Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter requires 350 Bracer Points (BP) to reach the maximum rank of Rank 1 Bracer, with a maximum obtainable total BP close to 400. Throughout the game, you’ll have many decisions to make in both the main story quests and side quests that can grant you bonus BP.
Most of the time, new sidequests will show themselves as being available with a green ! on your minimap. Quests which were originally hidden in the original release of Trails in the Sky (FC) have now been made much easier to find, so open up your map fairly regularly to find them.
This guide isn’t going to detail every single quest in Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter as most of them are very straightforward, but instead covers how to get all the bonus BP, as well as how to deal with some of the peskier quests you’ll come across. Spoilers are kept to a minimum as best I can, though I have some advice on the lategame optional boss at the end.
To note, in-game any time a decision affects how much BP you can get, there will be a circle that says (BP) on the options, and the boxes will be colored in red. Decisions with the yellow-brown boxes do not affect BP. All main story quests will be italicized.
Prologue/Rolent
Child Rescue: Storm in together with Joshua [2nd Option]. +1 BP
Perzel Pest Control: When the game gives you the “be sure to catch it without entering the monster’s line of sight” message, save your game in case you mess up and get caught. Just sneak up on the monster when it’s not looking and hit confirm on its backside. +2 BP
Streetlight Switch: Choose between Estelle and Joshua to fight the monsters. I find this fight easier with Estelle given she has an AoE S-Craft. If you choose to fight them with Joshua, Estelle needs to remember the code, which is 544818 [3rd Option]. +1 BP
Troop Training: Win the fight. +2 BP
Mayoral Robbery: Once you investigate all the Red !s, talk to Scherazard. Make the following choices:
- The Septium inside the safe [2nd Option]
- A group of three or four [2nd Option]
- From the second floor terrace [3rd Option]
- A traveler that visited recently [4th Option]
Later when you’re about to engage with the boss at Mistwald, pick “(Grr…Fine.)” [2nd Option]. All of this should get you +5 BP.
Chapter 1/Bose
Elissa’s Entreaty: (This quest is in the “Rolent” quests tab, but can’t be started till Chapter 1)
- When picking strawberries, pick “Strawberries with red seeds on the surface” [1st Option]
- When milking the cow, “Put strength into my thumb and index finger” [2nd Option].
Picking both gets you +2 BP.
Culinary Collection: There’s no extra BP option for this one, I’m just putting it here because this quest doesn’t show a green ! on your minimap after accepting it if you don’t have all the Monster Tenders you need to complete it, so it can be easy to forget. If you don’t have 5 Monster Tenders, you can get them from Limera and Hresvelgr enemies in the region. You can find these enemies on the path to Haken Gate or in a hidden cave full of bird monsters west of Bose just before Krone Trail.
Escort Escapade: Frontal Assault [1st Option]. +1 BP
Missing Airliner: Their Hideout is somewhere special [5th Option]. +3 BP
Ring Robbery: While you can accept this quest during Chapter 1, you won’t be able to finish it until you’ve beaten the dungeon at the end of Chapter 1, and you won’t be able to turn it in until the very start of Chapter 2.
Black Notebook: Just make sure you don’t miss the green ! marker near the hideout at the end of Chapter 1. There’s a notebook hidden in a vacuum cleaner. Take this to Haken Gate at the start of Chapter 2.
Chapter 2/Ruan
While walking down Gull Seaside Way on the way to Ruan, you’ll see a Blue ! marker where you’ll fight some monsters to help a fellow named Jimmy. I’m pretty sure this is what gets you +2 BP later in the chapter when you do Jimmy’s “Map Mystery” sidequest.
Orphanage Investigation:
- While investigating the fire, pick “Someone started the fire?” [2nd Option]
- During the cutscene in The White Magnolia in Manoria village, pick “The Thugs?!” [3rd Option, the first option gives you less BP]
This should get you +4 BP.
Prototype Pursuit: When accepting this quest, you might notice that the icon doesn’t show up anywhere on your map. Defeat the monster on the Aina Cswy Monster quest to obtain the item needed to complete this quest. Don’t accidentally sell it!
Delicate Diplomacy:
- Your Grace, we have come for you. [2nd Option]
- What?! In such a low-class place…? [1st Option]
- Ah! By your feet, Your Excellency…[2nd Option]
Pick all three options for +2 BP.
Maintenance Mail: This doesn’t get you any bonus BP, but if you bring an Azelia Rose (you can get one of these for free in a sub-event) and Spicy Anchovies (sold at Manoria), you’ll get some useful accessories.
A Festival Favor: While you’re at Jenis for the festival, you’ll see a bunch of sub-events marked with a blue ! on the minimap. Make sure to take care of all of those.
- Help the custodian decorate the school grounds
- Upon activating the Old Schoolhouse sub-event, clear all the monsters out of the building.
- You’ll find three volumes of Ruan Economics History on campus, turn all of those in to Logan on the 2nd floor of the cafeteria before ordering food and beginning the festival.
All of these should give you +5BP.
Chapter 3/Zeiss
Product Piloting: Equip the Strega-Alpha and go to Wolf Fort, Sanktheim Gate, Air-Letten, Elmo Village, and Leiston Fortress. You can use fast-travel and it will count. Doing all five will give you +2BP.
Cupid on Cue: Make sure to buy a Wool Knit Hat at Bell Station in Zeiss before giving the letter. +4BP.
Factory Incident: When investigating Zeiss Factory, go to all the Blue !s and disable the smoke canisters. There’s one in the basement and one on each of the first four floors. Each one gets you +1BP for a total of +5BP.
Later, when prompted, pick “Those guys in black are behind this?” [3rd Option] for +3BP.
Vanished Professor: “The Royal Guard is being framed?” [3rd Option] for +3BP.
Once you’ve gone into the fortress and defeated the two Special Ops guards, don’t get caught by the guards while trying to escape. Their vision area is noted on the minimap. This gets you +3BP.
Final Chapter/Grancel
As an FYI, there is a sidequest available in Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter after the final boss titled “Embassy Emergency”, so don’t fret if you’ve reached the final dungeon and your rewards checklist says you’ve only done 71 of 73 quests (beating the final boss clears the last main story quest for #72). I recommend doing this last quest even if you don’t need the BP because it’s funny.
Royal Message: The letter of introduction won’t work? [3rd Option]. +1BP
When talking to Nial at The Liberl News Service, pick “Colonel Richard” [3rd option; the 2nd Option gives less BP] +2BP
While heading to the Cathedral at night, don’t get caught by the guards. Their vision area is noted on the minimap. +5BP
Hostage Rescue: While at the News office, pick “He was called away by someone”. [2nd Option]
During the fight with the 3 Special Ops soldiers in the Castle Royal Keep, don’t let Dunan’s HP hit 0. He often will just run around and occasionally heal himself. Save after this fight if you want Max BP. The next boss fight is optional to win, but it doesn’t give you a retry option if you fail.
Lorence
Win this fight for +3BP. You’ll get reduced BP if you make it far into the fight. This boss is infamously nasty. You’ll have to fight him with Estelle, Kloe, and Scherazard. If you lose, you’ll have to reload a save to try again.
Some of the strategies that worked in the original Trails in the Sky FC don’t work in Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter (e.g. lowering his stats with Kloe’s Kaempfer craft). There’s a few things you can do in this fight. I’ll list a strategy that worked for me that took a more straightforward approach, as well as one that just used cheese to break the fight entirely.
More conventional strategy: You’ll want Sylphen Wing up at all times, and you’ll likely want to make sure Kloe has at least 100CP at all times because Lorence sometimes hits you with multiple hard hits in a row that can just take you out from full before you get a chance to retaliate. You’re going to want Action quartz equipped for the extra speed. Anti-Sept takes away his self-buffs. I recommend having at least one character who can each cast Sylphen Wing, Earth Wall, and La Teara to keep yourself at high HP.
When he gets to about 30% HP, the game will zoom on him and he will say “how persistent”. This is the sign that he’s about to self-buff and unleash his strongest assault. On Nightmare this will likely one shot you. When I got him down to just barely over this HP threshold, I made sure to buff up Estelle and Schera’s strength stat, had them at 200CP, had Brave Points at 5 for a Burst attack, lined it up to where all three characters had a turn in a row, and then unloaded with my strongest attacks like Estelle and Schera’s S-Crafts, and used Kloe’s turn to use a Zeram Capsule on Estelle so that she could unload a second full-strength S-Craft. This was enough to do the final ⅓ of his HP with the help of Burst and follow-up attacks. Make sure your characters are all equipped with strong accessories and the best quartz you can give them. Don’t hesitate to take them off of Joshua, Olivier and Zin’s orbments and equipment slots for the time being.
There’s a good chance this fight will take you a few tries. If you don’t want to bother with it, you have more than enough BP from doing everything else to hit max rank, and you can reload your save to a lower difficulty to get the achievement for beating him. I would recommend if you have any stat boosting droplets or elixirs to just dump them on your party for this fight. Defensive stats are good for Kloe and physical strength is good for Estelle.
Cheesy strategy: There is also a strategy that makes this fight, and much of lategame in general, an utter cakewalk that I figured out about after beating the game. Be forewarned that you might prefer to not use this if you don’t want to utterly break the game for yourself. You want to give Schera a Gladiator Belt or Gladiator Belt+, and set her up with EP 3 and EP Cut 3 Quartz and anything else that can boost her EP, and make sure she has the Clock Up EX art. Make sure Kloe also has EP and EP Cut Quartz and the Clock Up EX art. Come in with a few EP Charge III or IVs. It’s also good to have Estelle equipped with a Victory Headband accessory and any other + Strength accessory. Have Estelle use her S-Craft, then use Kloe’s turn to cast Clock Up EX on Schera. Have Schera use her Heaven’s Kiss Craft on Estelle and Kloe. From here on out, Estelle’s job is to either use basic attacks or S-Craft on Lorence (and hit him with Brave Attacks/Burst when you can), or use EP Charge III to restore Kloe or Schera’s EP as needed. Kloe will spend all of her turns using Clock Up EX on Schera to set her turn to next. Schera’s job is to use Heaven’s Kiss on the other two to repeat the loop. If she doesn’t have 90 CP for this, have her cast Clock Up EX on herself to restore CP thanks to the Gladiator Belt until she hits 90 CP and can use Heaven’s Kiss again. This loop pretty much breaks this fight and every other fight in the late game.
Review: Click Here
General Tips and Tricks Guide: Click Here
If you’d like to check out the previous games in the series, here are our reviews for Nihon Falcom titles. If you are looking for another JRPG, you should check out our review of Tales of Graces f Remastered.
Thanks to GungHo Entertainment for providing a PC review code for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter.
Been playing games since my papa gave me an NES controller in the early 90’s. I play games of almost all genres, but especially focus role-playing, action, and puzzle-platform games. Also an enjoyer of many niche things ranging from speedrunning to obscure music from all over the world.
