kiseki games to get released here even if they weren't published by Xseed, especially Zero, how often do you see an RPG with a policeman as a playable character?!