Which RPGs let you fight for the cool powerful empire?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

I am mainly thinking of the usually villain coded aesthetic, ie German themed with all of the Triumph of the Will imagery of huge numbers of men in snazzy uniforms lined up, huge red flags waving, cool wonder weapons, charismatic leaders, epic anthems, etc. Technically, a lot of good guy "kingdoms" or "federations" are actually empires in how they occupy foreign peoples, but they usually lack the cool aesthetics.

Off of the top of my head:

• The first two Trails of Cold Steel games set inside the fantasy Prussia expy. Technically there is an imperial civil war and you fight against the faction that advocates for foreign expansionism, but the protagonists still fights against the enemy superpower that is encroaching upon their country of Erebonia. The sequels sadly have the protagonist commit treason and aid foreign countries against his own.
• Vanguard Bandits: early on there is a route split and you can swap from fighting with the rebels against the empire, to joining the imperial princess and her knights and fight within the empire against the internal usurper faction.
• Tyranny: whole gimmick is that it is The Black Company but as a video game but the protagonist is 100% loyal to the dark lord.
• Two Fire Emblem games, Fates and Three Houses, have a route where you fight for the cool evil empire.
• Some MMOs have a playable imperial faction (Amarr empire in EVE Online, Dominion in Wildstar, Sith Empire in SWTOR, etc).

[Greyborne]

I am mainly thinking of the usually villain coded aesthetic, ie German themed with all of the Triumph of the Will imagery of huge numbers of men in snazzy uniforms lined up, huge red flags waving, cool wonder weapons, charismatic leaders, epic anthems, etc. Technically, a lot of good guy "kingdoms" or "federations" are actually empires in how they occupy foreign peoples, but they usually lack the cool aesthetics.

Off of the top of my head:

• The first two Trails of Cold Steel games set inside the fantasy Prussia expy. Technically there is an imperial civil war and you fight against the faction that advocates for foreign expansionism, but the protagonists still fights against the enemy superpower that is encroaching upon their country of Erebonia. The sequels sadly have the protagonist commit treason and aid foreign countries against his own.
• Vanguard Bandits: early on there is a route split and you can swap from fighting with the rebels against the empire, to joining the imperial princess and her knights and fight within the empire against the internal usurper faction.
• Tyranny: whole gimmick is that it is The Black Company but as a video game but the protagonist is 100% loyal to the dark lord.
• Two Fire Emblem games, Fates and Three Houses, have a route where you fight for the cool evil empire.
• Some MMOs have a playable imperial faction (Amarr empire in EVE Online, Dominion in Wildstar, Sith Empire in SWTOR, etc).

Got my wife the first Trails of Cold Steel and she never got through it. Said it was too long winded.

[rusty_shackleford]

I like when video games let me play as the good guys.

Greedfall counts to some degree. No, I can't remember the specifics.

[Val the Moofia Boss]

Got my wife the first Trails of Cold Steel and she never got through it. Said it was too long winded.

I quite enjoyed the first two CS games. They're among my favorites, though it is pretty much a 3D visual novel/JRPG hybrid given the sheer amount of dialogue. You really have to be there for the VN just as much as for the combat and character building. I didn't think the games became overly long winded until CS3, when the story began retreading earlier arcs and you have entire chapters that amount to no meaningful plot progress made.

[Greyborne]

Got my wife the first Trails of Cold Steel and she never got through it. Said it was too long winded.

I quite enjoyed the first two CS games. They're among my favorites, though it is pretty much a 3D visual novel/JRPG hybrid given the sheer amount of dialogue. You really have to be there for the VN just as much as for the combat and character building. I didn't think the games became overly long winded until CS3, when the story began retreading earlier arcs and you have entire chapters that amount to no meaningful plot progress made.

What about the other trails games? Have heard great things

[Val the Moofia Boss]

What about the other trails games? Have heard great things

The series is divided into four arcs. The first two arcs, the Trails in the Sky trilogy and the Crossbell duology are grossly overrated, but I found them entertaining enough to at least finish. I have played every game up through Kuro no Kiseki 1.

I quite enjoyed the first Trails in the Sky game. It has a boring first 20 hours, forgettable sidequests, and mediocre combat, but I really liked the coup storyline that begins in chapter 3 when you reach the city of Zeiss. I replayed the first Sky game a couple years ago and it still holds up as my favorite Trails game outside of the Cold Steel saga. The second Sky game is where you see a lot of problems that regularly plague the franchise begin to crop up, namely filler chapters where you chase a supervillain around and then he teleports away and you have just spent 20 hours accomplishing nothing. The third Sky game has some fun combat and character building, though it becomes a little bitter storywise when you realize that they set up all of these interesting plot threads that will be discarded or have botched payoffs in future games.

The Crossbell duology are my least favorite Trails games. Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel take place in a pre-modern setting, where an industrial revolution has just happened a few decades ago and only maybe one house per town has a switchboard, cars are rare and most people walk along the road or ride a horse, people gather around at the tavern to listen to crackling radio broadcasts, people wear old timey clothes and dresses and so on. Etc. But then you reach Crossbell and it takes in a modern urban city with brutalist architecture, modern investment banks, everyone has an LCD screen broadcasting live television in color, people wear modern clothes, everyone has a modern looking car, etc. It didn't transport me to another world like Sky and Cold Steel did. Another issue is that the 100 hour long duology primarily takes place in the same city. You don't really journey through the wilds and visit many different settlements like in Sky or Cold Steel. I did not like the cast either, and the combat is downgraded from Sky the 3rd. The plot suffers from feeling like filler, as overall nothing you do really matters. Lastly, the protagonists make absolutely infuriating decisions at the end of the second game that made me despise them and Crossbell and their involvement in future games. Just for that, I would never replay Crossbell.




For Trails of Cold Steel, I became very immersed in the setting. It has cool mechs. I found the characters to be likeable. I got invested in the story, which was pretty good in the first two games. The writing starts becoming really wonky from CS3 onward, and the presence of those damnable Crossbellians detracted from my enjoyment, but I still generally liked the (Erebonian) setting and (Erebonian) characters. Reverie has a fun plot and lets you mix and match your favorite Cold Steel characters from 50 party members. The CS games have my favorite combat and character building system in the franchise. CS1 and CS2 are pretty challenging all the way through on nightmare difficulty. CS3 onward has an issue where the difficulty is frontloaded, but then it becomes easier as it goes on and by the end there is no challenge whatsoever. The first two CS games had an above average English dub.

Kuro no Kiseki/Trails Through Daybreak I posted an indepth review of here on HQ. It feels like Crossbell 2.0 in that it is set in a boring modern urban cities with people in boring modern clothes and everyone owns a car and so on. Unlike Crossbell, though, it is not almost entirely set in one city so there is a bit more variety, though you still don't get to hike across the world like in Sky or in Cold Steel. The cast is overall quite bland. Has the most boring combat in the series. I played on max difficulty and only wiped once. None of the bosses were interesting. Character building isn't as fun as in Cold Steel. Kuro 1 suffers from the same issue that plagued Sky 2, Crossbell, CS3, and much of CS4 in that it is mostly filler chapters where you chase a supervillain around who then teleports away and you have accomplished nothing. Still, I could see myself maybe replaying it one day.

Overall my ratings would be:

• 10/10 (Masterpiece) - Trails of Cold Steel II
• 9/10 (Great) - Trails of Cold Steel I, Trails in the Sky the 3rd
• 8/10 (Very Good) Trails in the Sky FC, Trails into Reverie
• 7/10 (Good) Trails of Cold Steel IV, Trails of Cold Steel III
• 6/10 (Fine) Kuro no Kiseki 1
• 5/10 (Average) Trails in the Sky SC, Zero no Kiseki
• 4/10 (Bad) Ao no Kiseki (overall game is probably a 5/10 but I hate the ending so much. What were they thinking?)

[Irenaeus]

In VtmB you can play for the Camarilla.

In Alpha Protocol, you can play for Halbech.

[Acrux]

Tyranny has you play an agent of the Overlord who has conquered the area.

[Greyborne]

What about the other trails games? Have heard great things

The series is divided into four arcs. The first two arcs, the Trails in the Sky trilogy and the Crossbell duology are grossly overrated, but I found them entertaining enough to at least finish. I have played every game up through Kuro no Kiseki 1.

I quite enjoyed the first Trails in the Sky game. It has a boring first 20 hours, forgettable sidequests, and mediocre combat, but I really liked the coup storyline that begins in chapter 3 when you reach the city of Zeiss. I replayed the first Sky game a couple years ago and it still holds up as my favorite Trails game outside of the Cold Steel saga. The second Sky game is where you see a lot of problems that regularly plague the franchise begin to crop up, namely filler chapters where you chase a supervillain around and then he teleports away and you have just spent 20 hours accomplishing nothing. The third Sky game has some fun combat and character building, though it becomes a little bitter storywise when you realize that they set up all of these interesting plot threads that will be discarded or have botched payoffs in future games.

The Crossbell duology are my least favorite Trails games. Trails in the Sky and Trails of Cold Steel take place in a pre-modern setting, where an industrial revolution has just happened a few decades ago and only maybe one house per town has a switchboard, cars are rare and most people walk along the road or ride a horse, people gather around at the tavern to listen to crackling radio broadcasts, people wear old timey clothes and dresses and so on. Etc. But then you reach Crossbell and it takes in a modern urban city with brutalist architecture, modern investment banks, everyone has an LCD screen broadcasting live television in color, people wear modern clothes, everyone has a modern looking car, etc. It didn't transport me to another world like Sky and Cold Steel did. Another issue is that the 100 hour long duology primarily takes place in the same city. You don't really journey through the wilds and visit many different settlements like in Sky or Cold Steel. I did not like the cast either, and the combat is downgraded from Sky the 3rd. The plot suffers from feeling like filler, as overall nothing you do really matters. Lastly, the protagonists make absolutely infuriating decisions at the end of the second game that made me despise them and Crossbell and their involvement in future games. Just for that, I would never replay Crossbell.




For Trails of Cold Steel, I became very immersed in the setting. It has cool mechs. I found the characters to be likeable. I got invested in the story, which was pretty good in the first two games. The writing starts becoming really wonky from CS3 onward, and the presence of those damnable Crossbellians detracted from my enjoyment, but I still generally liked the (Erebonian) setting and (Erebonian) characters. Reverie has a fun plot and lets you mix and match your favorite Cold Steel characters from 50 party members. The CS games have my favorite combat and character building system in the franchise. CS1 and CS2 are pretty challenging all the way through on nightmare difficulty. CS3 onward has an issue where the difficulty is frontloaded, but then it becomes easier as it goes on and by the end there is no challenge whatsoever. The first two CS games had an above average English dub.

Kuro no Kiseki/Trails Through Daybreak I posted an indepth review of here on HQ. It feels like Crossbell 2.0 in that it is set in a boring modern urban cities with people in boring modern clothes and everyone owns a car and so on. Unlike Crossbell, though, it is not almost entirely set in one city so there is a bit more variety, though you still don't get to hike across the world like in Sky or in Cold Steel. The cast is overall quite bland. Has the most boring combat in the series. I played on max difficulty and only wiped once. None of the bosses were interesting. Character building isn't as fun as in Cold Steel. Kuro 1 suffers from the same issue that plagued Sky 2, Crossbell, CS3, and much of CS4 in that it is mostly filler chapters where you chase a supervillain around who then teleports away and you have accomplished nothing. Still, I could see myself maybe replaying it one day.

Overall my ratings would be:

• 10/10 (Masterpiece) - Trails of Cold Steel II
• 9/10 (Great) - Trails of Cold Steel I, Trails in the Sky the 3rd
• 8/10 (Very Good) Trails in the Sky FC, Trails into Reverie
• 7/10 (Good) Trails of Cold Steel IV, Trails of Cold Steel III
• 6/10 (Fine) Kuro no Kiseki 1
• 5/10 (Average) Trails in the Sky SC, Zero no Kiseki
• 4/10 (Bad) Ao no Kiseki (overall game is probably a 5/10 but I hate the ending so much. What were they thinking?)

Well I'm glad I didn't spend $70 on a collection during a sale. I guess those reviews can be totally rose tented.

[TKVNC]

Depends on how wide you want to define RPG, if you're being strict, there's not a -huge- amount, but there's some.

Fable 1, and 2, come to mind. Mount & Blade Warband 'technically' counts, and with more modules, that scope expands significantly. Wasteland 2 again, sort of, counts.

Kenshi might count too -- though really you'd need a few mods to 'truly' get the experience correct (specifically, slavery mods).

[Manny V]

Warhammer Fantasy as a whole, what with 'The Empire', fit this well, since they are quite literally just the Holy Roman Empire but in a fantasy world, and more gritty and using skull motifs and whatnot. (yes i'm a Warhammer fanboy and won't shut up about it)

Now obviously they're objectively the good guys, and aren't portrayed controversially like say the Imperium in 40k (The Empire is HRE, Imperium are Nazis, essentially), but they get up to some zealous **** like with Witch Hunters 'who would burn a village to the ground rather than risk letting one cultist go unpunished', and just the overly fanatical nature of the Cult of Sigmar in general. So anything involving the Empire can have you do ****** up **** in the name of Sigmar and be justified since whatever you do can't be as ****** up as other **** in the setting.

As for particular games, well, there's unfortunately not a lot of Warhammer Fantasy games that fit the bill for RPG, but nonetheless some would be:

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay - Tabletop as opposed to video game, but closest you're gonna get
Age of Reckoning - MMORPG, ended yonks ago but brought back as a fan project called Return of Reckoning
Chaosbane - Diablo clone, kinda crap apparently, but newest Fantasy game that'd qualify as an RPG
Warsword Conquest - Mod for Mount and Blade: Warband, scuffed, but very good imo
The Old Realms - Same thing for Bannerlord, pretty neat
Mordheim: City of the Damned - More of a tactical XCOM-like game, but still has some RPG elements, very brutal and unforgiving though

others that don't really classify as RPG but are still good:

Total War Warhammer - Strategy
Vermintide - Hack and slash/horde
Mark of Chaos - Real Time Tactics


anyway look i get it there's no fuckin proper RPG for Warhammer Fantasy but it's a great setting and the Empire meet the requirements for this imo

look at these boyz

► image dump

[Rand]

The Crossbell duology

I'm confused. Which are these?

[Val the Moofia Boss]

The Crossbell duology

I'm confused. Which are these?

Zero no Kiseki/Trails from Zero and Ao no Kiseki/Trails to Azure.

[wndrbr]

In Alpha Protocol, you can play for Halbech.

Halbech isn't cool, it's just a gay defence contractor company.

[Norfleet]

Halbech isn't cool, it's just a gay defence contractor company.

So, Boeing?