History YMMV / TheLegendOfHeroesTrailsInTheSky

* BizarroEpisode: In ''The 3rd'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPIaQQr30JE Moon Door 5]] qualifies. Unlike the other Moon Doors, it doesn't star a major character, instead focusing on Mary, one of Matron Theresa's orphans, as she looks for a birthday present for Theresa. Things take a turn for the strange when she [[spoiler:gets lost looking for her friend Polly and ends up befriending a baby dragon who gives her a wish-granting stone. Then it turns out to have been AllJustADream... [[OrWasItADream or not]], considering the dragon knew about the Glorious and Aureole, which Mary ''definitely'' doesn't know about]]. It's given an easily missed ContinuityNod in ''Zero'' and ''Cold Steel II'', but even 15 years later we still don't know what significance it has to the series as a whole. [[https://www.esterior.net/2019/07/anime-expo-2019-an-interview-with-toshihiro-kondo/ When asked by fans about the significance of the door in a 2019 interview]], the director of the series, Toshihiro Kondo, [[MindScrew said that the door is related to the mystery of Ouroboros and Zemuria as a whole]], further deepening the mystery and just how bizarre the door is.

** As of later games in the series, Zin Vathek has become this. While every other character in the ''Sky'' arc has had either a playable or major NPC appearance in a later game, Zin only gets a few mentions in the ''Cold Steel'' games and TheCameo in the ending. Kilika, an NPC in these games, has had a bigger role in later arcs than he has. He also got cut out of Trails in the Sky's anime adaptation, and doesn't appear in the intro for the Evo remake.

* AwardBaitSong: ''I Swear...'' from ''SC''.

* LuckBasedMission:
** In FC, the second fight with Lorence is winnable... provided he doesn't spam Earth Guard EX and Tearal too much. If his AI decides to use both spells too frequently, you might as well give up.
** The Divine Penguin sidequest boss in SC begins with a preemptive strike for the enemy... and you have an NPC to protect. If all the enemies decide to attack him, you'll get a Game Over before your party had a chance to act.
** In SC, Loewe as boss will summon powerful clones that cannot be inflicted with any stat down effects, which he'll decide to do with a random frequency. If he summons only one clone, he's fairly easy to tank with Earth Wall spam, but if he summons more, he'll easily rip the player's defenses apart.
** The ''Save the Miners'' hidden sidequest in Chapter VIII of SC. It's basically a bunch of battles which place a civilian in your battle between you and the monsters. If the monsters gets to go first and they gang up on the civilian...
** The Battle to save Josette on the ark to during the Finale. Again, like ''Save the Miners'' above, you better pray that the monsters don't get first dibs and gang up on Josette.
** Sun Door 2 in The 3rd, especially part 3. Take the trilogy's already finicky fishing mechanics and combine it with a minigame where you have to get the most points by catching bigger fish than your opponents. In part 3 of the minigame you basically have to hope that your opponent fails more often than you, especially since he can [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard sometimes catch the larger fish without having caught the necessary fish to use as bait first.]] You basically have to hope the RNG works in your favor for him to fail to catch fish as well.

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot:
** Tita and Renne develop a friendship in ''SC'''s third chapter. Even after TheReveal, Renne still wants to be friends with her. In ''The 3rd'', [[spoiler:Tita's motivation for working on the Orbal Gear is to help Renne, even if it means making an archaism that can stand up to Pater-Mater. When they finally meet her, she's confrontational and it seriously looks like Ries is going to pick a fight with Renne, only for the situation to be quickly defused. At this point, Tita's unlocked her Orbal Gear Craft, which would've made for a great rival battle.]] Even then, their aforementioned bond is hardly referenced after that point, both of Renne's final scenes in ''SC'' and ''The 3rd'' lack any dialogue with Tita, even if you bring her along in the former.
** On a similar note, Estelle and Anelace being rivals. It's teased in their hilarious goodbye scene in the first chapter of ''SC'', but other than a few very brief moments throughout the rest of the trilogy, Estelle and Anelace hardly interact despite their obvious chemistry.

** "Whereabouts of Light" sounds somewhat similar to "Kimi o Nosete"(''Carrying You'') from ''Anime/CastleInTheSky''. This is even more noticeable if the former is compared to the ballet version of the latter (which Azumi Unoue recorded for a Ghibli tribute album).

** "Whereabouts of Light" sounds somewhat similar to "Kimi o Nosete" from Anime/CastleInTheSky.
* ThatOneAchievement: Several in the Steam releases.

** In the Spanish-speaking fandom, Ries got the nickname of [[LightNovel/HighschoolDXD Rias Gremory]], due to her looks and similar name. Also, Lorence is nicknamed [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII Sephiroth]] for similar reasons.

* AccidentalInnuendo: The guy you talk to before entering the martial arts tournament in FC asks you if you're prepared for "a day of hot, hot action".

* AngstWhatAngst: Joshua and Estelle don't seem very put out by [[spoiler:the impending coup d'etat by the Intelligence Division]] in the final chapter of FC.

** Loewe used to be this in the first build of ''SC'', but after Falcom released a patch to upgrade him, he's universally considered to be even harder than the FinalBoss.
** The FinalBoss of ''The 3rd'' is basically a preemptive strike for the party, meaning they'll have enough turns to cast their buffs before the boss can even act. Alternatively, it's a perfect time to wail on it before it has time to set up its barrier pillars.
* AwardBaitSong: ''I Swear....'' from ''SC''.

* CargoShip: Ries X Food is a popular ship for Ries.

* MoralEventHorizon: Weissman crosses this when he reveals that [[spoiler:not only did he [[BrainwashedAndCrazy mind control Joshua and turn him into a puppet]] but also indirectly caused the attack on Joshua's village that led to Joshua's sister's death and made Joshua and Loewe's lives a living hell]].
* {{Narm}}: The reveal that [[spoiler:Weissmann directed jaegers to attack Hamel]] is often accused of cheapening the game's most infamous event just for the sake of making the villain even more of a HateSink. [[spoiler:It makes the attack seem less like a believable war crime and more like convoluted comic book villainy.]]

** For what it's worth, almost all of the characters in the game (even minor and background characters) fall so hard into character archetypes that it almost seems clichéd (Estelle as the upbeat but BookDumb GenkiGirl, Joshua as the melancholic TeenGenius with DarkAndTroubledPast issues, just to name two examples), but uncharacteristically this makes them not the least less enjoyable, especially since the game goes out of its way to explore their personalities from an objective standpoint. Olivier in particular is essentially NarmCharm on two legs.
** [[spoiler:Cassius Bright's]] Qilingong craft is one of the most dramatic self-buffs in the series, to the point where it resembles a powerup sequence from ''Franchise/DragonBall''. It still does a good job of establishing his strength and experience in a WorldOfBadass, and that your party has a long way to go despite being over level 100.
* OneTruePairing: Estelle and Joshua is so beloved that you'll almost never seen fan works pairing either with anyone else. At most, they'll go the [=OT3=] route below. Even the [[NotBloodSiblings pseudo-incest]] doesn't bother fans, as the plot makes clear they first met after puberty and never though of eachother as blood related. Part of why later games going the "harem" route is so controversial is that many agree Falcom absolutely ''nailed'' the writing of an OfficialCouple in the ''Sky'' trilogy and would rather see later games play to that strength.
* OneTrueThreesome: It's not unheard of for some fans to ship the OfficialCouple of Estelle and Joshua with Kloe, since she already had a crush on Joshua to begin with and develops a close friendship with Estelle.

** After the epic climaxe of ''SC'' and hype for Crossbell at the time, ''3rd'' had a lot to live up to, and had a somewhat mixed response from fans. Despite its many breaks from the series formula, the game is often praised for its unique strengths in hindsight as a self-contained title, from the Doors offering unique character-focused vignettes, plentiful foreshadowing for future titles, and the much quicker pace of storytelling. Kevin has become an extremely popular character in his own right, thanks to a uniquely depressing and well-told backstory and interesting character flaws. Sister Ries is also a fan favorite. It's not uncommon these days to see ''3rd'' praised as often as it is disliked as the best in the series. This is a far cry from its release, when many a fan decried it as a filler MissionPackSequel that took focus away from Estelle and Joshua with little to offer outside of cool WhatIf scenarios.

* BizarroEpisode: In ''The 3rd'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPIaQQr30JE Moon Door 5]] qualifies. Unlike the other Moon Doors, it doesn't star a major character, instead focusing on Mary, one of Matron Theresa's orphans, as she looks for a birthday present for Theresa. Things take a turn for the strange when she [[spoiler:gets lost looking for her friend Polly and ends up befriending a baby dragon who gives her a wish-granting stone. Then it turns out to have been AllJustADream... [[OrWasItADream maybe.]]]] It's given an easily missed ContinuityNod in ''Cold Steel II'' but we don't know what significance it has to the series as a whole, [[RedHerring if any]].

** It's kind of hard to protect the fact that Renne is a major character, let alone the reveal that she's an Enforcer since SC's been out for a decade in Japan. ''Alternative Saga'' practically references it wholesale, she reappears in Zero and never mind all the videos and whatnot spread all over the Internet.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: One done by the localization team, rather than ''Falcom''. the turbo feature imported from the ''Cold Steel'' PC ports does a lot to improve the pacing of ''FC'''s early chapters. With the gameplay going at a much faster clip, the prologue and first chapter is a story-heavy romp that builds up to the fan favorite chapter 2.

* FunnyAneurysmMoment: Through Xseed's localization, empty chests have its own different hilarious quips since FC and SC is now back at it again. [[http://imgur.com/a/wYodq look at this gallery]] and see it again after reading an article put in "TroubledProduction" trope below...

* HarsherInHindsight: The Star Door "Return to the Empire" in The Third is already ominous on its own, but it's even worse if you've completed ''Trails of Cold Steel II''. [[spoiler:Essentially, everything you did in that game helped ''all'' Osborne's plans come true.]]

** [[BlowYouAway Aerial]] is at least a downplayed version. It's the first multi-target attack spell you get, it's cheap to cast, and the center point of its area of effect can be set to any square, not just where an enemy is. White Gehenna is similar, but it's NonElemental, costs 1.5x as much to cast, and has a chance of inflicting [[StatusEffects Faint]], though it's not available as early. Hell Gate on the other hand is only somewhat weaker and locks on to an enemy automatically, it's also cheap to cast and is very easy to install on every party member.

* TierInducedScrappy: [[spoiler:Josette]] is a [[TierInducedScrappy/LowTiers Low Tier]] example. In both the second and third games, she has crappy stats, no noteworthy crafts, and an S-craft that requires the player to unlock it (by [[spoiler: rescuing her brothers in SC]], and in ''The 3rd'' winning a mini game and a boss fight to unlock its upgraded version. She also happens to be a RequiredPartyMember for a moderately tricky dungeon at the end of the second game, which doesn't exactly endear people to her given her lacklustre stats.

* SugarWiki/DevelopmentHeaven: Creator/XSEEDGames's willingness to localize a trilogy of games with such ginormous amounts of text, which no other localizer showed signs of having plans to work on. One person metaphorically stated the entire script was worth of ''ten novels''.

* PolishedPort: The modern PC versions you can play on Steam may look like a game from 2004, but they have a wide amount of graphical support for various resolutions, including ultra-widescreen or abnormal sizes like the 16:10 Steam Deck, and run ''very'' well on basically any hardware. Extra graphical effects, such as dynamic shadows from nearby light sources, are also added on compared to the original releases. Combine this with the [[GameMod modding community]], and extra features from the [[UpdatedRerelease Evolution ports]] on the UsefulNotes/PlayStationVita, such as new artwork and music, as well as full Japanese voice acting for all cutscene dialog, can be added in with little to no fuss whatsoever.

* PolishedPort: The modern PC versions you can play on Steam may look like a game from 2004, but they have a wide amount of graphical support for various resolutions, including ultra-widescreen or abnormal sizes like the 16:10 Steam Deck, and run ''very'' well on basically any hardware. Extra graphical effects, such as dynamic shadows from nearby light sources, are also added on compared to the original releases. Combine this with the [[GameMod modding community]], and extra features from the [[UpdatedRerelease Evolution port]], such as new artwork and music, as well as full Japanese voice acting for all cutscene dialog, can be added in with little to no fuss whatsoever.

* TooCoolToLive: [[spoiler: [[MasterSwordsman Master]] [[ThatOneBoss Swordsman]] with a [[BlingBlingBang Golden]] [[CoolSword Sword]]? Rides on a [[HumongousMecha black metal dragon]]? Silver-haired purple-eyed AloofBigBrother for the male lead? Has the most awesome {{Leitmotif}}? Voiced by Creator/HikaruMidorikawa, named [[AwesomeMcCoolName Leonhardt]] and known as [[RedBaron The]] [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Bladelord]]? Admit it, it was the only way for the Sora no Kiseki world to not to be frozen by Loewe's epic coolness.]]

* WhatAnIdiot: In Chapter 3 of SC, Estelle receives a mysterious letter that's SUPPOSEDLY from [[spoiler:Joshua, telling her to meet him alone in a certain place]]. No one ever considers the possibility that it MIGHT be [[spoiler:a trap by Ouroboros]]. Guess what happens when Estelle reaches the meeting point? It's made even worse by the fact that [[spoiler:the entire plot of the chapter revolves around someone sending threatening letters throughout the city]].

* TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot: Tita and Renne develop a friendship in ''SC'''s third chapter. Even after TheReveal, Renne still wants to be friends with her. In ''The 3rd'', [[spoiler:Tita's motivation for working on the Orbal Gear is to help Renne, even if it means making an archaism that can stand up to Pater-Mater. When they finally meet her, she's confrontational and it seriously looks like Ries is going to pick a fight with Renne, only for the situation to be quickly defused. At this point, Tita's unlocked her Orbal Gear Craft, which would've made for a great rival battle.]] Even then, their aforementioned bond is hardly referenced after that point, both of Renne's final scenes in ''SC'' and ''The 3rd'' lack any dialogue with Tita, even if you bring her along in the former.

* RelationshipWritingFumble: From a friendship perspective, Tita claims that Renne is her best friend and that she's always motivated to help her out. But other than a few scenes where they were together, they barely form a friendship bond that one could say that they're best friends. [[LateArrivalSpoiler It doesn't help]] that their "best friend" relationship carries over in the ''Cold Steel'' arc where Tita is a lot closer with new Class VII compared to her scenes with Renne.

* GoodBadBugs: Zin's Thunder God Kick craft in SC is bugged in certain Steam releases: instead of hitting each enemy in the area of effect once, it hits each one ''once per enemy in the AoE'' (so if it hits 4 enemies, each gets hit 4 times). This causes ludicrous amounts of damage to tightly-grouped enemies, more than S Crafts. Yet most fans don't mind it as it's fairly situational, takes some setup, and Zin is a fairly mediocre party member otherwise. Unfortunately this was corrected in ''The 3rd''.

* GameBreaker: Due to having so many examples, most of them are moved [[GameBreaker/TrailsSeries here.]]

* DevelopmentHell: To counter ''development heaven'' mentioned above: the localization team was not prepared for what awaited them while they started working on SC. Initially outsourced to Carpe Fulgur, Lots of things went wrong (including using the wrong format for the translation script and only discovering that ''after'' they completed the translation, unexpected delays, and worst of all, ''one of the localizers attempting '''suicide'''''). Eventually Carpe Fulgur just went ScrewThisImOuttaHere and returned whatever they've done to [=XSeed=], who proceeded to complete the rest of the project themselves (which was also no easy feat, everyone involved were really worked to the bone). We should be thankful that the localization eventually concluded successfully. The chest with the message from the localizers pleading for help? It was put there as a memorial to remind everyone how difficult it was to actually localize the game!

* DevelopmentHell: To counter ''development heaven'' mentioned above: the localization team was not prepared for what awaited them while they started working on SC. Initially outsourced to Carpe Fulgur, Lots of things went wrong (including using the wrong format for the translation script and only discovering that ''after'' they completed the translation, unexpected delays, and worst of all, ''one of the localizers attempting '''suicide'''''). Eventually Carpe Fulgur just went ScrewThisImOuttaHere and returned whatever they've done to XSeed, who proceeded to complete the rest of the project themselves (which was also no easy feat, everyone involved were really worked to the bone). We should be thankful that the localization eventually concluded successfully. The chest with the message from the localizers pleading for help? It was put there as a memorial to remind everyone how difficult it was to actually localize the game!