Trails in the Emotional Connection

Growing Disconnect

A temple at the top of a hill. A light breeze, green leaves dancing gently. No voice of a living being. An old wise woman sitting in absolute silence.
Eventually, the wind stops and the woman opens her mouth:
"Should video games always have to be fun?"
An angry mob of people rushes to the hill, armed with blessed swords, runes, bottles of holy water and the burning hatred of demons. They speak of a witch who cast an unforgivable curse, summoning of an unholy monster, whose name cannot even be uttered A monster that will destroy all fun in any video game it will touch. They say, it is the smallest sibling of the demons , each possessing an unfathomable curse. The middle sibling would give Dark Souls an easy mode. And the eldest demon would force people to think about basic feminist theory in every video game.
The woman stands up and confronts the angry mob, unfazed: "I have summoned no demon. If a monster exists, it only resides inside your hearts, remember when you wished games like Fallout 4 didn't sacrifice storytelling for more combat loops. Yet you deny yourselves, dismissing anything that is not conventionally fun as bad design. Haven't you ever felt sad at a video game?"
She shakes her head: "You are spoiled brats; you want games to be full of emotions yet also demand to gameplay to be fun regardless of any context. If you don't feel what players characters feel, is it really succesful interactive storytelling? There are lots of many games with sad narratives where gameplay is designed for maximum level of fun? Does this disconnect never make you uncomfortable?"
The mob is anxious: "Cease your lamentations! The demons are hearing you. We don't want to be forced into playing tedious video games."
The woman grows impatient. "No one will force you into doing anything, you are not the only people who play games!"
The woman lifts her arms wide to sky. A vision appears in front of the angry mob, a string of letters can be seen. It is read as:
"TRAILS IN THE SKY THE 3RD"

Re-connection

Games take various approaches at the emotional disconnect. For example, the first two Call of Duty games fully acknowledge the disconnect, accept that the games don't represent the real WW2 experience and remind the player that using anti-war quotes on death screens. On the other end, there is Undertale, which responds to player action so perfectly there is almost no such disconnect.
For a lot of JRPGs, this tends to be problem due to the usual detachment between turn based battles and story. However, turn based battling actually have an advantage here, because they lack in high immediate engagement, it is actually easier to establish a certain tone to battles. Still, tthe fact that you are enjoying the battles while the world is getting destroyed usually doesn't change, often it doesn't get serious enough to felt by player on a personal level. This problem can even be encountered in Trails games, despite amazing music and good design helping to alleviate it to a certain degree. But in Trails in the Sky the 3rd, this changes a lot.
The plot of the 3rd is about being trapped an alternative plane and confronting deeply personal issues, somewhat similar to Persona 3: The Answer. This leads a story where characters clash out of sheer necessity rather than enmity. Characters usually express satisfaction and even some delight in battling, no hard feelings, no conflict aside of the one which created the whole situation in the first place. It feels just right to enjoy the battles, at least most of the time, sometimes it is even openly encouraged by the story.
However, the opposite of this also exists. Uncharacteristic to Trails games, there is a one area where I found battling actually tedious.
One of the side-stories, Star Door 6. It is about the grueling training process of Ruan delinquents; Deen, Rais and Rocco. You have no access to magic, just a set of crafts. You can only get a few items, your only option of recovery is at the beginning of the dungeon, which requires a lot of backtracking. If you play this on Nightmare difficulty, there is no option but to grind as much as you can. Enemies are able to freeze you, which you can do nothing about and boss battles involve a good level of luck. There are few tactics that can make the process easier but overall you just have to be patient, grind, force your way through and pray to Aidios that you won't get frozen or Agate won't go too hard on you.

(not my screenshot, but I definitely had similar situations)

When I was playing the section, I became somewhat bored and even got angry. There isn't even much actual plot in this side-story, it's mostly about an endurance test.... Then it dawned on me, it is indeed an endurance test. It was tedious for me, but it was tedious for the characters too. By sacrificing the immediate satisfaction, the game delivered a better video game narrative.
It needs to be said that this is likely not intentional. The devs most likely wanted to craft a different type of challenge, taking the player from their comfort zone, not to make things intentionally tedious. When strictly viewed at this perspective, this is indeed bad design. However, whether by accident or not, this ended up connecting the player and player characters emotionally, which is important for interactive storytelling. This is why, even if I am not looking forward to play this part again in the future, I started to appreciate it a whole lot more. I have enjoyed the dungeon design of Persona 3 in a similar manner.
Obviously, no one is forced into liking anything. But before dismissing everything, ask yourselves: If you find video games a good place to tell stories, isn't there more potential than just gameplay and story being presented seperatetly? Is there truly nothing wrong when gameplay and narrative trying to elicit opposite emotions from player? There are even ethical concerns; like games using real life struggles for cheap feel-good moments, Detroit: Become Human being the most recent example.

This article is written thanks to my dearest Patrons and special thanks to: Alexandra Morgan, Laura Watson and Spencer Gill.