More than a Prologue: Trails in the Sky FC and Recognizing the Simpler Things

One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that whenever a person is describing the first Trails in the Sky (Sky FC), it’s often labeled as a "prologue" entry. Required reading material that a person has to sit through, a barrier to entry towards the wider Trails narrative. I understand why it’s viewed in this manner to an extent, as the main pitch of the Trails series has always been how it’s one of the few modern day JRPGs to focus on a large scale narrative, with each individual game connecting directly to the next to form something grand. Seeing as the original Sky FC is the very beginning of the adventure, some people delegating it to just being a prologue isn’t surprising. But personally, I’ve always found this mindset around Sky FC to be rather reductive and unfair to the game. While less thrilling and action-packed compared to later entries in the series, the charm of Sky FC can be found in how it embraces being a down-to-earth narrative. 

More Than Just "Required Reading"

The game asks the player to enjoy their time smelling the roses and gazing at the fields, to truly embrace travel and the adventure ahead of Estelle and Joshua. They pitch this enjoyment as one of the fundamental aspects of being a Bracer, an in-universe guild of people dedicated to resolving the various problems of the people. A good Bracer will always know their way around the land and have an eye for even the most remote locations, as their requests will often have them tracking down lost items or hunting down monsters. It’s one of the reasons why Estelle and Joshua hike most of the game on foot as opposed to taking an airship around Liberal. Estelle herself initially isn’t fond of the idea, but grows to embrace that aspect of bracer work as she discovers locations and people she likely never would’ve encountered otherwise. As both she and the player trek through Liberal, they discover so much about the land she calls home that she likely never would've gained any appreciation for had she just taken the airship all the time.

The player's journey across Liberal will consist of many small-scale events and conflicts. The main scenario will have you go on picnics, help with school plays, go fishing, etc. While there are hints of a bigger picture story slowly building up in the background, they rarely supersede the pleasant air that Sky FC admires, only truly popping up at the end of the game as we’re taking out of our comfort and forced to deal with some of the first true glimpses of how ugly Zemuria can be under the hood. Until that time though, Sky FC was more than willing to just allow the players to exist with Estelle and Joshua. To learn and explore the world as they do, to come to find new people to love and appreciate as they do. That charm makes Sky FC what it is, and I feel that most people take it for granted.

The Little Things in Life

When it comes to discussion of Trails online, most of the value of the series is attributed to the wider narrative aspect of it as I noted earlier. How it’s the “MCU” of JRPGs, where every game builds towards this climax where every cast member gets together to tackle the ultimate big bad. While that’s certainly one of the most profound aspects of the series that makes it unique, sometimes I feel like people only value that wide reaching narrative, and in the process disregard what each game and arc have to offer individually. That’s a shame, because every game has their own individual aspects that allow them to stand on their own, and Sky FC is no exception. To write off each individual story as just “another game to get through” in order to experience those larger-than-life bombastic moments honestly seems more like a disservice to both the series and to yourself more than anything. How will you truly be able to care for the bigger picture of things if you aren’t attached to the individual games, characters, and arcs that build towards it?

Sky FC stands as one of the best in the series at embodying the importance of those smaller moments. I briefly mentioned it earlier, but the portion of the game during chapter 2 where Estelle and Joshua spend time at Jenis Royal Academy to help Kloe and the student council with the school play is one of my favorite sections of the Sky trilogy. Watching them bond with people their age, trying out the costumes, and finally seeing it all come together in the end with a large chunk of the audience consisting of previous characters we’ve met at this point in the journey. Sure, in the “grand-scheme” of things it doesn’t really matter aside from the brief appearance of Loewe in the audience, but who really cares about the grand overall narrative with moments like this? This mini-arc contains so many wonderful interactions that I could never view it as pointless or filler. These are the moments that get me to care about the characters, and in turn get me to care about the wider narrative overall.

I’ll never be down with reducing Sky FC to just a "prologue" game, mandatory reading players have to sit through. Sky FC has so much love and charm to it that writing it off like just doesn't sit well with me at all. There’s so much more to the game, to the series as a whole, than the interconnected world. Sky FC has so much love and charm poured into its humble beginning that makes it all the more memorable. People shouldn't play because they’re obligated to, but because of its own merits. Sky FC is a wonderful, down-to-earth romp that loves itself, and I feel that love can be appreciated by anyone willing to give it a genuine look. Please don’t write this one off as a prologue, there’s so much more to it than that.