EDITORIAL: A Note to Those Looking For Trails in the Sky 2

Thanks,Macstorm!

Two quotes found from Tom, aka Wyrdwad, of XSEED Games, from NeoGAF.

“Based on… what? The last we heard about Trails 2 was quite a while ago, and they went from eagerly discussing their progress on the game to complete, deafening silence.”

Clearly, you haven’t been reading the right threads on the right message boards. (:

We haven’t announced anything officially because… well, there’s nothing to announce! The game is like, a year or two out AT LEAST, so announcing anything now would be kind of pointless. Especially since, with the release THAT FAR AWAY, the constantly changing climate of the gaming industry, the impending decline of PSP game sales and the whole “can’t put the game on PSN” thing, the future of Trails 2 is a total question mark right now (release on UMD? find a solution to the PSN issue somehow? release on Vita somehow? release on Steam?).

We still have every intention of seeing the project through to its completion, but will we still be ABLE to release it by the time it’s done? That’s what we don’t know. All we can do is keep chipping away at it and hope for the best — and if it turns out we can’t do it, no one will be sadder than us. But it definitely won’t be for lack of trying!

Wow, seems I put my foot in my mouth! To be fair, “a year or two out AT LEAST” was just me trying to exaggeratedly stress that it’s going to take a LONG FREAKING TIME to complete. Exactly how long, I have no idea — but bear in mind that the first game took over a year for translation and editing, and that’s with three translators and two editors (probably the most ever used on a single XSEED project), and the second game has OVER twice as much text. And while it’s easy to say, “hire more translators!”, we’re not exactly swimming in money over here, so that’s… not exactly possible. Finding dedicated fans willing to work for free is out of the question due to legal issues, and finding dedicated fans willing to work for bottom dollar is both unethical AND unlikely to produce results that are up to XSEED’s usual quality standards.

In short, all we can do is chug along and keep our fingers crossed. But if we’re putting that much time and effort into localizing a title… do you really think we’re going to just let it slip through the cracks? No, we’ll fight for it. Doesn’t mean we’ll win, but doesn’t mean we’ll lose, either. And yes, we’ve heard all the possible ways in which the PSN issue can be resolved — and we’re exploring every one of them. It all comes down to what’s economical, what’s practical and what’s POSSIBLE, in the end.

We’re seriously doing everything we can, and we simply ask that you guys continue to support us and cheer us on. Buy our other games and send us your positive energy, and sooner or later (most likely later), the game will hopefully come to be, and all will be right with the world.

Until then… there’s always Corpse Party, Solatorobo, Fishing Resort and Grand Knights History to keep you occupied (all of which are top-notch games!), along with whatever other surprises we may have up our sleeves. (:

There’s an important thing to remember, at this point: no news is good news. It’s as Tom has said, there’s nothing to report. I keep my ear to the ground to listen for what I can and from what I know, there really is nothing to report on the game.

The image I posted on twitter shortly after my move is the published scripts for First Chapter and Second Chapter side by side. FC is on the left, SC is on the right. FC is already a ridiculously long RPG, but when you stack SC next to it realizing it’s twice the size of the first… please understand that this game is ridiculously large, and XSEED Games can’t sit around and work on one game, because that would do more financial harm than help to them as a company… and that would mean that you wouldn’t see the game at all.

I’m sure they know, as does everyone else, that the clock is ticking, since the PSP is near the end of its life. They haven’t forgotten about the game. It will come when it comes. Be patient. Those who have played the Japanese games know this task well. Here’s a little timeline to show you what has been dealt with on this fandom: FC — [18 months] — SC — [12 months] — 3rd — [three years] — Zero — [12 months] — Ao — (???). These games didn’t come out back to back in Japan, otherwise, the Ys fans would probably be screeching about it like they are now.

Sidenote/Protip: Falcom has not abandoned all of their other series as the Vita game proves. Somehow two Kiseki games actually landed back to back. Ao is the last Kiseki game on PSP, and Falcom’s even working on another unannounced PSP game? Score. They’re sticking to their usual formula. And considering that Kiseki is the current iteration of the Legend of Heroes series, which is the current iteration of DragonSlayer? I think it’s a very fitting game for the company’s 30th anniversary. It wasn’t Ys that put it on the board, like everyone believes; it was Xanadu- which is also tied into the DragonSlayer series. Besides, next year is the Ys 25th Anniversary.

The three year gap between Sora no Kiseki the 3rd and Zero no Kiseki taught a lot of us patience with the game series. (though when it gets to the last week before release, we have none. GIVE IT TO US NOW.) The games will come out when they come out. I usually get excited over Ys games as well, but Falcom’s putting a lot into Ao no Kiseki for good reason.

Then again, the no news is good news method of thinking with them is good also. Most companies will not talk about their current projects until they’re ready to announce. Falcom and XSEED included. There’s nothing to announce on Trails in the Sky 2/Sora no Kiseki SC.

I’m sure XSEED would be happy to hear it when I say, please be patient. News, I’m sure, will come soon.

[ NeoGAF sources here and here. ]

12 Replies to “EDITORIAL: A Note to Those Looking For Trails in the Sky 2”

  1. mm something tells me Xseed will copy release time from falcom … at least 18 months for release SC … then 1 year for the 3rd and i think 2 years for Zero then 18 month for Ao … its seem SC and Ao will be the most difficulty to Xseed.
    i hopes all games come out for psp … but in like 2 or 3 years, psp will be dead, Vita support from falcom will be extremely necessary to release LoH on NA and EU, but i hope Xseed release the game on Vita (in some future) with dual Audio D:
    i bought my copy of Tits LE and the game is completely sealed, because i like play games with japanese dub :S

    1. I don’t think they’ll be using the same release schedule. We’ve only had six months since FC thus far.

      People are jumping the gun that nothing’s going on, just because they’ve not heard of it for a few months.

      As I said before, please be patient. When Falcom released SC, they didn’t even talk about it until about three months before its release. It was quiet and hidden for about a year.

      Then, suddenly, there it was.

      I’ll say it again:
      No news is good news.

  2. The main issue I have with XSeed and this whole SnK thing is how they were when they first started, super excited and seemingly massively ignorant and oblivious to what lay ahead of them. It’s like they didn’t look ahead and think things through. I’d rather have not gotten to play SnK FC instead of getting to play it and most likely not getting SC for years (even more years of wait, it’s like Persona 2 IS all over again) until Falcom releases a special edition of the Kiseki series on the Vita (with how Falcom is you know this possibility is high..).

    They just shouldn’t have handled SnK AT ALL if they thought PSP was weak in America. If it was games that had no true relation then I supposed it would be somewhat okay but FC and SC are so strongly linked that it’s downright annoying that they’ve basically put it on indefinate hiatus to localize games that they know have next to no text to get quick money.

    Ah, how I wish a company like Atlus America would’ve picked up the rights to localize. One can dream. At least Ys PSP games came out here, although mostly thanks to that magnificant guy called Duece which kept the quality massively above a majority of XSeed’s projects.

    1. I think XSEED did a marvelous job with Trails in the Sky. I’ve seen FC’s script first hand, and I will tell you for sure from the translation project. I can tell you for sure that it is as daunting as it was made out to be.

      I think that taking on FC like they did is a testament to what they think the fans will enjoy. At one point, years ago, XSEED had turned DOWN the idea of taking because it was too big of a game, and they couldn’t afford to do it. At the time, at least.

      But when the opportunity presented itself, they took it.

      I think, however, Atlus turned down Trails in the Sky because of the gamble that it would be with the size of that script as well. And when you take the first game, you’re committing to at least one game that’s twice its size.

      And while I don’t have any other comments on the matter, I CAN say that I think the unsung hero for FC was, actually, Jess with XSEED Games. I can’t provide any details on my opinion, but still.

      I’m pretty sure we’ll see SC- sooner than everyone else thinks, too. Everyone’s making assumptions that it won’t be coming just because nothing has been said about it. If FC was being worked on for a year and a half, they were working on it for over six months before they started to hype the game.

      This is likely to be the same case.

      The whole ‘tell us now now now’ is the part of the ‘now’ generation mentality, though. When you’re dealing with localization, it takes a long time. It’s not just a process of translating, localizing, and editing. There are legalities, planning, and financing as well. When you do something as a business, you have to think of it as a business.

  3. I totally agree with you floofy. I’d rather wait than not having the game at all. Indeed, it takes time, but I’m sure they’re doing their work now. We as fans should do our best waiting.

    1. I have actually been looking into that. :D Check out my latest post. I didn’t want to post until I was absolutely sure.

  4. good thing my japanese keeps getting better day by day…if for whatever reason xseed cant get these releases out ill definitely be able to get by on my own. ive been playing ao no kiseki for the past few days and with only a month of studying im getting by fine…minus knowing nothing about whats happening aside from random moments and pointless words that dont add to the actual storytelling.

    all i can do is appreciate their hard work and continue to support them so maybe things like this wont be an issue for them in the future :)

    1. I’m just now seeing this… no. I don’t because Falcom’s never released scenario books for both Zero and Ao no Kiseki.

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