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The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky (英雄伝説(えいゆうでんせつ)VI 空の軌跡(ソラノキセキ); later releases: 英雄伝説(えいゆうでんせつ) 空の軌跡(ソラノキセキ) FC) is a role-playing game developed and published by Nihon Falcom for Windows in 2004, and the first installment in the Trails series. It was later re-released for PlayStation Portable, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Vita as well as mobile phones. Later release names drop the "VI" and add "FC" (stands for "First Chapter") to distinguish it from its sequels, while the English release names do not retain the "FC". It was directed by Toshihiro Kondo and produced by Masayuki Kato.

Synopsis

Setting

Trails in the Sky FC follows the journey of Estelle and Joshua Bright, as they train to become bracers in the Liberl Kingdom. As such, they travel through the five regions of Rolent, Bose, Ruan, Zeiss, and finally Grancel. Their journey through the regions has them encountering challenges they must solve as they pursue the rank of the senior bracer. From the small-scale theft of an expensive crystal to the country-wide military coup of Liberl, they encounter all facets of the Liberl of S.1202.

Trails in the Sky FC is the first game on the continent of Zemuria, and it sets up many things seen in the next game Trails in the Sky SC, as well as in future installments in the series.

Plot

Prologue - A Father's Love, A New Beginning

In S.1197, young Estelle Bright is at the Bright Family House one night when Cassius Bright returns home from business. Cassius brings home a injured boy with black hair and amber eyes, Joshua Astray. Cassius adopts Joshua into the Bright family while Estelle "interrogates" him.

Five years later in S.1202, Estelle awakens to Joshua playing The Whereabouts of Light on his harmonica on the day the two of them are to take the test to become junior bracers. After Cassius gives 500 Mira to Estelle to buy a copy of Liberl News - Issue 1 from Rinon General Goods while they are in town, they head out to the City of Rolent to meet their mentor Scherazard Harvey at the Rolent Bracer Guild. They speak to Aina briefly before heading upstairs to interrupt Schera doing a Tarot card reading. Schera explains what they will do for the bracer test and allows Estelle and Joshua to review details about orbments, the Bracer Guild, and the Liberl Kingdom. Schera then skips to the practical training portion of the junior bracer test. Estelle and Joshua go back to the guild house, where they receive a Bracer Notebook from Aina and accept the quest "Training: Retrieval.", the quest that will test them on how real bracers do their work. They then cross the street to Melders Orbal Factory and can review details on Combat Orbments, Orbal Arts, quartz, and sepith with Melders.

After allowing them to set up their combat orbments, Schera drags Estelle with Joshua following to the sewer entrance to start their training quest in the Rolent Sewers. Their task is to retrieve the contents of a chest at the end of the sewers. Before going in, they receive the Monster Guide and 3 Tear Balm items. They fight five scripted battles to introduce attacking, Arts, Crafts, S-Crafts, and Battle Order Bonuses, with the last battle being the monster guarding the quest item. They successfully retrieve the quest item, which are two sealed small boxes. They return to the guild, report the quest, and head upstairs to receive their Junior Bracer Emblems from the small boxes, certifying them as new junior bracers.

Estelle and Joshua, on their way home, are interrupted by Aina with a quest to retrieve Luke and Pat from Esmelas Tower. They head to the second floor of the tower, find the kids, and save them from a set of monsters. Estelle starts scolding Luke and almost gets ambushed by more monsters, but Cassius arrives just in time to defeat them. During dinner, Cassius says he has to leave Rolent for a couple weeks on business and leaves some bracer work in Liberl, with the easier tasks going to Estelle and Joshua and the harder ones going to Schera.

Estelle and Joshua's first job is to head out to Perzel Farm and take care of monsters destroying their crops. They do their rounds at night after conversations involving their feelings during the day. After chasing and taking down the monsters, they decide whether they should be exterminated, but ultimately release the monsters once the Perzels believe that the monsters will stop eating the crops after they were captured by Estelle and Joshua.

Their second job is from Rolent's Mayor Klaus, who wants them to retrieve a valuable Septium Crystal from Malga Mine. They retrieve the Esmelas Crystal from Mining Chief Gaton and then must rescue the five miners working on the lower level as well as escort Gaton out due to a cave-in that leads to monsters pouring in. They interrupt a girl in a Jenis Royal Academy outfit, Josette Haar when returning with the crystal. The crystal was to be a gift from Rolent for the Queen's 60th Birthday Celebration in 6 months.

Their final job is to escort a reporter and his camerawoman, Nial Burns and Dorothy Hyatt, to the top of Esmelas Tower to get pictures of the device on top. After meeting Dorothy in the Melders Orbal Factory, they head up and encounter a lone scholar, Professor Alba. Professor Alba enthusiastically explains his interest in archaeology and ancient artifacts such as the Tetracyclic Towers and the Sept-Terrion. Estelle and Joshua then escort Nial, Dorothy, and Professor Alba from the tower after they finish looking around.

Returning to the guild, Mayor Klaus bursts in exclaiming that he had been robbed while he was out speaking to Father Divine. No one was hurt, but the bracers are to begin an investigation to find out what happened. They head to the Mayor's Residence and determine that someone got into the house on the second floor to break into the safe and steal the Esmelas Crystal. The culprits were likely 3 or 4 people, one of them being short, and evidence suggested that at least one had visited recently due to the method used to open the safe. They also discover a Servais Leaf in the attic where the mayor's family members were locked up.

The evidence leads them to the conclusion that Josette is a suspect. Since Josette had checked out of Hotel Rolent and didn't pass through the Rolent Landing Port, they figured there was another place she arrived from. The Servais Leaf was a clue that she had been to Mistwald Forest. Estelle, Joshua, and Schera go to Mistwald Forest and encounter the Capua Sky Bandits, including Josette, who turns out to be Josette Capua, deep within the forest. They recover the stolen crystal, but Kyle Capua arrives with the Capua's airship, and escape with the other Sky Bandits and Josette.

Estelle and Joshua get a recommendation from the Rolent Bracer Guild for their promotion to senior bracers after the good work they did with solving the cases left behind by Cassius. They will need to travel to the other branches in Liberl and recieve reccomendations from them to be promoted. After this, they get a call that the airliner Linde had disappeared over the Bose region. Since Cassius was to leave on the Linde for business, this worries Estelle and Joshua who wanted to share their successes with their dad and decide what to do next.

Chapter 1 - Disappearance of the Linde

Estelle, Joshua, and Schera have dinner at the Bright Family House. Estelle decides they will walk to the Bose region to continue their journey since airliners are downed while the army investigates the disappearance of the Linde. Schera says she'll tag along, and Joshua comes too. In the morning, Schera and Aina discuss a job Schera's working on as Estelle mourns the loss of her mother Lena Bright on the clock tower ten years prior before they leave Rolent.

The three of them cross into the Bose region through the Verte Bridge checkpoint, one of the many checkpoints connecting the 5 regions together. They encounter Grant escorting a cargo truck towards Grancel because of downed airliners.

They meet Lugran in the Bose Bracer Guild, who explains the situation in Bose: General Morgan, who is in charge of the army in Bose, is not sharing any information with the general public (or the guild, considered civilian and personally disliked by Morgan) about the state of their search for the Linde. Additionally, the army is restricting civilians (and the guild) from entering areas they are investigating, causing conflict with the guild. Lugran informs them of a way forward, which is to meet Mayor Maybelle, who has a request for them. Estelle and Joshua transfer their junior bracer registration to the Bose region so they can accept bracer jobs before heading out.

The three of them check the Mayor's Residence, then the Bose Chapel (and encounter Lila), but don't find the mayor in both locations. Lila then lead them to the Bose Marketplace, where they find Maybelle in the market reprimanding two merchants for raising their prices of goods due to all flights are suspended. Maybelle introduces herself, and they went to the Anterose Restaurant for further discussion on her request, where Maybelle explains her political role in Bose and how she owns Bose Market, inherited from her late father. After that, she explains why she directly requested that the bracers investigate the disappearance of the Linde, as she firmly believes bracer guild would be better suited to investigate the mystery rather than the army. She writes a letter to give to General Morgan at Haken Gate, the gate between Liberl and Erebonia, to allow them to speak with General Morgan in order to get as much information as possible from the army.

The party of three arrive at Haken Gate without incident to find that General Morgan is out. They remove their bracer badges to try to avoid conflict with General Morgan. While waiting in the inn and bar at Haken Gate, they encounter a peculiar blond-haired traveler from Erebonia. He pursues a conversation until the sentry informs them the general has returned. The traveler follows them out as if invited along, to the party's annoyance. He is shooed back into the bar.

Because it's a request from Morgan's childhood friend Maybelle, as well as a request from the mayor, and since Estelle, Joshua, and Schera didn't mention they are bracers, General Morgan agrees to disclose the entire situation. The Linde disappeared on the way to Rolent after taking off from the Bose Landing Port. Morgan does not believe it crashed or anything involving monster behavior occurred, or else they would have found the crash. The party, which Morgan only knows as civilian messengers of Maybelle, conclude with the possibility that someone hijacked the airship for the cargo or to demand ransom for the passengers and that the Imperial Army could be involved. Morgan confirms that was his conclusion as well, but is suspicious of the party's quick judgment.

Morgan continues to say that it was not the Imperial Army as the Capua Family, the Sky Bandits, sent a letter to the Royal Family and Orbalship Co. claiming responsibility and demanding a ransom. Estelle has a slip of the tongue and reveals the party as those who encountered the Capuas in Rolent. Morgan throws them out for being deceitful bracers and argues fiercely in the courtyard with Schera about military incompetency, guild incompetency, and secrecy of information.

The traveler from Erebonia interrupts the argument with a verse of Amber Amour, accompanied by his lute. The mood changed, Morgan leaves to return to his duty, with the order to not let the bracers in again. The party, trying not to acknowledge the traveler, return to the bar to discuss returning to Bose with the information they gathered. The traveler joins them and finally introduces himself as Olivier Lenheim, a wandering bard and musician. After some introductions and a "normal" conversation with Olivier, he joins the party as he's also heading to Bose and would like to accompany them.

At Bose, Olivier leaves the party to go sightseeing while Estelle and co. take the opportunity to report to Mayor Maybelle. Outside the mayor's residence, Estelle and co. arrive to see Nial and Dorothy getting pushed away by Lila, the maid. Lila tells them that they were just after an interview and let they go in. In the Mayor's Residence, Maybelle is not surprised by General Morgan's reaction to them being bracers and states that they did well. She then tells the trio to continue their investigation, and so the group goes to report at the Bracer Guild.

After reporting, Estelle and co. go to the tavern and talk to Nial who gives them a tip on the Linde's disappearance in exchange for the current information on the Linde's disappearance. The group then decide to go on some side-quests, where they meet up with Professor Alba again and end up heading to Ravennue Village to check out Nial's hint. On the way to Ravennue, they met Agate Crosner, another Senior Bracer. The group talks for a bit, but then Agate leaves to go on another job.

Arriving in Ravennue, Estelle and co went to the Elder's house and found out that it was a little kid called "Lewey" who saw it. The group visits Lewey who tells them what happened and how the soldiers had thought that he imagined things. Estelle cheers him up, and after surmising that they are headed to the mine behind the town, they led to Ravennue Mine where they discover it locked. Estelle and co backtracked and got the key from the mayor and after unlocking it, enter the mine.

In the mine, Estelle and the others discover Kyle Capua of the Sky Bandits emptying the airship of any valuable goods and supplies. They then confront him and beat him, however, he gets away via smokescreen. After the smoke clears, Estelle and the others decide to explore the airship for any clues. Seeing that the ship is empty, the group heads outside and encounter the army along with General Morgan. Despite trying to explain their story, General Morgan falsely arrests them; much to Estelle's ire.

(..........Still to be finished)

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Chapter 2 - Madrigal of the White Magnolia

The next day, Estelle and Joshua say goodbye to everyone in Bose and head to Ruan. It is sunset by the time they arrive at the Krone Pass Checkpoint, so they decide to spend the night there. After dinner, a guard comes into their traveler's lodging and asks if they can set aside room for one more person. Estelle and Joshua accept his request and in walks Agate.

Agate greets the trio, and they ask if he wants dinner. Agate declines and says that he wants to sleep and leave the next morning. Estelle rages at his rude behavior, and Joshua tells her to leave him alone. Later that night, Estelle, Joshua, and Agate wake up to the sound of a monster attack. Agate tells the pair to stay in the room, but they go out to help nevertheless. After hearing monsters on the opposite side of the gate, Agate orders Estelle and Joshua to go check it out. Estelle and Joshua arrive just in time to save an injured guard, and they defeat the monsters. Agate and the commander comes and commends them on a job well done. After treating the wounded guard, everyone goes back to bed, and Estelle and Joshua wake up the next morning to find that Agate had already left.

Leaving the checkpoint, Estelle and Joshua come across the sea and marvel at its beauty. They then head to Manoria Village and lead to the local inn. At the chef's recommendation, the pair buy some lunchboxes and have a picnic on one of the benches outside the windmill. Estelle and Joshua share an unknowing couple's moment and get up to leave. Heading down the hill, they encounter a little boy who pickpockets Estelle's Bracer Badge and runs off. Noticing that her badge is gone, Estelle and Joshua ask around and find out the boy is an orphan called "Clem" who lives at Mercia Orphanage which is on the way to Ruan. The pair then head to Mercia Orphanage.

(..........Still to be finished)

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Chapter 3 - The Black Orbment

bathhouse scene

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Final Chapter - Turmoil in the Royal City

tournament scene

oh and some coup or something

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Development

After the release of Eiyuu Densetsu V: Umi no Oriuta for PC in 1999, Falcom decided not further to develop the world of Gagharv and started working on a new world.[1] For this world they borrowed many components from the Gagharv trilogy, such as villages filled with NPC that you can interact. To create a sense of distinctiveness for the new series, they stuck with the theme of an industrial revolution.

One employee’s interest in mechanical clockworks led to the idea of combining these with magical powers. From this, the Orbment (a portmanteau of ‘orb’ and ‘movement’) device was born. For the atmosphere of Liberl, the developers let themselves inspired by images of Swiss and Austria. The rest of the kingdom was shaped after Thailand, where Falcom president Toshihiro Kondo resided for a while.

In contrast to the Gagharv trilogy, Kondo wanted to have a female protagonist. Since the team responded somewhat bewildered to this proposal, they initially swapped Estelle Bright and Joshua Bright’s sexes; Estelle wore Joshua’s outfit and vice versa. They added characters with more experience to supervise the two inexperienced protagonists, which ended up becoming Scherazard Harvey and Agate Crosner. Zin Vathek was initially called Sidoh Vassek. Orbments were initially called ‘Prisms,’ but Falcom wanted to introduce a new term for the device and eventually settled on ‘Orbment.’

There were also plans to have Estelle’s father, Cassius Bright, die in the early stages of the game to create a shock effect, but still plan was scrapped. Kondo felt that having someone as strong as Cassius’ alongside the protagonists would limit their growth throughout the game.

Announcement

Sora no Kiseki - Hot Information (FC)

Header of the first website.

Early Map of Liberl (FC)

Early map of Liberl.

Falcom started teasing 'the next Legend of Heroes' game in their Hot Information newsletter throughout 2002. They revealed the title of the game, shared screenshots to show off the game's 3D environments and provided the following description in English:

“After the disruption of the world, people who lost all live a dissolute life. But "Orbment", the great fortune which "Sept-Terrion" left, bring the hope to the people who survived. "Orbment", which people made "Septium" into, gave people a light, warmth, and power. The workings of people are spreading over sea and sky again. Liberl Kingdom, the small constitutional monarchy whitch Princess Arisia governs, prosper being second to none as an "Orbment" exporting country. "Orbment" whitch made in Liberl Kingdom is good quality in comparison with the great neighboring powers' one. People live strongly cling to something on the earth where a blade of glass had not left. No "road" may exit this world from the first. If many people walk, that place would become a "road".”
— Sora no Kiseki, early flyers

Falcom revealed the game in earnest in March 2003.[2] It was announced as a new world and setting from the previous games of the Gagharv Trilogy. They also confirmed that the protagonist would be a female character.

Sora no Kiseki FC - Development script

Photo of the script used for Sora no Kiseki FC.

In an interview with the developers published around the same time,[3] they initially pondered whether to continue building on the world established in the Gagharv Trilogy or to make some loose connection. They re-evaluated the older titles in the series to determine what their players liked, which differed from person to person. Favourite aspects include the combination of a male and female protagonist, the moralising but otherwise good-natured characters in the world and old characters, but also the serious themes that came with societies and civilisations wrapped in an overarching story.

How The Legend of Heroes V: Cagesong of the Ocean tied the loose ends of the previous two games together, was much appreciated by fans and development members alike. Rather than expanding on what all of them considered to be a finished story, they started drafting a new challenge to incorporate their experiences from the Gagharv Trilogy even more profoundly. As Falcom started from scratch again, the development team began their brainstorm sessions.

They revealed the new world of the Liberl Kingdom, Bracer Guilds and Orbments and six main characters: Estelle Bright, Joshua Bright, Olivier Lenheim, Scherazard Harvey, Tita Russell, and Agate Crosner.

Release

Eiyuu Densetsu VI: Sora no Kiseki was released on June 24, 2004. The first edition of the game was shipped with the Sora no Kiseki Visual Guide & Materials, the Sora no Kiseki Super Arrange Version CD and the Hoshi no Arika single CD.

Trails in the Sky FC was initially released as Eiyuu Densetsu VI: Sora no Kiseki for Windows on 24 June 2004. A port for the PlayStation Portable was released in Japan on 29 March 2006. Through a collaboration with XSEED, this PSP version was localised and released as The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky in North America 29 March 2011 and in Europe, published by Ghostlight Games, on 4 November 2011. XSEED released an upgraded PC version of the game through Steam on 29 July 2014, which makes use of the high-resolution assets of the PlayStation 3 release, which released only in Japan on 13 December 2012. An upgraded port of the PSP version as part of Chara-Ani's 'Evolution series' for PlayStation Vita was released on 11 June 2015.

Scrapped content

In the game's Prologue, Professor Alba's explanation on the Sept-Terrion, the Ancient Zemurian civilisation, and the Aureole was initially planned to have one background visual for each of the three topics.

Further proof that FC and SC were initially in development as one game can be found in the game files. Portraits of the following characters have been replaced with 'Now Printing' text, referring to the upcoming release of SC: Bleublanc (230), Mary-Ann (later renamed to Luciola, 240), Walter (250) and Renne (260).

Reception

Production credits

Main article: The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky FC/Credits

Gallery

Key Visuals

Concept Art

Key Visuals (Evo)

Visuals (Evo)

References

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