For the PC versions of the Sky games, we've implemented little quality of life changes, but we haven't tweaked difficultly or drastically altered gameplay or anything. Our programmer, Sara, would be the best person to ask for such details on what was added along with stuff that was on the PSP ports but not in the PC version (we added these so the PC version would be the best of both worlds).
In Cold Steel, there's a quest involving a certain Phantom Thief and riddles, as per series tradition. The Japanese, however, had quest markers over the locations for the riddles, so even though it was meant to be a riddle, all you had to do was open the map and see where to go next. I asked if those quest markers could be removed for that particular quest in English because, like...they're riddles. They're not difficult, but the player should try solving them on their own. Falcom was totally cool with it and did so.
We also completely altered the
after the finale in Cold Steel II. There should be comparison videos online, probably, and all of this was done while working closely with Falcom's dev team, who was all for it.
As for restrictions on text...one good thing about Trails is that boxes really aren't fixed width. When something was especially long in the English in battle menus or windows, rather than cut something, I usually asked Falcom if they could expand the window for us and they were happy to do so. Also, although we traditionally used three lines for dialogue in the first Cold Steel, I had this sneaking suspicion that we weren't actually limited in such a way and tested it out with four-line boxes in Cold Steel II. I was right.
Falcom also let us add as many pages as necessary for book stuff rather than stick to the Japanese limits. For all this, we aren't normally so fortunate, but the Trails series isn't as strict about this as most other games.
For merch, you'd have to reach out to Falcom yourselves. At the end of the day, we're a partner of theirs, but we aren't Falcom, so we wouldn't be selling their merch as if we were.
Thanks for the kind words about the series in general. And I'm glad you love Duvalie! I got the exact VA I wanted for her and was absolutely thrilled with how she turned out. My rule for her was if I wasn't laughing like I was when I played with her Japanese voice, then it wasn't going to work. Fortunately, I laughed until I cried during her recording session. And her last line in the game was...beautiful.