[CorsiHockeyLeague]

I finished Trails from Zero yesterday after putting it down for a long while. Overall, about as good as Trails in the Sky FC I think - maybe a little better.

Spoiler!

I think it has the best soundtrack of the series overall (some of the best battle music in JRPG history). The relationships between the characters are probably better developed than in the Liberl arc overall, which was focused far more on Joshua and Estelle. Incidentally, I'm not sure how I feel about bringing those two in for the final chapter - obviously I used them, but it might have been more compelling if they weren't available for the last boss rush because they had to go and escort the prisoners out, or something along those lines. They feel a bit like they're intruding on a story that they're not a part of. I'm guessing now that they've retrieved Renne they won't play as much of a role in Azure, which I'm fine with.

The story overall, at least last half of it, felt like a total re-hash, with Guenther being Weissman 2.0, as the dialogue repeatedly acknowledged during the ending scenes. Harmless, absent-minded academic type turns out to be manipulative, child-enslaving evil mastermind with a staff? Yeah I've seen this movie before... Hopefully he's really dead and they can do something different with Azure. It just didn't feel like the stakes were anywhere near as high due to the repetitive nature of it.

I've decided I'm going to play the Cold Steel games on the Steam Deck when I get it, so I'll be playing through Azure between now and then I guess.