Overview
This guide covers mods, controls, recommendations, and maybe more later; if you have any suggestions please put them in the comments, if you find this guide please rate it so others can find it.
Ease of life tips
-Pressing B on a Xbox controller or the right most button on other controllers will speed up dialogue unlike pressing the A button allowing for faster cut-scene skipping
-Inspecting a chest after looting it will give a subjectively funny joke and progress on the achievement: Patient Plunderer
-This game has auto-save which is very useful for achievements and experimentation, to use auto-save go into the menu/camp your party, then go to the files tab and select “load” turn to page 1 of your saves and then turn right once more and you can access auto-saves
Controls
First I would like to say that the original version of Trails in the Sky FC was release on Windows XP not PlayStation Portable so it IS fine to use keyboard controls
DEFAULT KEYBOARD:
*Directional keys correspond to movement directions
-Talk/OK ~ Space
-Cancel/Camp(character menu) ~ Ctrl
-Rotate Camera Left ~ Z
-Rotate Camera Right ~ X
-Toggle Walk/Run ~ A
-Show Location ~ Shift
-Zoom Minimap ~ V
-World Map ~ M
-Notebook/Quest Journal ~ B
-Recipe Book ~ C
-Monster Notebook ~ N
-Turbo Mode ~ Alt
IMPORTANT for gamepad users
*Pressing B on a Xbox controller or the right most button on other controllers will speed up dialouge unlike pressing the A button allowing for faster cutscene passing*
Sense there are many types of controllers and you can figure it out by pressing random buttons I will not put the Gamepad controls here.
Config options
To load the config figure out whether your playing the DX9 version (first option) or the DX8 version (3rd option) Select the 2nd circle if you play DX9 and the 4th if you play DX8
Graphics options
Go into config
Now I will describe how to maximize your graphics and how to set them quality grade settings (if you want lowest click “light mode”)
1. Set device to HAL (Hardware acceleration basically the rendering version of raw input)
2. Set resolution to desktop resolution (if you can’t figure out it’s resolution just keep selecting options until the “Border-less Window Mode” check box appears near the bottom)
For middle quality settings: if you are having lag try setting it to 1280×720 if you have a rectangular (16:9) monitor or 1152×864 if you have a square (4:3 monitor) then try to balance putting this setting lower with other graphical settings
3.Put texture quality on standard
Comparison:
Image to left is standard textures, look at the tile flooring
4.Set texture filtering to Anisotropic
Middle quality settings: set to Bilinear, point is useless and Bilinear is not demanding at all
More detail in only 2 minutes:
5. Vertical Sync: reduces “screen tear” may cause lag when turning camera and cut-scenes were camera turns, if this is the case turn it off
6. If Enabling “Hardware Vertex Shading” will put the Shading load on the GPU instead of the CPU if you don’t know what those are make sure the box is unchecked
Config minor options
-Checking the “logo” box will skip the Falcom logo, I would suggest having this checked
-Checking the “Opening” box will skip the animated opening, if your replaying you might want to select this to get though the intro quicker
-Click the Input tab to change keyboard control (i’d suggest turning OK/Talk to something else)
-In the Input tab select gamepad if you are having issues getting your gamepad to work then select device
-The Camera rotation is set to 45′ by default, this means that pressing the camera will rotate at 45 degrees at a time “free rotations” will allow you to hold it down well slowly rotating it
Achievements to keep in mind
Shiny, Shiny!: kill 1 Shiny Pom Pom each chapter (including the prologue) they appear in a new place each chapter. Early on you will probably HAVE to use S-breaks to kill them
The One True Chef/Armor Connoisseur/Weapon Connoisseur: Make sure to buy every new food/armor/armor you come across
In Justice We Trust!: Getting all Bracer points may require specific dialogue options and the like, if you would like to have a perfect BP save, make sure to see an achievement guide on these bonus adjectives
What Happens Next?: Some NPCs will give you free chapters of this novel, if you miss them a chapter will cost 1000 mira or more
Worldly Reader: re-buy Liberal News 1 after giving it to your father and buy every issue at book stores
Graphic and Language mods
Trails in the Sky FC: Evolution portraits
[link]
(Trails in the Sky FC: Evolution was a enhanced version released only in Japan, which included voice acting)
To install the portraits follow the instructions at the top of the website above, there are some that think that the original portraits are better because they are more expressive, I personally use the EVO portraits for battles only because the character’s expressions don’t change during battle and the EVO portraits are higher quality, try figuring out your preferences.
Japanese Cutscene Voiceacting
*This can be very hard to follow I plan to make more in-depth guide then the original if it is requested*
This mod will provide Japanese voice acting for cut-scenes (note this isn’t full voice acting), if you like subs in anime or other RPGs you may want this it won’t however provide Japanese voice acting for battle, note that you can turn down the volume of the voiceacting ed_voice.ini
Voice Acting Demo:
To install the Japanese EVO voices go follow this guide [link]
Skip the preparation step, instead of ripping your own voice files download them from here [link]
Battle Undub (Japanese battle voices)
[link]
install works same as “Trails in the Sky FC: Evolution portraits” installation
Graphical fix
Helix mod does does the following:
– Stereoized picture in pause menus.
– Some elements that were wrongfully in 2D in DX9 are in 3D in DX11.
– One haloing effect in Trails of the Sky: the 3rd, that at least appears at the start of the game.
the only downsides are that the opening and ending animations won’t show up and it’s also fairly easy to mess up installation
[link]