An outlet for my video game ramblings with focus on JRPGs. Story spoilers are mostly marked as such. visit backloggery & progress overview for mini reviews and current activity.
In 2015, I made a shrine to Rose from The Legend of Dragoon. (A shrine is a type of fansite; see my recently adopted anime, manga and video game shrine directory for more shrines.)
I've spent the past few weeks revamping it, which entails a new layout, new and revised content, and a wealth of functionality. The shrine should be much easier to read, skim and navigate now! You can find it here:
rose.oubliette.nu
Here's the full change log for those who may remember it.
Many thanks to @hugtherobots, who I commissioned back in 2018 for the fan art that would form the basis of the new layout. She has captured my vision of Rose perfectly, and without her, this revamp would never have come about! <3
Design Notes
Below, I have copied the thoughts that went into this layout as recorded on the Shrine Motifs page (MAJOR SPOILER WARNING for the game).
The image was inspired by two pieces of official art, namely the ones of Furni the Water City and Capital Vellweb, and a verse from the theme song: “If from where you’re standing / you can see the sky above…”
When I think of Rose, this is how she appears in my mind’s eye: her solitary back turned to the party and the viewer, gaze drifting off into the distance; alert, slightly standoffish, proud, resolute, unbending, wistful, lonely.
For most of the game, this is her body language as she keeps to the back, always maintaining some distance between the group and herself, gaze lowered. This is how she is depicted in three out of four pieces of scenic official art before, in the piece that chronologically comes last, she finally stands side by side with her comrades and looks into the same direction, facing the future at long last.
In The Legend of Dragoon, your quest has you revisit many ancient sites of the far past, strongholds of both sides in the war, most of them little more than ruins now. Among them, Capital Vellweb with its throne of the Holy Emperor and even more so its Tower of the Seven Dragoons arguably holds the most personal significance to Rose. When the party arrives at Vellweb, Rose relays to Dart what hopes the place used to carry for the Human side during the war.
Not one to speak much of herself, I wonder what thoughts came to Rose’s mind as she gazed at the ruins of the capital, back turned to the viewer both in the game and also in the official art, where she is so far in the background that I had hardly noticed her when I first looked at the piece. Did she reminisce on the time she had dwelt in that place as a hero of the people, on the moments she spent with her comrades? How did she feel in that instant, returning with a new group of comrades to retread once familiar steps of staircases long turned to dust?
I had meant to revamp the shrine when I received dubiousdisc’s gorgeous piece, but was stumped on assets to incorporate the ruins into the layout. On a random evening in 2022, I looked, not for the first time, at Anastezia Luneva’s graphic collection The Northern Fields — and it struck me to try applying it to this shrine, even if there were no ruins to be found. It reminded me of the Prairie that the small party crosses at the start of the journey (though its somber colours are closer to Marshlands or Nest of Dragon), and something about it seemed so very wistful, as if calling to old times that will never return.
Though I had initially only meant to use one piece of landscape from the collection, the layout took its own shape from there. A watercolour shape made for a good makeshift silhoutte of the Tower of the Seven Dragoons when turned upside down, and from afar, the birds almost resemble Dragons (a nod to the game’s epilogue?). Even the various ornamental borders made their way into the layout, breathing life into its pages as into a well-worn history book.
In the end, I have, by pure chance, achieved my vision of Rose standing firmly in the present, gazing with undefined melancholia at the looming derelict contours of the distant past. Are the birds actual birds or are they Dragoons, and if so, of which age? Past and present collide.
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The fansite (shrine) community I’m in is currently holding an event where we upload our sites incomplete, then gradually release content on them as public works in progress - rather than uploading sites pretty much finished. I’m participating withÂ
Sway - a dedication to Gwendolyn.
You can refer to my plug topic at the community forums for more information (which is also where I’ll be posting updates, aside from my network’s update log), but basically, introductory pages are all up so far along with analysis from the beginning of Gwendolyn’s story (about 30-40% of the site). For those unfamiliar with the game, here is my introduction of it as well as to the recently released Leifthrasir!
I make fansites to get more deeply involved with things I love and to put that love into words for archiving and sharing. My desire to create sites usually starts with specific topics I’d like to address in an essay. For Gwendolyn, those are her different relationships and her parallels to Oswald, but also her place in Odin Sphere’s narrative, including its immensely strong and well-written female characters as well as the quiet coming of age elements of the story that accompany the many battles and the encroaching doom. I’m looking forward to writing about all that!
If you have any feedback or suggestions, or if I got any infos wrong on my site, don’t hesitate to let me know! :D My ask box is open, and my contact data is on the site.
Thanks so much to @kougyokuss​ and @grraveryl​ for generously sharing their Odin Sphere resources with me and the Tumblr fandom! <3 <3 I will probably poke some people and the tag in the next few days to ask for clarification regarding some Leifthrasir scans and whether or not I may display them at the gallery on the site.
If you’ve enjoyed my dedication to Rose from The Legend of Dragoon, Valkyrie, you might be interested in my Gwendolyn dedication as well! Both of them are solitary warriors who firmly stand up for their beliefs even if it means having to fight all alone, and both struggle with their many different roles, still in search of their true self.
One thing that will always have my heart is also the way myths shape the world of The Legend of Dragoon's Endiness, especially as its inhabitants interpret them differently, and there’s a hidden truth to all of it. This is the same for Odin Sphere’s Erion! So if you aren’t familiar with Odin Sphere yet, have a look at my introduction to it, and maybe browse some of the spoiler-free pages of the site. :>
I recently beat Costume Quest 2, and while it certainly wasn’t anything to write home about (and I think I preferred the first one more), it got me thinking about how I wish more RPGs took a page out of its book; the series is full of charm, and maybe most interestingly, stars kids. The only other game series I can really compare it to is the Mother series; I think the CQ series takes most of its Mother-ly (Get it?) cues from Earthbound, the most popular and well-known of the Mother series. Of what I’ve played of the Mother series (Earthbound and Mother 3), it certainly has its charm, but a lot of it also just veers into quirky-for-the-sake-of-quirky territory; which certainly isn’t a bad thing, but no game has ever really evoked that child-like sense of wonder like the CQ series has, and I think more games, RPGs especially, should try and aim for that.
You could say that only something that deals with an event so tied to childhood (Like trick-or-treating on Halloween) could ever hope to reach, and instill the player with, that starry-eyed sense of childhood optimism and discovery, and maybe you’re right. But RPGs are about adventures, right? Kids have adventures all the time, and I think it would be a cool change of pace to focus on younger characters in games. I’m not saying I need dumbed-down stories or gameplay mechanics - not an RPG aimed specifically at children, but an RPG that tries to bring back some of that feeling of wonder and adventure, like when you were a kid and your mom’s garden wasn’t just a garden, but a place to dig up dinosaur fossils. Or something.
Question: What games for you evoke that feeling of childhood? Are there RPGs out there I should be playing that fill this niche?
I feel you on this so much! JRPGs are usually - especially nowadays - about teenagers (I’d also appreciate seeing more JRPGs with people in their 20s), and I’ve seen plenty of people look down on teenagers or games about teenagers specifically - but I feel as though it’s even worse when JRPGs are about children.
My first (and still one of my absolute favourites) JRPG is Grandia, which not only features children, but is about a boy who has always been dreaming of going on adventures and has a very specific idea of what an adventure is. You see him playing adventures with kids in the neighbourhood in his fishing town (the game starts with a self-organized treasure hunt, where mundane objects are the treasures - imagine the charm in that), then learn that his mother used to be an adventurer herself (a pirate!), then go out and meet an experienced retired adventurer... and eventually, you leave home to go on a journey yourself. It’s what you’ve always wanted, but there’s something heartbreaking about it too, especially when you read your mother’s letter as she indirectly sees you off. You then go on real adventures, see what they truly are, and it may or may not unfold in something far bigger than you’d ever have imagined.
To me, to this day, there is no JRPG that captures the feeling and spirit of adventure the way Grandia does - and it’s not only because I played it as a child, but because the protagonist is a child, something that coloured every moment of the game due to Grandia’s beautiful story and characterization.  In Grandia, there are also a lot of things about museums, excavations, ruins, ancient and different civilizations, other people’s take on adventures, other people’s limited worldview that needs to be challenged, etc. Making the protagonist a child and having him challenge that those self-set limits makes the game feel very genuine and sincere to me, whereas depending on the teenage protagonist in other JRPGs, it can come across as preaching.
But when I browse forums and reviews, I see voices saying that Justin is annoying, that the game is too “kiddy”, that it is “too light-hearted”, and so on, which... makes me feel very sad.
I haven't played Costume Quest 2, but I've played the first one and love it for the reasons you've mentioned. Feeling powerful in a Halloween costume and imagining that it powers you up, granting you unique abilities in battle? Collecting candy to turn in for things, looking for sweets everywhere? Very relatable!
Oh wow, that last ask takes me back! It made me remember that one reason I decided to make a gaming blog in the first place is because there were some gaming blogs that really left an impression on me - The Twin Gaming Critics in particular, partly because it may have been the first that I stumbled upon. I love reading impressions like the one posted there or here on alenthymn because they’re so shaped by individual experiences and the games that you have played; it allows you to make connections, introduce others to new things and allow you to appreciate the respective games from a different perspective - in a way that big reviews usually fail to do -, usually from a very specific angle, technical, narrative or otherwise.
To illustrate: I found the blog mentioned above because I was googling about the different ways alternate costumes are implemented in JRPGs during the 5th and 6th console generations (PSX and PS2 specifically), desperate for more JRPGs that would allow me to change clothes... And found this, and fell in love. (COSTUME DLCS AND SKINS WEREN’T ALWAYS A THING, IMAGINE THAT!! I still adore the way Star Ocean: Till the End of Time and Wild Arms 5 handled costumes, it’s very different from costume DLCs or costume sidequests, and ultimately feels very rewarding. ... I should write about that. ... I also wish alternate costumes weren’t primarily a DLC thing in this era.) I may also never have tried out Wild Arms 5 if it weren’t for that post.
I don’t write or talk about purely technical aspects (game design) much but I love reading posts on them anyway, such as Tying things together mechanically or Teaching the player the Megaman and Kirby way by @guilelessmonk​, especially if articles such as Blue Magic: The Weird Magic or Old Favorites: Chrono Trigger's Dual Tech System show potential for characterization and fleshing out group dynamics via gameplay mechanics. I’m absolutely smitten by examining storytelling via gameplay mechanics though (Mechanics as Motif in Final Fantasy VII just slays me), and it’s also what I try to write about (in scattered posts on alenthymn so far).
I think I’ll spend the rest of my morning crawling some of of these blogs now! <3
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hi there. i just want to say, i love this blog and it was an inspiration for me to start my own gaming tumblr. :)
Thank you for sending me such a sweet message! <3 I hope you don’t mind me publishing this. You should link me to your gaming tumblr so I can check it out!! :D
Favourite NPCs: Book Nerds
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
Aside from the named campus NPCs whose character notes are listed in your notebook, there are some other NPCs at the school: the janitor, the cafeteria staff and the student shop clerk - but also other “filler” students. Those students aren’t always around and also don’t have a name or a continuous story, but they do add life to the campus setting and have some identity of their own. There’s the guy who’s often found studying on the upper level of the library, or the student council helpers who may be the same students you meet when you drop by the commoners’ dormitory from time to time (there’s a girl who always talks about Towa, the student council president).
The first NPC in this photoset is one such student, and she can only be encountered in that particular corner of the library. Every time I enter the library, I look forward to seeing her, but she’s not always there. (That’s lovely in itself though; the library is used by a wide variety of people, and they come and go. Well, except for instructor Thomas, who is alwayyyyyys there, almost.) I happen to think that she’s the prettiest girl on the campus AND SHE DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A NAME!!! (Then again, I’m really fond of the nobles’ uniform.)
That NPC is totally me.
As for the last three screencaps in this set: That’s a festival visitor who gives you life advice. Until you realize she’s talking about reading BL smut.
Favourite NPC Relationships: Mint & Makarov (& Mary)
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
No story spoilers here.
Mint and Makarov’s relationship is my favourite NPC relationship in the entire game; it’s very entertaining and endearing, and I also like that they both have a a lot of personality of their own outside of the duo that they form. (The same cannot be said about all other duos.)
I don’t have any early game screencaps for these two either, but I think it’s on your first day of school that Makarov tells you his niece has entered the academy, and that he’s not looking forward to taking her under his wing because it’s embarrassing and troublesome. (True enough, Mint spends the entire day getting lost while looking for the staff room.)
What you need to know about Makarov is that he’s veryyyy laid-back. And by laid-back, I mean I run into him in the courtyard or on the roof and ask him what he’s doing there, and the answer is slacking off. Or I talk to him on a rainy day before midterms and this is what he says:
Makarov: Don't put too much work into the exams if you don't feel like it. As long as you don't give the vice principal another excuse to scream at me, I don't care how well you do.
He’s often in the staff room though, so I’m sure he does his work properly, just as he watches over Mint properly even though he tells you all the time what a bother it is. (Because really, Mint messes up all the time, and Makarov already went through all of that with Vanilla, Mint’s mother.) At some point, Mint messes up at her Orbal Science exam by getting all the answers correct, but writing them down in the wrong fields, so she has to take on supplemental duties for a while, which means sweeping the courtyard. And Makarov is tasked to watch over her, which he does, unenthusiastically, but it’s always so sweet when you see them together anyway!
Whereas Makarov is grumbling about having to watch over Mint, Mint is pretty sure that she’s the one keeping an eye on him. Makarov doesn’t like expending more energy than necessary, so he’ll only do the minimum in his personal life. Worried about his eating habits, there’s an optional quest with Mint cooking something for her beloved uncle, and it’s so sweeeeeeeeeet. You just know these two love and appreciate each other.
Mint also tries to hook up Makarov with another instructor, Mary, late into the game, probably so that Mary would watch over Makarov for her. And Mary is basically the audience because she totally knows what's going on, but plays along, and sincerely admires the relationship that Makarov and Mint have due to how open they can be around each other (see last screencap). Mary is a high noble, too, but being a good teacher to the academy’s students means much more to her than anything (she’s very supportive and friendly to everyone).
I hope I’ll get to see these three again in the sequel.
Favourite NPCs: Mint
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
No story spoilers here.
I have no idea why I have so few screencaps of Mint and that makes me a bit sad, as she's probably tied with Kenneth for my favourite campus NPCs. (Also, she has the cutest hair on the campus.) As with Kenneth, I’m always wondering what Mint is up to next because Mint is pretty much what your usual heroines in shoujo manga or magical girl stories are like: kind, caring, energetic, overeager - and terribly, terribly clumsy, causing disasters wherever they go. AND SHE’S JUST SUPER ADORABLE because she just keeps doing whatever, without letting any of the panic she summons in other people bother her.
She has inherited that trait from her mother Vanilla, it seems; as the screencap above demonstrates, Vanilla is equally disaster-prone, and both of them have a terrible sense of direction and are completely oblivious to their own clumsiness. (You meet Vanilla very late into the game on one of your field studies. One time I walked into her house and there was stuff all over the floor and her husband was sweeping the floor in resignation.)
I don’t have more to say about Mint at this point because what makes her shine is her veryyyy endearing relationship with her uncle, who is an instructor at Thors Academy.
Favourite NPCs: Clara
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
No story spoilers here.
Enter Clara, the one and only. While every other club captain more or less cares about the prosperity of their clubs, Clara doesn’t really give a damn. It’s a bummer I didn’t take a lot of screencaps in the early game when I was still getting acquainted with everything, because Clara was already hilarious in the early game. New club members that need introducing? Fend for yourself, I’m busy. First years needing help and advice with their art? Don’t bother me, I’m too busy with my own art. “Wing it!” Even her back is constantly turned to the rest of the room. I have no idea what Gaius and Linde talk about while creating things lmao, since I doubt Clara is all that talkative.
I have no idea why Clara is a club captain in the first place because she will NOT let anyone talk to her or disturb her when she’s into her art, which is all the time. (I assume she’s either the only one left from the previous year or that she was given the position due to skill and dedication alone - and it’s true, Clara is Thors Academy’s one true artist.)
Clara is unperturbed by anything around her, including the change of seasons, as she’s one of the few students not to change uniforms:
Clara: The last time I wore mine, I was in the middle of an art project, so it ended up completely filthy. Finding and washing it at this point seems like an annoyance, so I'll just stay in my winter uniform for now.
She’s very similar to Kenneth in many regards, if you haven’t noticed, and also always stays behind at the club room until the late hours. (That screencap of her pulling an all-nighter on a free day and then falling asleep the next day is my favourite precisely because she’s always working non-stop. REMEMBER TO REST, EVERYONE.) And like him, she just keeps working on her sculpture even during the school festival, never mind all the visitors who have come to look at the art club’s displays. Of course, all the people end up watching her work instead.
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This is one of my favourite duos in the game, and it’s one of those f/f campus couples like Haruka/Michiru in Sailor Moon and Ecliche/Judith in Ciel: The Last Autumn Story. The parallels are there: Just like the two couples I’ve mentioned, these two are older role models for the two girls they’ve taken under their wing.
There’s a book in the library about sports in Erebonia that you can add to your notes. Lacrosse is among the sports that have rapidly gained in popularity throughout Erebonia, and at Thors Academy, it’s exclusive to girls. (The book mentions tennis and lacrosse are divided by gender, but I don’t know whether that means lacross is reserved for girls and women outside of Thors.) Of your party members, Alisa joins the lacrosse club, and she finds herself at odds with Ferris, a first year noble who considers Alisa her rival.
Emily and Theresia lead the club together, but it’s usually just Emily on the field when you drop by in the morning as Theresia skips morning practice due to her low blood pressure. Aside from that, the two of them are usually found together, often talking about the strained relationship between Ferris and Alisa and comparing it to their own relationship back when they were both first years. That parallel is what defines the lacrosse club as you see it in this game, as these two watch the two newcomers and cheer them on from the sidelines, wondering whether they’ll also manage to become close friends like their predecessors. After all, what defines Theresia and Emily as NPCs is their friendship, and the pride that they take in having overcome their differences.
When you visit the noble’s city Bareahard on your second field trip, there are two men glued to their seats on the upper floor of a renowned restaurant. One of them is Theresia’s father, Baron Caroline, and he confides in his friend Baron Wodan that he’s worried about the company Theresia might be keeping at the academy, while admitting that he believes she isn’t so fond of him. (Theresia is a noble, whereas Emily is a commoner.)
It’s shown that the two girls are aware of Theresia’s father’s disapproval, but that disapproval never even reaches the point of being relevant in your conversations with the two of them - it’s clear that they wouldn’t let anything get to their friendship.
Those last few touching screencaps above at the end of October are at the end of the game, when danger might be approaching and many unnamed nobles have fled the academy.
Here’s the two of them enjoying the festival attractions together:
Favourite NPCs: Edel
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
No story spoilers here.
There are several club captains at Thors Academy who are immensely devoted to whatever it is that they do, who never stop talking about their passion and who are almost always at the location of their club activities, seemingly not having any social life or any other interests: Clara (art club), Kenneth (fishing club) and Lambert (riding club) are examples of that, but so is Edel. What sets Edel apart from those three extreme examples is this: Clara and Kenneth single-mindedly pursue their interests at the cost of everything else. Clara doesn’t take care of her club members properly and also doesn’t seem to sleep properly. Kenneth breaks curfews and doesn’t seem to care about his health much either as long as he gets to fish. Lambert... Lambert just seems off into his own world, really, but I don’t see Paula and Jusis complain about the riding club, so I guess it’s all good.
Edel, however, is a sanctuary. She’s almost always next to the school’s courtyard, looking after the flower and vegetable beds, and like the club captains mentioned above, she does so regardless of weather and regardless what else is going on (at least she carries an umbrella, right?). She’s a noble, but she’s there in her strawhat and in the soil all the time. When most nobles return to their estates during summer vacation, she stays at the academy because she can’t bring herself to leave her flowers behind. When there’s a commotion at the end of the game and it’s dangerous to walk around, she’s there for her flowers.
What defines Edel for me is not just her care for the flowers though: It’s how she cares about humans and flowers equally, and her gentle words usually apply to both. She is devoted to her flowers, but not to the point of forgetting all else, as she still finds the time for the people around her. When Fie, one of your party members who usually takes naps all around the campus, joins the gardening club, I thought it was an odd combination. But it turns out that growing flowers and taking Edel’s words of comfort are a big part of Fie’s growth, and it’s touching how Edel is always looking out for Fie. This starts as early as at the beginning of the game, where Edel sees Fie nap in the courtyard and worries whether she might catch a cold.
There’s an NPC in town who is very similar to Edel: Jane, the flower seller. Both of them say a lot of philosophical things about flowers and people. You don’t see them together very often though even though they’re clearly good friends, and I think that’s because Edel spends so much time at the flower beds. I love catching them together though! <3
I guess I love flower girls in video games, period. I’ve mentioned it before, but Edel’s character design, her devotion to flowers and the way she speaks really remind me of Wild Arms 3′s Florina, the flower girl of the Secret Garden sidequest. Students at Thors Academy don’t talk too much about each other aside from their own groups, but I’d assume that Edel would be popular. I’m slightly bummed out you never see her speak with Kenneth though (he did mention once that he got her permission to fish there, I think), considering he’s like, always there, fishing next to her flowers... And there’s plenty to talk about while you’re fishing and gardening, right????
Favourite NPCs: Klein
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
No story spoilers here.
Here’s another post about emotional payoff if you do all the optional quests and talk to all the NPCs regularly. Klein is a really amazing, hardworking, kind and sincere person (boyfriend material tbh), and he gets along with anyone.
I don’t have any screencaps of him at the school’s swimming pool in the capacity of the club’s captain, but he’s aware of how each of the club members are doing and encourages them in what they do. One moment that I remember regarding the swimming club is how all its members celebrate when Monica, the one who has just started swimming, finally reaches the goal she has set for herself. It’s heart-warming.
Klein tutors Emile, and I guess he gets along splendidly with children because he has two much younger siblings. He’s a family person through and through, and there’s one optional quest where you’re asked to be Emile’s substitute tutor because Klein rushes home out of worry for his mother. (He’s deeply devoted to her because she raised all three children alone after his father passed away.)
If you didn’t do the optional quest, you’d never know, and you’d never have these feels when seeing his family members come all the way to Trista just to attend the school festival and to see him. (To be honest, I have no idea how optional dialogues and scenes change if you didn’t do specific quests since I did them all, so who knows whether they’d show up in the first place.)
And then you see how much his siblings love him and how he patiently shows them aaaaaall around Thors Academy (second year students needn’t host any festival attractions). And you hear his mother gush about him and you’re just like: Yes, ma’am, that’s exactly what it’s like, you have such a great son, you can be proud. Excuse me while I go cry about Emile. You should totally meet Emile.
Favourite NPC Relationships: Emile & Klein
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
Spoiler Alert: READ THIS WARNING BEFORE CLICKING ON SCREENCAPS. No spoilers for the main story, but Emile is an NPC who goes through a lot of growth and who resolves two separate ongoing NPC stories. Don’t read past the read more as I write about the last four screencaps there.
There are plenty of NPC relationships I love in this game, but this might be the one that touched me the most due to how much Klein helped Emile grow, with Klein being a really great person overall. I cried only once while playing this game, and it was over these two - again, completely optional to the story.
Klein is the swimming club captain and a second year, and since he likes teaching people, he is also Emile’s private tutor. (You also get to tutor Emile at some point when Klein is occupied with urgent business.) Emile... studies all the time, whether Klein is there or not; he’s usually at his desk. You almost never see him interact with family members. At the beginning of the story, you also learn that he has ditched his friends (the other three Trista children who are his age) and doesn’t attend Sunday School anymore because he considers it a waste of time.
If you’ve read my post about Annie, you’ll already know how Annie and Emile’s parents are constantly arguing. At some point, this gets so bad that it keeps him from studying, as he puts it. So he turns to the ever-reliable Klein for help, and UGH. KLEIN. YOU’RE SUCH A NICE PERSON. ;_;
You don’t see what Klein tells Emile, but when you come back a week later, you’ll see Emile giving his impossible father a piece of his mind, and in private, he tells you that Klein told him to speak his mind rather than keep it all in. I’m pretty sure this is what made his father see the light, allowing his parents to make up, so yeah, Klein totally saved a family from falling apart there. You later see Emile’s father speaking properly (awkwardly, at first) with his wife when he comes home, rather than the usual “where’s the food?”, etc., and he even makes time to attend the festival with the family.
The real highlight is the end of the first festival day for me though. This is the one instance in this game where I cried lmao, I was so impressed and touched by these purely optional NPC stories, especially since this one scene did not require any words to deliver the emotional impact. When you approach the library in the late afternoon, you see four children of the same age stand in front of it. One of them is Emile. I had actually forgotten by then that he used to be friends with anyone, because it seemed like ages ago that the other children mentioned him thinking he's too good to hang around with them. That's how long he was alone, doing nothing but studying.
But this time, he apologizes to them, and they are happy to welcome him in their group again. Klein watches the group quietly from afar AND IT JUST KILLS ME. It killed me as soon as I walked up to him and saw him watching the children from afar. I don't know whether Emile asked Klein to come with him as a source of courage; after all, it was Klein who taught Emile to speak his mind, and I assume Emile knew he was in the wrong, but was too proud to admit it. Early in the game (in May), Emile did say "The last thing I want is to turn into someone like my dad when I'm older." - and his father wasn’t just rude and in the wrong, he also wouldn’t own up to his mistakes until he was called out. AND TO SEE THAT EMILE CAME THIS FAR AND WITH KLEIN’S HELP JUST AJDSLDJL, my emotions. Characters teaching others the meaning of courage.
It’s also lovely to see all these children have people to look up to - different role models for different children, which just means that the game treats them all as individuals. For Emile, that is Klein, for Annie, that is Kenneth. And of course they’re both interested in what their role models are up to during the school festival.
Favourite NPC Relationships: Kurt & Annie
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
No story spoilers here.
In Kurt’s post, I said that there are only two actual homes not connected to shops or other services in Trista (well, homes that you can visit). Kurt lives in one house, Annie in the other. Whereas Kurt’s family is always at max happiness, Annie’s family members don’t really interact with each other (something I briefly mentioned in the Annie & Kenneth post). My first memory of Annie is actually her standing on a chair on the second floor of her house, looking out of her window while her brother is too busy to play with her. I don’t remember what she was looking at though - Trista’s flowering trees? Kenneth fishing (though I guess that’d be the wrong side of the house)? The other three Trista children who are older than her?
Her parents don’t get along because her father thinks that just because he earns the money, he can be as rude as he wants at home, not caring about his family, not helping out, not appreciating anything his wife does. He tells you as much when you talk to him, so it’s not just his wife being demanding. Of course, she gets increasingly frustrated with that attitude, not just for her own, but for her children’s sake, and eventually reaches a point where she just stops doing any kind of chores and leaves all family members to fend for themselves. (I am pretty sure I remember another couple from Trails in the Sky FC where one part was neglecting the relationship or the chores.)
It’s then that I first noticed Annie befriending Kurt (maybe they weren’t friends before, maybe I missed it), the only other child of her age. And they’re so cute together. ;_; Kurt’s an only child, so he doesn’t have anyone to play with either. And just. the two of them. talking about their parents and worrying about Annie’s parents always arguing. ;_; MY HEART.
How her parents make up will be covered in a different post, but once they have and you attend the school festival, you’ll see Hanna (Kurt’s mother) and Melissa (Annie’s mother) becoming acquainted with each other, too, all thanks to their children being friends. Before that, you always see Annie visiting Kurt (more precisely, chatting in front of his house), not the other way around - yet during this encounter, Hanna thanks Melissa for allowing Kurt to stay over so often. I think it says a lot about how Annie’s family life has improved, as the environment before that was anything but inviting (negligent mother, arguing parents, a brother who needs quiet to study).
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Favourite NPC Relationships: Kurt, Harison & Hanna
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
No story spoilers here.
In Trista, there are only two actual homes that you visit aside from the dormitories and the shops that have an upper floor; I assume most NPCs sleep in the same building where they work, aside from those who commute to Trista on a daily basis. One of those two homes is Kurt’s.
Kurt comes from a very loving family. Hanna always cooks Harison’s favourite dishes when he comes home! Hanna knits Harison something as a present! Every morning, you see Hanna and Harison in front of the house as she gives him a kiss before he leaves for work in another town! Every afternoon, Kurt goes to the station to walk his father home (they live very close to the station)! The running joke about this family is that Hanna and Harison are often so lovey-dovey and have their own routines that they tend to forget they’re doing it in public (namely in front of you whenever you walk by). Hanna always notices you staring when she smooches Harison in the morning and gets really flustered. (The screencaps above aren’t even the most extreme examples.)
And of course this family would go see the school festival together, gosh. When you stop by the school’s cooking club room at noon during the festival, you can see Kurt standing all alone in the hallway.
Kurt: (Shhh! Mom and Dad are being all lovey-dovey in there! Keep quiet! We don't wanna bug them!)
And you think that’s weird because the cooking club is offering cooking lessons during the festival, so why would those two be alone in the room?? And so you walk in. And nope, they are not alone. But yes, they are flirting all the way through that cooking session. This is what other visiting NPCs have to say about that:
Favourite NPCs: Annabelle
Trails of Cold Steel: NPC Blogging
Spoiler Alert: READ THIS WARNING BEFORE CLICKING ON SCREENCAPS. No spoilers for the main story, but this is a travelling NPC who is connected to Butler Carrigan, an NPC on a mission, so you might want to see for yourself where his quest leads him and how Annabelle’s story concludes. (I can’t do anything about visual spoilers just by looking at the screencaps though, sorry. T_T Well, except tagging the posts with #tocs spoilers.) Don’t read past the read more as I write about the last four screencaps there.
I mentioned in my Carrigan post that I started taking screencaps of him because I was wondering whether Annabelle was anyone relevant to the main story and because I had no idea who she was. But this is one of the few instances where Trails of Cold Steel shines, and a major reason why I’m looking forward to replaying the game in the future. In my post about interactive storytelling via NPCs in Trails games, I said that all the NPCs are overwhelming at first because you can’t imagine becoming familiar with all of them and remembering their names and faces. I also said that’s nothing to worry about because it’ll come naturally with time.
You actually meet Annabelle as early as in chapter 1, before Carrigan even, I think (assuming that you first meet him in chapter 2). During your first field study, there’s an optional quest towards the end that has you track down the owner of a lost wallet. That owner is Annabelle, but I didn’t memorize her face or name because I thought she was only around for one quest. As you can see in the screenshots above, I met her again in chapter 3 when I was changing trains on my way to the next field study location.
Later on, there’s another optional quest in chapter 5, where an innkeeper asks you to catch a golden fish. The day before, I had actually spoken with the innkeeper, who mentioned briefly that some lady is staying in one of the rooms. Anyway, when you arrive at the spot by the river, there’s already someone there, and the party recognizes Annabelle from their earlier encounter in chapter 1! (It makes me wonder how the dialogue would change had you not finished the optional quest...) You learn that she has run out of money and is now fishing as a hobby and to get dinner on her plate.
Annabelle is obviously a runaway nobility, but it’s hilarious how out of it she is and how self-reliant she has become to support her lifestyle (the third row of screencaps above). I think she also went to the famous St. Astraia, the all-girls schools in the capital city for noble daughters, which is why her butler becomes all nostalgic when he eventually ends up at Thors Academy and tries to find her.
Carrigan spends the entire first day of the festival looking for Annabelle. All the while, you’re running errands around the campus and wondering whether the two will accidentally bump into each other, seeing how the popular festival has attracted both of them. And of course, they do. By the end of the day, Carrigan has found Annabelle in the courtyard.
Carrigan: Lady Annabelle! My heart sings to see that you're safe! [...]
Annabelle: If you truly wished to see me happy, you would simply leave me alone!
And I just sat there and sadfaced because I wanted them both to be happy and find a solution together, but instead I seemed to get the beginning of an argument. :( I also still didn’t know why Annabelle had run away in the first place.
On the second day of the festival, however, you see the two of them on the school’s roof, peacefully having a conversation. I was so happy just to see that because it was such an idyllic scene, but when I listened in to their conversation, things took a surprising and hilarious turn. Annabelle ran away because her father arranged a marriage for her without having asked her. And Carrigan has nothing but sympathy for her. Annabelle didn’t want anyone from the military, but Carrigan tells her that the prospective partner is from the Lakelord family of fishermen. AND ANNABELLE’S JAW JUST DROPS. DID YOU SAY FISH???????????????????
If the cut-off point were there and you had never talked to Annabelle before, you would think that she was merely surprised. But if you did talk to her, you’ll know that this woman IS EXTREMELY PASSIONATE ABOUT FISH. DO YOU KNOW WHO ELSE IS PASSIONATE ABOUT FISH. (This is what I mean by the game feeling so immensely rewarding if you take the time to regularly chat with NPCs.)
True enough, when I go on my regular campus stroll one week later and stop by the school pond to visit my dear Kenneth, that second to last screencap is what I see. At this point, I had two thoughts: “NOOOOO YOU ARE CRASHING MY CRACKSHIP THAT IS EDEL/KENNETH” & “THIS IS THE BEST ENDING TO ANYTHING EVER PLZ YOU’RE PERFECT FOR EACH OTHER”.
And then. AND THEN I ACTUALLY WALKED UP TO THEM AND TALKED TO THEM AND IT GETS EVEN BETTER.
Kenneth: Ahaha, I'm just glad I found someone to fish with. ...But what's the plan now? You're technically engaged to my brother, right? Be sure to come back sometime! I'd love to fish with you again!
Naturally, I assumed that Annabelle’s arranged marriage was with Kenneth, but nope. It’s with his brother, who he has told me about before. AND LIKE. IDK. IS ANNABELLE/KENNETH GOING TO BE A THING OR NOT. I NEED TO KNOW. (I also need to know who Kenneth’s brother is and what’s happening to him, as Kenneth mentioned he invited him to the festival, yet his brother didn’t show up. He also drops that his brother was in Crossbell State.)
BUT I GUESS YOU’RE BOTH TOO BUSY FISHING TO THINK ABOUT POTENTIAL LOVE TRIANGLES AND YOUR ARRANGED MARRIAGE.
Also, if you talk to the neighbourhood kid Annie on the same day, she’ll wonder where Kenneth is on that day and that it’s boring without him, implying that he’s usually fishing at the river in front of her house at that time of the day. So I guess he set time aside to fish with Annabelle instead??
omg I love all the fish-loving NPCs in this game so much you have no idea.