The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd for PC, PSP and etc. is a yet another installment in the Japanese RPG series developed by Nihon Falcom. The game closes the Trails in the Sky trilogy available on many platforms, also in the West. The PlayStation Portable, PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 3 versions of the game have been published only in Japan, while the PC / Windows edition is available worldwide.

Plot

The action of The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd takes place half a year after the events from The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky Second Chapter. The player begins their adventure aboard an aircraft flying under the banner of the Empire of Erebor. Kevin Graham – the main protagonist of this game – is tasked with retrieving a mysterious artifact lying on the bottom of the Valeria Lake located in the realm of Liverl. Along with his old friend – Ries Argent – Kevin travels to the so-called Phantasma, the Land of Shadows governed by its own, detached from reality, laws. The heroes begin an investigation that leads them to many mysteries from the past.

Mechanics

The gameplay does not differ significantly from what one may have experienced in the previous installments of the series. The gameplay builds on exploration, searching for useful items, and completing diverse tasks including both main missions and side quests assigned by the numerous NPCs. When exploring the underground locations, the main protagonists often come across locked doors with symbols of the stars and the moon engraved on them. Interacting with them might unlock various mini-games as well as story-related cutscenes.

The game also features combat – which is the aspect that has undergone most significant improvements. Apart from the new types of opponents, the game delivers new abilities featured by the adversaries, as well as improved mechanics and new skills of the characters controlled by a player. The game also develops the foregoing mechanics with the turn bonuses – ‘Rush’ allows the characters to perform two actions simultaneously; ‘Guard’ ensures immunity to damage; ‘Vanish’ makes a target disappear for several turns; ‘Death’ allows the player to instantly eliminate an enemy with any attack. Battles take place on a tactical grid, and the key to success lies in proper switching between characters’ abilities and coming up with the optimal strategy.

Technical aspects

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 3rd for PC, PSP and etc. is based on the technology designed solely for the previous series’ installments. One more time, players receive colorful visuals that resemble the style of the anime animated series. The visuals feature different level of detail, depending on the platform. Moreover, there is a possibility to import saved game data from the previous installments.

What is worth mentioning, the console versions of the game deliver only Japanese dubbing, as the game has not been published outside the country.

Last updated on 17 August 2016