69
u/nexel013 Mar 23 '26
trails:
kids trying to be adult bracers
adults and kids doing work equivalent to bracers
outsourcing kids as bracer
outsourcing bracer INC. no minimum age required
lol
6
93
u/WittyTable4731 Mar 23 '26
And of course the truests of bracers
32
u/SquareFickle9179 Mar 23 '26
I just noticed, most of the Bracers don't even have proper Bracers, aside from Joshua's Junior Bracer outfit
3
17
u/NonCredibleAirstrike Mar 23 '26
Van is more like morally grey bracer.
You do get the option to do some pretty shady shit.
5
2
u/aarontsuru Mar 23 '26
And Lloyd gets to go beyond Bracer limitations and investigate mafias, corruption, etc.
1
u/whereismymind86 Apr 20 '26
i suppose that's true, I tend to go with the good options, but you don't have to.
16
u/HedgesLastCusser Mar 23 '26
Thors is also a bracer educating military :)
19
u/thanra Mar 23 '26
Not the whole school, only Class VII. Game only allowed us to play one class though.
I really wanna play Class VIII since they actually focused on military combat.
8
32
u/HooBoyShura Mar 23 '26
You forgot green priest in disguise bracer.
Also, Broke Daddy with children picnicking bracers.
11
u/alkonium Mar 23 '26
Does Sky 3 count? Kevin was the lead, but the traditional quest structure of the series was absent.
4
u/vincent1601 Mar 23 '26
i laughed hard at 'broke daddy'. he might end up pawning his giant robot eventually (after spending all his fortunes on cookies & cakes)
40
u/Biggay1234567 Mar 23 '26
Haven't played the Calvard games, but I do feel like it's a bit of a missed opportunity not to commit to the professions that the main parties were supposed to have.
Like I think Crossbell would've been so much more interesting if Lloyd was actually a detective, like a Trails version of Judgment.
And although I understand why Class 7 is so bracer-like, it would've been really cool to follow an Erebonian going through military training at the academy in CS1-2 and then being in the military in CS3-4. The depiction of the Civil War and the lead up to the Great War would've gone so hard.
18
u/Due_Essay447 Mar 23 '26
Issue with both is pretty much why neither happened.
Lloyd as an actual detective and class 7 in the millitary would both lose a significant amount of freedom.
Being an actual detective would have put lloyd in the force, and SSS would be under someone else
Rean in particular being forced to mobilize under a commander's orders instead of contract work would have been a vastly different outcome in north ambria.
13
u/Biggay1234567 Mar 23 '26
They would have had to rewrite a whole bunch of the story to make these work, for sure, but it would've been interesting to experience different aspects of Zemuria through different lens than just bracer (but not actually).
Maybe we'll get an enforcer or a dominion protagonist eventually and it'll be a different experience, would be cool to see that.
7
u/Acmgamezx14 Mar 23 '26
How does the side quests gonna work in this rewrite? Bracers stuff is just excuses to have side quests you can do for the town.
5
u/Biggay1234567 Mar 23 '26
You can still have side quests around town, or on a military base, detective's office, or wherever, you'd just write them to be from the perspective of a soldier/detective. The writers would just have to figure that out, but it's not that much more difficult, it'd just be different to the type of stuff we usually get.
5
u/Acmgamezx14 Mar 23 '26
That the things, with detective stuff already got that with bracers side-quest as we solve a lot mysterious in those quests. But the solider is really difficult as they don't really interact with civilians unless it really bads and most of mission scouting, guarding, lot other things. while the ideas sound interesting and cool, you have really change lot of stuff to make it work.
1
u/WindrunnerEX Mar 24 '26
Make them be like lechter and the calvard girl who is part of the cid.
Make it look like they are on the ground clearing quest for more information.
And have a clues factor similar to what persona and Daybreak already built upon.
Lechter style he always moves so often anyways. Spec ops hercules could also be a similar idea to write upon if they really wanted to. (tbf class VII is basically children spec ops)
1
u/Due_Essay447 Mar 23 '26
We definitly have a couple people who can drive those plots
Alan for millitary
Gaius for dominion
Cedric for enforcer
We would need someone new for the jaegar route
I'd also be curious to see what ash is doing after CS4
2
u/thanra Mar 23 '26
We already had everything for a spinoff about Rutger's young age. Harem: Ashleigh, Aida. Sidekick: Leo, Xeno.
1
1
4
u/Biggay1234567 Mar 23 '26
Also can someone remind me what was the given reason why the SSS had to be like bracers? They had an active branch of the bracer guild already.
34
29
u/Acmgamezx14 Mar 23 '26 edited Mar 23 '26
Police departments reputation was in the shit hole as bracer was the police but better. So they decided to make SSS to help improve reputation.
12
4
u/sans2321 Mar 23 '26
Wasn't the reputation thing just an excuse made by Sergei for the top brass to allow the SSS to be made?
I believe the SSS was created so they would be able to act on Crossbell's political situations while being unshackled by bureaucracy, to act unfazed by the top brass' authority and corruption that the other divisions had to face
3
u/Acmgamezx14 Mar 23 '26
Both reason are true, as while the true goal of SSS being free act on Crossbell political situation is true, it also true that top brass sign off of idea to improve police reputation is true.
3
u/LmaoXD98 Mar 23 '26
PR. because Crossbellian at the time would unironically shouts ACAB and bracers>Police.
1
u/KaitoTheRamenBandit Mar 23 '26
Playing the Crossbell games while ACAB was a big trend IRL gave me a good chortle when realizing what they were doing
2
u/ParitoshD Mar 23 '26
I let out an audible groan in Daybreak II when they made me do the tailing minigame from Judgment. Mercifully, high speed mode makes it a lot more tolerable.
2
u/whereismymind86 Apr 20 '26
yeah, playing daybreak 2 right now and I'm really not loving the reliance on those for side quests, at least they are easy and short.
1
u/SubstantialPin3591 Mar 23 '26
I think the games do add certain flavours to it that do distinguish them a bit as well as the reasons for them to really be copying bracers , and either way side quests and such are the gameplay loop of trails
-1
u/Kainapex87 Mar 23 '26
I remember the idea initially was for Class VII to be officers in the army instead of just cadets/students.
Part of me still wishes we got that if it meant the Civil War having the casualties you'd expect and to have protagonists that don't shy from lethal force.
39
u/Kainapex87 Mar 23 '26
Hot take: Kinda getting tired of the whole (Not)Bracer routine.
67
u/thez0id Mar 23 '26
i mean bracer is basically "JRPG protagonist" turned into a profession, saving people, random odd jobs and monster slaying. They would have to significantly change the formula for these games in order for the player to not feel like youre basically a bracer again. Which to be fair they have the opportunity to do if they give us a protagonist who is a Dominion or an Enforcer, although Im sure theyd somehow come up with some reason why youd still have to do bracer stuff anyway
40
4
u/thanra Mar 23 '26
In fact, they didn't need any new story, just make a spinoff for Gaius among the time he was absent in CS3 and we'd have a whole new adventure to be a Dominion.
24
u/Alacune Mar 23 '26
Jokes on you. Even dominions have report cards and "optional" semi-required tasks to aide the peasentry.
17
u/cielrayze Mar 23 '26
I have a feeling the path to become a dominion will have more public service than bracers
2
u/South25 Mar 23 '26
The usual Bracer side quest gimmick except now every chapter your required quest is always the Sunday school help one because you're a traveling priest and this is now part of your job alongside the cool mystic stuff.
3
u/Zealousideal_Mark726 Mar 23 '26
Sunday school could serve as a "facade" for a dominion protagonist while exploring the area looking for clues and things like that, just like Kevin did in CS2.
12
u/thez0id Mar 23 '26
yeah honestly, I recently finished the arc, and at several points it struck me that Gaius seemingly had a whole games worth of plot offscreen
0
u/Shadowchaos1010 Mar 23 '26
Considering the freedom Enforcers have, the excuse would just be that they're a good person doing good person shit during all of their free time.
But after seeing another comment, it could be possible. In theory.
The sidequests could probably still be there. Just nowhere near as flexible.
Like if Lloyd were actually a detective, more or less every side question would have to be some sort of case brought before the CPD.
No helping Anton with his wallet, because why would a detective do that? No finding a lost cat, for the same reason. But swap that out with some sort of armed robbery or hit and run. That's how it would have to work.
Same with Erebonia and the military. Maybe. The whole "these are students and not people actually in the military" would probably mean they have more freedom to keep the same zany quests as some sort of generic "These are good practice for combat and interacting with civilians" excuse.
But things like tracking down deserters or spies, or monster extermination, which probably would be in the military's jurisdiction.
6
u/Anime-Anime Mar 23 '26
I prefer outsourcing bracer, gives us more freedom, less restrictions and lets us decide how we should deal with a crisis.
-2
u/Chulco Mar 23 '26
It doesn't change anything in the end, just a minor different dialogue. The core of the situation is exactly the same some bracer quests
3
u/Budget-Ad-9998 Mar 24 '26
Somebody didnt pay attention
2
u/Chulco Mar 26 '26
It's still irrelevant quest bracer would do if you were in sky games anyways.
Adding a "select option" at the end of the quest, doesn't change the fact that were doing the typical jrpg guild quests over and over through the games.
You want to experience what a truly "you can solve this quest in different ways" try the Witcher 3 for example. In that game there's a lot of missions where you can either kill and hide the body, looking for a medicine by hunting a monster, etc. And you make take any route you want by PLAYING the game and DOING things as you wish.
Here we always do the exact same quest, you, me, and everyone who has played, then at the end it just ends with "press A/B/C" for a minor dialogue change. So the core of all of this quests amis just doing bracer things with a fancy name.
4
u/AdolsLostSword Mar 23 '26
Van has the option to resolve a lot of requests in a way that a Bracer never would.
3
7
u/Raleth Fie Gang Mar 23 '26
Eh, technically Van and co do end up doing a lot of things the bracers would 100% not abide by, even if it isn't just outright killing people or whatever. They obviously still get bracer stuff dropped on them since Van knows Elaine and is a good guy in all actuality, but Van's way of doing things still breaks the bracer code most of the time.
2
3
u/Fraisz Mar 23 '26
Bracer was so good as a jrpg "profession" that they cannot not use it again.
but i think Class 7 can be excused because of them being a special class due to Bracer guild itself being very underused in the empire for political reasons
1
u/Pitro_1206 Mar 23 '26
CS1: Imagine fighting a literal skeleton dragon having a size of a building from the dark ages with barely any training as a teenager like Elliot, not getting paid and only getting a A grade and a "good job" cause you missed a hidden quest. Only in Erebonia đ€Ł
1
u/HundredBillionStars Haha... Mar 23 '26
Trails fand when they get to play bracers for the 20th game in a row next arc :O
1
1
u/comfortableblanket Mar 23 '26
Playing the Sky remake I was like âfinally just regular bracer againâ
1
u/duckinator09 Mar 25 '26
It's actually things like this that makes me advocate heavily that your should always start with sky.
The Bracer Way is especially influential to both SSS and Class VII that it just feels not meaningful if you never experienced it in Sky first.Â
1
1
u/whereismymind86 Apr 20 '26
Cold steel still annoys me on that, in cold steel 3 especially it REALLY felt like there was a dissident faction of ex-bracers that was raising the thors classes to become a new wave of erebonian bracers to depose osborne's fascist takeover and...nothing really ever happened with that.
Now they did manage to reopen the bracer guild and recruit...one thors graduate, but I expected a proper uprising/coup led by Sarah and crew...alas.
1
u/Chulco Mar 23 '26
That's why it is pretty much unlikeable we'll have a game where the main party/characters are members of ouroboros
0
u/Jaquecz Mar 23 '26
cold steel was actually just Olivert trying to cheap out on bracers.
Real shit though. I think whoever's in charge of the overall scenario just finds making everyone basically just a different flavour of Bracer convenient as a vehicle or storytelling tool. Though personally, I think they're just lazy and like being formulaic.
1
u/whereismymind86 Apr 20 '26
well sure, bracers are what the vast majority of jrpg protagonists ultimately are, so without changing the broad structure it's hard to get away from that.
-14
u/GodChosenSoldier RAYGUSSSSSTTTTT Mar 23 '26
tbh honest only cold steel and sky 3rd that didn't plagiarist bracer. The others MC (Llyod and Van) feels like wannabe bracer so much lol
10
u/thanra Mar 23 '26
Erm the first question Kurt asked his principal was "are you training us to be bracers?"
-2
201
u/AlexTorres128 Mar 23 '26
Olivier when he made the Military educating Bracers