Chapter 1487 1404 ZAGE ZEPS 3 Games — March 2002

AN : Yeah... the chapters numbers are mistakes lol anyway deal with it xD

In the middle of March, on Saturday, March 14, 2002, ZAGE once again shook the gaming industry for a rather unexpected reason. It wasn't another ZEPS 4 announcement, a new hardware feature, or some gigantic next-generation project. Instead, ZAGE suddenly released two new games for the previous-generation ZEPS 3, proving once again that the arrival of ZEPS 4 didn't mean its older console had been abandoned.

The two games couldn't have been more different from each other. The first was Trails in the Sky the 3rd, the third entry in the increasingly popular Trails series and the continuation of the story that had begun with Trails in the Sky and expanded massively through Second Chapter. The second was Medal of Honor 2, the sequel to ZAGE's infamous and brutally immersive World War II game, Medal of Honor.

Both games were insane in completely different ways.

But among JRPG fans, most of the immediate attention went toward Trails in the Sky the 3rd.

Trails in the Sky Second Chapter had already dramatically expanded everything players loved about the original. Estelle's journey to find Joshua, Ouroboros becoming a genuine threat, the Liber Ark, the Aureole, Loewe, Weissmann, and the much larger cast had transformed what initially looked like a fairly traditional adventure JRPG into something considerably larger. By the end of that game, players had spent so much time with Estelle, Joshua, Scherazard, Agate, Tita, Olivier, Kloe and the rest of the cast that many fans didn't simply view them as playable characters anymore.

They felt like people they had traveled with for hundreds of hours.

Because of that, Trails in the Sky the 3rd immediately felt strange.

Estelle Bright was no longer the protagonist.

Instead, the central character was Kevin Graham.

Players already knew Kevin from Second Chapter as a cheerful priest of the Septian Church who frequently joked around, flirted casually, acted almost irresponsibly relaxed and somehow always appeared in exactly the right place whenever something suspicious happened. Of course, Second Chapter had eventually revealed that Kevin wasn't merely some wandering priest. He was a Dominion, one of the Septian Church's elite agents, and the man responsible for personally executing Weissmann after the final battle.

That revelation alone had already made players suspicious of him.

The 3rd finally answered the question:

Who the hell actually was Kevin Graham?

The story began after the Liber Ark incident. Among the remnants left behind was a mysterious ancient artifact known as the Recluse Cube, and naturally the Septian Church wanted it investigated before someone accidentally activated another ancient civilization-ending machine. Kevin was assigned to examine it and was eventually joined by Ries Argent, a young squire of the Church who had known Kevin long before most of the existing cast had ever met him.

Their investigation didn't go normally.

Because Trails apparently didn't believe in normal archaeological discoveries.

The Cube activated.

Kevin and Ries were pulled into a mysterious alternate realm called Phantasma, an enormous artificial world seemingly constructed from memories, locations, thoughts and information connected to the people trapped within it. Familiar places appeared throughout Phantasma, but they weren't quite real. Entire environments could change without warning. Monsters existed alongside recreations of locations from Liberl, and increasingly strange entities watched Kevin's progress from somewhere deeper within the realm.

Then other familiar people began appearing.

Estelle.

Joshua.

Kloe.

Olivier.

Agate.

Tita.

Scherazard.

Zin.

Anelace.

Josette.

Richard.

Julia.

Mueller.

And others.

By the time the game's full roster opened up, players had access to an enormous sixteen playable characters, making this the largest Trails party ZAGE had created so far.

And ZAGE actually used that enormous cast.

Players couldn't simply choose Estelle, Joshua and two favorite characters and ignore everyone else forever. Several major areas encouraged or outright required splitting the available cast into multiple parties, meaning players had to understand more than one team composition. Characters filled noticeably different combat roles, Orbment setups mattered considerably more, and equipment that might be useless for one character could completely change another.

The underlying Trails combat system remained turn-based and heavily position-oriented, but ZAGE continued expanding it. Movement ranges, Arts, Crafts, S-Crafts, status interactions and turn manipulation all became more important, while enemies increasingly punished players who relied on exactly the same strategy throughout the entire game. New turn effects and stronger elemental interactions made the timeline itself increasingly important, encouraging players to manipulate turn order rather than simply choosing the strongest attack every round.

For players who had followed the series since the first game, it was incredibly satisfying.

Every character felt familiar, but stronger.

Every returning technique looked better.

Every S-Craft became more ridiculous.

And because ZEPS 3 development tools had matured enormously by this point, ZAGE didn't need ZEPS 4 hardware to make the game visually attractive. The models, environments and animations obviously couldn't compete technically with ZEPS 4 titles, but Trails had never depended entirely on graphical realism anyway.

Its strength was somewhere else.

Characters.

Worldbuilding.

Dialogue.

Music.

Mysteries.

Politics.

Phantasma contained mysterious Doors scattered throughout its different layers. Opening these Doors revealed stories connected to the cast—sometimes events from the past, sometimes events occurring elsewhere, sometimes comedic side adventures, and sometimes surprisingly disturbing pieces of information that completely changed how players understood certain characters.

A seemingly minor character from an earlier game could suddenly receive half an hour of backstory.

A political situation mentioned only casually in Second Chapter could suddenly become extremely important.

Characters from Erebonia, Crossbell and other regions received references that made fans immediately begin theorizing about where the series would go after Liberl.

And occasionally players opened a Door expecting something funny before ZAGE emotionally assaulted them for forty minutes.

The community quickly learned one important lesson:

Never trust a Trails Door.

Yet despite the gigantic returning cast, Trails in the Sky the 3rd was ultimately Kevin's story.

As Kevin and Ries traveled deeper into Phantasma, the cheerful priest persona players had become familiar with slowly began cracking.

Kevin was funny.

Kevin was friendly.

Kevin could annoy almost anyone within five minutes.

But underneath that personality was someone carrying an enormous amount of guilt.

His relationship with Ries became increasingly important because she represented a part of his past that Kevin had spent years trying not to confront. Through Phantasma's recreations and Kevin's own memories, players gradually learned about Rufina Argent, Ries's older sister and one of the most important people in Kevin's life.

Rufina had helped Kevin when he was younger.

She had cared for him.

She had protected him.

And her death had left a wound Kevin had never properly healed from.

Instead of processing it, Kevin had buried everything beneath his work for the Church, his jokes, his easygoing behavior and the increasingly dangerous missions he accepted as a Dominion.

The deeper the party traveled into Phantasma, the more obvious it became that the realm wasn't simply some random ancient dungeon.

It was reacting to Kevin.

His memories.

His guilt.

His fear.

His belief that he deserved punishment.

And eventually, players realized that escaping Phantasma wasn't merely about defeating some final monster and finding the exit.

Kevin had to confront himself.

That shift surprised many Trails fans.

Estelle's story had been fundamentally optimistic. Even when terrible things happened around her, Estelle kept moving forward through sheer emotional stubbornness, dragging everyone around her toward the light whether they wanted it or not.

Kevin was different.

He already knew how ugly the world could become.

He had killed people.

He worked for an organization that regularly dealt with artifacts, heretics and threats ordinary civilians would never even know existed.

He could smile while hiding things that would emotionally destroy most people.

And that gave Trails in the Sky the 3rd a noticeably darker atmosphere compared with the previous two games.

Fortunately, ZAGE didn't allow the entire experience to become depressing.

Because Estelle was still Estelle.

The moment she entered Phantasma, the emotional balance of the universe immediately shifted.

Her relationship with Joshua also received something fans had been waiting for across the entire trilogy.

They were finally, unquestionably, officially together.

No more "Are they siblings?"

No more "Does Joshua actually understand what Estelle means?"

No more endless arguments about whether the conclusion of Second Chapter counted.

They were a couple.

And Trails fans completely lost their minds.

Forum screenshots of Estelle and Joshua interacting spread everywhere. Fans clipped every affectionate conversation they could find. Fan artists became extremely productive within approximately twenty-four hours.

One particularly popular thread was titled:

"ESTELLE FINALLY GOT HER PRINCESS."

Someone immediately replied:

"Bro Joshua is a man."

The original poster answered:

"I KNOW WHAT I SAID."

Another response appeared underneath:

"Estelle is obviously the prince in this relationship."

Thousands of people agreed.

Joshua himself would probably have accepted his fate.

Even better, ZAGE didn't suddenly reduce Estelle and Joshua into nothing but romantic characters. They still behaved like themselves. Estelle remained loud, straightforward, optimistic and occasionally terrifying. Joshua remained calm, analytical and much better at thinking before speaking. Their relationship simply felt like the natural conclusion of everything the first two games had built.

Players who had spent two full games watching Estelle chase this emotionally damaged boy across Liberl finally received the payoff.

"She fucking caught him."

That sentence appeared on the ZAGE forums an unreasonable number of times.

But the romance was only one part of why the game became so heavily discussed.

The sixteen-character roster produced endless party debates.

Some players built teams entirely around raw physical damage. Others created ridiculous Arts-focused compositions. Some refused to remove Estelle and Joshua regardless of efficiency because they had become emotionally incapable of separating them. Kevin gained a surprisingly large fanbase because of his personality and story, while Ries quickly became popular as well because of her dynamic with him.

Olivier naturally continued being Olivier.

Which meant every scene containing him had approximately a fifty-percent chance of becoming nonsense.

And with Phantasma allowing characters who normally wouldn't spend much time together to interact directly, ZAGE took advantage of almost every possible combination.

That was one reason fans increasingly praised ZAGE's character writing.

The company didn't simply create fifteen supporting characters and leave most of them standing silently in the background.

People had relationships.

Agate interacted differently with Tita than with Olivier.

Kloe behaved differently around Estelle than around political figures.

Joshua's history affected how others viewed him.

Richard couldn't simply appear without the events of the previous games influencing everyone's behavior toward him.

Even small conversations reflected things players had experienced dozens of hours earlier.

For newcomers, the game was still playable.

But for someone who had completed both previous Trails games?

It felt like being rewarded constantly for remembering things.

And perhaps that was what impressed people most.

ZAGE had just released ZEPS 4.

Yet here they were releasing another ZEPS 3 JRPG whose greatest weapon wasn't graphical power at all.

It was writing.

Trails in the Sky the 3rd didn't need realistic skin.

It didn't need gigantic open worlds.

It needed players to care about Kevin Graham sitting quietly and finally admitting that he hated himself.

It needed players to remember why Rufina mattered.

It needed players to laugh when Olivier said something stupid.

It needed players to smile when Estelle and Joshua stood beside each other.

And after three games, people cared.

A lot.

For many JRPG fans, Trails in the Sky the 3rd became another reminder that ZAGE's strength wasn't simply that it possessed better technology than most of the industry.

ZAGE knew how to make players care.

And that was considerably harder to manufacture than good graphics.

Meanwhile, the other ZEPS 3 game released on the exact same day was receiving a very different kind of attention.

Medal of Honor 2.

And the way players were treating that game...

Was an entirely different story.

To be continued.