Video Game Review: Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

 

Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter is a remake of the very first game in Nihon Falcom's now longrunning Trails series of JRPGs (itself a subseries of an even longer series, The Legend of Heroes). The series is probably the closest thing to a long running fantasy book series I've ever seen in video games, with the series now featuring 13 games, each of which continues a long running story - even if the 13 games are broken into essentially four different arcs that each follow a different series of characters (with old characters often coming back). The series started as kind of a mess in terms of how it got to English-speaking audiences, with the first Trails in the Sky game coming out in Japan in 2004 and not hitting the US until 2011 and the second Trails in the Sky game hitting Japan in 2006 but not hitting the US until 2015. So English audiences have always been behind - often very behind - Japanese audiences in terms of where the series is, although Falcom is now releasing the 13th game in the series (Trails Beyond the Horizon) this January, which will align the Japanese and English audiences for the first time. Given that the series is now more popular than ever and is finally being released worldwide at almost the same time, Falcom took the chance now to release this remake, which takes place in the very beginning of the series, hoping to give audiences a new entry point into the series that won't overwhelm them.

Just to be clear, I'm a bit of a Trails superfan here. I got into the original Trails in the Sky games after they were mentioned on Kotaku and have been hooked on Trails since, even buying Japanese versions of the two games that were originally skipped by localizations (and playing with a translation patch) just to keep myself fully up to date. Moreover, even after playing 12 of these games, the original Trails in the Sky games might be my favorite due to their simple but refined gameplay and incredible story and characters they contain, especially the slow-burn coming of age romance story of protagonists Estelle and Joshua Bright. The original Trails in the Sky games also contain what might be the most perfect localization, which really punches up the script to add fun and lovability to the characters. So yeah, this game is a remake of one of my favorite games ever, which means I'm holding this game up to an incredibly high standard.

And to its credit, Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter does a remarkable job remaking the original game here into something more modern audiences might be willing to take a chance on and enjoy. The game has gone from mini 3d sprites to full cell shaded 3d graphics and looks absolutely beautiful, the voice acting is generally really great, and the gameplay mixes real time and turn based combat like the most recent Trails games in an excellent and addictive combination. They've kept the original story pretty much entirely, but thrown in a few extra new sidequests that flesh out a few of the side characters and are enjoyable in their own right without being too distracting, which I very much appreciated, and some of the rebalancing of existing abilities from the original game work pretty well. This is a really good game and definitely one I recommend playing either in general or for those who have always been curious about Trails and never knew where to start. That said, I do have a few complaints that make me wonder what could have been: the game loses quite a bit of the original's difficulty as it has added more gameplay systems and most importantly, the new localization by Gung-Ho Games doesn't adhere to long established series terminology (which is really annoying) and doesn't carry over some of the most charming and highlight lines of dialogue/translation that was present in the original localizations. But even this more literal localization still conveys about 95% of the charm and fun of the original to the extent that new players will still find out why I love this story so much, so it's not nearly the problem it could hav been.

I'm going to go into more specifics beneath the jump here, but not too specific since I don't want to bog down this review. I have made a separate post where I go way WAY too in depth into my thoughts on the gameplay and mechanics and localization stuff, for anyone who might care. You can find that overly specific breakdown HERE.

Video Game Way Too In-Depth Breakdown: Trails in the Sky

In this post, I'm going to go in depth into my thoughts on the systems and changes in Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. Apologies if this is more of a ramble, but I need to get out my thoughts somewhere and they're way too involved for a review. I'm also not going to go too much into localization here - suffice to say I really badly miss some of the best lines that were removed from this game (an Evil Penguin? Do Not Insert Foot Into Mouth. etc), the terminology screwups here with "Orbal Golems" replacing archaisms among many other things, and just the lazy things like straight translating all monster ingredients as "Monster eyes", "Monster Tenders" so that they all seem the same unless you look carefully, which led to me being unable to complete my recipe book damnit. Others, especially those more familiar with the Japanese and translation, have covered those better elsewhere.

So let's talk gameplay changes - and spoilers here are present, so this will all go beyond the jump:

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Silver and Lead by Seanan McGuire

 

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 30, 2025 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Silver and Lead is the 19th mainline book in Seanan McGuire's October Daye series of urban fantasy novels, one of my favorite ongoing series out there. It's the first book in basically 2 years, and also takes place after a major two part event in the series that took place over books 17 (Sleep No More) and 18 (The Innocent Sleep). I'm not going to spoil those books or that even before the jump (after is fair game), but it was a major gamechanger in terms of the mental states of the characters. This is something McGuire has kind of done a bunch of times in the series, and often it is followed by a novel that keeps up the stakes but ends in a way that calms things down into a more stable and temporarily happier status quo.

Silver and Lead doesn't quite go in that direction as much, (we end up with a new status quo change that is kind of happier but still extremely tense), and while it's another solid October Daye novel (I think my low score for any of these book is a 7.5, just to be clear), I struggled with some parts of this novel for a few reasons. We again have one old antagonist returning in a bit role, whose capabilities the main characters should be well beyond at this point, so say nothing of the "new" central antagonist. That's to be expected after our last book had one of the 3 essentially gods of Faerie as an antagonist I guess, but it rung me wrong. The central surprise antagonist of this book is what kind of saves this one from being one of the other books with this similar issue (Book 12, Night and Silence, comes to mind), and I'm intrigued on how things go from here so October Daye fans should still be satisfied, especially with the tease at the end of this book.

Spoilers for Books 1 through 18 below, I can't talk around them further here. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. I may post a spoilery post also for this book after this book's actual release too.

Fantasy Novella Review: Audition for the Fox by Martin Cahill

 

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on September 16, 2025 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Audition for the Fox is the first piece of long fiction by Martin Cahill, known in the SF/F space for short fiction and for being an editor at Erewhonian (and probably other places too before that). The story follows a young woman Nesi who desperately seeks a position as an acolyte of one of the 99 Pillars (deities) and reluctantly seeks the position from T'sidaan, the Fox of Tricks...only for the Fox to send her back 300 years in time to the time her people were conquered and oppressed and challenged to find a way to start a revolution. The result is an excellent setting and world, with a really strong lead character, excellent storytelling, and some solid themes of family, oppression, emotions and hurt, and justice.

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Isle in the Silver Sea by Tasha Suri

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on October 21, 2025 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

The Isle in the Silver Sea is a new stand alone romantic fantasy from award winning British fantasy author Tasha Suri. I've really enjoyed Suri's past work, as she deals with the historical colonizing of countries like India as well as themes of empire and oppression in what are generally all new fantasy worlds. Her work is not subtle, but it has always been incredibly creative with really strong (and often queer) characters who struggle with impossible choices set upon them by oppression and love. I've actually not finished her last trilogy yet despite enjoying the first two books and wouldn't have gone on to her new book...except that I kept seeing on social media advance reviewers I trust that were just utterly raving about it. And so I picked up The Isle in the Silver Sea.

And I'm super glad I did, because the Isle in the Silver Sea is utterly tremendous. The story is a romantic fantasy in a Britain that is sustained literally by the repetition of stories/tales, where incarnations of the characters in such stories are repeatedly reborn to play out the stories again and again so as to sustain the land around them. And the story follows two such incarnations - a Witch who is supposed to enchant innocents from her mountain abode and a Knight who is supposed to fall in love with her and then kill them both for honor - as they seek to find a different path and break the ties that bind them to this depressing fate. Like all Tasha Suri books, the book is remarkably unsubtle (maybe even less so than usual), as it plays with themes of power, of love, of the changing of stories and the different stories different peoples tell, and of what stories and which peoples really make up a nation like Britain. But it works so incredibly well, with the characters being tremendous and the themes being extremely strong and I suspect these themes and characters will play even stronger for readers who are not cis white Americans like myself (especially for British readers). An absolute must read.

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Thief Liar Lady by D.L. Soria

 

Full Disclosure: This book was read as an e-ARC (Advance Reader Copy) obtained via Netgalley from the publisher in advance of the book's release on June 6, 2023 in exchange for a potential review. I give my word that this did not affect my review in any way - if I felt conflicted in any way, I would simply have declined to review the book.

Thief Liar Lady is the first adult book by author D.L. Soria, who has published at least three YA novels under the name Destiny Soria. I've rather liked Soria's YA work, especially the very underrated Beneath the Citadel, which took what seemed like a classic premise (group of teens fight against fascist government which beat their parents) and took it in very wild directions, complete with a shocking to me ending choice by one of othe characters. Thief Liar Lady, despite being adult fic, is similar in that it is also taking a familiar premise - it's a Cinderella adaptation- and trying to take in very different directions. Here, Cinderella is a con artist using magic to attract her prince as part of a scheme by her greedy stepmother and also attempting to use her position to help her actual grandmother, who is a leader in a resistance movement of a people/country subjugated by the royal family. And so the classic dynamics of the Cinderella story change greatly.

The result is a story that is often compelling and got to the point where I found myself 60% through unable to continue for a while, for fear of what would happen to the protagonist and major secondary character I really liked. The conflicts in the setting, and the themes of power, of oppression, of what one should do for a people so oppressed that one only has a tenuous connection to, of heritage and sacrifice, and of how much use of power and control is too much...are well done and interesting, but the book kind of cops out in its last few acts as its protagonist Ash has to respond to events going seriously out of control, and the book's happy ending almost feels like a cop out. Worth a read, if one can handle the trigger warning (see below).

Note: Prior Soria books have featured a mix of straight and queer romances; this book however deals solely with a straight romance and I don't think any queer characters exist, so fans who enjoyed the queer parts of Soria's early works should know they aren't present here.

Trigger Warning: NON-CONSENSUAL Romantic/Sexual relationships. There isn't any traditional rape or sexual abuse on page, but the protagonist begins the book using magical power to entrance the royal prince....and as things get worse, there comes a moment she uses a stronger enchantment resulting in what can only be considered non-consensual sex or rape (with neither party really giving consent). It's very morally dark and while the book never pretends it's okay at all, it may be too much for many readers and the book isn't compelling enough in its themes for me to advise people to push past that anyway.

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: Our Lady of the Artilects by Andrew Gillsmith

Our Lady of the Artilects is a self-published Sci-Fi novel by author Andrew Gillsmith. It's also a Self-Published Sci-Fi Competition Quarterfinalist - as voted by a different judging panel than the one I'm on - and my judging group decided to take a look at it to see if it was worthy of being a semifinalist, with one member of my group thinking really highly of it. That said, the review she posted of the book noted that the book is very faith based and Catholic faith based in general and she wondered how someone who wasn't Christian might take the book. So I was really curious how this would or would not appeal to me as a Jewish Reader.

And well....the answer is, it doesn't really, due to a number of factors that made it hard to enjoy this book. The book is written generally well, and the author does a good job setting up plot threads and characters and writing in very readable prose, although that prose is based in Catholic thought that I am often unfamiliar with. But the book's future premise seems to be based upon a future version of our world that is filled with Catholics, Muslims, and almost no one else and uses past and current atrocities as setup for its ideas in ways that...was disconcerting in a sense. It made it hard to really recommend his book to anyone who isn't very familiar and into catholic or perhaps some other Christian liturgies, and that's not me and I don't think that's the general SPSFC4 audience either.