Ys vs. Sora no Kiseki: Alternative Saga/FAQ
For Falcom fans
Is Flash Guard broken?
Ys vs Trails arguably hosts the weakest iteration of Flash Guard in the series. Functionally, it works the same as in Ys SEVEN. However, the PvP nature of the game makes the mechanic much more balanced since it's possible to bait it and deal lots of stamina damage. It remains a worthy option to pull off though, since a successful Flash Guard will deny access to the resources the opponent would've otherwise gotten.
Are ranged characters still busted?
Yes. Out of 4 ranged characters, three of them are the best characters in the game, with one of them being ban-worthy.
Does this game contains spoilers?
Yes. It contains (sometimes big) spoilers for the following games:
- Ys 1&2
- Ys VI: The Ark of Napishtim
- Ys SEVEN
- Trails in the Sky (the whole trilogy)
Why is Lloyd here?
Trails from Zero was planned to release around a month after Ys vs Trails. Thefore, they decided to add him as promotion for it. Same goes for Crossbell-related content (so Elie and Central Square).
General
How is this game like?
Ys vs. Trails in the Sky is often described as similar to Dissidia and Power Stone, which is true to an extent. It's an arena fighter that's very easy to pick up, while featuring RPG elements such as stats and equipment. However, it still manages to be deep enough to keep advanced players invested in the game.
Ys vs. Trails is very focused on resource management, as shown by its 4 different universal resources. Stamina is required for movement, and can quickly deplete itself if mismanaged. On the other hand, every character's strongest tools are locked behind SP, which can be somewhat hard to obtain for some characters. As such, a character without SP is much like an unarmed character in Samurai Shodown: they can't do much until they regain enough SP. Moreover, the other two resources can only be used up to twice per game, forcing players to be strategic about when to use them.
The game's main appeal (outside of being a Falcom fighting game) is its customization. Each character can equip a limited number of accessories, whose effects can go from stats increases to changing a character's relationship with a certain resource. They can also choose which Skills (specials) the character will use in combat, as well as which assist to use. As such, builds have the potential to make a character much better than they would've been otherwise.
Is this frame data correct? Something feels off about it
This game runs at 30 FPS. As such, all frame data has been halved compared to what most fighting game players are used to. Speaking of frame data, this wiki contains visual bars in order to better understand a move's frame data. The table below explains what each color means.
| Color | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 🟩 | Startup frame. It's the time between the moment the attack begins and the moment its hitbox is out. | |
| 🟥 | Active frame. It corresponds to how long a hitbox is out. A thin square corresponds to the frame at which a projectile spawns. | |
| ⬛ | Inactive frame. Only seen during multi-hits, it corresponds to the time between two hits in which no hitbox is currently active. | |
| 🟦 | Recovery frame. It's the time between the moment the attack's last hitbox disappears and the moment a character can act again. | |
| 🟪 | Cancellable recovery (either via blocking or walking). This is generally only seen on Skills, since normals can be cancelled into block during active frames. | Also present in some Charge Attacks, in cases where all recovery frames can't be block cancelled. |
| 🟨 | Cancel window. Corresponds to the moment a normal (or Skill) can be cancelled into another one. |
Is there any unlockables in this game?
Yes. This game requires a ridiculous amount of grinding in order to unlock everything and max out every character (as well as their Skills). We heavily recommend you grab a 100% completion save file. That being said, here's how to unlock most of the game's content.
CHARACTERS BP is a resource you gain by playing the game
- Elk: Gain 500 BP
- Cruxie: Gain 6000 BP
- Mishera: Gain 1500 BP
- Chester: Gain 10500 BP
- Renne: Gain 3000 BP
- Loewe: Gain 16500 BP
- Lloyd: Gain 25500 BP
STAGES Only non-buyable stages will be listed. Stages can be bought in the shop once it reaches level 4
- Haken Gate: Gain 6000 BP
- Serpentina: Gain 16500 BP
- Ice Ridge of Noltia: Gain 1500 BP
- Falcom Dev. Room: Clear everyone's Arcade mode
ACCESSORIES Only non-buyable accessories will be listed
- Gemstones: Get a character to level 99
SUPPORT
- Josette: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Anelace: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Sigroon: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Scherazard: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Olha: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Kevin: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Ries: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Lilia: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Dark Fact: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Zin: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Dela: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Tia & Maya: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Yunica & Hugo: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Jurio & Chris: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Pipiro & Pokkle: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Parin & Monsters: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Campanella: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Cassius: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Elena: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Gilbert: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Ernst: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
- Ellie: Clear everyone's Story mode (Adol, Geis, Estelle, Kloe and Tita)
- Feena & Reah: Clear Arcade or Story mode (chosen at random)
What does each stat mean?
- HP: Self-explanatory.
- AP: How many accessories can a character carry at once. The higher the AP, the more accessories a character can carry at once.
- STR: Damage intensifier.
- DEF: Damage mitigater.
- BRK: Stamina damage intensifier.
- DUR: Stamina damage mitigater.
- SPD: Movement speed.
- AGL: Dodge speed.
- SP Gain: How much SP does a character gain when attacking an opponent (mostly visible with Charge Attacks).
- EXTRA Gain: How much EXTRA does a character gain when attacking an opponent (mostly visible on Skills). Since it's a hidden stat, it won't be displayed on character pages, but know that it does exist.
All stats written on character pages assumes the character is at level 99 and has maxed out gear.
Tournaments
What are the competitive rules?
- 300 seconds (5 minutes)
- Items set to None/Normal
- Handicaps at 3 stars (default settings)
Clauses
- Build Clause - Only one build can be used per character during a set.
- Burst Clause - Only two of the following can be equipped at once:
- Immovable Gem
- Silver Streak Gem
- Heavy Blade Gem
- Pipiro & Pokkle
How are sets organised?
Customization
At the beginning of a set, both players plays a round of rock-paper-scissors (or makes a coin flip) who gets to build their character first. The winner then has 5 minutes to fully build his character, from accessories to his support character. Once a player leaves the character customization screen, they aren't allowed to go back and change a few things. They are also forced to choose the newly-built character for this game. If a player isn't done after 5 minutes, they will automatically lose the set.
After the first game, the loser is allowed to change characters.
Stage Select
Once both players chose their characters, whoever built their character first gets to choose 7 stages to ban. Afterwards, the second player bans 8 stages, leaving 2 stages available. The first player gets to choose which stage they'll play on among these two.
Starting game 2, the winner of the previous game chooses 7 stages to ban. The loser then chooses among the remaining 10 stages where the next game is going to be played. They also get to choose counterpick stages.
Is there a ban-list somewhere?
The stages and builds pages have every banned items highlighted. For the sake of convenience, a short ban-list will be listed here. For more details as to why these items are banned, consult the previously mentioned pages.
- STAGES Counterpick stages will also be listed.
- Darm Tower (Counterpick)
- Kylos Wind Precincts
- Segram Flame Shrine (Counterpick)
- City of Rolent
- Grancel Castle (Counterpick)
- Lusitania
- Central Square (only in 2v2)
- Serpentina
- Falcom Dev. Room (Counterpick)
- ACCESSORIES
- Break Nail
- Platinum Crown
- Ardent Cologne
- Sultry Perfume
- Iron Ball
- Mask of Eyes
- Elena's Pendant
- Mirror of Zeme
- Eyes of Fact
- Purrfect Suit
- SUPPORT
- Yunica and Hugo
- Cassius
- Elie
- COMBINATIONS Explanations will be provided, due to the case-by-case nature of such bans
- Dogi + Medusa Blade
- While Dogi struggles to land hits in neutral, his stagger Skills (he has 2 of them) will deal 75% damage on Petrified opponents instead of 50%. Campanella is still allowed due to his time limit
- Geis + Medusa Blade
- Unlike Dogi and Cruxie, Petrify is incredibly easy to apply with Geis. Campanella is still allowed due to his time limit
- Cruxie + Medusa Blade
- Cruxie can already easily break her opponent's guard and punish them hard afterwards. As such, giving her on-command access to Petrify is kind of overkill. Campanela is still allowed due to his time limit
- Kloe + EX Medallion + Scherazard
- This combination lets Kloe exploit a glitch that allows her to ToD half the cast (everyone except Dogi, Cruxie and Loewe with the correct build) with little to no effort
- Kloe + Golden Crown + Feena and Reah
- Feena & Reah allows Kloe to ToD most of the cast, as long as she has an EXTRA Skill. This ban aims at preventing that from happening as soon as the match starts
- Loewe + Golden Crown + Jurio and Chris
- Loewe can ToD half the cast with enough resources, just by casting Jurio. As such, this ban aims at nerfing that ToD
Characters
Who should I play?
Ys vs Trails is pretty easy to pick up, so you can freely pick any character for any reason. Here's a rundown of each character's playstyle, in case you're looking for something in particular:
- Adol - Rushdown character. Fairly easy to pick up
- Dogi - Heavyweight who trades neutral for damage
- Geis - Defensive character with excellent comeback potential
- Aisha - Extremely evasive zoner with actually good defense
- Elk - Air fighter with the fastest attacks in the game
- Cruxie - Heavyweight who excels at guard crush
- Mishera - Zoning demon. Best character in the game
- Chester - Movement masters with feints for days
- Estelle - Neutral queen with excellent pokes and decent zoning. Deals incredible damage with her EXTRA Skill
- Joshua - Technical rushdown character. Also the fastest character in the game
- Kloe - The resident shoto. Can do most things quite well, including ToDs with the correct setup
- Olivier - Skill spam. Literally
- Tita - Zoning/Rushdown hybrid with some of the best pressure in the game
- Agate - Heavyweight who trades health and frame data for resources and damage
- Renne - Timer scammer who can shut down her opponent's mobility in one combo
- Loewe - Somewhat technical heavyweight with devastating punishes
- Lloyd - Bulky rushdown character who can put himself on a timer in exchange for enhanced damage and pressure. Very technical
How difficult are each character?
The following chart groups all characters depending on how easy/hard they are to learn. That being said, don't be discouraged by starting out with a character is deemed "hard". As said above, this game is pretty easy to pick up. Plus, some of those characters can be made easier to play with the correct accessories.
Do note that mastering these characters won't always be as easy as learning them. For example, while Mishera is very easy to pick up, optimizing her can be quite difficult. However, combo execution doesn't necessarily mean a character is easy. While Agate's combo execution is one of the simplest in the game, he requires good game knowledge in order to run his gameplan.
How should I customize my character?
Each character page have a section dedicated to listing good customization options for them. As a rule of thumb, trying to enhance a character's strengths usually works better than trying to mitigate their weaknesses.
How's the tier list like?
While there's no fully agreed upon tier list at the moment, this is an aggregated tier list of the current opinions of the playerbase. Since this game is relatively unexplored and has a small playerbase, this tier list is subjected to changes in the future.
| Characters | Assists |
|---|---|
Tier definitions
CHARACTERS
SS: Mishera's own tier. Her zoning is so powerful that it's almost impossible to approach a good Mishera, even with faster characters.
S: Overtuned characters whose strengths heavily outweights their weaknesses. Most characters will have a tough time facing anyone in this tier.
A: Great characters who can handle most situations very well. No major, exploitable weaknesses, while still having some noticeable strengths.
B: Solid characters who can get work done. However, they're weaker than characters above due to either relying on fundamentals or being easy to counterbuild.
C: Generally considered to be weak characters. Highly dedicated players can get work done with them, but they'll have to fight constantly uphill battles.
D: Elk's own tier. His lack of hitstun prevents him from doing pretty much anything. Only recommended if you (somehow) like the character.
ASSISTS
S: Slapping these assists on any character is usually an excellent idea.
A: Excellent assists in a vacuum, although their overall utility is more character-dependent than above.
B: This tier is mostly composed of counterpick and/or gimmicky assists. This makes them more situational than above, but still worth choosing if said situation were to occur.
C: Very niche assists. While they can do some good, there usually are better options available.
D: Does not serve any purpose in the current meta. Anything else is a better option.
Training
How do I access training mode?
Go into Free mode and select your characters and stage. After selecting the stage, you'll find the training toggle while selecting the rules. This lets you deactivate CPUs, as well as generating infinite resources. Assists can also be used infinitely in training mode. This is extremely barebones, but it's still good enough for labbing strings, if you know workarounds such as these:
- Set the CPU on Hard for labbing combos. They will always try to escape combos, but their tech timings are the closest to a human player
- Equip Jurio and Chris as your assist and activate them in order to lab blockstrings/guard break setups
- Equip Feena and Reah as your assist when labbing assist rehits, without going into assist-specific followups.
- While labbing stuff involving status effects, restart training mode if you can't ever proc said status effect for seemingly no reason. Since the CPU uses random builds (even in training mode), there's a slight chance they might've equipped something that makes them immune to status effects
Should I trust the combo counter?
No. It is extremely unreliable, and its only real purpose is to show the player if SP/damage scaling is still applied. In order to know if a combo is true, activate the CPU (preferably set on Hard) mid-combo and see if they can escape at some point. If they can, try to see if the following attack will catch their escape option.
Anything else I should be wary about?
Here is a list of a few known emulation bugs while in training:
- After using a certain amount of EXTRA Skills, attacks will randomly start hitting multiple times. Restart the game, if this ever happens
