I finished Chapter 1 yesterday.

I can see the story starting to open up (Intrigue! Great Powers conflict! Mysterious artifacts!) and we've got a new proper noun ("Divine Blade", which I can't recall seeing before, at least). Every good fantasy story needs to accumulate Words With Capital Letters.

I also really love that the primary conceit driving our characters forward is that they're going to walk the land.

It's just so charming! It's just so delightful!

I mentioned previously that I am a bit daunted at how many games there are in this series and how far behind I am.

But I'm also a little excited about it. If the rest are even fractionally as good as the first, I'm in for an exciting...er...rest of my life.

I think I am finally starting to figure this game out.

I am at the very end of Chapter 1 (with just one more main quest to finish) and feel like I’m finally able to understand the magic system and the battle systems in a reasonable way.

I’m no longer hoarding CP like I used to, at least. And the endless supply of healing items from my Apple Ice Cream profiteering doesn’t hurt either.

Overall, though, I’m just having so much fun. I don’t think I’ve had this much fun with a classic JRPG in a very long time. Maybe ever.

The battles are great and whatever, but it’s really the characters and the writing that shines.

There is so much dialog (especially when compared to something like a textbox-based Final Fantasy) and it’s all so well written and lets the characters shine so brightly.

I’m sad that I didn’t play this 12 years ago. I even had a PSP! I had a PSP and I didn’t even know this game existed. And now the series is so huge that I feel like I’ll never catch up.

Oh well. At least the journey is going to be worth it if the rest of the series is half as charming as this one.

I found this little forum post about how to cheese the cooking system and basically print money.

So that's one problem solved. I can now buy all of the restorative items I can find and not stress about staying in inns. Which is definitely helpful.

I've so far not stumbled across anyone selling items that restore EP so even that is a little limited.

Which is a shame because I'm increasingly running across enemies that demand to be fought with Arts. So I just watch my EP meter drain fight-by-fight.

Beyond just that, the balance in this game is completely weird. Encounters are either a literal walk in the park where I defeat everything before the enemies even get a turn or I very nearly die.

There is no middle-ground where a fight is interesting enough to hold your attention without necessarily being a huge risk. It's either a white-knuckled fight to the death or a giant nothingburger.

I wonder if the entire series will be like this or if it's just because this was the first and they were getting the hang of game balance.

I'm still not sure I really understand how this game is supposed to be played.

There are scattered areas where you can recover for free, however inns are far more common.

But inns cost money. And you don't get money from encounters, even though some encounters hit hard.

But you can't afford to grind out EXP from those hard-hitting encounters because recovery costs money and you only get money from side quests.

I'm just confused about what they want me to do. Should I be selling stuff to make money so I can heal so I can fight so I can get stronger?

I might need to look up some helpful hints.

This game is such a delight. For almost every other line of dialog, I want to share it with someone because it's so funny or cute or charming.

I'm almost tempted to stream it just so I can point at it and say "This! This right here!".

But then...

Recently, I noted that the game can be randomly horny, just a for a moment. And that's all fine enough, I guess.

But today, I met Olivier. And on top of being randomly horny, the game briefly became randomly homophobic.

And that is not okay. It'd be one thing if the response to Olivier's hitting on Joshua were "He's only 16! You're 25!" That's perfectly reasonable and it is gross and it is really not okay.

But "Eww. You're a boy! You pervert!" is just wrong on so many many levels.

It was brief and I expect it to remain brief; but I also expect it to be fairly continuous from now on. Based on everything else I've seen so far, it seems likely that they're going to keep hammering this as a cheap "joke".

And that is seriously hampering the delight factor for what has been, until now, an incredible experience.

Started the first chapter by taking the road to the next city.

I am a little over-leveled so I was making short work of every encounter. Mostly I was winning the fight before the enemy even got to have a turn. It felt nice. It felt powerful.

Then I ran into a Wisdom and it proceeded to show that this game is not to be trifled with.

I did win, but I had to expend a lot of resources and it one-shotted one of my characters from full-health.

It sent me running with my tail between my legs back to the start of the area where there's a rest-point.

Clearly, some caution is warranted. It turns out that I'm not as over-leveled as I thought.

This is a very charming and cute game. From the characters to the dialog to the graphics. It's all very charming. It's all very cute.

And, every once in a while, it is very horny. Just for a minute, out of nowhere. Then it's back to being charming and cute.

Very. Very strange. And that's just in the prologue of the very first game. What is mid-game of Trails of Cold Steel II going to be like? I'm almost afraid to find out.

(Although, at the rate I'm playing through this one, I will probably not live long enough to get that far into the series. Possibly a blessing.)

My last update for this game started with "It's somehow been a couple of months since I've picked this back up." and...er...

It's somehow been a couple of months since I've picked this back up. Again.

After finishing Final Fantasy 16, I felt the need to get back to a "real" JRPG. And decided that this would be a good one.

There was some weird save-file confusion (I'm not sure if it was my fault or Steam cloud save's) so I ended up playing some of the same stuff again.

And, since I'm clearly going to have months between sessions, I've decided to use a guide so I have a chance of knowing where to go the next time I play.

Between replaying some of the same stuff and having a guide, I feel like I have a much better understanding of how to play this thing.

I've managed to actually finish the prologue (only took 5 months) so I'm excited for the game-proper to start. Although I will miss the free restore point. I guess I'll need to start saving up my mira for inns.

It's somehow been a couple of months since I've picked this back up.

So, naturally, I am still in the prologue.

I did play a bit this morning, just long enough to do the next mission. This is definitely going to be a "poke at it sometimes" sort of game, which means it will take literal years to finish and I will probably die before finishing the series. But...it's just that sort of game.

Being a few missions into the prologue, I'm not sure if I'm getting the hang of the battle system or not. The balancing is...extremely odd. Sometimes, I fight a monster and one-shot them. Other times, I fight the same monster and miss on all my attacks and (since the monsters can take about 1/3 of my HP per hit) very nearly die (or actually die) before I ever even get a hit in.

The hit percentage combined with the amount of damage even lower-level enemies do makes every battle feel like it's completely at the mercy of the RNG.

Usually, I would just grind to deal with this. But you get so little EXP for even difficult battles that grinding is an extremely unfruitful experience.

I can't even grind for better gear since you don't get money for winning fights.

So there's a world where I slowly poke at this game until I literally die (hopefully a while from now) or there's a world where I get fed up with the battle system and intentionally put it down forever.

I'm not sure what world this is yet. For now, I'm not putting it down. At least not intentionally.

About 7 hours in now. Still very early, but also...it's 7 hours in.

Still very much enjoying it. It's just so cozy and pleasant.

I don't think I care for the battle system, unfortunately. It makes a big deal out of turn order, but my characters miss so many attacks that it almost doesn't seem like it matters.

It makes the turns end up feeling random more than strategic.

Still, the dialog, characters, world, and music all continues to delight. Other than the combat, this game is just knocking it out of the park on every axis.

Still very early in the game. Did the training mission and then there was the first "real" mission.

You were supposed to go west, but I thought you were supposed to go east.

The monsters to the east hit quite a bit harder than he ones to the west, so I spent quite a bit of time grinding until I could mostly get through unscathed. You don't get money for encounters, so there's no opportunity to upgrade equipment either...so, lots of grinding.

Finally made it to the end of the path with most of my HP and EP in tact only for the guy to not let me in (apparently, the mines are closed and the moose out front should've told me).

Figured out my mistake, went west, and discovered that the so-called boss fight was very easy.

It was the first mission of the game so I doubt it was intended to be a challenge in any event. But a couple of hours of unnecessary grinding really sealed the deal.

I'm still extremely early into the game, so maybe they front-loaded all the good stuff...but so far, this is one of the best localizations I've ever seen.

The dialog is adorable and funny and the characters all have a unique voice that's just spot on.

If this is what the Trails series has in store for me, I guess I won't be sad to be playing it for...::counts games::...the rest of my life.

Started Trails in the Sky this past weekend just to see what I thought about it.

It's my first Trails game and while I know it's well-regarded, you just never know if a game will click or not.

I'm not very far into it (I've done the first mandatory training quest and am grinding a little before doing the second, mostly to get the hang of the battle system) but so far: the dialog is funny, the art is charming, and the music is absolute fire.

I'd say "Why did no one tell me the OST for this game was so good?" except I've definitely seen people raving about it before. So it's totally on me for not listening.

Fortunately, it's on Spotify. So while I may not be very far into the game, I am enjoying the music well past where I am.

I'll definitely keep playing it. There's no easy mode, so it remains to be scene if I eventually hit a wall or not. But for now, it's great.

It's much easier to hop into and out of than Persona 5, too. So far, it's been great for couch-gaming while watching TV.