空の軌跡SC // Trails in the Sky SC ⚔ Story Club・Week 2

[RebBlue]

Week 02	28th July 2025
Last Week	Week 1
Next Week	Week 3
Home Threads	空の軌跡 // SC

This week’s stopping point is just after an investigation segment. Your notebook should have 10 bullet points on the 4th page under Chapter 0.

Side Quests and Missable Content

No side quests this week.

There is a missable book, you can find it during the investigation of the lodge. It is upstairs in the room that was locked on the right.

Screenshot

Vocabulary

Vocab Sheet, thank you to everyone who helps with this.

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. How are you finding the combat system?

5. Do you like your new party member?

6. What do you make of the attack on the lodge?

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

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!

[simias]

Planned obsolescence smh. Are the orbments made by Apple or something?

[RebBlue]

It’s one of the reasons I’m mildly annoyed Evo and (presumably) the 1st use the more up to date combat system. It’s plot relevant when those upgrades happen! All of last game with Daisoujou having access to spells that haven’t been invented yet

[RebBlue]

steam version crashing issue discussed here

空の軌跡 // Trails in the Sky Story Club・SC・Currently in the Prologue

The game from Steam keeps crashing. Now I can’t get past Chain Craft tutorial. (It used to crash at quartz shop too, but sometimes it doesn’t.) My settings [image]

[simias]

Why say “はい” or “そうですね” when a simple “可能性が高い” would suffice?

@RebBlue

Side Quests and Missable Content

No side quests this week.

There’s a 賭博師ジャック１巻 to be found, not sure if it’s missable though. Or maybe you considered that part of next week?

week2

That tutorial dungeon was more intricate than basically anything we’ve seen in FC, that’s promising.

I understand that the game had to reset the orbment progression in order to keep things interesting, but not having any decent AoE options to deal with enemy groups is frustrating.

That jager combat music is pretty different from what we’ve had so far but it slaps: https://youtu.be/2_lRuWJPJi0

In my fight he would only ever attack Estelle and never Anelasse. I wonder if it’s random or if that’s plot-relevant? But then if it was an assassination attempt it wouldn’t make sense to just let her sleep outside afterwards…

Saint-Croix should probably be “Sainte-Croix” if it’s supposed to be “holy cross” in French.

Cheeky jagers hiding the gear in the forest like easter bunnies.

I see that the devs didn’t forget how to design a very frustrating encounter. That jager that keeps running away and cancels magic is really annoying. I guess it did require some strategy to move my party in a way to corner her, so not too bad overall.

I like the overall pacing so far, much more action-driven than FC’s prelude that had us spinning our wheels until Cassius disappeared and we had to move to Bose.

[RebBlue]

@simias

There’s a 賭博師ジャック１巻 to be found, not sure if it’s missable though. Or maybe you considered that part of next week?

Or maybe I completely forgot it existed

[Daisoujou]

かわいいは正義、だよ

Kinda rambling here, started writing some things as I was going cause there was a lot I wanted to note –

Definitely feels like they’re building on the past stuff nicely. Double crafts are cool and I agree the dungeon was way more elaborate. I’m absolutely going to get really lost later in this game, aren’t I? For some reason I find this game’s presentation a little disorienting already with dungeons, so when they start being properly complex I’m doomed haha. I think I was pretty thorough in the parts I went to, but I made the wrong choice which way to go from the first room to grab optional goodies so oops, didn’t run back to get whatever was to the right. Anyway, we’ve got this place working off a couple lever mechanics, the water serves to make a little 2 floor section, and it’s way more packed with treasure than ever before, which was all fun. The new battle music is so good too.

I love this. Already threw it at the enemies in the big treasure chest cause they immediately put アネラス to sleep when the fight started, and it did like 1600 damage to a big area. Speaking of アネラス, big fan of how she has crafts that debuff and attack together.

I thought it was very cute how they write in a way for your quartz to start from zero.

Also already caught on fire lol, which is also anachronistic! Everyone wore flame-proof clothing in this time and the Vita version is trampling on that

Hyped to already have a big あんですって from Estelle. That is her most memorable line to me at this point lol. Also took out クルツ with a combined craft, felt right to do that.

Using the stuff I got from the dungeon, it feels wild to me to already have arts like this 120EP spell I don’t even have enough max to cast at the start of the game. The system upgrade is not hurting Estelle too much haha. I can tell you little forest enemies I ran into when I landed on zero arts were NOT ready for this spell.

Ran into some shining poms in the forest, no luck doing any damage at all to them. Then I made it to the boss without finding any equipment so… lol. Just managed to perfectly pick only the wrong path every time. She hits really hard. A forest full of enemies that blind us constantly, set us on fire when they explode on death (yeah that’s just me but fire does like 500 per turn; it’s so bad), others that aren’t threatening but scatter in every direction to heal and drag out the fight… Then I emerge to meet a woman who outruns us and takes away half our health on every attack. I see now why the latter shouldn’t be the way it was but we’re sure back lol, absolutely no taking it easy for early game. Finding Estelle’s weapon was also awful for me; it’s hidden in a path than has another chest so it’s natural to write that area off, and terribly obscured by the camera in most positions. Missed one single vest still, but whatever.

On my return I immediately rolled zero arts on Estelle so hit the boss in the face with the 120EP spell for free defense down and stuff. ggez I found exploring the forest for the stuff a bit annoying but I like the concept of how this modulates the boss difficulty by how thorough you are, and in RPGs as you keep upgrading equipment bit by bit any impact the equipment is having can be kind of invisible, so this is a nice way to show me that yeah, I really want the armor and weapons.

Story stuff is interesting! Good starting hook here, if not a bit familiar. Shadowy group (I guess less shadowy than last time) showing up, kidnapping people, etc. But some of this could be a small arc, we’ll see. On one hand for sure the pacing is a big contrast to how laid back FC was. That said, this is probably only a complaint I’d ever have because I’m wrapping this game into language learning, but so far we’re weighted WAY heavier into gameplay relative to dialog compared to last time, two sorta meaty dungeons in a row with a third probably coming all close together. Whenever I realized I had to re-enter the forest to search for gear I considered cutting off my session and coming back tomorrow because the Japanese language exposure was getting light for a while. It’s not exactly a bad thing I’d hold against a game but if I want to get in a certain amount of JP practice per day it’s easier the more a game wants to talk, haha.

[simias]

reply

@Daisoujou

I love this.

Oh I forgot about this thing, I’ll have to try it next week. Also why does your “surprise cookie” look like an onigiri with a lit fuse?

@Daisoujou

Finding Estelle’s weapon was also awful for me; it’s hidden in a path than has another chest so it’s natural to write that area off, and terribly obscured by the camera in most positions.

My strat for dungeon crawling in this game is the old maze technique: just pick a wall and follow it through. Of course at time you have to adjust if you find a path that leaves the area or if there’s an “island” in the middle that is not connected to the sides, but it served me well in FC given that most dungeons don’t have maps.

@Daisoujou

Using the stuff I got from the dungeon, it feels wild to me to already have arts like this 120EP spell I don’t even have enough max to cast at the start of the game.

Yeah it seems that we’ll power up much faster than in the first game at least, especially with this slot “level up” mechanic.

@Daisoujou

On my return I immediately rolled zero arts on Estelle

I don’t think that’s a thing in my version. In fact I noticed that most boss battles don’t seem to have special turns at all, or very rarely.

The special turns I have are:

• Critical
• Attack up
• Sepis up (the useless one as far as I can tell)
• HP regen
• MP regen

And I think that’s about it.

@Daisoujou

That said, this is probably only a complaint I’d ever have because I’m wrapping this game into language learning, but so far we’re weighted WAY heavier into gameplay relative to dialog compared to last time

That’s true but there’s still a lot of dialogue. I mean this week clocks at 8k words apparently and we only have two fairly short dungeons. I did equip the 天眼 quartz to dodge almost all enemy encounters though, so that sped things up a lot.

[Daisoujou]

Response

@simias

Also why does your “surprise cookie” look like an onigiri with a lit fuse?

It’s really funny. I’m assuming it’s a default image they use for all attack food.

@simias

My strat for dungeon crawling in this game is the old maze technique: just pick a wall and follow it through. Of course at time you have to adjust if you find a path that leaves the area or if there’s an “island” in the middle that is not connected to the sides, but it served me well in FC given that most dungeons don’t have maps.

Yeah this is basically the approach I tend to use as well, but if you take the more left path near the start, that part of the woods kind of dodges a lot of the early equipment locations – some are also just made to be a little easy to overlook in the woods here in particular. The area transitions not being too clear and just happening got me more confused too, so I probably didn’t follow it as well as I usually do tbh.

@simias

The special turns I have are:

Oh yeah I have lots of others, the free arts one is incredible cause it also seems to always make them come out fast, as well as a free craft one (which I’ve confirmed works on the team up crafts to make them free for everyone!). “Bad attack” adds a random status which is neat enough to work around since enemies benefit but given how catastrophic some statuses are it’s kinda swingy. My bosses definitely have special turns, for better or worse. I remember ranting about some long fight I was on hitting a big heal on the boss last game.

[simias]

rereply

@Daisoujou

attack food

What a concept!

@Daisoujou

if you take the more left path near the start

I chose the right side, demonstrating my superior skill.

@Daisoujou

Oh yeah I have lots of others, the free arts one is incredible cause it also seems to always make them come out fast, as well as a free craft one (which I’ve confirmed works on the team up crafts to make them free for everyone!). “Bad attack” adds a random status which is neat enough to work around since enemies benefit but given how catastrophic some statuses are it’s kinda swingy. My bosses definitely have special turns, for better or worse. I remember ranting about some long fight I was on hitting a big heal on the boss last game.

Oh wow, it’s crazy how different the combat dynamics must be for you. But honestly I suspect that it’s better that way, the OG fighting system is a lot more barebones and as a result a lot more repetitive. I end up often cycling the same actions over and over again.

It does suck if they haven’t properly rebalanced the fights for the new system though.

[simias]

By the way I do like that critical hits are predictable since they’re based on these special turns. Random crits in RPGs is often a frustrating mechanic IMO, since you can’t really rely on it for your strategy (unless you can make a build that has an extremely high crit rate, making it semi-reliable) and it can completely fuck you over if an enemy gets a random crit at a bad moment.

[RebBlue]

week 3 is up

空の軌跡SC // Trails in the Sky SC Story Club・Week 3

Week 03 04th August 2025 Last Week Week 2 Next Week Week 4 Home Threads 空の軌跡 // SC Finish the prologue Side Quests and Missable Content Screenshot Vocabulary Vocab Sheet, thank you to everyone who helps with this. 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! Spo…