空の軌跡 // Trails in the Sky ⚔ Story Club・Week 20

Week 20 18th November 2024
Last Week Week 19
Next week Week 21
Home Thread 空の軌跡

This week’s stopping point is once you’ve met the mayor of the Ruan region.

Side Quests
  • メーヴェ街道の手配魔獣, You won’t be able to turn it in this week.

A scene can be found in the alcove on the second メーヴィ海道 map. There a chest just east of the entrance. This is not is quest, but a later quest gives you more BP if you’ve seen this scene.

Screenshot

Vocabulary

Vocab Sheet , thank you to everyone who has been helping with this.

We also have an arts sheet if you’re struggling with the in-game version. I added a characters tab, so far all that’s there is name, age, occupation, but feel free to add any notes you think are relevant or you might want to remember.

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

Discussion Guidelines

Everybody should feel free to post and ask questions–it’s what makes book clubs fun! But please do not post until you are familiar with Spoiler Courtesy!

Spoiler Courtesy

Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.

  1. Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
  2. Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
  3. Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags

Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).

Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:

Example

This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.

The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.

This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.

Posting Advice
  • When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.

  • Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!

If necessary, include an explanation of any discrepancies in the Ebook page numbers from physical page numbers. If there is an easy shortcut for some ebook versions to relate back to physical page numbers, it would be worth it to include it as a third bullet here, or if you want to use chapter page numbers instead of volume page numbers, as is the case with some manga. For example:
Example

For the Kindle version of this manga, the page numbers and the location number are always 3 apart. If you subtract 3 from the location, this will give you the accurate page number!

OR

Please use the chapter page numbers, instead of the volume page numbers. These are located in between the panels!

Discussion Questions

  1. What sentence/passage gave you the most difficulty? Feel free to request some help, or if you figured it out on your own break it down for the rest of us!

  2. What was your favorite new vocab word from this week’s reading?

  3. Was there any passage that you found particularly intriguing? Did it resonate with you (either positively or negatively)? Was it surprising? Offer any insight or new perspective? Was it just beautifully written?

  4. What do you think of the new people we met?

  5. How do you find the vibes of the city?

  6. Did you find anything interesting while exploring or talking to NPCs?

Participation

Will you be playing along with us this week?

  • I’m playing along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still playing the game but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m playing this game after the club has finished
  • I’m no longer playing the game
0 voters

If you’ve already played this game but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

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:sweat_smile: I will eventually catch up. Just as soon as my brain starts cooperating…

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Take as much time as you need. I believe it’ll happen :smiling_face_with_tear:

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For those with voice acting, hearing Estelle go へえ、ほう、ふーん was a delight. Also I love the idiom 食べてすぐ寝ると牛になる (that’s the most typical form, compared to what’s in game).

This week

I like that they broke up our trip to this new town with a few pit stops on the way, makes it feel like a proper long journey. Those floating fire enemies with their confusion status though, oof. I had to hit the S-break as an emergency button when fighting the ones that popped out of the treasure chest, which left me with no points to use on crafts when the side quest boss was blocking the road, thus I couldn’t rush down those two enemies in that fight, and it became a real drawn out slugfest. I’m super appreciative that our traveling companion actually heals and isn’t just someone to escort; she saved us.

This is giving me real classic RPG vibes. When I was a kid my favorite game in the world was Star Ocean: The Second Story (I still think highly of it now) and so much here is straight from there. The kid bumping into you to steal something happens in that game, and it opens with this sort of sightseeing tour of a town. Such good memories, so I had a blast this week.

Wanted to share another screenshot to compare what I’m looking at with the image RebBlue gave us. I think for this town the bright clean look is kinda nice in its own way because it’s giving me slight Santorini vibes, but it really hammers home how different of an atmosphere some of us might be getting compared to others. On the whole I think I appreciate the cute original look of the characters and the way the textures are a little more, uhh, textured. I don’t think “dirtier” is 100% the word but they do feel less glossy, more immediate, something.

Lovely looking town, definitely my favorite so far. I found the guy in the back of the warehouse area obviously quite suspicious and wanted to report that as a discovery, but following the story scene, I guess that’s just the hideout of the town troublemakers. Feels like we’re gonna be bumping into them again, though.

Bracing myself for a week of like 6 side quests next time, probably.

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Something’s wrong with your spoiler.

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Turns out it helps if you put the content inside the tag. Thanks, sorry bout that.

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“Dirtier” is like 90% the word :smile: Your floor looks like people have yet to walk on it.

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Happy to say I have picked this up on Vita (FC Evolution) and am finally playing through it! I’ve been meaning to play this series for a long time and have been putting it off because I normally stream/record all the games I play and JRPGS are a huge commitment to do on a stream schedule, so this will be the first game I’ve played on my own in over a year at this point. I think the last game I played off-stream was Spider-Man 2… and I’ve played something like 100 games since I played that…

That being said, I’m enjoying the game so far. I’m not caught up to where everyone is yet, but the combination of the voice acting in the Evo version, the extremely useful text log, and the wealth of resources available for referencing the game script (Thank god for fans) make it a pretty breezy read. Lots of lookups for certain words to drill down to their more specific dictionary definitions, but I’d say that in the moment I’m understanding about 90% of everything I come across so far – but I’m only caught up to week 3 right now so I’m sure more complex vocabulary will show up as I progress.

One thing I like about this game and the thing that has drawn me to the series for years despite never having played them is the… Fullmetal Alchemist-like European-inspired Japanese fantasy vibe. I feel like this style is often imitated but never really successful, but here I actually really think it works and is charming off the bat. There’s also something to be said about the Camelot-esque diorama art style. Gotta love that.

Hopefully I’ll have more to say in the future. Just wanted to chime in and participate a little.

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Glad to have you! (And I don’t think I got around to saying it to @polv but you too!)

Someone else on the vita version with me now, haha. :partying_face:

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I’m actually playing on the Vita now but using the PSP version :grimacing:

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> You will never eat a bento with your bro while chilling on the Ruan cliffs.

Why live?

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Dog needs feeding.

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リベール通信 第3号

I finally remembered to read it. A cool new ship for the military (is it the one we saw at the hideout? I think so) and… an article talking about onsens! I can’t wait, I love onsens in games, it’s comfy.

Looking at the map it seems to be in the next region though, so I’ll have to be patient.

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Week 20

Really enjoying this new city as well, so many people to talk to and things to buy! I’ve fully unlocked all slots for Estelle and Joshua’s orbments.

One of the random NPCs told me to stay away from the docks because Gara’s band of bad people were lurking there so I thought it would be foreshadowing for a later quest but then it paid off 5 minutes later…

I always feel a bit strange when a game wants me to side with a rich (former) aristocrat against a bunch of poor people. I wonder if there’s going to be more depth to this but for the time being Gara’s band just seems to be terrible people so there’s not really a moral dilemma yet.

At any rate I’m really enjoying this Ruan escapade so far.

I hate them so much. They killed me like 3 times in a row in that trapped chest before I got lucky. As I mentioned last week I would really like to be able to switch equipment either during the fight or at least on retry. This way I could equip the anti-confusion trinket.

And of course I didn’t equip it once I eventually won and… got caught by the second trapped chest with the exact same enemies who also managed to kill me once. That one is on me I guess.

Oh I liked this one too, but I preferred Grandia from that period! I loved that game.

Here’s what I have using the PSP version:

It’s a lot lower res but I still think it’s the most visually coherent version, the 2D sprites, textures and 3D models work well together. IMO the only real drawbacks of this version are the lack of voice acting and the low res text which can be challenging for people who aren’t very comfortable with kanji.

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There’s a new newspaper for sale by the way (第4号). Mostly talks about the events that took place with the sky pirates so not super interesting but the last page mentions something that is probably going to play a role in our story soon.

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Spoilers

Very true. A lot of RPGs like to have essentially one dimensional bad bandit types to beat up on. This game strikes me as generally taking more nuance, it sure wanted us to see more sides of the sky pirates, so maybe they’re in for more development?

Yeah that would be great; I had a similar struggle that time I mentioned getting stuck committed to a retry on a second fight in a row. I’ve also been playing Metaphor:Refantazio and have the same exact desire – that game built in a retry button you can use at any point during a fight to reset, but you always just go back to the conditions the fight started with. Maybe you can improve strategy a bit, but it’s a game heavy on the sort of preperations you made, your characters’ current jobs and inherited skills, yet all that’s locked. Feels like you’re mostly rerolling unlucky rolls at the start of the fight or something.

I’ve never played Grandia, but I’m going to go add it to the list of things to hopefully get to some day!

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Just seconding here that Grandia is an absolute delight. I would say overall it’s far easier to read than Trails has been so far. Was around the same level of the Lunar games, IIRC, which are also super breezy and enjoyable in JPN for learners.

I’m still a bit behind the club, having to play catchup, but holy smokes is the jump in difficulty wild once the systemic gamey/tutorial/menu based stuff kicks off. I’m finishing up the first mission (roughly caught up to between weeks 3 and 4 of the club) and while I’m definitely picking up and recognizing words more easily now that I’m shaking off some rust with repeated exposure it’s like stomping through knee-deep water whenever the game introduces a new system or mechanical concept. That being said, I’m really enjoying it and I don’t think it’s a pacing issue or anything like that, just a skill issue on my side. Regular conversation with NPCs is great and I’m getting by just fine.

I know a lot has been said about this series and its character writing and especially this game’s attention to character detail, but the world really does feel alive. Getting to know all the townsfolk is a delight, and it really does feel like we’re walking into their world. I know that this probably is an aspect that turns some people off, but I think the quick characterization for the main cast is very effortlessly achieved here, even if it does lean on some tropes.

Talking about Estelle and Joshua up through the tutorial

I’m sure this is something that people have spoken about before, but I really like Estelle and Joshua, and I think that their characterization is refreshing. While I don’t think they completely break the mold for these types of shonen fantasy protagonists, there is a lot of interesting nuance being set up and played with already in the introductory chapters. Sure, we’ve seen a million goofy shonen go-getters in the past, but Estelle feels unique in that she’s got that goku-esque monkeyheadedness to her that is not only uncommon with heroines in media, but also really hard to strike a charming balance on. Her humanity and dedication to her goals and immediate family is really apparent and wholesome, while also really grounding her relationship with Joshua. Also, random observation, but what was with her pausing before going up the ladder in the little tower? Joshua even comments on it. Is she afraid of heights? Filing that away in case it comes up again.

Joshua is in a similar boat – on the surface I’ve seen a million reserved, quiet, studious black haired boys in anime and games before. If he were a bit older he feels like a shoe-in for a Miki Shinichiro role, at least from his golden era. But something I like about Joshua and picked up very quickly is that in the opening he isn’t reserved – he’s angry, and while I think most viewers will pick up and fixate on the fact that he clearly knows more than he is giving off, something secret between him and Cassius, the thing that stood out to me was just the massive difference in demeanor between the opening and his life as a teen with Estelle. I’m sure they’ll lean into this and play with it, but it’s nagging at me already. I like his sibling relationship with Estelle and I’m a sucker for non-traditional families, so I’m hoping they don’t become love interests or anything weird like that, though they already seem to be putting in work to set that up given some signposting in NPC dialogue with the gossip girl in town.

Just one more small bit of appreciation so far that isn’t language related – I really like how much detail is on display not only in the writing but in the art itself. The game’s style reminds me of things like Ragnarok Online and other sprite-based PC games from the time, but there’s a shocking amount of lavish detail. Signs are legible, even Schera’s tarot cards are visible (and distinct from eachother!) on the table during her introduction despite having a paltry pixel count. It’s all just very lovingly constructed. You can tell this is a game made by people who love oldschool RPGs as a medium.

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I briefly tried playing Grandia in Japanese a year or so ago and the big problem for me was that the dialogue moves forward with the voice acting so you have to read reasonably fast or you miss it. With emulators you can pause but you have to remember to do it every time and it’s annoying.

Trails at least pauses the conversation until you’re ready to proceed.

Yeah the beginning is pretty hardcore for that, I think the momentum picks up after the prelude and the dialogue becomes a bit more natural as a result (except for some characters that have a very flowery prose at all times…).

It’s not fear of heights, you’ll learn more about the real reason soon.

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I actually like flowery prose, so I look forward to the practice it will provide. Most of my JPN experience is in speaking contexts so I really need more exposure to literary language. I think with the mechanical stuff I struggle just because of how… different? The voice is. Even in Melders’s diegetic tutorial dialogue it felt like I was in a classroom again, which, I guess is exactly what was happening on screen, but I felt like I needed to be taking notes, haha. Obviously the voiced stuff is more easy for me to pick up, so the Bracer Diary and quest log entries are the most difficult parts for me, even though I’m managing.

In general, I believe in immersive, contextual learning. I don’t know if that’s just a coping mechanism from how I learn languages in general, or if it’s just me justifying the uneasiness of “not understanding everything”, but in general I don’t sweat when there is a text block I don’t understand. Tutorials though – there’s a genuine FOMO that settles in me when I miss things because I don’t want to be taken by surprise from a gameplay perspective, so I am comparatively more strict and academic when these sections pop up and it does halt my pace a bit. Thank god for the Trails Script Database, not only so I can look up words easily with 10Ten, but also so I can compare the official translation when the meaning still isn’t clicking. As a side note, the translation for these games seems genuinely heartful and full of life. Really high-quality stuff, seemingly. I’m glad that those who can’t speak Japanese have that option.

(Side note: I’m noticing that my [details] sections keep getting messed up and I’m not sure why – sorry about that! I don’t mean to flashbang anyone with text walls or spoilers unnecessarily.)

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