Major respect to Jessica Chavez who was at XSeed for single handedly saving that game from the abyss. Copy and pasting that many lines is a tale of legend worthy of the franchise itself.
I think that would be between two hours and two days of a tool programmer's job, depending on how complicated the spreadsheet is. Valiant effort, nevertheless.
Holy shit, I met Jessica Chavez quite a few times, a few years ago, in a rural English café, typing up a spreadsheet on her laptop for a then-unrelease Switch game. She's a lovely and genuine person, well humoured, and well meaning. We never shared names at the time, but her strong californian accent very much stuck out though, so it got me conversing with her. Seeing this game and her face pop up in my feed was amazing. At the time, I was amazed I'd met someone from the Games Industry in such a desolate corner of the world. We ended up chatting about videogames of the time quite a bit. I asked a lot of naive questions about how translation processes go down. I was constantly trying to hide my awe. She's a fan of NieR, and would've loved to work on King of Fighters For Girls, apparently. It randomly came up because I'd tried playing it at the time, and she told me she worked on "Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon." Regretted it wasn't a better game, but at least it was a very, very beautiful one. She told me she didn't translate, but had the editorial bravery to OK the "Butter my pooper" line in Corpse Party. Lastly, she recommended to me Trails in the Sky, she said it was her favourite game she'd translated. Bought it up right away. I regretted not having more conversations with her before she left the country. Wish I'd known about the curfuffle of translating this game back then. Maybe it's time to finish it.
I haven't gotten around to playing Fragile Dreams yet, but I've owned it for years and for a short time was part of a team working on a fandub for it. Absolutely beautiful, incredible story. It makes me emotional just thinking about it. One day, I really need to take some time to just go through it myself.
Step 1: Wow, Trails in the Sky got a video!! Step 2: Wait, Trails in the Sky is amazing, what could possibly- Step 3: *remembers the localization saga* Ooooohhhhhh..
I found out about the series by googling "jrpg with female protagonist", read through a couple lists compiled on reddit (there are very few jrpgs with female protagonists that aren't trashy shit), decided not to buy the game on steam, and then changed my mind a day later. I'm so happy I bought trails FC
@@volaalov6254 Cool story. I found out about Trails FC on Twitter. A publisher dude from the UK i was following was a total mark about the game. I thought alright i give it a shot since the game wasn´t too expensive on steam and i´m glad i did. Having played Trails FC/SC and Cold Steel I-IV i´m excited for what comes next.
Ok. I gotta buy these games now. No ad or trailer could ever translate how much passion the dev team and specially the localization team have for the titles.
Be warned: Sky FC starts off *very* slowly. Please, stick with it. You will not regret it. FC eventually does pick up about halfway thru and once you get to SC its full speed start to finish. Sky the 3rd is sort of an epilogue and is the connecting piece between this arc and the next 2. The next arc is a duology set in a region called Crossbell (Sky is set in Liberl) and those 2 games have not been officially released in the west. You can find fan translated psp roms and the first game has a very high quality fan-made localization patch called geofront, you'll have to buy the Japanese version and patch it to play that tho. The Cold Steel arc is where I started, and the first game takes a lot of inspiration from Persona. That's where 3d graphics and voice acting come in, and if for some reason Sky FC doesn't hold your attention, maybe try Cold Steel 1 instead. However, since you are aware of and committed to trying Sky first, I *strongly* recommend you play the games in release order (I'd say Crossbell is optional but you should at least watch some recap videos if you don't plan on playing it). Trails isn't Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. This series is one huge, interconnected story and if you play the games in release order you will get INFINITELY more out of them the farther you get into the series. Cold Steel 4, the last in that arc, just recently came out and it is a barn burner especially when you've played everything before it. Welcome to the club. Good luck and have fun.
@@Eltron92 Not to mention SC is just a fraction of what the series is capable of, there's not a lot of franchises that manage to one up themselves in each new game but trails is one of them. Also @Mateus Costa don't forget the crossbell arc, it's extremely easy to install it pre-patched and it will run on almost any PC Play order is this: Sky FC > Sky SC > Sky 3rd > Zero no Kiseki > Ao no Kiseki > Cold Steel 1 > Cold Steel 2 > Cold Steel 3 > Cold Steel 4 > Hajimari no Kiseki > Kuro no Kiseki [next game not released]
@@Eltron92 thanks for the info! I'm gonna try to say least start Sky FC this year, possibly during my vacations (not like I'm traveling anywhere anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯). I was aware of Cold Steel, but I really thought the different titles were unrelated worlds and stories like FF and DQ. Numbered sequela seemed like continuations, but distinct titles seemed unrelated. Thanks for explaining about the huge payoff for playing in release order.
For those who never heard of Trails before and don't know their world-building scale, let's say that you can interact with some NPCs and they talk about what they're doing, then when you progress a bit in the story, their own story and situation changes little-by-little too.
And it's ALL of the NPCs that have dialogue changing with each minor story beat. There's a character in FC who will actually drop some foreshadowing of something in SC, but only if you go talk to them during a specific point while the main story has you just about as far from their location as possible.
and to expand on that. Why is SC longer? Because by endgame you have a late game chapter where the world opens up entirely (trails has a "full world" but barricades you to the story areas). EVERY NPC IN THE COUNTRY will have new dialog, from the mayors of the towns to that one fisherman way off in some offshoot of a road. And to add insult to injury, Trails NPC's tend to have two different talk dialog. there's a lot to translate, and these games arent selling Final fantasy numbers. It's bonkers.
So are there choices and different routes to take that change up people's stories, or do they all get to the same point no matter what? I don't mind linear games, but I couldn't tell from the video these games involve so much dialogue because of a ton of story options, or if it's just a long script that unfolds in linear fashion.
@@corey2232 IIRC, the story is linear. The only times I remember things slightly changing are in the Cold Steel games, in which the MC can choose a girl they are close the most (despite having a canon romance partner).
I kinda feel like Crossbell is being "Mother 3'd", in that they're leaving it to the fans to take care of. The Trails from Zero translation is fantastic, and I have very high hopes for the Trails from Azure one coming soon. It'd be nice if NISA decided to being over the Kai remasters, but I imagine they don't think it's worth the cost of localization, which is a damned shame.
@@kupari906 not really Recently Falcom released an enchaced version of the Trails of The Blue and I don't know if it adds the extra stuff from the Vita release ( with new anime cut scenes and extra scenarios ) Seeing as the Switch is popular, I can see NISA localizing the new ports thanks to Cold Steel becoming more popular among the library on the Switch ( as it would had died if 3 came out on Vita, logical they made 3 a PS4 exclusive at first )
@@xXSoulGeoXx I certainly hope you're right! I'd love to see a proper release of the Kai remasters on PS4, Switch, and even PC (even though the Geofront translations are fantastic). The remasters only came out at the end of 2019, so I suppose it's very much in the realm of possibility!
@@Rihcterwilker I guess it's more about exposure. The Geofront translations are great, and they've made it as easy as they can to apply it to a copy of the non-translated game, but a whole lot of people aren't going to want to go through the effort of getting a Japanese copy of the game and applying the patch. I bought Zero off DLsite, and it was a mildly painful process. If it's like that for someone like me, it'll be a non-starter for most gamers. With a commercial release, those barriers to entry are removed and anyone with an interest can enjoy it. More options are always better, IMO!
Not surprising at all, working in the game industry is hell, and if you're working on something like a niche JRPG then you're not even being paid well like most people in the games industry
Localization is an underappreciated job. A lot of work goes into it and for almost any Falcom game, especially in the Legend of Heroes series, that's a good ten tons of work.
and for all the work, the reward they get is a solid "good" from all the fans even if you absolutely ace it. and if you delay it or make any minor issues at all, people shit all over it and the translaters for being 'lazy'. that stuff makes me really angry
@@MegamanStarforce2010 No kidding. Fans don't realize just how challenging localization really is, to not only basically attempt mind-reading, but also to do it in a way that sounds good. I imagine it must be daunting to take on a niche game like this, because on top of all the effort it takes to get the project done in the first place, localizers then have to deal with a bunch of whiny nerds taking a big "Um, actually" all over their hard work.
Usually if localizations are challenged, it’s if something’s cut out or the dialogue doesn’t match up with what was said in the original script as much as it could, which is usually due to ideological differences.
I think my favorite What Happened episodes are on the games I've never heard of, like this one. With more famous games, I usually know the story to an extent, but this was a totally unknown thing for me, and to learn that it ended on an overall positive note made me feel all fuzzy. Great vid!
Trails is a great series. They all take place in the same world and each storyarc has its own hooks. In the Sky is about adventurers. Trails From Zero is about police officers and Cold Steel has Persona-like relationship systems and giant robot battles. The coming one, Trails Of Black has a FF7R-like action-command hybrid battle system.
Also was nice that the reason for the wha happun wasn't just executives being pieces of shit and overhyping/promising while working their people to death to deliver some shit, the grim rEAper, or another one of Inafune's westaboo failures. Like fuck, this was a rollercoaster.
This is the Lord of the Rings of Gaming in more than just word count. Every Trails game is connected. Matt downplayed the 3rd, but that one has a lot of world building and characters that are still being fleshed out today, even beyond Hajimari no Kiseki, the one he mentioned as being the most recent in Japan.
I loved Trails in the Sky and I’m a little disturbed about the amount of crunch that had to be put in just so I could experience it. A good reminder that game development is so much harder than it looks
@@SnowyJop but its not though. If the game Never left japan, translation wouldn't factor into it. In fact. This story is more about 'biting off more than you can chew' than Developer crunch.
@@RaifSeverence Okay but this game did leave Japan so it was a factor here. Besides, it's kind of splitting hairs anyway haha, my original comment is more so about how many people, including myself, rarely consider how difficult the process of getting a game ready for release can really be.
Got to get this out, to Andrew Dice, I'm so glad that you made it out of the development in one piece. If Robin didn't find that note, this would've been a very dark story to tell. I once had a friend find a note I wrote at work, a note that pretty much voiced out my own spiral of depression. If that person never reported my note to a superior, I may never be here living, to be caring for my mom or seeing Matt make these awesome videos of troubled productions. Get help, don't be afraid to get help when you are down and feeling like there's nowhere to go but to end your life.
When I woke up this morning I definitely didn't expect to see Estelle's head pasted onto matt's body in my subscriptions. Have I actually woken up? eh who cares, new Matt video.
I... huh? Now I see. Localization drama. I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it must be to localize these titles. I just finished the Sky trilogy, and even with turbo enabled through practically all of the non-story gameplay, I still clocked well over 150 hours. These games have absolutely gargantuan scripts.
I feel that the Trails series has worldbuilding that's second to none, but I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it would be to localize. XSeed and Carpe Fulgur did a great job with the resources they had available, and deserve kudos for all of their hard work with the series. I would also extend that to NIS America for continuing on with the series localization after Cold Steel 2. NISA gets a lot of flack (and quite a bit of it is deserved, no doubt), but I'm just glad these titles are continuing to get localized and released in the West at all. On that note, however, a Wha Happun on the disaster that was the Ys VIII localization would be very entertaining to see...
@@kupari906 I would love to see that Wasn't there drama and articles talking about that mess as well? ( I remember well the Switch Version having their second attemp and porting that script to their delayed PC release, while the Vita release was their vanilla script full of errors )
@@manuelalbertoromero9528 Not really. Xenoblade's localization troubles were that NoA thought the game wouldn't sell well, so they refused to put the investment into localizing it. But NoE didn't think the same and localized the game, at which point Operation Rainfall tried to show NoA that people did want the game, and the rest is history. Xenoblade had a smooth localization process compared to SC
@@xXSoulGeoXx Yeah, the original localization on the Vita/PS4 versions was barely a step above machine quality. The "Archeozoic Big Hole" is probably the most famous example, but there's plenty more you can find if you look (A medical student is a student who studies medicine!)
Considering the fact that TITS SC is one of my favorite if not THE favorite game seeing it in ''what happened'' was quite the shock to the point that i thought i missed april fools joke episode
Listen. If you're here in the comment section and you've never heard of this series, but like JRPGs? Play them. Right now. Go do it. The Trails games are a bit of a slow burn at first and feature anime tropes out the wazoo, but trust me. Stick with it for a few hours and you will see the depth of this universe. There's been multiple arcs of game releases all within this world and featuring the growing roster of characters, yet they are all still remembered and consistent. The worldbuilding is second to none, and it's seriously become an epic in the very truest sense of the word. I reviewed Trails of Cold Steel 4 for DualShockers last year, and it was my unquestionable GOTY. Seeing the culmination of (at that point) nine games of story and seeing clear, respectful, and loving nods to where the cast was at and how the world was progressing just puts it head and shoulders above the rest. There's nothing else quite like it. There's a reason fans pushed so hard to get it localised through all these trials and tribulations. Hell, there's a reason fans are doing the localising unofficially for some of the games that haven't seen official Western releases yet. There is nothing else quite like the Trails out there, and it deserves to be witnessed and celebrated. JRPG fans, you owe it to yourselves to experience it.
Holy heck, I knew that the localisation for SC was a debacle, but I never knew it was to THIS level. Fair play to everyone involved though for seeing it through and giving the West one of the greatest JRPGs (and Series) around.
The Xenogears or the Xenosaga franchise would be a good one to tackle. How the director got screwed over by Square Enix with Xenogears, left the company to try to complete the story at Namco with Xenosaga, only to be stopped once again due to poor sales. It's amazing just how much the team at Monolith had to struggle to eventually land on the hit that would become the Xenoblade franchise.
As well fascinatingly back in it's early days, Xenogears' Story was in the crosshairs to become what we know today as Final Fantasy 7 And Chrono Cross! Every once and a while I think about "Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe" where Cloud/Sephiroth/Our FF7 never came to be, and in their place we got Tetsuya Takahashi's Full Xeno Series as it was planned out in place of potentially several other Final Fantasy Games...
If you like JRPGs, this is one to get into. Start with Trails in the Sky and play them in order. Make the effort to buy the two Crossbell games that weren't release in the West and apply the fan translations. It is an experience like no other in gaming.
Trails in the Sky is basically like a good Shonen Manga in JRPG form. I’d compare it to like Full Metal Alchemist for instance in terms of story depth and maybe even story length.
I randomly picked it up on steam (accidentally picked up sc first because that showed up in my recommendations first) and it's one of my favorite rpgs now. The script feels very natural so good job, translators!
The Geofront team deserves a shoutout as well: Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki (the two games that make up the 'Crossbell arc' in between Trails in the Sky trilogy and Trails of Cold Steel series) never got any sort of localization from Falcom as far as I can tell, and a team of fans decided to go about translating both games (Zero being about as long as the first Trails in the Sky game, and Ao being at least as long or longer) just for the sake of having the full franchise available to a western audience. No payment, no contract, no endorsement, they're taking on the absolutely herculean task simply because they love the series that much.
I'd heard about this series, but didn't realize how ambitious the scope of its story and writing were- like a massive JRPG/visual novel hybrid. Now I want to try it out. Definite props to these localizers for persevering in the face of such a large workload and horrific circumstances.
I still remember reading Dice's post talking about the depression he went through while working on the game. I didn't know a thing about the Trails series, but had a lot of fun with the other two games they localized before then (Chantelise and Reccettear) and was looking forward to what they could do this time. Learning now how huge the script is in comparison to their previous work, no wonder it wore the poor guy down.
Honestly surprised the Crossbell arc and the herculean efforts of the Geofront fan localization team wasn't brought up at the end. The fact that two more games which seemingly were never going to be officially localized were able to be fully translated by fans so that westerners would be able to appreciate them as well, is just so awesome. I would love it if Falcom would officially work with the Geofront team to get a Steam release of the Crossbell arc in the west using their fan translation (or even a bundle release on modern consoles and Steam, in a perfect world), but I doubt it will ever happen, unfortunately.
This gives me SO much more respect to translating teams. Holy crap. As a prospective Trails fan who's yet to play much beyond the first dozen or so hours of Trails in the Sky 1, I am SO SORRY, and thank you all for this literally insane amount of work. So glad to hear that no suicides ended up taking place.
I agree, I know localisations and translations tend to be misunderstood as being easy by just translating from language A to language B, especially in manga and anime but this story just amped up my respect for those teams all the more. And this is probably also why I think you shouldn't dismiss/harass voice actors since it's already a tough job especially in regards to ADR direction.
Oh dang, Matt did a video about a Falcom game! I actually bought Trails in the Sky FC on the PSP in 2011 and remember watching all the drama surrounding SC's localization go down in real-time. Thank you for making this great summation of the hard work the localization team put into translating Trails SC.
The Sky trilogy solidified itself as my favourite JRPG series when I finished the 3rd, and I am eternally grateful to people like Chavez, Dice and Light-Williams for giving parts of their life to localising it to English.
I recommend it but advise pick a platform and stick to that so you can carry your save files over between games. They go on sale on Steam on in awhile.
The reason why 'The Legend of Heroes' was a part of Trails in the Sky's title was because, well, Trails is a part of the Legend of Heroes franchise. 'The Legend of Heroes' as a general franchise has been around for almost as long as Final Fantasy. Prior to Trails in the Sky, Namco localized the PSP remakes of Legend of Heroes 3, 4, and 5. Trails in the Sky is technically 'The Legend of Heroes 6'. Does that excuse the generic name? No. But taking all context of it's popularity out 'Dragon Quest' is a pretty generic name too.
Thank you so much for talking about Trails In The Sky and bringing awareness to one of my favorites JRPG series to this day. The wait for SC was painful, but totally worth it. And now, knowing the effort put in localizing it for the fans made these games even more satisfying for me. All the respect to those who did it. You can feel the love and effort in every line of dialogue.
Having played 3rd a total of 3 times now (one originally after the other skygames, one after crossbell and one after erebonia, to see all the big foreshadowing in the doors), and having read that door probably 4 times now, i still get a stomachache every time and have to pause the game for the day because _jesus christ_
Well props to the people who translated that, it was incredibly well handled for such a sensitive topic and thank god that people in charge of regulations and censorship don't actually play games.
@@SuperSSSSooonniicccc as well as very important character backstories. Imagine someone who hadn't played Tita's story and got the Orbal Gear seeing Tita show up in CS3 and wondering what the hell that robot is
This series is legendary. I'm neck deep in it now using the fan translation for the two that haven't made it. This story is so much scary then I thought. I'm glad everyone made it out alive. They are all legends.
Great that you talked about this It's both a cautionary tale and a happy ending about game localization You could have added a word about the fact that this series trouble with localization doesn't end here, we only got to play the Crossbell arc (between trails in the sky and trails of cold steel ) thanks to fans going above and beyond dedication.
i have never clicked a wut happen so fast. trails is my favorite RPG series full stop. Im excited for the Geofront translation of Azure coming soon hopefully!
@@KillScottKill if western publisher try to release crossbell duology are they trying to translate everything?? what happen if they try to buy geofront script?? are you guys allow it?? just curious
So glad some big youtuber pick up this game to get its deserved exposure. This series is worth your time to play guys, Every. Single. Of. It! Don't pass on every series guys coz this game is interconnected to each other. I suggest if anyone is going to give it a try is to start on Liberl arc first then Crossbell arc and last Erebonia arc. You can play the part 1&2 of Edebonia arc before playing Crossbell arc coz it happened at the same time. While the part 3&4 of Erebonia arc picks up after Crossbell arc.
Sounds like Jessica Chavez had to do an INSANE amount of work, multiple times over, to allow this game to realize its true potential in the English world. Bravo
It seems slowly but surely Trails games are crawling out of total obscurity into relative obscurity and I am all for it. These games are nothing short of amazing.
So happy to see it slowly but surely get more and more recognition! Well, it has been getting faster and faster recently but still, it would be amazing if more people would try this series out!
Trails has one of my favorite battle and customization systems. If I'm remembering correctly It's like FF7's materia junctioning on steroids. I don't remember much of the SC but the first game has great characters, fun interactions and world building. It was a great game.
Oh hey, Carpe Fulgur. Those guys started off early with translating Recettear on Steam. That game is so much fun, and the translation is full of really funny pop culture references.
the localization team deserves the praise and appreciation. Having played trails and its sc, it is one of the greatest rpgs that existed. though generic in some people's tastes, its one of the greatest generics in my book in terms of story telling, world building, and characters. I just wanna thank you the localization team for not giving up in this series. without them i would have never discovered this gem.
Because their project planning is non-existent. I'm not joking: one of the big announcements for Kuro was that they actually have dedicated project planners for it. Which honestly explains so much.
@@danielm.5078 Falcom and kondo habit of "we develop this game for too long and the scale is to big for one game, better to split it and gave people cliffhanger". FC and SC back in 2004, CS 1 and 2, CS 3 and 4. Three times the charm indeed lol. And every time they do this its always "initially this is going to be one game"
My original intention was to wait for the PC of Cold Steel IV, but then the cliffhanger of Cold Cold Steel III happened and I decided to not wait until pc release. Currently 60+ hours in, streaming it twice a week, and loving every second.
Man, Trails in the Sky was such a good experience with such a good localization. Breaks my heart to hear how the people who did such a good, incredibly difficult job suffered to get it done... If you've ever enjoyed even a single JRPG, you should give it a try. It's beyond excellent!
Had no idea Falcom struggled so much to get Trails to the west, hell, we were quite close to not getting anything beyond SC or even FC, thank goodness they succeeded as it is my favorite game series of all time!
One of the most immersive game I've ever played Like holy shit, this is like if a novel series is fully adapted 100% with no cut Hell, you may even surprised how you'll be able to remember almost every the NPCs you've met NPCs with no character sprite even goddamn. The world is actually moving with you and not you moving the world
Game fans: "Why don't video game makers give all the characters in their worlds personalities and unique stories so they can be more immersive?" Localizers: "... so it's treason then."
I know a lot of bits and pieces of this story, but seeing it all together really illustrates how miraculous it was SC even got localized. I was expecting a bit more on how FC and SC were supposed to be one game, but given that what we do know is very limited and amounts to a bunch of files for characters only in SC being in FC I can see why it was skipped over (it also doesn't have much to do with the localization troubles).
Not to detract from Matt's vid, but if you're interested you should check out Bowl of Lentils "The Early History of Falcom". It's an hour, but definitely worth a view.
So apparently the script for Sky SC is roughly 716k words, and the LotR trilogy is 455k. Meanwhile, Trails of Cold Steel 3 is over 1.1 million words, which just barely surpasses the entire harry potter series of books combined. Yeah this series is insanely huge.
Coming back to this after learning that Andrew Dice was part of the localization team for the newest Trails Through Daybreak! Shoutout to NIS for giving this man another chance with a proper team working on it this time, so glad to see the redemption!
Never heard of this series before, but those localization hurdles on the other hand... Damn, this episode hit me way too close to home. I just wanna hug everyone involved.
Trails in the Sky SC's localisation shenanigans are pretty well known at this point considering the number of news articles about it. What is less documented however was what happened to the first game, Trails FC. Jessica was holding a blog on XSeed's website about how crunch-editing this game was hell, but what is less known is the translation side of things which involved the initial translator who peaced out mid-project all the while trolling and breaking NDAs in the background on news articles comment sections about XSeed and forums, which led XSeed to desperately find *someone* to carry on the translation even if they wouldn't be half-competent for it. Which only speaks for Jessica's massive endeavour to iron everything out in editing.
I've never played these games (though I want to now) and I never heard of any of these people or companies before, but holy shit hearing about someone being depressed and "writing a note" gave me some fucking feelings. So so glad Andrew was talked out of it. I hope he's doing okay.
I haven't played a game as engaging as trails in the sky fc in a long, long time. Every single piece of dialogue was interesting and I spoke with every NPC I could just to see what they were thinking about. Most games can't make me care about random NPCs, let alone the main characters. And given its age, its graphics have aged beautifully. I have to find the time for the next two games.
I think this is one of the most interesting videos you’ve made. I wasn’t aware of any of this, nor have any experience with the series so it’s kind of mind blowing.
This is wild, I'm in Chapter 8 of SC right now. It's such a wonderful experience but you do NEED to play the first game. But if you play FC or SC without playing the other it's no fun at all. I will say I haven't noticed any issue with translation or errors on the PSP games so far. It is a fantastic story told at a great pace. They tackle a lot of difficult issues throughout the story and don't shy away from anything. I just want relay my latest experience with the game, literally happened 30 minutes ago. I was wandering the world and found a character I recognized from a previous chapter. I talked to him and since I had a character with me who knew him they spoke to each other. He gave me a useful recipe and went on his way. There are 100's of hidden interactions like this that give you valuable items and resources. The reason Falcom encourages playing the game through is because you could find new stuff on playthrough 4 or 5. It's that dense. Thank you for the video and introducing people to this wonderful game! I'm happy despite all the trouble it was translated and published in the West.
"If you know about any other arduous RPG adventures..." Scope out Revelations: Persona, Matt. The very first Persona game was the first RPG Atlus localized into English; they screwed up so badly in their attempt that they didn't even finish translating the game before releasing it, and basically invented the modern approach to localizing stories set in contemporary Japan to avoid making the same mistake again.
Speaking of Persona, I still want to know the shenanigans behind the PSP version of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment that the US never got. Because right now, I'm still under the impression that Index (Atlus's owner before Sega) was trying to be cute. [TL;DR for those who don't know: the US got the original Eternal Punishment on PS, but not the first game in the duology, Innocent Sin. The PSP remakes saw the situations reversed with no response as to why from Index whatsoever.]
This is wild. Something to think about as I have Trails of Cold Steel III and already pre-ordered Cold Steel IV. So many props to Jessica Chavez, on the localization of this series. But seriously, this helps to show how much work went into just one aspect of the game and really puts a magnifying glass to the hard work, a number of these localized games go through.
Probably the reason why we even get the Trails Series as a whole now! Should be in the classics of Gaming History of saving a Franchise in the West. I also bought TiTs FC in 2012/2013 as I knew it needed as much support as it needed.
In a weird twist of fate, all that happened may have actually helped. Trails in the Sky, particularly SC and 3rd, are at their core, games that make more than a token effort to explore depression. It's a major part of *many* character arcs. The dialogue for SC and 3rd flows incredibly well and is reads like the translators actually understood what it meant to go through it. Because they did, the game may well have literally inflicted it upon them. And as awful as that suffering is, there's no shortage of soul in the localization just the same. It's become a game I can literally recommend to people I know who suffer from depression, and universally they've told me they felt like the game truly understood it.
I was well aware of all the insanity that went on in this game's localization process but I'm glad this is spreading the word. More people need to know about the effort that went into this game. Despite everything, I feel like it coming out at the tail end of 2015 might have been a blessing in disguise, as the first Trails of Cold Steel was localized only a few months later. Cold Steel 1 wasn't as tied to previous arcs (warning: later Cold Steel games MOST DEFINITELY ARE), was on more mainstream consoles, was in 3D and... had waifus, so it increased the series' exposure a lot, and Sky SC's release and FC's re-release on Steam opened the door to a lot of new fans jumping into them after finishing Cold Steel. Sky The 3rd saw an English release in early 2017, around the time many people were finishing Cold Steel 2, so more good timing there.
Out of curiosity, I decided to use the 60fps patch for Tales of Zestiria. Really wished I had done that from the start. (It came bundled with the Tales of Berseria and the Tales of Symphonia patches but I didn't realize it until later.)
You mean how Hideo Baba Decided Mid Development To Switch the main Heroine from Alisha to Rose and how that got a lot of Tales fans in Japan Mad to the point the Seiyuu of Rose had to apologize
As someone who bought Trails in the Sky on a whim that winter of 2015 and now considers it my all-time favorite jrpg series, this was a really interesting look behind the curtain. Thanks for that!
A game that's not done yet, but has had problems from their Kickstarter campaign is "First Contact Paradise Lost" I think that they were going fine, till something happened and got major delayed. Its a 2D game where you're a plant alien trying to escape. I loved the look and so I, and lots of others, funded it fully.
The Trails series (particularly Cold Steel) is one of my favorite RPG franchises, so I was hella hyped to watch this! I got into Cold Steel after reading about it in Game Informer, back in the 2010s. I'm even acquaintances with the voice actor from a key character in CSIV. Shouts to Jessica, Andrew, and everyone else involved for helping the series prosper in the west. I never knew that the games had THAT much dialogue! I'm looking forward to future installments. Erebonia, forever!
And we're still waiting for Zero no kiseki and Ao no kiseki to be localized. But really didn't know the whole drama with the localization, and I'm glad it kinda worked out in the end and we at least have two of the series.
Thank goodness for the Geofront and their work! The Zero translation job is damn near professional-level, and I've been having a great time with playing it lately.
@@kupari906 I'm really looking forward to playing it, I'm still playing Sky SC at the moment, but I learned just yesterday about the Geofront work, and I'm glad I won't have to skip it, I just need to know how to acquire a legal copy of the game to use with the patch
@@haisekaneki4962 Yeah I tried getting it through DLsite, but due to limitations on purchase method I need to find some other way. But it will still take some time till I clear both SC and the Third, so I have time to figure it out
As a Fan that enter the franchise in Coldsteel 1 on the PS3 era and then jumped into the hypewagon of the other games from there I never knew this. The fact that in some other timeline I never experienced now one of my favorite franchises is just scary. Thanks for the video Matt, and love and good wishes to everyone on Xseed and the localization team that make everything happen.
As someone who’s become a massive Trails fan since I began playing the games with Cold Steel 1 in early 2020, I’d heard from acquaintances about how SC’s localization was an arduous process. Even so, I don’t think I quite understood the true depth of those difficulties until now. It’s... honestly kind of sobering. And this is to say nothing about the Crossbell games, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure, which still have no official localization, leading fan translation groups like Geofront to perform much thankless work themselves so that more people can play the games in English.
As Korean, FC was my childhood. I found PC version of FC and SC on Steam after completely forgetting about it for 10 years. My 20th birthday couldn't have been more special day playing FC for an entire day that day. If anyone hasn't checked out, Trails series is literally the best character study that has ever been executed in gaming history. It took a while, but Asian version is coming out on steam as well. So I will get to play official release of Crossbell arc in my home language before English speakers.
Glad to see more coverage of this series, and so glad I found it years ago. This is a gem of a series and something that now means a lot to me. The writing, music, characters, and world are fantastic!
Great video, but hard to watch. I just finished the first Trails in the Sky game about 2 months ago and just started SC. I had NO idea about anything that happened in this vid. The most heart wrenching part personally was hearing what happened to Carpe Fulgur 😭. I loved the work they put into releasing niche Japanese titles, and Recettear is still easily one of my all time favorite games. To hear that the reason I don't hear much of them anymore was probably directly related to this series, which I am currently in love with, just stabbed me in the heart. I truly hope CF is doing much better now and are staying happy and sane in this insane world we live in.
I've casually looked at the first game for years on Steam but seeing it in action really sells me on it Looks like the most charming thing ever. The little stretching animation when the girl woke up is adorable and I am now convinced to buy these, especially after seeing all the trouble they have had
@@RoanoraZoro123 It can be both, moron They clearly put a lot of love into the sprite animation in addition to all the effort they put in to the story 🙄
Christ, this is giving me flashbacks when I was working on Beast's Fury... There were thankfully no extensive text since it wasn't an RPG, but it was the sheer number of frames of animation of the sprites we set out to do, as it was a fighting game
Major props to the whole crew that made ths Trails/Kiseki series take off and continue getting localizations here in English. More Falcom goodness the better!
Trails in the Sky the 3rd, is kind of a foundation for the rest of the games that come after Trails in the Sky. So in the grand scheme of things it is just as important, I feel.
It's just optional, when compared to the connected stories between FC and SC. I never said people shouldn't play it, or it wasn't good. For the purposes of this video however, it's not really relevant.
![SAFEPLANET - ดาวเคราะห์ [ THE PLANET ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/4X1XL3I_k3c/mqdefault.jpg)
Major respect to Jessica Chavez who was at XSeed for single handedly saving that game from the abyss. Copy and pasting that many lines is a tale of legend worthy of the franchise itself.
Dios mio
I admit, this was a sobering realization.
I think that would be between two hours and two days of a tool programmer's job, depending on how complicated the spreadsheet is. Valiant effort, nevertheless.
Why didn’t they have a programmer spend a few days write a script to convert the text file to a spreadsheet? That woman is insane.
Even more props to the team for those hilarious chest lines!
The second I heard the words *VERBAL* *AGREEMENT* I knew we were in for a ride.
But they did follow up. Very surprising.
If you have siblings, you know exactly what a "verbal agreement" means.
When you got half way thru the video you knew it was going to be wild?
I prefer written agreement with law certification.
Lawyers reaching for the bottle of tums
Holy shit, I met Jessica Chavez quite a few times, a few years ago, in a rural English café, typing up a spreadsheet on her laptop for a then-unrelease Switch game.
She's a lovely and genuine person, well humoured, and well meaning.
We never shared names at the time, but her strong californian accent very much stuck out though, so it got me conversing with her. Seeing this game and her face pop up in my feed was amazing.
At the time, I was amazed I'd met someone from the Games Industry in such a desolate corner of the world.
We ended up chatting about videogames of the time quite a bit. I asked a lot of naive questions about how translation processes go down. I was constantly trying to hide my awe.
She's a fan of NieR, and would've loved to work on King of Fighters For Girls, apparently.
It randomly came up because I'd tried playing it at the time, and she told me she worked on "Fragile Dreams: Farewell Ruins of the Moon." Regretted it wasn't a better game, but at least it was a very, very beautiful one.
She told me she didn't translate, but had the editorial bravery to OK the "Butter my pooper" line in Corpse Party.
Lastly, she recommended to me Trails in the Sky, she said it was her favourite game she'd translated. Bought it up right away.
I regretted not having more conversations with her before she left the country.
Wish I'd known about the curfuffle of translating this game back then. Maybe it's time to finish it.
wholesome
I haven't gotten around to playing Fragile Dreams yet, but I've owned it for years and for a short time was part of a team working on a fandub for it. Absolutely beautiful, incredible story. It makes me emotional just thinking about it. One day, I really need to take some time to just go through it myself.
Step 1: Wow, Trails in the Sky got a video!!
Step 2: Wait, Trails in the Sky is amazing, what could possibly-
Step 3: *remembers the localization saga* Ooooohhhhhh..
Exact same reaction
My thoughts exactly.
Thank godness NIS América is doing a decent job with the franchise. I mean we got Trails of Cold Steel 3 in 2019 and 4 in 2020.
the real heros were the localization team that help the game to the next generation
This tbh
As a Trails fan, I honestly had no idea how close I was to never hearing of this series. That's nuts.
I found out about the series by googling "jrpg with female protagonist", read through a couple lists compiled on reddit (there are very few jrpgs with female protagonists that aren't trashy shit), decided not to buy the game on steam, and then changed my mind a day later. I'm so happy I bought trails FC
@@volaalov6254 You have chosen... wisely.
@@volaalov6254 Cool story. I found out about Trails FC on Twitter. A publisher dude from the UK i was following was a total mark about the game. I thought alright i give it a shot since the game wasn´t too expensive on steam and i´m glad i did. Having played Trails FC/SC and Cold Steel I-IV i´m excited for what comes next.
@@FirstLast-mn4re I'm hoping that with the Zero/Azure KAI games coming this summer in japan, we'll get ports to the west finally.
Ok. I gotta buy these games now.
No ad or trailer could ever translate how much passion the dev team and specially the localization team have for the titles.
Have fun, you're in for a ride! A looong one at that
Is worth, especially with how cheap the first game is nowadays.
Be warned: Sky FC starts off *very* slowly. Please, stick with it. You will not regret it. FC eventually does pick up about halfway thru and once you get to SC its full speed start to finish. Sky the 3rd is sort of an epilogue and is the connecting piece between this arc and the next 2.
The next arc is a duology set in a region called Crossbell (Sky is set in Liberl) and those 2 games have not been officially released in the west. You can find fan translated psp roms and the first game has a very high quality fan-made localization patch called geofront, you'll have to buy the Japanese version and patch it to play that tho.
The Cold Steel arc is where I started, and the first game takes a lot of inspiration from Persona. That's where 3d graphics and voice acting come in, and if for some reason Sky FC doesn't hold your attention, maybe try Cold Steel 1 instead. However, since you are aware of and committed to trying Sky first, I *strongly* recommend you play the games in release order (I'd say Crossbell is optional but you should at least watch some recap videos if you don't plan on playing it). Trails isn't Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest. This series is one huge, interconnected story and if you play the games in release order you will get INFINITELY more out of them the farther you get into the series. Cold Steel 4, the last in that arc, just recently came out and it is a barn burner especially when you've played everything before it.
Welcome to the club. Good luck and have fun.
@@Eltron92 Not to mention SC is just a fraction of what the series is capable of, there's not a lot of franchises that manage to one up themselves in each new game but trails is one of them.
Also @Mateus Costa don't forget the crossbell arc, it's extremely easy to install it pre-patched and it will run on almost any PC
Play order is this:
Sky FC > Sky SC > Sky 3rd > Zero no Kiseki > Ao no Kiseki > Cold Steel 1 > Cold Steel 2 > Cold Steel 3 > Cold Steel 4 > Hajimari no Kiseki > Kuro no Kiseki [next game not released]
@@Eltron92 thanks for the info! I'm gonna try to say least start Sky FC this year, possibly during my vacations (not like I'm traveling anywhere anyway ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).
I was aware of Cold Steel, but I really thought the different titles were unrelated worlds and stories like FF and DQ. Numbered sequela seemed like continuations, but distinct titles seemed unrelated. Thanks for explaining about the huge payoff for playing in release order.
For those who never heard of Trails before and don't know their world-building scale, let's say that you can interact with some NPCs and they talk about what they're doing, then when you progress a bit in the story, their own story and situation changes little-by-little too.
And it's ALL of the NPCs that have dialogue changing with each minor story beat. There's a character in FC who will actually drop some foreshadowing of something in SC, but only if you go talk to them during a specific point while the main story has you just about as far from their location as possible.
and to expand on that. Why is SC longer? Because by endgame you have a late game chapter where the world opens up entirely (trails has a "full world" but barricades you to the story areas). EVERY NPC IN THE COUNTRY will have new dialog, from the mayors of the towns to that one fisherman way off in some offshoot of a road.
And to add insult to injury, Trails NPC's tend to have two different talk dialog. there's a lot to translate, and these games arent selling Final fantasy numbers. It's bonkers.
So are there choices and different routes to take that change up people's stories, or do they all get to the same point no matter what? I don't mind linear games, but I couldn't tell from the video these games involve so much dialogue because of a ton of story options, or if it's just a long script that unfolds in linear fashion.
@@corey2232 IIRC, the story is linear. The only times I remember things slightly changing are in the Cold Steel games, in which the MC can choose a girl they are close the most (despite having a canon romance partner).
@@corey2232 its linear for the most part. There are some choices that give different dialogue that diesnt effect the story.
and with trails going over to NISA, they gained all the "where's SC" comments in the form of "where's crossbell"
I kinda feel like Crossbell is being "Mother 3'd", in that they're leaving it to the fans to take care of. The Trails from Zero translation is fantastic, and I have very high hopes for the Trails from Azure one coming soon. It'd be nice if NISA decided to being over the Kai remasters, but I imagine they don't think it's worth the cost of localization, which is a damned shame.
@@kupari906 not really
Recently Falcom released an enchaced version of the Trails of The Blue and I don't know if it adds the extra stuff from the Vita release ( with new anime cut scenes and extra scenarios )
Seeing as the Switch is popular, I can see NISA localizing the new ports thanks to Cold Steel becoming more popular among the library on the Switch ( as it would had died if 3 came out on Vita, logical they made 3 a PS4 exclusive at first )
NISAN
@@xXSoulGeoXx I certainly hope you're right! I'd love to see a proper release of the Kai remasters on PS4, Switch, and even PC (even though the Geofront translations are fantastic). The remasters only came out at the end of 2019, so I suppose it's very much in the realm of possibility!
@@Rihcterwilker I guess it's more about exposure. The Geofront translations are great, and they've made it as easy as they can to apply it to a copy of the non-translated game, but a whole lot of people aren't going to want to go through the effort of getting a Japanese copy of the game and applying the patch. I bought Zero off DLsite, and it was a mildly painful process. If it's like that for someone like me, it'll be a non-starter for most gamers. With a commercial release, those barriers to entry are removed and anyone with an interest can enjoy it. More options are always better, IMO!
A surprise to be sure but a welcome one
Wow, didn't expect an attempted suicide to be part of the story of a Jrpg's localization.
Honestly in this industry I'm not too surprised anymore
Conditions get real rough sometimes
I'm just glad it wasn't a completed one
1:00 when I reached this comment
Yep, could believe it
XD
It's a japanese game after all.
@@jaimeantonioolaguezchirino5805 Brutal.
Not surprising at all, working in the game industry is hell, and if you're working on something like a niche JRPG then you're not even being paid well like most people in the games industry
Localization is an underappreciated job. A lot of work goes into it and for almost any Falcom game, especially in the Legend of Heroes series, that's a good ten tons of work.
and for all the work, the reward they get is a solid "good" from all the fans even if you absolutely ace it. and if you delay it or make any minor issues at all, people shit all over it and the translaters for being 'lazy'. that stuff makes me really angry
@@MegamanStarforce2010 No kidding. Fans don't realize just how challenging localization really is, to not only basically attempt mind-reading, but also to do it in a way that sounds good. I imagine it must be daunting to take on a niche game like this, because on top of all the effort it takes to get the project done in the first place, localizers then have to deal with a bunch of whiny nerds taking a big "Um, actually" all over their hard work.
Usually if localizations are challenged, it’s if something’s cut out or the dialogue doesn’t match up with what was said in the original script as much as it could, which is usually due to ideological differences.
I think my favorite What Happened episodes are on the games I've never heard of, like this one. With more famous games, I usually know the story to an extent, but this was a totally unknown thing for me, and to learn that it ended on an overall positive note made me feel all fuzzy. Great vid!
Trails is a great series. They all take place in the same world and each storyarc has its own hooks. In the Sky is about adventurers. Trails From Zero is about police officers and Cold Steel has Persona-like relationship systems and giant robot battles. The coming one, Trails Of Black has a FF7R-like action-command hybrid battle system.
Also was nice that the reason for the wha happun wasn't just executives being pieces of shit and overhyping/promising while working their people to death to deliver some shit, the grim rEAper, or another one of Inafune's westaboo failures.
Like fuck, this was a rollercoaster.
If you like jrpgs, this series is fantastic. You can/could play a few of them on ps now. So worth the $10 to check them out.
Hope you give a try 2 the Falcom games like the Trails and Ys Series! You can found them sometimes at sale in GOG at less than 10 dollars!
This is the Lord of the Rings of Gaming in more than just word count. Every Trails game is connected. Matt downplayed the 3rd, but that one has a lot of world building and characters that are still being fleshed out today, even beyond Hajimari no Kiseki, the one he mentioned as being the most recent in Japan.
I loved Trails in the Sky and I’m a little disturbed about the amount of crunch that had to be put in just so I could experience it. A good reminder that game development is so much harder than it looks
It wasnt development it was just translating
Yeah imo translating is part of development
@@SnowyJop but its not though. If the game Never left japan, translation wouldn't factor into it. In fact. This story is more about 'biting off more than you can chew' than Developer crunch.
@@RaifSeverence Okay but this game did leave Japan so it was a factor here. Besides, it's kind of splitting hairs anyway haha, my original comment is more so about how many people, including myself, rarely consider how difficult the process of getting a game ready for release can really be.
Got to get this out, to Andrew Dice, I'm so glad that you made it out of the development in one piece. If Robin didn't find that note, this would've been a very dark story to tell. I once had a friend find a note I wrote at work, a note that pretty much voiced out my own spiral of depression. If that person never reported my note to a superior, I may never be here living, to be caring for my mom or seeing Matt make these awesome videos of troubled productions.
Get help, don't be afraid to get help when you are down and feeling like there's nowhere to go but to end your life.
Shoutouts to my Ex-Wife for notifying authorities at 4am from another country to stop me
I echo your statement dear Boom
fwiw, keep in mind these events happened 7 years ago. I want to hope after such a time that that is been resolved.
True words of emotional wisdom 😊👍
Wow, never expected Trailts in the Sky would get a "What Happun"
This is unexpected. It's a RPG series that I have never heard of.
I would like to see Matt cover Secret of Mana series.
Does Matt take requests on WH?
As a recently converted fan who initially resisted it, I am beyond happy this underrated series is getting the attention it deserves!
@@kenterminateddq5311 It's a text heavy series, but it's probably the best one I have ever played. Give it a try if you have the chance.
Same. I thought something bad that I don't know happened in this series.
Ikr, this game is great
When I woke up this morning I definitely didn't expect to see Estelle's head pasted onto matt's body in my subscriptions. Have I actually woken up? eh who cares, new Matt video.
It like she want us to wake up by seeing the first thing to see on youtube. Where she jumping the bed by forcing us to wake up.
@@junazuranoob6192 c'mon Rean!
Jessica is still working on this series. She worked on Cold Steel III & IV as a freelancer for NISA. Correct me if I'm wrong.
I... huh?
Now I see. Localization drama. I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it must be to localize these titles. I just finished the Sky trilogy, and even with turbo enabled through practically all of the non-story gameplay, I still clocked well over 150 hours. These games have absolutely gargantuan scripts.
...This is Xenoblade before Xenoblade. Ain't it?
I feel that the Trails series has worldbuilding that's second to none, but I can only imagine how much of a nightmare it would be to localize. XSeed and Carpe Fulgur did a great job with the resources they had available, and deserve kudos for all of their hard work with the series. I would also extend that to NIS America for continuing on with the series localization after Cold Steel 2. NISA gets a lot of flack (and quite a bit of it is deserved, no doubt), but I'm just glad these titles are continuing to get localized and released in the West at all. On that note, however, a Wha Happun on the disaster that was the Ys VIII localization would be very entertaining to see...
@@kupari906 I would love to see that
Wasn't there drama and articles talking about that mess as well? ( I remember well the Switch Version having their second attemp and porting that script to their delayed PC release, while the Vita release was their vanilla script full of errors )
@@manuelalbertoromero9528 Not really. Xenoblade's localization troubles were that NoA thought the game wouldn't sell well, so they refused to put the investment into localizing it. But NoE didn't think the same and localized the game, at which point Operation Rainfall tried to show NoA that people did want the game, and the rest is history. Xenoblade had a smooth localization process compared to SC
@@xXSoulGeoXx Yeah, the original localization on the Vita/PS4 versions was barely a step above machine quality. The "Archeozoic Big Hole" is probably the most famous example, but there's plenty more you can find if you look (A medical student is a student who studies medicine!)
Considering the fact that TITS SC is one of my favorite if not THE favorite game seeing it in ''what happened'' was quite the shock to the point that i thought i missed april fools joke episode
TITS SUPERCOMPACT
Listen. If you're here in the comment section and you've never heard of this series, but like JRPGs? Play them. Right now. Go do it.
The Trails games are a bit of a slow burn at first and feature anime tropes out the wazoo, but trust me. Stick with it for a few hours and you will see the depth of this universe. There's been multiple arcs of game releases all within this world and featuring the growing roster of characters, yet they are all still remembered and consistent. The worldbuilding is second to none, and it's seriously become an epic in the very truest sense of the word. I reviewed Trails of Cold Steel 4 for DualShockers last year, and it was my unquestionable GOTY. Seeing the culmination of (at that point) nine games of story and seeing clear, respectful, and loving nods to where the cast was at and how the world was progressing just puts it head and shoulders above the rest. There's nothing else quite like it.
There's a reason fans pushed so hard to get it localised through all these trials and tribulations. Hell, there's a reason fans are doing the localising unofficially for some of the games that haven't seen official Western releases yet. There is nothing else quite like the Trails out there, and it deserves to be witnessed and celebrated. JRPG fans, you owe it to yourselves to experience it.
You deserve a like for writing that much.
Holy heck, I knew that the localisation for SC was a debacle, but I never knew it was to THIS level. Fair play to everyone involved though for seeing it through and giving the West one of the greatest JRPGs (and Series) around.
The Xenogears or the Xenosaga franchise would be a good one to tackle. How the director got screwed over by Square Enix with Xenogears, left the company to try to complete the story at Namco with Xenosaga, only to be stopped once again due to poor sales. It's amazing just how much the team at Monolith had to struggle to eventually land on the hit that would become the Xenoblade franchise.
I Want That!!
As well fascinatingly back in it's early days, Xenogears' Story was in the crosshairs to become what we know today as Final Fantasy 7 And Chrono Cross!
Every once and a while I think about "Meanwhile in a Parallel Universe" where Cloud/Sephiroth/Our FF7 never came to be, and in their place we got Tetsuya Takahashi's Full Xeno Series as it was planned out in place of potentially several other Final Fantasy Games...
This would be very interesting.
And it still pales in comparison to what Falcom did. A much smaller developer
So, um, I've never heard of the game or the series, or how dark this story went... So I have gaps in my knowledge.
If you like JRPGs, this is one to get into. Start with Trails in the Sky and play them in order. Make the effort to buy the two Crossbell games that weren't release in the West and apply the fan translations. It is an experience like no other in gaming.
Trails in the Sky is basically like a good Shonen Manga in JRPG form. I’d compare it to like Full Metal Alchemist for instance in terms of story depth and maybe even story length.
This is the same series as trails of cold steel, if you’ve heard of that, of which trails of cold steel 4 releases within the next week.
then what the fuck is the point of this comment? to self promote that stupid checkmark? fuck off
@@kadosho02 Now I'm starting to wonder how Atlus localizes their games
I randomly picked it up on steam (accidentally picked up sc first because that showed up in my recommendations first) and it's one of my favorite rpgs now. The script feels very natural so good job, translators!
The Geofront team deserves a shoutout as well: Zero no Kiseki and Ao no Kiseki (the two games that make up the 'Crossbell arc' in between Trails in the Sky trilogy and Trails of Cold Steel series) never got any sort of localization from Falcom as far as I can tell, and a team of fans decided to go about translating both games (Zero being about as long as the first Trails in the Sky game, and Ao being at least as long or longer) just for the sake of having the full franchise available to a western audience.
No payment, no contract, no endorsement, they're taking on the absolutely herculean task simply because they love the series that much.
I'd heard about this series, but didn't realize how ambitious the scope of its story and writing were- like a massive JRPG/visual novel hybrid. Now I want to try it out. Definite props to these localizers for persevering in the face of such a large workload and horrific circumstances.
It's not a visual novel
I still remember reading Dice's post talking about the depression he went through while working on the game. I didn't know a thing about the Trails series, but had a lot of fun with the other two games they localized before then (Chantelise and Reccettear) and was looking forward to what they could do this time. Learning now how huge the script is in comparison to their previous work, no wonder it wore the poor guy down.
Honestly surprised the Crossbell arc and the herculean efforts of the Geofront fan localization team wasn't brought up at the end. The fact that two more games which seemingly were never going to be officially localized were able to be fully translated by fans so that westerners would be able to appreciate them as well, is just so awesome. I would love it if Falcom would officially work with the Geofront team to get a Steam release of the Crossbell arc in the west using their fan translation (or even a bundle release on modern consoles and Steam, in a perfect world), but I doubt it will ever happen, unfortunately.
Your wish has been granted! The Crossbell Duology Geofront localization has become official and is on Steam! 🎉
How the time has changed....now every first comment under a Falcom post is... "Where's Crossbell ?"
I feel sorry to everyone that has work in the translation for the game , and hearing about Andrew And Chavez really me makes me sad for them
This gives me SO much more respect to translating teams. Holy crap. As a prospective Trails fan who's yet to play much beyond the first dozen or so hours of Trails in the Sky 1, I am SO SORRY, and thank you all for this literally insane amount of work. So glad to hear that no suicides ended up taking place.
I agree, I know localisations and translations tend to be misunderstood as being easy by just translating from language A to language B, especially in manga and anime but this story just amped up my respect for those teams all the more.
And this is probably also why I think you shouldn't dismiss/harass voice actors since it's already a tough job especially in regards to ADR direction.
Oh dang, Matt did a video about a Falcom game! I actually bought Trails in the Sky FC on the PSP in 2011 and remember watching all the drama surrounding SC's localization go down in real-time. Thank you for making this great summation of the hard work the localization team put into translating Trails SC.
Nice to see you here as well! You have an excellent video on Falcom's history.
12:44 accidental cameo
Whoa! Just noticed!
@@MattMcMuscles hey Matt mc muscles how about you Do a what happened video on Sonic and the secret rings on the wii
Shame on you, jojo skipper.
This serie is definitely a hidden gem, underrated. Well done
Serie
@@12ealDealOfficial eh give em time to pump some titles out. Ys 9 was good so was cold steel 4
@@buttertoast1146 I found this series by accident, just bored one day and pick up my older brother's PSP and here I am
@@Sora-Mi same I found it on a suggested list now 9 games later its my favorite rpg series
@@buttertoast1146 I have over 200 hours in each of the trails in the sky games and over 100 for the cold steel series. Already pre-order cold steel 4.
These games literally have books worth of writing in them.
I'd read them
They also have actual short story books in the game's libraries too
Kiseki series. The RPG that continues the in-game book story into a game
Not just books worth of writing, they have LITERAL BOOKS in them.
Their treasure chests have more writing to them than some full games.
The Sky trilogy solidified itself as my favourite JRPG series when I finished the 3rd, and I am eternally grateful to people like Chavez, Dice and Light-Williams for giving parts of their life to localising it to English.
I feel like I need to play this series, for all the people who worked so hard on it
I recommend it but advise pick a platform and stick to that so you can carry your save files over between games. They go on sale on Steam on in awhile.
Dew it, a unique experience
The reason why 'The Legend of Heroes' was a part of Trails in the Sky's title was because, well, Trails is a part of the Legend of Heroes franchise.
'The Legend of Heroes' as a general franchise has been around for almost as long as Final Fantasy. Prior to Trails in the Sky, Namco localized the PSP remakes of Legend of Heroes 3, 4, and 5. Trails in the Sky is technically 'The Legend of Heroes 6'.
Does that excuse the generic name? No. But taking all context of it's popularity out 'Dragon Quest' is a pretty generic name too.
Thank you so much for talking about Trails In The Sky and bringing awareness to one of my favorites JRPG series to this day. The wait for SC was painful, but totally worth it. And now, knowing the effort put in localizing it for the fans made these games even more satisfying for me. All the respect to those who did it. You can feel the love and effort in every line of dialogue.
Ys VIII's localization should be next lol
Big true
i think we will have another falcom game next
Ah yes, the archeozoic big hole
Not to mention the PC port.
@@matteste what? Don't you like the disco coral reefs?
Imagine going from this localisation, thinking the 3rd is shorter *phew* then reaching Star Door 15...
Having played 3rd a total of 3 times now (one originally after the other skygames, one after crossbell and one after erebonia, to see all the big foreshadowing in the doors), and having read that door probably 4 times now, i still get a stomachache every time and have to pause the game for the day because _jesus christ_
Yeah while 3rd isn't directly connected as much, to ignore it would be to miss out on a lot of story background.
Well props to the people who translated that, it was incredibly well handled for such a sensitive topic and thank god that people in charge of regulations and censorship don't actually play games.
@@SuperSSSSooonniicccc as well as very important character backstories. Imagine someone who hadn't played Tita's story and got the Orbal Gear seeing Tita show up in CS3 and wondering what the hell that robot is
@@alumlovescake not that much, worst trails.
Didn't expect a kiseki video from Matt
Isn’t kiseki Miracle?
Oh right
It has happened before...
XD
This series is legendary. I'm neck deep in it now using the fan translation for the two that haven't made it. This story is so much scary then I thought. I'm glad everyone made it out alive. They are all legends.
Great that you talked about this
It's both a cautionary tale and a happy ending about game localization
You could have added a word about the fact that this series trouble with localization doesn't end here, we only got to play the Crossbell arc (between trails in the sky and trails of cold steel ) thanks to fans going above and beyond dedication.
i have never clicked a wut happen so fast. trails is my favorite RPG series full stop. Im excited for the Geofront translation of Azure coming soon hopefully!
As far as I'm aware of it was completed recently.
Edit: just checked it, the translation process is done, but they are currently testing it.
@@diegohernandezruizvelasco3407 yeah I've been keeping up with it
Soon! We hope it'll live up to your expectations and thanks for being patient.
@@KillScottKill I follow you on twitter along with the other geofront guys and gals. I'll know when y'all finish 😂
@@KillScottKill if western publisher try to release crossbell duology are they trying to translate everything?? what happen if they try to buy geofront script?? are you guys allow it?? just curious
Man, I adore Falcoms games, really didnt expect to see something as niche as a Kiseki title covered here though.
Ayyy, nice profile pic
So glad some big youtuber pick up this game to get its deserved exposure. This series is worth your time to play guys, Every. Single. Of. It!
Don't pass on every series guys coz this game is interconnected to each other. I suggest if anyone is going to give it a try is to start on Liberl arc first then Crossbell arc and last Erebonia arc.
You can play the part 1&2 of Edebonia arc before playing Crossbell arc coz it happened at the same time. While the part 3&4 of Erebonia arc picks up after Crossbell arc.
Sounds like Jessica Chavez had to do an INSANE amount of work, multiple times over, to allow this game to realize its true potential in the English world. Bravo
Damn, that got unexpectedly dark.
I'm surprised Matt covered it all things considered. Thankfully it all worked out in the end.
what 1 day ago
@@Surululu Probably a Patreon supporter.
@@SpecialSupportSection Oh yeah
Tales of Symphonia shout outs, Matt! Nice!
Great video. Xseed deserves a lot of credit for their hard work translating Trails in the Sky series.
It seems slowly but surely Trails games are crawling out of total obscurity into relative obscurity and I am all for it. These games are nothing short of amazing.
Ik, every time I see more Trails vids on youtube, what is happening
So happy to see it slowly but surely get more and more recognition!
Well, it has been getting faster and faster recently but still, it would be amazing if more people would try this series out!
I love the Kiseki series, so glad we eventually got the rest of the games
Even though it took fans to get Zero and Azure in English. Amazing fans to be certain.
Not kuro
Wait, that's one of the best JRPGs i've ever player. This is going to be interesting.
Trails has one of my favorite battle and customization systems. If I'm remembering correctly It's like FF7's materia junctioning on steroids.
I don't remember much of the SC but the first game has great characters, fun interactions and world building. It was a great game.
Very much
Oh hey, Carpe Fulgur. Those guys started off early with translating Recettear on Steam. That game is so much fun, and the translation is full of really funny pop culture references.
the localization team deserves the praise and appreciation. Having played trails and its sc, it is one of the greatest rpgs that existed. though generic in some people's tastes, its one of the greatest generics in my book in terms of story telling, world building, and characters. I just wanna thank you the localization team for not giving up in this series. without them i would have never discovered this gem.
Wow. Had no idea about the history of these games. I’ve been enjoying the Trails series recently too. Mad respect for everyone involved.
The video shouldve ended on a cliffhanger just to add that trails flavor since falcom LOVES doing that
Because their project planning is non-existent.
I'm not joking: one of the big announcements for Kuro was that they actually have dedicated project planners for it.
Which honestly explains so much.
@@danielm.5078 Falcom and kondo habit of "we develop this game for too long and the scale is to big for one game, better to split it and gave people cliffhanger".
FC and SC back in 2004, CS 1 and 2, CS 3 and 4. Three times the charm indeed lol.
And every time they do this its always "initially this is going to be one game"
@@luthfikurniawan3099 Which is why the Crossbell arc is so good and CS is such a mess.
My original intention was to wait for the PC of Cold Steel IV, but then the cliffhanger of Cold Cold Steel III happened and I decided to not wait until pc release. Currently 60+ hours in, streaming it twice a week, and loving every second.
Should have ended on "and then there's the story of the crossbell fan translations"
Man, Trails in the Sky was such a good experience with such a good localization.
Breaks my heart to hear how the people who did such a good, incredibly difficult job suffered to get it done...
If you've ever enjoyed even a single JRPG, you should give it a try. It's beyond excellent!
Had no idea Falcom struggled so much to get Trails to the west, hell, we were quite close to not getting anything beyond SC or even FC, thank goodness they succeeded as it is my favorite game series of all time!
One of the most immersive game I've ever played
Like holy shit, this is like if a novel series is fully adapted 100% with no cut
Hell, you may even surprised how you'll be able to remember almost every the NPCs you've met
NPCs with no character sprite even goddamn. The world is actually moving with you and not you moving the world
Game fans: "Why don't video game makers give all the characters in their worlds personalities and unique stories so they can be more immersive?"
Localizers: "... so it's treason then."
Not. Yet.
I know a lot of bits and pieces of this story, but seeing it all together really illustrates how miraculous it was SC even got localized.
I was expecting a bit more on how FC and SC were supposed to be one game, but given that what we do know is very limited and amounts to a bunch of files for characters only in SC being in FC I can see why it was skipped over (it also doesn't have much to do with the localization troubles).
Not to detract from Matt's vid, but if you're interested you should check out Bowl of Lentils "The Early History of Falcom".
It's an hour, but definitely worth a view.
So apparently the script for Sky SC is roughly 716k words, and the LotR trilogy is 455k.
Meanwhile, Trails of Cold Steel 3 is over 1.1 million words, which just barely surpasses the entire harry potter series of books combined.
Yeah this series is insanely huge.
It manages to outdo WoT in text, which is about 4.4 million in word count. But combining all the arcs of Trails, it's enormous.
Coming back to this after learning that Andrew Dice was part of the localization team for the newest Trails Through Daybreak!
Shoutout to NIS for giving this man another chance with a proper team working on it this time, so glad to see the redemption!
Never heard of this series before, but those localization hurdles on the other hand...
Damn, this episode hit me way too close to home. I just wanna hug everyone involved.
WHOA WHAT MATT. DUDE THIS IS MY FAVORITE SERIES.
Trails in the Sky SC's localisation shenanigans are pretty well known at this point considering the number of news articles about it.
What is less documented however was what happened to the first game, Trails FC. Jessica was holding a blog on XSeed's website about how crunch-editing this game was hell, but what is less known is the translation side of things which involved the initial translator who peaced out mid-project all the while trolling and breaking NDAs in the background on news articles comment sections about XSeed and forums, which led XSeed to desperately find *someone* to carry on the translation even if they wouldn't be half-competent for it. Which only speaks for Jessica's massive endeavour to iron everything out in editing.
11:15
"Just fine"? Oh, good, I was getting nervous there for a moment.
11:17
*CURSE YOU NARRATOR!*
Wha happun has become my Saturday morning cartoon. Love to watch it, even when it’s about games and franchises I didn’t even know.
I've never played these games (though I want to now) and I never heard of any of these people or companies before, but holy shit hearing about someone being depressed and "writing a note" gave me some fucking feelings. So so glad Andrew was talked out of it. I hope he's doing okay.
I haven't played a game as engaging as trails in the sky fc in a long, long time. Every single piece of dialogue was interesting and I spoke with every NPC I could just to see what they were thinking about. Most games can't make me care about random NPCs, let alone the main characters. And given its age, its graphics have aged beautifully. I have to find the time for the next two games.
I think this is one of the most interesting videos you’ve made. I wasn’t aware of any of this, nor have any experience with the series so it’s kind of mind blowing.
Holy shit, never expected this! I'm always glad to see Trails getting more notice in the west. Thanks for another great video, Matt!
This is wild, I'm in Chapter 8 of SC right now. It's such a wonderful experience but you do NEED to play the first game. But if you play FC or SC without playing the other it's no fun at all. I will say I haven't noticed any issue with translation or errors on the PSP games so far. It is a fantastic story told at a great pace. They tackle a lot of difficult issues throughout the story and don't shy away from anything.
I just want relay my latest experience with the game, literally happened 30 minutes ago. I was wandering the world and found a character I recognized from a previous chapter. I talked to him and since I had a character with me who knew him they spoke to each other. He gave me a useful recipe and went on his way. There are 100's of hidden interactions like this that give you valuable items and resources. The reason Falcom encourages playing the game through is because you could find new stuff on playthrough 4 or 5. It's that dense.
Thank you for the video and introducing people to this wonderful game! I'm happy despite all the trouble it was translated and published in the West.
"If you know about any other arduous RPG adventures..."
Scope out Revelations: Persona, Matt. The very first Persona game was the first RPG Atlus localized into English; they screwed up so badly in their attempt that they didn't even finish translating the game before releasing it, and basically invented the modern approach to localizing stories set in contemporary Japan to avoid making the same mistake again.
Mark danced crazy!
Dancing crazy all night, baby!
Speaking of Persona, I still want to know the shenanigans behind the PSP version of Persona 2: Eternal Punishment that the US never got. Because right now, I'm still under the impression that Index (Atlus's owner before Sega) was trying to be cute.
[TL;DR for those who don't know: the US got the original Eternal Punishment on PS, but not the first game in the duology, Innocent Sin. The PSP remakes saw the situations reversed with no response as to why from Index whatsoever.]
This is wild. Something to think about as I have Trails of Cold Steel III and already pre-ordered Cold Steel IV. So many props to Jessica Chavez, on the localization of this series. But seriously, this helps to show how much work went into just one aspect of the game and really puts a magnifying glass to the hard work, a number of these localized games go through.
I followed this game through every step of the localization process. What a damn ride that was.
Probably the reason why we even get the Trails Series as a whole now!
Should be in the classics of Gaming History of saving a Franchise in the West.
I also bought TiTs FC in 2012/2013 as I knew it needed as much support as it needed.
In a weird twist of fate, all that happened may have actually helped.
Trails in the Sky, particularly SC and 3rd, are at their core, games that make more than a token effort to explore depression. It's a major part of *many* character arcs. The dialogue for SC and 3rd flows incredibly well and is reads like the translators actually understood what it meant to go through it. Because they did, the game may well have literally inflicted it upon them. And as awful as that suffering is, there's no shortage of soul in the localization just the same.
It's become a game I can literally recommend to people I know who suffer from depression, and universally they've told me they felt like the game truly understood it.
I was well aware of all the insanity that went on in this game's localization process but I'm glad this is spreading the word. More people need to know about the effort that went into this game. Despite everything, I feel like it coming out at the tail end of 2015 might have been a blessing in disguise, as the first Trails of Cold Steel was localized only a few months later. Cold Steel 1 wasn't as tied to previous arcs (warning: later Cold Steel games MOST DEFINITELY ARE), was on more mainstream consoles, was in 3D and... had waifus, so it increased the series' exposure a lot, and Sky SC's release and FC's re-release on Steam opened the door to a lot of new fans jumping into them after finishing Cold Steel. Sky The 3rd saw an English release in early 2017, around the time many people were finishing Cold Steel 2, so more good timing there.
Now I wondering when we'll be getting a Tales of Zestiria "What Happun"
Out of curiosity, I decided to use the 60fps patch for Tales of Zestiria. Really wished I had done that from the start. (It came bundled with the Tales of Berseria and the Tales of Symphonia patches but I didn't realize it until later.)
I think it's trickier due to how Japan doesn't really do post mortem style articles and likes to keep development woes private.
@@mokinokaro this, i would like to see it, but a lot of it would be conjecture or commonly cycled theories with non concrete evidence
You mean how Hideo Baba Decided Mid Development To Switch the main Heroine from Alisha to Rose and how that got a lot of Tales fans in Japan Mad to the point the Seiyuu of Rose had to apologize
@@miguelbarrera2468 That poor woman. It wasn't her fault at all, but she's still the one who took the brunt of the fan anger.
As someone who bought Trails in the Sky on a whim that winter of 2015 and now considers it my all-time favorite jrpg series, this was a really interesting look behind the curtain. Thanks for that!
A game that's not done yet, but has had problems from their Kickstarter campaign is "First Contact Paradise Lost"
I think that they were going fine, till something happened and got major delayed. Its a 2D game where you're a plant alien trying to escape. I loved the look and so I, and lots of others, funded it fully.
The Trails series (particularly Cold Steel) is one of my favorite RPG franchises, so I was hella hyped to watch this! I got into Cold Steel after reading about it in Game Informer, back in the 2010s. I'm even acquaintances with the voice actor from a key character in CSIV. Shouts to Jessica, Andrew, and everyone else involved for helping the series prosper in the west. I never knew that the games had THAT much dialogue!
I'm looking forward to future installments. Erebonia, forever!
And we're still waiting for Zero no kiseki and Ao no kiseki to be localized. But really didn't know the whole drama with the localization, and I'm glad it kinda worked out in the end and we at least have two of the series.
Thank goodness for the Geofront and their work! The Zero translation job is damn near professional-level, and I've been having a great time with playing it lately.
@@kupari906 I'm really looking forward to playing it, I'm still playing Sky SC at the moment, but I learned just yesterday about the Geofront work, and I'm glad I won't have to skip it, I just need to know how to acquire a legal copy of the game to use with the patch
@@EduardoJW There's a guide on their site on how to acquire a legal copy for both Zero and Ao/Azure so yeah.
@@haisekaneki4962 Yeah I tried getting it through DLsite, but due to limitations on purchase method I need to find some other way. But it will still take some time till I clear both SC and the Third, so I have time to figure it out
@@EduardoJW crossbell games are my favorite :)
As a Fan that enter the franchise in Coldsteel 1 on the PS3 era and then jumped into the hypewagon of the other games from there I never knew this.
The fact that in some other timeline I never experienced now one of my favorite franchises is just scary.
Thanks for the video Matt, and love and good wishes to everyone on Xseed and the localization team that make everything happen.
As someone who’s become a massive Trails fan since I began playing the games with Cold Steel 1 in early 2020, I’d heard from acquaintances about how SC’s localization was an arduous process.
Even so, I don’t think I quite understood the true depth of those difficulties until now. It’s... honestly kind of sobering.
And this is to say nothing about the Crossbell games, Trails from Zero and Trails to Azure, which still have no official localization, leading fan translation groups like Geofront to perform much thankless work themselves so that more people can play the games in English.
As Korean, FC was my childhood. I found PC version of FC and SC on Steam after completely forgetting about it for 10 years. My 20th birthday couldn't have been more special day playing FC for an entire day that day. If anyone hasn't checked out, Trails series is literally the best character study that has ever been executed in gaming history. It took a while, but Asian version is coming out on steam as well. So I will get to play official release of Crossbell arc in my home language before English speakers.
The rare What Happened episode where there's a good ending. You'd think it impossible, yet there it is.
Reminds me of that one Dr who episode where the doctor is just celebrating the fact that no one died and everyone came out intact
Glad to see more coverage of this series, and so glad I found it years ago. This is a gem of a series and something that now means a lot to me. The writing, music, characters, and world are fantastic!
Ah, my favorite RPG ever! I remember following that whole saga... God, it was anxiety-inducing even as a fan! You did your research really well!
Great video, but hard to watch. I just finished the first Trails in the Sky game about 2 months ago and just started SC. I had NO idea about anything that happened in this vid. The most heart wrenching part personally was hearing what happened to Carpe Fulgur 😭. I loved the work they put into releasing niche Japanese titles, and Recettear is still easily one of my all time favorite games. To hear that the reason I don't hear much of them anymore was probably directly related to this series, which I am currently in love with, just stabbed me in the heart. I truly hope CF is doing much better now and are staying happy and sane in this insane world we live in.
Suprised to see this game here especially since I am playing the Trails of Cold Steel series now.
That's the most popular saga
Mishy whack a mole is fun as hell
I've casually looked at the first game for years on Steam but seeing it in action really sells me on it
Looks like the most charming thing ever. The little stretching animation when the girl woke up is adorable and I am now convinced to buy these, especially after seeing all the trouble they have had
It's not cute. It's simply one of the best Jrpgs in terms of stories and twists.
@@RoanoraZoro123 It can be both, moron
They clearly put a lot of love into the sprite animation in addition to all the effort they put in to the story
🙄
I guess the translators were the Legend of Heroes all along
Christ, this is giving me flashbacks when I was working on Beast's Fury...
There were thankfully no extensive text since it wasn't an RPG, but it was the sheer number of frames of animation of the sprites we set out to do, as it was a fighting game
Oh shit, I knew this would eventually happen because the shit that happened when trying to translate this game was biblical
Major props to the whole crew that made ths Trails/Kiseki series take off and continue getting localizations here in English. More Falcom goodness the better!
Trails in the Sky the 3rd, is kind of a foundation for the rest of the games that come after Trails in the Sky. So in the grand scheme of things it is just as important, I feel.
It's just optional, when compared to the connected stories between FC and SC. I never said people shouldn't play it, or it wasn't good. For the purposes of this video however, it's not really relevant.
LoH Sky games got heavy Grandia 1 vibes, but spread across 3 games. Highly recommended if you liked that one.