Trails to Azure (Geofront) Review! - The Game Collection!
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- čas přidán 16. 12. 2021
- Trails to Azure is the second half of a duology, but this one definitely hits different!
This game was legally purchased and played using the Geofront fan English patch. Please support NISA's official release once available. :)
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#jrpg #review #trailstoazure - Hry
It’s been 2 years (Dec 2019) since I paused Cold Steel 1 to start the series from scratch. Luckily I was all caught up for the release of Geofront’s Azure. Now for Christmas break I’m finally restarting Cold Steel and it’s just absolutely cathartic.
My biggest gripe as well is this series unwillingness to kill off characters. There are SOME (very few) that happen but fake out deaths are an abundance
the worst thing is the trend starts in my favorite part of the series, being Azure. I havent played Kuro but i hope theyre more open to have some characters (deserving or not) be dead
I hate fak eout deaths but you gotta understand thats a jrpg thing espically with characters that are playable
To the writers' credit, I think they do a good job in this particular entry explaining and building up the deus ex machina.
@@tradingoffs4668 ill admit the Grimwood one was a bit hammered, but even so the surviving ones did make me happy (though wish they had more repercussions ex: Ilya being permanently... ,the 2nd Investigate Division dying, etc), but for some reason they stuck with it during the times of an actual war going on in the 2nd-4th Sen no Kiseki games, in a war I expected massive casualties but there are bare to none from what we actually see
@@alumlovescake theres a good amount of jrpgs that dont do fake out deaths, not to mention trails did it prior in the sky games and in extent the earlier parts of azure (red cons massacring the terrorists then and there), granted the fake out deaths in this game is tame and forgivable, unlike the Sen no Kiseki games
This is one of those series that I can't believe I've never played before. Great review, man!
I've been waiting so long for this review! So excited!!!
Great vid man, happy holidays my friend.
Instant like. My fav trails so far! Nice vid, much love for this series!
Love all the spoiler free reviews Derek, I think you nailed this one! Im looking forward to playing these games that haven’t quite made the jump officially someday
Great review, Derek. Been waiting for this one and it did not disappoint.
Appreciate it Seth! :D
Literally just finished this game, had the most enjoyable cast so far that I’ve experienced. I felt like there was a lot more that I wanted from the ending but the build up and progression was amazing nonetheless. Wazy was my favorite character as well as the mvp of my first run, dude was insane with that pixie quartz
YOOO i've been waiting for this review ever since i saw you finish the game on twitch and FINALLY its here yes to the best jrpg series ever!
Awesome review!
Super cool that we're getting this officially now! I'll be keeping an eye out for when it drops.
I was looking forward to this
Love these reviews! Trails Series is my back log...Own 5 games in the series and completed zero...Got to get back to the series that I really enjoy.
Great review! Hope you continue covering the Trails games through Cold Steel and beyond!
Nice review. Thank you for this.
Thanks for watching!
I haven't watched this review yet, but I've already liked the video, since I Trails to Azure might be the best game in the trails series, and I know this review will be completely awesome. Great job, SuperDerek!
I see what you did there (from Zero to Azure, when talking about the gameplay). Very creative wordplay!
This is cool to see. I fell in love so to speak with the Trails series, a few years ago. I’ve been playing rpgs since 1987/88 and Trails of Cold Steel became my favorite rpg series 30 plus years later. It’s all personal preference of course, but to me, it just goes to show the level of heart the Trails series has behind it.
I tried Sky FC and didn't get into it. Then last christmas I bought Cold Steel on a whim. Absolutely loved it. So much I immediately bought an dplayed the sequel. Before I was even done with that, I bought every single Trails on Steam. Now I'm back on Sky FC but enjoying it a lot more. Can't wait to beat the trilogy, play the Crossbell games and then on to CS 3 and 4.
@@Walamonga1313 I haven’t been able to play any of the others yet, just the Cold Steel series. I hope to someday. I’ve heard nothing but love from people, talking about Trails in the Sky. I’m playing through Trails of Cold Steel series again right now. Lol. One thing that impresses me, is how they’re able to introduce such a large cast of characters and still manage to have so much character development amongst everyone.
@@Walamonga1313 lol of course you love loli pedo highschool harem of shit
I played an older non geofront version of azure and it is one of my favorites! Those are some fair compaints about the game especially being afraid to kill off characters. When it comes out officially I will play it again definitely! Great review!
Great review as always Derek; looking forward as well for the localization of Zero and Azure.
Regarding your gripe, While i do agree with your sentiment, I would say that killing off character is not the only way to create consequences, especially for your exemple where they did a great job for the setup that drove everything from there (and the gloom post-incident is still really well done); Death is not a necessity for storytelling, and if anything, the fact that there are few of them, makes them all the more impactful when it does happen; too much of them would just reduce the effect it causes.
Anyway, I look forward to your reviews on the Cold Steel saga; probably the most controversial one of the series (for more or less good and bad reasons); I'm the side of the one who like it, so I hope you'll enjoy it as well.
This series is so huge I just feel like it's so much of an undertaking to jump into, especially as an adult
Yeah it is a commitment but once you do it the ride is insane and there isnt any JRPG series out there like Trails
I played the machine learning translation of the PSP game. Excited for the official releases to reexperience this duology in a better way. Was tempted to play the Geofront translations months ago, but buying from the sketchy website made me shy away. Great games at any rate and am definitely buying them when they come out.
Nice!! I gotta jump on Trails in the Sky FC soon
Derek, I love this series and I love your channel. It's so cool that you got through this particular game given the history of it's availability. Quick question: If you had to pick one off the top of your head, what's your favorite tactics/Strategy JRPG?
I haven't played nearly enough to have a favorite yet, unfortunately. I need to dig into that subgenre more often. As of right now though, if I had to pick, it'd be Shining Force 1 :)
Can’t wait to play this next year
man, look forward to finish this game. ahhhhhhhh
Since I don’t emulate or play on pc I can’t wait for these two games to drop on ps4/switch! Hope they port trails as well
Man, I've had Trails in the Sky for PSP and in my Steam library for so many years...I really should get on it. I remember loving how fleshed out the characters were.
I haven't taken the full leap into Legend of Heroes yet, but this and Zero are among the ones I'm looking forward to the most! And I'm so happy that NIS decided to work with Geofront. It's a huge win for NIS, the fan translators and the fans!
0:13 - It's only been half a year since I played Azure myself and the music is already nostalgic for me
0:53 - I'll go ahead and assume you meant to say "Zero" and not "Azure"
1:24 - Boo this man! Boooooo~~~!!!(just messing with ya ofc)
3:47 - Barrier count is now up to 2
6:52 (SPOILERS)- I'd very much have to agree with this. Falcom's reluctance to be willing to kill off named characters for the betterment of the story has really held back the storytelling a fair bit. Ilya and/or Fran dying in the Red Constellation's raid of Crossbell would've really added a huge amount of emotional weight to the story(and better justify Noel's later actions), but Falcom just refused to actually go through with either, and it was very disappointing for me that that was the decision they ultimately made
Always happy to see more someone cover Trails, and ofc a big congrats to Geofront for gaining itself recognition from NiSA. Super happy for them. As for Azure itself, I think I'd say it's my favorite or 2nd favorite game in the series so far(still have yet to venture into CS). The ending was a bit weak imo, but the overall package was fantastic. I'm very happy to have discovered the Trails series.
It's amazing how good the music is and it sets the mood so well I miss hearing the music and have to que it up to listen to.
I'm excited for Kuro 2 coming next year, hopefully we get more info on it soon.
My favorite game of the franchise!
I am playing it now on the nintendo switch, but so far my favorite is trails sky 3rd, is this one really that better?
@@xaritah3266 i am not a big fan of the third game because of the Dungeon crawling however It has one of the best stories of the franchise
First I want to say, it makes me really happy to see you covering this series, as someone who’s been following you since 2015 and Trails since 2016.
*Spoilers for Azure below*
I agree with your point of it being more impactful if the characters like Ilya had actually died, my my biggest gripe with the series is how it always feels really unwilling to commit to killing off characters that aren’t antagonists. It would’ve been more impactful in that moment especially, with how they would have left not only physical destruction of Crossbell in the wake of the Red Constellation, but also death of characters that the SSS knew. Still a great game overall, my second favorite in the series as of right now, and I’m very excited to buy the official localization when that drops.
I think the attack is still impactful it really highlighted how vulnerable the city is, and as far as I can tell Iilya is still out of commission even through all the Cold Steel games. The Trails does have the bad habit of not committing to keeping Good Guys dead.
Problem with killing off Ilya is that it would completely change Rixia's character, I doubt even oblivious smooth talker Lloyd could have made her come around if he didn't have a recovering Ilya in his back pocket.
Making something impactful without relying on killing off characters takes some serious skill, there aren't many that do it quite as well as Falcom.
What’s your first favorite in the series?
First favorite of mine would be Estelle
@@froggotrooper3676 Sky SC, which is also my favorite game of all time
I bought an imported copy of Azure, THE VERY DAY THEY TOOK THE PATCHES DOWN! ....... I can not describe how irritated I still am over this. However, with that being said, I'm very happy for the Geofront Team to be Officially recognized for all their hardwork... I just wish they had waited 24 hours because now I have an imported copy that I cant even play or get a refund on.😑
I see what you did there with the "Barrier" to entry. Gotta get over the barrier!
It was obligatory I made that joke at least twice in this video :-P
Maaannnn....
I somehow deleted the folder that had my geofront patches and installer for both zero and azure.
I added to my steam launcher back when I got them, and I can still go to steam and boot up either game and they still play, albeit no longer voiced since my soravoice mods where among the deleted.
Anyways, does anyone know if the PS4 version of Zero will have the voice mod already installed?
I see really no way of modding a PS4 version of Zero...
Great video as always Derek. Azure was a wild ride to experience and while I do feel it has its flaws, especially when it comes to sidequests and said extremely tough battles you mentioned, overall I found the game very enjoyable. I'll be interested to see your opinions on the Cold Steel games whenever you get to those, and see how they compare to my own thoughts. Just do yourself a favor and don't play them all back to back lol, that's what I did and while I don't think it affected my overall opinions, it did burn me out of finishing Cold Steel 3 for the foreseeable future. Good thing Shin Megami Tensei 5 and Endwalker are out now!
LOL yeah! I've made a point of not marathoning the Trails series, and even though I've been alternating my way through these first 5 titles, I think I'm gonna take a year-long break from Trails I think. I'm gonna need some time to reset after Azure, that's for sure!
Hands down best game in the series.
I want to Buy the first one, but on PlayStation 4 the first one is coming this month in Europe I mean Germany, but the second one what you are playing here have no dates I mean release dates, so I have no idea when it’s coming to Germany
Anyone know where I can download the patch?
who has played them all?
which is the correct order?
1. Sky1-3, Zero, Azure, Cold Steel 1-4
2. Sky 1-3 Zero, Cold Steel 1-2, Azure, Cold Steel 3-4
I've heard both, going in order is easiest, but Cold Steel 1&2 take place before Azure on the year/month calendar. I also hear there is a spoiler I will see if I play Azure before CS1-2.
sooo without spoilers can someone tell me the correct/definitive order to play those?
0:48 I think you meant "...a duology that started with Trails From Zero..." :)
My favorite JRPG of all time
I played the psp translation, but it was pretty great. The only thing I disliked was how easily missable secret quests are, and the affinity system on this game being hidden.
I discovered this series with Trails of Cold Steel and did all my homework of summaries and recaps between II and III. I always said that I would play the Crossbell arc if they brought it over here and thankfully they are! It's a great time to be a Kiseki fan 😁.
Wonderful video Derek and looking forward to you digging into the Erebonia arc! Class VII forever; keep moving forward, relentlessly. 😎
Thanks Densetsu, I think I'll be taking a break from Kiseki for a bit to help me reset. Trails to Azure will be a tough act to follow and I don't want it to affect my view of Cold Steel. I've got some other games planned though! :)
@@SuperDerek Oh! You haven't played TCS yet. The "Keep moving forward, relentlessly." may have seemed out of place then haha 🤦🏾♂️😅 (it's a famous quote from that arc)
Please do go at your own pace! Nothing ruins a series more than burnout. Love you and your content, keep up the good work man! 👍🏾
So far its my favorite game in the series
This series is such a daunting challenge to get into, I've bought all the trails in the sky games on steam and was able to beat 2 of them but it's such a long and deep story with a punishing sting for completionist. You NEED a guide for these games and you better hope it's a perfect guide with no mistakes because it'll cost you the best weapons, orbs and extra dialogue between characters and all that stuff. I want to play the 3rd game but man I need to set aside time in my life to do so and really focus hard on it...and that might not happen anytime soon. Still, I'm hoping I can get into all the trails games easier when it hits my switch or PS5. After I beat the final game in the trails in the sky arc...I've already got the entire cold steel series bought and waiting for me to play on my PS5. Something tells me it's gonna take years...
Sky the 3rd is more a dungeon crawler with side stories that set up future stories/clear up certain things that happen post SC. So no optional quests or hidden quests to worry about.
Actually, the PC assets Zero and Azure use were redrawn by Joyoland when they did their ports. The Vita assets are barely any better than the PSP assets and are the reason the Kai ports look so bad in comparison--they use Vita assets instead of Joyoland's ports.
I NEED THAT PATCH :'''''''''''(
Is it possible to still get this version of the game? Like an idiot I thought, "Oh, perfect. I'll finish Zero first and then I'll buy Azure to spread out my spending". And a week before I finish Zero, this LONG overdue thing happens and now I have to wait years to finish the sequel instead of playing it now. I will gladly purchase it legally, I just hate the idea of waiting multiple years to play it while I have the Cold Steel games bought and ready to be played. I also hate the idea of not finishing this series in order when I spent all that time starting from the beginning.
Any help would be much appreciated.
SuperDerek, why didnt you mention that an official translation is coming out?
I did around 7:44, you must have missed it. :)
is trails of zero english sub available in steam? im interested to play
No, not until next year.
@@gatst7680 cant wait to play
@@paanazmi8062 It's worth it!
Will you be going through the cold steel arc?
Eventually! But I think I'll be taking a break to help reset my expectations :)
@@SuperDerek Of course, that is absolutely fair, I hope you enjoy them when you get to them
I'm just depressed Falcom pulled it from the Geofront website. Not only is it a good game, but it gives a lot of context to the events in Cold Steel. It pains me to read reviews on Steam that knock the "confusing political aspects" of CS1, because those aspects were explained in the now unavailable Trails to Azure. Thanks Falcom!
Best game ever made!!!!
Personally I find Azure hard to quantify. On one hand, the story is easily the most gripping, but it's also where certain factors in the series really start becoming issues.
People not dying in Sky made a certain amount of sense due to the low stakes of the story and the personalities of the Enforcers involved. The guy who seemed to most relish in death was ordered to use indirect means to cause havoc, and the one most averse to casualties to go wild. By contrast it really is a miracle from Aidios that the Red Constellation failed to kill named characters considering the methods they employed.
Another prevalent Trails meme by the end of Cold Steel is just how easily forgiven villains are. It's already there by Azure when the SSS for some goddess-forsaken reason don't start bringing in defeated baddies in the final dungeon, or let a major perp just walk away uncontested. You know, it's not like you had two unused party members and a gralsritter squire on standby that could have kept an eye on captives or anything.
The bit about winning fights only to lose them in a cutscene and needing rescue is also something taken to hilarious degrees later on. In Sky and even Crossbell, they make a certain amount of sense and/or serve the narrative, like implicating there's more to Lorence than he's let on or setting the scene for the SSS's initial low public opinion. In Cold Steel it reaches drinking game levels for seemingly no other reason than because the writers don't want you to feel accomplishment for beating encounters.
And finally there's one thing that really grinds my gears. At a certain point in Azure the SSS meet a certain someone. Over the course of the Cold Steel games we learn a certain thing about that certain someone, a certain thing that one of the SSS members present should have _immediately_ noticed based on what we know about them. There's subtle ways that scene could have been made to work that could even add to it, on top of becoming downright brilliant once we actually learn about that certain thing.
Tbh, while I agree with most of that being an issue, I feel like most of it is really overstated as to how bad it actually is. Not killing of characters is an issue and I can see why people think that Ilya should have died, myself included, and I think that the Ogre, McLean, or Grimwood should’ve died in the final dungeon, but I feel like it’s more important for a character’s story to come to a full conclusion than for characters to die for stakes. So I think that the lack of death is an issue, but not one that actually lessens the story by much.
When it comes to losing in a cutscene, I actually don’t understand why people think this is an issue. I have no idea what they should do otherwise. Of course they aren’t going to actually beat McBurn in the vermillion capital, but it would be a lot more underwhelming if every time you fought someone stronger than you it was just an unwinnable fight. Making it so you still have to win the battle but that battle being somewhat separated from the story means you are still invested in the gameplay during major story beats. However I don’t think that they should fight the same overpowered bosses so many times, it’s fun to lose to McBurn a couple of times, but by the end in CSIV I didn’t feel anything special cause I’d already fought him so many times.
To the last point, I agree this is really annoying, but I think this mainly comes down to lack of complete planning, like I think they know the story generally but not necessarily how they are going to have it play out. An example being when they straight up tell you Osborne wins the civil war at the end of Azure, I feel like they must have done that because they still didn’t know if they were going to make a full game around that event. Either way tho it really sucks cause it’s hard to avoid spoilers that are built into the game.
@@tyllarium Thing is if it was just monsters like McBurn you kept losing to, it'd be one thing. However, by Cold Steel 2 you might actually have an easier time counting the times a boss fight doesn't end with the party's impending doom, and then someone swooping in to save them. Even fights against one-off enemies like cryptids start going that way pretty often. It's not like Trails hasn't done this since the beginning, but it's been used less, and often with something a bit more clever added in, like with Dorothy, or just made more sense in general, such as Azure's antagonists all wanting the SSS alive for KeA's mental health. Also because there was a smaller cast in need of their hero entrances, but I digress.
You're absolutely right that overusing the big hitters is partly to blame for it all. One thing the writers could have done is do away with the buddy system that the antagonists apparently adopted so it's a good old 4-on-1 plus adds. Barring some pairs that make sense, like the Zephyr duo, that's almost double potential boss fights without needing to bring in the ones the party should have little hope against just for the sake of it, on top of making it more reasonable that the party could actually force their opponent to at least a strategic withdraw. The few times the likes of the Burninator or Arianrhod do throw down it should really be on like Donkey Kong, and the best you could hope to do is impress them.
Also, I agree that killing characters isn't required to raise the stakes. However, it should make sense when they live as well. Ilya I can actually see surviving depending on where exactly she got hit, people tend to take their sweet time bleeding out from gut wounds after all. It's Inspector Donovan that I think should be relegated to the past tense after body blocking a grenade blast from that distance. Those things are seriously no joke, if the shrapnel doesn't get you, the concussive force proper basically kneading your insides up will.
@@wishuponamonkeyspaw2458 That’s definitely true, I remember getting annoyed bc of the the boss fights in the vermillion capital being a series of bailouts by stronger characters, despite the fact that with Sara as part of your 11 person party you should be able to take out Zephyr or Blubanc and Duvalie. For BurnBoy and LanceLady getting bailed out makes sense the few times you fight them, but I think the lesser villains should be out of reach at the beginning but treated more like in SC where you beat them by the end. I think I got a bit jaded on the topic after seeing some let’s players get genuinely angry that them beating McBurn didn’t translate to the story, so oops on that.
I actually completely forgot about Donovan btw, dude should 100% be done for. It’s weird to think about how the only major deaths since Cold Steel have been Market Man, a couple of irredeemable or too powerful to join your side antagonists, and multiple people who permanently come back to life. The only good guy who stays dead is poor Otto.
Edit: Now that I’m thinking about it, I actually think CS 3 and 4 handled it a little bit better in having the health bars indicate that it was unwinnable but that you just had to get them to a certain point. It may not fix the underlying problem, but it at least indicates to the player what’s going on better.
Azure is still the best Trails so far
Greatest JRPG ever made next to xenoblade
0:49 you mean Trails From Zero?
er.... yep. Starts with Zero. Bleh. Wish there was a way to edit videos that are already uploaded.
@@SuperDerek no worries! Still a great video.
Oh wow I didn't see that this got uploaded. I missed like pretty much all your streams of this, but I enjoyed what I did. So for the longest time I considered SC to be easily my favorite Trails game, but after playing some of the Cold Steel titles, I think my opinion of this game lifted above SC. I think this is now my favorite RPG of all time. I loved the way the combat game together. The high stakes were also fantastic and I just love Crossbell in general. Both in terms of aesthetic and ease of travel it's my favorite setting in the Trails universe so far.
Yeah I will agree about the deaths thing, and it really doesn't get much better in that department as this series progresses. This series absolutely relies on certain writing techniques which in isolation are fine, but they use them a lot across the whole series.
I am.....very curious what you'll think of Cold Steel lol. I think they are some of the most ambitious games in the series so far, and are kind of divisive. Some fans love them, others not as much. I'm personally on the positive side, and am taking a break before I jump into Cold Steel 3. I'm glad you liked the game. I need to catch more of your streams lol I've just been rarely in the mood to watch streams in general these days.
The comment about your characters easily winning a battle only to have the narrative come along and make another character have to come and 'save' your team was my biggest issue with the half of the Cold Steel series. Go into a fight and demolish the enemies, loss in the narrative after and need to be saved. Over and over in a couple of them. The main cast may as well have not been involved in most of the important fights in the middle games of that arc.
Level up
Oh I never played this one ☝️.
I agree with your complaints about some narrative aspects of the series, and I hate to say that this is only getting worse in the Erebonian arc. Still an amazing series, Azure is my personal favorite. Looking forward to see your Cold Steel playthrough, keep up the good work ; )
Best Trails ever, one of the best jrpgs ever. Prove me wrong.
Having death scenes without ever actually killing anyone off should be a red flag to _any_ writer. A lack of creative integrity and no qualms about emotional manipulation do not make for a good story. At least for anyone who likes to think about the media they consume for longer than two seconds at a time. But I guess if you don't respect the story you're telling, how could you be expected to respect the intelligence of your audience? While I think the Crossbell games are the high point of the Trails series, they definitely cemented this trend that CS ended up running with.
Azure is.considered the best by many but I think zero is better actually and zero isnt quite the best either IMO... still damn good though
There are different parts of each game so far that shine brighter. For instance I love for Sky the Third was willing to go to some really dark places. Sky SC had a really great love story. It's really hard for me to pick a favorite just yet. :)
Definitely agree with repeated story beats...and i REALLY hope they drop some of them. Cold Steel 2 takes the "strong enemy or being saved" troupe to the next level. It feels like you don't win pretty much any big fights and have to be saved constantly. Please, stop down playing my efforts....
Azure is awesome and I'm glad you've gotten to play through the series until now. It's interesting you pick up on the issues of lack of permanent consequences, or the issues with fighting difficult characters, only for someone to swoop in and save the day every time. Because I picked up on these more in Cold Steel. Cold Steel really disillusioned me to a lot of the issues with the series, and these two in particular only get worse. Since you're picking up on some similar gripes I have, I'll just say prepare yourself to potentially be massively disappointed with a significant quality drop-off come Cold Steel that the series never recovers from and only digs into deeper, isolating me more with every entry lol
Duology sounds so wrong for some reason, lol
Great review and I 100 percent agree with your negatives. I mean trails in the sky sc is my favorite trails followed by azure but it has issues. These issues by the way get FAR FAR worse in the trails of cold steel series. The sheer amount of times your team is rescued in a scooby doo fashion of 'not so fast!' is cringeworthy. Also the unwillingness to commit to any real character deaths (or very very few) clashes with the war theme of the game. Lastly the bonding point system was a massive step back. In the sky trilogy I never had to choose who to spend time with. I always got to see all character development but in crossbell duology (to some extent)and especially cold steel they decided to lock you out of lots of character story arcs by turning character stories into a choice system where you need to choose who you want to learn about. Dear lord why. If you want to see what all the other character arcs were gonna be like you gotta either youtube it or start the game over in new game plus and play it aaaaaaaaaaaall again. These aspects really drag down an otherwise great series and is why sky trilogy reigns supreme in my book. Still damn good series overall and delighted you enjoyed azure as much as me. Very curious how you will feel about cold steel but something tells me.......well......lets see what you think :)
I played this game on 2x speed and watching you move and fight at 1x speed is making my eyes bleed
I definitely used fast-forward during my playthrough, but I took pains to exclude footage with that running because it's easier to follow combat at play in real-time for newcomers to the game. Thanks for the feedback, though.
My guy im gonna be real, the parts of this video with you on camera speaking are incredibly jarring. It looks and sounds dubbed, which if I had to guess you did the initial take with the microphone out of the shot and then re recorded the audio sitting down where you usually work and did your best to follow the cadence you had standing up with the poor audio, but I would rather a mic be in the shot than see you speaking and emoting while listening to audio that is just slightly out of sync and sounds like a translation dubbed over a speaker of a different language.
I also really do not like Falcom's inability to commit to character deaths and stuff like that. It removes so much tension from the story that otherwise should be there because in the back of your mind, you're always thinking "Eh, everything will turn out alright in the end." It really ruined one of the later games' story imo.