We've been married for more than five years and in all that time, whenever she would send me a message in Japanese while I was out and about with my headphones in, Siri would just say "(wife) just sent you a message I can't read" and be done with it.

Today, for the first time ever, the Siri voice switched over to Japanese mode and actually read the message. Starting with English and ending in Japanese, Siri said, "(wife) just sent "牛乳も買って来て".

I'm so elated over this change. It's such a small thing, but HUGE. I just thought it was cool and though it worth sharing.

Unlike many other games, the biggest draw to the Trails franchise is its world. The entire franchise is divided several story arcs. One arc can come to a close, but then it becomes a part of the story for every game that follows. New protagonists may find themselves interacting with older protagonists, antagonists that had a minor role in one arc will have a major role in another... The story can keep going as long as you're willing to start the next arc in the series.

If anyone is interested in getting into a JRPG series that isn't Final Fantasy, this is a superb candidate. Trails in the Sky is where it all kicks off.

So let's get down to it.

Tutorial: Trails in the Sky (FC) on M-series Macs

• Download & Install Whisky (A wine wrapper thing that works with apple's translation stuff.)
• Download Steam (Grab the windows ver)

Mac Settings > Privacy & Security > App Management

• Add Whiskey (Doing this helps prevent game installations in Steam from freezing later on.)

Whiskey

1. Add new bottle (I named it “Steam”)
2. When finished: Bottle Configuration > Enhanced Sync = Off (Having this disabled also helps prevent game installations in Steam from freezing later on.)
3. Select Winetricks > DLLs, find and run amstream, quartz, and Lavfilters. (This will provide codecs to allow videos to play.)
4. Click the “Run” button, select SteamSetup.exe, give it a moment to launch.
5. Go through the install process, login, sign in, the whole shebang.

Steam

1. Purchase/Install The Legend of Heroes Trails in the Sky.
2. Launch the game by selecting “Play”, then select “Launch Configuration Tool”. Give it a moment.
3. Display > Resolution = set whatever you prefer (M1 MBP = 3024 x 1964)
4. Display > Windowed Mode = Off (In Windowed Mode at native resolution, mouse & keyboard tracking doesn’t work right for some reason. It might not be an issue if you use a gamepad. With Windowed Mode disabled, cmd+tab can minimize the game.)
5. Input > Field Turbo Rate = 6x, Battle Turbo Rate = 6x; Default = "Run"
6. Select “OK” to close the configuration tool.
7. Select “Play”, “Play Legend of Heroes Trail in the Sky”

Enjoy the game.

Hope this works for you. Good luck.

I apologize, I’ve been out of the loop for more than a decade with piracy, so I have a dumb question.

My friend has a cracked version of Baldur’s Gate 3 (GOG, I think) and I want to play online with him. I don’t mind actually buying the game for myself on Steam so I can install it on both my Mac and Deck, but I don’t want to spend the money if it means a legit copy that doesn’t play nice with his cracked copy.

Can cracked games play online with legit games, would I need a cracked copy as well, or is online MP simply out of the question?

Thanks to anyone willing to give a response.