Toshihiro Kondo reveals the reason for Japanese voice cast changes in Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter

The interview between Nihon Falcom's Toshihiro Kondo and the Japanese outlet Gamer revealed a lot more aspects of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. Besides having twice the time needed to view all content without skipping, Kondo finally revealed the reason for employing a mostly new Japanese voice cast for the upcoming remake here.

The Japanese community has been largely known to get very closely attached to the original Japanese voice actors for characters in renowned game and anime franchises. In many cases, changes to the Japanese voice actors would happen only if the original actors have already died or completely retired. So when Nihon Falcom revealed that Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter will have a mostly renewed Japanese voice cast while the original actors are still available, it sparked huge reverberations from the Japanese community.

Kondo specifically stated that in this remake, he wants Estelle and Joshua Bright to have younger voices that better represent the two as new adventurers who are just starting their journeys at the young age of 16 years old. For reference, Estelle and Joshua's respective original voice actresses—Akemi Kanda (born November 1978) and Mitsuki Saiga (born June 1973)—are 46 and 52 years old as of this writing. The newly recast voice actresses are from a newer generation, with Tomoyo Takayanagi (born October 1994) at 30 years old and Natsumi Fujiwara (born June 1993) at 32 years old as of Sky 1st Chapter's release.

You can check our translation for the specific parts of the Japanese interview that covered the voice recording for Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter after the jump right below. This RPG will be available simultaneously worldwide on September 19 for PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.

Gamer: How were the performances from all the new cast members here?

Kondo: I felt something new born by asking all the cast members here. Estelle and Joshua also have that unsophisticated feel, and there's the sensation that the two of them are 16 years old.

Also, I feel like they performed in the recording studio while being aware of the original work (Trails in the Sky FC). Although we told them not to intentionally get close to the original, they dealt with it seriously.

Gamer: How much did you think the volume of the voices recorded was?

Kondo: The total word count for the voices was more than any prior Trails series entries. With this remake, when I looked back at Trails in the Sky once again, there's quite a lot of time that Estelle and Joshua spend just by themselves. In the original version it looked like those two just kept on journeying without saying anything, which may be a good thing on its own as it gave space for imagination. But it would not feel like a current-era game, so we cannot have them stay silent all the time.

For example, in the scene where the two journeyed to pass through a checkpoint, we added a rather detailed conversation between the two, which also increased the total word count. And then during battles there's also a considerable amount of dialogues; this one is also done in more detail than prior entries. In Trails through the Horizon there should be dialogue scenes that depend on the battle situations; you can imagine it like we took feedback from that one.

In Trails in the Sky, the number of characters with voice casts is very few even when compared inside the series, and there are only 8 party members. Some of the series entries had around 50 characters, though (strained laugh). In this game, when the two arrive at a town, they will talk about their impressions [about the town] or have a skit right after entering a building or meeting someone else.

Gamer: Trails in the Sky FC's episodes especially felt like a journey for the two of them. When we think about it now it was really that simple.

Kondo: When we set that up, the word count would naturally end up increasing. You'd feel like you're always listening to Estelle and Joshua's voices.

The things to do are simple, but the way of progressing becomes something like a semi open world. For example when you go to a specific region, you could even go to a place earlier even when the main scenario flow would have them visit it later. If you go there, there will be a conversation between the two; you could enter locations before incidents happen there, and there may also be quests actually showing up there as well.

It's been made like that from the original version, and it has also been the case in The Legend of Heroes series. After that, as we go through the main scenario it really evolved to the Trails series, but the one that retained the form on the preceding phase is Trails in the Sky.

That's why I feel like being able to rather freely move around the region is the real thrill of Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter. We have also properly prepared voices for those occasions.