The follow-up to Nihon Falcom's popular JRPGs The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky and its sequel SC, Trails in the Sky the 3rd continues the adventures across Liberl on the Zemurian continent, but taking a slightly different tack. Instead of having Estelle and Joshua as main protagonists like the previous two installments, 3rd focuses on returning playable character Father Kevin Grahame, a wandering priest, and his squire and childhood friend, Ries Argent. Despite being called the 3rd, the game plays less like the ending of a trilogy and more like a bridge to link the first two games with the rest of the Trails metaseries, expanding on the overarching story that was introduced in the first two installments.
Picking up 6 months after the end of SC and the Calamity of Liberl, the 3rd follows Kevin and Ries in their work for the Septian Church. Journeying back to Liberl from Erebonia, they investigate an artifact found underneath Lake Valeria and are then transported to Phantasma, the Land of Shadows and a realm of illusions that changes even as Ries and Kevin explore it. The game delves into both Kevin and Ries' mysterious pasts as well as further conflicts with the mysterious organization known as Ouroboros, using the power of the unknown artifact and the nature of the Land of Shadows. Familiar faces from the previous installments return including Estelle, Joshua, Olivier, Schera, Agate, Tita, Kloe, Zin, Julia, Mueller, Josette and Renne.
Originally released in Japan for PC in 2007, the game was later ported to PSP in 2008 and PS3 in 2013. However, it did not see an English localization release until 2017 by XSEED Games. The localization has only been released for PC due to unspecified issues with porting. It is followed in the Trails sub-series by The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Zero.
