Been playing the original Trails game on and off. Only played about an hour or so cause I've been playing several other games at the same time (my focus is kinda screwed and I can't seem to just focus on one game at a time right now).
Oh gosh I know this feel far too well.
I currently have Trails in the Sky SC (the second game) tabled because i started playing Terraria which i stopped a few days ago wanting to play Operation Abyss except I put that down for now since I'm watching Lord Marksman and Vanadis. One thing at a time, basically. Main issue with the Trails games is that they're just...quite long. Even more so with my habit of exploring everything.
Combat isn't terrible but it feels kind of, loose or unrefined. Not surprising since this is the first game in the series and technically it's really old now but it feels weird to control with a mouse and keyboard.
The only thing it's really missing is a way to move your character to a specific spot and attack in the same turn. Not sure why it isn't there, but I didn't think it really hampered the game much, though it was noticeable at first since I've played stuff like FFTA.
Anyhow, you can control this game using mouse only, keyboard only, mouse + keyboard, gamepad, any combination of them. I usually opt for a "gamepad mockup" style where I use arrow keys + ZXCVASDF (and 1234 for S-Crafts); I've used this setup for a huge variety of games in the past and it's worked well for me. You can remap them to pretty much anything you want, honestly. And at the same time I get to use the mouse whenever I'm feeling lazy. (The mouse cursor just disappears if you use keyboard, whereas it jumps around to default selections if you use it.)
Here's the controls I'm using:
* arrow keys = movement directions
* OK/talk: Z (think the outer button on a gamepad)
* Cancel/Camp: X (lower button)
* Rotate Left/Right: A and D (they're like shoulder buttons on a gamepad, and I can hold them while moving if I want)
* Walk/Run: Shift (my left pinkie rests here basically)
* Show Location: F (not a very important function. i just picked F for Find)
* Notebook: S (the upper button. Normally this is the menu button in a JRPG, but here that's taken over by the Cancel button already, so I put the Bracer Notebook here.)
* Recipes: R (not a commonly-used button but still nearby on the left hand and R stands for Recipes)
* World Map: V (basically an alt version of Zoom Minimap, so it's just next to it)
* Zoom Minimap: C (this is the local map. i basically stuck it on the "inner" button.)
* Monster Guide: G (not used much but G is for Guide and is a left-hand key)
* Turbo Mode: Alt (I tried tab for this but there were key conflicts, so instead I hold this key down with my left thumb if I need it.
the camera is usually zoomed in too far making it kinda hard to see what's around me when navigating.
I think the camera could benefit from being a little less birds-eye and more level with the characters, but unfortunately it's kinda stuck like that. However, I find it quite easy to rotate the camera around.
I have these settings below:
Camera Rotation: Free - this is so that camera rotation -- where it's allowed -- is actually meaningful. The character sprites do twitch a bit when you change perspectives, but it's worth it for the ability to see all sorts of graphical details at will.
Transparency: On - so I know where I am when there are objects in the way.