I'm very new to the franchise but I beat Trails in the Sky 1 & 2 over the past month, and I loved them very much. It has been a long time since I have binged games like that.
However, I have quickly found myself struggling to stay engaged with 3 - it seems to be missing some spark that 1/2 had. I'm curious if it's known to have a slow start, if I'm just expecting it to be something it isn't, or if I'm just a fool for not being taken with it right away.
So I realize this post is over a year old but this is the only(!) Trails/Falcom community I could find on Lemmy. Maybe we can revive it lol!
Maybe you've already found your answer and moved on. Maybe you finished and loved it. Maybe someone else will stumble across this. I see this kind of question come up a lot.
Sky the 3rd is a very different game. It's much more linear, it's smaller in scope, it's a focus on different group. It was a big shift to go from Estelle, Joshua and co. to Kevin and Ries.
There's also no exploring the world and everything comes back to the hub world. I also found it to be very unbalanced. Most of the game is incredibly easy until the final dungeon. I breezed through until I got there and then was forced to grind because some of my party members were under leveled.
I also didn't like it at first but as willing to give it a chance. And I'm glad I did. Kevin's character arc and story paid off. This is very much a story about Kevin, the Church, and the Gralsritter. Some other characters do have their moments but this game by and large is about Kevin.
That's mostly what the Memory Doors are about. Giving the rest of the cast their moment in the spotlight.
There's also a certain boss fight in chapter 6 that was just so amazing. The way the boss just approaches, the music comes in and then the fight starts. I won't spoil it but that was probably one of the best fights in the entire trilogy.
Speaking of music it's also top quality here.
With all that said though surely that must mean I rank it highly? Well no.
My rankings would be this so far:
That's not to say I didn't like it, I did, but it's definitely the weakest game so far but is by no means bad. But I can totally understand why someone would drop it and not come back.