空の軌跡 // Trails in the Sky ⚔ Story Club・Currently in Finale

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

What is 空の軌跡?

“Hailed as one of the largest, longest and most meticulously detailed turn-based JRPG series of all time, this first chapter in the ongoing Trails saga sets the stage for what’s quickly become Ys developer Nihon Falcom’s most popular and best-selling franchise in their entire 30+ year history.”

Basically, it’s an JRPG with a huge amount of story, to the point it is comparable with Visual Novels. The script is approximately 1.1 million characters long (source). While it’s not a book, it is a damned good story, hence this potential club.

We begin with our protagonists learning how to be Bracers, a fictional job that covers most adventuring activities. The pace is rather slow, as the game puts a lot of emphasis on building the world and the characters. Almost every NPC is named and has their own life, which you can follow if you make a point to talk to them after any minor progression in the main plot. Or you can ignore them and their lives will happen anyway. Eventually, all the work put in establishing things early on will pay off.

Schedule

Date Week Section Characters (approx.)
08/07/24 Week 1 Opening 2800
15/07/24 Week 2 Tutorial 4700
22/07/24 Week 3 Tutorial 5000
29/07/24 Week 4 Prologue 9000 (mostly optional NPCs)
05/08/24 Week 5 Prologue 5100
12/08/24 Week 6 Prologue 5100
19/08/24 Week 7 Prologue 4800
26/08/24 Week 8 Prologue 5400
01/09/24 Week 9 Prologue 6500
09/09/24 Week 10 Chapter 1 5600
16/09/24 Week 11 Chapter 1 5000
23/09/24 Week 12 Chapter 1 5400
30/09/24 Week 13 Chapter 1 6100
07/10/24 Week 14 Chapter 1 7300
14/10/24 Week 15 Chapter 1 5500
21/10/24 Week 16 Chapter 1 4600
28/10/24 Week 17 Chapter 1 5700
04/11/24 Week 18 Chapter 1 4400
11/11/24 Week 19 Chapter 2 7600
18/11/24 Week 20 Chapter 2 8500
25/11/24 Week 21 Chapter 2 8400
02/12/24 Week 22 Chapter 2 7900
09/12/24 Weeks 23&24 Chapter 2 6300 each
23/12/24 Week 25 Chapter 2 7700
30/12/24 Week 26 Chapter 2 9500
06/01/25 Week 27 Chapter 2 12k
13/01/25 Week 28 Chapter 3 6900
20/01/25 Week 29 Chapter 3 7900
27/01/25 Week 30 Chapter 3 10k
03/02/25 Week 31 Chapter 3 6900
10/02/25 Week 32 Chapter 3 8400
17/02/25 Week 33 Chapter 3 8100
24/02/25 Week 34 Chapter 3 6800
03/03/25 Week 35 Chapter 3 5800
10/03/25 Week 36 Finale 8200
17/03/25 Week 37 Finale 8900

Where to purchase

Unfortunately, the only legal, Japanese version of this game I could find is kinda low res.

Screenshot

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Digital: DLsite
Physical: Unavailable? The offical Falcom site has dead links.

The Steam version of this game is ONLY available in English. While there are ways around that, they are not legal so I will not be explaining them. At least one of these ways has a bug that will break the game, so be aware of that.

There is also an EVO version of the game. I don’t have a copy of this version and I’m not sure where you can get one. I believe most of the differences are cosmetic, however the important one is that it has voice acting.

:sparkles:update::sparkles: A remake for this game has been announced to come out on the switch in 2025!

Vocabulary

I started a Vocab Sheet, it is very empty and the frequency data is very inaccurate due to being incomplete. Yes I was counting every word manually, yes that was a terrible idea.

Week 1 refers to the first cutscene of the game. Based on the many LP videos I’ve watched, this takes about half an hour for people to read aloud in their native language.

Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.

There’s a jpdb deck.

Here’s a helpful site found by @generalteddie that contains the game’s script in both English and Japanese. (It’s not in chronological order and the English is the official localisation not a literal translation)

Trigger Warnings

Here is a doesthedogdie link if you’re looking for anything specific.

Off the top of my head
  • Adopted Sibling Incest
  • Death / Murder

Please be aware that this is only for this specific game and does not cover triggers appearing in later games.

Interest

Are you interested in this club?
  • Yes
  • Maybe
  • No
0 voters

Feel free to ask if you’ve any questions. I’ve probably forgotten something.

7 Likes
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The 20th anniversary is June 24th so it may be worth seeing if there’s an announcement of a port or anything. There been (baseless) rumors ever since the logo came out with only Estelle and Josh on it.

4 Likes
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I played (but didn’t finish) the first game in English well over a decade ago when it released in the west. I’m a big fan of JRPGs and have been replaying some of the classics in Japanese lately so it’s definitely in my wheelhouse. It’s disappointing that the Steam version doesn’t have Japanese by default.

Also I have always heard mountains of praise for the story of these games but while I did play a good chunk of the first game I remember finding it very “standard”. All your usual JRPG tropes. Nothing bad but also nothing groundbreaking, just a fun adventure. Maybe I’m hard to please, or maybe the really good stuff came later.

3 Likes
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Interesting! I’ll have to keep an eye on it.

These games definitely take their time with things, and that kind of pace isn’t for everyone. Lots of stuff set up in this game don’t pay off until a later game, to the point that some people say it’s “just” the prologue for the rest of the series. However, I do think it is a perfectly good game in its own right, in that fun adventure kind of way.

3 Likes
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The PSP version seems to emulate fairly well. It is pretty low-res however, which I personally don’t mind but it can make reading kanji a bit trickier:

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800×450 92.6 KB

2 Likes
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That’s good news about the PSP version. Unfortunately, the low-res kanji give me a headache if I look at them too long. For comparison, these are from the version I’ll be using:

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2 Likes
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Yeah that’s certainly better… I can increase the internal emulated resolution to improve the 3D models but the text itself appears to be raster graphics so it looks pretty much the same as before.

800×450 93.4 KB

I have a lot of practice deciphering low-res kanji from playing PS1 games so that doesn’t really phase me anymore at this point but I can see how it could be a deal breaker.

In general your version seems to have much higher resolution textures. If you look at the wall behind the fireplace it’s really obvious.

2 Likes
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I’ve got a language mod on the steam version, which is HD (and widescreen, which has a few mini bugs). The menu’s not fully translated, which is a shame, but its too blurry in my legal version anyway.

2 Likes
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I looked into that possibility as well (and I actually own the Steam version from way back when it first released) but I would either have to install Windows or get the game + patch it to work well on Linux through Steam or Wine (which is probably doable, but who knows…) and I think I’ll just be too lazy to do that.

I’m actually considering buying a 2nd hand PSP to play this game and the many other cool Japanese games from that era. That could be fun.

2 Likes
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I’m not particularly familiar with gaming on Linux desktops, but last I checked the Sky games worked fine out of the gate on my Steam Deck using Proton. Might be an option to try enabling it on Steam on desktop?

It can be enabled by going to the game’s page–>settings–>compatibility–>force use of a specific steam play compatibility tool, then selecting a version of Proton that works for it (some suggestions on ProtonDB, I think I was using either Experimental or GE on my Deck). Should only take a few minutes to test it out if you like.

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Interesting, thank you! I’ll give that a try.

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By the way do you have any idea if the Japanese patch would be possible/easy to apply on the Deck? I was thinking of getting one, that could be a good excuse.

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I haven’t tried it, but the Deck runs SteamOS which is Linux based. You can reboot the Deck into Desktop mode and at that points it’s just a desktop. So I would expect the install process to be the same as on any Linux desktop.

I didn’t hook up a mouse or keyboard to the deck, just used the touchpad and triggers, so that was actually the hardest part of using desktop mode.

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I have been intending to play this series – I feel like it’s unlikely I’ll get the chance any time soon with all the stuff I’m in the middle of (doesn’t help that I started SMT 5 Vengeance in JP last night…) but I’ll consider it!

7 Likes
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I’m always interested in these games, but as fair warning it’s very long to read. I’d be okay with the less than legal method for reading it in Japanese since I already own it through steam. We could maybe do zero or one of the other games if people prefer a legal method of ownership and reading. I’ve tried looking at sky let’s plays before but never really stuck with one.

1 Like
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I get what you’re saying, since the steam version for all the games since Zero you can choose the voice/text languages. Personally I’d prefer to start with 空の軌跡, but I’ll make a poll.

Each of these options is considered a entry point into the series. Meaning, you can play it without having played the previous games without getting lost. However, they will spoil stuff about earlier games if you care about that. However however, the later games are easier to get legally.

Screenshots

零の軌跡, first line of dialogue

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零の軌跡, equipment menu

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閃の軌跡, first line of dialogue

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閃の軌跡, battle menu

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黎の軌跡, I don’t own this yet but here’s a steam screenshot

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  • 空の軌跡・Trails in the Sky (1st)
  • 零の軌跡・Trails from Zero (4th)
  • 閃の軌跡・Trails of Cold Steel (6th)
  • 黎の軌跡・Trails through Daybreak (11th)
0 voters

While I’m making polls, when to start?

  • IMMEDIATELY
  • July
  • August
  • Later
0 voters
1 Like
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I’ve put the start date for the 8th because that’s convenient for me, let me know if that’s inconvenient for you. (Let me know about anything I’m not doing right, I’ve never done this before!)

I’m thinking that the first week is for getting through the opening cutscenes and then once people have a feel for the difficulty level we can discuss pace/schedule stuff. At the moment I’m thinking of basing that on the questlog (once we’ve got it), but I’m open to suggestions.

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I’ve never played a game like this so I’m not entirely sure what to expect but I’m certainly curious to give it a try!

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I may start a little early and then fall behind for a bit, I’m off the week before the 8th for a factory shutdown. I think easy or very easy are probably best for difficulty, I did sky 1 and 2 on hard during the start of Covid, and it got to be kind of a slog. You never really need to grind for levels, but there are points where having just a little bit more sepith for some spells makes the difference between a struggle and a cakewalk. Since we’re focused on the story there’s no shame in playing on easy mode just to not deal with that.

@simias expect a cozy but slow jrpg. We wander the country beating up monsters and helping people get their cats out of trees. Estelle is funny but I’m not sure how much of her attitude was added in translation or present in any language. Patience is key to enjoying these games because they build on each other over time.

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I was more referring to text difficulty, though agree with your points on gameplay difficulty. I (re)played on nightmare but realised most of the way through SC that the retry offset exists and was on the whole time :sweat_smile:

1 Like