I don't hate it.

I guess it divides opinions because some players like the amount of lore it gives besides just the main story. It has a separate main story from the Trails in the Sky and Trails in the Sky Second Chapter but there's a lot of side stories in various sizes (short, medium, long). It expands on the world building, ties up loose ends, gives closure to various characters, has a refined gameplay mechanics compared to previous titles and a wide number of playable characters. These are some of the things I personally can appreciate about the 3rd.

What some players might have an issue with it is how it tells it's main story. I found it... well, fascinating, and I enjoyed the combat, but even I have to admit the main story feels weaker to various side stories the 3rd has. Either way in my case it deepened my love for the series, and I'm honestly glad I played it. It's kind of like a bridge from Sky trilogy to the other arcs in the series. It is also, in a way, a goodbye to some of the characters, and I honestly felt sad at the end of the game knowing that it might be the last time I saw some of those characters.

I like Sky 3rd more than FC tbh. I think people hate on it mostly because they either skipped it when they found out it didn't star Estelle, or they rushed through it and thought it was all side-content (as we've seen many people make claims to)... when actually if you sit down and play all of it, you find out it has a lot of info dumps and emotional storylines... and it's definitely not a game to pass over.

Because the whole setup is an excuse for flashbacks and reused content. The fact that it's all an illusion also lessens the weight of what's happening. I'd recommend it for character moments but not for story.

I certainly like it, but I think the people who didn't had issues with one or more of the following things:

1): It doesn't have Estelle as the main character, she's just a part of the group (albeit one of the more important ones). Also, not everyone liked or cared about Kevin, who was a minor character in SC suddenly taking center stage.
2): It doesn't take place in Liberl proper, or anywhere else on Zemuria for that matter, but in an alternate dimension created by an Artifact (which is not an illusion btw), so there are no towns, NPC's, sidequests etc.
3): It's a dungeon crawler, and dungeons never were the strongest point of Trails. What's more, until very late in the game the dungeons are either reused assets or 'platforms floating in the void', neither of which is all that inspiring.
4): The Doors are very different in quality, length, engagement and relevance, and some of them could feel like filler if you don't care about the featured characters. Also the first door is a very long, unskippable VN featuring the worst character in Trails Erika Russel.
5): This is the only Trails game (AFAIK) where there is a serious option for late-game rare drop item farming, which might feel obligatory to some people and make them spend a lot of time doing something they don't really want to.

Again, I do like the game a lot even, if I agree to some extent with certain of the criticisms mentioned above. Everything that's good about the game easily outweighs the weaker elements:

1): Kevin is a great lead, and his story is peak Trails. Estelle's is still a wonderful presence and the rest of the cast has many great moments too.
2): A 3rd romp through Liberl wouldn't have added much, and I accept that this game was made as an infodump and fanservice, meaning minimal resources could be devoted to it.
3): The dungeons are meh, but the high-level gameplay is great and the many playable characters mean lots of fun options.
4): A few of the Doors suck, but most are good and a quite a few are top-tier Trails writing, even if they're not always relevant in the greater scheme of things.
5): This is one of my hangups, but I won't hold it against the game. These items aren't necessary at all, and the grind isn't even all that bad.

So in all, it's a good game, as long as people can accept it on it's own merits instead of comparing it to FC and SC and going 'it's different so it sucks'.

Originally posted by Dr. Rudolf von Richten:

4): The Doors are very different in quality, length, engagement and relevance, and some of them could feel like filler if you don't care about the featured characters. Also the first door is a very long, unskippable VN featuring the worst character in Trails

What would have made the first door a lot more bearable was a simple option to make it A) optional (player gets an option to not go in that direction, or B) has an option to save the game before forced to go it. If only they had made the introduction door story shorter then that would have been fine too.

Basically you are forced into an extremely long cutscene without any kind of warning so if you need to take a break from the game and didn't save earlier then you'd most likely have to leave the game on. I'm personally not against long story cutscenes (within a reason of course, for example 3+ hours without a chance to save would be too long in my opinion) as long as I can just prepare myself for it, and have enough warning in advance.