About 6 years ago, I played my first Trails game, which was Cold Steel 1. Yes, Sky wasn't my first Trails game, sue me. At the time, I had never considered the fact I'd be spending the next several years engulfed in a 12+ game series with an interconnected story. I may have played Cold Steel 1 first, but it was the original Trails in the Sky that drew me into the series, or at least it was the gateway to dragging me down the Kiseki rabbit hole for the next number of years since my first playthrough.

I will admit, when I first played Sky (with the Evo voice mod, naturally), I was a bit iffy on the story's pacing. Even now, I will say this game probably has the slowest pacing in the series, but it also has the monumental task of not only doing it's own story but introducing Zemuria as a world. Playing the game again after so many years, even with how low stakes it is compared to...almost every other game in the series, I came back with a newfound appreciation for the cozy, slower pace of the story. Most RPGs usually end with you killing a god or demon lord, but not this one, and it leaves more questions that will be answered along the road.

In the gameplay department, while we're mostly back to basics, there are things that are new (for the Sky arc, at least). Quick Battles from the Calvard games are here, and honestly, I have no real problem with their addition. It makes sweeping up small fry enemies easier and faster, but you still have the Daybreak strat of "stun them and obliterate them in Command Battle." Support Abilities are back, and I had no problem with their inclusion. They're not absolutely game breaking (for the most part) and I liked how each character had certain abilities that suited their playstyle, like Joshua getting a Speed boost or Zin getting more defenses.

The part where I go back to the "for the most part" returns me to a certain point. This is the Sky arc, where arts are king and most of the mid to lategame is usually spent with Joshua spamming White Gehenna or whatever elemental art the enemy is weak to. Two certain characters centered around artes have abilities that can restore EP, allowing for more arts spamming in the final stages of the game. My strategy devolved to "get Earth Wall up and keep it up vs. bosses while my trio casters spam their most powerful arts, keep them spaced out and maybe throw in a Comet every now and then to rob bonuses, then use the Zero Delay Clock Up EX to get someone a turn if I need a new Earth Wall." Apparently, Chaos Brand is broken in this game, but I barely used it. Anti-Sept being able to remove enemy buffs was a nice tool to my arts collection, considering most human enemies can now do a boost-like state called Rage Mode, which gives them buffs and usually have 0 delay so they get a turn right afterward.

In original Sky, crafts outside of S-Crafts were only useful for impeding enemies when needed and borderline nothing else aside from rare examples. In this game, I do like that crafts got more utility due to how turn bonuses work. Bonuses are tied to the character instead of the turn on the line, so you can't just rob the enemy's Critical bonus just by using an S-Break, but certain crafts can steal the enemy's bonuses, perfect for getting Zero Arts away from casters or Critical away from heavy hitters. The enemy can steal your bonuses too, so it's still fair game...you know, unlike how Daybreak 2 ruined S-Crafts for the player while letting the enemy now use S-Breaks and can use S-Crafts with no restrictions unlike the player.

Cooking items, as always, was more useful and more cost effective than buying heals, but there was a bit of an issue when it came to monster parts during Chapter 4, since two materials are locked to late in the chapter on 1 enemy each in the entire region. Only having Estelle and Joshua able to do cooking makes sense, and I do like how they brought back the 1 time extra bonuses for making food for the first time from the Calvard games. On a similar subject, I wasn't a fan of one specific set of in-game achievements, and it's the one regarding "activate and use x arts". The game keeps no track of which arts you have and haven't "activated and used" for the achievement, so it's more of a blind goose chase with orbment setups until you get them all.

On the topic of orbment setups, the "casters are king" setup does sort of limit your orbment options a bit, which was a bit of a shame, since you always want EP Cut, EP, Mind and Cast on your setup, making it hard to slot in a good Earth quartz for Earth Wall, which is also king in this game even with the nerf to Earth Guard becoming an HP shield, which is only sometimes useful.

As one other addition, I like how the ultimate weapons from turning in all the Carnelia chapters is actually a cosmetic change. Trails usually doesn't do cosmetic changes to character weapons, so it was nice to see it happen for once. I'm not expecting such a minor thing to ever return, but it was nice here.

I played the game with Japanese voices, as once again, I played original Sky with the Evo voice mod. It did take a bit of time to get accustomed to the new voices, sort of like when I played Persona 3 Reload, but I eventually got used to them. While I will say I do still have a preference for the original voice cast, the new voices still did a good job.

One good thing about this game's existence is accessibility. Not everyone has a PC, so the Sky games have always been a bit elusive to get into, but with this game, now it's the single most accessible way to start the series, and with Sky SC coming out this fall, all we need is the 3rd and the entire series will be fully playable for console players.

However, if they do not give Sky SC's Chapter 6 (Trails fans know the part I'm talking about), there'll probably be a riot.

Originally, I was supposed to finish this game at the end of 2025 so I had time before Horizon released (since this game's release led to Horizon's delay), and I will admit I did grind my way to the end by playing for about 9 hours straight, but Trails loves to show no respect for your time, which is something I'm already used to. When Sky SC comes out, you can bet I'm sinking my fangs into that one. For now, though, after 3,000 years, Horizon awaits.

(Played primarily with cosmetic/volume control mods, with the only gameplay related mod being all emeralds trackable in Knuckles and Rouge stages)

As a kid, I owned a copy of Sonic Adventure 2: Battle, and it was a game I dumped a lot of time into playing around in the Chao Garden, but I never ended up beating the game, even though I did manage to beat Sonic Adventure 1. I do have some fond memories of this game, primarily some of the cutscenes, playing around with the Chao Karate, and getting the Hero and Dark Gardens.

At the same time, however, playing the game again and finally beating it for real after all these years, there are parts of it that didn't age well. Speed stages are fairly inoffensive until the end regarding jank involving rail grinding, I will never understand the baffling choice to only make the tracker track one emerald at a time in the treasure hunt stages, and the mech stages just feel like a slower version of Gamma's stages without the time limit. Add in some moments when the Homing Attack doesn't like to work properly and send you flying to your doom and the new Somersault feeling like it has a bit of delay (in my opinion).

I didn't really mind any of the stage gimmicks for the most part. Some were interesting, like the timed doors in the desert/Eggman base stages, the backwards hints in Mad Space, and I enjoyed running through some of these stages again after so many years. This was also the first game to introduce the rank system, but I wasn't planning on 100% so I didn't pay much mind to it. Strangely enough, I did A rank almost all of Knuckles and Rouge's stages besides their last ones and Rouge's driving level, even though I didn't feel like I performed very well in them.

However, it was the part I could never beat as a kid that started to sour my opinions a bit. The final stage, Cannon's Core. Sure, a big final stage where you use everyone was a marvel concept at the time, and while most of Cannon's Core was (for the most part) fairly inoffensive, Knuckles section borderline mandates the Air Necklace...in a game with only two stages that have any real degree of water prior, Aquatic Mine and Rouge's Dry Lagoon. On top of that, the final two bosses were, in my opinion, easily the worst fights in the game and really showcase the jank on full display. From a fight where just touching the flowing water for more than 2 seconds sends you to your doom to a super form fight that feels more restrictive than Sonic Adventure 1's while this dude's big laser can send you flying back 5,000 feet and basically doom you to death (or just block your attack entirely, which happened to me on my winning attempt), neither of those final bosses are very good.

Despite that, though, I still look back fondly on this game. Could it just be me being blind by nostalgia? Probably. But at the same time, I don't really care if it's blind nostalgia, because the Adventure style was and still is my favorite style of Sonic game, and we'll probably never see it again since Sonic '06 basically killed it forever.

Also I'm not going to say anything about "Shadow being brought back to life in Heroes due to mega popularity" because people love characters with tragic backstories who eventually manage to overcome their past and become beloved characters. The Gerald changes that Shadow the Hedgehog introduced do have me a bit on the fence, though. Sure, his granddaughter was killed, and him going insane is pretty understandable, but to treat him like a hero because he made a big cannon to destroy an evil comet when this is the same dude who literally tried to obliterate humanity because his granddaughter was killed by the military...I don't know, man. Worst part is that GUN seems to never get any punishment for anything. That's another story for another time, though.

In the end, I am glad I can finally say "I finished another game from my childhood I couldn't beat as a kid." I think that's the most that matters here.